The things he says...

Jamie has just returned to work after 3 months of (serious, but now manageable) illness.  Jacob hasn't quite got used to him not being home:

"Daddy ...... oh no, you not Daddy.  Mummy..."
"Mummy, we love Daddy SO much, eh?"
"Mummy, where's Daddy gone?"  [hours after he's left the house]

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Talking to his cats:

"Maeby, Maeby, where are you?  Maybe you're under the table Maeby.  Maybe Maeby's under the table Mummy!"  [collapses into fits of giggles at the word play]
"Tilly, what you meowing about?"
"Tilly GET DOWN!  [counts to ten on his fingers, very seriously]  Tilly, get DOWN!  I asked lots of times now"
"Mummy, where's those cats gone now?  Maybe they having an adventure in the garden!"

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

In the car, he sits in the front seat next to me, because I work late and we more often than not come home in the dark. I like to be able to see if he's asleep or not, and it's far easier to have a conversation when he's right there.  In the back, I can barely hear him, and it's too distracting trying to look at him in the rear-view mirror (rather too much context-setting there, but I just want you to imagine it right):

"Mummy, the sun's biting my eyes!"
"Look, two big sheep!" [I gently point out that they're ponies] "Oh.  Jacob thought they were sheep, but they were big ponies.  Little horses.  Not sheep Jacob, silly Jacob."
"Mummy, I can't see the wheels!  Where the wheels gone?  We got no wheels!"

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Jumping on my bed, while I get dressed.  He keeps trying to open the curtains, I ask him not to because I'm about to take my pajamas off:

"I ... want ... to ... see ... some ... booooobies!"  [repeated over and over in sing-song fashion with each and every bounce]

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

And for the boy whose stomach is never full, he said the following extremely seriously, approximately 10 minutes after he'd finished his breakfast this morning:


"Mummy, let's have a chat about lunch."


;)

Maybe it's Giants...

When I dropped Jacob off at nursery this morning, he went in with his customary shoegazing reluctance, where I have to drop a kiss on his head and leave before I persuade myself that we should really just go home again (I don't need very much persuasion).  I know that he's fine as soon as I've gone, he's always happy about going to nursery, happy while he's there, and reports happily upon his day; but those few seconds from me ringing the doorbell to him finding his best friends and diving headlong into whatever they're doing just tugs at my heartstrings, and make me wish more than anything that I could be a stay-at-home-mum.

This morning, the nursery manager laid her hand kindly on my arm (really, people shouldn't be allowed to do that, the gesture alone is enough to set me off) and reassured me by saying "Don't worry, he'll be singing happily to himself in a couple of minutes".

He loves music.  He gets into the car, and says "I want to listen to something please Mummy!", or we'll be driving along and he'll say "I loved that song.  What's it called?".  Although strangely, he's not at all keen on listening to music in the house, he does like to sing all the time.  He often sings in his sleep, and we have to wait to get him out of bed until he's been through his whole repertoire of songs.

Of course he loves nursery rhymes and theme songs for annoying CBeebies programmes, but he's also good at using snippets of songs he's heard in appropriate situations - for instance the "What's going to work, teeeeeeam-work" refrain from Wonder Pets gets sung all the time when he's helping us with a job.  He shunned most Christmas music except for the Glee Christmas album (the first one only, he wasn't having anything to do with the second one) and all he really wanted to hear off that was their reworking of Jingle Bells.

We've done a good job at forcing our musical tastes upon him, but we're trying to be remotely responsible about it and avoid songs with too much inappropriate content - of course Jamie likes to model himself on Adam Buxton and do volume control censoring - if you haven't seen this video then watch it, it's hilarious:

(And in a timely fashion, Jamie has just pointed me in the direction of this amazing site which reworks classic album covers using clipart and comic sans - it's awesome).

So Jacob's current favourites include Art Brut, and there's nothing funnier than being in another room and hearing the boy sing quietly to himself "Bang, bang, rock and roll / I can't stand the sound / of the Velvet Underground" in a very serious voice.  He also likes it when I play Scissor Sisters in the car, he thinks 'Take Your Mama Out' is funny because it has the word 'Mama' in it, and he generally loves Jake Shears' falsetto - "Listen to the girl songs Mummy, this your favourite song cos it's a girl song".

But top of Jacob's list of favourite bands for the last several months is undoubtedly They Might Be Giants.  It took us ages to work out what he was talking about when he kept asking for the "Little blue bird house song", but he's got the hang of most of the song titles now.  Our current difficulty is explaining the difference between band names and song names, he doesn't totally get it.  He can never remember how to say 'They Might Be Giants', so he refers to them in adorable fashion as 'Maybe it's Giants' ;)

When Santa got stuck up the chimney...

I know that technically, Christmas is over, but it's very difficult to convey that to a toddler.  Jacob's favourite topics of conversation are still mainly centred around Santa and Christmas, and he sings Christmas songs all the time.  He's developed a delightful habit of using the first line of a song to kick off a conversation, and to say each line of the song as though it were a question, while you prompt and question him about it.  It is hilarious.  And hasn't got old, even after the eleventy-millionth run through.

Prepare to melt at the utter adorableness:




For those of you who don't speak fluent Jacob, here's a translation:

"When Santa stuck up the chimney...
He began to shout...
The girls and boys won't have any toys...
No. My sack is... my beard is black, there's soot in my sack, yes, my nose is tickling too...
When Santa stuck up a chimney, he began to shout, achoo, achoo, achoo, and Santa's happy."

Thank you, and good night.

Time for an update on sleeping in a big boy's bed I think - here's the story so far for those who haven't been paying close attention:

From January - our massive sleep dramas, and introducing the No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers (buy it now!).

From May - an update on how J-cub learnt to self-settle.

Also from May - the nightmareish decision we made to move bedrooms and from a cot to a bed all at the same time.

So he's been in his new bedroom for about a month now. And the novelty has not yet worn off, he loves his bedroom, he loves his bed, he loves talking about it and he loves being a big boy. He's always keen to go to bed, whether at nap-time or night-time, but the time it takes from starting to read until we can tip-toe out of the room without him rolling over and demanding "Mummy more book!" has increased and increased - just as it did in the last few months in his cot.

On Friday (yesterday, then), I took him up for his nap and as I was zipping him into his Grobag he headbutted me right under my chin, making me see stars and *almost* start crying. He's got such a hard head that I don't think he felt it at all, but I needed some ice. So I said "Mummy's not going to read you a story today, I'm going straight downstairs. Have a lovely sleep, see you in a few hours". He said "Night night Mummy", rolled over, and that was the last I heard from him.

At bedtime (at quarter to 7 - result!), I did the same. He went straight to sleep. I think that once again, we'd fallen into the trap of actually keeping him awake by our reading. Which is a shame really, because I do love reading to him, and I don't want to stop. But if it's a choice between sitting up there for 2 hours, or coming down and starting my evening, I'm going to plump for the latter. I think we might have to work sitting on the futon in his room and having a couple of stories into his bedtime routine - if we do that before he gets into bed and into his Grobag, then hopefully it'll be a lovely quiet time but won't impinge on his sleeping.

So we seem to have hit the magical sleep-wake ratio - he sleeps from 7pm-7am (mostly), and for a couple of hours during the day. I have started waking him from his daytime nap, as otherwise he's still raring to go at 7pm and then he goes to bed late and gets up late and it all starts going haywire. Oooh, look at me with a routine! Very odd.

In related news, I decided that half-term was the ideal time for him to go cold turkey on having nanny and buppy (his dummy and bunny) out and about during the day - he was having them All The Time and his talking through the dummy was driving me crazy. If I asked him to take it out to repeat what he said, he would just shake his head and refuse to talk. So on the first day of the holidays, I took them back upstairs and put them on his bed, and when he asked for them, I told him they were having a rest in the bed. It took him a little while to remember where they were, but soon he would ask "NannyBuppy?" and then follow it with a happy "Big boy bed!". And after more than a year of being able to pronouce D's, and calling me "Mummy" (so I knew he was capable of it), he started saying 'dummy' instead of 'nanny' (I don't know why he started with the nanny, although he also used to call me nanny when he started talking - it's also a mystery why he says buppy when he can clearly end words with a 'ny' sound). They are still collectively called "NannyBuppy" but if he finds a dummy, he calls it a dummy. He's really funny now - he knows where they are and that he can't have them if he's awake, but he still likes to ask, in one of his 'comic' voices with pursed lips so it sounds like he's speaking through a trumpet: "Dummy? No? NannyBuppy? Yes? No Jacob. NannyBuppy big boy bed. Sleep!".

So yes, to conclude. Toddler sleep problems, waking up for the day in the early hours, dropping naps, being grumpy, lots of tantrums, difficulty transitioning from cot/crib to bed - have a read of the No-Cry Sleep Solution. You won't be disappointed. It starts with a section of logs for you to fill in, and I'm usually the kind of person who ignores that kind of suggestion. I did it though, and it really drove home what was wrong and helped identify what we needed to do to fix it. I would strongly recommend you do the same, especially if you've got a memory that's anything like mine (i.e. full of Massive Holes).

#2 and #3 done already!

Look at that - just 4 little days into my half-term break and somehow, I've done 2 out of the 5 things off my list. And when I say 'I', I mean 'we'. Jamie needed to print some stuff, so he hoiked the printer upstairs and installed it into his shiny new study.

And this evening, a half-fledged idea to make J-cub a play-kitchen area in the living room turned into 4 straight hours of sorting and organising toys, so that everything is easily accessible and easily tidyable. Very important. We've got a bit lax on the old tidying front round here, and it's doing my head in.

So Jacob's cafe is now open for business, with his cash register and wares available on the left, his oven ready to cook breakfasts and light lunches, fresh fruit and veg in their baskets, and his teapot and cup out on the table ready to pour me a thousand imaginary cups of coffee. And Batty and Judy are eagerly sitting at the table, awaiting service.

It's gonna be yet another rainy day tomorrow, and for once, we'll be prepared with plenty of fun things to do. Today J-cub went the whole day without his dummy and bunny (apart from naptime), and it's good to have lots of play options if he's going to do the same tomorrow.

A little amusing moment from our day earlier - J-cub has (finally) learnt to say sorry and due to the bucketfuls of reinforcement we've been pouring over him when he says it spontaneously, he's now over-using it slightly. Case in point: I was in the kitchen earlier, bashed my elbow and shouted 'Ow!'. J-cub (in the lounge, out of sight), called "Sorry Mummy!".

Quite possibly the funniest, and cutest, thing he's ever done.

Conversations with Jacob

It seems to have crept up on us - the fact that when J-cub turned 2 less than 2 months ago, he was saying single words, with the occasional 2 word sentence chucked in (albeit gobsmacking us with one 6-word string), but we're now having conversations with him all the time, and the abstract concepts he's capable of vocalising are a far-cry from the nouns he was using back then.

In the hour today since he's been awake after his nap, we've had the following exchanges:

Me [lifting J-cub out of his cot]: "Jacob, you're going to have about 2 or 3 more sleeps in your cot, then you're going to have a new bed!"

J-cub: "Big boy bed. Big! Big Jacob Weemeeya!" [Big boy Jacob like Amelia]

Me: "That's right! You'll have a big boy's bed just like Amelia's." [points to J-cub's new bed standing up in the hallway]

J-cub: "Big bed mine! Happy!"

A little later, at snack-time...

Me: "Jacob, do you want some Cheerios?"

J-cub: "No. No snack. Snack! Couscous! Dat couscous, dee." [That couscous, please]

Me: "Okay, do you want Quorn pieces in it?"

J-cub: "Yes! Yes dee Mummy!" [yes please Mummy - accompanied by enthusiastic nodding]

J-cub happily sits and eats a whole bowl of couscous with Quorn pieces and red pesto, shunning the Cheerios in the snack pot in front of him.

He had some milk afterwards, drank about half the cup then handed it to me and said...

J-cub: "Enough! Didge. Muck didge." [Fridge. Milk in the fridge]

And now he's pretending to eat his welly boots, and laughing cos he knows it's funny to eat footwear.

And yesterday when Tilly had the audacity to sit on the sofa when J-cub also wanted to sit on the sofa, he came and crawled into my lap and buried his head in my chest...

J-cub: "No Tilly no! Get down Tilly!"

Me: "Listen, Tilly's purring. That means she's happy to sit here with you. Are you happy?"

J-cub: "No! Jacob sad" [made a sad face and hung his head] [I may have laughed a bit, but then I kindly shoved Tilly off]

Me: "Are you happy now?"

[J-cub looked at me from under his fringe and laughed]

Being 2

It seems strange that a particular date, albeit the anniversary of his birth, should have such an impact on who J-cub is, and his development. Maybe it's that our expectations of him have changed - I've certainly noticed that now he's a 'preschooler', I've been spending much more time talking with him about colours and numbers and shapes etc, and surprise surprise, he's totally receptive to doing a bit of learning, can identify and match all his shapes and colours, and will happily demand 'TWO biscuits!' when asked what he would like for a snack.

He's been using 2 word sentences for ages, with the odd 3 word combo thrown in for good measure, but he surprised us completely with a six word sentence the other day - on viewing this brilliant video with me, J-cub said "Mummy show me picture baby happy" which left us with our mouths hanging open in disbelief while he happily skipped away to grind more Cheerios into the carpet.

On Friday of last week, Jamie had a holiday day from work, so we decided to head off for J-cub's birthday trip to Tenby (as we were rained off on his actual birthday). Just before we were about to leave (as in, seconds before), he thought he should just check the opening times for the aquarium we were taking our Nemo-obsessed child to. And, it was closed on Fridays. So we postponed yet again, and went for a walk in the Mumbles instead, where the tide was crazy high due to the Super Moon, the sea was like glass, and the sky was a glorious blue. We had a lovely walk from carpark to playground, where we all sat and ate fish 'n chips on a bench (J-cub ate fish! First time ever (apart from tuna...), no objection at all, no batter, no ketchup, just one of those little wooden forks and away he went) had a quick play, then more of a walk down to the wonderful Verdi's for ice-cream sundaes.

J-cub has had various licks of ice-cream and lots of ice-lollies along the way, but hasn't had his whole own bowl before, let alone a Flake and a wafer. And of course, now that he's 2, it seems perfectly acceptable to fill him up with loads of crap at every opportunity ;).

He wielded his sundae spoon with aplomb, nommed his Flake, stole my wafer and crammed it whole into his mouth before I could protest, and ate from his glass-stemmed bowl without even coming close to an accident. Think we might have to repeat this treat more regularly in the future.

We walked back to the car as the sun set, deftly avoiding the 'I don't want to hold your hand' screams by getting J-cub to hold Bunny's hand, while I held Bunny's other hand. This was the Funniest Thing J-cub had ever encountered, as demonstrated by the smile in the below picture.

(And I won't mention that when we got back to the (just 5-year old) car, the door handle inexplicably fell off. ARGH).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Several times a day, I get requests for 'Bed, Mummy', which means J-cub would like me to build him a den. I LOVE building dens. We have a massive stack of blankets in the lounge, and lots of cushions, and happily interlocking chairs, which make this pursuit easy and fun. This week's den has been sponsored by the trampoline, and a very simple two-blanket arrangement.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And then on Saturday, we finally made our way out for J-cub's birthday treat. And of course, we didn't go to Tenby, to the aquarium (cos the car door handle fell off, didn't it, and I didn't fancy leaving the car in a carpark all day, in case someone thought a handle-less car looked an easy prospect) - so we went to Folly Farm instead. Folly Farm was our original birthday destination, until we found that it doesn't open in the week at this time of year. So our crap procrastination actually meant that we got to go where we'd originally wanted to go, in the end, so everyone was happy. Phew.

Few were more happy than this 2-year old, who stroked ponies, and lambs, and chickens, and tortoises, and pigs, and goats, and all kinds of other things. He was particularly happy that one of the donkeys was called Tilly ("Tilly eee-or!"), he nearly had a fit when he saw there were FIVE giraffes (it took us about 20 minutes to walk up the path away from the giraffes, as every 2 steps we had to turn around and wave "Bye-bye, grafs"), and there were almost too many slides to cope with.

It was a beautiful sunny day, which made playing in the sand all the more fun, as I envisaged all the days on the beach soon to come.

Since then, my preschooler has had a horrendously bad haircut (his fault, for not sitting still), learnt the sign for 'salad' (thank you, Mr Tumble) and therefore decided that his favourite meal is salad (anything with a bit of spinach and a carrot or two on it is salad, thankfully), and done his first wee on the potty. We've been reading Pirate Pete's Potty since it arrived, along with a super big frog potty (regular-sized potties are way too small for him) for his birthday.

On Sunday, while running around naked after his bath (and, probably quite dangerously, having his hair cut at the same time), I pointed out several times that he didn't have a nappy on and if he needed a wee, he should go on the potty. He went on the floor first of all, and we had a look at the page in the book where Pirate Pete goes on the floor, and we saw that it doesn't matter at all! J-cub helped me clear it up, then sat down for some more haircutting action. A few seconds later he announced "Mummy wee-wee", grabbed his book and his comb, sat on the potty, started reading and combing his hair and .... he did it! We had such a party, pressed the 'Yeeeaaaaahhhh!' button on the book a million times, and sang a 'Pee pee on the potty' song which Jamie was quick to point out came from Look Who's Talking Too rather than being my own genius creation. I don't care, J-cub loved it, and he danced around in a hilarious fashion, obviously proud of himself.

He now sits on the potty several times a day, although he mostly has his nappy on, at least he knows what it's for.

So there we have it - what a difference a couple of weeks makes. J-cub has his 2 year development check with the health visitor on Thursday, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she makes of him.

Bapples!

There's nothing more I love at the moment than talking to my baby. Every day he tries to say new words, and he babbles away to himself all the time. I'm going to miss his babbles so much when he starts talking properly; he wanders around chanting "bah-boo-bah-bee" over and over again and it's the cutest thing in the world.

He seems able to say most of his consonants, but can't string them together in the right order, so 'Bagpuss' often comes out as 'sss-Ba-puh', 'slide' is 'dide-sss' and 'sausages' is 'doshges'. He did do a very accurate 'dinodaur' today which I was very impressed with.

Without doubt, his favourite (and most accurate) word is 'Daddeeeee!' said with a great deal of glee, and used to refer to anything exciting or as a question to ask where his father is. The 'd' sound occurs more than most (except 'b'), leading to confusing conversations like the one we had at lunch today...

Jacob: Dadder.

Me: Ladder?

Jacob: Daddeeee.

Me: Daddy? Daddy's at work.

Jacob (shaking his head): Doh-doh.

Me: Dog?

Jacob (angrily): Doh-doh!

Me: Dorothy?

Jacob (pointing at fridge): Doh-doh!

Me: Yoghurt?

Jacob: Dah-doh!

Me: Magnet?

Jacob (squeals and smiles): Dah-doh!

Me: Yes lots of magnets. Well done.

My favourite of all his mispronunciations though has to be his word for 'apple'. He's perfectly capable of saying 'apple', but has started adding a 'b' sound to the start. We were wandering around Tesco the other day choosing fruit, and Jacob got very excited when we reached the apples. A lady almost peed her pants laughing as we walked up the aisle from the bananas towards the apples, and he said "nana-nana-nana-nana-BAPPLES!-BAPPLES!-BAPPLES!". I think it might be my favourite word in the whole world.

Ready Made Post

My lovely friend posted her aim this afternoon to list her daughter's current words and signs. I've been meaning to write a post about this, as in the couple of months since I last posted (and worried about J-cub's lack of speech), we've had an explosion of words and signs, so much so that J-cub is frequently frustrated by us as he signs clearly and fluently and we look at him blankly, before rushing to search through our signing books, flashcards and DVDs to figure out what he's saying. I've tried to keep a record of them, and have a sticky note on my desktop with them all ready and raring to be shared.

So without further ado, here is my (probably incomplete) list of J-cub's current communications.

Signs:

(grouped in tens for easy counting)

more, baby, milk, food, apple, hi/bye, Daddy, Nanna, duck, bird

rabbit, giraffe, elephant, lion, tiger, cat, crab, fish, monkey, caterpillar

ants, teddy, cuddles, ball, nappy, where, what, octopus, flower, shush

frog, banana, yoghurt, car, sheep, trousers, shoes, orange, boat, book

grapes, camera, bath, stairs, hat, bee, telephone, listen, look, no

yes, draw, dummy, bed, penguin, Hannah, rainbow, tired, clean, dirty

teeth, drink, music, enough, no/stop, guitar, snake, hungry, yummy, nappy

pain, medicine, sleep

Animal Noises:

Snake [ssssssss]

Dog [ooo ooo]

Monkey [ooo ooo eee eee]

Mouse [eee eee eee]

Cat [yow]

Lion/Tiger/Elephant/Dinosaur [loud roaring/screaming sound]

Words:

(this doesn't include words which he used well before a year old but then stopped using)

duck

Mama/Mummy/Mum/Mammy

Dada/Daddy/Dad

garden [dardeh]

this/that/down/there [all sound similar but are accompanied by a point to indicate which he means]

dirty [dirdee]

tasty [daysdee]

nice [niiiiii]

knock knock

circle

Po

Dorothy [doradee]

ta-dah!

sorry [dowee]

Pop!

boo

no

baby

hiya

toast [doas]

Bagpuss [bag-puh]

Catey [tateee!]

ho-ho-ho

snowman [do-dah]

kitty

jumper [dumper]

shoes

blue [boo]

and according to his keyworker at nursery:

Tom Bradley [one of his 'friends' who he's apparently been shouting at all day today ;)]

Day 27 - "Garden!"

(Sunday August 15th)

We've been talking recently about J-cub's lack of language, having read that at 18 months you should expect a child to have between 6 and 20 words. J-cub barely has 3, if you count 'Mama', 'Dada' and 'Uh-oh!'. I know you shouldn't worry about this sort of thing, and I also know that babies who sign speak later. But when I hear tales of similarly aged babies having numerous words it does make me worry.

Today J-cub took a step forward by standing by the stairgate into the kitchen, pointing outside and saying very firmly "Garden!". We immediately reinforced it by taking him into the garden, and he now asks to go out regularly. It's lovely.

Day 10 - Apple

Photo from earlier in the week, when J-cub spent a large proportion of his meal time balancing an apple core on his sippy cup.

J-cub's eating repertoire has extended slightly over recent weeks, but is still mostly centred around fruit and yoghurt. He's gone off pears, but is loving apples. Today he ate chunks of Pink Lady, while pointing at my Golden Delicious and making 'Give me that!' noises, until I acquiesced and gave it to him. He kept signing 'more, more', even while there were still slices in his bowl. We counted them, I signed 'apple' each time he pointed to one, and said 'apple' over and over. Towards the end of the meal, he started saying 'Ah' while pointing at the apple. When I said 'apple' again, he made a 2-syllable sound which mimicked my intonation.

When he'd finished, we went into the garden so I could hang out the laundry while he played, and I brought along the leftover slices of apple for him to nibble on. His 'Ah' sound started approaching 2 syllables, and the second one started sounding a lot like 'l'. By the time Jamie got home, J-cub was proudly holding up a slice of apple and saying 'Ah-l'.

Apart from 'Dada', 'Mama', and 'Uh-oh', he really doesn't have any other words. In the past (well before he turned 1) he had several words, including 'Duck', 'Cat', 'Tilly', 'Hey', 'Hi', 'Teeth' and various others. They've all fallen by the wayside though, and are now a faint memory. We mostly get lots of very nasal snorts and sniffs, shrieks and screams, and not much else.

I'm so excited that he might be starting to speak, especially if it means he can communicate with us more rather than get frustrated and scream. He's also signing more and more, although quite literally, he is signing 'more' all the time, which can be quite frustrating for me when I don't know what he means.

At least we have the old standby requests of 'give me a kiss/cuddle' which always work, and the utterly cute 'show me your tummy' which we discovered yesterday and have been using at every opportunity since.