Motherhood 2 yrs 5mths on!!!

God this child is nearly 2 and a half! How on earth did that happen? 

We’ve moved and he’s adjusted really well to our new home and to city life.  He loves the stimulation and he’s well and truly ready for child care.  I’m thinking our little dog Sandy could do with a break from him too.  A couple of days in care would allow me to earn a small wage but 3 days in care would give me a day off for my music (now I’m getting greedy!).  I’m ready now to let him go a little bit.  Just enough to give me a break and to give Marley some further stimulation.  I’m sure this will have a positive impact on his language skills, although not so sure how it will effect his social skills.  He’s actually very confident socially and I hate the idea of his losing that confidence without my being there to protect him.  (For gods sakes Nicholise, let go!)

He’s tall! I don’t know exactly how tall and have been meaning to measure him but keep forgetting but he just looks so tall to me.  His hair is wild ala Krammer styley these days.  He weighs 13.3kgs and is now having day sleeps without his nappy.  He eats with his knife and fork, loves lemon, ‘sauce’, olives, ham and cheese.  He always eats the crust off his bread first often leaving the middle bit naked and alone.  I tend to give him bread without butter because he really just wants the plain bread as I’ve learnt from watching him steal slices from the bread bag when he gets hungry.

I had forgotten the mutter-cry that I used to do when I was a kid and was upset with the world.  It’s a cry that involves a lot of talking out loud to yourself about how unjust the whole situation is while you continue to cry loudly.  I was reminded of it in the past week when Marley’s started with the mutter-cry.  The funniest thing about Marley’s mutter-cry is that for the life of me I just don’t know what he’s saying but I can tell he’s totally pissed off!  Actually, with the ongoing topic of Marley’s language development, there’s been some more progress but it just seems to get funnier and funnier.  As my sister described after her phone conversation with him tonight, it’s like he’s become really good at a foreign language.  His expression is excellent, his eye contact and his melodic tone matched with the hand gestures, head nods and waving arms are all amazing but the words! He’s hilarious to watch and listen to and I’m sure (as is he) that it’s our problem and not his.  He really does have his own language.  He does use recognisable words quite regularly now but he talks much more than his present English vocabulary can possibly cater for.

Tonight when I told him “you’re such a monkey!” he said “NO, Mumma!!!” as he pointed back at me.  I said “NO, Marley’s a monkey” and he said, NO!! MUMMA!!! LOL god I had to laugh.  Later in bed he started calling out “HELLLO MUMMMMMMA, HEELLLLLLOO DADDDDDDDDA”.  Who’s the monkey? I ask you! 

He knows most of his colours and says them by name...’Blue car’, ‘green colour’.  He recognises every letter of the alphabet and will point to each and every letter in any order if I ask where it is.  He’s learnt that from his little toy lap top which I often hear him playing with at night when he really should be sleeping.  He’s obviously musical.  I sing a little song to him each night and all on his own he’s made up a little tone that he uses in just the right spots during the song, I’m really so pleased by this; it’s a clear sign to me that he’s quite musical which of course I was hoping he would be.  He uses the word ‘Ni....ce’ in a very sleazy tone which makes me giggle very easily.  He LOVES talking on the phone.  He is now fascinated by trams and trains and anything that has wheels.  He is a cuddly little pumpkin who gives the most gorgeous kisses and cuddles.  He loves dancing and has started singing.  He sings old MacDonald’s farm and Toot Toot chugga chugga big red car over and over again. 

We took Marley to his first game of cricket.  A 20/20 match between Australia and India.  This was important for us.  While in the last days of pregnancy with Mar, Tim and I religiously watched the Ashes in the UK and talked about how we wanted to take our child to see the cricket when we move back to Melbourne again one day.  Marley was so good throughout and loved the charged atmosphere.  Since that day he has been doing wild running bowling actions around the house.  A week or so later we bought him a tiny wooden cricket bat and the first thing he did with it was tap it to the ground like a professional cricketer.  I took him to the local park where they were playing a game of cricket and again a few days later when the pitch was empty he got to explore the pitch and do some of his crazy bowling.  More giggling from me.  He’s very much into balls at the moment.  Enjoys catching and throwing little bean bags, balloons, actually any kind of ball. 

Around the house if I’m not in view and he’s lost interest in what he’s doing I’ll hear a massive “MUMMA!!” said quickly, loud and punctuated, it’s like as though he’d forgotten about me and has to quickly make sure I’m still here.  We can’t drive past a playground these days without a big whiney request to “PWAY” and he insists on blowing me down ala Captain Feathersword at least 5 times a day.  Marley also loves to give Eskimo kisses, sniffy nose kisses, butterfly kisses, ear to ear ‘ding’ kisses and kisses on the mouth.  He loves it when I drag him along the wooden floor to music and when I twirl him around as we dance.  He loves to sit on our shoulders and likes to walk to the toilet on my feet.  He’s a beautiful, gentle little boy with a very cheeky personality that fills my heart to overflowing with love.  Gosh I’m a lucky girl to have 2 such gorgeous men in my life