30 December 2010
We've finally sorted the girls' bedroom
It is possible I may have overdone the wall stickers
28 December 2010
This is the first night I've outstayed Roz
She's still in insane, constipated baby mode, and so not eating very much, but having several feeds during the night. That, or waking up to clench her buttocks and wail 'poo-poo, poo-poooo!' As a consequence I haven't been having very much sleep and, although the girls both love their new bunk bed, it does mean having to get out of my own bed to feed her if she's wailing.
She's been happy as Larry about being home with us every day so far, but if we don't get out by the end of the evening both girls are fighting to sit on my lap, and pushing at each other and wailing. Yeah it's hard to take pictures of them then, because I'm usually stopping myself from shouting 'Arrgh, monkeys, shut up!'
When they're not being nuts they're great. As Roz's speech clarifies, it's quite interesting to realise that she speaks in phrases already. Alex said he only realised one day as he was carrying her to her bath. As she wailed and wriggled, he realised she was wailing 'want to get down, want to get down'. It's a bit hard to replicate her speech as she picks and chooses consonants at will. And she only manages about four: w, c, d, and b.
Similarly it's getting easier now to guess what the gobbledygook she says might be, and she's usually very pleased if you guess right. Even if it all sounds a lot like 'bibby' or 'deddy'.
So if she comes up to you and grabs both hands and goes 'Ro, ro! Ro! Bot!' That's Row, Row, Row Your Boat she wants you to sing. If she's holding her foot going 'piddy', that's This Little Piggy. Pointing to her palm and saying 'deddy' means Round and Round the Garden. And if she's saying 'chocyate', yes, chocolate she says quite clearly.
She's also learning that we now finally understand her and in the last month or so, definitely since the grommet insertions, she's learned not just to say more but to try and speak as well. She loves copying Izzy.
Once when Alex was reading them a story that Izzy wanted to read out loud herself, she shouted (giggling, not quite as rude as it sounds) 'Shut your mouth, Daddy!' And put her hand over Alex's mouth. Roz immediately parroted 'Shut mouth, Daddy!' with absolutely accurate copying of inflections, and also put her hand over Alex's mouth.
God almighty help you if they've both had too much sugar and decide to start running into your legs. Roz will run right up to you and hook her arms round both legs, just below your knee. Not much push but you never know whether her head is still in front or has gone round the back, which makes it really difficult to try and judge which way to fall. So it's very stressful.
Izzy prefers the push into your thigh or bum, quite hard actually. She's really getting quite strong and is quite capable of pushing me over. And if both of them are doing this at the same time, I'm usually thinking god, when can I get back to work?
Poor Roz. Ever since a particularly painful poo or two about two months back she's been quite afraid of going. So every time she needs one now, she locks her hip to one side and really clenches. She manages to hold it back a few days at a time and then just has to go and usually manages to do several small poos throughout a day, before giving in and having to have the big one, usually accompanied by a lot of wailing.
I do feel quite sorry for her because she does sound very distressed usually. But when you get to about the fifth or sixth wail of the day and that obstinate clenching, it really drives you insane. Even regularly lacing her food with lactulose doesn't really help. Or rather I suppose it helps me to know that it's not really painful because her poos aren't hard. But Roz really is nothing if not stubborn. We've pointed out the vegetable-fruit connection to the poos but she resolutely insists on not having any.
We've even gone down the direct blackmail route of no veg-no dessert now. But that doesn't work either. Today Izzy scoffed her pudding in front of Roz and even though Roz stared longingly at it and gestured more than a couple of times to have some, every time we pointed to the broccoli on her plate she'd stubbornly shake her head and purse her lips. And forgo the pudding. C'est la vie.
Once this Christmas is over we're just going to have to exorcise the house of goodies or find better hiding places for them, especially now Izzy knows to push a chair next to the cupboard to reach the hoard... which she then tends to leave around for Roz.
All this focus on Roz has made me feel a bit guilty about Izzy recently. Because Roz is such a wailer, I'm usually cuddling her and I think sometimes Izzy feels a bit left out. Especially because if there's a fight for my lap, she has to give in. I suppose though she does get a bit more time with me in the afternoons, before we pick Roz from nursery.
She's gotten a bit more self-conscious since school. I've been warned several times not to tell her teacher, Miss Shield, about anything that happens at home. 'I don't want you to tell her what I do.' This was after saying something about practising her line in the nativity show, I think. On the whole I usually do pretty well but I did slip spectacularly recently.
After a classmate's party, she enthused she was going to marry her new best friend Elsie. As it happened the following Monday Elsie and her mom were walking behind us on the way to school and her mom told us Izzy was invited to Elsie's party in the new year, but that the invite was in the class Christmas card post box, so she was afraid we might not get it in time (it was about a day before the school broke up for the holidays). I said Izzy would love to be there, especially since she was planning to marry Elsie now, and then saw poor Izzy squirming, out of the corner of my eye. O well. Next time I'm sure I'll remember to shut up.
The whole family
25 December 2010
24 December 2010
23 December 2010
A bit of pamper time with no 1
22 December 2010
Izzy's nativity play
What you can't hear her say 'I was a bit shy' is: A long time ago, very far away, there lived a man called Joseph. And he had a wife called Mary, who was about to have a baby.
That was originally one sentence but I felt justified in editing it by inserting a full stop. How they ever expected a five-year-old to say that without breathing is beyond me.
17 December 2010
14 December 2010
13 December 2010
It's Christmas carols at the nursery
11 December 2010
06 December 2010
04 December 2010
School nativity time
02 December 2010
28 November 2010
A bit of time
I could get used to Alex putting the girls to bed on a Saturday. This means I get to knit in peace - see the results of this productivity below? - while I watch the remains of X Factor. Sad, I know, but what the hell else is there on a Saturday that only requires two brain cells to keep track of?
So we've finally kind of almost settled in the house. There's a routine, and I'm still revelling in the sheer space the living room has. Also in the fact that we no longer have to push through the rack we had in the hallway of the last house. Even if our front door is also slightly awkwardly spaced.
The door is right in front of the stairs (ignore the feng shui, parents) and so when you try and open it, it bumps into everyone who is right behind putting on shoes and jackets and things. Something that should be sorted once we've got the shelves we want built in the living room, so we can unpack the remaining boxes in it and put a shoe bench under the window.
We still have to visit Ikea. Again. Argh. But at least Izzy is very excited by the prospect of Smaland so hopefully next time one of us will spend the hour or two with the two of them in it and the other can just whizz through and pick up crap.
I figure if nothing else the time I have to take off to cover Izzy's Christmas holidays should be put to good use... assuming we can get that damned storage in place before then.
Roz's grommets
Roz's grommet surgery went well. Although one of the grommets has already fallen out. The nursery girls spotted it in her bib, which was good going considering it's the size of a pen nib. The poor bub has had some discharge coming out of one ear, which is perfectly normal, and now has to take antibiotics for it.
Other than that though she's behaving perfectly normally and I don't think it's entirely my imagination that she's pronouncing words more clearly. The first day we were back she said 'please' - as in really please, not just her usual please tone - and 'downstairs' and I could actually hear the p and d sounds, whereas we normally just get the long vowel sounds in words.
So bribing her to have to take another course of medicine is fun.
Because I probably didn't mention it earlier but Roz went through a bout of constipation severe enough to scare her into now clenching her bum every time she needs a poo. It is driving me absolutely round the bend because we were getting three days of clenching followed by one very desperate day of much wailing with poos. So now I'm dosing her regularly with lactulose.
Because I have more or less given up trying to get the monkey to actually eat vegetables or fruit on a regular basis. When she feels like it, she will. And when she doesn't, you would sooner get blood from a stone. So now she is praised extravagantly when she does a poo and I think I am going to have to ask the nursery to put her on a vegetarian diet.
Last night I cooked up a huge pot of peperonata and froze cubes of it. I should have pureed it before but I suppose it should be easy enough to mash up on the spot and mix it into whatever she will be eating. And it will have to be mash given that she will stop to pick a sprout off a piece of sushi, or pull wilted spinach off pasta.
Chatter
Roz is also starting to talk a lot. If she's playing by herself, you'll hear her sometimes chatting away as if to someone else. In fact some mornings on the way to school and nursery I feel like pleading with the two of them to be quiet for a bit. Izzy will be chatting away and asking questions and Roz, when in the mood, will be calling 'Mummy? Mummy? Mummy' repeatedly from the back.
And god help us if Alex and I are trying to have a conversation because then you hear
'Mummy? Mummy? Mummy?' as well as 'Mummy, mummy, 'scuse... mummy 'scuse, mummy, muuuummy, I'm saying 'scuse me!!!'
Oh and Roz's first-ever sentence came about three weeks ago on a phone call to Alex. Sometimes the girls get whiny about missing him when they're going to bed and so we give him a ring. So Izzy starts off, as she always does, with 'Daddy, where are you?' and carried on, before Roz started going 'Daddy, daddy... daddy whereyou? Daddy, whereayou?'
OK she was probably only parroting, but it counts.
27 November 2010
Wrist-warmers for Roz
she'd still have access to her fingers and I could knit a hood to make
each a mitten if the need arises. But nope she just doesn't want to
wear them at all.
Nothing like sub-zero temps
took about two and a half hours to knit. And now I can add whatever
fancy embellishment it takes to get Izzy to wear it.
19 November 2010
Three hours after
corridors, laughing cheekily. Basically had to hold her down to be
gassed thugh she at least wasn't initially afraid of the gas mask,
then I just had time to get a cup of tea, and tidy up some
knitting before they came to get me. I could hear Roz as soon as the
ward doors opened - she was screaming and rigid in nurse's arms and it
took her a few seconds to clock it was me after I took her. Then they
asked me to sit on the bed and we were both wheeled back to the
children's ward, Roz heaving a bit but having stopped crying. She had
a few drinks of water, nibbled some banana and had a biscuit or two
then aske for a feed. She fell asleep while feedinh amd had a quick 20-
minute nap and when she woke was much happier. Ate some
more banana and biscuits and was quite chatty and soon we were
discharged. She's poked her finger into one ear once or twice but
doesn't seem to be giving the matter much thought otherwise and is
quite jolly. Later we'll go together to Izzy's Fri sing-along and pick
her from
school.
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