Year 2 - JuneJune 2006
We've seen a lot of changes this month most notably with Evan's feeding routine. I couldn't understand why Evan was eating so well at nursery but when he's at home he just refuses. It suddenly occurred to me that it could be the way that we were initiating the feeding. At nursery Evan sits around a table with up to 7 other children and the nursery ladies just sit at a corner to help when necessary. They are all sitting in little versions of grown up chairs and they are left to feed themselves and they do just that. Evan is very competent with a spoon in both hands and he also loves to muck in with his hands! I decided to try this technique at home and it worked, Evan is objecting at home because he wants to feed himself and he prefers it if you are not sitting right next to him (as I have a tendency to interfere). Feeding times are so messy now that we've had to move his high chair into our already cramped kitchen. We've been on a lot of mini adventures this month and the weather had been fabulous for it as well. We went to see Caroline's mum who lives near Southend. Whilst we were there (it was such a hot weekend that we needed to get out of her home as it felt like a green house) that we ventured off to Southend beach. The stoney beach didn't go down too well with Evan's new jelly shoes but we can't all live near Bournemouth now, can we? Evan just wanted to spend the whole time picking up the stones! He absolutely hated the water though! It was a tad chilly and he just kept crying whenever we ventured closer. We didn't spend too much time on the beach to Caroline's disappointment, we didn't want Evan to build up a fear of the sea. There's a Sea life Centre at one end of the sea front and we've been wanting to take Evan to one for ages so we decided to do it. At first it seemed like a big mistake because Evan didn't like the dark corridors but once we got up close and personal to the fish he seemed to settle down. It was quite interesting, though it would have been nicer if there were more fish to see... It was a great weekend, apart from the silly parking ticket I got... grumble, grumble... We went on a nursery trip this month to Wellplace Zoo. It was Evan's first experience on a coach and it was more cramped than I remember them! That could be because I was about 4ft the last time I went and probably much thinner :). The car seat did take up 1 and a half seats and Caroline took up the other seat so I crammed into the middle seat on the row of three, so that didn't help the situation either. I thought it would be a proper Zoo with Elephants and Giraffes but it was actually much smaller with a mixture of Zoo animals like Monkeys, Cats and Penguins and Farm animals like Peacocks, Chickens, Donkeys etc... Evan still seemed to enjoy himself though as he loves animals!
We have cracked swimming again! We tried a new technique with Evan, this time we let him walk up to the pool holding Caroline's hand. Our local swimming pool that we visit has a nice slope that lets you just walk straight in without having to step down. I then get in the pool and sit on the floor enticing Evan into the pool. He usually spends a minute or so just stamping his feet in the really shallow bit because it splashes lots but he does eventually wander in, getting the water fairly high up his chest, usually accompanied by a gasp because the temperature is a bit of a shock. He seems to be enjoying himself just like when he was a baby and we're also seeing him kick his legs a little bit as well. We've got a set of armbands as well that assist us when take him for a little swim, he's not so top heavy anymore! It really is lovely to see him enjoy himself in the water again. We've had even more water successes this month. After the teaser at Southend beach, we decided to embark on a day trip to Bournemouth where the beach is lovely sand! It was a long day and we weren't sure what to expect as the last time we went to Bournemouth with Evan he could only sit up so he was very static. This time however, he was in to everything and it was non stop! It was really tiring but he absolutely loved it (except when he tipped to handfuls of sand in his face!). He didn't like the water at first when we tried to walk in with him. Caroline was having a well earned rest when Evan and I explored nearer the sea. This time I let Evan walk up to it (like he did with the swimming pool) and he stopped about 1ft away from the water. I stepped in and starting splashing around with my feet and playing chase games with the ripples as the waves met the sandy shore. Evan was more at ease by this time and he seemed to forget why he was scared and joined in the fun. Caroline must have spotted us because she joined in and Evan was getting absolutely soaked. When he tried to go in further, that's when we tried again and this time Caroline successfully managed to wade in with him. He thoroughly enjoyed his time at the beach playing with the sand, our beach ball and the sea. I'm not sure if we'll make it again this summer, but hopefully next year will be even better if we could only explain to Evan that taking peoples shoes and sand toys is not appropriate behaviour :).
Evan's favourite play time toys are his books at the moment, especially this little Thomas the Tank Engine pop out book. It has these little cardboard train shapes that you can remove from the pages. The idea is to then find the right page for the puzzle piece that matches. They can be fairly stiff, so it's quite common for us to spend 20 minutes or so going over this book having him point at the piece because he can't remove it and then say "uuuuhhhhh" to me frantically pointing at the shape because he needs my help. He has his favourite books already, there's one with vehicles that he really loves and we play this game where I ask "Show me the Fire Engine" and Evan will find the page with the fire engine and point to it. He knows every single vehicle in that book and the game hasn't grown old yet - cutie... Evan surprised us this month with a new word out of the blue! We were standing in the bathroom, I can't remember what we were all doing but we were going out of the room. He just turned round to Caroline, waved to her and said bye-bye. I was gob smacked because he'd never even tried to say it before, he's only ever waved. It was a real emotional event. With all the other words he has spoken, they've been along time coming because he half gets it and then one day he finally says it correctly or to the best of his ability. Bye-bye was totally different, he just said it that once and got it right first time and it was brilliant to see it first hand. He now says it whenever we leave the house or even if we just leave the company of someone, he also says it when we put him down to bed. It's just great to see him with this new word and he uses it in the right context already! Emma |
