Charles has reached the "Why?" stage. My explanatory talents are being stretched.

Charles was offered the pandemic flu jab due to his heart defect (the one I'm supposed to be forgetting about for 5 years) putting him in a high-risk category. After some thought I decided to accept the offer: he's had a mild response to all other vaccines, flu can be very nasty and he is still small. His life is pretty social, what with his friends at J's and lots of children using the same playground, so I've been planning for 'when' not 'if' he catches flu. It would be much easier all round if he didn't though.

We picked him early from J's to take him to the surgery, and he didn't want to leave and he didn't want to ride in the buggy and he didn't want to sit nicely in the waiting area and he didn't want to take his jumper off and he didn't want to sit still for the nurse. Who said she was worried about hurting him if he couldn't be still, so I had to be a mean ol' mummy and grip his arm in place top and bottom to stop him wriggling it and then the jab itself was over before I knew it. Then we had to wait 15 minutes on the premises before leaving and he was even more manic and prone to running-off as we went back to find Louise and he didn't want to sit quietly on the bus but at least I got him to stop screaming before anyone threw us off.

So that was complete palaver and I wasn't very surprised when he fell asleep fairly soon after we got home. He then was a bit subdued for the next day or so but no other observable reaction. We have to do it all again for the booster in 3 weeks or so (not yet booked).

I'm over my own bout of flu apart from the post-viral exhaustion. My normal weekday routine involves walking a mile to work, another 1.7 miles to collect Charles and at least another 1.8 miles back home again (longer if we run any errands on the way). All this week I've just about managed the walk into work but it's been exhausting rather than the usual pick-me-up. A bus cuts about half the walking out of picking up Charles and a different one brings us most of the way home but my days have basically consisted of "go to work, get Charles, get home, flop" and Tony has continued having to do almost all my share of the housework. It is very boring and I have spent the weekend resting as much as possible in hopes of getting more back to normal. We shall see tomorrow.

Last weekend we hosted a Finch gathering. Louise had arranged to visit us for a long weekend and all of Tony's sisters came to meet up with her, with their respective husband/boyfriends in tow. We had a late celebration of Charles's birthday and a current celebration of Sarah's new job after a few months out of work. Most of the work fell on Tony and Louise because I was still getting over the flu, but it all seemed to go fairly well. Charles was delighted in the attention from "all my aunties" and it was great to see everyone and catch up a bit.

As always, the sheer quantity of food a gathering of 10 adults can eat is a bit disconcerting when you are used to catering for two-and-a-bit. The booze consumption likewise - we went through something like 20 bottles of wine, 2 bottles of fizz-for-toasting and about 20 bottles of lager among 10 adults (one of whom, me, drank about 1 glass of wine total).

Possibly as a result, Sunday was rather subdued - the two couples who'd been in the B&B got their own fryup and Simon cooked for those of us in the house. Sarah and Paul left first and the rest of us took Charles to the playground for a while and then pottered down to the Carlton for a late Sunday lunch (we tried the Ranch but they were being unhelpful about food - at 2:30pm the Sunday menu had mostly run out but they wouldn't take orders for the main menu before 3pm). Then the Sheffield contingent had to go and I got an early night.

On Monday I went back to work for a half-day before joining Tony and Louise for a Chinese lunch and a bit of Christmas shopping. We took Charles for his flu jab (which was a palaver and a half, but that's another story) and by the time we got home after that we were all tired and in need of tea. Louise made fabulous carrot soup and we enjoyed a quiet evening together. The next morning Louise's taxi came shortly before I left for work and Charles waved her off a bit sadly.

Yesterday Charles was grumpy and wanted a nap instead of going to the playground when it was daylight, and wanted to go in the dark when he'd woken up. In the spirit of solving the actual problem (it's too dark to see what you're doing) rather than just saying "no, it's too dark", I found my climber's head-torch and adjusted it to fit him. It took us two goes to get to the playground because the rain was harder than I'd realised so we had to go back to put Charles's waterproofs on.

It was great fun walking over: Charles in his lovely new Kiba dungarees and hooded jacket and wellies, and head-torch over the hood, and me with my see-through umbrella and a shopping bag for afterward. Neither of us minded the rain and Charles kept up a running commentary all the way. He figured out the torch very quickly and it worked exactly as required on the climbing frame: the torch throwing a little bubble of light for him to see what he was doing, just like grownup climbers do.

The climbing frame has two slides - a plastic spiral (which Charles calls "the windy slide") and a straight metal one with a bump. Unfortunately, the combination of rain on the slide and slippy waterproofs meant he went much faster than usual and fairly flew out of the end of the slide onto the woodchip surface with a bit of a thump. Being Charles, he had to test if both slides did this. After I'd helped him clean up the second time he very seriously told me that he'd done enough sliding and we should go home now. We went via Iceland to restock on pizzas and he carried his very favourite cheese+tomato pizza all the way home himself, carefully not dropping it in any of the puddles he sploshed through.

The box was all soggy when we got home, but when I'd unwrapped Charles from his waterproofs and hung them to drip-dry in the utility room, the pizza inside wasn't affected. He ate more than half of it once cooked, which is practically a record. Tony ate the rest some hours later, when Charles was fast asleep.

I don't like the phrase "potty training" as it implies to me all sorts of systems and regimes and reward charts and so on, none of which we are doing. We're just teaching him stuff when he's interested and trying to remove barriers in the way of him feeling comfortable using what he knows.

Anyway, whatever it is we call it, here's how it's going.
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Charles has fairly recently got the idea of phone calls, just in time for all his relatives ringing to wish him happy birthday. "Hello auntie Lucy! Yes, we did and we saw a teeny tiny railway and I didn't want to get off and I cried." I am in awe listening to his side of the conversation sometimes. He likes to make pretend phone calls to people too which can be even more awesome.

He loves Thomas the tank engine and all things trains (both books and tv shows) and was very impressed with the children's area of the new central library because it has a big low bookcase in the form of a long train. He approves of going to the library and likes helping me use the self checkout/return facilities.

When he wants to he can be very lovely indeed. When he is feeling defiant or wants to push boundaries he can be infuriating. My temper control is being tested quite strongly.

We had his 3-year health check from the health visitor this week, for which he fell asleep 10 minutes before she arrived. I did all the answering questions part of it and then tried to wake him up so he could be weighed and measured and observed playing: instead he threw a massive tantrum and was only partially mollified by a feed and some Timmy Time - he sat clingily on my lap and refused to even look at the health visitor. She didn't seem to mind too much anyway.



His favourite hat is this one that j4 made for him ages ago and still going strong. (A much earlier photo is here for comparison.)

I enjoyed reading this article in the Irish Independent, featuring a home-educating mother I know. For values of 'know' that mean 'have met on the internet' :)

I still think we are going to send Charles to the local primary school in 2 years' time, but it's really interesting reading about alternatives, and bearing them in mind. My cousin was home-educated for some time too, I should probably talk to my aunt and uncle more about that.

Charles is 3 today. This is probably his first birthday that he has understood to be A Special Day For Charles.

On Saturday we had a family gathering at Belton House near Grantham, which I picked for being a plausible day trip by public transport for most of the outposts of the extended family. We had a bring+share picnic and spent rather more time in the adventure playground and rather less time in the lovely grounds than a non-child-party would have done. It was a Coleman party as various Finch relatives were unavailable, but we will catch up with his Finch relatives before too long.

Annoyingly I left Charles's rucksack of toys and books and present-from-granny on the bus on the way home. The bus company located it but want retrieval in person from their base in Lincoln. I have appealed to a nearby aunt to see if she can get it; if not Jonny gets to have an Exciting Day Out at my expense.

Today we opened cards that had arrived, and a special present from me and Tony to Charles (a toy Ninky Nonk), and made a fuss of him. And he knows that his childminder has bought a special present from him that he chose, and today is the day he can bring it home.

Back in the first week of September, we were visited by Eelco and Freyk. I had booked the day off to take Charles for an appointment, so met them in town around lunchtime. We had a nice wander around touristy Cambridge, tried out the new milkshake bar near Lion Yard (omg, I had ferret-shock at the number of choices), and then took a wander around the Fitzwilliam Museum, punctuated by late lunch in its Courtyard Cafe.

We found a Roman multitool in a basement, with its modern-made replica displayed alongside. That was so cool. I found a postcard of it in the gift shoppe, along with a whole load of pretty notecards to go in my writing box. I only just resisted buying a cuddly Darwin, though it was a close-run thing.

We then headed back along King's Parade, admired the Corpus clock and had a coffee before picking up Charles from his childminder. That was the first day we had tried using his bike and he did very well getting up to the Castle, and (later on) from there to home again. We had a good meal and gossip in the Castle pub, joined by Tony and a few others, and finished up the evening dozing over whisky at home. I had to head out to work the next day before they woke up and biked off, but it was a really lovely day, a little island in the middle of the daily grind.

...

The appointment for Charles was with the cardiologist at Addenbrooke's. We arrived only-just-in-time and then had a long wait because the child before him on the list was in for ages and ages. I just hope it wasn't something too awful. While we were waiting, Charles had his first ever blood pressure test and was unimpressed by it: the nurse said "this is going to give your arm a hug" and he told it to stop hugging him. He was quite fascinated by the oxygen saturation monitor on his finger though.

When we were finally seen, he got checked over by the consultant and two medical students, one of whom tried to patronise him and got a Hard Stare. The result is that although he still has an audible heart murmur, he doesn't need any more regular monitoring and is now discharged. We're to be referred back in 5 years. I got the official letter today, which made me very happy:

"Charles should be regarded as having a normal heart ... Under the new recommendations from NICE he does not require antibiotic prophylaxis for dental or surgical procedures."

So I have a note in my 43 folders to chase up a referral in 5 years time, but for now I can completely forget about the murmur. There are a whole list of complications he doesn't have in this letter. It is fabulous.

About a month ago, Charles had a sudden leap in his attention span and we were able to bring out a whole pile of books previously stashed away as "too long". As children do, he wants the same few over and over for a while before trying something new. I think Tony and I can now recite the whole of The Gruffalo, but not quite as correctly as Charles.

At Louise's in August we discovered he would sit still for the whole of an original Railway Stories (Thomas) book. I did some hunting around once we got back and eventually managed to get a second-hand box set of all the original books for a bearable price. We are now slowly working our way through them and admiring the faithfulness of the tv adaptations narrated by Ringo Starr.

Charles has also started "reading" his favourite books to himself, turning the pages and reciting the appropriate bits at each stage. It is terribly cute.

Yesterday we had a nice wander around Bristol city centre in mild drizzle, looking at things, letting Charles chase birds, being amused by Charles watching some Parkour perpetrators and trying to emulate them on a much smaller scale.

This morning while I stumped around a race track, Tony took Charles to "Explore @Bristol", what used to be the Exploratorium when Tony and I were young (er). Apparently it was fabulous and Tony "had nearly as much fun as Charles". I think some visits to the South Kensington museums are making their way onto my to-do list ...

We bought Charles a balance bike at the end of July: a small bike without pedals or stabilisers, designed to teach small children about the balance that goes with bike riding. Within a month he has got quite proficient at propelling himself along on it, and can now go fast enough that I now insist he wears his helmet. This week we experimented with taking him to his childminder on his bike rather than his buggy and so far it seems successful: when he's fast we have to run to keep up, and even when he's slow, it's usually for less time and less irritating than when he was entirely on foot. The downside is we can't load everything on the buggy, but the upside is faster journeys, less distraction, more exercise for Charles and less temptation for me to catch the bus home (so more exercise for me).

10 days in France, staying with Tony's mother Louise, accompanied by:
my mother Ruth & stepfather Mick
my youngest brother Matt
my stepbrother Daniel and his daughter Sophie (for 7 of the 10 days)
my stepsister Rebecca (for 7 of the 10 days)

Jonny was supposed to come too but backed out at the last minute in hopes of a job interview.

Me, Tony, Charles & Sophie stayed in the house, everyone else was housed in two of Louise's gites. james_r stopped by for the last couple of days but had to camp on a spare bit of lawn (camping is not usually offered by Louise, but we'd run out of beds).

The weather was warm through to dangerously hot and back to warm again: we swam almost every day and ate outside together every evening. Charles and his step-cousin were adorable together, and Charles learned to cope with two excitable young dogs very well indeed (from abject terror on the first evening, to chasing them around by the time we left).

We got back yesterday evening and today we had a new lodger arrive (another Microsoft intern) and the gasman cameth to do the annual safety check (everything passed, but the oven is wearing out, as well as the boiler).

I am not as rested by the holiday as I'd hoped for: large-group holidays are a bit too stressful for me I think. Luckily I have the long weekend so I can potter around at home and be an antisocial hermit before going back to work next week.

Yesterday Charles spontaneously went to sleep in the evening without being cuddled or fed, which is a very rare thing. This coincided with me being about halfway through the NCT book on sleep I picked up on holiday in June, from which I'd already decided I wanted to do more to get him falling asleep by himself, so I thought it was time to seize the opportunity to establish a new habit.

( Notes for future reference )

Charles is beginning to roleplay a lot: the teddy is chilly, or needs a nappy or a cuddle, or is going to bed. Or the lorry is tired, etc.

Yesterday the underbed box-on-wheels got brought out from Charles's bed and taken into my and Tony's room. "It's looking for its daddy. It's very sad, because it wants its daddy. It's crying, poor trolley." I can take a hint so I rang Tony up to ask how much later he was going to be.

Today Charles methodically threw all his colouring pencils on the floor and asked for tv. I said "let's tidy up the pencils first" and got told no, I had to do it, no it wasn't Charles's mess it was mummy's mess, mummy threw it on the floor, mummy had to tidy it up or go to bed. After I stopped laughing, I managed to make it a game doing it together, with Charles happily putting the last few back in the box while I fired up the electronics.

I couldn't resist taking this photo this morning and making a rare effort to get it online quickly:



He's wearing the shirt he chose himself in Boots about a month ago, a pair of velvet trousers my aunt Alison gave us when we went to Borth in April (they were a bit too long then, but he's been sneaking on a few cm in the last month or so), and a pair of stripy socks that Tony chose, but he loves. We had a bit of negotiation over the socks, as the first pair I picked up were apparently "too big" and the next pair wasn't blue enough. Normally Tony dresses him, so today was a bit of a treat for me. I enjoyed his definite opinions, just as I've enjoyed letting him choose an occasional new item of clothing recently. (His taste is similar to mine, which probably helps.)

Sartorial negotiations over, he ran off to sit on the sofa and play with his toy cars. Actually the one in his right hand belongs to J, but she is fairly relaxed at letting toys come for overnight visits. Charles was keen that the cars were photographed too.

No dizziness at all today, and not much tiredness either. I tidied the kitchen, wiped and reinstalled my old PC, took out the INCREDIBLY NOISY and probably faulty giant cooling fan, caught up on my Google Reader backlog, fixed the Electrisave and reinstated the receiver in the living room where we can see it, listed the PC on Freecycle and then got dressed to go for a pub lunch and drop in at a 40th wedding anniversary party.

Tony and I will be around 70 when we reach our 40th wedding anniversary. I hope we are still as happy together as this couple seem to be.

Charles got cross when I wouldn't let him play with bits of the computer: "Mummy, you have to share, you know the rule". He was reconciled a bit by helping me with the screwdriver putting the case back on.

My PC offer is bringing all the freecycling Ubuntu fans out of the woodwork. I realise I never did measure how much power its replacement uses, so should go do that shortly and work out how long it will take to pay for itself in electricity savings. I should also measure charging up the netbook. The electrisave says the house is currently using 250-350W - I tested it earlier by switching on the kettle and watching it zoom up to nearly 3kW.

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In other news, I am less dizzy but still really easily tired. It turns out I have just the right level of concentration to not be bored by systematic tidying jobs, like bagging up everything I could find in the junk room to return to Keith, and sorting out Charles's latest crop of outgrown/outworn clothes. Tony worries he doesn't have enough clothes now; I think we'll be fine once the current laundry is dry and put away. There's also the "too big" clothes to check through too. And as a last resort, I will go shopping. Interesting to note when I was sorting through clothes - the vast majority of clothes I consider "keepers" are from Boots, and they're having a bit of a promotion on at the moment. Also the Woolworths children's clothing brand has been revived, on the web at least.

We aren't potty training, in that I've not read up on any method of doing so and we're not putting much effort into it. What we have been doing is taking his nappy off at home a lot, especially evenings and weekends.

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Because these are the easiest to write ...

His language and sentence structure are growing all the time, and as ever amusing us in the ways he reflects back at us the way we talk to him. On holiday I got into fits of giggles overhearing him tell his lorry off "Now lorry I TOLD you not to do that. No no no no." He has suddenly learned how to say C and G but is still learning to use them consistently, which means a wider range of people can understand him talking about e.g. cars or giggles. He mixes up some consonants: consistently we have "efelant" and "Oviler" (for Oliver, one of his engines).

He knows we are Rachel and Tony, as well as Mummy and Daddy. He's experimenting with Mum or Dad. If he wants me and I'm in another room he'll call "Mummy! Mummy! Rachel!" He tried shouting "Rachey" at me, and I told him firmly that wasn't my name. So now he only does it to annoy.

He's getting better at not-running-off in shops and he remains consistently reliable at not running into busy roads, so I am more relaxed when out and about these days.

He loves being helpful: getting things off shelves, putting things away, passing them over, etc. He's been helpful unloading the dishwasher for some time (especially handing things up off the lower tray) - now once we've emptied the lower tray I generally give him the cutlery to put away, which he does very nicely while I clear the top tray. He can reliably load all the milk bottles from the crate into the fridge (subject to there being space he can reach to load into!), and also put the empty milk bottles from the kitchen back into the crate. It's been months since he dropped a bottle and he can open the fridge by himself, so I generally let him get on with it unsupervised.

He's got quite an obsession with Timmy Time at the moment, and will watch it to the exclusion of everything else. He likes to explain the plot to me "Timmy is sad because he can't find the jigsaw. He need to go look in the teapot." When we visited Tony's sisters in Sheffield last weekend we experimentally watched Monsters, Inc. with him, and he was engaged most of the way through. So I think we may start working on "sharing our favourite children's films with Charles" - I think we may be getting a dvd rental subscription for this, and only ever watching things with him, in case he finds them scary. I was pleased he didn't seem to find much of Monsters, Inc. scary.

We're still cosleeping at least some of each night - Charles usually wants a cuddle to sleep but can be left after that. Some evenings he even rolls over and goes to sleep by himself (!) It used to be he would wake in the night and sob inconsolably until I went and cuddled/fed him. Now when he gets hungry/lonely in the night he comes in and finds us in our bed. I prefer this, because it's less bedhopping for me, and because often it's quite close to when I need to start waking up anyway. It's not entirely consistent - I still sometimes spend the entire night in his bed - but I feel he is becoming more happy to sleep by himself, without us having to force the issue.

He loves counting and can get up to about 30 fairly reliably. I've found "ok, let's count to ten and then do $next_thing" quite useful for persuading him to change activity without being upset. It also works for encouraging sharing (thanks to the denizens of plan_survive for that idea!). For longer activies e.g. swimming, talking about time really seems to help him get used to changes and reduce tantrums when we have to leave. I'll show him the time on my watch or a clock and talk about what time it is now and what time it will be when we go e.g. "big hand is at 2 which is ten past, when it is at 4 which is twenty past, we will go home, that's in 10 minutes" and repeat again at quarter past. And I've also introduced him to the timer for waiting for hot food to cool down enough for him to eat, and he's quite fascinated by watching the numbers count down.

Last week, the day after disappearing in WHSmiths, he ran off in Staples while I was hunting something to keep my diary, notebook and other 'bits' in. As Staples doesn't have stealth lifts, I found him very quickly and explained calmly that if he ran off it was upsetting. After that he stuck fairly close, but while I was queueing for the checkout, he decided to play with the automatic exit doors, which were nearby and visible. I was on edge to sprint if he decided to go anywhere near the road, but he was actually quite sensible. Even when he (inevitably) locked himself out, he waited patiently watching me until someone exited which let him back in.

The next day we were back in Smiths so I could return something I'd bought under the influence of lost-child stress and realised almost as soon as I got home wasn't what I needed. This time he headed for the escalator while I was occupied at the checkout, and I caught him just in time.

This was very shortly after he'd locked himself in the underground garage beneath the flats where his childminder lives, and we'd only been able to rescue him because the bars intended to keep adults out are just wide enough apart to squeeze a toddler through. While J and I were talking, he'd spotted someone exiting without shutting the gate properly, and zoomed off to take advantage. Of course he shut the gate properly behind himself just before I got there, and J doesn't have a car so doesn't have a key to the garage. Actually, I was nearly sure that a) someone else with a car would have been along shortly on a Friday evening, and b) he is sensible enough to stay out of the way of cars, so that barely registered as panic really.

He has been helping me feed some friends' cats while they were on holiday, and particularly making friends with the kitten, which was all very cute.

As summer seems to be settling in, I took him shopping for sandals on Wednesday. For the first time in ages he submitted to his feet being measured without a fuss. I picked out a selection of appropriately-sized sensible sandals, and he not only had a firm opinion on which pair he wanted, he knew the brand name, which I barely knew. It turns out that at least one of his friends at J's has these brand sandals, so that's kind of an explanation. But it surprised me greatly at the time. Luckily his choice fitted well so we didn't have to argue about them. He insisted on wearing them home.

Last Friday Tony & I had a hot date to see Star Trek at the cinema (summary: made of squee, must see again one day, possibly after rewatching my favourites of the older films)

The previous day, Charles was a bit too lethargic with a cough for me to be happy about swimming, so instead I indulged his love of buses by riding a double-decker to the end of the line and back to near-home again. We then toddled home to check the post, and were encouraged out again to the pub by James.

We spent the long Bank Holiday weekend visiting my mother, stepfather & youngest brother, and were joined by my step-niece S, about a year older than Charles. S & Charles played together delightfully, and we managed to get in a memorable trip to the local swimming pool.

This week I've booked the train tickets for our big holiday in August, and am excitedly looking forward to it, and there's a week's holiday to look forward to at the end of this month.

I changed mobile phone networks, so now I can pick up messages and phone calls at my office desk rather than having to walk across the carpark to get enough reception. The number remains the same. The handset was getting very flaky, so I got a refurbished newer one, which is roughly the same length and width, but about a third the depth. I love it and have already customised the wallpaper with a cute picture of Charles.

Yesterday I temporarily lost Charles in a shop. He had rounded a corner and disappeared by the time I followed him. I ran up and down the floor looking for him, out onto the (crowded) street, back in and up the stairs. I asked a random staff member if they'd seen a small boy, who said "er yeah, just up here, oh where's he gone?" and passed me on to a colleague. I fought tears to answer questions like "what's he wearing" and tried not to panic at the thought of the big wide open doors and the road outside.

A few minutes later, the original staff member herded a cheery boy towards me who said "Hello Mummy! I was in the lift!" I cuddled him and had a bit of a cry, and then we finished our shopping. Some extra comfort food made it into the basket on the way out. It took me a long time to stop shaking, while Charles was quite happy with his little adventure.

I think we will start having some more conversations about the importance of not running off, and maybe some gentle experiments in "I'll meet you here". I was too upset at the time to do more than say "I lost you" a bit incoherently into his hair.

I should write a little thank you note to the shop. I wish I'd noted the names of the people now, I can't even remember their faces.

Yesterday: beer festival. Drank good beer, supervised Charles for hours in the "Family Room" play area, chatted to assorted lovely people who helpfully either sat with me or camped conveniently nearby the play area, rebuilt plastic children's climbing frame, ate lovely cheese, got home too tired to think straight.

Notable cheese: Wobbly Bottom, a fairly sharp hard white sheep's cheese.

Climbing frame: it was a plastic thing consisting of sides that slotted together, along with a slide and a platform in the middle. It was clearly put together wrong: gaps too small for toddlers to get through, the slide didn't fit properly, etc. I tried to take it apart so I could assemble it correctly, but it was a bit too stuck for me to manage on my own. A man came along, offered his help, didn't listen to me and decided I was wrong so undid our limited progress and wandered off again. An hour later, another mother commented that it didn't seem right, and this time the two of us had it disassembled and correctly reassembled within 10 minutes.


Last Thursday I took Charles swimming for the first time since DWCon last August, and it went remarkably well. He seems to have retained a lot of his confidence from baby-swimming lessons, even though we stopped taking him nearly a year ago. I'm taking him to Chesterton Sports Centre, which is on a plausible route home from the childminder, and has a convenient Thursday evening general swim session. We met an old friend of mine there too (a fellow New Hall alumna), and it turns out to be her regular swim night. Charles was furious at getting-out time and let the entire world know so, for an extended period of time. (Several days later he was still talking about "I don't want get out pool".)

Just off the direct route from pool to home is the pub, so we dropped in for some potato-based refuelling. I was planning to go on home, but then got into conversation, and Charles was reasonably well-behaved and eventually fell asleep without major tantrums. So I ended up having the rare pleasure of staying till chucking-out time.

Today I suggested swimming again, which got Charles's enthusiastic approval. We saw my friend again, Charles was even more confident, and time whizzed by. This time I put more effort into preparing for getting-out time, talking about the time on the clock and giving warnings at 10 minutes, 5 minutes and 1 minute. It seemed to work, and we got changed much more quietly and happily than last week. We were both tired so I thought home was the best destination, despite the competing lures of beer festival or quieter-than-usual pub. Charles was asleep early by his standards.

I am very-tentatively hoping to make weekly swimming a habit. We shall see.

Me: "Tony, you know the prawn sandwiches Charles didn't eat? I forgot to put them away last night, and I guess so did everyone else because this morning there are a lot of bits of bread all over the table, and a very smug-looking cat."

Tony: *laughs*

Charles: "Oh dear, naughty cat ate all prawns" *giggles*

--

Me: double-takes 5 minutes later at Charles's language comprehension

Reported by J:
Charles: "I cross with Daddy at home today"
J: "Oh dear, why was that?"
Charles: "He has to learn to be more patient!"

---

"You're not Daddy! You're not Granny Lou! You're Mummy!"
(and other variations on the theme of who I am not ...)

---

At swimming pool, cross about getting out.

Me: "We'll come back next week"
Charles: "We GO HOME next week. I want to go in pool."

---

Several days later, he is still commenting on the swimming pool and going home next week, and also that he wants another caterpillar (after seeing me give away his old caterpillar).

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My will power utterly failed and I mooched 5 books to fill the gaps in my Michael Connelly collection. I wish I could say this was before I loaded down the orphanage lady with all my tat. I also had fun stalking spotting friends and friends-of-friends on the BookMooch site using the find-person-by-location tool.

It's a nice summery morning and I've opened up both the patio doors into the garden. The old patio door was sliding, and you could only have half the window space open, and that off to one side of the room. The new doors open outward, making much wider open area, and it's central within the room. Having both doors open makes the living room feel like an extension of the garden, or vice versa.

I've put Charles's ball tent outside. He's got freedom to run in and out and I can supervise from the sofa.

Even if it's only for warm days in summer months, I love this. It's one of the little "lifestyle improvements" of the new doors and windows, above and beyond them simply being double-glazed.

"I have a lovely face," reported by J on Tuesday. I blame Granny.

"That's a horrid car," pointing out an SUV, on several occasions. I blame fanf for this one.

"We're on the number 5 bus," from inside the bus, no number visible from the inside, and me not having mentioned the route number (though I did a few weeks ago). Hypothesis: he read it on the outside 10 minutes earlier as we caught the bus, and remembered.

He can open the child locks on most of the cupboards now.

He often prefers to pull his buggy from the front, than ride in it or push it from behind. This is frequently accompanied by shouts of "No Mummy, don't push! NO PUSHING."

And longer post.
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Yesterday's walk home was less fun. I was cross/tired from work and staying up too late on Thursday night, Charles was cross from nappy and I inadvisedly let him have chocolate so he was manic too. End result: a lot of screaming on the way home. At least this time we had enough nappies he wasn't naked too, and then he spend the entire evening being clingy.

At one point I walked out of the living room saying to Tony "I'm about to lose my temper". Luckily Charles didn't follow me for a few minutes.

Today is better: more sleep, more sensible food, more perspective. Also no work.

This week has been a trial for Charles - the Easter holiday was great fun and he hasn't adjusted back to the "normal" routine of parents working and going to J. He's been giving me the full-on guilt-trip experience each morning: howls, sobs, demands "NO MUMMY WORK 'DAY" and I depart with a trail of distraught wails following me down the driveway. The most ingenious was I think Thursday when he brought me my sling and said "Charles go work on Mummy's back!" Tony assures me he calms down soon enough, and he's clearly happy playing with J and the other children when I arrive to collect him. But it is all rather wearing.

Today Charles was very happy when I said there was no work today. He rewarded me by tangling up my knitting yarn so that it took me an hour to detangle. Luckily for our continued harmony today, he didn't pull the current project off the needles.

First I was late picking up Charles due to work (J was lovely about it when I rang and asked for an extension).

Then Charles was particularly distracted walking home, and then cross/naughty in the very characteristic way he is when he needs a nappy change. So I changed him at Quayside ... only to discover there were no clean nappies in the nappy bag.

And his trousers fall down without a nappy on.
And he had already taken his tshirt off and refused to put it back on.

So I walked the rest of the way home with a toddler naked apart from sensible shoes, who spent the bulk of the time running shortly ahead of me and climbing steps wherever possible. I was the recipient of a great many grins of mild embarrassment, all of which I returned with interest.

The nice bit was that hilarityallen randomly ran into us, and I was able to catch up a bit with her in between toddler-herding.

Yesterday I had the very great pleasure of attending a celebration at the home of 1ngi & sion_a. Tony was sadly unable to join us, but Charles and I got there just in time for me to witness the renewal of vows in the garden and the planting of a rosebush, all in the gentlest of soft rain. The couple were beautiful and beautifully dressed, the readers were clear and the readings heartfelt. It was a very moving little ceremony and I felt privileged to attend, and missed Tony very much.

The party then moved indoors and drinks and nibbles were consumed as well as an Easter egg hunt. There were small chocolate eggs everywhere. Ingi very kindly asked people to "leave a few" for Charles, who was just waking up as we went indoors, and he took full advantage of this once he'd figured out the idea of the egg hunt. He also tinkled on the piano for quite some time, which I allowed so long he treated it gently. I had some lovely conversations with people I don't see enough of, although all too often I was interrupted away from them by small boy, but overall it was a very pleasant afternoon and I'm very glad I went.

Charles's play with his toys yesterday and today has been full of chatter about pianos and chocolate eggs, so I think he had a great afternoon too.

Charles has spent the week slowly getting over the weekend's tummy bug - off his food, horrid nappies, very subdued. Today he was almost back to normal. (Yesterday, he locked me out of the house when I put the recycling out, and Tony was in the shower. Oh how I laughed - when I'd got him to let me back in again.)

I've been off my food for the last few days, but not quite ill enough to stay off work; Tony started getting ill a day or so after me. I'm getting better now, so I hope Tony will be tomorrow.

This evening I took Charles out for a long walk (by toddler standards) over to Cat's house. After a short stay there we went to Ben's house for his pre-birthday Thursday pizza+film gathering. (I carried Charles most of the way for that part). At Ben's, I managed eventually to divert most of the manic toddler energy into going up and down the stairs, and eventually he collapsed into sleep over some pizza after determinedly trying to make friends with rjd4.

I am now away from work for 11 days, and next week we are heading to the British seaside for a few days. It will presumably rain, but I expect we will have fun anyway. Jonny has found some beach toys for us to pack.

It has been a week of goodbyes. One of my colleagues finished today to go back home to Madrid. I'm going to miss her, both as a lovely person to spend time with, and as an excellent reliable software developer. On Tuesday Charles's best friend H had his last session with their childminder J. I swapped phone numbers with his father, who should also have our address and other contact details somewhere. They live a few streets away so I will try to arrange regular playdates to keep them in touch. Charles talks about H almost every day.

He can walk half a mile, if he wants to. He can probably walk further than that; I am not sure if the limit is his legs or my patience with toddler meanderings and distraction. He actually prefers to run, and best of all to run holding hands with an adult who is also running. Even if said adult can keep up by walking fast, running is better. He is getting pretty good at staying on the pavement without intervention.

He has discovered standing on the front of the buggy rather than riding in it, and thinks this is tremendous fun, although likes the person pushing to stop and start on demand repeatedly.

His English vocabulary continues to develop in new and surprising ways, using more and more complex words and sentences, and echoing anything interesting he hears. His adult carers (me, Tony, J, Jonny) generally have amusing things to tell each other each day. This morning, as I bagged up some broken computer bits to be freecycled to a local artist, he complained to me "That's my keyboard, Mummy".

He is still a bit confused about the difference between "me" and "you", "mine" and "yours" but is now right more often than not. He can count to ten, read numbers 1-12, and is beginning to talk about people being big or small, low or high. He is starting to "read" his favourite books to himself, quoting the pages from memory as he turns the pages, and occasionally asking an adult to join in.

He has just had a new haircut with no trauma at all. The secret ingredient is watching Jonny's hair being cut first (by Jonny, and then tidied up by me).

He can change volume and replay recordings on the PVR using the remote control.

He eats a wide variety of foods in fairly large portions, but is getting fussier about what goes together. Generally he prefers to eat one food at a time (e.g. cucumber and then cheese, not together). He is also still breastfeeding at least 3 times a day, more at weekends.

He knows how to use a potty and the toilet (with appropriate seat), but doesn't want to, asking for a nappy every time instead. He can put on his own pants and shoes, but likes to have help with other clothes.

He still can't say G properly, so a favourite snack is now known as Dalek bread.

Yesterday the gasman cameth, and fixed our boiler for now.

Also yesterday the glaziers came, and replaced 5 windows. I think it will take them until Thursday to finish doing all the windows and the three doors. I spent some happy time playing with the new windows and admiring all the features, and most of all admiring that we had BIG WHOLE PANES rather than mock-Georgian little panes. It makes a surprising difference to the light in the room, not having those wooden dividers, and much nicer view outside too.

This week we have a new lodger arriving and the current one leaving, and assorted shopping arriving, including a groundspike for the rotary airer that ghoti and cjwatson gave us ages ago, so I will finally get that into use, so we can dry clothes without taking over the whole garden.

(Also expected this week: catfood, nappy soak because John Lewis stopped stocking it the week after I found they stocked it, washable potty-training pants, and some frivolous books.)

Dusting and putting the furniture back in our room after the window was fitted meant I did a nice declutter of old paper off my bedside shelves, and vacuumed the dust off the rolling boxes and suitcases stored under the bed.

I unearthed my old stereo which had such a thick layer of dust I vacuumed it too. I decided to try installing it in Charles's room: it was my pride and joy at age 18, but I haven't listened to it since Charles was born. He has figured out the on-off button and I have it tuned to Radio 2 for now. He danced to the music. Later I will teach him about playing CDs and supply him with ones I don't mind being broken.

Charles wouldn't let the dentist look in his mouth, which limited what they could do. He was in less pain, so we were told to keep an eye on it, avoid sweets, especially chocolate, and sweet drinks and basically don't go back unless he seems to have a lot of pain.

He opened his mouth a bit for me so I could see the chipped tooth, which is more than he would do for the dentist. The majority of the tooth is still there, so it will probably last ok until it gets replaced. I talked to our dentist before about when we should start bringing Charles for regular appointments and they said they prefer to wait until about 3.5, when apparently it starts being easier to explain to small children what is happening and get more cooperation from them.



This morning Charles said "Oh look. Jonny ha' socks on and Mummy ha' toes on."

Charles is not only old enough to stop pulling on my earrings, he has figured out how to very gently take them out and put them back in. At least the ones on hooks. Unfortunately he got a bit overconfident and started stabbing me in the ear with a hook, but I persuaded him to be more careful again.

I got congratulated on my "lovely charming boy" by a random lady on the bus a few days ago. He was being very chatty about buses and whether they were big or small (double- or single-decker) and were they going the right way and were we getting on them.

He was eating some Quavers (yes, I was EVILLY feeding him FAST FOOD) and said "Oh look Mummy, NUMBER TWO!" and waved a vaguely 2-shaped quaver in my face.

He likes to dismiss our demands that he come and have a nappy change or get dressed with "No, I bissy."

This morning he broke a tooth. Tony is taking him to the dentist later and I am trying not to worry too much about him being in pain and me not being there.

Charles: Have Mummy drink?
Rachel: No, it's my drink.
Charles: Have some Mummy drink?
[answer varies depending on what I'm drinking]


Charles: Plaster, plaster [reaching towards plasters out of reach, for good reason]
Rachel: No darling, you can't have the plasters
Charles: Have one plaster?
Rachel: Oh alright then, just one.
Charles: Jus' one. Dat good idea.
[5 minutes of messily disassembling plaster and packaging ensues]

The weather is all nice and springlike and Charles hasn't been sick for >24 hours. However I have acquired a cold instead and Charles has a mild version of it. Tony is doing all the cooking, as usual.

Charles had a good play in the garden earlier - after making sure the gate was shut and nothing really dangerous was within reach, I retreated to the sofa with the patio door open and let him get on with it. Later on, after some silly play convinced me he liked the idea of being in a "cave" of my duvet, I spent some time trying to construct him a fort out of blankets and chairs, none of which he liked. So I found the garden playtents we bought last year and have put one up in the living room. "Ooh, little house Charles" he said, and he was then very busy going in and out, putting toys in and out, and ordering me in and out of it.

On Friday I noticed I had to take my jumper off to not overheat walking down to get Charles. I was warm in tshirt and jeans. In the summer I'm going to boil. Or walk slower. Or wear less.

Charles: "Charles have willy. Daddy have willy. No Mummy have willy."
Rachel: "That's right, I don't have a willy."
Charles: "Go shop, buy Mummy willy?"
Rachel collapses into giggles.

Charles decides this is clearly a great joke and repeats "buy Mummy willy!" repeatedly, giggling and watching Rachel for signs that it is still hilarious.
Rachel tries to stop laughing, attempts to explain that you can't buy a willy from a shop and it's just one of the ways mummies and daddies are different.
Charles continues to think it is a great joke.
Rachel postpones the biology lesson.

Today Charles and I were walking along when we spotted a dog+owner coming towards us so he catapulted into my arms, and I cuddled him and made soothing noises. As the owner came in talking distance, I said "don't worry, he's just nervous about dogs, we'll be fine once you've gone by". So far, so usual.

Oh, but her dog is lovely, perhaps he should get down and meet it, it'll be good for him, and what's got him so scared anyway.

I do not know how I managed to keep my temper while she stood and chatted to me, my child rigid with fear in my arms and the bloody little dog at our feet, but I stayed polite and kept repeating that we would be fine as soon as she'd gone, and I managed not to say So Just Fuck Off And Leave Us Alone even once.

And actually Charles was fine once he saw the "doggie go 'way".

I guess she had a combination of taking Charles's reaction as personal criticism of her dog, and a belief that forcing children to face scary things will be productive in learning to handle their fear. I'm more of a tree-hugging hippy here, and want to reassure and comfort and build confidence, and let Charles set the pace on how much contact he has with random dogs, no matter how nice.

Charles has taken to shouting "DOP IT MUMMY!" (or DADDY) when we are doing something he doesn't want. He uses my exact intonation. Ooops. Also he shouts "SAY NO MUMMY" which I think is his version of "I said No, Charles".

Also last night we had a moment where he tried to run into the road in front of a car. I scooped him up and said firmly "Absolutely not, Charles. You must not go in the road, it's very dangerous." So for the next five minutes (and when reminded later) he shouted "ABS LUTELY NOT CHARLES GO IN ROAD!"

He also shouts "CHARLES SHOUT" which generally cracks me up.

I'm all excited. We've just booked a short break at Easter to coincide with our childminder's holiday. We're going to stay in Borth, a tiny seaside town on the railway line between Machynlleth and Aberystwyth with a really long and lovely beach. I spent lots of childhood holidays visiting my aunt Alison who lives in the area, and it's all really familiar to me and one of my favourite places in the UK if not the world.

We're going by train and will do what getting around we do on train and foot. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up with Ali while we're there, but more importantly we'll have some time together as a family. And Charles will finally see the sea (norovirus put paid to our planned seaside holiday last summer).

Yesterday Charles glanced at my laptop screen. "Man Obama!" he commented - it was indeed a picture of President Obama[1]. I boggled: yes, a couple of weeks ago I watched inauguration coverage while supervising him, and said "oh look, that man is called Barack Obama, he's very important" as you do. But I wasn't expecting him to remember.

[1] It's not just me who gets a happy glow from being able to say this, right?

This morning he opened up one of his favourite books, Thomas and the Fogman, and started reciting some of the text on the relevant page, presumably from memory of the hundreds of times we've read it to him. I know that children do this, but I wasn't expecting it yet.

He quite enjoys playing a letter recognition game on the laptop (KLettres: a letter is displayed and read out, and you are supposed to type it) for a few minutes at least. Then he gets excited about the penguin in the background so we go and youtube for penguins instead.

His language skills are just zooming along every day. Almost everything we say is echoed back, and even strangers understand some of what he says.

Finally, and most funny, Jonny records Charles's ability to extrapolate.

Since Charles was born, we've almost never got him to sleep "on his own": he's always been nursing, or being rocked/walked around, or being pushed in the buggy, or moving in a vehicle (car, bus or train). At antenatal classes they told us to try to teach the babies to fall asleep on their own from very early, but we just couldn't seem to get it to work - if we tried putting him down, he cried and cried.

J usually gets him to nap ok by putting him in his buggy and telling him it's naptime. She knows not to leave him to cry, but apparently he usually just goes off easily. It probably helps that J tries to get all three children to do their naps together if possible, so he's not doing it all alone. However, we've never been able to reproduce the effect at home.

Until this week. I've twice now put him to bed half-asleep, kissed him goodnight and left him, and he's gone off to sleep rather than come down after me 2 minutes later. I've also once brought him home in the buggy, observed he looked sleepy, and suggested he nap quietly in the study in his buggy, left him there unprotesting and checked 5 minutes later to see him deeply asleep.

I really hope this keeps up. It feels like we've made some kind of breakthrough, that Charles is feeling safe and confident about going to sleep alone.

Charles is reading numbers! Not always entirely correctly, but omg! he is reading! numbers!

E.g. coming home he will look at the front door and say "Number one and number six" with great satisfaction. Today he looked at the apron in the kitchen which has lots of numbers on and started reading them out.

I think we have Tikkabilla to thank. And jdc39.

About 2 months ago I posted about Charles perpetually picking a scab off his nose and solicited suggestions. I thought I should probably follow up with how we solved it, now that it seems to be nearly healed.
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Cross-posted as before to rmc28 and plan_survive

Charles says "Dear Zoo. Read 'Dear Zoo'. With emelant."