Doing it for the kids

The book of this name has an accompanying five-minute DVD.

 

Katie insisted on watching it again and again today. Young ones love the repetition, don't they?

 

In all she watched it nine times.

 

Last week Urs took Katie to see a stage show version of the book, which she loved.

 

"I watched Bear Hunt with mummy," Katie said each time I pressed 'play' on the DVD player.

Me: "Katie, why can't you say 'Please can I have?' rather than 'I want'?"

 

Katie: "Because I want it."

Halloween is a fun time for the little ones.

 

They love dressing up (and getting chocolate treats at nursery). All the children and staff at nursery dressed up and so did the the kids at Caterpillar Music (music and singing group) that Katie goes to.

 

When she had got her costume on we asked Katie if she was Katie the Witch.

 

"I'm Minnie the Witch" was her reply.

 

And who are we to argue with that?

 

And I can't recall ever having a pumpkin with a candle in it when I was growing up.

 

Well, I've got one now thanks to Katie and her mum.

 

 

 

Oh, the parental panic when your little one drops their favourite toy out of the buggy when you're not looking.

 

It happened to me last night when bringing Katie back from nursery. We retraced our steps and soon found the small precious cuddly piggy thing that she loves.

 

Phew.

Oof, we don't want any more of this.

 

Katie woke up before 5 am this morning.

 

Not good. Maybe she slept too long during her Saturday afternoon nap and as a result wasn't so tired overnight.

 

Urs got her some milk and I stayed up with her in the hope she would go back to bed. No such luck. After lying down on the floor with her for a while I gave up once she started rushing around saying: "I want to run about."

 

We went downstairs and put on a Teletubbies video. She watched while I dozed uncomfortably on the sofa.

 

Urs went to an NCT Nearly New Sale while Katie and I went to a soft play area where we had our usual fun.

 

She lasted an hour and a quarter before she started doing her usual random things (wandering around, refusing food and drink etc) which signify she's getting very tired.

 

We both had an afternoon nap but a shorter one than yesterday.

 

She's doing very well on the potty training now.

Hurrah!

 

The Saturday toddler group for dads that I take Katie to once a month is back after the summer recess.

 

True to form, Katie remembered that they bribe dads with sausages or bacon sandwiches which she takes from me and eats.

 

This time it was bacon.

 

I enjoyed the bread roll.

 

We always get up to some fun activities.

 

 

Can't remember where this was but thought I'd better take a photo of Katie admiring posh-looking shoes.

 

 

We've made it!

 

The 5,000th nappy.

 

 

We have a Mr Clever book which Katie loved us to read to her.

 

It was originally bought for Urs when she was 18.

 

So then I bought a Mr Men DVD so she could watch some more of the characters.

 

Then I got a Mr Greedy book and Mr Tickle. I used to have a Mr Tickle t-shirt when I was younger.

 

Now our friend Paul has found a load more in a charity shop.

 

Katie loves them.

 

 

On the back of the book there are small images of every single one of the Mr Men.

 

Depending which edition you have there can be up to 46 of them.

 

Katie has quickly learned to identify the whole lot.

 

Recently when we were at a friend's house she started reading all out their names as usual and for some reason I decided to cover up the images. Without being able to see them she recited all the names from memory.

 

Not bad when you're two and a bit.

 

Well he does when Katie sings the 'Farmer in the dell' song.

 

Confusion due to potty training, perhaps?

Big leap forward this week after a challenging Bank Holdiay weekend.

 

We had had a few, er, accidents last weekend and during the early part of the week but when I picked up Katie on Thursday night from nursery the staff were very pleased to hand over a piece of card with six stickers on it, each one representing a time when Katie had sat on the potty.

 

That was followed by a further five stickers on Friday.

 

Through good encouragement she is now very proud every time she gets it right.

 

We also have a sticker star chart at home with 12 stickers already complete; 28 to go to qualify to be 'Potty Perfect'.

 

Could this put the 5,000th nappy in jeopardy? We're at 4,986 right now.

 

We still put a nappy on her at night and for her afternoon naps so it looks like we'll just make it.

When we tell Katie we are going to take her to a soft play area she gets quite excited and repeats the words over and over.

 

Last weekend I took her there by myself because Urs was a bit under the weather.

 

We had a fun time.

 

There is a big slide you can go down but you have to climb 23 steps to get to the top. Kaite did it 11 times in a row at the start of the morning. That's 253 steps.

 

Which a lot for toddler.

 

And her dad. Phew.

 

The ball pits are fun too.

 

Katie was playing in the garden at nursery this week and fell over.

 

She grazed her face around her nose and mouth.

 

I'm told she didn't make too much of a fuss about it. She got a lot of ice-cream to soothe her mouth, which may have had something to do with it.

 

Yesterday I woke up with a nasty pain in my shoulder. I've never known so much pain and could not move without aggravating it.

 

Katie was very sweet, insisting on kissing my shoulder and my hot water bottle better.

 

Urs booked me an emergency massage which helped and looked after Katie as I groaned around the house.

 

I am feeling a little better today but taking it easy.

 

If only there was some ice-cream in the house...

End of week 130 and the 5,000th nappy looms ever closer.

 

There's more potty training going on at nursery these days. Katie's daily report sheet indicates "sat on potty" quite a few times now.

We visited Willows Farm Village today.

 

In many ways it feels like it's a visitor attraction rather than a farm and it charges more than £10 a person to get in.

 

We had always felt that was too much but when a neighbour gave us a two people go free voucher we decided to go along.

 

Its facilities are very good - soft play, sandpit, rides and animals to look at, feed, stroke etc.

 

Photos:

 

 

Here is a conversation from today.

 

"Would you like to eat some raisins, Katie?" I ask.

 

"I'm not eating raisins," she replies.

 

"Well, I'm going to eat some raisins," I say.

 

"You're not eating raisins," Katie tells me.

 

"Why not?" I ask.

 

"You're not hungry," she replies.

 

"How do you know that?" I ask.

 

"You're not eating raisins - you're not hungry," she says.

 

"Well, I am going to eat some raisins now," I insist.

 

"I want to eat raisins," she says.

 

"So I'll get some raisins for me and some for you?"

 

"Yeah."

 

We eat some raisins and have some fun.

 

Later she decides to eat some toast, which, of course, she hadn't wanted earlier. Photo below.

 

It's all part of the entertainment, really.

 

We'd had a fun day at a local soft play area, climbing, crawling and laughing.

 

And she got to ride in the front of a convertible Mini Cooper S that I'm test driving for MSN Cars as that's the only place we could get her car seat to fit. Urs had to sit in the back which is a bit cramped for an adult.

 

We drove home with the roof down, much fun.

 

 

 

I was away on company business last week.

 

Urs sent me a lovely photo of Katie which I now see every time I turn on my phone.

 

Awww:

 

 

Maybe it's just because I was away for almost a week but when I returned it seemed to me that Katie's speech has come on a lot. Ever more talkative, using more words and stringing longer phrases together.

 

And ever more bossy. "Sit over here, daddy," I am frequently instructed.

It's week 126 and the nappy count has reached 4,775.

 

Will we reach 5,000?

 

More than likely.

 

Katie is still showing little interest in potty training.

 

We're not stressing about it or hassling her. She knows her own mind and will get on with it when she's ready.

 

I expect some day she'll suddenly decide she wants to be like the others at nursery.

 

At least, she likes reading a fun potty training book for kids we got for her.

 

Which is a start.

 

Kind of.

Here are the comments on the daily report sheet from nursery for July 3:

 

"Katie is becoming very articulate and can listen to adults and respond. She is a joy to talk to!"

 

We'd say she's been like that for a while, of course.

 

The other day I got frustrated and said "bollocks". Katie immediately repeated it.

 

Fortunately it seems to be one of the few words that hasn't quite made it into her amazing memory.

 

And I'm minding my language more now too .

This year Father's Day started on Friday afternoon.

 

I went to Katie's nursery for a 4pm Father's Day tea.

 

Together we ate sausage rolls, sandwiches and various biscuits.

 

Katie gave me a card and a biscuit she had made.

 

 

 

On Sunday Katie gave me a book to help me draw pet animals better. I am currently rubbish at this activity if judged by the standards of the world's great artists (or anyone who can hold a pencil) but brilliant if judged by whether Katie can recognise what I've drawn no matter how badly I've drawn it. It wil be good to practise so that my efforts are more fish-like, cat-like, rabbit-like, dog-like and so on but I wouldn't expect an exhibition any time soon. You'll get the idea if I tell you that the book is aimed at key stage one, which is better known as ages to five to seven.

 

I also received a pile of 'new' children's books. They're new to us but have all been read before because I had bought them from charity shops this week. The point being that I had the time this week to buy them and wanted some different things to read with Katie. She has loads of books but she knows them all so well. And so do I.

 

We then went to a local soft play area and Katie knackered herself out playing. She was already quite tired as she is a bit off-colour at the moment and has a bit of a temperature.

 

After a lunchtime nap she came with us shopping and then we went to the local park.

 

A nice end to a nice day.

 

The previous day we had gone to a wedding celebration party hosted by two friends of ours. A couple of pics:

 

 

While at home today with her mum Katie took a mobile phone-shaped magnet off the fridge and spoke into it as though she was calling me.

 

"Hello daddy. You coming home later? Bye."

 

How sweet is that?

 

Happy dad.

We're back from a week's holiday in Cornwall.

 

We stayed at a converted farm (Glynn Barton) which had great facilities for children under five.

 

A soft play area:

...where you can get covered in balls:

 

Katie loved the pigs:


She fed the donkey:


And the sheep:

 

And we took trips to the beach:

 

And the aquarium:

It's alphabet recognition and word association time.

 

The other day Urs was wearing a t-shirt with lots of words on it.

 

One of the words was 'Walker'.

 

Katie pointed to the letter 'k' and said: "Katie."

My shirt, that is.

 

Katie's hair has taken a long time to grow but in the past few months it's been getting in the way of her eyes so Urs bravely took her to the hairdresser yesterday for her first ever haircut.

 

I am told Katie wriggled a lot and the hairdresser earned her tip.

 

Before: 

After: