Nice - Happy

In amongst all the busy and dash and plan and frantic, we've had some really beautiful times recently.

We've been spending time with new friends from the local home ed group, especially with little ones Imogen and Rhea and their lovely mum Rowan.

On Wednesday a big group of us met at the Hermitage to play in the water and the grass and the brief sunshine. And, most especially, the MUD.

Audrey loved it, and I'm so happy to see her confidence developing at its own special pace. Just a few short months ago she'd have been clinging to me, arms held up, "Mama Mama!" But now she's off, almost faster than I can keep up with, smiling happily and trying out her brand new words on adults and children alike. Imogen even got her to try on some of her sunglasses!

I like to think that not pressuring her into an independence she wasn't ready for has given her the security to blossom, now, into this beautifully social little girl - a little girl who can play with the crowd one moment, and wander off on her own to find flowers the next.

Her vocab continues to multiply daily. Yesterday she said the words nice, kiss and happy for the first time. Such beautiful words, I can't begin to tell you... it's a day I'll treasure for the rest of my life.

Sadly on Wednesday I got called away to a rabbit-related emergency, and while on the way to the vet hospital Audrey got very travel sick. This has happened before, and I'm starting to think she's inherited the motion-sickness gene from my side of the family - I don't get it, but my sisters get it something fierce. Poor baby was all shaky and worn out from it all, we got her all cleaned up and I nursed her for a while and she fell fast asleep for the rest of the journey.

We're going away on holiday to visit family in Blackpool, so I won't be able to update the blog for a week. We're so looking forward to this break - Audrey's first summer holiday!

Early Years Education/Parenting Resource Post of Doom

I want to gather together in one post some of my favourite reads and resources, ideas and exercises, when it comes to Audrey's care and development. This is something I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about - I can't help being a bit of a nerd about anything I do!

We practice responsive, attachment style parenting and our educational philosophy is currently a bit of a mix of stuff incorporating bits of Montessori, bits of learning-through-play, partly child-led and partly parent-guided. We follow no particular curriculum, aim for learning rather than teaching, and our education efforts mostly centre around games and fun, encouraging Audrey to be excited about learning.

To start with, I absolutely love reading other parent's blogs. I learn so much and get so inspired by what other people are doing and it always motivates me to be a better parent day by day. Here are some of my favourites:

This article on goodjobandotherthings.com is one of my favourites, and sums up a lot about what our parenting style aims to be - I think it's a really challenging post, and it inspires me to want to live up to that challenge.

This entire blog makes me happy, and I check it just about every day. It's the first parenting blog I started reading, and probably still my favourite. If you're new to this particular blog, start here with the birth story of her second daughter (and be warned, it packs quite an emotional punch).

I especially love this Mama's approaches to art, food and conflict solving. I love the respect this family so clearly has for each other, and how they work as a team rather than with an "us and them" mentality.

By far the best early years education blog I follow is http://wecandoallthings.blogspot.co.uk/ - although the focus is on home educating a child with special needs, I get new ideas from this blog that I can put into practice with Audrey every single time I look at it.

Next I want to talk about the books that we like. Obviously books are a great learning tool, even at this young age. Audrey isn't too bothered by stories so generally we like books with good pictures. Our absolute favourites are the Dorling Kindersley "My First" range - My First Animals and My First Colours etc. I like them because they use photos rather than drawings and because they have lots of different pictures on one page. We ask Audrey to point to the zebra, the shoes, the toothbrush, the ladybird etc. We ask what noise does this animal make? And now she's talking more we say "What's this animal called?" We work on colours - can you point to something red? What colour is this star?

Having said that Audrey's not keen on stories, there are some of the simple, repetitive story books that she'll enjoy. Repetitive stories are so good for young children's development, and our favourites include We're Going On A Bear Hunt and our good night book from Canada. Our good night book features pictures of various animal drawn in Native American art saying good night, and we also use this to practice counting - "one whale humming softly, two whales humming softly" etc.

For herself, Audrey loves books that have different textures such as the "That's Not My..." range. This is great sensory stuff, and gives us the chance to use vocab like soft, scratchy, rough, shiny, smooth.

Although we don't have a tv capable of receiving tv signal, Audrey does like to watch videos on youtube some times. We really really love the kidstv123 videos, especially the phonics songs. Audrey now anticipates most of the letters ("apple - cat - dog!!") and can say some of the phonics sounds when you point to the letters, such as a, b, c, f. She really has learned an awful lot from these videos, and I sometimes sing the songs with her when we're doing other things as she enjoys them a lot.

Other than those, she likes to watch French children's cartoon Trotro, and it has helped her a lot with making the French sounds, although she doesn't have many words yet. She sings the theme song to this, it's adorable.

We sing a lot of nursery rhymes with actions, which helps with motor skills as well as language. Some favourites include the wheels on the bus, wind the bobbin up and heads, shoulders, knees and toes.

There are so many toys, activities, games etc. which are helpful for development that I'm not going to start making a list here. Almost everything we do is a learning activity if you look at it in the right way, if you really engage with your child and let them be involved with what you're doing. But I might talk about more specific ideas in future posts!

I hope this might be helpful to someone at some point, even if just for me to look back on. She's growing and changing and learning so fast, every day is different and exciting.

Audrey at 15 months

She just can't quite climb up on to the sofa, but she tries. She reaches her arms up and says "hug hug!" and she gives proper squeezes, arms flung out wide and head resting gently against your chest.

She says too many words to list. Some favourites are milk, hat, ball, bug (her scramble bug), octopus (thanks Grandad Steve!), Dada (still), Wawa (she can't say Vera, which is the name of her favourite rabbit which is staying with us right now, and who she follows around the whole house saying "Wawa! Wawa!" and trying to show her things). She likes to say the names of her friends, especially Ros and Ally. She says flower and asks for her bath at night, and says "hot" if it's too warm. She can say please, and she can sign it too. She usually does both.

I love her communication more than anything. I love that I can have a conversation with the person I made and grew inside my body for all those long months. It's like a part of me split off and grew into something which can perceive the world in it's own way, and then tell me about it. I hope I never ever get tired of listening to what she has to say.

She loves couscous and granary bread, bran flakes with sour cream, lentil and carrot soup, and the crusts of the pizza. She likes quorn, but only if it's plain with no sauce or flavours. She loves egg if it's scrambled. She loves sausages. And yep, she still adores peas and sweetcorn and would eat nothing but that for every meal if she could. She takes the filling out of sandwiches and eats it separately. She likes chicken or cheese in sandwiches, but definitely not tuna. She likes bolognese but isn't as keen on lasagne.

She seems to like dogs and cats equally, and remarks on every single one she sees. She knows that dogs in the park aren't supposed to lick her face, so sometimes she tries to lick theirs instead. She thinks some things are "yuck" but clearly not licking dogs on the face! The bin is yuck, and picking her nose is yuck, but she still does it anyway with a big grin while loudly proclaiming how "YUCK!" it is.

She likes watching "ideo" (videos) on the "apto" (laptop) and we have to be quite strict about not spending all day watching them. She likes phonics songs, a french baby cartoon called Trotro about a little donkey, and nature documentaries, especially ones about the oceans and fish. She also likes watching silly cat videos and says "dat!" over and over and over while watching them.

She loves singing, and sings Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Wind The Bobbin Up all by herself, although she only has a few of the words. She does all the actions. She loves Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and If You're Happy And You Know It. She loves Twinkle Twinkle but mostly before bed time.

She knows a few of the letters of the alphabet in phonics, and knows that h is for hat, b is for ball, c is for cat, a is for apple, and a few of the others. She knows some of the order of the alphabet, if you're singing it (in phonics) and stop she can often say the next letter.

She still doesn't really know any colours, this is one we're working on. She knows a lot of shapes, a few fruits and vegetables, and LOTS of animals. Little lady can point out a flamingo, a donkey, a hippo, a panda, and about a bajillion more. She knows that beavers live in a "wodge" (lodge) and that an owl is a kind of bird and a spider a kind of bug. She knows that a dolphin is NOT a fish, and neither is a whale ("waaay"). Her favourite animal of them all right now is a guinea pig ("gig pig") but she LOVES tropical fish as well.

She loves to help around the house, and put away her toys. She definitely doesn't get this from me!

She loves books, but prefers non-fiction. I often get science/nature books for older children out of the library because the pictures are more complex, and she's really interested in them.

I love finding things out about her. I love singing and dancing and going for walks with her. She's pure, concentrated fun - total innocent enjoyment of every exciting thing we do. Everything is new when you're with her. I'm constantly reminded that she's seeing/doing this for the first time, and that this thing right here is really awesome when you stop and think about it.

She reminds me that it's often harder, but always better, to laugh than to get upset or angry. She teaches me to be more patient and understanding, and to reign in my temper and my judgement and my self-centredness. She teaches me how to have fun. She says "kick!" and shows me how to kick a football, so patiently, as if she's the one showing me how everything works. And, a lot of the time, she really is.