Two years old

Since my last post James has turned two. He had a quiet birthday at home with a wet walk through puddles and then a friend over to play. He got lots and lots of lovely presents for his birthday - a garage, lots of cars and buses, a Mini Micro scooter, some Duplo, some Brio, books, a doll's pushchair and more. The cars and garage are his all time favourite toy; a month later it is still what he goes for first every day. We've also just bought him a road playmat which he loves. Time to put the baby toys away, I think!

We've been on another holiday since my last post, this time to France with friends. We got so so lucky with the weather - after weeks of rain we got baking hot sunshine every day. The house was well set up for children, with toys, books and games galore - not that we spent much time inside. James, Josie and Ella spent the week running around the huge garden naked, splashing in the paddling pool, having tea parties in the playhouse, eating croissants, pretending to push adults into the swimming pool, pushing a dolls' pushchair around, and eating every meal outside. Toddler heaven (and us adults had a brilliant time too). Perhaps we'll go back one day. 

James is saying lots more words now and really beginning to join them together in sentences. He had me in hysterics this afternoon - I asked him to come and put his shoes on and he came through and said 'Sit down.. NOW! 5, 6, 7'! He likes counting but hasn't quite got the idea of starting from 1, and he is used to us counting to three when we're asking him to do things. 

We measured him shortly after his birthday, and he was 86cm, which would suggest that his adult height would be 172cm. Somehow I doubt that - it is very unusual for a man to be shorter than his mother. I think he'll probably have a growth spurt some time soon. He is around the 50th centile for both weight and height, and has apparently only put on about 150g in six months... oh well. He eats a relatively (well, sort of) balanced diet and eats a fair amount at least some of the time. We are currently trying to wean him off breastfeeding with moderate success so far (only one feed in the last 48 hours). 

Touching all sorts of wood, ever since our holiday back in May he has been sleeping through more or less reliably - the bliss! He still has a nap roughly every other day, though it is only achieved by taking him out in the car or pushchair for a reasonably long time. He needs about 12 hours of sleep per day in total so if he naps in the day he will go to sleep at night correspondingly later. 

Terrible Twos

Tears and tantrums abound this month, together with the word 'No!'. James has hit the terrible twos with a vengeance. Apparently he is charming for everyone else and saves his worst tantrums for me... He is still very clingy and only Mummy will do a lot of the time.

James's vocabulary is coming on leaps and bounds at the moment - he's at the stage I have been looking forward to of picking up new words every day. Particular favourites include 'bus', 'bike', 'nana', 'wee', 'dog', 'digger', 'puddle', 'car', 'train', 'plane', 'ball',  and of course 'no'. He'll make a good attempt at any word we say to him but has also come up with his own words for some things, such as 'maam' meaning washing machine, 'miaow' for cat and 'bee' for TV.

We had a lovely holiday in Kos this month. Where we stayed was very safe, far from pools or roads, and with plenty of garden toys, so we were able to relax with coffee/beer and let James play happily. He enjoyed having a fuss made of him by all the waiters and waitresses, and we appreciated the many bars and restaurants that had indoor and outdoor play areas. If only taking him out was so easy here. We got him into a nice routine of going to bed at 10.30 or so and sleeping through to 8.30, then sleeping for two hours or more in the afternoons. During the holiday James developed his obsession with bikes, motorbikes, dogs and buses. Whenever he sees one he exclaims 'Bus!' or whatever, and as it goes he says 'Bye-bye bus!'. The accompanying adult has to agree 'Bye-bye, bus' or else he repeats it more and more insistently. The novelty of this game soon wore off, especially when travelling around the island on public transport, but the game continues...

James managed to sleep through every night we were on holiday, and continued to do so every night bar one for the next three weeks after we came home. Unfortunately he has now woken in the night every night for the last three nights and has become totally hysterical and screaming until I breastfeed him. This seems crazy considering he is now nearly two, but I don't quite know what to do. Hopefully he will go back to sleeping through very soon.

Several months later...

Oops, I have been rather slow at updating this. I realised I haven't even scanned those professional pictures yet - I must do that!

So James is now just a week off 22 months. His second birthday is fast approaching! He is growing up fast and is becoming a proper little boy. He finally shook off the endless bugs of the winter and has found some energy to have a long overdue growth spurt. He's now mainly wearing age 2-3 clothes and is rapidly outgrowing his size 5 shoes.

James is just getting to the fun stage of picking up new words every day, and just beginning to put them together (currently only at the stage of 'hello mummy' or 'night-night daddy' but it's a start). He makes a good effort at all sorts of things we say (time to watch our language). However when he's pointing at things like diggers or dogs it's still mainly 'ner' and when he wants something it's still mainly 'more?'. Some favourite words include 'Wow!' and 'puddle'.

He can now point out various body parts: nose, eyes, mouth, head, feet, hands, tummy. If you ask about something he doesn't know he points to his ears. He likes to do the actions to 'Heads, shoulders, knees and toes'. He also likes doing the actions to various other songs such as 'Twinkle twinkle little star', 'Tommy fish', 'Sleeping bunnies' and his favourite, 'Row row row your boat' (Row-row).

James loves watching slightly older children and laughing at them - they then usually show off for him and the cycle repeats and everyone is happy! His best friend is Alba, and whenever we go anywhere he says 'Alba'? in a hopeful tone. When they are together they run around, copy each other, fall over together and giggle. Alba likes to hug James but James isn't so sure!

James has suddenly become very attached to his muslins - he has always liked to have one in bed but at the moment he likes to carry one round with him most of the day if he's allowed to. He sucks the corners of them and then, in a kind sharing way, offers me a corner to suck and looks rather disappointed when I decline politely.

Unfortunately James is moving rather too rapidly towards dropping his nap. At the moment he's got himself into a two-day pattern - one day he'll have a nap, then go to sleep at about 8.30-9pm. He'll then wake late the next morning and not nap that day. He'll then be shattered and go to bed at 7 and then wake at 7, so have a nap the next day. And so on. I'm hoping to keep the nap going as long as possible. At night James now sleeps through probably five nights a week, which is a big improvement. There's no one in the flat downstairs at the moment, which means we don't have to keep him 100% quiet all night. If he does wake up he's often awake for two hours at a time, but he's quite happy chattering away to himself in his cot.

We spent Easter down on the farm in Sussex with his maternal grandparents and greatgrandparents. We took him to the farmyard at least twice a day where he loved seeing the orphaned lambs, the cattle, the horses and the tractors. Toddler heaven!

Next week we're off on holiday to Greece - I'm dreading the flight, but looking forward to pottering around on the beach with James.

In which James discovers the snow

Once again I'm not writing this until the first of the next month - oops! James is now 19 months. This month he has been continuing to enjoy opening and closing doors. He can reach door handles and has got rather good at closing doors from either side - not so good at opening them. He has got better at running, but did give himself a bloody nose and mouth by tripping over in the playground.

A few more words are beginning to arrive - 'more', 'nana', 'shut'. He likes to point out other people's noses but hasn't quite gathered he has one of his own.

We had the only snowfall of the winter this month. James wasn't terribly impressed - he couldn't figure out how to walk in it, and everything looked funny. I liked it though!

Lots more bugs and teething this month - still no canines yet but I don't think they're far away. He's had a nasty coughing bug which put him off his food for a week or so, but he's catching up now. James was weighed and measured at the hospital ahead of a dermatology appointment for his eczema/molluscum on his back and is now 11.75kg and 82cm, around about the 50th centile for both measurements.

We had a photoshoot this month with a local photographer and I love the results - I'll add photos next month if I can. In the meantime here are some of my own photos from the month.

Eighteen months old

Oops - James is almost closer to 19 than 18 months now... have not really had a chance to update this till now!

He's now walking and running all over the place. We like to go for little walks up and down the road, watching the diggers in the park and the buses on the main road. He loves running around with other toddlers. He particularly enjoyed going up and downstairs with Ella, and running around with Alba and high-fiving her!

James had a lovely Christmas - he had a break from the endless teething and colds for a couple of weeks and was so happy, cheerful, non-dribbly and non-snotty. It was great! Unfortunately the dribble, snot and whinging has now started up again but I'm glad he was happy over Christmas. He got lots of nice presents - diggers, megabloks, a robot, books etc.

His language is coming on - he says lots of things once and I can never be totally sure whether I've heard correctly. New words certainly include 'down', 'dig' (digger) and 'nose'.

James loves imitating us by pretending to brush his hair, talk on the phone or whatever. He loves watching the diggers in the park and patting the cats. He loves to go into the bathroom, climb on his stool and clean his teeth.