Sheep Week

It's been a bit sheepish in our household in more ways than one this week.  Munchkin discovered that she could get out of bed and open her door in the middle of the night.  She'd woken up coughing for the second night in a row and decided to take matters into her own hands.  We think the remedy is Sam the Sheep but this is still a work in progress.  Sam is a sleep training clock.  He shuts his eyes at bedtime and Munchkin has been told that she has to stay in bed until Sam opens his eyes.  He is also an alarm clock and a night light.  His screen colour changes depending on whether it's bed time, nearly time to get up or time to get up, and stars also appear on his screen at night.  Sam is more expensive than the market leading sleep trainer, Gro Clock, but he has a number of advantages over Gro Clock.  We think he's more fun and Munchkin can use him long after she would have outgrown a Gro Clock.  Since Sam has analogue and digital time displays, she can learn to tell the time with him and use him as conventional clock in the future.  I bought him from Cheeky Rascals, whom I hadn't heard of before.  This was because they had free next day delivery but I think they're actually the UK importer - I believe Sam is Dutch.

Today we went to Open Lambing at Gaston Farm in Slindon.  We've been before, but this is the first year Munchkin has really appreciated what it's all about.  Gaston Farm is one of two farms local to us that does open lambing.  The other is Coombes Farm, near Lancing College.  We've been to Coombes in the past, but much prefer Gaston Farm.  Coombes has the advantage of starting lambing earlier than Gaston Farm and they used to be cheaper, but looking at their website, I think Coombes have put their prices up whereas Gaston seem to have dropped theirs.  Whenever we've been to Coombes, it's been a mud bath.  Gaston is less muddy and is generally more geared up for visitors.  I first went to Coombes on a school trip in the 1980s and doubt it has changed much since then.

Entry to Gaston Farm cost us £10 (£5 per adult and Munchkin went free).  They have a large, clean barn, decked out with stalls and displays including refreshments, a gift shop and the oportunity to hold ducklings and chicks.  There were plenty of staff and volunteers on hand if we had questions.  As always, the "Grumpy Shepherd" had his name printed on the back of his sweatshirt, as did "The Other Shepherd".  There was no sign of the "Tolerant Wife" this year, perhaps she has become less tolerant?  We were lucky enough to see a lamb being born.  For the first time, we went on the tractor and trailer ride this year.  There was a very professional commentary on the local area, and all for an optional charity donation.  When it comes to lambing, Gaston Farm gets my vote every time.

Dummies are for dummies

For the third night in a row, Munchkin has gone to bed without a dummy -"a soother" if you're reading this in North America.  Angmering Daddy has been trying to persuade her not to use them for a month or two, with limited success.  I hadn't imagined we'd be at this point so soon since Sweetpea was nearly three when she gave up dummies.  I'm very proud of Munchkin and if this continues, I'll be throwing away all her dummies -she has about ten.

She's been a good girl generally over the past week or so.  Her confidence is coming back after half a term of no gymnastics or swimming.  Last week we managed the gym warm up with no screaming and a small amount of participitation.  Post warm up, she was back to normal and showed off her skills on the big beam - it's lower than a full sized one but there's still room to fall off.  Her late granny, who was a gym coach, would have been really impressed.  She smiled during most of this week's swimming lesson, though she's still lacking confidence and won't do half the things she was doing last term.

I've posted on here about potty training in the past.  These days, Munchkin hates the potty and will only sit on the toilet, using her Peppa Pig toilet seat.  Unforunately she only sits on the toilet, she hasn't done anything on it yet.  Despite repeatedly showing signs of being ready for potty training, we're no closer than we were eight months ago. 

Munchkin's toilet habits have caused me to change nappy brands.  Being environmentally conscious, but wanting an easy life, I've usually opted for eco disposables.  We started out in Beaming Baby, which was great until Munchkin ended up between sizes; their mini nappies leaked but we couldn't do up their midi nappies tightly enough.  I gave up on Beaming Baby and switched to Sainsbury's eco nappies.  These served us well for a year but are now leaking like mad.  I changed from a size 4+ to a 5, which was slightly better but still not great.  I bought some Naty pull-ups, the only other eco brand they sell in Sainsbury's to see what they were like.  They seem much more absorbent so I'll give their regular nappies a go.  I think, until we're really potty training, Munchkin can have a mixture of nappies and pull-ups depending on where we are and what we're doing.  The pull-ups were brilliant yesterday because we went to a family party at a pub with no baby change and they were easy to whip off in the Ladies' without having to lie Munchkin down.

Well, I think that's enough blogging for one week.  I'll try to blog more regularly in future but certain aspects of my writing regularity are just shocking.  I've got three international penfriends whom I haven't written to for almost a year, and a novel in my head that refuses to be put onto paper.

Zoo Poo

We'd fancied going to Whipsnade Zoo ever since we'd seen it on the Sing & Sign DVD that Munchkin's addicted to.  Along with Sweetpea's parents, we'd saved up a load of Tesco Days Out vouchers and were looking forward to our day out, even if it was half term -busy- and Munchkin and I were a bit under the weather.

It's around a two hour journey from Angmering to Whipsnade, but we didn't care... We love zoos!  Munchkin kept talking about animals and seemed to be looking forward to it despite having a sick day from nursery the day before.

We arrived to massive traffic queues.  You have a choice of free parking or taking your car in the zoo for £20.  We initially decided to park for free, then changed our minds, meaning that we unintentionally jumped half the queue to drive into the park.

Upon arriving, we were unsure where to go.  The sign posting wasn't great and we needed to find Sweetpea's family.  We parked up and went to meet them, thinking there would be made up footpaths suitable for buggies.  Whilst there were some paths meeting this description, many were waterlogged or non existent.  We didn't see the giraffes because it was too muddy.

The zoo is large and really spread out.  It would be a challenge to get round it without a car.  There are narrow roads without pavements going round it.  It's important to point out that Whipsnade is not a safari park, you don't see much whilst driving in your car.  Most zoos we've been to have had a programme of keepers' talks, we didn't see a keeper during our day at Whipsnade.

My sister-in-law was even less impressed.  She was underwhelmed by the number of baby change tables, and felt the service in the cafe we went to was abysmal.  Had it not been for the Tesco vouchers, admission plus the car -which wasn't covered by Tesco vouchers- would have been around £130 for four adults and a child -Munchkin is under 3 and therefore free- ZSL might do some good conservation work but a day at Whipsnade Zoo is a waste of time.  It's neither a zoo nor a safari park but the worst of both worlds.

I blame it all on the Two TT's

Things have been a bit trying round here recently, and it's mainly down to the TT's; Terrible Twos and Tommee Tippee, that is.  Munchkin has been testing boundaries, which is nice.  She is having to learn the hard way, that if you scream for 20 minutes solidly, it doesn't get you what you want.  On Sunday, she insisted that the only thing she wanted for tea was a chocolate chip biscuit.  Daddy told her she could only have one if she ate her sandwich.  She refused, and spent 20 minutes screaming, "Want a biscuit."  Daddy won.  She eventually ate her sandwich -amazingly, she ate it without deconstructing it in her usual manner- and had a biscuit afterwards.  Dummies have been the cause of many screaming fits.  At some point in the next year, dummies will be doing a disappearing act.  For now, we've told her dummies are for sleeping, and she's still allowed a dummy in the car seat... If she asks for one - I've noticed that she sometimes forgets that she needs one.  However, she's been screaming for her dummy at times when she's not allowed to have it.  The screaming fits always end with Mummy and Daddy winning and Munchkin turning back into a sweet little girl, but they're not pleasant.  I've got a perforated eardrum at the moment and all this screaming isn't helping it...

The Terrible Twos are also causing Munchkin to tell me she doesn't like me from time to time - usually alongside a screaming fit.  I don't think this is unusual behaviour as I believe my late mum told me I did this at the age of two.  All the same, it's quite disheartening to be told that your only child doesn't like you, even if she has said she loves you and every other family member at another point on the same day.

I've come to the conclusion that Tommee Tippee -other brands of infant feeding equipment are available- has a lot to answer for.  My daughter has been coming back from nursery with food round her neck for months.  I always blamed the nursery but I now know what the problem is... Tommee Tippee bibs.  The bibs we'd been using until recently fitted snugly around the neck.  We replaced them with Tommee Tippees -the brand that nursery use, only to discover that they're too loose, even when done up on the tightest hole. 

Tommee Tippee struck again when it came to getting Munchkin to drink from a normal cup.  I tried giving her a TT sippy cup with no lid.  This worked fine for a few weeks but now she insists on having the lid on just because she knows it exists.  I need to buy some child-sized beakers with no lids so that she thinks she's drinking from a "Big Girl Cup".  Tommee Tippee will be reserved for her one cup of milk a day, which Angmering Daddy wants to phase out anyway.  When I say "beaker", I mean a plastic cup with no handles.  I just thought I should be clear since Mrs Bucket and my mother-in-law -who are in no way related- seem to think a beaker is a ceramic cup with a handle.  Now, that's what I call a "mug"!

I'm really hoping Munchkin can make it to her swimming lesson this Friday, for the first time this term.  We both had ear infections last week -I think I've still got mine- so swimming was out of the question.  This weekend, we're off to her cousin, Sweetpea's, birthday party.  Sweetpea will be three and I bet her parents are rejoicing that she'll no longer be a TT!

Not the best of weeks....

I think it can safely be said that there have been better weeks in the Angmering Mummy and Daddy household.  Munchkin has basically been unwell since she turned two.  First it was chicken pox, then it was teeth with a bit of a cold.  Around the middle of this week, I noticed that her ear smelt and she had spots around her eye.  It turns out that she has a bacterial infection which has also spread to the back of her hand.  Well the good news is she's not allergic to penicillin, she's been taking it for three days without any issues (apart from loose bowels... ugh).

Until Saturday I was despairing, Munchkin had decided that she only loved Daddy.  All other family members were to be avoided, particularly me.  Every time she was mildly upset, she screamed, "Cuddle Daddy" and even told me that she didn't like me.  To add insult to injury, some members of Angmering Daddy's family told me it was normal in their family for little girls to love their Daddies and ignore their Mummies.  What kind of a culture had I married into?  I was getting rather upset, particularly when friends were writing on social networks that sometimes your little one just needs a cuddle from Mummy...  However, since the antibiotics have kicked in, she's started turning back into my little girl.  Today she was more interested in cuddling Mummy than Daddy.

Our search to find a Saturday morning group to replace the brilliant Sing and Sign continues. We tried a music and movement group called Boogie Beat twice but won't be trying a third time.  The main issue was that the class just seemed too advanced for a child of two, even though it's meant to be suitable for age two plus.  Munchkin didn't want to know.  She wouldn't join in anything apart from playing with the parachute, and then she was disappointed that nobody would give her a ball to hold.  Some parents were encouraging their children to join in by carrying them as they did the dance moves themselves.  Neither Angmering Daddy nor I have the strength to do that for long.  Munchkin is heavy and I still haven't fully recovered from my fall down the stairs.  Boogie Beat also seemed to be a misnomer; there was nothing that could be described as boogying and not much of a discernible beat.  It seemed odd that most of the songs were sung without any backing track.  This was made worse by the fact that the instructor's singing abilities were similar to mine, and I won't be auditioning for a choir any time soon.

Munchkin's social life has been a bit pants recently.  She hated the new group and hasn't been to swimming or gym because of my back.  I felt well enough to take her swimming this week but she wasn't allowed to get her ear wet.  Maybe we'll make it into the swimming pool next week!

To blog or not to blog...

Ooh, scary, I've left it so long, I'm not sure how to blog any more!  Life just got in the way.  I left blogging for so long, I wasn't sure if there was any point going back to it.  My Christmas went with a bang, quite literally.  I fell down the stairs, went to A&E in an ambulance and spent Christmas so drugged up, I slept through half of it.

Munchkin's grown up a lot in the last couple of months.  She no longer uses a highchair and we took the sides off her cot this evening... Fingers crossed we don't get a 5am wake up call!  We keep being told that she's a brilliant speaker for her age.  We put this down to Sing and Sign.  Despite my high hopes in the summer, she still isn't potty trained.  She seems to have developed an aversion to the potty recently but has agreed that a Peppa Pig toilet training seat would be lovely.

I'm still unsure how my child (who only ever watched CBEEBIES and Disney) developed an obsession with Peppa Pig.  She watched it a handful of times at cousins' houses and there was a Peppa Pig themed charity event at nursery in the summer.  The next thing I know, she wants to watch Peppa every time the TV's switched on!  I can only assume it sends out subliminal messages to all toddlers...

I've been thinking just recently that becoming a parent has given me a whole new social life.  Admittedly, it's more difficult to go out as a couple now.  But on the plus side, I've made more friends in the past two years than I did for donkey's years pre-baby.  Last night I met up with some mummy friends and friends of friends for a meal at The Lamb in Angmering.  I highly recommend The Lamb.  It was recently converted into a gastro pub and has a busy bar on one side and a decent restaurant the other side.  The only thing I wasn't so keen on, was that I'm always on the lookout for child friendly pub/restaurants for weekend lunches.  I wasn't impressed with the children's menu since everything appeared to be served with chips.  Not one to add to our list of family favourites!

Well I did it, my blog is resurrected!  I've got another defunct blog out there somewhere and it will have to stay defunct for now because I can't remember the password!

Am I a negligent parent?

It seems like ages since I last blogged.  Apart from writing something for Worthing Mums, I haven't blogged for two months.  Firstly we went on holiday (again) then everything got a bit stressy, mainly because someone at work mentioned the "R word" to me (i.e. redundancy) so I'm currently waiting to hear if my job is at risk.  Anyway, I've had a blog rattling around in my head for ages so I'll attempt to get it into words.

Let me start by saying that I truly love my daughter and I'd never allow her to do anything that I considered dangerous, but I don't believe in wrapping children in cotton wool.  I've been in a few situations where other parents or carers have leapt to the assistance of my daughter when she and I have been wondering what all the fuss is about.  The most common place for this seems to be the playground.  A few months ago we were at the playground with some friends when Munchkin wobbled on a step.  I didn't bat an eyelid - though I would have moved very quickly if she'd actually fallen.  In the meantime, my friend had moved to catch her as if her life depended on it.  This started me thinking... should I be more careful?  A similar thing happened very recently.  We were in park with Munchkin's big cousin, and she wanted to follow her onto the climbing frame / slide.  I walked along beside her, checking that she could make it and letting her see that she could grab my hand if she needed to.  As the afternoon progressed, she and I became more confident.  Although I was still following her as she progressed along the walkway, I stood back, knowing that I had time to step forward if she needed me.  The next thing I knew, a grandmother was holding her hand and stroking her arm. Since English wasn't the woman's first language, I was unsure whether she was trying to protect this poor abandoned baby or if  in her culture it's acceptable to stroke other people's children.  At this point I made it clear Munchkin was with me and no more was said.

Similar things have happened at gym club.  Another mother held Munchkin's hand when she was walking over some stepping stones and quickly realised she was too steady on her feet to need assistance.  I think part of the problem is that she's so small people conclude she can only be about a year old and therefore assume she hasn't been walking long.  She'll actually be two in two months' time, has been walking for eleven months and has the vocabularly of a slightly older child.  That's another reason why I give her quite a lot of freedom, I know that her communication is sufficiently good for her to understand if I tell her not to do something because she might get hurt and that she'll ask for help if she feels she needs it.

So am I a negligent parent?  I don't think so, but one or two grannies in the playground might have other ideas.