Drawing at bedtime

How can I insist on bedtime when she's doing this:

Well, I didn't. Because that would have been cruel in so many ways. Although I did ask her if she could leave the three further people she had planned for tomorrow (she agreed, phew).

It's the one thing that keeps her busy for hours. Drawing, drawing and drawing some more. I'm not ever allowed to look until it's done. Not an easy task, if you know that she comes out with the most incredible designs. By now, she's better at drawing than I ever was. It must be her daddy's genes. I totally think she's incredibly talented, which might be because I'm biassed or because I'm a dork when it comes to drawing. Or both.

Today, she painted shoe boxes and drew 3 full pictures with great detail. All of this on a day where we spent the whole afternoon out of the house, and where we spent a considerable time feeding hungry children, dancing wildly to music and dressing up both wooden girls, teddy bears real children (for a woodland creature themed event in the Children's Wood in the afternoon). Snowflake, ever keen to copy her sister, painted one shoe box and drew one picture, and the table, two outfits, her hand and the chair.

There's a lot of colour in our house.

PS Everything is called Rosie in our house. She wrote this herself hence the phonetic spelling (the s is really a flipped z). 

And onwards and upwards - Review

Well, what can I say. After feeling rather at the edge yesterday, today was a whole new day. Which makes me wonder if the tensions are created by factors outside of the home which just had to come out on this first day of a bank holiday weekend. Today, in contrast, emotions were much more in control and I found out a few things that indicate tensions at school - nothing major or surprising but it may have caused or contributed to yesterday's fraught day. Of course, if I say nothing major it's nothing major in my eyes, but it may be serious enough for Cubling. I may be getting on a bit but if there's something I vividly remember from my childhood, it's how I felt when time outs and the like were imposed by figures of authority.

So with a head a bit clearer I can finally catch up on a couple of review posts that have been waiting to be written. First up today is Vertbaudet, the online/mail order childrens clothes/maternity wear and children's nursery company.

I've always been a big fan of Vertbaudet's collection, which is why I am more than happy to take up the opportunity of a review. Vertbaudet offers beautiful and practical clothes ranges for baby and children, as well as maternity wear, nursery outfit and storage solutions. Previously I'd reviewed some of their children's/baby clothes so this time I opted for bed linen as we're soon facing the move into the big bed (or let's say, the plan is soon but a certain Missus seems to have different ideas).

What I like about Vertbaudet in general is that the designs are just that bit different from what you tend to get on the high street, and this applies to both clothing and nursery design. The range for bed linen is large so that there's bound to be something for anyone. My first choice had sold out so I settled for my second choice, which was just fine as there are so many nice bedlinen sets that identifying a first choice took me all evening. Basically, I like them all. So the chicken was replaced by a butterfly design because Snowflake is not just keen on zebras but also on Butterflies (in fact, it was one of her first words).

Once the parcel was delivered, big sister got rather excited and had a look too. Now I have to mention at this point that Cubling has very definite opinions and it's either a total thumbs up or a total thumbs down. To be honest, I hadn't picked the design with her in mind and didn't expect her to like it, as she's all into princesses, pink and gold. However, there was a pleasant surprise in that she too loved this design, so it's passed the Cubling test!

The duvet cover didn't disappoint and we are now at least set for the big bed day should it ever arrive. It's an interesting design actually in that it has a flap rather than button to close the cover, which I hadn't seen before. It makes changing bedlinen a bit quicker and is more durable as buttons tend to wear and disappear with time. So no qualms about the product, it was as beautiful as the picture promised and delivery was quick.

I have had a slight issue with out of stock items not coming up as out of stock on the website so I guess there's a bit of room for improvement, not that it has ever bothered me. In fact my own purchasing experience has shown that credit will be applied in such cases or money returned, if you don't mind the minor inconvenience. As to value for money Vertbaudet often has special offers on and if you subscribe to the newsletter by email, you'll always be able to grab a bargain even if full priced items are a bit above average. Also, Vertbaudet appears to have a constant sale on and some of the sale item are actually some of the loveliest products. The quality of clothing is good, and I like particularly like the organic range.

One thing to be slightly aware of is that Vertbaudet being a French company uses a slightly different sizing system and I've found that I had to add a size to ensure they fitted, i.e. if a garment is for size 5 years, I had to buy size 6 or even 7 years for my 5-year old (who is a tallish child but in UK sizes still within the size for her age). However, Vertbaudet has clear measuring guidelines so that you can ensure to get the correct size in your first order.

I can also recommend to check out some of the bedroom decoration items, the wall stickers are really made from the kingdom of cute.

Disclosure: I received goods from Vertbaudet for the purpose of this review.

Days like this

Sometimes I wonder if I was ever made for this life as a parent. After a day like today, when in spite of doing fun stuff (and giving up trying to work with both around at 10 am knowing this was not one of those days where any work would happen) all day long, it appears that I often can't manage to create an environment where both of them are happy at the same time. This was a day that should have been easy: the sun was out, we were in the park totally going at their pace and doing what they wanted to do. Just that the two wills won't coincide.

So I take turns between the two of them trying to calm, soothe, find out what's wrong, feed, water, try to play, get interrupted by other one screaming, distract, and repeat. Is it me? How come that apparently at nursery, Snowflake is ever calm and happy but at home, she throws one tantrum after another, and half of the time I'm in the dark as to what it's actually about? How come that after 2 years of playing together like the best of friends, they are now like two vicious cats with sibling rivalry unleashed?

 (look, they really love each other!)

If Cubling comes too close to me, say for a cuddle, or even dares sit on my lap, up comes her sister and pushes her off. And she can push now. I mean, she manages to push Cubling off good and proper and sometimes hurts her in the process. There's biting and scratching, slapping and kicking and the ever just under the surface waiting to explode tantrum with full backwards fling onto the floor.

Meanwhile with all the attention going to younger sibling, older sibling gets frustrated and as much as I empathise and try to keep the peace, she starts her whinging and whining show. Interspersed with random, made up singing, recitation of phonemes and generally loud noises. Sometimes it gets to a noise and madness level that I wonder if my child is truly bonkers, as this noise level of random sounds without meaning can't be normal. I don't see other children act like this. Maybe they do, I just don't see it.

Often, it gets to a stage where she is totally in her world, and nothing I say reaches her. Or the opposite is true, a neverending litany of moaning and whinging, noise and sabotage of anything I'm trying to do, while refusing to engage in any meaningful play with me (which I'm told helps to reconnect and get out of such mayhem. It doesn't for us. She never wants to play when she's in this state).

At the end of a day like today, I get the nagging feeling that I really would rather have spent the day in the office, and that, if asked, the girls would most likely rather have spent it at the childminder's. It's most definitely not a nice feeling. More than anything I keep asking myself what on earth I'm doing wrong.

I took pretty pictures though. They may have kept my sanity today. And oh dear, another 3 days of this to get through all by myself. Help.

The bumpy jacket that will be worn

This has been a loooong time coming. As soon as the bumpy jacket pattern was published, I knew I had to knit one. I think it was pre pregnancy of second child. Anyway, finally, with the biggest size this pattern will allow, I present to you our very own bumpy jacket, completed with even a few days to go to Snowflake's 2nd birthday. I've rarely been seen so organised when it comes to knitting projects (I can usually be seen finishing off on the journey to the birthday child).

If it weren't for my love of teal, I might have been a bit more adventurous with the colour scheme rather than copying the original. But you know, I love this colour and had the perfect yarn screaming out at me, knit me into a bumpy jacket. (it was Debbie Bliss Cathay if you must know, and the gauge was bang on, I even had exactly the right quantity, though it was a close call, I think I finished it with just about 2 metres of yarn left which caused a bit of sweat and worry).

I like: it's knit in one piece. I don't like sewing pieces together, it really puts me off finishing a project. At the same time I still think it's magical how a reasonably complex shape can be knitted in one piece, how it all comes together from words on the page. The slightly vintage pattern is easy enough and gives the jacket a really interesting feature. I also like that it's unisex in this world of every child stuff being marketed in double vision.



There is only a slight problem. This wonderfully cheeky and independent child of mine won't wear it. It took a very breezy day and lots of fuss to get it on her for 10 minutes. Now for all this attempt to work with my children, it is simply unacceptable to refuse to wear mummy's handknits, especially if it's one of her favourite patterns by one of her favourite designers and knitted in her favourite colour. Remember vowing I won't ever touch needles smaller than 4mm ever again because life was to short? Well, this was knitted painstakingly on 3.25mm needles. It was a lot of work. There is no choice or question about wearing this beautiful jacket.

Luckily it's done in 3-4 years, and being a small 2 year old, this means she still has a bit of time to get to like it. Resistance is futile my dear.

And now she is two

Has it really been 2 years since my little girl made a rather delayed and fraught entry into this world? It must be: the dates says so. I could go all emotional recollecting the past two years. And yet nothing can put into words how I feel about this little yet very strong 2 year old who has made our family complete.

With Cubling at school now, I have had the rare chance to spend one to one time with her once again after over a year. It is as if I'm starting to get to know her all over again, and this time is most definitely rare quality time, because usually it's a frenzy between trying to accommodate the needs of both girls while also managing house chores or timetables. It is wonderful to be able to go her pace, see the world with her eyes and just be with her calmly, without the hustle and bustle of the days were we are three or four. Picking brambles, spotting swallows, getting excited about the movements of a slater - this is the kind of stuff that has been more than overlooked in the past year, and while I it pains me that my big girl has to sit on a school chair 5 days a week, I've gained this special time on a Monday with Snowflake.
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The mellow baby has become a strong toddler who will stand her ground, even when she doesn't know what exactly that ground is. Now that she is entering the world of mischief with the guidance of her big sis whom she adores and copies to the letter, I thought it would be fitting to hand over to said sister, who knows her best. And world, watch out for the pair of them!

Tell me something about Snowflake.
It's her birthday!

What is the best thing about Snowflake?
Cuddling her

What does Snowflake do?
She plays in the bath and in the play park

What makes her laugh?
When I do silly faces

What's her favourite game/toy?
her favourite game is playing on trees. Her favourite toy is peppa pig

What's her favourite thing to do?
pulling down the curtains

What does she hate doing?
she hates going into the bath

How is she like you?
She's nothing like me.

How is she different from you?
she has short hair and she's a baby

What's her favourite food? and drink?
Her favourite food is egg. Her favourite drink is milk from mummy

what does she think about you?
I don't know

What's funny about Snowflake?
she kicks me and slaps me on my face and tickles me

What makes her cry?
when I jump on top of her

What make her angry?
when I kick her

What's the best thing to do with Snowflake?
playing with her!

What will she be when she's grown up?
a dentist

I love you to bits and I'm thankful every day that you are with us and brighten our lives. I love your raised finger telling me "nein Mama, Snowflake selber!" (no mummy, Snowflake do it self), your tantrums at every single supermarket visit, even your jealousy of your big sister making sure that mummy's lap is yours only. I love how your favourite mode of transport is on your sisters lap in the buggy, how you get so excited when the word "Spielplatz", "nursery" or "Fahrrad" is uttered. I love you for your hysterical giggles when your sister gets you to laugh, for the way you want things just so and your dislike for mess of any kind. I love how you conquered your fear of animals and now enjoy their presence. I love those baby curls that will disappear soon. I love how you, and only you, can make my dad smile. I love your cuddles, your kisses that are given freely. I love your eyes as they meet mine and start to smile.  
Happy birthday Schneckchen.

Speaking in Accents

Have you ever thought about how your accent affects your interaction with other people?

I love accents. I love the subtleties, I love guessing what has shaped an individual's accent, where they come from, where they passed through to get here. I can listen to my beloved husband and just hear his beautiful intonation and forget to listen to what he's saying (ok he may have been talking C++ but it's still not an excuse - he just has the most amazing accent which can be distracting). I truly love the diversity of accents in Glasgow, where you have anything from the proper Weegie to people from all over the UK and from around the world. I always thought Glasgow to be particularly rich in this diversity of accents because there's probably less than 50% of native Scots here (I'm guessing!) or at least so it seems, you hear different accents every day. At work, there's people from further north, from the east, from the south.

And then I'm in an east end cafe ordering a roll and I feel awfully conscious of my own accent. Builders and bakers speaking in the most amazingly beautiful gutteral Glaswegian, and I dread to order my butty because they'll spot instantly I'm not from here. I then order and stutter with a whisper as nervous as I used to be as a choir girl singing a solo.

Am I paranoid? Fact is that in spite of me living here for over 15 years, the other day I discovered that most of my friends are not Scottish. Now this may be because there is generally a lot of movement of people and that this is a fair representation of reality. But maybe accents keep us apart because they locate us in some sort of social drawer that we can't really get out of to explore another drawer.

It's not even that people instantly know I'm German - but it's obvious I'm not born and bred working class Glaswegian. The thing is, I can by now put on a Glaswegian accent, but it feels wrong doing so. This comes from a woman who had no qualms about speaking with an Irish accents some 18 years ago and still slips into it automatically when speaking to an Irish person - but that was just how I spoke English, I couldn't not speak like it. Now it would be a choice and while I know non-Glaswegians who do this, to me it feels wrong. Or maybe I just feel people would make fun of me (and possibly rightly so?).

On a day to day basis though, the accent thing is about class and (perceived which then becomes real) power. Generally, the people I meet to set programmes up with mostly speak much like me, with a neutral English accent tinged by a soft Scottish intonation and pronunciation. The people who take part in the programmes mostly speak Glaswegian. Just now, I even noticed how someone changed her accent when on the phone to me, and it made me feel all conscious as to what that meant - did she relate to me differently, did she see me as not in her drawer?

I wonder how this applies to people with other accents, say an English accent and if it differs whether it's a "posh" or northern English accent. People have certainly labelled me as English (which is funny as I never spend much time in England) and were surprised when I said I was German, and I'm not sure which label I prefer or how that changes the way this person perceives me.

And I keep wondering if accents may stand in the way of trust and creating personal and professional relationships and create a barrier that has to be overcome, that may  not be there if you share the same accent.

Woodstock in Glasgow

Sometimes, a perfect day comes along without much warning.

What can be better than to spend it with your cousins, rocking and dancing along to live music, running wild around a wood workshop, helping yourself to a table of sweets and sausages from the barbecue, playing giant yenga, making tables into pretend bunk beds to sleep in, and hoping to win a raffle prize - "this is the best day ever". Well, if you say so, it probably is.

Woodstock was Glasgow Wood Recycling's summer sale event. The organisation is a social enterprise that recycles wood into beautiful hand crafted items, such as raised beds, bird houses, furniture or anything else you can make from wood. It provides woodwork training and volunteering opportunity while using sustainable resources. And man, they know how to throw a party! It was fun for all of us, for me simply because I love wood and spending a day surrounded by it in itself can't be a bad thing. Having a dedicated and totally lovely bunch of people organising such a great event made it all the more worthwhile. And the kids, they had a ball.

A trip to the zoo

The priceless realisation on the face of a 23 month old that her dress had a lot in common with one of the animals that she encountered for the first time, an animal that so far was called "Pferd" (horse) when she came across it in books. No longer. It is now firmly a zebra.

She couldn't get enough of them.

The excitement knew no ends when she met the bamblibears (aka panda bears). They're black and white too.

At night, she slept with the mask.

Oh to be a almost two again and discover the world for the very first time.

Bilingual breeze

It's been a while that I've blogged about our bilingual journey and for a while now I had meant to explore how Snowflake is getting on, especially in comparison with Cubling.

My learning from Cubling was that the minority language develops in direct relation to exposure and relevance. Which initially meant almost only passive bilingualism. Once this was turned around to an ability to speak fluently in German, things got much easier and I can now even relax and speak English to her in the company of English speakers who may find our German interchange a tad rude.

With Snowflake, the cards were a bit better - I had a longer maternity leave period and managed to work only 3 days a week until she turns 2. So her exposure to German was greater than it had been for Cubling. It also felt normal and natural to speak German to her: with Cubling I felt initially very strange speaking German to her, because really I spoke English all the time unless I was teaching German - and with Cubling I was mum not teacher, I had to get used to speaking German in Scotland. All of this has been overcome and I never caught myself speaking English with Snowflake, quite the contrary, I catch myself speaking German with other kids, as if speaking German is my default for speaking with children! (not sure what those children make of it...)

The best development ever has to be that Cubling speaks German with Snowflake. Initially I told her that Snowflake would only understand German, and magically, this worked! Of course, Cubling has figured out by now that this is not the case and that her little sister understands and speaks both, but she still mainly speaks German to her. This effectively introduces a) a motivation for her to speak German b) an additional context for speaking German (little sister copies big sister in everything) and c) additional language input. My older girl is most definitely my glamorous assistant.

In effect this means that I'm much more relaxed - on the one hand I don't have to remind myself to speak German only, this has become natural. On the other hand, I do commit big no nos of the OPOL (one parent one language) approach, when I read English books or use a good few English words in my own German (I'm lazy that way).

As for Snowflake, she's so far been as close to being a balanced bilingual as can be for an almost 2 year old. She is not an early bird as far as language development is concerned, but the language she does have is almost parallel. She has a definite awareness of two words for the same thing and will use it mostly correctly with me, her sister or the English speakers in her life. She'll ask for water and then change to Wasser when I don't respond, or even start out with Wasser. Her active language is comparable in both languages, while her older sister stagnated in German and went off in English. She also seems to code switch easily, while Cubling would tend to mix the languages more, especially when she tried to speak German.

As they are very different in temperament and personality I do attribute some of the differences to their relevant personalities, but the largest part must be that Snowflake is exposed to more and more meaningful German. What was a struggle with the firstborn, now seems a breeze now with the younger sibling. Long may it last!

This post is part of the Bilingual Carnival and I'll post a link to the host at Bringing up Baby Bilingual once this is life. Check out the other posts if you have an interest in raising children bilingually, whichever the language pair.

Lip tie

I'm raging mad.
Today I found out about a condition in babies which can cause a poor latch when feeding, and lead to serious difficulties with breastfeeding. It's called upper lip tie. Like tongue tie, it can mess up latch and lead to poor milk tranfer, lack of weight gain in baby, pain for mum and suffering for both.

Guess what, both of my girls have it. The severe type at that. That's the one where the tie goes from in the middle of the top front teeth to the upper lip.

Now, when I was a new mum, breastfeeding wasn't at all off to a good start. I really struggled, and having had a good friend who was also a health visitor and had drummed into me to get support for every.single.feed in hospital, I sought support. Midwives, volunteers, health visitors, support groups, online forums, books. I did it all. And still I was in agonising pain for 8 weeks, and still my baby never seemed satisfied. I have pictures of her with eyes so tired of crying, crying that was put down to colic. I had to call Crysis even, I didn't know what to do anymore. We had days where she cried for hours and nothing would soothe her. At 12 weeks I caved in and supplemented with formula, I could not see my baby be hungry any longer.

At no point was tongue tie/lip tie mentioned or indeed checked. I only found out about tongue tie when my second was born. And only now, I found out about lip tie.

Lip tie does not necessarily lead to difficulties breastfeeding, but it may because it can restrict the movement of the mouth and lead to a shallow latch, which in turn means milking the breast doesn't work so well. I had no major issues with my younger girl, she fed frequently and was also slowish gaining weight but she was always happy after feeds and clearly not going hungry. There was also clearly a lot of output the other end. As for me, I had no pain or soreness at all with her. Both have the exact same severity of lip tie -so in one case it made life really difficult, in the other it didn't have an impact (though I wonder if it may have had an impact on her reluctance to take to solids).

So in this anger at the omission of the medical profession to look my baby in the mouth instead of praising how well I was doing and ignoring the obvious signs of something not being right (my instinct had always told me, but I didn't know the tell tale signs of insufficient milk transfer then), here's my shout out to anyone who ever struggles with breastfeeding: read up on tongue ties and lip ties, and how to remedy. It might be what's wrong and it often goes undiagnosed. The snip is quick and easy.

I'm angry that I was sent to baby massage class to help with the colic (or improve my bonding with baby), rather than remedy what was really wrong. There was lack of output the other end, a baby who looked forever tired and kept falling asleep at the breast but who would never stop suckling because she wasn't full. I nursed 12 out of 24 hours for 6 months. I was exhausted. I was in pain. I told so many people and nobody, yes, nobody took it seriously.

What is beyond me is why babies aren't check as a matter of course. It only takes a minute, and can avoid months of suffering.

Postscript: Here are some of the best resources on lip tie I found online. Lip tie doesn't have to mean difficulties with latch, but it can, especially because it can come hand in hand with a posterior tongue tie (which is hard to spot and often overlooked).

http://thefunnyshapedwoman.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/introducing-maxillary-labial-frenulum.html
http://www.plus2point4.co.uk/2011/07/19/breastfeeding-with-a-lip-and-tongue-tie/
http://mothernurturebreastfeeding.com/tongue-tie-lip-tie-and-frenotomy/
http://www.brianpalmerdds.com/pdf/Bfing_Frenum03.pdf