Amelia Poppy and Oliver James Steele

Amelia and Jake were practicing their hot-wiring car skills in the back garden over the weekend.  They’re going to grow up to be a right little pair of joyriders. 

I don’t think the “Little Tikes” car that took Daddy about 3 days to build is really built for two people though.  In a few months time I doubt they’ll both fit in there.  Hopefully by that time Amelia will have worked out that if she puts her right leg in first and then sits down she’ll end up facing the correct way.  At the moment she steps in with her left leg, ends up with her bum sitting on the steering wheel and her head popping out of the back window and then she gets all confused and starts to cry.

Miles was over to do some chopping and digging and stuff in the garden so we thought we’d treat him to a rendition of Amelia’s [ whom I've just realised is an anagram of e-mail ] tricks.

The “Happy Face” thing comes from a book that Amelia has, which is imaginatively entitled “Happy Face, Sad Face”.  The songs are as described in an earlier blog and haven’t really improved too much.

The whole event was sponsored by Stella Artois who are apparently bored of tennis competitions and are now just interested in babies doing stuff.  

We all went to visit Grandad Dave yesterday and Amelia discovered the sun lounger in the back yard whilst Mummy and Daddy discovered chicken curry and chips inside the house.  All was going well until Daddy spilled a blob of curry on his favourite shirt.

Amelia can now identify an egg and tell you that it came from a chicken.  She can also almost sing “Happy birthday to you” and “Baa baa black sheep”, although to be fair it’s more of a “aaaaheee berrrr to yoo” and “baa baa back eep” but Mummy understands what she’s singing.

On Saturday Emma and I took Amelia for a bus ride into Ormskirk to go to the park.  She had a bit of a whinge on the bus, wasn’t too impressed with the slide, had a quick go on the rocking horse with Daddy holding onto her and then settled for a go on the swings.  After that we went to Cafe Red for the best waffles in Christendom.

Her vocabulary is coming on in leaps and bounds with new words including “beads”, “hello”, “grandma” and “bye-bye”.  She also understands “Have you done a poop?” but always replies “no” – even when there is smelly evidence to the contrary.

By a bizarre quirk of fate Amelia Poppy and Anne Patricia have the same initials separated by ummm let’s be kind and say “a few decades”

Grandma Steele comes to babysit Amelia on Mondays [ when she's not holidaying ] whilst Daddy tries to get some work done.  This picture was taken after grandma had her sailing induced [ see here ] siesta hence her chipper appearance.

In the background is the dismantled fire that I’ve tried and failed twice to burn.  The problem is it’s all Hawthorn trees and there is too much air inside the fire.  So I’m now slowly lopping all the branches into more manageable pieces which will be set alight soon.

Glad to see that my little angel is getting the idea about what her duties in life will involve.  Lots of moving stuff around the garden whilst wearing what looks suspiciously like a stripey jumper with a pink kipper tie.  On the day of Yves Saint Laurent’s death my little girl starts a new fashion in garden attire.