Perform boy!

Today we had Charles' two year check and the health visitor came to our house. ' Course this meant getting up super-early in order to scrub the floors, dust the skirting boards and scour the kitchen cupboards because, as I was explaining to my bemused husband, if the house isn't spotless she might think we aren't good parents. I was imagining her (on a broomstick - goes without saying) whisking in, checking my mantlepeice and swiping my babes off out of my arms.

Fortunatly the smiley kind-faced health visitor arrived fairly broomstick-less, in her Renault as it goes, and seemed remarkably unfussed by my skirting boards which, as they'd experienced their first clean since the bizarre nesting urges I'd had over two years ago,  I felt like pointing out to her; "go ahead, check them". "Take a seat", said I, which she did without so much as running a finger along our dustless bookshelves.

Now, Charles loves it when people come to our house but today he was all out of enthusiasm for his guest and refused to play ball, or play anything really, except for the harmonica in fact which he did for half an hour before trying relentlessly to turn on the telly, just to embarass me. So whilst I was busy bragging about all the enriching activities we get up to, Charles was pressing the remote in a manner that screamed; "I didn't know this picture box could turn off!"

Charles also exercised his right to remain silent this morning. In seriousness this has resulted in us being referred to a speech and language therapist, which I am pleased about because firstly I think he is a little behind a few of his peers and secondly I'm always up for some advice on helping my kids, and am genuinly interested in all things child-developmentally-ish! (Great language from Mum today too!)

I myself was fairly flumoxed with some of the questions; "how many words does he have?" - well are these words that I understand or that are actual words recognised as English? For example "goos" has practically become our family word for shoes but I am aware it hasn't been officially changed as of yet. "Can he string two or more words together?" errm no, don't think so, at which point Charles' first utterance of the session emerged as "Oh no", so err yes he can and errm yes I do pay attention, promise!

Oh yes and another thing he's officially fat and quite short too. We are changing to semi-skimmed.

All this said I am truly grateful for checks like this. Far better that we get nice smiley ladies at our doors than spend the early hours googling potential problems and self-diagnose our tots with everything out there. I love getting tips and advice, because like most Mums I know, I need reassurance and help as I am not well trained in Mummyology. Oh and we got our new Bookstart packs too, which the government have swirved a U-turn on ditching, hurrah for the lovely smell of new books...