Last dregs of summer

I think this is it - we must finally admit that summer is over and autumn is upon us. This weekend we had a spot of drizzle but the temperature has definitely dropped since last week (last weekend we were in sun screen and at the pool with Lee!). We still managed some fun in the garden though.

Our big boy can now get onto the 'bus' by himself and is gradually trying to work out how to make it move!

Fuzzy, but a belly laugh nevertheless

Ah - that's one way to get it to move

OK -so don't smile then, kids!

This is what happens if you don't smile. Daddy will turn the picture into a sepia image that makes you look even more odd

Just managed to capture this moment between them. So they _do_ love eachother :-)

Nanny and Granddad

We had a lovely long weekend visit from Nanny and Granddad as they finished their grand tour of Romania. We didn't do 'Bucharest' things, but just 'homey' things which was nice for us all to just spend time together.

Gobble-de-gook

All aboard the Edward Maxi Taxi

Nanny and the cheeky one

Leila trying so hard not to smile :-)

Sandbox

Before - the 'dirt'

 We'd had in our minds for a few weeks that we should try and build a sandbox for the kiddies as they were currently both fascinated by the patch of 'dirt' outside the back.  Having Nanny and Granddad over was the motivation - may as well get visitors to earn their keep! ;-) and so after two trips to Brico Depot we (Scott, Nanny and Granddad I mean) were set. All that was needed was nap time and then 2.5hrs later and it was beers all round.

Teamwork

A little larger than we imagined!

Playtime!!!

Kisses

It is so sweet. Edward has started giving 'kisses'.
For quite a while now, my mantra has been "No biting! Kissing" as he really is viscous when he bites and I have the bruises on my arms to prove it :-( But now he has figured out his own way to 'kiss' which involves an open mouth 'pop' onto your skin! So cute! At bedtime he'll be feeding and then sometimes will stop and starting 'kissing' me for a while instead. He has given them to Leila and Daddy too, and especially loves to give kisses when we're playing squishing on the floor or bed :-)

Terrible (week) twos

Week two at school now and here's the real test - she's now playing up a bit in the mornings and saying she doesn't want to go - inevitable really.

Tuesday was tough as we had the real tears and almost tantrum.  I was erring myself as I put her coat on the hook - did she need a day at home to get over her cold?  Not really, but maybe....  She had to be held by the teacher as I left - her red face all tears and crying.  Very hard to deal with, but apparently she calmed down and she made it through the day in a good mood.

Bedtime though she's asking for me to sleep in her room again - separation anxiety at 3 years?

Wednesday was a little better, but essentially the same. Not wanting to go to school, wanting to stay at home, wanting to go to the park, to Tick Tock, wanting to be with me. etc etc. Delaying tactics meant we were running late, but we got there in the end.  I tried to settle her in the class, but she just kept going with the tears and requests, so in the end the teacher held her and I left as she was crying.  Tough tough times, but I felt that today she was genuinely feeling better than the day before in terms of her cold.

Apparently it took just two minutes before she calmed down and had a brilliant day.

Thinking about it I am sure that it's a few things novelty of school has worn off, realisation that this is how it goes, genuinely missing being at home.  It's definitely not the result of something happening at school she doesn't like (although the one change I know has taken place this week is that they have hidden some of the 'babies' she was becoming possessive over last week!).

Thursday the mantra was there, but no real feeling or passion any more.  She did start crying and tried to walk away as we got to the school building, but once I got her inside the cloakroom she started to calm down. Then we heard laughing and I was able to usher her into the classroom and wave a quick goodbye with no tears. Phew.

This was Toddler Group day and Leila in fact spotted us as her class went to go to PE and we were playing in their yard. Eeek?! But no "Hello, Mummy! Hello Edward!" and a wave as she held Ayesha's hand. Phew!

And today - well a few requests to stay at home, but given the reassurance that tomorrow would (finally) be a 'home day' and what fun we would have. She wouldn't even turn around to say goodbye she was so keen to get stuck in when she got to the classroom.

The comment from her teacher this week is that she has been getting more involved in activities (now that the babies are out of the picture) and has enjoyed PE and Music.  We knew she would!  She loves the teacher there, Mr Johnathan.  We have finally figured out a way to find out what she does at school (as it is very hard to get much response from 'what did you do today?') - role play!  You be Miss Claire/Mr Johnathan and I'll be Leila, I say.  Then she tells me what to do like she is the teacher!  Move the circle round and round!!!

And as for Edward.... well a couple of days trying to figure out naps as he hasn't been going down at 1pm (and of course needs to get up at 2.30pm for the school run), so we tried a 'no morning nap day' on Thursday which sort of worked.... But he remains a generally happy chappy.  We think he is trying to say 'tractor' and he loves playing in the ball pit and the 'dirt' outside.

First week complete

So we have all survived the first full week at school.  Leila has coped really well and so we have sent her every day (even though initially we thought she might only do part-days or part-weeks).

She has eaten most of her lunches that she's been sent in with, and has only come home with one pair of wet knickers - a record!  The downside to toilet training at school though has been that she waits until the evening to poo at home (delaying tactic at bedtime), and she wants to use the toilet rather than the potty to pee - as they have kiddie toilets at school she uses.

She has done well with her sleeping - I can't believe that they have managed to get her to sleep there considering the rig moral we go through at home (sleepy biscuit, stories, songs etc).  I guess she is just tired out by the intensity of the day there, and there is the peer-pressure of seeing other kids sleep.  On Thursday though Miss Claire said that she had only slept for about 45mins-1hr and she didn't want to get up when they woke her (all kids are woken at 2.30pm to get up and ready in time for the 3pm end of the day).

Friday was a rainy day, but we made it in with the buggy, buggy cover, sling, large waterporoof and umbrella!  She seemed fine at school but was clearly tired by the time we got home (and Edward was getting cabin fever - he's not used to not having the backdoor open for constant outside play!).  Come bedtime though she was very tired in her eyes and although she went down OK by the time we were going to bed she was crying out.  I checked on her a couple of times but she was asleep still.  I managed to get some calpol in her, but by then her sleep was disturbed and she ended up in bed with me in her room (so that Scott could sleep).  First week complete - first cold on its way!

We both were tired but OK the next morning despite the lack of sleep.

We made it through a busy busy Saturday with Nanny, Granddad, Lel and Tom, and collapsed into bed that evening.

Sunday night though and the cold had shifted onto me and Edward.  Both of us were up in the night, calpol and cuddles again were needed but still generally lacking sleep.

Potty Training milestones

Poor Leila - she'll look back at this blog and find we're writing about her poo!  But it was a big day in our potty training journey, so I wanted to blog.... Leila did a poo in the potty for only the second time AND she did two poos in the toilet!

Leila's potty training has been going pretty well since we got back to Bucharest at the end of July. About two weeks ago I'd say that she was nearly there with wees - she would sometimes start a wee and then realise that she needed to stop and go to the loo.  I was worried that this would go downhill slightly starting school - as there are so many distractions there - but actually she has got better!  She's come home in the same knickers every day!

Our stumbling block however has been poos.  We've done this in stages - allowing her to poo in her nappy but she must stand near the toilet/potty first, then moving on to getting her to sit on the potty with her nappy on to do her poo, then with the nappy still on but the straps undone.  We got stuck at this point though and only once or twice did I manage to get her to poo on the potty but onto a wipe. However since going to school she's got more confident. Last night she did a poo on the potty with no nothing and this evening I find her sitting on the actual toilet (!) doing a poo on there!!!

I am totally regretting not buying a kids toilet seat to help her use the toilet itself.  I thought this was extra faff as we have three pottys so don't need any more paraphernalia, but since starting school (where they have kiddie toilets) she wants to use our big toilet.

First Day at School

So it's 10am - E is napping and L is.....at school!
It feels very quiet and I feel like I have forgotten something, or have something missing....

There were no tears - from either of us.  I thought she might need a little convincing to get in the buggy, and so she had a small taste of marsbar-cornflake cake that we had made for Daddy's birthday (also today!).  It felt like a bit of a rush to breakfast, clean up and then out the door by 8am (potty, hair comb, teeth brush, shoes on, bag packed etc etc), but it worked ok.  I put L in the buggy (she might scoot or walk another day), and E in the sling on my back.  We were at school around 8.20am and loitered in the yard a bit bumping into people before going in to Creche.

When we were inside Miss Claire was busy with another parent, but soon saw Leila and came over as the parents left to greet her.  She then showed Leila where to put her bag and asked her which name tag she would like above her pegs. Monkey, snake, bear etc etc...so what did Leila choose? Flamingo!!! She put her dinosaur bag on its peg and I put her spare clothes/shoes bag under the seat for her. Leila told Miss Claire that she had her lunch box in her bag and her owl.

We then went into the main room where one kid was wailing :-( We saw Jasper and two other girls who were all looking at the fish bubble tube. Leila wasn't too interested in that but seemed a little concerned about the wailing child who had been taken around the corner by Miss Raynor.  After a moment Leila decided she would like to look at the books so we went t the book corner and looked at what they had.  We found that they had some books we knew, like Little Cloud, Room on a Broom and Owl Babies.  Leila flicked through them and choose a book about a snowman?!!  Miss Claire then came along and asked Leila if she would like to read it with her, so they both sat down. I then said to Leila that I had to take Edward home now, as Edward wasn't allowed to stay at school, so Leila said "OK, Bye!" but she did then give me a little hug and a kiss before I scooped up Edward and went out of the door.

Edward and I said "hi" to a few people in the yard again.  In his toddling E managed to fall over and stub is big toe again - poor poor boy - this is the second time he has done this since loosing his nail to the fungal nail infection :-( I had hoped that E would fall asleep on the way home but no such luck (possibly as he was in the buggy after being in the sling and I was catting to two mums who were also walking home). We got home and I put him down in bed.  Now to figure out the 'just E and me' routine at home before heading out at 2.30pm to pick her up!

UPDATE

So I picked Leila up at 3pm and there were no tears!  Apparently she had had a 'wobble' around 11am when she'd said she was ready to go home (Leila's version of this was that she cried for her mummy and Miss Claire said "no"), but was soon OK again.  She also managed to sleep for around 45mins-1hr which is pretty good going I think considering all the palava we go through at nap time here!  She didn't take her owl toy up with her, but instead chose to take up a 'baby'.  Since coming home I've heard a lot about this sleepy baby (aka 'willy baby'). In fact she had a moment of "I want to go to school now now now - I want the baby again"....we'll see if this enthusiasm for school continues tomorrow....

And as for Edward well he was probably a little confused as to where Leila was all day, but he enjoyed running around the place and playing with toys without any interruptions!  He pushed the buggy round quite a bit and played with his new remote control tractor (remote control toy for a one-year old? I hear you ask. We thought the same but actually it's brilliant fun and he loves it!). I have been trying to get sleep synchronised ready for school since Scott went back to work and have had hit and miss days. Today was a miss day as I had hoped E would nap on the way back from school in the buggy, but he didn't. So instead I napped him at home in the morning - but as he slept longer than he would have done in the sling (!) he didn't want to nap at 1pm in the afternoon. There was no point in napping him at home once it his 1.45pm as I would've needed to get him up at 2.30pm to go to school (!) so I ended up napping him in the buggy to school. Not ideal, but something we can work on.

And of course today was Scotty's birthday.  When we saw Scotty riding into the garage, Edward, Leila and I went to hide in the ball pit and jumped out to say "happy birthday" when he came into the room. It was a lot of fun!  As Edward hadn't napped at home in the afternoon I hadn't prepared anything apart from left-over bol for tea, so we decided to go out to the Don for a treat.  It was nice as there were other teachers and kids there and we had a bit of a play and a natter and two amazing burgers!

Yallabina!

Scott has been getting back in to song writing recently after maybe a little writer's block / excessive tiredness from job/newborn (just because he is writing songs again does not mean he is no longer excessively tired!).  Anyway - new songs include one about playing hide and seek (in the style of Shaft), another about make-believe and one about having a balance bike!

Leila and Edward love dancing around to these - Edward bobbing up and down at the knees and Leila frolicking around the room.  Leila enjoys joining in one the 'tiny tia-tar' (Gui-tar we keep reminding her) but we spied her doing this the other day - writing her own song!  She was copying the way that daddy plays guitar whilst reading/writing in the notebook. Supercute.  This evening she made up a song which went something like this "I'm going to have three candles on my cake. And everyone will sing. And then we will eat cake.  I will open up my presents"  All the birthdays in August - and the impending daddy birthday in a few days times - are obviously having an effect!

Muse(ing)

Edward eating an ice lolly!