Much excitement today at Carmen's ability to recognise and say the word "duck". She loves the Muppet "Rubber Ducky" song and enjoys playing with her ducks in the bath, so it's not surprising.
In My Day
My mother always said that my first word was "duck" and I loved to play with my ducks. We had a garden full of chickens, geese and ducks (a remnant of war time efforts to be self-supporting, I believe). So I probably saw them from my vantage point in the big pram; the big pram being where I, along with most other children of my generation, spent a lot of time.
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| Me inspecting new-born geese |
We didn't have many toys back in the post-war years, so I don't suppose that the ducks had much competition. But I apparently couldn't bear to be parted from mine.
Sometime later, I first encountered penguins. I logically made the connection between my beloved ducks and the fact that penguins are upright and spindly and called them "pinducks" - a name that was used by the family for years.
Carmen is visiting this weekend and we have a flotilla of ducks, who actually say "quack" quite a lot, swimming on the stream, so we are watching out for her reaction when she sees the real thing. I don't know whether she'll graduate to "pinduck", despite having a photo of a penguin on her bedroom wall.
1 comment:
When I was young - can't remember exactly how old, we went en famille to Edinburgh and saw the penguin walkabout at the zoo. I think one of them grabbed my coat, but this may be apocryphal!
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