Muffin II

"Tara, wo ist dein Muffin?" (Tara where is your muffin?)
"Mama essen." (Mummy eat)

Mean Muffin

It is what it looks like. A muffin. A blueberry muffin. In bed. With Tara.
Here's why:
We have guests. Tara loves being with them. When bedtime comes, she does not want to be parted, but all that's between her, her guests, and being dragged off to bed by dad - "No, Papa!" - is a very good excuse to stay up longer. And it hasn't taken Tara long (less than 23 months actually) to work out that in her family, having to eat some cake for pudding is such a cake... I mean, excuse. So, bedtime comes, Tara looks at her exciting, expanded family gathered round the post dinner table, thinks, and demands: "Kuchen! Kuchen essen!"
Who would send a hungry 22-month-old of to bed?! I grant her a muffin. She nibbles. One nibble, five family minutes pass. Another nibble, another five family minutes pass. I confiscate the muffin. Muffins answer a higher call that that of being an excuse in this family.
"No! No! Kuchen!" Tara cries. ('No, no! [Gimme back that] Cake!')
"Aber du isst den Kuchen doch gar nicht," I protest, "und es ist SCHLAFENSZEIT für dich!"
(But you're not eating it, and it's bedime for you!)
"No, no! Kuchen! Kuchen HALTEN!" (No no, cake! HOLD cake!)
Right.
Clever.
But she gets her funny brains from somewhere, so the plan doesn't work, and following a brief parental debate, Tara is shuttled off to bed clinging to her uneaten excuse of a cake, which is fussed over, and carried lovingly on a big big plate.
It is cuddled, it is shushed, it is hugged and it is patted on the back. It gets the full favourite dolly treatment. And, the parental bedtime patrol relates, it is cried over bitterly when removed from her cuddles.
So it is taken to bed.
Must be one mean muffin that mummy has cooked up.
Must be one mean mummy to not let her stay up.

A tantrum, the beginning of the end, and a sign

Make no mistake: I threw that tantrum last Friday (6 days ago). After a particularly f... sucked up night of badly interrupted sleep, Jose took Tara down for breakfast, and what does the good man do one baby breakfast later? He releases her back into my bed, where she commences climbing all across my beat up body and face in search of more boobs to latch on to. Jump up mummy, curse (again!), exit bed, exit room, slam stair gates, stomp down stairs, slam kitchen door. Howl and bawl Tara, shocked. When you've had enough, you've had enough.
A burnt toast and boiled over porridge later, Jose and Tara come down the stairs, at the back end of a lengthy father and daughter heart-to-heart about the 'eating' of booboos.
".... and Tara is a big girl now, and remember how we discussed that booboos are for babies but not for big girls, and we don't want to get mummy cross again, so booboos are for babies, but Tara is a big girl now! Big girls eat toast and sweet corn, and drink from cups..."
That's right, I tell her. Also, big girls have babies, not boobies, I add, and order her a new baby on ebay. Always one for a new toy, her mother.
Thus an enlightened, now officially big girl Tara was restored to her slightly pacified mother, and weaning commenced.

This big girl's big pushchair is a tad too big for her own small baby

It was a bit upsetting how she barely dares ask for Bubu now; a meek little question followed by a meek little question mark, no tears over a maternal 'no', followed by an immediate change of subject. Poor chicken, scared of upsetting mummy again. She used to confidently demand her rights of access to boobs up to just then, crying up a storm when met with a tentative maternal 'no'. So we've kept it up. No boobs in the daytime, and that's that. A few tears only on day one and once since, a few meek requests each day, and not a single meal of boob in the daytime (I'll keep nighttime up until daytime transition is complete) for five days now. To think that five days ago I was still completely unable to imagine it ever happening before my original top limit of her second birthday (approaching fast)!
But that's not the only change either. Coming back from Spain, Jose and I got a little too busy unpacking kilos of cheese, almonds, dates and a few clothes around bedtime, so the poor tired child asked to be taken to bed, where she was left with her blanket. Two minutes later she had fallen asleep, unassisted and all by herself. Another lucky moment to be seized and kept up, and a week late I made the time to finally separate her baby bedside cot from my bed, and stick it in one faraway* corner of 'our' room, and mine in the other.
And if that wasn't enough, I've finally found an excuse for never ever packing away any of the piles and piles of clothes that come off the washing line: They give my baby big girl, exposure to big girls' knickers. And oh yes, she's into them, literally.

Ready for knickers and potty training?

NOT if you think your bum-wear goes round your neck!

They say it's one of the signs to watch out when trying to establish when they are ready for potty training. Good job I'm always ready for some shopping, even if it's only for potties and toilet trainer seats in the early stages of a slowly developing readiness for the onset of training (there are a few more signs to look out for...)

From boob to poop. Beautiful!


*with about 60cm between them. It's a smallish room.

More About Spain

Best friends come in all sorts of sizes

But of course there's more to be said about Spain! It's just, I don't get round to it! Baking muffins, playing dollies, creating a bed corner (not room) for Tara, complete with lots of Charlie&Lola stickers, and looking for a (poorly paid, intellectually understimulating, unchallenging, awfully boring but somethingelsetodo part-time) job... too busy!
But here's a view of the place. Up on the gallery (and not up on the bannister like her grandpa) is where Tara sits outside her door and looks at the neighbours' kids playing on the street, holding on to daddy's hand and not yet daring to go and join them quite yet (though she surely will soon).
Or, down below, visiting friends and having a knock out afternoon playing with 'Mädchen Paula,' 'Pedo' (I AM sorry, I KNOW this is 'fart' in Spanish, it's just honestly true that Tara isn't so good with her 'R's in the middle of a word yet! Honest!) and 'Baby Acho', after her typical one-hour 'defrosting' period clinging to mum. I'm lucky. Other kid's parents aren't redecorating bedrooms, so have had the time to write up a full report. Check it out HERE.
And that's it for me. Spain covered. Back to the job hunt and the blueberries.

For more pix click here

Bride, Groom & Niece

Location: Spain, South-West thereof
Event: Wedding, of Tito Fanne and Titi Isa
Most memorable quotes: "Jes, I do" (uncle and now-aunt in response to the famous questions) and "Poor Tara, she's not used to people changing colour" (Jose on Tara's acute and panicked fear of her fully dressed and made-up grandmother)

The Niece

The Crowd (part of the 260 guests)

Groom & Niece (& Teddy)

Here comes The Bride (...this way, please... No turning back...)

Niece running from Bride (Titi Isa with make-up and dress, having changed colour too!)

This way, Bride...

... No turning back!

Towards the waiting Groom

Sit down, Teddy

Sit down, everybody else

Sit down outside*, Niece and Mother (sunbathing)
* There's only so much you can do when your daughter declares, halfway through the service, "Raus! Finished! Finished!"

The Dinner (well, not quite, more like another case of "Sit Down")

The Happy Ending (aka Happy New Beginning)

The Women of the Family (except Tara who's sleeping despite the 275-noisy-people-noise)

The Cakes, Plural, to feed the hungry 260. Cut, cut, cut. They cut them all.

The Guests (a selection thereof)

The Niece, recovering

PS.: Niece, Mum & Dad

You know, it wasn't our wedding, we know, but we looked pretty good too. Actually, groom and groom's brother looked rather very similar, varying amounts of hair aside.

The Vidaloenn Family looking snaz

Just when it comes to Tara, I can't quite decide whether she looked cooler at the event or at break time, going after a bag of fine shoes I'd removed from her reach...

What do you reckon?

Ohne Worte, or, BUBU NOW!

Today. Shopping. Garden decor section.
Nothing else need be said.