Helping

The usual bedtime routine involves Lucy comingg into Oliver's room (sometimes carried by Mummy, sometimes under her own steam and/or alone) saying "night night" to Oliver and I as she gives us kisses before heading off to her room for her bottle of bedtime milk with Mummy.

This evening however, Oliver asked whether he could help give Lucy her milk. It's a measure of how much Lucy loves her brother that she agreed to this new arrangement, albeit temporary.

They're only little once

Ever since Oliver was born we have wanted to do things right. We aren't the strictest or most regimented parents in the world - Gina Ford regimes are not for us - but neither are we the most laid back and laissez faire.

There are several possible reasons for this, not least the fact that things like bedtimes regimes and sleeping well become very important when you know there's no-one around to give you a break. The last time Hayley and I got a lie-in together was the morning after I proposed to her last August. There's every chance that the next one we get will be the day after I marry her this coming August.

But recently we've started to relax the rules. In particular, Hayley had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with a fellow Mum that has changed bedtimes. Her friend was commenting that she sometimes gets into bed with her child for a cuddle before they go to sleep. "After all, they're only little once."

Well, this coincided nicely with the arrival of Oliver's bed, so cuddles were entirely feasible and Hayley decided to follow her friend's example, getting in with Oliver for a few minutes before going downstairs.

Not to be outdone, when I put Oliver to bed the next night, it was my turn to get in with him. Since then it has been hard for us to deny him this small addition to his bedtime ritual. Often when we try to leave he tells us "But I'll be sad". Other times he hides under the covers and says he's scared of spiders, though not really sounding very scared at all. Almost without exception when we do finally tear ourselves away he goes to sleep without a fuss.

Tonight I lay there with him looking at the space ships and flying saucers on the walls of his room. I asked if he would like to go to the moon with me in a rocket. He said he did. I asked who we should take.
"Isabel, Cara, Niamh and Clare [Cara's Mum]. But there won't be room for Clare." It's worth noting at this point that Clare is about 6 feet tall. It might not be relevant. I digress. The conversation continued.

Me: "And shall we take some sandwiches?"
O: "We'll get some in the rocket."
Me: "Oh wow will they sell them in the rocket?"
Oliver laughed, "Noooooo!"
Me: "And what will we have on our sandwiches?"
O: "Cucumber. Ham. Tomato and orange."
Me: "Orange!!! Wow that sounds delicious. And what will we do on the moon?"
O: "Have our sandwiches."
Me: "That will be great. Perhaps we'll see Sam's Daddy on the moon." (Sam is the main character in one of Oliver's favourite books 'Daddy on the Moon'.)
O: "Yeah. And will Sam ride in our space ship?"
Me: "Yes we can give him a ride and let him have a sandwich."
O: "Tomorrow, after nursery, we will go to the moon."
Me: "Well, we might have to wait a while to go on a rocket, but we can pretend and then we can come back to earth and have fish and chips with Mummy and Lucy."
O: "Yes we can."

Lying there in the near darkness with my little boy, laughing and fantasising about riding in space-ships as he wriggled around under the duvet, was just about the best place to be on this planet or any other.

Who's a silly billy?

This afternoon Oliver was round at his friend Cara's house with Hayley and Lucy. As is more often the case these days, he went upstairs to play in his friend's room. (Sometimes he'll even tell the grown-ups to stay downstairs for good measure.)

After a while Cara came downstairs sniffing and upset.
"What's the matter Cara?" asked her mum.
"Oliver called me a silly billy."
So Hayley shouted up the stairs to Oliver who duly came to the top of the stairs.
"Oliver did you say something to go Cara?"
"Yes. I called her a silly billy?"
"Oh. Why did you call her that?"
"Because she wouldn't get into bed with me."

It turns out that Cara has a three-quarter size double bed and he wanted her to pretend to go sleep, as he does sometimes in our big bed.

You can get away with that sort of thing aged three.

Curly Girly

Lucy can be fiercely independent. It's already well documented that she stomps around the house as if she owns it and appropriates whatever toy she might see Oliver playing with if she feels like it.

But this week she has added to these displays of assertiveness. Firstly when I put her to bed the other night she insisted on holding her milk herself. I wasn't allowed to help at all. If I put my hands near it she batted them away as she drank. I sat there feeling somewhat redundant, but also amused and impressed.

Then she decided that after months of protests, screaming and running away when we try to dry her hair after her bath, she would instead dry it herself. Here she is demonstrating this new skill whilst also showing off her natural curliness.

Big boy's bed

Yesterday Hayley took the kids out for the afternoon to give me time to re-arrange Oliver's room and build his single bed. His "big boy's bed". (Not to mention picking up the mattress. It just fits into a Zafira over the top of the seats in case anyone should want to know for future reference.)

We recorded the moment he first saw it. His response was less to his bed and more to the Wall-E toy I had secretly ordered for him to go with the duvet cover and pillow case that he had picked out a couple of weeks ago.

He took a while to settle down to sleep, not surprising really! But then we didn't hear a peep out of him until it was time to get up. Success!

Another milestone. Hayley said she felt a bit sad. I have to say that didn't hit me this time. I guess I was just too excited!

Bedtime Bop

I had been intending my first public performance on my ukulele to be a well rehearsed and polished little show, possibly even premiering one of my own compositions.

However, tonight after I persuaded Oliver to leave his bath by coming and playing ukulele with Daddy, Hayley turned up with a camera and captured our fun.

As Oliver is so fond of Gus and Fin's version of Blitzkrieg Bop, he had no trouble dropping in on cue when I started to mimic it. And his cuteness hopefully makes up for the fact that I haven't learned all the chords nor half the words.

(And yes it is very dark. We don't live in a cave, the light was dimmed a little for bedtime.)

How much fun can you have in 53 minutes

I hate getting home so late that one or both of the kids is in bed and asleep. For that reason it is rare that it happens. I take it as a sign that my life is out of balance if I don't see the kids for a while before they go to bed.

At the moment I am starting work by 7.30am, so I certainly should be home to see them. But today was a long day and I got home at 7.07pm. Although Oliver should be in bed by 7.30pm (hah, yeah right) it tends to be closer to 8pm, which I treat as the "must be in bed" time, to give Hayley and I a chance to see each other at the end of the day.

So that gave me 53 minutes in which to have fun with my babies! They were in the bath when I got home. As Hayley told me about her day (complete with threatening road-rager who she called 999 about!), Oliver and Lucy sat in the bath. Oliver decided it would be funny to fill the toy tea-pot with bath water and pour it over Lucy's head. Lucy seemed amused at first but tired of this game more quickly than Oliver who would have continued at length had I not persuaded him not to.

Then I got him out of the bath. My hands were still freezing from the drive home so as I lifted hime out of the bath he whooped and giggled saying "Oooo your hands are cold!", then encouraged me to keep prodding him with them.

Into the bedroom where he lay on the bed playing my ukelele while I tried to dry him. Then he stood up and carried on, by now singing a song I'd never heard before. "Did you make that song up Oliver?" I asked. "Yes I did", he beamed and danced about singing. "At nursery." Then he told me he was playing Rock and Roll. He has picked up on this from watching the Wiggles. Last night while we watched some YouTube footage of The Ramones in concert, he told me "this is rock and roll isn't it Daddy". I was quite surprised.

Back to tonight, when he also told Hayley "you're a silly billy". Where has that come from!

As I dried him he sang Blitzkrieg Bop. He doesn't know the words, just the sounds, but it was so funny to hear. There was my 3 year old son, enjoying the music of The Ramones as much as me. How cool is that!

Then, before I could get his pyjamas on him, he made what is becoming a nightly beeline to get under the covers of my bed. We then have a ritual. I have to pull the sheet back, then straighten up rather more slowly than necessary so that by the time I reach down to pick him up he has pulled the covers over him again, just as I reach down to grab him, ending up instead with a handful of duvet. This has him in stitches.

After a few repetitions of this, I duck under the covers and tickle his thighs. THis has him laughing so hard he almost runs out of breath (though I never let that happen!), leaving him with his face in one big, open-mouthed, silent laugh. Then he begs me to stop, before regaining his breath after 3 seconds and imploring me "again!"

After a few minutes of this we got him into his pyjamas. By now, Lucy, who was in the charge of Hayley (or was Lucy in charge of Hayley), was ready for her milk in her room, so she bid us each goodnight with a kiss.

Oliver and I then headed off to his room where we have always sat on his futon sofa bed to read a story. But that went to the charity shop today in readiness to make room for his bed, so we sat on his old foam mattress. We read three stories from "Stories Jesus Told" and played with Julien putting him to bed in his box. Then getting him up again. Then putting him to bed. Then... you get the picture.

Finally we headed off to clean his teeth which he did cheerfully and impeccably before there was time for him to play with his pteradactyl and Upsy Daisy as I serenaded him with my ukelele version of Blitzkrieg Bop.

And then it was time for bed.
"I love you" I told him, having noticed Hayley got a rare "I love you" back earlier.

"I love you" he replied. Then "I love you too Julien" as he cuddled up to him.

It turns out you can have lots of fun in 53 minutes.

Big steps, Little steps

How quickly they grow. And how quickly they grow up. You hear every parent say it and yet it can't be said enough, because no matter how hard we might try there are moments constantly slipping through our hands like the sands of time itself.

When taking Oliver for a ride in his new bike-mounted seat, it struck me that I had probably taken him out in the Wee-Ride carrier for the last time. And when that last time came, some time last summer, I didn't know it had arrived. It was a poignant reflection and one I seem to be encountering often recently.

As I walked up the stairs behind Oliver tonight, I noticed he was no longer stepping up with one foot and then the other onto the same step, but was instead walking up as an adult would, with each new step being trodden by alternating feet. He didn't do it all the way up, but it was a noticeable development. A far cry from when he crawled up the stairs with me right at his back to catch him. And yet it seems not so long ago.

Although Oliver dropped every bottle but his bedtime bottle by around 17 months, he has still been having a bottle of milk in an Avent bottle at bedtime. What is more, despite his age, he has still been having one of us hold it for him and feed him exactly as we fed him as a baby. Consequently, with both kids going to bed around the same time, recently Hayley had to feed them both their bottles simultaneously, one on each knee.

So we decided we would get Oliver a special cup that he would want to drink from himself. Hayley got a rocket shaped cup with a retractable straw that sports a picture of Roary the Racing Car. A brilliant choice.

So last night we let him have this cup and as he sat on my knee drinking his bedtime milk our roles as bottle holders officially became redundant. Again it was a bitter sweet experience to see my big boy growing up and yet to have to say goodbye to a little moment that we shared where he was happily dependent on me. But isn't that exactly what being a parent is all about: learning to very slowly let go. It's just happening so much earlier than I expected and is therfore so much harder than I had imagined.