Climbing a ladder and new words.

Mitch and I had a fun day yesterday. We went to a park in Asquith where Mitch climbed a ladder onto a play gym for the first time. The ladder was taller than him and was quite an effort to get up. I recorded a video on my mobile which hopefully I'll be able to get onto YouTube at some stage. He was a little uncoordinated at first but after a few tries, he was doing it quite well. He was very proud of himself. He also walked up and down some stairs without holding on which was impressive. He hasn't quite got the hang of jumping off things yet. Rather than jumping with two feet he sort of does an exaggerated step (and shouts out, "Shump!") and then overbalances when he lands and lands on his face and then looks up with surprise as if to say, "What went wrong there?". He's also mastered getting on to slippery dips, which again he's very pleased about.

In other milestones, he has learnt to say, "Please". At first it was only in reply to the question, "What do you say when you want something?", but now he says it on his own. It sounds more like "Peesh", but you get the drift. He has also learnt to recognise and say "Lilly". Again it comes out more like "Wiwi", but you know what he's talking about.

He's also learnt to say "No". Fortunately it's not a cranky, disobedient "No!", it is a very cute sort of questioning "No" in response to a question like "Does Mitchy have a beard?" (for those of you who missed it Daddy has a beard at the moment for Movember - only for a few more days, I'm pretty sick of it and Meeks doesn't like it either. Incidentally, you can partially see the current state of the beard here. I have set up a separate blog for my photography stuff and took this photo playing around with the camera the other day - the subject is a bit of a clown, but I'm happy with the quality of the photo). Mitch also has a funny little "nonono" for when he's being cheeky and he knows it.

So it has been a busy little time for Mitch. He's learning new stuff all the time. It is delightful and fascinating to watch.