…because it’s going to be a baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We’re expecting our third baby at Christmas time!  After spending most of the holiday feeling tired and sick, we came back home on Saturday, did a test and…hurrah…it was positive!  We’re all really excited and am also chuffed to bits that I have now told all the important people so I can at last announce it on here

Mopsy can say lots of words now - her favourite is ‘um duck’, meaning ‘I’m stuck’ and uttered whenever she can’t get somewhere she wants to get to e.g. down off a chair; into someone’s arms; through a closed door.  She spends a lot of time saying ‘biooooooowww’ at anything she thinks might be a cat, and is starting to get the hang of saying ‘woo woo’ for ‘woof woof’ and ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh’ for ‘baa’.  She enjoys being a ’scary lion’ and running after people with her arms outstretched like a zombie and growling then giggling.  She’s an extremely affectionate girl and is always giving us hugs and kisses - especially Flopsy, whom she adores.  She can climb anything she wants to and we often find her on the table with a huge grin on her face.  She loves drawing and particularly enjoys doing scribbles then showing them to us telling us that she’s drawn a ‘dar’ (star).  She’s also extremely musical, and grins and jigs up and down whenever she hears music - she’s really good at staying in time with the music so I think she’s inherited some of her father’s genes there (DH plays bass guitar).  She loves books and can often be found looking through their little bookcase.  She plays wonderful make-believe games with Flopsy - having tea-parties; talking on the telephone (which involves putting something to the side of her head and shouting ‘yah!’ very loudly).  She’s absolutely gorgeous

Flopsy is going too fast!  She can read lots of people’s names, and a few other words like ’cat’.  She’s just starting writing a few letters - she can do ’i'; ‘o’ and ’T’ and she just came up to me now and showed me a ‘y’.  Mum found a Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme book in a charity shop and Flopsy is mad about it and has, within the space of about four days, memorised most of the words and spends a lot of time reading it to herself and to us.  She loves Mopsy and is very patient with her.  She’s really learnt to call one of us when Mopsy intereferes with her games instead of pushing her away, so much so that I’m starting to get a bit tired of hearing ‘oh, oh, Mopsy is getting my book/food/cup…’ everytime Mopsy goes anywhere near her!  She helps Mopsy with lots of things, and loves showing her the signs for certain words.  As I’ve said in the last post, she’s really wonderful on the computer now and finds games to play that I’ve never seen!  She can usually work out how to play them as well, despite the fact she can’t possibly be able to read the instructions!  She loves pretending to be someone else, and after a little fad when she was Baby Jazzy and I was Mama Jojo from a book she’s got, she’s spent the last week being Dora the Explorer with Mum being Boots.  She’s also absolutely gorgeous! 

I could have titled this post ‘Obsessions’ but it’s such an unpleasant word as it is so often used in a derogatory way.  Passionate interests is a much more positive and accepting way of describing the way toddlers (and, as I understand it from other mums) learn about life.  I observe them in Flopsy more and more often and the only difference between each on is the value I place on them - my own adults’ opinion on which interests are ‘allowable’ because I view them as healthy and/or educational; and which aren’t.  These opinions are based on cultural conditioning only and are largely irrelevant to Flopsy.  How dare I assum that I am better at deciding what is worth doing and what isn’t than she is?  I would be fuming if someone told me my interests were pointless and that I shouldn’t continue with them.  The only reason this doesn’t really happen to me is because I’m an adult and therefore seem more worthy of other adults’ respect.  It’s possibly also because I have completed my schooling, and therefore worked my way through all of the supposedly essential things we are meant to work through when we have curricula imposed upon us.  Despite the fact I’ve forgotten most of what I learned at school (I’ve remembered a lot of what I learnt during my childhood, but most of it was learned out of school), because I’ve jumped through the hoops, I’m now allowed to enjoy what I want to enjoy.  I’ve spent years memorising various facts that the powers-that-be have decided it’s necessary for me to know and passing exams which gave me a nice fat bunch of certificates proving to the world that I once knew something - it appears to be irrelevant if I still knew it half an hour after the exam had finished!  Anyway, I digress!  Flopsy hasn’t done any of this yet, and despite the fact that I’m trying desperately to overcome some of these ridiculous beliefs about what is valuable and what is not, I still find myself wishing that Flopsy will exhaust some passionate interests sooner than others.  Of course, I’m more liley to describe these passionate interests as ‘obsessions’.  I encourage the passionate interests I see as worthy and discourage those I see as unworthy - how rude of me!

Flopsy’s latest passionate interest has been with playing games on the internet.  Her self-taught ability to use the mouse and navigate toddlers’ websites has astounded me.  However, I’ve often found myself worrying that she’ll never stop playing on the computer and encouraged her to go and play outside or read a book instead.  I try to sit on my hands and keep my mouth shut and occassionally I succeed.  When I do succeed, lo and behold, she eventually moves away of her own accord to play with something different.  And, just as she became bored of her last passionate interest (it was sticking - something I decided was worthy and encouraged when I had the patience!), she is beginning to become bored of computer games and, before we went away, was playing on them less and less often and for shorter and shorter periods of time.  Of course, she had to have a bit of a computer marathon when we got back home this afternoon, but after she did that, she’s not played on it since.  And she’s moved out of her interest with a whole new bunch of skillsthat she can apply to all the other areas of her life.  I sincerely hope that one day I will be able to stop placing my own value judgements on her interests and view them as worthy for no other reason than that she is interested in them.

Away for a week now - hurrah!  Will probably have hundreds of posts up my sleeve ready for Sunday week.  Comments won’t be being approved (as I won’t be here to approve them!) this week, but please don’t not comment if you want to…you’ll just have to wait a few days before they appear on the site!  Byexxx

Ron over at Atypical Homeschool has been having long discussions with a lot of readers about the role of punishment in parenting.  As far as I understand it, religion seems to be coming into it a great deal.  Now I used to say I was a Christian, mainly because my Grandparents were and I occasionally attended a church.  However, I would not describe myself as a Christian now, so I consider myself qualified to discuss children and punishment where religion is not an issue.  I am aware that my children are very young, and that I am speaking from the viewpoint of a relatively inexperienced parent.  Still, I find I have beliefs on the subject that I hope we can stay true to as our children grow up. 

1. I have come to see corporal punishment as one of the worst methods of child-rearing there is!  It’s disrespectful, degrading, disempowering and is a gross abuse of a parent’s power that they only have because they are bigger than the child! 

2. Fear is most certainly not a good way to get children to do what you want!  Wouldn’t we all prefer our children to develop a good rational thinking mechanism that enables them to not behave unpleasantly simply because they don’t want to?  Punishment that is frightening enough to actually stop a child doing something does just that…frightens them into not doing it!  They don’t learn anything from it.  They don’t learn the genuine reason why they shouldn’t do something - the only reason they have for not doing something is that they’re too frightened to do it!

3. Punishment that is not truly frightening is ineffective and counter-productive.  Those of you who’s parents didn’t beat you ie. your punishments were not frightening: how many times do you remember choosing not to do something because of the punishment you might be subjected to should you be found out?  Maybe I’m strange, but the only thing fear of punishment taught me was to learn a bunch of good tactics for ensuring I wasn’t caught out!  It taught me to lie (sorry Mum!).  Having said that, I wasn’t a very ‘naughty’ child - possibly because my parents weren’t particularly punitive in their child-rearing methods…

4. I firmly believe that children will grow up respectful of others if they are respected throughout their childhood.  ‘Rules’ that don’t make sense won’t be stuck to and will lead to ‘disobedience’ which must be ‘dealt with’.  ‘Rules’ that do make sense would be unneccessary anyway.  If we respect our children’s needs, opinions and choices as we would respect other adults’ needs, opinions and choices, they will undoubtedly grow up without the need for ‘corrective discipline’.  I don’t know if I’m explaining myself very well on this point!  I’m not saying that the ‘answer’ is to be totally permissive, rather to explain respectfully why some actions are not acceptable and to be a bit more open minded about how we see the role of ‘rules’.  Example:  Mopsy hits a lot at the moment; I stop her every time, and tell her firmly that it is not acceptable and why it is not acceptable e.g. Said firmly, whilst holding her arm so she understands what I’m stopping her doing “Don’t hit me, Mopsy!  It hurts and I feel sad when I am hurt.”.  She already hits far less often, and I’ve seen her go to hit a few times and then stop herself.  This is in the space of about a week.  Why do we need to consider disrespectful methods of guiding our children when respectful methods work?  Similarly, why insist on a child tidying up his toys to the extent of punishing him if he ‘disobeys’ - tidying up doesn’t make sense to a child, as the only reason adults like a tidy house is because they like a tidy house - it’s down to personal opinion.  If it is so important to the adult that the house is tidy, they should tidy it up - the child would probably come along and help anyway if not coerced into doing so!

5. ‘Naughty steps’:  How to make your child feel shame and self-hatred, in my opinion!  And, as a consequence, hatred of the person who’s made you feel that way.  Similarly with the renamed ‘time out’ ideas - put child alone in a bedroom and keep the door shut for a certain length of time - I think they say one minute for every year of a child’s life.  Taking a child out of an explosive situation and sitting them on your lap cuddling them while they calm down is a method that is much more respectful of their needs and feelings.

I could go on and on!  As I say, I’m very aware that I have yet to experience the parenting challenges that come with older children, and I am also prepared to admit that we don’t always manage to stay true to our beliefs and values with regard to guiding our children.  Still, we need to have something to strive for!

But someone else’s this time…those of our children.  Our children’s instincts should also be listened to and trusted.  They are programmed to try to survive and to become independent and we should trust them when they ‘tell’ us we’re doing something too fast, or too slow, or not the right way.  Example:  Mopsy has always been prone to losing her temper very quickly, but recently it’s been worse than ever - screaming at the top of her voice if something happens that she doesn’t want to happen, or if she can’t work out how to do something she wants to do.  She’s such a lovely, happy, bubbly girl and the downside of having such delightful ‘highs’ is that you get pretty unpleasant (for her as well as for us) ‘downs’.  She’s inherited this trait from me.  Flopsy is more like DH, gently bobbing along just getting on with life.  Anyway, I was chatting to my mum yesterday and saying to her how I knew we must be missing something…there must be something we weren’t doing quite right for Mopsy.  What was she telling us?  After chatting for some time, we wondered whether she’s just not getting enough Mummy-time.  She gets plenty of breastfeeds, but asks for them constantly, none-the-less - another sign she needs more Mummy-time as breastfeeding provides very intense mothering for toddlers.  Lately we’ve been going out most days, or having people over here, to stop us getting cabin fever…have we been doing too much?  Is she telling us to slow down and play a bit more?  Well, we know where we want to go from here, so only time will tell now if what we’ve heard is correct.  Incidentally, I’ve often wondered whether the common (nowadays) complaint of aggressive, hyperactive toddlers, is actually nothing to do with ADHS etc. but more to do with the fact that they’re trying to tell us something is wrong and I think what is wrong for them is that they are finding toddler groups, play groups, nursery school, pre-school etc. just too overwhelming for them.  Yes, they may enjoy it while they’re there, but it’s not biologically, or socially, normal for young children to spend so much time in such large groups of children all the same age, often without their parents present.  Even if they’re verbally saying that they like it, they’re emotionally telling us it is all too much for them.

Edited to add: Suddenly remembered this article from last year that reports on research that shows that preschool-aged children experience high levels of phsyiological stress when they spend large amounts of time in childcare other than at home and that these levels were high whether or not the children displayed outward signs of not enjoying being in childcare.  The other significant point is that these high stress levels continued for quite some time after the childcare had been ended…something that corroborates many HEors reports of their children needing to ‘deschool’ when they’ve been deregistered.  It must not only be about learning to self-regulate your learning, but also about letting the stress hormones & high blood pressure etc. settle before one can get on with the rest of one’s life!

I love articles that tell it like it is: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/04.09/ChildrenNeedTou.html

I feel so sad that we’ve come so far from nature that mothers don’t question the fact that they can’t bear listening to their baby cry and not comforting them.  So many women have told me about how their husbands had to pin them to the sofa to stop them going to their babies.  In the first, and only, minute of me trying out controlled crying with Flopsy, my heart broke…I felt physically sick listening to her.  Luckily I trusted my instincts enough to believe that my body was telling me what I was doing was WRONG, I listened to what my hormones and my emotions were telling me and I went to get my baby.  A friend of mine managed to overcome her distress as her baby cried for one hour, then went to sleep.  He woke up one hour later and vomitted, then proceeded to vomit all night long.  She vowed never, ever to leave him to cry again, and to tell everyone she met how wrong it is.  Thank goodness she didn’t listen to the childcare authors and health visitors that tell parents it’s ok for babies to vomit!  I feel so passionately about this subject (in case you didn’t guess!) so every time I read an article by or about respected people that tells us how dangerous and damaging it is, particularly in the long term (despite those who tell us that it’s worth it in the end!!!), my heart lifts.  I just wish that everyone read these articles and books, rather than those by flipping Gina Ford, Gary Ezzo and Richard Ferber etc.!  Books that recommend CC should be banned - no, burned - as they effectively recommend child abuse.  The NSPCC define child abuse as ‘when a child suffers harm…because of…emotional cruelty’.  Many websites talk about abuse including not meeting a child’s emotional needs.  How can people say that leaving a baby to cry is a good thing?  And what’s worse, is that all the books that advocate it say ‘as long as the baby doesn’t need anything, then they’ll be fine’.  What?????????  It needs comfort!!! Aaaaarrrggghhh!!!!!!!  Why do we separate comfort from all the other things we see as so important to parenting?  We see breastfeeding as just one way of getting milk into a baby, when it’s not just that, in fact to a baby, the milk is probably only a tiny part of breastfeeding, which is why I like the term ‘nursing’ much better - or even ‘nurturing at the breast’.  Why are we so unconcerned with baby’s emotional needs?  We wouldn’t refuse our partners if they asked for a cuddle (well, I guess we might, but at least we could explain it to them!), yet we think that if we dare to give in to our manipulative little babies and cuddle them when they ask for it, we’ll be left with demanding little devil! 

Ok, rant over for now!  And, as a disclaimer, I’d like to clarify that I’m not talking about the times when we are at our wits end rocking a colicky baby on our own for hours and hours and we decide that if we don’t put them down and walk into a different room some harm might come to something or someone.  I am talking about the systematic attempts to drum it into a baby that there is no point in crying…no one will come.

HT: Andrea 

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching Mopsy make clearly very enjoyable discovery.  I was holding the hoover for a very pregnant friend of mine while she hoovered the stairs.  I had Mopsy on my hip as she usually is terrified of hoovers.  Suddenly I saw her put her hands on her ears, then take them off again and grin.  Then she did the same again, but finished with an even larger grin.  What an exciting thing to realise that it is one’s ears that one hears with…and an even more exciting thing to learn that you can make things quieter by covering your ears!  It was lovely to watch as she experimented with putting her hands on and off her ears quickly, then slowly, then at an irregular pace.  That’s what being a stay-at-home mum is about…not seeing the first steps or hearing the first words, but having the opportunity to witness the discoveries, the eurekas, the things that mean so much to our children.

Flopsy’s latest discovery is that she doesn’t know how to read.  Up until now, she’s loved looking at the pictures in books on her own, and been very excited to be able to read the odd name that is special to her (her own name, Mummy, her sister’s name, Daddy, Grandma, Kipper (don’t ask!) etc.).  Suddenly she’s started to only read books on her own if she knows them well enough to sort of recite them with prompts from the pictures.  If she doesn’t know them well, or the picture’s not helpful enough to remind her, she says “I can’t read that book, I don’t remember the words” or “I can’t read those words”.  It’s almost sad…but also exciting that she’s reached the stage of ‘concious imcompetence’…I can see that that realisation must be the real motivation for learning to read.  Before now, she was unconciously imcompetent…she knew that when adults read books to her, they talked, she knew words had something to do with it, but she also found just looking at the pictures enough to amuse her.  She now looks very closely at words in books with very short sentences, and often points to them as we read and knows that it is the words we are reading, and that these strange combinations of letters are the representations of what she hears coming from our mouths (and her own mouth!), and she knows she can’t yet decode them.  It’s sad that it means that there are a lot of books that are now, for her, inaccessible but it’s a lovely sign that she’s really starting out on the long road to reading which will make every book in the world accessible to her eventually! 

Edited: ROFL - I can see that I was unconciously incompetent at typing the word ‘incompetent’ correctly!  I have now replaced the word in the title to be spelt properly!

I often hear people saying things to their children that upsets me.  The other day I heard a (very nice, kind, generous) mum say to her 5 year old daughter “if you can’t get on with M and play nicely with her [M being this girl’s best friend, according to her mum!], I’ll ring Daddy and tell him not to pick up your bike at the weekend”!!!  Now is it just me, or is it just plain wrong to tell someone that they will only be allowed to have a promised, exciting present if they like and want to play with someone else specified by the present-bearer at a time specified by the present-bearer?  Of course, this is nothing next to the “get ‘ere now or you’ll get a slap!” type comments everyone unfortunately hears being yelled every now and then.  But it’s these less dramatic comments that make me realise quite how far I’ve come in this gentle parenting lark!  I once heard a mum of a 15m old explaining to another mum (whose toddler had just given the 15m old a bit of his chocolate biscuit) how her little darling had never had chocolate before, and how she had been intending to deny him this delicious thing until he was three - even to the extent that she’d told him he couldn’t have any of the cake she’d made him for his first birthday as it was a chocolate sponge!!!  She’s moved out of the country now, but I do wonder, now that her son is just over three, if he can’t stop himself absolutely gorging on the stuff whenever he sees it! 

Anyway, on a lighter note:  At 6.15pm Flopsy said “Oh look…it’s quarter past six…Daddy will be home soon”!  She looks at the clock an awful lot, and tells us what she thinks the time is, or asks us to tell her, and she usually gets the hour right…but she’s never been this accurate before, and, although we’ve often said “Daddy will be home at…” or “We’ve got to go out at…”, she’s never pinned the time to an actual event herself.  What a star!

Mopsy (who I, sadly, don’t seem to write much about!) is gorgeous, and bubbly and cuddly.  She has ’snacky’ breastfeeds throughout the day, so on the rare occassion there is little enough going on for her to fall asleep at the breast, I really enjoy sitting down quietly with her and feeling her calm down gradually, until I see her eyelids closing and her body relax completely.  I really miss that…Flopsy used to do it all the time, but there’s far too much going on for Mopsy to do it often.  Sometimes, just before she goes to sleep, Mopsy comes off, says “Mummy”, sits herself up and plants a big milky kiss on my lips and hugs my head for at least a minute, then lies back down and latches on again.  It’s my favourite thing in the whole world!  That is one of the many reasons I want to promote longer-term breastfeeding - what a joy mothers miss out on when they stop at 6 or 12 months just because they’re culturally conditioned to think that it’s wrong to continue breastfeeding a toddler.  But then some critics say that they think it’s wrong for mothers to enjoy breastfeeding - how sad. 

Oh yes, one other thing…Flopsy calls pyjamas “Jimamas” - it’s my current favourite word and I think it may be one of those family words that just stick!

 Flopsy being a fairy just now…I still can’t get the photos to rotate.  I managed to get it to rotate in Flickr, but it won’t save it like that, so it just comes up here on its side…any ideas?

 The girls doing some very important work on the computer together!

Edited to unsquish Flopsy - thank you, Andrea (I’m guessing!) for turning her round