Aladdin / Jafar Stickers

If you’ve been to our house recently, you’ll have noticed in the kitchen that there’s a pretty-rough looking Reward Chart blu-tac’d to the wall, along with a page of heavy-Aladdin-themed Avery labels that are beside it, also blu-tac’d up.

These are my take on Reward Charts for Jack, and are pretty much my top-quality (read: so-so) handy-work in Microsoft Word.

The Reward Chart itself is pretty much a grid, with the days of a week labelled down the left hand side, with about five or six boxes along for each day.  The basic premise is, that when he’s been good, he gets an ‘Aladdin’ sticker, and if (read: when!!) he’s been naughty, he gets a Jafar sticker.

I’ve made variation of the good/bad sticker, with some of the other characters too, as otherwise it could look a little odd on the chart.

Why Aladdin? Well, at the time of ‘production’ of the chart, Jack really liked watching the Aladdin movie and wouldn’t stop talking about it and asking questions about it.  So, I thought that I’d work on the good/bad theme in the film and see how this would work in practise.

To much of my surprise, and Claire’s too for that matter, Jack has been very receptive to it - We try to make a big thing about getting him an Aladdin (or Genie, Abu, Jasmine, Magic Carpet) sticker when he’s been good, and getting him to help stick it onto the chart, which usually results in a full-on palm-smack to ensure firm adhesion of the small Avery labels to the paper surface.  He also REALLY DOES NOT WANT a Jafar sticker (of three varieties – Jafar & Iago as above, ‘Old-man’ Jafar, or ‘Snake’ Jafar), to the point of when he’s being naughty or unruly, simply the mention of getting a Jafar sticker is enough to bring him around to our way of thinking. Sometimes even without a paddy first!!

In all, I had spent a hour or two on Google Images and found images that met my needs, whacked them into Paint.Net to crop and down-scale them to size and then used Microsoft Word to drum-up a labels document to match the sheets of A4 labels I had in the drawer and, hey presto!, instant stickers and Reward Chart!

It’s still early days with these stickers and the whole Reward Chart thing, as it’s more of a grown-up experiment on mind-controlling a three year old, but it’s fun when it works in either direction!!

School-boy Jack

Well, ‘school’ is a probably a little over-used in that title. ‘Pre-school’ may be more appropriate, but nonetheless, my boy has spent his first week at school!

He’s on a breaking-in session, whereby he attends the local primary school from 12:00 until 15:00 and gets to play, read, paint, cut-out stuff and basically do anything he likes, really! Much like home but without the mess. And the noise!!

The teacher at the school said Jack was ‘adorable’, to which Claire had to make sure that they were talking about the same child. This was confirmed by Jack physically being there, but I’m thinking it’s a common one-liner to new school kids’ parents to put them at ease. But, to be fair, they seem like good teachers there and look like they’ll keep him in line, as he does tend to get a little boisterous at times. Especially if another child has taken a train or truck off of him!

We’ve noticed that, over the past week, he’s been shattered at night times. To the point of falling asleep almost at tea times, which is really funny in one sense, but worrying in another, as we’re sure that he’ll be roaming about the house at 04:30 as a result of sleeping earlier.  We try to keep him awake, but he’s pretty much flaked out for the evening.

But he does seem to really like it there. Why wouldn’t he? The school was fantastic when they showed us around – filled with things to play with or to do, which really surprised Claire and I, as we didn’t get that impression from the nursery that he’s been going to, that we’ve been paying for!

I’m sure there’ll be more on this school topic for later – might have to add a ‘school’ category on the blog, methinks.

Oliver–3 months old!

Yes, it’s true – the little man is three months old, there or there-about.

He’s past the stage of crying all the time because of wind (or colic) and is a really smiley, happy little boy. (honest!)

He smiles a lot now, which really is a nice thing to see. 

Claire also found out a little while ago that he’s ticklish and laughs with a big wide-open mouth and the occasional chuckle! I tickle him now and then, as you do, and he’s getting easier to ‘get’ each time.  Tonight, for instance, I was blowing raspberries on his tummy and tickling him and he loved it, which is great as I’m seeing a totally different side to him; Claire has been saying for weeks that he’s a happy, bubbly little boy, but when I get home from work, around 1800ish, he’s been grumpy and crying lots.  Coming home to that each night makes it more difficult to imagine the happy child, but, as I said – finally – I’m seeing what she means,

He’s getting to be a big, strong boy too – he’s able to hold his neck up and look around, which is good. He’s starting to understand about rolling over, but still needs big brother Jack to yank on his leg to make the centre of gravity change position. After that, he’s find.

I’ve been playing on the bed with him, and rolling him sideways onto his tummy and then over again onto his back, which he seems to enjoy. I used to do this with Jack, too, which I guess was about the same sort of age.  I’d imagine that it’s a whole new world at that age, as he’s been either face up or face down in bed and that it! Now, he’s finding out that there’s a series of steps in between those poses.

He’s still not sleeping through the night entirely as yet though, much to mummy and daddy’s disappointment! In the past couple of nights (literally) he’s slept for four or five hours straight, which is the most he’s managed. Previously, it’s been as long as three hours and as little as thirty minutes, which sort of makes for a very long night.

But, we’ll see how it pans out. In terms of the holy-grail at the moment, it would be getting Oliver to sleep the entire night through. In his own bed. And not waking up until a decent hour!

Oliver

I seem to remember saying that age-old thing about time flying past in another post, but this is different. But the same. Sort of.

Anyway, I swear, I have blinked, and Oliver is already nearly ten weeks old. It’s strange, as although he’s only been born this relatively short period, our lives have changed so much all over again, and yet it seems like this is our new ‘normal’.

Just before Oli had arrived, it seemed like we had ‘settled’ into a routine, with ourselves, with Jack, with everything. Straight after Oli came, the regular pattern of getting up, getting ready to go out, and so forth was blown to smithereens. I’m not blaming him directly here (much), but it did seem like we were on  top of things. 

Oli came, and as Claire’s expressing milk, it pretty much pins her to a chair for the duration.  Oli, being a baby, cries and she’s able to manage ok, providing Jack isn’t kicking off, or demanding attention. Not that he would. Much.

Jack is all over Oli.  It’s funny, as we really worried about it going the other way, thinking that Jack would resent Oli for stealing his mum away from him and so on. But he loves him. Maybe a little too much!! He always wants to be involved if Oli’s about, kissing him constantly and very nicely too.  He tells visitors that Oli is his baby brother and that he loves him.  Trying to remember the age that I understood that word, I’m guessing Jack is repeating what we’re telling him about ‘love’ but maybe he does ‘get it’ too. Who knows.  Either way, Jack likes Oliver. And, Oli likes Jack too. He smiles when Jack’s there, or when he kisses him, even if Jack unintentionally gets a little heavy-handed, as three year olds do.  But in all, Jack is sharing his mum with Oliver really well. He’s not too fussed about his dad, but hey-ho.  Although, Claire did say that Jack is getting a little funny about sharing his grandparents (on my side) with his first set of to-be cousins…! All good fun, I’m sure.

It’s nice that they’re like this, and hopefully they’ll learn to play games and toys together, despite the age gap. But when they’re older, brothers will be brothers and pick the occasional fights too, as we all have done, so that should be interesting to see, possibly.

Literally, this morning before leaving for work, I had about 30 minutes with Oliver, where he has been quite the happy chappie; it seems that he’s been quite uncomfortable with wind for the past couple of weeks and, hence, has been a right grump.  But today, he must have had a decent night’s sleep, and was all “coo’s” and smiles for me, which was nice.

He’s still sleeping in the crib next to our bed at night times, despite that I’m not in there myself in the week! His grunting and snoring is nowhere near as bad as I remember Jack being at nights, but Oli is not yet sleeping through the night, so Claire’s been doing a top-job of bottle-feeding him in the nights.  Only fairly recently has this been extended to the first wake/feed of the night coming in at 03:00 – previously, it was every couple of hours.  Weekends, I try my best to help. I have been trying,where possible, to let Claire get away from it all, and sleep in the spare room (aka my office) where I’ve been hiding/sleeping, and trying to keep Oli happy with the milk too.  Problem is, I don’t seem to be able to cope on as little sleep at the moment that Claire is getting; the next day I’m a right old misery. Hey, perhaps me and the new nipper, Oli, are a right old pair together already, him being grumpy and me being miserable.

I seem to remember that Jack was sleeping through the night from about eight weeks old, and was in his own room by eleven weeks. Oli may be a little behind on that yet, but a week appears to be a long time for these babies!! Lots of things could change in that time yet..!  We shall have to wait and see.

But for those that haven’t had (yet or otherwise) children, here’s a summary of what a baby of Oli’s age does, in no particular order:

• Cries.
• Smiles, occasionally, between cries. (Maybe wind?)
• Drinks only milk at this stage. Then burps. Smiles. Then cries for more milk.
• Generate copious quantities of poo. Then cries, to make a point that they want it changed.
• Wait until you’re at the exposed, critical mid-point of changing a nappy, before successfully recreating the Bellagio fountains with a range only a fireman would appreciate, followed by a suspiciously evil-looking smile. Then cries as his ‘nads are getting cold because the second half of the nappy-change is now taking considerably longer.
• Sleeps. Lots in the day time, random/patchy hours in the night time. Waking to cries. Gets milk. Snores, grunts and farts until in R.E.M. sleep mode.
• Makes the occasional ‘coo’ noise for everyone else, even less for daddies.

All. Good. Fun.

Pool party for a 3 year old

It was Jack’s 3rd birthday the other week, and Claire and I had been discussing what to arrange for a party for him and some of his friends.

Claire had the idea of renting the swimming pool in Peterborough that she’s been taking him to for swimming lessons for the past 2 or 3 years, which is at the Calm-A-Baby swimming pool – a fantastic, heated swimming pool for children’s swimming lessons.

Calm-A-Baby are on Facebook too, which is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Calm-a-Baby/58803121893

The pool itself is warm, so even new-born babies can use it, without fear of them turning blue and shivering after 20 minutes.

We booked the pool for the Sunday after his party, and had invited a gathering of friends and family to join us. The schedule was to have the pool, entirely, from 14:00 to 15:00, and then half an hour of ‘Wiggle and Jiggle’ to help further wear-out any kids that might still be awake after an hour long session in the pool.

Wiggle and Jiggle is another group-type meeting that Claire and Jack have been attending only recently, held at the same place as the pool, but in an upstairs room.  Sarah, who runs the group, gets the gathering of children and gets them to be manic, whilst still under control; in that, they’re allowed to make a mess with a pile of stuffed toys, musical instruments and singing and dancing and so forth. Basically, far too much exercise for my liking, but the kids love it.

In the pool, we had a few of Jack’s friends from various other baby groups that Claire and he have been going to, along with, of course, their mum and/or dad, some of our neighbours and their children of the same age, in addition to some family members too, so a great mix of people and children in all.

The hour seemed to flash by! Both Claire and I were in the pool, one of us with Jack and the other with Oliver. Strangely, both sets of Grandparents managed to forget their swimming costumes, but there’s always next time!

To start with, I had Jack with me and even though he’s been swimming and playing in the pool for a few years now, he’s still a little unsure about trusting himself, and seems to want to hang on to me. Whether he does this with his mum, I don’t know, but of course I don’t want him to go under either, and so I am happy to help him.  I was trying to get him to swim/float/flap-n-paddle by himself and after about 10 minutes or so, he did! Admittedly, he did have a ‘woggle’ with him, which is a long, cylindrical float-aide that is bendy and flexy, or yellow rubber-ring at times too.  With the woggle tucked under his armpits and me not too far away in front of him (i.e. arm’s reach!) he was doing it!! Well done little mate! #ProudMoment

Claire and I swapped, and I took the newborn(ish) nipper, Oliver, out for a paddle; by now Claire had got hold of Jack and was diving down from the surface and swimming under water with him holding the arms of her swimming costume, sitting on her back! The other kids took a turn on riding on Claire’s back and being thrust underwater and they all loved it! Glad we didn’t have to pay Claire too for her entertainment work too!

As I said, the hour literally flew by. Everyone loved it in there, especially me.

After the pool party, we had a short wait until Sarah started the Wiggle and Jiggle. Jack was obviously shattered as he had started to show off a little bit and pick and choose when he wanted to join in and follow instructions. He wasn’t too bad, but everyone else was a little better behaved, shall we say.

They all banged drums, crashed symbols or blew flutes in a big chaotic mess, whilst all parents looked on in deafened-horror. Again, the kids loved it and had a whale of a time throwing things up in the air, or dancing around and the like.  Of course, I would have loved to have joined in, but I was designated to be the official photographer, so I was stuck on the safe side of the lens.

After all of this, the children had cooked finger-food and cup-cakes (provided by Selina's Tea Rooms, part of the Calm-A-Baby venue), as well as birthday cake.

Jack. was. shattered. Unsurprisingly, he slept well that night. And so did Claire and I, with the exception of Oliver waking throughout the night!

The whole party was great and much fun was had by all. The pool is a great place for these parties and we’d hope that we’d do it again there another time.  There’s lots of ‘little moments’ that I’d like to share about the party, but to be honest, I don’t know where to start in listing them.

We took a whole load of photographs of the day and if they’re not available on Jack’s website, they will be shortly.  If you came and there’s any that you’d like on a disc, just let us know.  During the swim, my mum had my camera and was taking pool-side shots, which have come out very well. (Well done, Granny Rigby!)

Nearly Christmas!!

Yes, t’is that time of the year again, where Christmas is but a few days away.  This year, by way of comparison to last year, should be totally different, as Jack is now running around a lot more, and certainly playing with toys a lot more too.

I don’t mean that in the sense that he didn’t play with toys previously, but rather than just knocking down the Lego buildings that I put together, or throwing the train-track sections, he’s actually playing with them.  He’ll get Lego blocks from the bucket and stack them up higher and higher, or he’ll push the trains around the track after attaching carriages, and so on.

He’s a lot more fun to be around, and again don’t read that as that he wasn’t before, but I think as he’s saying more and more things, as he’s slowly learning about the world, he’s doing more things that kids do, rather than babies.

Maybe I’m not wording this properly, or laying this down on paper screen as it is in my head, but I’ll carry on and see if this makes some sort of sense.

His talking is getting much better as the weeks go by.  I went away from work a few weeks ago, for a week, but when I came back, I noticed how much more words he was able to say, or see how pronunciation had improved of words he could say before I left.  I’m sure that before I went away, he was able to say/repeats words that were of three syllables; now, he’s onto four syllables, or say short sentences of around that length.  At home, we’re trying to talk to him properly, as we’re away of the words and phrases that we use, as he repeats them back like a parrot in seconds.  Because we knew this was going to be like this, we wanted to make others around him aware that he could repeat ‘stuff’, and something that we wanted to make sure he didn’t start repeating, was swear words. So much so, we’re quick to jump on someone that uses any form of profanity in his presence, threatening that they’d owe him a £5 for each curse uttered.  It’s not that people wanted particularly to swear in front of him, it’s just that I think sometimes they simply aren’t aware they’re doing it.  I know that the day will come when he mutters his first, but I’ll get the bar of soap ready for him to wash his mouth out. Or something.

Last year at Christmas, we didn’t really make too big a thing out of it for him, as he was, to be honest, totally unaware that anything was going on, except seeing more of our family members within a short space of time.  Presents weren’t really anything to him, except that he liked getting into the empty cardboard boxes.

This year, however, he’s a bit more aware of things going on, and it’s an opportunity to get him to do more things – Claire has been teaching him to sing Jingle Bells, which… is…. getting there…! Maybe next year, we’ll be teaching him to hush it up a bit, after the fifteenth time!  Claire has also been telling him who Father Christmas is, and he’s getting much better at saying it too!  He’s had the occasional present to unwrap already (naughty, I know) but he now knows that if you rip off the paper behind a big box, there’s a gift inside just for him.  Call it ‘preparation work’ for Christmas day!!

He’s also getting much better at telling us what the problem is, which is something that I think we, as grown-ups take for granted.  For instance, if he falls over in the other room and bangs his knee, by telling mummy where it hurts means that she can kiss it better quicker and the tears (and screaming) stop sooner.  Or if he’s getting tired, he’ll actually say ‘Tired.’ – short and sweet maybe, and admittedly we’re probably aware of this before he was anyway, but his own internal diagnostics have told him that, rather than us trying to tell him he’s tired and that he needs to go to bed!

There is one slight downside recently, in that we struggle to get him to clean his teeth.  So much so, it’s my job (bad cop) to pin him down on our bed using both arms and legs to do so, and then somehow manage to get a toothbrush in his mouth to give them a twice-a-day scrub.  He screamed originally because of the teeth coming through, but more nowadays because he’s being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do, but simply will not do it himself.  Both Claire and I are conscious that we want him to look after his teeth and if he gets used to cleaning them regularly, then maybe he will, but if we don’t make the effort ourselves to do so, then how can we expect him to when he’s older?  He’s got lovely little teeth and I’d hate for him to not look after them and for them to go bad and horrible.  My teeth aren’t so pretty to look at like Claire’s are, as mine are a bit twisty and irregular, but neither of us have any fillings or fake teeth, etc.  (Hell, I still have a baby-tooth!) But my point is that, independently of each other and with help (and/or restraining!!) from our respective parents,  we’ve both made an effort when we were young to look after them, and so far so good.

Anyway - All good fun. And I am looking forward to Christmas this year, in seeing his little face when he opens the mountain of presents that we’ve bought him.  Failing that, the look on our faces should be a picture when he goes for the boxes again this year.

Midnight Screams!!!

BANG!

It was the dead of night, and the noise woke me instantly.

I must have gone from fast asleep to completely 100% wide-awake in a small fraction of a very fast split second; in this time, I knew what had happened as, just then, it started….

WWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Yep, Jack had fallen out of bed at 03:30 in the morning. But not just any bed; Ours, which is quite high off of the floor.  But (luckily/unluckily) I wasn’t in it, so I had to climb out of the spare bed, realise where I was, navigate the piles of junk that we’re in the middle of sorting out, out the bedroom down the hallway a bit and into our bedroom to find Claire trying to calm down the ever-so-slightly upset Jack.

This was not an ordinary night, as the events earlier in the evening were almost trying to tell us.

Around 11:00ish, Jack woke up screaming, and I mean very loudly.  He seems to wind himself up into these screaming, crying tantrums, that it’s difficult to know what to do with him.  He doesn’t want to be picked up, he doesn’t then want to be put back in his bed/cot, you can’t soothe him, calm or anything. Nightmare. I can only conclude that this behaviour must be from his mum’s side.

Eventually, he went back to sleep, but only for a bit, as at 01:30, he’s awake again crying and screaming.  As I was due to go to work the next morning, Claire took over, which was good, as there was extra flappy-arms-screaming-paddy-tantrums when I tried to pick him up; his mum was ok, but not me.  Fine - I went to bed and was soon followed by Claire with a somewhat calmer Jack, but one that didn’t want to sleep in his bed, so she brought him into ours to see if that might help things.

For the record, Jack has never successfully slept in our bed. Ever. Even when he was really small, he only ever slept in his Moses basket/crib/thing or in his cot in the other bedroom.  So, to think that it might work was a bit of a faff. 

Knowing this sleeping situation would not work, I volunteered to sleep in the other bedroom, which was good for me, as I managed to sleep until the 03:30 awakening.  Claire, on the other hand, (bless her) didn’t manage to get any sleep, as Jack would wake every 20-30 minutes and have a bit of a cry, only to be soothed back to sleep instantly by his mum.

Getting up for 06:30 normally isn’t too much of a problem, but that day, strangely, it was…  Ho-hum. Fun and games of having kids, I suppose!

I’ve just added a ‘Tantrums’ category to the blog site… I have a feeling that I might be needing that in future.