(no subject)
Hellish night with J last night. Ouch. He literally climbed out of bed dozens of times. D managed to sleep through most of it but did get up once or twice. Still, hellish. I spent most of today feeling tired and slugish and a bit shaky. It doesn't help that we were up rather late last night ;-)
Getting J dressed and ready to go out took nearly an hour. In that time I also managed to get B and M to finish their game, get dressed and eat - yes, that's how long it took to get J changed and ready to go. He gives new meaning to the term "terrible twos" - and the fact that he spent so much of it running around giggling helplessly was only a small consolation. I'd promised a friend I'd pop over to hers this morning and managed to miss her, though i did get a lovely hug from her extremely cuddly husband. He's like a tall bear.
Of course, the fact that J was up for so much of the night meant that he slept till after 9 this morning and refused to nap. Bah. We did, however, make it to the pool and all three kids had a lovely time in the water. D and I even managed a little adult time (separately) - I sat in the sauna for a bit and he had a dip in the hot tub. This was my first time back at the gym since the creche closed in August and, thus, my first time on a scale. Wow. I don't know if it's being vegan, or stress, or being too busy to eat as much as I used to, but I'm back to the weight I was before I was pregnant with B. As in, nearly 12 years ago. Oh my.
I suppose I haven't really done anything in the way of kid updates in quite some time. Tonight I'll start with J.
J has made huge leaps with regard to speech. Long, long sentences which don't necessarily make sense grammatically but get the message across and are (for the most part) hilarious. As in, "Please have it more raisins that's it thank you!" and other such requests. Something I realized last week was that our little joke that J wants to be French (la get down! la swing! la more sandwich!") is actually his way of communicating that he would like to do something. As in, he would like to get down. Etc.
He had a packed box in his room for the first month or so that we lived in the new house. I eventually got around to unpacking it, though, and J has been getting much pleasure from more books and wooden puzzles, particularly with regard to shapes and colors. Which brings me to a similar but unrelated topic: "yazzat?" (what's that?). Sometimes it's the name of the object in question, but often it will relate to the color or even the material the object is made from. J might point to a leaf and say "yazzat?" and I'll answer "leaf" but he'll continue with "yazzat?" until I've gone through a range of possible answers which might include the color of the leaf, or the name of the plant. And he doesn't stop until he is satisfied. With. The. Answer.
As I've previously mentioned, much to our collective consternation J can now pole vault over the cotbed railing and get himself out of bed. Bah. This means that naps and bedtimes are extremely challenging. I'm not quite ready to move him into a bed yet (or rather, turn the cotbed into a toddler bed) but the time is coming sooner than I'd like. What this means for B and M, though, is that they have to walk to and from school on their own because J will often conk out 20 minutes before we have to leave to cycle over to get the other two OR the other two would have to cycle home alone and that's not an option yet.
J is also moving toward toilet training! This is a hot topic in our house because B took so long and it was such a struggle. Sure, M was easy, but you can never really count on anything working out the same way twice. J will sometimes ask to sit on the potty or the toilet and we'll put him there, but he's also telling us when he needs changing and (on occasion) asking to get down from his booster seat because he wants to take a crap and (I assume) it's not so comfortable to do it sitting strapped in a booster seat. I still need to get him to make the connection between feeling the urge and sitting on the potty or toilet, but this is a good sign. In just over two weeks we'll be in an apartment with tiled floors - perfect for a toddler to run around commando and learn to lose the diaper.
He still hasn't had his hair cut and it sits very charmingly around his head in a tangle of light brown waves. It's not a struggle to brush his hair - he'll often ask for it! - but I don't think it's been washed more than a handful of times. Not only that, but because he sucks his thumb to get to sleep, and he sleeps on a tiny part of the mattress (always the same spot), all of his sheets have a stain on the corners from the drool and his hair and neck smell like it too! Yeah, not so nice. Even if we wash his hair and change the sheets, a day or so later the smell returns. I suppose there's nothing to be done about that at the present. J is wearing size 2-3 clothes and (UK) size 7 shoes. He still has the long fingers he was born with (like me) and D's very dark eyes.
The first thing he demands when we return home from anywhere is "have a shoes off! have a coat off! have a muza [music] non [on]" and heaven help us if we don't respond quickly. Yeah, he's a challenge. J gets angry if we don't give him everything he wants when he wants it. I think it's going to take him a while to figure out that flexibility is a good thing. When he's angry, he'll often throw things: he'll pick up a toy car, for example, throw it and then yell "drop it car!" or similar. It's not happening quite as frequently as it used to, so maybe we're getting to the end of this phase. He also still (occasionally) bites or scratches when he's angry, but again, he seems to be getting there in terms of realizing it's just not a constructive way of dealing with anger/hurt/frustration. Often he'll begin lashing out, then stop suddenly and press his face against me instead.
Books are still the main obsession, closely followed by music, either via stereo or even Youtube! J has the same love of music and ability to match notes that M had as a baby and toddler. "Play a titar" is a daily request.
It's hard to believe, but he'll be three in May. I am starting to look into preschool for next year because the lovely preschool that M attended when we moved here has sadly closed down. Really bummed, because I was counting on sending J there as well. It's one of the things on my list to get done before we leave for Israel.
Getting J dressed and ready to go out took nearly an hour. In that time I also managed to get B and M to finish their game, get dressed and eat - yes, that's how long it took to get J changed and ready to go. He gives new meaning to the term "terrible twos" - and the fact that he spent so much of it running around giggling helplessly was only a small consolation. I'd promised a friend I'd pop over to hers this morning and managed to miss her, though i did get a lovely hug from her extremely cuddly husband. He's like a tall bear.
Of course, the fact that J was up for so much of the night meant that he slept till after 9 this morning and refused to nap. Bah. We did, however, make it to the pool and all three kids had a lovely time in the water. D and I even managed a little adult time (separately) - I sat in the sauna for a bit and he had a dip in the hot tub. This was my first time back at the gym since the creche closed in August and, thus, my first time on a scale. Wow. I don't know if it's being vegan, or stress, or being too busy to eat as much as I used to, but I'm back to the weight I was before I was pregnant with B. As in, nearly 12 years ago. Oh my.
I suppose I haven't really done anything in the way of kid updates in quite some time. Tonight I'll start with J.
J has made huge leaps with regard to speech. Long, long sentences which don't necessarily make sense grammatically but get the message across and are (for the most part) hilarious. As in, "Please have it more raisins that's it thank you!" and other such requests. Something I realized last week was that our little joke that J wants to be French (la get down! la swing! la more sandwich!") is actually his way of communicating that he would like to do something. As in, he would like to get down. Etc.
He had a packed box in his room for the first month or so that we lived in the new house. I eventually got around to unpacking it, though, and J has been getting much pleasure from more books and wooden puzzles, particularly with regard to shapes and colors. Which brings me to a similar but unrelated topic: "yazzat?" (what's that?). Sometimes it's the name of the object in question, but often it will relate to the color or even the material the object is made from. J might point to a leaf and say "yazzat?" and I'll answer "leaf" but he'll continue with "yazzat?" until I've gone through a range of possible answers which might include the color of the leaf, or the name of the plant. And he doesn't stop until he is satisfied. With. The. Answer.
As I've previously mentioned, much to our collective consternation J can now pole vault over the cotbed railing and get himself out of bed. Bah. This means that naps and bedtimes are extremely challenging. I'm not quite ready to move him into a bed yet (or rather, turn the cotbed into a toddler bed) but the time is coming sooner than I'd like. What this means for B and M, though, is that they have to walk to and from school on their own because J will often conk out 20 minutes before we have to leave to cycle over to get the other two OR the other two would have to cycle home alone and that's not an option yet.
J is also moving toward toilet training! This is a hot topic in our house because B took so long and it was such a struggle. Sure, M was easy, but you can never really count on anything working out the same way twice. J will sometimes ask to sit on the potty or the toilet and we'll put him there, but he's also telling us when he needs changing and (on occasion) asking to get down from his booster seat because he wants to take a crap and (I assume) it's not so comfortable to do it sitting strapped in a booster seat. I still need to get him to make the connection between feeling the urge and sitting on the potty or toilet, but this is a good sign. In just over two weeks we'll be in an apartment with tiled floors - perfect for a toddler to run around commando and learn to lose the diaper.
He still hasn't had his hair cut and it sits very charmingly around his head in a tangle of light brown waves. It's not a struggle to brush his hair - he'll often ask for it! - but I don't think it's been washed more than a handful of times. Not only that, but because he sucks his thumb to get to sleep, and he sleeps on a tiny part of the mattress (always the same spot), all of his sheets have a stain on the corners from the drool and his hair and neck smell like it too! Yeah, not so nice. Even if we wash his hair and change the sheets, a day or so later the smell returns. I suppose there's nothing to be done about that at the present. J is wearing size 2-3 clothes and (UK) size 7 shoes. He still has the long fingers he was born with (like me) and D's very dark eyes.
The first thing he demands when we return home from anywhere is "have a shoes off! have a coat off! have a muza [music] non [on]" and heaven help us if we don't respond quickly. Yeah, he's a challenge. J gets angry if we don't give him everything he wants when he wants it. I think it's going to take him a while to figure out that flexibility is a good thing. When he's angry, he'll often throw things: he'll pick up a toy car, for example, throw it and then yell "drop it car!" or similar. It's not happening quite as frequently as it used to, so maybe we're getting to the end of this phase. He also still (occasionally) bites or scratches when he's angry, but again, he seems to be getting there in terms of realizing it's just not a constructive way of dealing with anger/hurt/frustration. Often he'll begin lashing out, then stop suddenly and press his face against me instead.
Books are still the main obsession, closely followed by music, either via stereo or even Youtube! J has the same love of music and ability to match notes that M had as a baby and toddler. "Play a titar" is a daily request.
It's hard to believe, but he'll be three in May. I am starting to look into preschool for next year because the lovely preschool that M attended when we moved here has sadly closed down. Really bummed, because I was counting on sending J there as well. It's one of the things on my list to get done before we leave for Israel.