I Never Thought I'd Say...

I've been struggling to compose  my blog post this week so to take the pressure off I have decided to just post a list of some of the things I've found myself saying to the cubs over the last few months; things I'd never have thought I'd say before I had kids.

1. Don’t stick the paint brush in your dinner.

2. None of the birds in our garden are actually elves.

3. We don’t drill flies.

4. It’s not magic, it’s you flinging yoghurt everywhere.

5. Don’t lick your reflection in the TV.

6. You’re not going to draw with your pens, are you? Just put them in your toaster for fireworks!

7. No, you don’t ‘check’ your brother’s toothbrush by licking it.

8. Please don’t suck up the window condensation through a straw.

9. If you want to run away from home, next time run away to your bedroom instead of the extension.

10. Would everyone stop getting their hand stuck in a teapot?

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Advice For a Toddler

After some serious blog posts recently I thought I'd lighten things up with my advice to a toddler:


1. Learn to say 'please'.

Or, even better, some cute mispronunciation.  It may seem like pointing and making a whinging noise will get you everything you want but you're much more likely to get something by putting on a sweet smile and saying 'pleeeease' in your most angelic voice (after all, it's called the 'magic word' for a reason).  Tyger used to pronounce it 'pwez' and Bear - who isn't as big on speaking as Tyger - just says 'eeeeeeeeee' with a cheesy grin and it has worked more often than I care to admit...especially when paired with pleading eyes (Tyger even used to add little supplicant hand gestures for good measure).  Demanding and pointing can just get my hacks up but a super polite and adorable request is very difficult to say no to!


2. Play with the least interesting toy first.

This is advice for any situation involving other children: toddler groups, playing at a friend's house,  being around siblings, nursery, having friends over etc.  As soon as you gravitate towards a toy, other children will also be drawn to it.  It's a rule of toddlerdom.  Other toddlers will be happy to play with a couple of trucks until they see you at the wooden kitchen with the toy toaster and then that toaster will become the most exciting thing in the entire Goram room.  So, play it smart.  Don't go straight to the toaster.  Make your way to the building blocks instead and play with those building blocks like they're the cat's bollocks.  (Wait...that came out wrong.  I do not advocate toddlers playing with cats' bollocks.)  Hopefully, the other little sods will be lured over.  Now, this is the important part: do not give up those building blocks without a fight.  If the other kid(s) don't believe you really want those fracking blocks they'll just follow you to the next toy.  So, grumble, get annoyed, make those annoying and persistent whining noises toddlers are so good at that make adults want to tear their ears off and once your enemy peer is really engrossed in building little towers smeg off to the toaster and toast plastic bread to your heart's content (or, more likely, post small objects into the toaster until it stops working).


3. Try to smile when the camera's out and fall asleep in cute positions.

You may not be thinking ahead further than your next tantrum meal at this age but Future You needs Present You to minimise the number of embarrassing photos your relatives possess to show girlfriends/boyfriends.  You're unlucky in that regard because living in the digital age means your parents can snap away all day every day in the knowledge they can delete all blurry pictures (or just store them all in some folder with the intention of going through and deleting all blurry photos as soon as they have the chance, which will never happen because the longer it's left the more photos there are to go through and the longer the whole thing would take).  There will be photos of you wearing a potty as a hat, crying and screaming because your breadstick snapped in half, dancing around naked, wearing a variety of questionable style of clothes etc.  This is inevitable.  However, you can mitigate the damage by making sure the overwhelming number of photos of you at this age are of your beaming face or endearing sleepy pics of you snuggled into a soft toy, cuddling someone, sleeping in your car seat with that fracking adorable little pouty mouth and squishy face look babies have.

Fewer photos of you slurping water off your highchair tray.

More photos of you asleep in your buggy whilst cuddling your favourite toy.

4. Enjoy all the sleep.

Whilst we're on the subject of sleep, this is important.  You are allowed - nay, encouraged - to spend as much time as possible sleeping.  I know, I know: you hate sleep.  Toddlers like going to bed about as much as I liked Lost in Translation (is there a more overrated film on the planet?) or Wuthering Heights (is there a more overrated book on the planet?) but one day you will miss sleep so much.  If you have children of your own you will almost certainly lament all those times you fought sleep, all those opportunities to drift in and out of consciousness and just relax and...I'm going to start crying at the thought of all those lost chances so we need to move on to the next point.


5. In fact, make the most of it all!

Seriously.  This is the only time in your life when it's totally socially acceptable to stick your fingers in someone else's mouth (unless you become a dentist, I guess, but even then you're only supposed to do it in a specific set of circumstances and can't just say 'ahhhh' to the nearest person then shove your entire hand in there).  This is your chance to demand spaghetti for breakfast and possibly be indulged.  You can spin round and round in the middle of a waiting room without people giving you strange looks (except the miserable types who give all children disapproving looks unless the child is sat silently looking at his or her feet).  You still get carried around when you're tired and all of life's problems can be solved by carrying round a plastic spoon (or is that just Baby Bear?).  Seriously, kid, it's all downhill from here so pick your nose in public and put gravel in your mouth whilst it's still socially acceptable.

Not that I really understand the attraction of gravel...unlike picking your nose...

What advice would you give a toddler?


Thanks to Aspie Sister for helping me come up with five items for the list.  Youngest Sister was not impressed by her boring name in last week's blog post so - after discussion - she will henceforth be known as Colour Blind Sister.  I will also probably blog about her colour blindness at some future point because...it's green - how can she see it as red??

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Are Dinosaurs Bear's 'Voogers'?

There are a few little happenings and developments with the cubs that don't really fit in with any other blog post subject ideas I've had recently so I thought I'd round them all up and stick them together here in an update post.  However, I started writing about Bear and it went on much longer than I anticipated and with my brother and his girlfriend coming to visit tomorrow on my usual blog writing day, I don't think I'll get chance to write any more even if I wanted to.  So, this is Bear's update and - unless anything so amazing happens that I can't bring myself not to blog about it immediately - the next blog post will be Tyger's update.

Bear

'Baby' Bear is certainly no longer a baby!  He can climb.  He can really climb.  Bear is more like a...goat.  You know, like in those viral photos of goats in trees and on the sheer side of a dam?  Or he's like a squirrel or a monkey or...well, a bear, I guess.  Black bears, in particular, are very good climbers I think.  Yup, Baby Bear is like a bear!

He scales chairs to get onto the dining table, he climbs from the sofa to a coffee table to a shelf of CDs and if a chair is left along one side of the dining room it affords him opportunity to climb onto the kitchen work surface via a serving hatch between the two rooms.  He has even managed to open and empty the biscuit tin on one such excursion.  It's not quite a paw in beehive for honey but he and actual bears obviously also share a sweet tooth (I'm pretty sure real bears eat honey and it's not completely made up by A.A. Milne...pretty sure).  So, going to the toilet, making a cup of tea, putting away washing, anything involving leaving the living room/dining room/hall area Bear has access to is...hazardous.

If falling from a great height due to his own error in judgement was Baby Bear's only threat it wouldn't be too bad.  I mean, it would still be both annoying and stomach churningly alarming for me but he'd be unlikely to actually do himself too bad an injury.  There is another threat, though.  A loud, unpredictable, often violent threat.  If Bear is a bear, Tyger is a tiger.  Wild, unpredictable, prone to displays of intimidation (he screams in poor Bear's face a lot) but will attack if necessary (you know, if you class 'necessary' as he gets annoyed...or excited...or tired...or angry...upset...hungry...bored...).

A couple of weeks ago Bear climbed onto one of the dining chairs and stood playing at the table.  For once, he didn't climb onto the dining table so I left him to it (watching as I made lunch).  Then there was a tiger attack.  Tyger ran up to Bear and pushed the chair away.  Bear managed to grab the table and was left clinging on to it with his top half as his leg kicked the air like a cliffhanger in a TV show.  One of those literal cliff hangers with someone actually hanging off the edge of a cliff.  Luckily, at my scream, Mum ran to the rescue and grabbed Bear from the metre or so drop (which doesn't sound like much...okay, it isn't much but it's still taller than poor Baby Bear).  And this is the problem with Bear's bear-like climbing.  It would perhaps be bearable (ha...see what I did there?) if it weren't for Tyger grabbing at Bear, pulling away whatever he's climbing on, shouting at him and generally distracting him.  This extra risk makes Bear's climbing much more nerve wracking.

Climbing is not Bear's only recent achievement.  He has also started communicating much more.  I don't mean talking.  Bear does not really recognise the necessity of speech.  He is often able to do things for himself - if it involves retrieving something from somewhere high up, for instance - or he has started pointing and shouting.  Not shouting words because, as I said, he doesn't really do the whole speaking thing much, but shouting...noises.  Bear likes vowel sounds so he can do 'aaahhh' and 'oh' and 'uh' and makes these noise to get attention.  When he actually tries to form words he tends not to bother with consonants.  'Hello' becomes 'ah-oh' and 'thank you' is 'ah-oo' (he likes 'uh oh' for obvious reasons).  But he can make himself understood surprisingly well with the pointing and random noise technique.  He can also bring things to you, shake his head for 'no' and flap his hands for 'yes'.  Considering the sort of information he's generally trying to get across is 'I want a breadstick' or pass me Fergus' or 'put this toy in this other toy' and not...quantum mechanics, he gets by pretty well.

The other exciting news with Bear - although, this may only be relatable if you have a couple of children who have/possibly have ASD and even then I'm not convinced other people would be excited by it - is he might have his first 'special interest'!

Tyger's obsession is vacuum cleaners and Henry Hoover more specifically.

Of course, they're lined up as well...

I wanted to show off and add a photo of the Henry Hoover cake I made for Tyger for his third birthday because he was insistent he wanted a Henry 'Vooger' (what he called hoovers - though, alas, he can actually say 'hoover' now so I think I'll use 'vooger' as a term for an obsession because I've always thought it's so cute) rather than anything else and despite never doing anything more complicated than butter cream icing before I was quite proud of my efforts.  However, after finding a picture of said cake I remembered it has Tyger's real name on (in place of 'Henry') and that would sort of defeat the whole point of using pseudonyms...

Anyway, I wrote about how Tyger's obsession with vacuum cleaners began here in my 'What's Your Favourite Animal?' post.  Basically, he started out terrified of them and gradually became enthralled.  The reason I mention this is because something very similar seems to be happening with Bear.  The Wolf's lovely parents bought Tyger a pack of plastic dinosaurs that make a noise when you squeeze them when they visited recently.  The noise they make is pretty scary and loud and to start with Bear was terrified (possibly not helped by Tyger trying to shove all four dinosaurs in Bear's face whilst setting them all off making noise at the same time).  He stamped his feet and shook his head any time they were near and if someone (i.e. Tyger) sneaked up too close with one Bear threw it away and cried.

But he was still fascinated.  He kept pointing at the dinosaurs and even though he was still scared when anyone squeezed one, once the sound had stopped he'd grin.  And he started to get closer to them...  It wasn't as gradual as Tyger's conversion to hoovers but then I guess they're not as big or noisy.  I got Bear a dinosaur book and he loves pointing to the pictures and making roaring sounds.  He's not as taken with the soft dinosaur I bought him, which makes an even more terrifying sound when it's squeezed, but then he seems to think any fraternising with cuddly toys other than Fergus is some sort of betrayal.  No other soft toys are allowed.  In general, dinosaurs seem to be of great interest right now.

I wonder...will dinosaurs be Bear's voogers?

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The Cubs Are Ill

Not seriously ill: Tyger has a cough plus a stuffy nose and Bear's a nose is like a tap and he's teething (he may have also started with the occasional cough just before bed).  To give you an idea of what it's been like for me, I need to do that imagery thing I suck at so bear with me.

Imagine two people standing next to you; one either side.  The one on your left is singing the song I Know a Song That Will Get on Your Nerves really loudly.  (If you don't know the song then search it on YouTube; it's bound to be there.)  The one on your right is playing that song on the kazoo...twice as loud.

Oh, and you're carrying around a sack of potatoes...which moves...at the same time.

That's what it's like when my little cherubs are ill.  I told you I suck at similes.

So, how do I cope with it?  Well, today I stuck Frozen on, gave them a biscuit each, let Baby Bear empty his entire cup of water on his highchair tray and smack it with his hands repeatedly, and drank amaretto as I was putting them to bed.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Starting the Diagnostic Journey...and the Yellow Toaster

Tyger had his first appointment in the long road that is ASD diagnosis at the hospital on Monday.

Of course he was up for two hours in the middle of the night on Sunday because it's an unwritten baby and toddler rule that they must allow you as little sleep as possible for days when you want to be alert and well-rested.

Despite the usual stress of trying to leave the house with Tyger and Baby Bear, plus the added stress of finalising and printing the six page document I'd made about Tyger (no, really), we were in the car and ready to go on time.  Mum drove us there and the traffic wasn't too bad at all considering the time of day (morning rush hour).  It was smooth sailing - or driving - right up until the roundabout practically next to the hospital, where the traffic slowed down considerably.  Have I ever mentioned Tyger gets car sick?  Well, Tyger gets car sick.  Badly.  He tends to get sick about 20 minutes into journeys...the hospital is about 20 minutes away.  All I'll say is it was very unfortunate we got stuck at that roundabout.  Very unfortunate.

We made it to the children's ward with Tyger in a change of clothes and as much of the sick cleaned out of his hair as I could manage with baby wipes (in the glamourous world of motherhood you get used to that sort of thing along with having small people spit things they don't like out into your hand, wipe their runny noses on your clothes, leave bits of fruit and cheese hidden away under sofas/in toy kitchens for you to come across at a (sometimes much) later date - the sick in the hair thing wasn't that bad, really).  Tyger immediately tried to play with a small boy who looked terrified and - with his mother - backed away to the seats.  Tyger tried to follow so I ushered him over to the toy corner away from the poor kid.  Knowing why Tyger was at the hospital meant I was more sensitive than usual as to why other kids might be there and I felt if the poor boy wasn't comfortable with a child he'd never met enthusiastically forcing friendship on him it was important I let him have his space.  The distraction technique worked a little too well, though, and when the nurse came to weigh and measure Tyger he did not want to leave the trucks and cars he'd found in amongst the toys.

Normally, when we're out somewhere, I'm anxious about how Tyger will react and behave.  There's always the worry he'll suddenly start screaming and kicking, that he'll break things or run off, that he'll throw himself on the ground and shout, that he'll try to hurt someone else or himself.  I think it's a worry many parents of children on the spectrum face but the one time they want their child to exhibit these behaviours is when they're being assessed by the professionals.  So, the fact Tyger got angry and upset over being taken away from the toys, the fact he'd been up for two hours during the night and the fact he'd been violently sick - several times - on the way to the hospital were not exactly unwelcome.  The nurse was obviously used to dealing with small children.  We managed - pretty much - to weigh him but she said measuring his height wasn't worth the distress and he could go back to the toys.

However, when the paediatrician called us in Tyger didn't make much of a fuss because the assessment took place in a room he'd already been trying to get in (and the fact the doctor told him he could take a tractor from the toy section helped).  He was thrilled to realise there was a Thomas the Tank Engine wall sticker on the back of the door.  I was thrilled to realise I'd be sitting with my left side towards the paediatrician so she wouldn't see the volcano sized spot on my right cheek.  We have different priorities.

I won't say Tyger was as good as gold.  For one thing, I doubt you could say that about any toddler.  For another...I don't get the simile.  Surely the 'good' we're talking about is in reference to good behaviour.  Gold - being, you know, inanimate and all - doesn't behave in any way.  So, is the comparison to gold being 'good' in the sense it being valuable?  I don't really think the two are alike at all.  Is the phrase simply so popular because of its alliterative quality??  Should we start saying 'as tired as a teapot' and 'as skinny as the sky'?  They both have alliteration going for them and make about as much sense as 'as good as gold'.  I guess I could search it and would probably find out I'm completely missing the point and it does make sense but I feel I've already spent entirely too much time on this already.

Anyway, I have been told it's common for autistic children to decide the one time they'll be on their best behaviour is when they're being assessed.  I also know Tyger tends to love going to new places and meeting new people so despite the lack of sleep, the roundabout incident and his normal behaviour I anticipated him being more genial than usual.  He is still Tyger, though, and the paediatrician did note a few moments of...non-compliance.  He was happy to build a tower with building blocks when she asked him but when she wanted him to try to make a bridge he insisted on lining all the blocks up and making a 'train'.  She tried again...and again.  She tried taking away most of the blocks so he only had the three she wanted him to use and showed him several times how to make a bridge.  He would not make a bridge.  He also refused point-blank to jump when asked.  She even tried tricking him by moving on to other things he was willing to do and then coming back to the jumping and it almost worked but he caught himself just as he bent his legs.  I don't know why this was a sticking point for him.  He was happily jumping along to a song this morning but once he decides he's not doing something it's just not going to happen.

So, the paediatrician and I discussed Tyger in depth.  She was very impressed by my six pages listing all his traits and behaviours (lists FTW - do people say that anymore?  I feel very out of touch, not helped by the fact I asked my 14 year old sister what she meant by 'shipping' recently to be told rather witheringly that 'it's an internet thing') and said it would be a great help to her when she came to write the report.  Whether she meant that or viewed me like that annoying kid in class who actually puts their hand up when asked 'any questions?', I don't know.  I'll tell myself she was being genuine.  The doctor got Tyger to perform various tasks and gave him a physical and he played with the toys whilst we were talking.  There were cars, a Thomas toy, a plane and loads of things he's interested in...so, of course, the one thing he seemed particularly taken with was a yellow toy toaster.  There was no bread to go in the toaster.  In fact, most of the food from the toy kitchen seemed to be missing.  But he loved the toaster all the same and asked - more than once - if he could take it home.  He made the paediatrician and I toast and bagels.  He has also told me several times since that he needs to go back to the doctor to see the yellow toaster.  So, guess who's got a toy toaster sitting in my bedroom ready for his birthday next month?  No doubt, he won't care by then.

We discussed the next steps and the paediatrician agreed there was definitely enough evidence to go ahead with a full assessment.  He'll see two more health care professionals (one is the child psychologist - we already have the appointment through though it's not until July - and the other is likely to be with a speech and language therapist) and then all three of them will discuss their findings and decide on whether to give him a diagnosis.  She said it's rare for a child under four to be given a diagnosis and it's more likely - if they decide he does have ASD traits -  they'll review it again in a year or two, which is fine.  I understand they have to be thorough.  It's hard with toddlers because so many normal toddler behaviours are similar to ASD traits and it might not be clear whether any given behaviour is connected to autism until they're older and you can see whether they grew out of it.

For now we'll go to the appointments, I'll see if it's easier to get travel sickness tablets for Tyger when he turns three and I'll keep you posted on how much he likes his toy toaster.  It even comes with toy toast!

My Sister is a Plague Bearer

My sister is a plague bearer.  She always seems to get ill and pass it on to everyone else in the house.  Because of her plague bearing the Wolf, Tyger, Baby Bear and I have all had a cold this week.  Add to that the stomach bug she passed on to Tyger, who spent the early morning of Thursday puking, and it hasn't been a very fun week.

Tuesday was a hard day involving Tyger hitting and pushing Baby Bear even more than usual, throwing toys, shouting, crying...all the normal stuff, actually, but just more.  So much more.  The day - finally - ended with a bath.  Tyger was playing with his bath drum, Baby Bear with another bath toy and things actually seemed pretty calm.  Tyger mumbled something I didn't quite catch so I asked him to repeat it and he looked at me sweetly and said, 'I love you.'

Aww.  These are the moments, you know?  I said, 'I love you too.'  We'd had such a tough day and I'd been so frustrated and angry for so much of it but that moment just totally made up for...and then he stabbed me in the eye with the drumstick.  What.  The.  Smeg??

Wednesday was no better (possibly worse, actually, despite the fact it involved no drumsticks whatsoever) and Thursday was the sicky day, which was actually the best day of the week because - firstly - it's much easier to overlook bad behaviour and generally feel more sympathetic towards a child who's been sick and looks all tired and drained and - secondly - I think Tyger was just too tired to be a pain.  After the initial frenzy of cleaning up sofas, the floor, Tyger, his blanket and a towel the day calmed down significantly and mostly involved Tyger demanding food.  Constantly.

On Friday, in between lots of screaming, Tyger managed to get his hands on a tube of my dad's muscle pain cream and a little pot of my lip butter and smear them all over the sofa, table and himself.  I knew something was wrong when I walked into the living room to him saying, 'I dried my hands.'  When I put my cardigan on later in the day it became apparent what he'd 'dried' his hands on...

Baby Bear has also been ill (just a cold - no sick as of yet) and so has been a bit on the clingy/grumpy side.  As well as this, he has been waking up between 3.30-4am every morning and pretty much refusing to go back to sleep or - possibly worse - only going back to sleep about 20 minutes before Tyger wakes up.  After about three hours sleep last night I'm running on tea and chocolate today.  And maybe cake.  Hang on...definitely cake.

Soooo, to remind myself I don't really want to put my boys up for adoption I'm just going to write about a couple of things that are cute but not really worthy of a full blog post.  Let's start with Tyger.

I love when toddlers get to the point where you can have real conversations with them.  They say some funny stuff.  You know that.  There are whole programmes and internet pages devoted to it.  That funny stuff is largely what gets me through the day (you know, other than tea, chocolate and cake...and Peppa Pig and Thomas the Tank Engine).  Tyger's at that point where he can talk in full sentences and have reasonably in depth conversations with you but still trips over some of the pit falls of the English language.  For instance, I was singing the zoo version of 'Happy Birthday to You' a couple of weeks ago.  I assume everyone hears this at some point in their school life but just in case I'm wrong it goes:

Happy Birthday to you.
You live in a zoo.
You look like a monkey,
and you smell like one, too.

Sophisticated stuff, I know.  Every time I sang it, Tyger added 'three!' to the end and I could figure out why until my mum pointed out he obviously heard the last couple of words as 'one, two...' and was just carrying on the random counting.  I don't know what 'one, two, three' smells like but it's probably better than a monkey.

Along a similar line, Tyger has an interactive book with a puppet monster built in to each page.  On one page the reader is instructed to encourage the puppet to open his mouth for cleaning his teeth.  The suggestions for how to go about this end with something along the lines of, 'Or you could try telling him off.'

We have dogs.  One of the commands we use with them is 'off' for when they're on something they shouldn't be (meaning, when the demon husky is on the sofa) or when they jump up.  Tyger hears 'tell him off' as 'tell him, 'off''' and shouts 'Off!' every time we get to that page.  Why he thinks the best way to get a purple monster to open his mouth is to tell him to get off the sofa isn't clear but it makes me laugh all the same.

The last example is when we were eating lunch one day and I asked Tyger if he was going to eat his hot cross bun.  He got very angry with me...because it wasn't a hot cross bun.  I was perplexed by this until he told me it wasn't hot.  I guess it was just a cross bun.  He probably thinks those things have anger issues or something.

On to Baby Bear.  Baby Bear seems to have finally decided on a favourite toy/comforter.  Tyger never really was one for having a favourite toy as such (other than his hoover - which isn't really something that can be taken to bed and cuddled and unfortunately he's not that fussed by the cuddly hoover I got him for that very reason!).  He likes whatever he has received most recently but then moves on to the next thing.  He's very obsessive but - again, other than the hoover - that hasn't really extended to toys in any long term way.

My sisters both had comforter type toys - the older one in particular needed her bunny to get to sleep every night and had to take Bunny everywhere (often resulting in the Gorram thing being lost or misplaced).  It was inconvenient in some ways but also very sweet and helped her to get to sleep at night, which was a huge relief to my mum since my sister pretty much wasn't put down for the first nine months of her life (and still spent most of that time screaming).  So, I was hopeful Baby Bear might develop an attachment to a toy that would help his terrible sleep but after he'd had his first birthday it seemed unlikely...until a few days ago when he started snuggling up to a toy dog every time he went down for a nap.  It was bought by my mum when he was first born and is called Fergus (because I got Baby Bear to hit the keyboard on my laptop and 'F' was the first letter he typed so I went with an 'F' name).  He turns his head so his face is pressed into Fergus, cuddles him and smiles.  As if that weren't enough to make me produce all those soothing 'aw, look at the baby' hormones, he was upset when I got him up from his nap the other day until I handed him Fergus, when he immediately calmed down and spent the next hour snuggled up with the dog on my lap.

He may still be waking at some ungodly time in the morning but Baby Bear is slowly improving with his sleep...and hopefully I'll get lots of cute photos of him and Fergus in the years to come.

Okay.  That should be enough to get me through the next week without calling an adoption agency.  Hopefully, next week's post will be a little more coherent and structured and a little less like the ramblings of a sleep deprived crazy person.

Children Make Liars of Us

If you don't have any kids, I'm sure you at least have a vague idea of some of the things you would/wouldn't do if you did have kids.  You know, like:

'I would never let my child make that sort of racket in a restaurant!'

'I'd never let my child sleep in my bed!'

'If I had children, I wouldn't let them watch cartoons before they're three.'

'Why do parents give kids under two chocolate?  There's no need.  My kids won't be having anything like that until they're teenagers.'

'When I take my kids to Sci Fi conventions, I'll make sure their costumes are more accurate than that!'

You'll have had some sort of thought along these lines at some point.

Now, I'm certainly not claiming all parents fail to do all of the above.  Lots of parents have very quiet children (lucky buggers!), some parents genuinely don't ever co-sleep, some parents are pretty strict when it comes to TV, there are parents who ban all foods with refined sugar from their homes and I'm sure there are parents who take the business of Sci Fi conventions very seriously and make sure their little Jayne Cobb has the right colours on his knitted, earflap hat.

However, there will be something they thought they'd do that they go back on once they have real little people to care for and bring up.

Why?  Well, several reasons.  A big reason for relenting in the earlier days of parenthood is exhaustion.  Everyone knows babies can make you tired and everyone knows when you're tired you're a less efficient human being.  Think Discworld troll in a warm city (and if you don't understand that reference you should immediately find a Terry Pratchett book and read it.  Seriously, I'll wait.  I don't care if you're supposed to be working right now or you need to go and collect the kids from school in five minutes; just find a Discworld book (any - though, I'd prefer you start from the beginning) and start reading.  You'll thank me...and then you'll curse me when you get to the end of the books because we have been robbed of any more Discworld by a skeleton in a black robe who communicates IN CAPITAL LETTERS).  Anyway, as I was saying, sleep deprivation turns you into troll and I don't mean the kind who frequent the comments sections of YouTube (or 'the bottom half of the internet' as a friend calls it) and there is a point where you feel you are going so slowly you'll grind to a halt and turn into solid stone unless you take the baby into bed with you so you can get just half an hour of sleep or turn the TV for an hour so you can have a cup of tea and go to the toilet.

Sometimes you change your mind because you read new research or an interesting article and you simply decide you were wrong before.

A lot of the time it's a case of - and I'd probably have said I'd never use this phrase before I had kids - 'picking your battles'.  Children have this nasty habit of having their own personalities and it's much like a lucky dip where you don't know what you're going to get when you dip...or when your partner...dips...eeeerm...this simile is going to weird places now so I'll stop there.  What I'm trying to say is you might get a laid back sort of child.  An easy-going type.  One who - when you say it's teeth cleaning time - just accepts this, goes with you to the bathroom and stands 'Ahhhhing' and 'Eeeeeing' at the right parts and that's that.  Or one you might get one who's not exactly easy-going but is shy and quiet so will do as their told even if they're unhappy about it.  Or you might get one who - when you say it's time to clean his teeth - replies with, 'No cleeth tean!  No cleath teen!  My no like cleeth tean!' every single day.  And amusing as this cute Spoonerism is, it can grind you down when every morning there's a battle over 'cleeth teaning' regardless of whether you persuade, joke, grab him and march him to the bathroom, try to compromise and bring the toothbrush to the living room, bribe, make it into a game, buy an exciting new toothbrush...

Of course, teeth cleaning is non-negotiable.  It has to be done so I do it despite the battle but there are other similarly wearing daily fights that just aren't as important.  Wearing clothes, for instance.  I've given up making Tyger wear clothes at home unless he's sitting on his booster seat at the table and I worry about the strap chafing him and he complains about the plastic sticking to his skin.  And TV.  I used to only let him watch a specific amount of TV a day.  Now, when it gets to 10am and he's already got bags under his eyes and we've just had the same argument about whether we're going outside when it's blowing a gale and peeing it down out there and Baby Bear is napping so no, of course we're not going out right this moment! five times in a row - resulting in him screaming, throwing things and spitting every time even if I try the good old distraction technique - I will stick an episode of Thomas on the TV and feel no guilt over it.  I don't even cringe at the weird theme tune and lament the disappearance of the old Ringo Starr Thomas theme tune anymore.  I enjoy my cup of tea and know the benefits of not clubbing Tyger to death with the wellies he brought me the third time we had the argument outweigh the detriment 15 extra minutes of TV will have on his development.

There are lots of reasons you end up doing at least some of those things you swore you'd never do but it boils down to the fact - as patronising as it sounds - you honestly do not know what it's like to be a parent until you are one.  Yes, even if you babysat your younger siblings a lot when you still lived with your parents or if you have to look after your niece every week when your brother's at work or if you're a teacher or you really really love your dogs as if they were children.  You just don't.  And when you have them, your children will make a liar of you.

Yes, I Bought my Son a Dress

Tyger loves Frozen.  I already mentioned his love of the film - and the infuriating gender stereotypes this threw up for me - in my first blog post here.  Tyger especially loves Elsa.  In fact, one of the nicest compliments you can receive from Tyger is 'You're Elsa' because, by that, he means you look pretAty and he likes what you're wearing.  He really likes Elsa's dress...as do thousands of other little kids (and probably lots of adults) and - just like thousands of other kids - he has a little dress-up version of his own.

Yes, I bought my son a dress.

Most of my friends and family are of the more liberal and/or educated persuasion so I don't have to put up with many comments from people I know but I go on forums, I read the news and I know pretty much every workman/engineer/delivery man/random person in a cafe who has spoken to Tyger has assumed he's a girl simply because he has long hair.

Oh yeah, my son has long hair as well.  And, in an age when it's generally pretty socially acceptable for teenage boys and grown men to have long hair, I really wasn't prepared for just how baffled people would be by it!

There have been a few 'he needs a hair cut' comments (ha! - I'd like to see you try.  When I trim his fringe I strap him into his dining chair booster seat, give him a biscuit and then hack away as much as I can before he finishes the biscuit and starts thrashing his head from side to side so I don't know how anyone would manage to cut more off) but for the most part people simply don't consider the possibility he could be a boy.  They see his hair and assume he's a girl.  And, no, none of these times were when he was wearing his dress.  When he's dressed in typically 'boy' clothes (jeans, a t-shirt with cars on, navy and green dinosaur trainers) all anyone seems to look at is his hair.  I mean, both the clothes and hair are based on silly stereotypes, obviously, but apparently one massively outranks the other.

'She's lovely.'

'Ha!  She's chatty, isn't she?'

'You're a very confident little girl!'

These are pretty typical.  And what - ypu might wonder - do I say in response?  Nothing.  Because there's nothing wrong with being a girl so I don't see it as an insult and because Tyger doesn't care.  He's only just started to be aware of gender/sex.  In fact, yesterday morning's conversation was as follows:

Tyger: Daddy's a man.

Me: Yes, Daddy is a man.

Tyger: You're a girl.

Me: Hmm...a girl or maybe a woman?

Tyger: No, you're a girl.

Me: Oh, okay.

Tyger: I'm a boy.

Me: And what's Baby Bear?

Tyger: A monkey!

Plus - and let's be honest here - all babies and a lot of toddlers look pretty androgynous.  Babies look like wrinkly, purply bald men whether they're male or female and toddlers often look pretty indistinguishable in terms of gender (if you remove all the markers like hair clips and gender specific toys and clothes...and hair styles!).  So, I don't get angry about Tyger being called a girl, I don't make a fuss, I don't say anything at all.  But it does perplex me.  I currently have short hair (well, right now, I actually have a mess of hair that was short and has now partly grown out into a bit of a bird's nest) but I have never had someone mistake me for a man.  People accept adult men can have long hair and adult women may have short hair but small children must always fit into to comfy gender roles society has laid out for them.

This is the same reason some people would object to the fact Tyger has - amongst his train set and cars and dinosaurs and rocket and cuddly tiger - a toy kitchen, a doll and buggy, a doll house, a cuddly unicorn and pink slippers.  You know one of the worst arguments I've read on a forum?  Having dolls might turn a little boy gay.  (Yeah, seriously.)  Now, let's think about this for a minute.  I'm going to go ahead and assume the sort of person who thinks a plastic toy can change a person's sexual orientation is probably the same sort of person who objects to gay marriage and LGBT people having/adopting kids.  Given this, they probably associate parenthood with heterosexuality  Sooo...they are saying a boy pretending to be a parent - generally achieved through having sex with a member of the opposite sex - will somehow make them want to have sex with members of their own sex.  That's on a par with boys calling each other gay because they show an interest in girls.  It makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Now, I feel I should point out that whilst I in no way think Tyger playing with these toys or wearing pink or dresses or a Goram bin bag or anything else will turn him gay/bi/transgender, the Wolf and I would not be in any way upset or disappointed if it turns out he is.  Because a) we're his parents and we love him no matter what and b) who cares??  What harm does it do anyone?  Why is this even an issue in 2015?

So, I'll carry on buying Tyger (and Baby Bear as he gets older and has his own preferences) whatever toys he shows an interest in because there are no 'boys' toys' and 'girls' toys', there are just toys.  And, I'll keep his hair long until he is of an age when he can decide for himself what length he wants it.  And, I'll carry on letting him wear a fracking dress if he wants.

The dress is actually sat on a shelf right now because Tyger managed to rip it and I'm patching it up.  My sewing is functional, if not necessarily as aesthetically pleasing as it could be, but luckily Tyger won't care if the stitching is visible because he'll feel special when he wears it.  He'll feel like a princess, which I can only see as a good thing.

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).

I Have a Confession

I have a confession to make.

I'm not a baby person.

I know, I know, that doesn't seem like a big deal and it goes without saying (except this is the internet so I'll say it anyway to ensure there's no misunderstanding (except this is the internet so there's always a chance of a misunderstanding)) I love my boys.  I'd do all the usual clichés parents would do for their kids: I'd die for them, I'd kill for them, I'd fly to Paris to rescue them from human traffickers and murder a load of gangstas on the way.  You know, all the usual parenty stuff.

But - and this is where I feel I deviate from the norm - I don't 'miss' the baby days with Tyger and I don't think Baby Bear is 'growing up too fast'.  All I seem to read in baby groups and from friends with babies is how upset they are their nine-month-olds aren't tiny babies anymore, how they're in tears over the thought of a first birthday, how nostalgic they are about teeny tiny sleepsuits and how morose they are at their baby moving up a nappy size.  I feel bad for them but I'm left wondering if I'm the only person in the world who just doesn't really like the baby stage.

I'm not saying I spend/spent the whole 'baby' part of parenting resenting my children or being indifferent towards them.  Of course, like any mum, I felt an overwhelming sense of love when they fell asleep on me whilst I fed them.  I felt all gooey inside when they started smiling.  I was convinced they were the smartest babies on the planet when they learned how to clap or sit up unaided or move around.  I was elated when they stopped pooping in the house and started doing it in the garden...or was that one the dogs - it's all run into a bit of a blur?  I even thought they looked cute and not like weird bulbous headed, purple, wrinkly aliens.

However, breastfeeding was excruciatingly painful to start with (and for months and months with Tyger) and every time one of the boys fell asleep on me I desperately needed to pee.  The smiling was lovely but the crying happened far more often.  They learned how to do things like clap and move around but got horribly frustrated before they managed (which resulted in more crying).  They may have tricked my hormonal, sleep dprived mind into thinking they were cute but looking back at photos I'm not convinced and they certainly look better once their heads aren't all squishy and bald.  And there's the crying.  Plus: the lack of sleep (oh, God, the lack of sleep), having to carry around a dead weight all day, the crying, the lack of sleep, the stress of starting solids, the crying, the lack of sleep, the crying...

Yeah, I know toddlers cry too.  I know sometimes they cry a lot, too.  Tyger tends to cry at least five times before 8am so I get it.  He can, however, generally let me know why he's crying, even if the reason is all the breadsticks left in the box are broken or one of his toys won't fit in another one or I won't hoover or I take too long hoovering and he wants his 'turn' or he wants to help me with the laundry but I'm making lunch or he wants lunch at 9am.  And, yes, it may be the case that most of my responses to his crying are met with, 'but why??' and more crying but at least I can respond and at least I know what's distressing him, no matter how baffling or bemusing I may find it.

With Baby Bear I have to guess.  Unless I see him fall or see Tyger smack him over the head with a ukulele (yes, that happened and the jury's still out on whether it was an accident or not) I have to assume it's tiredness or trapped wind or teething or...something.  It's incredibly frustrating.  I admit Tyger inexplicably spitting on all his toys/himself/the floor/the sofa/other people is also frustrating.  Tyger asking - several hundred times a day - if I'm going to do the hoovering and trying to dictate to me which hoover I use is frustrating.  Tyger refusing to let anything resembling a vegetable or a full meal or just...food pass his lips is frustrating.  Yeah, the tantrums, throwing things, hitting other people and himself, shouting all time are all really frustrating but not in the same way as Baby Bear's crying.  He cries when you pick him up as if he wants to be down and then cries when you put him down like he wants to be held.  And I can't ask him why or...bribe him with a biscuit (well, I'm sure I could but I'm not quite at the point of giving a baby biscuits to shut him up yet).

Baby Bear has recently started crawling, after weeks of almost but not quite part-crawling-part-rolling-part-commando-crawling-part-flailing where he'd just get himself worked up into a rage because he couldn't quite manage what he wanted.  Far from feeling sad he's now crawling - and by extension growing up - I'm soooo relieved he can finally do it because it's meant he's a little happier and easier to deal with.

The other thing that makes Tyger's behaviour easier to cope with is the fact he may pinch me one minute but he sweetly tells me he loves me the next.  Or I know five minutes before he throws himself on the floor in a rage over his Duplo 'castle' breaking he went around the room pointing at every one of his toys saying 'thank you' (or 'gankoo') for them.  He gives me hugs and kisses, he makes me pretend cups of tea, he says some of the funniest things I've ever heard.  As lovely as it is when Baby Bear gives me a high five or smiles or giggles, I can't wait for him to start talking (more than his current ability to say 'again' and 'Dad').

I guess what I'm trying to say is: whilst I love my baby, I don't look longingly at tiny babies in the supermarket, I don't sniff babies' heads (I think my two must have been faulty because I still don't get that whole thing), I don't well up over little blankets.  I'm not a baby person.

Tyger the Tiger is Being Referred

It's been several months since Tyger had his initial visit from the health visitors who employed the tried and tested 'wait and see' approach to his suspected ASD.  We had a second visit from a different health visitor a couple of weeks ago.

She was nice but almost immediately made the rookie mistake of assuring me Tyger made 'really good eye contact'.  This comes up time and time again when talking about ASD and it's such an outdated thing to focus on.  Whilst a child avoiding eye contact is certainly something to take note of, it's just one of many many traits and behaviours that could indicate ASD but certainly doesn't need to be present for a diagnosis of ASD (lots of autistic people make eye contact perfectly well).

I guess it's the same with anything people start to become aware of and talk about.  If you're actually pretty knowledgeable on the subject, you notice the misinformation or incomplete information everywhere (you know, like when you hear someone discussing Jon Snow's parentage and they don't even know about the L+R=J theory?...anyone?...no?).  I saw a thread on a parenting forum yesterday about a lady who sounded potentially autistic to me.  However, another poster assured me she couldn't possibly be autistic because she had a habit of massively overstaying her welcome and autistic people hate being in social situations so wouldn't do that.  This reminded me of when my mum initially took my ASD sister to the GP the doctor said, 'The good news is it's unlikely to be autism because she wants to have friends.'  This whole 'autistic people hate being around other people' myth is pretty pervasive but it is a myth.  It's true that the mishandling of social situations is a big part of ASD but an inappropriate social response/understanding isn't the same as hating all other people!  Of course you do get the stereotypical autistic person who just doesn't like spending time with others and prefers to spend all day every day on their obsession but you also get the ones who desperately want to spend time with others but find social situations hugely stressful, the ones who enjoy being around other people but possibly don't realise they're being inappropriate or hogging the conversation, the ones who find one person they like and just want to spend all day with that person.  It varies greatly as each one is different - almost like they're, you know, people!

Now, Tyger loves people.  He loves talking to people.  He loves saying 'hi' to people in the street...every single one of them, regardless of whether they say hi back or look at him or acknowledge him in any way.  He loves it when delivery men come to the door and will invite them in ('come in, come in!').  He loves talking to people in the doctor's waiting room and will make instant friends with some unfortunate little old lady who he'll then demand stands up and goes with him to the children's books in the corner.  He loves it when one of my sisters has a friend round and will immediately attach himself to the poor unsuspecting teenager and cry when they disappear to my sister's bedroom.  He loves people.  Except when he doesn't but that's probably another blog post.

The health visitor seemed taken aback by his forwardness and bemused by his responses to her attempts to engage him in putting puzzle pieces into the right slots.  My mum - who has extensive knowledge and experience with young children - said toddlers tend to fall into two groups when they meet a strange adult.  They are either shy and unwilling to engage or confident and eager to please (which isn't to say either group won't end up cheeky/chatty/difficult etc. given a little time to get to know the adult).  Tyger is confident and friendly...but also knows his own mind and will freely tell it to anyone and everyone.  The health visitor asked him to put one puzzle piece in the right place so he did, whilst chatting away.  She asked him to put the next one in place and he told her 'no' and started playing with the piece (it was a car) despite all her encouragement .  She asked him to point out an animal in a book and he did.  Then next time he indignantly told her it was her turn and refused to co-operate.

I don't think she knew how to take him.  I'm not sure she was convinced he has ASD but she's referring him to a child psychiatrist anyway so it doesn't really matter.  The appointment will probably take months to come through but that's fine.  He doesn't particularly need a diagnosis right now since he spends all day every day with me and I already know about his needs but since it can take years in some cases, I'd rather start the whole process now before he's at school and might actually need the support a diagnosis would give.

Not that I always find it easy to support his needs.  For instance, Tyger has sensory issues and one of the ways this impacts on him is he doesn't like wearing clothes.  In particular, he doesn't like wearing jeans.  I think the restrictive nature of them and the waistband are uncomfortable for him.  I'd let him run around naked all day if I could.  I like to think I'm a pretty liberal parent and nudity isn't a big deal - or it wouldn't be if Tyger could leave...himself alone.  I know, I know, it's totally normal and natural for kids to do some 'fiddling' and the like.  As I said, I'm open minded.  However, Tyger will play with his penis until it's red and inflamed.  He also started trying to put various things up his bottom.  Now, I know he's my first but I'm pretty sure the 'let them explore their bodies' attitude only applies so long as you don't think doing so will lead to a trip to the GP (which it did) or possibly A&E.

So, for now at least, clothes are a must.  But the fight of trying to get them on him in the morning and back on him after every toilet visit was tiring and he also learnt if he claimed he needed the potty he could take his trousers and pants off then run away (we're in the UK so 'pants' are always underpants, not trousers).  I tried jogging bottoms instead of jeans but whilst Baby Bear can only wear jogging bottoms because jeans are too tight to get over his huge thighs, Tyger is too skinny for jogging bottoms and they just fall down (the drawstrings on his age range seem to be decorative only and aren't functional - I can only assume this is due to fear of strangulation, which is probably also why you can't get mittens on a string anymore now I think of it).  Dungarees caused more problems than they solved because he got very stressed out by the buttons.

He doesn't mind his onesies at night, though, and often asks to wear them instead of clothes so I had an idea.  I didn't really want him wearing the ones he has for night during the day - partly because they're quite thin and since he also refuses to wear socks he'd likely be cold and partly because I want a distinction between what he wears in the day and the night to help with a sleep association.  I had a look on Amazon and eBay (I'm sure there are other places to purchase things but their existance has slowly faded from my memory) and found a fluffy tiger onesie.  The fabric was similar to a Frozen blanket Tyger has, which he loves.  He especially love to lie on the blanket when he doesn't have any pants or jeans on and...well he really likes it.

The tiger onesie arrived and we were both excited I got him undressed and put the onesie on and...he went mad and told me he wanted his clothes on.  After making a fuss about his jeans for frack knows how long, he was begging to wear them and refused to wear the nice soft onesie with no waistband.  This sort of thing comes up a lot.  Later, after leaving the onesie lying around for him to get used to (like how you introduce a new cat to an existing one slowly and a bit at a time) he said he wanted it on..woohoo!...over the top of his clothes...ah.  I couldn't help but think this was defeating the whole point of the thing and was ready to write it off as a failure but I think he gained encouragement from everyone's reaction to how cute he was and the next day he allowed me to put it on him with only pants underneath.  The Goram zip was a bit scratchy on his chest, though, so I had to add a t-shirt as well.  And that's what he's been happily wearing for two days now: pants a t-shirt and his tiger onesie.  No fights after the toilet and he actually brought the onesie to me this morning when he got up so I could put it on him.  I've ordered a Gruffalo one in similar fabric but I'm a bit worried about how I'm going to wash the tiger one before it arrives.  Evening laundry, perhaps.  Or...I don't know.  I'm sure cleanliness is overrated.

Sleep (or a Lack Thereof)

We’re stuck without internet because my parents are upgrading to fibre optic and...well BT/useless calls centres/stupid bureaucracy.  Do I need to say more?  Three days without internet so far and an engineer out today who doesn’t seem optimistic.  My teenage sisters are thrilled.  So, I’m writing this in MS Word and will put it on the blog once I have access to the world again at some point.  I thought I’d write about sleep because people obsess over things they can’t have so – other than internet access – sleep is something I fantasise about a lot right now.

Whenever you complain about being pregnant, everyone tells you, ‘this is the easy part; just wait ‘til you have the baby and don’t get any sleep for months and months.’  The funny thing is, once you have the baby everyone starts asking if they’re sleeping through yet.  So, after being warned babies and sleep are like...two things that don’t go well together (look, I’m not good with similes and metaphors) you suddenly feel like a failure if your tiny baby who has only been in the big bad world for a few weeks and needs to feed all the time because they have a really teeny tummy isn’t sleeping 8pm-8am every night.

Babies and sleep are chalk and cheese...no too much of a cliché (and also, what’s that about?  Why chalk and cheese?  Just because they’re alliterative?  I don’t know).

Tyger was not a good sleeper.  Well, to start with he was because he was jaundiced and not getting much milk due to a tongue tie and...that’s probably a future blog post.  But in the longer term he was – and I think this is the technical term – a little bugger when it came to sleep.  For a few months the Wolf got me to express milk through the day so he could feed Tyger in the evening whilst I got a couple of hours of precious sleep (oh yeah, if you don’t have kids yet: sleep becomes a commodity that can be traded and gifted when you have a baby).  But then the Wolf’s night shifts started (his old job sucked) and I had to largely go it alone.  The night was along the lines of putting Tyger to bed and him sleeping for an hour or so and then around the time I’d go to bed he’d wake up screaming and I’d be stuck in a loop of feeding and trying to get him down in his cot with the occasional break where he’d sleep for anything from a few minutes to maybe an hour if I was lucky until around 4am when I’d break and take him into bed with me so I could get a little sleep and to stop me from doing anything Social Services would disapprove of (although, let’s face it, they probably disapprove of co-sleeping as well because everyone seems to).

Hmm...babies and sleep are like oil and water?  I thought I was being slightly original there but a quick google has assured me this is a cliché as well.

At a little over nine months it was like someone flipped a switch on Tyger (why oh why could I not find that switch myself??) and his sleep dramatically improved to the point where within a few weeks he was sleeping through every night.  Basically, he was suffering from trapped wind every night until his stomach matured enough for him to deal with it without the, I'm assuming, agonising pain.

Baby Bear is – I’m hoping – just starting to improve with his sleep.  Maybe he has less of a switch and more one of those dials like a dimmer switch.  He’s still far worse than most babies his age but bad is an improvement on terrible so I’m still happy.  I have also been much more relaxed about the whole sleep thing this time round.  I deliberately co-slept for the first few months, knowing it would make my life easier and actually wouldn't mean Baby Bear was still sleeping in the marital bed when he was 35 with a family of his own.  I stopped when it got to the point where I was waking up feeling like an 80 year old every morning because of the amount of hip pain I had from contorting myself into bizarre shapes every night (Baby Bear is a BIG baby) and when Baby Bear got so rolly polly he rolled right off the bed one day (not when we were sleeping but I was still rather paranoid after that) but I was willing to give it a go for a while this time.

Anyway, for the time being I'm still getting a very broken sleep every night but I am keeping faith this will stop soon.  But if these blog posts are ever a little incoherent you can go ahead and blame that on sleep deprivation.

Babies and sleep go together as well as Tiny Tyger and vegetables.  Yeah, that's probably a little specific.  I'll try to work on the whole imagery thing for future posts, okay?

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'.