The end of…

….stair gates, booster seats, back carrier (but not slinging, I’ve just acquired a toddler carrier   ), milk at bedtime, and:

…nappies. The day before Eve’s birthday we took Tess out of nappies at night time. 4 years almost exactly since we first changed a nappy. Our hand was rather forced in this – Tess has a large bladder capacity and also seemed to have stopped wee-ing when deeply asleep. However this meant that when she started to wake she would wee and her nappy would overflow (exactly the same thing happened with Eve), so we were dealing with wet sheets anyway. After a few accidents she figured it out and we are now a nappy free zone. Hooray!

There are other things we can see the end of too, where Eve no longer needs things so we know that in all likelihood it will only be a year or so before Tess doesn’t either. For example, Eve now no longer needs a step in the bathroom to get on the loo, or to wash her hands.

Sleeping

Not a great deal to report. Well, they are still early risers and when they are ill we (obviously) still have disturbed nights, but by and large they sleep. Sometimes they might wake for a wee or because they have had a bad dream but usually they go straight back to sleep. They are still sharing a room and we think they like that (we like it too). They do disturb each other in the mornings, or sometimes when they are going to sleep in the evening, but in the middle of the night they seem to be able to sleep through anything – Tess had a minor tummy bug a few weeks ago and was sick, requiring bath, bedroom lights on, complete change of sheets etc. She then (poor thing) woke to be sick every hour or so for the rest of the night. Eve barely stirred.

They are still in the same beds – Eve in her narrow single, and Tess in the toddler bed. We are considering when to get bunks.

As I’ve mentioned previously, Tess is sort of thinking about dropping her nap. She is going through phases of sometimes needing them every day, and then looking like she is going to stop. Usually these days she crashes out on the sofa around lunchtime for an hour or so. Sometimes in the car or on the floor in her room, once or twice in Eve’s bed but almost never in her own bed these days!

Food

To be honest not much to report here. They both have normal small children fussy moments, as well as genuine differences in tastes, but they eat a reasonable range of food and can put away a full adult portion of pasta each. They love fruit which is great. Yesterday we had seafood pasta. They both love prawns but were reluctant to try the mussels, squid and scallops. Eventually they did though, and although Eve declined to eat any more, Tess decided that seafood is the best thing EVER and wolfed the rest down.

Growing

The huge pasta consumption helps with the phenomenal amount of growing they are both doing at the moment. They are both much taller and growing out of their clothes recently. Eve is all legs and arms and I’m starting to find it a bit of an effort to pick her up. She is now officially too big for supermarket trolley seats. Tess is bigger too. She is three soon. How did that happen?

Busy busy

From the moment they come bouncing into our room at 6.00am until they finally crash out at 7.30pm or so, Eve and Tess are pretty constantly on the go. Tess does sometimes like to make herself a bed on the floor and cuddle her bunny, and Eve will sometimes sit quietly and read a book, but they are pretty rare moments of quiet. They play together a lot now, often having pretend picnics or tea parties, or playing school/nursery. Eve does boss Tess around a lot, but Tess is quite good at just ignoring her when she doesn’t want to play. They do fight, but nothing too serious.

Drawing is still one of their very favourite activities, they get through a LOT of paper. I’ll post some more about drawing another time.

We’re spending a bit of time on reading and writing at the moment. Not much, and only when they are interested. Eve can recognise some short words now (cat, hat, rat) and is starting to get the idea of sounding words out. She knows that ‘oo’ is ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO’ and ‘ee’ is ‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE’. She can write her name, Tess’ name, ‘love’ and ‘mealy’ (her imaginary friend) without any help, and often asks for other words to be spelled out so she can write them.  Tess is trying to catch up, she is drawing ‘T’s everywhere and can make a good attempt at the ‘ess’ too. She also seems to have a good ear for sounding out words – the other day Anton was asking Eve what ‘ffff  iiiiii   ssshhhhhh’ spelled and Tess said ‘fish’ before Eve did.

Eve is still going to nursery on Wednesdays and Fridays with Tess joining her on Fridays. After Easter we’re hoping Tess will be able to go two days a week, although we’re planning for her second day to be different to Eve’s, so that they still get some time apart (they may be in the same room at nursery) and so that Eve gets some one on one days before she starts school in September. I can’t quite believe that she will be starting school so soon! Our school place application is in, and we find out in April whether we’ve got a place at our catchment school (our top preference).

Last Sunday we took a trip to Reading Museum at Eve and Tess’ request. Tess has been down a bit recently for their Tots Story Time, but Eve hasn’t been for a while. They enjoyed reading the books and looking at the Huntley & Palmers Biscuit Tins (playing the biscuit tin pianos) and looking at the animals. They also enjoyed the replica Bayeux Tapestry, although this did cause some confusion for Eve.

First of all there was the dead king Edward (how did he die? why did he die? why is he in a box?). Then moving around we came to the battle itself: How did Harold die? How did he get “poked” in the eye? Why did he get poked in the eye? Why isn’t he in a box? And so on. Its interesting seeing it through her eyes.

Another classic Eve conversation went:
Eve: is that the school I’m going to?
Becca: hopefully, we have to find out if they have a place for you.
Eve: <thinks> maybe if somebody dies?

Tess has started becoming better at recognising smells. Just the other day Becca was getting her out of the car and she instantly noticed the smell of smoke. She has also started writing her name, and Eve has been very keen in helping her with this, writing the letters for her to write over.

A few pictures and a film (hopefully).

We had a Christmas at home for the first time, with NanAnne and Grandad coming to stay. Eve and Tess we both excited about this and enjoyed making mince pies and getting ready for Father Christmas’ arrival. Christmas day itself started fairly early with stockings. Christmas lunch was enjoyed, but best of all was Christmas pudding with ice cream, which got finished pretty quickly!

NanAnne and Grandad stayed till boxing day, and the day after we went down to Grandma and Grandads to spend a few days there – more presents! Even better than presents was the arrival the day later of their cousins Sam and Ellie (plus parents), and they proceeded to have a great time playing games, in particular Pantomimes from behind the curtains.

After a couple of days at home we then saw Aunty Louisa and Uncle Dom, and the day later, Aunty Frances, Uncle Ashley and cousin Abigail. Both days brought more presents and excitement.

Christmas was a time of great excitement, not only presents, but also seeing people which they both enjoy doing. By the end of it they were exhausted though and ready for a bit of normality.

Snowstorms. Next year, smaller jars, better glue, more glycerine.

Reindeer. This was a spontaneous one, Eve and Tess were playing ‘sleigh’ on the sofa and announced that they needed a some reindeer… Luckily we had some cardboard and gaffer tape.

Tree decorations.

Buying and putting up the Christmas Tree: We bought our tree from the hardware shop nearby and walked it home. Decorating the tree was lots of fun.

Some highlights:

Pomanders. Both Eve and Tess had a go at this, but it was a bit tough for them to get the cloves in. We managed one whole one between us, and two with just a few cloves in which have since rotted unfortunately. The one remaining one is drying out in the airing cupboard and making all the clothes smell Christmassy.

Snowflakes. Cutting through all the thicknesses of paper was a bit difficult for them but they very much enjoyed covering them with glitter.

Wrapping paper. This was a big success. I bought a roll of brown kraft paper and some Christmas stamps and we had great fun with paint, ink stamps and star stickers.

Panto! (oh yes we did). We were a little cautious about this but the nursery were organising a trip and had cheap tickets so we decided to give it a go. Both Eve and Tess seemed to enjoy parts of it, although they were both scared of the villain and it was maybe a bit long. But by the end, Tess was dancing in the aisle.

Christmas lights. On Monday we took the bus to town just before tea-time to buy Anton’s Christmas present from Eve and Tess, and see the lights on Broad Street and down by the Oracle. We then met Anton for a tasty meal out at Zero Degrees.

Biscuits. Yesterday we made stained glass window biscuits for the staff at Nursery.

We’ve also been making Christmas pictures, a feeder for the birds, doing Christmas stickers, watching ‘The Snowman’ and ‘Father Christmas’ (repeatedly) and listening to carols.

Today is halfway and we have a few other exciting (I hope) things planned, including Peppermint Creams, visiting friends, making snowstorms and frosty branches and of course, putting up the Christmas tree.

Is it going to work…

We haven’t been able to take Eve out on her bike as much as we would have liked to, but we did go out and play with a toy rocket (powered by air), which proved to be a great success.

Finally last weekend the nursery had their Christmas fair. We all had some fun and Eve was able to take part in some carol singing. She had been practicing for this over the last few weeks and enjoyed it, but was also very tired having come straight from the party, and halfway through decided she just wanted a cuddle.

For her birthday Eve got a lot of presents. The main one from her parents was a new bike – a proper bike with pedals and no stabilisers. She has taken to this like a duck to water and is able to pedal for quite some way on her own, even going around corners, after only a couple of days.

Tess has also enjoyed her sister’s birthday. She was invited to the party, enjoyed the games and the cakes, and playing with her sister’s toys. She has also been drawing more and they are starting to become more recognisable.

The rest of the trip away was spent playing in the copse, and walking at the beach, including a very enjoyable walk along the cliffs at Burton Bradstock.

Tess has been saying lots of cute things recently. We were trying to get them ready to stay at Grandma and Grandads recently and asked Tess if she would like to go and stay on her own. Tess looked at us, very concerned and more than a bit worried, shook her head and said “But I’d get run over”….

Eve’s writing has come along a lot. She can form a lot of letters and is very able to copy what we have written, and you can tell what she is writing. She also writes her own lists, which include very recognisable letters.

We took the train up to Oxford, which was fun in itself – Eve managing to eat all of the supplies I had brought on the way up! We stopped for lunch at Oxford Castle Unlocked – where Eve found out about an old method of punishment, before heading over to Oxford University Natural History Museum.

The museum was well laid out and had enough to keep us both entertained. Eve was especially taken with the stuffed animals that you could touch – a shetland pony and cheetah were the highlights. This sounds a bit unusual (and not a little bit Victorian), but actually having the tactile element brought an added dimension to it. She also enjoyed the model of the T-Rex, unmovning, but very fierce!

After the museum, we headed back to the train via a cup of tea and slice of cake. Despite this I had to buy some more supplies before the journey home, but then we had had a busy day.

Eve at the Isis

The stocks

Cuddling T-rex

Hiding

And Eve’s view of the world:

People in the stocks

Daddy in the stocks

Halloween Decorations

Out of the window