Landmarks

Our house has seen more landmarks than an open-top bus in the last few weeks. Our older daughter celebrated her second birthday a few weeks ago. We had an ambitious, albeit casual party, which involved inviting my wife's extended family and my own to our unsuspecting house for the day. It all went rather well, really. Not content with spilling into the garden, we decided to redistribute the whole clan to the park in town where an uncle and cousin of my wife's run a miniature railway. This made for excellent family fun, threatened only by the painful logistics of getting all the cars out of our road in the necessary order. My wife's expertly crafted Gruffalo cake was devoured in record time, unlikely friendships were forged between distant cousins and a good time was had by all.

Our daughter has commemorated her new, older age by demonstrating increased intellectual prowess. Her alphabet recital now verges on perfection. She sings it as follows:

"A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H...J, K, L, Ememma P, Q, You, S, Teedees, Doubles, Y, Zow, Z. Now I know my A, B, Six, Next time won't you sings? Yay!"

Clearly, this is a vast improvement on the more common and predictable version you may have heard previously. What makes it all the more special is the unconfined delight with which she performs it. How much gusto do you put into your alphabet?

My wife and I have nervously enforced another development upon our eldest. The cot in which she has until now spent each night has been discarded in favour of a big, shiny, children's bed. This was a sudden and risky manoeuvre on our part but, much like the ambitious birthday party, it seems to have worked. She has taken to the new bed with commensurate ease; never questioning the transition or contemplating sleeping badly as a result. Pride and relief are competing to be my reaction to all this. She makes an excellent two-year-old.

Not to be outdone, our younger daughter turned 0.5/half/six months today. She will soon inherit the cot vacated by her sister. She is not quite ready to do so yet, but does have numerous other achievements under her belt. After months of deceptively suggestive drooling, her first tooth finally emerged last week. It's a bottom middle one, which in my opinion is the optimum first tooth location for maximum cuteness. Yesterday it was joined by the other bottom middle one. A cliche about London buses would not go amiss here.

Her other, major new talent is rolling over. Now. It most certainly is not a competition. But, for the record, she reached this milestone a couple of weeks later than her sister had. However, in our eldest's case the milestone was reached after a long and strenuous journey. This time around, it seemed relatively effortless. After a couple of trial runs a few weeks ago, over she went. It was as though she had always been able to complete the move but had simply chosen to wait until that moment. As if to reinforce this impression, she left it a few weeks before repeating the trick yesterday, when she went into overdrive.

Now she rolls over more than a Euromillions jackpot and quicker than Nick Clegg at a cabinet meeting when David Cameron has suggested privatising something else. Down Nick. Good boy Nick.

I digress. Our daughter practises an entirely more positive and admirable form of rolling over and, furthermore, she eagerly brings up her knees each time in readiness for the next stage: crawling. I'm sure it will be some time before this skill is mastered. In a selfish way, I hope so.

I need a rest.