I think my son may have kissed the Blarney stone in a previous life…. Barely past the age of one and the extent of his vocabulary simply amazes me! I guess when your Mummy & Daddy are quite partial to repartee, one supposes it’s a given you’ll inherit the gift of the gab. Not to mention I was saying my first words at six months old so I guess my son (distinctly “Webeck” in so many ways”) was well overdue to take after his Mother just a little.

After uttering his first “Bub Bub Bub Bub” aged almost 7 months old, Harrison has not ceased with the chit chat since! He’s followed up with a string of the usual suspects (Mum-Mum, Dada, Nan-Nan, Poppy and all the accompanying abbreviated and lengthened versions of each) and now is adding “No no no no no!” (one to rival that of Gus Gould lamenting a rueful decision on Friday Night Football), “Stop it”, “Don’t Touch” – yes, as you no doubt correctly assumed, they are all phrases he hears on a regular basis. But the cutest ones right now are “Tiger” – as in Woods, his Daddy’s golfing hero, and in the bath just before he even said his own name “Harry” ! Bless…. Mental note however, must start watching what I say, lest he drop a few choice words at Daycare…

And even the garbled babble that you accustom with toddlers is something that brings great delight to my boy. He’ll happily warble on with unintelligible accounts of whatever he is doing, as if providing a running commentary for me as he goes about his day. Ray Warren watch you’re back! Either that or a life on the public speaking circuit awaits…

Silence is no longer golden; its just completely absent from our lives! But we wouldn’t have it any other way.

My most heart-warming memory however was a few weeks back after walking in the door from a challenging day at work. My son swung around to greet me, emitting an exultant “Mummy!” before clambering excitedly over to me for a cuddle. Oh it made me melt, not only that he was so visibly excited to see me, but that he had placed just who I was in his world…. Mummy…