We’ve been aware for some time that Freya has the ability to recognise “Mummy” and “Daddy”, and is even, in her limited way, able to mimic these words whilst associating them to us. However, yesterday was a major breakthrough in articulation.

She has an picture book of animals, which I read to her tonight. As I flicked through the book, in between Freya eating it, I said the name of the animal, and what it says e.g. “Kitten. A kitten says meow.”

The first few times I read the book out loud, she watched eagerly. Then, I showed her the pictures again, and asked “What does a XXX say?” She responded with remarkable results.

Whilst her attempts to mimic “dog”,”woof, woof”,”duck” and “quack, quack” sounded similar, when we came to cat, she opened her mouth wide and made a pretty reasonable sound. The same with the tiger’s “grrr”, and the elephant’s….whatever it is that elephants say.

It is truly fantastic to experience one’s child doing what children have been doing for thousands of years.