Parents' evening

We have just attended our first parents' evening at Marisca's nursery.  We were looking forward to it, as it's such a fun activity, but there really wasn't much to it.  Maybe they get more itneresting once Risky starts misbehaving more.

We talked about what Marisca likes to do (read, make tea and toast, sing songs) and what she doesn't (eat her main course at lunch).  We've noticed that she brings more and more ideas home from nursery and apparently it works the other way too; she makes 'toast' for her friends.

Mo (her key worker) told us the things that she does that hit the various parts of the early years foundation thing, as she seems to be going along just fine.  He did have an assessment with scores in various different boxes (hard facts!) but didn't share them with us.

So, what did I learn? Two things - one, that she does have a couple of children that she hangs around with more than the others so is being social (I don't see that much at home) and two, that the song she often wants us to sing that we never understand is something about a turtle.  If anyone knows it, let us know.

One more baking photo

I've a little longer at the computer now, so here's my favourite baking photo which I missed when scanning through them for Elspeth's post earlier.

I like it because it looks for all the world like Marisca is attempting to make fat rascals by some kind of sorcery.

Mother's day

Mummy doesn't know it, but Daddy and I have been making a mess downstairs, which may have resulted in some nice fat rascals for Mummy to eat!

I hope she likes them!

Gardening

We did some gardening today.  Marisca helped.  It was lovely.

22 months

This month, an update by video.  There's a lot going on in Marisca's brain these days, and it's all coming together.  Her communication gets better every day, and now she can do rhymes and actions:

OK, we understand every word she says, but not everyone else will!

The Weekend Walk

Mummy and Daddy and me went for a Walk this weekend. We went to a place called Ogden reservoir. It was a bit wet at first, so we all had to wear our waterproofs. Look! Me and Mummy match, but I look much cuter.

I learnt all about reservoirs and dams, and big things called wind tubines as there were lots of those up on  the moors.  Daddy carried me for most of the walk, but I did my own bit of poddling along as well - after all, I am a big girl now and can walk when I want to.

When we got back to the car the sun had come out, so Daddy and I enjoyed our tea in the sunshine.  My mug of tea seemed to be mainly milk, but it was very nice.

A post about parenting

I'm aware that my posts have really become showing you all a picture of Marisca doing something.  I think that's all good and probably what most of you want: she is, after all, quite lovely, and photographs well.  That said, you don't get to see all of the failed photographs that I take.

So I'm intending to do more posts without pictures, just some of my thoughts on how it is to have a little girl.  I easily recognise that every parent is different and every child is different, and indeed with the same parents and same children, every day is different, so it may be difficult for me to generalise individual situations to a broader pattern.  Following some stuff I did at work recently I realise that I'm more open minded and easy going than most, but I think it would be fun to try and summarise my thoughts and opinions and preach them to you all as fact.

Here goes.

This is about getting water on your face.  There was a post on our work's parents forum about how to avoid getting water on the poster's daughter's face during hairwashing.  Some really imaginative solutions around use of flannels and even snorkels.  It just seems to be nonsense.  Marisca has had a phase of not liking having her hair washed for this reason, and Elspeth is very careful about how her hair is washed, as Elspeth herself has the same dislike, whereas I'm quite cavalier about it.  When we're swimming Risky has no problem with total submersion, or with full showering afterwards once she's sure that the water is the right temperature.  So I think, or indeed I am going to state as a true fact, that it's nothing to do with liking water on the face or not.  That's just a symptom of comfort with the situation and the amount of control the child has - getting water on your face when you aren't in control of it is pretty unpleasant for anybody.  I'm sure that babies aren't born with a water-on-the-face setting.  So, on that basis, I continue to be cavalier in hair washing, and to encourage Marisca to play bath games that involve getting wet faces.  Preferably just hers, but I'm willing to offer my face for wetness as required.

Here ends my fact about parenting for today.