Tara, Three and a Half

Hey Sweetie!

It's time for a milestone overview (like the one I'd planned at age 3, 2 1/2 and 2)!

Favourite Foods: Cheese sticks, mango, pineapple on pizza, pasta, Fish Pie, shrimp sandwich, ketchup (still going strong) and mayo, beetroot.
Dislikes: Chocolate (except M&M's), most vegetables that aren't red, and things that are "pieksi", meaning spicy.
Best friends: Carter and Zach.

With Zach

Enjoys playing the most: Dolls, Mummy & Babies, Dollshouse with playmobile, singing, building things like double pushchairs, visiting her friends' houses,
but also: reading and storytelling, puzzles, lego, painting, glueing and sticking, dancing.
Dislikes: The wii (read: trouble with Zach!) - "I don't like de music!", swimming (being splashed at).
Favourite Colour: Pink, what else. And it is NOT my doing.
Wears, if left to choose: Anything pink with her fairy outfit on top, or dresses, preferably pink, with pink shoes. Hair open with one clip. (Aspires to wavy hair.)

Some like it PINK

Most likely accident: Drink spilleage (drives daddy mad).

Greates vice: Sweeties and all things sugary. We're trying to control it...
Plans for future: When asked closer to age 3, Tara wanted to be "a princess." She's already moved on. "When I grow up, I don't want to be a princess anymore. Princesses have trouble with the malutas (baddies, female). I want to be a worker. With the computer. With the internet." Needless to say, I am much impressed by such early wisdom.
Tara and Mummy: Best night-time buddies. Love chatting, baking, picnicks and all things messy.
Tara and Daddy: Best bath time buddy. Playmobile master players and maker of things.
Tara and Leo: Best summarised in two quotes. 1, "I love you my darling." 2. "Mummy, tell Leo what I'm eating (doing / anything) and that he can't eat (do / whatever) it."

Small and Big. Can't eat and CAN eat.

Routines that work: A snack or treat on the way home from nursery while surfing the buggy board. Reading the playmobile catalogues with daddy at bedtime. The 10pm transfer to mummy's bed (The only night we've spent apart remains the day Leo was born and I stayed at the hospital) - sadly that routine involves her waking up crying for mummy 9/10 times and I still have not worked out quite why.
Languages: English like a native, and possibly above average (say her carers). German, well, like a younger native. I get the occasional full medium length sentence and a fair number of German words thrown into English sentences. Happily repeats most words or sentences. Spanish. Well well... not so well. Offers basic words like si, no, gracias, por favor, and the occasional extra, with some two word phrases (que lalo = que raro or 'we/lo tenemos'). Tends to refuse to repeat words or phrases, but has dared a few in the last month and has voluntarily been speaking to her grandparents on the phone, which is new. In short, Tara speaks English. Or, one down, two to go.
Personality: Inquisitive, inventive, observant, loving, bright, shy with strangers, assertive with friends (tending towards bossy), cheeky, giggly.

Tara-Rara, at 3 1/2, really has turned a few corners, not only the obvious one of becoming a big (and loving) sister. A few things just snapped into place some time after 3. Bigh things like potty training, which has been completed, nights included. Littler things, like being able to sing in time with the music. More recently, she's started walking to nursery every other morning - after three years and 5 months in the pushchair or on the buggy board. The most important thing for me: Just after three, she suddenly started playing by herself without needing constant company - the one thing that I'd found the most difficult.

Ay, Tara-Rara, my baby girl! It's a privilege seeing you grow up, knowing you so closely, and loving you all the way.

Mondays are for Sleeping

Oh how innocent does this baby look, tucked in in mummy's blanket, on mummy cushion, and in his own bed on a Sunday night! But there's a catch: His peaceful two hour nap was not scheduled, he's in his day clothes, and ancient nappy (by nappy standards), his nest is highly improvised, and by the time I try to go to bed, there's no bedding for me. And that's just for starters. The rest of the night goes like this:
10am: (I'm struggling to fit under a corner of my covers without disturbing the baby wrapped up in them) Both children wake up crying at the same time in different rooms and require immediate attention each. (At least I can now have my covers back.) I transfer Tara to my bed, which stops her crying. I grab Leo but instead of offering a cosy snuggle and a boobie, he gets a new nice clean bum and his pyjamas on his most unsnuggly changing station. He is furious and screams the house down. Tara dozes back off in the din. Back to bed.
10:20 to ca. 3am: the dear children take amazingly well coordinated turns at waking me half hourly. Tara celebrates snotty snuffle feasts on my right and refuses to blow her nose, and Leo kicks and wriggles as he struggles with trumps and burps.
3am to 5am: They swap afflictions. Leo snuffles and Tara wriggles. Being merely in the same bed, she has decided, is not close enough to mum. It's got to be a share of mummy's covers (already sharing with Leo), and she snuggles so hard that I'm half convinced she's grown another leg and two more knees. I extract her from the inside of my pyjama bottoms twice. It's somewhat inconvenient, if highly amusing (when considered in daylight, and in daylight only*).

Monday morning presents itself in a very typical mix of a very late nursery run (45 minutes this time), an uninviting pile of unfolded washing, and a very very cute and slightly tired baby boy who does not like doing tummy time very much at all.

If I close my eyes long enough, will it disappear?

Cheek to cheek with Peppa Pig

Count down to crying: two to three minutes tops.
There's only one thing to do. Back to bed with babe and boob. It's not the most efficient way of spending a morning (or day) but it is in line with a night full of... ahem... surprises. And it is, so it seems, a typical baby-days-Monday for Leo and his Mum. It's very snuggly and satisfying, tummy to tummy. Zzzzzzzz.

And here's Tara, my big wriggling snuffle monster. Monday night, and she can't sleep. Because her daddy is talking on the phone. Because Leo is "not letting her sleep" by snuffling somewhere else in the house. Because mummy left the room. Because she suddenly remembers we did not finish watching the one Charlie Lola episode that I told her in the morning we'd finish in the afternoon.
So I tell daddy off. I fetch Leo and "just stick a boob in," as Tara advises. I come back to sit on her chair. I promise more Charlie Lola in the morning. And I bring the musical teddy. Tara plays two rounds of teddy, then tucks him up next to her ver gently and says, "Look, mummy, Teddy is sleeping". Tara is not sleeping. She is hot, but peling the cvers off proves a dilemma as Teddy would get cold. I fetch Bunny, whom Father Cristmas brought and who actually is (meant to be) a lamb. Tara tucks Bunny up next to Teddy. "Mummy, everybody wants to be with me!" she observes at the growing multitude of friends, and with the sweetest modest, pleasantly surprised smile. "WHY?"
"Because they love you," I tell her, because just that minute I am incedibly in love with her. "Because we love you! Good night!" Bunny pipes in in my fluffy talking animal voice.

In a good story, Tara now nods off, with the sweetest smile on her face. Real Tara manages the smile, then her eyes plop open again. Leo is snuffling away at the boob somewhat loudly. "Mummy, is Leo awake?" Yes, I lie, hoping for the best. "I want to win!" she says, closes her eyes and races her sleeping baby brother to sleep.

Come 11pm, Tara, Teddy and Bunny are arriving in my bed. Truth is, I've been waiting for them. Truth is, I can't fall asleep without them. My wriggly snufflemonsters. And there's always another morning to ignore the washing and go back to sleep on. (Of course, if I were Tara, and folding the washing a competition, I'd do some ironing, folding and putting away first. But I'm me. The stuff is likely to still be there next Sunday night.)

And on Wednesday, Tara will be 3 1/2 years old.

* I'm lying for dramatic porposes. Actually, extracting her from my nightwear is amusing even in the dark.

Hallo von Strand!

Nein, nein, er winkt nicht wirklich - er versucht angestrengt, ueber Papas Schulter zu Mama zu klettern.

H is for Hip (Hip Hurray)

Here is my little man, at hospital, having his hip checked. His hip - hip hip hurray! - is fine, like Tara's, and different from mine. Operations, manifold and not very pleasant, to cut through his thighbone and adjust the positioning of the bone in the hip socket? Not for him, nor for Tara. It is a relief. For this generation (so far)*, it looks like I've kept my bad genes to myself.


Dear Tara and Leo (and any future siblings)*:

The friendly docor lady has asked me to pass this message on: Please make sure to have your own children and your children's children (etc etc) scanned for hip placement. It is not done automatically for every new baby in the UK (at present, but who expects the NHS's financial situation to improve?!), and you have been asked to use the excuse of your mother's and you maternal grandmother's bad genes and hips (respectively your children's grandma's and great grandma's respectively) to use up NHS resources. We're talking about my grandchildren (your children) and my great grand children (your grandchildren) at least, all of whom I am hoping to meet (although this is no invitation to have children the Ramsgate way at 14!!!), and all of which will undoubtedly be as precious as you two (or more) are, so please be good and listen.
There. I've officially recorded the message. In writing - it's a bit much to take on board when you're 6 weeks old.

With love (and apologies for poor genes, not that they really are my fault),
Mama

* No no, I'm not pregnant. And will not be again, if Jose has it his way. I'm just saying, in case. ("Jose's way" is not the only way there is, is it.)

Leo and the Other Babies

Anna-Baby and Baby Leo (5 weeks)

Before baby Leo arrived, Tara had 3 years and 3 months to practise and perfect her baby love. That means two things. One, Tara has ideas as to what babies like and dislike - because that's the way 'her babies do it'. Two, Tara is very fond of 'her babies' and insists that thay get shown a fair amount of loving too.

Now, in practical terms it means that many a tearful moment was spent - in the first month - educating Tara about the differences between her babies and mine. Tara would be doing something absurd for/to/with her baby brother - like sitting at the top of his bouncy chair with him in it, about to let go and catapult the child across the kitchen - cry bitter tears when told to STOPTHATIMMEDIATELY, and argue, invariably, "But MY babies like it that way!"
This got less after 4-5 weeks.


Then, of course, with all the new lovely baby equipment abou, and so many much-loved darlings, on occasion we cannot get Leo into any of his stuff because another Baby is already sitting there, and Baby's mother will watch over them carefully, lest they be expelled from their cosy bouncy chair / moses basket / push chair / car seat. "No, Leo can't be in that because MY babies are in there!"






A challenge? But no! A beautiful opportunity to practise the art of sharing or the related art of taking turns, and to work on my biceps, what with a) an increased future need in the obove listed skills, and b) much reduced time for gym fun.

Incidenally, since I mentioned it before - Tara's alter ego, Baby Lola, has been seen twice since Baby Brother's birth. Looks like the little usurper is the coolest baby of all her collection yet.

Leo wants to be a REAL baby!

No conflict of interests with Baby Kelsey

Leo conversing with Sophia (Good sharing, Leo and Sophia!)

Leo (2 months, 1 week) and Milo (1 day)

On Monday, 11/01/10, Leo's first Best Friend Milo was born (finally!). We got to see him on day two (his mother is mad). I nearly fainted when I saw how tiny he was, and what an absolute GIANT my son is. That said, Milo was heavier at birth than Leo was, with even larger hands and feet. Being told that your two month old is the length of an average 4-month-old is one thing; but here, seeing IS believing. Leo at two months: heading for 6kg, and 62cm. And, of course, a heartbreaking beauty. I love my baby, I love my baby, I love my baby.

MY baby (7 weeks). The One and Only.

PS.: A subject with tremendous potential for humour. Pah. Who can be humorous when a sweet babe is crying and it takes two weeks to complete one entry, witout any real time to get into the flow of it? Pha!

Family Photo, 2010

We've spent the last fortnight thinking about traditions, and which we would like to introducte in our family. One that I would like to stick with is taking a family photo every year. We go for a best-out-of-seven approach after I've spend five minutes asking Tara nicely to pose, then threatened that there would be no dinner until AFTER she had kindly come over (and promised a photo-free time zone of one week after). The pics look like this:
Pictures 1-4: Mummy is in slippers.
Pic 1: Jose looks a bit overwhelmed. Hard light, harsh on our very first Christmas tree.
Pic 2: Mum has a bad hair moment. Hard light, as above. Just not fair on the tree.
Pic 3: Tara's eyes closed.
Pic 4: Leo's eyes closed. It really is time I started working on that post-baby fat.
Pictures 5-7: Mum's slippers have been discarded and appear at the right side of the picture. Mum is in cow socks instead. Nice.
Pic 5: Tara not looking.
Pic 6: Does Jose want to strangle me? Why else could his hands move in on my throat?
Pic 7: Are those cows part of the family? And actually, Jose is in slippers too, and the kids are entirely without shoes.

Talk about a spontaneous snap of a family in holiday spirits... I'll go with picture number two. Slippers and socks all around, baby fat and a two month old Leo who's not yet sure what to make of his family. Jose bemused, Alex (having a bad hair moment and) holding her baby, and Tara standing by her Mummy, holding her baby brother's hand.

Family by Christmas Tree, Jan 2010

And for a more complete portrait, here's a family snapshot. At breakfast (holiday muffins and weekend pancakes): We're downgrading from slippers and socks to pyjamas. But that's us, at the beginning of 2010: Improvised, informal, but connected and contented, and very fond of daddy's pancakes.

Family at Breakfast, Dec 2009

(There. Another potential family tradition started.)