To my mother

I've spent a lot of time thinking about my own mother just recently.  The mother of someone I'm close to has just discovered she's seriously ill so is attempting to spend as much time with her grandchildren as possible.  My mum never had that opportunity, her only grandchild was born six years after her death.  I'm really missing her at the moment, and feel guilty that my grief may be detracting from my friend's concerns about his mother.

Munchkin and I were looking at some old photos today, one of my mum when she was a child and two of my mum and me when I was about the age Munchkin is now.  She quickly realised who the little girls were, and that the woman who looked like me was actually Granny.  I've concluded that Munchkin looks like me, but with Granny's hair and Daddy's eyes.  Munchkin understood the concept that I was once a little girl like her, a lot more readily than when I tried to explain why Granny wasn't at Pops' house when she was in lots of photos with him.  She spent five minutes upstairs looking for Granny that day.  I ended up telling her Granny was in Heaven, and hoped it didn't come back to haunt me when we went on holiday to Devon!

Image courtesy of Marin / Freedigitalphotos.net

My mother taught me a lot about parenting, sometimes without realising it.  Here is a brief selection:

1. The only person who could convincingly tell me everything would be all right, no matter how dire it seemed, was my mum.  I think this should be in the Mother's Job Description.  I'm sure I once read a Caitlin Moran column where she said this was the biggest lie a mother ever tells.  Sorry Ms Moran, I disagree.  It's all about perception.  If you believe everything will be all right -I'm starting to sound like Bob Marley now- you'll find a view of the world that enables you to feel this is the case.
2. Never forget you were once a child.  Children need to be played with, and they require empathy.
3. Potty train as early as possible... Nappies are horrible!
4. "I want doesn't get."  Oh Munchkin, how many times have I said that to you?
5. Be careful what you say to your children and never assume they don't understand.  I can still remember things that my mum said when her first marriage was breaking down.  I would only have been three or four at the time.

You may have gathered that I've taken point 3 to heart.  Potty training is going really well.  Munchkin spent last week on holiday with Sweetpea, who has also just started potty training, and they've been running a toilet relay all week.  I've concluded that we get a 5 minute warning for wees and a 30 second warning for poos.  We took Munchkin swimming without a nappy today.  I assumed it would be fine since her swim nappies have always been empty after lessons.  Thankfully she knows when she needs the toilet, or it could have ended in pool closure.  She pooed in her swimsuit just as we got to the loo.  It will be back to nappies for Friday's lesson.

If I can find the time, I'll blog about our holiday in Devon.  We're off to a birthday party at David Lloyd in Worthing next week, so that might also be worth a mention.

Date Night

Last week's Date Night was much more exciting than anything that's happened this week so I've decided to make it the subject of a blog post.  Angmering  Daddy and I don't go out that often because we're not the type of family with grandparents on the doorstep.  A few months ago, I noticed a bill board advertising a live show by Dave Gorman, one of our favourite comedians.  I looked details up when I got home and found that Dave was doing a series of live shows to test out material for the next season of his TV show, Modern Life is Goodish.  We booked straightaway.  The next challenge would be to find a babysitter.  My lovely step-sister obliged, suggesting that Munchkin joined her five year old daughter for a sleepover.

So Date Night arrived and we took Munchkin over to Lewes to stay with my step-sister.  We set up her Ready Bed in little Flower's room and stayed to play with her and make sure she was settled in.  After about an hour, Munchkin asked us to go home!  It was nice to feel wanted...

Our evening started in Food restaurant in Worthing - somewhere we've wanted to try for ages.  The service was good and the food was superb.  We used the fact that we had time to kill as an excuse for having three courses.  Everything was cooked to perfection.  I had the Calamari, Louisiana Street Food, and Banana Creme Brulee.  AD had Latino Popcorn, Blackened Prawn and Pork Tenderloin, and Cheesecake.  We've been considering going back with Munchkin, but yet again I've been put off by the children's menu.  Why do so many restaurants, even those frequented by "foodies", think that children want chips with everything and assume that the parents are happy with that?

Then we moved on to the main event, Dave Gorman at the Connaught Studio.  I hadn't been to the Studio before so was unaware it was a separate building.  People had to queue outside until the doors opened shortly before the show.  It interesting to learn the Studio used to be The Ritz, which had beem a cinema and a ballroom at different points in the 20th Century.  Dave Gorman was really funny.  The purpose of the live shows is to help him develop scripts.  His audiences have been asked not to post details of the content of these shows online since it would spoil the TV series later in the year, and might make some of the special guests nervous.

It was weird not being woken up by a toddler demanding a cuddle or a cup of milk at 6:30 am the following morning.  Apparently she was well behaved but was too excited to sleep until around 9pm.  Other than decorating her bed with felt-tip and not using the toilet at all, she was the model child.  Since Flower had an inset day, we spent the day in Lewes when I went to pick her up.  She had great fun in the playground at Malling Recreation Ground before we went to lunch at Prezzo, which thankfully had a much better children's menu than some of the independent restaurants I've been to recently.

In potty training news, I still have two Munchkins.  Nursery Munchkin wore pants today and only had one accident.  She then came home, refused to go to the bathroom to get ready for bed, and peed her pants.  I think the next two days at nursery will be fine, but I'm dreading pant wearing on Friday.

Potty Training Week 2

It's as if I have two different children.  Nursery Munchkin is almost potty trained whereas Home Munchkin uses the toilet every now and then.  The Peppa Pig medal for pooing on the toilet has been awarded.  This feat was achieved yesterday... At nursery, of course.  When we arrived to collect Munchkin this evening, we were told that she'd been dry most of the day.  The carers have asked if we want to send her to nursery in knickers next week.  I'll probably send her in the Bambino Mio training pants since she prefers those to the Flip. 

The unworn pairs of Flip pants went back to Lizzie's Real Nappies.  Lizzie commented that they were the best on the market, but the manufacturer hasn't got it quite right yet.  We probably will use the remaining pairs but I was hoping they'd be a substitute for pull-ups and that hasn't been the case.

Peppa Pig Medal

Home Munchkin has been a nightmare.  She has regressed to only using the toilet a couple of times a day and doing everything else in her pull-ups.  And the tantrums... Well, where do I start?  Public screaming fits about going to the toilet and/or wearing nappies, refusing to get dressed, refusing to go to bed... The list goes on... She's been driving me to distraction.  I'm somewhat anxious at the best of times and I just haven't known what to do.

I've tried ignoring her, the "broken record" technique of repeating myself continuously until she gives in, negotiating and letting her do what she wants.  Nothing seems to work very well.  Angmering Daddy thinks negotiation is the way forward but I'm not convinced.  I think she behaves worse for me because she picks up on my anxiety.  She's made me cry twice this week.  I'm trying to find some mindfulness training to help with my anxiety and have also reserved ToddlerCalm by Sarah Ockwell-Smith from the library.  However, AD is really annoyed with me.  He says that you learn to be a parent by being a parent and books are pointless.  I'm still going to read it though!

Hopefully my next blog will be about something more exciting than toilets.  Munchkin had her first sleepover at the weekend when AD and I went on a date, and we've also been to Ferring Country Centre, which has had an upgrade since our last visit, so there's plenty to tell if only I can find the time.