Old Macdonald had a shark

We are teaching Eve the names of animals. I thought she should expand her repertoire beyond "cat" so we sit with books and ask her to name and count animals. Once we have spotted the animal, we then make its noise. She can do a sheep "ba ba", cow "mmmooo" and pig (she grunts rather unattractively but I am insanely proud nonetheless). We have a bit more trouble with dogs because the only thing she ever sees a dog do in HK is pant wildly in the heat. However, she pants happily with her tongue hanging out when we ask her what noise a dog makes and we congratulate her all the same. After all, she is accurate and you have to admire her powers of observation.

More recently we have been teaching her what a shark is. I am obsessed by sharks, I love the creatures. Pride of place in my lounge is a signed still of a tiger shark taken by a cameraman who worked on the Blue Planet. Sharks feature in two of Eve's favourite books. The problem is, however, that sharks don't make a noise. Eve seemed a bit disappointed and altogether less interested in sharks as a result. This had to be fixed.

One of her books has the line "sharks with hideous toothy grins". Jackpot. Now whenever we mention a shark, we all do hideous toothy grins. The Boy even sticks his hand on his forehead as a mock fin. A love of sharks is now instilled in my daughter. Job done.

More than words

Eve's vocab is coming on apace as she learns new words every day. They are not always accurately used, every colour is labeled as "blue", but she is putting together little phrases like "sit down". She can even say a version of please, which unfortunately sounds like she is saying piss.

However, the words she has mastered seem to have little or nothing to do with how many times we look at pictures or repeat them to her. For example, she has yet to master "cat", which is the only word we have been saying over and over again since she was born. At other times she completely surprises me with a word I didn't even know we had said to her. This morning she pointed at a photo the Boy took on a diving holiday and said, beautifully annunciated, "turtle".

More than words

Eve is starting to say more words so in addition to Da Da (which she says when she is being cute or pointing to the cat)and Ma Ma (when she wants something) she can now also say bear. We've had Be Be for a couple of weeks and then today, as I was changing her I gave her a koala to amuse her during the process she said, with perfect pronunciation "bear". Just to check it wasn't a fluke, I pointed at it a few more times and she said "bear" each time. Then her nanny did the same thing, in a different room, and we got "bear" every time. I almost got her to say tiger as well (came out as "digger"). The most adorable thing is that she can now hear when she gets it right and then giggles with happiness.

First words

After many stresses of worrying about Eve being looked after by a nanny who is not a native English speaker and how this would be stunting her language development, she is finally starting to speak. She understands pretty much everything we say but has not taken to using more than baby babble herself until yesterday.

How do I know she is now doing this? Because yesterday she stood underneath the shelf where her toys are kept and shouted "ma ma" with quite discernable anger in her voice until I came and lifted her up to pick one. She later did the same thing when she wanted a book. So, my darling daughter's first word is one to get the attention of her willing slave.

She also says "dax" every time a taxi goes past. Already a child of Hong Kong then.