Potties, stickers, crawling and blue fingers

Lois has started crawling. It’s not dignified but it gets her from A to B. She sort of uses one leg to proper herself forward and the other one, tucked underneath just sort of gets dragged along. She has been standing up for a few weeks now, bopping and holding onto carers’ fingers for balance (holding on so tight the other day whilst I was chatting to Lisa I suddenly realised the end of the finger she was clutching had gone cold and quite blue to the eye).

So, the stair-gates have been resurrected about the house in light of this new-found mobility. Ah well, it gives Louis some hurdling exercise.

Maisie said about her sister the other night “Lois doesn’t like to stop eating does she?”. There is more than a little truth in that statement. The nursery have also recorded in their notes about her something along the lines of “Lois is most content when her nutritional needs are begin met”.

Other development include our second attempt to potty-train Maisie which is going better than the first one. It seems we may even crack it this time as last night she did her first wee on a potty. She looked so pleased with herself. Mum came up with a great idea to try and encourage potty use – she bought lots of little toys from charity shops and wrapped them up in exciting gift wrap and then showed Maisie a box of presents on the understanding that every time she uses the potty she can pick one. Last night’s reward was a new dinosaur (we were running dangerously low on those I can tell you, nart!)

My Mum was been looking after Maisie and Lois on Wednesdays which had been a good arrangement. She gets some quality granddaughter time, Lisa gets some quality “me” (housework?) time.

We have also bought Maisie a bike. Actually we bought two. We spent last Saturday cruising the bike shops in Chesterfield. We ended up buying a thomas the tank engine one from Tesco on the basis that it said 2yrs+ and all other ones seemed to be 3yrs+ and just a little too big.

We got it home and built it only to find that it was too big and Maisie’s legs were some distance from the pedals. Poor Maisie was obviously disappointed by this and did not go to bed happy. Whilst I was putting her to bed she said “Mummy could get a bike!”. We took it back the next day and bought a better one from Halfords instead which she could just reach the pedals on but after a trip to the park meant that both parents would need to be present whenever the bike came out to avoid disasters.

People who do things

I heard someone at this University talking about children's language acquisition and he said something about how there is a bit of a leap conceptually in being able to go from describing what someone is doing to then describing them as someone who DOES that. An example used was showing a child a picture of some people playing football and asking what was happening. The child replied something like "Some people playing football". The child was then asked something like "So, what are these people called?".Instead of saying "footballers" the child looked glum and thoughtless. Game Over.

So, I thought I'd try this theory out with Maisie last night. I said "Maisie, what do you call people who play football?". She looked a bit confused and said "I don't know".

"Footballers!" I said. She didn't look very interested.

"Ok" I said "What do you call people who go shopping?". She shrugged again. "Shoppers!" I said.

Suddenly, she looked interested and interjected "What about people who go to Grandma's?".

"Erm, Grandma-ers?" I replied.

I think we cracked it.

Some people!

We sold our fridge freezer on ebay. We have an integrated one in the kitchen so since we’ve moved back there is no need for our old freestanding one (even though it is rather nice with its graphite finish, spacious interior and samsung emblem!)

I listed it on ebay and someone bought it. They came round to collect it yesterday as arranged. However, not only was the dude an hour late (which meant it interfered with the tea and bed time routine) and hadn’t been reading his emails nor a clue where to collect from but he also turned up on his own. WHO DOES THAT? Comes to pick up a 7ft fridge freezer on their own??

I ended up becoming quite frustrated with it all and once we had laboured to get it out of the house, I left him to faff with it (and boy did this man know how to procrastinate!) in the back of his van which was parked on our drive. I just apologised (vaguely) and then closed the front door and got on with tea, by which time Maisie had already fallen asleep on the sofa in all her clothes and an old nappy. Let the bottom-rash begin!

David Beckham today publically blamed the England players for the team’s non-tournament this summer. He’s probably right, however at the same event, he also announced his intention to continue playing for the national side. A brave statement considering he’s just dissed his dressing room companions. Gotta love that chap.

Lois has been doing more walking. She’s using the same walker that Maisie used when learning to be autonomously upright. It’s a very useful toy if you don’t take into account the range of chirpy annoying songs it produces.

Maisie brings her first tune to the song table

Maisie seems to have learned a new song, presumably at nursery since the words and hand movements are a mystery to me and Lisa. It’s incredibly cute. She just moves her hands over each other as if handling a hamster on the move and I’m not sure about the tune but the words seem to go…

“Roly poly down down down…
Roly poly, up and and up”

She also moves her rotating hands downwards or upwards at the relevant time during the song.

And then something about “everso large” and “everso small”. She won’t just do it on demand. You have to catch her in the right mood and ask nicely.

Lois has a few favourite phrases (noises?) at the moment. One if the inevitable “Da-da-da-da” (despite Mum’s desperate interventions) and then there’s the “Goyayoyoy” and a strange noise she makes at the back of her throat as if clearing her throat. Not sure what that one’s all about, but hey!

Maisie has started dreaming and currently seems to be having a bit of an issue with unwanted bears and owls featuring in them. This don’t impress her much. Sometimes when I am summoned to her room she says “There are no bears are there?”. My answer is always the same.

One, twice, three times a hosepipe

The weekend has very hot, sticky and muggy. On Sunday afternoon, we decided to get the old paddling pool out which we thought at the time would be a fantastic idea. Sadly, its reappearance proved to be the catalyst for some rather traumatic events.

Firstly, I ventured into ‘spider outhouse’ and retrieved the paddling pool and hosepipe reel. Mum and Lois were settling down on the grass beside the empty pool and I went to attach pipe to water mains and switched it on. Maisie, holding the hosepipe began to wander down to the bottom of the garden to join the others and fill said pool. Seconds later I heard screeching as Maisie innocently walked towards Lisa and Lois with hosepipe in hand (and not pointing downwards) and soaked her sister and Mum. I perhaps shouldn’t have trusted her but assumed she would just put it in the pool. My instructions were not robust enough.

After much flapping and screaming the trauma was over. Fingers were pointed and harsh words were spoken. Mum went inside to get changed as it was her who bore the brunt of the water canon, on this first occasion anyway :)

I put the troublesome hosepipe end in the pool where it was supposed to have been left and it immediately started glugging away, filling the pool. Tranquility was restored. I went off to fetch a couple of glasses of wine but had barely got to the kitchen before I heard a fresh wave of screeching from the bottom of the garden. I danced through the washing lines to the source of the trouble and the hosepipe had slithered out of the pool and repositioned itself on the grass pummelling waves of h2O into poor Lois who had been left sat on her own. Maisie was almost as traumatised simply watching the drama unfold. Mum came out with fresh clothes and a grumpy face.

Poor Lois was completely saturated so I placed the hosepipe head firmly in the flowerbed and I went to fetch a change of clothes for Lois.

As I was running down the stairs with the new garments I heard a third pandemonium outside. I can’t remember exactly how it happened on this occasion but suffice is to say Mum and Lois got sprayed again and once again Maisie stood helplessly witnessing the ordeal. Mum’s new clothes not only had digestive biscuits smeared all over them (Lois’s comfort food after the previous incident) but they were wet (again).

Thankfully it was nearly tea time, so we turned off the cursed hosepipe, emptied the pool (it wasn’t actually very full) and went inside to reflect on the farcical aquatic terror.

Sleep is for the weak

Here is an old photo of two sleeping children. It’s one to cherish, for this seems to be a rare occasion and a routine which has been disturbed by attendance at nursery where the whole group lie down in the afternoon on little mats and have a group snooze. What a lovely idea that is, although to be honest I still struggle to imagine it actually happening. I’ve been assured that it does.

Pooh in bed, poo on bed

It happened again. And once again it was an unexpected and unpleasant experience. I was putting Maisie to bed last night and she was waving per large Winnie the Pooh hardback story book about. As we clambered up onto her bottom bunk, I noticed something on the book and I picked it up and instantly recognised it as a chunk of dry poo. Before I had time to work out where it had came from I had almost placed my other hand on the remaining cluster of large pellets laying in a little nest on her duvet. After clearing up the mess and convincing Maisie it was ‘just a poo’ (who, it turned out, was possibly the least traumatised of all of us) I got in the bed with Maisie and her book. “I want the one with Pooh in it” she demanded, somewhat ironically I thought.

Since Barney has been deprived of one of his back legs, we reckon he wouldn’t be able to have got up onto the bed and left the surprise. So, it must have been Louis. On the positive side, at least time around it wasn’t a squidgy one :)

Lolly backchat

Having given Maisie an ice lolly the other day she had a few licks then wandered around with it in her hand.

I said “Maisie, are you eating that lolly, or just wandering around with it in your hand?”.

She replied immediately and calmly, “I’m just wandering around with it in my hand”

Can’t help but feel that attitude will serve her well in life.