Aimee Horton

So, if you hadn’t already guessed…Fatso is now crawling.  A lot later then his brother, but he’s there, he’s done it FINALLY.  I thought this would make him less frustrated and less grumpy (he’s gone from being lovely and happy and content, to quite hard work, darn him), but it hasn’t.  He hates crawling.  Proper. Super. Hates it.  It’s a necessity to him, but there is no enjoyment out of it, it just takes him towards the food, or towards something to pull himself to standing with.

Because of this, I am now regularly followed around by the thud of fat hands and knees accompanied by the crying sound effects.  Climbing at my legs when I’m cooking, pawing at my knees while I’m having a wee, face pressed against the (should be cleaner) glass of the shower cubicle (you guessed it, while I’m showering).  It’s not enjoyable.  It’s usually a result of me trying to put him down somewhere after walking around while he holds on to my fingers, when that happens he suddenly resumes the “plank” position, and unless you use a foot *cough* I mean, unless you bribe him with a toy it’s impossible to make him sit down.

I think I must breed this type of child because whenever The Beast is upset/at the end of the tantrum, he walks towards me arms outstretched wailing, face red and puffy, snot streaming, and it doesn’t go well when I run away.  I have no idea why.

At home, you just get on with it, but when you’re out and about it’s a bit more different, you have things to do.  When you pick them up from nursery some times (usually when it’s cold and raining) you get two different delay tactics (they would rather stay at nursery then come home – should I be worried, or should I try and palm them off?), you get the car seat plank where Larry stretches out and throws his head back, refusing to bend in the middle and screams.  When Theo used to do this – if a bribe didn’t work – I found a technique, which whilst I wasn’t particularly proud of it, it did the job.  I used to climb in front of him, hold the harness with both arms drop him in fast, then using my head to bend his stomach fasten him in.  This probably lasted about 2 weeks before he got the message.  With Larry – I fear that I will lose my head in his stomach for ever.  There is also the light switch flick.  This is where The Beast has to climb in by himself, positions himself in the middle of the car, standing between the car seats and flicks the light on and off.  It’s only a matter of time before my battery is flat because of that little game.  With this, I’ve managed to after much threats catch him off guard by pulling his belt loop, hood and shoe in one swift swipe.  This makes him loose his balance and he falls perfectly into the car seat where I use the head technique and fasten him in.  He then gets no reward chart magnet.  I get snot in my hair.  Neither of us are particularly happy.

When we’re out and about, the pushchair plank has only just started.  In fact.  It caught me off guard.  Fatso LOVES his pushchair, he will happily sit and watch the world go by.  But for the first time ever when I actually met with my friend (@JordanFleet) at Meadow Hall.  After lunch I went to put him in his pushchair…and all of a sudden he was flat as a pancake (well as flat as a fat wobbly baby can get).  Luckily I still only need to bribe him with a sneaky dummy or packet of raisins.  We all know as per the lying by the puddle incident The Beast can zombie at the blink of those big grey eyes.  He will walk in front or behind you arms stretched in front of him until you pick him up.

Reading that back, I’m not really getting many rewards for my smashing parenting skills am I?  Oh well.  I will probably have to use at least one of the above in about half an hour when I fetch the kids from nursery.

Then I will need a strong G&T.