Just being friendly

On the days when Lila is feeling chirpy she has a habit of addressing every stranger she sees of any age with a "Hi man" or "Hi lady". In a shopping centre situation its rather time consuming as she will say it repeatedly until she is acknowledged, but its cute so I indulge.

So, fast forward to this week's trip to the supermarket after swimming. We enter the fruit store - myself with Lila & Millie. Its a rather packed store as its the week of christmas. "Hi man" "Hi lady" is on loudspeaker from the toddler in the pram. She has also started to throw in an "annyong haseyo" (hello in korean) to anyone who looks remotely asian - needless to say they had no idea what she was on about, nor would a korean person if we had run into one, as her pronunciation needs work. But she bows when she says it which is pretty cute. Anyway, I digress.

Having completed my shop we line up to pay. This particular store doesn't accommodate the double prams in any checkout aisles except one which is almost never staffed, so I park the girls out front near the door while I line up. They have a great vantage point of every person waiting at each check out. "Hi man" "Hi lady" is being yelled repeatedly which has most shoppers giggling or offering adoring looks when out comes a "Hi grandma" to a well dressed lady wearing a head scarf making her way to the door. She didn't look a day over 45. There was silence mostly, a few giggles and she looked rather surprised.

The very impressively athletic rather middle aged lady standing at the next counter leaned over and said to me, I might try and sneak out behind you to avoid a 'hi grandma'. Fair enough.

So, to the lady at Fruitworld on tuesday morning around 10am - if you ever come to read this, my apologies if you aren't a grandma and no you don't look that old.

Santa photos

Finally the day arrived for the Santa photo. Last year when Lila was 11 months it was a real eye-opener to line up at WBJ for the first time for two hours for the Santa photo. Watching every toddler in line behave normally until it was their turn to sit upon Santa's lap, at which time they started to scream murder, I wondered what was in stall for us when (or if) we ever made it to the front of the line. Lila got up there and being the very confident child she is sat quite happily on Santa's lap, babbled baby talk to him & smiled co-operatively for the photo. Done. Rather a nice photo.

I put last year's success down to an age thing & was expecting that this year Lila might be a bit funny while Millie, at 6m, is happy to smile and chatter away to a mailbox so would comply. So, we visited Santa a few times just to wave hello before photo day came.

Things started off well. Mat & Lila visited the reindeer while Millie & I lined up. It was a short line (having relocated to Blakehurst I now know a 2hr lineup is not the norm). We got to the front & the boy in front of us lost the plot. Lila stood there quietly & calmly watching him with a rather disapproving look on her face. Waiting her turn she was still happy to practice her smiling face & was still loudly announcing "I want sit Santa mummy".

Finally its our turn. We offload Millie to Santa so we can focus on getting Lila perched on his knee when Millie lets out a bloodcurdling scream. One of those deafening, spine chilling screams. It had shoppers running from shops to check out what had happened. I guess Santa is not so harmless to all babies.

Needless to say, Lila wasn't so happy to smile while her sister shrieked through the entire photo shoot. Millie.... here is your best shot.

Watch the fingers

Lila bear has a habit of sucking on her 3rd and 4th fingers of her left hand. A few months ago it was so prolific that she developed sucking blisters and fearful of long-term repercussions Mat & I set about trying to dissuade her. It lasted about 2 weeks that she would hear "Lila, fingers out of mouth please' and with no change we gave up.

Millie on the other hand, at 4 months, is just now developing hand-mouth co-ordination. I left both girls in the play room the other week while I went to the kitchen to clean up from breakfast and all was quiet for a few minutes when I heard Lila trill out at the top of her voice "Minnie, fingers out of mouth please".

Sisterly love

Lila has now fully embraced being a big sister, in fact she literally tries to kill Millie with kindness, but it hasn't always been the case. Once we arrived home from hospital with Millie she was very curious about 'Minnie' , but once it started to sink in she was here to stay jealousy reared its head.

She originally displayed this by looking for any opportunity to hit her in the head. But, as this meant lengthy time-outs and being spoken to crossly by mummy this only lasted about a week.

Her next move, which she still employs today is as follows. At bedtime once we have read her a story & sung her a song its lights out. Her habit is to then sing another song to herself in the dark (usually the alphabet song) then she recites the list of people she knows ... Mummy, Daddy, Nanny, Pa, Hannah, Heidi, Nanny, Poppy etc. After a play date with some friends they usually make the list for a few nights too. On listening one night I realised there was no Millie & went in to prompt her to add Millie to the list. She looked me straight in the face & went back to the top of the list. Millie still doesn't make the list.