Jack has had a mostly good couple of weeks. However he seems to have his fingers in mouth again and be out of sorts this morning - so his teeth appear to be bothering him again. Last Friday he enjoyed a day with Grandma Q, going to a local cafe and Gymbaroo with her. This allowed me to do fire training for work, followed by a massage, facial and shopping for myself (rare opportunities these days).

I am also feeling more relaxed after having this last week off work - the first opportunity I have had since Jack was born to have a couple days at home by myself, without looking after Jack, working, or running around. I even made some inroads into my huge pile of taped TV shows.

A couple new little girls have joined playgroup this term. Jack seems to be getting along really well with Kaitlin (who is about 4 months older than the rest of the group). This week he enjoyed taking turn with her on the slide (with me supervising). They then played in the outside bus together (whereas normally Jack won't tolerate anyone playing that closely to him). When Kaitlin moved on to play elsewhere Jack said 'Mummmy, Kaitlin play in bus' - so her mum brought her back over to keep playing with him. Jack went to get upset at one stage and Kaitlin said 'hug', and gave him a hug - and he hugged her back! They repeated this a couple more times during the session.

We have recently noticed that Jack walks a little oddly at times, so asked childcare to observe and see what they thought. They reported back that at times he walks with one foot straight ahead and with one foot to the side. Jack had his 2 year health nurse visit this week. I mentioned this to the nurse, so she checked his hips and reported a creaking sound in one. I have since taken him to the GP who couldn't find anything wrong - but suggested getting an ultrasound to be sure. We will see what, if anything, that reveals. Jack's 2 year visit otherwise went well, and he has hit all his appropriate developmental stages. A handout given suggested Jack's behaviour is all very typical for his age - which is reassuring to know.

Summary of Jack at 25 months

. Jack now weighs 13kgs. No wonder he is getting heavy for me to carry around!

. Jack has had a burst of independence this month. He now refuses to sit in his high chair (so now sits at the table with us), and refuses to go in the stroller or pram (so less shopping outings for us). He opens the car door and climbs into his car seat all by himself.

. Jack loves 'helping' with cooking. He helps make his porridge each morning, helps spread jam on his sandwiches, and wants to be involved in stirring or any kind. This can result in tantrums as he doesn't understand why he cannot always help.

. Jack likes to choose a DVD (invariably always Shrek at moment), open the cabinet doors and press the DVD open and close button as we put the DVD in. He then likes to use the remote to turn on the TV. He also enjoys turning on the heating via remote and adjusting the temperature up and down.

. In keeping with this phase of independence, Jack's favourite phrases at moment are 'Jack all by self' and 'Jack's turn'. He continues to refine some of his early attempts at words (e.g. 'nana' is now 'banana'). The health nurse commented that his speech is very clear.

. Jack is really enjoying reading books at the moment. He has had some read to him so many times that he now recites most of the book back to us.

. Jack's swimming skills have been coming along well, so he is moving up to the next class. He is particularly good at kicking while swimming on his back, climbing in and out of the pool by himself, and doing 'monkey monkey' along the wall (moving his hands along the edge of the pool).

. Jack has woken up a few times excitedly telling me he was playing drums in his sleep, and sometimes cymbals as well. He has been disappointed I haven't been able to produce the drums from his dreams in our house.

Posted by Al at 12:54 PM

Jack has continued to be in a happy frame of mind. His testing moments have been relatively few and far between, and more often we come away from our interactions thinking how nice they were.

Yesterday Jack was going through his night time routine upstairs when Grandma Q phoned. Al spoke to her on the phone for a while – and normally Jack would have started to get antsy. Instead he went to the top of the stairs and yelled “Daddy, Dadddyyy, Daaaddddddddyyy” until I appeared.

“Yes Jack?”

“Daddy upstairs, through gate.”

“Please”

“Peese”

As I came up through the security gate he grabbed me and said “Daddy play now”. So we did. The moment Al got off the phone Jack immediately dropped what he we doing and ran back to her. It was however a much better approach to the situation from the little guy.

Speaking of approaches – we have been working on the distraction technique as a way to help combat Jack’s tantrums. When he is getting upset over something we move on to something else. We don’t lead him, we let him follow; we don’t hand something to him, we let him pick it up himself; we remain calm, don’t particularly acknowledge the unreasonable behaviour, and in a surprising number of cases it actually works to calm Jack’s lesser tantrums.

We also tried a new approach during dinner tonight. Jack has been refusing to eat vegetables and meat of late, insisting on hot Porridge, pasta, tomato sauce or Jam sandwiches. Tonight he refused to eat his chicken and vegetables. Al made a sandwich of it for him, but he threw half it onto the floor. So we left the food in front of him and continued with enjoying our meal, finished, started cleaning up, and let Jack calm himself down. By the time Al started to load the dishwasher Jack was picking at his food. Half way through our cups of tea he was hoeing into his now cold meal.

There is certainly nothing new in those approaches – and there will be many situations where they don’t work or are inappropriate. However, it has been nice to see how effective it is to simply give Jack a way out of a situation without focusing on the success or failure of his tantrum.

I don't imagine these tricks will work for long. When Jack first started to ignore his vegetables we would mix them into the foods he did like. Recently he has taken to spooning food into his mouth, selectively and efficiently splitting out the vegetable and meat pieces, and then chewing and swallowing the rest of it.

Posted by Doug at 10:58 PM

Al has had a bad cold over the last week, which Jack also picked up. Al’s been feeling miserable, and Jack’s been pretty rough around the edges. Overnight in particular, Jack has had a rough cough and been running temperatures. With each cold however Jack seems to take it more in his stride. Al and I seem to be heading in the opposite direction.

Parenthood keeps throwing curveballs. In the last couple weeks Jack has started to add la la la to most of his conversations. Instead of “Dad, over there, throw ball”, it has become “la la la Dad, la la la, over there, throw la la ball”.

It is rather odd, and makes Jack more difficult to understand. We don’t know what started it – he just did. My best guess is that he is trying to speak in continual full sentences, and uses the la la la’s to fill the gaps in while he thinks on what to say next. The first couple days were cute, but we are now trying to pull him up on it.

And that is the curveball. How do you address something like that? A Google search on “la la la baby talk” returns thousands of links to song lyrics. Is he singing all his conversations? Do you leave him to it, or do you try to stop it?

This afternoon I responded to one of Jack’s la la la comments with “no la la la”, as Al and I have been doing a bit. Jack stopped and looked at me with a deep frown, and a slightly strange, sad look on his face. He was asking me – “why no la la la’s”?

I thought of the traditional single word parental response of “because”. I was amused by that – but Jack’s face quickly put an end to the thought.

“No la la la’s Jack, because it makes it hard for me to understand what you say.”

He didn’t comprehend, but the look on his face passed anyway, and he replied as he hoped off the couch with, “La la la Play Dough”.

Posted by Doug at 10:48 PM

Al was sitting at the kitchen table reading the Sunday paper. Jack came up, handed her a nappy, said “nappy change”, and then went and waited at the change table.

Posted by Doug at 10:16 AM

Al’s bad cold continues, and she remains heavily congested and somewhat sloth like. Through nasally and hacking voice she informed me this afternoon that she was feeling better. She then gave a loud barking and rattling cough, involuntarily groaned, and blew her nose.

Yep - obviously much better.

There are a lot of colds and flu going around at the moment – more than enough to stand out as being a particularly bad time for it. The media has reported some terribly sad stories about people who have succumbed to a particularly virulent strain of the flu – including toddlers and young parents. They often pass away before they or their families even realise the severity of the bug they had caught.

Out of all the things that can go wrong in life, I find that to be particularly scary.

Posted by Doug at 10:22 PM

Parents with children a little older than Jack often ask if he has started to ask the “why” question yet. I reply that he hasn’t. Al and I just realised the other day however that he is asking the “what” question.

“What happening next?”

“Oooo, what is that?”

“What doing?”

"Why" can't be far off.

Posted by Doug at 9:47 PM