Now we play telephone

My firstborn now has a phone. She's had a whole bunch of firsts lately and the phone is mostly for my paranoia's sake to make sure she can stay safe in all her activities. Let's see, what new things is she up to or will be soon?

• She got her first Young Person's Travelcard. Which means she can now take all the busses she wants to. Alone. She has to pay for the tube so at least I know she'll not be going off to random places. Intentionally. She's not a got a good sense of direction and I worry she'll end up in Morden on her way to some afterschool club.
• She's starting secondary school next week. It's a bit of an awkward trek. I'm pretty sure she can manage it without a phone. Which is good because the school does 't allow phones at all in the building at all. Whatsoever. A Policy I find quite antediluvian. but then again, they have a dress code, which I find mad as well. but that's a post for another time.
• She's got after school activities she'll be going to on her own. I've been going with her to some for years, and still she can't recall which bus we take and which stop to get off at.
• she's been going over to friends houses a bunch. Not that I don't trust her to walk a well known route that's like 10 minutes by foot. It's more we want to be able to remind her to pick up stuff on the way home, or her to have a way to get in touch when she somehow turns the 10 min walk into 40 min by getting on the wrong bus or something.
• We did make a set of house keys for her, but we didn't them to her yet. Mostly because she's never home when we are not, so the only point would be if we're too lazy to walk to the door to let her in. but I also worry about her losing the keys, as changing locks is such a huge pain.

So I got her a S30 Nokia. It's almost completely unchanged from the 90s. The only difference is it's in colour and the speaker can make more sounds. But otherwise it's the exact same terrible UI which made the iPhone such a success. It takes a "mini" size SIM (you know, the biggest possible SIM you can find) which I didn't think anyone used anymore. But it is a lovely shade of blue, which I like.

It doesn't even have internet – something I feel kind of guilty about. Partly because I'm paying for a few GB of data, which she'll not be able to use. And partly because she's missing out on things like bus schedules and maps. I feel zero guilt about no whatsapp, though.

I also feel guilty about making her have to use T9 to write text messages. I hated that back in the day, and switched to stylus/touchscreen/mini-qwerty phones as soon as I possibly could. But this thing doesn't even have Bluetooth. So she's now learning how to associate letters with the number buttons. Like she's a millennial or something.

In the end, this phone is an experiment. It's to see if she can keep it without losing or breaking it. I mean, it's a Nokia, so breaking it will be a challenge. Losing, I really don't know. I do know her track record of keeping pairs of gloves as a pair is bad enough we stopped buying her gloves. I have told her that if she does manage to not lose it and keep it one piece for long enough we can upgrade to something more 21^st century.

Halloween firsts

First Halloween for T this year. When he was an infant he spent it in a sling. When he was one, C19 mean there was no way we were taking the risk. This year I think we were able to take enough precautions to keep us safe

He and I went around the neighbourhood. He'd knock on the doors with the houses with pumpkins and decorations. I'd then known louder or use the knocker that he'd not be able to reach. When they answered, he'd always just try to walk inside. And I'd have to remind him Say Trick Or Treat. And he would say Trick or treat while I pulled him back over the threshold (That's not how we do things tonight). Then they'd hold out basket for him to pick a candy from. About a third of the time the person would also say how adorably cute he is. And he was, indeed, cute, in his little skeleton suit and skull jacket.

I don't think T has any clue what he was being given, or the meaning of this all. But he would literally run to the next house (sometimes missing a house in his excitement), so he clearly was having a great time. When we passed in sight of his sister, he'd yell out her name at the top of his lungs so she'd be sure to notice him.

This was R's first Halloween trick or treating entirely without us. She was in a group of friends, all ten or eleven, and I think there was a parent with them too. They hit our neighbourhood as well as the next one over. Which is why R and I kept running into them – we both took rather random routes through the area.

R decided she would eat half her candy before she got home. I've no idea why she thought this would be a good idea, but she ended up throwing up the lot on the street, which brought a quick end to her outing. I hope she now realises that we ration out her sweets for a good reason, and with her best interest in mind.

In completely unrelated news, later that evening she lost her first molar.

Now we argue

T is generally quite agreeable. He's new to language, so it helps that he accepts that things are called what we tell him they're called. However on one case he seems quite obstinate.

The other day we were sitting together and he heard a birdsong from outside.

Dogs!

No. It's a bird.

Dogs!

That's a bird singing.

Dogs!

Bird.

Dogs!

B-ir-d.

Dogs!

Bird.

Dogs!

Bird!

Dogs!

Biiiiirrrd.

Dogs!

Ok. Nevermind.

The next day we're sitting again and he hears some construction noise from down the street.

Bird!

sigh No. That's just a noise.

Bird!

Shortly after that a bird calls in the distance.

Dogs!

Tell you what – we'll pick this up later.

Now we have words

One advantage of having children is that it gives some geography to lockdown. The baby who was just starting to eat solid foods at the start of it all is now on the verge of talking. The little girl is now somehow creating poetry and music that is actually pretty good. If not for them, every day would be some unidentifiable variant of work, food and mild entertainment.

T is starting to talk. He's been making progress for some time. He's been mastering repeating words said to him. He's recently reached the point of being able to recognise words and use some in the right context. He's still missing out on certain letters. B replaces many letters at the start of words (Bup instead of Cup). He still can't manage G and K sounds.

• duch instead of duck
• meeeb instead of milk
• dodds instead of dogs
• beeboo instead of peekaboo
• dood instead of good – though he does get the G right on rare occasions
• beeejuu which is his version of pleasure to meet you which he says when someone shakes his hand

I'm impressed that one of his first words was Please (beeeze). Addmittedly, it's used in the "gimmie" sense of the word. But I'm determined to appreciate it anyway. More recently he's added sorry, usually alongside hurt, given how easy it is for an aging adult to injury themselves doing toddler-related things like lifting and carrying.

Just so I have a record for later, his most common words are mostly body related Eye, ear, nose, boop (the noise of poking someone on the nose), bebby (belly), bum, feet, arm. Plus a bunch of normal nouns like loo , ball, sit and shirt.

He's picked up a lot of other mimicry. He's not bad at baby sign language. Probably better at remembering those gestures than I am. 2 days ago he started the blow-a-kiss gesture, which is rather sweet, especially when used alongside hi and bye. Yesterday he today he grabbed a tissue and wiped his nose. I've no idea if he actually needed to or was just copying.

He'll also put a flat duplo or block or suchlike against his ear and say Hello.... ummm..... I feel that he's trying to say that I say um a lot on the phone.

Like his sister, he'll point at a picture of himself and say, You! The other day he poked me in the chest with his index finger and said, meeee.

Speaking of R, she had a whinge at me yesterday about how the world is all screwed up and everyone is expecting her generation to fix it. I did, first off, apologise for Gen X for never having gotten sorted out enough to either really fix anything (or really break anything, for that matter). Then I said that maybe the millennials might fix some things so there's less burden on her. That did not help.

Yes, I still exist

Having two children leaves me with very little time for the pondering and writing I need to maintain this blog. Actually, there's a lot of things I've not really had time to do since the son was born. I've hardly had any time to work on the daughter's spaceport beyond simple repairs. Spare time seems to go to cleaning and reorganising rooms and just trying to have enough space in this home for 4 humans.

R is 9 now. As she gets older I'm less comfortable putting details about her life out there. Part of it is that it's not my story to tell. On the other hand it's my life too. So I generally keep details here to a point where she won't hate me for this later. That said, she's a proper human now. She's grown. Her legs are only 10cm or so shorter than mine. And she seems to know more about cellular biology than I ever did (Thanks lockdown). She also can fall alseep on her own now without being tricked, but I do still read to her from a book every other night because we both like it and, TBH, it's the only recreational reading I ever do these days.

The boy, T, is 15 months now. I've skipped a lot of his life on this blog. He's very different from R, even though they look really similar, especially in the first few months. They both got teeth really early (like at 3 months). They both started walking early (he started at 8 months, but slowly built up to it over the course of 2 months when he could walk around the room just fine. she started at 10 months, but just decided I walk now and in the space of 3 days was a pro). I don't think many of the differences between them are boy vs girl. They're just different people with brains and bodies that work differently. Plus he's grown up more than half his life in some form of isolation or lockdown, so he's not had much physical socialisation. No idea if that's had a big impact on him or not, tho.

Some interesting things about T:

• He never got into crawling. He bear walks – back legs slightly bent, knees nowhere near the floor.
• Until quite recently he's had no sense of stairs. To go downstairs he'd just walk straight off the step and just expect someone to catch him. Needless to say, the stairs have been babygated off.
• His favourite book is We're Going on a Bear Hunt. When he was young, he didn't like any other books. The only way to keep his attention in another book was to start a page with We're going on a bear hunt. We're going to catch a big one. followed by the book's actaual text.
• bear was his first word. He has a very easy time with words that begin with B, to the point that he inserts a B to make words he can't otherwise pronouce. He says up as bup.
• He's picked up some baby sign language and will actually make signs. "Hurt", "Done" and "More" are the 3 he uses most. The last of which make sense since he eats amazing amounts of food.
• When he wants me to sit next to him, he pats the surface he's sitting on with his hand. I always dutifully join him there. Whenever I pat the seat next to me to get him to join me, he ignores me and acts as if I did nothing.
• He learned to say no pretty early on. Not in a terrible 2s kind of way, but more in a helpful way to answer questions. Do you need the loo? no.. He may have said yes once or twice, but I can't really tell. He certainly never says yes when we ask if he wants something. He laughs uncomfortably and manaically, which is a good sign. But no words.

I could go, and at some point I'll go into more details about things. When I have the time.

Plague diary: Shopping

I went to the shop today. This was my second attempt. Last time I tried there was a queue the length of the outside of the supermarket. Today I avoided the queue by going at stupid o'clock at night.

I've hardly left the house at all since getting sick, so a trip to the shops was a big deal for me. I've lost lots of leg muscle sitting around all day, and I need to start using it before my health starts suffering from plain old neglect. I wore a hoodie, a hat (I got a terrible haircut just before the lockdown), and a mask with a handful of reusable bags. I'd been told many things about supermarkets in this new world, and I was very curious to see it myself.

It was 20:30 and very few people were in the shop. So the one-way shopping I was warned about wasn't in place. Here were my main take aways

• It was pretty easy to stay 2m+ from everyone else at this hour. Only twice did I have to adjust my path to get around or make room for someone walking nearby.
• No eggs. At all. Why eggs, though?
• No vanilla
• There was flour. Bread flour only, though. Not sure what that means besides everyone must be making cookies or something
• there was plenty of dishwasher stuff except rinse aid. Which is the one thing I'm out of. I can't imagine everyone else is out of it at the same time. But evidence shows otherwise.
• The shop finally stocks the brand of decaf espresso that L likes. And it's on sale!
• I left uncomfortable picking up items to decide if I wanted them. So everything I picked up I bought. It meant for a bit more impulse buying than I normally do
• All the tellers were in the same queue. You'd just queue up and go to the first free teller. Just like passport control. No more getting bitter seeing the queue next to you going faster than yours. I do so hope they keep this.
• Big clear plastic barrier between the tellers and the buyers. Which is good to see they're trying to keep their staff safe. That said, only one of the tellers had a mask. So I guess they felt safe. I do so hope I'm not longer contagious.

The walk back was kind of hard, as I'm not used to the exercise. The mask actually made it notably harder to breathe, and I was kind of dizzy when I took it off.

I keep my outside clothes quite separate from anything I wear in the house but I suspect it'll be impractical to wash them after every time I leave the house. I wonder if, over time, we'll start having disinfectant closets for outsidewear, so it can be made safe from viruses. Something like UV-C lights or some kind of spray. It would make me more comfortable about contamination.

Plague diary: Day 38 - back working

Day 3 of me back at work. The C-19 has subsided enough that I've been able to work, but I've been so knackered by the end of the day, that it's taken me a while to blog about it.

Day 1 of work went ok, beyond the drop in energy at the end of the day. And of course, I managed to sleep funny on the inflatable mattress. Getting out of bed was such pain I just had to sit on the floor for a minute or two. I got through the morning, but I had to give up in the afternoon. OTOH, my lungs were actually able to fill to the bottom, so, if it's not one thing, it's another.

Back in time a bit... Two weeks ago, the wee boy woke up in the night, and crawled off the bed. The baby monitor we were using (which we used when R was a baby) gave up giving us audio, so we didn't notice him deciding to roam around. After roaming off the bed entirely, and the crying that ensued afterward, L and I took action. 1) Barriers so he could not get out of his cot, and 2) a new, working baby monitor.

The barriers are working, but the baby monitor is crap. the camera gets up to 50^C just being plugged in, not even on. So we have to return it.

Back to the present. I've been calling every day since Sunday, being on hold, waiting for someone to answer, and finally giving up. Yesterday, instead of working with back pain, I lay down on the sofa, feet in the air, and pipe under the painful part of my back, on hold for an hour and 42 minutes. When they finally answered, I discovered I was asleep and had to drag myself into sentience. Despite the wait, they were very fast and efficient resolving my request to return it. In fact, they just picked it up and took it away 2 minutes ago, as I was writing this.

Given the inflatable had betrayed me, last night I slept in my own bed. It was lovely. I didn't sleep very well, but I awoke with no back pain, so that's really nice. Day 3 of work had almost practical levels of energy, so I could do things. Let's hope this continues