December 2009 - We'll be having Terrific Twos, thank you very much!

[LifeOfKate]

New year, new thread :o

Welcome all :)

On it, like a car bonnet...
Just marking my place ladies. Xxx

Have linked from the old thread so hopefully everyone will find us

Thanks blathers, I haven't made it onto laptop yet today!

Now, where were we?

Were we whinging about our terrible twos? I think my FB status says it all today!

Marking place...

I decided to try Catherine with the potty this afternoon. I'm not at all sure she's ready but she's the same age as Alex was when he trained so I have this nagging feeling that I should give it a go. If she's not made any progress after the weekend, I can at least ditch the idea for a while knowing I tried.

Saying that, she's been terrible all afternoon but found out this evening that you get a sweetie for a wee on the potty so has just done 3 in the last 10 minutes! At least she's got the idea

Andrew's "I want a conversation" is so cute!

Woo, am on laptop so will be able to do lovely long reply :)

Lee - I love 'I want a conversation' :o the things they come out with! I caught Noah drawing on the kitchen floor the other day and told him that we didn't do that... his reply was 'Granny draw on floor' :o I texted my mum to ask her what she'd been teaching him

Definitely brave attemping potty training, blathers! I'm also not going to go for it until the summer, although we do have a toilet seat and stool for him as he started asking to sit on the toilet, but we're not pushing it at all and only when he asks to go do we sit him on it. I need rosa to be a little more self sufficient before I really start to try with him, if we start when he's 2 and a half, she'll be about 10 months :) Just got to cross my fingers that her seperation anxiety won't be too bad at that point so I can happily take him off to the toilet! I also don't want to use a potty, although the toilet seat we've got is also a portable potty for when we are out in case we can't get to toilet in time.

I'm also thinking September might be good for starting pre-school. The one we'll use is next door to the children's centre we use quite a lot and so I'm familiar with the staff who sometimes bring the kids through for sessions at the children's centre. I think he will love it, he has no worries about leaving me at all, he's very confident and really loves playing with other older children :) WRT potty training though, I did ask and they say they are quite happy if the children aren't trained yet, they will just follow with what the parent wants to do :)

Anyway, hope we're all ok :)

Shay isn't showing much sign of being ready to potty train. The last few days he's starting saying he stinks shortly before filling his nappy but that's it.

Still napping for about 2 hours at weekends. Only does an hour during week at nursery. Long may it continue.

Shay had a bad nosebleed last night. Was ok when I went in as he thought his hands were wet but he got a bit panicked when I turned the light on & he saw he was covered in blood. Scared me too the first time it happened. Blood everywhere. Nosebleeds run in my family though & I had my nose cauterised to stop mine so kind of used to it. dh hastily backed out of the room when he saw the blood everywhere.

At the risk of sounding completely ignorant what's Letterland?

Ha! My Great Aunt has been buying the children Letterland books. I figured they were just some cheap books she'd found, I didn't realise they were supposed to be a whole learning system!

Alex is doing Jolly Phonics at School so I think we'll stick with that for Catherine too. You're welcome to our Letterland books if you do decide to go with the pre school Lee

Hi everyone! You are all scaring me with this talk about learning to read and letters and stuff - I hadn't even thought about it. I just sort of thought they are so little that they'll just learn how to be social through play and then do letters and numbers and stuff at school.... Actually Lee just read your last post and that makes me feel better!

I don't really have anything interesting to say, but thought I'd post and say hi! I don't really feel pregnant at all - I have an early scan next Weds though as I am diabetic so am now even more excited and nervous than before if possible!

Hope everyone is well and not too cold... Imogen has started wearing socks in bed with her pyjamas to keep "toes warm mummy"!!!!

Hi all :)

Noah's in the process of dropping his nap I think :( Sometimes he doesn't have one and is fine, if a little grumpy in the evening. But sometimes it hits 11am and he turns into devil child and is clearly in need of a good sleep. If we are at home he is always offered a nap and sometimes has one and sometimes doesn't. I too will mourn the loss of naptime, when else will I have the time to watch all the unsuitable for little people programmes I record on sky+?! :o

Claire - I also used to have many nosebleeds when I was little, but I still think I would have been freaked out to see that! How did he react to the blood?

Lee - I have read a bit recently about the UK being wrong in pushing reading and writing too soon in our kids. Still not entirely sure why though as I don't really 'get' it all, any chance of an explanation for laypeople?! I'm just a bit interested in what approach should be taken if the child is keen to learn letters, as Noah seems to be...

I read to Alex but didn't try to teach him reading or writing until he was at School and I knew I was supporting the School rather than potentially confusing him with a different way of doing letters and sounds. I'm really glad I did too as I would definitely have gotten it wrong I think.

The only thing we did have beyond books was an earlier version of [[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leapfrog-Fridge-Phonics-Magnetic-Set/dp/B005DDN9YI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1326902280&sr=8-3 this Fridge Phonics thing] which is good but ours only has capital letters and I know now that we'd have been better off with lower case ones like the newer ones have. We did also have a load of Orchard games but they taught colours and numbers rather than letters. Alex loved LEGO too which I think helped his hand-eye coordination and imagination.

Once he started School and I found out that he was doing Jolly Phonics, I bought a few bits to use at home and use them to support his homework. I got the workbooks which were fab as they taught me and DH how to form the letters correctly (it's different to the way we were taught or at least to the way we write now) and the CD as that helped me learn the phonics sounds and the songs that go with them - which helped make more sense out of the garbled bits I was getting from Alex at the end of each day. We also got the wall poster which was handy for talking about letter shapes and sounds.

Long story short - I guess what I'm saying is not to worry about it too much. As long as you are reading to him and he's showing an interest then that should be enough before School. I certainly think being able to read and write before they start could potentially be off putting when they do as they'll have to wait for everyone else to catch up and might have to re-learn bits depending on what you've taught them. If he's really desperate to learn, then maybe find out which system your chosen School uses and buy a few bits to go with that?

this Fridge Phonics thing

Hi all,
interesting to read the reading/writing comments. It's not something I have really thought about, but my mum is from a family of old school teachers and she has offered a few times to help Anna in a year or so, so she can be reading by the time she starts school. now, she did the same with me and my bro and whilst I did fairly well at school etc I am no big reader now. So not sure what I think about it really. Very interested though to hear about synthetic phonics, it's all new to me! Anna does love books and stories though so am pleased about that!

Very limited napping here. She has one at nursery when she's there, but has only had one at home about once in the last 6 weeks. And then she's knackered by tea time!!!!

Got booking appt with midwife tomorrow. This first few weeks seems to be taking forever!!!

Nervous to hear how everyone is starting to drop naps. At weekends when ds2 is napping let ds1 play PS3, watch TV something like that & I catch up with Facebook, Twitter etc. Not looking forward to losing that quiet(ish) time.

Kate - he's ok about the blood actually. Slightly panicked when he first saw his hands but I think the fact that I'm so calm helps. Would prefer blood to sick any day of the week.

Interesting reading everyones thoughts on starting school. ds1 struggled when he started as he wasn't ready for the amount of concentrating required. He's nearly 7 now & gets on much better. He started school loving books & being fascinated by words but rather than this growing when he started school he lost enthusiasm as the fun was taken away & it became something he had to do. I remember his teacher at parents evening telling us he couldn't recognise certain letters which I knew he could. I love reading but doesn't look like I've passed it on to ds1. ds2 currently loves books but who knows how long that will last.

Catherine was definitely not interested in her nap today. I had to return her 3 times before she'd stay put!

I really don't want her to stop either as I use nap time to do my work out video. I'm a stone off my ideal weigh so I need her to keep going for a little while yet. At least until I can get out running after DH gets back from work to replace the workout without having to run in the dark!