Head colds in children

Emily's got the candlesticks streaming from her nose at the moment as she's got a bit of a head cold.

Normally we adults would blow our nose, or at least wipe it when the green groolies are creeping down giving us a "snot-tache". Emily, however, has her own trick. She wipes the crap out of it, smearing it all over so it effectively becomes hair gel.

I'm just wondering at what point she'll actually realise this is not a cool thing to do, AND at what point will she actually figure out how to blow her nose.

There's always SOMETHING else to teach them. I was worried about (and still am) teaching her to spit after brushing her teeth... now this. I need a win at some point.

Bedtime pain

This evening Emily fell out of bed. This is not news. She went whollop and landed on the floor, let out a cry and stayed asleep.

It did get me to thinking though, why I don't fall out of bed. When do we reach that age where we naturally guard ourselves from doing faceplants on the floor, even when we're unconscious?

I can picture myself in our bed, tossing and turning and having a horrific sleep, yet I stay off the floor. It astounds me that we as a species seem to have developed this trait to stay in bed.

Chalk another one up to evolution!

Free reign

On our trip to In The Night Garden Live yesterday we had a simple choice - take the pushchair or leave it?

Recently Emily has become a lot more confident in her walking in public and on longer jaunts than just around the garden or to the car. She's also a lot more receptive to commands - like holding her hand across the street, etc. Even when we go shopping, she'll obey if we say, "this way Emily." So obviously we were confident in our choice of leaving the pushchair at home.

Thankfully, our decision paid off.

We gave her free reign to wander where she wanted to, within reason, and except for the odd moment -  like trying to wander up and town the train car, she was good as gold.

She got  a bit ratty toward the end of the evening, but I can imagine that all the walking/running, combined with no afternoon sleep and the excitement of seeing In The Night Garden Live would have made her quite exhausted.

In the night garden live (aka Emily's first time at the "theatre")

Iggle and Upsy on stage at the O2

We made it to the O2 today to see "In The Night Garden Live". I kinda knew what to expect having watched a preview trailer of the show in Liverpool.

I was, however, dead keen to see how Emily would react.

Coming out of the North Greenwich tube station there was a poster for the show which mesmerised Emily. Sue and I played it coy with a "wow Em, we should look into going to that" line.

When we got to the O2, loads of kids had balloons with the Hahoos on them which got her excited. As we walked down the "avenue" in the O2 towards the show, there were four massive blow up Hahoos on display. On seeing this, Emily got even more excited.

During the show, Emily visibly couldn't contain herself clapping, laughing and smiling as each of the characters came out and was introduced. I think she also worked off the energy of the other kids in the audience, as usually her watching of the show is quite a solo experience, save for mummy and daddy.

Afterwards we stopped in the O2 avenue for some dinner and then home. Emily didn't have a sleep during the day, so by the time got back to the car she was quite exhausted. Good day over all, especially for the under 3 in the group.

One caveat, the show is apparently in the Meridian Gardens - this, in actuality, is a dodgy looking car park. 

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• In The Night Garden: it's Makka Pakka mania (telegraph.co.uk)
• In the night garden live! (bubbytimes.blogspot.com)

Nursery Tales

Em finished her first two full days of nursery today and it's a promising start.

Things we've been told include she loves singing, she has a good appetite and she loves to paint.

She seems to be fitting in quite well. Hopefully being around the other kids her age will "peer pressure" her into talking soon.

We've got quite a bit of optimism that this new environment and social situation is only going to be a positive experience for Emily.

Emily's first full Fennies' day

Today Emily started day care at "Fennies Under 5s" for Thursdays and Fridays, as Sue has started back full time. She's been for a couple of dry runs the last couple of weeks, but this is it.

There were tears and the obligatory "why are you leaving me?" looks. While child minding is a sad requirement of today's economic landscape, this is only the third such "first day" Emily's had in her 30-odd months - from Katherine originally, to Helen (still) and now Fennies. 

When we dropped her off, I tried to remember the shock to the system when I started big boy school (well, grade one) back in the mid-70s. The only thing I could remember was falling over and cracking my head open. I was six.

I trust Em's first full day will pass with a lot less drama... and pain... and bloodshed.

Saying words in context

Shoes.

Tonight Emily actually spoke A word in context to something she was "reading". She has a book of things to demonstrate 1-10. #6 is a picture of six dogs. When she sees this she does a "ruff" sound. No mention of how MANY dogs there are, but she recognises and associates the sound the dogs make.

#2 is a picture of two shoes. Tonight, she actually said "shoes" when she saw the shoes. I'm not that optimistic to believe she actually read and understood the word, rather she could actually associate the visual image with the word - I'd like to think so, the number of times we've sat on the bottom steps and put her shoes on, although I'm kind of glad she said "shoes" and not "shoesies" as we call them when putting them on.

It's a small win in the battle to get her speech sorted out. Although I know the war is far from over, the occasional win does bring a highly relieved smile to my face.