Moving on...

I knew the day would come eventually - and it arrived yesterday.

Small children have a wonderful knack for twisting words to suit them; 'bye bye' becomes 'boy boy', 'yellow' becomes 'lellow', 'napkin' becomes (if you are Boy #1) 'nyapkyin'. If you have children I have no doubt there will have been a trademark mispronounciation at some point in their development, one that you will probably always remember, to be brought out, polished up, and passed around at family gatherings or on first parental / sibling meetings with boyfriends and girlfriends.

My brothers' trademark at 3 years old was a line from a book; Babar the Elephant. You may remember that when the old king ate a poisoned mushroom, he '...lay down, and he died.' Unless you live in Gloucestershire, when he '...lay down, and he doyed.' See? Thirty years on, and I still remember it. Got to love big sisters, huh?

Boy #2's signature word was - unsurprisingly - related to transport, what with his worship of all moveable machines. He has never been able to say the word 'helicopter'. Or at least, he never felt the need to. Instead, it was always 'hello-lo-lok', which personally I quite like, and actually think that it even sounds a little like the sound that they make. (OK, not much, but I'm his mother...).

Yesterday afternoon in the playground however, the era of the 'hello-lo-lok' drew to an end. He said 'helicopter' - correctly. And then he decided that he liked the sound of it so much that he was going to say it again. And again. And again...

I applauded, of course. It is the right pronounciation, after all. Even though I preferred the old one.

My baby is growing up.