Little People Update, Ages 4 & 2.5

When I read back over old blog posts, my favourite ones are stories of adventures we have had, and the Little People Updates. I already feel like I am remembering less of Toby than of Alyssa, so I need to make an effort to write about them more regularly.

 

Recently I have realised that Alyssa is truly a little girl, and she feels different to me. She gets herself dressed and undressed, changes independently at the pool, washes her hands and cleans her face, packs morning tea for herself when we go out, and alerts me if something isn’t as it should be. There are still plenty of things that she is capable of that she doesn’t yet do such as putting her clean clothes away, but on the whole she is her own independent wee person.

Her confidence has grown hugely over the last few months. I think Toby helps a little with this, as he is so confident talking to strangers. Also she is now one of the oldest in her preschool room, and adopts a leader type role in this setting and when she plays with friends at home. She loves to organise people and make sure everyone is engaged in her imaginary games in the appropriate way.

She continues to love babies, real and pretend, and is asking Santa for a baby, dummy, bottle and lid. She doesn’t seem to be so interested in reading and writing at the moment – I suspect she is consolidating what she knows and ‘bam’ in 6 months time will just decide to start reading chapter books. That’s the sort of way she does new things, anyway. She can read and write and sound all the letters, is an ace at ‘eye spy’, and tries to read along with me by guessing what the next words might be.

I’m not going to label her eating patterns, because labelling children is something I abhor, but she is a bit hit and miss. Often miss. She eats plenty of carbo and fruit, about one variety of vegetable, no meat unless it’s processed, and plenty of dairy. Our approach is to be totally nonchalant and trust that she will eat what she needs and at some stage be a bit more adventurous. We just dish up whatever we are all eating, and if she goes to bed after having only had half a mouthful, so be it.

Our Mr Toby Toblerone is almost 2 1/2, and he is cheeky, entertaining and engaging. I often say his main purpose in life is to make people laugh. He still has a voracious appetite and will consume vast quantities of home grown kale, spinach and silverbeet which does make me quite cheerful.

Toby is being a bit challenging with his sleep at the moment. He still settles well for his hour long day nap, but often takes 1-2 hours to fall asleep in the evening and usually wakes up a handful of times in the night, needing to be tucked in again. He’s pretty wriggly so he always gets out of his blankets and ends up cold, and he’s also developed a whole lot in his language recently so that might account for being a bit unsettled.

Toby is talking in full sentences, although he doesn’t quite get everything quite right. He hasn’t got his ‘hims and hers’ sorted yet, and he’ll do things like fart and say “did you see that, Mummy?” (I hope not!). He is constantly asking “what are you doing, Mummy?” – and in fact will quite happily ask any random person what they are doing.

Toby is just getting the hang of his balance bike and is utterly fearless on it (to the detriment of his knees, hands and head), is super confident in the pool splashing and going under the water, and loves to have running races with his big sister. He does not like to be called a baby, or in fact a little boy: “me a boy! me a big boy!”. He has just started initiating his own imaginary games rather than just joining in with Alyssa’s, for example building caravans or planes in which they go to visit their cousin Matthew (who they last saw a year ago in Auckland!).

Alyssa and Toby are great self entertainers, and I am happy to report that television is not needed to enable adult sleep ins on Sundays. They can get themselves up and sort their breakfast provided I’ve put the milk into a smaller jug, and quite cheerfully play for one or two hours while we snooze. We just have to be relaxed about the house being in rather a state when we finally emerge, with a selection of apples scattered in every room with just one or two bites out of each.

For a sleep in, that’s a small price to pay.

Little People Update

Yesterday morning I was at the swimming pool and a little class of five year olds came in for lessons. I watched them and found it a little too easy to imagine Alyssa amongst them. She is very keen to be five.

Alyssa continues to be very caring and maternal. She and her close friend at daycare spend the bulk of their time looking after the toy babies. She adores her tiny cousin Ryder and is very gentle with him.

At home, she doesn’t have quite so much interest in helping me in the kitchen as she used to, but is usually busy immersed in complicated imaginary games. Today, she invited all of her imaginary daycare friends to visit her imaginary swimming pool in the living room, and they had imaginary swimming lessons together.

 

Recently she has been most interested in letters and reading and writing. She loves to play a modification of eye spy – “what is in the trees that starts with P” she asks, and eventually has to help me out with the answer being Possum. She likes to think of as many words starting with a particular letter as she can. However, although she can write most of the letters, and sound out all the consonants in words and usually get the vowels, she balks under any remote pressure of writing much apart from Alyssa, Ally, Toby, Mum, Dad, Angus and Nani. The more adult-goal oriented encouragement Alyssa receives, the less she engages. She is not a performer.

“Ally”, self portrait. Note the plaits and necklace, and you can just see an arm coming out at about ear level.

Toby celebrated his second birthday last Thursday, June 30th. His wee personality continues to develop along the same themes. In contrast to Alyssa, he is a bit of a performer and loves to make people laugh.

Last few moments of being a one year old

He is courageous and brave, and is eager to give anything a go. This is probably contributed by him adoring his big sister, and being keen to join in with whatever she is doing. Remember how Alyssa ignored the toilet until she was 2 3/4, and could use it entirely independently. Toby, in Toby fashion, is just keen to get involved and give it a go now. He likes to get on it between each nappy change and concentrates very hard until he does a little wee or fart. Then toilet paper, flush and hand washing.

He has a fairly extensive vocabulary but is really only just starting to construct sentences. At times he strings about four words together, other times it’s just a couple. Alyssa is very helpful at interpreting what he is saying, although often this is just an exact mimic of what he has said which isn’t as helpful as she thinks.

Toby continues to have a voracious appetite and often eats adult quantities of things. He also isn’t remotely fussy and tucks in to what ever he can get his hands on.

Overall, there is just something about him that is absolutely delicious. It might be the way he says ‘oh’ in a perfectly agreeable fashion, or the way he articulates things like ‘darling mummy’, ‘please mummy’, and ‘love you’; or maybe it’s the little patch of soft skin on the nape of his neck. Perhaps it’s that he is at this incredible age where any things that frustrate him only do so in an endearing fashion, and aren’t remotely tiresome. Or possibly, it’s just that he’s mine and thus I love him so.

A Toby Mis-Adventure

Remember in my last Alyssa and Toby update I said “Toby leaps in and delightfully gives anything a go without much consideration for the consequences or whether he’s actually capable or not”?

A month ago he did exactly this climbing on a high curved ladder at the playground. Even though I was standing right beside him spotting he slipped and fell, resulting in a fractured fibula and tibia – leg bones at his ankle.

So then we had this:

Didn’t slow him down much, we had cherry picking assistance and plenty of climbing:

And when his cast came off his friends signed it with him at daycare:

Toby and Alyssa Update

I’m pretty sure Alyssa has had more of a documented life than Toby, so I shall endeavour to catch up a little!

Toby’s current focus is learning to talk. As of the last one or two weeks he has embarked on his language explosion phase. Until recently he really just had ‘Mummy, Daddy’ and then a couple of days of a word here and there such as ‘peanut butter’ and ‘bisgabadi’ (spaghetti – an Alyssa-ism which we wholeheartedly encourage).

He’s now coming up with a new word most days and his vocab includes ‘bike, bath, bye, Nani, Poppa, bubble, bumblebee, car, present, yeah, and no’. Unlike Alyssa, who started with clearly articulated words from the start, a lot of Toby’s are just the first half of the word. This difference is constantly apparent in their personalities – Alyssa observes, analyses then will participate when she knows she’s got it sorted. Toby leaps in and delightfully gives anything a go without much consideration for the consequences or whether he’s actually capable or not. Boy versus girl, or just Antz versus Megan influence – who knows?

On this theme, Alyssa seems to particularly dislike being wrong or doing the wrong thing. She’ll happily ‘pretend’ to be mischievous and wait for someone to affirm her boundaries, but if she thinks she thinks she’s doing the right thing and gets told off her face slowly crumples and she becomes terribly upset. She sees right through someone who’s making fun of her – even in a kind, adult-condesending kind of way, and rewards the people who truly respect her. You know, people are constantly belittling and underestimating children – with the tone of their voice, the words they use, the side comments to other adults, and with their body language. Children are smart, people! (especially mine, obviously).

Toby has also just transitioned to being all about his Daddy. He is absolutely delighted when Antz gets home from work, and would much prefer a Daddy cuddle if he’s hurt. This has probably coincided with him deciding to finish breastfeeding – his last feed was on his 17 month birthday and although he’d been down to just one morning feed a day for a while, I had hoped to keep going for quite some months yet. Perhaps due to the WHO recommendations to feed up to the age of 2 and beyond, or the stats that show the much reduced risk of breast cancer when feeding that long – but it’s a mutually agreeable relationship and Toby was done. Given that he was never that into it from the start it’s probably a good thing he stuck with it for that long anyway!

Alyssa has really left toddler-hood behind. She loves imaginary games and directing Toby with what is role is. She is much cuddlier than she used to be and will snuggle endlessly listening to stories, and is riveted by any imaginary stories I make up with a character with her name – whatever it may be. Most of the time she is lovely with Toby – looking out for him, telling me if he’s hurt himself and including him in her games. Occasionally she gets in a pushing-kicking-you can’t play with me mood, but fortunately this isn’t the norm at the moment.

And Toby, fortunately for him, is a total cruiser. He’s clingy at times wanting to be picked up, but generally all he’s asking for is for us to be present – to sit on the floor and be there with him. He still loves going up in the wrap (thank goodness, I’d struggle if I’d lost breastfeeding and wrapping) and we still use this as our main form of transport – Toby up on my back and Alyssa riding her bike. He loves to be free to explore and climb, and is a bold adventurer. We walked up a steep hill for a picnic dinner the other week, and Toby insisted on walking down himself – despite repeatedly stumbling and tumbling and somersaulting – he just dusted himself off and kept on going.

In the daily care side of things, Toby is an eater of everything and Alyssa is not. Although, usually at dinner time now she will eat something – it’s not that often that she doesn’t even eat a mouthful. She doesn’t eat many intact vegetables and meat unless it’s processed and salty, however tucks into things that I make from scratch such as vege filled pasta sauce, gnocchi, vege nachos or pasta sauce infused scones. Alyssa and Toby share a room and sleep from around 7pm to 6.30am, each having the occasional wake up for water (Toby) or the toilet (Alyssa). I’ve blogged about Alyssa coming out of day nappies, and a month or so ago she was dry one night so she was out of her night nappy the next, and she’s only wet the bed once on waking at 6am.

An overdue Little People Update

Fitting in blogging time alongside part time work, a no-longer-napping toddler, various winter sports and spring challenge training, and the never ending rotation of cook-feed-clean-tidy-wash-repeat is tough! I try to have the camera handy to capture beautiful moments, but my write-up time is depleted. Especially as I need to weigh up blog time versus sew time.

Recently, I made Antz a birthday merino hoody, and have also sewed a little gift for my lovely sister who has just moved (temporarily!!!) to Canada. Are you reading, JuJu? You will have to wait and see what might be coming your way!

Trade me merino, with some chopped up op shop tunic

Handsome model. This wouldn’t look this good on just anyone

Toby has been busy learning to walk, climb and grow teeth. Walking developed between 12-13 months (he’s now 13 1/2 months), and much like his big sister he loves to negotiate vertical obstacles. He’s had some spectacular tumbles, but my philosophy is to never lift him onto something but if he gets there himself he can stay.

He has entered the zone where he understands almost everything we say. He’ll go off to find a nappy for himself when asked, will toddle into the next room to hunt out Daddy, and will follow instructions to get himself ‘unstuck’ if he’s having a hard time somewhere.

My superbly blonde boy

Alyssa, as she nears her third birthday, has developed into a kind and inclusive big sister. She will constantly invite Toby into her imaginary world, and offer him things to play with. If she notices he has hurt himself it is not uncommon for her to give him a cuddle and say ‘Oh my Darling! Are you ok, my Tobyrone?’. There is still the occasional time when she gives him a purposeful shove or hit on the head, but probably only a couple of times a week now.

Alyssa’s current focus, alongside imaginary play, is written language. She is enjoying finding all the letters she knows in books and rattling of a list of names which start with them, and writing them as well. She legibly writes A, T and O, although often accompanied by the rest of the ‘letters’ in the name which can confuse things slightly.

A couple of days before my last ‘update‘ post, Alyssa had decided to begin using the toilet. This has continued since, although she had a week with loads of ‘accidents’ in the aftermath of being sick. The more pressure we put on the worse it got, but the day after we decided to totally back off she was all sorted again.

She’ll be three in two months, so of course there are plenty of times when she tests to see how engaged we are – as Piggity Wiggety would say we have plenty of Tears, occasional Tantrums and loads of Huggity Hugs. However, the RIE parenting philosophy is rather magical – treating Alyssa as a capable human being brings out her sparkle (well, obviously), and knowing that any powerful emotions she shares are a positive thing is helping us to absolutely love this time.

A catch up

I’m not really sure why, but I have really been absent from this blog lately. Interestingly, the same thing happened when Alyssa was a similar age – but that was because I was pregnant, sick and tired. I am not pregnant this time! Just with a full life balancing work, winter sports, coordinating the never ending laundry drying on cold winter days, and recently doing some reading.

Also, Alyssa has stopped her afternoon naps so that has probably eaten into my ‘me time’. She is very awesome about me pottering on jobs while she does her own important work, but I try to keep computer use to a minimum while the little people are around. Alyssa is such a busy girl at the moment. She has a bunny and two dolls, and like any Mum of three, they occupy most of her time.

Rock a bye baby

In the tree top

Baby will DROP!

This morning by the time I got up she had already been to the supermarket for milk, yoghurt and sultanas with bunny in the wrap and the dolls in the pram. They were just about to have nappy changes then settle down for morning tea. If Antz is away and I am getting Lyssa and Toby sorted for bed, I can just focus on Toby with stories, a feed and tucking him in – while Alyssa will keep busy doing the same with her three babies. This is on top of all the ice-cream, birthday cake and tea making, and netball playing she fills in her days with.

On the topic of netball, Alyssa is my special netball friend. When pregnant with her I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have a girl, and when she was born and Antz finally realised she wasn’t a boy, my first thought was how I’d be able to take her to netball. And, this has begun! Just my netball so far, but she loves coming up every week, then recreating the game once we get home. I get pretty focussed so don’t actually know what she does on the sideline (I usually allocate some handy person to keep an eye on her). But for the 1.5 hours we are there I don’t hear a peep from her – she’s waiting for a smile and a kiss at the breaks and that is all! It is really special to be able to share something I love with my girl.

Although she has dropped her day sleeps, she sometimes still struggles without them. This week I have discovered that if she really needs a nap she will fall asleep in the wrap on my back which is extremely comfortable and snuggly. Yesterday she was asleep after about a 15 minute walk, and kept sleeping while I mostly sat down for the next 40 minutes.

She has also had a resurrection of her desire to use the toilet. Child led ‘toilet training’ (not that there is any training involved) is really rather relaxing. Similar to a lot of parenting (breastfeeding/toddler sharing battles/motor development…) it all comes down to trust. Trust and faith that my child is a capable little human – and all normal human beings are going to learn to use the toilet. A couple of days ago Lyssa decided that she was keen to wear undies and use the toilet, so she took of her nappy, put on her undies, and has been using the toilet successfully. When she last decided to wear undies, she consistently wet through multiple times a day. Interestingly this time there has only been one occasion where she contributed to our carpet stains. I suppose she’s just a little more ready now!

On to Toby. Whenever I think about him, I get this bubbling of joy inside me and the adjective that comes to mind is delicious. As he gets older I see more of how his personality differs to Alyssa. The current example is in the desire to walk – Toby is much less balanced and strong than Alyssa, but much more keen to start walking. He’s done one unsupported and uncontrolled step, and a lot of falling over. In contrast, Alyssa generally doesn’t do something until she can do it well. (And yes, I do compare my children, constantly. It’s too interesting not to!)

Toby is beginning to enjoy climbing and loves to have the couch cushions down so he can climb over them, and climb up onto the couch and ‘jump’ holding onto the back.  He really loves to be outside and will take any opportunity to sneak past if the door is open.

Toby’s hair is starting to come through a little curly around his ears, just as Alyssa’s did. I think he won’t have a haircut until he’s five. Perhaps around the time I stop breastfeeding him.

Just kidding.

(Sort of).

My Toby Toblerone. As the wild things say: We’ll eat you up, we love you so!

In other news, I have had a break from sewing but am working on a reversible shoulder bag at the moment, so when I have the time to finish that I will update you. I am reading a book for the first time in many months – ‘Ross Poldark’ which is my mum’s all time favourite, and has been made into a television series twice. Given that I have read my all time favourite book (Diana Gabaldon’s Cross stitch) upwards of 15 times, I really need some new material 🙂

Mustering below Ben Lomond with Uncle Hamish and the Hounds. Toby asleep on the job

Looking over Alexandra

Waiting… a year ago

And then there were Four

Antz and I out for a winter ride, Flat Top Hill, Alexandra

Mr Tobias – 10 months old – with sibling comparison

With so many projects on the go – sewing! running! avoiding food waste! and with Toby being child #2, he’s not getting as many developmental updates as his big sister did. Here is Alyssa at much the same age.

Alyssa Joyce, 10 1/2 months

Toby Spencer, 10 1/2 months

Alyssa, focussing at 10 months old

Toby, focussing at 10 months old

Since I last wrote about him, he has become competent in going up and down our concrete steps off the deck and can also climb full flights and get up onto little towers at the playground. Remember when Alyssa was learning about stairs? She started cross crawling quite a bit earlier than Toby, and hence spent a lot longer climbing up them before she taught herself to descend backwards. Toby has figured out a side to backwards technique quite quickly, and at the same age of about 10.5 months. Interesting (for their mother, anyway)!

(I can’t believe I referenced a study in my baby update post. Or actually I can, that’s the geeky sort of stuff I do).

He is now confident in standing with just one hand to support and is slowly cruising the furniture. He took about a week to learn to sit down from standing but now has that well and truly sorted.

Just chewing the fat on the back steps

Toby continues to be a pretty great sleeper. He wakes a few times a night but it’s almost always pretty brief – a feed or a cuddle and back down. For his naps it’s just a matter of laying him down in his cot and walking out – and after our experiences of child #1 (who has just this week stopped napping in her pram), this continues to be hard to believe. It’s  truly lovely. But for nights part of me is thinking – Alyssa regularly slept through the night from 9 months, after a little encouragement – Perhaps it’s time for you to do the same. However the thing is, I am actually not ready to give up our night time cuddles. I’m ready for them to Never Ever be hourly again (the case this week as we are in the midst of teething or tummy bugs or separation anxiety or something unpleasant), but I would quite like to continue with the once a night for a little longer.

If you think that’s weird, you must never have experienced quiet of the night snuggles with a person you love so much your heart trembles just thinking about it.

Toby’s latest development has been spoon feeding himself, and much like I remember with Alyssa it’s all happened pretty quickly (here was the first mention of this with her). He is a baby led weaner so refuses to take a spoon from us. We have given him his own spoon pretty much since he started solids, and just yesterday I noticed he was making a concerted effort to use it as a spoon with his pumpkin soup. Then today with both porridge and soup he was away – in a fairly coordinated fashion spooning it in. Such concentration!!

Toby’s breastfeeding journey continues to be quite different from Alyssa’s. He has just had a ‘nursing strike’ where he only fed about three times over a 48 hour period (normal in this time would probably be about 15 times). Whether it’s teeth, adjusting to me working, feeling a bit unwell – for whatever reason he just refused. However we’re back on track now, hopefully for many many months to come.

So that’s our wee boy. Cheerful, self directed, easy going and extremely appreciative of food!

Full Days for Team Longman

I read something lately about busy-ness disease. Being busy sort of comes with a negative vibe – but probably what you have if you are busy is a full life. This is certainly the case for us – we don’t do much thumb twiddling and our lives are full of goodness.

Over the past few weeks Toby has learnt to cross crawl, has grown teeth #3 and #4, has learnt to clap and wave, crawl up and down steps (in a crash onto the concrete kind of fashion at times), and just today stand up against furniture. Now that he is a bit bigger and more robust, he and Alyssa can start to play together a bit more which they love.

He’s also been up quite a bit more at night. Given that I’ve also returned to work this week, this is hardly surprising.

Alyssa, meanwhile, has taught herself to do the most graceful forwards rolls, play the harmonica, read letters A, T, and M and write (sort of) the letter A. She’s querying the beginnings of life, probably due to all our friends having babies (this evening baby Isabelle was in her tummy and was very hungry for breastmilk tucker when she came out. She is delving into The World of Pretend and displays an expression of challenge – “Yeah, I know this is Make Believe and it’s kind of silly. But let’s just run with it, ok?” Which of course we do – and riding an imaginary scooter is quite the challenge. (Try it!)

Always has her sleeves rolled up, ready for action

Forwards roll about to happen…

Speaking of challenge, I am really enjoy my Sew 2015 challenge. This winter coat is making me think so hard – apparently I sort of freeze in the middle of the floor in total focus as I try to visualise how it’s going to work. Last night I spent hours cutting out my ‘fashion fabric’ (This is what they say on sewing blogs. My fashion fabric is a $4 woollen blanket from the sallies. Smirk). It literally only just fit – I just have a few scraps left which I will need for pockets.

My ‘muslin’ – sewn out of my Granny’s old sheet. Enjoyable to work with as the faint naphthalene scent made me think of her constantly 🙂

All the pieces cut out and ready to sew!

Winter sports are underway as of today with a pre season netball tournament. Netball, basketball and canoe polo mixed in with the year round biking and kayaking will keep us full to the brim seven days a week.

P.S: I’m not oblivious to all the mum-bragging that has gone on here – and permeating all through flowthyme. But they’re my babies, and they’re awesome, and it’s my prerogative as a Mama 🙂

Make-A-Coat update, and other news

So, despite not really knowing what I’m doing I am going full steam ahead with designing and sewing my lined hooded wool coat. Because my materials are costing me almost nothing, I’m happy to be a bit experimental and just tinker away at this project for the fun of it. If I make something wearable then that will be quite startling. If I don’t, then I will be a little embarrassed in blog-world but no harm done.

Besides, I don’t even know if I will wear a wool coat. I’m more of a down jacket kind of person.

So far I have drafted a pattern based on three existing coats – one of mine, a friend’s and Antz’s one. My next step is to cut it out of an old sheet and quickly sew it together to see if I’m on the right track.

I have vague ideas of how to go about lining it, but I think this is something you do later in the piece so I won’t worry about it just yet.

Anyway, in other news:

Toby has learnt to clap, wave and cross crawl in the last few days. His two top teeth are almost through and he’s finally settling into a two-nap a day sort of routine.

Alyssa has been requesting sunglasses. Purple ones, please. The $2 shop came to the party.

I have been harvesting and processing. Today included tomato relish making, and wild blackberry harvesting for jam and winter puddings.

Out, damn spot. A blackberry harvesting hand.

Autumn has us in her arms. We have a spectacular wood pile and have just signed away all our savings to get most of our house double glazed before this winter. I am looking forward to snuzzling (an Alyssa-ism) down together to enjoy soups, stews, roaring fires, frosty starts and crisp clear 0 degree days.

And, I become a working mum again in two days time. My rather delightful 10 months of maternity leave has come to an end – it’s been pretty fun. I feel sick in my tummy at the thought of leaving my baby boy all day long, but it has to be done (see the double glazing point above!). Fortunately, I have a great job which I will once again enjoy, and supportive bosses who let me choose my hours based on what is best for our family.

Just a few happenings

Toby leading Antz and Alyssa in his exercise class.

Alyssa reading bedtime stories to Toby and Antz.

As soon as a baby is put into flannelette PJ’s they are all grown up!

Alyssa and Angus hanging out.

Angus is a delightful, really sensitive and thoughtful wee boy. He ‘sportscasts’ so Lisa and I don’t have to: “Alyssa has the toy but Angus wants the toy” and “Angus feels sad” as they are struggling to each play with something. Alyssa is the boss: “climb up there Angus and we will read this book. No not that book, that’s not for you!”. It’s very much fun to observe.

And my cheerful Toby