Writing and Sibling Love

Yesterday Lychee wrote her first word!

It was on the chalkboard in the school room, and she chose to write her brothers name. After walking in and announcing that she was going to do it, she started with the second letter, but with a little encouragement she got the whole word.

I was so proud of her, but when asked if she wanted to try another word she threw down the chalk, snapped 'no' and ran out the room. We need to work on manners for sure!

Still, I love that she chose to write her brothers name and not her own. It's such a reflection of her darling little heart. She loves her big brother so much and 'brother' was the first recognisable word she said, long before 'mama' or 'dada'.

Sibling love. 

Orchard Toys

We were lucky enough to receive some lovely Orchard Toys for Christmas from a relative, and it really has been one of the best presents they received.

Having games that are simple enough for the whole family, or even just the two children, to play together has been so much fun. We have put together a games cupboard over the years, and whilst its always been in reach, we've told the children that they cannot play games without adult supervision because of small parts that might get lost.

Not so with orchard toys. In fact the game pieces are chunky and vibrant enough for a two year old to tidy up by herself and be confident that she has got every piece.

The easiest game, that the children play happily together without adult intervention, is 'Farmer's Lotto'. Everyone takes a card, then you take turns to turn over a card and see if it matches your card. The first person to fill their card wins. The catch is that you have to say the name of the animal and make the sound it makes if you want to keep the card.

Farmer's Lotto

Simple enough for a small child to play, but really helpful for our littlest in building confidence to speak (she has a mild speech delay).

The second game is called 'slug in a jug' and is slightly more difficult, but is doing wonders for her sight word recognition and for her brothers ability to create sentences.

It's basically pairs, but instead of matching, you have to find a rhyme! Each card has a picture on it, but also the word printed in bold so that whilst the child gets a big hint from the picture, they are still seeing the word.

Phonemes are colour coded so that children can easily see that "ea" in "pea" rhymes with "ey" in "key" or that "bowl", "mole" and "goal" all rhyme, despite their different spellings.

Slug in a Jug

For our youngest, she simply has to say the words and recognise whether they rhyme. For our son, and any adults playing, you have to say a sentence including the two words - hence the name "slug in a jug".

They're great games, and honestly slug I'm a jug would be easily replicated with homemade flash cards.

The official Orchard Toys cards are really nicely made though, and I highly recommend them.

Conversations With a Two Year Old

It's true that Lychee's speech is difficult to understand unless you know her. 'Mas-mas Eee' (Christmas tree) is a case in point. That hasn't concerned me too much, because I'm pleased that she is attempting to speak (previously she has blankly stared at you refusing to repeat anything!) and just in time too because we have an appointment with a speech and language therapist next week!

What I'm excited about is that we had probably our first conversation that didn't just involve one question with a 'yes/no' type answer today. It was a proper discussion with consequences.

Okay, I'll admit, it's not how you hope your first conversation will go, but I was still proud of her. This is kind of how parenting seems to work with my littlest one. I'm so excited to tell people she has put words together into a sentence, then I have to admit that the sentence was 'Mama - Snot on fingers!' Or when she first started copying recognisable sounds and they were the Birdo noise from Mario Kart, or 'Waluigi! Imma gonna win!' (don't judge - it's not her fault she has grown up with an older brother).

photo credit

She was looking exhausted but didn't want to nap (obviously, because over tired children never do) and so I decided to just change her diaper and see if she'd cuddle up for a quiet story. Unfortunately, she read changing diaper as 'time for bed' and started screaming and kicking trying to get away from me. Whilst wrestling her legs with one hand and wipes with the other she started to scream 'Let go of me mama! Let go of me!' (okay, you might not have heard that clearly, but I knew what she was saying).

I responded with 'I can't sweetheart because you will run away and you won't let me put your fresh nappy on'.

'I will Mama! I will! Let go of me, I will!' (sobbing through tears).

It was one of those magical moments when you realize that your child is now old enough to reason with you and you can make discipline more than just taking something away. I was so happy, despite the fact that she was having an outrageous tantrum.

Unfortunately she has also learned how to lie, so the minute I let go she scrambled to get away again, and I had to wrestle her like an octopus back into some kind of position that would allow me to get a diaper on.

Terrible Two's...

Number surprise

Due to speech delays (which weren't actually delays if I talk to other parents, but seemed very delayed to someone who parented Cosmo) it's been difficult to tell just how much Lychee actually understands. At 22 months we know she has been able to sound out her alphabet and a few words for a while (apart from saying 'snake' instead of 'ssss' for 'S') but today she completely astounded me.

I was sitting with Cosmo, working through some of the free section on Clever Dragons, when he decided it was too hard and he wanted to do the kindergarten area. I allowed it - he was very tired and it usually doesn't help to frustrate him - but to my surprise Lychee started shouting out the numbers before he'd had a chance to move the mouse to click on them!

We were a little late for a children's group, so I waited until we got there, then grabbed a crayon and some paper to start drawing numbers for her. Turns out she can recognise and say all of them except seven and one (seven is 'shhhh' and one just gets me the evil eye). She's also enjoying me writing words and asking her to point to which one corresponds to the toy she is holding (e.g. she was holding an elephant so I wrote down 'pig elephant' and asked her to touch the word for ^point at elephant^). She still can't say elephant, but she knows what one looks like and can read it.

I think she might be coming up to fast mapping stage, so I need to get the pen and paper ready.