Jack continues to be hard work.

I’ve been having a hell of a lot of problems with headaches and sinus pain the last couple months – far more than I normally do. Jack seems to be having the same sorts of problems, although he cannot yet quite verbalise it properly. We notice his eyes cloud over as mine do when I have a headache, and he rubs his eyes and complains about sore eyebrows.

It might relate to being inside a heated house so much or getting lots of colds - it just seems such a difficult thing to take him to a doctor for though. “He seems to have lots of headaches – but isn’t quite old enough to explain them clearly enough…” It might relate to tiredness, since he generally (but not always) improves after resting. We still give him a mid day nap on rare days – and sometimes he surprises us by sleeping for 4 hours! It might relate to foods and blood sugar levels, as we still find his whole behaviour can change for the better or worse immediately after eating. It is probably a mix of all – but we just don’t know for sure.

Anyway, as a result Jack is a lot more prone to tantrums. I’ve realised the only reason we seem to have relative peace at home is because Al tends to follow Jack around doing exactly what he says. The moment he doesn’t get his way he throws a major tantrum.

When I get sick of pandering to Jack (which doesn’t take long) – Jack usually throws a tantrum and demands his mum. Al usually gives me a death glare for breaking the peace in the house.

When Al gets sick of doing what she is told (which can take several days), the house descends into a mess of screaming and crying and raised voices. (Not all of it just from Jack.)

Sometimes (and sadly in many ways) this seems to throw Jack out, and he will then be a delightful kid for a day or two before reverting to his usual behaviour. It is as if he realises he has over stepped his bounds, and works to get back in our good books. It also suggests he is probably shaken up and left feeling less comfortable around his parents for a little while. That is a horrible feeling.

Al takes Jack out of the house all of the time – both to his normal activities, and all the extra catch ups she organises. We can suggest it is for all the opportunities it gives Jack – but to be frank Jack tends to be much better behaved in public. He “holds” in his tantrums in more, is more reserved, and generally much easier to care for. The problem is the stress and tension builds up in him, so that when he gets home he lets it all out in a rush.

I am not exactly sure what to do about it. I know we have dug our own grave in many ways by pandering to Jack’s whims so much and for so long. I wonder at just how much his complete unwillingness to play on his own at home relate to the way we have brought him up. I am just not sure how we can start to change some of these behaviours in a way that won’t just leave us listening to months / years of constant tantrums.

We are going to have to do something though – both as Jack is just getting more and more ridiculously demanding, and because it isn’t the sort of thing we should only start addressing when we have reached the end of our patience.

The main phone line is working again. Before I unplugged the handset from the work line this morning I got one more phone call – this one from a time share resort. It amuses me to think of the number of times that line must get called without being answered – but it also worries me at just how wrong such a bombardment of unsolicited phone calls is.

For the last two days Jack has suddenly started asking the “why” question. Unless I am mistaken however, he does so with a half hidden smirk on his face. I suspect he has witnessed someone doing it deliberately at Childcare, and has picked it up.

Just a quick follow up on that last post. Our main phone number is on a do not call registry, and aside from being bombarded by charities, we usually only get one or two Spam phone calls a week. Our second phone number never has a phone attached, and is never left as a contact number. Yesterday I attached a phone so Al could call it. From lunch to 7pm I had received 6 unsolicited phone calls about mobile phone deals, telephone services, offers of free mortgage reviews or surveys, and a request to sell raffle tickets for a charity. That is absolutely ridiculous.

We have two phone lines into the house – one is our main home number (and has the house alarm attached), and the other is used for any work dialup requirements (and has the ADSL connection attached).

Strangely and suspiciously yesterday the main line lost dial tone, but the work line was still ok. I called in on the automated fault reporting number – and was told there was a known issue, and that it should be fixed by 7pm today.

While going to pick up Jack later in the day I went past three Telstra vans parked outside the exchange we use. Three vans suggests a lot of work is going on (or at least a lot of standing around watching someone do work.) It seems rather odd that only one line was affected – when both were commissioned at exactly the same time. I will be intrigued to see if this is indeed a repair – or if suddenly additional services (like ADSL2) are made available (suggesting a planned outage not reported to us).

The last week has been pretty hard. I don’t know what I expected, but I think subconsciously I was hoping that with all his teeth having cut, and with turning 3, that there might be a behaviour change for the better. Let’s face it – the moods and behaviour seemed to change suddenly for the worst at 1!

Instead the first week into Jack’s 4th year of life has been tantrum filled and really, really demanding. Jack’s play has suddenly got very (very) specific. (That’s an extra “very” over what he usually was.) He has quite complicated and exact requirements of you during play – where you are meant to sit, what you are meant to play with, how you are meant to play, and often what exactly you are meant to say.

I remember hearing or reading that such behaviour is very normal at this age, and can also be a sign of a child just trying to get some comfort and control in his home life, after all the stresses outside of it.

I guess I can understand that –but I find it extraordinarily difficult to interact with Jack in that way. “You pick up the yellow one – NOOOoooo, not the Dump Truck, the yellow race car. NOoooo, you wait for me. I go first. NOOOoooo stop for the red light. NOoooo, you stand there, I go first. Noooooo…”

I humor him at times, but more often than not I won’t follow his directions when he gets bossy. I can sometimes distract him, or move him onto a game less demanding, but just as often it seems to end up with Jack throwing a tantrum while demanding his mummy.

I feel like I am being childish – and I certainly don’t like knowing I have made Jack cry almost inconsolably because I didn’t do exactly what I was told.

Al has been getting it worse. Jack has thrown tantrums any time she wasn’t giving him her close and undivided attention. She has found it more difficult to cook as Jack demands she sits next to him all the time. She speaks with me direct, Jack throws a tantrum. She moves away from the table to stack some dishes, and Jack gets antsy and demands she sits and watches him eat.

We have had a very busy couple weeks – Jack obviously needs some quiet down time.

Both Childcare Centres report that Jack generally spends much of the day playing by himself, although there are a number of kids he occasionally spends time interacting with. It was suggested he was shy and wasn’t always comfortable interacting, but that things should improve “when he was ready”. We could see however how much he enjoyed interacting with (usually older) children, so we started to ask Jack when we picked him up who he played with that day.

Jack regularly would answer that he “played by self”. When we asked if there was anyone he wanted to play with, he would often say that they had said no. It seemed he would start the day off by asking another child if he could play with them – and when they said no (as I suspect most kids would likely do if asked at that age), he would then spend the rest of the day playing by himself. It breaks your heart being a parent.

We asked the room leader at his Monday / Tuesday centre if she would watch for this, and help him learn how to join in play with other kids. As is common when interacting with that particular person, it took a couple painfully awkward conversations to get what we wanted across. Pleasingly however it has already had some early signs of helping Jack. The careers have been reporting that with their encouragement, Jack has been spending more time playing with other kids – although there are some he seems to have aversions to play with.

I can’t help but feel this sort of thing might (hopefully) help him in future. Once he gets into a normal school environment, I am sure there won’t be teachers on hand to do the same sort of thing.

Leading up to his Birthday Al told Jack that once he was a big boy of 3 he would not need his dummy at night. The day after his birthday the dummy wasn’t offered to him when he went to sleep, and he didn’t ask for it. It will likely be a much harder adjustment for Al than Jack. As with most young children, Jack fights hard against sleep. Al just had to pop the dummy in however and his eyes would roll back and he would be out like a light. She now no longer has that tool.

Jack turned 3 today. My Parents had stayed the weekend, and were there in the morning to give him presents with us and to acknowledge the day. He seemed to take the multi day festivities in his stride, aside from being obviously a bit over tired. As we expected, his favourite gifts were the ones that in one way or another were annoying for his parents. Since we had given Jack a party this year, we limited the gift giving to a couple Tomas the Tank Engine sets, a couple matchbox cars, and a couple activity book type things.

It was Jack's 3rd Birthday Party today. A dozen children attended, cousins, friends from Ready Steady Go and Music classes, and children of our Uni Friends who Jack regularly catches up with. It was a Gourmet Kids party, and seemed to go down well with both the kids and adults in attendence. Most importantly Jack seemed to enjoy it.

We had agonised and worried over how Jack would handle it, since he does not like being the centre of attention. Luckily the hosts involved Jack just enough to make him feel special, but not so much as to make him uncomfortable. The mix of kids there also worked out nicely.

Afterwards the Grandparents, Aunty Melissa and Michele, and Cousin’s Tara and Shamus came back to our place for a small Lunch Party, which also seemed to go well. I can see these things are going to be expensive and time consuming in the years to come...

After a period of disinterest, Jack has started to spend time drawing and colouring things in again. He seemed to have stepped up a level - and we were impressed to see how well he would colour all objects in on a page - in the one colour. Then he went onto using different colours for each object. Recently he has enjoyed connect the dot images - and tonight he drew one of the first really recognisable images. Just another one of those cool little things you get to enjoy watching your child develop.

Jack's drawing - straight to the fridge.

Back before Jack was born we purchased several camera lenses - carefully researched to hopefully cover our photography requirements for years to come. One of those lenses has not had a lot of use - being targetted more at capturing images of Jack playing sport. I was glad to find recently that the choice was a good one.

Jack has been banned from kicking balls inside - for obvious reasons...

This is quite an overdue post for me. Jack has been sick for the past couple of weeks with a bad cough – and as usual when he is sick he has been out of sorts and wanting mum to be very close by. Doug was also sick last week, and I came down with the same thing on the weekend. The joys of winter and having a young child in childcare, picking up lots of bugs. As a result the last few weekends have been spent quietly at home.

Prior to that Jack had fun visiting Kiara's new house with Liana. He has been asking more regularly about his friends and where they are, and wanting more interaction with other kids. He also had a fantastic first visit to Braden's house. The two boys giggled and jumped up and down excitedly together at the start of the visit, then played happily for the most part. He also had a great park and dinner/play centre visit with Damon, Dominic and Bella. He was the most independent he has ever been on such visits. At the end Damon came up to me and said that he wished Jack was his brother - which was very special. The two of them have a lovely bond, and it amazes me that Damon (being a few years older than Jack) has so much interest and patience with him.

On the family front, Auntie Lis has moved home after years of working overseas, so Jack has enjoyed some time with her. She came to stay for a busy day of ready, steady, go, playing at a park, and a special night story time at his Duck Room childcare centre. The childcare workers acted out the story of the '3 little pigs' and Jack is still talking about it weeks later. He had lots of fun attending cousin Tara's 4th birthday and going 'exploring' in the nearby woods and creek. He was excited to get dressed up in Dad's home-made bear costume for Gymbaroo. Grandma Q has also minded him a few times while I have been on training courses (my first work training courses in about 5 years), and enjoyed Grandma and Dad taking him to some of his activities in my absence.

Summary of Jack at 35 months:

. A major event for the month is Jack moving to swimming 'all by himself'. Even a month ago I wouldn't have believed he would be ready for such a step, but he has had a real burst forward in confidence this term. His teacher Kellie suggested starting him a few weeks before the end of term so that hopefully he is settled in by start of next term. Much to my surprise he got really excited about his first lesson, and did a great job. He did keep a close eye on mum at the side of the pool and spoke to me regularly. He realised what was involved for his second week, so was much more worried and apprehensive, but still got through it ok. I am really proud of how he has handled the transition (although early days yet of course).

. A huge milestone in past month has been several weeks of mostly sleeping in his cot-bed through to morning. Since he has been sick he has been waking again more at night, but has still slept through the odd night here and there. It remains to be seen once he is fully well if he continues to sleep through (fingers crossed). This milestone has certainly been a long time coming.

. Jack has had renewed interest in drawing and colouring this month. He makes a real effort to colour in pictures fully. He also tells us more about what he is drawing (such as train tracks, kites, smiley faces, mum, dad and Jack). He also has his first pair of kid’s scissors and enjoys chopping up paper, and has also requested to start doing some 'pasting' at home. All good activities to keep him entertained during the cold winter months!

. We have really noticed how up and down Jack's behaviour is in relation to food. He can often be extra cranky before a meal, then happy and calm for the next few hours afterwards, then 'crash' again with his behaviour before the next meal. Because of this we have been trying to be more consistent with meal times and giving him regular snacks in between, and it has made a difference. As per Doug's post, we also made the connection with his behaviour and a food colouring, and taking it out of his diet immediately calmed him down. This is something we will need to continue to try to identify and watch.

. Jack's imaginary play continues to develop. This month he has enjoyed doing 'pretend cooking' of play-dough cakes and pretend shopping. He also asks to do things, and if we say he can't do it for real, he will say 'just pretend'.

. Childcare has reported he has spent partial and full days playing with his friend Braden. He is really starting to enjoy social interactions with other kids, and playing with them directly, rather than just parallel play.

. In his Ready, Steady, Go and Gymbaroo he is participating by himself more and more. His ball skills continue to shine and a instructor has remarked on his good hand eye co-ordination.

. The weekly visits to the play centre after 'ready, steady, go' have really helped him gain confidence on all the play equipment. Now at times he climbs up the structures and goes down the slides all by himself - without always insisting I do it with him.

There have been a number of cases recently in the media about babies and toddlers dying through neglect or abuse. I look at Jack – and know how aware he is of what is going on around him, and shudder to think of what those poor children went through. I can understand why people might not be able to cope – but to take that out on a child instead of seeking help is unforgivable.

Given Jack’s cough we had organized Grandma Q to visit on Monday. It was lucky we had, since Jack spent half of Sunday night awake with a high fever. Thankfully the fever broke and he had a good day at home – so he was packed off to Childcare today.

We had to alternate between giving Jack cough, fever and cold medicines over the last few days. He has historically only taken the cold medicine, and refuses the other two. For the first time we were able to reason with him to take the “yucky” tasting medicine. On Sunday night he took it without complaint – obviously feeling bad. On Monday morning I indicated if he didn’t need the medicine that he must have been well enough to go to childcare – so he had the medicine. On Monday night I bribed him with half a candy stick. That has been another step forward with Jack.

(I am not sure if I have admitted it here or not, but I could not swallow tablets at the age of 18. I’d always gagged – so had to revert to crushing them into honey. After a horrendous day at University where I couldn’t get tablets down for a very nasty headache, I took the advice of another student. I purchased a packet of M&M’s, and practiced taking them like tablets with water. After a dozen M&M’s the problem was fixed.)

Jack was absolutely feral last week, meltdown after meltdown, tantrum chaining tantrum, and deliberately being naughty. It was a personality change – for the worse.

Jack had been eating something new for breakfast as a treat. So we stopped that and the next day normal Jack was back.

We have noticed it before, but this highlighted it for us again. Jack’s balance really seems to be thrown out by one or more food color additives. While doing some research tonight I found reference to one of the ingredients in his breakfast being known for causing hyperactivity and allergic reactions in children, and was in fact banned in some European countries.

So while not wanting to jump on a bandwagon or draw conclusions - Al and I have decided to start off by trying to limit food color E110 (Sunset Yellow) in Jack’s diet. Each time Jack apparently has one of these overly hyper reactions, we will also look at the ingredients of whatever he has recently eaten. You never know.

(Note to self, other colors were 100, 129 and 133.)

On a more positive note – Jack seems to have had a sudden burst in confidence which we have noticed in a number of different ways. He would never say goodbye to people – but now is doing so. He would love to listen to his Grandma C on the phone but wouldn’t always respond - now he is starting to have proper conversations. He would often hold our hand in public as a security blanket (something we encouraged since it was much easier than carrying him), but he has suddenly stopped and prefers walking independently. He also took his first swimming class without his mum joining him in the water – and handled it well.

"We do not teach our children how to be bored..."

It was a quote I read in an article a while back.

We keep Jack constantly busy. Even during his quiet times he doesn't have to make much of an effort to find entertainment. We offer him lots of choices - what he wants to do, play, watch, eat, where he wants to go. One thing we haven't taught him is how to be bored. I think it is a level of self sufficiency we need to work on with Jack - but I am not sure how.

Jack has been unwell the last couple days – a head cold or the like, with the run’s thrown in today. He has been very up and down. Overly energetic, polite and cheerful one minute, distraught over some minor thing the next.

Al and I have both noticed how extreme Jack’s behaviour can get whenever things are out of balance. If he is over tired, if he needs food, if he isn’t feeling well. He will even tell us during these times that he is unhappy, but he doesn’t know why. Food is particularly important. I cannot tell you how often we have had a feral unexplained hour or two with Jack, eaten lunch or tea, and then had a perfectly normal and happy child afterwards.

He eats well and regularly – but we might have to start regimenting the timing of snacks and meals - like they do at childcare, to help keep him more balanced.

A Roaring Dragon - on Huffy the Scooter Bike

Jack's home made Bear Costume - ready for Gymbaroo.

“It’s broken Daddy, can you fix it?”

Although Jack is generally pretty good with his toys - that is a question I still get asked fairly regularly. My screwdrivers and superglue supplies have never had so much use. It has been one aspect of being a father that I expected, and have quietly enjoyed.

Another aspect that I had not expected is the needle work. I have had to sew several of Jack’s soft toys back together. Tonight saw me cutting material and stitching together half a bear consume for Jack’s next Gymbaroo Session. I wish I had paid closer attention during Home Economics at school. I wish Al had even the slightest bit of interest or ability in the area…

I’ve noticed Jack can lack a little perseverance, and tends to give up quickly on things that might be a little difficult. He’ll remark - “that’s a bit hard for Jack”, or “Daddy do that”. He seems to suddenly get very self conscious, and backs away from whatever task we were completing. Instead of just allowing this (which is historically what we would do), I have been recently encouraging him to return to the task, even if just for a few more steps.

The human mattress seems to be getting overly tired of being the human mattress. Even though we have had a great month on Jack’s sleeping front, he will still often require a long period cuddled up with his mum before he drops off to sleep. This time is often filled with Jack tossing and turning, asking for water, and pulling on Al’s hair.

While in hindsight there were valid reasons for Jack initially having difficulties sleeping, we could not have envisioned just how long, tiring and drawn out this whole process would be to get him sleeping the night by himself – and we are still not there.

It was our 12 year wedding anniversary today – which means we have been together for over 16 years. How quickly the time has flown. We had hoped for a peaceful and relaxed day – but it wasn’t to be. Jack was very out of sorts for most of it.