Friday, January 18, 2008

It speaks!

Alex in his sunflower jacketAlexander has started talking. Kind of. He's started pointing at things and uttering monosyllabic nouns (not just any nouns though; roughly appropriate ones). That he thinks all birds are ducks and all vehicles are cars is demonstrative of his impressive pattern-recognition skills. After all, imagine how well developed you'd have to be before you could explain the qualities that cars and other vehicles have in common. I mean all road vehicles have wheels, but not all wheeled things are road vehicles. And they all travel on the road but so do bicycles. It is really very clever to recognise the connection, I think.

He has also taken to declaring "Done!" after each meal. Being so well brung-up, this horrified me. "You mean, he can't manage a thank you?"

In the picture he is wearing a jacket I made him in the autumn. This was an incredible feat on account of the fact that I had no pattern, no experience of making such a garment, but most crucially, I hadn't taken a single measurement of the child and just had to guess how big he was. This was a very foolish way to go about things, but I was fiddling with it when I was rather ill and by some miracle it worked.

Unfortunately, he is sporting a somewhat "Auntie made me wear it" expression in the photo...

8 comments:

Jess said...

That's some fine handiwork, there! Oh, but he's terribly sweet in it. :)

That is some clever thinking he's doing. I love when they suddenly come out with stuff like that. My friend's daughter (who's nearly two) impressed us on our last visit by pointing to a model of a prehistoric fish they have at the local nature reserve and exclaiming, "Dinosaur." Her mum's not sure where she picked it up; possibly the Discovery Channel. But at the time they hadn't actually discussed dinosaurs yet.

Mary said...

That does look very good.

His ornithology is about as good as mine, although I'm not sure how reassuring that should be.

Anonymous said...

Ah, I know that expression, "how much longer do I have to sit here and where are the sweeties?!"
The jacket looks like it fits a treat.

SocietyGuardian said...

Hello
Just wanted to ask if we can use an extract from your blog on the Guardian website.
The extract refers to the Katie Thorpe case and would be included with other responses to the case.
Thankyou
Sara Gaines
SocietyGuardian.co.uk

The Goldfish said...

Thanks everyone,

Sara - yes, sure. Thanks for visiting. :-)

Anonymous said...

I am seriously impressed. I'd wear that jacket!

Anonymous said...

Well, we still get "minish" (for 'finished' at the end of a meal).

I wouldn't mind, but that's the wife:-)

Naah, that's from the little 'un, even though he can talk better than that mostly he's sticking with "minish"...

seahorse said...

No pattern? No measurements? I've just read your portrait post, and thought you may be some sort of genius. Now, having got to this, I know it to be true.