22 mois.

Yesterday, someone asked me how old little L. was and I actually had to think about it. Now that he is almost two, it feels sort of silly to still be counting in months. Twenty two months, he is. That's a lot of months. And yet after all this time, he manages to become more and more loveable. Every. Single. Day. I could spend hours standing at his bedroom door, observing him in his imaginary world. "More water Monkey? No, Miaow miaow! C'est for Monkey le drink". It is the sweetest thing.

The power of toddlers' 'record button' is mind-blowing (although the monkey and cat gibberish is not from me, hmm). Often, we don't even realise that L. is listening to us and the next day, bam! new words. His vocabulary has expanded to the point where he is now speaking in sentences. Sentences! What a long way we have come since he was a wee baby. I am simply in awe with my lil' bilingual parrot: by his English, because he spends so few hours with us each day yet it is the language he speaks the most; and by his French, because we don't teach him any of it so hearing him speak is always a delightful discovery. Maybe he has the same love for languages as his mummy? I wonder.

But for now, he sure does make us smile our mini franglais boy. To his daddy's delight, and my dismay (two football lovers in the house, huh), he cheers "Arsenal, gooooal!" with a raise of the hand whenever a football game in on. I'm not sure he quite understands what it all means this football lark, but he sure knows it makes us laugh, so he repeats.

The best part about baby talk is that there is no beating around the bush: WYSIWYG. When we were in Greece, he held a pair of my knickers around his neck one morning and called it a bib (implying I have a big behind, per-lease!). He also tells us "I'm stuck! I'm stuck!" when we try to steal a cuddle from him and last week, as he came out of the bath and I was brushing his hair, he suggested combing his daddy's hair and then start combing his chest (yes, he is a tad hairy, à la 007). And did you know that toddlers are also professional ego boosters? Almost each night, I get "ouhlala, miam miam, c'est booon!" as he eats his home made (or not) diner and when I've been showing him my crochet/knitting projects he is always so impressed and tells me "oooh, mummy it's pretty!" (which of course, it isn't. Otherwise you would have seen it up on the blog).

Anyway, happy (belated) 22 months, my little boy! What an exhausting and wonderful journey parenthood is.