At last, some photographs, and some movies.

The photographs are mostly from around Christmas and New Year.

The movies are:
(i) Maestro - Bridget at the piano, Christmas Day (2.4 MB)
(ii) Upstairs - Bridget's stair-climbing technique, 27th December (1.7 MB)
(iii) Downstairs - you can guess, 27th December (1.8 MB)
(iv) Early walking - one of Bridget's first walks, 27th December (1.4 MB)
(v) Getting up - standing from a fallen start, 27th December (2.2 MB)

Dressing and undressing are becoming easier occupations, these days. When standing by a running bath waiting for it to fill, Bridget will now lift one foot and then the other to have shoes and socks removed, repeat the procedure once trousers are rolled down and ready to be slipped off, pluck at her shirt and then lift her arms for it to be lifted off, and sometimes ineffectually reach for the poppers on her t-shirts and the Velcro on her nappy-wraps. When getting dressed, she will lift legs in a similar way, and will push her arms through most sleeves on her own, provided her hand is guided to the opening, and with maybe a little help in freeing fingers right at the end. We're counting the days until she can do all this herself, while we sit back and relax...

Around Christmas, it was definitely drawing (crayons or felt-tips on paper, chalks on the blackboard), but now Bridget's favourite occupation, by a very long way, is reading books. Or rather having books read to her. Much of her day is spent picking up books from her box, or from the floor where they were dropped five minutes before, carrying them to a parent, and demanding that they be read – or at least that about two thirds of any given book be read. Her favourites are Each Peach Pear Plum, Snow Bear, Where the Wild Things Are, The Wheels on the Bus, and Munch, Munch, Peter Rabbit. Her other toys barely get a look in.

We've both been surprised at how much, all of a sudden, she seems to be able to identify and name things in her books – particularly animals. Going through Each Peach Pear Plum, she will point to the horse on one page ("Horzh!"), the cat on another ("Gah!"), the dog on another ("Dozh!") When reading (singing) The Wheels on the Bus, she can point on demand to the balloons, the dog, the bus, and so on. And a couple of days ago, when reading Whose Baby Am I?, and reaching the pages with all the animals on together, she surprised Hester by being able to point a good number of times to the right parent for any given child. All this seems to have developed since Christmas. And, of course, it quickly gets caught up in a strong feedback loop: the pointing and naming get praised, and then pleased parents point and name a host of other things too, just to see if they will catch too. I feel like I will soon be incapable of reading any kind of illustrated reading matter without pointing out any pictured animals to anyone around me.

But we're not trying to push her to be academic, honest!

I really meant to write something a couple of weeks back about Bridget and her MMR jab. We had no qualms (see below) about hiking her off to the doctor's for a 'quick jab in the leg' as I described it in the waiting room, making her laugh with the prods I made at her thigh. She squirmed when the needle went in but didn't cry at all, and was perfectly happy within a few seconds.

And so things went for ten days or so. Bridget was as happy as I've known her. Then she got the measles reaction, combined with a dose of a nasty cold and was really quite miserable for several days, with a temperature and very lethargic. She even slept on my lap for a whole afternoon (a blissful look back to times long ago, if I hadn't been worried about how she was feeling). The mumps reaction came and went this week with a day off nursery, but not so much to worry about. And now she's fine, and I know that she's safe from a couple of nasty diseases.

MMR has had a very bad press in Britain since the Lancet issued a report claiming that there was a link between it and autism. Despite the lack of proof for this, and the more recent revelation that the main researcher may have been influenced by financial considerations (see the Guardian's report), it is very worrying how many people are still not doing anything about getting their children vaccinated. It's not just that they opt for individual jabs rather than the triple jab, it's that they aren't getting round to doing it at all. Among the mums at my local toddler group I feel that I'm in a minority in choosing the MMR for Bridget. Most of the others haven't and most of their children haven't even had separate immunisations instead of MMR. Excuses: it's an effort to get it organised because they have to go down to Plymouth and it costs a lot of money (£90 a shot). Meanwhile, the incidence of measles has risen dramatically in the last few years, and the incidence of mumps has multiplied by ten in the last year! And it's all just a knee-jerk reaction to the bad news that hit the headlines, rather than the reassuring good news that followed. Ugh! I get annoyed sometimes.

OK, rant over. Hester's back to normal now and being very calm and sane.

We haven't said anything about how Bridget has been getting on with her perambulations. Quite early on in the upright phase she decided that crawling wasn't much fun, even if it did get her somewhere faster. These days, the only time she's likely to crawl is when going round and round through her makeshift tunnel (a large cardboard box, held in place by a parent). The rest of the time she definitely wants to be on her feet. On the whole, round the house, she's content to get about by herself, especially since this means that she can do things like carry books around (see Mike's entry), but if a parent suggests going to do something then Bridget normally wants to hold a hand while getting there, perhaps to show that this is an activity that's happening together.

The first time I let Bridget walk in the lane was a couple of weeks ago, giving her a bit of time out of her pushchair. She mostly walked in the direction we'd been going, but stumbled a fair bit and stopped frequently. It took about ten minutes to go 50 yards. More recently, she has managed to walk all the way down to the post office at the end of the lane (more like 400 yards) in the same amount of time, holding Mummy's hand the while. The only disruptions to her progress that time were pauses to look at dogs going past, and incessant demands to climb up onto the pavement or back down into the road. (The road is quiet and the pavement doesn't go all the way along it, so letting her walk in the road isn't quite as delinquent as it sounds.)

We have also increasingly found that Bridget isn't very keen on other modes of transport now that walking is available and she has a fine pair of outdoor shoes. The pushchair will be tolerated until mention of walking is made, when Bridget will lean forward and try desperately to break through the straps holding her in. Even the backpack (till now a sure smile-raiser) is dropping in favour compared to the fun of walking. All of which suggests that walks from now on will be rather more limited in compass and will require very patient parents for some time to come.