In-car Entertainment

Just because you happen to be travelling somewhere by car, this shouldn’t mean the entertainment should cease. No indeed, the show must go on, especially with our nifty dual-screen in-car dvd player for Maisie and Lois. Now you don’t have to go on an aeroplane to watch a tv

There’s poos and wees in the hills

Maisie has been using her potty successfully and we’ve now had our first wee and first poo. Exciting stuff. Lisa came up with a brill idea (not sure if she copied someone else here or not) and that was to buy lots of cheap little toys from charity shops, wrap them up in fancy paper and then encourage Maisie to use the potty with the promise of a present if she produces anything on it.

It was frustrating at first because she was happy to sit on the potty, and she wanted a present but just didn’t know how to do anything.

Well, now she’s weeing quite freely and demanding presents each time. Mum is having to keep the present stocks topped up.

I found that this potty use was such an important milestone. Far more significant than things like a first word or a first birthday. I think the promise of a nappy-free existence (and the financial savings!) is a very desirable and positive thing.

Lois meanwhile is an expert potty user now. I think in view of our experiences, all parents should try and encourage early potty adoption rather than waiting until they are toddlers which seems to be the norm.

At the weekend, there is going to me a party/bbq for relatives to come over and meet baby Abe, many of whom haven’t already had the pleasure. Our brood is invited too.

I want an ipad. I’ve managed to keep telling me myself I don’t up until now but I read an article yesterday about how you can use it to paint (using your fingers!) and it looked really cool. So much more intuitive than a graphics tablet (or a mouse).

I’m sure they are uber expensive and Lisa would have a fit if I waltzed home with one. I shall have to wait.Yeah, wait and save. I’m not very good at saving. I’m not very good at waiting either really. Ho-hum.

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.