Always a new thing

We went on a trip last week to see relatives in Holland. It was great, and I won't bore all of you (all ye two or three readers out there) with lots of details. We had fun, we had wonderful food, it was cold and rainy and there were tulips in abundance. We learned that our child is NOT going to sleep when she's on a PLANE! A PLANE! Nina on a PLANE! Whirrrrrrrr! Plane! Another plane? See another plane. Plane again? 

And after the plane? Oh wow. It's a bus. Long gone are the days when you got off the plane and walked along a little enclosed ramp to the terminal. Nope. Those lie unused and empty, while we all load ourselves onto a bus to drive 37m to the terminal door. One can only surmise that airlines pay a fee for the use of those ramps, and a lower fee for the buses. And after the bus? Well, there's OMA, with a BALLOON!

We learned a few other things. Our child is more than ready for more advanced toys, and we've got to get rid of the babyish toys that clutter up our flat. There were a couple of toy camper vans, and these provided hours of narrated entertainment ("Mummy in the back! Mummy shower. Mummy in the back, Nina in the back. Wheel! Round and round, round and round. Look, a bed ... ") She got a duplo bus for a gift, and we opened it just before the long car ride to Keukenhof. It was so cute when she realised that it was, in fact, a toy bus. "It's a BUS! A BUS! heeheeheee .. heh. heh. a BUS." We put the little doors on it, loaded in the little lego guys and put their luggage underneath.

She also got some little toy dishes, and I wondered how she'd react. Within minutes she was stirring things and offering me some tea and soup. Today, she got out the lego luggage from the bus, and deftly pinched thumb and finger together to take the imaginary treats it contained, and then said "Mummy have it!" and handed it over. I know - it's typical kid stuff. But I thought that pretend tea parties happened when kids were 3 years old, not 22 months, just like I didn't realise that 19-month-olds tried to draw circles and airplanes (with, I admit, limited success, although some of the circles were pretty good).

We've also decided that we need to change the plan with food. We need to make dinner and eat together and not just give her whatever she wants whenever she first asks for it as long as it's healthy, which is sort of what we had been doing (at least on weekday evenings if she'd already had "tea" at childminder's).  The new plan is to actually make a meal and not let her snack much while it's being made, and then provide it and see if she eats it. What a nightmare. Today the thing (risotto with edamame instead of peas, and asparagus) wasn't ready until 6:30, 2 long hours after she'd had a jacket potato at childminders. She pretty much had a complete and total toddler meltdown at about 6:20. I was reminded of why we had our old system (you want olives? great! here's an olive! Here are 10 more olives ... can I cook now?) in the first place. But she ate it. Was it worth it? I think it will be.

 

A bus a splash splash! a bus again!

I've written before about how much Nina likes mechanical things - anything she can manipulate, turn, latch, open or close, spin; things with wheels, anything with buttons. A few weeks ago she worked out how to turn on the digital camera, and somehow set it to display an inset image along with the full image, after you've taken a picture. Neither of us can get it back. Last weekend she broke the camera, prompting me to look up how much it's worth. I thought that since it's a bit old it'd be easy to get another one, but nope, it's still about 300$. We googled around, and finally the much-recommended 'bang your camera on a hard surface to un-stick the lens-extending mechanism' worked. It took me back to last summer: 

T

That's a baby who's really annoyed that she's not allowed to play with the camera. Oh, and there's an Irish castle in the background.

Another favourite thing is water: bathing, splashing, and especially swimming. The other day we rode a BUS ('a BUS! a wheel! around and round! Mummy! Look! There's a BUS! Nina ride a bus! Nina bus! People up and down ...') past a FOUNTAIN, otherwise known as a "plash splash!". Later we went to play with the fountain, which was extremely exciting, what with all that water splashing around everywhere.  Where's this going, you wonder?

 Well, the other day Nina woke up from her nap and was very very cranky, so cranky that she was on my lap and I was trying to distract her from the seemingly urgent need to shriek in my ear. So I opened up the laptop and asked her if she'd like to see a bus.  'Eeeeeeeyyeaaaahh!' She said. So google was helpful enough to provide a large number of quality bus images. And then I found this wonder of toddler entertainment:




I'm always impressed that there are people out there, uploading these things, seemingly just for me, as if they knew that one day there would be a woman somewhere with a toddler who would just LOVE this... how did they know?

Baby barista

Payeh the penguin isn't obsolete after all! But he's not an essential part of every outing, an essential part of every bedtime ... sometimes he takes a turn on the slide, in his little pink stroller. I guess sometimes he's still a comfort.

A

A mini-barista. Train 'em young, I say. Or at least, entertain 'em so I can have my coffee already.

Baby "chuni"!

But by the end of the day things were looking rougher. Bath time.

Nina's got "I" and "my" confused, which we have finally noticed. I feel a bit bad now: a few times, as she climbed up to a slide on the playground, where there were a number of other toddlers, and loudly proclaimed "MY slide", I corrected her and explained that this was a shared slide for all the kids. What she meant, we now know, is that SHE would like to slide too. So we're trying to teach her the difference, and sometimes she gets it. I get such a kick out of her language, both how it's developing and how it's still not quite there. For example: 

A: Nina, can you say "I brush my teeth"? 

N: "My brush a teeth, My brush my teeth, Nina brush Nina teeth. Mummy brusha teeth! Mummy turn!" 

A: Nina, can you say "I walk to the kitchen"?

N: "My walk a chicken!"