I have a confession to make, its been 12 weeks since my last post, and my only excuse is I have been really really busy. And Pads has grown and developed so much in that time, I struggled to know how to begin this from where we left off. I know I have mentioned it before but my baby has well and truly left the building, and my toddler rules the roost (and just basically rules as well).
We have been busy with a lot of things since we last spoke. Busy getting ill (all of us): colds, vomiting bugs, hand foot and mouth disease and conjunctivitis to name the main offenders, darn this changeable weather!; busy changing jobs (I have gone freelance and become an enterprising working mum trying to figure out my next move, as I am sure anyone that knows me is well aware of from all of my social media updates about my latest ventures – sorry, and sorry not sorry at the same time!).
Busy spending time with my Scottish family which was all kinds of ace; busy fostering Pads never-ending book obsession with visits to bookshops and libraries – he can’t get enough of reading books, chattering away loudly at the pictures in them, sorting them into piles and taking them on and off the bookshelves over and again with gusto; busy training, studying and qualifying (woohoo!) as a Daisy Birthing antenatal teacher for Crickhowell, Abergavenny and Usk, and starting the juggernaut of self promotion and marketing to get my classes filled with lovely mums to be (harder work than I imagined!); busy not finding time to write this blog though I really wanted to as I still find it really relaxing, therapeutic and reflective; TMI alert – busy being called upon by an old friend who I had forgotten about and gotten very used to no longer seeing every month, (and yes I am talking about dear ole Aunt flow here (thats right, I hadn’t had a period since getting pregnant back in October 2014 until last month…do the maths on that one!); busy having a long overdue date night with the hubster at a pop-up foraging dinner party, thanks to my mum for babysitting duties!; busy taking Pads to his first fireworks display which he took in his casual stride; busy hosting Christmas and NYE at our cosy Welsh cottage, attending Pads first Christmas concert at nursery (he saw me and started crying – classic), and doing lots of festive baking/making a mess with flour and fruit with my little elf (and Pads Buddy the Elf costume is possibly the cutest thing I have ever and will ever see, it was almost too much for me to cope with to be honest); busy taking time out for myself for the first time in ages (I went swimming – on my own for 2 whole hours! it was bliss to actually swim in a pool rather than just repeat the bits of Water Babies I can still remember with Pads and then try and juggle drying myself and him in a hot and tiny changing room which always ends up in me getting dressed whilst still damp and him getting damp once fully dried and dressed) and if any of my new year resolutions stick, doing more for myself and not just thinking of myself as ‘just a mum’ or a freelancer always seeking work, and stopping feeling like I always have to do life laundry (and actual laundry) first, above doing things for myself, is the one I want to stick to the most.
Here’s what else has happened of note over the past 12 weeks and counting…
1 Comic timing. I have long thought Pads had a funny bone and a good sense of humour and now I know he does. As he has gotten a bit older and more sure of himself and able to communicate better, his funny side is starting to show more clearly. He knows how to work a crowd for comedic effect, loving to be chased and to chase, and more recently revelling in hiding behind me and delighting when I take my time to discover where he is and then shouting his adorable version of ‘boo!’ when I clap eyes on his ‘hiding’ (this is usually right behind me with his arm resting on my shoulder bless him so he hasn’t quite got the full concept of being covert yet!) – he is very nearly doing the classic tap me on one shoulder and appear at the other though so thats classic comedy genius right there! He also does a mean side eyes look when he is being cheeky or playful which gets me every time.
Another rib-tickler for my boy, is true of all boys I think. He loves a burp and a fart, and has even started to try and do another fart after one has slipped out and made me laugh, which makes me laugh a little bit more as he visibly strains with a cheeky glint in his eye, all in the pursuit of another laugh. I probably shouldn’t be encouraging this, but it really is funny!
2 Puddle play. As we live in Wales and it is Winter, we have had to get fully prepared for any weather so we have a full kit of wellies, all in one rain suits and snow suits at our disposal and Pads just bloody loves his wellies (who doesn’t? They are the best thing you can put on your feet in my opinion). His Uncle Alistair introduced him to the joy of puddles, and whenever we pass one – regardless of his footwear – he has to walk through it and have a splash – always with a little gleeful smirk on his face! Puddles and wellies just go together, like jelly and ice cream or birds of a feather.
3 The big eating leagues. Now Pads is 17 months old, almost 18 months… (whaaaat???!!), he has graduated from plastic cutlery, to a mini metal fork and spoon, and his feeding skills have become very polished. Yes, we still get yoghurt smeared everywhere and rice flung across the room, but he is adept at holding a small pot in one hand and spoon feeding himself with the other. His portioning is a little off – often trying to spoon out half the pot at once and ending up with half of it on his chin, some of it in his bib and another bit always on his clothes no matter how covered up he is. I know some adults who don’t eat as well as he does so well done my boy!
However, since the onslaught of back to back lurgies and the fact that all of his teeth have now decided to come at once it seems, he has also developed somewhat of a fussiness about food which is a first for us. all my smug thoughts about what a good eater my boy was and how he always ate everything, which he did! Smoked duck, goose, venison, goats cheese – he was all over this kind of menu until the last month or so, when he has just decided that if he doesn’t fancy it, he won’t be having it thank you. The floor will. We were down to just a few foods that he would even consider eating when his cold was in full flow (bananas, scrambled eggs (definitely not an omelette – oh no!), peas, cheese, blueberries, breaded haddock (spoilt much this boy?!) and bread and butter mainly), so I was tearing my hair out over wasted meals and how to turn those few ingredients into a variety of balanced healthy meals, but he seems to be allowing a few more foods to creep back into his repertoire again thankfully. He is developing likes, and preferences and eating moods for sure though and boy oh boy does he have a strong will – can’t imagine where he gets that from…
4 Thumb blisters. Last month, Pads started getting big old blisters on his thumbs that turned a bit scabby after they popped which was as unpleasant as it sounds. He was teething at the time, with his back teeth tearing through at an alarming rate, so not only did this once again affect sleep (for the worse) but also made him suck his thumbs much more vigorously and much more often than usual which must have caused it. They looked pretty painful bless him so am keeping an eye out incase that happens again – how many more teeth can there be to come through?!
5 Bath time shenanigans. I have made no secret of having to bath with my boy every night for the past few months as he just wouldn’t go in the bath without being hysterical and getting really upset, which made washing him rather tricky. We have had a lovely run of bathing together, with bath boob every time, and lots of lovely play and easy washing of the boy (and a great vantage point for nit checking), but it does rather tie me to always doing bath time, as well as bed time every single night, so we wanted to find a way to give Jon more one on one time with Pads and free me up for a few minutes a day at least.
We were going to start in October when we went off for a little staycation/Daisy Birthing training weekend for me, but he seemed to be afraid of the strange new bath in our rental house – it did have a big weird shiny tap on it to be fair- and was even more hysterical when we tried to coerce him into bathing alone in a new, unknown bath, so we scrapped the new initiative until a few weeks ago to keep Pads clean and not cause him any undue distress.
Then the time just seemed right, 2 nights before we went cold turkey with him, he had started to move around the bath independent of me and sit facing me, rather than his usual preferred position of sitting nestled right up to me and not wanting me to move too far away. I saw this as our chance to strike whilst the iron, or bath?, was hot. And I can report, that we are sailing with solo bath times now. I haven’t bathed with him for over a month now and he has actually started sitting and playing happily on his own whilst his dad washes him and even refusing to come out of the bath as he is having too much fun splashing and playing with the foam letters I bought him as a guilt present for abandoning him to bathe alone (ah mum guilt, you omnipresent evil mistress). It means they get father son time together and I get a little lie down before the bed time ritual begins which is a win win situation! (though I do miss our baths together sometimes…)
6.The vom diaries. I won’t dwell too long on this one, but we have had some hideous vomiting incidences at the end of last year. It started with Pads feeling a bit unwell when we were en route to visit an organic farm I was recceing for my Food Assembly (as you do with a toddler), he was writhing in his seat as if he had awful trapped wind but we were in the middle of nowhere so I thought it best to get to our destination and see if I could settle him or massage his tum a bit there. No sooner had I got him out of his car seat and started to put his coat on as it was cold, he projectile vomited all down his front and all around him on the ground quite impressively, at exactly the same moment that the hip young farmer I was meeting came over to greet us. I bet he never forgets us though!
I thought I had escaped the bug, until I went for my first night away with 2 of my best girls in London. I know, get me!, doing things for myself again! this was a huge trip as it was the first night I would have spent away from Pads ever so I was excited, nervous and anxious about it all at the same time. The train ride down was lush, I drank hot coffee, stared mindlessly out of the window enjoying the quiet, read a little, revised for my Daisy Birthing exam and arrived to an amazing welcome at Paddington station in the form of 2 of my favourite humans holding a hand made sign – truly brilliant! I was ready to drink cocktails and fizz and catch up on everyone’s news over lots of cheese (truffle cheese to be precise!). The day was fantastic and everything I needed and had wanted and more, and it was so good to be with my best buddies again and just be me, not always looking over my shoulder incase Pads was climbing, eating, drinking, throwing, hiding something that he shouldn’t have been as I am usually, and just be focused on having fun and frivolous conversation.
I felt quite like my old self again with added mum pride which was ace and I was coping remarkably well being apart from my little person for a bit, in fact I was beginning to think it was probably good for both of us (which I still think it was though I haven’t done it since…). The only bit of mumming that I made a big boo boo on was packing my breast pump – well I packed and carried the ridiculously heavy pump unit, but forgot the actual pumping suction cups and bottles…doh! Always resourceful, and feeling comfortable around such good friends, I just whipped out my milkers and sat watching Magic Mike whilst milking myself into a pyrex bowl to relieve the fullness and feel the sweet release – oh the glamour. Saturday nights never used to be this ‘pumping’ (ahem).
We were about to tuck into an indulgent cheeseboard, resplendent with truffles and quince and posh crackers we had just purchased, and guzzle some more fizz (the drink of choice for the day), when I started to feel a bit funny, perhaps too full of champagne I thought and just a bit bloated, so I switched to water for a bit to see if that would help. Then it struck me. I really didn’t feel well at all, and I had to go and lie down with stomach cramps – memories of how my labour started with the same sort of tummy pains came flooding back, but don’t worry it wasn’t baby number 2, instead it was a sprint to the loo and an evening of being sick and lying helplessly in bed. Not quite the raucous girls evening in we had planned. Sods law.
7. Word play. Pads has picked up on words brilliantly over the past few weeks, evolving his patter of ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ and ‘yeah’, to a confident exclamation of ‘bear’ at almost everything, whether it is a bear or not! (we have a thing for bears in this house), to a cute ‘ball’ at anything round, an adorable ‘bubby’ meaning baby as I bought him some dolls to play with in the interest of non gender specific play and all that (and mainly because I thought they were cute and he is adorable with them! Kissing them gently on the head with a gorgeous ‘mwah!’ sound, which he also loves to do with anyone he likes and we get inundated with ‘mwah’ sloppy kisses throughout the day which makes everything we have ever done for Pads completely rewarded in that single gesture – he is demonstrating such a loving, nurturing and caring nature – most of the time, and I do slightly credit him having those dolls to play with for that)
He says ‘boonga bo’ for his belly button, whilst pointing at it, which is too darn cute for me to correct yet, and ‘jackadee’ seems to be what he thinks his name is. That may be my fault for always turning his name into a nickname…’Gone’ is his word for when he has finished his food or when my plate is empty,and he has recently perfected ‘nanny’ which is a real winner with the grandparents. His latest word is ‘ch’ which means ‘cheers’ and is always followed with him picking up his bottle or cup and waiting for us to cheers it with ours. He knows his stuff this kid! (He also thinks the word ‘cheese’ means the same thing but they are very similar)
He also now says ‘boobah’ when he wants milk thanks to his daddy repeating the word booby over and over at him – thanks for that Jon! He also says ‘quack’ when we go and feed the ducks and over Christmas, we, along with most people with kids I’m sure, had a little toy elf around the house hiding in comedy positions and he learnt to say his name, ‘Buddy’ within a couple of days. This is such a fun learning phase and he really understands what we say to him, he knows what and where his head, nose, feet and willy wonka are (the essentials in life really) so its probably time to swap those occasional expletives (we’re only human) that sometimes slip out of our mouths for something else now as this boy is a verbal sponge!
One of the most heartbreaking ways he has learnt to communicate, is by saying ‘mummy’ in such an earnest and vulnerable tone in the middle of the night when he wants picking up and cuddling if he has woken up…and yes, it works everytime!
8. Greetings and salutations! Its not just his language that has developed ten-fold, he communicates physically really well now as well. In fact, we understand each other so well that I sometimes forget he doesn’t speak properly yet. Of course there’s the temper flaying arms, the protest laying flat on the floor tantrums (I especially love those in public places when he has his reigns on), the emphatic ‘yeah’s’ accompanied with a little nod and open arms when he wants something, his arms outstretched and hands beckoning inwards when he wants to picked up – all moves that he has done for a while, but now he can also shake your hand firmly to say hello, initiate and carry out a proper fist pump with the accompanying ‘boom!’ sound (thats my bad!), and clap when he gets excited or hears applause on the tv or on a music track. Its a lot of fun encouraging him to practice his repertoire and seeing what new ones pop up.
He has just started doing an amazing fast marching step dance too when we read his word books and get to the page that says drum, and Pads has rhythm and incredible balance as he sometimes spins with it too. He may also have picked up a few of my yoga moves, I caught him leaning on the coffee table with one leg raised up in the air behind him just today actually, and he likes to get into a downward dog position with enviably more ease than I ever will again. Quite the little mover and toosh shaker this one.
He has always been obsessed with playing with brushes, (as well as spades of all shapes and sizes), from brooms, to dustpans and brushes, hair brushes, toothbrushes, you name it, if it has bristles he wants to hold it and play sweep with it, which isn’t a bad habit to be getting into so young really. He also says ‘br’ when he sees any sort of brush so we have the beginnings of another word forming I believe!
12. Sleep that old nemesis… My old enemy sleep has risen its difficult head again of late, and possibly because he is developing at such a fast rate at the moment, hasn’t been well and is teething, Pads has been taking forever to get off to sleep, which was never the problem before, it was always keeping him asleep that was the issue! It has sometimes taken up to 2.5 hours to get him to settle down to sleep and be put down in his cot (no joke), and he has been waking earlier than usual, more frequently and only settling when we bring him in with us, no attempts at pacifying him in his cot or room will do on these particular nights. It has been exhausting and just 3 days ago he woke at 10.30pm and didn’t go back to sleep until 3am, fidgeting and tossing and turning and fighting sleep for that whole time…that was a dark dark night that won’t be spoken of again. Hopefully just a one off…
13. 999…This isn’t a tale of me having to call the emergency services thankfully, it’s the tale of Pads first phone call made by himself. To 999. He often plays with our landline phone as it’s an old retro model with a curly cord and receiver that he likes to hold to his ear/face and pretend chatter into and I let him as it’s just play isn’t it? On this occasion however, I hadn’t noticed him stabbing at the actual phone buttons and getting connected to the person on the other end of the line… I thought I could hear some distant voices but figured I had left the radio on in the kitchen. Pads slammed the receiver down when he got bored of the game as usual, then 2 minutes later the phone rang, which it never does and it was the police asking if everything was OK as they had just received a 999 emergency call from this number. It all suddenly fitted into place and I felt so embarrassed and guilty, luckily the police office at the other end of the line saw that it was just a mistake and a child playing on the line and that was that but I felt awful for not noticing! Pads is no longer allowed to play with the adult phone and I apologise again to the emergency services for wasting your time. Parenting fail.
14. Still going strong. I want to end on an emotional high. My friend Carys recently wrote a beautiful blog about finishing breastfeeding as the time was right for her and her lovely little boy who is just a bit older than Pads, and a lot of my closest mummy friends have naturally finished breastfeeding as their toddlers just decided to self wean, which is the dream way to close that chapter isn’t it. This got me thinking about our breastfeeding journey and how far we have come to be at almost 18 months and still lucky enough to be going strong. It really has been an incredibly emotional and rewarding experience and one I will always cherish, even when it wasn’t going well, we stuck at it as a team and I am so proud of what we have achieved. I started to wonder if I should be thinking about stopping soon but it isn’t up to me. Yes, I have come to love breastfeeding and in particular the peace and quiet and bonding moments it brings me and my boy (it wasn’t always this blissful of course, we have worked bloody hard to get here) and it has been a godsend with Pads run of illnesses when he wasn’t able to eat properly as I knew he was still getting nutrients, hydration and comfort from my milk. I will miss it terribly when it comes to a close, though I would quite like to be able to wear an underwired bra again and an outfit that isn’t chosen primarily for ease of boob access, but that’s not my decision to make at the moment. I am hoping Pads self weans when he is ready as I dread the thought of enforcing it and am not sure I will be able to. I don’t offer him the boob anymore, he just takes it, quite literally sometimes by tugging at or removing my top, when he wants it. We feed to sleep still every night and it’s still one of my favourite moments of the day, and he likes a night feed and a morning drink still, then some days he wants a bit in the day, and other days he doesn’t and that’s cool.
I never in a million years thought we would make it to 12 months let alone 18 months, so we have a lot to be thankful for and celebrate, and I would now like to continue until Pads is two if he wants to, but of course it’s up to him!, and after that? I simply don’t know. I don’t really want to be feeding a tall toddler with all his teeth in his terrible twos in some way but in others, I do if it’s right for him. I think we will cross that bridge, or not, when and if we get to it, for now I am going to soak up every feed as if it was our last and enjoy my boy needing me and my milk for a little bit longer.
parentingpaddington 