Saturday, 15 December 2012
Thursday, 27 September 2012
Saturday, 15 September 2012
A Jaan Update, Sept 2012
[This was originally the text of an email update sent to Jaan's beloved friends and relatives ... does what it says on the tin so it's here too!]
Jaan will be 4 at the end of the month, and we're moving house soon, nearer my folks, and near Jaan's school (Cambridge Steiner School in Fulbourn, he's in Kindergarten, in a class called Appleblossom where he is with kids aged about 4 till about 7.) Jaan tells me "I LOVE it! I'm SO HAPPY."
He spends one morning in the woods doing the same sorts of things they do indoors ... just outdoors, two mornings in the classroom & in the garden, from what I gather from Jaan, mostly making bonfires with his mate Ben, and plotting how to get more apples from the tree. Jaan is a bit scared of climbing trees just now, but he likes to brace himself along the lower limbs of the trees and say"I'm strong". He also likes to move branches to help bigger kids climb. 
He loves his best mate Arti, and misses him when they don't meet in the week. They go to different schools and are in different school years, so Jaan will have to get used to it. He tells everyone we are moving to be near Arti's house, which is true. The new house is Walpole Road. We'll be able to walk to Mum's if we want (or get the bus) and the same for Cathy's. This is awesome news for me and Jaan. Iain will be commuting to Royston on the train, which is a very new thing for him! There's a school bus that will get Jaan and me to school in the mornings, and before we know it, Jaan will be on that bus without me, keeping his mate Ben company. Our place will be one of the later stops on the journey, we will not be that far from the school.
Jaan still loves Skype-ing, and is very interested in Facebook - when people tell him they will send him some news or a picture he asks them to Facebook him. He plays Angry Birds on my Facebook account and gets a pretty good weekly ranking, he's on the podium at any rate :) He has been enjoying the promo levels linked with the Ultrabook and Green Day. He's a keen air-drummer now, and Arti and Jaan together have been known to air-guitar and air-drum themselves silly on our sofa. Jaan definitely identifies with the drumming most. I also hear him most days playing on his keyboard, making up 'tunes'. Like me, he sings all the time. At bedtime sometimes he asks me for sleepytime songs, or 'you can sing your songs mummy', and other times, 'not your songs, sing my songs, Thomas or Angry Birds'. I refuse point blank to sing an Angry Bird song - Jaan watches and listens to kids' videos on YouTube, and often there is an ad-hoc Angry Birds 'song' involved ((shudder)).
Our newest interest as a family is the Moshi Monster website, a truly superb bit of childsplay. It's great, a good atmosphere and full of the gross things (goo, slime, eyeballs etc) that little boys love to talk about. I far prefer him playing within its safe confines, making the most of their parodies of all the big games and their music videos/pop songs. Compared with the media world outside of Moshi Monsters, the way Jaan is enjoying himself with his Moshi mates, with us tagging along too is most reassuring. The aim of the whole thing is to solve mysteries, complete challenges and collect Moshlings. The monsters themselves are based on a few basic prototypes, it's all fascinating for Jaan. He wants to know why his friends choose different colours and different monsters to him. He likes to choose the missions, and solve some of the puzzles himself, and wants us to do some too. He chooses who to be friends with as part of the game. It all gives me a great deal of confidence in his ability to make these necessary judgments and advances as he spends more time with his peergroup and older kids. He's much better now at saying hello and playing with new kids, as we get ample opportunity to roleplay tricky intros.
When he plays by himself his games involve building intricate and imaginative settings for his Angry Birds and pigs, sometimes other characters are involved too, sometimes trains and tracks too. He likes one of us to do the voices. He calls his play 'making videos'. He's keen to add Moshi Monsters figures to the game as their characteristics and sound effects will enhance these 'videos' no end. He likes a few big plush Angry Birds to be involved too, as they knock the most piggies off the blocks! Plus they are cuddly. Angry Birds have a series of toys called Mash 'Ems that go splat and stick briefly where they land (on a smooth surface) - kind of like playing darts in a pre-schooler squashy way - and they are slung using a sling-shot, and sling shots/catapults are what he wants most in his life!
He still loves a good story, Billy Goats Gruff and Peter Rabbit/Squirrel Nutkin are the tops these days, as are his Thomas storybooks. He reads his magazines (Moshi Monsters, Thomas, CBeebies, Toy Story) - although nowadays he is less interested in CBeebies, and likes Cat in the Hat, Horrid Henry, Canimals and Fleabag Monkeyface from CITV. He keeps talking about having Sky TV again when we move house (news to me!) and getting the Disney Channel again, "The red one Mummy, the one for Big Kids." ..... ????? ... red one? ... I take this to mean he is no longer a baby, he is a 'little kid' or a 'big kid' depending on the activity.
Jaan likes to talk about space, wormholes, the insides of a human being, dogs, cats, cakes, sweeties, bonfires, the relative old-ness of people, friends and what friends do, holidays and Appleblossom class. That is, when he is not talking about Cut the Rope's Om Nom (this is a computer game) and Angry Birds or Moshi Monsters.
He likes us being a family, he says, Mummy, Daddy, Jaan, Sparkee and Pixie. He looks forward to seeing his Mimi and Grandad when they are in town, tells me all about watching cricket with Nanabhai, and loves his Nanujaan perhaps best of all. Good thing too as she does almost all of the school run and babysitting for us!
Watching Jaan cope with the turbulant times, so prominent in a 4 year old's life, can be heart wrenching at times, but I am proud of him more often than not. He can get very angry when a bigger kid thwarts him, and he'll tell me or Iain, "I'm burning, I'm on fire. I hate him, I'm so angry I want to hit him, I want to kill him. No, don't come near me I'm burning and you will burn too" and he breathes till he can be calm, and then makes amends and moves on, although half the time making amends is hard and it takes quite a while before he can do what is best to make peace. He tries not to fight, and tries to be mature about it. He doesn't really succeed in being anything but a 4 year old child most of the time when tensions are high, and he often calls me, Iain or other kids a "poo" or a "foo" in righteous disgust. But he knows how to take turns, to share, and how to be kind and friendly, and he does all those things beautifully.
Finally, thank you everyone who asked for present ideas. Jaan loves his toys, and I love having things in the house that people who love us have sent us. Iain loves not having to buy everything Jaan wants and needs himself ... LOL. Here we are (obviously, don't feel you HAVE to buy him anything at all, more than anything his lists are a snapshot of what he is like these days, on the cusp of 4-year-old-ness).
His all encompassing Amazon list is here http://www.amazon.co.uk/
And here are his pinterest boards, enjoy!
Love, N x
Friday, 2 December 2011
Wooden Bead Angry Birds
Successes x
Just made my son a gift for the morning
Angry birds are his faves
Sunday, 27 November 2011
The Christmas List
We keep track of stuff we'd like to buy using the Amazon Universal Gift list ... it's just here to provide examples really - behold the 3 Midgleys List.
Plus we use my wish list on ShopStyle as a quick way to store clothes/sizes for the three of us too.
More tradiotally, ideas for Pressies are here:
Iain
- cinema vouchers
- Tassimo discs that are more exciting than the standard columbian or other plain coffee that we find in the supermarket (Tassimo do lattes and cappuccinos but the shops never have them, and we never order it online somehow)
- nice clothes/vouchers (he always has to make do with Matalan and Tescos now, which is fine, but poor guy, he does love nice stuff)
- Nokia Lumia
- big mugs - he loves his mugs
Nadiya
- Anything with Hello Kitty on it
- Forego buying a gift some sponsorship money to my Moonwalk which I am doing in May.
- Fairisle jumper or leggings (love fairisle everything - uniqlo and Awear do lots)
- John Frieda curly shampoo, conditioner, serum.
- cross-trainer running shoes for my overpronated feet
- Sweaty Betty running gear/vouchers
- I'd love a vivid green colour on my gear for training or just clothes anyway (fleece? beanie? climacool t-shirt? thermals? waterproofs?) some of the brands call it a kelly green, a bit brighter than a matt emerald
- Doggie stuff - like lead, collar, bowls, car-seat, bag for carrying, reflective harness for night-walks.
- tea cups and saucers - a longing for some grown up sophistication.
Jaan
- hotweels-type car stuff to make races - this is what he really wants. He has many hotwheels cars, only one cheap Tescos loop though, not a proper hotwheels run/track/loop
- Trunki car seat/bag combo
- VTech device - the new awesome one the innotab
- PlayDoh mashed potatoes game
- baby meccano
- shoes/trousers/tops sizes 3-4 if they are trousers or big baggy things but top things mainly aged 4-5. Good socks for a size 9-12 foot - he is a big size 10. He has enough jumpers, coats, gilets and sweatshirts.
- modelling stuff - paper clay, plastecine
- glitter stuff for model making - he loves glitter, specially blue and gold
- puzzles (40-60 or even 100 pieces but not pieces that are very small)
- board games for 4-5 year olds - like ludo or snakes & ladders
- bath fizzers - he adores them
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Mickey Through the Year ...
I draw with my kid. Have done from the start. Before him, many years ago, I drew with my baby brother (now a fully grown man, an animator no less). Thanks to his advice, my hitherto downright bizarre Mickey is slowly taking shape - can't seem to get the mouth/teeth/nose to not super-impose yet, as you can see:
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My most recent Mickey & bunny ... late Dec 2010
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Do bear in mind, I draw in a hurry to accommodate a toddler's attention span, and my art equipment is limited to whatever I am prepared to wipe up/mop up/scrub off the carpet once baby has a go.
Not just Mickey Mouse, of course. Thomas and Friends, Elmer, and some sort of random cat form my basic repertoire.
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A previous Mickey, some standard shapes and a Thomas/Percy ... you decide
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Oh, I do dodgy squares, circles and star shapes too! No compasses or rulers were abused (or consulted) in the 2 years I've been doing my good work though.
All I'm really trying to convey to the little one is the idea that no matter what the end result looks like, we can have a jolly good time drawing Mickey, even if it ends up looking EVIL like Iain's last effort (admittedly done in a rush with Jaan tugging at it at the crucial evil-making moment).
Having the self confidence to give it a go is what its all about.
Unless you draw cartoons for a living. Then I'd expect a bit more ... (Spongebob notwithstanding, it's a funny show, but really, the drawings .... I've seen better).
I have to say, observing Jaan and his mates, they really respond to decent animation, decent storytelling through animation. Jaan certainly uses the words and actions from the films/cartoons when they play [Disney, anything by Pixar specially, and most things with a penguin or a train in it spring to mind]. His mates ask me to re-tell them (with bad accents and comedy effects) about some of the cartoons in the same way they demand more traditional rhymes and stories. I encourage re-enactments by the whole bunch of us in both situations, cartoon-story-retellings, or the more traditional sing-a-longs or story times. At times I've described a cartoon in detail to one of the toddlers when it has not been possible for them to see it themselves, and done my best to cross-reference with books, songs and other shows I know they HAVE seen (gently, or they lose interest).
Most recently the ranks of Jaan's top stuff have been swelled by the Toy Story characters, most prominently Buzz, and Jaan's own more generic toys - a big teddy, my old birthing ball, his new table/chairs set. The games he plays, the things he does, the ideas he describes or throws in to conversation are enchanting, of course, but also informed by a large number of aspects that make up his life -
1st and most noticable - his observations of adult behaviour and normal life [games with conversations and affection in them, mimicing, and feeding/sleeping games] - ok, it makes it pretty clear to us that I don't do a lot for him to mimic, and Iain doesn't really mix-it-up between 5:30-7:00 pm when he's having Daddy time - it's mostly food and bedtime then.
However, Jaan chooses things from other parts of this list, it seems, and the love and caring we build our parenting around, doggedly and conscientiously like a couple of bores, shines through most gratifyingly.
He is 2. He knows he is loved, knows how to love, to show love, to explain caring behaviour to us and others, and he knows how to joke about life and love. So far so good. He uses words and references from Toy Story and Mickey Mouse cartoons as aides here. If we did other stuff - woodland play each week for example, or each day, no doubt his references would be different, perhaps less wordy, but hey, so far so good.
2nd of all - roleplaying. He mixes it up. Roles within the home, within his fantasies that are totally his own, roles from his many books - he is an avid 'reader', and also snippets from roles Mickey Mouse took on in his classic cartoons. Buzz, Thomas, Baby Einstein all add colour, but he really seems to have taken in a lot of concepts from Mickey and Kipper the dog. Not sure how, must be something about the way it's presented, or they just resonated for him just so perhaps.
The obstacles that his toy trains have to overcome or charge through with great power, the paths his flying planes or Buzz Lightyear take as they go about their adventures, the cheerful 'cup of tea' he brings me from time to time (mismatched tea set parts with a stone in the cup so I get a nice surprise), and the way he sometimes wants us to join in, sometimes wants to see it pan out his own way, just himself and his imagination, it all bodes well in my book.
3rdly - He has had to be adaptable. I've had post natal depression since his early months and crushing, desperate depression claims me far too often. Jaan has to live with it in the daytime sometimes, with Buzz, Woody, Thomas, Percy and Mickey helping to keep him and me in some sort of safe place. I am lucky, so lucky that my depression does not cause me to reject Jaan - the opposite in fact, every one else is outside the bubble, I can only do for Jaan (fail, but do). I can't hurt him, do less for him. He gets changed, is clean and fed, and as rested as I can manage on my bad days - not going out is hard.
He also has to deal with living out here in the lovely village with a mum who can't drive alone (no licence yet) so we rely on lifts - friends, my mum, Iain ... and often have to upset the routine, such as it is, or stay too long with someone at theirs while we wait for our ride. He has more upheaval than I'd like, physically and emotionally. He doesn't always cope with grace, but he's learning, slowly.
Finally, and 4thly - The main basic, foundation level stuff he's meant to be building up in his mind at this age is definitely being built up. We see it in other things not just TV-character-inspired activities.
What I can say here though is that he recognises Mickey Mouse and Elmer, and the different trains from our cack-handed drawings, and the details we manage to focus on are informed as much by the things he focuses on as anything. For me, certainly, none of Jaan's top characters held any particular meaning before. And yet, a few penstrokes, a misuse of whatever colours I have to hand, and he recognises Elmer. A strong jaw and a Buzz-like stance, he knows Buzz is in the picture somewhere (not the shapeless blob we have actually drawn).
Even when we draw in the bath, with foam, or our shiny new bath-time crayons, and the drawings are even more blobby and runnier than usual, he knows.
Communication, speech, classifying, naming, exploring, splitting things into interchangeable categories .... all that goes on with the drawings quite demonstrably. If we drew and chatted and sang less, I guess the TV shows would be less useful, perhaps as damaging as I often hear they are (and often believe must be).
When Jaan and I draw, he requests, he classifies, he even sometimes asks for a drawing of the thing's Mummy or friend or something. Again, this is communication, collaboration, trust, creativity, a slow building of his own confidence and independence - at some stage he will do most of the drawing, not me. To some extent, we are still one, although I know a great deal of detachment has taken place by now, he possibly only notices where we are still attached.
He knows his colours and can count to 10 properly, so now he can tell us how many to draw, what colours, what textures etc he wants to try. I suppose he uses us as his drawing tools, bad as we are at it all in terms of professionals, we can do a whole lot more than Jaan just yet!
What encourages and amazes me is that he can tell me what he sees when he has scribbled on some paper, and he often asks me to make it into such and such. I try, and he is always appreciative of my efforts. The collaborative effort, and being understood and trusted are the best bits for both of us it seems. For example, he was enjoying making big strokes on a white piece of A3 today, on his easel. After a while, as he got more and more pleased with himself, he said, it's Harold (the helicopter off of Thomas, posh thing). I misunderstood and drew my own Harold-cum-shark-hybrid above his drawing on the same page and proudly said, look, Harold. Jaan patiently explained to me that he had a rudimentary Harold shape already (it was without a proper outline which is why I didn't spot it at first). When his chubby fingers pointed out the shape he had made, it all came clear.
Of course, I drew on the outline for him and all was well, no tears - but our collaborative Harold was also, of course, just a slightly bigger Harold-cum-shark-hybrid.
Watch this space. What will the Mickeys we draw look like next year?
Monday, 16 March 2009
Jaan enjoying the sunshine.
Jaan and I were out in the park, me reading a book, Jaan snoozing and playing with his new buggy toy. Thanks for the sunnies and the toy Nayyar Nani!!!
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