Quite Nice Children, Really

I have written about this before, but spending time alone with any of my children is a revelation.

Our household is noisy and busy. Mornings are crazy, kit-frenzied affairs. Swimming, dancing, football, multisports, netball - they all feature on different days for different people. Each one requires 'stuff' that disappears somewhere into the ether between the last session and the next. It doesn't matter how organised we are. See my last blog post here for a picture of how organised we are. Breakfast orders are barked out and the breakfast table resembles Picadilly Circus.

And Eddie's voice, as a third child, has, through natural processes of evolution, reached decibels above that of his siblings. Its pitch can be migraine-inducing. Sometimes he makes noises like a Jurassic Park velociraptor just for fun. A genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that existed approximately 75 to 71 million years ago during the later part of the Cretaceous Period regularly lives and breathes - and screams - in our kitchen.

The velociraptor analogy is apt because he is also extremely temperamental and you are therefore always only one wrong step or one wrong word away from getting your head bitten off. 'Terrible twos' bred thuggish threes, leading to ferocious fours and now frightful fives.

Ane he is not the only one. Often it doesn't feel as if we are getting actual human people ready for a day's living, but creatures of some sort. It is like herding cats, it is worse than trying to put a lid on a box of frogs, it is minding mice at crossroads and any other similar idioms you care to mention.

So it is refreshing when, in the relative calm of half term, I get to spend time with each of them individually. They are quite nice, on their own. I was surprised. They can talk sensibly without shouting. They are sort of like actual human people. Even Eddie. They have manners and are polite. They can sort of be interesting. Who knew?

Now to figure out how to break the pack mentality...




Currently reading: Nora Webster by Colm Toibin.

No Fight Left Club

So, tantrums, then.

They are a bit worse, it seems, when I am single-parenting.  Hearth-Father is away in Malta on a cricket tour.

Eddie's tantrum this afternoon was prolonged.  And LOUD.  Insistent.  High-pitched and piercing.  It made me send him to bed without any supper, which I thought only happened in Victorian novels.  This was a meltdown of epic proportions. He was utterly inconsolable.  His eyes, at one point, seemed to roll backwards in his head with the sheer effort of continuing to scream.  And when he could get words out at all, which wasn't often, they mostly involved declamations like, "I...CAN'T....STOP...SCREAMING!" with giant shuddering gulps in between.  Horrible.  It made Eddie Norton's character fighting with himself in Fight Club look rational. It's been a long while since we've had one like that.

So I'm trying to work out what caused it; because, frankly, what escalated it was that I sat his Toy Story Woody toy upright instead of laying him down on the ground flat. Yes, I know.  Call social services.

Since he turned three at the weekend, can I blame 'terrible twos'?  I'm wondering if feeding him rubbish yesterday (birthday cake, chips, ketchup, sweets) was a deciding factor.  Bad if it was, because I seem not to have fed him at all, this evening.  Daddy being away?  The fact that everyone bowed down to his will yesterday because he was the birthday boy - and then didn't today, when he wasn't?  Being exhausted after having a lovely day in glorious late September sunshine at the stoolball, at the park and playing football?E

Who knows?  All I know is that I'm as exhausted as he is.  How does a little body have so much noise and fight in it? The 'expert advice' on www.babycenter.com suggests that the number one coping mechanism during a toddler tantrum is 'not losing your own cool'.  Right.  This is followed by the advice to 'remember that you're the adult'.  Oh.

Come back, Daddy!



Currently Reading: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

On Manners

Eddie's favourite word is, and has been since he first began to utter human sounds, 'no'!

It is usually delivered as a short bark and accompanied by a frown and a pout that would give a blob fish a run for it's money:

And he is incredibly demanding.  The phrase you are most likely to hear after, 'No!' is, 'I want...' with the emphasis on 'want' and usually in relation to some ridiculous request. 'Spoiled brat' might have been too kind an epithet. In fact, I hadn't realised how bad it had got until we were on holiday with friends and relatives and I was suddenly finding his behaviour very difficult to deal with. Worse than simply terrible twos because there seemed to be no let up.  (Though I do look back over posts from a couple of years ago when Gilby was the same age and the tone is remarkably similar...)

So with time off together I have spent much of the summer working on his manners.  We have been practising how you ask for things and appropriate responses.  It has taken a good deal of will power on my part, but having been at home with them all for five weeks now I have got used to ignoring anything that isn't accompanied by at least a 'please'.

And, success, of sorts: Eddie has perfected the art of an elongated 'plee-ease' accompanied by an irresistibly cute grin, which, whilst irritating, is much more palatable than what came previously. It's significantly more successful than his previous modus operandi, and I think he's managed to work that out for himself. Could you say no to this?

I'm going to ignore the grammar though, because he now begins most requests with 'Please MAY CAN I have...' which his siblings find highly amusing. Again, not right, but much more preferable than what came before and I'm just not sure he's quite ready for a lesson on modal auxiliary verbs yet.

Currently reading: A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly

Feel the Fear...

Gilby has become very, very jumpy.  The terrible twos have become the terrified threes.  He is afraid of...well, everything, really. If we are at home he must be in the same room as me, and he must close the door behind us, after taking a fearful look beyond to make sure that nothing is following us in.  Windows are a cause for concern; they must be carefully scanned for any lurking monsters.  Any unexpected noise makes him very, very tense. Tears are never very far away.  This has been a sudden and rapid decline over the last six weeks or so. 

He won't admit to his fears though.  Doors must be closed because he is 'cold'.  He doesn't want to be alone because he is 'a little bit tired'.  Going to bed is a prolonged process of coaxing, but it is not because he is scared, but usually because he has a 'tummy ache'.  But he did whisper in my ear that sometimes he sees and hears things.  Like most three year old's he has a vivid imagination and is able to conjure monsters from most harmless shapes and objects. 

He helped me dismantle the tree (lights packed away in a carefully marked box, incidentally), but seemed unduly concerned about when we were getting a new one.  I thought he was sad that it was going to be a whole year to wait until all the excitement began again.

But, last night, I finally got close to the truth.  He thinks he can hear Santa's footsteps...

That bloke's got a lot to answer for! In the interests of creating magic around Christmas I have inadvertently given my son some kind of complex...

Pushing the Boundaries (or not)

I have self-diagnosed a severe case of bad parenting.  I have one 'ailing' baby at the boundaries of the weight chart, one explosive three year old in reference to whom the phrase, 'pushing the boundaries' can only be used as a polite euphemism, and an angelic eldest child who wouldn't know how to push a boundary if it bit her.

Gilby's behaviour is deteriorating exponentially, if that is possible.  Added to the tantrums (now indescribable) is the refusal to sleep alone, or, in fact, go to bed at all.  This then impinges on 'grown-up' time in the evenings, which is an absolute requirement for maintaining sanity.  If you see me on the front pages of the County Times on a murder charge, you'll know instantly that I am guilty.  I could cheerfully throttle him fifty times a day.  (Rhymes with a book I'm reading...)

At the other end of the spectrum is Gertie.  We went shopping in the village the other day and she wanted to bring her bike (stabilisers on, of course).  She was very good at sticking to the designated areas whilst I went into each shop.  My careful boundaries, "So - you can cycle round between here and here but not go up to the road, Ok?"  were met with an obedient, "Yes, Mummy."

Peering over the counter at the post office to check that she was in the right place, I noticed that she had confined herself to a thin sliver of pavement and was riding up and down on that, even though I'd offered the whole of the pedestrian end of the precinct.

"What was wrong with over there?" I joked, as I came out.  She pointed to the blue plastic National Lottery pointy-finger by the window. 

"But Mummy, the sign said, 'play here', so I did."

As Easy as ABC

Gilby has been getting a little fed up with his big sister's reading prowess of late. She has taken over the reading of the bedtime story, to all intents and purposes and is decidedly 'showy-offy' about her abilities, using a really patronising tone to explain which episode of Little Bear they are watching as she reads the credit sequence. Her little brother is not allowed to be the teacher when they play schools as her superior knowledge means that Gertie herself must always play this part.

Gilby, three next month and entirely filled with his own sense of self-importance, (deservedly, as he points out that he can now climb by himself up into his car seat) has decided to take matters into his own hands.

He has begun to earnestly 'write his name' on his drawings as Gertie does. And, although a close inspection will reveal that this is nothing more than a series of zig-zagged lines, we all have to agree that it does, indeed, spell 'Gilby'.

And earlier this week he picked out all the Oxford Reading Tree Stage One books into a big pile, brought them to me and demanded that I teach him to read right there and then. He folded his arms determinedly in a 'bring it on' stance and prepared to do battle with the books. Since he knows all the characters and all the stories inside out, he was able to sound convincing from memory quite quickly and then sat back when he had 'read' a couple, completely satisified with his own literacy progress.

If only it were that simple...

Dressing Down

Gertie was keen to dress herself from before the age of two. She needed no encouragement, and certainly no help, thank you very much. This has continued through to the dizzy heights of being five. And dress herself she does, though these days she manages to get far fewer items back to front or inside out. My sister, based on the South coast, will often comment on 'how very Brighton' Gertie looks; a euphemism for..well, slightly eccentric, I suppose.

Gilby, soon to be three years old, has no such pretensions. The most he claims to be able to dress or undress is to remove his socks, with much huff and puff and fuss, just prior to his bath. Everything else must be done for him. Indeed, when I have forced him to dress himself just to make a point, he has made one back by making the process so painful and unproductive (usually involving two limbs down same leg-hole of his trousers, and I deliberately say 'limbs' because I don't necessarily mean legs) that I am forced to intervene.

Strange, then, how the arrival of the paddling pool in the garden today saw him whip his clothes off in a jiffy, no problem at all. He was also, curiously, able to don them again whilst I wasn't looking. I will remind him of this miraculous feat tomorrow morning, though I have a sneaking suspicion he will play helpless once more.

Scars, Tantrums and Banishment

Oh.  We are recovering from a row. This is a BAD THING. And I am still nursing the scars from a bouncy-castle related drinking injury at Gertie's birthday party, so feeling doubly wounded.

Have I mentioned recently how 'difficult' Gilby is?  On a scale of one to ten he currently sits somewhere around 'hellish'.  Temper tantrums, an unhealthy preoccupation with the word, 'no', an inability to carry out a task without being distracted by a toy: Eating, dressing, teeth-brushing, putting on shoes...the list of potential clash-points before we have even left the house in the morning is quite...exhaustive.  Sorry: exhausting.

This morning's flashpoint occured in the bathroom.  I have a three strikes rule.  I say 'rule', I suppose it simply reflects the limited amount of patience I possess. Once I have politely requested a course of action twice, I really can't be doing with a third time. So - to cut a tedious story slightly shorter,  I ended up forcibly brushing his teeth for him and then banishing Gilby to his bedroom to calm down.

I went back in to see if he was ready for 'deep breaths and a cuddle' but, no, it was too soon for that.
So, I returned to getting myself ready.  I mostly remember to brush my hair these days, and occasionally find some lipstick to apply badly. It was at this point that Daddy knocked on Gilby's door.  Met with a gruff, "Go away!" he responded with, "Don't worry, Gilby, it's only Daddy."  Don't worry?  DON'T WORRY?  Oh, I see, it's not evil Mummy, it's only Daddy."  Well, I'm afraid I momenarily became 'evil Mummy' until Daddy retracted his statement.  Oh dear.  Was I over-reacting?

And then Gertie decided, inexplicably at that moment, to point out that she hadn't, in fact, had any of her own birthday cake at her party. The cake that I had lovingly laboured over just for her...  It didn't really do a great deal to lower the emotional intensity of the moment.

And all this by 8am, before my day's work has supposedly begun.

Things got better though, and finished this evening with a glass of wine in the garden in glorious evening sunshine. The healing power of sun and alcohol...now only the bouncy-castle scars remain.

Sack of Potatoes

Saturday was our village 'fest' where the car park and shopping precinct are given over to stalls selling everything from olive oil to handicrafts to sponsored bricks for African classrooms. There are tombolas and home-made cakes and even a fair-ride. So my little people were happy, especially when, around lunchtime there was a cheer-leading display. After a couple of routines I suggested that it might be time to go home, but Gilby was adamant that he wanted to stay and watch more of the 'dancing'.

In an effort to stave off the now-frequent-terrible-twos-tantrum I acquiesced. How silly. Because then he just kicked off with even more of a vengeance when they actually finished. He sobbed in the street and refused to walk back to the car, stepping out behind parked cars shouting, 'No, no, no...' continuously at the top of his voice.

I think he was lamenting the dancing being over, but by this time he had lost most of the power of meaningful communication and wouldn't listen to reason. I was pushing the pram and holding hands with a skipping 4-year-old, and just wanted to be home. So - I picked Gilby up under one arm, pushed the pram vigorously with the other and let Gertie fend for herself. It wasn't a good look, and it certainly wasn't my finest hour of parenting. But we got back to the car in one piece, eventually. What I didn't need was a total stranger to wind down the window of a passing car and scream, "Don't hold him like a sack of potatoes!" at the top of her voice.

Who did she think she was? How dare she interfere? Don't scream out of car windows at stressed families!

Things That Go Bump in the Kitchen

Another year, another birthday, another mess in the kitchen, another baking triumph (but don't look too closely, it's a little, er, 'rustic' round the edges).

Yes, Gilby was two last week, and with a few days to go before the event he announced that he no longer wanted another train cake, but 'Mr Bump'. Good, I thought, at least it's round. Though blue was not the most appetising colour for the, mostly adult, guests at his tea party.

Pregnancy hormones must be kicking in big time, because I also MADE bunting for the occasion. I saw some for sale at the primary school fete and thought, 'Twenty quid for a couple of metres? Pah! I'll make it!'

So, having invested in a sewing machine and a selection of fabric, I reckon my bunting has set me back over £200. Oh well.

But the little man was on top form, dressed in shirt and tie for the day, and even going as far as to sit back up in bed, more tired than I've ever seen him, just after kissing him goodnight to say, "Thank you for my party, mummy," in the sweetest, most angelic little voice.

Now, lest all this sound too good to be true, and I'm even sickening myself with the homely baking and bunting imagery, let me just pronounce, for the record, that the terrible twos began in earnest the very next day as Gilby kicked and screamed and demanded, "More presents, more presents, more presents..." for hours. So domestic bliss was short-lived...

34 Weeks pregnant: Definitely not feeling the bikini body...
Currently reading: That Summer in Ischia by Penny Feeny

Gangsta Nap

Gilby is eight weeks away from his second birthday, but the terrible twos have well and truly arrived. My usually smiley, happy, very good natured little boy is occasionally kidnapped and substituted for a little horror who looks remarkably similar. But when this doppelganger is present, we have regular screaming tantrums, the comedy grumpy face, the inflexible torso, the poker-straight back, the kicking and lashing out, and the repeated no's regardless of what the question is:

"Would you like a biscuit?"
"NO!"
"Would you like a birthday party?"
"NO!"
"Would you like to stand up?"
"NO!"
"Sit down?"
"No, no, NO!"
"Would you like to scream your head off all day long?"
"NO!"
Well stop doing it then....

We had one such incident the other night at bedtime.

Usual bedtime routine - supper, bath, Bedtime Hour on CBeebies, then milk in the rocking chair whilst I read my Kindle. In case this sounds heartless, it is at his behest. "Mummy, read Kindle!" (Sentences generally take an imperative form at the moment.)

When he has had enough of his milk he thrusts it forward and whispers, "Finished...bed." At this point, I tuck him in, leave his little wind-up cot-music playing, turn out the light and gently close the door. He might sing to himself for a little while, but usually he is asleep within a few minutes. (Lest this all sound too good to be true, let me reassure you that he will be up at least once and probably twice later during the night...)

Anyway, on the night in question, instead of the cosy little scenario described above, a purple-faced, snot-ridden, screaming tantrum from hell ensued. Nothing could calm him, and I resorted to leaving him crying in his cot for a while. I couldn't pick him up anyway, given the rigid back, clenched fists and kicking (not great for my 26 week 'baby tummy').

But the little man has learned how to reach over from the cot, open his door and turn the light on. The tantrum meant that Gertie couldn't get to sleep, so I had to drag the cot into the middle of the room in an effort to keep the door closed and contain the noise. After fifteen minutes had passed he still didn't seem to have calmed down at all. I had to go back in, and I braved his angry lashing out. I sat stubbornly in the rocking chair repeatedly offering the milk and singing. (Somewhere Over the Rainbow, his favourite from tiny.) His reaction was to punch me repeatedly in the mouth.

I persisted. Eventually, the rigid, angry little body went limp in my arms and he reached out for his bottle, snuggling back into his usual position.

He slid the bottle to one side of his mouth so that only the corner of his lips was moving and, menacing like some mafiosa gangster, gave his snarling, whispered demand that I 'Sing that Song!'

For 'Transition' Read 'Chaos'

It's a 'period of transition' in our house at the moment. Is that the diplomatic expression for 'chaos'? Gertie turning three seems to have coincided with the delayed arrival of the 'terrible twos'...anyone got an explanation or a thought on that? But, in addition, the stair gates have gone up, the low-level ornaments are put away, the cot mattress lowered and the teething gel has come out.

Several things have happened simultaneously. As Gilby, at ten months, has finally recovered from a prolonged period of illnesses (very boring, no need to recap, but he now appears to be fighting fit for more than a week for the first time since January) it seems he has done all his development in one go. Suddenly, today, bottom teeth have broken through, and at the weekend he at last worked out how to crawl forwards. Fast. (The backwards shuffle was frustrating us all.) So he is off; suddenly no longer a helpless baby, but a teeth-gnashing infant who can go wherever he wants.

Usually Gilby goes down to sleep with no trouble whatsoever. (The trouble comes later in the night, but that is another story.) So I put him down to sleep a few nights ago and he didn't really seem to settle properly. There were a few mumbly-grumbly cries which gradually over a period of about ten minutes became more insistent.

Usually I would leave him; he sucks his thumb so is generally fine once he has found that. But no, this began to sound more distressed, and so I eventually went in to see what was going on. He had somehow managed to climb up and pull his entire cot canopy from its railing, and was sitting up in bed covered entirely with a white floor-length drape - giving him a ghostly profile in the semi-darkness. Very funny - and he seemed to find it so too as he watched his helpless parents collapse into fits of giggles.

I know I shouldn't laugh and it could have been dangerous, but it is just an example of how nothing is now safe, not even bedtime in his cot!

I Didn't Sign Up For This

Parenting is a 'lifestyle choice', apparently.

I knew some of what I was signing up for: anticipated sleepless nights, dreaded terrible twos and supermarket tantrums, and definitely pictured myself making lots of mushy food.

But it is replete with other stuff I wasn't aware of. The small print of parenting; the way you just become immune to things that would be otherwise revolting.

I never thought I would be picking dried snot from a bedsheet, for example, because it was clean on last night and I do enough washing without changing the linen daily...

It never once occurred to me that gradually, over time, it would be come acceptable to leave the house with dribble and/or vomit on my clothes.

And frankly, the thought of scooping a poo from the bath with my bare hands would have been abhorrent three years ago. I can now do it with my 'matter of fact' face on, and barely notice it at all.

What did you not sign up for?

Like Taking Candy from an Adult

Gertie made a big breakthrough in Gertie-world today. She worked out that she could simply go to the kitchen cupboard, open the door, and help herself to the expensive Belgian chocolates nestling in there, specifically for grown-ups. Easy.

She has gone to bed now, probably kicking herself for not thinking of it before, and just a little bit wiser to the ways of the world.

And it strikes me that plenty of my parenting relies on her simply doing what she is told. I think I am going to have to up my game.

Pinchy Boy

We didn't have our happiest ever Sunday yesterday.

For Gertie, the terrible twos (which I have been fervently denying the existence of for the last six months) have finally kicked in.

At breakfast, she refused to drink from her cup as it was the wrong one. It was right the day before, so this was bewildering. Then there were tears because she didn't want the raisins 'hidden' in her cereal. (This is usually a fun game that causes plenty of giggles.) The banana got mashed into the 'cup of wrong' and smeared over table and face while I popped into the next room to give Gilby a feed. I came back in to carnage over the freshly washed floor. What has happened to her oft-commented-upon 'astonishingly good toddler table manners'?

Then there were two tantrums in public places (one of the prostrate-on-the-floor-kicking-and-refusing-to-move-variety), followed by a poo in the knickers (I have proudly been telling everyone how quickly and how well Gertie has potty-trained) but worst of all was the new nickname she has designed, completely independently, for her baby brother. We like nicknames in our family, and all have one. But Gilby's is NOT and NEVER has been, 'Pinchy Boy'.

And you can probably imagine the associated actions that come with the name. And yes, his pudgy cheeks do look invitingly 'pinchy', but surely not to a two-year-old? This is a worrying development as she has previously been very affectionate towards the new arrival.

She has gone to nursery this morning, giving everyone time to regroup, and Gilby's 'pinchy-boy' cheeks some much-needed healing time.