Measuring up

The day after the Royal Wedding, our very own princess gets measured for the first time against the kitchen doorframe.

Although a fun occasion ceased to be so when both Kate and Grandpa found it necessary to forcibly pin Maddy to the doorframe:

The Generation Game

Four generations, gathered at Heatherfield for the Royal Wedding weekend (including a rogue Harris):

And Maddy finally realises these things tend to work better in ascending age order:

Skyping the grandparents (Part 2)

With Uncle Olly, during which Maddy gets a little bored and goes fishing for things in Dad's mouth:

And before too long, is able to see her fingers through Dad's nostrils:

What-a-fuss

How much easier life would be if we had a baby like Frank Muir's loveable but eternally mucky Afghan hound, What-a-mess:

Instead, we've got his demanding Labradoodle distant cousin, What-a-fuss.

But we wouldn't change Maddy for anything in the world.

(We so would, but you can't sell babies on eBay).

Mr Whippy, this is not

Stop... forcing...

... this ice cream...

... down my throat.

I hate it.

(Which is what happens when Grandma splashes out on £2.50 a scoop, organic vanilla ice-cream, rather than Mr Whippy and a '99 Flake).

Life imitates art

Maddy was incredibly helpful with the weekly shop yesterday:

And ended up inadvertently re-enacting the opening credits of her favourite TV show:

STD

No, no. Not that sort of STD.

Kate has taken to calling me Soft Touch Dad, which happens to share the same rather unfortunate acronym.

What's worse is that it's entirely unjustified. Why shouldn't a doting father pick up his daughter at the first squeak of discomfort - what harm could it do?

Country dogs

We've just returned from a magical weekend down at Little Clench, where Maddy was introduced to a number of rural beasties.

The local dairy herd (which were very popular):

A couple of local pigs that Jane & Dave are fattening up for sausage meat (less popular, although that could have been due to their aforementioned imminent slaughter):

And the most rural of all beasties, perennial favourite, Great Uncle Dave himself (again, not really convinced - much to Dave's continued bewilderment):

Easy Rider

We've always known that Maddy had something of the dramatic about her.

But even we were surprised at her early interpretation of Dennis Hopper's hell-raising Billy in Easy Rider:

In fact, these guys aren't even drinking while driving.

And their bikes are no match for the plastic fantasticness of the Mothercare Smart Trike.

Lame.

Skyping the grandparents

So, we finally managed to get Grannie & Grandpa Roskill up and running on Skype for Video.

One very expensive fixed-line phone call later (no, the irony isn't lost on me) and Gramps was able to take some lovely shots of technology in action:

Now all I need to do is show him where the 'Print Screen' button is.

Up those wooden hills

I'm not sure whether we've mentioned this before, But Maddy has spent the last 12 months living a rather sedentary existence. Long after her other friends started bombing around on their hands and knees, Maddy still had a limited travelling radius which didn't extend beyond where she could reach or fall.

So it's come as something of a surprise to us that she's not only started walking, but has also acquired additional skills to aid her to get from A to B. Crawling has recently been mastered. And yesterday we discovered her climbing the stairs. Completely on her own, wobbling precariously about 9 steps up.

Yes. We did panic...