Maia Mi

You have received a Media Message
This Media Message has been sent using an O2 camera phone.

To reply to this media message you will need to use your own camera phone.
Simply take a picture, or video and send it to the person that sent you this
message.

If you do not have a camera phone, get one today! Either visit
http://shop.o2.co.uk/shop/ or come and see us at your local o2 store.

Please note: You cannot reply to this message via email.

Via newfangled means I hope to revive this Maia blog. A year's gap is simply too much! Yikes. To get you started here is a recent piccie!

Tis a test tis all

As you can imagine, we are now way behind in Maia Mi blog land. It's been one thing after another, not least Maia herself just changing almost daily - we couldn't keep up!

So, "Tantrums" was where I left you. Ha ha. We are so used to those now. She doesn't thump her head on the floor anymore (must have learnt about that one) but she can still pull some corkers. They're fewer and further between though and tend to explode around a time of change and intense growing pains, so you kind of know when you need to stand back and let her vent.

Maia is now two years and four months old. And, in her own words, she's now a "Big Girl" and certainly knows her own mind, and everything EVERYTHING is 'do self'.

She's also (amazingly quickly) gone from being a baby in nappies to independent young lady on the potty. Just about a month ago she was refusing to use the potty at home - or, when she deemed it ok to, we would wait for half an hour for, er, absolutely NOTHING to appear. That's all fine though - we weren't worried - we just made it into a 'let's have a go' game. She got practise at nursery too - where she did pee pees on the toilet, here and there. But once we were in Sweden and I gave her the PINGU PANTS and said, here, would you like these or nappies, it was all over for soggy nappies and smelly bins. Yup. And pretty much dry, aside from the odd leak here and there. Including car journeys, naps and nearly most of the nights since then (which unfortunately means I need to wake up at whatever hour of the night she needs to do a wee - but it's a small sacrifice at this stage).

Just to watch her confidence grow as she mastered this particularly grown up activity is amazing.

Beyond that, her verbal reasoning is just developing so fast - she is very particular and likes to say whole full sentences with descriptions about colours and sizes - which means you do have to wait a while before the sentence comes. But then it comes in a sweet "Maia went on the big, ummmm, red slide, ummmm, in the park!"

She's also superblond, sticks her legs up in the air "I'm doing ballet", still hasn't quite mastered jumping (she takes off but lands on straight legs - ouch) and extremely loveable with us as well as her toys. Just the other day she picked up her baby doll and gently stroked her head and gave her a big smacker on the lips. awwwwwww.

There's so much I could tell - but for now, at least I've broken the ice...

Oh dear. Maia has certainly hit the 'tantrum' stage. We've had some corkers. It can be quite scary actually as she does start to get violent and try to hurt herself - by hitting her head on the floor and so on. Anything can trigger it, so for now we're trying to work out just what sets it off etc. Just putting her coat on when it's time to go out and play can set it off. Or telling her it's time to say bye-bye to the telly cos it's bath time (and I give her plenty of warnings). Or the other morning was horrible, as I lost my temper because she wouldn't sit at the table & eat her usual readybrek - and we were running late. In the end we somehow managed to get upstairs and clean teeth (without breakfast) and on the way down she decided actually some readybrek would be rather nice come to think of it and had five mouthfuls before i plopped her in the pram and managed - somehow - to get the train!

Must cover Xmas in here soon huh! - but in the meantime, a little heads up on Maia's latest 'thing' - role play. She'll take on the role of mummy when she puts bamse to sleep in the pram. Or she'll read her dolls a story. Or she'll put on a nappy on the baby. Or she'll play ring-a-ring-a-roses with a couple of dolls, holding their hands and making sure they form a circle. It's really cute.

She's also become a bit of a kleptomaniac. I mean, she always was a good one for stashing something away in her hand & you'd never know she'd taken the pen/toy from wherever until way later. But now she's into stashing things into her vest/pyjamas/babygro. Which can be hilarious. Like the time she stashed her megablocks and walked around like a robot with her legs all chunky with bricks. Or when we came home from nursery, had dinner, played, went up to have a bath and - as I undressed her - about 20 rings, of different sizes & textures - curtain rail type rings - tumbled out - how long she'd been walking around with those stashed in her vest I have no idea! As granny would say, "What a pickle!".

Maia has recently become obsessed with a few concepts. First it was 'night' - as she'd never really experienced it before, but now it's dark when she leaves nursery and she just couldn't get over it. "natt ute' (night outside) she'd say when we left the nursery. Again, once we were in the car. And again when we got home "Natt Ute Ogsaa" (night outside too!). like it was amazing it was night everywhere we went. We went outside in the garden and had a look the 'night' and the stars. We had to look again from the bathroom window and again from her bedroom. This went on for about two weeks!!!

Then, just recently I was reading her usual favourite books when she started realising the girl had hurt herself and she just kept wanting to read this one page where the girl fell over. And in the other book this boy and girl fell down a hill (jack and jill) and hurt themselves too. And she just asks to look at these pages now when we have the bedtime story. I have to tell her over and over again what happens. And last night she got obsessed with the Snail in the picture book that is just about to get trodden on. His face is all 'oh no' so now she just says 'snegle ååå neiii!' again and again - we had to read it upstairs this morning and again for breakfast. She'll talk about the 'jente falle ned' (girl fall down) all the way in the car on the way home too. really strange!