My youngest (nearly 4) is very very clever - he knows just what to say to get out of trouble. He was out of his bed so many times this evening and just as you’re about to lose your temper, he looks up at you with his big blue eyes and says ‘I just came out to tell you I love you!’…
My two-point-five year old the other day was at dinner with us. We were eating homemade mashed potatoes, homemade chicken nuggets and pickles (she loves pickles so we give them to her whenever we feel like our meal isn’t nutritious enough). She, famously, doesn’t like chicken and was having nothing to do with nuggets (she changed her mind about them the next day when we had them for leftovers…). She saw me and my partner using ketchup on ours and you could see the cogs turning in her head trying to figure out how to justify asking for ketchup despite not eating her chicken nuggets.
2.5yo: Can I have ketchup? me: What do you need ketchup for? 2.5yo: <contemplative silence> … … “POTATOES!”
And that’s the story of how my 2.5 year old ate one bite of potatoes slathered in ketchup and then proceeded to eat the rest of the ketchup we put on her plate with a spoon.
Can I request that we keep the original mad scientist vibe for the thread title? “A new life” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Also, y’know, twins =P.
Slightly unrelated. I literally discovered this thread on SUSD yesterday so hi, I have 2 boys.
We had kids before most of our friends, so were the first to be hit by all this stuff. They’re 12&11 now and the eldest is very much a pre teen.
I saw something on twitter a couple of months ago which is a beautifully sad sentiment about parenting. It said it would be wonderful to know the last time you would do something.
I’m welling up now, but there is a last time they want pushing on the swings, or a last time they want Zog read in silly voices at bed time, or the last time you get to put them in the bath.
Kids change, and there is always a first time they do something. We got to take ours to see s stand up just before lockdown, we can share books and music but treasure those last times, even though you won’t know they’re happening.
My two are so different with food, but both equally weird.
One is so fussy that he won’t eat a potato unless it’s chip shaped, while the other one will add a spoon of strawberry youghurt to a mouth already full of tuna sandwich…
I do not envy you; it sounds like you have quite a challenge ahead of you.
My oldest, now two.five, was the happiest baby; always smiling and playing. My youngest, in just 9 months, has demonstrated that she is going to be our “dramatic” child- everything she’s ever done has been in the name of drawing attention to herself and she won’t let you forget that she’s there and that she has something to say (well, scream, at least)
Of course, my once-always-happy baby is now approaching her “threenager” phase and is becoming (randomly) opinionated as she explores new boundaries every day. She’s no longer “always happy,” like she once was, but she’s still generally well-behaved. She does sense when my partner is exasperated and take advantage to push new boundaries… so that’s been our primary struggle lately, outside of keeping the 9mo from eating literally everything the older one leaves on the floor.
If there is anything that kids bring you, is a new feeling about time. I remember being told, record stuff, cause it flies by and before long they will have changed so much you won’t remember. Great advice.
Mine are nearly 8 and nearly 4 (both June girls) and sometimes I look at my older and think, gosh, it feels like yesterday I was changing your nappies. Enjoy them! Soon you will not be the centre of their worlds!
Since we’re locked down with the kids here (3 and 5) and I’m working from home, I can say that I never appreciated my previous hour-long commute as much as I should have done.
That said, my five-year old is starting to appreciate his dad a little more. I’ve been reading him The Warlock of Firetop Mountain as his bedtime story, which has gone down very well, and on rainy days we’ve played a slimmed-down version of Descent which made me ‘A cool dad, like a rock and roll man’ which I’m considereing having inscribed on my gravestone, so it’s not all bad.
I’ve managed to get my four year old daughter hooked on The Hobbit after finding my very old graphic novel of the book. She can now give a very good rendition of the journey taken by Thorin Oakenshield’s company, especially when she goes and finds my One Ring RPG books to trace the route on the map and point out where everything happened.
I’ll have a one year old next week. At the last visitors we had before lockdown started (6 weeks ago? Maybe? It blurs.) included a two year old who taught him to crawl. Now he’s walking along holding himself up on the side of the couch and can reach the table top. I miss safe spaces to leave things.
He’s also leant to blow raspberries on my belly and it’s the proudest he will ever be.
Sounds like our friends 2 year old. I can only wish you luck.
Ok, I also wish a TARDIS would land in your living room. We’re struggling enough with one child and lots of space. I can’t imagine how you’re doing.
The twins have worked out they can escape their cage by putting any suitably-sized object next to the fence, standing on it, and hauling themselves onto the sofa. There is nowhere to move the sofa to. They can also open doors now.
My partner and I were not prepared for our youngest. When our oldest was between 9 months and a year old, she would usually sit in one spot on the floor, chewing on whatever was in arm’s reach. Rarely, if there wasn’t anything suitable for chewing, she’d scoot across the floor slowly until she found something she wanted to put in her mouth.
My youngest has been crawling since 6 months and is fast, twice or three times faster than my other one. She’s also, at 9 months, frighteningly close to walking and she knows it. Between the older one leaving everything on the floor or on the edge of the couch and the younger one being so fast to get around, it’s really a wonder we haven’t had to call poison control yet.
I’m sure I’ll roll with it!
I don’t want to think about that just yet!