Sunday 21 July 2013

Terribl(y cute) twos!

Well summer has well and truly arrived and with all this hot weather drying everything up my blog has been no exception! I'm happy to report its nothing other than being a lover of the summer sun. I've been spending every minute I can outdoors trying to maximise time with the kids, which in turn has left little time to write (priorities and all that!)

Rosie is now fully recovered from her op and is certainly making this clear whilst developing a new diva side to her cheeky character.

We've become accustomed to putting common age related 'milestones' aside and have got used to seeing Rosie for who she is, happily achieving things in her own time... With this and her cheeky happy nature in mind we'd completely overlooked the possibility of a 'terrible two's' phase!

One thing we've never experienced (until now) with Bud are those dreaded bedtime battles. Up until this last couple of weeks we've been the envy of our friends with similar aged children as bedtimes with Rosie would consist of milk, a short story, take her up to bed, lay her down with a kiss goodnight and bingo...she'd be asleep within minutes! This happened practically every night without fail regardless of where we were staying too – this girl is a total breeze we thought...

It's a very different story now however. If she's not going all rigid and screaming as soon as she's within sight of her bedroom she's clinging onto us for dear life (whilst laughing) as we try and lower her into her bed. Either way as soon as she is lay on her mattress all hell breaks loose as she screams and cries for our attention. It wouldn't be so bad to leave her for a few minutes but her brothers are right next door and are kept awake as a result – they are like us and don't like to hear her cries, so can often be found in her room trying to comfort her. The moment we step back into her bedroom she stops, sometimes giggles but more commonly starts happily babbling away to us. On one particular night we decided to let her cry for a little while in the hope she'd get tired and just drop off – but no, this girl has willpower! So I went into her room, put on her favourite Tom Petty tunes, lay on the floor next to her cot and held her hand. She lay there totally still looking straight into my eyes with a sleepy, happy, contented smile that quite literally melted my heart. It was such a sweet and special moment I felt helpless to cut it short, so we lay there for about half an hour gazing at each other until she eventually dropped off. As with most things I like to try and find a positive from a negative situation and this is a definite bonus to her new terrible twos phase!

I've included a few recent photos taken at a sensory play centre whilst at Rosie's friend, Lottie's birthday party and a couple of shots playing throw and catch – something she's been developing whilst enjoying garden time.