Obsessions

Jamie has many of these:

1. Green men - I've blogged before about the green man pedestrian crossing obsession, and it shows no signs of abating. I do try to just go with it, but it's a right pain in the a*se sometimes. If someone else has already pressed the button, he stops in his tracks and will not approach until it's gone back to red. The latest thing is that after crossing the road, he then wants to press the button again, then we carry on walking/scootering onwards on our journey, with him looking back behind him waiting to see the green man reappear. Gah! I've started to dread the walk to and from playgroup as there are about 8 crossings and it takes so bloody long!

2. Flushing the toilet - another one that has been around for several months, since the start of potty training really. He cries if he hears someone else flush our loo instead of him. I think it used to be a problem at playgroup, as they often told me he'd spent half the session in the loo - but more recently he's got very into painting and drawing, and I think that has distracted him a bit.

3. Switching the kettle on - he has to do it, or a crying fit will be the result. Same goes for pushing down the toast - and a new one, putting Daisy's nappies into the outside bin and recycling into the box - all these tasks must be carried out by Jamie, and Jamie alone.

4. Letters and numbers - he now knows all the letters, both upper and lower case, and numbers 0-10. Did you know that all lampposts and traffic lights have a number stuck on them? No? Well I do, because we have to stop at every single one (when walking obviously - not driving!) so that he can read them. Another reason why our walks to playgroup/tesco/anywhere really take twice as long as they should.

I do worry, though. Words like "aspergers" sometimes flash into my head, because he is SO dogmatic and determined about these things and just can't be swayed. I'm hoping it's just a phase. It's difficult when it's your first child, as it's hard to know what's normal and what isn't. I'm worried about his social skills at the moment too. Recently, when we've met up with friends and their kids, he's seemed to prefer to play on his own. He seems better with just one friend - he'll play then, but in a big group he doesn't always join in.

As for the letters - on the one hand, I'm proud of him for having learned them. But I know they teach reading via phonics at primary school, so he really needs to know the letter sounds, rather than their names. So I'm going to look for some books or videos on Youtube to see if I can get him saying the sounds. This has all come from him by the way - I haven't pushed it on him at all and didn't want to "teach" him anything so formal at this age. It worries me that when he starts school, he'll be bored if he already knows all the stuff they'll be learning. Or that I'll teach him it wrong and he'll have to unlearn everything. My mum tells me that I could read before I went to school, but times have changed and it's much more about learning through play at their age now. From what I've heard from primary teachers, the main things they need are a love of learning and of books - if they have those things, they'll do really well.

Holidays!

We had another week in Woolacombe last week. The weather wasn't brilliant - cool and cloudy mostly, but that didn't stop us having a good time. The holiday park has outdoor and indoor pools, so we did a lot of swimming, and also had a couple of barbecues, despite the lack of sunshine. Jamie loved the kids' entertainment in the evening - lots of cheesy music and dancing.



We had one day where the sun shone and the surf was perfect, so we had a fab day on the beach that day. Daisy had her first proper dip in the sea and loved it, it was so funny watching her paddling in, then turning and running away from the waves as they came towards her.



She's got another couple of words recently - chicken and duck :)

A true redhead

Up until fairly recently, I would have described Daisy's personality as "placid" and perhaps "easy-going". If people asked how I'd found having two kids, I'd have told them what a good, easy baby she has been, no trouble at all, etc etc.

Not any more! She seems to be developing a temperament to match her hair colour: fiery and feisty. She lets out a scream if something is taken off her (a common occurrence with Jamie around), she has a vice-like grip, surprising strength given her size, and getting her to let go of things is a real struggle. She can spot chocolate and crisps at a distance and makes it very clear what she wants, toddling over, pointing and gesturing. (And how bad do I feel that at a similar age, Jamie wouldn't even have known what chocolate and crisps were...an indication of how much more relaxed I've been about "bad" food second time around).

She's also becoming a total handful to take out to toddler groups and parks. I have to follow her around constantly as she loves to climb on things and get into all sorts of dangerous situations. When removed from these situations, she screams, cries, wriggles to be put down...all very reminiscent of toddler tantrums...she seems to think she's 2 years old, not 1! Luckily, Jamie is at an age where I can trust him to play fairly nicely unsupervised, so I can give most of my attention to the little daredevil.

She's so clever as well! I'm not saying this in an annoying boastful mummy way, honestly! Of course everyone thinks their child is clever - I think Jamie is too. But she seems to be doing things a lot sooner than he did and her understanding amazes me sometimes. In the interests of recording her progress (which is one of the main reasons for writing this blog) and NOT to show off (!), she can now say the following words/phrases, in context:

- ball

- tea (for a cup of tea, pretend or real)

- hat

- cat (both real life cats and ones she sees in books)

- dadda

- mumma

- there you go (when handing me something)

- yeah - this is the one that really stops me in my tracks - I'll say "do you want some milk Daisy?", and she'll say, "yeah".

- Yesterday, Jamie was filling the washing machine with laundry (still a favourite activity) and I was looking for the little cup that you put the washing gel into. Daisy spotted it under the table and crawled to get it - without me asking her to or pointing to it or anything.

I think I'm more shocked by what she can do because she's so petite and small that to me, she still looks like a baby. People are often surprised when I say she's 13 months as I think she looks younger.

I love seeing her personality emerging. And despite the fact that she's probably going to turn me grey very soon with her antics, I love that she's feisty and tough and can stand up for herself. I think Jamie's days of being top dog are numbered and fairly soon she's going to be bossing him around and twisting him round her little finger.

Room sharing update

It seems to have worked well! I've got the bedtime routine sorted - read them both a story on Jamie's bed, say goodnight to him and take Daisy to our room to feed her, then take her back in and put her in the cot - by which time, Jamie should be asleep.

We did have a bad week recently, where Daisy woke at around midnight, I went in and fed her as usual, and then she screamed blue murder when I tried to put her back down. Proper, hysterical screaming that no amount of controlled crying or shhh-patting would put an end to. We ended up having to carry Jamie into our room so he could sleep in our bed with Wayne, while I slept in his bed with Daisy. This went on for about 10 nights and we thought we were never going to be able to break the habit and get us all back in the right beds, but *fingers crossed* for the last 2 nights, she's only woken once at about 3am, and has settled quickly after a feed. Going from 7.30pm to 3am is the longest continual stretch she's slept for in...ooooh, about a year!! Long may it continue...who knows, maybe one day soon she'll actually sleep through the night!

Terrible threes?

So we had the terrible twos, the stage I have found most difficult so far in the parenting of Jamie, between about 2 years 3 months and 2 years 9 months. But for the 3 months or so approaching his third birthday, we seemed to enter calmer waters, he was altogether much more pleasant, better at communicating his needs, and I felt we were getting on really well.

However, things are beginning to change and it looks as though all that pleasantness was the calm before the storm, lulling me into a false sense of security that it would be plain sailing from here on in. (OK, I think that's enough nautical analogies for one blog post!)

He's become a lot more difficult recently. He's started pinching me and doing a really high-pitched scream whenever he's told "no" or something is taken off him. If he can't reach me to pinch, he'll look for Daisy and try to hit her. He'll also do things to be deliberately naughty - slamming doors, throwing things, messing about with the phone, etc. I'm trying to be consistent with him, and any of that behaviour results in "time out" in his room. I gave up on the naughty step a long time ago - he would just not stay put on it, and I had to stand over him to stop him from running off - which just gave him attention and he thought it was all hilariously funny. So he gets put in his room, giving us both space to cool down. I also try really hard not to shout, because that just sets him off even more. I find being relentlessly calm and lowering my voice works better - although in the heat of the moment I often do shout.

I still think a lot of it comes down to attention, and my crapness at giving him the quality attention he needs. I said a few posts back that I was going to try and spend more time doing things he likes, instead of relying on Cbeebies to keep him busy, and I have done that to some extent. I do get the paint, glue, glitter etc, out whenever he asks (which is nearly every day) and try not to stress about the mess that he creates. I have tried to sit with him when he's watching TV. I have tried to encourage him to help with cooking and washing up, instead of seeing it as an annoyance. But I know I could do more, and it's when I'm busy on the laptop or my phone that he often starts playing up - to get my attention. When he's occupied and doing something he enjoys, he's still my lovely, sweet little boy.

The Race for Life

I did my 10Km race for life this morning, in 1 hour and 10 minutes. In all honesty, I'm really disappointed with the time, as I've done it in 1.06 in training and was really hoping for a PB. I don't seem to perform well in races! I felt I'd prepared as well as I could have - I'd got my long run up to 8 miles, had done the 10K distance 3 or 4 times, ate breakfast really early, drank lots of water yesterday and this morning.

I do have a number of excuses: 1. It was very hot and sunny and there was no shade; 2. The course was much more hilly than I was expecting, in fact it was pretty much constant up and down; 3. The running surface was dodgy - a mixture of grass, tarmac, sand and some weird woodchip type stuff that I seemed to sink into. I think the heat was the main factor though - I just don't run well if it's sunny and the temperature climbs above about 18 degrees.

Still, I'm glad I did it, I raised £100 for Cancer Research UK, there was a great atmosphere and it was a good experience . But, as I was running, I was thinking about the half marathon in September and wondering how on earth I will be able to run over twice as far by then. It's only 2 months away now, so I have some serious training to do between now and then!