Tries and Fails and Tries Again

Olivia is trying big girl pants for the first time today. She had just one accident (although she did go back into a nappy for her afternoon nap) all day.

Just now, as we tried* to get the girls to sleep, I listened to an interview with the British Psychologist Richard Wiseman on the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast (Episode 204 circa 54:50). Wiseman is promoting a new book, The 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot about scientifically sound ways to improve your life. It's like a self-help book only with the key difference that it contains claims that are based on proper research and which actually work, rather than some load of woo pulled out of someone's arse. When asked for an example of the kind of thing that's in the book, he mentioned the idea that you shouldn't praise achievement but effort.

Rather than saying, "Well done, you kept your pants dry all day!" we should be saying, "Well done for trying so hard to keep your pants dry today!" The rationale is that if you praise achievement, the next time they will be scared to put themselves in a position where they fail to win the praise, whereas if you praise the effort, they can always try regardless of actual achievement. Essentially, effort is a variable that is within the child's grasp to control, achievement is not. Not only is this the case, but children brought up to believe that it is achievement that is important actually learn to discount effort; "If I can't achieve it by my natural talents, it reflects poorly on me." Clearly this is a very poor message to communicate to a child!

I'm not pretending this is Earth-shattering stuff - in fact, it seems bloody obvious once it's explained - and nor is Wiseman. What he is saying is that it may be easy but it's actually not very well known. It was pure coincidence that it just so happened that I ended up listening to this podcast on the same day Olivia started wearing big girl pants, but it did make me make a mental note to check exactly what I say to her.

In other news, Grace has two teeth, lower central incisors, with her eye teeth and one upper incisor clearly budding in her gum. Oh, and the kitchen is starting to look much better, though it's difficult to imagine how it can all come together in just three more days...




* and largely failed. K___'s still up there at nearly 9o'clock at night. How do the little sods know when you're trying to get them down early? Oh well; they're normally pretty good these days.

In the Kitchen with your Dreams

The following is by way of lame excuse for the fact we've not posted much recently. We've been gearing up for a bit of major work on the house, specifically the kitchen, including a new extension. K___ has been collaborating with A_____ our next door neighbour, who is a property developer by trade. A______ has got us some amazing discounts and we're getting our new kitchen for a fraction of the retail price.

The old kitchen and utilities are out and stacked up in our dining room awaiting collection after sale on eBay, the new kitchen is stacked up in my study

Here's what it looked like until earlier today, with all the old units stacked in the breakfast room:

In the next one, you can see into the lobby, which opens into the utility room and the stable door to the outside.

As you can see from the final snap, the lobby has been demolished.

We've got about two weeks of this left. We're eating as well as we can using just a microwave and the ground floor looks like nothing on earth, but it's going to be worth it.

Apes Like You and Me

We were inspired by a story about some new captivity-born penguins on the local news to visit Twycross Zoo on the Leicestershire/Warwickshire border. Twycross actually specialises in primates, and they have many species including Bonobos (the only breeding population in the UK), Chimps (some of whom were in the famous PG Tips adverts), Gorillas, Orangutans, Tamarins and Langurs, as well as a few standard zoo animals.

We knew that the Elephants were due to be fed just a few minutes after we'd got there, so we immediately raced up to the far end of the park. En route, we passed the giraffe enclosure. Olivia knows what giraffes look like - she sees them in books and on television - but when a young female strode out of the 'stable', she was literally shaking with excitement, all sharp intakes of breath and lots of pointing. They are magnificent creatures and I'm sure to see them through a child's eyes is something else.

At this point I have to apologise for the lack of pictures. Unfortunately, when we took out the camera and tried to take our first snap, we realised we were practically out of batteries and it wouldn't extend the lens. It took a while to get back to somewhere that sold new ones, so the pics are all from the tail end of the day (pun intentional).

I think my favourites were the Bonobos. Bonobos are an endangered sub-species of Chimpanzee found only in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They're smaller than your standard chimp and seem to be (there is some controversy) matriarchal, and possibly because of this, very much more peaceful than chimps and more egalitarian. They're also phenomenally sexually active, with sex being used as a part of all sorts of social rituals. These beautiful creatures share so much of their DNA with humans (at least 98% and possibly as high as 99.4%) that some biologists have argued that they should be classified as a part of the Homo genus, along with us (yet others argue it is us who needs to be reclassified into the Pan genus of Bonobos and Chimpanzees).

It was interesting that when we were in the Bonobo house, Olivia was very interested in the apes yet when we found their close relatives, the common Chimpanzee, she found them intimidating and when a baby poked its finger towards the glass where she was looking, she burst into tears. I was particularly interested in a father and son pair of chimps with alopecia (and not just because I'm bald too). As it's not my pic, I'm only going to link to a photo of the son, Jambo. Although chimps are very heavily muscled compared to us, you can clearly see that we're related.

Olivia particularly loved the penguins. As you can see, their tank has a cut-down side and you can go and watch them swim past underwater. They clearly reacted to Olivia's presence as the rest of the time they weren't going quite so close to the glass. Despite the news story, the new chicks were nowhere to be seen, by the way.


You can barely see it, but there's a leopard languishing on top of the platform in this shot.


Here we are outside some of the monkey cages. I believe that's a pair of Black and White Colobuses in the background.

Like a Star in the Sky

As I was eating my dinner the other evening, Olivia knelt in front of Grace and grabbed her by the arms before singing nursery rhymes to her. I managed to capture a bit on my phone. It's poor quality and cuts out halfway through, but I thought it was charming anyway.

Warm Wet Circles

Update on Olivia's potty training... We have kept everything low key but Olivia seems to have decided to potty train herself. Since the weekend we got her started she has started to ask to be taken to the toilet and on average once a day she actually does something while she is there. She is still wetting a lot and we are continuing to keep her in pull up nappy pants. Someone said to me last week 'my mother always used to say that you never see a bride walking down the aisle wearing a nappy'. We are going to continue to leave her to do it in her own time.

The Tower

Tattershall Castle, near Sleaford in Lincolnshire is a 130 foot high, six-storied Tudor keep owned by the National Trust. It was built in the 1430s by Ralph, 3rd Lord Cromwell on the site of an even earlier castle. After centuries of declining fortunes, in 1911, it was rescued from being sold off to an American syndicate that intended to asset strip it and sell the antiques and features in the States. Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India, intervened and restored the castle to its current condition.

We popped up there one Sunday and spent a few hours climbing the many stairs and being buzzed by a Spitfire and a Dakota from the nearby Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.



In one room, they had volunteers demostrating things like a selection of children's toys and a collection of Tudor haute couture. Olivia chose a Jester's hat, which either means she's into early Marillion (entirely possible) or is one of those people call Mungo at a micro-festival who think they're being weally alternative...


As pictured below, there was a woman demonstrating how to spin wool. K___ and I naturally assumed that Olivia was too young to have a go, but the Tudor maiden insisted she would be fine. The first task was to pull loose clumps of wool through a fine-toothed comb to untangle them and to align them in the same direction. It was harder than you might think and when you're informed that girls not much older than Olivia would have been expected to sort several bags of wool a day, you get a reminder of how pampered we are today. You can see the teased wool in the wicker basket.


The next stage is to take your teased fibre and pull it into a longer thread. It's still loose at this stage and would soon fall apart without spinning. Spinning it literally twists the fibres onto themselves so they hold together, with new individual pieces of wool continually wound into the whole along its length. Olivia wound her string onto a small piece of card and brought it home with her.


Olivia was extremely well behaved on the narrow staircases and we were able to investigate the whole castle, right to the top from where you can see Lincoln some ten miles away.

Appeal for Information on the Local News

And news just in... a little bit of Photoshop silliness from my sister.

Happiness is the Road

A small rant...When I didn't have children I used to dash across the street in any gap. Now I have kids I am trying to set a good example and cross on proper crossings like a proper grown-up. We are teaching Olivia about road safety and we always play a game where she has to tell me when she sees the green man at crossings before we can cross.

Now on to the rant. What was wrong with crossing that beeped at you when the traffic light when to red and it was safe to cross? With the new generation of silent crossings I can happily stand there for hour in a dream world waiting for the already green man to go green, only to discover that it has gone back to red again. Why can't they beep? Why, oh why?

Memory of Water

On Saturday we started 'toilet learning' (the right on expression used by our bible, 'What to Expect: the Toddler Years') with Olivia. She is now 27 months and for some time she has been very interested in what is in Grace's nappy, following Mummy to the toilet etc. but has not shown enormous interest in using the potty . While I am not into competitive parenting, the fact that several children her age at her toddler groups have been out of nappies for several months made me wonder whether we shouldn't try moving her along a little. Yesterday we got her some Disney Princess pull up nappy pants with flowers which vanish if she wees the nappy and encouraged her to tell us if she needed a wee.

She didn't seem to mind sitting on the potty and happily sat there while watching an episode of something special or reading a book with Mummy but didn't actually go to the toilet and would wait until you took her off the potty and then wee her nappy. This got a little frustrating and she was obviously picking up on our mood and so today we persevered in reading her potty related story books and have kept everything very low key, telling her that if she wanted to use the potty she could but that it didn't matter if she didn't want to.

Our plan was to leave it another week and try again. This afternoon we were sitting together when she suddenly said 'Mummy, I want to go to do a wee wee on potty'. We had put her in a nappy today as we were not expecting her to show any interest but we quickly stripped her off and popped her on the potty. After a few minutes of sitting there she stood up and said 'look Mummy' and had indeed done a wee wee. We gave her big cuddles and told her she had been very clever. We are still going to leave things pretty low key and see how it goes if we leave her to her own devices for a bit.

She also got to play in her Night Garden play tent, which we had brought her as an incentive to use the potty (she gets to play in it every time she successfully uses the potty). She wanted Grace to play in it with her and so here are the little monkeys.

Not Just the Taste, the Touch, the Smell

An update on how Grace's weening is getting on... She has got on very well with the finger food and so we are doing very little in the way of spoon feeding and she is self-feeding instead. So far she LOVES sesame rice cakes, with or without organic cream cheese. Broccoli is another firm favourite. pears get wolfed down and she also likes breadsticks a lot. It is amazing how much her hand-eye coordination has come on in the last few weeks. I was cynical when I first heard about baby-led weening but our experience with both kids has certainly been that 6 month old babies can indeed feed themselves.

A Hair Falls Out of Place

Here is Olivia on a recent trip to the hairdressers. Unlike last time I took her, where she wriggled about in the chair like a sack of snakes, this time she sat very nicely and let the stylist cut her hair. Apols for the quality of photos as they were taken on my mobile.

Thankyou Whoever You Are

I'd like to say a big hello to our newer readers - welcome to the blog. Also in case you are sitting wondering what the are rambling on about I should also say that all the titles of our posts are song titles or lyrics from the very excellent Marillion. Daddy M and myself met through a mutual friend and a mutual love of this band and so we owe them big. This is just our little way of paying a daily homage.

For those newbies who haven't already come across it then I'll give a big up to a long time reader and fellow blogging Mum (or I guess as she is across the water 'Mom') Lainey Paney. Her blog is entertaining and thought provoking and has at various times made me laugh and cry. Get out there and read her!

Now I need to find some time to get out there myself and read some of the hundreds of other blogging Mummies out there...

There's No Use Trying to Pretend

Olivia is now 27 months. I have noticed in the last few months that Olivia's imaginative play is really starting to come on. She loves making pretend drinks and snacks for all the family, normally accompanied by the words 'want coffee tea Mummy?'

She has also started to look after her toys like they were babies. At the moment every time Olivia needs a nappy change, Iggle Piggle also has to have a nappy change. She puts him down on the table and I have to pass her a series of imaginary nappy changing items. It is like she is the surgeon and I am the scrub nurse - 'wipes...cream...nappy'. Once Iggle Piggle has had his nappy changed he has a bottle of imaginary milk and then settles down with his imaginary dummy. Olivia likes to put him in Grace's car seat and rock him to sleep.

Olivia is also getting very good at recognising colours and shapes. Mum and I read her books or play games which involve her recognising colours and shapes throughout the day to reinforce what she has learned.

She is also getting very good at remembering the words to songs. She sings Twinkle Twinkle very well, although she thinks it is hilarous to sing it to Gracie along the lines of 'Twinkle Twinkle little baby'. She also does a fine line in half remembering the words to songs and making up the bits she doesn't know - we call it the jazz remix!

Out of this World

Today I have been exploring the world of blogging Mummies.

Here are a few of the things I have joined:

http://britishmummybloggers.ning.com/
http://mombloggers.ning.com/
http://mumbloggersclub.ning.com/

She Comes with the Sunlight and the Perfect Summer Days

Today was such a lovely sunny day Olivia decided she wanted to 'have picnic Mummy, picnic with my friends'. So Mummy prepared a host of teeny-tiny goodies and Olivia had a lovely time.

And Making a Mess While You’re Trying to Clean

This week we started weaning with Grace. Can't believe it but she is 6 months on Sunday. Despite being a wee little dot she is a very hungry baby. She stopped sleeping through the night a few weeks ago. I tried increasing her milk feeds....still hungry. I tried giving her the hungry baby milk...still hungry. The problem is that she wasn't really all that fussed about drinking more milk and so it was an uphill struggle to get her to eat enough to keen her going now she is getting more active. As she was approaching 6 months deciding to wean her wasn't a problem, but what would be an issue was the choice of weaning method.

You may remember that when we weaned Olivia we went with baby-led weaning. The problem we face with Grace is getting enough down her for her to be satisfied. With baby-led weaning you continue the normal milk feeds until the child is eating enough food and then start to reduce the milk as the food intake goes up. Problem was that Grace wasn't that fussed about drinking enough anyway. So, we have decided to do a mixed approach with Grace. She is self-feeding but is also having some spoon feeds of lumpy food. Her first meal was toast, which she really seems to love. She has also tried pasta, breast sticks, rice cakes, carrot, broccoli and banana whole and then various things I have cooked up for her such as sweet potato and lentil.

She seems much happier in the day time and is sleeping better during the night.

Monkeys Trying to be Stars

Here are my gorgeous girls. A pair of lovelies I am sure you will agree!

I Will Sleep Tonight

I would just like to note that having been dragged from my bed by screaming toddler at five o'clock this morning, after she was got up by screaming baby at seven, my lovely wife allowed me to go back to sleep until ten to ten.

While this may not sound like a lot to people without young children, think about someone who had restricted themselves to a single drink for several years and unexpectedly getting to drink five pints. I was drunk on sleep!

Thank you, lovely wife!

Did You Cry When They Dragged You Home?

Have finally got round to sitting down and blogging about an article which I read in the Times the other day:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/melanie_reid/article6101189.ece

The author seems to be suggesting that while we should all have a choice for our delivery, those of us who have home births are big fat-headed idiots, while she is practically perfect in every way...

She starts with a very lazy bit of journalism - pick a cliche and go with it.

"Disgraceful stereotyping it may be, but it is impossible to deny that home births are the preserve of homely, principled types who may then go on to breastfeed their child until it goes to secondary school..."

Why is it impossible to deny? Although I am partial to wearing flipflops for 6 months of the year I also have a pair of killer Gucci heels so high they are like wearing stilts.

"Frankly, it doesn't matter how safe home deliveries are proven to be...
...this is about quashing the entirely whimsical, perverse idea that we should turn our backs on modern medicine's starring role in safe childbirth...."

Modern medicine... hmmmmmmm. MRSA, under resourcing and understaffing are also features of the 'modern' NHS which the author choses to neglect. It also ignores the fact that there are lots of brilliant, modern, highly trained and expert midwives out there. All carry the essentials of childbirth such as recusitation equipment but some are also able to administer antibiotics during labour, Pethedin, perform neonatal checks, deliver breach and VBAC babies etc. Modern medicine can be brought in to the home and is not the preserve of the hospital and this attitude does a disservice to all the community and indepentent midwives out there working hard to give women a choice.

What I particularly don't understand is that the author admits that "researchers have revealed that women in the “low-risk” category who gave birth at home were just as safe as those who did so in hospital." and that "home delivery - if we may steal the expression back from the age of internet shopping - is as lacking in danger for the large majority as giving birth in hospital is" but yet then goes on to suggest,

...How utterly spoilt some women are, how complacent, that they think they can manage without wonderful things like blood transfusions, anaesthetic, surgery, antiseptic techniques and obstetric technology, which, in a century, a blink of an eye for womankind, reduced maternal and infant mortality almost to zero."

This seems to be entirely at odd with her earlier statement that "This is not about encouraging the unnecessary medicalisation of a perfectly natural condition". The above is EXACTLY about the unnecessary medicalisation of a perfectly natural condition! Many women, whether in hospital or at home manage perfectly well without transfusions, anaesthetic and surgery. Why is antiseptic the preserve of hospitals? My midwife washed her hands and used gloves, which come to think if it is more that some hospital staff do!

My rant must come to a premature end there I'm afraid as I currently have a toddler trying to stuff a pair of fairy wings in the DVD player...

He Took Her to a Garden

On Monday we went to see Nana and Grandpa. Nana has made Olivia a cool play house out of a cardboard box - based in part we presume on the well known fact that no matter what you buy them children will play with the box it came in. She is going to pain it with emulsion and then, next time she comes to visit, Olivia is going to pain flowers on the outside. Here is Great Nana visiting Olivia in her house.

Having talked to Nana about it on the phone the week before, Olivia was very much looking forward to seeing and feeding Nana's fish. Mummy, although not really one for pets, has agreed that Olivia can have a fish to take home next time.





In the afternoon we went along to the playground in the local park and met up with my uncle.



Olivia had a lovely day and very much enjoyed seeing Nana and Grandpa and Great Nana.

Easter Here Again

This year instead of giving shop brought eggs for Easter we decided to make Easter cakes for all the extended family.

Here is Olivia stirring up the mixture.




Here is Mummy telling Olivia to get her fingers out of it!




Here are the fruits of our labours.

Heading for the Slide

Today we went to the local National Trust country house, which has an excellent adventure playground. The weather was great once you were out of the wind and as the playground is surrounded by a high wall it was nice and sheltered. Olivia's cousins C_, 11 and H_, 8, were very kind to her and helped her on some of the bigger equipment. Here she is enjoying the slide, with her cousins peeping out at the top. A very big slide for such a tiny girl!

You're Freckled Like a Speckled Egg

Daddy and baby Grace. Two people, one hairstyle.

Wrapped Up in Time

I am increasingly aware of how quickly the days turn in to weeks and how Gracie will not stay little for long and I trying to capture every moment to memory or photo. Here she is...just because she is beautiful.

If my heart were a ball It Would Roll Uphill

Stop...tummy time! Gracie has been spending lots of quality time on her tummy recently. She is now pushing right up on extended arms and is staring to bring her knees up under her. She also rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time today. Not expecting it I didn't get a photo of her actually doing it but I did grab a snap of the look of delight on her face once she had done it.

The ladies in our readership should note her 'Nobody puts baby in the corner' bib!

Do You Remember I Thought it Was Confetti in Our Hair II

Grace and Olivia's Auntie A_ went to a fancy dress party the other day. As she works as a theatre technician she always has fun going to fancy dress parties as she has access to a huge props cupboard. Queue baby related hilarity as our girls played dress up, much to the amusement of Mummy and Daddy...

Do You Remember I Thought it Was Confetti in Our Hair

At her toddler group the other week Olivia made a cress head. He was very yummy when we had him in our sandwiches.

The Faithful Depiction

The other week Uncle E_ came to stay. He had lots of fun playing with the girls and exercised his artistic sensibilities on the Etch A Sketch doing an excellent portrait of Olivia!

What Makes Her Laugh

Olivia has now built up a little gang of friends who she sees regularly at play groups. The others are slightly older than her but they play very nicely together. She enjoys playing with older children and is very at home playing with her cousins but I have found the socialisation at play groups useful because unlike her cousins who give in to her if she throws a strop, other kids of two or three will argue with her over a toy and so she has had to learn valuable lessons about sharing and taking turns. Here are Olivia and her chums C_ and E_ enjoying fun on the see saw (or teeter-totter for our American readers).

The Children Playing Will Grow Up and Leave Home

Sometimes I look at Grace and realise just how quickly the baby stage slips away. She is already getting really big (although actually she is still following her own special line between the 9th and 25th centiles) and I see changes in her from day to day. She is very engaged with the world now and loves to sit or stand on your lap and 'talk' to you, or kick around on a blanket on the floor playing with toys. She has a very cheeky face and her blue eyes still show no signs of changing colour.

Here she is enjoying a play.

Baby Nothing Else Has Ever Been As Hard As Love

We recently found out that my best friend of 20 years is expecting her first baby in August. Having had some very worrying test results initially, all now looks well with the pregnancy and the baby is fine. We know the sex but I'm not sure if that is supposed to be secret so I'm keeping quiet for now! I am very excited that one of my close friends is finally joining me in the baby club!!!! Sending her huge positive vibes...

I also have another friend, the Mum of Olivia's best friend L_, who is also due in August so it looks to be an exciting and busy month!

Actually even sooner than that another old school friend is due to give birth by c-section so good luck to her also.

When You Love Me, Dilly Dilly, I Will Love You

Olivia really loves Grace, who she calls Gracie or 'my baby sister'. She has the most adorable look of wonder and love on her face when she plays with Grace, showering her with kisses. She loves to 'hold Gracie' with a little help from Mummy. Here is one such moment captured.

Like a Lamb

The other week Grandma, Auntie C_ , Daddy and myself took Olivia and her cousins off to Twin Lakes Park, a local play attraction. Olivia is still small enough to get in for free (there is a height measure at the entrance gates determining which children have to pay), although this does mean that she is too small for some of the attractions. There is, however, lots for her to do including an indoor soft play centre and farm animals. Olivia loves animals and took great pleasure in exploring the farm. As you can see, with the help of her cousin, she even helped feed the lambs.