[Revised by Hester, then by Mike, and then by Hester again, because we keep remembering more words that Bridget's been using over Christmas/New Year.]

Over Christmas, Bridget's language-use has mushroomed. She now imitates many of the words which are said to her, and repeating a word to her several times slowly is often enough to get her to attempt it - so, for instance, at bedtime just now she wanted her Very Hungry Caterpillar book, and once we had said 'Caterpillar' to her a few times she managed something like 'Pi-cah' or something similar, which is within spitting distance if you're a generous parent. Most of these are just one-off imitations, but quite a few stick. So, for instance, she has now used the following multiple times:

Mummy (Muh-muh or Muh-mi)

Again (Gar)
Boo!
Row-row-row (as in '... your boat, gently down the stream'; accompanied by rocking motion and reaching for parental hands)
Rock-rock (Ro'-ro' ... when sitting on the rocking chair, rocking)
Draw
Bye-bye
Night night (Nih-nih)
Yes (Yeh)
Cheers (Tyeee)
All gone (awe go')

Snack (Nack)
Yoghurt (Go'-Go')
Biscuit (Bih)
Apple (Puh)
Peas (Piysss)

Cup (Coh)
Bib (Bih or Bih-bih)
Hat (Ha)
Bag (Ba)
Box (Boh)
Door
Cat (Ga)
Pebble (Puh-buh)
Car (also Gar)
Book (Buh)

Blue (Boo)
Black (Bac)
Brown (Bwow)
Green (Gwee)

I can't resist a tiny bit of linguistic philosophy. Although a lot of these new words are nouns, it seems fairly clear that it is not the naming of objects which forms the basis of Bridget's language use; rather, it is playing sound-games. So a word like 'Boo!' which has become one of her most common in the last few days is perhaps closer to being paradigmatic than a word like 'pebble': she has learnt a game-like activity involving a sound. Does she know what 'boo' means? Yes - in that she knows how to play this particular game. (Actually, she only sort-of-knows what this means: she still hasn't quite got that hiding and popping out should happen before all boos.) And even some of the words that look more like straightforward names of things seem to be picked up by her as game-sounds: 'Goh-goh' is the sound we make when we stop liking first course and want some yoghurt - it's a sound marking an important transition in the eating game; Bridget doesn't use it so much once the yoghurt has arrived. 'Pebble' is something more like a straightforward name: a sound we make when we're playing with pebbles, because it makes Mummy and Daddy respond with smiles and encouragement. But it seems that Bridget is a Wittgensteinian: gaming rather than naming is at the heart of her language-use.

Over New Year we spent a week in the Cotswolds, sharing a cottage first with John, Claire, Jack and Katy Lawrence (our friends from Cambridge who now live in Seattle, so finding time to spend with them is harder than it used to be) and then with Adam and Claire Taylor (Mike's cousin) and Claire's daughters, Rachel and Alice. We had a wonderful time with both sets of friends, only slightly marred by the resurgence of a stomach bug that Bridget had kindly brought home from nursery for us over Christmas.

Despite being rather cranky because of the appearance of teeth numbers 11 and 12, and waking up far too early through having to share a room with her parents, Bridget seemed to enjoy the holiday enormously. She played happily with Jack and Katy on the whole, though fights over toys tended to lead to unhappiness from various quarters. She flirted outrageously with John, much to her Daddy's chagrin. She loved being made much of by Rachel and Alice, who were wonderful babysitters, allowing her parents much-needed time off. And she consented to sit on Adam's lap without screaming (third time lucky then, Adam).

We went on various pottering trips around Bourton-on-the-Water and the neighbourhood. Bridget was underwhelmed by the 1/9th scale model village in Bourton. She slept during the conquering of the Dragonfly Maze. But she liked Birdland and the Cotswold Wildlife Park. And she had a wonderful, wonderful time at Fundays. This is a play barn just on the edge of Bourton, which gives children up to the age of 11 the chance to exhaust themselves on slides, climbs and ball pools. There's a toddler area for the under threes, where Bridget was happy to sit in the ball pool (which she insisted on calling bubbles), and to watch the same balls be blown around by jets of air in the ball blower. But what she liked by far the best was the swoopy slide in the main barn. Since adults are allowed to accompany their children we were able to whizz down the fifty-foot slide, whooping and hollering and claiming that it was all for the sake of keeping Bridget laughing. How Mike explains going on the vertical-start slide, to which we certainly didn't introduce Bridget, I don't know.

We have decided to revise our estimate of when Bridget first walked. Her steps on Christmas Eve were half-hearted shuffles, without her feet leaving the ground. However, the next day saw real foot-lifting, leg-moving-forward steps; first there was one on its own, then two more together, then one when Granny and Grandad appeared at the door; by the early evening she'd managed five in one go.

Within a couple of days, Bridget was an old pro at this game. From five steps we had advanced to more than fifty in one go (OK, so we're being slightly charitable in not counting hands on the floor as a break in the continuity, only bottom or knees). She stomped around fairly sturdily for the first few days that we were away. And then, as with all new things she discovers, she seems to have lost interest in the whole affair. She will take a few steps occasionally, when she's in the mood, but mostly she's much keener on having a hand to hold onto or, better yet, a parent's arms to be carried in. Meanwhile crawling is reverted only when she really wants to get somewhere and parents are not being obliging.

With a hand to hold her, she managed to walk about a third of the way to the post office a couple of days ago, which I found enormously exciting, if backache-inducing. She's also getting increasingly adept at standing up securely, often succeeding in doing it without using her hands to push up off the floor. Quite often she will stand happily for a minute or so, perhaps with something in her hand to look at, and then resume her sitting on the floor.

We have a few seconds of video footage of her second day of walking, which we'll try to get up on the web soon, along with Christmas and holiday photos.