Walking

Is it really March?

Friday 16th March 2012Thursday 3rd January 2013Baggie

After the once in four years update without photos (I think there may have been one very early on) we are back on track. A new month has begun and the weather has truly turned vernal, despite the fact that spring is still over a week away. Not that I have been able to enjoy much of it since I have been in work 11 out of the past 12 days. That is not strictly true as for two of those days (one night) I was away in Switzerland with work. First work trip away for 6 months and Éowyn wasn’t too pleased. In fact, she was a little off with me when I returned and made me work to get back in her good books.

Éowyn has been in our good books of late, as her behaviour continues to improve. I am not saying for one moment that she is a little angel but there has definitely been an improvement. However she still knows her own mind and can be extremely stubborn, if there is something that she doesn’t want to do it is extremely hard to convince her otherwise. This is something that anyone who has to look after for any length of time will attest to. The staff at playbox are no exception. This week saw the equivalent of a parents’ evening, except that is was a Thursday morning. Unfortunately I was a work so Lucinda had to go solo and without anyone to look after Éowyn and Amélie they had to go too! The school report was nothing that we hadn’t expected, Éowyn can be stubborn and wilful but she has a good imagination, and is very clever (more of than later). In fact her and one of her friends had built an impromptu stage and put a singing performance for the other children. Everyone was really impressed with them because there had been no encouragement to do it, they just did it off their own backs and both enjoyed doing it and the other children enjoyed watching them. So we have a little starlet in our home.

She also uses that imagination for other things. One that made me laugh the other day happened just as I was putting her to bed. Instead of me reading stories to her, she said that she would sing songs to me. Fine I thought. So she got a book off the shelf, turned to the index and asked me what song I would like. I asked her what songs were in the book and she began to list the usual nursery rhymes. ‘Sing me Humpty Dumpty, please.‘ I ask. ‘The new version or the old version?‘ she replies. That caught me by surprise. ‘The new version.’ I answer.

“Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall. He didn’t fall off. A man sat down beside him and they had a chat.‘ Maybe she needs to work on her rhyming but I love the thinking behind this. Humpty Dumpty obviously only fell off the wall once, and that is all anyone remembers! He must of sat on that wall many times before and nothing happened, but the one time you fall off someone makes a rhyme about it and you are immortalised as the idiot that fell off the wall.

The staff at Playbox though have realised that Éowyn’s stubborn streak makes reprimanding her very difficult at times. So their new approach has been to encourage her good behaviour rather than chastise her bad behaviour. So when she does something good (like tidying the toys away) she gets a sticker and a little certificate. We now have a collection of them adorning our fridge. It certainly seems to be working at the moment. We will see how it pans out.

The encouragement method is something that we do with Éowyn quite often and at the moment she has two big projects. Both involve posters adorning our walls. One is a list of fruit and vegetables and the other is the numbers 1 to 100. Éowyn used to be so good at eating and would demolish anything that was put in front of her, but lately she has been slipping into bad habits and only eating a small range of foods. Obviously it is a control thing, at three years old there is very little that you have control over in your life but eating is definitely one of them. So instead of making it a big thing we have turned it into a game. The poster has a number of fruit and vegetables and everytime Éowyn tries one she gets to put a tick sticker next to it. If she likes it, she can put a star sticker next to it. If she manages to try all of the fruit and vegetables on the poster by Easter then she gets to choose her own Easter egg.

The other poster (with the numbers 1 to 100) was brought to try and challenge her. The idea being that we will get her to be able to count up to 100. So we got the poster out, said that if she can learn her numbers then she will get a Susie Sheep toy to go with her other Peppa Pig characters. ‘OK, Daddy,‘ she says, ‘let’s have a go.‘ Lo and behold she counts up to 100 without any assistance. Too clever! However, she still hasn’t quite earned her Susie Sheep yet because she can’t identify specific numbers. For instance if you ask her to point to number 85, without fail she points to 58 and likewise with other numbers. I think it is quite common that kids read numbers right to left, rather than left to right (maybe our Western numerical system is wrong) when they begin to read, so we will work on that and then she can have her Susie Sheep.

The big news of the last couple of weeks revolve around Amélie, not only has she finally given up crawling and taken to walking full time (about time the lazy monkey!) but we have moved her out of our bedroom. The original plan, was to wait until she slept through the night and then move her into Éowyn’s room as we thought it unfair to disturb Éowyn’s sleep. Unfortunately, she has never been a good sleeper and after 18 months of sleepless night we noticed a pattern. Whenever Amélie woke up disturbed she would look for Lucinda and start crying to be picked up and cuddled. However, if Lucinda wasn’t there then she would settle herself back to sleep. Therefore the decision was made to move her into the box room, which is my office/library. After a day of dismantling cots/computer desks and de-rigging my technical set up Amélie now has her own room (ish). Has it worked? So far so good. Even the 0600 cry for milk is no longer too early because there hasn’t been a 0100 and 0300 wake up call prior to that. Why didn’t we do this 12 months ago? It doesn’t matter for it is done now!

Again, I must end this update on a sad note. My Uncle Roy (my Dad’s youngest brother) passed away last Wednesday succumbing to the cancer he has been fighting for the last few months. He is the third of the five brothers to pass away (after my Dad and Uncle Pete). Our thoughts are with my Auntie, my cousins and their children.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Moody model look

Reflections

I’m not going to suck my thumb!

I can walk, but I can’t read

Feeling dizzy

Land ahoy!

I’ll make you go fast

Arrgghh!

That was fun!

Don’t tickle me

Swing out sister

Whee!

How do you fly this thing?

I think it is this button

Smile for the camera!

We both like the trampoline

Oops, I’ve fallen

Soft landing though!

Early morning photo call

Cheeky grin

Right, I’m off!

Has Spring, sprung?

Monday 27th February 2012Friday 11th May 2012Baggie

It seems that we go from one extreme to another with our weather. After a week of freezing temperatures and snow across the land, we now have unseasonably warm weather with the mercury touching 17°C (19°C in some places!) and the news that the south east of England is in drought conditions due to lack of rainfall. Not bad for February!

Éowyn’s behaviour has improved immensely. Obviously it has been half-term and so we have been able to spend time with her, without her feeling that she is being dumped from one place to another. Now she is back at school and we return to the old routine we need to be conscious of not letting the impetus and her behaviour slip. So far, she has been very well behaved and is receiving copious amounts of encouragement from Mommy and Daddy for this, which she is responding to in the manner we would like.

Last weekend (the end of the half term break) we travelled up the M40 to West Bromwich and Nanny Fran (and Auntie Liz of course). We arrived Saturday morning, dropped the girls off with auntie Liz and headed to Great Uncle Albert’s house to help get it ready for an estate agent viewing. As you may recall Uncle Albert passed away at the end of January and now there is the difficult task of sorting out his estate, which includes selling his house. Myself and Lucinda joined Nanny Fran, her cousin Ray and Uncle Albert’s friend Yvonne to try and sort the house out. His house had been broken into during the week but it was difficult for us to determine what had been taken as we did not (obviously) have an inventory. It is quite upsetting to think that some burglar had been in Uncle Albert and Auntie Iris’s house and gone through their things. We found it very difficult looking through someone’s personal effects but nevertheless fascinating at the same time, especially looking through the effects of someone who has lived for so long and through many interesting times. One of the most interesting things that we found was an old newspaper (The Birmingham Mail) that was lining one of his drawers. It was from Friday 28th March 1958 and there was an article bemoaning the fact that televising football matches was having a detrimental effect on attendances. Specifically, the F.A. Cup semi-final replay at Highbury (it doesn’t mention the teams but I believe it to be Manchester United (who won the game 5-3 but lost to Bolton Wanderers in the Final 2-0) v Fulham and was actually played on the 26th March 1958) where there were only 38,000 supporters in a ground that could hold 68,000. It is only a small article but it mentions the fact that the grounds are poorly constructed without a thought for the fans so a ‘lukewarm soccer supporter‘ will stay at home if he has a TV set and the clubs will miss his two shillings! The article concludes that ‘Big games belong to the nation and television is a link. It must not become the game’s ball and chain.‘ So the arguments between television rights and the fan that turns up every week to watch his (or her) team haven’t changed that much in 54 years!

Éowyn and Amélie were very well behaved for their Auntie Liz and were extremely excited to see their Nanny Fran when we returned from Great Barr. They both like to see their Nanny Fran (and Auntie Liz) and enjoy playing with the toys that Nanny Fran has at her house (some of which were mine!). Nanny Fran looked after Amélie over night so Lucinda and I got a little bit of a easier night, although someone should have told Éowyn!

We returned back to Middlesex Sunday afternoon (so it really was a flying visit) so that Éowyn could have an early night ready for her return to pre-school after the half term break. And so Monday morning Éowyn returned to the routine of schooling. I was off work and so Lucinda, Amélie and I headed to Kingston-Upon-Thames for some shopping. Amélie needed new shoes and I needed a new suit for a black tie event (but more of that later) as my old suit is far too big for me as I now weigh 4 stone (56 pounds for Americans or 25.5kgs for everyone else) less than I did the last time I had to wear that suit. One successful shopping trip later we returned home with everything we had gone for and the cherry on the cake was the fact that Éowyn received glowing praise from her pre-school teachers.

As I mentioned in the last write up, Éowyn has stopped wearing nappies to bed. This has been on the whole a great success however, whether it was worries about going to pre-school or just because she was going to bed very tired but she had accidents two nights running. We have been lulled into a false sense of security and believed that she would just go from the safety of nappies to not wearing nappies in a heartbeat. Obviously it is never that easy and she has done remarkably well but now we need to help her. So, when Lucinda and I go to bed which is usually a couple or three hours after Éowyn we have taken to waking her and leading her to the potty and trying to get her to have a wee so hopefully she will then last through the night or just get into the habit of getting out of bed when she recognises the need.

Wednesday, Lucinda was working so before I headed to Chiswick and work I did the usual double drop off of Amélie to Jo’s and Éowyn to pre-school. I also had to make sure that I had my new suit, dress shirt and dickie bow. For IMG mediahouse were sponsoring a table at the RTS Television Journalism Awards which was held at the Hilton in Park Lane. It was my first award ceremony and although thoroughly exciting it was also very humbling to be there. We work in television but it puts our work into sharp perspective when you hear the stories of the embedded and uncover journalists that risk their lives daily to bring the truth to our television schedules. Indeed the evening was somewhat overshadowed by the death of Marie Colvin an American journalist working for the Sunday Times in Syria. Indeed the list of the those journalists that had lost their lives in the line of duty this past year was sobering as were the stories that the won many of the journalists their awards. Sports television doesn’t seem half as important any more.

I returned home at 0100 but unfortunately didn’t manage to get the 5 hours of sleep I was hoping for. Lucinda had called me in the afternoon to say that Amélie had been sick at Jo’s and so to prevent the spread of any possible virus that she may have she would have to be dropped at Nanny and Granddad’s, although Éowyn would still need to be dropped off at Jo’s. Amélie’s sickness continued through the night and the next morning, and indeed throughout Friday. Unfortunately because we have begun to test her milk protein intolerance we are unsure whether the sickness was due to a reaction to milk protein or whether it was indeed a virus. So once she has fought this sickness we will have to go back a step on testing her milk protein intolerance and see if it happens again, that will prove whether it was the milk protein intolerance or just a virus. However, the poor girl has been suffering, which is never good to see and it has affected her sleeping which therefore means that neither Lucinda or I got much sleep either. But she has come out of the other side of it now and just needs to regain her strength.

Therefore, if you will excuse me I will take advantage of a day off and try and put some sleep back into the sleep bank but before I go I am afraid that I have some more bad news. The sister of one of my Mom’s friends and my eldest sister’s god mother passed away on 20th February. Auntie Anne (as we called her) ran a B&B in St Ives, Cornwall for many years a place that we spent a number of holidays when we were children. She leaves her sister, Teresa and our thoughts are with her.

Peace and love

Baggie

You taking photos again?

On Mommy’s lap

Aaarrrrgggghhhhhh!

Smile for Nanny Fran

Smile for Éowyn

Give it here, I’ll show you how to do it

Emotional phonecall

Emotional phonecall (part II)

This is an emotional phonecall

I’m walking!

Hello!

I’ll have this

International dog-wrestling!

You have the better of me

I yield!

Just chilling on the floor

The best way to watch telly

Oh Daddy!

The snow, it’s bin and gone and ‘ay come again!

Tuesday 14th February 2012Friday 24th February 2012Baggie

We are midway through February (frightening isn’t it?) and since the last update the fortnight seems to have been filled with many events but without a lot happening too. I can see a lot of quizzical looks at that apparent oxymoronic statement.

I took the last of the last year’s holiday entitlement on the first Friday of February to give myself a long weekend. Thus I decided to go and pick Éowyn up from playbox. I am waiting outside with the other mothers when the door opened and I was beckoned inside. Éowyn had been misbehaving all day, culminating it her hitting another child with a wooden piano across the head. I felt like a child who had been summoned into the Headmaster’s office and sat there mortified at what she had done. Éowyn can be wilful and determined but this was a step into uncharted territory and something that we obviously need to nip in the bud.

Children’s behaviour is very rarely an isolated change in their personality but more a response to an external situation however trivial that it seems to those around them (probably true of adults too!). The trick is identifying it and neutralising it, but not allowing the crimes to go unpunished either. (That is what we are attempting anyhow, we’ll let you know in 20 years if it works.) So what are the stimuli that are causing Éowyn to behave the way she is. It is her little sister. Not directly but the attention that Amélie receives and encouragement she is getting for doing things that Éowyn can easily do is probably the first and foremost reason. This is not to say that Éowyn does not get any attention but she has to share that attention. So therefore when she wants the attention and she is not getting the attention she requires immediately then she is naughty: for then she gets the attention. It might be Mommy or Daddy telling her off but it is attention and more importantly Amélie is not getting any while we are pre-occupied with her. Knowing the psychology is easy, putting it into practise when you have two screaming kids running around; you need to get the dinner ready; you are not feeling well and the telephone is ringing is a different matter. So stricter and fairer and more conscious of how we are treating them both is the regime going forward.

The weekend gave a good excuse to have some Daddy and Éowyn time: it snowed. It was the first dump of snow that the South East of England had seen this winter and although it wasn’t a fall of snow that I recall from my childhood it was certainly enough snow to build a snowman. Unfortunately Lucinda was at work and since it was cold (not as cold as it has been across Europe, where record lows were being recorded) and I wanted it to be a special time for Éowyn we had to wait until Amélie had a mid morning nap. This meant that a number of the neighbours had already build their snowmen by the time that we got out and, also the day had warmed and then cooled so that the snow wasn’t as light and fluffy as it had been first thing. Nevertheless, relatively happy with our snowmen (look at the photos below) and Éowyn thoroughly enjoyed making them (the heads we solely her creations). It was amusing that the following day the temperature had warmed such that all the lying snow melted and all that was left was a scattering of snow zombies as the snowmen’s features slowly melted during the day then refroze at night. It then turned bitterly cold for nearly a week and no further melting took place. We then received a second (smaller) fall of snow that re-coated everything before the temperature has returned to more usual February temperatures and only the carcasses of the snow zombies remain (although I do not give them very more days of survival in these conditions).

Amélie is still resisting the complete transition to bipedal locomotion. Her attempts are more frequent and she can totter around for quite a while before gravity wins the argument but she still prefers the racing crawl method or shuffles about on her knees. She is such a lazy tyke. She gets away with it because she has a big sister that will do things for her and she has such a cheeky grin when she wants to get her own way. We will have to see what we can do to encourage the full move, but at least it is a step in the right direction (see what I did there?).

Thursday 10th February was Uncle Albert’s funeral. I had been asked to say a few words (the first time I had been asked to speak at a funeral) and in a strange way I was looking forward to it. However fate had other ideas. Éowyn had been under the weather for a couple of days and didn’t really think too much of it as kids are always feeling grotty as their immune systems encounter attacks for the first time and busy themselves creating defences. However on the Tuesday Lucinda began to feel ill and then on the Wednesday I was knocked for six. So much so that I went home early from work on Wednesday (I never go home ill) and on the Thursday could only drag myself out of bed to lie on the sofa (and Lucinda the same). Fortunately I had the wherewithal on the Wednesday night to call Mom to tell her that we wouldn’t be attending (the funeral was at 1000 and that would mean leaving at 0700 and with all the will in the world even if I fell 100 times better there was no way it was going to happen) the fact that we were worse the next day justified that decision. It was sad that we never managed to say goodbye to Uncle Albert (although I am sure he understood) and hello to a lot of relatives that we don’t see very often. Uncle Albert’s death has left my Nan as the sole living representative of her generation on either side of our family.

Éowyn has taken a big step forward in growing up. She decided last Saturday night that she didn’t want to wear a nappy to bed any more. She has been nappy free in the day for many months but has always wanted the confidence of a nappy on at night. Not any more. She said that she didn’t want it so we didn’t put it on her. We put her potty near her bed so she didn’t have to go too far in the night and prepared ourselves for wet pyjamas and changing the bedclothes. We need not have fretted she has made the transition effortlessly so far. She was obviously ready and waited until she knew herself that she was ready and that was it.

To reward this, and to give me an excuse to go and see it too, I took Éowyn to the cinema for the first time. It is half-term so there are a number of films out aimed at kids (and big kids) and there are special early showtimes too. When I was a little older than Éowyn is now, one of my favourite shows was The Muppet Show. I own a number of DVDs of The Muppets and Éowyn has seen some of them so when I heard that the new Muppet movie was out for half term the choice of which film to go and see was made easy. I think Éowyn was over-awed by the whole cinema experience although overall she seemed to thoroughly enjoy it (probably not as much as her dad did!). She didn’t think much of popcorn and was frustrated by all the adverts and trails for other films (aren’t we all). The little Toy Story short before the film was a bonus and she sat as good as gold for the entire length of the film. I would quite happily take her to see another film again, and knowing my love of the cinema and of ‘children’s movies’ it would be no great hardship.

Anyhow, I will leave you with that (go and see the movie if only for a barbershop quartet rendition of Nirvana’s ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ – you have been warned).

Peace and Love

Baggie