The Mystery of the Missing Miscellaneous Items

I've mentioned before about Tyger's ability to lose toys here, though that was specifically about his small farm toys.  I hope this didn't give the impression his skills are limited to those toys alone because they most certainly are not.

Tyger, like all children, has many abilities.  His acting is pretty good when he wants to distract you from a telling off.  For a while he'd point towards a corner/the wall/the floor shouting, 'Look, a spider!  Oh no, a spider!'  I'm ashamed to admit I fell for it the first couple of times before I cottoned on to what he was doing.  When he realises one tactic has stopped working, he moves on to something else.  So far, his various distraction techniques have included: shouting 'pine cone' very loudly, pretending to sneeze, pointing at imaginary spiders, saying he has a sore tummy, and proclaiming he's 'really tired'.  Although, when all else fails, simply shouting 'go away' or 'I don't like Mummy' suffices.

Another skill Tyger possesses is opening baby gates.  We have three baby gates and two have a pretty simple opening mechanism where you pinch a bit on top and a bit below.  It wasn't really a great surprise when Tyger figured out how to open those (and came barging into our bedroom at 5.30am shouting, 'It's morning time, Mummy!' - I guess technically he was right).  We tried locking it at the bottom, too, with bits that flip down but he soon figured those out.  The more impressive gate flummoxes most adults.  Many a friend, family member or workman have been stuck on one side of that gate even after being shown how it works.  I know lots of toddlers defeat baby gates by climbing over them but Tyger has never been a climber.  He never climbed out of his cot and he was quite late to climb onto the sofa.  Whilst I knew other parents who had to use stair gates much earlier than they'd planned because their five month old was climbing the stairs, I couldn't convince Tyger to climb the stairs when he was a year and a half and I was pregnant so didn't want to carry a toddler up and down the stairs.  Tyger will use chairs to climb and reach things now but I still don't think it would occur to him to try and climb over something, especially if he could figure out how to open it or simply move it instead.

That leads me on to his next skill.  The reason he manages the gates so efficiently is because he is always watching and listening to everything, even when you're convinced he's not.  My youngest sister was exactly the same.  You'd swear she was sat playing, completely oblivious to the grown-up conversations taking place the other side of the room, but it became apparent she was constantly listening.  My sister has known what she or my other sister are receiving for Christmas and birthdays countless times without ever needing to raid my parents' bedroom or any such cliche.  All she did was sit quietly and unobtrusively playing and pay attention to any conversation taking place in the same or next room.  Tyger knows what you're saying when you go out of your way to disguise it.  There are times I've spelled out C-A-K-E only to have him say, 'Cake?'  I often think I'm talking in code about something but it later becomes clear Tyger knew exactly what I was saying.  He certainly does a good impression of someone not paying the slightest bit of attention to anything but I'm gradually realising he is aware of everything happening around him.  If kids in general are sponges then Tyger is...something more absorbent than a sponge.  Is there anything more absorbent than a sponge?  Ugh, now I have disgusting images of 'feminine hygiene products' in my head.  I should really avoid metaphors altogether.

Anyway, Tyger has lots of such 'skills' but perhaps his biggest talent is for losing things.  I know every parent has probably experienced some variation on the keys out the letter box/remote control in the bin/something shoved in the DVD player scenario at least once.  It's a well-known fact toddlers enjoy putting things that belong in one place in a completely different place.  In that sense, Tyger is perfectly normal.  But the sheer number of things that go missing and the fact so many of them never resurface is impressive.

Items he's lost but have subsequently been found include (but are not even close to being limited to): a plate (tucked away in a rarely used cupboard behind a chair); one of my sister's school books (Tyger had helpfully put it in the other sister's school bag); various items of clothing - both his and other people's (generally found in his toy oven, which apparently doubles up as a 'washing machine'); plastic cutlery from his play kitchen (this is hard to explain but he pushes them into the middle of the kitchen roll and into the kitchen roll holder, which is shaped a bit like a narrow whisk); two of Baby Bear's teething rings (placed in the shoe cupboard amongst all the shoes because apparently Tyger likes to wear these teething rings on his feet as shoes...), the engine and two carriages from his wooden train set (stuffed behind a radiator).  I could go on, and on, and on.

But for every item we find, at least one is still missing.  Some haven't been seen for six months or more.  Tyger got a wooden shape puzzle for his first birthday and eight out of the nine shapes have been gone for a long time.  One, lonely, green circle remains.  The end of his Henry Hoover (the attachment part) has also mysteriously disappeared, causing the noise Tyger makes when he's 'hoovering' to change from a 'vvvvvvvvv' sound to more of a 'cchh' noise because, obviously, the sound changes when you take the attachment off the end of a vacuum cleaner.  Other missing items include: half an egg from his toy egg box, a small purple car, several bits from his toy kitchen, the spoon he normally has for his cereal in the morning, a couple of plastic balls from his ball run toy, half an egg from Baby Bear's Russian doll style eggs (what is it with halves of eggs?) and the top of the plastic work bench from his toy tool kit set.  Of course, there are several small animals missing as well but Santa - being a smart chap - gave Tyger two packs of small plastic animals in his stocking so there are always plenty left.

Now, my parents' house is large but Tyger is restricted to the living room, dining room and part of the hall during the day unless he's with one of us big people.  Sofas are regularly lifted to check underneath, I know to look down the backs of radiators, our fat cat brings live mice in often enough that other bits of furniture/speakers etc. get pulled out fairly often, and the bin in the living room is wide so easy to see into.  I don't know where these things go.  There has been the odd occasion when a toy has been missing and has been found in several pieces in the garden courtesy of the demon husky but no trace of any of the above has been found in the garden.  Tyger's skill isn't even 'hiding' things because that implies he does it deliberately and knows where they are.  However, he often asks where his purple car is, or where the end of his hoover is.  He is simply very skilled at losing things.

So, suggestions on a postcard as to where the missing things are (or maybe in the comment section. I don't know, I'm not good with technology - send them via carrier pigeon if you like).

What's Your Favourite Animal?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned the Hoover obsession on here before.

Tiny Tyger is obsessed with Hoovers.  He used to be terrified of them, once upon a time, and would cry if I tried to do the vacuuming (so I selflessly delegated the task to the Wolf - I know, I know: the sacrifices we make for our children).  There was a vacuum cleaner in a room where we had a baby group and he spent a large part of the time pointing at it and making 'vvvvvvv' noises.  Even after the hoover moved to a different room, he still pointed at the corner it used to be and made the noise.

That was the beginning of the fascination with hoovers.  Tyger had a strange relationship with them where he was simultaneously petrified of them and mesmerised by them.  I guess it's not unlike the sort of relationship some religious people have with whatever god they worship: a combination of fear and respect.

But, gradually, he was able to get a little closer to the hoover.  He'd touch it when it was off and watch - captivated - when it was on.  And then he started to touch it when it was on, which led to...Tyger 'helping' with the hoovering.  These days, there is no excuse for me not hoovering (on Tyger's part, anyway.  I still have to time it around Baby Bear's naps but 'fortunately' Baby Bear thinks sleep is for the weak so that's not a huge issue - but that's a blog post for another day!).

He called hoovers 'voogers' and everything was a vooger.  If it vaguely looked like it had a hose or if it was electric/mechanical and didn't fit into other categories like 'car' then it was a vooger.  You wouldn't believe how man voogers can be seen in everyday life.  A tall lamp, pipes, construction machinery, a bouncy castle: all voogers!

For Christmas 2013 - when Tyger was a year and a half - we got him a toy Henry Hoover.  It was immediately promoted to favourite toy and within a couple of minutes he wouldn't even let me touch the thing in order to straighten the hose because he seemed convinced I was trying to take it away from him (slightly offensive he thinks so little of me that he believes I'd give him a present only to cruelly snatch it away a minute later).  He has played with it almost every day since then.  It no longer has the ed attachment (that has gone the same way as some wooden shapes, the wheel of a car, and various other toys that have seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth) and we cannot under any circumstances put batteries in it (made that mistake once and had several days of alternating humming hoover sound or Tyger screaming when we had enough and turned it off until the batteries finally ran out) and the end of the hose has had bits of stuffing from my mum's dog's bed shoved up it but it has seen much use.

For Christmas just past Tyger got a small Henry Hoover (also missing batteries - we have learnt) supposedly for cleaning computer keyboards in his stocking and a cuddly Henry Hoover 'from' Baby Bear.  I'm not sure how normal that is for a two and a half year old.

The other day we took Tyger to get his feet measured at the shoe shop (or 'foot maker' as Tyger later called it) and popped in to the pet shop afterwards.  We got treats and replacement name tag things and worming tablets etc. but they were all 'whilst we're here...' purchases.  Our real reason for going in was to show Tyger the birds/fish/small mammals that normally in habit the various tanks and cages.  Except this time, for whatever reason, said tanks and cages were empty.  Aw, shame.  Especially since we told Tyger he could go in and see the animals.  But he didn't seem that fussed so we thought 'no harm done'...and then...

As I was taking past the back corner just to see what was there he caught a glimpse of something through a curtained off area.  A glimpse of something black and red with a smiling face and a long hose.  Yup, there was a Henry Hoover behind the curtains and I'll admit I did fear a meltdown.  Tyger was quite good, though.  He did try to get to the hoover and succeeded in dashing through the curtains more than once before I managed to grab him.  He also wanted to turn it on and every time I tried to take him away he'd walk a bit with me before stopping dead in the isle to say, 'Vvvvvv...what's that funny noise?  The voogert!' and run back to the curtains.  (I don't know why the 't' has appeared at the end of the word now - Tyger has done it with several words.)

But we made it out.  And, yes, he was crying and kicking as we left but it was actually over the toy dog behind the counter he wanted to stroke and not because of the hoover.

We went to Costa for cake the same trip but when asked what we did that day Tyger, of course, replied, 'See voogert.'  I have also been trying to teach him the meaning of the word 'favourite' and so told him when he was sat at the table with my sister that her favourite animal is a rabbit.  I asked him what his favourite animal was.  He paused to give it thought and replied, 'Voogert.'  So, maybe he understands 'favourite' now but I'm not so sure he gets 'animal'.