Bit by bit, Fiona’s nature is unfolding before us. She has always been a centred little thing, with a certain poise to her gestures and a grounding of deep silence to her warmth. She’s the kind of girl who loves her cuddles, but loves her quiet times with her books as well.

This is not to say that she is never silly. Witness our conversation yesterday:

F: Mommy!
A: Nony!
F: I not Nony. I Nona!
A (deliberatly misunderstanding): Nana? ¹
F: No, I not nana!
A: No? What are you, then?
F: I apple!

She’s also just old enough to find Martin’s and my long-running game of randomly swapping the words “nose” and “knee” funny. She certainly did this morning.

You gotta laugh. I did.

Taken 24 February 2006

In other news, last Monday I was picking the kids up from nursery. Alex, who has only now become interested in representational art, presented me with a picture of a number of space ships and aliens in battle, with lines connecting them up to show their alliances and actions. Even his drawings are social. Fiona, less obsessed with diagrams than appearances, drew a swirl of circles on the page, looked up at me and said, “Datsa moon, Mama!”

It was her first drawing of something, at two, while her brother has only started getting serious about it at 4 3/4. How can my children be so very different?