Al has followed the Gymbaroo recommendation of not putting shoes on Grace until she is walking ok. Now that she is up and running fine on her two stout little legs, we purchased a pair of slippers and sneakers for her on Saturday. This same transition with Jack was difficult and took some time, but Grace seems to have accepted it and wears them without issue.

Also on Saturday, I took Jack to a circus. There were no animals - so it was skits, juggling, whip cracking and various acrobatic and gymnastic type things. Jack enjoyed it, although was slightly overwhelmed by the noise at times. On Sunday the whole family went to a miniature railway exhibition, where we caught up with Jack's friends Damon and Max, and by chance, Daniel from childcare. Jack was most interested in one stand which allowed kids to start and stop trains themselves.

Grace and Al are still sleeping at the moment - after Grace had a poor night with a very bad cold.

Posted by Doug at 9:55 AM

Grace has a bad cold and has lost her voice. She was throwing a silent tantrum on the floor earlier – stopped, turned herself over, and gave me a look which clearly said “this isn’t working, is it.”

She has had a few crying sessions over the last couple nights, which were obviously just to say that she was feeling horrible. We had to resort to the old trick of standing with her next to the shower with hot water running - both to help clear her airways, and for the noise to give her comfort.

I can’t remember Jack having a cold this bad before. For just how much mucus that is filling her head, and the raking cough she has, Grace is handling it very well.

Posted by Doug at 6:52 PM

I have really lapsed in my blog entries in recent months. I had hoped to do at least an entry each month but it has now been about 3 months since my last entry. This has mainly been due to extra busyness and stress on the work front - so I find myself working most nights of the week after the kids go to bed. We have also had an increase in the sickness in the household since Grace started childcare. In past 3 months we have had 5 rounds of gastro through the house, one count of conjunctivitis (Grace), sinus problems (Doug), and Grace now has a bad cold and lost voice (possibly laryngitis), on top of the normal coughs and colds.

Week days fly by filled with our busy schedule of activities. I have managed to take Jack to ready, steady, go some weeks and incorporate a play centre visit in the process. We have also been catching up a bit more regularly with Kiara at play centres. We have just made it through another duck season (about 5 visits to Benalla for Doug - one by himself, twice taking Jack with him, and twice with the whole family). Add in family and friend catch ups, and getting out and about to neighborhood events, and life just seems to get busier and busier. Any quiet time we have at home is spent catching up on house work or just being a bit brain dead and tired.

Some happy news for this long weekend has been the birth of 2 new cousins for Jack and Grace - Alexander Stephen (first for Bree and Steve) and Emily Rachael (3rd for Jade and Shane).

Summary of Grace at 15 months

. The biggest change in Grace's development in the past 3 months has been her learning to walk. At 13.5 months she took her first wobbly steps between us. She stayed at this stage for about 3 weeks, only walking to us when we asked her to, and only taking the occasional 2-3 steps between furniture. She was sick for part of this time so this might have slowed her development. About 3 weeks ago she seemed to get more confidence and started walking more and more, and the past two weeks is now walking far more than crawling. She is very pleased with being able to toddle around the house, follow Jack or us around, and carrying objects to us to show us or to move them all over the house.

. She loves reaching up and grabbing her water sippy cup whenever she wants a drink and walking around the house holding it. We have to take it off her as once she finishes drinking what she needs she starts dribbling the water down her front (so often ends up with 2-3 outfit changes a day)

. She continues to be a fantastic little eater, and consumes most things put in front of her. A bit after 12 months she started refusing baby food, so now eats the same as we eat each day. She starts her day off with vegemite toast and porridge with normal milk in it. At childcare they continue to comment on what a great little eater she is and that she often has 3-4 serves there. She particularly loves her toddler yoghurt and ice cream (she reminds me of a cat licking up cream when eating these favourite foods). When she has had enough food or is offered something she doesn't want she is quick to toss it onto the floor.

. Grace now has 6 teeth fully through (4 on bottom and 2 on top). The next 2 on top are partly through. Surprising to me, she also has 2 of her molars (not next in order of teeth) with the sides of the teeth through the gums. She mostly takes teething in her stride and may just have a day or two of being a bit crankier than usual. This is a marked difference to Jack who went through agony for 2-3 weeks per tooth (and his came out one at a time, whereas Grace's teeth have been coming through in pairs).

. Grace's language development is still fairly slow at this stage. Her main words are 'hi dad' or 'dad', 'mum', 'Jack', 'hello', 'bye', 'up', 'down', 'yes'. She loves touching our noses, eyes and mouth, and if you ask her where nose is she will touch your nose. She does delight us however with her constant loud baby babble.

. When having a tantrum, Grace will throw herself on the floor. If it is a real tantrum she will cry heartily. If she isn't fully serious about it, she will then instantly roll onto her back and regard you, and is quick to be distracted with some tickling. If you pick her up while she is upset though, she will try to scratch or bite you. She has also bitten Jack 2-3 times when he tries to stop her doing something (cue howls from Jack and a grin from Grace).

. She regularly gives us a cheeky grin when she knows she is up to mischief. If you tell her no, she will look at you and consider her options and then decide whether to stop or start furiously doing whatever naughty act she was doing before you stop her (such as pressing buttons on the video, pulling DVDs and CDs from their racks or pulling on the blinds).

. She avidly watches the computer whenever Jack is playing on it, and tries to climb up my desk to touch the keyboard and mouse (much to Jack's irritation at times). She loves banging away on the keyboard when I let her sit on my lap when the computer is off.

. She loves sorting things from one pile to another, or into and out of containers, or carrying them too me, then taking them away again.

. She loves wandering into her Dad's study and chatting animatedly to him while trying to touch anything she can reach on his desk – before wandering out again.

. She still enjoys wandering about with her walker but is already using it less now that she is walking independently

. Now enjoys going in the bath with Jack. However she often throws a tantrum when I take her out, so we only do baths for them both every now and again. She showers with me each morning, but does tend to wander in and out of the shower a lot. We now shampoo her hair and she has had no issue with this.

. Still has three breastfeeds a day (planning to continue through winter to help her immune system with all the childcare bugs, unless she self weans in the mean time)

. Mostly has one sleep a day now (started this about a month after she went down to one sleep a day at childcare). Usually wakes between 7-8am in the morning She goes down for a sleep around 12:30-1 in the afternoon and will sleep 1-2 hours (often she wakes up in the middle but if I go up and either pat or rock her further she will often go another sleep cycle). At night she goes to sleep anywhere between 7-9:30pm). At this stage I have mostly been rocking her to sleep or getting her to sleep on my lap in front of the TV. However in the past few days I have found that if I time it right and put her in the cot when tired she will cry for up to 5 minutes but then lay down and put herself to sleep, so this is something I will be working on more. She is starting to seem uncomfortable in my arms at times and is of course getting very heavy. Occasionally she will sleep through the night but most nights still wakes 1-3 times a night (often including a breastfeed between 2-6am).

. We bought her first pairs of shoes this past weekend, and so far she has been happily walking around in her slippers in the house (although took a little while on first day to seem balanced with them). So this is a relief after the drama we had for months trying to get Jack to accept having shoes on his feet.

. She seems to be really enjoying her time at childcare. After the first month she no longer cried on drop off, and only occasionally cries when we pick her up. They always report that she has had a good day - eats, sleeps and plays well. She particularly enjoys playing outside - rocking herself on a rocking horse, racing up and down the small grassy slope (pushing walkers or cars) and playing in the sandpit.

. Grace's swimming is going really well. Her instructor suggested she try putting on a belt in addition to her floaties, and for me to let go of her and let her kick towards me short distances. She rolls a little with the belt and is a little unsure about it, but hasn't cried or panicked about the process.

. She still enjoys her Gymbaroo and music class. She is starting to get up and wander around more at Gymbaroo in mat time so I am constantly getting up to move her back (something that Jack never did)

. Grace enjoyed her first shopping outing in the stroller on the weekend, and kicked her legs enthusiastically up and down. I decided to give her a first go of walking around our local shopping centre with me also, and took her into a store. She was very excited and enthused to be allowed down on the ground. However she did start trying to tags and items off shelves. She also tried to determinedly head off in different directions at times and through herself down on the ground in tantrum several times when I stopped her. When I walked in a different direction and called her, most times she did think about it then followed me. I think it will be a little while before I try it again! Again this is all new for me, since Jack always stayed right beside me, and didn't try to grab things much (although I think I did wait till an older age before trying this).

Summary of Jack at 4 years 11 months:

. Only in the past couple of months has Jack been ok to allow Grace to come and play with his toys in his room (previously he was instantly upset if she went in there), so that makes life a bit easier for me to be able to have them both entertained in his room, especially at story time.

. Jack's reading has really come along in the past month or so. Each night he reads one of his books (with my help) then I read him a second book. With some books he can read most of it with minimal help (helps of course that they are very familiar books for him), and other books he can read whole sentences made up of short words. He now tries to sound out some words he doesn't know (although he still doesn't fully understand all the sound concepts).

. He has developed a bit of a 'martyr' strategy at times when he isn't getting what he wants. He comes out with comments such as 'this is my worst day ever', ‘I'm not going to eat any more food ever if you don't give me one more food now', 'I'm never going to get to play with this toy if you won't let me play with it now', etc. He can also sit, sulk and pout if he doesn't get what he wants. He also whines repetitively about things he wants. On the positive side, there is far less of the over-the-top tantrums he used to have.

. Jack continues to love playing on the computer, and most days gets to have one morning and one afternoon session on the computer.

. Jack can develop phobias easily. He will often wait for Doug or I to be going upstairs before he will come up in the morning to play on the computer. He told Doug he had a scary dream awhile ago and that is why he wants to know one of us is upstairs with him. Once he gets started on the computer though he doesn't get upset if we then go downstairs and leave him up here by himself.

. Jack now plays for 30-60 minutes by himself in his room each morning when he gets up. This has really helped the morning routine, and is great for his imaginative play and independence

. He has learnt to do up/undo buttons on his clothes in the past few months, so can now fully dress and undress himself most of the time. We have just bought his first pair of lace-up sneakers and Doug has had his first attempts at showing him how to do up laces (more difficult than expected to actually explain)

. He obsessively picks his nose. In past few days we have told him he will go to bed a minute early each time we see him pick his nose, and it does seem to have reduced the number of times in past few days (although he may just be getting better at hiding it from us). It remains to be seen how this strategy helps over time.

. Now that Grace is walking, Jack and Grace can more easily play in our front room together with balls (sometimes together, sometimes independently), so that is now another regular part of our day.

. Jack enjoys writing letters and cards, and also has started making up stories and asking us to write them down, then he copies it into a book and draws pictures. He often knows what letters a word starts with (and gets slightly irritated when I tell him the first letter when spelling things out to him).

. Jack enjoys interacting with Grace for the most part. He still loves trying to hug her or touch her – but often irritates Grace by getting too close to her face, or stopping her going where she wants. We have also had a few worrying incidents in recent months when our backs were turned, and Jack has hurt her or knocked her over. Whether this is what he is aiming for, or whether he is testing out the boundaries, etc, is not fully clear. He will sometimes lie about such incidents, or say he didn't mean something when we can see from the expression on his face it was intentional. This is something we need to keep a careful eye on.

. For the most part, this is a nice age and stage, and Jack is a good little kid overall. He is getting much better at occupying himself (although if he sees an opportunity for Mum to play, he will start harping on me to play with him rather than by himself).

. He is enjoying his time at the turtle room and is enthusiastically greeted by friends whenever he arrives. He still occasionally has little incidents with friendships, but for the most part they seem to be isolated incidents rather than ongoing patterns. He enjoys learning Italian (and will sing little songs in Italian) and having the music lady do music sessions. He is enjoying playing outside this year without older kids around to worry him.

. He loves going to gymnastics (although we aren't thrilled with the teaching staff who obviously pander to the girls and ignore Jack when he tries to interact with them). He just got a swimming certificate which he was most proud of (since he is starting to notice that other younger kids are surpassing him). He is now (finally) jumping in by himself and can tread water for 10 seconds without floaties. Jack has the skills with swimming - it just takes a long time for him to gain confidence in any new skill. He still enjoys ready, steady, go - although doesn't seem to pay as much attention to the instructors at times as he used too.

Posted by Al at 10:35 PM

Took Grace to the doctors on Tuesday – where he found she had a cold, a touch of laryngitis and ear infections. She is on a course of antibiotics which seemed to have helped a lot, although missed the last two days of childcare. Grandma Q came down to take care of her on those days.

Jack got sent to bed an hour early tonight, after being out of sorts since coming home and getting upset at having to eat dinner and have his shower. He woke up after a few hours in a bit of a daze and running a high temperature. We gave him medicine and made him drink some water, and he has since fallen back to sleep. It is a case of crying wolf with Jack. He whines and complains so much and so often that we don’t always give him sympathy when he actually deserves it.

I have also been feeling under the weather for the last 5 days, and Al was feeling rather unwell today. The never ending sickness saga continues.

Posted by Al at 10:06 PM

Jack has now thrown up - taking out all his bedding and making us feel worse for not giving him sympathy at diner time. Here's hoping he sleeps better now.

Posted by Doug at 11:08 PM

And again... if this keeps up we are going to run out of blankets, sheets and towels rather quickly.

Posted by Doug at 11:33 PM

I was rolling a ball to Grace just before, which she would retrieve and throw back to me. Mid game Mum came along, so Grace involved her. Then Grace headed off with the ball and very obviously tried to get Jack to join in too. Jack - still unwell, ignored her attempts. An understandable but unfortunate outcome. It was the first time we have seen Grace make such a pointed effort to initiate play with Jack.

Posted by Doug at 10:26 AM

Al sent Jack to the naughty corner for yelling, then followed Grace to another part of the house. 30 minutes later I found Jack still in the corner. I asked him why he was there, but he said he couldn't remember. Al was horrified she had forgotten, amused by the mistake, and amazed he had quietly stayed there that long.

Posted by Doug at 3:18 PM

Earlier Grace was chatting to me, gave me a big grin, then ran to give me a hug and get tickled. Jack was watching this interaction and remarked to me -

“Grace loves you very much Dad.”

“I know Jack. She loves her mum and her big brother too.”

“But she loves you the most.”

“Not exactly Jack – she loves us all. She loves tickles from Dad, she loves cuddles with Mum, and she loves to watch and follow you.”

“So she loves Mum the most then.”

“It is not a competition Jack – she loves us all very much.”

Posted by Doug at 4:06 PM

I am not sure I have mentioned it or not, but Jack’s favourite activity – Kindergym, is my least favourite to take him too.

The staff have an obvious bias to the girls in the class – having less patience and less time for the boys. Jack is oblivious to this at the moment, but it is aggravating for me to watch.

I am used to people involved in activities for 1 to 6 year olds always making an extra effort to listen to, encourage and interact with those taking part in their class. Jack’s attempts to interact with the staff can be a bit cringe worthy at times – he might make an observation about something (inane), or discuss some imaginative (and hard to follow) story, or do some (rather pointless) show and tell.

Instead of just giving him 20 seconds and nodding / smiling, one of the women is far more likely to look bored, turn her back on him mid conversation, and walk away. One day he interrupted the two of them while they were talking. Instead of asking him to wait, they pointedly ignored him. When that didn’t stop him chatting, they took a few steps away from him. When he followed, they turned their back and walked to the opposite side of the gym. Another day as he chatted one of the women looked at the other with an obvious “Huh?” look on her face, questioning what he was talking about. The other woman shrugged and gave her a look back which clearly said “bugger if I know”.

When Jack realises how they are actually treating him, his confidence will take a hit.

They have even missed the obvious signs about how Jack is going with the gym aspect of their class. Jack tries hard, but some of the equipment stresses him a bit, his balance and coordination isn’t brilliant, and he doesn’t like to be rushed or do things while the entire class is watching. Instead of picking up on the fact he tries hard, I have seen one woman man handle Jack through apparatus or snap at him to hurry up when he has hesitated too long.

The class also has quite a lot of activities that involve chasing or going through obstacles while the staff pretend to be bears etc. Mostly the kids love the thrill, but that sort of thing horrifies Jack, and you can clearly see the terror on his face. The staff however haven’t picked up on his obvious reactions.

At the end of it Jack comes up beaming and saying he had a great time, and pointedly remarks on wanting to keep going back. I generally end up using the iPhone to read the paper or play games, so that I can ignore what is going on.

Posted by Doug at 5:12 PM