Grace's Emerging Voice

Grace's voice is the sweetest sound I have ever heard. Every goo, ga and cry is music to my ears. The newly emerging words and sentences, the "great", "oh, beach!!!","it is, yeah", "Din-ner!!!!", "play?", "Danni" and "Dad-dee"s are precious sounds that I hope I never forget.
There are laughs too - like yesterday when she put her bucket in the toilet and shut the lid, and she put her spade in the bleach bucket provided by the cleaners to keep the amenities tidy between cleans. Or like in the toilet at playgroup,... so keen was Grace to get back to playing with the other kids that she began to pull paper towels from the dispenser and place them on my lap. Then, because I still seemed to be sitting on that darned toilet, she pushed them down between my knees. Once I had recovered from laughing, I managed to get her to stop getting more paper towels and convinced her not to turn the nob that changes from "Engaged" to "Vacant".

Watching Grace give a doll a dummy or a boppy is a sight to behold. She picks them up and plants a kiss on the forehead and shoves that plug in the cakehole before the tears can start. I wonder where she learned that trick? As one mum said to me "Sometimes it just,.....shuts 'em up", almost embarrassed that she'd said it so bluntly.

I confess,... I too have to "shut 'em up" occasionally and if the dummy won't work, The Wiggles will. This group of musicians deserve all the millions they get, because their music has a way of capturing a toddler's complete and absolute attention. There are times when this is invaluable - like whenever us parents have to get something done on time.

Thank God for the precious gift of children, and the handy gift of The Wiggles,... and for that beautiful little mouth as it says "Mumumumumum" and plants a pretty pink kiss on my forehead.