Wait, You're HOW Old?

You know you're getting old when....

...you realise your first-born now does all his wees standing up. :o When did THAT happen?


He does, however, seem to have already learnt to wipe up after himself though. Phew! You can thank me later, future wife/husband!

A 4 Year Old's Logic

I'm unsure whether it's born from greed or is pure logic which will stand him in good stead for a future career as philosopher extraordinaire (wait, what do you mean there aren't any philosophy jobs?!), but Pix has been showing amazing reasoning skills.

Following on from deciding to invite Santa to his birthday party (so he'll get presents, natch), he decided that he'd like to have his very own robot Santa, who could make him toys whenever he wanted. And also make me cups of tea without me having to get up. Genius child.

Given the choice between spending his £1 pocket money at the toy shop or the sweet shop he decided that he would buy a toy that makes sweets. This boy is going to go far. (He actually got a wind-up alien which is almost but not quite, as cool).

Watching Harry Potter yesterday he raised a very good point: how can Harry see through the invisibility cloak? The cloak isn't invisible... I've not thought of that and I've known about invisibility cloaks since 1998.

How One Became Two

I thought I'd posted something similar to this already. I can't find it, if I did. I've just realise the benefit of useful, informative post titles though. I wrote this tonight as a response to a friend's worries about increasing her family. Names have been changed, but nothing else has been.

As you may/may not remember my start with Pix was very similar to how I think yours was with YourBaby. It was a stressful, traumatic labour which I didn't physically recover from the aftermath of for over a month. More like 6 weeks. I was in a LOT of pain from various different things which admittedly weren't all as a result of giving birth. Emotionally I was a bit of a wreck too - I'd have flashbacks and panic attacks about the labour. 
By the time I was physically healed a lot of emotional damage had been done because (and I do admit I'm not very good at being altruistic, not the best trait in a parent) it was 6 weeks of, frankly, wishing Pix wasn't around so I could feel better and not hurt. All the mess surrounding feeding him added to the - I wouldn't say bonding issues, but the feeling as though the love for him was something that had to grow rather than something that was innate and natural and there from the beginning, you know?
By the time Pix was about 9 months I started feeling calm about being a parent. Well, not calm, but calmer! I enjoyed it. I endured the first 9 months, I think. There were good bits, don't get me wrong, but I felt like I was coming out of a shell shocked daze. I put it down to him being mobile then, but who knows? He wasn't a high needs baby but he needed more than I realised (well duh, he was a baby). I definitely didn't want more babies. I genuinely didn't think I'd be able to get through the trauma of it all again, that it would definitely break me. I remember telling people that I wasn't one of 'those' parents who said never, ever again only to go on to having 3 more kids.
Inevitably - and I just checked, it was when Pix was 1 year, 8 months and 2 days old - the seed of doubt sprouted and I started to consider that there may be more babies in our future. I don't know what triggered it, really. Hormones, biological clock, seeing how awe-sam No1 had become? Who knows, But when that little voice started there wasn't really much I could do, you know? There were a hundred reasons why No2 was a Really Bad Idea but an 8lb idea was bigger than those. We talked about ways we could have a baby but not go through all that again, talked about adoption, talked about going straight to an elective section, not breaking my back the week before...
I spoke to my GP about a referral to the [hospital] birth trauma centre which was (at the time) about to open. I started preparing by coming off medication which needed to be out of my system for 6 months and very vaguely thought about how I wouldn't be in the same position during labour/post labour again. This is a massive TMI but I started getting panic attacks again when it came to the, um, conception bit of having another baby because I knew it wasn't recreational but procreational (OMG, I didn't even know that was a real word) but I went with the very mature response of absolutely, definitely not thinking about it at all thankyouverymuch. Then I put my head in the sand for 6 months until I got the BFP.
I spent the next, ooh, 10 months shitting myself. Literally, sometimes. Oh God, that was a joke. I spent a very, very long time feeling sick from anxiety about what I'd got myself in to. Before the month was out I'd written a list called 'Things To Shit Myself About' to raise at my booking in appointment, who referred me to [Head of Midwifery] to have the debriefing session you had. There was a lot more sand/head interfacing; there was a LOT of wailing at people who had BTDT. Knowing that people had come out of similar situations and stayed relatively normal was a help. But, you know, mostly the head/sand.
I know you've not asked for more and I'm sorry if I'm stepping over the line now, but having Pops healed me. I was prepared for the worst to happen but I took control of what I thought might go wrong - booking [my doula], having a home birth, refusing to go to [hospital] in an emergency, refusing anything but an epi, making sure the people who were going to be there knew what state I was likely to be in. Knowing I was likely to be unable to speak but that people who had been primed to intervene gave me the reassurance that I'd be able to let go and let myself do what I needed to do. I think you're probably there, in some ways. You know the birth that you want, you know how it'll happen and you have more support prepared to help you get it. If YourHusband is anything like MyHusband then he knew last time but was so busy crapping himself about it all that he didn't feel as though he could intervene as much as I felt necessary. Also because it was such a brand new experience that he didn't know for sure that I even wanted him to intervene. You know that what happens in labour is unpredictable and no matter how much you plan and prepare your body might do something different but that works both ways. What happened last time may not happen this time. And actually, both of my labours were very similar physiologically - both went back to back during labour, contractions never got established etc. Yet because of my environment they were handled in massively different ways! Also, from getting to know [Supervisor of Midwives] and the MSLC I truly believe that [hospital] has turned around in the care they give. They're very much about supporting women and there wasn't that vibe 4 years ago, and I'm positive if you ended up in hospital and [SoM] was there she'd get involved to help you.
As for your concerns post-labour, well, again, you can't predict what will happen. Pops was a dream baby. Was it a more AP approach I took that did it, or was that just her? I don't know, but the entire thing couldn't have been more different. You might have an easy baby, you might have a challenging baby but you WILL cope. You're strong, and capable, you have support, you know what to expect. I love having 2. They're fascinating together, they're funny, they're massively different in personality. I'm SO glad I didn't let my fear hold me back, and it so, so could have. The fear nearly broke me but Pops healed me 

Telling A Good Tale

Pix has been really funny and clever today.

We had a car conversation about how "burglars are bad" so, curious, I asked him if everybody who steals is a baddie. He said no, but didn't know why some people might not be so we discussed how if someone can't feed their family and they stole food that wouldn't be a bad thing to do. Which led to...
"If they stole all the food what would happen?"
"We could buy different food"
"If they stole all of our food what would happen?"
"We could afford to buy other food"
"If they stole all the bread in the shop what would we do?"
"Buy bread from a different shop"
"If they stole all the bread in all the shops what would we do?"
"Make some more"
"If they stole all the machines to make the bread what would we do?"
"Eat something different."
Which led to...
"If they stole something from the police station what would happen?"
"They couldn't, because there's too many police officers there"
"But if they killed all the police officers?"
"Then there'd be more police officers from somewhere else"
"But if they killed all the police officers everywhere?"
"Then new ones would be made"
"But if they were on fire they'd have to be put out. Would the doctors help the baddies if they were on fire?"

***

[Comes running in, howling with laughter, apropos of nothing]

"Mommy! Girls would look silly with beards!"

I didn't like to mention Grandma's... ;)

***

"Girls can't wear boy clothes, can they?" 

Careful where you go with this one, kiddo. You've just begged for - and been given by a generous friend - a purple velvet number. When questioned about what boy clothes are he points to his (turquoise) Buzz Lightyear tshirt.

"You know, bl-" *looks at my (blue) tshirt* 

"Oh!" *mad giggles*

***

He also made up a story. 

"Mr Tickle was out one day and he met a nasty boy who was called Nasty Boy who killed a person. Then he killed another person and then all the people. Then he ate all the killed people and then he killed himself. And then he went home and decided to be a good boy."

Stream of Consciousness, Pre-School Style

"Sometimes when I'm naughty I think you're not my best friend anymore. Are you my best friend even when I'm naughty? The thing is, I want to be your best friend even when I'm a grown up but I'll get married... I want to marry a girl. Poppet! But when she's grown up she won't be my sister she'll be my brother. Will her hair be the same as mine when she's grown up?"



 *runs away blowing a party streamer*

Accidents and advertising

"Mommy, if you have an accident and it wasn't your fault and someone else was to blame then you need to call someone about that don't you?"

I think Pix might just watch too many TV channels with commercials on. Back to Cbeebies.

Does TV stunt children's brains?

Confession time! My children watch TV - a lot of it.

Until two days ago.

I've cut them off cold turkey. No more Peppa (hurrah!), no more Mr Tumble, no Batman, no Dora the Explorer, no Spiderman, Super Hero Squad, Ben & Holly, Mister Maker, Thundercats, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Team Umizoomi, In the Night Garden....whew! Yes, there's a lot. So TV is more of a staple in this house rather than a treat. It also doesn't work as an electronic babysitter because there's no novelty value to it.

Although there was some mega whining about not having the TV on during the first day (and, to be fair, some the second day too), Pix has risen to the challenge admirably. He's spent hours and hours playing clever little games, making little worlds and asking questions. Oh God, the questions! Here's just a taster of what we've covered today: what planets there are, gravity, maths (addition and subtraction), what aliens might eat (salt), why we think about people when we're not with them, why people might die if they don't eat their breakfast (he's going through a death phase at the moment), how to send an email to people, whether jumping counts as exercise, does Woody from Toy Story get old and die (hello death phase!), what are cars made out of, what are tellys made out of, why are there so many red lights on cars, where does rain water come from and why does the swing make his penis tickle. I'm sure he didn't ask this many before, so perhaps turning the TV off has stopped stunting his brain. I might put it back on tomorrow for a rest ;)

We've also noticed that there's been absolutely no shouting matches over the last two days. And there's been quite a few recently, so that's amazing. Where he has started to try it on, he's backed down pretty quickly and it's not escalated to being removed from a situation which has been pretty amazing really.

How much screen time do your little ones get? Do you see a difference in their behaviour when it's off?

We started the indoctrination early with Pixie

Play Assessment

I'm on a roll tonight ;) Actually, I've just been reminded that Pixie has got a bit further down the line with his SALT (speech and language therapy) assessment. He had his play assessment (which is literally someone assessing him while playing!) and we now have a professional opinion of what we're facing.

He does have a stammer and he does have dysfluency and lack of coherence in his speech. The therapist is unsure whether the lack of coherence is down to the massive amount of tongue action he does (seriously, it's all over the place, hanging out like a dog, flapping around his mouth.... It reminds me that I remember thinking that my tongue used to feel like it was too big for my mouth a lot. I don't now, so it could actually be that he needs to grow into his tongue and all of that will be fine, but otoh it could be something else). She wants us to concentrate on dealing with the stammer first as that will give his head to grow around his tongue if that's what's needed.

In all honesty we've not been great at putting into practice all the strategies we've been taught. In fact, I'd go as far as saying we're reacting worse to the stammer than we ever have done. At least, I certainly am. I've found myself finishing his sentence or quickly getting my side of the conversation in before he has a chance to speak as I can't face listening to him trying to get his words out. Not good. At least writing it down here makes me accountable to making changes. That, and we've got another appointment series starting this week.

Start of the Road

I'm meant to be editing some photos of our recent holiday but a slight technical issue (flat camera battery, whoops!) means I can't get them on to the computer so I thought as I'm here I'd update about the salicylic acid intolerance testing we're doing with Pixie. (I also want to stay online to stat check as I've just taken the decision to de-anonymise this blog with real life people and have put a link on my facebook page. Eek! So hi, those of you who are looking ;) )

We'd made the decision to cut out salicylic acid from Pixie's diet without discussing it with a medical professional first. Firstly, because we didn't think it would do any harm, and secondly because it can take two to three weeks to get a non-urgent appointment with my surgery and frankly I'm not that patient. We thought we saw some success and I think my last post on this subject saw a link between eating a 'moderate' food and a worsening of his symptoms. Since then we got to a stage where his symptoms were still there in varying degrees even when we were very strictly sticking to 'low' and 'negligible' level foods (for the list we've been working off, see here) but if we gave him something he wasn't used to he'd have terrible urticaria (hives, to you and me) around his face and terribly itchy, dark eyes. Every time we thought about giving up the low salicylic acid diet (Christ, I'm not keep typing that out, LSA diet from now on I think!) because we couldn't see any reason why his symptoms were flaring, we'd accidentally let our guard down and have a horrendous reaction to tend to. This isn't the best picture as it was taken on my phone (and please excuse the dinner down his top, which I've just noticed!), but the redness is lots and lots of hives:

While this was going on, we were referred to a paediatrician regarding chicken pox vaccines, so we took the opportunity to discuss this with the doctor. Unfortunately he confirmed that there are no tests we can do for this particular allergy but we can test for individual foods. We're working on a list of things we're pretty sure cause a reaction in Pixie; we know that mangos, flavoured crisps, anything tinned and mint cause a problem. Because the  list of potentials is so big I think we may have to do staggered testing as we want to get moving on it and we can't overload his poor body with things that may cause a reaction. His body needs time to get over the responses he has (or doesn't) but I don't want to wait indefinitely for testing.

To be honest I'm not sure where we go from here. Even if it's not the salicylic acid, there's definitely a pretty major list of allergies/intolerances he's got. I don't know how he can avoid even the ones we know cause a problem for the rest of his life - cleaning teeth is a problem, eating anything but home made food is a problem, having a varied diet is a problem.... Unfortunately, I think getting a solid answer is going to be a problem too :( Having said that, one thing that isn't a problem is Pixie's response to it all. He has been totally amazing at picking up that he must ask if he's allowed to eat any food offered to him by anyone other than me or his dad. He knows quite a few things that he's not allowed and will stop someone giving him it if necessary. He also saves me any of the sweeties he's given but can't eat - excellent!

PS - hello to the FIFTY EIGHT people who have just checked this blog in the last hour!

New Beginnings

Oh my, I didn't realise it had been so long since I posted. What's been happening? We've had a pre-school starter, salicylate acid intolerance updates, we've had sleeping, we've had no sleeping....

So yes, Pixie has started at his pre-school and boy does he love it. Every day we hear "is it a pre-school day today?" and he's been very excited about doing his 'homework' - he gets to pick a book from their own library whenever he wants. This is him on his first day:

It's a difficult task to get him out of his uniform at the end of the day! As good as I find his school so far, I wish it came with an instruction book. I think it's assumed that parents know what they're doing but I don't have a clue! As evidenced by my complete failure to pay his snack fee most weeks and reply to his first birthday party invite until it it was too late and the spaces had been filled. Whoops!

Of course, taking photos is a laborious job with many unusable results....

NCT Newsletter

I've written an article for the NCT newsletter, whose subject is 'communication' this time round. The NCT, by the way, have had the pleasure of me volunteering (no, I don't know what I was thinking either!) to assist the co-ordination of the nearly new sale and various other things. 

Anyway, I've just sent it across and it's here:

Pixie was always a physically advanced baby and toddler, so in a sense I was expecting him to be a slower talker (I’d heard the adage ‘a baby’s a walker or a talker but not both’!), so when his peers picked up words slightly faster than him I wasn’t bothered and assumed he’d get there in his own time.

Just before Christmas 2011 (when he was two and a half) his dad and I started to notice that Pixie was stuttering. At that point he was having a huge burst of vocabulary so we put it down to his mouth catching up with his brain and didn’t really think much more about it. It happened again, and again, and in about February we realised that what he was doing was above and beyond ‘normal’ childhood development and in the realms of having a speech problem.

His stutter has presented perfectly typically. He’s 3 (most stutters present between 3-5 years), he’s male (approximately 3/5 stutterers are male), he has parents with slight speech issues (there appears to be a familial link between stutterers, although the exact cause is unknown) and he’s had a great deal of stressful change in a short period of time (new sibling and a change of childcare provider) – I’m not sure he could be more of a classic presentation! Unfortunately knowing that he’s ‘typical’ hasn’t assuaged the sadness I feel watching him struggle to get his words out.

I’ve mentioned my concerns to other people who come into contact with Pixie. Their assurances that “he’s not that bad” do little to ease my worries. Either they’re wrong and it is that bad or I – the very person who’s meant to know him best – can’t understand him. I’ve been told that there are reasons for his stutter to present worse in front of parents but even that does little to alleviate the worry – parenthood is one long mass of guilt and worry, isn’t it? 

Although Pixie is only just vaguely becoming aware that he has a stutter (he’s very recently started to stop himself in the middle of sentences and drift off for a moment before starting afresh), he’s becoming increasingly aware and frustrated by people’s inability to understand him. Worse, he’s started to realise when people are pretending to understand and he’s been in tears several times because of it. Having to translate what he’s saying to people feels like I’m undermining him and removing his voice, yet if I don’t then he doesn’t get to say what he wants to say. 

I’ve recently completed the first stage of speech therapy, which is parent-only group sessions aimed at giving caregivers the techniques necessary to assist the stutterer in talking. The key points are to limit questions and only ask necessary ones (which seems counterintuitive when your child is still learning to talk!); make fewer demands on their speech (no more “tell daddy what you did at nursery today!”); slow your own speech down to model a better speech pattern; remove environmental distractions so speech can be concentrated on; remove any competition in speech so they’re not fighting to be heard in family life. 

Some of what we’ve been asked to do feels very much as though a step back is being taken – simplifying language seems wrong when as a parent your job is to help teach your child an expansive and diverse vocabulary. We worried that we’d never get a proper conversation out of Pixie again if we didn’t ask him questions, but surprisingly giving him space to talk (or not, as he prefers) has probably resulted in better conversation because he’s telling us what he wants us to know rather than what we’re asking him to tell us. Remembering that it’s ok for children not to want to talk all the time, and that we as adults don’t need to know the ins and outs of their day away from us. After three group sessions the feeling that we’re going backwards has started to abate and we feel as though we’re better equipped to handle Pixie's problem. Changing the way we speak is hard, and we often find ourselves stalling halfway through a sentence as we realise we’re about to end it with a question. But as Pixie is learning to get through the stutter, we’re also learning how to best assist him. 

The next stage in his therapy is an assessment through play, which is scheduled for a couple of weeks’ time. From there we’ll know exactly what problems we’re dealing with and the speech therapist will be able to review his progress over time. With any luck Pixie will be one of the children who outgrow their stutter – only 1% of children carry it through into adulthood. If he’s not then I’m hopeful that an early intervention will give him and us the tools to adapt in the wider world.

Can't Do Carrots

I'm working on the next speech post (I am, I am, honest! Definitely not watching repeats of The Bill) but there's been an interesting development on the salicylate front.

Yesterday Pix had one and a half carrot batons. I mentioned in my last post that he's not a fan of low salicylate vegetables (although I've had some good ideas to try out for that, which is awesome, thanks to folks for that. Apart from Katherine who suggested he try kale, MY MOST HATED VEGETABLE EVER) so we figured just to get some nutrients in him we'd let him have a little bit of carrot, which has medium levels of salicylic acid in which we thought would be ok in moderation. Well. Today his eyes have become more and more red underneath and itchy; his face and arm skin has been itching him all day; his cough has got more and more frequent during the course of the day and his stutter has been awful.

The fact that they've all got worse together confirms (in my opinion) that they're all related. It would be far too much of a coincidence for them to completely autonomously of each other get bad over the course of the same day. Surely? But, it has been a better weathered day today so it's possible it may be a pollen allergy, I suppose. Do pollen allergies cause stutters? Or maybe something else. But possibly for the first time on this venture I feel slightly confident that I'm not displaying vast Münchhausen by proxy symptoms and I am barking up the right tree.

Vegemite Vege-won't

We're coming to the end of day five on a lower salicylate diet for Pixie and I have to say it's not been as soul crushingly hard as I was expecting. We've been super pleased with his nursery as the P's daddy called them to let them know what we were up to, expecting to be asked to take in a pack up for Pix, but they've accommodated us entirely. The only problems we're finding are that he now has a very limited diet, especially in the fruit and veg department. Luckily he likes bananas, pears and golden delicious apples so he eats two of those a day. Unfortunately all the low salicylate veg are ones he doesn't like, like cabbage and peas. Bummer for him. I'm trying to get him to eat them but it's hard going - if anyone has any bright ideas on how to get kids to eat certain vegetables that'd be handy! The other problem is the range of food he can have while we're out. Partly this is because I'm being particularly cautious while I'm getting to grips with the diet, but partly there's plain crisps and, er, that's about it. He's still being so good about it all.

His symptoms may have seen a very, very mild improvement. It's hard to say with a lot of them as they wax and wane anyway, but his eyes are less red and angry looking; I've not heard him cough much in the last day or two; there's no eczema patches; I've not heard much whining about being huuuuuuuuuuuungrrrrrrrrrrrrrry; I've not noticed him bash his head a million times. His speech is going through a relatively 'good' patch at the minute but he's definitely still stammering, although the coherence of his words is quite good. So yeah, there's certainly not been a decline since we started this and if I squint a bit there may even be improvements!

Those Silly Salicylates

I mentioned in my last post that one of the things I was considering was a salicylate intolerance in Pixie. The list of symptoms associated with it are varied and numerous and a salicylate free diet is mooted by some to have positive affects on people with ADHD.

There are a number of things on the list that Pixie has. Obviously it may well be that he just 'happens' to have a multitude of unrelated, low-level health issues but equally there may be an all-encompassing reason for them. Having fibromyalgia myself, I know that a myriad of seemingly unrelated issues can (eventually!) be tracked back to an umbrella condition. With that in mind, we decided that cutting down on salicylates certainly wouldn't hurt.

The list of symptoms we're concerned about may be a mix of unrelated issues and the fact that Pixie is, y'know, three, , so I thought I'd track his progress here. The symptoms we think are related are these:

• eczema (mild, but we can never quite get rid of it)
• persistent cough
• slightly darker and slightly paler patches on his forearms, as though the skin pigmentation is going awry
• itchy, dry skin around his eyes, with red circles round them, that cream doesn't seem to get rid of
• constant hunger
• accident prone (honestly, I'm surprised he doesn't have brain damage by now, the amount of times he's walked into the same pieces of furniture!)
• hearing without comprehension
• slurred speech
• stammering

Obviously if the salicylate intolerance isn't the cause then the symptoms won't get better over time. However, even if he is intolerant I'm expecting the symptoms to wax and wane before going completely, especially while we get to grips with what is and isn't 'acceptable' under the new regime. So I'm going to track the progress here.

We're currently at the end of day two and he's being surprisingly agreeable about the entire situation. He's started asking if he's allowed to have something before he eats it (which is brilliant!). The worst part is limiting his fruit and veg as he's a big fruit fan and we obviously want to keep him having a fresh, healthy diet! Because he goes to nursery for 3 half days a week he has 6 meals a week outside the home. I don't want to mess about with what he eats there on what's unsubstantiated theory at the moment so we're not going to ask the nursery to alter his food in any way yet. However, we'll keep an eye on any reactions he has on those days and take steps if necessary. I'm slightly concerned about the website I linked to earlier saying that caution needs to be exercised on reintroducing salicylates as anaphylactic shock may occur....I don't think that they'll be removed so completely (we're not currently changing his toiletries, for example) that him eating 'normally' at nursery will result in that though! Um, if anyone thinks they know different please get in touch before Tuesday morning!

I wasn't expecting to see any results this quickly but what is a little bit galling is that this afternoon his eyes got really bad and red again and his behaviour deteriorated pretty quickly. How much of this is because we slipped up somewhere and how much is because the weekend was spent with his grandparents having attention lavished on him I don't know, but there were definitely tears before bedtime!

Tomorrow is another day, and one that we'll hopefully start to see signs of change.

Talk the Talk

Yesterday was quite a tear-filled day for me. The morning saw Pixie's first dysfluency speech therapy session (although it was parent only so he was off living it up with a friend!). 


I feel horrendously sad for him and guilty. I honestly thought his affected speech was a short-lived developmental phase but being there made me realise that his speech patterns are quite a bit more serious than I thought. As he's not been formally assessed yet I can only give my lay opinion but I believe he has a stammer (or stutter if you're from the US) and cluttered speech.


The stammer has presented perfectly typically. He's 3, he's a boy, he has parents with speech issues (his dad had a stammer, I get what I call speech dyslexia (although I'm sure there's an official name!) from my fibromyalgia), he's had a great deal of stressful change in a short period. I'm not sure he could be more of a classic presentation! According to the Speech Disorder website there are three types of stammer:

There are three main types of stammers that exist and which keep individuals from speaking most efficiently. One type of stammering occurs when specific sounds are repeated, such as the “s”. This often makes a word such as “sweet” be pronounced as “s-s-s-sweet”.Another type of stammering occurs when a specific sound is prolonged before the rest of the word is pronounced, such as “sssssssweet”. The third type of stammering occurs when some speech is blocked so that there is a short period of silence in the middle of a word, such as “s……weet”.

Pixie certainly does the first two, although he also repeats the first word or syllable as well as the sound. So far he hasn't shown any sign of 'blocking'. He also repeats sounds or words in the middle of sentences, although the speech therapist believes that because of his age he's treating them as two separate sentences. As well as those he adds filler sounds like 'um' and a sort of tut. Again this is common, apparently, as his brain realises that making those noises gives him a bit of time to get his mouth round what he's actually saying. Thankfully he hasn't noticed yet that he has a stammer.


As well as the stammer, I believe he has cluttering, which Wikipedia defines as a:

communication disorder characterized by speech that is difficult for listeners to understand due to rapid speaking rate, erratic rhythm, poor syntax or grammar, and words or groups of words unrelated to the sentence.

He can have an entire conversation with me where I can only make out a word or two of what he says. Although many websites have said that clutterers don't have any awareness of their dysfluent speech, Pixie has started to notice that people don't understand him. More upsetting, he's noticed that people are pretending to understand him. We've all done it to children who are learning to talk, replied to an unintelligible babble with "Oh yes, right! That's it, yes!" which is all well and good until the child is old enough to come crying to me because the person he's talking to isn't talking back.


My homework following the session is to see when Pixie's speech is at its most fluent, so we can use that state as a basis to improve the bad times. I think I'm the person least able to do this because I genuinely don't hear a lot of the issues because I'm so used to them. We're visiting my parents this weekend so hopefully they'll be able to help out.


I'm a little ashamed to say I cried in the session. Realising that my little baby needs help was honestly devastating. I'm even more ashamed to say I cried when a friend asked me how it had gone! We've only been friends for a couple of weeks so I don't think she was expecting tears over cake!


Something I'm finding hard to admit and even harder to articulate is the extra worry I have. There's something inside me that thinks the speech problems may be part of something bigger, more worrying. Over the last few months there have been times when I've thought 'you're just not right'. I can't tell you what, and I hope it's just an over active imagination, but I've been spending a lot of time reading up about ADD and salicylate sensitivity. More on those another day as Poppy has just woken up from her (very short!) nap.

Isn't It Meant To Get Easier?

Life is meant to get easier with a baby as they get older, according to the hordes of moms who have been there and done that.

Why is it in this household things are getting harder?

Probably the biggest cause of this is the fact Pops has stopped sleeping 12 hours a night with only one quick feed after about 10 hours, to waking every hour or two every night. I'm pretty sure you're meant to get more sleep as they get older rather than  less.

But, to be fair, the nightly wake ups don't impact on the washing that seems to multiply as soon as you look at it (where do people hang their washing to dry? It's ridiculous!); the kitchen that's less a bombsite and more an explosion in a shit factory; the piles of stuff everywhere... Where Pixie is now old enough to sit and watch TV (*clutches pearls*) on his own, or play at 'I'm Fireman Sam and I'm putting out fires!', Pops is very much like her brother was and doesn't like being left to her own devices, doesn't like toys and isn't very impressed if you try and play with her. All of which mean it's pretty difficult to pop off and get things done. More was done when she was tiny and in a sling! Also, since the multiple chicken pox fiasco, we've relied on her dummy far too much (as in - every minute she's awake, pretty much) which is causing its own problems.

Things need to change and we need to get back to where we were but at this moment in time I don't really know where to start.


This post brought to you by one stream of consciousness and 18 dummy replacements.

"My shoulders have chicken ache"

Chicken pox has reared its pus-filled head for the fifth time in four weeks (over only three people). There's been some colourful swearing, I admit.

So, if anyone has any ideas on how to entertain a bored and pox-y 3 year old, and a bored and teeth-y 3 month old, speak now. But bear in mind we can't leave the house for supplies; to see anyone; or to play in the park as it's raining.

Not my child

Kindness

I realised today what one of Pix's biggest character strengths is: kindness. It doesn't seem much, does it? It's not a big word. But if it weren't for kindness, wouldn't life be so much harder?

Here's a selection of the heart-wrenching kindness he does:

• At a playdate this morning the owner of a toy till wanted to play with her toy all by herself. Fair enough, it's her toy! She got upset, as 3 year olds do, and before he was asked he was holding out the part that he was playing with so she could have it. No prompting at all, just did it.
• When Pops cries (which is pretty often at the moment, bloody teeth!) he runs to find her a dummy, or a toy, or the musical mobile - anything he thinks might stop her crying. How sweet is that? He also says "awwwwwwww, Pops, don't cry, be happy!" <3
• ...and on the subject of being happy, I had a chat with him about doing what mommy and daddy say because otherwise we'll be sad. I must have hammered it home the next time he didn't do what I asked because after we had words he asked me if I was happy. I told him that no, I was sad that he wasn't doing what I asked. He asked me if a kiss would make me happy, so I said yes but only if he also did what I was asking. Now whenever we have a clash of wills he says "don't be sad mommy, I give you kiss to be happy!" Little swine, how can you be cross with that? ;)
• When was of his little friends was crying over something hugely important to her toddler life, he went and gave her an awkward cuddle and encouraged her to forget her woes by going to play with him.

I really hope that this is something that grows and grows within him. That he'll always be kind and thoughtful. That he'll always try and diffuse someone else's upset, but do so without taking it on himself. I hope he's the boy that shares his toys, the teenager that stands up to playground bullies and the man that will never let an injustice go unchallenged. 

Just so she doesn't feel left out, I have to mention Pops. She's probably a little young to have strengths and weaknesses yet, but she really enjoys being pretend-dropped and being bounced on the bed. She positively cackles with laughter.

Chalk It Up To A Good Day

It's probably fair to say that our TV has done more parenting this last week or two than I have. Between the quadruple dose of chicken pox we've had (only Ed has escaped!) and various other ailments, we've barely left the house and when we have it's been either with incredibly grumpy children, or to wide open spaces where we can't infect anyone. And to be honest, those wide open spaces have usually been Tesco for essentials as I've not been up to braving the chilly playgrounds what with all the razor blades in my throat, hammers in my head, chainsaws in my stomach and rabid dogs gnawing at my shoulder.

*ahem*

I decided to take advantage of the brightening weather today so, after a brief sojourn to be fed lunch at my husband's office, and a monster nap from Pops courtesy of Ashton & Parsons teething powder, I took them into the front yard (why yes, we do live in the north!) with a tub of jumbo chalks from Tesco.

That's actually half a pirate outfit he's wearing. I'd never clash horizontal and vertical stripes.

To the right of the tub you can just about make out my amazing mermaid of awesomeness.

Ah hell, see a close up. See! Awesome.

After covering all available floor space we went inside and I read a counting book to Pixie, had a bath with them all, then nursed Pops to sleep. I think I did more active parenting in those few hours than I have in the last few weeks.

"We're best friends. Best friends never fight."

I told Pixie on the phone that he had a new baby sister.

"Oh," he said, digesting the information for a moment. "I've watched the golf on the telly with Grandpa! They have sticks and balls and into the hole!" Touché.

In all honesty, I'd expected some jealousy from Pixie. However, whether it was the excitement of having a new sister, Christmas and seeing beloved grandparents more than usual that diverted any jealous tendencies, or if he wouldn't have shown them anyway, he took to Poppet like Woody (eventually) took to Buzz. Like Dora and Boots. Like Charlie and Lola. Like Batman and The Joker. Oh. Um.

I'm pretty sure he couldn't be more lovely with her. When she cries he runs to tell me (dude thinks I'm deaf, as well as stupid) "She wants feeding? You need to feed her?" (Santa also seemingly brought an Australian question intonation? Yep, it's pretty much as annoying as you think?). He lives for 'huggles and kisses' from her and thinks that when she touches him it's better even than an episode of Team Umizoomi. In return, she only has to look at him to start grinning and chuckling to herself. She adores to watch what he's doing. Sometimes they lie facing each other, staring into each others eyes - when they do that my heart bursts.

I was apprehensive about a second child joining us with the age gap we were giving them (2years 9months) as it's very similar to the gap my brother and I have (3years 2months 1week!) and frankly, we were shits to each other. I don't want that for my children. Who does? More so, I don't want to be that mom who's embarrassed to go anywhere with her kids because they fight and tell tales constantly. Sorry mom for making you that mom.

I hope as the years progress they'll always be best friends, always look out for each other. If she ever gets in trouble I hope she goes to her big brother for protection. I hope they look back on their childhood and remember laughter and love from each other.

*Time to fess up. The post's title is actually something Pixie said about one of his friends rather than his sister, but it's something that I hope they live by.