Playing Catch Up

There are so many little things that I want to write about so that they don’t get lost in this thing we call life, I’m not sure where to start, so I’ll just open my mind and let it all tumble out….

Pebble was so proud of her present for Daddy

> Father’s Day. We had a relaxed day which included Paul having a sleep in, visiting Paul’s Dad’s grave, then BBQ at my Dad’s, cooked by his three gorgeous daughters of course.

Dad with his Grand-kiddies, looking on in excitement as he opened his present

> Post Father’s Day errands. I had a bit of an epic fail with the presents this year. Dad’s long awaited ugg boots died as soon as he put his foot into them (rrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipppppp!!!!), and Paul’s massage voucher was a bit of a miss (he loved the angle grinder and undies though – now they’re Real Dad presents!). Monday after Father’s Day saw Pebble and I toddling around to the spa for a refund and the post office to return the boots. Easy peasy, and it gave us an excuse to visit the park on the way home. Gorgeous day for it!

> Talking, talking, talking! Pebble is a little chatterbox now. Yesterday she asked for ‘milk’, in a ‘cup’, with a ‘straw’, then as she was drinking it she pointed her finger into the cup and said ‘moon!’. She could see a reflection in the bottom of the cup that looked like a crsecent moon. Cute! In the morning she said ‘breakfast!’ then ‘weetbix!’, then after eating she said ‘mess’. She told me to clean up that ‘bit there’, 'bit there’, ‘bit there’. She knows the colour blue…. or at least she knows that blue is a colour, but somehow every crayon in the box is ‘booo’. She picks up her seal puppet with the ball on his nose and says ‘ball, nose’, then drops him to the ground and says, ‘oh D!’. In the car she asks for ‘wind’ so that the windows are wound down and as we walked to the shops and a truck roared past she covered her ears and said ‘noise, noise!’. She asks for her angel dress ups ‘wings’ and ‘wand’, and never, ever seems to get tired of ‘wice, wice, wice!’ for dinner (rice). I think my favourite at the moment is ‘shoto’. It’s her made up word for “show me the photo” and she says it whenever I take a picture or video of her. Here is just one of the videos I have of her saying it. I think I’m gonna end up with a lot of them, along with photos of her reaching her hand out to grab the camera with a cranky face.

> You may notice the couch cushion next to our bed in the video. The DAY AFTER I wrote about how happy and relaxed we were about the less than perfect night time sleeps we were all having Pebble FELL OUT OF OUR BED for the first time. I was sound asleep when I heard a loud and sickening THUD followed by the terrified screams of a 19 month old. I have never woken up so fast in my life! Right now we’re avoiding the bed issue by using couch cushions next to the bed. Meanwhile, day time sleeps are all out of kilter. Yesterday Pebble slept for FIVE MINUTES in the middle of the day. WTF?

> The kid is loving asserting her independence, and likes to choose what to wear. One day I was sorting out bags of clothes and she chose this little ensemble. I think she looks rather cute, no?

> As for tantrums and time outs…. we’re back to tried and tested distraction, with a little firmness, a big dose of patience and plenty of fairness. For example, Pebble wants to do EVERYTHING herself these days, which means I need to be very patient. Where possible I let her give it a go, and sure enough with time and a little support she can do most things herself. Sometimes I need to use tricks to make it look like she did it herself, which may involve sneakily helping then announcing loudly, ‘YOU did it!!’, then she applauds herself. At times when she is pushing the boundaries, (refer chalk + couch = time out) I have been reminding her of what she should be doing, eg. ‘you need to hold my hand while we walk next to the road because there are lots of cars’. I think it’s important to include the behaviour you’re looking for AND  a reason for it. If she refuses I give her options, ‘you need to hold my hand or I am going to pick you up’. This usually doesn’t work first time, but probably by the third time that I have repeated it. If she doesn’t comply (though she usually does) I follow through with option number two, which results in some crying and carrying on. If she is carrying on I can usually tell her, in a firm voice, that she is ‘ok’, which seems to help her check herself and realise that she is, indeed, ok. Then I tell her to ‘stop’ the crying. And she usually does. Apart from that I continue to use preventative measures: I try and work with her, not against her. Don’t let her get too tired or hungry and make sure she’s had plenty of chances to get some outside play and fun inside play, including lots of mama time. We take each tantrum as it comes, and yeah, sometimes she loses her shit and so do I, but that’s life!

> we are loving dancing in this house lately. Pebble’s current kid music favourite is Justine Clarke. We load up some videos on abckidsmusic and groove away! I’d like to get her into some other adult music, but I’ve lost my connection with music as an adult. I don’t know how much she’d enjoy my old collection of boy bands and Britpop, or Daddy’s collection of grunge and metal. I rarely listen to music anymore, I prefer podcasts these days. Oh well, for now I’m loving doing the actions along with Justine as much as Pebble is.

That’s enough mind tumbling for now. More errands to run.