Clark loves to categorise at the moment. Especially by what things are made of. "This is glass", "this is not glass". "This is plastic". Glass is the particular material that he is fascinated with, mostly because we have large amount of tiling in our house. We had an incident a few months ago that Clark cannot let go of. We say "be careful carrying that Clark". He asks "this is glass?" and upon confirmation he often recounts the time he knocked the large pyrex jug of mashed potato off the bench and it smashed into a thousand smithereens... complete with bits of lovely mashed potato stuck everywhere. It was traumatising for both him and his father and now is a cautionary tale for both about leaving things on the end of the bench and being careful when you are standing up at the bench. And of course we all know you mash the potatoes last in the order of cooking sides for dinner. No mash was had that night. Clark does love explaining how he "smashed" the potatoes down onto the ground.
Clark also loves to cook and I cannot believe that it has been almost one year since his last birthday, the birthday we gave him his kitchen. Like all toys that are around often it gets played with sometimes and ignored others, but he does always put on an apron and use his glove. His latest is to make us cupcake cases full of dinosaurs. A dinosaur cupcake of course. I do hope that our boy grows up to love cooking as much as his Daddy. And not just for selfish reasons!
Now off to my long weekend and a boy with a returned cough!
Another busy weekend for our little family! With the addition of Clark's Uncle Steven coming to stay, we did a lot! School fete, swimming lessons and general mucking about. The next few months are hectic for us with birthday parties, trips away and long-planned play dates. A good sign that our family is really becoming busy is when I finally get the calendar out and plot our weekends on it. Of course this is when we realise that we have double booked, however the up side is often I find a weekend is not as full as we originally thought once we put it down on paper. Cue the need to find something to do in those mornings or afternoons that are now sitting empty on a calendar!
The weekend ended with a trip to see Uncle Steven off at the airport. Something that we thought would be fun for Clark. However he had a meltdown upon the realisation that not only was Uncle Steven leaving but that he wasn't going on the plane with him. Now there are a number of factors that came into play (time of day, empty stomachs, busy weekends) but on the outside for all to see was a little boy crying loudly and not wanting to say goodbye. It is so hard to explain to little people sometimes why things are hte way that they are, and dealing with disappointment. Thankfully a (late) trip to the shops on the way home to fill our stomachs made everything better. And not just for the littlest member of our family.
Late late late... of course. I think about posting during the week and then early evening runs into my need for an early bed time, and this blog is going to the wayside. Jodi from Che and Fidel has posted her Week thirty seven post already and I am still trying to cram in week thirty six. However I decided weeks ago (pretty much around the time morning sickness clicked in) that I need to give myself a break with a few things! Spending time with my boy is more important that spending time blogging about my boy. Some weeks that is simple, but the last couple of months what with being ill as well as being exhausted, it is simply not simple.
Last weekend we did A LOT. I think to make up for the fact that I have been feeling like I have been letting our weekends slide. A walk to vote (and eat sausages), hair cuts, a trip to the Dinosaur museum and our first visit to Stripey Sundae. We crammed adventures in and also got the groceries and the laundry done. Clark was wiped, as we all were, but it felt good to get things done. Finally cutting Clark's hair has made him look older and seems to have coincided with a developmental leap with his language. My favourite of his sayings at the moment? "Let's talk about something". Often the something is exchanges for dinosaurs. Of course.
We named our Clark after my Mum's side of the family and after my Pa, who is no longer with us. However as my husband is a devoted comic book nerd people assume that we named him after Clark Kent. It doesn't hurt and really Superman is my favourite superhero! So it amuses me greatly that Clark loves Spiderman the best (like father like son!). He can sing the song and does some amazing web throws. On Superhero dress up day at childcare Glenn was very excited to buy Clark his first Superhero costume, and Clark was even more excited to dress up as Spiderman! It was hard to grab a photo for all the jumping and diving and web throwing and I have NEVER seen our boy more excited to go to childcare!
Superhero day was short lived when I received a call from childcare saying that Clark was bleeding from the ear! Much panic and a visit to the Doctor with my Spiderman-clad bolognese (no doctor, that is not blood) covered boy later, we had drops and a diagnosis of a possible perforated ear drum. A week on and we now know less than we started with as the ENT does not think it is perforated. It has been a week of worry as for those that know anything about children with a uniliateral hearing loss know that protecting the "good" ear is of paramount importance. We have a few follow up appointments ahead of us, and who knows what else, but we will get there. Personally I do wonder if all of the Spiderman jumping popped his ear!
What it has done this week is make me reflect on my parenting and the strengths that Glenn and I have. I was talking with a colleague who reminded me (thank you Camille!) that I am a strong person and that everything we are faced with makes us stronger. I held it together while dealing with the crisis, and had a small meltdown on the phone once my child was safe and asleep in his bed. Yes, I have been worried and a bit stressed but these moments are short lived and I pick myself up and get on with what needs doing. I was worried that our GP would judge me for going back for a second trip and insisting on ear drops, fobbing me off as an overanxious mother. Glenn reminded me that I am Clark's advocate and that, no matter what people think, I am advocating for my child as he cannot do this for himself. And this is something that I have definitely felt solidified for me this week. Yes, I see the families I work with do this constantly and support them in doing this, but it is another thing altogether to be doing it for yourself and your family. It is ok to have those moments of panic and worry, but you need to lean on your supports. And we are so lucky to have the supports that we do. When my father showed up at my house not long after I had a bit of a teary on the phone when filling him in about Clark's ear, I was so grateful for the people in our life.
The same colleague also reminded me that Clark will be stronger for what he goes through. Yes, he will face challenges with his hearing, language and learning, however he will have to be stronger to get through it all. Our hearing support teacher said that often the children who have gone through the early intervention program (Clark has one hour of one on one hearing support a week) are often more disciplined when they go to Primary school due to the work that the teacher does with them. These hearten me and while we will have our moments of worry and panic we will keep coming back to these facts and just love our boy and do what we can to make his path easier. Which really is what all parents are striving to do no matter what the issue!
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On another note, it was Father's day this week and we had a lovely BBQ outdoors at my parents house. I thought I would include a couple of photos of Clark with his Father and his Grandad!
We have a surprise! A surprise that Clark has been holding on to for a couple of weeks... mostly. He has told many random people including a little girl at the library, with glee, that he has "a surprise". But we are thrilled that he is excited about having what he assumes is a baby sister. I am due in March next year and have been bursting to tell people our news from the start. As most people know I am a fairly open book and will share most things. So holding on to this for 12 (and a bit) weeks has been hard! Especially when I have had morning, noon and night sickness almost the whole way through. And the exhaustion. Being our second child there really is not the luxury of rest that we had when I was carrying Clark. Thankfully though my darling husband has been a rock and has been holding down the fort. Especially since I have also had a virus on and off for 5 weeks!
Clark is excited and from time to time the subject of babies comes up. Today we had a priceless moment when we had to go into a change room at the shopping centre to change Clark's nappy. I was sitting on a seat resting while Clark was playing in the play area (and Glenn was washing his hands) when another mother came in with her 5 year old and a baby. She asked me if I could hold her baby while she went to the bathroom herself. Of course I said yes! A minute later Clark looked over and exclaimed "it came out!". If only it was that easy! He seemed a bit put out that this baby was not our baby!
I am feeling so blessed to be carrying another tiny person to add to our lovely family. We have a long way to go but I cannot wait for our little boy to meet his baby sister or brother!
Spring is coming. Sunny days with a chilly afternoon wind that has put a lot of our gardening plans aside! Not to mention the general hullabaloo of busy weekends. By the time Clark is up from his nap the wind has kicked in, and when you have spent over a month being sick on and off you try your best to avoid the cold. However on Sunday Glenn went and picked up a truckload of compost for the garden beds and late in the afternoon it had to come off the truck and make its way into the garden. Clark loves helping out in the garden. Digging with his shovel, raking with his rake... and stomping in the fresh dirt. What is not to love? We planted some flowers which Clark was thrilled with and every morning on the way down the street in the car he exclaims "My flowers!". We have lots more to plant and plans for a worm garden project for Clark. As seen here: Gardening Australia Worm farm project
Growing your own veggies really is such a great thing to involve children in and encourages them to try new foods. Clark is super keen to plant cucumbers at the moment and tried them (and liked them) this week. I get excited whenever a new vegetable is added to his repertoire for all the usual reasons. Last year Clark delighted in stealing tomatoes straight from the plant and shoving them in his little mouth before we could get them inside to wash. It is also the sole reason he started eating snowpeas as he loved picking them straight from the garden and crunching their sweet green pods. We dedicate more and more of our garden to growing space and have two raised vegetable beds at the front of our house as our backyard is small. Plus the front gets the best sun. I love that we are teaching our boy to grow food and to respect the earth... we all get so much out of our little garden projects!
Our boy loves apples. Fact. He asks for them multiple times a day and happily crunches all of the "juicy juicy" flesh until he hit the seeds. No peeling, no cutting, just the whole apple. In fact we do not dare cut the apple up as to Clark this is a travesty of epic proportions!
Yes, this is late this week. I have two posts to write and upload and I haven't gotten the camera out this week. We are yet again sick. So much for that old 'apple a day' proverb!
