The run up to Fathers Day

In celebration of Alice's dear papa and Fathers Day coming up in September (the first that Alice and Stu will spend in the same country), some paternal moments from the last week.

First up we have an actual blog contribution from "Our Stuart".  Simple but effective as we people talking up his contribution (to the blog not our lives) for the first time in 2+ years, like to say...

Spot the Difference:

Norman Wisdom

Alice Yardley

















Secondly, an exerpt from the class discussion at daycare: "What I did at the weekend".

"Alice: 'I played with my toys with my Daddy, Stu.'

The Dolphins showed keen interest in sharing their experiences with one another and the teacher. They each had clear ideas about what picture should be drawn to represent their activity and Kate (attempted!) to draw these for them on the chalkboard."

And finally, we all had a lovely time at Baby Thomas's christening on Sunday.  Alice provided a lively commentary throughout the (thankfully) very relaxed service, "What's Baby Thomas doing"; "Why is he wearing that white hat" and, during the anointing with oil, or dousing or changing (there was a lot of activity in this relatively high Catholic service), provided a rousing rendition of Old Macdonald had a farm (complete with piglet).  I removed her at this point.

Hat question was not entirely unreasonable...


At the party afterwards, she played really nicely, mainly cared for by her darling Dad.  Poor old Stu didn't get much chance to chat to people.  Or so I thought.  On my way around the crowd to bid our farewells, every bloke in the place was very quick to mention, in tremulous tones of envy, "So, Stu's told me that he's off to Phuket next weekend".  Obviously he had no time to chat, but did find time to dance about the garden, kicking his heels with the freedom of one who knows he will not be "playing with toys" for a few days.

I'll report back after Alice and my "girls weekend".  If I am still standing.  I might go into labour for a rest.

Baby names

Alice's current baby name choices:
"Stu"
"Daddy"
"Madison"
"Helen"
"My Cousin Milly"
[Conversation went something like this:
m
Me: "What would you like to call our new baby, Alice?"
Alice: "'My Cousin Milly'"
Me: "'My Cousin Milly?'"
Alice: "Not 'Your Cousin Milly.' 'My Cousin Milly'"
Me: "OK, 'My Cousin Milly'"
Alice: "Not..." etc
And so we went on. It's part wind-up, part tiredness at the end of the day on both our parts, I would say!

Yesterday at Dolphins

For the benefit of the paternal grandparents who somehow have managed to buy a computer without powerpoint on it, I'm including a few exerpts from yesterday's daycare report.  Bear with us, other readers and good people of Runcorn: since I can't forward these minutiae to them directly you'll all have the pleasure:

Outer Space
Aim: To extend on interest in stars, planets and space and introduce concept of astronomy.

- The children were eager to explore the outer space area, with Harry, George, Olivia, Savannah, Angus Y and Alice approaching following Kate hanging images of stars, galaxies, the moon, Earth and the Solar System.

- Alice and Olivia stretched their arms out and began to move around the room, with Olivia saying; “we flying in the sky”. Alice responded; “I can see the stars”. They stretched their arms out and ‘flew’ through the room also and then landed back in the space area.

- The children demonstrated emerging dramatic play skills and early knowledge about outer space.

My little planet

Self Help Skills

Each day, the junior preschool children are encouraged to practice their developing independence and self-help skills. Today, after returning inside from outdoor play, the children removed their hats, coats and shoes (if they wished) so they were comfortable for indoor play.

- Alice, Theo, Angus Y and Isabella sat down and concentrated on removing their own shoes and socks. Alice pulled on the toe of her sock hard and then asked for help to take it off. She then placed her socks inside her shoes and put her shoes in the shoe box.

- The children showed developing self-help and independence when dressing and undressing themselves.

Outdoor Play

The children are provided with outdoor play daily, as the weather is cold and chilly, the children prefer to run and climb to keep warm. Balancing is of most interest to some children. Ball games are also being observed, the children have been independently choosing their play, wether it be independently or with peers.

- Alice showed pride in herself by recognizing her achievement from sliding down by herself. “Alice did it” smiling

Action Shot

The Lobambolas come to stay

Sarah, Marley and Madison came to stay a couple of weeks ago, at the conclusion of their Australian sojourn.  We were over the holiday jet lag, but still didn't really have the wherewithal to take many photos so not many good ones to share.

When we had got over the initial hurdle of Alice throwing a tantrum at the fact that there were unfamiliar children sitting next to her in the car, the visit went very well.  Madison gamely explored Alice's toys and Alice gamely followed her about.  They bonded on the last night over Dora the Explorer in french and sat on Stu holding hands (did not manage to capture that in a photo!).  On the final morning, they even got as far as learning each others' names, with Madison finally referring to Alice as something other than, "That girl" and Alice learning that actually only one of the three guests was called "Marley", rather than all of them.  As soon as Madison had departed, Alice began to miss her desperately and I still haven't been allowed to move the booster seat out of the car, so that Alice can, "See Madison now?" 

Madison's main bonding, however, was with Little Clifford.  Thank goodness she (LC) had her feet up during that visit as I spent most of the weekend with her little hands attached to my belly in case the baby kicked. 

Since their departure, Alice has become obsessed with which country everyone lives in.  Madison has been found to live in France, Nanna in "Ling-land" and most importantly "the boobies" (whose popularity was reignited by Madison's regular requests for updates as to whether they had milk in them yet), which live "in Australia with Mummy".

Little Clifford update

I thought it might be timely to post a little bit of information about Baby Clifford.  We went for a scan today and she currently weighs 4lb 4oz and is therefore in the 64th percentile so far.  Alice, at this stage, was in the 40th and ended up bang on average at 5 days overdue.  So this one shouldn't be too enormous if she stays on track.

Clifford is still in the breech position, as was Alice at this stage.  I'm sure that she has been head down at some point (see "The Lobambolas come to stay") but she seems to have spun back around.  Anyway, she is currently crouching with her feet on my cervix, which is really uncomfortable and a bit of a shock each time that she decides to kick me.  It also made the scan a little more invasive than it might otherwise have been so that they could measure the cervix etc without the feet being in the way.  Anyway, aside from the father to be preferring to leave the room, all was well, with all the organs looking good, a lovely strong heart beat and a pretty active little person in there.

I finish work 3 weeks today and am hoping for some extended sleeping/ reading/ movie watching time before the big day.  Alice still wants to call the baby, "Stu".  We've added it to the list but are also using the next 8 weeks to agree on some other names.  Nursery decorating and furniture reorganising starts this weekend.  All very exciting.

Alice, Alice, quite contrary...

"There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone to do it, or ask your kids not to do it." -Malcolm L. Kushner

This is pretty much the way of things in our house at the moment. 

Granted, Stu is being very helpful when he's not off lunching (Cafe Sydney two days in a row?  Hello?!), but in terms of the other two methods:

Alice has shown a notable appreciation of hired help over the past few weeks.  Car dirty?  "Get the man to clean it", she suggested.  Arrive home from work/daycare to find the cleaners still hard at work? "Hi, Man! Are you cleaning our floor?"  Mummy can't stay and sing another lullaby at bedtime, using the excuse that she needs to make dinner? "Get a man to bring it", she proffers (like last week when the snot clearing curry was delivered, prompting another round of. "Hi, Man!).  I suppose at some time we should address this tendency to think that money fixes things - the morning at Bondi Beach a couple of weeks ago when her spade could not be found was slightly marred by the continual demands to, "Buy a new spade now?" - but I can't imagine that a new baby's arrival to a family without family support is going to see us using any fewer paid resources.

Ho hum.  I think that I wrote earlier this week about the current phase of general contrariness.  I genuinely think that I might try asking her not to go to bed and see what happens.  This morning we sat in the car letting ourselves be corrected/nagged, "Not music", "Don't sing, Mummy", "Daddy, don't talk" and then, upon deciding to ignore her completely, could hear the odd snatch of whinging as she tried to disagree with any overhead snippets of conversation, "Not with what you say disagree try to"....  *Sigh*

My little teenager

The lie-ins have continued.  We nearly made it past 7am the other day, but at 6.58am the familiar cry of "Mama, come and get me", arose.

Unfortunately other teenaged behaviours are coming to the fore.  Everything we say is corrected us or wilfully disobeyed.  A recent example would be in reply to her mother remarking on the number of cars on the road, and then on how dark it was in the tunnel, "No, there's not traffic.  It's a beautiful day".  [You could say that wasn't the most stimulating conversation, but really, whatever gets us through the drive home].  Another when playing about with a crisp packet.  Me: ":Don't tip it upside down, Alice".  Alice: looks at me, turns away and shakes bag upside down until all crumbs come out.

"I don't want to..." is also pretty frequent when asked to do pretty much anything.  Yesterday she announced that, "I don't want to see it before", when reassured that something would be familiar.  So I'm assuming she's testing boundaries like kids do, but so far, as can be seen, her resistance has been pretty futile.

This morning she lapsed into sulky mono-syllables when we talked about what she might get up to today.

I'm surprised that I haven't had to start nagging her to tidy her room.  That'll be next.

One of my younger siblings seemed to enter the mood swings of puberty at around 8 years old.  Could Alice be about to break the family record?!

Just for the record

This morning I had to wake Alice up so that I could get her ready to leave the house for work/Dolphins.  She told me twice, at 5 minute intervals that "I don't want to get out of bed" and rolled over to go back to sleep. 

Am just recording this for posterity.  Long may such antics continue.

Dressing up

This weekend we're going to put together a dressing up box for Alice.  She so loves her ballerina skirt from Nanna and has enjoyed all the various dress-up games at Dolphins* recently, so it'll be good to have some of that stuff available to play with at home.

Alice has particularly enjoyed my shoes recently (they're all flat at the moment, so easy to walk around in) but the selection at daycare seem much more entertaining.  Apparently "Alice quietly put pink shoes on. Then with a smile and a look of excitement said, 'Look Alice wearing pink shoes' "

Actually, Alice looks quite elegant (and always so colour co-ordinated).  I shouldn't post pictures of the other kids, but there were some choice images of little boys in drag, together with excerpts that would have had Stu grumbling if one of them were his son:

"Angus H and Angus Y independently chose handbags and shoes to wear. Walking around the room saying, 'Look at me'"

And my personal favourite:

"Declan clickity clacked around the room with his red shoes and bag. 'Lets go', he said."

*"Did you play Doctors and Nurses today?"

"Doctors.  Not Nurses.  Silly Mummy.", she sneered.

Poor Alice

We hear this refrain quite a lot from Young Alice.  However, this time, I do feel a little bad.  From a Dolphins update:

"As Alice drew a picture for her mum she had a discussion with the teacher that he mummy is having a baby and can’t pick her up. She asked the teacher to put her name on her pictures for mummy. Alice used her right hand in a tripod grip."