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.

Now we've marched

Yesterday the family took part on the Women's March on London. As I mentioned before, it was R's first protest as a walking individual. So we did try in the lead up to the march to plan appropriately. Part of this is making sure R understood why we were doing this. After all it would be somewhat immoral to bring her to a protest against her will. This involved another discussion very similar to the Sexism at school one, but this time trying to scale up the argument.

After that was the preparation. I did some reading up on how to take a child on a march (Lost the link for that one, sorry) and tried to incorporate as much of that as I could. In the end, this is what we did and what we learned from the process

I won't sit down, I won't shut up

• Make things together — The wife and daughter worked together to make a banner we could carry. It was important to involve the girl since it would help her feel like this was her march. L and R discussed many options for a slogan for one side of the banner: I won't sit down, I won't shut up which is a line from a Frank Turner song that R really likes. The other side of the banner came, somewhat modified, out of my last blog post I can't believe this is still an issue. R helped a bit with the painting, but the bulk of it was L since she has better handwriting that either of us.
• Bring helium balloons — I hate using helium for reasons I won't go into, but it really did help having a floating pointer down to the girl at all times. It meant not losing her in the crowds dozens of times. When it was too crowded to move and we'd not met up with L yet, the girl kept ducking under people to get very slow 250 meters to L. I followed holding the tops of the balloons and apologising to people over and over. Anyway, We filled up six oblong balloons and wrote slogans on each: Girl Power, Women's rights are human rights, This is not normal and Never give up, never surrender. I tried to think of a good Firefly quote to include, but couldn't manage it before we ran out balloons.
• Phone numbers — beyond balloons, we need to make sure R could get back to us if she got lost. So we made sure she had backpack on, with a couple of toys to make her happy, and a large piece of paper with my phone number on one side and L's on the other. I tried to get R to memorise my number, but no. The best she got is that All phone numbers start with zero. Except in America where they start with one.
• Prepare plenty of food — this wasn't as important as I thought it would be, but I suppose it was better to have more food than less. Most of the food was eatable while walking, though I brought a tupperware full of pasta and a spoon, just in case. And napkins, of course. I had more than half the food remaining when we got home. I even remembered to make food for myself, which I something I normally forget
• Water — plus a flask of hot coffee for me. I only brought 250ml for R, and she didn't drink much. I only gave her some when she asked, because I didn't want to risk R drinking too much since there were no loos anywhere in sight. So that worked out too.
• Scooter — Bringing the scooter was a good idea, to a point. She'd have not been able to manage the walk on foot, so to that point it was essential. But it was really hard to get through the densest of the crowds. We have a ScooterSling which is indispensable to a parent, and made it possible to carry the scooter without hitting people in the face or other parts.
• Keep warm — That was pretty easy. When we were still, everything was jam packed, so that was warm. When we were moving, that kept us warm too. Base layers were enough. Though I did have an extra scarf in her backpack (with the toys) just in case.
• Be a little paranoid — The kettling and other problems at the student marches has gotten me paranoid. I brought no wallet, just a credit card, a bit of cash and an old phone with all unessential accounts and access turned off. Nothing to worry about, it turns out. It was safer than an afternoon at the pub. This time.
• Plan in analogue — The big miss of the day was when everyone changed the meet up point and didn't tell me. I got a message from L with a URL pointing to a spot on a map, not quite realising how bad LTE does internet when you are with thousands of people in a single cell. A dot on an empty grid. Great. Lessons learnt: always phone or send an SMS with a specific crossroad. And next time, paper maps it is, or maybe some downloadable maps like Here. And figure out in advance which roads are completely closed due to sodding Crossrail.
• External phone charger — Essential. If you have a modern phone, never leave the house without a charger. If you have an old phone, like I did, the battery is completely shot anyway, so never unplug it from the charger.
• Be ready to explain crude language — as well as unpleasant discussion on unexpected topics. It's important that the protesters don't water down their anger or message, so it's up to you to prepare your child for what they see. Part of it is not freaking out when someone starts a chant calling the American president a fucker. And part of it is just explaining that they're being crude. And another part is telling them how you'll explain it later when it's not so loud – which buys you a bit of time to figure out how to put the explanation into words, or them to stop caring.
• Have cuddles ready — people don't look for kids, so they'll get hit in the face with things. But they're resilient, so a heartfelt cuddle is usually enough to get them up and going again. Likewise, be ready to stop for while when the kid's had enough. Near a lamppost or other barrier is ideal, so you don't both get trodden on.

All in all, the people at the march were amazing. On the bus trip down, the balloons made for an excellent conversation starter with several Are you going to the march? introductions. R got friendly enough with the people sitting behind us that she turned the conversation on fighting for liberty and freedom into explaining in great detail why she likes Ahsoka Tano (from Clone Wars) so much. All through the march people were just in good spirits and had nice things to say. It's been so long since I've been in such a crowd in London that wasn't a commute I forgot what it was like to just be easy going and nice to people. For that alone I'm glad we went.

R gave up just before the march got to Trafalgar Square. She'd just had enough and wanted to go home. Or to a park. But mostly home. Barring the trip to the loos for L on the way, getting home was uneventful. We watched a few Rebels episodes and then R went to bed pretty quickly, all properly tuckered out from the day.

Walking backwards

The girl has been walking for 6 months now. She stared at a slow stumble which has grown into a fairly confident toddle. She'll even run – when she thinks she's been caught doing something wrong. The past few days have seen her pick up a couple of new skills I wasn't expecting to see anytime soon.

The first is walking backwards. I didn't even know toddlers could do that. She started by backing slowly away from things, but once she realised what she could do, she started walking backward down hallways every chance she gets. Of course she does not realise yet that she really has got to look behind herself when doing it. Which is a bit scary. She's already stepped backwards into a stairwell, which fortunately was only two stairs high. A small, but reasonable amount of crying ensued.

The other new skill is walking on tiptoes. I've only caught her doing this once. Something was clearly amiss with the way she was stepping, and I had to look quite closely to see what was up. When I pointed it out, the wife said she'd seen the girl do that once before, and, at first, thought her shoes were fitting her badly, making her walk funny. But, no. She's intentionally walking tiptoed. Not that it was helping her reach higher places (at the time), but I suspect that's all in her plan.

On a separate note, she's saying full sentences now. No idea what words are in those sentences, but once we can get that translated we'll be nicely on our way.

Now we are walking

She started walking for real on Tuesday. L gave her the bottom end of a crutch, which she used as a cane. Quite successfully, too. The girl used it to keep her balance while walking, and even tried to use it to help her stand from sitting.

By Thursday she no longer needed the crutch. Which was good, since we lost it. She was standing easily on her own and walking without being prompted. And opening cabinets, because she's not just picking up one skill at a time.

Today, L and I were playing catch with the child. L sat on the floor about six feet away from me, holding the girl, and I'd beckon her over. She'd walk to me giggling the whole way. I'd turn her around, and she'd walk back to L. Repeat over and over. It's really quite fun.

Three legs for elevenses

I tried an experiment last weekend. We were at the park with some friends. One of their kids had a pinwheel on a long somewhat sturdy stick. I wanted to see how the girl got by with standing if she could use a cane.

She stands easily enough holding on to things, but up till then had never stood for more than a few seconds. So I demonstrated to her how she could hold the stick braced against the ground and stand that way. She understood, but not in the way I expected. She held on the stick and stood for a bit. Then lifted the stick in the air, still holding onto it tightly. And she stood for the next 30 seconds or so. Then she took a single step before decided this was too much, and sat down.

Clearly, she understood it was the stick that helped her stand. Though she didn't get that it helps her stand by bracing it against the ground. But, whatever works for her. I need to get a stick like that for her, so she can practice this at home.

Edited to add: Turns out she's done much better since then. I took this shot the next day, but it illustrates this story quite well.

Now we are different

This is not the same girl went on holiday with two weeks ago.

We came back a few days ago. Over the period we were gone the wee one has levelled up quite a bit.

She's now producing a stream of babble. Before she could say a few syllables, sometimes in combination. Now I'm pretty sure she's saying what she thinks are words. Every now and then she'll repeat something back someone says to her. That's the best part – not necessarily her understanding, but her clearly interacting.

She's learned to point. Finally my point vs poke training has come to fruition. She'll point at something of note and say Dat!, which I can only assume means What is that?So I always answer her with That's a painting or That's a mirror or That's toilet paper.

She gotten lots of other hand movements. She was waving before we left. She's regressed a bit on that, but she's started waving again a couple of days ago. She also enjoys shaking hands. At least she'll stick out her and and let you shake it. She'll also put her hands on her hips. I can't tell if it it's intentional, but she often has a bit of a stern look about her when she does it.

Stairs. She can go up and down stairs now. All the shallower carpeted stairs at her grandparents' and my uncle's places really helped. She's since been able to go up an entire flight of steep wooden stairs at our place. She's much slower and hesitant in going downstairs. It's basically, sit on the stair facing out, dangling her feet over the edge until she's practically standing on the step below. Then she stands on the stairs below, holding on to the bannister.

She's not quite standing. Well, she doesn't think she can stand. She can stand holding on to things, or leaning against something. But she'll only stand unsupported for a few seconds before she realises and sits down. But a controlled sit, which is good.

She still can't walk on her own, but she walks quite well when holding hands. Or using a walker. Or box. Or anything draggable that's big enough to lean against. She's far more comfortable with it than when I walked her through her first queue at the start of the holiday.

All this progress seems to have come at a price. She's sleeping very lightly now. It seems like any movement near her will wake her up. She will wake up without crying, sometimes, which is nice. But she's still awake and really hard to get back to sleep.

She's also not eating much. she'll breastfeed like a champ, but she's hardly eating any solid food we put before her. Even roast mushrooms, her heretofore favourite, are summarily tossed on the floor.

I'm hoping that goes away soon and we can get her to bed and stay asleep without too much effort. I've been a bit dozy in the brain the past couple of days at work.

In other news, I found an article online which explains the whole "fine with just one child" thing far better than I did the other day. Must be something in the air to cause both of us to post the same thought at the same time.

Standing and walking

She took rather quickly to walking. It plateaued for a bit, but seems to have improved in the past day.

The first day, I would hold her under the arms, dangle her feet on the floor, and twist her a little side to side, so first one foot would move forward, then the other.

The next day, I tried again, and she would move her a feet a little forward when I twisted her.

A coupled of days later, and all we needed to do was to hold her enough to keep her balanced. She'd kick one floppy leg forward, the foot would land on the floor, and she'd pull herself along. Repeat. She's walking. Not by herself, but, if we hold her hands, she can walk across a room. She really likes it. So far we've taken a number of videos of her crossing the room.

Today she's standing with only the tiniest of supports. Just pushing against my pinky finger is enough to keep her upright. Until she starts getting tired, of course. She's mastered cruising. Before she could move along bannisters or the baby cage. ow she can hand off from the sofa to a chair the the baby cage and back again. Arms reaching to their full extent to cross the space between furniture.

It seems that now that she's over her colds of the past few months, she's making up for lost time. Her EC has improved drastically to, with few misses in the past couple of days.

In other news, she's got her 8 month checkup with the health visitors tomorrow. They've been mixed quality so far. I'm hoping it's not a waste of time.

Now we are cruising

The little one started crawling and standing at around the same time, back in Feb. Her crawling is getting much better. She was flopping one hesitant hand on the floor at a time. Now she'll move from room to hallway – where she'll get distracted by something and stay for a while.

She can also now stand, but only holding on to something. So she'll pull herself up on a baby gate, chair, table or whatever she can find, and then just stand for ages. She's taken to bending down while holding on to pick up a toy. It's cute – she bends over like an old lady. Weird symmetry there.

She's also trying very hard to stand without holding on to anything. But she ends up just doing a downward facing dog. I suspect standing on her own will be coming quite soon.

She's cruising to the extent that she'll hold on to something and slowly shuffle down the length of it to get where she wants to be. For those non-baby people reading this, cruising means just that – walking by holding on to something and moving along it.

She likes standing. She seems to really like it, and will pull herself up whenever she can. All. The. Time. Especially when she's upset. It seems to be her way of self-soothing.
Which is quite annoying, since a child learning to self sooth is the big hurdle on the way to getting them to fall asleep on their own. And clearly, she's not going to fall asleep while standing, holding on to the side of a cot. So easy sleeping is not in the cards for us anytime soon. In fact, I can hear the wife downstairs right now trying to sing her to sleep. I'm always torn, if I go down there to try to help, seeing me may wake the girl. Or maybe tag-teaming the lulling may help. It's really hard to tell how the wee one's going to react.

As an aside, I've not posted for ages and ages. I've been ill with complications and now springtime allergies. The wife was ill. The child was ill. I'd had nothing to write about except how unpleasant a family of snot and fever was. And I've done that enough times that I figured a break was in order. I read a book. And ate a lot of ice cream.

On a final note, I finally got the cheque from Virgin Atlantic for the damage they did to the pram on our flight to the States when she was 3 months old. She was 7 months old when we got the cheque. Again, not impressed.