Tuesday 25 January 2011

Faffety, faff faff

Well, the no-nap solution appears to be working most of the time. Although, he is often really tired by the time we get home from nursery and he nearly fell asleep in his tea at nursery the other day, bless him.

He is still having more than the odd moment of pushing the boundaries at the moment but they are interspersed with more pleasurable moments.

I'm really proud of him at nursery though. He is slowly moving into the big room (as in for older children, not just because it is bigger!!!).

He goes in there on Mondays and Fridays and then joins them for PE on Wednesday. I have to bring a change of clothes for him on Wednesday. I think he had his first PE session on the Wednesday just gone. They were doing animals and learning how each of them walk. He was apparently very attentive and would watch carefully before copying what the other children were doing. On the other days he sits quietly at story time and enjoys trying to write - just drawing lines on paper at the moment but he loves it apparently.

He is the biggest ever faffer though at the moment - faffs in the morning when getting dressed, faffs getting his shoes and coat on to go to nursery, faffs when I pick him up from nursery - not really sure how to tackle this. Have tried bribery which has some (minimal) effect but I would rather not reward him for faffing! I try to be strict but am bound by my own time commitments. I don't want to discipline him in a way that takes time from me as I am in short supply at the times when he plays up. And there is no point giving him the punishment much later than the crime because he wont be able to relate the two.

If anyone has advice, am all ears...I may not accept it because I am stubborn like that but I will certainly listen to it first...;o)

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Oh no, he has discovered he can get out of bed on his own!

The bubble has popped and Callum has discovered he can get out of bed and doesn't have to wait until we come in, in the morning!

On the plus sign, he doesn't cry when he wakes up but, on the down side, it can be bloody scary!

The first time he did it was for his day time nap and, although a little concerned, didn't think too much about it.

Then, while fast asleep, pushing up Zs as you do at 3am, we hear "creeeeak". We both get the fear and Stuart virtually leaps over me from his side of the bed, ready to catch the rotten intruder who thinks he can break into our home. Then I hear "get back to bed!" and a pitter patter of tiny footsteps back to bed.

Both relief and dread go through my mind - hooray, not a big scary burglar but bugger, he has discovered he can get out of bed AND open his bedroom door!!!!

He did it again later about 4am but wouldn't settle and I ended up getting very little sleep being kicked in the head while trying to sleep in his bed with him!

Thankfully, he hadn't really done it much, if at all, since then - certainly not to cause us the fear...until the other night when Stuart and I had been enjoying a drink and ended up staying up until 2am listening to music when we remembered we weren't as young as we used to be and there was a reason why we rarely saw the wrong side of 12am! On our way to bed we opened the kitchen door and there he was! Quiet and staring straight at us - frrrrrrrr, gives me shivers! We thought for a minute he was sleep walking - still not sure that he wasn't. We got him back to bed, though and thankfully he didn't stir again.

There have been no more middle of the night awakenings but it does mean when he wakes up in the morning he gets straight up and comes into ours...or, like he did the other day, go straight downstairs. Not sure what he was doing but heard him jingling our door keys - not sure where exactly he was planning on going!!!

I now intend to keep some toys in his room and try to circulate them occasionally to see if that keeps him entertained for a while when he wakes up. In fairness, he rarely wakes up earlier than 7.30 but every extra second in bed counts for a lot in our house!

Other news - he had his first nursery parent's evening the other day. No problems and all seems to be on track. He isn't, by any means, top of his class, and is possibly near the bottom for his age but as long as he isn't lagging behind or there is anything for concern. Was very pleased that he is very good with his manners and apparently shows the older children up. Also discovered he loves his food and eats lots - often asking for more helpings. Why doesn't he do that at home??? His key worker also said she was going to raise the issue of the menu at a meeting to see if they can vary it more. Also whether they can make a more informative and two-way book rather than the very basic one-way book they currently have. Watch this space!

Monday 3 January 2011

Snow, Christmas and a New Year

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. Lots has happened - namely, more snow, Christmas and New Year. Its been busy, busy, busy!

So, after the last lot of snow came and went about a week or two after it went we got another load of snow which took us up until Christmas. Not a white Christmas as it didn't snow on Christmas day but there was still a bit of snow on the ground!

So what did December bring. I will struggle to remember everything and it may be a bit higgledy-piggledy.

Callum saw 3 Father Christmasses (or Missmasses)! All of them were 'helpers' rather than the real thing but we understand he is busy this time of year. The first one was at a place called Loseley House. We had high hopes as it cost £5 each to get in and after we had bought lunch and a cup of tea, we had spent around £30!!! Yet, Callum got what Stuart suggested could have been a dog toy. It was a soft toy monkey rattle with a pink scarf!! Quite unimpressed as a present for his age.

We went to another Father Christmas at Debenhams. I think he was a bit young and his face was completely covered by hair and beard. He did give Callum a much better present though. A lovely 'Letter to Santa' book and the ticket was £3 with £1 going to charity.

Then his final Santa was at nursery during their Christmas party.

Callum was scared of all of them, until he received the present then he warmed up to him a little bit.

Christmas itself was a lovely time. Christmas eve, Stuart's parents arrived. Callum got some new PJs from Santa and we left a Bailey's and mince pie for Santa then a carrot and saucer of milk for Rudolph.

Once Callum had gone to bed, Stuart had bought out a Christmas Eve present for me which was Cluedo which we all sat and played.

Callum was a bit unsettled that evening and kept stirring so I didn't have an opportunity to sneak in his room and put in his stocking. He stirred when we went to bed. I tried staying up for a bit and then tried again but a present fell out just outside his door, making him stir again. I decided to give up and if I woke in the night I would sneak in then.

I think it must have been on my mind as a couple of hours later, I woke up and sneaked in his bedroom to leave his stocking. Then I woke up every couple of hours until about 8.45am when Callum woke up - can't really complain at that - still felt too early after a broken night's sleep!

Callum then opened his stocking presents on our bed and we had a cup of tea and biscuits.

Lotté opened her stocking and went mad for her catnip, managing to break through the packaging. We later put it on a raised area which, when we weren't looking, she jumped up to and continued to cut through the bag and tipped half of it on the floor!

Then it was showered and dressed and downstairs for scrambled egg with smoked salmon - ooh and not forgetting the champers! Yum!

After breakfast, it was time for tree presents - wow! So many presents! We all got very spoilt.

To name a couple of Callum's:

A big workbench and tools
Thomas goodies
Scooter
Battery operated James
Edible playdough
Happyland pirate ship

For me:

Rocketdog boots that I love :-D
A necklace
Simple wash stuff
Some money
Socks - much needed!

For Stuart:

Indian Cookery course
Bathroom mirror
PS3 Move sports pack
Money

Lotté was unimpressed with her motorised ball in a bag!

After presents, I started getting dinner ready. We had duck instead of Turkey. I had done this last year and it was a nice relaxed event - just what I wanted. For some reason, I forgot that the reason I was doing Duck again was to keep the relaxed feel with not a lot of time being spent in the kitchen and I ended up stressing myself out with doing all the trimmings I would do for turkey - kind of defeating the object of doing Duck!!! I had also forgot to turn the oven down on the duck after 20 mins so it wasn't as 'perfect' as I would have liked it but it was nice enough - everyone else said they enjoyed it anyway.

Then after dinner and after Callum had gone to bed we watched 'Its a Wonderful Life' - I'd been waiting all December to watch it and went and fell asleep at the end (the best bit!!!). Going by the bell on our tree, lots of angels got wings this year!

Boxing day was all about the leftovers and buffet food. I forget what else we got up to other than eat (as always, especially with us, excess food was the common theme throughout Christmas) but probably watched a film or two. Think we played another game of Cluedo too.

The day after boxing day was a switchover day. Grandparents Jones were off and Grandparents Bynorth were to arrive. They both were here for buffet no. 2. After Grandparents Jones had gone and Callum had woke from his nap, we exchanged presents. Fighting the pertruding stomachs, I cooked Thai Massaman Currey for dinner with the left over duck which was rather scrummy! Muchos drink was had and I think we were all feeling exhausted and VERY full after a great Christmas.

My parents left the next morning and we visited friends in the afternoon.

The next day (what day are we up to now, Wednesday???) we visited our friends over the road for tea and home made mince pies and also to exchange yet more presents. Or did we do that Thursday and go to Guildford on the Wednesday to spend our Christmas money. It is all starting to blur. Anyway, with some of our Christmas money, Stuart got some new shoes and computer games and I bought some skinny jeans to wedge my Christmas flab into (ouch, not used to spending that much on jeans! Fancy going to the sales and coming away with a pair of Jeans not in the sale!). Callum came away empty handed unfortunately as the sales were just rubbish.

So, New Year's eve.

We invited our friends over to ours. We put the kiddies to bed upstairs - they went to sleep eventually!!! We had pizza, garlic bread and chicken wings for dinner (don't ask where we found the room) and may have consumed the odd glass or two of alcohol except one friend who is expecting number 2 bubba so had to play 'responsible adult'. Was good fun - especially trying to play Just Dance 2 on the Wii - some interesting moves were being demonstrated and I so hope that video doesn't end up on Stuart's Facebook!!!! Was a much more sedate affair than previous years as we all start to except that age and parenting make us not what we used to be and I think it was shortly after 2am when we called it a night.

So, that about brings us up to date. First day back at work today for Stuart and I and first day back to nursery for Callum. I think it went ok for all of us although Callum was apparently calling for me throughout the day.

Callum is still progressing very slowly with his speech. He is copying what we say more and joining about 3 words together. He has his own words for things which makes him hard to be understood or you try to guess at what he could possibly mean by him pointing and repeating a word over and over again. I love it when he calls trousers 'leggies'. He calls milk 'milky' and I think when he wants more of something he says 'moreky' though he does say that for a lot of random things. I think 'open' is his most recent word. We are trying to get him to say "My name is Callum" and he does 'My name is' repeating each word after we say it but he just laughs when we say Callum.

Well, think that has given you a small book to read so will leave it there for the moment. Will hopefully be back soon.