I'm three!

A super-speedy blog update as befits the faster scooter(er?) in the Southern Hemisphere... loves his scooter, birthday pressie from us, a mini-micro which I highly recommend - light, stable and easy to steer, allowing him to barrel round corners at supersonic speed. Unfortunately he chooses to use his right foot to slow down, rather than the brake, and has worn out two pairs of shoes in a month. Needless to say I am currently shopping for shoes at K-mart rather than Clarks, until this phase wears off!

Very amusing with his stories - narrates long complicated adventures of his trains, as in this picture below, e.g. "'Oh no,' thoughted(!) Thomas, 'I'm stuck!' 'I'll pull you out,' said Other Thomas." I loved hearing him say "Thoughted"!

Favourite stories at the mo are Grandpa's selection for his birthday, particularly Oliver Who Would Not Sleep and Up In The Tree by Margaret Atwood - so for the first time we have a favoured author in common (Alias Grace is probably my favourite of her novels).

Loves to blow bubbles and demands quite frequently to go out in the garden and do so, regardless of how arctic the weather is.

Leo is nearly 3...

I really need to have a piece of paper and pen handy because Leo keeps saying things that crack me up, then I get to the evening and think, "now what was it I was going to put on his blog?"

Big boy's bed
He finally climbed out of his cot last week so we have taken the side off to make it into a toddler bed, which he absolutely loves. The first night he got up about 5 times before going to sleep but he's pretty much used to it now. The best thing about the new arrangement is that we can snuggle on his bed together for stories, which we used to do on the floor, and it's much more comfy this way!

Thomas the Tank
...is still the numero uno. We've got quite a few of the older-style Thomas books and he keeps coming out with verbatim phrases from the stories like "Bust my buffers!" or odder ones ( "My fitter comes every week," "I'll be a Ding Dang Dong"). Yesterday I was refereeing an incident where Angharad was clearly the injured party but I hadn't seen what happened. Leo was banished to the naughty cushion and when he came off, I asked him why he was there and he told me solemnly "I said to Angharad, 'All Engines Stop and Pin Down Brakes' then I hit her with my head." He also narrates Thomas-inspired storylines when playing with his train set, murmuring to himself "'Oh dear,' peeped Thomas" or "'Oh Oh OH' screamed the trucks."

Trainspotter
He's a walking talking living map of the Melbourne metropolitan train network, he knows our regular stations and the order they come in, and will announce which station is coming next, or tell other people on the train things like, "We're going to Southern Cross. We're not getting off at Melbourne Central today." (Which obviously the other passengers think is very cute). He likes to point out directions, "Daddy goes to work THAT way. Our house is THAT way."

Verbose
He has become aware that using new words or phrases is a sure-fire way to impress us. So he'll say something like, "Oh sorry mummy that was an accident" (after brushing past me on his scooter). I say 'that's OK darling' and carry on with what I was doing - clearly not the reaction he was hoping for: "Mummy, I did say 'accident'!" Or "Mmmm this is delicious. I did say 'delicious!'"

Pants
He's got some pants which he'll wear from time-to-time when in the mood (with the odd wet trousers and he asks for a nappy on when he needs a poo), but most of the time he isn't really interested in potty training, in fact is quite anti, so I'm not pushing it. It'll happen eventually.

Threenager
Can be a stroppy, unco-operative thug at times, and I'm learning to walk away and take a deep breath if I feel like I am going to put him on eBay. A few times I have yelled at him and then felt so guilty. C'est la vie. Luckily I have honest friends so on those days that I think I am raising a devil-child someone always has a similar story to make me feel better! He's also getting more cuddly (perhaps Angharad's influence) and his gorgeous moments far outnumber the irritating ones, and make the memory disappear in an instant. Which reminds me of what he said this morning. I had a new jumper on with a big cowl neck, and when I walked into the room he stared at it and reached out to touch the big soft neck. "Do you like my new jumper?" I said. "Yes Mummy, it's beautiful." (Pronounced Boo-ful). Angharad was also sporting a new outfit today and he said, unprompted "Angharad is very smart." Gorgeous boy.

May update

Leo is very good value at the moment, he keeps doing things that I want to remember and write down but I'm sure I've forgotten half of them! Here goes.

Non-stop chatting He still loves telling stories. Language development is so fascinating - I find it intriguing that he gets (maybe not consciously) that there are text types, and that story language is different to informal spoken language. For example a few weeks ago we were in the car, and he was flicking through 'Touch and Feel Kittens' which is a factual picture book. He made up a whole kitten-based story, which I can't remember all of, but it started "Once there was a kitten, who loved roses" (how gorgeous is that??) and the end was something about "and, sure enough..." blah blah blah. Anyway the point being that those are not words/ constructions we often use in normal speech. He also likes to tell jokes (over and over and over and over again... ooh my sides are splitting). He has two main genres of joke: mixed-up animals ("a kanga-pig?"), or replacing words in a song, sentence or rhyme with "poo" (bet Granny loves that one) or with things around him at the time. The other day he came home from occasional care, and when I asked him what he'd been doing he told me that he'd sung "'Teletubbies say eh-poo' to Will, and that was my joke."

I also find it incredible how the brain just soaks up vocabulary, and files it away in the right place to be trotted out and wow your mother at an appropriate time... earlier this week he was drinking out of a pink beaker and when he'd finished he stuck it over his face and said "look Mummy I'm a pig" ("yes dear, oink oink") "Yes, this is my pink snout"!! One of the neighbours gave him a tambourine last week and after bashing it for a while, he put it on his head and said, "is a hat like a catten." "A hat like a what?" I said. " "Like a catten. A catten of a boat." It really did look like a captain's hat as well, with a ribbon around it. The next day he was driving a box around the floor and 'it is a ferry going very fast on the water, and there is a captain on the ferry, he is the driver.' I can't remember any other gems although there are lots of them! He seems to use 'last week'/ 'next week' as past / future - he's used 'last week' to refer to something that happened this morning or months ago! This morning we were talking about balls (as you do) and he said "remember when my ball went on the train track last week?" (that happened in January).

Favourite books and toys Trains are still #1, he always has a track laid out on his bedroom floor and will happily play with it by himself for a good while. We've recently got a few more Aussie animals to go with his set, and they're currently in with the train track too so sometimes in his running commentary you'll hear "stop penican (pelican) stop, is a train coming!" or "is a platypus on the bridge!" Loves playdough, cooking (real and pretend), and playing with a little bit of flour on the table making tracks, patterns and swirls. A prolific painter, loves rollers and mixing colours ("mix mix mix... I making a lighter shade" "a lighter shade..yes dear"... see what I mean about appropriate vocabulary??). Current top books: Ginger by Charlotte Voake, which he calls the Bonzo book - because it really is about Ginger Bonzo from the Bins, it's uncanny. "His ears were black with dirt, and his tail was like a piece of string." From Head to Toe by Eric Carle - so cute when he kicks like a donkey.

Fave food Nothing particularly new to report other than that he loves eggs and asks for them all the time, and would eat far more than is healthy if I let him... he often has a hard-boiled egg or two for lunch when we're out and about, and also loves omelette. He loves helping to make omelette (he cracks the eggs for me), and the other day told me exactly how you do it: "We going to crack egg in bowl and mix egg and egg is orange and we cook some egg and is very hot."

belated update

Life's just peachy

Oh dear, Leo hasn't had an update since before Christmas, so here goes:

Hobbies du jour Balls, digging holes, running/racing/chasing, dancing, counting. Still loves to throw and kick balls, and now likes to catch as well. Rolls ball to Angharad and she gives it back to him, very cute. Pretty handy with catching, can catch quite a small ball now. Quite obsessive about counting objects and telling you how many there are, and reading numbers out. Surprised me today while playing with a toy cash register at playgroup, by pushing the .50 button repeatedly and saying "fifty, fifty, fifty." Has a scooter out of the toy libary at the mo which he loves to razz around on.

Chatterbox Rarely shuts up these days. His day starts between 7 and 8 with a "Mummm-AAY! Dadd-AAY!" and from then on it's non-stop commentary about everything going on in his world. Since last time I blogged, has switched to using first person most of the time although will still sometimes say "Want Mummy to come outside and play with you" or "I want mummy to come outside kick ball with Leo." His sentences are quite long and convoluted and sometimes he's managed to get all three ways of referring to himself in the same one. Most of the time though, it's "I want to kick my ball outside" etc. Or "I'm not going home yet" or "I want to go playgroup again and make stained glass windows again." It's so cute the way he's so enthusiastic about everything, e.g. doorbell rings "Oh! Who's at the door? Let's go and see who's at the door mummy!" or "Thank you SO much Daddy".

He delivers constant lengthy monologues; yesterday he climbed onto our bed, pulled my current book down (comically enough, given what followed, 'Children Are People Too: Understanding Young Children's Behaviour' by Louise Porter) and started telling a long story. "This story is called 'Mummy's', and it goes like this... [opens it up] One day, it's going to rain again. It's going to rain and rain and RAIN. And there was a... 5, and a girl... and there were some dots, 4 dots, and then - let's see what happened.... " and so he continued, with a crazy mix of imagined content, nonsense and that inspired by chapter numbers, bullet points and other features of the text until he got to the end and said "and that's the end of the story! Now let's have another one..." We needed to go to the shops then, so I told him we could have another story when we got back, but we had to go out now and get some veggies for dinner, to which he replied, "Oh, that sounds LOVELY Mummy, that sounds LOVELY." !! His voice is rather 'rp' and at times, as you can probably gather, he sounds pretty camp!!

He has discovered love - "oh I LOVE this song", also loves watermelon, running and of course Angharad, Mummy and Daddy.

Daily life Leo likes a rhythm to his day and his week. He knows the days of the week, what we do on each day and what's coming tomorrow or at the weekend. So he'll say that tomorrow is Friday when he goes to Jika Jika, for example. We still go to playgroup on Mondays and Thursdays, and Leo & Angharad go to occasional care on Friday mornings for a couple of hours (which is where they are now as I'm blogging with coffee... gorgeous)! In addition he's now started doing one day a week at childcare on a Tuesday, which he enjoys once he's got over the goodbye. It's interesting how this has impacted on him. He is always much more 'verbal' when I pick him up - talking with increasing sophistication and maturity. I guess he has to communicate more clearly to get his needs met there, whereas at home every grunt and whine is correctly responded to, and most needs anticipated. His diet has also widened, he is more prepared to try new food when he's sitting next to other kids eating the same thing and then he asks for it at home as well. Since starting him at childcare, I've come to think that one day a week is definitely beneficial for him as well as me and, even if I'm staying off work, I think I might start Angharad doing the same at a younger age. Emotionally I think it's harder for him to adjust to it at this age than it would have been say a year or 18 months ago as he's so much more aware. Although the benefit is that we can talk about it, and he does talk during the week about things he's done at the centre.

Favourite books Bedtime regulars at the mo are: The Magic Hat by Mem Fox (especially likes his mother's impression of a baboon, Granny, now where did I learn that). How to Catch A Star by Oliver Jeffers is wonderfully calming, and he loves beaches and rockets so can't go too far wrong. Dig Dig Digging is rhythmic and lots of good sound effects, and things to count. A massive favourite until it tragically had to return to the library was Za-Za's Baby Brother which for some reason, absolutely enchanted Leo. I guess the situation it described was very familiar as the baby arrives, mummy and daddy get very tired and busy with the baby, and then Za -Za discovers that playing with the baby is fun after all. Fireman Sam: Mountain Emergency also should get a mention, as he loves Pontypandy action. And it's not a book, but he LOVES Roary the Racing Car which has been on TV for the last few weeks but just finished, sadly. I like it too because it's only 5 minutes long and the main character is voiced by Peter Kay with a few ad libs to make mums & dads laugh too.

Right - stop me someone! Expect another essay in a few months' time.....

Delighted at making Angharad laugh

At the Kite Festival