first five years

What We Read This Week (Frozen, so much Frozen)

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This was the week of Frozen. 

Last week, I watched Encanto with C during one of E’s lunch naps (the movie was a big hit). And then C got into the habit of wanting to watch a movie every time E was having a lunch nap. We watched Toy Story 2. Then she wanted to watch Frozen. And the next day, also Frozen. And the next day… She hasn’t watched it every single day but it was 3 or 4 days in a row. In the evenings, she would tell me her favourite bits while she was meant to be going to sleep and she would giggle and squeal as she acted them out for me as well.

A few months ago, having bought something for E that she actually needed, I thought there might be sibling strife if I didn’t find something for C as well, and came across the Frozen book. It is short and simple, giving the briefest of plot synopses from Elsa’s point of view. C, in her recent Frozen obsession, asked me to read it while I was feeding E her dinner. And again. And then at bedtime. And then every night, once or twice or sometimes more.

Thank goodness it is a quick read.

E is always gravitating to the Very Hungry Caterpillar but is also really getting into Bob Bilby. Even if she’s more interested in climbing over my shoulder or over the arm of the sofa, when we get to the fireworks at the end, she is back and paying full attention and touching the pictures and opening and closing the book. We’ve got a winner here.

What We Read This Week (Christmas continued)

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This week’s books have all been more of the Christmas books. And I am very happy about this.

E has been having lots of Bob Bilby, and The Very Noisy Baby. C is also loving hearing these books. Whenever we get to the page in Bob Bilby with the fireworks, C’s face lights up and, every time, she says ‘just like the fireworks WE saw!’ (It helps that we live in Brisbane just like Bluey and Bingo.) C is loving lifting the flaps in the Noisy Baby and reading the bonus bits, like ‘the OWL! So speck-eld and BLUE!’

C herself has insisted on a bonus story once she is in bed every night. I say in bed but I really mean, I’ve told her to get into bed and she has done a token sit down before saying ‘ooh, mummy, please may I have a Horton story please?’ Or ‘here mummy I’ll just turn the lamp on for you so you can read me Mrs Tiggy-winkle.’ Oh. Ok… We have read each of them enough now that she has her favourite lines that she delights in every time. Personally I am absolutely loving reading Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. I loved all of the Beatrix Potter stories when I was little and revisiting them brings such great pleasure.

Goodnight with Daddy

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How goodnight has changed over the years. A Facebook memory recently showed me what it was, when C was about 15 months. Our music class had shown us that songs are a useful transition tool, so ‘teddy bear, teddy bear’ was our ‘we are going to bed now and bed is where you sleep’ song. C does the actions just after the lines in the song, except at the end when, just before the last line, she takes off down the hallway with a cackling mischievous laugh.

Before I had children, I imagined bedtime to be a hopefully calm affair of dinner together and baths (together for young children) and bedtime stories and teeth cleaning and into bed and, magic, asleep. Laughable, I know, and also not really based on my own experience growing up with 3 brothers, but there you go. I had lofty ideas.

The reality right now is quite different. Coordinating dinners and baths and stories is quite a task, one that often leaves me wondering just how on earth do parents of 3 or more children manage it? Especially if one parent works late? And this is constantly changing according to how well E’s lunch nap has gone (and how hot it is and if she is teething like she is now).

But, a goodnight with daddy is holding fast and it is something that I absolutely love and treasure and will be so sad when they don’t happen anymore. 

Goodnight with daddy has influenced how C says goodnight to E and, every time, it melts my heart. Sometimes when I ask her to say goodnight all E gets is a distracted ‘goodnight E…’ but usually C sings, just like daddy does. And it’s usually the tune of the Brahms lullaby, just like daddy does. And it’s usually different words, all relating to sleep, just like daddy does. And it often has one line at the end that just keeps going and going with all the instructions for a good sleep and the melody turns into a monotone and then, when you think it’s over, there’s a bonus phrase… And then there’s a kiss and cuddle that is growing to be more successful as E learns to put her arms around C instead of just pulling her hair, and not to kick her legs with overwhelming excitement, and sometimes even to hold her round cheek close enough and long enough for C to give her a little kiss.

Goodnight with daddy for E is the Brahms lullaby, with words approximately ‘go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep little baby, go to sleep now, go to sleep, and dream about green sheep’ and further words regarding sleeping and dreaming and catching the green sheep. (Yes, we love the Mem Fox book.) She is held up high and she often squeak-laughs and always has a smile splitting her face with delight 

Goodnight with daddy for C is ‘rockabye baby’ so is often referred to as ‘time for a rockabye with daddy’. Glenn will pick her up and cradle her – all 105cm – and she puts her arms around his neck as he sings. His variations: ‘when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall – NO!’ And he holds her tight. ‘And down will come baby’ – and then all sorts of different things come in as well, influenced by what she’s been playing with or watching or eating or wearing that day, or looking forward to for the next day. ‘Down will come baby, spaghetti, sauce, Baby Yoda, scooter, baby and all’. He gives her a goodnight kiss, she wraps her hand around his neck and gives him a big smacker of a goodnight kiss, then asks to be chased down the hallway to her bedroom. 

I know this won’t last, and as tough as all this coordination is and night after night when it feels like we won’t ever have two children asleep at the same time and the frustration when one of them needs me to be with them for an hour or more, I know I will miss it. Thank goodness for that video on Facebook, reminding me just how funny and cheeky C was and is, helping me look back on that time with a smile instead of just remembering the frustration of having a child who never, it felt, slept.

What We Read This Week (Christmas Books)

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We had a wonderfully bookish Christmas. When C was a baby, I learned of the Icelandic tradition of giving books on Christmas Eve so you get to read books all night. This was (I think) the first tradition that I introduced to our family that was from somewhere else. The night before Christmas Eve, the book fairy comes and leaves books for you to find in the morning. This year, C received ‘Where’s Bluey?’ (a hide and seek book!) and ‘The Painted Ponies’ by Alison Lester. E received ‘Hairy Maclary’s Hat Tricks’ (Lynley Dodd) and ‘The Very Noisy Baby’ (Alison Lester). 

C was set on giving E the Bob Bilby book from Bluey for Christmas (partly because it’s a board book, and partly – I suspect – because C loves this story herself), and E also received Verandah Santa (another Bluey book) from some cousins. Both girls were given a Beatrix Potter book, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, and a book of three Horton stories by Dr. Seuss, by Uncle Alex and Aunty Alys.

Adding to this the ‘book from Santa’ (The River Riddle, daycare Christmas present), and there has been a delightful expansion of reading repertoire in our family. C will happily look for all of the things in the Bluey hide and seek book when we need her to do something quiet. One of my favourite moments recently was, having just read both girls Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and then starting the nap process with E, spotting C in her fluffy tutu dress, carefully ‘reading’ it to her toys on her bed. 

Our very own very noisy baby is rather enthusiastic in lifting the flaps of the very noisy baby book. She’s not so much into the longer, wordier stories just yet, but Bob Bilby is receiving daily attention. Extra delight with this one right now is that it has fireworks – just like we saw on New Year’s Eve. Ooooohhhhh….. Oh, and C won’t go to sleep unless I read her a Horton story in her bedroom. She snuggles up and gets rather sleepy until we get to a bit that she just can’t help laughing at and then when she’s recovered we keep going and she gets sleepier and sleepier and when it’s done she is far more ready for sleep. Books are wonderful.

What We Read This Week (Relief)

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Since my last ‘what we read’ post, I have read Sleepytime many, many times. Every night for nearly 2 weeks, 1-3 times. There were many cuddles. What I especially loved was that C would start saying the Bingo and Floppy lines, then the whole second half of the book.

And then, one night, she started taking every single book off the bookshelf. What are you doing? I’m looking for my favourite book.

I had a feeling I knew which one it was. But I tried to deflect. Nursery rhymes? No. Bluey? No. Katie Morag? No, Cat in the Hat! Not the fish one!

We don’t have Cat in the Hat. She meant Fox in Socks. Such a tongue twister for a tired mummy. I do love the tweetle beetles, though.

So for a few nights I had to stumble my way through that, with C giggling uncontrollably whenever I made an error and did a raspberry. 

Then it was the daycare Christmas party, with a visit from Santa! (Although she’s not sure this was the actual real life Santa, the glasses were the wrong shape, and the beard…). And Santa gave her a present! A book! It is, of course, now her favourite book. Such a relief from the tongue twisters. It is called the River Riddle and is an illustrated version of the river riddle, where you have a boat, a person, a fox, a sheep, and hay. Her favourite part? There’s singing! (That is, music notes on the page). So MY favourite bit is when she shows me this bit by acting it out. Gold.

What We Read This Week (We Love Bluey)

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Until Sunday, I was thinking C would pick One Woolly Wombat or the Nursery Rhyme Book as her favourite book this week. They were, after all, read more than once each.

But then Monday happened. New Bluey. Quick visit from grandparents (my parents). And my mum loves providing drawing materials and reading materials, so there was a trip to the store for a new drawing pad and C’s choice of new book. She saw Bluey: Sleepytime (my absolute favourite episode) and wanted me to read it to her there. I read the first page then realised I may end up reading half the book section to her before lunch so… her new book is Bluey: Sleepytime (Joe Brumm). Read right after purchase by my parents while I did some extra shopping. Excitedly shown to daddy when we got home and read by him. Read by me for bedtime story, and again, then again while she was in bed. Read by me again tonight for bedtime story along with loads of questions about all sorts of aspects of the story. It is her favourite. It is my favourite. 

I could write at length about the amazingness that is the Sleepytime episode, or my reactions when first watching it. And maybe I shall but not just yet. We love the music and listened to it on the weekend (very proud mummy here when C recognised the Jupiter music as the music from Sleepytime). And there is that bit, that bit that always makes me cry after all the humour and emotion and the buildup and then it all tumbles out. They put that in the book of course and I tear up trying to read it, every time.

Remember, I’ll always be here for you. Even if you can’t see me. Because I love you.

Linguistic Oddities of 3 and a Half

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The other night, I had the sad realisation that we had seen the end of nummy. The first time it happened, C had been saying ‘dee… LISH… usss’ which I finally put together as ‘delicious’. So, forever recording things, we tried to video it. Some milk with frozen raspberries in it (a favourite of hers), and ‘how is it?’ Speaking like a Michelin Star judge, instead of deeLISHuss, she pronounced her drink to be ‘nummy’. The way she said it – well, it still makes me laugh.

Sadly, when C was asked last week if her dinner was nummy, she said it was delicious. Can you tell daddy it’s nummy? It’s yummy, daddy! And only when she tried, really tried, could she tell him it was nummy. 

I find language development fascinating. I did a couple of linguistics subjects at university (as electives as part of my music degree) and have enjoyed watching babbling turn into detailed accounts of things that have happened in C’s life. 

There are the words that are guesses at words. She used to say ‘armbow’ for elbow and I miss it. Like many children, she will check for our ‘heart beep’ when playing doctor. And there are the mispronunciations like ‘hopsital’ or ‘hostipal’ or ‘aminal’ or ‘bonato’ or (my new favourite that happened on Tuesday) ‘Lemmie-un Falcon’ and ‘3CPO’.

There are the words that are right but wrong. For a while now we have been hearing ‘her’ instead of she. We have started correcting her a little bit – there’s only so long that something like this can be endearing before it becomes just wrong. But what really impressed me at the start of last week was when she ‘read’ Old Mother Hubbard and alllll of the ‘she’s were replaced with ‘her’. ‘Her went to the cobblers/ To buy him some shoes/ But when her got back/ He was reading the news’. Every. Single. One.

I’m not sure how common this is but she often swaps around double-barrelled words and phrases. For a long time she would ask to watch ‘cracker nut ballet’, or ‘Two Frozen’. Just this morning she told daddy to have ‘corn sweet’ on his toast.

But there are also the words and phrases that come about that turn into the vernacular of a family.

A word that C has taken and reinvented is jungle (verb). Over summer I was pregnant and huge and trying not to do any extra lifting. C would barrel into me or try to climb all over me or jump onto me after climbing onto the sofa. ‘Stop it! I’m not a jungle gym!’ was said multiple times. But daddy loves it… So C would climb all over Glenn when he was on the sofa, an activity that she still does. She hangs off his legs, pretends he is a horse, hides under his knees and pops up like a jack-in-the-box, pushes his back (he loves the back massage) and climbs onto his shoulders. Recently I asked what she was doing? ‘I’m jungle-ing on daddy!’ Perfect.

What We Read This Week (Jenny and Madeline)

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Not so many stories were read this week. The reason? C had a couple of nights when she spent about an hour and a half in the bath. After my second ‘time to get out of the bath now’ if she doesn’t get out then she doesn’t get a story. I think I miss it more than she does but by that stage of the evening there’s very little left by way of consequences.

Still, when I asked her to choose her favourite story from the week, she had a tough choice. Jenny’s Bear (Michael Ratnett & June Goulding)? Or Madeline (Ludwig Bemelmans)? She vacillated a little but settled on Jenny’s Bear. Her favourite bit? When the bear arrives and drinks the pretend tea. Pretend tea!!! It’s very funny.

(We played nail salon this week, can you tell?!)

She also loves Madeline (we have Madeline In London). Partly I think because Ruby Red Shoes also goes to London, and partly because there is so much in the story. We can only have it when she is very speedy when getting out of the bath though.

My personal favourite from this week was a repeat from last week. Nursery Rhymes came out again, and Old Mother Hubbard was read and reread. And C wanted to read it herself for the first time. It was the funniest thing all day. Such a nonsensical rhyme anyway, but when you can’t actually read so just go on memory and also possibly don’t understand ALL of the words and just tack on a second half of a verse even if it doesn’t match the first half… Gold.

E has been going for regular favourites (Hungry Caterpillar and the Green Sheep) but also playing with a stack of little animal books (10 chunky books from Green Start). Each has 3 pages with rhymes about different animals. We bought them before C was born so I have read them over and over. Bonus: great for teething babies.

The Magic of Twinkle

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One of my great joys this year has been seeing my two girls interacting. The way E’s face lights up when C finally makes it to the breakfast table. The way C will sit down with E and ‘read’ (recite) stories. The way E builds up then lets loose a squeak laugh when C does something, anything, that she finds funny. 

And the way C will sing to E to calm her down. This has been one of the most beautiful (and unexpected) parts of my year. It began a few months ago, when E was crying because I was doing something outrageous like washing my hands and therefore not holding her. C sang, very gently and beautifully, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. E calmed down right away while my heart melted just a little bit.

We have seen many subsequent renditions of this. Usually Twinkle, sometimes Baa Baa Black Sheep. Sometimes gently, sometimes very loudly to override the screaming. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, and sometimes slowly until the last line or two and then a quick dash to the finish line. Sometimes with a caring voice and sometimes with a funny ‘granny’ voice.

And every time, E will stop the crying when she hears the singing. I suspect much of it is the surprise factor, just like babies will stop and stare when grandparents and nurses start up with the duck noises or when someone claps nearby. But there is also that knowledge in her that C cares for her and looks after her and loves her and is trying to help.

I only occasionally have success singing Twinkle to her. The song that I can sing to calm her down is Hickory Dickory Dock – although if I sing it near C she tells me I’m doing it wrong even though I sing the version we did in music classes when she was a baby. Glenn has success with Baa Baa Black Sheep but, more often, Incy Wincy Spider. He does a long pause at the start of the last line aaaaannnnnnd no matter what E is doing, she’ll lift her head and wait for it and break out into a wholeofherface smile and then maybe also a squeak laugh and then big laughs when the song continues. 

Music is magic.

What We Read This Week

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It seems E has a favourite book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The edition we have (on extended loan from neighbours) is a beautiful size for little hands, and has little holes where the caterpillar eats all the food just perfect for little fingers to explore. E will make a beeline for it whenever she sees it, and if I start reading it to her before she sees I have it she immediately turns her face to me and breaks out in a smile. Delightful.

Every now and then, C insists on ‘the Humpty Dumpty book’. Which is, of course, a large collection of nursery rhymes. Duh. Humpty Dumpty is the first in the book but it is a superb collection. Nursery rhymes I remember from when I was little, nursery rhymes we sang and recited when I took her to the local library baby rhyme time sessions. Yes, it was very useful to have around for those longer rhymes with oodles of verses (one, two, buckle my shoe … nineteen, twenty, my plate’s empty!). Her absolute favourite in the book, that we will end with after I’ve read a few, is Old Mother Hubbard. The first time through she will let out a sudden laugh about halfway through, then subsequent readings the laugh starts earlier and earlier and there are many dramatic ‘WHAAAT???’s and ‘WHY IS SHE BUYING THE DOG A COAT?’ And ‘WHY – WHY – WHY IS THE DOG RIDING A GOAT?’ And other questions that are all logical and hilarious. So many questions. Perhaps not the calmest thing to read right before bed but who am I to argue?

We have also been reading (as seen in the pic) The Toymaker and The Bird (Pamela Allen), We’re Going On A Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury), and There’s No Such Thing As Monsters! (Steve Smallman and Caroline Pedler). All very much loved.