To reassure the few people who care that I haven’t given up on this blog, and for a few other reasons, I thought I would write a few notes.

Keithie said the word “silly” a couple of days ago. It is as yet unclear how much she understands the concept. If she does start to use the word to refer to things which are in some way ’silly’, I think that this will be in some sense the most ‘abstract’ word she has added to her vocab - which is mostly made up of nouns used in one-word sentences, if they count as .sentences rather than simply exclamations: “doggie!”, “car!”, “hat!”. Oddly, she claps, points, laughs and often says “Yay!” almost every time she sees a train go by - we live next to the railway line - but doesn’t say “train!”, even though we do, and the same general procedures, it seems, have taught her other nouns, often with significantly less repetition and less obvious interest on her part. (However, the whole issue may be non-existent except insofar as it reflects the inaccuracy of my observation or memory, since Sarah disagrees, claiming that Keithie does say “train!” as the train goes by much more often than I suggest.)

Her first grammatically correct sentence, last Tuesday, 3 June: “You’re my mummy.” And literally thirty seconds ago she said her second, in response to my reading out the preceding to Sarah: “You’re my mum.”

Other than that no-longer-singular event, the most substantial sentences she manages are two words long: “my mummy”. Her most common word: “me”. By itself, repeated over and over, and somewhere between a command and a question - “me?” - abbreviating something like “is that for me?” or “will you give that to me?”, and usually accompanied by her holding out her hand. She learnt this directly from us, since we all used the expression “for me?” when we held our hands out to her, wanting her to give us something which she was holding.

Similarly, Keithie’s first grammatically-correct sentence was certainly not merely a statement of fact, though for her certain facts can be simply stated with pleasure. In this case, however, Keithie saying “You’re my mummy”, as she grabbed Sarah by the hand and did her best to drag Sarah along (something she also did in the sequel mentioned above i.e. just a minute ago), was connected to a general development of language as an attempt to direct, to act in the world and on the world, to take hold of what she wants and declare that it is hers, implicitly forming some relationship between ownership and command, possession and responsibility, statement and action, statement as action.

And she is working her way up to starring in her pre-school version of Oliver, since a minute ago she said the word “more” as a request for additional food.