Dylan Climbs!

Making plans

I think we hit an important milestone with Aimee. Yesterday she went through a whole day without once leaking or missing her cue on the potty. Everytime she needed to go, without fuss or noise, she simply went over, pulled down her briefs and did the business. It helped that she spent all day indoors at home (she wears nappies when going out). The only bit need to do now is to teach her how to clean up afterwards, as her wiping technique is a tad sloppy. Now, we up the stakes and at some point we will venture to take her outdoors without wearing nappies, cue the inevitable whine of 'I need wee weee mummy...NOW!' that you hear up and down shopping centres and on streets everywhere - basically in places where there are no loos.

Dylan offers us new tricks to his repertoire of cheeky behaviour every day. His new one at the moment is to clamber up the entire flight of stairs all on his own. It is at once an amazing spectacle and at the same time, really scary as at any moment, he could slip and fall onto the unforgiving hard cold floor tiles below. Well, let me first explain that his stair climbing is strictly supervised and yes, we will have to buy a stair gate for the bottom as well as the top now.

Cat has confirmed her date to go back to work - late October. But already, difficulties to our carefully laid plans may arise with the juggling of who will drop off kids, who will pick-up and who will cover in emergencies. Her new bosses are not really sympathetic to her idea of taking off every Monday and not happy about her having to leave early enough to pick up the kids on days when I cannot. I'm sure things will work out in the end, but it would help if employers could be more flexible.

Before then though, and despite the trauma of our Wales holiday, we are considering another weekend family break. This one is only 3 hours drive away so I reckon we can just about handle that. More details later.

Da, Da, Da

Dylan be the bad boy of babbling, oh yeah!

Do The Math

Holy Smoke! It has just really hit me how much we will have to spend on childcare.
I just got a letter from our new nursery and the good news is that they have a place available for both Aimee and Dylan in September, thus allowing Cat to go back to work after her maternity leave expires. But, and here’s the shockingly awful part - the new nursery costs £1416 a month to cover both kids.
It doesn’t sound too bad until you look at it over a year, a sum total just shy of £17,000 a year!! And that's not even for a full time placement, as they will only attend 4 days a week.
I wonder if instead of nursery, I can hire an au pair or nanny for the same amount or less? Mind you, I am permanently traumatised by the horror flick The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, so that alone rules out personal childcare.
Still, it's not all bad news. The government offer a voucher scheme that means we don't pay income tax on £243 a month, effectively saving about £1900 annually if both parents use the scheme. And we get a few bob in child maintenance and child tax credit, but ultimately it is just shaving snowflakes off a £17,000 iceberg into so-called Early Years Education.
Now I know why a lot of Mums, and increasingly dads too, give up their job to look after their kids full time. It simply is not economically viable to put two or more through nursery. It’s not long term fortunately. When Aimee turns 5, she’ll go to proper school, but even here, there are uniforms and breakfast/after school club fees to pay for.
A newspaper article about the lifetime cost of raising a child makes depressing reading.
Still, at least we have their happy little faces to cheer us up…well until they reach that moody age.

Cleanliness next to Godliness

Last post I mentioned that I wished all aspects of bringing up kids were as easy as Aimee's noodle eating antics. Whilst most skills that I have to nag my kids about are met with stern resistance, eg reliable potty usage, there are a few rare other habits that Aimee gets wonderfully adept at straight away. Brushing her teeth is one of them. She loves brushing her teeth and staring in my shaving mirror as she beams her pearly whites. Of course the technique is sloppy and she probably swallows more foam than she spits out, but by and large, it's been quite easy to show her. Better still, she lets me finish the job when I say to let Daddy do a final polish (thanks to Dai for that tip). And as for rinsing her mouth and spitting out the remnants, she spews out the water with great enthusiasm. Sometimes too much enthusiasm and I get an early shower.

Today, I can report that Aimee passed another hygiene milestone by letting me, nay willingly and obligingly, letting me wash her hair. For months and months, this singular act has become increasingly fraught with tears and screaming tantrums. Most times I give up trying and just let her run around with greasy smelly hair. But recently she has begun to relax bit by bit until today, she positively begged to have jugs of water poured over her scalp. I can't begin to describe how small incidents like this make one completely forget the endless trauma and battles of the past on this issue. As for Dylan, well he only has three teeth and no hair, so we've yet to cross that bridge.

Noodle Girl

I love noodles. And judging by the gusto with which little Aimee-san here gobbles up her ramen, she's a chip off the old block. I always thought chopsticks would be hard to teach, but I never taught Aimee. She just grabbed them off the table and started shovelling away. Bless her. If only all apsects of kiddie rearing were as straight forward and easy.

Today, I took Aimee to the cinema for the first time in her life. We saw Kung Fu Panda. I certainly enjoyed and I think Aimee did, but I suspect most of the jokes, plot and concepts were too much for her. Still, she liked the Tiger character and screamed in joy everytime she saw her, followed by me frantically shooshing her to keep quiet.

Flower Girls

Aimee actually let someone paint her face today. Wow!

Battlestar Galactica

Well, the kids and Mum are spending the week at Grandma&pa Macs and daddy here is enjoying a rare time-off away from the kids. So what am I doing? Mucking around with this blog layout for starters. Oh and the small matter of the mountain...no,make that a whole Mariana Trench full of dirty laundry. Ho Boy, we're talking months of unwashed clothes. Hundreds of baby socks and toddler trousers, adult t-shirts, bras, pants, shorts, vests, gazillions of baby grows. The list goes on!
In between the wash loads, I'm cramming as much Battlestar Galactica episodes I can take.
But time alone makes me realise what a huge carbon footprint it is having kids. Yes, I know, it's a no-brainer - kids=expense and energy usage. But until you are on your own, as I have been, you realise not by what is being used, but by what I don;t use. For example, I am only using lights for the room I am currently in. Previously, lights were on willy nilly and pretty much all day.
Another example is food. I buy exactly what I need to eat, no more no less. But when the family are all present, a weeks groceries could easily amount to £130 plus, more recently with all the price hikes. Gas, electricity, water, petrol, yes, running a household full of little people is a hugely energy intensive business. And we're paying the price.

Mad house

HuhBoy! It's been a really tough week for FamilyYangs. I just recover from an injured neck when I go and badly twist my ankle doing daft things in jujitsu class. My reduced mobility meant a hard time getting things in the house done and not being able to look after the kids like I normally do. But what has made things really tough this week is Dylan's current bout of teething. He cries all the time, we have to use Calpol round the clock,he gets red hot fever,he does not eat, he barely drinks. It is not a happy time. It has been like that for over a week and we're pretty sure he'slosing what little weight he has due to lack of food. This phase had better pass soon or we're all going to end up in the mad house!

All Stand Up

Time flies so fast these days. Already my sister, Mat and their son Oscar are preparing to fly back to their home in Thailand. The time was so brief but the kids seem to really enjoy their stay. I hope they get to meet up more often as they grow older. I loved playing with Oscar and I think being an uncle is kinda cool.

Dylan goes through days when we is voracious, gobbling up anything you feed him and drinking well. Then there are days, sadly quite a lot of them, where he simply refuses outright, thrashing his fists in anger and shaking his head in fury. We've given up trying to figure out his mood swings and erratic night schedule and just cope the best we can - resigned to a life (for now) of little sleep and constant exhuaustion. But DJ can do amazing things. Today he stood up. I kid you not, the boy (7 months old remember) stood up on his own, wavered around, squatted then stood up again - all without holding on to anything. He seemed to realise his amazing feat and grinned ear to ear. I was open mouthed in shock, but only I witnessed it and Cat doesn't believe me.

I filled in forms today for both Aimee and Dylan to go to the local nursery. Not just any nursery, it is a Montessori school.
This method believes that children go through specific 'sensitive' periods where they learn a new skill very fast. I think Aimee is going through this right now for speech. Everyday, me and Cat are amazed at something new she has said, often in a perfect sentance. She even makes jokes and funny faces just to amuse us. She also has an incredible memory. We have this book, meant for adults to read, but it has loads of clip art of misc things and she has memorised them all. Yesterday I bought a book with 1000 pictures in, and I am gonna see how many she can learn and remember.

Congratulations for my friends Dai and Lisa who just had their second child - a healthy boy called Evan.

A cousin comes over

The Yangwood home has just welcomed sister Mei back in the UK with her lovely baby boy Oscar. They're in the UK only for a few weeks, but already, the first few days were spent busily showing the best we have in B'Wood.
It's really cool watching Oscar, who can crawl at quite a pace, interact with our two little mischief makers. Dylan seems to thoroughly enjoy the company and Aimee is completely besotted with her aunty gu-gu, follwing her everywhere and demanding that she play with her all the time.

Whilst we were out and about, Dylan got the chance to have his first go on the playground swings. As you can see from his happy expression, he enjoyed the experience immensely. Dylan is also eating a lot better since we started him on the Rinitidine. In fact he is so voracious all the time that he puts anything and everything in his mouth. From puree to small finger foods in quick succession. Already he is loving potato, chicken, beef, carrots, proper long grain rice, crackers, biscuit and many more. He still doesn't any patience for the bottle or breast so doesn't drink much during the day, but the health visitor thinks he is doing ok. He'll be weighed again in a fortnight and if he doesn't pile on the weight and hit the 'correct' portion of his growth chart, I'll eat my hat!

Baby bouncers

Aimee in July 2006 and Dylan in May 2008. We've actually found something that both kids seem to have enjoyed...the door hanging bouncer. Aimee liked to spin round and around but did didn't do too much actual bouncing. Dylan likes to bounce but also to take giant steps forward, only to swing back in frustration. At least it keeps him amused for about ten minutes, a minor miracle given that he screams if you let go of him for even a minute.

Mumbles

The Family Yanguns just spent a weekend in Wales to see some old friends and to attend their party. It was our first trip away from home as a four piece. But Boy! If I knew what a torture the journey it was in advance, I may have decided against it. On a good day, it takes about 4.5 to 5 hours to go from London to Swansea. We took a more leisurely 6.5 hours and pretty much every single waking minute of it, Dylan screamed all the way. Aimee sometimes protested, but mainly because Dylan was upsetting her. With regular pitstops at service stations to break up the torture, we finally made our destination (Mumbles) somewhat frazzled and stressed.

That evening, we spent our time at my friend's house party. Aimee found her idol in the girly pinkness that is Olivia, my friend's daughter. Olivia is the very epitome of pinkishness and Aimee saw her bedroom as a treasure trove. She couldn't contain herself and wore hundreds of necklaces, bracelets, hair adornments and millions of spangly, pinkyish, glittery things. She loved it. After we got back to out hotel, the tactical error of all sleeping in one room became apparent as none of us got any sleep. Dylan woke up screaming, which woke up Aimee, whihc woke up Cat then me, after settling all back dopwn, it kicked off again and the pattern repeated. It was hell.

The next day was spent walking around Mumbles in a zombie like daze.

But the big party that next night was actually brilliant. I caught up with loads of old friends and faces. aimee partyed hard until midnight and even Dylan took it all in his stride.

That night, everyone slept well.

Sadly, the journey back was even worse, as Dylan screamed ALL the way without sleeping. Aimee vomited and started screaming as well and me and Cat were on the verge of exploding. It was 6 hours of unimaginable torture.

So, although the mini-holiday was fun overall, the journey was just too much to ever bear doing again in the near future.

In other news, Dylan is still not putting on enough weight according to the health experts, but we are finding that regular doses of Gaviscon, a anti-acid for kids, is allowing DJ to eat and drink for longer without his usual awful symptoms of pain and discomfort that have plagued him since birth. But we must monitor his weight weekly now.

Having said all that, DJ appears to be in rude health and is exploring the world with his increasingly improving crawling skills. He can now take about three paces forward, and spin a complete 360 on his knees. He is still his usual very curious, nosey parker self, and will always crane his neck to check out the latest noise, or event.

Aimee's language skills are improving beyond recognition. She is uttering completely new sentances every day, most of which she has independently constructed, rather than leart like a parrot. I am always amazed at this.

Manbaby

I've just discovered this awesome fun website called Manbaby, in which, for no reason other than pure joy, people manipulate photos and swap baby heads for daddy heads. Here's my first attempt.
The thing is, Dylan looks ok in the photo, but I look weird.

Sunny

I get a lot of comments saying Aimee bears a strong resemblence to my sister Sylvie.
By the look of this photo, why they could be twins, albeit separated by more than three decades.

Well, summer is finally here. Temperatures in our part of the world are hitting the mid twenties and as usual, the Brits go crazy in the Sun and start walking around as if it was Rio de Janiro, wearing skimpy outfits, loud colours and badly burned skin.
But for us, it means we get to road test our garden. And what a great joy the British garden is to us little islanders. Aimee can run around with wild abandon, and we can sit outside and enjoy the fine weather in private.
We too also went a bit 'summer', mad and blew all our months budget on fun summer garden toys for Aimee. Like the sandpit Hippo and the push-along tricycle. Ah well, the sun only ever shines a few weeks in the year, might as well enjoy it while it lasts!