Only in the Major Key

Good morning, little bean.

You've always been a very sensitive little sausage, particularly when it comes to noise... but, lately, there's something funny going on.

All music in our house now has to be in a major key. Excuse the quality of the photos, but this is what happens when we surround you with some music in a minor key:

Phase one: The lower lip.

Phase 2: Lips part, brow furrows, whimpering begins

The final phase: Big tears, some serious emotion

I'm not talking about Barber's Adagio for Strings, or anything like that. I'm talking about the last few bars of Old Macdonald where it slows down, switches momentarily to minor, then back into major for the last cackle of all the animals. I tried to watch a quick youtube clip about netball (not so emotional, you'd think) yesterday while you were busy playing with your cars. I couldn't get more than five seconds into it before you turned your little head towards me, toddled over with phase one and two on your face, and then buried your head into my lap in a full stage three cry.

I have managed to keep you relatively television-free for your life. There has been the occasional 5pm kiddy show when you are... especially... active :) And when perhaps I have only slept three hours or less... And there was a phase where we were watching In the Night Garden before bed. But now? Nothing is safe! It can be something as simple as watching Thomas the Tank Engine, and then the music changes when they all go to bed and the moon rises. Disaster! Or when Postman Pat's parcel just might not get there on time? Oh the horror!

Oh my little one, I can't help but laugh. I know that the emotion you feel is real, and this really is quite magical to me that I have created a little boy that reacts so explicitly to music. You poor thing. Sometimes I think it must be really hard to be you! But I hope that the cuddles I give you make it all better. We obviously just have to have more jam sessions :)

I love you, little one.
Love, Mummy.

Edit: A friend suggested I put my little one to the test by playing some fast minor music, such as Bach's Double Violing Concerto in D Minor. Still not so happy, but not a disaster. And then I put him to the ultimate test and actually played Barber's Adagio for strings... Oh the horror! My poor bean! 

Putting you to the test by listening to Bach - some fast minor music. 

The control: Barber's Adagio for Strings.

Portrait Series - 10/52: My Woodland Elf

Dear Beanie,

A portrait of my son, once a week, every week.
My Woodland Elf

Another seriously tough week to choose just one portrait of you!

I've chosen this one from our wonderful little hike through our local forest last Sunday morning. It was so wonderful, in fact, that we have decided to make it a family tradition, in the same way that my family always had a roast on Sundays. We will have a little forest walk on Sundays. Rain, hail, snow, sunshine. That's how wonderful it was!

Grabbing a pear for morning tea

We took you in our new hiking backpack that we bought from a local children's second-hand market and we wandered into the woods in search of an elusive waterfall that we had heard about but never discovered. As soon as we reached the forest, we took you out to walk, and you absolutely loved it! You raced down little paths, bashed your way over fallen tree branches and almost tumbled down a ravine (though I am trying to forget that one). When we came across the stream -- wait, it is a stream? A small river? A brook? A creek? What are the real differences here? -- we knew we must be close to the waterfall, so your daddy and I were excited to really up the pace and get a wriggle on.

But you? Oh no. There was no way we were going anywhere. Despite the freezing water, you were desperate to get in there and have a splash about. It seems you are developing tough little Aussie feet!

We did end up following the... brook upstream and found what we thought was the waterfall, but it turns out we only found the 'little' one! This Sunday, we will find the big one!

I love you, my little nature boy!

Love, Mummy.

Tuesdays I cry.

My little bean... I hate Tuesday mornings. Every Tuesday morning I cry.

You go to Krippe (daycare) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it seems the amount of time between a Thursday and a Tuesday is just too much. You forget that you have fun when I'm not there too. You are so upset... so so so upset. And when I hand you over to Mäggie, your tears turn to absolute rage. Oh my darling, I love you so much and I am so sorry that there is ever a moment where something I do would make you this upset, let alone once a week.

I'm still waiting for it to get better. Thursdays are better. Tuesdays I cry.

I hope you know how much I love you.
Love, Mummy.

Talking to you: A night time break-through

Hi there, my little one!

You have grown up so much in the past week. You amaze me! Every single day! But you know this. The latest thing you've amazed me with is your ability to understand me. I know it is the catch-cry of many parents: "They understand more than you think they do". But... well, turns out it is true.

We have been trying to get you to sleep through the night for your whole life, little boy, and you are simply not having any of it. You have come to expect two bottles of milk in the night (plus another just before bed) and nothing we do will make you stop that. Or at least until now. A few days ago I had the grand idea of actually talking with you about it, explaining what will happen that night (you will have one big bottle before you get into bed, and then no more bottles until the sun comes up) and that you are a big boy now, and big boys don't have bottles in bed. You were happily doing a drawing at the time of this conversation, and then your brow began to furrow at all this talk of the night to come. You immediately ran up to your bottles and asked for one then and there. You had a whole bottle unexpectedly, and then absolutely stocked up on food before bed time. Snacks, a huge dinner, more snacks, more bottle, water, etc. And then you did it! You slept through! It's like you really understood!

Sure, it hasn't happened every night, but there is a definitely improvement, and I am sure it is largely because we are talking to you about everything now. You are down to one bottle instead of two, which is bearable, and even that is a small one. And, to be honest, it kind of seems like you are trying to not have it... which I can't really explain, but it is a feeling I get when I go into your room in the dark at 2am. I couldn't be more proud of you!

I can't really pinpoint it, actually, but you just seem bigger now. You seem more confident. You have a real personality and are not afraid to show it. You're my little boy now. But you'll always be my baby, don't you worry.

I love you.
Love Mummy.

Get off me, Mummy! I know you love me!

Portrait Series: 9/52 - Chook Chook Chook!

Dear Beanie,

A portrait of my son, once a week, every week. Chook chook chook!

One thing I absolutely do love about going to swimming with you is the fact that we spend half an hour walking through Stockengut Farm on the way there. We collect some eggs, grab some fresh pot-set yoghurt (the only pot-set yoghurt I have been able to find in Switzerland), buy a couple of apples and pears, and proceed to wander around the property. And despite the fact that we have quit swimming, I still want to spend every Wednesday morning visiting the farm.

You've just started to say 'mooooo' to everything remotely cow-related, and boy-oh-boy was there some mooing! But your favourite thing by far is the chooks. Perhaps they remind you of the first time you ever saw chooks in Nanny and Pop's backyard when we went to Australia. You loved them then too!

Your reaction to your first ever chook-sighting

"Chook". You, my little boy, will be speaking Australian English. There are no "hens" or "chickens" in Australia. Perhaps this will be a little awkward at some time in the future, but dagnabbit, I think that "chook" is the one word I won't budge on. I can't wait until your Nanny hears you say it for the first time!

I love you, my gorgeous boy.

Love, Mummy.

As usual, thanks to this lovely mum for the portrait-a-week idea.

Keeping my promise: No more swimming

Good morning, my little muffin.

There was a time, when you were five months old, when you
were yet to realise how much you hated swimming...

Today is the day where I normally post a portrait of you, and I promise I'll get to that. But at the moment I need to write to you about swimming. Before class yesterday, I said to you that if you don't want to do it anymore, we will stop. And so we are stopping.

You love the water – I know this. You love our times at the badi, splashing about in the kiddy pools, playing with the shower and the fountains, coming into the lake with me for a swim in the deep water, etc. And yet, despite having taken you to swimming lessons since you were three months old (the Australian in me is determined to ensure that you are a decent swimmer!), you absolutely hate swimming class. I don't say that lightly. There are not many things that you absolutely hate... in fact, the only thing I can think of right now is when I leave you at the krippe in the mornings (I hear that one day this will get better... this still makes me sad).

We had a break from swimming lessons over the summer, as I figured we'd both be spending a lot of time in the water anyhow, and I was right. But now we are back into it, and I paid for all of those swimming lessons up-front, thinking it would be a fun indoor thing to do as the weather closed in. We have been to two lessons now, and each time you are hysterically unhappy. Not just from the moment that I dunk you under the water (in fact we have not even managed to get to that stage in either of those lessons), which used to be the case when you were super little, but from the moment that your little toe touches the pool. You start screaming and screaming and kicking at me as hard as you can, throwing your head back with the biggest fattest tears rolling down your scarlet face, arching your back towards the closest edge of the pool that you can find. And it doesn't get better. You are like this the entire time.

I don't know what it is about the classes that you hate, my love. I know it's not that you don't like being around other children. I know it's not that you don't enjoy the water. Perhaps it is the actual class environment... perhaps you are learning that as soon as you are in a pool and there appears to be a lesson of some kind, you will be pushed into doing things you don't want to. You will be made to go underwater when this is something you abhor.

We are doing this for fun, my love. I know that you are not hungry, not tired, not teething (!), not sick. You just hate it. So I am keeping my promise to you.

We will keep going to the pool, my darling. Just you and me, though, without any lessons, and we will do everything at your own pace. You let me know what you are ready for. Perhaps I will buy you some goggles and that will make going underwater more fun... perhaps. Or perhaps you'll hate them... who knows.

As long as you know that I love you. I love the little socks off you!

Love Mummy.

Photos by Olga Bushkova

Dear Beanie: 16 months

Dear Beanie,

Running, skipping and trotting! 

You are sixteen months old. Not days, not weeks, months. Can you believe it? My tummy quivers when I think about the day I'll be saying that you are sixteen years old. What kind of young man will you be? A gentle, kind one -- this much I know. Because you are the most gentle little boy I have ever set eyes on.

My Mum, your Nanny, had me when my sister was sixteen months old. That means that I would already have another newborn. WOWSERS. But you are still a wee little bubbaloo to me! You still need so much from me, and the thought of not being able to give you every ounce of everything you need scares me so much. And the thought of not being able to give a new baby every ounce of everything they need because I also want to give you everything? Also. Scary.

Enough of that! Onto you!


Your Personality: 

I love writing about your personality the most. I remember having to write about that in your baby book when you were just one, two, three months old, and always saying you were a very sensitive little thing. You certainly still are. At six months old I remember writing that you are a real thinker. You still are. But now you are a real little giggler too! You are a very sociable being, but still not a fan of too many people - around six is your maximum (another thing that hasn't changed since you were little!). You are a very cheeky little sausage too, which makes me laugh. We had our first big family hysterics session the other night, where you were laughing as you tried (and semi-succeeded) to drink from a big-boy-cup, and then you did a huge burp. Oh the giggling! And then when you saw your daddy and I laughing so hard as well, it was as if you were about to fall out of your chair from laughing so hard!

I've already said it, but you are such a gentle boy. You pat animals and play with my earrings with such gentle fingers. You give your toys to other children if you think they would like them more than you. You get upset when other children are upset. Your daddy and I have been talking about the fact that perhaps in the future we will need to teach you to stick up for yourself, because often in the playground it seems other kids take advantage of your gentle nature and you are sometimes pushed around - and not just because you are younger. But I want to keep you just the way you are!


Things you love: 

It's a big wide world out there!

You love being outside. At around 9am, you start having ridiculous tantrums and become very whingy. You aren't hungry or thirsty or bored or tired, you just need to get outside. The moment we get out the door, you are squealing with excitement, either running along the road with your new harness (yes, really. I got one. And you never even notice it's there!), or bopping up and down in your pram until we get to the lake. This makes me reconsider our wonderful apartment as a place to bring up my outdoors boy...

Meeting little L, six days old

You love washing your hands. You now pull up your little stool, climb up to the basin, say 'more' and proceed to splash about in the one centimetre of water I pour into the basin. Once you've splashed it all out, you turn on your puppydog eyes and say, 'more?' again and again.

You also love little babies. Every time you see a little baby (I'm talking around four months and under), you trot up to them and become all squeaky and cute. You often put out your pudgy little hand but you know they are fragile so you don't touch.


New skills:

You've started to communicate your needs really well! The other day, you bypassed all your usual toys and found your toy fork and spoon. You came up to me with them to show me you were hungry and then, at an unpredictable time, ate a huge amount of food. How smart are you! You have also started to bring me your shoes when you want to go for a walk, which is super cute and helpful too. You've learnt how to say 'more'. You use it mainly for yoghurt. :) You also use it for anything you want - a car, a wrestle, a calculator, your toothbrush, a song, some water to splash in, etc.

You're also really honing your skills as a terrible-two-tantrumer... your daddy and I are having to navigate our way around these very gently and are learning the best ways in dealing with these at the moment is not to attempt to reason with you (you are just plain too little!), but to distract you and try to get you to want something else instead.  But if you are well fed, if you have no pain (which I think has been pretty rare in your little life thus far, thanks to those horrible teeth of yours!), if you have had a good sleep (which is also pretty rare... often due to pain... but possible!), and if you have been outside, then you are tantrum free. This is what I'm learning!


I love you, my big boy!

Love, Mummy.