Why do babies need pockets on their clothes?

And, perhaps more to the point, why do I feel the need to check them when doing the laundry? I mean, what on earth am I expecting to find that N has put in there? But I must admit, I have a bit of a gripe when it comes to children's clothes. F's wardrobe is awash with pink and I don't mind a bit of pink, but it is almost impossible sometimes to buy girl's clothes that aren't all cutesy and girly and it can get a bit tiring when everything is all frilly and pretty. I've taken to buying some of the more neutral boy's clothes for her (and that way they can also be used for N - woohoo, two birds and all that) to try and dilute the frills a bit.

Anyway, we recently had Mormor and Grandpa to visit for a week which was lovely. They were suitably impressed by N's BLW, although we all agreed that it is a bit of a naff name. So upon observing N demolish a potato wedge, Grandpa swiftly renamed it 'Full On Food' which seems much more fitting.

N has come on leaps and bounds on the food front. He's on a good 3 meals a day (as well as milk of course). We inadvertently introduced a bit of spoon food at the weekend though. Went to the 3rd birthday party of the son of some friends of ours. They served up a fab cottage pie for supper (I love cottage pie - firm favourite in this household). Put some on a plate for N and then wondered how to get it in him seeing as we're doing this big chunks, self-feeding thing. So I loaded a teaspoon and let him take it, while hovering my hand nearby in case of steadying (so spoon feeding but with N taking the lead). He wolfed it down - blimmin well went and ate the entire plateful. I'm telling you, that boy is a stomach on legs. He also managed the spoon pretty well considering. Of course there was a bit of mess, but not too much (and easily cleaned up).

The friends that we visited at the weekend are also a bi-lingual family (English, Danish). Was nice to hear some proper English English on a native, mother-tongue sort of level. I was very impressed by their 3 year old - he is coming out with full on sentences in both English and Danish. It's nice to see little success stories like this now and then because it gives you the confidence to keep at it with your own children (F is a little bit behind her friends at nursery linguistically speaking, although I am proud of her and think she is doing marvellously juggling with 3 languages).

And finally, I have decided to have a bash at learning Spanish. It is my ambition to learn both Spanish and Russian, and I have been working on the Russian alphabet and have picked up a fair amount of words from listening to S and F. However, in honour of our intended trip to visit Abuelo and Babushka in Mexico next year, I am very keen to have at least a smattering of Spanish. If only to be able to ask my Mexican family-in-law to pass the tortillas during dinner. Spanish lessons once a week also has the added bonus of giving S time alone with the children (father bonding, or rather 'see how hard it is, you better appreciate what I do every day') as well as giving me time away from the children. Much as I love them and being with them, it will be nice to use my brain for something other than singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' over and over again in different voices.

Well...

... apparently the world didn't end yesterday, so I think that's as good an excuse to start blogging again as any.

We had some friends over briefly yesterday. Another multi-lingual family with the mother speaking Bulgarian, the father speaking Danish and S, their daughter who is 5 months older than F, also watches Cbeebies on BBC Prime every morning (like in our house - well it's for linguistic development so therefore educational and thus 'approved' ;-) so that she can perhaps pick up a bit of English too.

S, like F, has her language default setting firmly stuck on Danish. Having said that, S understands Bulgarian and also came out with a bit of Bulgarian. Her mum takes a similar approach to me in as much as she continuously speaks to her daughter in Bulgarian (well, obviously I don't continuously speak to my children in Bulgarian because then I'd be, well, silent. Maybe instead I should write 'mother tongue'). And when she catches herself speaking Danish (as invariably happens) then she translates what she has just said into Bulgarian.

It's apparently a common problem, this trying to squeeze one's mother tongue into one's children in a foreign country. Invariably the community language holds a dominant position, because let's face it, you're not going to get much of a response if you go round asking for ice-creams using Russian when you're in Denmark.

S and her mother are off to Bulgaria next week for a week. And this, I hear from others more experienced than myself in these matters, is the trick. Regular trips and complete linguistic and cultural submersion in order to give a context. Helps to put a bit more substance behind it all so it's not simply a case of humouring Mummy and Papa when they're talking a bit funny. I need to plan a trip to the UK and S (my husband, not my daughter's 2 year old friend) needs to plan a trip to Russia.

As for N, he may not speaking but he has just started eating. It's all exciting stuff here. As he's turned 6 months, we've started giving this BLW thing a bash. All seems to be going well so far and I must admit, it's great to finally have an excuse for his bathtime.

(BLW by the way is essentially just skipping the whole spoon-fed phase of weaning and going straight to finger foods. Very easily googled for those wanting to know more.)

Since last week, he has had potato wedges (loved), roasted carrot (loved), roasted parsnip (loved), banana (messy and very much loved), avocado (couldn't pick up, didn't really get any in), avocado spread onto bread (much better, sucked all the avocado off), chicken drumstick (sucked a bit), a tortellini filled with cheese (not intended for him, swiped off my plate before I could say anything and he went and flipping well swallowed the bulk of it. Note to self, sit 2 feet away from the table if son is on lap during supper and you don't feel like sharing), cucumber (loved, think it felt very mice on his gums), porridge pancake (need to work on how to make these, I apparently must have made them too sloppy as he had trouble picking it up, but did manage to smear his fist in gooey porridge and suck some off. Nice). And, er, that's it I think? But not bad for a first week of weaning!

Oh yes, and one more thing; N has an eensy weensy little jagged edge of a first tooth peeking through his bottom gums. Like I said, it's all exciting stuff here.