Bridget's cold left her waking up between 5 and 6 most mornings. We decided we weren't having this, and as soon as we were sure that the main part of the cold itself was past, we decided to begin a programme of controlled crying again. That is: leaving Bridget to cry for a few minutes, then sending Daddy in to calm her without getting her up; as soon as crying drops to quiet whimpering, Daddy leaves - ready to go back a few minutes later if crying has not gone away.

Well, we tried it. Of course, as soon as I had left, she started yelling again - but that is normal. What matters is that, after two minutes, there was sudden and complete silence ... and blessed sleep until shortly before seven, which is as things should be. The next night: no early waking at all...

We'll see how it goes, but it does (in Bridget's case at least) seem to work like magic.

I don't think I have blogged this before, even though it has been true for months. A high proportion of Bridget's games - the ones she really enjoys - involve sound feedback. So, for instance, beating her feet on the floor is simply an activity, a fidget. But beating her feet on the floor and hearing a parent say 'Boom!' with each beat is a game, and a very funny one. Waving at a parent is quite good fun, though sometimes simply a solemn duty; waving at a parent who waves back is much better; waving at a parent who waves back while saying 'Wave, wave, wave!' is hilarious. Dropping a toy in the bath so that it goes splash is quiite amusing in a quiet sort of way. Saying 'kerrrr-SPLOSH!' as it drops is breathtakingly clever and screamingly witty. In fact, after a few goes, we can dispense with the toy dropping business altogether, and simply make the noise.

Three things feed together into this, I think. One of the most exciting things in the world is feedback: any bit of the world which clearly responds to what she does (like a tower that falls over if I push it). Another of the most exciting things in the world is sound - as long as it is not too loud and sudden. Sounds seem, in some contexts, to be as exciting as shapes and colours for Bridget. And, lastly, the involvement of parents heightens both of these: parental feedback is more fun than feedback itself, and parental sound more fun than other sounds. Parental feedback sound is just tops.

For some time now, Bridget has had baths on a shaped foam wedge that keeps her from slipping over when she's sitting up, and keeps her from drowning when she's lying back. A week or so ago, we started giving her time after washing was finished sitting on the bath floor itself - which is slippier and harder to control, but apparently lots of fun. A few days ago, we let her go freeform. Now, at the end of most baths, she is allowed to crawl around, sit up, turn over, drag herself around, and generally twist and contort and explore. We watch carefully, of course, but she seems automatically to keep her head out of the water unless she slips or gets too tired. And she loves it: squeals of happy laughter and lots of splashing.

I think we're about at the stage where I can say that 'Dada' is now more a word or name than a sound. (See my earlier comment on this for an explanation.) A couple of times when I have come in after a day at work she has said 'Dada' on seeing me, having not uttered these sounds for most of the day beforehand.

I think 'Mama' is even more of a word or name. When Bridget is tired and grumpy, and only Mummy will do, she will sometimes wriggle away from me and head in the direction of the last maternal sighting, uttering plaintive mewls in which 'Mama' will feature quite regularly and distinctly - far more so than in similar grumpy patches which don't involve search for an absent Mummy.

Bridget has learnt how to give objects to her parents. Or perhaps 'loan' would be a better word. I can hold out my hand and say, for example, 'Bridget, please can I have the ball?' and she will, if she's already holding it, reach it out towards me and let go of it once I have my hand round it or under it. She will reach out to take it back a few moments later, but she definitely has the idea.

Once or twice, when I have held out my hand, she has dropped the ball on the floor in order to reach out to grab my hand - and has then remembered what the game is about, solemnly picked up the ball again, and handed it to me.

If she's not already holding an object, she will sometimes pick something up to hand to me - though only extreme parental optimism could believe in any correlation between what I ask for and what she picks up.

New photos are up. You can also see a couple of movies - one of Bridget sitting up (Mike apologizes for the temporary loss of her head), and one of Bridget crawling.

With nursery looming on the not-too-distant horizon, we have been looking for ways of giving Bridget time with people other than her parents, which isn't that easy when we don't have any relatives living near us. However, the friends I've made through the Jack and Jill playgroup are coming in handy here. Yesterday, I went up to visit Jacqui and her three-year-old, Ed, who live about a mile away. I had a drink with them and then left Bridget while I went off for a walk by myself. I was feeling a bit nervous because Bridget's been particularly clingy over the last week or so (see the previous entry) and hoped that she wouldn't wail the whole time. Nevertheless, I was able to have a pleasant walk up to Belstone and out to the Taw river before returning - an absence of about half an hour. I got back to find that Bridget had apparently not even complained about me leaving the room, having had a suitable distraction provided by Ed fetching down some books. Apparently Mummy is not entirely indispensable.

We'll be repeating this sort of experiment over the next few weeks, so that by the time it gets to Bridget's settling-in sessions she'll be used to the idea of Mummy going away, and that she always comes back again.

Bridget's had a bad cold, as I think we mentioned. This made her sleep badly and eat badly, and it also made her rather grumpy. Last Saturday was particularly bad, when she wouldn't even spend time with Daddy, but had to be held by Mummy for large portions of the day. It was difficult (particularly for me) to believe that the cold hadn't swept away our happy little girl and deposited a considerably more grumpy, fidgety one in her place. However, we're glad to find that, although she still has the vestiges of a cough, Bridget is back to being her normal cheerful and happy self. Today she was particularly perky, but maybe that had something to do with the fact that the sun was shining properly for the first time in ages.

We've also discovered as a result of all sorts of attempts to deal with poor sleeping that you never let a ten-month-old sleep in the late afternoon. Having a baby who wants to stay up until nine o'clock is just too much hard work.

Just over a week ago, Bridget was playing in the spare room by a floor-length mirror. I turned round from what I was doing to spot that she was happily waving to herself in the mirror - a new trick.

Since then she's been practising her new skill frequently, but not always when asked and never when it's actually time to say 'Goodbye' to Daddy in the morning. Well, not never, but she only waves when she wants to.

Shaking her head is also a good new game. (She used to do it just as a form of fidgeting.) Other movement things she likes doing are playing with doors (and trying not to bang her head on the edge as she swings it past) and riffling pages in any books or magazines we leave lying around. She's also shown the first beginnings of a desire to climb, particularly over parental legs.

You may remember that we lost Bridget's teddy in Wales. It's taken us a long time to track down where it came from, since it was a present, but now we have two. Bridget smiled widely when she was handed the new one.

Now that Bridget has got the hang of moving herself around the room, I can believe that one day she is going to be walking. And, if I really stretch my imagination, I can see her moving from picking lumps of food up in her hands and accepting pre-filled spoons to using her own cutlery. The thing that I simply cannot find anyway of imagining is the idea that she might be able to communicate with me one day with intelligible words. I feel sure that that day simply will never exist.

Bridget still hasn't got very far with crawling. She manages to get around relatively quickly with her commando crawl, but when on hands and knees she hasn't got further than swaying backwards and forwards on them, with no idea where to go next. However, this afternoon I decided to experiment with encouraging her to stand. She isn't great at taking weight when set on her feet, but I found that a much-wanted thing on the sofa was a successful enticement. Bridget managed to hold onto the sofa for about five seconds, without support from me, before going flump onto her bottom. My guess is that it will, nevertheless, be a good while before she's cruising round the furniture.

Two nice things happened this weekend. One is that the (deeply misguided) University 'contributions-based reward' scheme - which is supposed to reward around one quarter of University staff each year for having made some special contribution to the institution over the year - coughed up about two thousand pounds for me. Another is that - after several cold-filled, clingy days in which Daddy just would not do as a source of comfort - Bridget sat happily with me in church this morning whilst Mummy played the organ, and - for the first time in months - fell contentedly asleep in my arms, sleeping through sermon and eucharist, through the noisy entry of the young church, and through the babble at the end of the service. And - I hope this doesn't sound smug, because it is simply and unambiguously true - I can say that, without any contest at all, the latter gave me a sillier grin, and a bigger and longer-lasting glow of warm feeling, than the former. Perhaps the University should reward people with Bridget-hugs instead?

Bridget may have her first word. And her first word may be 'moo'... As in the noise that cows make. A few times now, when playing with a little wooden jigsaw of farmyard animals, Bridget has made a sort of mooing noise (definite 'm', somewhat shaky 'oo') when handling the cow piece - apparently copying her parents, who make the noises for all the animals as she grabs them.

On this front, we also realise that it is not going to be possible to decide when 'Mama' and 'Dada' have ceased being noises and become words. Already, the bisyllabic versions are becoming common (alongside the multiple repetition versions: Mamamamama and Dadadadada). And already, there seems to be some weak association between situations in which Mummy is important and the use of 'Mama', and a weaker but still detectable association between Daddy and 'Dada'. My suspicion is that the evolution of true parental naming using these sounds will be gradual, and involve no step-change which we will be able to pinpoint as, 'The first time she called me "Daddy"'.