Wheels on the bus

On Boxing day I woke up to the bus song, coming through loud and clear through the baby monitor. It was well after 8 - our schedule, if it can be called that, gets later and later if we let it, with bedtime back at 8:30 and Nina still not asleep by 9, the past few days. Anyway, after the wheels, and the wipers, and the children making TOO MUCH NOISE, and the bumping up and down, there was a new verse: "The Ninas on the bus say 'I love Mummy', 'I love Mummy, 'I love Mummy'  .... ALL day LONG". That really just made my week. 

      But in other ways, let's just say ...  Breaking NEWS!  Busy working parents find 2-year-old is having tantrums, situation frustrating!

      Bedtime drama continues. We decided that while Nina's clearly able to understand the sticker system, she needs an immediate consequence if things aren't going well, because it wasn't working although it's still a powerful motivator. So we've started leaving if she won't lie down for stories, and also picking a time on the clock and explaining that stories are over at that time, so if the pajamas aren't on blah blah blah then there won't be time for stories. So far, three nights, so good .. but like everything I get optimistic about, maybe it'll only last a week or two. Meanwhile we're now getting power struggles at dinner, with less at bedtime. I guess toddlers have an inherent need to test their parents' limits and rules.  

     I picked Nina up from nursery on their last day before the holidays. They asked me if I wanted her to move into preschool. Preschool? I thought. She's 2. Ok, 2 1/2. I don't think she should, although it would save us 44£ a week. It's a more structured environment, in which they learn abc's and counting and whatnot. It normally starts at or around age 3. They said that Nina is very smart and is ready, in terms of the learning side of things, but they agreed with me that being in a less structured, more playing, environment, is good for now. Many of her friends are not going yet, but a few are - the ones that are slightly older. This nursery has a great-looking preschool area, which was one thing we liked about it, all naturally lit with skylights and full of interesting activities. 
     Having spent year upon year upon year being bored in school, I don't want my child starting ahead at age 2, risking her being bored already by age 3. She likes counting (though she doesn't always get the idea that you count each thing once and only once). She's showing some interest in letters and reading but I don't want to push that. She's learned to sing simple songs, and it's cute. She remembers music, today I put on her baby Bach cd after months of not having it out, and she said "that one has a baby on the front", remembering the match between the case and the music. So naturally I'm proud as anything of all that, but ... but ... emotionally, tantrum-wise, sleep-needing-wise, playing-wise, she's a full-blown 2 years old. And she should enjoy it; we all should, while it lasts.

 

Daycare card etiquette?

Nina started daycare (nursery, it's called here) in November. If you've been reading this, you'll know that she was quickly followed home by every virus in the kingdom of England, most of which I caught, while A- was away for 2 weeks, and it was dreadful. Now it's over and I've been here and un-infected for two whole weeks - unprecedented, I tell you. 

   Anyway, she is out there every day, forging her own relationships and learning things. For example, she came home the other day and said something like "Olivia is my friend and Izzy is my friend and Phoenix is my friend and (several more) but Lou is not my friend". She wasn't able to say why not, so I asked about it. It turns out that Lou is a staff member who usually works with the babies but was with the 2-yr-olds for the day. I was glad to hear that Nina's not distinguishing levels of friendship with the other toddlers yet; while I love that she is developing quickly, and it's so fun to watch, there are many aspects of social behaviour that as far as I'm concerned can wait, forever.

   Today it was stormy, I was tired, it was gently hailing, and I had finished my undergraduate teaching until mid-January (YAY!), with a 2-hr lecture given to about 1/3 the class, the others having left for break early, I guess. So I'd come home and gotten the car to go pick her up. As we left, she pointed to the window and said "look Mummy, a CHRISTMAS!" (meaning a Christmas tree). "We have one at OUR house!", she said. "And, Father Christmas is coming!". I guess they tell them all about Father Christmas. Kinda cute, I suppose ... I have my reservations about whether we'll tell her that Santa brings presents or not. I guess I'm inclined not to, but this will obviously go against what everyone else does. Why don't I want to? I'm not sure. Anyway the conversation continued:  "We will get presents.... But, I already GOT a present". I said yes, you've already got some under the tree from Grandma, and Opa. "And, I got a present of markers" (recently bought at Shoppers in Vancouver, and highly popular). She sings Jingle Bells, sort of - it's really cute. She doesn't seem to know other Christmas songs.

    Along with learning about Christmas, and learning how to count, and paint, and about what stockings are, she is also getting Christmas cards. There have been two so far, from other kids. What's the etiquette here? I've never met the other parents; the daycare has social evenings but hasn't had one since November. And the parents' names aren't on them. It just says 'from Olivia' or whoever. Do these parents give cards to all the kids? Or is this because their child particularly mentions Nina? Is it weird to ask (surely the staff know, because they distribute them)? Is it the norm to give cards to all the other kids, or just those your kid talks about?  Is this some kind of crazy excess card-giving weirdness? It's kind of sweet until you start wondering whether you're expected to reciprocate ... 

    In other news we went to a big supermarket last weekend. Nina was really good the whole time and very patient. It was still a pain - I've always kind of hated doing that. And I should appreciate it while I'm here; I love not having to drive to a big supermarket every time I want cilantro, or fruit, or basically anything not available at 7-11. Our local Tesco express isn't super-cheap, but it's not terribly expensive, and it actually manages to have most of what we need most of the time, and we can get in and out of there in 10 minutes. Nina doesn't lose patience, and helps find things and put them in the basket, and it's a 2 minute walk from our place. For things not available at Tesco there is a range of local delis and little corner shops and a small Somerfield. Anyway, we still go up to the supermarket, a full 3-minute drive away, every age or two. And by then we need everything. Anyway the reason I wanted to remember this is that finally, when the cart was overflowing with our everything, I said that Nina had been a really good girl and now we should go play on the Thomas the Tank Engine ride while A- finished up the shopping and paid for it. And: oh my GOD, the excitement! The glee! The sheer, unrestrained joy of it! The anticipation! The adorable anticipatory giggling, jumping up and down and arm waving! Three days later, the satisfied smile and delighted mentions of this glorious event. Ah, toddlers. It's a little ride you put 1£ into, for 3 rides, and it gently bobs up and down making train sounds and allowing you to push buttons, turn wheels and thereby get extra choo choo sounds. And it's incredibly fun.

My students are cold

For various reasons I don't usually post about work here, although I might start - maybe it'll make it more interesting to read, who knows. I did write about the grant that is unofficially funded, which is a big success, and that's nice. I've been reading a few other academic blogs recently, mainly when my favourite other parenting blogs haven't been updated and I want something to read. Female Science Professor is really good, although discussions of tenure and whatnot are obviously more oriented to the American scene than the UK one. There was recently some stuff about how to handle it when one has an "unproductive" student or postdoc -- in particular, one should not blame these individuals for one's potentially weak tenure file, for example, as most faculty have dealt with this in one way or another over the years. I am extremely lucky with my PhD students so far; all are variously hard-working, creative, good programmers, good writers, and so on, to differing degrees in each, and with different personal styles, of course.

    The one thing they really have in common? 

    They are too cold. One ran into A- late the other evening and explained that it's warmer at work; she doesn't control the heat in her apartment and it's too cold. Especially in the mornings, it's very cold, because it's only on for a little while, so she has to get up and out pretty fast. Another said you can always see your breath in her flat. And a third said she bought a little heater, so now she'd like to work at home more, because it's cold at her desk. How am I supposed to be so productive, to involve my students in more publications and projects, when the temperature of the spaces around them effectively controls where they spend their time? This country is crazy, I tell you. People work with toques on in our library, and scarves too. The wind blows the papers around on my desk. Nothing has insulation. Every year, people explain that we are really not set up for winter here, as it doesn't happen often - but in fact, it does happen approximately every 12 months. And it makes the students too cold.

 

consistency

So, routine, as you may be aware, has never been my strong suit. Sure, I had heard that kids need it. But I never wanted it. It seems forced to me - why force yourself to eat dinner at the exact same time every day? Some days you might want to cook for longer, eat later. Other days you might want to go to a movie (and I mean you, as opposed to me: when do I go to movies? Still, I like some flexibility) and you'll eat a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. 

    Kids, however, do seem to benefit from consistency, which like routine, is not exactly my strong suit. Several episodes of Supernanny, together with the fading power of the stickers (don't get me wrong, it's still a stroke of genius, but ...) have convinced me that consistent, non-threatening consequences must be added to our sticker program. As a result, tonight after some pre-bedtime manipulation I have implemented a "one chance" policy. As in: Nina, if you don't come and brush your teeth by the time I count to 5, I will carry you there ... then a reminder ... then slow counting ... then carrying. Same for brushing the actual teeth. Same for putting nappy on. Same for everything. Wow. It's LOUD. And SCREAMY. I wonder how long this will go on for, with me going in there every 5-10 minutes and explaining it all over again. I feel like I'll still be doing this at 2am.
  Meanwhile ... I'll remind myself of the good things: the way Nina always wants to kiss me better if I'm hurt, the way she is so happy when I get her from nursery, the way she learns so fast, the hugs, the emerging sense of humour, the singing.  And the way, at least up to now, I've only had to actually be strict like this once or twice for it to sink in -- fingers crossed. And now I feel the tumbling, bonking, turning, kicking feeling of another active child on the way.

The incredible power of the sticker

 Well, after my 13 days of solo parenting A- came back. I got surprised for a day or two every time he did something like put the dishes in the dishwasher, or get them out again, having gotten used to doing every single tiny thing. It was nice. Very nice. I got another really bad cold. Then I flew to Vancouver for 4 insane days which I might or might not blog more about another time. I ate cheesecake and it was exactly the same as it was 15 years ago: fantastic. Flying in to the airport, especially internationally, is stunning - it's clean, it's mainly empty, it's got free wifi, it's got Native art, it's got plants, it's got flowing water, it's got waterfalls, it's got sculpture, it's got super-friendly bilingual staff of diverse ethnicities offering help, it's got a shiny new train station on a line into downtown. In other words it is the absolute opposite of every single aspect of flying in to the UK (where, I noted, one is greeted with a broken escalator, some garbage, a long dreadful walk to Heathrow central bus station, a 45-minute pointless and ultimately ineffective wait in a freezing cold line for a totally ridiculous typically bullshit reason and so on). 

Now I'm back. I don't have a cold - this is the first evening with A- in London in a month that I haven't had one. I don't even really have jet lag, not having adjusted in the first place. 

And I want to blog about stickers. We've had more than our share of bedtime problems with Nina, and less than our share of other problems. At bedtime, you can't do a 'time out' or a treat or whatever because all of those things ultimately just give more delays. The solution? A big piece of paper, with colourful circles, hearts, stars, moons, and NINA in big colourful letters, all done in crayon; a 5£ set of stickers from the local WHSmith and some mini gift-wrapping bows. Each crying-free 'good girl bedtime' gets Nina one sticker, in one circle. After filling a column of circles: a gift-wrapping bow! On or under a colourful heart, star, moon or happy face! WOW! Oh my god - a STICKER?!  Bedtime problems were solved, at least for now, immediately. I mean, that very night. It's amazing. She's so psyched about putting it on there in the morning, and the BOWS. Wow. I help by making a big deal out of it, praising, clapping and so on. Stickers - who knew? A- is still saying it was a stroke of genius. 

It takes considerably more than that to motivate me. Promotions? Money? well, it takes quite a lot of money. A fancier job, maybe? The chance to move home, that's a good one. I know: a really great, warm, beach holiday with snorkelling involved, and great food, organisation included- that'd be awesome. Maybe a grand piano. All of them are hard to arrange. But a 2-year-old? It's all about the stickers.

And here's one more cool thing. Today Nina drew this. It's a plane. It's not a scribble! It's got wings! 

She has sudocreme on her face because the cold weather is making it dry and red. But she was happy that I was happy. I think she's really happy that I'm back. She was pretty thrilled when I said that after nursery we'd have some Mummy-Nina time. She relaxed, both last night and tonight, when on the verge of getting into bed, when I said that my trips are done and I'm not going on any more trips soon.  I taped the plane to the fridge. 
 

solo, day 12

The home stretch is here: one more day. Some days haven't been at all bad, and in fact, I think that if we'd both been healthy this would have been no trouble. I think what's hard about parenting, or at least, one of many things, is the extreme unpredictability and emotional chaos. How can the child who is happily helping me empty the dishwasher one minute, cheerfully thanking me for passing her another spoon to put away, be in the throes of an unintelligible screaming fit three minutes later, over who knows what? Is it that she's "overtired" - the explanation for all aberrant behaviour? But it wasn't past her usual bedtime, although I think her usual bedtime is perhaps a bit late now that she's at the nursery. After that, she basically had a tantrum over every single goddamned stage of bedtime. Now, you wouldn't think there'd be many stages, would you? I mean, get the pajamas on, read the stories, and into bed. Oh no! you'd be wrong. There was the crying over wanting to go back out and walk to the bedroom (I had carried her, cuddling her because she was getting over the first tantrum and had said she was sorry. oops). There was the tantrum over whether to climb on to the change table herself - yes, she wanted to, but naturally, not any time soon... typical. Then back to the walking to the bedroom one. Then one about the stories. Then getting into the bed. Then one about the light - wanting it on, although I've decided it shouldn't be left on while we're not in there because it's a fire hazard (damned English wiring - how can 6 bulbs go out in one week? we go through them like they're going out of style, which, of course, they are, being incandescent. Grr). By this point, she *was* too tired. 

  Ok, enough of that rant. Feels good to get it out, especially since it's not like I've had social contact with anyone for the last 11 days. The one-hour wait in the doctor's office doesn't count, nor does the 10-minute conversation with the doctor establishing the fact that her ear is fine and despite intermittent fever and listlessness and ear pain and rash pain and incessant snottiness and disturbing, sleep-disrupting, lung-ejecting persistent endless oh-god-when-will-they-stop night-time coughs, she does not seem to need antibiotics... 

  In total: I need a drink. Not the red berry tea I'm planning to have, mind you. A real drink. Ideally this drink would be followed, throughout the evening, by several other drinks, in the company of good friends, and since this is a fantasy anyway, old friends, the kinds of friends you just never replace, no matter how many nice new friends and acquaintances you make. I miss you, guys, if you're out there.

  So, is there good news? well, I guess she doesn't have an ear infection or a UTI, and she's now asleep (very good news). Other than catching every bug in the kingdom (all of them viral, dammit, or we'd have cured them with drugs by now) she's doing well at nursery. Hannah, with considerable devotion, made a replacement for the piece of the bus puzzle that we lost the first time we opened it, and Nina is absolutely delighted.  She makes that bus puzzle every single day. Probably the most hours of entertainment 5£ has ever bought.

   And finally, I think I've been awarded my first major research grant. They wanted a new impact plan with more specific objectives but have recommended it to be funded. It's good -- it's good for my career etc etc but also, I believe in the work and if we're successful we will reduce the cost of a vaccine, one that's currently used widely only in rich countries - so we'd help, is my point. Not that I have time to do the work, of course, although we'll have postdocs. Are academics the only people in the world who struggle really hard and compete for the grants to allow them to do more work, for no extra pay? Anyway, it's good.

solo parenting, day 6

Ok, so all's well until somebody gets an absolutely terrible cold. I felt it coming on on Monday, then taught my computer lab class on tuesday, then .. what a nightmare. The worst moment, I think, was when I wouldn't let Nina open the sticky hard-to-open door herSELF, in a moment of impatience, and told her I'd be waiting in her room with her milk and her stories if she wanted to come in. Now, in my defense, this was after a LOT of moments of patience, some of which had to do with that very same door, mixed with a LOT of sneezing on my part. She threw a massive tantrum, of course, as any tired toddler who's just been told suddenly that she can't do something HERSELF is prone to do. So, I found myself sitting in her room crying, with her standing in the kitchen crying, and I was thinking, couldn't I have had 2 more minutes of patience? 

   Wednesday was worse, cold-wise; went to a couple of meetings that I felt I really shouldn't cancel. I came home and slept, watched dvds and tried to work (unsuccessfully). We had some other screaming disaster, I don't remember its details. These come right at bedtime. Yesterday was fine. Today she did the dinner thing, where she won't eat, but she loses it when you try to do the dishes. I gave in ('cause I'm a sucker) and said she could play for a while and try again. 20 minutes before I wanted bedtime to start I convinced her to try again. And again, she didn't want to eat, and even choked on a bite and spat it back out. But she still wouldn't let me take it away; I had to calm her down off a tantrum just to brush her teeth. Then I noticed she felt warm, and her nose had gotten runnier. I am taking up compulsive hand sanitizing, but I don't think there is any chance she could catch something and not transmit it to me. Little vector. But I don't know what I'll do if I get something else.

    In other news, apparently at a somewhat chaotic moment at nursery when they were getting all the kids' coats and mitts on, Nina calmly said "We've been through this". I guess I say that, as in, "come on Nina, we've been through this, we have to brush your teeth before bed"... But she's always just fine there, and when I pick her up, she says "I had a great day!" and she gives me a huge big hug and a smile.

    6 days down, 7 to go.

 

solo

A. is away for just about TWO WEEKS. So, to keep myself amused (on top of my 5 PhD students, my 6+ hours/ week of teaching, my prep for talks I'm giving and my toddler care) I figured I'd blog more. The good news is that, after following through that one time, Nina now says "remember, I was just playing, and mummy lift me up... climb in when mummy SAYS", and by and large, she does it. So that's good.You don't have to follow through too often, with Nina - she learns, and takes us more seriously with other things. Next up: the frequent dinnertime battle, in which Nina doesn't eat, and goes off, only to have a PANIC ATTACK when she spots someone doing the dishes and/or packing leftovers away. At that time, she screams, runs into the room, and whines "I want to eat my dinner". It's annoying. I usually just slowly get her to eat it by explaining that we eat at dinner time, and that we clean up, otherwise it gets messy at our house, blah blah blah. One of these days I'll have to put it away and actually not give it back, precipitating a wakeful night. Although really, it's only been once in the last few months that she's actually woken up in the night asking for the food she didn't finish. I just can't face it now, with A. away.

     I was away last week, at a conference in Amsterdam. It was good, busy, nice to sleep in a hotel room with no toys in it, and with ample heating (my GOD! my towel dried between my nighttime bath and my morning shower! HOW is it POSSIBLE? and it's so unecessary: they supply more than one towel per guest... and it's heated along the entire, short, middle-of-the-night visit to the bathroom, so you don't have to fumble in the dark for your wool slippers and then freeze your tush off... you get the idea, especially those of you who've been here). Nina would have loved it there. I had a view over the water, so there were lots of boats, and I could see trains entering the central station, and streetcars. I can't wait to go back, with her next time. 

     So, solo parenting: so far so good. Yesterday we hung out all morning, made bagel dough, and cleaned the floors. Cleaning the floors can provide almost an hour of entertainment if your toddler wants to hold the mop with you, and then take a turn doing the whole floor HERSELF. Had lunch, had nap, went to zoo very quickly because they close at 5, had whiny crankiness because I didn't realise she was hungry, came home, had leftovers, shaped bagels, put toddler to bed, boiled and baked bagels, watched Jamie Oliver's food revolution on youtube, and that was it. Fun show. And the bagels are great.

    Today: rushed to get Nina to nursery before I had to teach at 9, but made it. Then I walked over to pick her up, heard about how well and how quickly she's adjusting to it there, and how good she always is and how much fun she has and all, and we retrieved our stroller. It had stayed there all weekend. Then we came home, made some bus puzzles, had some homemade mac+cheese with grilled asparagus, took forever eating dinner (as above with the screaming panic), and then had a bedtime. Not bad.

  

Halloween

It's halloween. We're going to a neighbour's place for hot apple cider (non-alcoholic for some, stronger for others, sigh ..) and then taking Nina for the English version of trick-or-treating, which I gather is much like ours, only scaled back a lot. And some people think you should only go to households that have said they're ok with accepting visitors. Heck, people, just don't answer the door if it bothers you that much, I say. As a parent, and with a feeling of great betrayal to the child I used to be, I think it's a great idea that they don't collect 1kg of candy here. Nina's got a real witch's costume, which Hannah provided (ah, I'll miss her). I'm going to wear my velvet cloak and some lipstick and go as a witch's mummy.

Anyway, we've got our little witch, but she's asleep, after much tantruming when I wouldn't let her climb into the cotbed HERSELF. She was delaying and delaying and I said that if she didn't climb in I'd lift her in, and then, oh my god, I *followed through* and lifted her in, and the screaming started. She was, quite literally, hopping mad, holding the footboard of the bed and hopping up and down in anger. It was frustrating but hilarious.  The thing is, I've been thinking that I only had to take the bus towel away the one time - now we have no more trouble getting out of the bath ever. And it's the same with the pajamas - there was a week when we had pajama tantrums and now they are gone. So I have high hopes that this will disappear too, but the fact that she is really too big for a bed that's actually a sort of socially-acceptable cage is looming, and its acceptability is diminishing. Hmph. 

Anyway, on to something more positive: Nina likes puns. She has a book, The Snowy Day (which I'm sure many of you know well, or remember vaguely). She sometimes refers to yogurt as "dahin" (basically, pronounced as a nasal version of "day"). So I said "Is it the snowy dahin?" and she thought it was HILARIOUS. She's still chuckling over it. On wednesday when we went to Sainsbury's, she said "hee hee, we're going to SPAINbury!" She also loves it when we open a book, and start saying the text of a different book. She says: "Papa's TEASING me! Tease me again! Again!" 

Baby

It's real, it's still in there, it jumps around and kicks and puts its hand on its face, and apparently it is perfect, at least as far as they can tell:

Hi there, little Hink. 
 

Learning

I taught Nina the word "learning" yesterday. Naturally it was in the context of a bus, a double decker bus, and the fact that she always wants to make the two bus puzzles that she can do completely independently. One of these is a 12-piece yellow double decker bus, and if you flip all the pieces over, it's also a red one. The yellow one has animals as the passengers and driver and the red one has people. She worked out how to do the yellow one by herself really quickly, and since then has always made that one. Yesterday I told her that if we made the red one together, then she would learn how to make it herself. So we made it, and she said "I'm learning". Lo and behold, one attempt later and she could make it herself. 

Here are a couple of things I've learned in the past couple of days: 

 -- Don't tell your friend that your toddler is completely toilet-trained, even if he asks, and even if is apparently true, unless you wish to have a poo-related drama in a bath. That was rough. 

-- When a kid says she has to poo, then doesn't, [repeat several times], then says her "bum bum" (read: "girl parts") hurts, and wants rash cream, and then demands a bath, she is probably going to poo in the bath

-- After your kid does a tiny little poo in the bath, don't put her back in the bath!  (How dumb is that? How many degrees did we say we had?)

-- Toddlers are adorable, affectionate little creatures with an incredible knack for manipulating parents into delaying bedtime

In other news, amoxicillin doesn't seem to help with my chronic congestion. The midwive suggested acupuncture, which I may pursue. She also, however, suggested a home birth, and hypno-birthing. Granted, I had asked about lamaze classes (there aren't any, can you believe that?), and I gather that hypno-birthing may be a version of meditation/breathing techniques for labour, which I would actually like to learn about if it weren't called something that sounded alarming. And I had asked about how fast labour might be - it was very quick last time at 6 hours start to finish - in part because we're wondering how to set up very rapid care for Nina when I go into labour. Giving birth at home, particularly if it happened during the day when Nina's at nursery or when friends are available to take her: well, it would be great not to be stuck in a loud, disruptive maternity ward with dreadful food for one or two days, and it would be better for Nina to see us right away. I guess. So all good, as long as nothing goes wrong - and that's, of course, the crucial point. 

Anyway, I looked up acupuncture for congestion and there have been controlled trials showing that it is effective, although it doesn't seem (in these trials) to eliminate it completely. Hmph. It is apparently quite widely used in pregnancy. Learn something every day. Anyone reading this have any acupuncture experience?

 

bagels and snotty noses

Well, not only is our child potty trained, with a few hiccups (polite phrase for them) here and there (a less polite phrase would be something more like "a few endless angsty whiny hour-long repetitive bathroom-leaving-bathroom-entering dramatic disaster-producing episodes"... but these seem to have stopped, so we'll go with "hiccups") ... our child is also nose-trained. I seem to have successfully, if perhaps temporarily, convinced my child that her hand will get sticky if she uses it to wipe her nose. Now she urgently says "I NEED to BLOW NOSE!". We STILL all have a blasted COLD. This is week 3. It started on Sept 19, for me, for her a couple days earlier. She's been well in between, but I haven't, and let me tell you, it sucks. I hate it. Amps isn't that well either. I'm coughing and congested at night, Nina's got a runny nose and Amps is coughing and feeling unwell. And I can't take anything, like a decongestant, or a gravol, without taking at least some risk with the baby. Blah. Teaching starts next week - it hasn't even started yet! If this season's anything like last year I'm going to have trouble pulling my teaching together...

Anyway. On Sunday, Nina helped me make some bagels. I haven't made them since I was pregnant with her - there was even a little note on the recipe that they had turned out too small, "but pregnant", I wrote in the margin, as if to explain that of course I would naturally want *big* bagels. (Actually, I remember not being able to eat much at a time, suddenly feeling massively full after 6 bites. Some of that is coming back now, but with this pregnancy at least the nausea has been better. It's the headaches and the endless cold that are problems)

Anyway - bagels. I love them. When we lived in Montreal I could get them whenever I wanted - literally - I had the best ever bagels, fresh as could be, available 24 hrs a day at Fairmont and St Viateur, not too far from where I lived, and near my favourite brew pub too (Dieu du Ciel. I can't start talking about food and drink in Montreal or this post will never end. And the deps! And the Chu Chai! And, and, and ... sigh).

But here? Well, if one is able to go to London, one can apparently get pretty good bagels. Consensus on the web indicates that the best are to be had a ways north of the centre, and/or in Brick Lane. Now, it is MUCH faster for me to make bagels than it is for me to go to Brick Lane and back. A very thorough internet search reveals that good bagels are categorically NOT to be had in this city. English ale? Yes. Bagels? No. Well, bready non-bagel toroid objects from the supermarket, yes, but these are NOT bagels. Bagels, as you know, are boiled before they are baked, whether you like NY bagels, Montreal bagels, or whatever. They are chewy, they are a bit crispy on the outside, they are fantastic with cream cheese and they are the ideal breakfast. 

Nina loves playing with dough. She loves putting things in the mixer, and turning it on, and watching it mix. She loves standing on a chair and helping me, pretty much whatever I'm doing. It's great. (In fact I've figured out that she can put all the cutlery away, leaving me to unload the rest of the dishwasher without interruption).  She liked putting her finger through and making the holes. She shaped her own little piece into a mini-bagel, and she loved eating it. In the end, they were a bit small (but of course I'm pregnant), and they are delicious. Next time I'll have a longer second rise. She loves eating them. And I do too, and somehow, making them felt like reconnecting with who I was before Nina, someone who had time to make homemade bagels, only this time I have someone to share it with who is making them for the very first time. 

Before the new baby comes I want to get to some more concerts, get to the chamber music club to play the grand piano, and do all those things I'll probably pause again, now that my child is the advanced, mature, age of .. er .. 2.

 "I TWO! Mummy .. is... " (let's say 27 for now.)

Well, if anyone wants the bagel recipe, leave a comment and I will post it (that'll save me some effort: no one ever comments! but that's ok folks, this is all for me, for Amps, for Nina, for, well, posterity).

Names, nurseries ...

"Nina, what do you think we should name your little brother, if it's a brother?"

"ummm... hee hee ... ummm ... HINK!  HINK! HINK!" (breaks out in giggles)

"You mean Henk, or Hinke?" (both Dutch names)

"Ummm, I want HINK!" (giggles)

"Can you think of any other good names?" 

"umm.... Boo! I want .. Boo! "

"You want a baby brother called Boo?"

(hysterical giggling) ... "how 'bout, Poo?"

"Nina, we can't name your baby brother 'Poo' ... "

"Poo! Poo!" (giggles)

(.. more giggles)... "how about: HINK?"

In other news, I had a *bad* day yesterday.    First I fiddled all the final details of my grant application, which I wanted to submit a month ago but which got delayed for various reasons. Then, on the point of submission, I realised that while I had thought the minimum font size was 10pt, it is in fact 11pt. I was sure I had looked, months ago. Perhaps they changed it. In any case, the point was, I had to make about a 15% cut to the whole thing. And of course the government here is probably going to cut science funding so massively that no new grants will be funded and perhaps even those that have already been awarded will be cut back, so the entire font-related fine-tuning exercise is almost certainly completely pointless. But naturally, having prepared this entire proposal, I'm hardly going to drop it because of this, so of course I had to cut it back, attempting to preserve its coherence and content blah blah blah blah. After that soul-sucking exercise it is now done, out of my hands, and awaiting its final rejection.

Then I came home, thinking, thank goodness for Nina, we'll spend some time together, it'll be all fun, and relaxing; we'll do some puzzles, take a bath. And H-, our childminder, gave me a little card as she left. And in the card she explained that she's been offered a job running her own horse yard and won't be a childminder and that this is her 1 months' notice. And that she'll miss us, especially Nina, and wants to keep contact etc etc. 

Still: the panic hit. No childcare, no H-. Huh. We have been extremely lucky with H-, as she picks Nina up and drops her off (so nice!) and in between, they go to tons of places and have lots of outside time and stimulating fun things to do. A- was in London at the time, and not back till after 10. After the whole grant thing, and I guess what with the pregnancy hormones, I was just so upset. Nina's known H- since she was 4 months old. Will she think that A- or I could just suddenly not be there one day, not be putting her to sleep at nap or bedtime, not be cuddling her? Was that why she was so difficult when H- was gone for two weeks? I could barely keep from tears. A few days after H- stops, I have to be in Amsterdam for a meeting. Shortly after that A- will be away for 10 days. Total disruption.

We knew she wouldn't have the same childminder forever. We knew, actually, that the situation was going to change some time in the next few months, though I thought maybe H- would just be based somewhere else, or something. I know Nina will adapt, we'll explain it to her carefully and repeatedly, we'll keep in touch, we'll try to go visit, and have H- over here as much as we can at first.

So I called A- in London. Unlike me he is not the least hesistant to call strangers on the phone and ask them loads of questions. Within an hour he had identified a few other options, including a nursery (no, not plants, it's a daycare) that we have heard of through friends. It is nearby; they have an Outstanding Ofsted rating (the best), they seemed to charge reasonable rates (this was outdated; like everything else in this godforsaken place they are exorbitantly expensive, at least 50% more than we'd be paying in Canada from what I can tell, though they are still on the lower end of what it's possible to pay), and they appear to have vacancies. We visited today. Apart from some possible issue about which of their two locations Nina would be in, it seemed great. So maybe we'll just do that. 

Does anyone have opinions about childminder (ie home care) vs nursery (ie daycare)? Good/bad memories or experiences? Will Nina get a million colds, even more than usual? I guess I think she's ready for a nursery now, with all those other kids and more things to concentrate on and manipulate and try, in a setting that includes a preschool for when she's 3 ... I'm certainly ready for a setting that never cancels at the last minute and is open from 8 to 6 and is flexible after 6 and can even take care of Nina until A- comes home really really late, like if I'm at a conference... any thoughts?

Oh, the bathrooms ...

When does a very recently toilet trained toddler have to go to the bathroom?

- right after you leave the house

- just after you pull onto a freeway, a long, uninterrupted freeway

- right after you have finally successfully negotiated a night-time pull-on nappy and full-body pajamas and struggled with every single little snap

- well, naturally, your toddler will need to go when when she feels like she is going to do a poo. However this may have no relationship to poo actually emerging. In fact the need can persist with very high frequency for hours, mysteriously disappearing the minute the actual toilet is nearby

- just as you are nearing the front of the passport control line, or of course, the endless Ryanair baggage drop off line, which is of course longer than a check-in line would have been, but of course everyone has checked in already because it costs 20£ not to check in online ...

- just as people in the departure lounge *finally* start moving through the gate. At this point you, naturally, explain that there isn't enough time - it's *finally* time to get on the PLANE! 

- 15 minutes after people in the departure lounge started moving through the gate. Now you, naturally, explain that while you were wrong before, now there *really* isn't time...

And then, on the ramp between the gate and the plane door, your toddler will announce, cheerfully: there's a poo in my nappy, mummy!  

I've seen more public bathrooms in the past month than I would usually see. Almost all were clean. It's fine, really. Nina's doing well and I wouldn't have wanted to put off toilet training for my convenience  (I have a renewed appreciation for the convenience of disposable diapers). It doesn't really go well with modern air travel, is all. But then, is there *anything* that goes well with modern air travel? 

Oh right, I forgot: ibuprofen. Perfect match.

Bummer I can't take that these days what with being, er, 16 weeks pregnant ...  Didn't I tell you? 

a BUS towel!!?

Our news: toilet training is pretty much done, with a few little issues here and there. The only really sad part of it was on about the second day, or maybe the third day, when there was a little accident, and we were on our way to the bathroom and I said, Nina, you're doing really well! and she said "no I not". It was so heartbreaking to see her discouraged and feeling like she was failing - which she wasn't! It just wasn't easy. Of course the other side is that she's very pleased now that it's all working well. I'll spare you all any more details.

In other news A- is now commuting to London twice a week, leaving me home alone with Nina after she gets dropped off. We've been having fun - taking long baths, calling relatives, not really bothering much about dinner, making castles out of blocks .. and all that. It's good. I guess we should be going out to playgrounds, while it's still light enough after work, but frankly I'm pretty tired after work and the idea of walking extremely slowly to a playground just never appeals. Nina can walk really fast, actually; the slow speed comes from fiddling with every rock along the way, which takes a while even if it's only a couple of blocks. I guess we could drive to one, but then we'd have to come home and park - not an easy job in our neighbourhood after about 6pm. Biking? Tired. 

Actually Nina's great about playing in our bedroom while I relax for 45 minutes after she gets home. She puts her postcards through the edges of our wardrobe doors, then opens the doors and finds them again. Or she gets Dolly, Pengie and Payeh and variously puts them to bed and gets them up again, in the moses basket, using towels and baby blankets. Or she hides under the bed and says "where's Nina?". Or she jumps on the bed, shouting "No more MONKEYS jumping on the BED!". Or "hush-a, hush-a, we all fall DOWN" (crash).

One really funny thing happened last thursday after her bath. She's gotten into this mode of doing everything to delay bedtime. She doesn't really say she doesn't want to go to bed, it's just that she won't stand up and get out of the bath, and she won't climb on to the change table or let me put a nappy on her for overnight. She negotiates as many stories and songs as possible. I leave her awake now and she goes to sleep just fine (YAY!!!!) but it's gotten back up to about 40 minutes between starting the whole process and leaving her. Oh, and she'll want to go to the bathroom, and have a drink of water, and get another teddy bear, and on, and on, and on, and on. 

So, I was trying to pry her out of the bath, and she kept not standing up, and not being willing to come out. All the water was gone. So I said she had to come out now or I'd (...get THIS...) take her BUS TOWEL away and she'd have to stand on a NORMAL TOWEL.(My parents bought her this super-cute tea towel with a great bus on it). I waited, left the room, came back, tried again, no luck. So I took it away. Oh my GOD the DRAMA! Naked kicking screaming rolling on the floor! Screaming! on the FLOOR! Some MORE! Rolling around naked in the hallway, kicking the door to the basement, then trying to climb back into the empty tub, thinking that of course this time I'd have to give her the BUS towel. She tried to climb the bathroom door. I had to pretend to be serious while trying to stop laughing SO hard. In the end I had to pretend to really seriously lose my temper, and threaten to leave her in the bed with no milk and no stories. By this time I was getting pretty frustrated, so it wasn't hard. And wow, she calmed right down right away, let me brush her teeth, and everything. I guess I have to get more firm, or the bedtime will start taking an hour.

Despite that big one Nina doesn't have many big tantrums. Overall she's so full of life and so full of joy. The hands-shaking full-bodied gleeful anticipation about being able to stand and dry off on a bus towel, about throwing a balloon into the air, or stirring the dough for the zucchini cake: it's pretty cool. It's worth the occasional naked screaming ripper of a tantrum.

Why?

"Come on, Nina, let's brush your teeth"
"... whhhyyyy?"
"Because we need to get them clean."
"why?"
"Because there's still a little bit of dinner on them, and they aren't clean yet"
"... whyyyyy?"
"Well, we need to clean them because clean teeth will grow up healthy, and help you have strong teeth when you're a grownup. Otherwise you might not have such good teeth..."
"...why?"
"Well ... um ... because ... little tiny tiny tiny bugs will grow on your teeth and hurt them" (wait: was that just a little creepy for a two-year-old on the verge of bedtime? whoops)
"...why?"
"Ummm ... because they can...?" 
   


  

argh

Since I posted last we've made sushi - figuring it was time to illustrate what this mat was actually for. It was fun. Nina liked playing with the rice and then using a bowl of water to get it off her hands. She ate a bit of it. She likes asparagus. I really liked not paying 4£ for each little avocado roll, though I admit that despite various seaweed purchases, and having scoured the city for actual miso paste, my miso soup is not up to the standard of the local high-end Japanese restaurant. Surprised? not so much.

We went to Cornwall for three days, stayed in a pub in Looe, and enjoyed one beautiful sunny perfect day and one very wet, expensive and somewhat miserable day. We walked along the South West Coast trail to a tiny fishing village, sat on the beach, made sand castles, took a couple of little boat rides, and generally had a great mini-vacation. These pubs are great, not just because all pubs here tend to be pretty great, but because the rooms are all behind a locked door (and are themselves locked) and the baby monitor works from the pub downstairs. Brilliant. Looe itself is cute, if a bit overrun with touristy things. Lots of kids sink little bags of whatever fishy stuff, and then pull them up again, usually with a crab attached. They collect the crabs in buckets and then throw them back in. Nina liked watching the crabs. 

Then ... we came back. And started toilet training. I'll spare you all the details, but OH MY GOD. I wouldn't say it's easy. And it's not that it's not going well - actually we haven't had any yucky accidents and have had a manageable number of (as they say here) wee's. It's just that it's a lot of running back and forth to bathrooms, of trying to convince a wriggling child to sit there, and mainly, I think it's a bit stressful for Nina and she's acting out in other ways. It doesn't help that her appetite has taken a nose dive, but that last night she demanded more food at 9pm and we ended up giving her shreddies (what SUCKERS!). She's into this thing of saying she wants something, then she doesn't, then she does, then doesn't. She refuses her dinner, then the minute it's gone, wails about how it was HER dinner and she wanted to EAT it (after refusing it countless times). She's stopped going to bed like the little dream child that she was until we came back. She wants to go to the bathroom, but then when we finally get through a line, refuses to enter the stall, or try the potty which I'm now obliged to carry everywhere. She was such a delight just a few short days ago - eating fine, sleeping fine, agreeable (well, ok, we had a brief playground-related tantrum in Cornwall but other than that I don't remember many whiny moments), she was so patient at the Eden project (don't go there with a toddler, it's an expensive and pretty boring disaster with 11,000 other people) ... So is she not ready for this yet? Every online potty-related checklist, and there are a LOT of them out there, claims she is, both physically and cognitively. It's stressful for all toddlers, I know that. But, but, but ... well, maybe H-, her childminder, will sort her out. Maybe we'll wait. Maybe she'll learn. This is only day 3. What did I expect?

Sushi mat

I've mentioned the sushi mat before. Ages ago, Nina noticed that there's a fence that looks like it, on the way to one of our local pubs (the jumping pub; don't worry, it's the toddler, not the pub, that does the actual jumping). It's funny because when we walk there with people she points it out. And it really does look like an enormous sushi mat.

Anyway, Nina's started telling little stories, often somewhat incoherently, to anyone but us (and, to be perfectly honest, often to us too). These tend to be sequences of things we did or things that happened, occasionally out of order. One was about a birthday party we went to: 

"I did a big fast slide, went up steps, then on a slide, then crash in a balls, then on a slide, then slide CLOSED, then outside, then shoes off then play SAND play playground OUTSIDE, saw horsies ... " and so on. Or "Went to beach, then picnic, then bouncy castle, then choo choo train, then slide, then ... then ... went home OUR house" (Yes. It was a perfect, perfect toddler day, every stage a new toddler delight). Anyway some of the slides at "soft play" places have mats. You go up, then they give you a mat to slide down on; it's faster, I guess. So today's story was 

"Went uppa slide, up steps, then sushi mat, then slide down fast, then say: WHEEEEEE!". 

Really, darling? A SUSHI mat? 

Nina told her first joke today. An old friend sent us books for her, and one is a beautiful rhyming book (Bear Snores On) about a bear, sleeping, while other little animals come in to his den from the cold and warm up, have themselves a little party. The pictures are lovely, and (unlike, for example, The Little Engine that Could, which I remember fondly from my own childhood but ... is SOOOOO repetitive) it's pleasant to read, to look at the pictures. Anyway, she's got it almost memorised; it even looks like she's reading, which she's not. So we were flipping through it, and she got to a page that reads:

"In a cave in the woods a slumbering bear sleeps through the party in his very own lair" 

except she said:

"In a cave in the woods a slumbering bear sleep a party in a very own ... bouncy castle!"

She looked me right in the eye, testing, eyes glinting. I laughed out loud, surprised, and she then she laughed too, chuckling away, delighted with herself, and I said "did you make a joke?" and she said "Mummy I did a JOKE, I did a JOKE!". She tried the same joke with a few more happy toddler items, like "... in a very own ... treat!".  

It's amazing how early these things happen - humour! The concept of a joke, of saying something that's clearly not right, for the sake of a laugh!  When my parents were here she was teasing my Mum, calling her "grandpa", with a little glint in her eyes. She calls me "mum-bi-dy" which prompted me to call her "Nin-bi-da", which she thought was really funny. But she didn't want A. calling her Nin-bi-da yesterday. And now the bouncy castle joke. What's next?

And one other achievement: I wrote weeks ago, for the zillionth time (or it would have been if I'd been blogging all along here) about bedtime. We have now reached a truly glorious stage of two stories, climb in "self", then a song, then night night. It takes about 15 minutes start to finish, if that, after the teeth get brushed. It's awesome. I love it. Sometimes I have to make my excuses for leaving, explaining that eventually I have to lie down in my own bed and can't stand there singing Coulter's Candy ALL NIGHT, but even then, she accepts it! And goes to sleep! Now all we need is for the teenaged babysitters to come back from holiday. And for writing this proud little summary not to jinx the entire thing, of course; fortunately I don't believe in that sort of thing...

Good boy!

First off, apologies to anyone who might be reading this for not posting for so long. Parents here, stuff going on, excuses, excuses. The parents are gone now, a good time was had by all, despite sneezing. 

There's so much that's already lost, replaced by all the new and exciting things that Nina, and all kids, do every day, every week. Just for the record I thought I'd try to remember some of them before they are so lost in the mists of time that they disappear from my memory forever, though I know that some post somewhere won't ever bring them back, and I know that I want Nina to grow up, and not to stay a baby or a toddler. 

In my opinion, A. has some issues with prioritising. For example: if we are 27 minutes late for something, and Nina has just done a poo, he may decide that it's a good time to wash the shower curtain. Admittedly, I would probably never ever prioritise washing a shower curtain, or updating my ubuntu, or tidying the mail table, over just about anything else I felt was urgent. But still - really? The shower curtain? Right NOW? Another example: before Nina was as reasonable, as articulate, as charming, as she is these days at bedtime, there was a moment each evening when MILK was needed RIGHT NOW or there would be SCREAMING. Screaming, like the kind the neighbours still talk about 10 years later. So I started to use the phrase "priority item", as in, A, can you make the milk as a priority item? This means: please don't finish unloading the dishwasher, wash the shower curtain, and have some indian snacks first; MILK is a PRIORITY. 

This phrase was repeated sufficiently that Nina took it up, but pronounced it: "paya aiya mama! Papa, paya aiya mama!" Now it's changed a little; it's: paya itah mum.  Also poignantly, "gainl!" has been replaced with "again!" and "payay", then "pengie" is finally "penguin" unless referring in particular to payah or pengie; they now have names distinct from their species, you see. It's touching that they are still the favourites, along with a new doll, named Dolly.

Kids don't know which things we say are facetious, or which are specifically in the context of talking to a toddler, or which things are just going to sound a little odd to some other adult. Every morning I get up first, play with Nina for a while, and then we both go in to get A. up. I usually pester him to drag his sleepy self out of bed at about 8:15 and succeed by 8:25, give or take 5-10 minutes. Anyway Nina knows that I want him to get up. Yesterday he finally sat up, at which Nina clapped, and said loudly "Good GIRL papa! Good GIRL!". We explained that Papa is really more of a boy; a man, to be technical about it. We didn't bother trying to explain that when she does something I really want her to do, a perfectly reasonable response is for me to clap and say "good GIRL Nina", but ... when we do something she wants, like say follow her into the bedroom, maybe not so much. So tonight when A. brought in the freshly prioritised milk: "good BOY Papa!" 

There's more, much more .. for another time; remind me to post about the little cartoon I drew...

bubbles and pools and cake, ecstasy

It's great how happy you can make a toddler, how easily: 

A couple of bubbles and a friend, and they are ecstatic. Or maybe not?

I think maybe the streamer (note to self: streamers are not the same as ribbons. One is made of paper, and rips at the drop of a hat) broke off the balloon.

But not all was lost. We still had one of these: 

It was a hit. She's still talking about it, two weeks later. Oreos for wheels, little candies for head- and tail-lights, cookies with icing on them for windows, and white chocolate buttons with fair trade chocolate hazelnut stuff for people ... it was fun. One of our guests commented that chocolate sponge is rarely a material used in large vehicle construction, when I pointed out its structural weaknesses. 

Since then, well, we've changed the bedtime routine (again!). "Mummy say night night. Mummy say last book. Mummy sing a song. Mummy say night night". We have high hopes that eventually this will lead to a short, simple, conflict-free reliably-timed bedtime, reducing the number of long and somewhat awkward interactions with our fantastic teenage babysitters in which we ask them what they are doing lately and try to explain why we can't get our child to sleep reliably by 8:30. My explanations are ... weak.  As usual with these things, we're a few days in, and it appears to be working. So far. Jinx.

Is there anything else interesting? Nina can walk down the street listing things she likes: "I like buses, I like planes, I like puppies, I like bees, I like buses, I DO like SWINGS! I like slides" ... She can use "might", in the context of "we MIGHT see another bus, wait see". She still loves the pool. We went again, now that summer has disappeared. When I said that I hoped our nice weather would last, an English colleague told me that it HAS lasted, that if it ends now we'll have had a really great summer. Hmph. After a week of 20+ (C) weather several English people tell me that they just "can't abide this heat". Heat? 

But at the pool Nina jumps in, she paddles about in her little Konfidence jacket, she is absolutely overcome with joy when I announce that we are going there. She recognises it when we are about 2 blocks away, though we haven't been for months.

 

Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate ....

 Am I getting any useful business skills out of this endless need to negotiate? Shoes on, shoes off, playing with this toy, or that toy, going to childminder, whether we go to the swings afterwards, whether the pajamas go on, teeth brushing, hair brushing, eating now or eating in 3 minutes, eating this or eating that, drinking from this cup or that cup ... the list goes on and on and on and on. Right now I'm at a friend's place babysitting their 2-year-old daughter. She whined just a little, as she realised her daddy was going out, but once she had the milk and I was midway through the Cat in the Hat, she dozed off, a full hour earlier than Nina's been going to bed. No doubt she doesn't wake up at 8, either, seeing as I know my friend drops her off at nursery at 8:30. But still! It's quiet here, and though they were rushed today, it's cleaner than our place. Big challenge. AND it doesn't look like a couple of geeks put randomly chosen decorations up with no thought to a colour scheme or any understanding of decor. It looks like adults live here. The living room is configured so that when you sit on the sofa you don't look in the direction of the toys. Wow. What would that be like?

But that's not the point. What I'm worried about is that Nina was fine until I stood up, at 6, and said I was going to make soup. She wanted one of her treats from the cupboard, not even a sweet treat really, just a baggie of organic fruit/veg puree (the Ella's kitchen ones, for those who know them) and when I wouldn't give it to her, she just LOST IT. COMPLETELY. So after some screaming, I said it was time for a time out, and put her on the time out tile, and sat with her because otherwise she won't stay there. And she screamed for a while, and I said it was over and got up. And then she REALLY lost it. I guess she wanted me to sit there with her - was it my attention she really wanted in the first place? We'd been playing, but I also had to look up which decongestants make you drowsy (that's another story: incredibly irritating rules, no doubt meant for safety, about how pills can't possibly be dispensed in bottles but have to be in little paper individually-wrapped thingies so you never have the actual packet to tell you what this thing actually does to you. Is it safer this way? stupid rules. And it makes you drowsy anyway so I didn't take it, sniffle, sniffle, is this allergies or the 1152nd cold ...? ). 

Back to Nina: was she just too hungry to think? Was it tiredness? I couldn't think, or cook, or do anything. I put her in her cot so I could start making the simplest food possible. Then she kept refusing to get out, but still crying, and this went on, until finally I picked her up, announced that the tantrum was over, put her down in front of some yogurt, and she began to recover. But she was still talking about wanting a time out, and wanting to go back in the bed. What was that? And I love her so much, and all, but ... coming over here to a quiet sleepy toddler who didn't have to negotiate which pajamas to wear and which story to read and whether it's a story or a song and which toys are in the bed and where's payeh and where's pengie (because the two penguins have their own names now) and every damn detail of every step from bath to bed, well ... it was a contrast. A peaceful, relaxing, quiet, clean, contrast, in which almost an hour has gone by, and back at MY house, the toddler probably hasn't even started trying to sleep yet. And there's an entire BOX of kleenex just sitting right here.

Two

Two! How'd that happen?

The other day we went to Caerphilly Castle, in Wales. It's great. It's a 13th century medieval castle, which wasn't actually used for very long (some 20 years at most, I gathered). We went there just under 2 years ago. It was driving, pouring with rain. It looked like this: 

It felt authentic, breastfeeding my screaming infant under the driving rain in a ruined stone tower. 

This year it looked like this: 

Note the sunshine, the lack of crying and the complete lack of infant. It's sad, the lack of infant, in a nostalgic kind of a way, but she's just so much fun these days.

We made cupcakes on her actual birthday and had a few people over from our group of mum/toddler friends. She's still talking about it: "I help Mummy, I make a cake, friend *thank you* Nina, like a cake, Cami have a cake, friend have a cake..." It made a big impression.

I'm going to make a bus-shaped cake on Saturday. I had planned a penguin, but it's clear that buses are the excitement of the month, and maybe of the year. Those and planes, but buses are an easier shape for cakes. If I'm doing extremely well perhaps I'll draw a penguin riding the bus.

Two years old is ... the utter passion with which we talk about swings, and how they're a "bit scary!"; the hugs and kisses and the "no MUMMY do it, MUMMY push stroller, MUMMY take to bed, MUMMY turn change a nappy!". It's the "no MY do it", the "I make a cappuccino, I make a papaccino, I make a mummyccino, ninaccino, that's NINA's!". It's talking about friends even when they're not around: "Cami sit in this chair!", talking about the cakes of weeks ago, waking up in the morning and saying "Mummy take a BEACH today!", being completely DEVASTATED by not being able to climb into the carseat herSELF ("No MY climb in self! MYself! ...  ... TAAAAAAANTRUM"). 

They talk about the terrible twos, and there are terrible moments I guess, but it's hilarious to hear your kid, deep in sleep, say "there's a BUS and a PLANE!".   And awake: "Bye bye broken castle, Nina's going!" and then three days later: "I did a broken castle. Bye bye, broken castle. MUMMY LOOK there's a BUS! a BUS! Round and round, round and round. Bye bus! Nina's going to the SWING!" This was yesterday, after a pleasant afternoon at the zoo with friends, where we saw the penguins being fed. "I see a pengie lunchtime. Pengie lunchtime!". And it's pretty fun to run along the sidewalk and hear your 2-year-old say "I'M running FAST to the PUB".

Happy birthday, baby Nina. If you ever read this, know that we love you beyond what we ever could have imagined. And for today, dream of buses, planes and cupcakes, and we'll take you to the beach again soon.

Meltdowns!

It's funny, the meltdowns. I mean, they are funny later, after the molten-down kid is asleep, like right now. Today we had a nice evening after work, played in the garden for a while, came inside to make the couscous salad and generally life was cheerful. But then Nina was too warm, and wanted to take off her sweater. The sweater was underneath the PINK DRESS:

Don't ask me. She looked like that when I picked her up. Apparently she wore it all day. I don't know how it started. Let's just be clear: this is not MY example she's following, with the frilly-ness... and not A's either, just in case you were wondering.

Anyway, the dress had to come off, and OH MY GOD. The DRAMA! Time out. And the time out wasn't such a problem, even -- we still don't know what the problem was, except that it was about closing something. Nina kept shouting "Close it! close it!" and we'd look at the door and say "do you want me to close it?" and she'd say "...yeah" so we'd try to close the door and she'd scream "CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT", clearly not wanting us to close the door. This went on for about 10 minutes (10 minutes TOO LONG, 10 minutes with a tearful child literally lying on the floor kicking), until finally we brought her into the other room, and  I opened and closed my hands, and a pen with its lid, and we finally got through to her that we didn't understand what she wanted. Then suddenly it was all "Nina down the slide! Play Mummy gotcha!" and everything was fine again.

In other news: did Nina make her first language joke today? We were walking back from the car, happily parked nearby for once, and she said "mummy change nappy" so I said yes, we'll change it when we get home, and have you done a poo? and we talked about that for a bit (I'll spare you the details) and Nina said "Nappoo! Nina have a poo. Nappooo!" Get it? Nappee, nappoo ...  

Another thing she did, perhaps a more pleasing example, is to generalize "yesterday" to "tomorrowday". I thought that was very clever, though I admit I'm rather biased. She's also pretty good with "soon, not yet" referring to bedtime. It's been a month or two now that she's been talking about other days, which can be quite confusing especially if we don't know what event she's talking about. Yesterday we went on these little mini-trains, with real mini steam engines and mini tracks. They are so cute. And she loved it! She talked about them a lot today, but if I didn't know, I'd really wonder what "Nina went on train inna tunnel, train DARK, train too HOT" or "Nina did a train, little train wheel around and round, engine, fire engine, very hot" could mean.

Why a parenting blog?

I read this article yesterday on Salon by John Barry: My baby is too boring to blog about

And I disagree, but it made me feel defensive anyway. After reading other blogs, like Refract, I confess that I've wondered: given that I'm blogging, why all, or mostly, about Nina? Why not a science blog? Or one all about amazing bacteria? Or math (who am I kidding)? Or music, or food? Or, maybe most relevantly, none at all? 

Well ... first off, it's not given that I'm blogging. This is not the given part of this scenario. It's given that I'm parenting. It's not like I can choose, hmmm, I'm going to spend many hours each week engaged in some outside-of-my-work activity that can be funny, heartbreaking, isolating, connection-affirming, maddening, deadly dull, frustrating, and fascinating, all in the space of just 32 short minutes ... and gee, what is that activity going to be? Is it .... scuba diving? Music? No! It's parenting!  Once the child is here, we are parents every day, and at least in our case it was by choice, and greatly celebrated.

But John Barry's right about some things. It's boring to read about whether someone went to Starbucks or Second Cup, whether it was quiet enough there to work, what kind of coffee they had and what the people at the next table were shouting about on their cell phones. I get that. And I get that it can be pretty boring to see pictures of someone else's precious child doing whatever precious children do at that age. So why did I start a blog?

Well, I doubt John B could go back and read all the archives of www.alittlepregnant.com and tell me that it doesn't reach out far beyond a bunch of multimedia collections about that particular story, those particular children. Parenting is a huge part of human experience and people like to share it, maybe so as not to feel like they are the only ones whose toddlers have a fear of lawnmowers. It is generic and it's unique. Most everyone does it, but it seems to require a lot more creativity than we give it credit for, not to mention sensitivity and perceptiveness, upper arm strength, stamina, patience, and finely honed negotiation skills. I blog because I've been entertained, informed and moved by the blogs I've read, I blog for myself, to remember these rapidly-evaporating penguin days, to share my excuse for a "scrapbook" with our relatives who are all too far away to enjoy a paper scrapbook, not that I'd have the time and energy for that either, and I blog for the occasional amusement of my friends. And like everything else out there, in newspapers, magazines, blogs, videos and novels: if it's in a genre that bores someone, he doesn't have to read it. 

On that note:

Bye Head!

Sometimes I hear Nina say things, and I think: wow, I sure didn't know that word until I was an adult (and no, I'm not teaching my child any of those kind of words, if you were wondering). Or in some cases, at least quite a bit older than 23 months. For example:

1. We were walking to the pub

2. and on the way, there were some iron gates, behind which there were tightly linked fence-type things made of thin strips of something like bamboo, just like a sushi mat, which Nina pointed out with great interest. Yep. We have a toddler who knows what a sushi mat looks like, though not, admittedly, what it's for. My sushi-making days have hit a little hiatus.

3. In the morning Nina helps her papa make a cappuccino for me (a chuni!), and at the appropriate time, she announces: Nina tamp! Papa tamp! Nina's turn, papa turn. See Mummy coffee there! So yes, we have a todder who can tamp herself a shot a of espresso, though she doesn't drink it. 

4. And on a related note: coffee beans, coffee ground... cappuccino, for that matter. 

4. Marmite. Enough said. 

5. Banjzos, otherwise known as garbanzos or chick peas

6. Rotate (maybe I knew that one, but I'd be a little surprised)

7. A large class of food items that just weren't probably on the toddler scene in Canada in  19xx-whenever-I-was-a-toddler, ie a very long time ago, like hummous, pesto, maybe even cherry tomatoes, olives, definitely edamame (a big favourite), pistachios ... naan, chai

There are more, I'm sure. I certainly didn't entertain myself at 2 by asking Mummy to look for another plane taking off on youtube. The current favourite is this cool little one here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDmnjwbJrVM&feature=fvw

And I have to admit that it is pretty cool to see a functioning plane being unloaded off the back of an SUV. 

As far as language goes, we're firmly in the territory of full sentences, a large proportion of which have the following format: 

"Not Joejoe's drink, not Evie's drink, not Lyla's drink, not Mummy's drink, that's Nina's drink!"  "Not Papa sock, not Mummy sock, not Joejoe sock, not Cami sock, not Papa sock, not Eva sock, that's Nina sock!" 

Or, hiding under a towel or behind a very small sock, "Where Nina?" 

(moving sock slightly) "There's Nina!"

One more funny little thing. Yesterday we went to the pub to see some friends, including our friend Ed, and have a celebratory drink. Nina was so good, and played with her toys, talked to everyone, and ate her treats and snacks. As we left: "bye bye, Head!". Like I said, sometimes it's just not quite there yet.