State of the Baby Address

Since one of the main purposes of the blog is for me to record Tabitha's milestones, I thought that I might do a State of the Baby address, so to speak.  While she still IS the baby - soon she will be the Big Sister.  In between 2-6 weeks, in fact!

These observations are probably not of much interest to anyone else, but I know that I will forget so many of these little things, so I must record them.  I've scattered in a few quick iPhone snaps, too.

(Note - I thought I'd posted this but realised I hadn't, so the ages and milestones are for early October.  Hey, a lot changes in a few weeks at this age!)

Tabitha is nearly 28 months, or 2 years, 4 months old.  She weighs around 12.5kg, and I'm not sure how tall she is - quite tall!  People tend to think she is older than she is, perhaps because of her height, and she has a decent amount of (beautifully soft, corn-silky and delicious smelling)hair.

She can count to 12, after which she continues with a string of random numbers ("1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 10, 11, 12, 50, 17, 2...").

She has always been very good at her colours, knowing all the basics for a long time now, and these days she happily names even the more obscure colours like aqua, cream and silver.

Tabitha is now - touch wood - basically toilet trained.  I will post more about this later, but she has been wearing undies during all waking hours for nearly 3 weeks now, with only a rare accident.  She still wears a nappy or training pants for naps and overnight, but generally wakes up dry, or nearly dry.  I had no intentions of toilet training until Summer, or maybe even until she was closer to 3, but she asked to do her wees in the toilet and wear undies, so we went with it, and it was almost seamless.  I had been dreading toilet training, so I am incredibly grateful for this!

(31st Oct update - she's been in undies for well over a month now, including naps.  She still has the odd accident - if her naps stretch past a couple of hours, and also sort of 'half-wets' if she is too busy playing, particularly with a large group of kids, and doesn't realise the wee is coming until it's nearly too late.  She is completely unfussed by these ocassional accidents, as am I, which I am grateful for!)

Weaned from breastmilk a few days after she turned two (again, thankfully, a smooth and happy transition for both of us), she is still a great eater.  She certainly has her favourite foods (cheese, milk, yoghurt with mixed seeds and nuts, bananas, weetbix, frozen peas and corn, frozen blueberries, jaffles, chicken and rice - which could be anything from curry, satay, roast chicken, cacciatore, paprika chicken etc - and also any sort of fish, smoked salmon, teriyaki salmon, sushi, grilled fish etc, broccoli) and she has developed a slight sweet tooth, though she prefers homemade things like homemade ice cream, cookies and cake.  Funny monkey is a bit spoiled with the homemade cookies - she expressed surprise and mild suspicion recently because her cookie was 'cold'.  She is clearly used to freshly baked chocolate chip cookies!

Here is an afternoon snack - good old milk and hot choc chip cookies.  Being a toddler is generally a pretty sweet deal!

Her main sought-after treats are 'squeezy fruits', i.e. those organic fruit puree packs with the nozzle that lots of people use as 'first foods'.  She likes the blueberry/apple/banana one, and I save these for supermarket trips, to keep her happy in the trolley. 

At the moment, I'm working on her table manners, using forks properly, using knives to push her food onto the fork, less fingers.  I've never gone in for 'baby cutlery' with its bright colours and rubber ends, but I do really like the miniature sets of proper cutlery that she uses - Robert Welch makes some lovely ones, we have a couple of these sets.  I like the fact that they are properly proportioned, and fit nicely in her hands.  Also I've been focusing on her chewing and swallowing before talking or adding more food.  Sitting on her bottom and not wriggling around too much.  We're doing it very gently, as I have no desire to introduce stress or power struggles into mealtimes - a bit of leading by example, a bit of suggestion and reminder, and lots of acknowledgement and praise. 

Tabitha has actually become quite a pleasant meal companion - she pauses during her meal to smile at everyone at the table and ask, brightly, "How are your dinners everyone?!  My dinner is delicious!".  I realised a while ago that she often got cranky and bored during meals because she wasn't part of the fast-paced adult conversations.  So we make an effort to slow down our conversation pace, and include her in the chat - "how was your day Tabitha?  What did you do this morning?  Who did you see?  What vegetables did we buy at the market?" etc, and it seems to make a difference - she is happier to sit still and eat nicely for much longer.

Tabby likes her accessories - her two pairs of sunglasses, often worn indoors (which she likes to hide behind when she is feeling 'a bit shy'),  handbags and calico shopping bags, hair clips are sometimes happily worn but generally she prefers headbands or 'big pony tail, like Mummy!' or 'Pinktails'.  She sometimes resists any hair accessory, meaning her hair is completely in her face, leading my parents to constantly worry about her developing some sort of sight defect (I reckon she'll be okay!). 

Some 'pinktails' while enjoying a babycino and marshmallow:

More pinktails, this time as Dr Tabitha, working on her dolly patients.  She loves her medical kit, complete with 'stefascope', as she enjoys checking the baby in my belly, just like she watches the midwives do (in fact, she often gets out their doppler, squirts the gel on it, turns it on, and even finds the heartbeat of the baby all on her own!).  She also loves using the velcro cuff to check my 'blood pressures'.

Her favourite colour is silver, particularly for shoes, clothes and accessories, and she is very opinionated about which shoes she wears.  A pair of silver Mary Janes, which she calls 'dancing shoes', are the clear favourite, despite the fact they are really too small.  White and silver sandals come next in preference, then a pair of white sandals with metalic pink and green floral bits (Spanish, too beautiful, my favourite), then come any sort of other Mary Janes or sneakers.  Oh, and 'Pink Boots' which are her gumboots, and 'Fuzzy Boots' which are her ugg boots, are also liked.  She loves dresses - just over the past month, it has become an absolute battle to get her into jeans, and I suddenly understand why 3-6 year old girls everywhere seem to wear a dress with leggings and cardigan even in coolish weather.  It's because their poor parents can't manage to talk them into jeans or other sensible clothes!  So we have joined the dress-and-leggings set, and The Daddy even puts a dress over her PJs most mornings, at her request.

Here is Tabby in her Pink Boots, helping out in the garden (building phase):

And in Mummy's shoes, clomping around the house.  Just look at that hair - so soft and fluffy!  Reminds me of a dandelion:

Here are a few cute quotes and habits:

Tabitha likes to slip an extra 'L' into words containing an L sound, or sometimes just moves the place of the L.  So, we have pliget, slinget, glosling, slalad, flamilies, slilly and Slally (for piglet, singlet, gosling, salad, families, silly and Sally).

Speaking of Slilly - when she is very cross or frustrated (for example, I have suggested PJs or am sitting on the 'wrong chair', ahhh bless two year olds!), she cries out something along the lines of "noooo Mumma, you are being very slilly, go away!  You go sit over there!".  It's hard not to laugh at the most gorgeous, sweet little package of rage and frustration, but I do try and keep a straight face...

Each morning, Tabby brings me a plate of toast (to help counter the still-present morning sickness at 8 months pregnant).  She carries it very carefully, hands it to me, then perches on the side of the bed, holds her fingers together, cocks her head to the side, smiles very sweetly and says, "little bite?".  She then tries to gobble up my whole piece of toast - I manage to get about half of it in between 'little bites'!  Sometimes she brings me some museli and milk or weet bix instead, in which case she instructs me very seriously, "be very careful with your weet bix, mumma!  Careful of spilling."

She likes telling me stories, or reading me stories from a book.  She will say, "Do you want me to read you a story?  You say, 'yes please!'".  She then starts the story - "Once a time, there lived a..."

She has picked up some words and phrases from others, of course - I think the 'slilly' comes from The Daddy, she also says 'Awwwwwesome!' in a sort of exaggerated 'cool' voice, which I think comes from my little sister, and 'That's weird!' which comes from my mother, Moosie.

"I too scary!" for scared, e.g. yesterday, "Ohh there's a monster in the garden!  I'm too scary, take it away!"

"You can't check him!  No checking!  He's hiding" with her hands protectively over my belly, yesterday when the midwife wanted to have a quick feel of the baby.  She is incredibly attached to, and protective of, her baby brother already.  She loves kissing him, telling him a little story, hugging the bump.

"You got a big tummy like Grandpa Pig does?" said with a sweet smile last week, while we sat on the couch watching her favourite, Peppa Pig (yep, there is a bit of television going on most days, with late pregnancy exhaustion!)  I actually enjoy Peppa Pig enough to lie on the couch and have a cuddle and watch a few episodes, so it's a real blessing in the late afternoon sometimes.  I covet Grandpa and Granny Pigs' veggie garden.

The other day she had a scratch on her tummy and asked me to kiss it better.  When I did, she looked down, and exclaimed, "Oh no!  Kisses not working!  It still there!"

One of her favourite books is a simple alphabet and first words book - large, with lots and lots of pictures.  The other evening she picked up Fox in Socks and said, "ohhhh, fok in socks, this is a slilly book," with a sigh.  She then picked up her apple book, "ahh this is a good book!  You like the apple book mumma?!"

When asked why her mother's belly is so big, she will reply, "it's got a whole brother in there!"

We have a 'no cats on the bench or table' policy (hah!  yeah right!).  Tabitha is, along with most toddlers, an absolute stickler for rules and fairness.  She heavily polices this rule - at least once a day, we hear, "Oh no!!!  Pudding (or Possum) on the bench!  Cats are not allowed on the bench!"

"It's bee-ful!" is often exclaimed (clothing, mountains, cakes...), and "a-wahr you?" called out.  On our recent holiday, she discovered cornflakes, which she calls snowflakes.  Wise strategy, Tabitha, since the cuteness of this seemed to convince my parents (who took her to breakfast most mornings so The Daddy and I could sleep in a bit) to let her have cornflakes with her breakfast most mornings.  Another holiday breakfast favourite was "Bir-sha moose-lee" in a little glass with a spoon.

On holidays eating her bircher muesli - one glass down, another ready to go:

With my little sister - they have matching dresses!  Now that Q is 11, she is mostly too big to fit the children's ranges, so sadly, the days of matching dresses are short-lived:

Oh, back in September I wrote down what she ate in a fairly typical day, for my memory:

• Weetbix with milk and 'topping' which is what she calls the nut-seed mixture we sprinkle on all her cereal and yoghurt.
• Avocado on wholegrain toast
• Some nuts and a date
• Glass of milk
• Baked beans, corn and cheese jaffle on wholegrain bread
• A mandarin
• A bowl of natural yoghurt with 'topping'
• A homemade carrot and walnut muffin
• Smoked salmon omelet with broccoli