Meeting Arnold

Dear Beanie,

There was a very very special parcel that arrived in the mail for you the other day. It was a parcel from your Nanny in Australia. She sent a couple of pairs of shorts (it is very handy to have someone who sends end-of-season sale items at the start of our season!), some easter eggs (of which you had one and went TOTALLY bananas asking for more! Chocolate is a very rare treat for you!), and Arnold.

Meeting Arnold in the flesh for the first time

Arnold is the first ever doll that your Nanny has knitted. You and I have been watching him grow and change over Skype for the past few months, and you became quite obsessed with him, always asking for Arnold the moment Nanny popped up on the screen, and often asking me if we could 'Call Arnold'.

Arnold LOVES dancing!

But Arnold wasn't meant for you. Arnold was meant to be sent to Africa as part of this amazing project that sends handmade dolls to African children. Since Arnold's completion, he has gotten a couple of siblings, but you've never really shown an interest in them like you have in him. I know it would have been a tough decision for Nanny to send him to you, who is in no way starved for toys, instead of sending him to Africa, but WOW WOW WOW your complete and utter joy at finding him inside that package...

But one day, Arnold will find his way to Africa... so long as you don't love all of the stuffing out of him first!

I love you, little boy. And I love your Nanny too! And you love Arnold.
Love Mummy.

Trusting You

Good morning, little bean!

I think one of my absolute favourite things in the world is when you look at me and say, 'Good morning, darling!'. Coming in close second is when you giggle your little head off and say 'Gesundheit!' when I sneeze. Could you be any more loveable?

Seems I'm not the only one that loves you! 

The longer that I am a mother -- the longer that you have existed in this world -- the more that I am learning to trust you. It is a wonderful feeling, to realise that you are such a good self-regulator (you have actually started to tell us when it is bedtime, and you go into your room, sit on the chair and ask for your book!), and that I can stop worrying so much about what I am doing, the impacts of my decisions, the terrible five-year fall-out of letting you go to sleep with a bottle for those two nights...

For instance:

- Sometimes you go a week, it seems, without touching a vegetable. I can try to trick you or disguise them in any number of exotic ways, but you see through me. I am learning that instead of stressing about this, I just keep putting them in front of you. And then, around about once a week, you have a total fruit and vegetable GORGE. Purees, soups, muffins, fresh, whole and chopped, grated, in quiche, in waffles, in pasta... I just have to let you be.

- You 'should' (ugh that word makes me shudder) be having about 500ml of milk now, and not from a bottle. Some days you have only 150. Some days you seem to have about a litre. Some days you have none at all in the night. Some days you have it ALL in the night. I know now that you have your reasons. When you are teething badly, it somehow helps. And that's okay by me. Whatever gets us through.

A cute photo... just because... So serious!

- Some days you don't want to walk. We will go out and you will remain entirely in the pram, never wanting to explore, not wanting to play at the playground, not wanting to chase after that puppy. Instead of thinking about how this will impact our night, and how you need to exert energy so that you will sleep, I just have to leave you be. I know that there are some days where I'd give the world for my mummy to push me around while I just zone out and watch the birds.

- You get very overwhelmed by a lot of people. I am learning that instead of always trying to do 'what is good for you' and what I think 'will be fun', I should let you decide what will be fun. So now we don't go to the Monday morning krabbelgruppe (playgroup?) here, as it has ballooned to about thirty people, and it is pretty clear that you don't want to be there. Now I ask you if you'd like to go, and you say very clearly, 'NO krabbelgruppe! NO!' I suppose this is the same lesson as when we stopped swimming. Now instead, we focus on catching up with friends and socialising with kids in smaller groups in an unstructured way. You enjoy this so much more, which means that I do too.

Kisses with one of your favourite friends

We've all been in struggle town a bit lately, my love. But the Spring sunshine (I love that you now declare it a sunshiny day!) is bringing life back into our household, the snowdrops are well and truly blooming, and we are all shaking off the cobwebs of grey foggy days. And you always bring a smile to my face, little one.

I love you!
Love Mummy.

1, 2, 3, 4, SIX!

Dear Beanie,

We spend so much time giggling together lately. There can be really no more beautiful sound in this world than your giggle. In fact, when your Daddy was tickling you last night, we reminded each other that we need to always remember your toddler giggles.

Your first proper ice-cream, Nutella flavour, made for lots of giggles!

Your favourite game to play with me at the moment is 'Counting'! You will look at me intently and say, 'One!', then you wait wait wait until I say, 'One!'. We then race through two, three and four, then skip five. You will always say six, and I will say five, again and again until you giggle like a maniac. Eventually I give in and say six, and we rumble on through to 'TENTENTEN!'

And repeat. Again, again and again. I have no idea, really, where you learnt to count. This is not something that we have been 'working on' with you whatsoever, but I suppose little things like occasionally counting all the little Play-dough balls that you make (Nanny started doing this with you when she visited, I think!), or counting the babies on the back page of Peepo, or counting down from five as you jump off the couch... I suppose all of this sticks.

I was chatting to a friend about this recently and she said that so many toddlers have an issue with five. I wonder why that is?! Either they will count to five then stop, or, like you, skip it altogether. Such weird creatures you are!

I love you, little boy. You are almost 22 months now, which is almost two, which makes me boggle... I love you all the time.

Love Mummy.

The Swiss Farm Experience

Dear Bubbaloo,

We had a one day crossover recently where all three of us were healthy! Amazing! And it was gorgeous weather and a Sunday... woah... so of course we went to the farm.

Everything about this day was perfect. The weather, animals, the food, the fact that it was one day before my birthday, and the fact that all three of us were in such good moods. We always talk about needing to do more and experience more, but more often that not we are always just so insanely tired... hmm, whose fault could that be?

The highlights of the day for me:

1. Watching you as the smallest kid amongst a bunch of bigger kids, all throwing yourselves about in the hay bails. Often this is the kind of thing that would overwhelm you and you'd want to just stand and watch, but you jumped right in there this time and had a ball!


2. Sitting in the sunshine overlooking the lake, watching hot air balloons over the mountains, eating farm-fresh produce and cake. (How can I not have taken a photo of this?!)

3. Watching you giggle your little head off at the goats. You got a little too overeager with one, though, and he decided to butt you out of the way... so I'm hoping the next time we go you still like them!

We didn't get a chance to buy a sausage and cook it on a stick over the bonfire, but next time that will definitely be on the list.

Places like this, days like this, are why we choose to live here. It is amazing for me to think that this is your version of normal.

I love you, Beanie!
Love Mummy.

Our first real conversation

Dear Beanie,

There is always so much to tell you when it has been a few days between letters, but I kind of like it better when I only write about one amazing thing you've been doing. But know that I could write about twenty!

You are SUCH a joy lately!

I know I have been really focused on your language lately, but it really blows my mind! Today, we had our first actually conversation. In the past, our conversations have generally revolved around me asking if you want something. For example, if you are in the pram and I ask if you'd like to do some walking, you'll either say "NO!" or "Walking!"

Today, though, my brain exploded. I came up to you and asked, "How are you?" Normally, you'd parrot this back to me with a smile. Instead, today, with such conviction, you said, "Good!" I asked again, and again you said, "Good!" And then? While I was standing looking at you wide-eyed, you asked me, "How are you?" And when I paused a moment? You decided I was good too!

At the moment, little one, you seem to be truly happy.

I was going to leave it there, but just a few minutes ago we had one of those golden moments where your Daddy and I just laughed and laughed and laughed. You climbed on me asking for a cuddle, which is always lovely and makes me melt a little. This time you snuggled in and said, "Awwwww. Awwwwww." exactly the way I do when you go and cuddle your daddy. There is nothing funnier than hearing your own voice come out of your child's mouth! 

Even the little moments like these are worth savouring

I love you ever so much! All the time, every single moment. 

Love Mummy.

When Daddy comes home

Dear Beanie,

Your daddy has been away in Japan for two and a half weeks, which must feel like about six months in toddler time.

He's home!

That moment when you woke and heard his voice in the living room, when you squealed and wanted to be put down, when you ran so so so fast into his open arms, shouting "DADDY!"... It was a movie moment! And yes, it made me all teary.

That whole day, instead of saying 'Mama' fourteen thousand times, you said 'Daddy'. You are such a happy boy to have your daddy home! Nobody can throw you upside down like him!

Just checking he's still there... 

I love you, little one. It's nice to be a whole family again.

Love Mummy.

Your Vocabulary

Dear Beanie,

When we were at the neurologist a while ago, we were asked about your vocabulary. How many words do you know?

I find this, without a doubt, the absolute most interesting phase of your development. Discovering which words make it into your vocab and which are left out... which are acquired first and why... which are you just parroting the sounds we make (like 'I love you') and which are thought out concepts (like 'Good morning', and 'Another red train!'). But as for how many?

Guessing vocabulary is tough. At the time, your daddy quickly guessed at 100. But then we actually thought about it... and no, absolutely not. In your big animal book, you can point to and name at least thirty or forty of the fifty animals in there (actually, I wrote this an hour ago. Since then, we've read it together and you know ALL of them, even ones like quokka, vulture, antelope and stick insect. Okay, I lie... you kept calling the wombat a bear, but still!). In the bathroom alone, you can say water, toothbrush, toothpaste, washing machine, toilet, shower, iron, Mummy's, Daddy's, Ruben's, clothes... You can tell me what colour all those things are. You can tell me if they are big or not. You can tell me if they are dirty or clean, wet or dry. And then there is food. And then there are body parts. There are your toys, and the occasional description of how you are using them ('Big kick' for your ball, or 'all flat' for your sand). There are all the colours you can identify. And do people count?

Just a little happy snap of us. You can't get away from me! 

You have recently started to use more than just nouns and adjectives and the occasional very simple sentence, such as 'off we go'. You have started to say words that represent concepts, like inside and outside, open and closed, and are using them as commands.

And then there is the who bilingualism business, just to complicate things further. When you have finished eating, you announce, 'All finished' about 70% of the time, and "Fertig!" the other 30%. A 'ball' is occasionally a 'ball' (okay... so this reads the same... but it is pronounced differently, and you obviously switch between the two), a 'car' occasoinally an 'auto'. 'Apple', your first word besides Mummy and Daddy, is occasionally 'Apfel'.

I've been reading that between the ages of two and three, some kids acquire as many as ten new words a day. I just went in to collect you from your nap, and before I could take you out of your cot, you had learnt 'humidifier' (which you say now as dididifier) and 'tail' on the monkey. This morning you managed to distinguish a ship from a boat, and now use them both appropriately. Your new favourite 'power words' -- the ones that make me do something -- are 'Look!' and 'This way'. And while your counting is really just parroting at this point, you definitely have the idea of 'another' down pat, which kind of amazes me. For example, you will point to the left side of my chest and say, 'boobie', then point to the right and say, 'another boobie!'.

So how many words can you say? Who knows. How many can you understand? More than we give you credit for, I think!

I love you and that little exploding mind of yours!
Love Mummy.