Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Enter the toddlerdome

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Life is good. Toddlers are more full on that little bubbies but they are so much more fun. miss s is a walking, talking, dancing machine. She has inherited my love of music but also my dancing style - poor love.  She has a lot of energy and I find our evenings are a lot smoother if she has plenty of park time during the day. Seeing that I find it very interesting when others post their habitual day, I thought I'd write up the loveliness that makes up our days at the moment.*
Most days, unless I'm working, we get up around 7 and have some banana and then some cheese toast.  Sienna has a bit of a play in her cot with some toys while I get myself cosied up for the day. Around 8am we are usually out of the house and walking to our fabbo local park. It has the most awesome play equipment, acres of green grass and a decent coffee outlet nearby. It also has a natural wetland with native black and canadian mountain ducks, coots, black swans, swamp hens and hundreds of sulphur crested cockatoos. miss s has a small snack whilst we are there and then we are back home at about 10. miss s goes down for a nap around 10.30 and sleeps anywhere from 1.5hrs to 3 hours. Absolute heaven given that she was the ultimate 40 min napper for most of last year. During this time, I do emails, read blogs, try to restrain myself from online shopping, commit to some form of housework/ cooking. When miss s wakes up, I have hers and my lunch ready and we eat it together at the table or she perches on my lap if she is feeling a bit snuggly.  We then read some stories**, play with her current obsession play-dough, Sienna might have a play in her room whilst I finish up a few things and then we do our errands for the day, visit friends and try to fit in a walk to the local park (although the pram is not her favourite place to be anymore so the afternoon is usually car-rides everywhere). I try to be home by about 4pm so as to do a bit of a clean up and get dinner sorted. Sienna is usually pretty happy to play at my feet. mr k has been able to get home much earlier these days so we have a bit of a 'nanna' dinner at around 5.30-6pm and then Sienna gets the bath or shower with one of us, bedtime stories and her special night song and it is lights out by 6.30 - 7pm and mr k collects her from her room the next morning at around 7am.

Sienna was such an erratic napper for the first 12 months that my days were all over the place. I could never commit to being anywhere so I am really enjoying being able to plan to do something and actually do it. I spent hours in the car as she wouldn't transfer to her cot. I was also so knackered because she was feeding so much at night. For months she would sleep through the night and then I would have months of being up every 2.5 hours (and less!).  Magically she has turned into a full night sleeper and goes down for her one nap without a peep***. A deeply empathetic "yay" is heard quite often around here.

*this of course doesn't include the parts of the day where miss s throws herself off the furniture, refuses to get off my hip or does such a poo-nami that I need to take a shower and complete change of clothes and any thought of going out of the house is way too difficult.

** we read about 20 books a day at the moment. I read somewhere (Happiest Toddler on the Block?) to 'feed the meter'  which means every 30 mins to stop, get down to your child's level and read a book or do some sort of play for a couple of mins. Sienna loves it and it certainly buys me a lot of extra time when I am trying to complete a task.

*** I'm not completely sure but I think cutting out her just before bedtime breastfeed has enabled Sienna to dramatically improve her ability to self settle  during the night. Actually I don't care if it is or isn't, I'm just thankful!

*edit - mr k just pointed out that I posted an image of his "plumbers". Is it bad that I 'm still not going to remove the image?



10 comments:

  1. Wondered where you had got to!
    There's hope for us and sleeping through the night then! Yay!!!

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    1. Thanks Sammie! I've still been reading blogs (and yours!) but lack of sleep eventually caught up on me and I lost my blogging mojo. A little bit of sleep and it's all back on!

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  2. Welcome back!
    Your routine sounds lovely!

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    1. Thanks sweetie, it is certainly has a nicer tempo than the days when I am off to work for the day.

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  3. I love this honest (in fine print) account of being the mumma of a toddler! Glad your getting some good sleep.

    xo em

    p.s I love how in your profile you simply state 'yikes, ive had a baby'. I'm pretty sure thats the best intro i've ever read!

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  4. Oh, really loved reading this! What a lovely routine you guys have. I can totally empathise with the napping thing - when they don't nap, it can be so tough, and when they do, it's like completely empowering! :)

    I have to confess, I am completely slack at reading to my boys, isn't that terrible? I am so impressed that you read about 20 books with her! Do you read them all at once, or do you read one every 30 minutes? I wonder if I could start by trying to do one an hour or something.... You've inspired me Spark!

    Ronnie xo

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    1. I must confess Ronnie that in a previous life I worked as an English teacher so books are my thing. By books, I also mean the 4 page cardboard ones as well. I tend to read Sienna a few in the morning, one or two every hour during the day, her dad reads her at least three when he gets home and then she has a couple at bed time. Also by "read" it is often a lot of her pointing at the pictures and us saying the words. Sometimes she wants to turn about three pages and then she is off, doing something else. Thank you for your lovely comment - I get a lot of inspiration from your blog!

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  5. Love that expression "feed the meter" and it is oh so true! 5 mins of Lego, 10 mins playing soccer or a bit of story time absolutely buys you some more time to do something else!

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    1. Amazing how it cuts down on the grumbles too. Given that I used to be a teacher, I have been quite surprised how much a "grumbly day" from miss s has meant a bit of a stressful day for me. Didn't think I would be so sensitive to it - such a rookie I know! Thanks for your lovely comment. Love your blog (your home is BEAUTIFUL!)

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