Bump

Harlan went with his dad to visit his grandad today. When they arrived home I was in the middle of baking brownies, but when Harlan walked in with blood down his face and shirt, our plans for the evening changed!

Turns out he'd fallen over at his grandad's house, and managed to land with his head hitting a bolt at the bottom of the front door. Cue lots of blood and hysterical toddler. Rusty managed to stop most of the bleeding with a kitchen towel compress, and brought him home to me, as he was crying for mummy to kiss it better. I had a quick look, and it was only small - maybe a centimetre, two at the most - but quite open and getting his hair stuck in it, so we took him to hospital.

The doctors and nurses were lovely, blowing bubbles and bringing him toys as he was getting worked up - he's spent enough time in hospital to know that doctors often hurt you, and not old enough to understand why it's sometimes necessary - and soon had it cleaned and glued shut. It's in his hairline so probably won't even be visible once healed.

Once I'd calmed down (having felt rather sick when he came home in a state) I did find it amusing that the booklet on head injuries, given to us at the hospital, said "your child may be pale and listless for a while after a head injury"..... my child came home and was back to his usual boisterous self! No doubt he'll get lots of sympathy from his childminder tomorrow and, being male, will milk it for all it's worth ;-)

Updates

Well things have changed since I last posted - Harlan is almost two and a half now, we've started creating a playroom in the spare room, he's asking to be carried in a sling again (mummy secretly very pleased about this!) and he's given up his dummy. We decided that it needed to go, he only had it at night/naps anyway, and after 3 hours of crying for it the first night (and many trips upstairs to comfort him!) it's been a complete non-issue, much easier than I imagined.

Tonight when Harlan came down from his bath, he was trying to build a tent with his towel, so I decided that it was worth him being a few minutes late for bed to encourage his creativity and imagination... and I like building dens too! We used his towel, a Didymos wrap, some cushions and his table and chairs. He lay underneath it and announced "shut door mummy, I go sleep now". I'm now planning a huge den in the playroom ^_^

Beautiful!

Harlan found a tin of tinted Vaseline lip balm today and managed to get the top off. After being very quiet for a minute he turned to me and said "Painting mummy!"

Yesterday we went to a small local zoo which has a lot of birds, including penguins, which Harlan was very excited about. They have an offer on until 18th February, 99p per person to get in.

Toilets, boxes and dollies

Harlan went to his childminder today, as he normally does on a friday, but today was different. Today he didn't wear a nappy, he wore pants. As such, I packed his bag full of spare pants, trousers, tops and even socks.

As it turned out, all he need was one spare pair of pants and trousers, because after a small accident first thing in the morning, he stayed dry all day. Once he came home, the things I'd put out for him to play with proved too exciting, however, and he had a couple of accidents. "Nevermind" he says, so at least he's not getting a complex about it! I found some stickers I bought a while ago, so he's now having a sticker when he does a wee on the potty or toilet, and so far he's got two shiny stickers to put on his trike.

I got a new book today, arrived in the post from Amazon. It's called The Toddler's Busy Book and as well as having lots of ideas for simple things to do with your toddler, it also has some amusing and poignant quotes in it. One that made me laugh was the mother's prayer:

Dear Lord,
        So far today I've done alright. I haven't gossiped, I haven't lost my temper, I haven't been greedy, grumpy, selfish or very indulgent. I'm very grateful for that. But in a few minutes, lord, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on, I'm going to need a lot more help. Amen.

It made me smile because, no matter how good our intentions are, some days we are grumpy and selfish, and you know what? That's ok. As long as you are usually the parent you want to be, and your children know they are loved, then surely everyone is allowed a bad day. I darn well hope so, anyway!

When Harlan came home from his childminder, I'd made a bed for his dolly, just a simple one made from a cardboard box and a terry towel as a blanket. When Harlan saw it, he decided he wanted a big box for himself, so I put some cushions and his 'special cover' (a blanket I embroidered for him when he was younger) in a large box and he had great fun settling dolly and himself off to sleep - complete with fake snoring!

Toilet training

I've bought Harlan some training pants - pants with a little padding and plastic backing - as he's been doing really well with toilet training.

It actually feels wrong to call it toilet "training" as we haven't trained him at all. He spontaneously decided a few months ago that he wanted to wee in the toilet, and since then he's been wearing nappies but using the toilet when he wants to. Some days he doesn't want to use it at all, other days he's dry all day. He doesn't like using his potty much anymore, he prefers the big toilet and that's fine by me. I'm glad we didn't force the issue and he's doing it in his own time with no tears or tantrums.

He does seem to be finding it quite challenging being two at the moment, we have moments when his brain is ahead of his physical capabilities and he gets frustrated, and he fluctuates between being clingy and being his usual independent self. He's always been a good sleeper but has found it hard to settle down into normality since Christmas but we'll get there!

Winter walks

Well winter is well and truly here, and I love it! Harlan and I went for a walk the other day, he was bundled up in his snowsuit and we went to see the Shetland ponies who live nearby, on the way to a toddler group. Harlan was so funny, because he wanted to splash in the puddles but didn't realise they'd frozen over. The result was Harlan on his bottom in the puddle, looking rather bemused! I had to take a photo before I picked him up, it was too good an opportunity to miss.










On the way home he was getting a bit tired so we used our new sling to walk the last bit. I'll really miss babywearing when he gets too old for it, I love the closeness.

Baking

Today we baked biscuits (6oz flour, 4oz butter, 2oz sugar - we replaced the butter with Vitalite due to Harlan's dairy sensitivity). My Grandad made a special chair for Harlan that helps him reach the kitchen sides so he can cook with me and it's proving very useful.

 On Thursday this week he's having his dairy problems investigated. Apparently he has symptoms of an allergy but the fact he can tolerate goats milk implies it's an intolerance. So on thursday (and another date in december) we go to the children's hospital, take some goats milk and they may or may not mix cows milk with it on this occasion. Then we see what happens. I haven't tried him on a beaker of cows milk for about a year but it always used to make him instantly sick so it probably won't be much fun for him.

On the plus side, while visiting my little brother last week I got Harlan a doll pram from the antiques centre my brother works in. It's identical to the one I had as a child and he loves pushing his doll and his teddies around in it.