Independence and dependency

Most accurately summed up by D today.  Requesting to sit on my lap and sing "All the little ducks".  We usually do the movements for her, but no, today she did them all herself, carefully removing my "helping" hands so she could.  Such a thing, wanting mummy's lap for the springboard, mummy to sing for the communal effort but needing the space to do her own thing too.  Pure toddler, distilled to a t.  Good on her!  Something for me to remember next tantrum time too (not necessarily just D's tantrums...). 

A week is a long time for little ones.

In the last week, D has started to use words like "and" "another" be more physically demonstrative, demand kisses, have the most enormous strops after waking up in the afternoon, show increased awareness of where things live in the house and replace without being asked, help clean Michael's bum, ask for nappy change when she needs one, continue to increase her straight backed gait up and down stairs, play computer games with her daddy.

In the last week Michae has sprouted1 (but quite possibly 2) 2nd incisor tooth (bottom left and maybe top right), turned on his side from his back, sat up longer and longer with an increasingly straight back, gone to sleep on his own, become more and more dextrous, passed an object from one hand to another.

I am working on the practice of their cries being my meditation bells.  This is because I have been so involved in it all, I've been crowding them out of their own stuff which is not helpful to anyone.  It's hard, the anxiety is now more acute, but does pass.  It's also weird as what actually happens is that I feel I am being very spacious when D is having a tantrum, but looking back what I have actually been doing is just focussing on staying calm, but with huge levels of underlying panic.  So I don't really know what's going on and in all honesty I'm kind of trying to not try to hard to find out!

I'm also going to bed earlier, so night night!