All about Little P

Little Planet experienced her first ever train ride this weekend when we journeyed up to Loughborough on Saturday to visit relatives. She enjoyed the journey up because the only other people in the First Class coach was a mum and her 22 month old son, so of course the adults chatted while the babies played. And she spent the journey back sleeping while M and I read the papers. In between, she had good fun playing with her cousins aged 20 months, 3 years and 11 years, plus her Gran and assorted uncles and aunts who came from England, Romania, Germany and Australia.

Despite being just 13 months, Little Planet plays pretty well with other children - not simply alongside them, but actually with them: handing them things, babbling away with them, getting in the midst of them all and joining in. But she's also very good at playing by herself (I think this is the result of having a mum who is not very good at playing with children, unlike her dad): whilst her 20 month old twin cousins napped, she spent a happy hour endlessly crawling in and out of a play tunnel. Of course, she plays best on her own when other people are in the same space as her - she is still not old enough to play on her own alone.

The whole of Sunday was spent at home in London playing with Little Planet, doing laundry, cooking (roast belly pork and fennel seeds for us, dal and rice for Little P), reading, and rolling around on our divine brand new Vi-Spring bed.

Little Planet is now saying "Thank you", "No", "Woof woof", "Fish", "Rice", "Good girl", "Hi ya", "Ta Ta", "Mama" and "Daddy" and a few others - or at least close approximations thereof, eg "Na" for "No", "Gun-ga" for "Good girl", "Feeeesh" for "Fish" and "Tanku" for "Thank you"!

She can get away with a single nap a day of around 1-2 hours, but usually drops off in her buggy around 10.30am whilst we're out and about for 30-45 minutes and in her cot at home around 1.30pm for an hour or 1.5 hours. She still sleeps through the night from 7pm. We're much more relaxed about her day time napping now that she is 1 year old and will continue to be relaxed so long as her solid night time sleep continues.

She is now completely off formula and entirely on whole milk - still three bottles of milk a day. Now she is on whole milk, she drinks far more as she loves the taste. We need to persuade her to drink milk from a beaker, though. She drinks water really well from a beaker. We also, this weekend, packed away her steriliser and stopped boiling water for her drinks. She ate her solids really well. She hates being spoon fed now and really fights us, preferring to eat her dal and rice with her hands, just like a good little Indian girl. She loves eating chunks of peaches and bananas, rice cakes, croissant, toast and cheese by herself. We really need to encourage her to eat with a spoon by herself. Meal times and snack times are now very messy affairs!