Ok, I admit, it's been a while since I lost posted. Things have been super busy and I've been caught up sewing, sewing, sewing! This week is a more quiet week. I've just had a friend over, with her 2 1/2 year old twins, for morning tea. Jack's asleep, so I thought now would be a good time to sit down and post something.So, how is Jack going? He's going really well. He's at a really adorable age right now. Since he started walking, he's changed quite a bit. He's very active and wants to be Mr. Independent. So, we've had to adjust our parenting with these new changes. He's talking more, too. Most of the day we hear "this", "gone", "this", "pease", "this", "cheese", "this". It's great that he can communicate more clearly with us.
Signing
This is just fantastic. I'm so glad I taught Jack to sign "please". He is really good at it and he'll do it for everything, making it so much easier to know what he wants. When he points to something he'll also say "pease", so it's obvious to us he's seen something he'd like. It's so good that he's saying please now. He's also signing "finished". It's not consistent, but occasionally when we ask him if he's finished, he'll sign "finished" and say "gone". We think that he says gone because his grandparents would say "all gone" when he's finished eating something. Very occasionally he'll sign "food", but this one hasn't been all that successful. When I ask him if he wants some food and I'll sign "food" as I say it, he'll either sign "please" (which is most of the time) or he'll sign "food".
I think teaching Jack to sign has been one of the best things we've done so far. Even though he can understand verbal language, he can't do it himself, so being able to sign what he wants allows him to communicate with us, preventing him from having to cry or whine when he wants something.
Talking
Jack is talking more now. He hasn't necessarily learnt any more words, but the frequency of his talking has increased. Every time he drops something he says, "gone". When he wants something he'll say "pease". I've just realised that when he sees cheese (which he LOVES), he'll say "cheese". I thought he was saying "pease", but he was actually saying "cheese". When he gives me something, he'll say "ta". He's always saying "daddy". One time we'll in the car and he said, "daddy gone". I'm trying to get him to say "mummy", but he just won't. Even though he sees me the most, he won't even utter a "mum", let alone "mummy". Typical, isn't it?
Walking
Jack's walking was really impressive. Once he started, he didn't stop. Even though he kept falling over, he'd get back up and keep going. We were really surprised by how quickly his walking developed. After about 2 weeks, he was walking really well. Now, he's walking all the time. Gone are the days where he would sit and play in the ONE spot for ages! He barely will spend 2 minutes playing with something before he's off doing something else. It's funny. I thought I knew what Jack was like, now he's changed and is totally different.Going out has changed dramatically. My child is now "that" child who walks around the coffee shop and won't sit still. We went to the Carrington for High Tea for a friend's birthday. Jack sat on my lap for the first little while and then we spent the rest of the time following him around and stopping him from walking out the door. Food would only occupy him for so long. Every time we picked him up, he'd arch his back and cry, or we'd try to hold his hand and he'd through his arms about and collapse on the floor and cry. A couple of times Dave had to take him outside and let him roam around on the grass. So, going out in public, especially to nice places, is going to be very difficult. I suspect that this is very normal, though. Please tell me it's normal!
Sleeping
Well, sleeping has been up and down. A month or so ago, things were really settled. Jack was having two sleeps - at 9am and 1pm - every day. It was pretty regular for his afternoon sleep to be nice and long. Since he's been walking, and since Daylight Savings kicked in, his day sleeps have been all over the place. For a couple of weeks he started to refuse to sleep. He would stand up in his cot and scream out to us, a real tantrum type of cry and really persistent. This was such a change in his behaviour that we didn't really know what to do. Whenever we left the room, he'd cry, so we'd stand next to his cot until he'd fall asleep. Eventually, I got sick of doing this, so I'd just leave and let him cry. From then on, we decided to just leave him to cry and eventually, he settled back down and he's now back to normal (as I'm typing this, Jack's just woken up after 60 mins sleep - grrrr.). I wish he'd go back to having longer sleeps during the day though!
I've been thinking for a while that I should transition him to one sleep a day since he often only has one sleep and the morning sleep isn't very long. But, I've been really uncertain about it. When he's with his grandparents, he'll sleep in the morning and afternoon (usually) and they'll be decent sleeps. At home, though he doesn't sleep for very long. I thought that if he only had the one nap, he'd have a longer nap. But, no. He barley sleeps for longer than 60 mins at home. What do I do?? I'm finding this really frustrating.
Discipline
This is still really hard as Jack can understand more now and I can tell when he's deliberately choosing not to do what I say, but I feel that he's not really at an age where he totally understands what's going on. We've been using the "time out" method. This seems to be working reasonably well. When Jack throws things on the floor, usually his food, I try to get him to pick it up. This is really difficult. He really doesn't want to and when I insist that he does it, he throws a tantrum. So, here I am, grabbing his hand, forcing him to pick up his food while he's throwing himself on the floor and crying. The joys of motherhood :-) His food throwing is a real issue for me. I really hate it when he throws his food, but I really don't know how to stop him from doing it.
Teeth
I thought I might mention that Jack's got his 4 front top teeth and 4 front bottom teeth now. He hasn't been bothered all that much by his teeth, well, not that I could tell.
Routine
Well, I'm not going to put our routine down this time as it's all over the place at the moment. I'm hoping that things will settle down soon...
