Letter to JJ

A Letter to JJ (2 years, 5 months)

Danya Banya November 3, 2012 20

Dear Princess JJ,

It’s been a trying month.

You adore your little sister. You hold her hand or stroke her face and say “She’s so little!” If she is crying, you sing the “a, e, i, o, u” song (that Daddy made up) or reassure her by saying “It’s OK Baby Bee, it’s OK.”

But the novelty of having to share your Mummy is certainly wearing off. You’ve started saying things like “Mummy, I want you. I want YOU.” Sometimes you ask me to put Bee in the cot, or give her to Daddy. (If only he could grow some boobs!) Sometimes you’ll pretend to fall over and call out “I’ve tripped and I can’t get up.” Classic attention seeking behaviour. Or if I’ve gone on ahead with Bee in the pram, with you and Daddy straggling behind, you’ll now call out “Don’t leave me Mummy” or “Mummy, wait for me”. You had no concept of being left behind before…

When Bee first came home, we tried easing back on discipline, thinking that we should cut you some slack. We let you get away with more things. But that didn’t work at all. You started to tantrum all the time. Clearly you need your strict boundaries. So we began strictly enforcing the rules again. Indeed, we’ve needed to come up with a whole host of new rules this month, as you’re testing out every possible chink in our armour.

We’ve had to be a lot more physical with you – something that is disconcerting for us. If we want to leave the park for example, I first give you something to eat. Then I give you 5 minutes notice, counting down as the minutes pass. Then when the time is right, I’ll say “OK, time to go now. We’re going to do XYZ now. Say goodbye to your friends / the park”. You then run off at full speed around the park hiding from me. Particularly if I have Baby Bee in my arms, and more so if she is crying, you know I’m vulnerable. You hid under things that you know will be hard for me to follow. Then you’ll start playing with whatever you can get your hands on, a leaf maybe, in a desperate attempt to pretend that we’re not leaving. I have to pick you up, screaming and kicking, and physically remove you from the park. Sometimes a few seconds in the naughty corner is called for, which makes your crying even worse. Then we cuddle. We talk about how you are sad and frustrated because you were having fun and didn’t want to leave. About how running off is naughty. About how we don’t kick and hit no matter what.

You’re very possessive of your tears. You like them on your face, and get very upset if we wipe or kiss them off. You’ll fake cry to get new ones to replace them.

Daddy and Grandma have also been taking you out to fun places in the mornings where you can run off some steam. This is really the first time in your life that you’ve been spending so much time regularly away from Mummy. It’s great to see you being happy to go off on your “own”. But I’m sure this change is both helping and hindering your recent behaviour.

To compensate, we’ve introduced Mummy Time. When I first wake up, we spend about half an hour cuddling, with my dressing gown wrapped around us both, nice and warm. And at other times we just sit and cuddle. Or play. Or read. Or craft. We sing and chat and talk a lot about how nice it is to have some time for just the two of us.

You are really into finding out people’s names at the moment. When we read books, you are constantly interrupting the storyline to ask what the characters’ names are, even those without names. But you ask, “What her name?” anyway, on every single page of the book. If we go for a walk down the street, you ask us what is the name of every person that we see, and find it frustrating when we don’t always know. Often you ask the person directly, saying “What your name” or just “What yours?”

Sometimes, you just call people by either lady, man, boy or girl. For instance, the other day we were in a coffee shop, and you apparently decided you wanted a cake. So you marched up to the counter and shouted out “Nice lady! Nice lady! Nice lady! I want that one please. I want that one. You get me that one please?”, pointing to a chocolate cupcake covered in sprinkles. And yes, I bought it for you. A big treat. You only ate the icing and sprinkles.

Spring is festival season, and it seems that every weekend there is something on. So we’ve had loads of face-painting, jumping castles, kindi farms, pony rides. Watching you melts my heart.

I love you as much as rabbits love hopping.

xxx
Mummy

For last month’s letter, click here.

Categories Parenting, Toddlers Tags Letter to JJ

A Letter to JJ (2 years, 4 months)

Danya Banya October 5, 2012 0

Dear JJ,

I’ve decided to write you a letter each month. I hope you’ll enjoy reading them when you’re a little older. You are now 2 years, 4 months and a bit old. I know, I’m late already for your first one!

Photo by Megan Webb Photography

Eating

You are a great little eater at the moment, but I’m trying not to be cocky as I know you could become pickier as you get older. But at the moment, you’ll eat pretty much whatever your Mummy & Daddy eat. Beans, carrots, peas, broccoli, edamame, celery are all main stays, but you’ll refuse lettuce and avocado. I add carrot, beetroot and / or zucchini to cakes and oat muffins, and you gobble them up. Apples, strawberries, watermelon, grapes, pears, blueberries, oranges, mandarins are all good. You’re a bit wary of kiwifruit and won’t eat banana, unless it’s in another form – such as a spinach & banana milkshake. You think wholemeal (whole wheat) toast is normal, and you have some of Daddy’s toast with Nutella or peanut butter each morning, as well as some of Mummy’s Weetbix. Or sometimes we have porridge (you like the apple & blueberry flavour best) or pancakes. Dinnertime is now 6.00pm. Steak with veggies & chips are a favourite – lately you ask for seeded mustard to dip your chips into. Pork chops with apple sauce is popular too, but you insist on having 2 minute noodles with them. You’re also a fan of rice – be it white rice, fried rice or the local Thai’s squid ink black rice. You eat all of Mr Banya’s more gourmet dishes too – like Movida’s beef cheeks or Texan BBQ ribs. Some of the flavours are very rich, but you don’t seem to mind at all. You drink water or “juice water” (heavily diluted cranberry & raspberry juice), milk and milkshakes, all usually out of a normal cup, although lately you’ve been asking for milk out of a baby’s bottle. You’re actually wanting breastmilk again, like Bee, but I’ve been able to gently refuse most of the time. It’s been 5 months that you’ve been weened now, and I don’t really want to reintroduce this if I can avoid it…Sleeping
You have your own toddler bed in our bedroom, along with our “big bed” and Bee’s cot. When we have visitors you pride yourself in showing them our bedroom and your bed. However you haven’t slept in your bed for months, because you explained “a little bit nightmares”. So instead you sleep in between Mr Banya & my pillows, which is where you’ve slept pretty much since birth, despite our gentle encouragements otherwise. You are a Mummy’s girl when it comes to sleeping. You like to go to sleep lying with your head on my shoulder, your feet tucked in between my legs, and your hand rubbing my belly button. Lately you’ve been waking up to find Mummy missing – I’ve been in the other room feeding Bee, and this has been quite distressing for you. Sometimes I sit up in bed to feed Bee, so that you can still lie alongside me and still touch my belly button. This does placate you a bit, but you don’t really go back to sleep until Bee is finished feeding and is back in her cot, and you can have your Mummy back to yourself again. You used to be quite good at sleeping in, but Bee has been waking you earlier than usual, so we’ve shifted your day naptime and evening bedtime back an hour – getting ready for daylight saving a few weeks early.Talking
You are talking in roughly full sentences with improving grammar now, although your pronunciation is still sketchy so other people often need me to translate for you. Sometimes even Daddy and I need to ask you to repeat yourself a few times before we can understand you, but we usually get there in the end. You say “Good idea!” all the time, often to yourself. And if you lose something and would like Mummy to help find it, you’ll say “Let’s go on an adventure…” When we get home from a little outing, you tell Daddy what we did, what we saw, about the friends you made etc. If Daddy has gone to another room, you ask “Where my Daddy be? I lost my Daddy…” and then call out “Daddy, where are you?” You have very good manners at the moment, saying please, thank you, excuse me. Lately you’ve been saying “No thank you” a bit too much. Like when I tell you that you have a choice; either you can get in your car seat yourself, “No thank you”, or I’ll put you in there, “No thank you”. Umm, it wasn’t actually a choice!

Reading
You love reading books, and would happily do so all day long. In fact, it’s one of our mainstay distraction methods because you drop almost anything for a story. You are starting to show an interest in learning about letters, and can now recognise the letters J and A. You understand that words are made up of letters, and you are starting to make the connection that words which start with a particular letter sound a particular way. You have a top that says “Big Sister” on it, and when you ask to wear it, you ask for “the top with the letters”.

Maths
You can count to ten, for instance, you’ll count when we are playing Hide & Seek. But this is more a learnt rhyme than actually understanding what numbers are. If I ask you how many of something there are, you’ll answer correctly if there are 3 or less, but you’ll get it wrong if there are more than that.

Our family dynamic has changed this month and you’ve been such a champ about it. You adore your little sister.

Mummy & Daddy love you all the way to the moon and back again.

xxx

Categories Literacy, Parenting, Toddlers Tags Letter to JJ

Introducing – JJ

Danya Banya August 3, 2012 0

Our spirited little daughter, JJ. How do I sum her up in a few measly words?

JJ as a newborn

She’s chatting non-stop these days. Her pronunciation and grammar still have a long way to go, so a bit of translation is often required. Usually JJ says her favourite colour is purple, but occasionally she’ll answer pink. And then she’ll tell us what our favourite colour is, according to her anyway!

JJ, around 6 months old.

She is running, climbing and jumping non-stop too. Forever fearless, she follows the big kids down the steepest slippery dips and up to the top of the tallest climbing gyms, and can usually get down again with only a little bit of help. But jumping is her main love. She jumps on the bed about 5 times a day. She holds my hand and jumps down the steps (or sometimes she’ll hop down instead). She jumps on the trampoline at playgroup and gym class.

JJ, around 1 year old. Left and top right photo by Kim Rochelle Photography.

For such a skinny munchkin she eats well. We go out to lunch or dinner several times a week, and she’s used to dining out and sharing whatever we eat. That doesn’t mean that she’ll necessarily sit still for long, so Nathan and I have learnt to order and eat quickly. She is quite adept at using a small fork and small spoon herself, although her fingers still do get used from time to time. The only things that she won’t eat are bananas, avocados and spicy foods (although we still offer them, you never know, she might change her mind one day…)

JJ, around 18 months. All three photos by Megan Webb Photography.

JJ’s going through a bit of a royal fetish at the moment. This last fortnight we’ve made crowns every other day, and she drapes a bit of fabric around her shoulders as a robe, puts on a necklace which she calls her “royal jewels”, bows like a king or waves like a queen, and sits on her “throne”. She then starts to say / sing “I a queen (or a king, or a prince, or a princess). I wear crown. Every day, I walk town.”

She loves craft. We do some form of craft every day, although maybe I should call it art because often there is no end goal in mind. We use pencils, crayons, textas, paints, sticky tape, masking tape, stickers, glue sticks, clag glue, paper, cardboard, fabric, pipecleaners, wool and that’s before we’ve raided the recycling.