Summer 2011

Over the summer (well, I say summer...) Gabriel has mostly been:

in no particular order:

• Eating watermelon
• Giving up his dummy
• Mostly giving up his bottle
• Being a big boy
• Being a baby still
• Running around very fast
• Dressing up
• Learning to talk some more

Watermelon is the new love of his life. I can't take him to the supermarket without being persuaded to buy one. I blame Bob and his "if you can say it, you can have it" rule, and Gabriel does say watermelon quite nicely!

In fact, his talking is coming on quite well, he is certainly saying more and more, but he still needs a lot of practice with certain sounds and getting those mixed up pronouns sorted out! It keeps catching me out, because he sounds so young a lot of the time because of how he speaks, and then he goes and does something or says something that makes me think "wow, he's so grown-up!". It has been very easy to "baby" Gabriel and I think he has quite enjoyed it, but we've had a big breakthrough over the summer which definitely signals the end of babyhood (after all, he IS nearly 4!!)

His "bean" is no longer needed. We tried to use the same trick we used for Linus "the baby dinosaurs need your dummies Linus, lets post them all and they'll send you a present". Gabriel wanted to send his "beans" to the baby cows, only when it came to the crunch he outright refused to let them go "me no want to anymore, me beebee". So I discovered what present he wanted "a big, brown cow. Squishy. Has horns". Said cow was purchased and, with reassurances that his dummies had gone nowhere, I persuaded him to sleep without it one night to see if a present still appeared. He managed, and lo and behold, in the morning a big, squishy, brown cow with horns was there. Oh, was he pleased! He has asked for his dummy a few times since, but hasn't got upset when he has been refused. Hurrah for cows!

He is loving nursery at the moment and talks about it a lot. He has a best friend, Brandon, and tells me all about books they've read and what they've done and what his teachers say to him ("sit up and don't talk" apparently!) and he sings songs he has learned there. Gabriel is so sociable, he loves playing with pretty much anyone he can find. Linus would be his first choice, but Asa will do when Linus is unwilling.