Nathan is still going to his swimming class on Thursdays. This year he has moved from the parents and babies class to the ‘parents and babies advanced’ class, but on his second birthday it was advised that we put his name down for the ‘crabette’ class. This one is designed to help wean the kids off having their parents in the water with them before moving onto the ‘crab’ group. He can’t move to ‘crab’ until he is 3 years old though. The crabette class certainly suits Nathan’s swimming skills better than the previous class, but I’m not sure if it suits him emotionally. He never wants to get into the water with the instructor and clings to Andrew or I and cries when we pry him loose. He does seem ok after the class starts, though.
Nathan still adores the balance bike that he got for his birthday, and it hasn’t taken long at all for him to be confident and fast, and be able to coast a reasonable distance on it. There have been a few times when Nathan hasn’t listened to me and stopped when I’ve asked him to, and he gets very upset when the bike is confiscated, which means that Nathan is now usually pretty good at following instructions while riding near roads. We took him once to the area of Sydney Park which is like a little road training area complete with traffic lights, though I don’t think he really understood what it was about.
Nathan’s language skills continue to improve. He now says ‘Nasan’ now instead of ‘Neh nan’ which is much more understandable when people ask him his name. We have great conversations together now that he talks in sentences all the time. He knows all his letters, though he recognises capital letters more reliably than lowercase, and loves playing his word puzzle where you find the letters to go with the picture.
Talking about puzzles, he adores a 50-piece puzzle of the solar system and points out and names the planets, international space station, sputnik, Hubble telescope, Mars rover, Eagle lander on the moon. Pluto is a small brown rock that is crying because he is no longer a planet and there is even space junk in the form of a washing machine. Nathan does the puzzle with just verbal help and a bit of pointing from Andrew or I.
We got Nathan his first Roald Dahl book recently (Fantastic Mr. Fox) which he adores, so we bought the entire 15-book collection. Some will be too old for him just yet, but so far we’ve also read The Twits and The Magic Finger. We started the BFG but I don’t think it is holding his attention.
I feel like I have been fighting Nathan over the issue of sleep for 2 years, and I’ve finally decided to give up on the idea of having a sleep routine. If he’s not asleep after 30 minutes of effort (driving or walking in the pram), starting around midday or soon after, then he doesn’t get a day sleep. Invariably he’ll be wanting a nap at 4 or 5 pm, but I make sure he stays awake until 6:30 pm because otherwise I doubt he’d go back to sleep at night before midnight. I feel mean when that happens, but I have to make sure I get some sleep myself. Still, he goes to sleep incredibly quickly and easily on these days…just a few minutes of breastfeeding or even just reading a book will send him to sleep. This happens 2 or 3 times a week at the moment. When he does have a day sleep then I don’t bother trying to get him to sleep before 9 or 10 pm, depending on what time he woke up, but even then it takes ages for him to go to sleep with effort from one or both of Andrew and I.
Jumping has become a very big thing since he turned 2.
The boy certainly is a climber
Coasting
We got Nathan an Ikea table and chairs which are ideal for tea parties with teddies
Trains are very popular at the moment
Waiting for Daddy takes on a new dimension now that Nathan has company
Easter was an exciting time this year
The solar system puzzle is a favourite
I love this photo of Nathan taking a photo of Toby with his wooden camera
Stacking toilet paper rolls is a lot of fun
Learning about weights by weighing his animals
Newest addition to our library
Driving a fire engine on their open day
