Addiction

My daughter has a Dairylea Dunkers problem.

We went shopping yesterday evening, and she asked for Dairylea Dunkers. No, I said; they're a sometimes treat.

We got to the shops and she asked again. No, I repeated, but it's the long weekend coming up, so maybe we can get some then.

We got to the till.

"Daddy, Dairylea Dunkers." I admire the alliteration, but no.

I went to put the trolley away and she began to howl. I got her outside and it really kicked off.

"DAIRYLEA DUNKERS!"

"No, Arya. Not today. Maybe at the weekend."

"Not at the weekend! Now!"

"No, and at this rate, not at the weekend."

"DAIRYLEA DUNKERS!"

And then she took off her coat and flung it on the ground. I picked up the coat and picked up her and headed home.

"No! No! Put me down! DAIRYLEA DUNKERS! Put me down!"

Eventually I put her down, because I don't like restraining her, but then she ran off back towards the shop, stopped after a bit and pointed at the Co-op. I tried to get to her and she ran on ahead, so I had to negotiate the fine balance between catching up to her and not causing her to bolt into the road. Eventually I hefted her onto my shoulder and hoiked her back down the road to the flat, with her screaming bloody murder.

"I don't want to go home! Put me down! Get off me! DAIRYLEA DUNKERS!"

Honestly, if I never hear that name again...

I got her home and opened the door, put her down and she tried to bolt. Took me the better part of a minute to manoeuevre her and the bags and her coat and her umbrella far enough in to shut and lock the door. Then she sat against the door, kicking and crying and screaming: "Dairylea Dunkers!"

Hanna tried to talk to her, and eventually we went to the sitting room and Hanna told her she could come and talk when she was ready. As Arya began - after about another five minutes - to edge around the kitchen door into the hall, we put on some My Little Pony to act as a lure. Slowly she moved into the living room, occasionally responding to our approaches by muttering "dairylea dunkers."

Finally, she looked up and, bright as you like, said: "I found the ball for my elephant, Daddy, but it went under the sofa."

And that was that.

Easter

Bucking trends, Super Arya wears
her suit over her civilian clothes. 

Today we went to have lunch with my parents at the local restaurant. They had an Easter egg hunt and showed Arya a sample cardboard egg with the number 2 on it. We followed the signs and found some eggs, but Arya was unsatisfied.

"It doesn't say 2!" she protested. Bless. 

Papa, Please Destabilise the Planet's Orbital System for Me

We're watching 'Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me'. As Papa climbs a tall ladder balanced precariously on a very high mountain, I said to Arya:

"As parenting goes, this is definitely going above and beyond, but possibly not in a good way."

She thought a moment and replied:

"Yes. You're probably right."

Rollercoaster

She's a lady.

Wow; it's been a rollercoaster.

I've been solo with Arya today. We began well, then Mummy went off to her game and there were a few tears. Then we tried to have a shower and it all went to hell. I struggle with the fact that she doesn't trust me to wash her hair, and in the end we just couldn't get it done. There was a lot of crying and wailing, and Arya was pretty ragged too. So, no shower, but she's agreed to try a bath tomorrow since she was starting to get itchy and I've explained this is because she hasn't been washing. Maybe I'll even get her hair without a fight.

The rest of the day was pretty good. We watched some TV, went to the shop, did some drawing. We also made some nest cakes, but Arya was refusing to do anything but the things she wanted to do, and I raised my voice when she started talking over me while I was trying to speak to her. There were suddenly all the tears, and I'm really starting to worry that I scare her, except that what she wanted to make things better was lots of Daddy cuddles and for both of us to apologise.

Now, part of this is that she's tired. Also - and she confirmed this - that she's worried about starting at a new nursery with a uniform next week. It's a lot of adjustment for her. Anyway, that's why I let her have a simple dinner tonight, so we could be sure of an early night, take lots of time to not have any arguments, watch some Pajanamals and read a couple of stories before putting her to bed. This meant that the evening was pleasantly mellow, and she was asleep by quarter past eight, which may not seem much, but is an hour ahead of the current averages.

We proudly present... the menu

Menu!

Arya loves watching DVD menus. Well, some of them; Disney ones especially. The animated Jungle Book menu? Loves it. She could watch it for hours. Moana? Complains if you try to put the movie on.

Not that she's agin the movie once it's on, and she also has a profound love of the short films on the extras menu. Gone Fishing (Maui tries to catch a fish while Moana and the Ocean try to stop him. As Arya keeps reminding me, Maui isn't as good as Moana) and Inner Workings (although I'm not sure she entirely gets its musings on life, death and happiness yet.)

But that menu...

Toys

Arya improvises a biohazard hood from the
cover of her buggy, which could also do
with being let go, to prove she still uses it.

Over the weekend, we - mostly Hanna and Andrew, but I helped out and baby wrangled, because Arya was over-keen to 'help' - painted up Arya's bedroom. This involved clearing it out, and with most of her things now transferred from Ipswich, this revealed that she has a hell of a lot of toys. She has toys for here and toys for Martlesham, and her Granny Spot has a serious Build-a-Bear problem.

So, yesterday it was suggested that perhaps some of the baby toys that she doesn't use any more could go to the charity shop so that some other child who doesn't have so many toys could enjoy them. Cue an absolute meltdown and insistence that she does play with those toys still. With all of the toys. All of the time.

This morning she woke up and decided that, actually, that would be cool. So far it's only two toys she's offered, but it's a start.

Honestly, I'd be more strict with her, but... Well, she's switched back to her manual toothbrush and it looks a little worn, and I was thinking I needed to get rid of it, but it has this rabbit head cover, and after brushing her teeth she was putting it away and she made it hug and kiss her other toothbrush (with the shark head) and they were all 'I love you, mummy,' 'I love you, daddy(1),' and now I can't get rid of the rabbit because the shark would be sad.

(1) Because from her perspective these are objective names.

"What's 'Abyssal'?"

Daddy Andrew: You can learn lots of words from that book, like 'Abyssal'.
Arya: Abyssal? What's Abyssal?

Later:

Arya: Quiet, Daddy Andrew! I can't hear.
Daddy Andrew: What can't you hear?
Arya: I can't hear the book talking. 

The New Normal

I have such memories of helping her around
this climbing frame...

I'm back at work today, after three days (plus weekend) at home with Arya, and it's… complicated. It's nice to get out on my own, because after nearly four years of committed misanthropy it's hard to be part of a family and harder yet to be part of a resident family, but it's also tough to go back after five days of admittedly not unalloyed wonder. Despite a few stroppy moments and a lot of tiredness, Arya has overall been a darling, and I can well understand that she is adjusting just as much as I am to the new normality of our lives. I suspect that she is not yet confident that Mummy isn't going to go back to Ipswich, and me going off to work is likely to go down like a lead balloon.

She asked for the episode of The Pajanimals where the Pajanimals are sad that their mum and dad are both going to work the other night. She told me that she is sad that we have to go to work, but she loves her family. Then she told me that she thought the Pajanimals had two dads (like she does,) and when I commented that we only hear one of them she thought for a moment and said: "I think the other one is dead." So that got real dark, real fast; like a BBC Scotland comedy drama.

Oh, and when I told her that her Tails of Equestria character could be Fluttershy's cousin, but that Fluttershy was already somewhere else in the story, her alternative choice of name was Secret Ants Midget Mother Cheese.

Trouble at t'mill

And now Arya has moved in - bringing with her a lovely batch of gifts and cards from nursery - and she is giving me hell. Because Daddy Andrew left, because Mummy had to go back to Ipswich and finish her course, and probably because she's establishing ground rules. Will Daddy Luke let me eat breakfast in the sofa? How far can I push this or ignore that? In this latter instance it doesn't help that she was ill at the weekend, so we let things go a little, possibly setting a dangerous precedent.

But she is alternating being a screaming brat with total sweetiness. After being a pain all through dinner, she told us she was sorry and that she loved her family, and was delightful at bedtime right up until we asked her to actually go to sleep (see picture.) This morning she came through, curled up next to me and went back to sleep, then woke up to complain about her milk not being cold enough.