Retrospective part 1

This is what we were writing on this blog just a few weeks and days before Emma was born. Hard to believe that there was a time before we had met her.

February 17
http://themums.blogspot.com/2009/02/out-of-gas.html

February 26, 2009
http://themums.blogspot.com/2009/02/full-term-anna.html

March 4, 2009
http://themums.blogspot.com/2009/03/38-weeks-anna.html

March 6, 2009
http://themums.blogspot.com/2009/03/to-see-or-not-to-see-anna.html

March 8, 2009
http://themums.blogspot.com/2009/03/belly-love-caroline.html

One year, 11 months, and 3 weeks old (Anna)

Emma turns two in exactly a week. And apparently we have made 200 posts to this blog. The first is much more momentous than the second (although I must confess I am extremely grateful that we have been working on our own writing projects over the past two years - it would be devestating to realise that we had written that many blog posts instead of other things).

So, as our little girl officially moves from "infant" to "child" according to the nurses hotline, it is possible - and I said possible as opposed to definite or even likely - that over the next week we might post something of a restrospective. Which might - and I said might as opposed to will - include photos and videos. You just never know.

In the meantime, a retrospective of her life from the girl herself:

"I in Mummy's belly and then I born. I said 'hello'. I have birthday coming up. I two. I have cake. Blue cake. Chocolate. I love you Mummy. I love you Mumma."

(I think the 'hello' bit is her interpretation of me telling her that I used to say "Hi little one. It's Mumma" to her while she was in Caroline's tummy, and then those were my first words to her. Or maybe it's her memory of what she wanted to say to us when she met us on the outside for the first time, if she had had the language.

And, just to be completely clear, the "I love you" bit is less of a "Thank you kind, wise parents for imagining me into being and giving me life" and significantly more related to the sheer joy she experiences at the thought of blue chocolate cake.)

Making noise (Anna)

This evening, Emma was chanting "wa-noo-nooon" over and over again, with increasing volume. I didn't understand what she was saying. That's not unusual - as she experiments with new words, we sometimes don't catch them and when we don't she often repeats them louder to make herself understood.

So, after several attempts to interpret what she was saying, and looking around the room for clues, I said something like, "Sorry. I don't understand what you're saying. What's wa-noo-noon?"

She looked at me with amusement, and said reassuringly, "I just making noise, Mumma!"

Monkey see, monkey do (Anna)

We have a countdown technique with Emma when she's resisting a transition of some kind. For example, if we need her to come out of her cardboard house to get dressed, or if we are asking her to put down a toy before we go out, we tell her that we're going to give her a countdown and that by the time we get to zero she needs to do whatever it is we're asking her to do. At around 5 or 4, we remind her what she has to do (sometimes she gets distracted, so it's only fair). This technique is extremely effective. Occasionally we have to force the issue (she can't say she wasn't warned), but most of the time, by zero, she's happily - even proudly - obliging. Sometimes she even requests a countdown when she has to transition into something.

All of that is preamble to a story...

Tonight, Emmy and I were playing around with the guitar while Caroline got dinner on the table. Caroline called, "Dinner," and I said, "Yup. Coming."

A few minutes later, I was still messing around on the guitar, and Caroline said, "Come and eat, folks."

I said something slightly facetious like, "Mummy's telling us to stop playing. We should probably go and eat, or we might get in trouble. What do you think?"

And Emma replied, "Countdown! Mumma? 10-9-8-6-7. 'tar [guitar] away Mumma. 5---3-4-3-3-1! Put it away!!" [we knew she could count to ten with reasonable accuracy; we had no idea she could do such an impressive approximation of counting DOWN from ten - we must be using this technique more than we thought!]

Needless to say, as soon as I realised what she was doing, I scrambled to put the guitar away, and just about made it by zero. She looked at me proudly and said," Did it!" and we headed to the dinner table.

I think we're past the days of doing anything without her copying it. There is something profound about that.

In a few years time, she'll be giving us curfews. *sigh*

I don't wanna (Anna)

What is about toddlers that means that when they don't want to do something their legs turn to spaghetti, they grow eight arms and they don't seem to have any armpits any more?

Negotiations 2 (Anna)

She's now started negotiating in her sleep. We heard her sleep talking the other day: "Two more minutes, Mummy. Please?" I wonder what she was dreaming about.

Negotiations (Anna)

Over the past few weeks, Emma has learnt to negotiate. "Two more minutes, Mumma?" she'll beg. "Five more minutes, Mummy" and she'll hold up some random number of fingers to emphasize her point.

Tonight, she was "swimming" in the bath, and it was time to move on to stories. I told her, "Two more minutes, kiddo."

Negotiation time. She looked at me pleadingly and put on her cutest, most cajoling look. "One minute, Mumma, please? Pleeeeease, Mumma?" she begged, with a big toothy grin.

And because she asked so nicely, I happily changed her two more minutes to one more minute.