Inigo just pointed to a shape, and quite clearly said “parallelogram”.
Those of you that know Mark well will know that he has taken a personal mission to stop teaching young children that a parallelogram is a “diamond”. He has even gone so far as to take the letraset machine to some of Inigo’s baby books. And I can’t really talk, because I have re-labeled baby bottles from “milk” to “artificial baby milk”.
And the ringlets bounce as he runs up and down the hall. We nearly died from the cuteness.
Now, instead of going to the AGM, I’m off to ride a steam train with Iggy and his best mate.
Inigo was indecently proud of his new shirt, rubbing his belly, and telling anyone that would listen that, “mama made that for me”. He also refused to take it off at bedtime, so we discovered that it makes a pretty good pyjama top too. The only other shirth he feels so strongly about is his “Nuna Nuna” shirt. Actually, it is of Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba, but because of the Elijah Wood/Yo Gabba Gabba/Dragostea Din Tea/Numa Numa clip I found on You tube, Inigo calls it his Nuna Nuna shirt, and wants to wear it every day of the week. And apparently this lime green shirt goes best with the purple sparkly trousers I made him for his first birthday party. They’ve been washed so often recently that the sparkles are fast disappearing.
Just made these this morning. Best. Pancakes. Ever.
1 Cup Self Raising Flour
1 Cup Milk (I used Soy)
1 Egg
Mix.
Cook.
Eat the fluffiest pancakes you’ve ever had.
Recipe from here.
I’ve often thought about this, and have made the decision to try to raise an emotionally connected boy who isn’t afraid of colour, who doesn’t use violence to solve his problems, and who doesn’t pee on the toilet seat. I’ve wondered if the boy/girl divide is more nature or nurture, so I was happy to find this post.
Especially since (no matter how he dresses), heaps of people seem to think he is a girl anyway.
Warning – this one starts out quite loudly – turn the sound down if you have sensitive ears!
This one was shot in the car, so apologise for the wonkiness. Inigo was shouting his songs out for ages before I decided to video him, and halfway through he seemed to get shy and pipe down a little.
Mark and I are going to the Opera in the Domain tonight, and Inigo is having his first ever sleepover with Nanna.
He looked so grown up. Sniff.
When someone invents a waterproof cover so I can read in the bath, I might sell my firstborn to finance one. And so I get some time to read in the bath.
But then again…
When Iggy does something dangerous, I get down to his level, look him in the eye, and ask him, “what’s the most important thing in the world?”. Usually, he answers, “Iggy’s the most important thing in the world”, and I say “that’s right, and I need you to be safe”.
Today, unbidden, he said, “Mama’s the most important thing in the world”.
I will keep him. Definitely.
Mijal’s comment on the Iggy video reminds me of our flying trip to Newtown to catch up with Mijal and Miya and their adorable 6 month old boy, Marley.
Inigo’s sleep issues continue, and of course he fell asleep in the car, only to be woken up and adored, which rather upset his equilibrium.
And being the evil woman that I am, I took pictures.
Isn’t Marley adorable?
You know how it goes, you’re chatting with an old friend, and they say something like, “I’ve just enrolled in *circus school”, or some such, and you think, “I’ve always wanted to learn highwire acrobatics”, and so you ask them for the flyer, and then you sit on it until ten minutes after applications close, and then you say, “bugger, I really wanted to do that”.
So, when Miriam mentioned a textile printing course, I naturally thought I’d never get around to it. But somethings got into the water around here, and I seem to be in the mood to get shit done.
In semi related news, Inigo harvested the first strawberry from my his garden today.
I have a new policy for the blog. Bad news has to give way to good. I won’t leave unhappy posts at the top of the blog (unless I am incapable for some reason).
So in that light, here is a post that I hesitated to put up yesterday because I thought it would bore most people senseless. So without further ado, here is a conversation with Inigo, in video.
*The title of this post comes from a text message, sent by a football player to a woman that he had sexually assaulted, the full text of which reads, “Buck up you sad bitch, nobody likes a whinger”.
Today I went to an ABA training meeting and left Inigo at home with Mark. After the meeting, I rang home, and Mark put Inigo on the phone so we could have a chat. He was awesome, answeing my questions and telling me about his day.
Apparently, after I hung up, he proudly stated, I talked to mama on daddys phone.
Adorable.
A few weeks ago, when we were just beginning this whole toilet training adventure, I put Inigo in the car for a trip to Spotlight – about 15 minutes in the car. Silly me forgot to get him to wee before we got in the car, forgot to but a terry square under him in the car, and forgot to bring a change of clothes. And when we got there, he was wet. Luckily it was raining that day, and he was in dark coloured clothes, it wasn’t noticeable, so we went into Spotlight regardless (without stopping to pee first).
Of course, while I was waiting to pay, he peed again. In a puddle on the floor, just in front of the counter.
Is is wrong to use your child to mop up urine from the floor of a discount haberdashery store?
Surely I should have had a better comeback than, “Uh, yeah. Ta.”. Disastrous.
So, in an effort to recover gracefully from that cultural abyss, I intended to bring you Inigo singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. It was going to be a creative triumph, an adorable child, singing a note perfect and season appropriate carol, with gorgeous lighting and the perfect accessories.
But after two days of trying, I bring you this instead.
Being two is probably different for everyone, and of course I can’t know exactly what it’s like for Inigo. But as the person who spends the most time with him, I have made a few observations, that I would like to record for posterity. For me when I am old and can’t remember Inigo at two, for him if he ever wants to know.
Being two means saying “Iggy do’d it” at every opportunity. He now has to feed himself, brush his teeth, water the garden, climb into his car seat, open the fridge, turn on (or off) the light, climb the stairs, stir the dinner, press the button to make the coffee, choose the book, and turn the page.
It also means LOSING. HIS. SHIT. whenever something doesn’t go his way, and flinging his head at the nearest hard object, wall, or floor, and often kicking or punching the nearest person, usually me (especially since I am apparently supposed to hold him while these rages happen!). This then leads to physical pain on top of the wild emotion storm he is riding. Needless to say, this is NOT. FUN. for the primary caregiver, who has been known to LOSE. HER. MIND. when dealing with the ferocity of these episodes, especially on days like yesterday, when he averaged about one every 45 minutes.
And speaking of pages. When I was very little, my dad taught me how to care for books, to turn the pages carefully from the corners, not near the spine. Consequently, I am a little obsessive about caring for books, and having a kid who likes to drool all over them has been a personal challenge for me. So it is with immense gratification that I can report that Inigo is now carefully turning pages. From the corner.
Being two means a fascination with shoes, his own, or anyone elses. He is getting quite proficient at walking down steps in shoes that are much too large for him.
His father is thrilled to note that not only is Inigo singing songs with actual words (and he gets surprisingly many of the right), he also sings in tune. “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is a favourite, but we also get “Open, Shut Them”, “Incy Wincy Spider”, and “The Alphabet Song”.
Climbing is really fun, and falling over is even more fun. It doesn’t require an actual fall, often it’s just sitting down gracefully and then lying down to great effect, and telling anyone in earshot that he “fall down”. Which he then will repeat, ad infinitum, until someone repeats what he says.
He is getting quite definite ideas about what he will and will not wear, and I can see multiple changes of clothing per day are in our future. For the past few weeks (since we had a swimming lesson with Aunty Josephine and Cousin Owen), he’s been wanting to wear his swimmers all the time. I think this may correspond to a desire to go swimming more often, so we are looking forward to summer. This past weekend we spent at Pearl Beach, and Mark and I took Inigo into the ocean for the first time. It was a little chilly, but he was a trooper, and I can see us enjoying a lot more swimming at the beach during the summer, particularly our annual Pearl Beach pilgrimage between Christmas and New Year.
Being two means identifying shapes and colours, and counting. Big and little, circles, squares, triangles stars, every symbol must be observed, and talked about, and enthused about. One of his birthday shirts has a peace symbol on it, and when he wears it he has to say “BIG CIRCLE” about eleventy brazillion times.
Being two means sharing your breakfast with a toy, always taking a rock with you on car trips, and happily going out with Nanna and leaving Mama at home. Or even slamming the door in Mama’s face when she went out at night a few weeks ago.
Another clothing change has been the lack of undergarments, preferring to be as naked as possible for quick potty trips. We introduced him to the potty when he was very little, and again while we were in Bali, but in the last few weeks it’s been warm enough to go pants free, and we have had remarkable success. He’s even been out of the house in undies a few times, with only one or two accidents. And today he even stopped playing when he realised he needed to go and asked for the potty. * Update – He’s been in undies (apart from naps) full time since Monday.
And we’ve said goodbye to a faithful companion. When Inigo and I went to Tweed Heads to visit Josephine and Owen, I decided to see if we could do the trip dummy free. The first night was hard, the second night better, and by the third night he didn’t even ask for it. Of course he expected for it to be back when we returned home, but we decided to tough it out, and now, a few weeks later, he is sleeping through the night a few times a week, and hasn’t asked for a plug in ages.
When I look at him, I still see my little baby. But all these changes mean he’s growing up.
And today, we introduced him to Scrabble.
Article from Babycenter here. It is really great that the mainstream media is tackling this issue. According to a book I read (Nurture Shock), it’s not enough to expose your kids to people from different races, you have to talk to them about it. Kids in mixed race schools who haven’t had the conversation with their parents are more likely to join social groups comprised of kids of their own race, and will reinforce racial stereotypes and divides.
But if you talk to your kids about race, about how we are all the same, despite differences of skin colour and cultural practices. Stupidly, I thought that Inigo wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow up racist if he is surrounded by kids of many different ethnicities.
I suppose it’s not just one conversation, and we’ve got all that to look forward too.
>>
