Who’s a Daddy!

One of the more delightful aspects I’ve found to raising children is the way they want to mimic adults, particularly those they spend lots of time with. It’s an obvious behavioural trait of children to want to act like their mummy and daddy whom they observe most during their early years, but sometimes it’s truly charming to see what they come up with.

Luka, who is now two, is always bugging me to go and watch him or play with him (which means watching him play), he’ll grab my hand by the finger and bug me incessently to accompany him. I find that just going along and staying a few minutes usually shuts him up. Mostly he wants to prove to me that he can do something I typically do. And it’s not always routine stuff.

One certain thing I’ve noticed about tiny tots is their sense of possessions. This is a theme which I suspect becomes more and more pronounced as they grow older. However, what I find funny is the way they like to amass things and collect them in one place.

Have you noticed how your baby collects together kitchen utensils and puts them all in one big pot, or gathers books and CDs in a pile in the floor? Luka likes to collect various small toys and place them in the basket in front of his little tricycle and off he goes, carrying them around with him.  

It’s strange the way they do this, he isn’t particularly selective about what he stacks in there. He also has a little ‘fire truck’ with a lifting saddle. His favourite is to stack items into the small cubicle under the seat, usually he fills it too much with shoes and even a small cricket bat, then tries to folder the seat down and sit on. 

It’s amazing how industrious little tots can be. I’ll be working away unaware that Luka is busy ferrying CDs out of my bookshelf, only to discover later that he’s stacked them all in a pot in the kitchen. Of course he tends to leave a constant mess everywhere he goes, but I guess he’s having fun.

He doesn’t seem particularly attached to anything but if another child comes around and wants to play with an item he will object and try and take it off him. I think that is typical of all children, they aren’t interested in an object until someone else picks it up and then suddenly they want it.

It reminds me of his earlier months when he would carry something around in his hand, with a sense of possession or need, and would seldom let go until both his hands were full. Then he would place it down on the ground carefully to pick up a new item, as if he intends to come back for it later. In short, they simply don’t have enough hands to hold all the items they’ve commandeered.

The parenting books all suggest you start reading to your children from an early age. For sure, we all loved having stories read to us at an early age and though there is now more TV, and other distractions, nothing soothes a child to sleep better than a fairy tale read from their mother or father.

And so, I read a short little story to Luka three times a week, even though he’s too young to understand it. It’s extra important since English isn’t the main language of the country he lives in and mostly he is surrounded by Thai speakers, so I make a point of reading to him in English so he gets to hear enough of it. I’m sure, in due course, he’ll get plenty of English when we send him to an international school, but it’s the quality time with dad that counts.

At first he wasn’t engaged and was more interested in everything else in the room, or wanted to grab the book and tear the pages. But with a bit of patience he now sits quietly and listens, and turns the pages when I ask him. I put on accents and tones for different characters’ dialogue and sing along to the songs in my off-key voice. I’d probably feel quite embarrassed if my mates could see me, but  just the two of us (and sometimes his mum) we have a great bonding session.

Deferring again to the parenting books, it’s apparently important for children to be in a calm, comfortable and secure mood when falling asleep, and after the disciplining to get him into the bedroom, this soothes him and puts him in a content and placid mood. He also gets to hear plenty of real talking, instead of the garbage from the TV.

The fun part of having kids is to see them in action. When you consider all the work of feeding, changing diapers, putting up with sleepless nights and messy kids, you can be rewarded with special moments when they are being cute and charming.

Recently there was a sports day at the pre-school we send Luka to. He’s in the youngest class (18 months to 3 years). In Thailand they love uniforms, it’s part of their society and even at 18 months old our son is wearing a uniform to playschool. It’s a uniform nation in many ways and rather than seeing this as stiffling, the Thai are more pleased and delighted to see their little ones in school clothes. Even when the shirts are too big for them.

He does look rather smart and on Wednesdays gets to wear his sports kits and little white sports shoes I had to go and buy (that get used once a week for about 1 hour – the rest of the time they run around bare foot – until he’s grown out of them having barely used them!). 

So, the sports day was a chance for the parents to all show up and be charmed by the sight of their little darlings dashing 10 meters. That was the extent of the competetion and Luka was among the smallest children competing. At 18 months old that didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to be doing. Here’s an account of what happened;

…and in lane five, Luka Chanagan Bond. It was a 10 meter dash. Lane 1 dashed, lane 2 walked, lane 3 took off in the opposite direction, lane 4 dashed then stopped a meter short of the line and looked around as lane 5 took a leisurely stroll and pipped him across the line for THIRD PLACE! Bewildered, Lane 5 runner was put on the podium alongside his buddy Kona who came second. The bronze medal almost hung between his legs, but his daddy was awfully chuffed!

I have to confess, life is tough at the moment. In fact it’s probably the most difficult period – timewise – a parent is likely to experience. With two babies under 18 months mum and dad have their work cut out for them. Despite having the priviledge of a house cleaner daily and my mother-in-law to take care of the youngest one, two working parents with two babies still in diapers is a nightmare.It really is a full time job that demands the full time attention of two people. Luka, who is now 21 months old is a walking disaster, looking for trouble. He has boundless energy and constantly needs amusing. Although he’s able to amuse himself, this generally involves making a mess, breaking something or getting himself into trouble, so I need to keep an constant eye on him when he’s here. Thankfully he’s at playschool most the day.Annabelle spends most her day either breat or bottle feeding or challenging us to get to nap. She’s now old enough to lie beneath a mobile and practice moving her limbs, but needs almost constant attention otherwise she gets insecure and cries. If she’s irritable its an extra challenge to pacify her. Put the two together and you have a calamity, if one of us needs to take a shower, it’s a juggling act to control both. It’s exhausting and any thought of some free time to relax with the paper is out of the question.The worst times are at night when it’s just the two of us. Getting them to sleep is a real challenge. Neither of our children sleep well, often waking several times a night in tears. Of course the older one’s wailing sets off the younger one, and it all adds up to disruptive sleep which wears you down and affects our work. My advice at this stage, try not to have them too close together if you can.

Up until now the star of this blog has been my son Luka, who is now 18 months old. Like all first borns he’s enjoyed undisturbed attention from both his parents, and a host of relatives who are frequently in his life. And then, one day recently, he was taken to the hospital. There was a lot of fuss over another small baby and slowly it dawned on him he has a baby sister, Annabelle. Now he has to share his parent’s attention.

This happens to all children who end up with siblings, and I’m guessing it’s probably one of the biggest hurdles parents have to overcome in a child’s emotional development. So, is he jealous? You bet he is. Amid all the excitement of the arrival of our daughter we couldn’t help noticing his change in demeanour.

Suddenly, this perky little boy went all quiet. He was curious to see what all the fuss was about and on several occasional tried to grab her or touch her, unaware how delicate she is. For sure his behaviour was strange (and it didn’t help that he had an undetected ear/nasal tract problem which was making him irritable), he would suddenly go into fit of crying.

So, what to do when number 2 comes along and number 1 suddenly finds out he’s no long the only number in the family? There is plenty of good advice on the topic in various baby books, I have a volume by the famous Miriam Stoppard called Complete Baby and Child Care (DK). It seems all babies eventually get over it, but it’s obviously a very trying period where you’ve got one baby needing attention every couple of hours from the mother, and another to balance in-between or sometimes at the same time.

When a baby is irritable it will cry and cry and want only the comfort of its mother, and even that’s not enough to satisfy a ‘cry fest’, where you simply cannot figure out what it is they want. We’ve have this quite often with Luka and it’s testing trying to pacify him when the other baby is mewing away wanting milk – which I cannot obviously give.

I’ve had plenty of sleep interrupted nights assisting with one baby while mummy is breast feeding the other. The other night at about 2am he awoke, as he often does, feeling irritable and was soon in a screaming tantrum, acting frustrated as he clung to his familiar little blanket and pillow. Nothing seemed to pacify him, he was simply venting frustration and was probably in a bad mood from waking. His mother was trying to quieten him down while simultaneously breast feeding Annabelle. It became obvious when he started trying to push her out the way.

Eventually we had to remove her from the nipple and I took care of her, while he promptly climbed into his mummy’s arms, curled up (he was exhausted by now from all the crying) and promptly fell asleep. Within a few minutes we had Annabelle back on the breast and the problem was solved.

So, with two babies only 18 months apart it can be very testing in the early stages. There is more to say on this subject, particularly on how to make your first child feel like she or he is not being neglected, so I’ll save it for the next blog entry.

I’ve lost an ipod nano. Actually I lost my visiting sister’s ipod nano, I used it at the gym, put it down when I came home and haven’t seen it since. She was here to see her little nephew for the first time and I suspect his little fingers have relocated it to some place we didn’t think it might be. Months later it might appear, but I’ve been compelled to buy her a new one.

Having little fingers in the house means a perpetual untidiness. They grab everything they can and relocate it. Books get emptied out of shelves, piles of CDs are stacked in the kitchen, and kitchen utensils are deposited all over the house. As if it’s part of his job in this household, Luka can be seen industriously moving things from one place to another. He has a determined look on his face as if he’s an office worker going about his business, and I suspect most other kids do the same.

I’ll be working away and he’ll come up and hand me a pile of papers he’s fished out of the waste basket, as if I really should have them. It’s sweet to see you child purposely handing you things, as if to say ‘here, you’ll be needing these’. I’m not sure whether to congratulate him (clapping hands) for finishing a task or scold him for creating a dreadful mess everywhere he goes.

This is the reality of having kids, especially if you’re habitually tidy like I am. The house becomes one unbearable mess of used clothes, diapers, toys, baby accessories, food, garbage and general items picked up from all over the place. Shoes are great one!  He loves putting on his mums high heels and clunking around the room looking ridiculous (apparently another tots favourite).

So, you can inconvenience your life by sealing up kitchen cupboards, putting almost everything out of reach, and making damned sure you’ve put valuables like ipods away safely instead of leaving them on the kitchen table, or you can perpetually tidy up after your tot. 

Things are sure to disappear, tea spoons run low because they’ve been surreptitiously deposited in the dustbin, books end up in the bath and so on…it’s a nightmare, I tell you. Inversely, garden tools show up in the toilet (he marched in with a rake twice his size the other day), dog food pellets are fished out of my wallet, and I discover business cards in his grasp when he’s nodded off!

On the other hand, he’s learnt where things go. When it’s bath time I help him undress and then he diligently carries the lot over to the laundry basket, sorts the clothes from the diaper, which is then deposited in the trash basket instead, clever chap eh!

Today, in the space of a few hours, little Luka has managed to a) get an electric shock from playing around with a plug socket b) fall down some stairs and c) prod his finger into the fan at the back of a computer. Phew! He certainly knows how to find trouble.

This might sound like unobservant parents but it’s pretty normal for curious little tots. They’re a disaster looking for a place to happen. Forever gravitating naturally to dangerous things, as if they understand that forbidden places and items are somehow more fun. The more you tell them ‘no’ the more they want to see for themselves.

Keeping an eye on your little one is a full time, and tiresome job, and gradually you are going to have to learn to leave them to their own devices, checking in on them every few minutes. As they get older you begin to trust them to longer and longer periods tinkering by themselves.

Luka is at this stage. At 17 months old he’s quite confident and can amuse himself. You can’t spend the rest of your life worrying about your offspring so I’ve conscientiously allowed him more and more independence. But with that obviously comes a bit of judgement and, crucially, learning from each incident and ‘adventure’.

It started with secretly trailing him to see what he got up to and how close he might come to danger. Then I would watch him tackle something potentially hazardous just to see how far he would go and the consequences. If he started to climb into the pond I’d see if he could stand in it alone or recover if he fell over. Well, the pond has since been fenced off but it’s nice to know that he isn’t totally useless in recovering by himself.

Lately he’s taken quite a few knocks. He slips and falls and bangs his head, sometimes he cries but mostly he now just gets up and carries on. If anything it’s the bump to his pride that sets him off on a crying spree, and this is usually only when someone is there to witness it. He’s made a leap of confidence which all of us take with us through life as our comfort zone gradually increases. This I think is one of the really important elements I want to instil in him.

By contrast, his conservatively minded grandmother tends to be neurotic and highly strung about his movements, kicking up a constant drama at his every move. Well, he is unusually inquisitive and active, but with her minding him it’s a constant ‘awash, oooooohhh, noooooooo’. I try to discourage this, allowing him freedom to learn and develop his confidence, as it will be critical to his character in the future.

So, although we have plug sockets sealed, occasionally he’s going to pull out a plug and ‘get his little fingers in the way’, thankfully nothing serious occurred the first time. I didn’t intend for him to ‘test himself’ like that, but it’s useful information. There will be times when he slips through an accidentally open stairs gate – I’ve watched and ‘covered’ him dozens of times as he climbs and he’s always sure footed, but he did fall the other day and rolled down several stairs before luckily coming to a stop. He was in tears, but wasn’t badly hurt, it was just the shock really. 

Between the two of us, we’re building up a ‘confidence and boundary’ profile, of what we can and can’t get away with – always under dads’ discreetly watchful eye.

There comes a time in every tot’s little life, when it’s time to go and mingle with other tots. Some have the priviledge of staying at home with mum or a full time minder for a few years, others are sent off to a child care centre the moment mummy finishes maternity leave.

The baby books will tell you that babies generally don’t play with others their age until they are at least 18 months old. They need to interract with an adult who’s mind is developed enough to deal with them. Of course, there may be young siblings around them who they sort of interract with – but leave two of them alone together and they have difficulty actually playing with each other.

At this age tots are pre-occupied with the things around them (and yes the hair or nose or face of another baby becomes ‘things to grab’!) and rely on the input of intelligent adults to smooth the whole ‘growing up process’. At this stage they are still learning about themselves, with constant input or minding of their parents, close relatives or minder, so that they aren’t quite sure how to deal with another their age.

No doubt all parents have friends with babies the same age and have been delighted at the prospect of putting them together only to see them ignore each other. We excitedly threw a 1st birthday party for Luka, and about 10 babies under 18 months showed up, many almost his age. We sat him in the play pool with five other little girls and he wasn’t the least bit interested in them!

Anyway, getting to the point of the title, we finally decided it was time to send him to play school (at 16 months) since he was getting bored and restless at home with the same old toys and people. I work from home and he was becoming a pain, interrupting me and insisting I amuse him. Time for some proper play school activities. Besides (BIG NEWS) our second child is due in October so it was time, we thought, to get him out the house in good time.

Well, in short, he loved it. The first day we dropped him off he never looked back, excited at the new environment and the group of children playing around. It’s just a converted house full of play items, and the little ones of various ages amuse themselves all day under supervision. With children as old as three or four to ‘lead the gang’ he’s found himself among his first real pals and can tag along and join in.

Of course, by the second week he was experiencing separation anxiety and would be in tears when we dropped him off, but didn’t want to leave when we came to pick him up. The main thing is, he’s now learning to interract with other tots. The other evening we were out eating and there was a group of kids (between 16 months and 6 years) larking around and he excitedly made a bee-line for them and joined in their general energetic maelstrom. He seemed pleased to have the chance to hang out with people his own age.