Give the girl a hand

Having lamented on Wednesday that ThingTwo couldn't clap by nine months as her sister could, this morning she showed us that if we stop pressuring her she'll do things in her own time. She now seems very pleased with herself, and claps at evey opportunity.

(Vid won't play on Facebook feed.)
Not a great vid, since ThingTwo wouldn't clap for more than a second once she saw the camera, and when her mum's kneeling down nearby.

Another second nine months

 
ThingTwo turned nine months today. It's fascinating to see how far she's come on, and to see how her development and personality differs from ThingOne's. We looked back to an entry we posted when ThingOne was the same age and saw that ThingOne was managing to clap in the appropriate time in 'If you're happy and you know it clap you're hands'. ThingTwo can't even clap. She gives it a go, but really just waves her hands about. She clearly really wants to clap. Poor thing.

She's a cheery soul though, with a delightful big-mouthed smile. More consistently cheery than ThingOne was. And she sleeps better at the moment. She started off sleeping less consistently, mind. It may be that she's learned to sleep better because we've left her for longer when she wakes up at night, but who knows?

She's had fewer illnesses than ThingOne too, though did have a more dramatic illness than ThingOne had in her first year when she caught chikenpox (from her sister) in June. Currently she has a fairly bad cough, which is pretty dramatic and horrible to hear at night.

ThingOne had very little hair. ThingTwo, I'm afraid to say, has even less. She's going to have ThingOne's trouble of being mistaken for a boy. ThingOne was mistaken for a boy last Sunday at a Christening.

ThingTwo is certainly naughtier. ThingOne seemed to be content with what she was allowed to do, but ThingTwo insists on making a beeline for the fireplace. ThingOne tried this of course, but soon got the message that it was out of bounds (or maybe was just easier to distract). We'd hoped to avoid a stairgate downstairs this time round, but ThingTwo's latest mission is to climb the stairs whenever we turn our backs. This morning I remarked to Anne that ThingTwo turned nine months today, and as I said this we realised she wasn't in the back room with us. We ran to the stairs where we found her four steps up, beaming a big smile at us.

She's a better eater than her big sister was, sometimes even out-eating her big sister at mealtimes now. ThingOne would eat well one meal, and then eat very little the next. Sometimes she'd eat nothing for days on end, and then make up for it later. ThingTwo enjoys mealtimes a lot, and if she doesn't eat we know something's wrong.

The signs are starting to show that these girls could be very different, and it'll be interesting to see who ThingTwo is as she turns into a little girl.

Happy birthday Anne!

You'll have guessed that I've been spending time with a photo manipulation tool lately (and funnily that's exactly what Anne's been calling me). My software of choice is GIMP (and funnily enough, etc etc). Once I got over an initially steep learning curve it was fairly easy to use, though I couldn't get Anne's face right on the picture above, and eventually gave up trying, realising I was spending too much time on something Anne may even not care much about.

But this post is about Anne, not my PC adventures. It's her birthday today. Happy birthday Anne!

ThingOne knew Anne's birthday was coming up and was asking about the party. Ah. We weren't planning one. But Madam expected one, since that's what you do on birthdays. So we had to have a party. While ThingOne was napping on Sunday afternoon, Anne baked a quick cake. When ThingOne woke up, I told ThingOne that I'd secretly baked mummy a cake and ThingOne could help me decorate it. I kept Anne out of the room (she knew exactly what was happening of course) and we decorated the cake (many a hundred and thousand), blew up balloons (me, mainly) and put a Happy Birthday banner up.

We called Anne in. She and ThingTwo came in and ThingOne and I "surprised" Anne. We sang Happy Birthday and Anne blew her candles out. ThingOne gave her mum the Paint-Your-Own-Mug I'd got and had got the girls to help me decorate. The four of us had a nice little party.


I'm detailing this party to illustrate a point I'll make with this question: how much of this was really for Anne? Anne enjoyed it, no doubt, but of course this, as with much of our life, was mainly for ThingOne's beneift. We ate an egg-free cake (ThingOne can't eat egg) with too much sickly cake decoration on, and wore party hats for her benefit. Not that we mind - ThingTwo enjoyed it too and it's great to see the girls having fun. I explained to ThingOne that this was all for her mum, and that it was her mum's special day. I think the message got through, and she gave her mum some nice hugs, telling her she was special. Bless her.

We then all went to Nando's for an early dinner (early for Anne and me). Again, the girls had a great time. As did we. Nando's is a guilty pleasure, especially since we gave up fast food chains years ago. (Nando's is able to avoid our biycott by having proper plates and cutlery, and semi table service. I suppose you could argue that Nando's is to KFC what Wimpey is to Burger King).

We don't go out for meals together much, and never dinner (except on holiday). This, of course, involved getting the staff to go through a special book they keep on the ingredients of everything they have so we could ensure there was no egg in the things ThingOne was going to eat (it's a minefield going out to eat with allergy-ridden kids). ThingOne didn't want much chicken, so basically ate chips followed by frozen yoghurt. Yes, that night we were those parent. Hell, it's a birthday. ThingOne had a great time, but the come down may be hard on her.

I hope you had a great time too Anne. Again, Happy Birthday!

A quantum of sillys

My mum babysat for us on Friday evening and I took Anne out for her birthday treat, to see the new James Bond film, A Bit of Peace and Quiet. (Her birthday is on Monday.) With the timing of Bond releases generally being in November, it's often what we do around Anne's birthday. She loves it, and that's why I married her.

Our expectations had been lowered for this installment, and in the end we quite enjoyed it. Like most Bond I'm in no hurry to see it again (I don't think I've seen a recent Bond film more than once, other than Goldeneye), but it was a fun way to spend an evening. It had possibly the laziest set up for an explosive finale I think I've seen:

Character 1: "Don't worry about the noise. It's the fuel cells powering up. This hotel is entirely powered by them."
Character 2: "That doesn't sound very stable."

Text book. An effort to make what is essentially gratuitous explosions justifiable.

On Saturday evening we had the guilty pleasure of watching The Transporter 2, which went to no such lengths to excuse explosions. Like other Jason Statham films this was a very enjoyable, take-your-brain-out, completely ridiculous action movie that made no effort to be plausible. It was in complete contrast to the new, supposedly-grittier Bond, but in the end they're both just as silly (OK, maybe Statham pips Craig in the sillyness stakes). Bond tends to achieve the "realism" by having such quick edits you don't get the chance to see what's going on in detail so don't have time to sit back and see how ridiculous it is. The Transporter 2 just revels in it, and somehow it works.

Like a Rolling Stone

After ThingOne and ThingTwo had had their bath tonight, Anne got ThingTwo ready for bed while I dried ThingOne and began to get her ready.

ThingOne: "I want my farm pyjamas today." (Except she generally says "ja-amas".)
Stephen: "Well, you're having your monkey pyjamas tonight ThingOne."
L: "But I want my farm pyjamas I said!"
S: "Well, what does Mick Jagger say?"
L: "You can't always get what you want."
S: "Yes he does. Well done. And he's right."

We are attempting to teach ThingOne basic philosophy via pop songs. (She also knows that every step she takes I'll be watching her.) She now has Jagger's advice down pat, and yet tonight she wanted to delve deeper. Surely as a man in his thirties I could hold my own against a two year old. Surely.

L: "Why I can't always get what I want?"
S: "Because nobody gets everything they want. People get some things they want, but not everything."
L: "But I want to always get what I want."
S: "Well, in order to get that you'd have to only want things you CAN have."

A simple but, I felt, philosophically powerful idea, and not above a two year old. I continued...

S: "So, for example, if you want pudding for breakfast, and breakfast for lunch, then you won't be able to get what you want, but if you want breakfast for breakfast and pudding at the end of lunch then you WILL get what you want, because that's what we ALWAYS have."
L: "Why I can't have pudding for breakfast?"
S: "Because pudding is for having at the end of lunch and dinner. For breakfast you can have toast or cereal. Or fruit."

I felt we were going into specifics too much, but I was hoping she was taking the overall point even so.

L: "I have yogurt for pudding. Why you have yoghurt for breakfast on Tuesday?"

She had me there. She'd deliberately led me down this path, like a sneaky barrister.

S: "Well, I had a train to catch so didn't have time to make breakfast. And anyway, yoghurt is special because it can be either pudding OR breakfast. Or a snack."

I was floundering. Already I'd had to excuse yoghurt as a special case. I hadn't thought this through.

L: "I want yoghurt for breakfast."
S: "But then what would you have for pudding?"
L: "Jelly."
S: (Firmly) "Look, you're NOT having yoghurt for breakfast. For breakfast you can have toast or cereal."
L: "Or fruit."
S: "Yes. Or fruit."
L: "Who sings You CAN Always Get What You Want."
S: "No one sings that ThingOne. There's no such song." (There probably is.)

By this time she had her monkey pyjamas on. Thus I win.