Penguins

I should explain the penguin days title. Payeh the penguin is Nina's "soft toy" - like her security blanket, I guess. I can't even really remember how it started but it was in November of last year. I remember we were at a friend's house, and she was describing how her baby had taken up this cat to feel secure in his bed. And I read somewhere that you can encourage them to pick a favourite toy by supplying a few and seeing if they attach to one. It was probably in the 'No cry sleep solution' book; the whole crying-it-out thing really never worked for us. Anyway we had this cute little penguin, and we left it in her cot, and she tried to call it 'penguin' but it came out 'payeh'. And that was that. She'd go off every day with it, it helped her sleep and especially to get back to sleep if she woke up. It got all bedraggled and eventually we got another one because it would have been such a disaster if it had been lost. And the new one looked so clean and fluffy and we thought, how could that even have been the same toy? So I took a picture of the two of them. When she got the second one she was delighted, laughed, and put them together. They kissed tenderly and made friends, very sweet, and then she flung them both to the floor and giggled. Now only a couple of months later, she doesn't take Payeh with her when she goes out, and doesn't really ask for him at night, though we always put him in and usually his clean little friend too. And, worst of all: she called him "Pengie". So already those penguin days are fading. It's such a paradox, and I know it's not exactly a headline - but how can my baby have become this sentence-uttering, tantrum-throwing, penguin-independent jumping toddler in an almost unobserved instant, when the hour between 5:30 and 6:30 is so LONG?


Ok, so, funny things recently: apparently she has just gotten over this, but there's been a phase where you'd point to all the people in the room - that's Oscar, that's Eva, that's Joejoe, that's Mummy - and then point to her chest and say, and who's that? and she'd say "Coat!". 


First sentence: "Mama. Back. Trip."  (that was in December. My trip to Finnish Lapland was a big deal). She then went though this great phase of "I LOVE papa! I LOVE mama!", which has sadly stopped for now.  And a recent sentence: "Look, Mummy! I foun' a cracker!" (munch munch). Yep, you stowed that one away for a good while.

Here's a quote from an email I wrote when Nina was 6 weeks old:

"Nina's asleep in the little chair we have. Yesterday I figured out that I can rock her to sleep in it if she's well fed and already kind of drowsy.. the problem today, though, is that when the rocking stops she wakes up! So I'm rocking with my foot, leaving both hands available for typing. I'm getting a bit better at figuring out when she needs a nap *before* she's hysterically tired. Actually it's kind of obvious - she yawns."


I went through this phase when something would work once, and I'd get to thinking - great! this problem's solved! all I have to do is rock the little chair while humming baby beluga after going for a walk in the sun! And then whatever it was would work at most once more and we'd be back to the non-napping, ever-suckling infant days. So it was hard in some ways, and I would wonder how anyone ever takes care of an infant when they also have a toddler around. No doubt part of the answer is that by then, you know what it means when your kid is yawning.

The new word of the week is "self". It's cute, and frustrating at times, this constant need to do things herself. Putting on shoes, taking off nappies, brushing teeth, brushing hair ... but it also feels like she's gained this whole new level of self-awareness, suddenly announcing: self! self! Here I am! I'm me, and GUESS WHAT: I can put my own shoes on.

Punk!

We went to Salisbury this weekend. It was rainy, because, well, it's in England. We had a great time. There's nothing quite like leaving the computer at home. We stayed at The Swan at Stoford - a little inn with a pub on the A36. It was friendly, the food was pretty good if a bit variable, and most excitingly, they had a skittle alley. Now, I had never heard of skittles, except for the candy. But it makes sense that bowling has a non-mechanised origin, and I guess this is it - a ball is rolled down an alley toward some wooden pins, though the alley is not as long as a bowling alley. Then you have to go down to the other end, pick up the balls, and put them into a hole, and the balls roll down to the other end through a long gently-sloped tunnel. Nina wasn't too keen on knocking the pins down but the fascination of the long tunnel had no end. One of us had to follow her down the alley with our own ball, and put it in the hole after hers. Then we'd run hand in hand ("fast! mummy fast!") back to the start, and Nina would inevitably startle with an "oh!" when the ball rolled out. This provided hours of indoor entertainment for all three of us.

We also saw Stonehenge, at which Nina was thrilled to be invited on to an actual bus, and a purple one at that. It was awaiting the return of its passengers (a bus! with wheels! and seats! and seat belts!). The next thrill finding a little hill to run up and down a zillion times. I think she liked the stones too.













Then we went to the New Forest and walked around in the novel sunshine, amidst wild ponies. It was great. We had sunday lunch (nut roast, what else) at a lovely pub with a slide, and came home.



Her language is changing all the time. One reason I wanted to start blogging is to remember the cute things she says because eventually she'll learn how to pronounce things the way we do (or in some cases, the way English people do). The latest is "pants", which English people pronounce "trousers". But Nina says "punk". It's hilarious, mostly because she'll spill something, and then wander around saying "wet punk! wet punk! dirty punk. Dirty Punk!". "MY punk!".

Moooo! Mmmmman!

Our childminder is on holiday this week, but I'm teaching, and not only that, I needed to drive to another university 2.5 hours from here with a colleague to visit another colleague to talk about a thing. This week has been a patchwork of friends helping with Nina. Apparently it is in fact possible to take care of more than one toddler at a time, and to emerge looking sane and reasonable if slightly tired.

Anyway. I was driving Nina across the city through frustrating traffic, and reflecting on the fact that so many people drive for 45 minutes each way, every day, every working morning. Of course, they eventually get there and park. They typically don't drive back home and get their bike -- but that's the thing about not being able to park at work. Usually I just walk or bike there, but usually I don't have drive my child somewhere first.

Well, Nina is in a vehicle phase, initiated a couple of months ago by two things: going on a plane (and realising that afterwards, it was warm and there was a beach and a pool and grandparents and we were somewhere new), and singing the wheels on the bus song. So our drive was frequently punctuated by "LOOK! Mummy! Look! A BUS!". So I taught her some other vehicle names: truck (but not "lorry": the kid already says "MAHtoes" for "tomatoes"), and van. But she can't say "v". I tried to teach her, by saying "vvvvvvooom, vvvan", and now whenever we're driving:

MOOOOO! Mmmman!

Also, we have this plate, with Mr. Happy on it. She calls it the happy plate. I'm just saying: you know you have a toddler when a member of your household is shouting "aaaaaaaargh, MUMMY, aaaaieeeeeee, happy plate, waaah, haaaaaapppppyyy plaaaaaaattttte AAAAARRRRHHHH, Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" It doesn't come across well when typed out. But trust me, it's loud. And sad. And pretty funny.

What to say? I'm starting a blog. It's really about wanting to remember what happened between here:
















and then just 20 months later,, 20 long months that somehow, though each evening the 2 hrs from 5:30 to 7:30 last forever, seemed to zip by in the time it took me to publish, well, really not very many papers actually ... a kid who makes this, all by herself, and then shouts: "Look! TOWER! MUMMY! LOOK! Careful, guy!":














I guess I want to make a record of what might seem mundane now, but will disappear all too fast. Everyone told me to "enjoy her", back when she was 3 weeks old, and I did, I really did. But ... she wanted to breastfeed for hours and hours. Her record was a 10-hr session once, with only 5-10 min breaks, swapping from side to side. My colleague and friend was visiting and we sat in my living room, all afternoon and all evening. It lasted forever. Now it's gone and it seems like it lasted only a few seconds. I know, this isn't breaking news.

But I forget things, things that at the time, I suspected I might forget, but somehow I convinced myself that I'd always remember. Or at least, I figured I could dig them out of my gmail with carefully constructed searches, like reconstructing my child's scrapbook 20 years from now.