So much sleepy

Family selfie!

In the words of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, back when he was known as Prince, 'I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray.' It has been a weird, long weekend, although as you can tell from the selfie above, not all bad by any stretch.

I have, however, not slept enough. More on this later.

She actually did this with almost no help.

This week, Hanna and Arya came over on Thursday night and I 'worked from home' on Friday. When they arrived, at about nine, Arya was still awake enough to cavil over the colour of her night-light, so that was fun.

On Friday morning I got some actual work done while Hanna took Arya to look into ballet clubs, seeking guidance from the lady at The Other Shop, which also allowed Arya to buy a new and more complex jigsaw. They also stopped by the library for a bit, before picking up lunchables and coming home. After lunch, Arya asked if I would come shopping with them, and I didn't have the heart to say no, despite having spent all that time putting together a 'working from home' playlist.

Tescos was doing a thing, giving away fruit for children to eat while you shop. Given how often we end up going into the shop, buying a banana and then doing the main shop, I can not but approve. Arya was nt naughty, but she was hella lively, and everyone was pretty tired already, so it wasn't the most chillaxed of shops. As Hanna was paying for the shopping, I suggested that once the conveyor at the till was loaded I take Arya and get some drinks, and we all sit and mellow in the Costa for a bit. We had hot chocolates all around and I read Arya a book called 'Don't Call Me Sweet'; a classic tale of disgruntled monster youth.

Take a break...

Did I mention that everyone was tired by this point? Because of this, and because the weather was grey and muggy, we didn't get to the park in the afternoon, which may be why it took so long to get Arya to sleep. Well, that and Andrew and I have diametrically opposed strengths vis a vis sleeping methods. I really struggle with the whole 'not interacting' part of the current methods.

Eventually, Arya went to sleep. Hanna and I watched a crappy movie with Nicholas Cage and whiny Vader then went to bed, at which point, Arya woke up complaining of pain in her area. She asked for cream, but rejected all the creams we had, then wanted a wee and after that went to sleep in Mummy's arms.

On Saturday she called me through to tel me that the star on her Gro Clock was now a sun, which meant it was morning time! I pointed out that if it's morning time she can just come through instead of hollering at me, but that is apparently the ravings of a madman. On the upside, she not only recognised what the sun meant, but knew that as much as she wanted to go straight to the PAW Patrol part of the morning, she needed to use the toilet and wash her hands first.

Once we were up and breakfasted, we went to the library, where Arya immediately announced: "I needed to go to the toilet," and quite sensibly decided we should go back and take care of that, before coming back to sort out our books. Which we did. Persisting from last time were current faves 'The Day Louis Got Eaten' and 'Dodo Doo-Doo', and new was Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's 'The Smartest Giant in Town', which she's really taken to.

Next we went to soft play, and for the most part she ran around all on her own, occasionally disappearing alarmingly from view. Also of note was the fact that she took turns with other children, and was relaxed even with quite large children around her, only really struggling when someone wanted to do the same thing as her at the same time. Apparently turn taking comes quicker than sharing.

On that subject, we persuaded her to take turns choosing things to watch during telly time, so she picked an episode of PAW Patrol, then Mummy chose Inside Out. Then Arya picked an episode of PAW Patrol, then Daddy picked The Little Prince and got a right earful for it. We managed six minutes and I'm still getting it any time it's my turn to choose: "But I don't want the Princess Princess because I don't like it." I'm actually not sure if I like it; I didn't get to see enough.

Anyway, instead we watched Ask the Storybots, which is... It's weird, yeah. It's about five robots who live in a computer app answering questions from children, like 'what makes night happen?' or 'why do we need to brush our teeth?' They go to find out and talk to a guest star, like Jay Leno as King Yardstick (he's the ruler) or Kevin Smith as Super Mega Awesome Ultra Dude, who laughs at one of their misconceptions and sets them on the right track. The science of the answers is simple, but largely accurate. We were quite impressed, and it went down better than The Little Prince.

Also, apparently N is for Ninja these days.

Arya went to bed later, but to sleep quicker, and although she did wake up at 10:30 again she went to sleep pretty quickly, on my lap this time, which felt good.

Cake and Phantom.

What with one thing and another, we decided that Sunday would be a slow day. We encouraged her to play in her house when it was nice and to bounce on her trampoline, especially during Mummy's picks - the Nutcracker with Mikhail Baryshnikov and The Phantom of the Opera* anniversary performance - and although this wasn't a lot of activity, she would have the whole drive home to fall asleep.

The Nutcracker, by the way, was a mixed success. She liked some of the dancing, but the mice and the clowns were scary, she says. At one point a clown dressed up as the Mouse King, just to mess with us. She largely blanked Phantom, but seemed taken with the title number. Actually, when I asked if she liked it she said 'sort of', and I think she liked Christine, but found the Phantom a bit too shouty.

The turn-taking fell down a bit later, as she decided that she didn't want to let Daddy have a turn and I had to turn the TV off for a while. Then we put Storybots on again, and she was slightly scared by the plaque bacteria menacing Toothtown, but seemed to retain some sense of the whole 'why brush our teeth' issue.

As usual, things got more fraught as it got later and everyone got tireder, especially as Hanna and I were, for separate reasons - exam stress and house stress, basically - pretty on edge. Hanna was so jittery that in the end it seemed madness for her to drive home, which did mean that I was putting Arya to bed without having much exercise during the day, which went about as well as could be expected. I finally got her to sleep in our bed, having threatened to leave the room several times in order to keep her from climbing around. Is there any sound sweeter than the first yawn of impending unconsciousness?

She slept through, although not past 6.30. I'd already been awake since about 4.30, so I was in a right state. I was better for a shower, and Hanna gave me a lift into Ely. We said goodbyes, but just as I was getting on my train I got a call from Hanna so that Arya could say 'I love you Daddy.' Bless.

* A good percentage of my disagreements with Hanna, at least on the matter of entertainment, have to do with Phantom.

The Trouble with PAW Patrol

Mother and daughter

It's been an up and down weekend. Mostly up, but with a big down.

The good is that we spent an hour or so at the pool, and had a great time. She got a bit tired and mucked about at the end, taking a fall, but wasn't badly hurt. When we got home she let me give her a bath wearing her new goggles to protect her eyes, and that was great too. She even let me give her her nasty medicine without any trouble, and when I put her to bed - albeit slightly late - she went to sleep quickly. Now, I ought to add that Friday's bedtime was tougher. I've been using one approach, and it turns out that Andrew and Hanna have been using a different one which doesn't involve leaving her on her own and checking in from time to time, so my not staying with her... didn't go down well.

Anyway, Sunday. On Sunday morning she woke up after spending the night in with Mummy, went through to check her new gro clock, then came to the living room to wake me up, because the clock was showing the happy sun face that means it's wake up time. I was in the middle of a dream partly inspired by rewatching Fury Road the night before, so when I woke up to a little girl's face calling me, I sort of knew how Mad felt.

Serious face.

We went to the cinema, which means Chiquito's breakfast, and we saw Finding Dory. Despite some early jitters, Arya managed to stick it out, and seemed to really enjoy the film. She watched some PAW Patrol on the way back, and then agreed to Sarah & Duck instead when we got home, so that Mummy and Daddy didn't go crazy. At dinner time she stopped watching to eat, and then...

Then things went a little south.

She said she was full, watched the end of her episode, and when I asked her to come and get ready for bed, she burst into tears and then insisted that she wanted to come back to the table and finish her pizza. This built into a major row, because she was either lying to try to avoid going to bed or, more likely, had lied about being full so she could watch TV. Hanna got angry. I got angry. We were all tired and tempers were high.

Eventually we managed to find some calm. Arya ate a little more pizza, took her medicine and - because she did that very well, and it is nasty stuff - had a little ice cream. After that she got ready pretty well and I tried not to get angry again, because the simple fact is that she doesn't understand that we're in a hurry, that Mummy needs to leave to pick up Daddy Andrew from the train station, because she's three. However, the upshot of this is that she isn't allowed to watch PAW Patrol for a week, because it's not okay for her to lie to us.

I told her she shouldn't even ask for PAW Patrol this week, but I don't know if she'll understand that. She did straight-faced deny that she'd got into any trouble that evening just ten minutes after she'd been howling in tears. On the other hand, it's not that she has a bad memory. Early in the day she'd repeated back to me what I'd told her at bedtime a week before, almost word for word; and not just 'goodnight.' but: 'if you get ready quickly, you can have one more episode of PAW Patrol, and then I'll say goodnight and I'll be right outside.' She's a smart kid, which is perhaps part of the problem. She's learning to manipulate and it's something I want her to partially unlearn. I guess what I want is for her to know how to manipulate, so that she can see if someone tries it, but not actually do it.

Anyway, it was a less-than-ideal ending to what was otherwise a really good weekend, and hopefully will prove to be an aberration and not the start of a trend, because the rest really was wonderful.

And another thing...

Presenting the choccy biccy banana sandwich.

This landmark in snacking is made from a gluten-free Nairns chocolate chip biscuit break and slices of banana, and represents one of Arya's first independent culinary experiment.

I in no way guided, nor encouraged this experiment. This was all her. I'm so proud.

The Empire Widower

There was a time she couldn't climb onto
that dragon without help.

This past weekend was Empire, which would normally mean a solitary weekend getting some housework done, or paying Dishonoured and occasionally feeling guilty about the not-doing of housework, but this time out, I got to spend the time with Arya.

She's not an Empire orphan, of course, since she has a character and everything. One of the firsts for this weekend was that she told me about her LARP character and regaled me with tales of Empire. Specifically, about the time she went camping and played with Little Bat and Little Spider, and that she doesn't want to be Little Biscuit. Of course, her preferred alternative character name is 'Arya'...

Hanna and Andrew came over on Thursday and left on Friay morning, leaving Arya with me. We went to the library, had cuddles, watched PAW Patrol in a carefully monitored pattern (one episode of PAW Patrol followed by something else; after an hour and a half tops, we do something other than TV.) This included a trip to the park, and a trip to the shops where Arya picked up a bottle from a flashy display.

"We get this."
"No, Arya; we don't need that."
"I think we do. If it gets sunny." Holds out bottle of kids factor 50 sunscreen
...
"Okay. Fair call."

We also had to visit the pharmacy on the way to the park, where Arya set her heart on a new toothbrush. It wasn't expensive and she swore up and down that she needed a new one for Ipswich, and she was otherwise very good about waiting for the pharmacist to get back, so I bought it for her. I would later regret this.

Getting her to bed was a bit of a struggle, and the new routine was hit and miss. After about half an hour of me checking in on her, she decided that she wanted me there and was going to fight for it. I sat and held her hand and she went off pretty quickly, and although she did then wake up in the middle of the night, she was off again once I brought her through and slept through.

That was the good night.

Swing!

Saturday was a lot like Friday, but with the added bonus of Arya coming down with a bit of a cold. She also became recalcitrant about washing her hands, insisting that she was scared to do so. 'Scared' appears to be a bit of a go to excuse, because she's learned that we are sympathetic if things scare her. We went to the park again, with Arya slathered in sunscreen (at her own insistence.) We played 'three little pigs' and traded off being the wolf a few times. She's also now insisting on using the zipline on her own, which is nerve-wracking. She loves to hang onto a strap three feet clear of the ground travelling at speed, but she's scared of the sink?

When we got home I ran her a bath, and this is where things started to go awry. It took a while to talk her into the bath, and we started with a hairwash. Flannel on the eyes, water on, and she looked down.

"Keeping looking up!"
"It's in my eyes!"
"Because you looked down, darling."

Okay, so I got her calmed down and gave her another dry flannel, which she put in the water. I think that one was by accident, but the third and final one was on purpose. I'm sorry to say I started to lose it at that point, and I did shout at her, which I hate doing. It was just... We'd got that one down, y'know? We'd finally cracked it, and now we're back to square one and she has ice cream in her hair. By this stage, however, the water was stone cold and I didn't want to keep her in.

She fussed about dinner, and then it was time to get ready for bed and she wanted to use her new toothbrush. No, Arya; that's for Ipswich. There followed a long talk about how she already has two toothbrushes here and she needs to use one of those, unless they're no good anymore, in which case they need to go in the bin. She immediately grabs them to put in the bin.

"But if I'm good they can come out again?"
"No. If they go in the bin, it's because they're broken."
"I keep this one and the new one?"
"No. If you keep that one, you use it now."

Eventually she dropped one of the brushes and tried to pick it up with her feet.

"Arya; pick that up with your hand."
"I can't!"
"Arya; if I have to pick that up, all three brushes go in the bin, and I'm going across the road to the shop, where I will buy you the most boring toothbrush imaginable."
"I can't!"
"Why not!"
"Because I want you to!"

She then went and sat at the back door and called for Mummy and Daddy Andrew for five minutes. After many tears, we reached a compromise, that I would pick up the toothbrush, and she would clean it off and brush her teeth with it, which she did.

"Can I have PAW Patrol?"
"Well, we said that you could have one more episode if you got ready fro bed quickly and without any fuss. Did you do that?"
*nods*
"Really? That bit where we screamed at each other in the bathroom, you ran out and we both burst into tears; that wasn't a fuss?"
*shakes head*
"No PAW Patrol. Maybe in the morning."

Alas, I spoke too soon. Arya was sparko by 8.15, but at one in the morning became restless and started talking in her sleep, eventually waking and calling me through. She was practically incandescent, so into Mummy and Daddy's bed and have some nasty medicine. Two hours later she woke up again feeling achy. The other sort of medicine, and we tried calling Mummy, who called back a bit later, after we'd watched some PAW Patrol on my phone. Once she'd spoken to Mummy, she settled, and woke me at eight, coughing and retching.

Play dough.

I did the whole dance of self-recrimination - did I feed her something with gluten in? did I accidentally take her to play in a plague pit? was the ham expired? - but basically she just had a fever. There was more medicine and careful feeding, and we had a sofa day with a more lax Paw Patrol policy, play dough and books.

Dinner was troublesome - "Do you still want chili?" "Yes." <later> "I don't want this!" - and I didn't get her to bed until half-eight, but she then went to sleep very quickly and neatly. When Hanna and Andrew got home I told them she was still awake, then looked in and saw she had just gone off.

They left this morning, with Arya mostly asleep, but she cuddled me as I carried her to the car and woke up to say a sort of goodbye. She drives me crazy, and I'm going to miss her through the week; just like always.

Ersatz Lite

"Arya; are you a supervillain?"

It was a short weekend with Arya and Hanna this time out. They arrived from Nottingham late on Saturday, and we spent Sunday in Norfolk with my parents.

Arya was super tired after sleeping away from home for a couple of days, and was yawning and overreacting to things from the get-go. It was a bit of a struggle to get her out of the house on time, but we made it, and drove out to t'Mill for the day. She did pretty well with her potatoes and chicken, but left most of her other veg, before settling in to play.

She played hide and seek with Granny, set up the puzzle cars to run into as many bollards as possible and then built a train track with houses at the end of the line for the train to run into, all the while repeating 'chugga-chugga choo-choo' to herself. Apparently she has some sort of dark design to be the overlord of Chugginton or something.

We also played several rounds of 'Go, Go Dragons', and established that there is a point at which a dragon can no longer finish at all, and that it is pretty easily reached. In one game, this hard limit caught two of the dragons. On the other hand, I think everyone got to win at least once, although in the other games my dad got pretty unlucky, and my mum was cheated of a victory when Arya switched my card for Mum's on a whim.

This game is called 'get the ball into the
tree'.

After that, there was some playing with the ball. It's an old green and white ball, frankly filthy, but which has provided hours of delight to many children of the family. We threw it back and forth a bit and then Arya decided to try to throw it into the tree. I wonder in retrospect if she were trying to recreate scenes from In the Night Garden, in which the Ball represents chaos, ruin, entropy and the inevitability of oblivion.

At the eleventh hour, Arya got difficult. As tiredness overwhelmed her, she refused to try to use the toilet, and asked to explain told me: "It just makes everything worse, okay darling?" Where she got this killer argument from, I do not know, but I will be listening out for that phrasing.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Arya fell asleep in the car; about ten minutes into the drive, in fact, although after eating some more chicken and a banana (because when I say unsurprisingly, I mean I brought food in case she dropped off before we got home.)

She slept the sleep of the just, but was still pretty tired this morning, so getting her into the car was exciting. Hopefully a few more good nights will follow, as I'm soloing her this weekend. I imagine we'll either bond like nobody's business or drive each other crazy.

The Call of the Giraffe

"What?"

Hanna and Arya arrived earlyish on Friday, and we decided to have a barbecue, since the weather was so nice. Cue cloud cover, occasional rain, and just enough wind to make lighting the barbecue difficult. Despite these challenges, we managed to make a fair helping of meat, plus barbecued corn on the cob, salad, and roast sweet potatoes (although we had to leave the latter on for ages and they were a little overdone for my taste; or maybe I'm not a huge fan of sweet potato.) Arya ate a little meat, two cobs and a heap of fancy slaw.

And then it was bedtime, and we're trying a new thing, the health visitor having given Hanna the exact same advice my Mum gave me, and on basically the same day, to whit that I need to ease back on staying with Arya until she goes to sleep. So, I put her to bed, gave her a kiss and said 'Goodnight, Arya; Daddy loves you very much,' and I left, but after a couple of minutes I went back in and checked, gave her a cuddle, and then said the same thing and went out again. She was asleep in ten minutes. Get in!

On Saturday morning we went - later than planned - to soft play, and let her run around. She's pretty independent, not the best sharer, but in general doesn't need us climbing about after her, which is a relief at first, and then a bit melancholic. I'm glad that she can manage the big slide on her own, but at the same time, I miss the days when she wanted one of us to go with her.

Let sleeping giraffes lie.

That afternoon, Hanna went off and left Arya with me. We spent a while chilling and then went to the shop for milk. Arya immediately grabbed a 2 pint bottle and headed for the till. I called after her, reminding her we needed more milk than that and suggesting a 4 pint bottle.

"But I only like the little bottles."
"But we need more milk."

So back she shot and picked up three more 2 pint bottles. Yay!

Bedtime was less successful this time. She kept wanting me to stay, and wouldn't lie still. In the end I had to retreat to my room because I was tired and I didn't want to shout at her. When she followed me, I lifted her up next to me and we cuddled for a bit, then I did the whole 'goodnight Arya...' but and moved to the foot of the bed. Then again and stood up. By the time I kissed her goodnight and left the room she was out, and didn't wake up even when I moved her back to her bed and the frame of the pull out section gave way underneath us.

Joy!

There was also bouncing.

I slipped the slats back into place, but it went again in the morning, which I knew was a bad sign, so I spent much of the morning examining and trying to repair the bed, while Arya watched altogether too much PAW Patrol season 2, which is even weirder than season 1. She was frankly knackered - I could tell by the way she started keening each time I said she couldn't immediately watch another PAW Patrol episode - and so was I once I'd wrestled the frame about and realised that the wood was blown, leaving nothing to screw the metal supports onto. As a result, it was a lazy day and we've watched nearly all of season 2.

The problem with lazy days, of course, is that they lead to difficult nights. First, I told Arya she'd have to go to bed in Mummy and Daddy's bed, since hers was broken. Was that all right?

No; she wanted to sleep in her bed. Of course she did. So I had to remove a few slats and collapse it into single bed mode, then install the rail. I also moved a chair next to the bed for stories. Naturally, she wanted to lean on the rail and fidgeted about a lot. She wasn't happy with me leaving, and at one point I was sat next door while she called: "Daddy Luke! Daddy Luke!" and waved her rainbow-coloured giraffe* at the monitor. I eventually went back in, and she looked at me and said without irony: "Giraffey** was calling you." Eventually, and despite my having knackered myself again getting her bed back together, she insisted on coming into my room and it took another half hour to get her off to sleep. Ten past nine, from a half-seven bedtime.

This morning she slept until eight, and we let her; oh yes we did. Her awareness of summer sunlight hours has not been kind. Next week should be more normal, so hopefully we'll have plenty of park trips and whatnot to wear her out a bit.

* A present for being brave during her vaccinations.
** According to her birth certificate*** the giraffe's name is Karma. My assumption was that her surname was Cameleopard, you see.
*** Build-a-Bear, okay.

Bathtime Breakthrough!

Drawing

Arya arrived on Friday evening with a singular and determined request: "Please I have PAW Patrol?"

PAW Patrol - Watch with Father review coming soon - is no My Little Pony or Sarah & Duck, but does have some problem solving elements and generally good role modelling (the female pup wears pink, but is a pilot.) The key factor this weekend, however, is that Cory at nursery told Arya that PAW Patrol is 'just for boys.' Arya's response was, quite rightly, 'no, it's just for girls too.' Consequently, we felt like we should let her watch some of it at least as a form of solidarity.

On the other hand, we were working on getting her to engage with us more, especially looking and listening when she is talking to us. Other key points to reinforce include not using crocodile tears to try to get what she wants (this is a tough one, because obviously we don't want to tell her either that she shouldn't cry, or that we won't listen if she does, but that there's a difference between real crying and trying to get us to change our minds with an affected keening. It would all be easier if she were sleeping more, but she isn't, and that means it's all too easy for her to slip between the two states.

She's fluctuating between aloof and clingy at the moment, again as a result of tiredness more than anything. I took her to bed and she wriggled out of my arms and snapped 'don't touch me,' then wrapped herself around my arm like a plaster cast when I tried to get up and leave her. I had a chat with her about how it's okay to say 'no Daddy, I don't want a hug,' or 'I don't want to be carried,' but that 'don't touch me!' is hurtful and makes me feel like I've done something terrible, and hopefully that will sink in. It is important to us that she feels she has autonomy, but with a sense of proportion; not least so that we know if something is really wrong.

After a week away, she was clingy as all get out at Tumble Tots, but hopefully will be more confident in herself when she gets back after the summer. By the time we got to the shop it was getting on a bit and she was starting to get seriously tired and hungry and grumpy. The afternoon got progressively grumpier after lunch, and she had an accident on the rug in the living room. This is a clear sign of how tired she's getting, as she has been largely accident free for a while.

Gotta catch 'em all.

On Sunday, we decided to try the cinema, which meant Chiquito's. She seemed delighted to be back, and very into the idea of cinema, but quickly decided that The Secret Life of Pets was too scary. I deciphered this code, I think, because while the film wasn't scary it was very loud, and I think that was what she found overwhelming. It's a shame, and the more so because the staff were so dismissive of the matter. I intend to take this up with the Light Cinema in no uncertain terms. At least it wasn't a waste of money, as we used our comp tickets from Zootropolis.

Stock photo.

After that we went into town for a Lush shop. I also got a whisk and Arya a hula hoop. Then she and I hit the park while Hanna had her eyes tested. There was a brass band, which Arya clapped for attentively, and she did very well considering how many bigger kids were in the park when we arrived.

We headed into Tesco to meet Hanna when the weather started looking broody. It also emerged that Arya had developed a blister from her flipflops, which she was very brave about. Anyway, we went home and there was another accident, so I guess I'm rolling out the steam cleaner this evening. So it goes.

We watched some more PAW Patrol and then it was bathtime, and we had a bit of a breakthrough there. After much, much, much persuasion, she finally agreed to actually look up and close her eyes. I had to find two dry flannels to cover her eyes (one to wet and one to rinse,) but we got her hair washed without any screaming! She even let me brush her hair out afterwards without fussing. That was a dadly triumph which made up for the rest.

We finished up the day with Hanna measuring us all against the door. Arya is still shortest, but definitely growing the fastest.