Terrible twos with Little Miss at 2 yrs 5 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Our little lady is the age that Monkey was when she was born. It feels utterly bonkers in some ways… But then I see her sometimes and think how grown up she looks and suddenly of course accurate. I think part of it is that Monkey seemed so much bigger than he was at the time. We measured LM’s height the other day and she is now only just taller than Monkey was when he was 18 mths old! Nearly a year younger than she is now! They are such different children, but this post isn’t about that, it’s about her and how she’s doing at 2 yrs 5 mths!

Our little lady, where to start? She is a force to be reckoned with. I don’t particularly like the label but I really appreciate the meaning behind the ‘terrible 2s’ with this girly. She is wilful, stubborn and gets frustrated by pretty much everything, all of the time. Even when I try to do what she says she wants, it still often results in a meltdown because let’s face it, she doesn’t really know what she wants!

It’s easy to make light of it but in truth I do struggle with her constant demands and unpredictability at the moment. At home she demands the tv so much of the time and screams when I don’t give in. When I try and do a nice activity or something with her to distract her from the tv, it lasts sometimes seconds before she is wandering off, or she gets frustrated that the laws of physics won’t bend to her will and she can’t make everything do what she wants it to. Then we have a meltdown and I’m left clearing up the mess while she is off, either getting annoyed by the next thing, or watching the tv because I can’t cope anymore and am frustrated that even when I try really hard, I can’t seem to make her happy.

We go for lots of walks and she loves to be out and about. It takes ages to get anywhere while she inspects stones and picks daisies and chooses her stick for the outing. She loves chasing bubbles and popping them with sticks and she adores playing hide and seek behind trees, which I love too. In truth the best times that we have are out on walks when she is free to do almost as she pleases. I still take the buggy with us most of the time so we can get home quickly if a meltdown strikes, usually because she’s decided she wants to be carried and I can’t because she’s just getting too heavy these days!

She loves riding on the back of my bike to the local country park so that makes for some nice outings too. But everything very much has to be her way. Try and impose a purpose on an outing and it soon goes awry. She loves visiting the big supermarket near us… But only to run around and see all the ride ons. Try and do any shopping and it becomes a nightmare. I did manage to give her a notepad and crayon the other day so she could ‘help’ by ticking items off the list. She scribbled on it for a few mins before the moaning started but at least it was a few minutes. When we all went together the other weekend hubs and I ended up taking it in turns to carry her out like a sack of potatoes with her screaming and kicking and waving her arms around in protest. It’s just not fun it really isn’t.

We’ve had a few times where she has refused something that she just has to do, like brushing her teeth. We will try and be flexible where we can but there are some things she just has to do, so we have used the naughty spot. I’m not going to lie it was a nightmare to start with but she has got the point of it now and she will now let us clean her teeth again without a fuss as a result. She has to know we mean business sometimes, much as I hate having to be the bad guy, as I know she needs some boundaries.

She loves her gymnastics group that we go to, though that isn’t without meltdowns. It really helps going with other tots a similar age though as it really helps to be reminded she isn’t alone in her difficult behaviour. This week’s session was spent sharing stories with other mums and making each other feel a bit better that our kid isn’t the only badly behaved toddler around. The benefit of these groups is not to be underestimated!

I know it’s just a phase and she will grow out of a lot of her challenging behaviour… But I am trying not to wish it all away too much, because she is lovely too. She’s cute as a button and I adore her cheekiness about as much as it drives me crazy. I mean how can anyone resist this face?

She’s chattering loads more now too which is really nice, lots more little sentences like repeating me when I said I was going to the toilet “mama nee wee wee, mama go wee wee” and in telling me what she wants to watch on TV “woh oo-ee a tagar a aneemols” (watch umizoomi with the Tiger and animals). There’s new words coming all the time “brokeh” (broken) “cay” (cake) are two of today’s! Hopefully as she communicates better the frustration levels will reduce a bit. I really hope so! I’m also looking forward to warmer days, spent in the garden where the temptation of the tv isn’t quite so great (for both of us). Maybe it won’t be any easier but I have to look forward with hope otherwise I will just sink!

She also starts pre-school after the Easter holidays when she is 2 1/2 and I think that will be good for both of us. I’m hoping the pressure will be off me a little in terms of making sure she experiences lots of things for her development as they will help her do that. We will also get a bit of a break from each other which will hopefully make the time we do spend together a little less fraught!

So what else is going on with her? Well she loves a bit of water painting, especially with her aquadoodle mat. She is a bossy britches and loves telling us all off if we aren’t painting with her, as she quite often wants company. Even when watching the tv she demands “mama, chair” patting the chair next to her so I will sit down. I don’t always comply of course as I have other things to do sometimes but it’s quite cute. When it comes to watching the tv her favourites by far are umizoomi and dora the Explorer, which I don’t mind too much as at least they are interactive, and I love hearing her shout numbers or shapes at the screen. As I type (with her in my lap watching umizoomi) she is shouting “ohwah” (oval). She also loves a bit of dressing up, with a few definite fave outfits!

She loves being in the kitchen with me, especially when I cook her eggs in the morning and she is getting better when we bake. Whereas previously she has just played with her own bowl of ingredients, she has been actually helping me more recently, scooping ingredients in and helping me pour and stir, so that’s a nice development. She’s also helped with sorting the storks from the kale and likes to chop with our child friendly knife.

She loves to run around the house with a big cheeky smile on her face, so anything that involves chasing or running or tickling is good with her. She loves a good dance around the living room too :).

On the less positive side she has developed a terrible fear of dogs recently. A friend’s dog bounded over to her reducing her to awful screams, and now she screams and you can tell she is literally beside herself terrified when a dog comes near her. We are trying to be positive and talk about how lovely the dogs are, she will wave to them from a distance sometimes (when she’s not hiding behind her hands) and we’ve tried to get her to stroke some lovely gentle dogs we know, but so far she’s not having any of it! Any tips (that don’t involve us getting a dog) please let me know!

Another great habit, which daddy in particular just LOVES, is that she is pretty constantly picking her nose at the mo. Delightful eh?

So there we have it, our beautiful, challenging, loving and tempestuous little miss, at 2 yrs 5mths.

Children’s Chatter March 2017

Posted by Caroline Elliott

March already? Blimey, this year is flying and the kids are growing up faster by the minute. I try and write down some of the gems my kiddies come out with but don’t always manage, and sometimes forget to write a blog post about them, still, here are some that I remember since the last time I wrote a post about them!

Monkey Says (at 4yrs 10 mths)

“When I was a little boy” funny how old and wise a 4 year old can make themselves sound isn’t it?

“On the 7th Sunday” Everything with monkey is on the something’th day. “Can we see granny on the 3rd tuesday?” The dates are completely random but I have to admit I like this random thing of his because he never remembers what he has asked for on which day (I mean, seriously, who could?) which means we can say yes to things we don’t want to do or can’t do, and get away with not doing them :):) haha bad mummy?

Looking in the mirror after a hair wash “hmm stylish”

A transformers programme “I think this is a bit too interesting for me..”

Larking about in the bath “I almost did a hula hoop!”

On finding one of my very long hairs somewhere and holding it up to his head “This is my hair, see, it fits” (errr no darling, your hair isn’t red and is about a 5th of the length haha)

“I was just imagining if, like in the book, we had flaps that you open and see inside our bodies.”

“Look at your bottom, it’s so big!” Um, yeah, thanks darling!

On learning about doctors at school ” They have a Mermometer and a Steposcope”

“Rain goes into the ground then through pipes back into clouds” loving his rationalisation of the water cycle!

“When is my birthday?” it’s the 21st. “We call that 21.” Yes but it’s the 21st day of the month. “naooo its the 20 last day hahahaha”

I found out this week that one of the girls in his class has told her mum that she wants to marry Monkey. I asked him if he liked her and he said, so so sweetly “I would like to marry her.” My heart melted!!!

My heart also melted when on evening he got out of bed and came downstairs (not my favourite thing for him to do) to tell us “I know how to click my fingers!” he was so proud of himself and it was just adorable. Love our boy!

Little Miss says (at 2 yrs 4 mths)

Little Miss’s speech progression is still pretty slow. She is coming along even if not as quick as I would like. I don’t think she can say quite as much as Monkey did at this age (and we were worried about his lack of speech at the time) but it’s hard to tell. Because it is progressing, even if not as quickly as I would like, I refuse to worry about it!

Some of the things she is saying at the moment:

“Urbit (frog, as in ribbit I think)”

“Wuh, two, wuh, two, wuh, two, teh!” love this imitation of counting. She can say all the numbers from one to ten now when she sees the numbers and it is seriously adorable so I have tried to video it loads of times but she never plays ball haha, minx!

Her numbers sound a bit like “wuh, two, tree, or, yigh, see, seyeah, aigh, nigh, teh”

She was very cute the other day when she came in and I was watching the new Cinderella. It was right at the bit where she is given her pretty blue dress and LM was awestruck “oh, wow, a Dreh!” (dress) She then insisted on finding a dress and it had to be one that reached the floor, and she spent ages pegging it around the house giggling that she couldn’t see her feet!

Her current favourite TV programme is Dora the Explorer “Doo” and I don’t mind too much as she really interacts with it and is often shouting “uh” (up) “dow” (down) or “how” meaning any building amongst other things. It may also be the reason she keeps saying “Pah Bah” (backpack) and wants to wear her backpack when we go out! We also had a recent obsession with both kids loving some winnie the pooh films, “bear” is what LM called Winnie the pooh himself but her favourite of the films was the heffalump movie, as indicated by her shouting “Ooh” over and over till we put it on. I think it was her impression of an elephant, as she still calls most animals by their sound rather than their names!

One of her funniest habits at the moment is involving food. She makes an “ng” sound to mean she wants food (meant to be an mm sound maybe though we don’t actually know for sure!) and she likes to tell us all to eat. If any of us pause for a second we get “mama/dada/cugger, ng!” while she points from us to our plate. I think this may be as a result of always hearing us nagging her brother to eat, as he can be so slow haha. The funniest though is when she decides she’s hungry. She will lead me by the hand to the kitchen, where she sas “mama, in nair (in there), ng, ng.” She will then close the gate to the kitchen and stand there while I make lunch/dinner. If I dare to step out of the kitchen or any reason before it is ready so screams and go made shouting “ng ng, in nair in nair” over and over until I go back in. Seriously she has become a 50s husband – basically shouting get back in the kitchen and make me some food! Funny girl!

“Tigh t go” or “T go” are her very cute ways of saying she wants to leave, like right now, and she says “go war” for go for a walk and “oh dare” when she sees something over there.

One of her favourite games involves us pretending to be asleep (I really love this game) “go beh” and then waking up when she shouts “Tigh to geh uh, tigh t geh uh!” and repeating endlessly :).

There are still lots of things that she says that only I really understand “too way” means too windy for example and there is yet more that I don’t even understand, bless her, but she really is getting there now! Slowly but surely!

Little Miss at 2yrs 3 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

It’s been a little while since I have written an update about our gorgeous girl and she is changing so much all the time so I thought it was about time I did. I know that even in just a few months time she will be different again so I do want to try and capture her funny little ways as best I can.

She is really starting to grow into a little girl now while also still being very much a toddler. As an example, for along time now she has eaten everything with her hands. And I mean everything. I have never seen anyone eat soup using their hands quite so efficiently as she does. It is obviously a mess fest though so I have to admit to being massively relieved that she is now using forks and spoons a bit more. She still uses her hands a lot but there is a lot more cutlery being used.. And she’s starting to dislike her hands being so filthy which I see as a positive change!

Another sign of her growing up is obviously her speech and how that really seems to be improving all the time now. I wrote an update recently and there’s been a lot of development even since then. It can be hard to quantify it but there’s a lot more sentences and a lot more that we can understand.

Until very recently she was a bit obsessed with jigsaws or “a di” as she put it. She’s brilliant at them and the ones we have done about 5000 times she can do by herself, even sort of 24 piece ones, and one of the 48 piece ones she is brilliant at.

Her obsession recently though has moved onto an Usborne “find the duck” book. Hubs and I both remember these books from childhood so we got it when Monkey was little, he loved it and now it is very much LM’s turn. She loves looking for the duck. “duh, waryou” (duck, where are you?) “dere” “down do” (there, found you.) It’s a brilliant book for her as it gives her a great opportunity to grow her vocabulary. We ask her what something is, or we say a word and ask her to find it. She doesn’t always get it but that’s the point as it’s about learning, but she surprises us a lot with what she finds. Her favourite things to point out on every page (other than the duck) are “a mama” “a daddy” “a baby” “a gur”(girl) “eeow” (as in miaow/cat) . Though I must admit I wasn’t 100% happy when she pointed at the picture of sumo wrestlers and said “mama”… must be because their hair was up in a bun or something….must be …(I am going to keep telling myself that rather than it being the wobble that made her think of me hahaha).

“Daddy” is her favourite word because he is without her favourite person. It is the word she says most throughout the day, from the moment she wakes up in the morning and she is generally who she would choose out of mummy and daddy. I try not to mind (sob! Only joking it’s quite nice at times actually haha) but it can be tricky when Hubs is working from home and she can’t understand why he can’t play with her.

Her other favourite person is our friend Susie, though she calls both her and her little girl, A, “cha” no matter how much I try to get her to say their names! She loves “cha” though and again prefers her to me if we are out and about together.

She’s starting to get some of the other family names, though she doesn’t call her brother by his name, as she just calls him brother. Or rather “cujjer” or “cugga” or “bujjer.” She knows Pops is “poh” but Granny, Granddaddy and Nanny all seem interchangeable with a vague “gaga” word. She has said “nana” but actually uses that as another version of “mama” most of the time rather than for Nanny. She knows Uncle Paul as “uh po” and Uncle Mark as “uh ma” though she’s not there with any of the aunties or Uncle Andy, and Uncle Simon is also referred to as “uh ma” lol.

Some of her other favourite sayings are related to an activity she loves. She adores climbing onto a step “deh” to “push a buhuh” (switch the light switch.) She absolutely loves doing that, so we have a lot of side lights on to avoid being plunged into darkness whenever it takes her fancy!

She also has a couple of games that she loves. One where we pretend to be asleep and she kisses us (or jumps on us) to wake us up. Hearing her fake snoring as an instruction for us to start playing is so cute, as is her kissing us and saying a version of time to get up “ah geh uh.”

She also adores hide and seek and loves covering her eyes (though sometimes she forgets and covers her mouth instead haha) and counting “ee, bah, duh, two” while we hide. She does actually know and says a version of all the numbers 1-10 but so far not when counting for hide and seek lol. She also likes it when we cover ourselves in a blanket and pretend to be a ghost “a go!” she loves that game and telling anyone else in the room about the ghost. As you can see here.

For all that she seems to be growing up, she’s still very much a toddler and is just so clumsy. I love this video of her playing the sleep game with daddy. I’d watched it for a bit and it was so cute but as soon as I started filming she started to get distracted and kept falling over, which is just amusing in itself! (after this I managed to capture it on film properly, in one of the videos above.)

She also loves spinning round endlessly until she is massively dizzy (don’t all kids though?) and has recently begun to love her Daddy’s old cuddle dog Dougal “Dougah wuh wuh” (wuh wuh being what she calls all dogs, as in woof woof) much to Monkey’s disgust as he normally lives on his bed. A few arguments about that as a result but that’s siblings for you isn’t it!? She does adore her brother though especially bossing him around!

I’ve stuck to mostly positives so far but she is a toddler so obviously has a lot of tantrums. When she’s hungry or tired and cranky and is easily frustrated, and ooh she can be a diva when she doesn’t get her own way. She eat well but only with things she knows she likes. Try and get her to eat something new and she will just scream until you let her down from the table, and even then sometimes. Sometimes she gets upset and even though we have a lot of words she doesn’t always know how to use them so we have screaming and we don’t know why no matter how much we ask… Which is frustrating all round I think. We are getting there though which is a positive and at least we have yes and no which helps a lot of situations.

Back to some positives, she has started to like having her photo taken and shouting “cheese” with a smile which I adore,and helps us when taking family piccies :). I also love the fake laugh she has developed when she tries to join in with the rest of us laughing, even though she hasn’t got a clue what is actually going on!

She naps most days though not every day. A while ago I thought she was done with naps but if anything she seems to need them more again at the moment. She has a day with no naps then 2 days with naps and I basically play it by ear as to what we are doing and how she is acting.

She loves a bit of painting (though can drive me mad when she gets frustrated by it and I can’t work out why) and loves playing with lentils and cloud dough. I’m not always great at messy play but I do think it is important so try to do that for her. She’s brilliant with duplo and lego actually and does some great building as well as playing imaginatively with them. She really loves the duplo animals we have, especially the “girar” (giraffe), she adores him. She also loves playing with her babies, putting them to bed and giving them a bath. She doesn’t like any toys to wear clothes for some reason…. . She likes feeding all of her animals and toys and loves the little teaset her Granny has at her house and feeding all her dollies and all of us with the tea and biscuits there.

She loves her pyjamas at the moment and really hates getting dressed in the morning – she would definitely rather be in her pjs all day!

She hates being cold so I have to layer her up a lot when we go out. She’s getting better at wearing her mittens outside, sometimes she still takes them off but we haven’t lost any for a while which makes a nice change as earlier in the winter I was losing them all the time as she would just take them off and discard them without me realising.

She loved seeing the brief flurry of snow we had and the wonder on her face when we went out in coats and pj’s was really magical 🙂

This may not be the most well written of posts but I love sharing all their current likes and dislikes as a little update as my memory is useless and no doubt I would forget all her little idiosyncrasies otherwise! She drives me crazy at times but she is also just such a lovely little girl and of course I just absolutely adore her.

Chatty Children, January 2017

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I do love trying to keep a record of the funny things the kids say, and the way their speech and use of language develops. Every stage seems to be so fleeting in this respect and sometimes they move on without you realising it. It’s hard to remember a Monkey who didn’t chatter away constantly but I know there was a time when he barely said any words, and a time when he mispronounced words (like serbatry instead of conservatory and nockynurs instead of binoculars). It’s hard to imagine those times though, so I love being able to record them on my blog, mainly for me to look back on, but I hope they also entertain anyone who reads them! (I actually just indulged in looking back at when Monkey was a little older than LM is now and ooh did I chuckle at the things he said!)

I haven’t done one of these for a while but here is what my kiddies have been saying over the last month or so. Monkey first.

Monkey Says

Monkey is learning more and more about the world and just growing up so much in front of our eyes since he started school in September. He is 4yrs 7mths old.

First up, a real cracker and definitely a case of the things I say being parroted back to me. I was having one of those days where I was irritable and snappy. I kept snapping at him but I did apologise and tell him I was tired. The next time I snapped at him he said, quite calmly

“You are so tired today… But please don’t be grumpy with me”

I had to concede that he was right as it is something I have said to him many many times haha. Wise little man! He is such a sweety and loves to tell us how much he loves us.

“I love you all the way to Saturn and back.”

“I love you all the way up to the aliens”

“I love you down to the ground”

“I love you more than I love LM” (to daddy)

Daddy’s latest toy is an Amazon Echo Dot in the kitchen. “Alexa” does things like play the radio set timers and generally answer’s questions. Monkey loves her.

“Alexa’s so kind”

He comes out with some fab little pearls of wisdom.

“It’s a really exciting life”

“Felix and I will be best friends, even when we die”

About LM’s tantrums

“She thinks it’s the end of the world. It really isn’t.” Think I may have said something along the lines of that once or twice myself…

Again with the kindness, when Daddy told him that if he didn’t finish his dinner soon then he would eat his chocolate treat for pudding instead.

“I know daddy, we can share it!” ha, still have to eat your dinner Monkey!

Finally here are a few pure 4yr old comments.

“I was dreaming about reading a newspaper all about big fat tummies.” I should explain here that Monkey has a thing about shoving teddies up his jumper and having a “big fat tummy” I think it started when I was pregnant with LM, lately he seems to associate it with Father Christmas…

“This milk is making me have a cold tummy”

“my tummy is full up” (usually when he would prefer to be eating pudding) “my tummy is tired” (when be doesn’t want to eat any more dinner… Usually after mouthful 1).

I loved it when he chose his outfit the other day and wore all yellow. Proclaiming “it’s a bit foggy outside so I can be the sun.” 🙂

“When I get bigger I can be the Daddy and LM can be the mummy”
We explained that that wasn’t the way of it as they are brother and sister and explained about falling in love with someone…
“When mark and fran get married I’m going to be so happy and I’ll fall in love with LM”

Yep. Safe to say he didn’t get it. But there is hope yet that we can avoid incest.

“Get off goat” Don’t call your sister a goat!

Little Miss Says

I have to admit LM’s speech hasn’t developed as much as I thought it might have since the last update I wrote. Much of what she says is still just the first syllable of words, although then she will come out with basically a full sentence, and take me completely by surprise. It is coming, just very much in her own time. She is 2yrs 2mths old.

Some of the more recent words, are “yeah” which we love as at least get an afirmative response sometimes, rather than just all the “no”s. “Me” is another new one and she says that quite a bit at the moment when she is feeling demanding. One of her favourite games is running across the living room and she likes her brother to stand at the door with her so they can go together. He doesn’t always want to though which results in a lot of her shouting “me, cujjer (brother), me!” over and over while pointing frantically between him and the patch of floor next to her.

Another favourite game is hide and seek and she loves running around shouting “care-dju-go? ” (where’d you go) and then “Dowdoo!” (found you).

She is a little herald and if someone comes to the door she will run round the house shouting at everyone to let them know “mama, daddy, gab a day de la do door a mama” or something to that effect that haha 🙂

She loves a good “Ni Ni” picnic especially with her favourite person “Daddy.” From the moment she wakes up in the morning and calls her first word, all I hear all day is “Daddy?” even when he’s out or at work. If she can’t find him, it’s “Daddy? Care-dju-go?” and if he is there but not doing as she pleases, it is “Daddy, Now!” with the pointing again! Yep, “Now” is another recent word. She is so demanding and can be frequently heard shouting “mo moi” (more milk, obviously) or “oer” (egg, no idea why) at breakfast especially.

It’s a funny time as she is saying a lot and so wants to be understand. We obviously understand a lot of it, even if we don’t understand why she calls some things by random words. My friend Susie, is “cha,” no idea why. Paw patrol is “dah dah de la” possibly because of the music? It is obviously harder for other relatives and friends to get what she is saying sometimes and we really don’t always understand either.

There are things that are easier to understand though “Go ho” for go home. “Wana ge dow” for I want to get down. “Teddy” is one of my faves and she loves to shout “bear” in a bit of a northern accent randomly when she wants to watch “going on a bear hunt.” She also randomly correctly named a “giraffe” the other day and sometimes when you think she is jabbering a random load of syllables you suddenly realise that actually you understood she said she wanted you to kick the ball to her!

I’ve done a little video of some of the things she says as it is seriously cute and I know it won’t stay this way for long. With Monkey I worried about his slow speech then he suddenly took off and there was no stopping him, so I really am not worried about LM and just want to enjoy this stage.

Our 2 yr old and her ways

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Ah toddlers, they really are funny aren’t they? And hard work, quite a lot of the time! Our little lady at just over 2 is now a fully-fledged toddler. I love watching her learn and find the funny ways she likes to do things generally very amusing… Though sometimes they can be really exasperating! The good thing with a 2nd (and presumably 3rd,4th etc) child is that you’ve seen much of it before and know they will grow out of their little quirks and obsessive habits, so I am more entertained by them this time.

So what do I mean? Well let’s start with some of her OCD style habits. Things have to be done in a certain way at the moment or all hell can break loose. Food in particular is easy to get wrong. Heaven forbid I split a chunk of cheese in half so her brother or I can share with her, no, it has to be the full chunk (I buy these little pre-cut chunks of cheese, yes pricey but oh so handy as an after school snack) or she screams and shouts ‘yuk’ and just won’t go near it.

I made the mistake of helping her break apart a peanut snack bar yesterday thinking it would be easier for her but wow was she not impressed by that! Drinks have to be in the right cup with the right lid (ones that meet her approval that is) and food has to be prepared and served in the right way. She’s basically a creature of habit and likes the repetition. It’s also about control, I know, as she gets to control so little in her life.

Food is very much an area of contention for us, with her refusing to try anything new and sometimes even refusing favourites. We went through this with Monkey and though still quite particular he is so much better now and eats almost anything we give him, even if it can take some persuasion at times. So we hope LM will do the same and it will get easier over time. In the meantime we do what we can, thankfully she eats a lot of our regular favourites, curry, thai curry, my homemade soup, the right pasta in the right sauce and the right type of tortellini, my homemade carbonara and a few others. The rest of the time we make it and she either eats or she doesn’t, which basically means that she doesn’t. It feels wrong at times making a meal that I know she won’t eat but while I obviously make sure she eats most of the time, I can’t run the rest of our lives around her fussiness and I absolutely refuse to make her something separate.

She’s so particular that even a slight variation will mean she refuses her food and that can turn her off for good. We gave her a different brand of baked beans once and she hated them so much that she now won’t eat or even try any other beans, which is a real shame! I once gave her the same shape tortellini as normal but that had a different filling, and even though to be the difference was barely perceptible, she knew and dissected them and only ate the pasta and not the filling. It took a while for her to trust that her regular tortellini was the right one either though thankfully she is back to loving those again now. Anyway, I don’t get as stressed about this as I did with Monkey as we have been here before and just hope that she will eventually come out the other side. The downside though is that eating out is a nightmare, she is so particular that she won’t even eat a pasta and tomato sauce or carbonara as it isn’t the same as ours and we can’t even fall back on beans on toast in a café anymore. Sigh, she will grow out of it, she will grow out of it, she will grow out of it.

It’s all a variation of the same thing I think, being in control and liking repetition and the familiar. She’s the same with toys in that she likes to play with them in the same way over and over. We have a postbox colour matching game which she loves. When we started playing and she didn’t understand the concept of matching the colours, I would say no when she went to put a letter in the wrong postbox. Now even though she knows the colours and where they go, she will imitate me, putting it up to the wrong post box and saying ‘no.’ She’ll do this to each postbox before putting it in the right one. It is cute but a bit repetitive for me haha.

She also loves jigsaw puzzles at the moment. She loves making them then immediately breaking it up and starting over. Usually until I can’t take it anymore and we’ve done the same puzzle together at least 5 times, and try to distract her with something else! I am impressed with how good she is with them though and she is improving all the time. Her favourite is a big farmyard puzzle and we talk about all the animals as we make it. She like starting with the horse (she neighs rather than says horse) then it’s all about the moo and the baaa and the “buk buks” (chickens lol!) As soon as it is completed, with a shout of “I did it!”, and “ta laa” (her version of ta daa) with her hands thrown in the air… then she immediately crouches down and breaks it up ready to start again haha.

Towers are something that I think all toddlers love to build, and LM is definitely no exception. The duplo is out a lot now and she even builds them out of her brother’s lego too. She is funny though as I’ve noticed a real trend lately where she has to match the colours. She’ll build an all red tower or an all green one. If she runs out of that block she may change to another colour and keep going with that one but she really doesn’t like a multi-coloured tower when she is in that mood!

When something isn’t going the way she wants then the frustration can lead to a major meltdown. I mean she really goes for it. Throwing herself on the floor face first and oh the screams! I try and not worry too much as I know it’s just what they do and when it is because I won’t do what she wants, well she has to learn that things won’t always work the way she wants them to. But her screams are so loud that she turns heads for miles. I try to be stoic and make a daft comment like ‘oh you are noisy’ or ‘I know, it’s the end of the world’ mainly for the people around me so they know nothing terrible has happened, as seriously her screams are bloodcurdling!!

Moving back to cuteness and another of her ways that is seriously cute is her love for teddies recently. Her brother was the same at this age and it is adorable. She just wants to be surrounded by her favourite cuddly things. They surround her in bed at night and when we come down in the morning she almost always demands that they come down too. I pick her up with her blanky and her faves… then it’s “bear” for the polar bear “buh” for the blue bus, “wah wah” for the duck “baby” for the baby doll and some less decipherable noises and pointing for the others. It got to the point where we literally couldn’t carry them all so started using her blanky as a sack to carry them down in haha. She loves snuggling on the sofa surrounded by them all and it is adorable. Again I know she will grow out of it so this is one of the ones I’m making the most of while it lasts.

I’m also making the most of her learning to talk as it is such a cute phase. the things she comes out with! As I mentioned above she calls animals by the noise they make now, apart from cats, which is a chat haha. She loves naming body parts which is adorable and after calling every adult she knows “mama” for some time, she is now starting to call me mummy and daddy is daddy, which is lovely. She wanted Daddy’s attention in the bath the other day (he was dealing with her tired and grumpy older brother) and I just heard her shouting “daddy, daddy, daddy” till he said “yes LM” and she held her foot up and said “Daddy I got toe!” so sweet! She really likes to make her feelings known now that she can too, and can often be heard shouting ‘waht way’ from the buggy or car seat pointing in the direction she wants to go in (Often screaming when we go a different way lol). I’ve put together a quick video of her latest chattering mainly for my benefit tbh but you can have a look if you so fancy.

There are some things I can’t wait for her to grow out of, but some of her ways are just adorable and I want to enjoy them as much as I can. As hard work as she is sometimes I adore attaching her learn and explore and seeing her grow up right in front of our eyes.

My Children’s Chatter, October 2016

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Ever since Monkey learned to talk I have been trying to keep a note of all the lovely, funny or cute things he has come out with and I love looking back on them. Now our Little Miss is talking more and more every day and I want to make sure I catalogue the things she comes out with too. Because I struggle to post anything regularly these days I’m going to combine both kids’ sayings in one series of posts, My children’s chatter.

Monkey says

So Monkey first, I’ve been collating these for some time so there’s quite a few things he has come out with that have really made me chuckle! Monkey is 4yrs 5 mths

Monkey: “Ooh look LM I’ve got longer legs than you”
Me: “Yes you do have longer legs than LM”
Monkey: “Excuse me, I was talking to LM”

When I asked Monkey to put away all the toy cars he had got out:
Monkey: “But I haven’t got hundreds of hands”
Me: “You got them all out”
Monkey: (looking at his hands) “I can put them away 2 at a time” Bravo Monkey haha

Monkey: “I love you, I love you.”
Me: “Oh I love you too darling.”
Monkey: “No not you, the tv. Which is off by the way.”

Monkey:”You’ve got to see this. It’s amazing.”

There has been some real cheekiness lately too, and a great deal of imagination which you have to admire.
One day after playing with a toy phone: “I was on the phone to Uncle Simon. I just phoned him and he asked if I would like to go to his house in the morning in the afternoon when LM is asleep.” Oh did he now? lol This was followed by “I just spoke to Granny on the phone and she would like some wipes to clean the windows cos they’re really dirty. We need to go there now!” Look Monkey we know yu love going to Granny’s house but when have we ever taken wipes to help her clean her windows? lol

He also went through a (thankfully brief) stage of coming back downstairs after bedtime, and concocting the best excuses as to why. On one occasion at bedtime he had announced it was his dog Dougal’s birthday the following day and we agreed to have a tea party But shortly after bedtime he appeared down stairs and said “You know, it turns out Dougal birthday is today!”

On another occasion he came down with a cuddly swan to tell us “My swan is a bit hungry.” Ha, nice try darling, back to bed.

I love the way he interprets the wold and the way he thinks he can say things to us the way that we say things to him. He’s obviously used to us being a bit firm sometimes and bless him tries to do the same when we aren’t doing as he wants. he announces “you aren’t doing what I say!” Nope, sorry mate. One day he even yelled at Daddy “Go and get me a plaster right now, 5,4,3,2,1 Go on right now go get it.” As you can imagine it didn’t go down too well but I just wanted to laugh. Hearing the things you say parroted back to you by your child is always weird!

Also in regard to interpreting the world, I loved it when we were watching Star Wars recently, there’s a shot where you see the back of Darth Vader’s head without his helmet, and well it is funny colours, but I love how Monkey interpreted it. “I just saw an ice cream!” LOL

The frame with Darth Vaders’ head in – which according to Monkey looks like an ice cream haha

There’s been some little gems of phrases since Monkey has started school too. I mentioned some of his healthy eating comments in a recent post but there has been some other cuteness.

Monkey: “At school yesterday I dropped the back of my badge down the toilet!”
Me: “Oh, did they give you a new one?”
Monkey: “They did! That was very kind!”

Monkey: “Can Daddy take me to school while you and LM get me some popcorn?”

“We learned letters and sounds today like ssss… Not suh, sssss”

“The teachers call Brown skin black skin sometimes. And they call pink skin like ours white. That’s very strange”

nd finally, because it amused me, one day when basically flinging himself around the room he announced:

“Oh my brain. It keeps telling me to fall over!”

Little Miss Says

With LM at the moment it’s mainly words that she is coming out with, though she does have a few very cute phrases too which she loves to repeat. LM will be 2 next week!

I’m going to list them all here mainly for me record but I’ve also put together a little video of her saying some of these as the way she says some of them is so cute and I want to try and capture them as I know this stage will be all too fleeting. Before long she will be speaking properly and coming out with gems like her big brother.

So, her most common words and phrases: Chick, I did it, Put it back, Moon, Boo (boots), A boo (spoon), Bu (blue), Buh (book), Bo(ball), Buh(bus) No (nose), Hair, Hah (hat), Hiya dada, Wee wee, all wet, Share, Chair, Shoe, Tea, Choo choo. Now some of them sound so similar so you really have to understand the context to get what she is saying sometimes! But she is trying so hard bless her. Now apologies for the quality of the video as sometimes the tv is on in the background and it will jump about a bit but like I say it is mainly a record for me so I remember the way she says them.

So that’s it for now, will be back with some more fun phrases soon no doubt :).

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Little Miss Says

Terrible twos with Little Miss at 2 yrs 5 mths

Children’s Chatter March 2017

Monkey Says (at 4yrs 10 mths)

Little Miss says (at 2 yrs 4 mths)

Little Miss at 2yrs 3 mths

Chatty Children, January 2017

Monkey Says

Little Miss Says

Our 2 yr old and her ways

My Children’s Chatter, October 2016

Monkey says

Little Miss Says