What day is it? I am sorry if you are reading this and you are one of the many friends I’ve forgotten to reply to. It has been like groundhog day here, Ariella is now attending nursery school every weekday but only for limited hours. The adjustment for her has been a challenge, the adjustment for me even more so.
It’s been a struggle losing my 1:1 time with Sebastian, having two days a week in which I can spend catching up with all the chores. From simply keeping on top of the pharmacy trips, multiple medicines all organised at different refresh times, to making sure we have food to eat, clothes to wear, feeding the cats, keeping the house generally just moving forward. When you have what equates to a nap time free each day suddenly it feels like you are on the clock, I have certainly dropped a bunch of things and I am so thankful that we have some outside help to keep everything “clean”.
Scattered along the month are weeks where there are hospital visits, this week scheduled an MRI and a Gastro appointment. The MRI went really well, so much less dramatic than last time – which you can read about here. This time a little bit of gas and she was fast asleep, no worrying about cannulation or MRI machines, no fire alarms going off above her, no vomiting, just sleep and actually peace. Of course it’s always a worry when your child is to undergo general anaesthesia but I enjoyed a really nice cup of coffee and we were happy she was in very safe hands.
When she eventually came around she was sleepy but happy, in fact the most distress she felt was from forgoing her breakfast and the nurses observations afterwards. With each check her heart rate would spike until the nurse soon realised she needed to leave the room to get a normal reading. Seeing her little heart rate spike really made me appreciate how anxious hospitals make Ariella and that I should try and remember this whenever she is having a meltdown.
I have of course applied to have her results sent to me ASAP, I’m not one to wait for the next consultant appointment. Looking forward to getting those through, I would hate to attend the appointment and have it sprung on me should there be any significant changes. Fingers crossed that the results come back positive!
Really glad it is the weekend, time to relax a little and prepare for October which will bring more blood tests, a hearing test, a vision test, a new weekly speech and language group and of course Halloween! It’s also going to be time to start visiting specialist schools, which is quite a daunting prospect but I am looking forward to seeing how they can best support Ariella.
This week Ariella’s focus has been her soft toys, she has so many (they have their own little crate her in her room) but she has particular fondness for certain ones and more so one or two than others. One or perhaps more often two of these often follow her around at all times, it’s lovely to watch. Presently her favourite couple are Monkey (a firm favourite which I don’t see changing any time soon) and Zula from Bing. Zula was a present for her second birthday and she quickly learned her name, she’s been carrying and requesting her ever since. It’s now crucial that I remember to take at least two of her soft toy buddies in my change bag wherever we go, to avoid a tantrum melt down or being asked for them constantly. Lucky I have a bigger bag now!
This new found love for soft toys has followed through into other imaginative play, her kitchen particularly is being used much more often and her pram now hosts a little baby for her to mother. I try to alternate her toys so she doesn’t get too used to them, the kitchen tends to stay as is but everything else gets rotated. This helps keep her toys fresh and means we don’t have loads of things out on display at one time.
I keep two shelving areas for Ariella on rotation in the main living area, this is what we currently have out. Lots of open ended toys to try and encourage more fine motor as this is still a challenge at the moment and a focus of portage sessions – shape sorting, the wooden tray, she has puzzles in the basket, a little wooden puzzle she received for her birthday.
This shelf is more rotated than the other, the books are changed frequently with ones on her bookshelf, Ariella loves to read. More fine motor toys with a stacking cube, letter box to encourage squatting – I hold the box up high and she has to pickup the letters off the floor and post them and then the two little round pegs for fine motor again.
I’m really pleased with how well her kitchen is coming along, we’ve repurposed the basket which we used for her birthday celebrations as a shopping basket. She now has a lot more inside the cupboards due to lots of kind gifts for her birthday. We have branched out from just making soup which is great for her and for us! I would like to add a few more things but I’m still contemplating what would work best for Ariella.
A new hairstyle this week, bunches!
Introducing Ariella to new food groups in her kitchen, these are from Melissa and Doug
Ariella received some new drums this week.
In physiotherapy our focus now that Ariella is walking one handed is to squat down, to achieve this we are encouraging play which requires her to bend down or squat to reach an item and put it into something up high. Portage are onboard as well and luckily lent us this toy to use but we also have been making use of the wooden post box we have for this task too.
I wanted to share a few things we’ve been up to there is of course portage, physiotherapy but also we’ve had fun on play dates and lots of Spring house work! I’ve finally washed our sofa for one, which I’ve been putting off for ages. When Ariella was a baby she had reflux and our sofa took a serious hit – given the lack of time I had really been quite indecisive about arranging a company to come clean it or doing it myself and I went for the latter. Pleased it didn’t shrink! It looks much better now thankfully. Sometimes life is just full of these little “chores” and this week Ariella has had a cold (and was sick in her bed) so it seemed like the right time to cover lots of household things while we were mostly indoors anyway.
Our coffee machine gave up the old fight too, what a drag! Luckily it was still under warranty and was replaced immediately but I had to suffer down some instant one morning and that was a long day. I’m now officially a double shot or nothing lady. This did mean I had to find a seriously big box and packing materials for it with just 12 hours notice. I was glad that we had moved so often the last few years and accumulated a few boxes in our storage, do make sure you have packed everything before taping up a box though – you definitely don’t want to have just finished and turn around to find you’ve forgot to add the most important part.
Ariella practising some physiotherapy exercises. We are currently working on squatting down for a ball and putting it into this toy.
It’s a long bank holiday weekend so thought it would be awesome to take Ariella into London for the morning, we’ve never shown her the aquarium but felt she was old enough now to appreciate it more. The train into London was as ever easy and we hit Waterloo before we knew it. The Sealife Aquarium is a short walk away, I couldn’t resist taking this picture it’s definitely one for the memory album.
On our way to the Aquarium, couldn’t resist snapping this one!
At first Ariella didn’t want to step out of her stroller but a little coaxing and she picked up the confidence, the pictures are a little blurry at points and dark but there isn’t much light in the aquarium. Even though she didn’t want to get down during the first couple of sections I tried my best to include her.
Ariella was quite scared of the tunnel so we didn’t hang around too long inside it, the entire aquarium wraps around a big shark tank starting on the lower levels you slowly work your way upwards. It’s sectioned into various areas of the world (Pacific, tropical, shark reef, penguins and the thames) and the fish that occupy it.
A tunnel through the shark tank
A neat way for children to watch the fish from a magnified porthole
It seems we picked the very best age for the visit as Ariella enjoyed getting up close to all the water tanks and she watched as a shark swam past her, recoiling a little. Lucky daddy wasn’t far away!
I was really pleased that Ariella wanted to walk a few sections holding on to our hands, we did some one handed walking and she was very confident. It was lovely to free up our hands a little and also a lot easier to walk when you aren’t having to bend over all the time. The tanks have plenty of cruising edges so she could go from one to the next with a little help from us.
Ariella on a lower level of the shark tank
One of the other sections was jellyfish and although I couldn’t get a good picture it was very sensory and beautiful to see them swimming around, Ariella was mesmerised. She loved the changing colours in the tank too and was confused when we tried to explain that we didn’t control the lights (unlike the ones at home Philips Hue).As we were exiting the crowds had picked up and it was all rather squishy, at some point Ariella dropped her monkey. We are usually very aware of monkey but alas not this time, after a quick look with no success we made our way to Wagamamas for lunch in the knowledge that we had a little ticking time bomb on our hands.
Walking into Waga’s I was already on the website that sold the monkey’s with one in my basket, sat down at the table and the order was through. But we had several days to get through before we could rectify the situation, we ate and once Ariella had demolished her lunch she looked up and said “Key? Redkey?”. We knew what she meant Monkey. I had quite a few alternatives with me so offered up Sula, Elle but no she looked at me at said “Redkey”. We were going to have a long, long weekend even after trying to explain that she had dropped Monkey and lost Monkey, well she wasn’t having it. Then my phone rang, I had lost all hope that anyone would actually call the phone number I had left on the label in a black sharpie. It was London after all and a tourist area, what were the chances that someone would pick him up and check? Well they did, either the staff member or someone gave it to them but someone from the London Eye phoned. They had the monkey, in the background they could probably her the protests for “Redkey??? Redkey???”. Thank goodness we thought, we promptly paid and headed back to collect the lost monkey.
Ariella is reunited with her monkey after losing it in the crowds.
I think she did understand that he was lost because when Monkey came back riding in Jamie’s jacket her face lit up and he stayed right there for a long time. In fact she felt promptly asleep! Monkey seems to be coming everywhere with us, as you can see this is us just this morning on our walk! Good old Monkey.
What a welcome back to England to leave on the cusp of Winter and return in Spring, in those two short weeks the garden had come alive as if to welcome us home. The very first weekend on our return was blissfully free on our calendar and we headed straight to the garden centre to pickup our Spring plants.
Before long we were back in normality and waving the jet lag on its way, I had missed the sound of the coffee machine grinding up the morning’s cup and the daffodils which I had ordered in our return shop were starting to blossom in their vase. This week we had a few tasks in our schedule, Ariella had physiotherapy to attend and her weekly portage (learning through play) session. I on the other hand had a billion and one things to arrange for Ariella’s fast approaching second birthday party.
Typically during Spring the weather can be what we call a “mixed bag” some day’s it was raining heavy and others lovely, sunny and sometimes warm. We had one of those rain shower day’s this week and I felt that it would be great to honour the rain being indoors making rainbow umbrella’s (and to buy myself a raincoat). The concept is the same as the Autumn leaf sun catchers but instead just making the umbrellas by themselves and I used some bluetac to stick them to the window.
Ariella has over the two weeks blossomed too, she spent quite a lot of time on her iPad while we were away – although we had some open-ended toys with us too. We noticed then that something had changed, she was playing with the various apps in a way we’ve never seen before. She was able to match every item in her matching game which is quite tricky as you have to drag them over to the right item with your finger. On our return she was suddenly able to do the matching puzzles too and understand that different shapes fit into different pieces. Many of the iPad games have puzzles too in the traditional sense, which she was again able to do.
Music class was back on much to Ariella’s pleasure, she loves her music class and was very happy to attend again. Monkey did not get lost in the Indian Ocean as you can see!
Practising fine motor skills
She had come back a more confident child and less scared of her surroundings, for example this wiggly worm exercise. I’d tried it with her before and she had cried not wanting to touch any of the worms, throwing everything to the floor. I had a feeling this time with the big change we had noticed that it well work and as you can see she enjoyed it very much.
Thinking I might be on to a winner I grabbed her dolly out too and tried a bit of pretend play, amazed again that Ariella was engaged straight away. The same day I took her to a local toy shop to buy a more baby style dolly for her pram in the hope that it might encourage her to push her baby along (like her mum).
It’s been a week of fun new playing and It’s making for better days all around. Ariella is a lot happier now she can communicate well and enjoys playing with her toys without becoming frustrated. She loves her kitchen and has taken to carrying around utensils while she cruises around the room. Her vocabulary has exploded, she knows all the vegetables for her kitchen food and we’ve been making soup with the saucepans. While we were away we a book which has all the letter’s of the alphabet called ABC which I bought second-hand as it’s not being made new anymore. I really wanted it to be exactly the same format as her numbers book seeing as she did so well to absorb her numbers. I’m so pleased that it seems to have worked, Ariella now knows her A – Z’s and is able to read three-letter words like “Cat, Dog, Car”. As well as this she is able to sound out phonetically for some words that she see’s (usually on TV) and I’m finding this rather amazing to watch. In summary lots more imaginative play, lots more fun all round – it’s been a blast this week!
We’ve decided to try a new approach with Physiotherapy, Ariella has a body wrap made of Lycra for her torso and still wear the Piedro supportive boots. Her ankles are still very bendy so she will need to wear them more often than not for the next three weeks, only taking them both off for sleep/foot/travel. Hopefully this might provide extra support for her torso as the muscles there aren’t quite as strong as required to help her walk. We will see how this goes the next week!
In two months time I can stop counting in months, when someone asks me how old Ariella is I can just say. Two, she is two. That should be a lot easier to remember! This week Ariella turned twenty-two months old but that’s not the only thing that occurred this week. We had a handful of firsts, the first time Ariella has stacked a block of cubes and the first time Ariella has ever used her potty. Every week we see progress but some weeks are more remarkable than others, I think this is a remarkable week. Not only have we seen obvious big milestones but we’ve seen these leaps in fine motor and problem solving/understanding cascade over a multitude of different activities.
In preparation for her two-year review I wanted to introduce Ariella to lacing beads, these are particularly tricky for children with hypermobility. I started by asking Ariella to hold the bead while I thread the lace through and then I took over holding the bead while I asked her to pull the lace the other side. I picked the Melissa and Doug lacing bead set as it had numbers and I try to incorporate numbers in to any activity I can with Ariella, numbers seem to be her key enjoyment and engagement is really key.
Practicing lacing beads
On Monday had a completely free day, so I took Ariella shopping for some more swimwear it was cold but we ventured out wrapped up warm. In the afternoon we went to a new park with two of Ariella’s little friends. All the toddlers were wrapped up warm but in the end I think the chill won and we all headed home, it’s been pretty cold here in Surrey I should have known that this was the start of the dip in temperature again, which could only bring with it snow.
A mixture from Gap and Next
Fun at the park with friends
Tuesday we had another music class in the morning, Ariella’s new-found love for her music class is so relieving. Her little monkey has proved it’s worth, she takes him with her every week and holds on to him throughout. She is also getting much better with passing the instruments back to the class teacher, now that she gets the monkey in return. I’m so glad we didn’t give up on the classes as we really nearly did, she enjoys it a lot and it’s helped hugely with fine motor. In the afternoon caught up again with one of Ariella’s friends at a local soft play centre, she amazed me further by showing some confidence with playing outside the “baby” area which she is too old for now. She enjoyed being in a bigger pit of balls than normal and we spent lots of time walking holding hands around where previously she would be quite anxious and want to be held
Ariella had some repeated blood tests to contend with on Wednesday, the day itself was pretty rammed with activities. We had an early Brunch due to the schedule of the day in a local Sainsbury’s cafe then went to Hydrotherapy over lunch time, straight after swimming I put on some magic cream ready for her blood test. She did so well I don’t know if it was because she was strapped in to the car seat or because this time around I didn’t try to use clingfilm (the nurse suggested it!) instead opting for the patches that the pharmacy could easily have provided. We drove to the Hospital, parked up and alas Ariella was fast asleep in the back – it was bound to happen as Hydrotherapy wipes her out and it was way past her nap time. Begrudgingly I scooped her up into her Stroller and headed off to the children’s department hoping she might fall asleep again as we were early.
Sitting outside the room waiting for our turn all you could hear were the cries of the children before you. I’m so proud to say that Ariella when having her blood taken she didn’t cry, she didn’t move, she looked directly at the needle which is more than I can ever do on myself. Both of the staff looked completely shocked, so was I – last time we took Ariella she cried and struggled so this was very unexpected. They put a nice little cartoon plaster on and attached a bag to catch a urine sample. I’m expecting her results to come back okay, they are just checking to make sure that the last abnormality was due to just a virus at the time.
Needless to say Ariella did not wee in the bag while we were in the Hospital, we were sent home with some spare bags and a tube just like last time. All in this is the reason that my Thursday morning started with me holding a bag of wee in one hand while trying to funnel it into a tube in the other at 7am.
Friday morning Ariella had a physiotherapy session which went well, as normal Ariella showed signs of progression and we’ve been given a body wrap to wear around her tummy to help her with her core. She doesn’t need to wear it all the time as it’s important that she get time without it to strengthen fully but we intend to do more walking practice with her wearing it as it should help. In the afternoon daddy came home earlier and this is when the magical block building occurred, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve gone over stacking blocks. Often she would try one and find it difficult to manipulate the blocks enough to get it to sit in a stable way. During the last week since the big emotional leap she had, learning of “self” her interest in objects has really come on too. I think given how she has been spinning cups and tipping bags of toddler crisps out on the floor I should have known she might have been showing a big change in fine motor abilities.
This evening Ariella announced for the first time that she needed to do a “poo”! It was the quietest announcement she has ever made but Daddy heard it and we leapt into action, grabbing the potty and sitting her on it. I can’t say I was really looking forward to potty training, much like weaning it’s just another thing to clean. Part of the reason why I never prevailed with teaching the cats to use the bathroom instead of their litter box too, it’s all a lot of mess.
Here we are at the weekend, I wonder what tomorrow has in store for us – so far it’s impromptu potty training!
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”
– Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
Can you feel Christmas in the air? I’m a huge festive fiend and I adore everything Christmas related, the markets, the mulled wine, listening to Christmas music, the warm cosy feeling that this time of year brings. We’ve had some lovely exciting activities and interesting things going on this week, I’ll start by talking about our London trip. I have a brilliant bunch of mothers who all found solace in each other, sharing the same due date month. From pregnancy to present, all across the United Kingdom they have been there during the early morning and late night feeds, the strange nappies, the illnesses, the good and the bad. Occasionally those local to each other meet up, this week we did just that and it was brilliant to see some of them and their lovely children. Children whom I have watched blossom from tiny little dots to big smiling, stomping, questioning beings.
London felt very festive, a short walk down the river we passed lots of Christmas markets and stalls. It was fitting that there was a wintery chill in the air, but the sun had come out and Ariella even got to experience her very first real life rainbow.
Then the week had a little blimp, you can read about me losing access to my phone here. But I like to think that things tend to balance themselves out again, while I was missing in action we received a letter. A letter that I’ve been waiting to fall through our letter box for a while. We have a date for Ariella’s MRI scan! It’s the first week of January 2017 and it works perfectly for us, it doesn’t clash with our festive plans and things we have booked in already. It’s really reassuring to have a date, I think not having a date was for me quite challenging I’m not the most relaxed when it comes to the unknown, now I know that in a month and a half we will hopefully have the scan done with. I’m going to try and get a copy of the results so I can analyse them myself as we won’t see neurology to discuss the results until February 2017. As odd as this may sound, I did this with my own MRI scan on my spine and could see the various issues which I found reassuring when discussing them after with my consultant.
Other than that there is Christmas and Christmas shopping, now that most of the shopping is done online it’s like Cardboard city in our home. Your biggest challenge is coming up with creative new tetris style solutions to fit the cardboard the best into your disposal bin! I’ve been practically hosting my own depot, but we have hit the list down greatly. Efficiency is key in our lives!
The weekend saw a trip to check out the Godalming Christmas Festival, naturally we had not been before and did not know quite what to expect. It was awesome, mulled wine, great wares, good street food, all the lights were switched on after a big count down. Very welcome, what a great way to celebrate having less than a month until Christmas. Jamie went for a hog roast bap accompanied by crackling and apple sauce, mulled wine and a nutella/cream crepe. I decided to try some satay prawn skewers, sea food paella and mulled wine. Yum yum, well done Godalming! The stalls had plenty of things to buy for Christmas presents, yourself, your home. There were donkeys rides for the children, carols, lots of the restaurants had come out to make their food on the street, local companies all advertising their wares. It was truly the best market I’ve been to in Surrey so far. To keep Ariella sweet we took her for a quick trip to the park before heading around the stalls.
We decided to visit twice, once during lunch which was perfect as the crowds weren’t as busy. Then we popped back for the light switch on in the afternoon, which by then it was difficult to navigate around, many of the stalls selling homewares had sold out of lots of items and I would have preferred to use the Tula carrier if this was our only visit.
It was very festive but crowded, we watched the count down and the light switch on but then left once the bands started. Ariella was quite tired, so I think while it was lovely to see the lights I would probably just go for the day next time.
During the break between we had a surprise delivery, I had ordered a starry sky decal with 1000 individual sticky dot stars combined with a comet, three shooting stars and a moon. I bought it from an Etsy store called Stella Murals which is based in New Zealand (hence not knowing when it was going to arrive). The designs are truly exceptional, beautiful pieces of artwork and so realistic. I hadn’t considered how long it would take to stick 1000 dots randomly, in star like patterns onto the ceiling of Ariella’s bedroom. It took quite some time as the dots varied from reasonably big to tiny, we took it in shifts between us which worked well. Share the burden!
I’d love to have got a picture of it once done but I can’t seem to get one to show up on my phone, but it looks exactly like the pictures on the advert with some different placement naturally.
I’m obsessed with space, I hope that Ariella enjoys all the effort the night we installed them she fell asleep immediately. That’s a good sign!
I had such high hopes for this week, we had lots of lovely things planned starting with a music class, classical music performance to watch and finally a Christmas market/fair. Then on Monday morning I woke up with Ariella’s cold and I knew then that the week was going to be challenging. I understand that children pass germs and viruses around, they don’t really understand the concept of breeding germs but my immune system has taken such a battering since becoming a parent. Somehow I managed to survive the first year without a single cold, but now Ariella touches everything and mixes with other children it’s just a matter of time until the next and the next.
Due to my inability to function as a person we started our Monday off pretty quietly, it’s not too long before a toddler realises that they’ve been indoors all day so the easy morning can only last so long. We worked through as many activities as I could encourage her to be interested in, she played with her Teddy. She has learnt to share her stacking cups and pretend they are cups of tea along with a big slurping sound. It was lovely to see such great pretend play.
Cup of tea Bear?
I also really wanted her to start practicing more with her cubes on the spindle as this activity helps children thread later on and works on fine motor skills. It’s something she until this week couldn’t quite do fully but she mastered it!
Mastering blocks on a wooden spindle, well done Ariella!
Never underestimate the fact that parents do not get to recover from their illnesses, I think every illness I’ve had since Ariella has taken me double the time it used to recover from. After realising this yesterday I’ve decided it’s because life just continues as normal when you are unwell. I’m not medically trained, just an observation but I guess if you are not resting then it would make sense?
When I’m not feeling 100% it’s hard to muster the energy to do new interesting activities, we spent a lot of time at the park this week which is my go to. Ariella absolutely loves the swings though so I don’t think she minds! Being in a totally lazy mood I also didn’t feel like cooking, so lunch on Tuesday was a quick trip to a local sandwich shop Pegs Parlour on Godalming high street. We hadn’t ordered from there before but It was delicious and I highly recommend you pop in for a visit. I don’t eat meat so sometimes sandwich choices can be quite limited, the kind member of staff recommended the goats cheese and caramelised onion filling for me. He made one up and a cheese sandwich for Ariella, both to takeaway and off we went. We will definitely be going back!
Sadly we didn’t make it to the music class which is our weekly class in the mornings, we could have gone but I really didn’t want to infect everyone else. I was in full cold mode, spending most of my time running around with a bunch of tissues in my pocket and in no real state to want to sit in a room trying not to cough or sneeze. Am I the only one who thinks this?
To make up for my completely lack of effort in the food department at lunch I felt I should try something new for dinner so I did whip up a storm using a new sweet and sour recipe recommended from one of my friends months ago. It went down a treat, I was surprised how little sugar you can use when making it yourself. Normally we don’t have sugar in our sauces which is why I have to make everything from scratch all the time.
What’s new?
Communication
We had a couple of new things happen this week, Ariella’s vocabulary is increasing day by day. She can now say “Cow” and make the noise to go with Moo. Also she likes to say “Ready, Steady, Go!” all together and my favourite “No” pronounced Noaw. Learning to say no has certainly made things interesting, not because she uses it irrationally – no in fact she doesn’t say it that often. But because now It’s very clear what she wants and does not want, we ask Ariella a lot of questions. “Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? Do you want to get out the bath?” now she understands to express her view sometimes respecting it can be challenging. We try though!
We have also had lots of fun with our lighting, Ariella can say all the colours and so far seems to really love “purpurl” purple, we let her shout out the colours and change the lamps to suit. It’s easily done with the Phillips Hue lighting system and can be easily be controlled from the luxury of our mobile phones, or by just asking Siri on our watches.
Physical and Motor Development
Gross mobility has come along slowly too, although she doesn’t seem to be too interested in walking much she can now get down herself when climbing the sofa. This is great, no more worrying that she’s going to fall off or frustration from her because she can get up but cannot get down again. Next week I’ll try introducing the stairs more again, she does have access to a staircase 24/7 while at home. We have a neat little one which has walls on each side so it’s rather safe to learn on (the others are gated!), she doesn’t show much interest in it at present though.
I almost forgot – Ariella learnt to dance! On demand.
I’ve spent all week trying to get her to stack a tower of blocks working on fine motor, will she? No. She loves knocking them down though, I think that’s just how she likes to be. She can stack a single block if in the mood and she enjoys the spindle blocks which helping a lot. Ariella also has been practicing with her little activity cube from Asda, dropping balls down the track and has shown some interest in positioning the cars on her ELC Click Clack Track. It’s been quite difficult to take her interest away from her iPad this week, I don’t know if using an iPad counts as fine motor? I guess it does, she’s become quite good at manipulating the objects. Check out the little video below.
Sensory and Cognitive Development
Ariella has really come on a long way since her review in this area, she understands now that objects don’t just disappear if she cannot see them. She likes to hide her sticky dots for her bath under the bathroom rug and knows when I hide her iPad that it’s not gone (mean mummy!)
This week she learnt about different shapes and their names, she can even say certain ones and she’s able to complete the shape puzzles used in the review. We are trying to move towards using a shape sorter but I think once fine motor improves she will be mastering the sorter in no time.
Here’s a few pictures of our week, I shan’t bore you with a blow-by-blow account all you need to know if it’s been raining a lot and pretty cold here in England. However we have had lots of festive fun, with the cold season starting the various fairs and markets are kicking off. We intend to end our week on a high with a trip to a Christmas Market this afternoon!
Autumnal park fun!
Goats cheese and caramelised onion sandwich from Pegs Parlour in Godalming
It arrived! Polarn O. Pyret all in one suit!
Devotion, pushing the swing in a rainstorm
Testing out the new suit!
The first minced pie of the season
Practicing standing ready for a trip outside.
Trip to check out the Guildford Cathedral Christmas Market
Lunch at Zizi’s in Richmond, London. Lovely children menu, went down well!
At the dentist, waiting for a long time (two hygienist appointments back to back). She did very well!
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
The whole week so far has been a bit of a silly flop, we couldn’t go to the music class as I haven’t been well. Our trip to the park ended up with me soaked to the bone in a deserted playground pushing Ariella on a swing in a rainstorm, with a cold and no coat (silly me!). Once I was well enough Thursday we missed the classical music children’s show because there was nowhere to park, on Friday we went to a local Christmas Fair which was advertised as a big market in Guildford. The most amusing part of Friday was trying to find the place with one of my lovely mummy friends and her son, we certainly worked off the chocolate cake we had once there but the market turned out to be more of a crafting fair.
To top it all off a trip to the dentist, which actually was quite amusing for Ariella at least. I have my fingers crossed that today will be better, we are off shortly to another Christmas Market this afternoon, if I don’t get some mulled wine this time I’m going to write the week off entirely.
On the plus side, Ariella got a new hat, she visited the park A LOT, her new all in one came so things aren’t as difficult outside in the rain without her walking, Ariella isn’t unwell thank goodness and I’m starting to feel better finally.
All in a days lifetimes work eh? I did get a minced pie though, just saying.
Ariella was quite scared of the tunnel so we didn’t hang around too long inside it, the entire aquarium wraps around a big shark tank starting on the lower levels you slowly work your way upwards. It’s sectioned into various areas of the world (Pacific, tropical, shark reef, penguins and the thames) and the fish that occupy it.
It’s been a week of fun new playing and It’s making for better days all around. Ariella is a lot happier now she can communicate well and enjoys playing with her toys without becoming frustrated. She loves her kitchen and has taken to carrying around utensils while she cruises around the room. Her vocabulary has exploded, she knows all the vegetables for her kitchen food and we’ve been making soup with the saucepans. While we were away we a book which has all the letter’s of the alphabet called 
