A rather delicate subject...

Over the last 2 weeks Leah's vocabulary appears to have entered the explosive stage that we were warned may happen once they've mastered around 50 different words and animal sounds. She's now happy to have a go at any word we ask her to try (today's entertainment came courtesy of orange and elephant). However we know we're only a heartbeat away from our lovely girl embarrassing us verbally as well as physically - the raging tantrums are well underway and the immunity is building up very very quickly. I've just been "talking" on Facebook to one of Leah's best pal Ruby's moms and was inspired to blog about my dilemma.

Leah is very proud of her newly mastered words and has recently become fond of saying 'wee' every time her father disappears to the loo with Time magazine. After weighing up the options I figured that was probably one of the better scenarios and I've decided not to correct her for now. But I do realise that we are on borrowed time and sooner or later we're going to have to label body parts not covered by the 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' song (which she loves of course).

So my dilemma is, what do I do? All the rage in SF is to be anatomically, biologically and medically correct and to use the correct terminology. Now I have no religious affiliations whatsoever but I always remember my mum laughing at me as I tried to completely hide myself under an enormous beach towel when changing into my swimsuit aged 7 or something. 'You're such a prude' she'd tell me before I was really sure what a prude was, hell I'm not sure I knew what a prune was but I figured they must be related. So perhaps there's a latent puritan in there somewhere that just isn't relishing my little girl shouting out 'vagina' in public, and let's face it, Leah's not the quietest child. However nor can I stomach the cutesy cutesy words that are used over here but if I resort to British words 'tuppence' or god forbid 'fanny' it's only going to cause confusion in the long run. So for the time being it's 'bits and pieces' or, and this started as a bit of a joke but has stuck, 'ladybits' for the time being.

Any advice???

Training for SoccerTots

Mum has signed me up for the SoccerTots class that starts in January. I'm very excited about it and have been getting some practice in. Check me out!



I wonder if Father Christmas will bring me some football boots?

One of the hardest things about being a parent here...

it's not the sleepless nights, not the tantrums and clash of wills, it's not the worry or the non-stop clearing up, nor is it the fact that we're 6000 miles away from the nearest grandparent as bad as that is. It's the toddler singalongwitheverything classes!!!!

Today Leah and I went to My Gym which is a $78 per month children's gym / soft play place (very SF). I'd signed up for a free class before fully reading the ad which I later found out included the dreaded by me two words 'parental participation'. Still, I'll do it for my girl I thought, I'll sacrifice my inner and outer Brit and just go for it. We turned up a few minutes late and found the very large room full of toddlers and their caregivers (also very SF) having a great time just running around the place. There were trampolines, a ball pit, slides and stairs, bars to hang off, crash mats and a whole host of things to fling yourself on or over. 'Not too bad' I thought to myself and Leah clearly delighted with the place started running around laughing away to herself.

And then they cut the music and shouted 'OK it's circle time'. Cue everyone sitting around with their toddler on their lap as the action songs started. Now there's only so long I can get away with 'hmmm I don't know this song' but luckily for me Leah was having none of it. As all the other kids sang something about their chestnuts and happy hands Leah decided to make the most of the free class and check out all the equipment while the other kids were busy. I shrugged my shoulders and gave my best 'what's a mum supposed to do?' face and joined her on the trampoline quietly observing the rest of the mums.

So I've been to swimming classes with compulsory singing, music classes (well I did at least expect it there) and birthday parties. Clearly the kids love it and I know I just need to get over my discomfort and join in with my best cheery voice and beaming smile but boy is it difficult to do. I always find myself looking around for a mum who seems to be feeling the same way that I do, a kindred spirit in amongst all this depraved jollity but I very rarely find her which is why Erika is and will be my number 1 mum-friend over here.

Leah had an absolute ball, in fact she was so excited by the place she spent the entire hour doing what we call her 'fake laugh', this crazy, loud horribly fake sounding laugh as she trampolined, trapezed and somersaulted her way around the place. Then they brought out a large fan which left me very puzzled for a minute or two until I saw an industrial sized bubble wand. 40+ toddlers in a smallish place but all mesmerised and delighted by the bubbles floating through the air, laughing as they tried to catch them was a wonderful sight. I wish I'd had a camera to share a picture on here. So much fun and not one song sung.

We've signed up for SoccerTots starting in January. I had assumed there would be no song singing in a football class but of course I could be horribly mistaken....

Oh it's started all right...

I don't seem to be getting the hang of this blogging, the good intentions, the promising start and as always a la Ruth the bit where she gets bored in the middle.

I was supposed to write a highly entertaining Leah-blog about our new house, but now 2 weeks late I still haven't and it seems a little old news now. I was then going to write a blog about our lovely day today, all sunshine, picnics in Yerba Buena gardens and two rides on the carousel accompanied by photos. But then we topped off a lovely day with dinner out and it all came unravelled, so why not just blog about that? It's not my bedtime so no excuse.

Leah developed some weird temperature on Thursday that had us trying to get home early to take her home only to be trapped in the 49ers traffic. She had a slightly rough night and a very whingey Friday which left me slightly frazzled. By Saturday she was quite a bit better and we even got quite a few laughs and giggles out of her. But she wasn't eating and she was still very very cranky. In our desperation we were giving her whatever she might actually swallow, all the usual favourites seemed to be out (pasta, omelette, yogurt not out of a squeezy tube) and we even resorted to a chocolate digestive biscuit - the biscuit part has to have some nutritional value doesn't it? Little did we know that while she was unwell Leah was also practicing and storing up her terrible two tactics. After 2 days of giving into her every whim 'because she's not well' she had it down to a fine art and was just waiting to lay it on us.

Today the sun shone brightly and warmly on SF, we walked the now 5 blocks to the wonderful Yerba Buena gardens, we had our picnic on some rocks, Leah running back and forth to pick up a tiny piece of cocktail sausage, 2 goldfish crackers and a fruit smoothie.
We headed over to the children's playground where she merrily plonked on the xylophone and splashed in the stream, then we took her for a special treat - a ride on the carousel which she loves. She proudly chose her giraffe and sat quietly holding on for a good 3 or 4 minutes before the ride started and although she didn't crack a smile the whole ride I knew she loved it. How did I know? Well when the ride stopped she started to screech and do the full body jerk and kick that would have her face down on the floor pounding her feet and hands into the carpet if I wasn't holding her up in the air. The plan was always to give her two rides so I tagged with Paul who first tried her out on a goat:
then a horse for her second trip. Anticipating full melt down I headed off to the ice cream stand as soon as I saw the ride slow down but she came off as good as gold having said goodbye to all the horses.

We ate our ice-creams and tripped merrily home and tucked Leah in for her afternoon nap. We were feeling confident as our beautiful girl smiled her way downstairs after her nap (made a change from the crying of the previous two days) so decided to go do dinner. We chose the quiet and family-friendly Nama (sushi) and ordered food that Leah would normally happily pick at. The first warning sign came as she refused to sit in the high-chair, the second came when she wouldn't even sit on the bench next to me, the third came with our food as she narrowly missed jabbing herself in the eye with a chopstick and was not impressed by our attempts to prise it out of her hands. Paul and I took turns trying to distract her with toddles about the restaurant, even the lovely waitress tried to take her off our hands but stranger anxiety has also settled on our girl at the moment so that was a no go. After several more refusals to eat and shrieks as she was put in and out of the high chair two more times we decided to save our dinner, box it up and take it home (the second time in one week). The tantrum continued the 2 blocks home as Leah protested being held by Paul and not me. We continued our dinner at home with Leah alternating between the high-chair, face down on the floor, face down on my leg, head pressed against my foot and then finally, and most pitifully Leah trying to get some comfort from Dave the zebra, her hiding tent and then my handbag as Paul and I did our best 'ignore the bad behaviour reward the good' and tried to continue our meal. She finally quietened down and was rewarded with a cuddle and some quiet story books with mum and then pyjamas, milk and In the Night Garden with dad.

So all in all that was nearly 2 hours of on / off mini-tantrums. We know they're pretty small in the grand scale of things, we've seen bigger kids lose it completely and utterly, we know that they can be louder, longer and messier. But we've glimpsed the future....and it's not pretty.

At her doctor's appointment last week our doctor's attending did her usual fly-by visit and after running through a number of checks very matter of factly informed us that the terrible twos had started. We re-ran through the checks wondering what in particular had tipped her off, we're in no doubt now.

Well she was always going to be the chatty one

Here's Leah's list of words so far:

Elmer - the first word
Hi
Mumma
Dadda
Apple (well Aaaah-plll)
Row (as in row row row your boat)
No!
Dark
Up
Moon
Boobies (thanks to Izabela)
Hide (said in a whisper and often accompanied by a dramatic Ssshhh)
Hat

She'll also have a go at pretty much any word you ask her to but this has to be my favourite so far:



She also has quite a repetoire of animal noises, some easily identified, others not so easy - her cat's miaow is pretty much impossible to catch unless you're closely related.

I'm pretty sure I think every phase Leah goes through is the best phase so far (OK maybe not the developing tantrum phase) but language acquisition has always been of huge fascination to me. Little did I know just how much fun it was going to be.

The colour-coding of our children

The shoes on the left are for toddler-girls, the ones on the right are for toddler-boys. But if you can, take a closer look. The shoes on the left are nearly all open-topped Mary Janes and without fail are either pink, or are stamped in pink hearts or flowers. The ones on the right are brown, blue, red and green. There are no opena areas.

So what's the big deal? Well aside from the colour and the pretty-pretty flowers and hearts the boys shoes are practical for playgrounds, sand-pits and splashing in puddles. The girls shoes will get your kids feet wet or full of sand as soon as they're put to use in any of the places kids like to play. The result....the beginning of starting to hold your girl back from running free, exploring and experimenting.

These are some photos I took in the Early Learning Centre. After nearly having a feminist fit at pink vacuum-cleaners, washing machines, kettles, food mixers, toasters and tills (cash-registers).

WTF are they making them pink to make them even more attractive to girls??? What kind of sick conspiracy is this? I opened my eyes wide enough to see that right next to the pink home appliance section there's a blue home appliance section. That's great you say, everyone's equal, there are boy vacuum cleaners and girl vacuum cleaners, what's the problem? The question is, why the colour coding and separate sectioning at all? Why not red, black, green vacuum cleaners? Let kids pick the one they want without separating things into a 'boy' section and a 'girl' section.

Now anyone who knows me knows my pink aversion and my decision where possible to not dress Leah in pink. But most people think that I'm being silly, that I'm making a fuss about something trivial, or the worst so far...that I actually wished I'd had a boy. These are the people who told me I'd change my mind once I had a little girl (and that I'd change my mind about not wanting to get married). It's not just the colour, it's the encouraging of our girls to be pretty, to be neat, to be clean and to be tidy reinforced by totally impractical clothes that half the time don't even enable our girls to do the same things as the boys and that's even supposing they don't have a parent cringing in the background at the thought of grass stains, scuffs, tears or wet or sandy feet.

I've also been told on many an occasion that some girls are just born girlie, and that the pink thing is inevitable so bother fighting it? Well until Leah goes to school and the peer pressure really kicks in I want to give her every opportunity to try as many different activities and encourage her to be as bold and as adventurous as possible and I'll dress her appropriately.

I don't wish to offend anyone, particularly my friends who have girls well and truly in the pink / princess phase. If this happens to Leah I hope that I will do my best to manage it appropriately and would welcome any tips from those of you trying to create balance for your girls. Just don't tell me that my feelings about this are silly or pointless.

Roll on Soccer Tots in January!

My happy day

I wanted to tell you all about my happy happy day because I had so much fun and don't want to forget it.

Yesterday was a beautiful sunshiny day and Mum, Dad and Mamgu took me to the beach to splash in the rock-pools, play with the sand and run around. The sand on this beach was very different to the sand in San Francisco and the stones in Gosport. It was all grainy and trickled through my fingers and tickled my toes:

After I'd had some lunch Mamgu took me to my first little rock-pool and I happily splashed around and watched my toes sinking into the softer sand. There were no fishies in that pool and luckily no crabs either:

Dad came along and dropped a couple of pebbles in there that made a lovely sploosh noise and I copied him a few times but then it was time to stretch my legs and show my Mamgu just how well I can run these days.

Mamgu and Mum took me down to a huge stretch of flat sand that had these tiny rivers of water running down them from the rock-pools to the sea. Because it was so flat I could run and run and run and only fell over a few times but I could also splash through the water without my Mum worrying that I was going to snort up a load of sea water and the sand was hard enough that I wasn't going to get it up my nose and in my eyes like I did at the playground last week.

I ran and ran and ran. I ran to my mum who threw me up in the air, I ran to my dad and then at the last minute before he could grab me I'd change direction and run to my mamgu. I thought all of this was very funny and giggled the whole time!

After I took my well earned nap that afternoon I had a smashing supper of fish and chips.  Well the chips were smashing, I wasn't so keen on the fish but then Mum kept taking bits of fish off my plate and replacing them with white fish-like stuff but it was covered in ketchup and tasted yummy so I ate lots of that.  Then everyone decided it was 'time for a walk'.  Boring I thought, but then I didn't realise that I could have as much fun running on grass as on the sand.  Mum, Dad, Mamgu and Grandpa Greg took me across to the common to watch the sunset and to run around on the common that's next to where my mamgu lives. It was great fun too. I had to put up with Mum and Dad bundling me up in fleeces and anoraks because the sun was going down and it was starting to get cold but once I was out and about it didn't matter. We crossed to common over to where the sun was going down and the waves were splashing against the rocks and I ran back and forth between the four of them and got thrown up into the sky loads of times. So much fun!

Grandpa Greg took some smashing photos of me:

He's going to put the rest on his website, I'll post the link when they're there.

xxx

Leah