Ugly stuff

Jennifer fell ill at Jackie's wedding reception. After an ugly taxi-ride home she spent the night vomiting. As I went to bed I found Callum sitting trying vainly to clean his bed of vom with a tissue. So he spent the night vomming. Declan mercifully did not. However Declan got diarrhea this morning, and seriously overwhelmed his nappy, and a fungal rash where no boy wants a rash of any kind.

Our washing machine has been doing overtime in the last 24-hours.

Unwell

Declan is suffering today. He's been vomiting quite regularly, and at the point where he can explain that his tummy hurts, but is very confused about what is happening to his poor body (well I suppose anyone would be really). He went to bed early, and we're bracing ourselves for a long night.

Our Stralia

Callum is very familiar with the idea of Australia - the place we live. But he thinks that the word is actually Our stralia - Stralia being the noun, meaning place, and our the possessive. So he's started talking about My Stralia, and your stralia, in ways which are very confusing if you haven't followed him on the linguistic journey that got here. Tonight he said that Africa is another stralia where elephants live.

Look, no backpack

For the first time even we walked Jennifer to the ferry this mrning with both kids out of the backpack.

I did carry Declan on my shoulders much of the way to ensure we made it on time, and we did catch the bus back up (as both boys have colds and I wanted them to have some energy for music lessons) but it was nevertheless a liberating feeling.

Reading

As we put the boys to bed this evening I was sitting with Callum, while Declan had his nappy changed, waiting to read a story from a new book we borrowed from the library this afternoon. I idly asked Callum to read the story to me. He proceeded to read the words:

"Mr Gumpy was going for a ride in his car. He drove out of the gate and down the lane."

(He got a bit stuck on 'drove' as he couldn't sound it out but did all the rest completely unprompted.)

Presentation is all

Declan has recently gone from being a completely omnivorous one year old to being a typical two year old who exists on air.

This evening we had an extremely tense evening meal, where Declan took one look at the (admittedly not particularly attractively presented) meal of quiche and smoked salmon he was being offered and refused to eat one bite. After being sent to his room for continuous crying, he was enticed back by being allowed to have Henry at the dinner table, still mutinously insisting that he would prefer sleep to eating anything.

But a breakthrough occurred! I offered him the quiche not, as previously, cut into bite sized pieces, but instead attractively presented in his favourite shape - the triangle. Declan considered this a sufficiently face-saving compromise that he immediately stuffed as much of the obviously much tastier meal into his mouth as possible, while simultaneously asking for more.

Henry

Declan is obsessed with a train called Henry (friend of Thomas the Tank Engine, of course). When he gets up in the morning, his first question is (where is) Henry? And at night, he needs to have Henry to hold to keep him safe. With a bit of fast footwork, we can get out of the house without him, but Declan carried him all the way to Greenwood and back yesterday morning, only putting him down when he needed two hands for a milkshake.

First solo swimming lesson

Declan had his first solo swimming lesson this afternoon. Up until now we've done group lessons which were like a playgroup in the water, with me holding him. Today he was alone with the teacher. He did brilliantly, both in terms of being confident with the teacher and in terms of progressing nicely with his swimming.

Callum's gaining confidence too, he can swim underwater happily now - which is handy because underwater is where he always ends up given his lack of bouyancy.

More walking

Today, with Sue, Jack, John, Archie and Stan we walked from Manly round to Shelly Beach and back. Declan walked the entire way, which was a big effort for a boy who has just turned two.

An adventure

This morning the boys and I decided to go for a train ride. And I decided to risk disaster, and make Declan walk the whole way, and didn't take the backpack. So we walked to Waverton station, and discovered that the trains weren't running today. Stopped for a coffee, and then decided to be bold, and take the replacement bus to St Leonards (since I had promised Callum we were going to St Leonards).

And then we caught the bus back to Greenwood (where Callum had a very nice time chatting to a fellow three year old called Ahmed, who gave him his spare train ticket), and then walked all the way home.

Declan didn't ask to be carried once, which I was very impressed with.

Talking

Evan asked Declan to tell me what happened to him yesterday. Declan said "stairs bumped head" (with gestures at each word). I think that's pretty close to counting as a sentence.

Actually yesterday evening he was talking up a storm, with all sorts of words being combined. Now that he is talking, he's learning quicker than Callum did - all that pent up learning happening at once.

Tough but scary

Declan fell down the stairs at Jane's house yesterday and today he fell down the satirs at home. in both caes he's given himself quite a knock, including a bit of blood from the nose, but after a brief cry he's bounced back. He's a tough kid, but I hope he's not going to make a habit of the express way down the stairs.

So boy, so not boy

As we drove back from Northbridge this morning Callum announced that when he goes to the royal ball (think, Cinderella) he would tell everyone he could fly using his pink magic. Hmm thought I, there's my macho boy.

On the other hand Callum emerged triumphantly from the toilet just now to tell me: "Daddy I just made a picture of a coach in the toilet using my wee." (No I didn't investigate further.)

The untouchables

We went round to Jane's for the kids to have dinner with Griffen and Isabel this evening. Jane was trying to get the kids to eat vegetables by offering them a special desert. Callum and Declan remained as always completely uncorruptable. Declan ate no vegetables and Callum ate a piece of broccoli solely to make Jane happy.

I'm not sure whether to be proud of them not bowing to pressure or just continue to be mildly depressed that nothing will entice them to eat healthy food.

Eating

Callum (post tonsils) does seem to be eating marginally better. The latest manifestation of that was tonight, when he was given a plate with corn on the cob, creamed potatoes, pumpkin, and a chicken drumstick. When pressed, he had a taste of each, and ate most of the pumpkin, and a fair bit of the corn on the cob.

Declan, on the other hand, when faced with the same choice, carefully ate all of the tomato sauce (small amount on the side) for 20 minutes, while having hysterics every time he was asked to eat anything else. He eventually condescended to eat most of the corn on the cob, I think when it became apparent he really wasn't getting anything else.

Writing

Jennifer, Callum and Declan were playing with the magazines the younger two got from the show yesterday when relatively out of the blue Callum decided to do one of the puzzles by writing the numbers in. His recognition of words and numbers is great, as is his typing, but writing has long been a comparative weak point so this was a big step greeted with great acclaim.

Going to a show

We went to watch a show today - four ABC Children's television characters (Fireman Sam, Little Robots, Andy Pandy and Spot the dog, for the aficianados). It seemed overly commercial and not especially entertaining to me, but Callum particularly seemed to enjoy the experience of seeing "real life" (actully adults dressed up in character suits) versions of his favourite TV programs.

I think Declan enjoyed the Playschool show more, where the songs and actions were more familiar.

Show-and-tell

Callum, out of the blue, last week asked to do show-and-tell at NB Kindergarten. Last week he took in one of his Thomas engines and told everyone about it. Then on Monday this week he took in a photo of himself beside his computer.

His teacher said he did well using a big voice to tell everyone about it.

Looking after his brother

Last night I looked after Griffen and Isabel for a little while. Jane left some small muffins for the kids to have after dinner but Declan didn't finish his dinner and didn't get one.

Jennifer left early this morning so I showered while the boys ate breakfast. I peeked down the stairs to check they were OK and found Callum sitting in my chair and telling Declan, "You have been a good boy and finished your breakfast so I have a special treat for you." He then gave Declan the muffin from the night before and proceeded to encourage Declan to eat it, "That's right, take big bites."

Number 1 parenting rule

Never mention how well your child is sleeping on his/her website.

Well maybe not number 1, but we have a terrible history of boasting about good sleep and being contradicted the very next night. Callum woke up at 6.30 this morning, and while he was happy to stay in bed until 7, he wanted a drink (which required a parent getting out of bed), and he woke Declan up (who wasn't happy to stay in bed until 7).

I thought the pattern was strong enough to talk about, but I was wrong.

Sleeping

Callum is now very trained into not getting up before 7. This morning, he had to get up at about 6.55 to go to the toilet, and I was already up. He still insisted on going back to bed until it was 7 am, even though I asked him if he wanted to go downstairs with me and Declan.

He was a little annoyed with me at taking Declan away - "Declan needs to go back to bed until 7 o'clock, mummy".

Counting

Two nights ago, as we were walking down the stairs, Declan suddenly started counting them - "eight, nine, ten, eleven" and then stopped. I was impressed, but not as impressed as yesterday, when Declan started counting out biscuits - "one, two, three, four, five". The thing that impressed me was not so much that he knew the numbers (although that's not bad at his age), but that he actually used them while counting something. Later, I asked him how many biscuits he wanted, he said "three" and proceeded to count them out.

The lavish availability of biscuits was because of a party at our place, so we'll have to find something slightly less unhealthy to count in future.

Computer whiz

Declan was playing a Bananas in Pajamas computer game this evening. He was playing a game which involved matching hidden pairs and another which involved working out which path would take you to an object. He grasped both after I'd shown him once and within minutes was playing like a veteran.

Under the umbrella

Yesterday it absolutely poured with rain. We only have one child-sized umbrella and on our way to music lessons Callum and Declan both sheltered under it while I walked in front giving directions. It was so cute. Callum was holding the umbrella and Declan holding Callum's hand. They couldn't really coordinate their gait or direction so to the world it looked like an umbrella with legs staggering down the street.