Chocolate for Breakfast

My little boy wasn’t primed for Easter. Easter Sunday he woke at ridiculous o’clock but instead of insisting on Cbeebies climbed in beside me and went back to sleep. Mr Noo woke before us. At the very late hour, in our world, of 8 am my little boy woke up, he got out of bed and pitter pattered across the floor boards, I heard him go “huh?” in a quizzical voice. He promptly pattered back; “Mummy” he squeaked “there’s two chocolate eggs, come look”.
So I did and there, as much to my surprise as to his, was two chocolate button eggs. A pig for me and monkey for him, apparently.
The utter thrill and excitement of being so delightfully and unexpectedly surprised was perfect. Deep throaty giggles of pleasure on discovering chocolate, first thing in the morning and at the top of the stairs. His mother’s son. Chocolate for breakfast in bed, you can’t beat it.

Tomorrow

The prompt in this week’s Gallery is Tomorrow.

On Friday, I went for a walk with my son and I took this snap. Being 3 and being himself. He is so much his own person these days, confident, chatty, opinionated, (where does that come from?) thoughtful “I miss mummy because I love her” (makes my heart sing). “It’s a shame you go to work” (makes my heart sink). So on Friday, he choose that outfit, insisting on that shirt, even though it doesn’t fit. On Friday, he discovered he can just reach the light switch, so I spent the morning turning lights off. The day before we are in the car, I am lecturing him about his behaviour at the child-minders, which has left a little to be desired recently, he talks over me “I know, I know, I know”. I glance in the mirror to check there isn’t a teenager in the back.

So, on Friday we go out, he insisted on taking his baby buggy, he decided on the route, I wanted to go around that corner, he is poised to cross the road. We crossed the road and went his way. Out with his buggy and baby, blissfully unaware of the adults smiling at the little boy with the buggy. As I took this photo I thought; ‘how long will last, what will his tomorrow bring?’. He’s growing up so quickly, selfishly, I miss mid day naps and that ‘me’ time, my sleeping baby. Then, on Friday, he folds his buggy like a pro. Climbs into the push-chair and goes to sleep. I walk in the sun, browsing shops, grabbing a tea and it’s like yesterday, my baby and his nap, some ‘me’ time.

He wakes up in the park, takes a liking to a group of students and starts mimicking them, lying on the grass beside them, trying to be part of the group. Time flies, he’s hurtling towards his tomorrows.

Now, get yourself over the Tara’s fabulous blog Sticky Fingers and find some Tomorrow.

Now what do I do?

My son (Noo), my little world and nursery *deep sigh*.  Nursery, nursery, nursery. Something possibly bad is about to happen and I don’t know how to break it to him.
Initially, he really didn’t like nursery and the settling in period was an emotional roller coaster. He got better for a bit, no tears at drop off (maybe that was a week or two). ‘Not going to nursery’ slipped as the foremost topic of conversation.  He became enormously confident, triumph over adversity.
However, the nursery niggles still existed. Tears on being dropped returned and he has to be removed by a staff member from my leg/neck depending on how much effort it’s taken to get him out of the car. He still likes to check first thing in the morning if that particular day is a nursery day, often his reaction is to cry.  He likes to remind me he doesn’t like going to nursery.

I think, convince myself, it’s about being ‘left’, when in his mind we could be at home together. Two days nursery and one day child minder. Drop off at the child minder, a once a happy ritual, has turned into a tears zone.
When I pick him up from nursery he tells me he’s had “really lovely day”  Usually followed by; “I said ‘I want my mummy, I want my mummy’ all day”.  This is reported with a cheeky grin, I suspect it’s a poorly organized attempt at making me feel guilty.  If he could follow through with a ‘sad look’ it may have more impact. He’s very positive about his day.

When I ask  if he’s played with other children he replies “not often”.  The staff  say he does. He consistently reports that he does play with one little girl. He knew her via his child minder before going to nursery, they initially had shared issues with settling in.  She is the saving grace of nursery, thank heavens for her and then, her mother tells me she’s leaving.

I don’t know exactly why (all I could hear as her mother told me were my own screams) something about the other nursery being the original preference and places and ‘stuff’.  It’s not a problem with this nursery.

So this is her last week. I haven’t told Noo. I’m not sure how he’s going to take it.  Maybe this will be moment when destiny launches him forward and next week he will be friends with every child in his ‘room’ and nursery will be a thing of joy. Or he could be lonely without her and it’s all going to get worse.

Now what do I do?

What becomes of the broken hearted?

I posted a while ago about Noo’s issues with nursery and here is my update. I’ve kept my counsel as things have improved a bit and I didn’t want to jinx it.
However, it still isn’t brilliant. He is still seems to have reservations, still gets upset. Although, he describes his tears as “little tears” and they are compared to how upset he was. He comes home very positive and tell me he has had “a really lovely day at nursery”, but does repeatedly tells me that he “wanted mummy all day long”, and likes it but is not hugely enthusiastic.

A development is that he is now getting upset when I leave him at the child minders, and “wanting mummy all day long” while there. He was attending 3 days a week, it’s down to 1 day with nursery taking up the other two. He’s been going to the child minders since he was 9 months old. She is absolutely lovely and I get wonderful feedback from friends who see them out and about together. The bottom line seems to be, he doesn’t want to be left by me, it seems he wants to be with me and his Dad. As a working mother that’s hard, I do enjoy working but, financially, I have to work, there is no choice. The other issue which maybe a factor is that, unsurprisingly, he has been cursed by nursery bugs and like many other children attending nursery for the first time is picking up one illness after another, since starting he has been ill, properly ill and in need of the GP twice. Feeling under the weather obviously isn’t helping. So that’s the update, neither good nor completely bad.
I solider on, and for the record, I’ve been ill for the last 3 weeks and my reserves of parenting positiveness are on the low – so goodness only knows why he’d want to hang out with me all day.

Toddlers and iphones – am I mad?

Last week The Guardian published an article on the best apps for toddlers, it’s a top 10 of toddler App’s for the  iphone.  Obviously, there is a debate as to whether it’s appropriate for toddlers and iphones to mix.   I have an iphone (which I love) sometimes my son uses my iphone, not for texting nursery to say he’s not coming, but for the apps.  Apps for those not in the know are various Applications that you can download to your iphone to add to its facilities, for example there is a Twitter App and a various Supermarket Apps in fact there are millions of Apps.  I don’t have a problem with my toddler, occasionally, playing with my iphone as often it’s to my benefit.  Picture the following scenario:

“Mummy”. In a long and drawn out voice.

Me: “I’m just packing this food and paying the lady at the checkout, honey (slightly exasperated voice).  Why don’t you look at this book”.

“Mummy will you read it to me”.

Me: “Here’s my iphone sweetie…let’s find something to play with”.

I think there is a time and a place.

I would say that toddlers, iphones and concrete are not a great combination and to be avoided.  The iphone always seems to get ‘dropped’ whenever the toddler is stood on concrete.

These are the four apps we love the most, at the moment:

My Coloring Book (free).  Often freebies are loaded with adverts that pop up all over the place, not this one.  It’s really simple, the App contains 37 drawings and you tap wheel select your colour and then where ever you touch is coloured with your selection.

My first words: animals (lite version – free) very limited number of words as it’s a freebie, but Noo hasn’t got bored, essentially it’s a spelling game. You drag up the matching letter to complete the word, Noo repeats the letters and while I don’t think he could spell crab left to his own devices (why would he need to?) it’s giving him an awareness of letters. It does have an (annoying) voice over, which confirms what you’ve done. Also available in various other languages.  I’ve seen some phonetic versions which I guess might be useful.

Balloonimals. Noo and I love this so much I spent £1.59 on it, it’s noisy and silly.  By scrolling with your finger you can choose a deflated balloon in various colours, you then blow into the mouth piece of the iphone and  ‘blow’ up the balloon.  Next you shake the phone until the animal appears. Tap the animal to get an action or blow him up to popping point to get your next animal.

Finally, my favourite. AniMatch (bargin 59p) It’s a memory game, touch the squares to reveal the various animals, find the pairs until you have all of them. Each animals makes the appropriate noise and I find it very addictive, it’s timed and I do get a obsessed to see how quickly I can complete it.  Sorry, this is about toddlers; yes Noo enjoys it too, I do it a row at a time, while he does it randomly and our results are very similar.

If you’ve got a favourite children’s/toddlers app I love to know, or an opinion on toddlers and iphones and a duo.

After the rain comes sunshine

I had a horrible day in the office, I was over tired from lack of sleep. I planned to keep my head down and wish the day away. However, I had to deal with a particularly difficult and challenging individual. I skulked back to my desk feeling defeated. Then a lovely someone, came and offered me tea, cake, a smile and a sympathetic look. Please don’t be nice to me, I thought, I’m close to the edge here.  For a moment I thought I would cry.

The afternoon slipped by and I left work to collect Little Noo from his child minder. His immediate reaction on seeing me was to put his hands over his eyes.  “Have you had a nice day?” “No.” He snapped. Still with hands over eyes.  I persevered. “What have you done today?” In the style of a stroppy teenager the reply came; “Nuffing”.

He was difficult about leaving  and for the second time that day I took a deep breath to stop the tears.  In the car he decided he was going to “Ruin” his day’s painting, which was screwed up and thrown across the back seat.  The rest of the evening continued in a similar vein.  Dinner; didn’t want it. All offered activities proved unacceptable.  By bath time I  felt utterly crushed.  I took a walk to the shop to buy chocolate. On my return a happy smiling child greeted me from the bath. I sat on the floor next to the tub.”Hi” I said. “Love you mummy” he replied. Before I could fight back the tears for a third time, with his finger he gently tapped the end of my nose “You got spots on your nose look like flowers”.