Mummy my tummy hurts....

As Little H approaches her 4th Birthday in a few months time, I'm realising more and more that she is moving away from being my sweet little baby.  She is now going through what my other half refers to as her "egocentric phase". He is an Early Years Lecturer so don't get me wrong he knows what he's talking about, however, giving it the right name does not make it any less of a pain in the arse to go through with her.  To you and me what this phase means is "Me Me Me and a bit more Me"

I am finding this harder and harder to deal with everyday and she makes every day and every activity and come to think of it every little thing about her.  I try to balance the amount of attention I give her and Mr Moo but recently if she is not getting all the attention she starts to create a storm of pain.  Here's an example of some of the classic lines we get now when she's not getting her own way:

I'm not your best friend

You don't love me

I don't love you

You're not being kind

I'm going to call the Police Man

I'm want to stay with Daddy ( this is the one she uses to really hit me where it hurts)

Your a poo poo head

Your house smells of  poo poo head

Mr Moo is a silly Poo Poo head and so on and so on and so on.

The point of all this background detail about my constant daily battles with the little love is that we now have a new popular phrase of "my tummy hurts!"

And there you have it....."my tummy hurts"

I always treat it as a serious thing and say that she needs to calm down and stop messing about for a minute to see if it feels better.  I don't let her have anything to eat that might make it worse and I quite often sit with her on the settee with warm milk to help settle it.  After doing all of this the poorly tummy always seems to feel better and I've come to realise that most of the time it is just her way of getting some one-on-one time with me.

But now how do I stop it?  How do I teach her that there are other ways of getting my attention with out having a tummy ache or a bitch fit every 5 seconds?  I'm very concious that I don't want to ignore a tummy ache just in case one day it is the real deal and I don't do anything about it, but at the moment she is very much the Boy who cried Wolf.

Steve says this phase will pass and she will learn to share me again but while she's using a tummy ache to get my attention I really don't know what to do for the best.  This is one of those times when I really wish my Mum was still around to give advice as she was so used to dealing with my bitch fits (of which there were many as I'm told by my Dad!)

All suggestions would be VERY welcome xxx

Mummy, I've found my nose and it tastes good!

I had the joyful task of putting my, normally great but at the moment difficult, son to bed and it turned out to be one of the funniest nights I've had.

We started with the usual bath and bottle of milk and then, as normal, I climbed into bed with him to settle down for story time.  As soon as I get in he climbs up on my knee and puts his head on my chest while I read.  I would have thought this a typical night if it hadn't been for the fact he was so quiet during the story.  Normally he likes to cheer and clap at his favourtite parts, but not tonight.

When turning my head to look at him to make sure everything was OK, I realised that the reason he was so quiet was becasue he had his finger shoved up his nose.  I literally mean shoved.  I looked at him and said,         "Sammy what ya doing?  Take your finger out your nose" and he just laughed, finger still rammed up the nose.

I said it again but in a funny voice thinking this would coax him out but no, he just belly laughed with the finger shoved up his nose.  I couldn't help but start to laugh and the more I laughed the more he laughed, which made me laugh even more, which made Mr Moo laugh even more all the time with the finger up the nose.

After story time I tried to get him into his sleeping position, as we always do, and he did it very willingly but would not take his finger out of his nose.  I kept asking him too by saying, "you can't go to sleep with your finger up your snoze" and he just laughed, finger still up nose.

So, I decided to call it quits.  He was comfortable and was not moving that finger.  I bent down to kiss him night night and to my surprise he took his finger out of his nose licked it then said,"bye bye".

He rolled over and went to sleep and I had to run out of the room before waking him with laughter.

Stranger Danger - When is it OK to start?

Me and Little H's dad were both raised very differently and this became very clear when the subject of Stranger Danger came up.  My Dad is a retired Police Officer so parts of my up bringing were really strict and although I hated him at the time for a lot of decisions he made, as a mother, I can not totally see where he was coming from.

 

Because there are always stories on the news and in the papers, I didn't think twice about making the decision to start to teach Little H about strangers.  She was probably a little older than 2 when I first started to make conversation with her about it and it went something like this.

 

Me  "H, if we are ever shopping and someone talks to you and it's not Mummy, Daddy or Steve, what do you do?

 

H " I don't know Mummy"

 

Me " You shout as loud as you can for Mummy, Daddy or Steve"

 

H " Like this MUMMY DADDY STEVE"

 

Me (ears ringing) "yes baby just like that"

 

H "OK Mummy, I like shouting"

 

The subject was left for a day or 2 and then I casually mentioned it again but using slightly different situation.

 

Me "H, if you were in the park and someone wanted to hold you hand and it wasn't Mummy, Daddy or Steve, what do you do?

 

H " I don't know Mummy"

Me " You shout as loud as you can for Mummy, Daddy or Steve"

H " Like this MUMMY DADDY STEVE"

Me (ears ringing) "yes baby just like that"

H "OK Mummy, I like shouting"

 

Again I left it for a few days and then casually mentioned it again but bringing Mr Moo into it

 

 

Me "H, if we're out and about and someone comes up to Mr Moo and you don't know them what do you do?"

 

H " I don't know Mummy"

Me " You shout as loud as you can for Mummy, Daddy or Steve"

H " Like this MUMMY DADDY STEVE"

Me (ears ringing) "yes baby just like that"

H "OK Mummy, I like shouting"

 

A few weeks later I asked her the same question and the conversation went slightly differently to my surprise.

 

Me "H, if we're shopping and someone comes up to you and it's not Mummy, Daddy or Steve, do you know what to do?

 

H "I scream MUMMY DADDY STEVE as loud as I can"

 

Me " Well done baby girl that's totally right"

 

H "and if someone talks to Mr Moo and it's not Mummy or Daddy or Steve then I shout MUMMY DADDY STEVE as loud as I can"

 

Me "that's fantatsic H that's exactly what you do clever girl"

 

 

I know there are situations where people may only say hello in a friendly way and may end up with a small firey child screaming in their face, but I'd rather explain why she was doing it than her have no awareness at all.

 

So thinking I was teaching my child something that could potentially save them in a dangerous situation (God forbid) we are ever in that situation, I just carried on having this chat with her every so often to keep it in her mind.

 

Then comes the phone call from Daddy who demands to know what scary thoughts I've been putting into our daughters head.  I tell him what I've been doing and the reasons why and he totally flies off the handle.  He is furious about it as he really believes she is far too young to be told stuff like that.

 

I couldn't control my reaction and pretty much told him that I'm sure all the parents of babies and toddlers who have been abducted wouldn't f***ing agree.  His response was, "well when she's with me and playing in the Park I never take my eyes off her" to which I replied, "well you're a f***ing liar"

 

Being the over protective mother that I am, I know I can't keep my eyes on them every single second so I certainly don't believe him when he tells me he does.  He said that if I insisted on doing it then fine but he wouldn't back me up on it until she was much older. 

 

I personally don't think you can start too young as long as it is done in the right way.  The last thing I ever wanted to do was send my little girl to bed at night with a head full of bad dreams waiting to happen.  I'm happy to say that I haven't done that and she is now well aware of strangers and who not to talk to.  We all have to make choices as parents and we hope they are the right ones.  I believe I made the right choice on this even if her Dad doesn't.

 

I would love to know other people's thoughts on this.