Bringing up baby: I love Tilly.

There are so many things I love about Tilly. Here's some.

• I love it that he communicates new things to me. Like that he prefers to be called Tilly, than how I call him, Atilla.
• I love his soft skin.
• I love his soft hair.
• I love his gentle touch, checking to see if I'm awake.
• I love watching him at play.
• I love his grin, his smile.
• I loved his curls. *sigh*
• I love his book reading. I'm sitting on the ground, he places a book or two in my hands, and turns around and backs up into my lap, trusting my lap will be there for his little butt to sit on.
• I love his book reading. He sits quietly reading a book to himself. "cat" "dog" "bird" "zebra" "大象 [dà xiàng]" "giraffe" "鯊魚 [shā yú]" "horse" "boat"
• I love how he gets so excited by the things I am blase about, like Wii resort, or Wii Fit 2.
• I love how he loves loves loves swinging on the playground swings. He has to use each swing. Even when there are four. Or more.
• I loved how he rode his trike, when his legs weren't long enough to stretch to the ground. I love how he rides his trike, now his legs are long enough to stretch to the ground.
• I love how he tries to include his favourite things on this trike ride, like me.
• I love how he likes his Trunkie rides with Daddee.
• I loved his awkward throws, when his arms and hands and visual acuity didn't balance out sufficiently and he threw close to his feet. I love his practiced throws, now his arms, hands, visual acuity allows him to more accurately judge his target a fair distance away.
• I loved his gummy grin. I love his toothy smile.
• I loved how he combined sign language and single word speech to communicate to me. I love how he uses two word speech to communicate with me.
• I love playing with him.
• I love how he thinks he's hiding things from me, by the expedience of sitting on them. No matter that I can see the red material of his hat spread out under him. Yeah, that only works in Play Mode, not when I'm in Momma Mode.
• I love how he knows how to clean up his own mess. I love that he's learning how to clean up messes. I find great pleasure-peace-humour-satisfaction when I see him using adult-sized cleaning items - a big broom, a dustpan and brush, cleaning cloth - cleaning up real messes. It's the disparity in size of the the item, and the user. And the wonder that he's so wonderful.
• I love his routines. I love how his routines give him pleasure - like having a beloved blanket, or scarf, cover his legs at bedtime story time. Like his holding Giraffe, or Teddy Bear, or Bear, while sitting on my lap watching a dvd.
• I love how he draws.
• I'm loving how he most times nowdays peacably allows me to detain him to 'clean hands' before he wanders away from the dining table.
• I love how he imitates Daddee and me, and any other behaviour he thinks is fun to emulate. Like Brush Hair.
• I love how he gets along with his friends at day care.
• I love how he slurp slurps his soup, or any liquid from a spoon, or from a bowl. The sound is disgustingly bad table manners, but he's not yet two and he's having fun.
• I love his language acquisition. I'm convinced he knows at least 90% more than he's saying. I'm 80% sure spelling out our frequently used words, e.g. b a t h, isn't much of a code for much longer.
• I love his enthusiastic language acquisition. His passion for "fart" is a sign to behold. His headlong embrace of the practice of "falling" would make a good YouTube video, except he stops when the camera is looking. He's still very fond of "fiworks".
• I love how he plays with Daddee. Like the little piggies going wee wee wee.
• I love how he can calm himself down, from a tantrum.
• I love watching him feed himself. It's best when someone else does the cleaning up.
• I love how he likes climbing in the playground. I love he likes the sandpit. I love he likes painting.
• I love his dancing.
• I love how he likes cooking.
• I love how he looks when he's sleeping peacefully.
• I love how he plays with me.

Life: 14 November 2012

I've struck by this debilitating cold since Monday afternoon.

I'm stuck with this blocked nose and consequent headache. Bath didn't work. Drink didn't work. Gonna try sleep again.

I was much better today.

Atilla woke us up. He woke me up by gently touching me, and then greeting me with his delightful smile.

He became whiny after that, when several things didn't go his own way.

Oh, and he prefers the name "Tilly" than Atilla.

***

Grand parents collected Tilly from daycare, and looked after him while I got dinner. I ate, he didn't .

Next I gave him a bath. Getting to that stage was a right performance.

But things went well after that.

Bath, play in bath, then naked play in bed, then Daddee came home, and Tilly got dressed and so forth.

Life: meanderings 11 November 2012

It's been another odd week, and weekend.

The only I can recall about last week is Guy Fawkes night.

I think the rest of the week went well, personal-wise. Work was hectic for two days with unexpected events, and the remaining time was catch-up.

We did do playground at least once during the week, when the weather and timing was just right: not too windy, not too late, not too wet. "Swing!" is Atilla's favourite activity.

Atilla did brush his teeth a couple of nights, and flossed one night. By 'brush teeth' I mean he chews his toothbrush bristles and sucks off the toothpaste. Occasionally he may brush his tongue. He keeps refusing me to help him brush teeth. I am become philosophical.

His last canine is coming out this week. He's grouchier than last week.

This weekend didn't live up to expectations. Sigh.

Atilla didn't get to enjoy a family bath. He did enjoy the hotel room and being on the 11th floor. The room's window overlooked a major road, and so there were plenty of buses to get him excited. The vertical blind was fun for him to hide behind, while I quietly had anxiety about the blind's cord as I hadn't thought to tie it up above his reach.

He didn't enjoy breakfast galette. I sat relieved in my chair when Dadee finally took him on a stroll. Atilla had deliberately spilled the remainder of his fluffy onto the table, necessitating a second clean up.

Grrr.

Any how. That's over.

***

I was responsible for scratch lunch, and scratch dinner on Saturday. Atilla enjoyed mu-ushing the couscous. Less enthusiastic about the eating.

I was responsible for scratch dinner on Sunday. Atilla enjoyed picking up his food and identifying the ingredients. Less enthusiastic about eating.

***

We went to Sylvia Park, and we made a beeline to see the horse at National Bank.

Atilla was diverted from it at times, but always returned to the horse. He gazes at it happily, and strokes the image and points at it and grins widely and asks to be picked up to stroke the horse on its nose.

He didn't want to leave.

Unfortunately the bank had already thrown out all its paraphanalia with the Lloyds horse logo, and so it became very difficult to persuade Atilla to say good-bye to the horse on a permanent basis.

I dread to imagine how he'll behave when they take away the horse image. We'd go wandering around the shopping centre seeking the horse, I guess. Sigh.

***

Atilla asked about fireworks again tonight, during Brush Teeth. He lived with his disappointment.

Bringing up baby: post 5 November 2012

10 Nov 2012 (c) ^_^ 2012

Little sweetheart didn't want to miss any fireworks. He fell asleep in my arms, head on my shoulder, as we gazed out into the night.

***
There were intermittent fireworks at bedtime, and we both saw those in the distance.

Then he got settled into bed, complete with teddy bear, giraffe, rocking horse, popple(tm), cat, parrot, book de jour, horse scarf/blanket, wool blanket.

Then there were more fireworks lighting up the sky, visible through the curtains.

And then we ended at the beginning of this blog entry.

Bringing up baby: 5 November 2012

Fireworks. (c) ^_^ 2012

Life: 5 November 2012

Litany, continued.

Good: lovely morning time at day care with Atilla.

Good: appointment with dentist.

Bad: almost crashed into another car while backing out; almost crashed into truck while going back to work.

Good: finishing work 'early', and hardly any traffic on road.

Good: Watching Atilla interacting with other kids.

Bad: a kid bit Atilla's arm. Twice. Hard enough to leave bruises. :-(

Good: watching Atilla play in Big Kid's playground with new arrangement - there is a rope bridge! He braved it.

Good/Bad: Atilla handed me a booger to look after.

Good: I threw it away.

Good: Atilla settling easily to sit in his car seat.

Bad: almost falling asleep several times while driving home.

Good: didn't fall asleep driving home.

Good: dancing with Atilla at home.

Good: helping Atilla poop into toilet.

Good: early supper made by Dadee.

Good: awake enough to help clear away some of dinner mess.

Good: 40 min nap after dinner.

Good: helping Atilla get dressed after bath. While naked, he snuggled himself between two pillows.He 'lost' his Sea Horse and Capt Bob, and 'found' them again. Several times. He climbed off the bed. He clambered back onto the bed. He has become quite good at throwing Capt Bob.

Good: watching fireworks with Atilla and Dadee. Atilla was nervous and scared at first. However after 10 minutes he settled into a lovely excited shrieks: "fireworks!" "boom!"

Good: Dadee helping Atilla brush teeth.

Good: helping Atilla go to sleep.

Good: writing this up.

Life: superstition 4 November 2012

November hasn't been good to me so far.

Good stuff: Atilla going to sleep nicely.

Bad stuff: Me being too tired to help Atilla brush his teeth before going to sleep quietly.

Bad: my spectacles fell apart on me while I was driving to work on Friday.

Good: patched it together to arrive at work, and patched it further at work, then screwed the screw in tighter when I got home.

Bad: my craft credenza got locked up so I couldn't open it.

Good: husband opened it with a wire coat hanger. Go wire coat hangers!

Bad: I ran into the corner of my bedroom wall early this morning - I had been asleep, it was dark, Atilla was sobbing in his bed. I cracked and chipped my tooth.

Good: Tooth not broken.

Bad: just too darned tired all the time.

Good: wonderful husband stepping up to do house cleaning, cooking, laundry, parenting Atilla.

Okay, maybe November is a learning month. Learning again how wonderful life is with my husband.