The Mitt, the Fox, the Bear and Cinderella

Mitts is on my lap, I'm flicking loosely through the weekend papers, suddenly there's Megan Fox in full page glossy. With several bemused witnesses, Mitts throws his arms out, hands shaped into claws, and says "ARRRRR!!"

I'll say no more.

He's chatting a bit now, getting close to articulating clear words. Actually he uses all sorts of words, I'm just not sure what language they're in. Anderss, Zizzess, Daadahh, DATZ... (well, I know the last one is "cats") ... The proto-words are strung into phrases now, making sense in their own way just like his quite rhythmic table drumming and xylophone pounding.

Close to walking (holding himself up and moving along things) and close to talking, his frustration is palpable.

Random speech-related segue to Bear. Yesterday evening she's opened up a book of Fairy Tales, arrived at Cinderella, and promptly started telling her own story based on the pictures. It went something like this:

So they put the cat up on it and and yeah the cat was on there and.... these ones went over here and then there's the cat. (turns page)

A fairy there is a fairy and she BOUGHT A PUMPKIN there is a pumpkin and the fairy went, yeah! (turns page)

So YEAH there was a wedding and there LOOK they went and there was a WEDDING and, and THERE they are.

A girl is determined to read, I'm as proud of this as her efforts at coming up with a story (she's not familiar with Cinderella yet).