Year 3 - February

February 2007

Emma's Entry

Can you spot the other obsession?... Wellies indoors!?

I've been a bit repetitive of late when it comes to the music that I've been listening to in the car when there is nothing interesting to listen to on the radio. I've especially enjoyed listening to a mix CD that I compiled with some Snow Patrol, The Feeling and The Kooks - oh and some retro song that I heard on the radio (Ain't Nobody by Rufus & Chaka Khan). Evan seems to enjoy it to as he always bops his legs and gets his Piglet teddy bear dancing in the car when the songs are playing. This month however I started to notice him singing along to them - he actually gets some of the words right and it's really amazing. He even recognises them when they come on the radio. He's started singing a lot in general, his favourite songs from TV are the Bob the Builder theme tune and Postman Pat.

Swimming is now on hold for the foreseeable future, we'll probably try him again in the summer. We've been going to Windsor recently as it has a fairly big family pool and it's more local than the Langley one. It has a cool wave machine as well, but Evan finds that a little scary. On a recent visit to Windsor Leisure Centre Evan decided that he really didn't want to go swimming. We had a battle to get his armbands on and that just made the whole situation worse and I don't think he ever recovered. I persevered with him, cuddling him, carrying him, trying to relax him a little and although it worked for about 5 minutes, he then spent the next 20 minutes crying. In the end he grabbed my hand and said "Mummy, home..." so we went home. That was one of the most expensive 30 minutes I have had recently, so we won't be doing that for a while. I may look into swimming lessons to help build up his confidence, but again, I'll wait until the summer before trying that.

Evan always congratulates himself with a clap and a "Well Done"

We had more snow this month and Evan remembered it! He absolutely loved it, especially when our neighbour came over to have a mini snowball fight with us one morning. It's a real shame it did not hang around for any length of time - I love the snow. I blame Global Warming for it only lasting a day!

The constant "No!" to everything has become rather irritating lately and we decided to do something about it, so every time Evan said "No" for whatever reason, he spent 2 minutes in the naughty corner. We were getting "No" 20 times a day for silly things, for example I'd say to Evan, "would you like some milk Evan?" and he'd reply with "no".  I knew he didn't mean it, but I went along with it and put it away, he'd then cry and throw a tantrum saying "My milk!". It was getting really ridiculous. I was surprised at how quickly he learned that the naughty corner came after behaving like that. By the end of the first day, he'd stopped - we still get the occasional episode, but nothing like it was.

We ventured out into the garden this month to start the pruning in time for Spring. It was so dirty, yukky yukky... Evan absolutely loved being able to run around, though he was a little intrigued by the broken fence panel that now gives us access to our neighbour's garden. I hope that gets fixed soon otherwise I can see that being a nightmare.

We had a little accident this month with Evan that resulted in a visit to Accident & Emergency. Evan and I had just returned home from work and we were saying hello to Caroline in the hallway. I was just having a cuddle and conversation when Evan started to play up and force his way between us to get attention. We tried to move him out of the way and he somehow managed to get caught up in my legs and feet and he fell over hitting his head on the groove of the front door that goes inwards. He fell unexpectedly and his head took all the impact. I managed to pick him up in an instant and as horrified to see the huge bump appear instantly on his temple. The most disturbing memory I have is of his eyes disappearing and rolling around, it was as if he'd lost consciousness. I was terrified and it took what seemed like ages for him to cry. A cold compress wasn't helping and in the end I grabbed a bottle of milk and we rushed him to A&E. We were there for a few hours so that they could just watch him and by the end of the night he was running around causing chaos showing off a great big shiner of a bruise on the side of his head. I was relieved the following morning when Evan woke up. Head injuries are really awful and the smallest bump could be very dangerous.

Evan is really getting into his puzzles at the moment, surprisingly he's actually rather good at them and can figure out some of the basic ones all by himself. He only needs the occasional prompt from me for the more complex puzzles. If I hand him a piece, he can usually figure out where it goes.

Emma