the last burnt sienna crayon

It’s amazing how when the penny drops and we realise that her behaviour is stemming from fear and abject terror at the prospect of losing someone/everything again (as she did when she was only 18 mo old), how much easier it is to bear that behaviour from her, how much easier it is to keep cool. It’s frustrating feeling so thick sometimes and thinking back on all the times I have lost my temper with her, if I could just remember, if I could just hold on to the fact that in all of her willfulness, in all of her stubborn, selfish, sometimes seemingly nasty outbursts, that she is just a scared little girl who needs me to stay calm and reliable, more than anything.

And that I love her more than she could ever imagine.

Flower and I didn’t have the easiest of times last week. So many of the old behaviours and rejections came rushing back to test my still very new found and a bit shaky stability.

A conversation we had, several times last week:

Flower: I’m scared of you mummy.
me: What was that?
Flower: I’m scared of you mummy.
me: oh! Why are you scared of me, Flower?
Flower: Because I love you.
me: What??
Flower: Because I love you.

ouch.

The first time she said it, I thought it could just have been a confused mush of words (she’s very good at confused mushes of words and concepts that don’t go together so well), but after several times, and the context around when she said it, I am certain she knew exactly what she meant. Even if she could not completely understand it.

Mummy did.

December 1st.

In all of my recent fatigue and grumpiness, I left the Flower Child unsupervised by anyone but the television and the cats for a bit and slumped upstairs for a 10 minute break. Upon returning I found my little Flower sitting on the cream sofa with her Thomas the Tank Engine Advent calendar ripped into shreds and the plastic tray of chocolates that lies beneath the cardboard windows excavated and on her lap with a tall chair pulled in front of the high point that we had placed it.

11 of the 24 chocolates were completely missing.

So much for advent.

Yes, it’s time to hibernate. Hibernate, eat, hide and drink mulled red wine. And besides, mulled wine doesn’t count towards your weekly allowed alcohol units. . . does it?

The fact that I have written so little as of late (both on and offline) is evidence to this fact (the hibernation, not the alcohol units). Long nights, evening skies at noon, cold rain and wet, rotting leaves. I find December difficult and Thanksgiving to Christmas a bit teary. And I guess also this year getting flu (probably Swine flu) which turned into chest infection (bronchitis/pneumonia – was actually a bit frightening at times. One gets attached to the act of breathing.), and not getting treated quickly enough hasn’t helped my usual “happy go lucky” general life attitude. (HEY! No heckling in the back there!)

I came down with it was the day after my vaccinations, so therefore I only assumed it was a side effect of the jabs and didn’t get checked until I really was in a bit of bother, which delayed my treatment for the infection.

I love antibiotics. No really, I do. I’ve been on them almost 10 times this year, and I always just feel safer once they’re in my system. I guess having a damaged immune system can be a bit scary at times, especially when you just can’t seem to fight something off. So an “immune system in a pill” is a great idea, I think (even taking into consideration my usual reaction against all things tablet shaped!).

My cat is ill, my mom is too far away, my husband is travelling, and my friends must all want to be hibernating as well.

I’m in a bit of a resentful, self pitying, “i love you, go away” slump just right now and I am sorry. I’m sorry both to you, Reader, and to those who must encounter me in the everyday, that I am a bit of a “little black rain cloud” at the moment. I am trying, I promise. I’ve just got my head down and mostly trying to direct as much of my tunnel vision and non existent energy as I can at the Flower Child, who has been such a star while mummy has been ill.

(aside: toddler tip for ill mums: create a small gentle set of “duvet games” with your little one. Hide and Seek works well. They will love hearing “where’s Flower gone?!” until you flip back the duvet and exclaim “There she is!”, and it allows you to be vaguely horizontal for as many minutes as you can squeeze out of it. Hide and seek with toy animals works well too. Also the game “the one who moves first looses” is a good one. Anyway, it worked for us.)

I can’t see how to shift this fatigue or cough or lassitude or blue mood for the foreseeable future, and Christmas has always been a tough time for me anyway (at least since coming here from there).

So please show some forbearance with me, and I’ll try to at least act vaguely positive. Maybe by next week, at least.

Oo. And I mustn’t forget to get some ice cream.

So this morning I’m booked in for not just one flu jab, but two. The regular one plus the swine flu vaccination. And as of right now, I’m not sure I’m going to go through with the swine flu one today, as I’m on my own with the Flower Child all day today and tomorrow (husband is travelling with work), and from what I hear from all corners, my arm will be rendered pretty useless for awhile afterwords.

Three year olds and any immobility of the parent don’t go well together.

Oh yeah, plus my fear of injections doesn’t really help me make a dispassionate and practical decision.

I’ve been so eager to get vaccinated, particularly against swine flu, as everything I get knocks me for six, and could actually be a bit dangerous for me, with my ‘house of horrors immune system’ and all, and taking care of said three year old will be impossible if I get flu, which would immobilise me even more.

I’m very thankful really that I have the opportunity to get the vaccine, with my reaction to illness and all, but then there’s my reaction to drugs too. The question is weighing up do I risk delaying it (possibly a substantial time, knowing my surgery and their general approach to appointments) and therefore risking getting flu (there’s so much of it going round, as you may have heard) or going ahead and having it today, likely not just getting the sore unusable arm, but probably running my system down and being fatigued for the next three weeks until I can see my acupuncturist again? Remember, my body doesn’t like or react well to drugs, and I’ve been really run down lately anyway.

I’ll let you know what I do and what happens.

Yesterday taking one of my frequent walks in the park with the Flower Child we turned down a wooded path near the stream. The light was beautiful and the leaves were organge and yellow and the sunlight was shining through the gaps in the trees and shimmering on the water. Suddenly Flower stops, gasps and clutches onto my leg.

Me: What’s wrong?
F.C.: I think I’m a bit scared.
Me: What are you scared of, Flower?
F.C.: There’s a Walrus.
Me: There’s a Walrus down the path??
F.C.: Yes. He’s down there.
Me: Well, let’s go find him and make friends with him!
F.C.: Oh! He’s up there now.
Me: In the trees?
F.C.: Yes. He’s autumn Walrus.
Me: Oh. What is his name?
F.C.: Hippo.
Me: Well, say hello to him.
F.C.: He’s walking again. He’s down there.

I couldn’t get her to say hello to Hippo and make friends, but If I had met him, I know I would have!

I’ve had a rough afternoon. I’m not going to shout about it here, in fact, I am learning more and more that, especially in regards to issues like these, where I must stand alone in my opinions, but find a way to stand up for them all the same. It is best not to say anything at all. I know it just invites invalidation. But, once again, my definition of what is right, doesn’t match everyone else’s. But I still think it’s right.

I’ve had a rough afternoon, and the love I feel for my daughter has almost never been stronger than it has been recently and my wanting the best for her has almost never been stronger, and my fighting spirit, like that Momma bear protecting her cub, has almost never been stronger. It’s just hard when a mum defines ‘the best’ differently to how everybody else does, when they simply can’t see what I’m talking about.

But then I’ve felt a bit lately like someone who has been trying to cope having lost one of their senses that they usually rely on. I’ve felt a bit lately like I’m not ‘clicking’ with other people quite right. I’ve felt like I’ve lost my social awareness. I’ve felt a bit like an alien again.

I’ve had a rough afternoon, and all I can think of is this song. And reading it, I am crying again. And I haven’t actually done that in awhile now. Until today.

Flowers are Red
by Harry Chapin

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin’ young man
I’m paintin’ flowers he said
She said… It’s not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There’s a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
For you’re not the only one

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
And green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You’re sassy
There’s ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me…..

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
And green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It’s for your own good..
And you won’t come out ’til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin’
She said…Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let’s use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, and green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

I just wanted to point you all to a link to a friend’s blog. Although, in many ways, our families are very different, I couldn’t express these particular sentiments better myself.

I worry a lot about my Flower and her frustrations and what she may have to go through in her life and how I will manage to go through them with her. Her uncertainties are my uncertainties. Her future is my future. And likewise, my struggles are hers.

So like my friend’s little boy, I know Flower needs me to hope. She can’t do it for herself. Not without me. Not yet anyway.

click here (oh, and by the way, she said I could link her.)

It’s been one of those mornings.

One of those mornings that starts out all lovely and happy and agreeable with talk of sleepy ogres and polor bears wanting to drink mummy’s tea and smiles and laughs and then somewhere halfway down the stairs heading for the Cheerios the ever present battlefield rears up its nasty, all consuming head.

NO I don’t want it!
NO I don’t need it!
NO I can’t DO it!
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

What happened to Makka Pakka just needing some tea? What went wrong? I have no idea! It was on about step number 4 that we lost it. Does step number 4 house some kind of blip in the space/time continuum? And now mummy is left feeling terrible because not only did she never get it back, but she lost it even worse than the three year old!

Mummy has never excelled in the specialist area of Patience. What chance did I have? When I grew up “NO” was simply not an option (and of course we had to walk 10 miles to school, everyday, knee deep in snow, up hill, both ways, and we were just eternally grateful to even have a school!! yeah, I know…) so that now when I am confronted with it, I simply don’t know how to handle it!

NO, I’m the mummy.
NO, you’re only three.
NO, you must listen to me!

I feel horrible.

And although I managed to get the kiss and the cuddle of reconciliation from her before I left her with far more patient women than I (who don’t really need it because she’s always sweetness and light for), I still feel bad about it because I won’t see her again ’til 20 past 3 . . . when it will all start again.

… but tonight at dinner, the Flower Child picked up a piece of watercress, twirled it around and said, “oh look! it’s like a tree! it’s a plant! you can eat it!”

three distinct concepts, restated in different ways (like a tree, a plant, can eat it) but linked together to describe one object, including a similie to aid thorough and varied description.

I was amazed. C’mon, humour me.

I received something in the post yesterday, I assume from either the health visitor or the docotr’s office that said “Congratulations, your child is 3! Now that your child is 3, she should be able to:…” and then listed all manner of developmental things like kicking a ball and standing on one foot etc, many of which the Flower Child can do.

However, I don’t know of any parents who actually appriciate these kind of mailings, as it always points out those things that are ‘different’ to the ‘norm’ in your child, and makes you as a parent feel that perhaps you have not encouraged all aspects of your child’s development well enough. ah, underachievement in the child, failure as a parent! (of course in all rationality, we know this isn’t so, but…)

As I tried to remember if I had ever seen Flower walk on her tiptoes, and decided that she may have some trouble achieving this, along with a few other milestones on the list, I said to myself and to the piece of paper:

“Yes, but my 3 year old can correctly aurally identify and name the difference between flute, guitar, trumpet, drums, violin and piano when heard in a given piece of classical music. Bet yours can’t. HA, so there!!”

Now we just have to work on Sonata composition, and we could have a budding Mozart.

Reverse psychology actually works on my three year old!!

The insights into baseline human nature that looking after a toddler gives is not only frustrating, but frightening. The natural instict towards opposition and rebellion is truly one I’ve never understood. But suddenly when she thought she was doing something I didn’t want her too (“Flower, DON’T eat your toast!”), she did exactly what I wanted her to. . . but only so long as it was the very thing that she actually wanted to do, but didn’t want to do it if I wanted her to do it!

Sometimes I just feel like, why did I struggle all those years to get through my own childhood/adolescence to become a fully mentally and socially functioning grown up, only to turn and walk straight back into the midst of the irrationality of the phase I worked so hard to leave.?! Do I have to wait another 20 years to find sanity, only to find I’m too late to do anything with it?

I think I need some grown up company.

The window envelope sat on the bed waiting for, daring me to, face it.

“To the parent(s)/guardian(s) of ______ ”

Of course it’s a standard, administrative way to address correspondence to the parent(s)/guardian(s) of a child, but after our/my struggle to become the parent(s) of _____, I’d really rather not be referred to as the guardian(s) of _____.

Call me picky, but. . . some things still just rub the wrong way. some things still hold the memory, and I’d rather not.

I knew what the contents of the letter would be, and I knew I would have to open it. I knew that if I opened it I would have to read it, and I really didn’t want to, but thought I may as well get it over with.

Yes, it retold all the gory details of that unpleasant meeting in May, where it was made perfectly clear that I am completely wrong, though he, our professional correspondant, was aware of how controversial the argument was, though he was aware of how passionately I felt about the issue at hand, and how he could understand how i felt and how stressful the whole thing was, but in the end. . . i was wrong. A room of two senior professionals (one, top in the country), one junior, and another adult all stood on one side of the line drawn in the sand, and I slid my chair back, quite literally, to the other, ganged up on, and standing out. Was I that strong to stand on my own there? Am I still? No, I don’t think I can be that certain. Passionate, convinced, but not certain. This nonconformist not only has a sensitivity to rejection, but a fear of standing alone, and of being wrong.

He didn’t use the word “wrong“, per se, because when it comes to philosophy and ethics, you can’t really, and you can’t prove anyone as being “wrong“, you only really have the majority and what they say to prove your case. But he and his collegues made themselves perfectly clear. No one in this country would support me in my opinion, and as I live in this country, that’s what any respectable and responsible parent/guardian would do. . . in their opinion. And as far as anyone is concerned, their opinion is what counts, as I am not a top professional of this kind in the country, only a parent, for what it’s worth.

I still don’t think he is “right” but he is not “unfair”. I am sure I must conceed. Everything tells me that his arguments are hypocritical. . . but I’m not interested in arguments anymore. I’m done arguing.

Who decides what “right” we have to anything?! He was as much making a decision for her as I was. When it comes down to it, no body has any “right” in this matter anyway, not me, not him, not even HER, as God has all the rights and has made all the decisions already. We simply don’t get a choice. Facts are facts. What right do we have to pretend they aren’t so. Don’t we do a child a disservice in teaching them denial, in teaching them that everything is ok, when it may not be. The line in that sand has a row of ostrich on one side, and me on the other.

But I must learn to quell my passion when it gets shaken up. It would seem that it, the things that it holds to, and I, are “wrong”. And I can’t in all honesty say, swear, that those on the other side of that line are not “right”.

So I went shopping and bought myself a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

We don’t have a large back garden. It’s overgrown, a bog and a mess. It could be worse, but I’m not all that happy for Flower to play there, as there are some very toddler unfriendly bits. But the two parks accross the street may keep me living in this tiny Victorian servants’ house longer than is practical. We often refer to the parks as “our grounds”.

“Would you like to come for a walk around our grounds with me?”

One park has a large duck pond, a playground and an open ground where kids play ball and students have picnics. The other park has botanical gardens, tree covered paths and large open green fields.

I really love these parks. I feel like they’re an extention to my home. It helps that I can practically step out of my front door directly into either of them. It is a wonderful place for Flower to run and play and explore and they are all neatly landscaped, manicured and kept up for me by the pleasure of the city council.

For the past year and a half the Flower Child and I have ventured out together almost every dry day, to the duck pond, or the gardens, or the ’squirrel walk’. I love the hidden wisteria tree and she loves the hidden paths. This year we have cygnets. At the appropriate times of year she loves to pick daisies and buttercups, or collect pine cones, or chase dry leaves and splash in puddles. She’s a good walker for not even quite being 3 yet.

Currently, a month before her third birthday, she is suddenly becomming more aware of the world around her. Today she was impressed with the ‘big treees’ and said ‘look up! there’s hundreds.’ A couple of weeks ago she discovered her shadow. We had pointed out and explained shadows before, but she actually noticed it for the first time a few weeks ago. Now she is very much attached. she looks back when her shadow is following along behind her on a sunny day and says ‘c’mon shadow!’

and when the sun goes behind a cloud or we walk under a tree she says, worried, ‘where’s shadow gooone?!” So I explain that when we walk in the shade under a tree, shadow goes to meet us in the sunshine on the other side. today as we stepped under a tree into the shade she leaned toward the path, made a kissing sound and said “bye, shadow. see ya LA-ter!” (i wish i could type the vocal intonation.)

it’s very cute.

half term week means no playgroup for the Flower Child. this half term week, i’m convinced, exists solely to test my ability to multitask. and whereas since returning from my trip, i have been better, more myself, healthier, calmer, more motivated with slightly more energy and more than a touch more confidence than in so many years, i still think that succeeding with everything i have to do this week is going to be a bit of a stretch of the imagination. (am singing Cbeebies songs with Flower to keep her amused as i type this… how’s that for multi tasking?)

am still processing events from abroad, but i will close that box for now and set it aside until it is more conveniet to sort through the contents.

oh i hope she naps today!

in this life we make choices. we make choices based on hope. sometimes a hope for something better, sometimes simply hope that we’ve made a good choice. we then live with those choices in whatever way we find ourselves able to do that.

some people never live with their choices. they refuse to and stand against the world in a blockade of denial.

other choices are made for us. in that case we either have to find a way of living with it, or find a way of changing it. otherwise, we get stuck behind the blockade again.

(by the way, Hamlet is my favourite Shakespearian play.)

I want to teach my daughter [how to] to make [good] choices. I also want to give her a way of living with [accepting] the reality of the world that we live in.

they say that the best way to teach children is to model the behaviour.

things i wish my daughter wouldn’t say:

– NO mummy
– no mummy today (usually acompanied by shoving me away)
– no [whatever it is i want her to do] today
– it’s MINE
– i WON (usually coming after declaring NO to something or a tantrum)
– daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy [with adoring worshipful gaze towards him usually said after declaring 'no mummy today' with a shove]

things i love when my daughter says:

– pick – YOU – UP [with arms upstretched] (this is most often a declaration of her feeling a bit vulnerable and wanting reassurance that i’m there for her)
– i did it!
– mummy mummy mummy mummy (this always comes in conjunction with the ‘daddy daddy’ phrase, but whereas the daddy daddy phrase mostly stands alone as a declaration of preferance and as such is unwelcome, the two parental phrases combined are a welcome occasional acknowledgement that the three of us make a whole. . . it doesn’t happen often, but i love it when it’s there)

and most of all:

– luff you. (i don’t think she quite understands what it means yet, but she’ll only ever say it in response to me if she’s in a happy mood, so i think she’s getting the idea that whatever ‘luff’ is, is a good thing.)

the clear and sunny but frosty weather of new year’s eve has given way to a darker and cloudier yet still frosty new year’s day. that’s ok though. i’m in front of the open flame gas fire watching my monthly direct debit drift hypnotically up the chimney in a blaze of orange and blue. i’m warm and content sitting here with a cup of tea, a shortbread biscuit and my red slippers, catching occasional waftings of the scent of the new year’s day pork and saurkraut from the kitchen, an old pennsylvania dutch tradition for new year’s good luck that my family have followed for as long as i can remember. i don’t recall anyone particularly liking saurkraut, it was just what you did. and now the pungent, biting smell has become pleasant to me in recalling the years past when my family stretched back further and wider than a decade or a tiny island.

the flower child seems to be going through another developmental spurt. one of those vague changes of language, thought and ability that one can’t quite quantify or put a finger on. i like when she has weeks like that, where i watch her grow up right under my nose. she seemed to even like me this morning, wanting me to be with her and asking me on multiple occasions to “mummy play”, which is a real development in our relationship and one that i pray is an indication of future growth there too. so after crashing her cars, and making pretend snowballs she went down for a nap this afternoon, and now, as predicted i am not welcome to be in her presence again. nevermind. i’ll wait. oh, here she is. maybe she’d like to catch a few snowballs?

i know that 2009 will be an improvement on 2008. who knows i may even sort myself, my career and my family out by 2010?

i’ve always been told about that time when your child begins to exhibit learning that you did not give them. Flower turned 2 last week, and sometimes talks a lot, and sometimes doesn’t. the times when she doesn’t tend to make you forget that even though she’s not letting you know what she’s learning, she’s still learning it.

one example this morning was as i was doing her hair, i put something in her hair that i have always called a ‘clip’. when i brushed back her fringe and clipped the clip she responded by happily naming ‘grip’. this was interesting to me, not so much that she couldn’t have learned the naming of things anywhere other than me, but more that the most likely place for her to have learned what to call the things in her hair was her carer for the first 18 months of her life before she came to us. the eye opening thing for me was that words she hasn’t encountered for about 6 or 7 months. are still in there someplace, and occasionally come out.

the other amusing comment from her this morning was as she was playing with her farm, she ran the tractor into the sheep and knocked it over. husband said ‘oh poor sheep. is sheep ok?’ Flower answers back very matter of factly ’s’died.’

now does she actually have a concept of death at 2? and where did she get it? she doesn’t interact much with other children yet (either at playgroup or at a friend’s house) and when she does, that play involves more play kitchens, leggo and play dough than imaginary scenarios of battles or death. i haven’t even really told her any fairy tales (her story preferences are usually with sam-i-am, clara cow, igglepiggle and postman pat. no death in any of those.)

in terms of tele, she only ever watches cbeebies (other than an occasional ready steady cook when i remember that my viewing preferences can occasionally, once in a blue moon count a wee little bit too) since she’s been with us. so again, is this a word she gained before becoming our daughter? there was an awful lot of grown up tele in her last household, so quite possibly. i can’t believe that at 2 she actually as a concept of death, so it must be that she saw someone get knocked over, fall down with someone else saying ‘he’s died’.

but it does all remind me that i can never be the ‘be-all-and-end-all’ for her, no matter how much i’d like to be.

Flower’s favourite character is Makka Pakka (and therefore he is ours too, i suppose). The other day she was looking out my window at the street below and started to excitedly say ‘og pog! og pog!’.

i looked and looked for what she was seeing. then i realised that there was a guy walking up the pavement, walking next to his bike, pushing it.

lol

just have to blog this one before i get on with things today and completely forget she did it. Flower was sitting on my bed as i checked email this morning. she leaned back on the pillows and said “HAT”. i turned around to see her smiling at me because a cushion fell on top of her head and stayed there.

i suppose this is more amusing for me, well, 1. because she’s my daughter (everything your own little one does is more amusing to you than anyone else) and 2. because she has become completely obsessed with hats lately, though we didn’t know that anything sitting on her head could work for her and 3. it indicates the development of her understanding of what makes a joke!

we always knew she was a little girl who’s into accessories (shoes, hats, glasses, watches, etc…). she’s a girl after her mummy’s style conscious little heart (well, i can at least TRY to be a “yummy mummy”), and we anticipate that she will someday also grow to be after her daddy’s credit card as well!

oh, another word for you: the word for “sunglasses” is “eyes”. but “eyes” said with such a particular Flower expression in her voice and on her face that it takes on a whole new meaning!

so yes, as tj said below, “they grow up too fast. Write down Flower’s funny sayings now before she grows out of them!”

so far, in losing “baby words” for more accurate ones:

– “Gakka” (her cuddly toy Makka Pakka [ok, i admit the name itself is silly, but we like him!] who she is completely emotionally attached to and takes to bed. He’s complete with battle scars and blood stains from when she fell down the stairs on Monday and saw her through 3 hours in the casualty department!! he needs a wash… anyway, i digress again…) has now become “Makka”,
– “gee-ku” has become a very grown up “thanks”
– “ray-see” has become “raisins”
– “see-caa” became “scat” and has now become “BIS-cat”
– after seeming to not know the word for ages, she finally knows and says properly “pig” and “oink”, though she’s not as obsessed with cows as she used to be.

yes, i have been writing them down.

Heathcliff (our cat) is still “okra”! (we never did figure out the linguistic derivation of that one!)

ee declared to me the other day that “i miss ‘gee-ku’. this language development thing is overrated!” it’s funny how you get attached to the individual words/sounds themselves as standing for a particular time as she grows up. every parent feels like they have this amazing developmental time for such a short while that it’s understandable why parents want to hold on to the “baby” words just a little bit longer. especially when you know that no matter what, yes, she’s going to grow up and speak properly someday. we’ve only had her baby language for such a short time anyway. no one could blame us for wanting to enjoy this time just a little longer before it’s gone.

because it will be gone.

though, after granny’s concerted effort and brief success at trying to get Flower to take the “s” off the end of “sheep” that she puts there (even for the singular) we are happy to report that there are “sheeps” in this household once again!!

ok, ok. i know that i’ve completley neglected my responsibility to answer the question that i previously posed to you. in fact i get people asking me all the time for the answer. (and that’s over cups of tea or bbq’s not just internet bound. you know you’ve been neglecting your blog when people you see everyday in the place we satirically refer to as “RL”.

["RL"="real life" for those who have never been addicted to internet role play or have never heard someone actually say "oh, i was talking to brad the other day and this GNOME walked by and gave me a love potion!! but then i went to the cafe and met up with steve {i mean in RL}." and yes, i used to know a girl many years ago who frequently said things like that {and NO, it WASN'T ME!!}. which was a bit destabilising, especially when you had no idea who brad or steve were! she didn't mention RL that much though... funny, that, hmm....] anyway, i digress…)

ok, so “tid-da-low”. none of the guesses were even close. but then, that’s not surprising, considering that it was an “armadillo”! no really, it was. she had a book (sadly, sadly lost now.) that was a story of a zoo keeper saying goodnight to all his animals who then let themselves out of the zoo and follow him home to go to sleep in his bedroom. it was a lovely story. so i had heard her saying tiddaolow tiddalow tiddalow for a few days and couldn’t work it out, until i told her the story again and pointed to the different animals and said ‘can you say giraffe?’ and she’d answer ‘jaf.’ ‘can you say lion?’ ‘lion’ ‘can you say armadillo? (i only asked for a laugh to see what she’d do, not thinking she’d really respond) ‘tiddalow.’ so i tried again ‘armadillo, Flower, what’s an armadillo? ‘tiddalow!’

it seems so long ago now. her language has moved on SO much that we’ll probably not hear that word again, now that she could probably say ‘armadillo’ itself!

well, and as we can’t find the book anymore, and we generally don’t have much call to talk about armadillos in everyday conversation, really.

i never realised how much fun language acquisition, translation and the whole guessing game that is communication with a 21 month old would be. she tends to have a favourite word of the day. it’s great listening to her obsess about ‘cow, cow, cow, cow. . . cow. cooooowwwwww. COW!” or sometimes ” cat, cat, cat etc…” These types of exchanges usually happen while having a quiet moment looking out of her window together.

Flower Child: “cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat.”
me: “do you see a cat, Flower? I don’t see a cat. But do you see one>”
Flower Child: “no cat. bur -tee!”
me: “do you see a birdie, Flower?”
Flower Child: “no bur-tee.”

and so on.

but i particularly love when i work out what a random syllable means. particularly when said random syllable has been confusing us to it’s meaning and frustrating Flower at our incomprehension. Words that have happened in this charades like way have included “shh!” (for “fish”), “raysee” (sometimes with a trilled ‘r’…means raisins), “scat” (for buscuit/cookie), and the imfamous “DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT” or sometimes said as “TO NO NOT TO NO NOT TO NO NO NOT” or even sometimes “TO YO YOT” (this obviously was never an emphatic instruction not to do something, but it took us awhile to figure out it was her way of saying “i want”. “To yo yot” was actually the syllable combination that helped the most, because it was close to what we would say to her when asking “do you want (fill in the blank, whatever)?”

Yesterday’s word was “skwee”. Can you guess what it means? You’ll never guess. Wait for it. . .

. . . hold on, don’t rush me

. . . it’s too good

. . . really, it is

play dough! skwee is play dough!

i think it comes from when i introduced her to play dough a couple of weeks ago, i handed her a blob and told her to “squeeze it”. so after buying some new colours yesterday (yes, yes, i know one can save money by being a super mum and making it, but believe me, the energy and time and frustration it would save me in buying it, is worth the 3 pounds! i’d love to be a super mum, but i simply haven’t got my cape yet.) we spent the afternoon squeezing the skwee. Today’s word of the day has been “skwee, skwee, skwee, skwee, skwee.”

also included in our linguistic adventures are words that mean something they don’t really. Early on in our time with Flower she’d say “chaairr” and obviously want something that wasn’t a chair. Worked out that it meant she was hungry (because of her booster seat at the table). Although this translation is a fluid one, as she’s almost as obsessed with chairs and different chairs and seating furniture as she is almost with cows. so sometimes “chaairr” really does mean, well, chair.

ok, here’s one for you to guess. what is (and no spilling the beans if i’ve told you this already!):

ti-dah-low (hint, it’s an animal)