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.

Independence (Anna)

Emma is an independent little creature, who likes to do things by herself, her way. I believe it's a criterion for the diagnosis of "toddler".

We've spent the weekend away in the hot springs, swimming several times a day. Emma loves it. But she wants more independence than we are willing to give her. She says "Go away, Mumma/Mummy. I do it myself" every few minutes. At one point, she told me to go back to our room and go to bed because she wanted to swim by herself. She doesn't mean it in a mean way, but just in a "I don't need your help because I'm perfectly old enough to go swimming by myself" kind of way. It must be very frustrating for her to find that not only do we not go away, but we hover less than a metre from her whenever we're in the water.

But sometimes, independence is a bit much for her. She was on the potty the other day and, after a day of successful potty-ing, there was no more poo forthcoming. She looked at me forlornly and said, "Mumma do it? Mumma push the poo out?" I had to tell her that there are some things we just have to do for ourselves. It's a hard lesson at any age, and I guess it starts early.

Other phenomenom that are hard to explain to toddlers...distance and time. For example, why are Granny Heath and Grandad available for cuddles one week, and then only visible on Skype the next? Another example came up just the othr week. We were hiking in a forest near Vancouver. As soon as we saw the trees Emma said, "Trees! We see koalas climbing gum trees?" How to explain to a toddler that, no, we are very unlikely to see koalas in a park in Vancouver because they live in an entirely different habitat on the other side of the world? And to explain that just because she could get in the car in Brisbane and get out and see koalas just a few weeks ago doesn't mean she can do that here and now. I mean, even we have difficulty understanding that concept sometimes.

Conversations (Anna)

1) We were all awake long before the alarm this morning, and when it finally went off, Emma and I were very much awake and playing on the bed.

She looked at the alarm, and said, 'Alarm' and then looked at me pleadingly. "Two more minutes, Mumma, please. Please. I want sleep".

2) Emma, chatting to herself. "I a big boy. Yeah. Emma. Big boy. Mumma's a big boy. Yeah. Mummy's a big boy. Emma big boy. I am big boy. Yeah."

More melting moments (Anna)

Emma was crying in her cot, so I went up to give her a cuddle.

She said, "I miss Mumma," and I replied, "Ah. So you need a Mumma cuddle?"

She said "Yeah. Big cuddles." And she put her arms up and I pulled her out of bed and we gave each other big squeezes. Then she said, "I need Mumma kisses." So I gave her 2 or 3 (ok, 5 or 6 or 7) kisses, and she gave me lots of those big sloppy toddler kisses that I love so much.

Then I put her back in her cot. She blew kisses at me, asked for another cuddle and said, "I love oo Mumma" and I said, "I love you too, little one."

Then she settled back under her blankets, and said "I happy. I go sleep now."

My poor heart is a big fat puddle on the ground these days.

Quote of the day (Anna)

Being the terrible parents we are, we were letting Emma drink the "juice" (sauce) from her stirfry bowl tonight.

We commented that she looked like a little dog lapping up water from her bowl. She liked that and repeated the joke several times to herself and chortled.

About ten minutes later, she put down her fork and spoon and started to drink it again. We teased her about it and I said something like "What are we teaching you, my uncivilised little daughter? You are a little ruffian."

She looked at me very seriously and shook her head. "I not a ruffian, Mumma," she corrected me, and then, just to avoid any misunderstandings, she clarified, "I a dog."