The Twenty-Fifth Month: November 2006

3rd Nov
Two today! A beautiful clear, sunny blue-skied day, the red leaves on the Sumac tree reminding me of the early days following your birth. My gorgeous boy, you are full of vim and vigour, and no longer a toddling baby. We went to Slimbridge this morning, with Auntie Anna, Uncle Nick, Sol and baby Leon, and you and Sol ran about holding hands and making each other chuckle and we all marched through the goose poo. This afternoon Auntie Karen and Madeleine came for supper. We had a cosy time sitting by the fire unwrapping your presents. Very exciting tearing wrapping paper! You and Madeleine played really well together 'cooking' soup with your little pans, and she pulled you along the carpet with you sitting in the upside-down stool. Karen thinks you talk like a 3 year old! You were very vocal at dinnertime; chatting and shouting while we ate chicken and noodle stir fry, yoghurt and mangos, you chewing the stone for ages.

Papa writes:
Theo – you are two years old.
You seem well advanced for your years … so many words you have learned and such long sentences you can say. You give wonderful cuddles and cling to my shoulders when I bring you downstairs – my hands carrying cups and things. You can be quite bossy and insistent on certain details being just so. You play so well with other children and on your own. Sometimes you are so constructive and careful and other times you will throw everything about.

You love dressing up … hats, daddy's shoes, blankets, nothing too large to be tried.

Sometimes in the morning on waking from sleep you insist on bundling all your duvets, pillows, cuddly toys and sunny cloth and bringing them with you to our bed. The mound of stuff is enormous and like a dung beetle it all has to be pushed or carried along. You can get very frustrated by the effort and will make big groaning / straining noises in the process. You often dive onto me, sit on the cats and are so rarely scratched in the process that the cats not only tolerate it, but also secretly enjoy it.
You love getting out into the garden, playing with sand, soil or water – far more than any plastic children's toys.

7th
Your party at the weekend. Lots of friends and family, and loads of presents…I think your favourite bit was blowing out the candles, which you are still talking about today. You loved the little wooden train from Alex that goes ‘chuffitty chuff’ very realistically when you shake it, and the fold-up kitchen-in-a- suitcase from Grandma. You made everyone laugh playing make-believe cooking, stirring soup and saying it was hot. You’ve had books, and plasticine and lots of wooden vehicles. It’s as if being two, you’ve been socially defined for the first time as a boy-child by everyone’s gifts. Of course we all start off one sex or the other, but as a baby, one is just this dependent creature, whose gender is irrelevant, but as we become more involved in the world we are defined by our gender.

I know you love trains, and we are fostering that with our mammoth amount of Brio train track, trains and accessories that is annexing the spare room, but I have seen you pick up dolls and be fascinated by the babies around us, especially your new cousin Leon and Samuel’s brother, baby Laurie. You also love playing with the finger puppets and the new farm animals we gave you.

10th
I am exhausted from my period, and not relishing the prospect of writing. The keyboard feels like work, instead of the pleasure I used to have of writing in black ink in the beautiful hand bound book I made before you were born. I am relieved to have found someone to type up the entries from Nov 2005 – June 2006, because I was not excited by the idea – plus the time spent doing that was eating into the time for the reflection on the here and now with you.

Handwriting feels a natural process with thoughts flying easily onto the page. Typing is more self-conscious, and the inevitable discomfort of sitting at a keyboard, as well as the typos, gets in the way of the flow. Maybe I am just not sufficiently used to typing thoughts, but at the moment, the greater pleasure is in hand writing, it also looks nicer on the page.

Current Phrases;
“I did it all my jore self (by myself)
“I want to get off.” (I want to get down from the table, out of Tripp Trapp chair)
‘Nother gain’ (again, as in another again)
‘Springeleens’ (spring greens), eaten last night with garlic, onions, chili and ginger.

Monday this week we went to a pre-school playgroup organized by the Bristol Home Education group. I have often been curious about the idea of home education even before you were born, but also like the idea of having time for myself and time to work when the time to go to school comes round.

I talked with a couple of people there about their decision, and it seems for many to be related to a style of parenting, to be able to be continually involved in witnessing ones child’s milestones, to be the one who is imparting values to the child, rather than leaving it to the randomness of a school.

There is also the view that developmentally children should be close to the mother, certainly at least until seven, and that school is a very full time commitment, so children become institutionalized from an early age. For children who are breast fed until they wean themselves, they are naturally closer the their mother, and the separation of school may cause additional anxiety.

If one does not support many aspects of the dominant culture which children are certainly exposed to at school, possibly for the first time, this may be another reason to make home the centre of a child’s learning. Being educated by one’s parents, not necessarily exclusively in the home, is one way to impart the values that you believe are important.

One person said how school could be a good idea if you could dip in and out of it, i.e. do it part time, but as that’s not an option, it is all or nothing

On the critical side, I did wonder if some who choose home education do it because they have difficulty separating themselves from their child (I mean the one’s who have never been to school, rather than those who went and didn’t get on there). When I was in York, Cinders told me about someone she met who was home educating because she wanted her children to go to a private school, not the local state primary, but because she could not afford it, chose to home educate. This is a novel take on it.

The whole thing got me thinking about what education is, what it is for and what school provides. I remember I loved my primary school, and some of my teachers, and thought about how other adults as authority figures are positive role models for children. I also thought about my friendships from early school and how significant they were.

I know home educated children meet up with other children and parents, so have friends and other adults in their lives.

My curiosity was aroused – and I could see the positive reasons for doing it. A parent would have so much more time, and could give individual attention to a child, following their specific interests (what is known as the ‘autonomous ‘ approach). One can also do structured activity and follow a curriculum.

But on the down side, I ‘m sure parent and child can get heartily sick of each other. Parents also talked about being home based a lot of the time, and how the house is in constant chaos. Who realistically has endless patience and enthusiasm, especially if you don’t get a break? Maybe that is a big function of school, to give parents a respite from their children?

I talked to P about it later, and when we went out on Weds (gawd I had a vodka and vanilla milk cocktail, the first in about 5 years!), and he didn’t feel confident in his skills to actually teach. He was also waiting for me to produce evidence that this was a successful way of educating children.
But I had thought: Look how you are now, everything you are, pretty much, has been because of what you have absorbed from us. All the stuff you have learned, by osmosis, from your parents. That you are affectionate, and comical, that you speak, and are friendly, your physical, social and emotional development is partly attributable to us. So I know that we can teach you about the world, whether formally or informally.

On Tuesday afternoon, you had an amazing time while I was trying to cook quiche in home made pastry: you washed up your toy pans, splashing in the bubbles and squeezing the sponge, getting yourself very wet in the process. You rolled out pastry and cut it with pastry cutters, you cut up vegetables with me; all this was learning about the properties of different things, liquids and solids, and was experiential learning. A lot of your language, and your nursery rhyme singing is from the stories and songs we have sung and read to you. So I know we could carry on like this for a few more years.

But it is also a greater responsibility, because if one’s child is more unruly, less polite, anti-social in any way, we can only blame ourselves. However, given the challenges of life with you now, I don’t know if I have sufficient patience…I sometimes lose it at the end of the day with stupid things, like you throwing tea towels across the kitchen and knocking over cat food and cat’s water – all just normal exuberant behaviour, but I am tried and trying to cook supper. I like the idea though, but I think you would enjoy the company of other children and a lovely teacher, you are not that enamoured of me at the moment that you would want to be just with me all the time.

A greater burden on your parenting, because people will judge you even more because you are with them 24/7

16th
You sat at the supper table last night reciting nursery rhymes to yourself: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, Baa Baa Blacksheep – amazing!

The previous evening we had a lovely bath together (you don’t have them that often these days because we don’t eat till quite late, 6.30/7, when Papa gets home, so you were quite excited at the prospect. You sat on my legs in the bath and played with the shells and the cork boat we made. “You haven’t got a willy”, you informed me. On other occasions you have pointed to my genitals and said “What’s that?” “Those are my pubes, my vagina”, I say. “Pubes!” You exclaim in your pouting way.
Then after the bath I asked you, “Can I put some oil on your back?”
“No, I want some oil on my willy”, you said!
“Well, you can do that”, I answered.

27th
A long, rainy and exhausting month. We have all had colds, and I am just recovering from a flu-ey thing and feel like I barely have the energy to get through the day. I am finding it hard to weather your constant demands, especially at mealtimes…”I want some of that… I want a tomato…I want some toast…I want a drink…” and so on, usually when I have just sat down with you to eat. Difficult when I am feeling tired and a bit rough.

Tonight I tried to make a simple meal of rice and dahl, but amazingly it still takes about two hours, because I am permanently negotiating with you about your wants and needs. The evening time is the most difficult time, and the one I’m most likely to lose it, especially when you start throwing food around, and then shouting no at me because I have told you not too.

I spent the whole of Sunday with you, and it felt a long day without adult interaction, apart from a call to Sophie. Papa had to go to the office, which had been broken into at 2am, and spent the rest of the day there sorting stuff out, so our country walk did not materialise, and you and I walked to the park instead. You were happy splashing in the muddy puddles, picking up sticks and posting autumn leaves through the slats in the park benches. I sat in the sun and stared into space, realised afterwards I could have been reading a book, so occupied were you. We had an early lunch, and you slept through the afternoon until the dark of 4.15, while I did menial tasks like clear up the cat pee, do 3 loads of washing, and generally exhausted myself further.

I set up the painting table for you in the late afternoon, finally getting round to it after thinking about it for weeks. You loved using up all the new acrylic paints in your pots, a brush in each hand, my little Picasso.

The month of you being two is nearly over, and I’ve hardly written anything, mainly because I do not feel thrilled at the idea of sitting at the computer late in the evening. Not nearly as enticing as writing in a book. I may have to go back to hand writing to keep up with my observations of life with you.

You still pine for your Papa a lot, when he is not there, and want to see him especially when you wake up from a sleep. You can be grumpy for 15mins to an hour, and sometimes nothing I do or say is right, and you cannot be calmed. I have had to leave the room while you writhed about on the story chair.

This morning you woke at 6am, and came running to our room, and to your great disappointment Papa was not there. (He had moved to the spare room on account of my persistent tickly coughing.) “Where’s Papa?” you asked, “Where’s he gone?” I tried to placate you and cuddle you, but you wanted none of it, and began crying immediately, so I took you next door, which Papa was not very pleased about. So I get to have a bit of a lie in with out either of you… which I should enjoy, but instead I wonder why Papa is your comforter of choice, because he almost always is.

If we are both around, you invariably want him. Maybe because you see so little of him all week. Sometime you sit at the table at mealtimes and say “I want to hold hands with Papa”, when he is not there, and I have to find a way of making you happy.

Anyway I have gone through a phase of feeling a bit insecure about it all. As one friend of mine said, ‘mother’s are just wallpaper’. I felt a bit sorry for myself, thinking that my all-consuming love for you is not reciprocated. But what child reciprocates the love of their mother – what a crazy idea!
You have made me so unbelievably happy, I hope I can do the same for you.

I have a new toy: a device that enables me to record on the i-pod. It is very unobtrusive so we have been able to leave it on the table at mealtimes while you do your recitations of nursery rhymes. You even sang the whole of ‘Daisy, Daisy’ the other day down the phone to Papa.

(Very sadly, and annoyingly I lost my mini-disc recorder in the recent burglary we had. It had a disc in with your early words on it that I’d listened to a bit of recently. You had a really bad chest, so it must have been last Jan/Feb, and you were saying single words like cat and ‘oof’. You sounded so different, and I felt sad that I’ve lost that recording, but then hey we have hours of video tape of you, so there must be some other word sounds in there somewhere.

29th
You know what is my favourite part of the day sometimes? When we snuggle together on your story chair, and we look at books before your afternoon nap. Lately you have taken to wanting to cover your knees with the lambskin rug, telling me that it is “nice and cosy”. Yesterday you sat next to me and leaned your head in towards me. I felt so honored, and delighted.

In the mornings my fake sunrise light dims from nothing up to brightness, and when the alarm is set it makes a high-pitched chirping noise. Not only do you start saying, “ oh it’s a sunny day.” But in the past few weeks, you have exclaimed “Where ‘s the cricket, there’s a cricket under the bed,” and have begun looking for it, we have kept up the pretence, because it really does sound like a cricket.

Sometimes morning begins with a wail, followed by, “more milk please, get some more milk please”, when you wake in your room, but often you climb out of your cot and come and see us, anytime between 5.45 and 7am.


Conversations and your current chatter

Land the bong tree grows, ring a ring a roses, jolly good fellow.

Overheard while you played in the kitchen, and I was cooking supper. We have been reading Edward Lear’s Owl and the pussycat, and it seems to have made an impression on you.

One morning eating porridge, which we have not had since last winter, you sat with your spoon in your bowl, and said,
“I don’t what its member called”, and got quite frustrated. Then I realised you were saying, I don’t remember what it’s called (the porridge).

T: I banged my head on the chair.
F: Rub it better
T: Kiss it, I can’t reach!

The other day Papa said, “You are a parrot.” And you replied, “I ‘m not a parrot, I ‘m Baba.”

Yesterday we had a bath together, and you said, “What’s that?” pointing at my pubes.
So I answered, “That’s my pubes and vagina.”
“Your not ‘gina, your mummy!” Being Mummy encompasses so many things, doesn’t it?