New sounds and new skills

Oliver said "mama" yesterday. He has been saying various sounds for a while but "mama" has only just been added to his gabbling. He is a right old chatterbox at times.

He also has a new expressive sound to add to his other favourites such as blowing raspberries and "aggy!". His new sound is a simple "Mmmmmmm" but with the sort of intonation that Kenneth Williams might have used when confronted with something saucily surprising. Oliver has used it several times when looking at something new and he really sounds like he is expressing interest. It makes me laugh every time he does it.

He has also started to throw things on the floor and happily wait for Daddy to pick them up again to give him back. It seems to me that he knows perfectly well what he is doing, so I'm trying to resist that game.

It's great to see him growing, changing and developing though as the weeks go by. He still isn't crawling: he's definitely a bum shuffler. He does launch himself forwards sometimes but mostly ends up in a bit of a pickle and whinges to be sat up again. Then again he does love to stand up. Maybe he won't crawl for long before walking.

Ultimately he'll crawl, walk and talk in his own time, even with our encouragement. I not really concerned about being able to look back and say "he crawled at 8 months" or "he walked at 12 months" or whatever other milestone one might choose. I only want to be able to look back at any age and be able to say "he was happy at that age".