First Quarter Impressions 2012

Well, I wish I would have written down more of the funny things both of you say as I often think, "Oh, I will write it down when I get home to find that I can't even remember the topic of conversation. So I now have a green book and I hope to capture more of those special moments. Just a quick post to say, you are the sweetest two people on the planet and it is an honor to be your mother." x

May 10, 2012: Kiran says to me, "I want Milkie..." and he shakes his head up and down. "Just is little bit." Mom: "Do you like  (breast) Milk?" Kiran: "It makes me happy." I figure most kids are not breastfed until they can tell you how much they appreciate it. Babies should wear t-shires, "Breast milk makes me happy."

I really would like to purchase a book where I can write a summary of both of you each year that goes by around the time of your birthdays along with a photo. You would think as a parent that it would be easy to remember your children and what they are like each year, but a child changes so quickly that it is hard to remember how the changes occurred and when they occurred over the course of time. Maia you are starting to turn towards your fifth year. I have noticed with each child as they get over that half year maker and head for the next year, a change begins to overcome them.

Big changes have happened for you this year as you have overcome your inclination to sit back and just watch what goes on around you to actually participating in your world a bit more especially when it comes to speaking to people, standing up in front of your peers and speaking and joining in an activity. Your teachers describe you as a child who is comfortable in her own space and does not want or need social play. You can sit for long periods of time doing finite tasks or tasks that involve a lot of detail. Given you are a person who has a lot of patience and determination to finish tasks that would seem to tedious for children your age, I enrolled you in a local sewing class given by Elizabeth at the Berry Patchworks with other young elementary school age children. You were just three years old going on four and you took to sewing like a fish takes to water. You loved it and continue to love sewing, so much so that you would like to go to class every week. At the moment we can only afford to send you fortnightly, but we hope to get you involved more often or to enrole you in a music class.

I found a lovely music teacher who teaches the harp and I figure that might be a nice and gentle instrument for you to start with that would appeal to a young child as this particular teacher allows her students to play with the sound and have fun, which is possible with the harp. I wish so very much that I had been given the gift of music. I guess it is never too late, so maybe when my business picks up, I can get involved myself.

Maia you are a very emotionally aware, sensitive and accommodating child, who because of your rule abiding nature, you tend to be very easy to be around and very helpful with your brother. I often think how lucky I am that you came to me first as you have been such an easy child to raise and for me, just a pure delight. You are inquisitive, bright, creative, self-sufficient, independent and always find something interesting to explore on your own without much prompting from me. Because younger children copy their older siblings, Kiran often looks up to you and listens to what you have to say when you are trying to show him something or explain something to him. You are a natural teacher and just a little mother in many respects, although I don't expect that of you, you just tend to want to naturally look after and protect your brother from any harm, except of course when he has a toy that you want and then, that is when all of the above flies out the window and I feel a bit crazy with the battle to have what the other wants at the time. This is all normal behavoir and to be expected between siblings, I just need to be aware of not asking you to pass him the toy of choice just because often you will understand my plight and come to my rescue at times. And speaking of coming to my rescue, I have to mention that because you are so clever and you are so tuned in to me and what I am trying to get Kiran to do at times, you will work with him at one angle so that we have a better chance of getting him on task. Kind of like mother - daughter tag team with Kiran as the player we need to get on sides. Laugh. You have a great interest in letters and started writing when you were two going on three. Now as a four and a half year old, you are trying to put the letter that you write, which are capitals, and you are making them into words by sounding them out. Often I can read what you write just by the sounds that you figured out make the words. Like this week you wrote the following: Maia: " I just wrote all the things that are beautiful in life..." And she write on a piece of paper: luv com ood chre oddm levz flawr hg bae
which was: love, calm, old tree autumn leaves, flowers and hug bear. I am just amazed at how children, when they are ready, learn on their own as I have never sat down to teach Maia how to write letters or sting the sounds letters make into words and yet, she is doing it on her own. Incredible. Maia also enjoys writing shopping lists, helping me make food and anything to do with drawing, painting, craft and sewing. She said to me in the car on Friday that she wanted to work in a real hospital and be the person who helps repair broken bones. It will be fun to see what she decides to do in her life as an adult. Maia has started to assert herself and she does get angry when something does not go the way she expected it to and I have notice, which worries me slightly, how she is a perfectionist and she gets very upset to the point of wanting to destroy what she has done and start again with a simple error in writing or if there is a "mistake" with something that she has done. She will get very upset, cry or just get really frustrated if this happens and it is really hard to convince her otherwise. So I have to learn to just validate her feelings, even though as an adult, you can't help but think to yourself, oh, just get over it, it is a simple mistake. To children, that simple mistake means the world to them.

Now on to Kiran. Kiran my sweet little fellow, you are a very fun loving, physical, easy going, smart, intelligent, humorous, determined and mischievous little boy. At the age of 2 years, 5 months, you express yourself with ease and there is not much that you can't get across to us in perfect English. You can count to ten, know all of your colours accurately and enjoy tormenting our cat, Sunny to the point where I have been at my wits end as to what to do with you. I have tried so many different tactics and even out of pure desperation have hit you off of him, which obviously is not how I want to treat a child who I am trying to teach him not to be aggressive with out cat. I have apologised and Maia has so kindly reminded me, "Momma, if you hit Kiran you are only teaching him to hit." Thanks Maia. I have to say that it tends to happen when you are bored or want my attention.

It is not something I am proud of and I can't say it has happened that often, but that is usually when I have just about had it and am sleep deprived, which is something that you have not been that skilled at doing as of late being you have woken me up almost nightly for the past six weeks asking for breast milk, which I have told you is no longer available at night time, and so now you just ask me to give you a cuddle and tuck you in bed, which I have done with great love and patience given that my best friend Cass's son, Talin at the age of five, was diagnosed with a terminal brain stem tumor at the fourth stage, and this in itself has given me a new spin on how everything is just a moment in time and that nothing is too much when you know that it may just be a passing phase and at the end of it all, you have a healthy child to cuddle up to at night time. Which is how this behavoir started in the first place when I began to cuddle you and your sister at night and lie next to you until you fell asleep, then I think what has happened is that you wake up in the middle of the night and then coming looking for me...the ole, whatever conditions are present when a child falls asleep is what they expect when they wake up in the middle of the night. Anyway, I am trying to break the cycle as I would love to be able to sleep through the night. I look in the mirror and I wonder when the dark circles under my eyes may disappear and I will look fresh and well rested...laugh.

You are actually very good at playing on your own for periods of time and entertaining yourself when I am busy in the household. You do have a limit though and when you reach your limit and don't know what else to do with yourself, you usually get destructive and do things that you know will get my attention one way or another. Like a puppy, you need outdoor time to get our that boy energy. You love to play with your sister Maia and at this age you think it is funny to talk about Poo.. basically because of you, I have never heard so many Poo songs, Poo jokes, and just Poo Poo anything that you find extremely funny and entertaining. It must be a boy thing and your sister has had fun joining in. I am so glad that you came along. As I journaled, it was too bad I was hit so badly with post-natal depression the first year after you were born. I believe a lot of the sadness that I witnessed as a baby after my brother's birth was triggered and surfaced after you came along, but you have been an absolute pleasure to raise and you were the sweetest little baby and now such a lovely, outgoing, friendly, confident toddler. You are so comfortable in your own skin and very clear about what you want that when something is important to you or you want to do something your way, we basically need to wait until you are ready to get there. Poppy calls it, "Kiran time." And basically, you are very strong willed when it comes to something that you set your sights on or just want to do in your own time. As a strong natured Mother, who has a lot of fire, I find that our personalities do clash at times, but I am learning to try and give you the space you need to grow and if it is possible to follow your order to things or your desires if they are that important to you at the time as long as you are safe, of course.

You love trucks or anything with wheels and motorcycles are your absolute favorite. You will stop to look at them in town and if you see someone about to climb on one and drive off, we have to stop and wait to see them start up and go. You can play on the floor for a long time with your cars and your favorite today is a blue Police car with a trailer. You love connecting things to other things and you have started to fit the train set pieces together to make a track. You love to push the doll stroller around and the shopping cart as well as your wheelbarrow and your mower. Anything with wheels is an attraction. You like to pack a bag and pretend to go camping. Hide and seek is a real favorite as is Maia's, but it is so cute to see you hide sometimes out in the open and cover your face as though by doing so is making you invisible. You like to close doors and tell us to knock on the door. When I open the door to the living room, you smile and invite me to come in telling me that you have painted our ceiling.

You still love to breastfeed and your favorite time is when you first wake up in the morning. I hear the door slam and a pitter, patter of feet, my door opens, and slams shut and there you are by my bedside asking for "milkie." We cuddle in the bed in the morning and Maia is not usually far behind you, so she squeezes in between Dad and I while you lay with me and have your milk. I sometimes give you milk in the middle of the day at nap time and we both fall asleep together, but I think you are over your naps as if we have a nap, you have trouble falling asleep at night time and I am laying in your room with you for an hour or more. The other must have milkie time is at night when we are reading stories in the bed and you want to have a milkie cuddle just at story time. You are still in nappies and we have tried to get you to potty train, but you became curious with what you could do with you wee and your willie and we were finding you, for instance, filling lego blocks with wee. So I gave up a bit, but I believe you could if I put the energy into it, which I am starting to think might be a good idea as I am over changing pooey nappies. Maia still has to wear a large nappy at night time. We have tried on several occasions, but she ends up wetting her bed. She is such a sound sleeper, she just does not wake up to use the toilet. I will need to figure something out soon as it seems like such a waste to use nappies on an almost five year old child.

It is nice for us to be in our family home. We are still settling and getting used to the idea that we can stay here forever. Berry and The South Coast is as close to paradise as you can get and David and I feel so lucky to be here to raise our kids. I am going to start home schooling Maia next year. I have decided to home school based on the fact that Maia is so smart, she would just comply and get lost in the background at school never reaching her full potential and the fact that I don't believe in the school "system" to educate our children. David and I are on the same page. We just think that we might as well give it a try and I want to enjoy our children. No one will enjoy watching them learn as much as I will and no one will invest the time and energy that I will to ensure that our kids are well rounded, decent and caring citizens of this world. So I need to get on it and start my research into how to best home school our children. I hope that I can just start with lots of fun outdoor adventures and just give them an appreciation for nature and if at the end of the day they have learned to be good readers, writers, and have some mathematical skills under the belts and are creative, versatile thinkers, who are caring and confident people, then I will have done what I could to give them the best start in life. My time with them is so short and seeing how fast the past five years has gone only highlights that fact that Maia will be off in the big world sooner than I can blink and I am going to enjoy my time with my two little treasures, while I can as I really feel lucky to be there mother although at times I have not found the surrender to parenthood easy, I could not have been gifted two better people to love and raise and I hope that they know that despite my flaws, that I love them with all my heart and I do my best.

Well, that is a big entry and I need to go look after my dark circles and head off to bed. My love to the two of you while you sleep. Sending you rainbows from my heart to yours. I love you with all my heart and all my love...Momma xo