Dear Jake/Jakey/The Bear/Bjorn/Menace,
Time seems to fly by faster and faster as you get older. I can still remember the creeping sluggishness of the days of your first week and wondering how you'd ever be a month old and suddenly you're turning 3 today.
I wonder if time passes so quickly because you're a fun kid to be around at this age and I spend most of my time with you fully engrossed in whatever bit of "playing time" we're up to. Weekends just seem to zip by in a flurry of park visits, reading books, rough and tumble and playing with your cars and bricks on our living room floor. Now that you're starting to speak more and more and string longer sentences together (Daddy no hat, Mummy and Jakey hat), these activities become so much more interesting as you invite me into your world and we can start have imaginary conversations. Even Hobbes has joined in on the action with his own distinctive voice, though I sometimes wonder if you use that dog as a testing ground for behaviours and words that you've found out about at nursery to see what our reaction will be...
You've also got the idea of sharing, whether it's in the cute way of bringing everyone a bar to eat when you're hungry, or stealing my couch or my apple under the name of "Daddy share". In either case, you're growing up to care for others and my heart filled when we went to see Granny earlier this year. She was crying because Baba had died and you told me "Granny sad" and went to give her a cuddle because you know that's what you do. There is nothing better in this life than a Jakey cuddle, especially now that you can put your whole body into it, and the number of bad days at work that you've saved by laying your head on my shoulder and having a squeeze are too many to count.
This year's going to be a big one for you. By the time that your next birthday comes around, you'll have a baby sister and a new house to live in. Both of these are exciting things, but will change how we are as a family. You seem to be happy with the idea of having a baby sister now (before, you just wanted a tiger!) so I hope that you love her as much as we will. It may seem at times that she gets more attention than you, and whilst Mummy and I will make sure that you get our attention too, I want to say here that our love for you will never waver and I still wake up each morning thankful that I get the honour and pleasure of being your dad.
Thursday, 21 May 2015
Sunday, 10 May 2015
Choices, choices
As Jake becomes more and more verbal, both in terms of speech production and his understanding (there is no greater feeling for me when I feel like I'm having a proper conversation with him!), I can see his personality growing and developing in front of our very eyes. Fortunately, this is a child who is filled with fun, a cheeky sense of humour and an already keen sense of fairness and sharing.
The teacher in me, however, sees this ability to interact through words as an opportunity to lay down some rules and boundaries, even at this early age. We're a few weeks away from Jake turning 3 and so far (knock on wood!) haven't seen much of the "terrible twos". Of course, Jake has shown that he is often late to developmental milestones, so it may all be ahead of us. However, I like to think that our choice led approach to situations of potential conflict have reduced stress. For example, in the morning, he gets to pick out which t-shirt he's going to wear that day, or a choice about which coat he's going to wear. By introducing the choice about the coat, there's no negotiation about whether he's going to wear it or not. Bath time is a great example. He's never keen on the thought of having a bath (even though he loves it when he's in), so our nightly conversation goes like this:
Me: Jake, it's bath time
Jake: No bath time, it's playing time
Me: Do you want a bath or a shower?
Jake: Bath please Daddy
And up we go. If he's feeling belligerent, I threaten him with a shower and he'll then choose a bath to avoid the horror of a shower. But it's still a choice, and one that he feels in control of.
This approach means that there's very few times that we have to put our foot down with him, and even those situations can be turned into choices, such as who's car we're going to take or which soft toy he gets to bring food shopping. It works well for us, and it helps Jake to feel in control of the world around him through choices that we're happy with him making. Long may it continue.
The teacher in me, however, sees this ability to interact through words as an opportunity to lay down some rules and boundaries, even at this early age. We're a few weeks away from Jake turning 3 and so far (knock on wood!) haven't seen much of the "terrible twos". Of course, Jake has shown that he is often late to developmental milestones, so it may all be ahead of us. However, I like to think that our choice led approach to situations of potential conflict have reduced stress. For example, in the morning, he gets to pick out which t-shirt he's going to wear that day, or a choice about which coat he's going to wear. By introducing the choice about the coat, there's no negotiation about whether he's going to wear it or not. Bath time is a great example. He's never keen on the thought of having a bath (even though he loves it when he's in), so our nightly conversation goes like this:
Me: Jake, it's bath time
Jake: No bath time, it's playing time
Me: Do you want a bath or a shower?
Jake: Bath please Daddy
And up we go. If he's feeling belligerent, I threaten him with a shower and he'll then choose a bath to avoid the horror of a shower. But it's still a choice, and one that he feels in control of.
This approach means that there's very few times that we have to put our foot down with him, and even those situations can be turned into choices, such as who's car we're going to take or which soft toy he gets to bring food shopping. It works well for us, and it helps Jake to feel in control of the world around him through choices that we're happy with him making. Long may it continue.
Monday, 2 February 2015
Week o'posts - Day 2 - Hobbes
2nd day in, another post! This is one is dedicated to Hobbes, Jake's favourite toy, companion and punching bag, amongst other things. I want to write this as a memory for him and his love for the dog as against a time that he finds something, or someone, else to be more appealing.
Hobbes (Hobby as Jake calls him) came into our lives soon after Jake was born as a gift from a freind of my wife at work, who had got him free with a new car. It wasn't until he started to be able scoot around and found him that the love affair started, but since then they've been inseperable. Hobbes sleeps with Jake, gets tucked into bed in the morning when he leaves for nursery, comes food shopping and generally goes wherever Jake goes. It's adorable how much he loves that dog, especially how often he kisses and cuddles him, whilst getting a smooch out of Jake is a rare talent and one that we still haven't mastered.
Hobbes has also been instrumental in Jake's development. For example, he wasn't a big fan of brushing his teeth, but as soon as Hobbes started getting stickers for brushing his teeth, Jake was all about it and now likes to have them done. It also gave rise to one of my favourite Jake and Hobbes pics:
Hobbes (Hobby as Jake calls him) came into our lives soon after Jake was born as a gift from a freind of my wife at work, who had got him free with a new car. It wasn't until he started to be able scoot around and found him that the love affair started, but since then they've been inseperable. Hobbes sleeps with Jake, gets tucked into bed in the morning when he leaves for nursery, comes food shopping and generally goes wherever Jake goes. It's adorable how much he loves that dog, especially how often he kisses and cuddles him, whilst getting a smooch out of Jake is a rare talent and one that we still haven't mastered.
Hobbes has also been instrumental in Jake's development. For example, he wasn't a big fan of brushing his teeth, but as soon as Hobbes started getting stickers for brushing his teeth, Jake was all about it and now likes to have them done. It also gave rise to one of my favourite Jake and Hobbes pics:
Hobbes at the bottom of the slide, Jake skidding down, scooping up the dog on his way past, giggling his head off.
Because Hobbes was free with a car, he's slowly disintegrating and whilst he smells pretty bad, we are loathe to wash him too often because he comes out with a few more threads showing. Hopefully we can keep patching him up, but a few friends have also suggesting writing to the car company to get a replacement. It's not a bad idea, but I wonder if Jake would notice the difference?
In the meantime, I hope that Jake's obsession with him continues for years to come.
Sunday, 1 February 2015
Twice the fun?
Wow, it feels like forever since I've done this, but as I keep on thinking of things that I want to write about, I feel that I need to push myself to write. I spend so much of my time writing (either for school or for small amounts of money online) that it seems daft that I don't put more on here, so my aim is a blog post a day for a week to get my thoughts down, which will hopefully bring me up to speed and make me write more. Lofty ideas, but I have the 7 titles in my phone, so let's see what happens.
Today is full of thoughts about the second baby. It's always part of our game plan to have two and (with the help of the Clear Blue calculator!) we've timed it pretty well so that Jake will be just over three and I'll be able to use the summer holidays to stretch two weeks of paternity leave in eight.
I think the biggest difference to last time round is how quickly time seems to be going. The first 12 weeks with Jake seemed to drag by and I can remember the relief of having our scan so I could tell people. This time round, we didn't have the scan till 15 weeks, but it didn't seem as bad. In part this will have been because we told our close friends and family before, but also I think that life moves much quicker with Jake (and work, and friends) these days. For example, I can't believe it's February already, meaning that Jake is that much closer to being 3 and the PBE seems as far away as the Stone Age.
It's also interesting seeing how my wife is coping with it this time round. Of course there are similarities (she popped much earlier, but is still grump about being "chubby"), but this time there's been a lot less tiredness and morning sickness, and to be honest, if we hadn't taken a picture of the pregnancy test, I would have thought it was just a dream until our scan. Her cravings are different this time (sour cream and ice cold water at the moment), she still runs cold (she was constantly warm with Jake) and there's a lot more rage (she has a short temper normally, but now it's a few molecules wide).
We have our 20 week scan booked on the 10th February, and people ask us whether we'll find out (yes, it will still be a surprise!) and whether we want a girl or a boy. Last time round, we were pretty set on a girl, so I was pleased we found out ahead of time (still wouldn't trade Jake for the world!). This time round, I hate to sound cliched, but honestly I couldn't care less. It will save us money to have a boy as we've got all the clothes, but I've not been a father to a girl before. The only issue is that we can't agree on a boy's name (though we're getting close) but love the name Zoe for a girl (though I can't find the umlaut on here yet!). Either way, it's going to be fun to find out so we can start talking about Baby 2 as a person, rather than an "it".
On that subject, I think it will make it easier to get Jake used to the idea. At the moment, when we ask him if he wants a baby brother or sister, he says no, and asks for a tiger. Whilst this makes us laugh, I want to start getting him ready for the coming change. This manifests itself in many different ways. For example, my wife and I are starting to make a conscious effort to stop calling him a baby (he's now over 3 feet tall, so it's getting easier) and to call him a big boy or a big brother when he's doing something important (tidying, helping, eating with a fork). It's also a driver for us to get him to sleep in his big boy bed (another post this week) and to potty train him (another post this week). I guess in the end I know that he'll see Baby 2 as a challenge initially, but I want him to realise that the baby will need very different things from us, and whilst there will be times when he may feel left out, he's much more grown up and can do so much more. In an ideal world, he'll learn to love her/him quickly and want to help look after them, but knowing that reality may not work that way, we'll keep talking about it to prepare him as best as possible.
The final thoughts I have about Baby 2 is how we'll cope as parents. This blog has been a source of comfort and an interesting reminder of how much we learned with Jake and things we want to repeat/avoid next time round. However, I'm not looking forward to the sleepless nights again, the worrying about their sleeping and having a tiny person who can't really do much. I don't think we'll realise just how grown up Jake is until we have a new born again in our arms.
Today is full of thoughts about the second baby. It's always part of our game plan to have two and (with the help of the Clear Blue calculator!) we've timed it pretty well so that Jake will be just over three and I'll be able to use the summer holidays to stretch two weeks of paternity leave in eight.
I think the biggest difference to last time round is how quickly time seems to be going. The first 12 weeks with Jake seemed to drag by and I can remember the relief of having our scan so I could tell people. This time round, we didn't have the scan till 15 weeks, but it didn't seem as bad. In part this will have been because we told our close friends and family before, but also I think that life moves much quicker with Jake (and work, and friends) these days. For example, I can't believe it's February already, meaning that Jake is that much closer to being 3 and the PBE seems as far away as the Stone Age.
It's also interesting seeing how my wife is coping with it this time round. Of course there are similarities (she popped much earlier, but is still grump about being "chubby"), but this time there's been a lot less tiredness and morning sickness, and to be honest, if we hadn't taken a picture of the pregnancy test, I would have thought it was just a dream until our scan. Her cravings are different this time (sour cream and ice cold water at the moment), she still runs cold (she was constantly warm with Jake) and there's a lot more rage (she has a short temper normally, but now it's a few molecules wide).
We have our 20 week scan booked on the 10th February, and people ask us whether we'll find out (yes, it will still be a surprise!) and whether we want a girl or a boy. Last time round, we were pretty set on a girl, so I was pleased we found out ahead of time (still wouldn't trade Jake for the world!). This time round, I hate to sound cliched, but honestly I couldn't care less. It will save us money to have a boy as we've got all the clothes, but I've not been a father to a girl before. The only issue is that we can't agree on a boy's name (though we're getting close) but love the name Zoe for a girl (though I can't find the umlaut on here yet!). Either way, it's going to be fun to find out so we can start talking about Baby 2 as a person, rather than an "it".
On that subject, I think it will make it easier to get Jake used to the idea. At the moment, when we ask him if he wants a baby brother or sister, he says no, and asks for a tiger. Whilst this makes us laugh, I want to start getting him ready for the coming change. This manifests itself in many different ways. For example, my wife and I are starting to make a conscious effort to stop calling him a baby (he's now over 3 feet tall, so it's getting easier) and to call him a big boy or a big brother when he's doing something important (tidying, helping, eating with a fork). It's also a driver for us to get him to sleep in his big boy bed (another post this week) and to potty train him (another post this week). I guess in the end I know that he'll see Baby 2 as a challenge initially, but I want him to realise that the baby will need very different things from us, and whilst there will be times when he may feel left out, he's much more grown up and can do so much more. In an ideal world, he'll learn to love her/him quickly and want to help look after them, but knowing that reality may not work that way, we'll keep talking about it to prepare him as best as possible.
The final thoughts I have about Baby 2 is how we'll cope as parents. This blog has been a source of comfort and an interesting reminder of how much we learned with Jake and things we want to repeat/avoid next time round. However, I'm not looking forward to the sleepless nights again, the worrying about their sleeping and having a tiny person who can't really do much. I don't think we'll realise just how grown up Jake is until we have a new born again in our arms.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)