Miiillllkkkk, accompanied by frantic baby signing

That's how our days start at the moment. (I'm counting anything past 7am as the day starting, before then it's just a minor disruption to the night.) So he wants milk. Ok. As you may know, the whole breastfeeding thing didn't happen so we toddle off downstairs to the fridge. You would think by now he might have remembered that mummy will need a wee before we go downstairs, but no, the cries of miiiillllkkk get ever more frantic.

We get downstairs. I get a cup out, pour some milk into it and proffer it. Suddenly, he doesn't want it. Every morning (that I've had him with me, which means not when he's with daddy) for the past couple of weeks.

So I'm guessing this is real toddlerhood. Usually, if he makes a clear, reasonable request I try to give him what he has asked for. But now he is asking for things he apparently doesn't want, or doesn't want them because some tiny detail is wrong. Or he wants something he can't articulate. Or he wants something he really can't have. Or he doesn't know what he wants, which is probably more accurate as it's how I feel most of the time.

Sir Whingealot saddles up

Clippety clop, clippety clop, neigh, snap.

Little man has taken a distinct interest in horses today, although we haven't seen any real ones. He was galloping the plastic ones on the 'farm' at play group, then the wooden one that's part of a jigsaw at home. We sang horsey, horsey a couple of times and he recognises my sign for horse but I don't think many 18-month-olds could actually do the sign themselves. I'll have to remember to tell grandma and grandad to take him to the cafe at the horsey shop where he can sit on a life-size model one.

Crocodiles have also featured, with little man getting really into the snap, snapping with his arms. Apparently, the kitchen tongs are also a crocodile. And if there were really crocodiles in the stream he would have been all gobbled up because he fell in the water with a splash about two dozen times.

Unfortunately, we have also had major whinging today too. To the extent that I gave him a dose of paracetamol without really knowing why. Just that he wouldn't entertain the idea of having lunch, cried his eyes out instead and just wanted to sit on my knee for a cuddle whilst sobbing. Maybe he's got my cold, maybe it's teeth, maybe attempting to learn to talk is frying his brain. Whatever it is it didn't bother him in the slightest while we were at play group or when I took him out to the park and shop this afternoon. Just when we were at home, just the two of us. Isn't that always the way?

Chicken!

Little man's baby signing for chicken continues to evolve. He used to do a cute kind of shrug, pulling his elbows back. Now it's full-on wing flapping. He has also finally started to do a sign for cow, after months of mooing at the merest sight of one pictured on a teapot or a packet of cheese.

He still very rarely signs to let me know he wants something, ie food, drink, milk, nap. Ha, as if he would sign for a nap when I have to walk or drive him to sleep every time! But it's nice to know what he's interested in and he does sometimes sign for dogs or aeroplanes when I hadn't noticed them.

If you look closely you'll see he has a stick in one hand and an empty snail shell in the other. Just before I took this pic he was jamming the stick between two paving slabs, then balancing the shell on top and trying to spin it round.

And talking of snail shells, I've just remembered there's a squashed snail on the dining room floor. When I shut the patio doors I caught a bit of the creeper in the door and there was evidently a snail on it. Its squashed remains caught me on the arm as they fell to the floor with a crispy, shelly thud.

Time for a cuppa

Have I mentioned that my boy is somewhat spirited? Hmm, think I might have once or twice. I shy away from terms such as high-need but at the moment it's me who has a high need to sit down and have five minutes' peace every now and again. He is high-energy, highly determined, high-accident rate, high-climbing, high on the joys of being alive. In old-fashioned terms he is a difficult child. Mischievous. Naughty even. But they are not hugely helpful descriptions or labels to give a small boy who just wants to explore the world and run around and climb everything in sight.

At the same time I am getting fed up of juggling earning a living, organising baby sitting, keeping the house in a saleable condition, hosting viewings, trying to arrange a mortgage when I don't have a job, thinking of what to have for tea every day, feeding the chickens, coming to terms with being single after fourteen years in a relationship, and possibly at some point having just a little bit of time to do something nice, like go for a walk or put my feet up with a book. So occasionally my patience wears a little thin. Just a little.

This morning we went to the GP so I could get a new prescription for anti-depressants. While we were waiting little man repeatedly ran out of the door and down the driveway towards the main road, meaning I had to go with him. I'm talking at least thirty times. Still, he learnt the baby sign for 'stop'. In the GP's room he tried to empty out all the tubs of sample pots, he climbed on a chair then fell off (good job my GP is a sensible sort of woman who didn't see that as a problem), grabbed at all the pens and pencils on her desk and generally made a nuisance of himself. In the pharmacy afterwards he at least settled down to demolish the display of lollipops on a low shelf.

He had a short nap on the way home (note to self: take the trouble to use the Storch as the sleep hood in the Yamo is pretty useless), and is now trying to pull the hot oven door open, get into the drawer with the matches in, smear banana over himself, climb on the dining table, wear a sieve as a hat, grate his fingers and brush up with a broom that is twice as tall as he is.

I've now opened the back door and little man is outside pulling away the piece of Perspex that keeps the chickens in their run and out of the rest of the garden.

Time for a cuppa.

Hand me another glass of that Cabernet Sauvignon...

Hello, it's Sir Whingealot here and I'd like to tell you my achievements of the day:

• I finally managed to stay awake on the way to Tiny Talk, but only because I had a bit of a lie-in til gone 7.30. Obviously I can't actually tell the time.
• Ran around getting into mischief so much at Tiny Talk that I got an extra biscuit to keep me amused. Result!
• Ate my own body weight in baked beans at lunchtime.
• Managed to stand on the toilet lid and turn on the washbasin taps. Also grabbed the basket on the windowledge but mummy kept going on about it not being for little people.
• Overcame my fear of the sound of parcel tape coming off the roll and got thoroughly in the way of mummy trying to put stuff in boxes.
• Managed to insert a piece of fake wooden vegetable in the video slot.
• Climbed on a dining chair and managed to eat some bits of wax from the candle in the middle of the dining table.
• Climbed on the dining table and managed to eat some soil from the plant.
• Ate some sawdust left by daddy in the back bedroom.
• Successfully pulled off that weird pelican bib mummy keeps trying to put on me.
• Kept mummy nice and alert this afternoon by jamming a fake wooden tomato up her nose after she crawled under her duvet and kept telling me I must need another nap by now.
• Pulled off some more of the plastic trim around the back door.

All in all, a big day for a little person. Mummy kept muttering something about wine as she was putting me to bed. Little does she know that I've secreted her laptop in my Grobag and am blogging from my cot. Might climb out of that soon too. Mummy says she's going to do some Go Ape thing at the weekend, but I'm already a little monkey. Anyway, bit tired now. Night night dear peasants.

Teeth and tears

I'm trying to imagine what this teething business feels like. And why it doesn't seem to bother him much during the day but stops him wanting to go to bed and wakes him up in the middle of the night. Obviously there are plenty of distractions during the day, but surely that suggests it can't be that bad.

Today he has been running around the park at Penwortham Gala trying to get in the way of the swings, climb the giant rope web climbing frame thingy, pick up random pieces of litter and generally stop mummy sitting down on the grass in the shade of a tree for two minutes.

Tonight, he went to bed fine. I settled down with a glass of wine and some pizza to watch Robin Hood. Twenty minutes in he woke up. I brought him down to watch the rest with me, following my usual parenting rule that the easiest method must be the right method. Then I started to really notice how violent Robin Hood is. For a Saturday evening.

I then read him some books (little man, not Robin Hood) and tried to cuddle him back to sleep (little man, but if Robin Hood fancies it...), but that boy can really resist being cuddled when he realises the ulterior motive. He has already had paracetamol, ibuprofen, Bonjela and baby crack (teething powder). So I gave him some more milk. I think he might actually have had about 17oz of milk since teatime. Considering that I used to despair of getting him to have 'enough' this is quite something. I put him gently back in his cot, he turned on his tummy and all was quiet. For about three minutes. I have now rocked him back to sleep and put him back in bed for the third time tonight and, fingers crossed, all is quiet.

On another note, he has started signing all sorts of things I didn't realise he had really learnt. Like baby and cow and teddy and mouse. So maybe he's unsettled because he's going through a developmental phase. Still doesn't tell me when he wants food or a drink though.

So what does teething feel like? All I know is that having mouth ulcers makes you feel pretty miserable.

Hello world!

That's what my son and I say when we look out of my bedroom window first thing in the morning. Well, I say it in response to his wave. Since the wave is to no-one in particular I assume he's saying 'hello world'. He can't actually say it as he's 14 months old. Which is why he's still fascinated with looking out of the window at ordinary things like houses and cars and trees and the odd starling. Baby-signing parents please insert signs as you read. Ben signs 'bird'. Lots. Often when he's just seeing a tree (go on, you can remember tree can't you?) as he obviously thinks this is where there should be birds.

Anyway, hello world. This is my first blog entry. Now I have to go away and think about what the hell I'm doing writing a blog (thanks K) and why I'm not in bed yet as we'll be saying hello world at around 6am tomorrow.