Sleep Daddy Days

"Why don't you bounce on the trampoline?"
"Hahaha. No."

It's been another slogger of a weekend. We're really not a winter family, and I'm considering making enquiries into the possibilities offered by hibernation. I think we'd make good bears.

Hanna was out this weekend, so Andrew brought Arya over late on Friday and I took her straight in to bed. Thankfully it was half term, so we didn't have to try and bus it to Tumble Tots, especially as Arya was worn out from fighting a cold. She was pretty knackered all weekend, and not up for much more than a few shopping trips and a visit to the library on Saturday.

The library visit was very successful. Arya made choices about which books to renew and which to return, and picked out a new book about babies. This book, 'How Did I Begin?' takes a very modern attitude to teaching young children the facts of life, which caused Andrew a little uncertainty when she asked him to read it to her, but we're very big on not raising her to think that a) anything about her body is intrinsically rude or dirty (but do wash your hands after toilet) or b) that sex is rude or funny, but not passing on our prejudices and awkwardness means first overcoming them, and that's not always easy. I sometimes think it would be easier to give up and raise her to join a convent.

On Sunday she was a bit more
chipper.

Other than that, Arya was a bit listless most of the day, due to the aforementioned illness and exhaustion. It didn't help that she wasn't eating or drinking well, and in the end she watched a lot of TV and played some games with us, but didn't really get out much. Her big exercise blitz was running up and down between 'Daddy Luke's house' (the living room) and 'Daddy Andrew's house' (her bedroom) and calling 'Hello' and 'Bye bye' (or 'Cheerio' and, in one case, 'Good luck') as she came and went. Nonetheless, she was tied enough to conk out fast when I took her to bed, and to seriously sleep in on Sunday morning.

I would never give up and raise my daughter to join a convent, in case you were worried.

Once she was up on Sunday, she seemed brighter, but no more eager to get out and about. When offered the choice, she chose to stay home with Daddy Andrew while Daddy Luke did the shopping, although ten minutes later she was demanding to shop with Daddy Luke and Andrew had to bring her out to the Co-op and then be dismissed (she's still very mean to Daddy Andrew sometimes,) while I waited around to finish my shop. Once we were done she asked me to put the pound coin from the trolley in her pocket, and later asked Andrew to open it so that she could feast on the sweet chocolate inside.

Mummy!

Our main goals were to keep her awake all day, and to try to get her to do something other than watching Sarah & Duck, and we were partially successful. It was not a very active day, although on the upside she did drink more (in part because I dug out her bottle of sugar free Ribena, or 'purple and blue juice'.)

She was as ever delighted to see Mummy come home and big hugs were had all round (you can't see it very well because I didn't get video, but in the picture on the left she's tucking a sleepy Mummy in to rest, including bringing Mummy one of her own bears. She even managed to tell me that she needed to use the toilet and then do so without mess, so props to her for that.

Bedtime was... less successful. She procrastinated a fair bit, and once we were in bed kept asking for medicine, although she wasn't feverish any more. She complained of painful legs, and strugled to get comfortable until I sat up and she settled on her own. I got another twinge of early-onset empty nest syndrome.

This morning, she headed off for Martlesham in her pajamas.

And we're back!

No Ersatz Dad last week, you may have noticed, because Arya was off in a field being adorable.

I mean, seriously; how adorable is that? The answer is all of the adorable.

So, I hadn't seen Arya in a couple of weeks when she turned up on Friday night, and she - being more or less asleep on arrival - hadn't seen me until I went through to stay with her from about midnight because she was crying. She's been sleeping badly for about a week, so there's probably a growth spurt coming on.

"Wait, no! There's surely some adorable left."
"Oh, right; here it is."
(As a note, she apparently got mad bling from
a pack of orcs for returning that feather.)

On Saturday we were back at Tumble Tots, although we're going to miss next week's for a school open day (which is a scary thought) and then had a pretty chill day, as Hanna was feeling beat. We watched the usual suspects - Room on the Broom, The Gruffalo, Frozen and Frozen Fever, followed by Cinderella, because damnit there will be some variety. We also read Goat Goes to Playgroup a bajillion times. It's very simple, but I am duly impressed by her picture analysis skills.

Me
"Can you see Goat's Mum?"
Arya
points to the tall goat in a skirt, then at the big dog
And thas Dog's daddy.
And at another figure
And thas Cat's mummy.
And another.
And thas her daddy.

In the last instance, correctly identifying Badger's daddy, but not knowing 'badger' just yet. She also pointed to the empty chair in the circle time picture and identified that it was Goat's chair. She's currently using 'her' as a fairly universal third person pronoun, which isn't the end of the world; we're aiming for at least a degree of gender blindness.

Options

On Saturday night we got ready for bed very nicely and read several books (including The Tiger Who Came to Tea, twice) before I took Arya to bed. She was spark out in minutes, although I did have to go through after a while. At least this time I remembered to turn off the monitor so we weren't waking Hanna up; instead, she woke us up at about quarter past seven with breakfast on the table, which was lovely. Unfortunately, instilling a sense of urgency in Arya was harder than expected, so we ran late and tense to swimming, but it was lovely to see Arya so keen on being in the water.

After swimming we had our usual breakfast at Chiquito's, then went to get Arya's feet measured, which went badly as we had to wait for a long time before someone was free and Arya kicked off. On the plus side, I think I handled it pretty well. I was calm and reasonable and didn't offer her treats, just promise we'd work something out if she'd talk to me. She didn't, but she was chipper as anything once we got to the measuring. Then we caught up with Mummy and actually bought shoes, since Arya had grown a whole size longer without her feet getting any wider. In fact, her feet are too narrow for any shoes.

Since it's coming on for winter we bought some boots - a lovely pair of high, brown boots for helpme pounds, and a much less expensive pair of wellies which Arya apparently fell in love with on sight (pink, alas, but at least not Hello Kitty or Peppa Pig.) The advantage of homeschooling seems to be the ability to insulate your child from merchandising, or at least choosing what merchandising to expose her to (he said, planning to buy his daughter Minion hairclips for a stocking filler.)

She claimed not to like this coat,
then insisted on wearing it on a
fairly warm day.

After shoes we went and got her a new winter coat. She kind of wanted a pink one, but by that stage she was mostly being contrary. She loved the coat we did get her when she tried it on, and once we had it, but insisted that she didn't when we were choosing. Fortunately we know her pretty well by now. At that point we were all getting pretty tired and Arya was hungry, so we stopped for her to eat, then drove home, stopping at Chiquito's to pick up Arya's blankie (a stripy pillowcase to which she has become incredibly attached,) having accidentally left it at breakfast. The waitress clearly knew at once what we were there for and fetched it from under the till.

At home we watched some Melody and chilled, and I wimped out of cooking dinner and ordered takeaway. I need to plan weekend cooking better so I don't end up needing to defrost meat at 5 o'clock on Sunday evening. On the other hand, chicken korma is a pretty reliable one for Arya, and she asked specifically for onion bhaji (although she didn't eat them in the end.)

Bedtime was less successful. She's off using the potty for some reason, and kept trying to put me off asking why. I didn't push it, but she'd got into a contrary mood and kept turning the tap back on to rewash her hands. Eventually I told her that if she turned the tap on again she would have to go straight to bed. She turned the tap on, I turned it off, picked her up and got clouted in the ear.

Now, in fairness I am in some part proud of her default response to being grabbed being a punch to the lug, but it was my lug dag nabbit! I had stern words (not shouting; actually quite proud of that) and she said sorry and gave me a very sweet cuddle, but you have to stick to your guns, so it was straight to bed, and I felt like such a heel when my daughter is protesting "I wan read a book," and I have to be all "No, bedtime." Fortunately she settled nicely.

Then at about 2:30am she rolled off the sensor, so I went in and switched it off. Unfortunately, Hanna had come to bed late and, it being dark, hadn't plugged the monitor in. With no sensor and nothing notable on the audio feed, it switched itself off, so I took a while to hear Arya calling me at about 3am.

I got up and went to the bedroom. It was empty.

I heard her calling, called back, and found her at the door of the living room, whereupon she burst into tears and had to be brought into bed with us, so everything is achy today. Still, it could have been worse. We found out this morning that the back door wasn't locked (my bad) and I dread to think where she might have got to.