The kids and I went to watch NBR vs Sydney with my dad. Lufflump fell asleep during the second bout. His favourite part of the night was hi-fiveing the ladies and being an aeroplane thanks to Meg L'Mania.
The mister and I went on a lovely river skate to get to and from the movies. I fell twice on the way there and once on the way back. Battle wounds!
We also kind of adopted the neighbourhood cat. Just don't feed her smoked salmon, she'll turn up her nose.
I've spent all morning reasoning with lufflump. Some may call it arguing but without a raised voice I'm inclined to continue with calling it reasoning.
'No, leave your sister alone.'
'Do not lie on your sister's head.'
'Please do not turn that off.'
'Let me move your sister before you lay down on the mat.'
Hello friend
It would appear that I have a three year old slightly obsessed with a 0-12month play gym.
Lufflump is a tad too big
The four month old is also a fan of the Fisher Price Tracking Lights Musical Gym. Us parents are also fans. Not that we get down and play like the children but any fun activity for them that lets us have a coffee in peace is a friend of ours.
Sesame can easily reach the toys with her hands and feet and the toys can easily be changed around. She's loving using her feet lately and gets such a shock when she kicks the sound and lights on.
Sesame using both her hands and feet to play
The Tracking Lights Musical Gym makes one of three animal noises (monkey, frog and elephant) before launching into music with the four lights 'dancing' to the music. Sesame loves to follow the lights with her eyes which is great for her development. The lights also help to keep her interested that little bit longer than other play gyms.
Lufflump loves to be the animal that makes the sounds; hopping around like a frog, laughing like a monkey or having a long nose like an elephant. I love that the music can either be adjusted, either loud or quiet. That definitely is brilliant if there are lots of other noises going around or if it's quiet time.
The mat is awesome too as it can be used for tummy time as well. Not that sesame stays on her tummy for long now she knows how to roll over. Hopefully she'll start rolling back onto her stomach so more tummy time occurs.
Lufflump loves playing with the lion and elephant that are on the sides of the arches. Well he likes turning their heads around many times until it irritates me. That boy knows how to push buttons and he loves it!
Watching sesame playing on the Tracking Lights Musical Gym right now brings a smile to my face, it's so wonderful to watch her discovering new things including her hands and feet. She's one happy camper which means the rest of the family are too.
Happy sesame
Now for the fun stuff. Mattel have kindly offered one Fisher Price Tracking Lights Musical Gym for a reader.
To enter please leave a comment telling me what is your favourite activity for newborns.
Terms and conditions of entry. 1. Australian residence only.
2. One entry per household.
3. Competition starts on the 10th July 2012 4:30pm and closes on the 17th of July 2012 at 12:00am (midnight) (AEST). 4. Please leave your email address, Facebook or blog link with your answer so I can contact you. 5. To claim the prize, the winner must reply to the winning email and accept the prize within 7 days of the email. They also must indicate their preferred address for the prize to be sent. If the winner does not respond within 7 days, they will forfeit the prize.
6. The winner will be chosen by myself based on what I deem to be the best answer.
7.The judge’s decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered upon.
8. Mattel will be sending out the prize to the chosen winner who has correctly claimed their prize. 9. Accidental Wonderland (www.tutuames.com) will take no responsibility for any delay, loss or damage to prizes sent to the winner.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me for Mattel. All opinions expressed are my own.
Lufflump has been going to speech therapy once a week for a few months now and has definitely benefited not only his life but everyone around him too.
He started only being able to say gobbly-goo that kind of sounded like proper words and is now talking in sentences with either proper words or very close to it. His personality really shines now and he is even more cheeky.
Making exaggerated sounds
Currently his favourite sentences are;
'your turn' and he gets extremely angry if you don't have a turn at whatever he wants you too.
'no, I don't like it' or 'no, I don't want to', he seems to say this more and more.
Our lovely speech therapist teaches lufflump to sign for certain words and also to say the word. He's on fire with them. 'More' is definitely his favourite, 'finish' is used appropriately and 'milk' is his newest one which we are all still trying to remember to use.
I've noticed his tantrums are less now that he can tell us what he wants, what is wrong or right. It's fantastic how quickly he's cottoned on. He still has a lot of work to do and I think he needs to slow down as when he does the sounds are correct but when he rushes they get mixed up or missed.
I wish we'd done this sooner but now is better than never and maybe earlier wasn't the best time for lufflump like now seems to be.
You turned three on Saturday, happy birthday! All day I was thinking back to that day three years ago when you entered the world at 7:33pm. Everything was worth it the first moment I held you. You taught me what love really is and for that I thank you everyday.
Your third birthday
It's been another big year for you. The biggest change has been your status as a big brother. What a wonderful big brother you are too. You love your sister and from the way she watches everything you do I can see she loves you too. When she cries you hug her, kiss her, hold her hand or play cars on her and she loves it! You couldn't make me more prouder.
Such a good brother
You've begun speech therapy and we can all see a huge difference. You pick up on things so easily. You've already started signing 'more', 'finish' and 'pop'. In fact you're even talking a lot more. 'Daycare' is your new favourite word and at times you say it perfectly. While we regret not taking you to speech therapy sooner we are so happy you're getting the help now.
You also love to count. Noni's stairs are perfect for counting on, you count each step all the way to fifteen. For the last few weeks we've been asking you how old you are, instead of three you say you're five. Every single time. I think five may be your favourite number. Or eleven. You love to say them.
You love daycare still. In fact this week you've started going three days a week instead of two. Mummy and daddy miss you so much when you're gone but we know how much fun you have there. You bound out the door and run straight in to play every day you go. You excitedly tell us about your day, usually showing us what animal you played with or were.
This year your obsession with dinosaurs has expanded. You own so many dinosaur toys that I've lost count. Your favourite dinosaur movies are still the Jurassic Park ones and Godzilla. You've also really gotten into the BBC Dinosaur specials, your favourite dinosaurs are, of course, T-Rex and Spinosaurus. The killers. Dinosaur Train, Dinosaurs TV show and a handful of other dinosaur movies and TV specials are also watched frequently.
Easter
Along with dinosaurs you also still love cars and animals. Sea creatures are some of your favourites too. Sharks especially. Anything big, scary and dangerous. Sharks, elephants, rhinos, lions and tigers are your favourites. Usually your animal toys battle cars or dinosaurs. It's a mixture of scary, loud love. Helicopters are another favourite of yours. You spin your arms in circles to say helicopter and you love to draw them in big circles. In fact I'd say that dinosaurs in a helicopter would be your dream event.
Another big change is your hair. You rocked your long hair until you decided you wanted daddy's haircut. Daddy did such a good job cutting your hair and you now rock your short hair. Who knows what other hairstyles you'll rock over the next year.
Hair rocker
You my son are the light of my life. Always have and will be. This blog is as much for you and your sister as it is for me, a record of your young lives. I hope you enjoy reading it in the future and seeing what your life was like.
Lufflump had his speech therapy assessment this morning.
Since I made the appointment last week I've been nervous and dreading it. Last night I wasn't going to go, just the mister and lufflump. This morning I decided I had to go, it wasn't about me at all. I had to suck it up and get over my anxiety and go for lufflump. And I did.
Lufflump doesn't talk clearly or in English. He has his own language, says the same 'word' over and over again for the same thing. It was cute when he was younger and we thought he'd grow out of it. He's three next month and we've stopped being in denial that he needs help.
This morning we all bundled into the car and drove in peek hour to the therapists' office. Neither the mister or I knew what to expect.
I was worried that lufflump wouldn't interact or listen to them. I didn't need to worry, he interacted with them I say 'them' because we had two therapists as one was learning straight away. They had some animal finger puppets that he played with straight away. He matched them, got the animal they asked him to and made all the correct animal noises. He couldn't properly say what they were but tried his hardest.
He did get bored with pointing at pictures and playing with cups and spoons. There were cars, a monster and a cool bouncing bee to play with instead. We did have a meltdown when he couldn't take the bouncing bee or Ben 10 monster home but as soon as we dropped him off at daycare that was all forgotten.
We haven't received the assessment yet but we are going back on Monday for weekly visits. They said he has obvious speech delays but it's good that he can make the sounds he needs to, he just needs to learn how to connect those sounds to form words. Other than that he's more than fine.
Tonight, after daycare, I've been making sure to ask him more open questions and sound words out. He tries. He tries so hard and sometimes he says the word perfectly (it was 'star' tonight) but then reverts back to saying it his way.
Over the weekend, he has daycare tomorrow, we'll make sure to sit down and try and do what they did this morning. Sit down and make certain sounds. Say the ABCs over and over again. Bring out the flash cards. Watch TV and talk about what's happening. Ask open questions. Hopefully on Monday we'll be armed with some homework to try and get him forming proper words.
Last week was a big week! So big that I've decided to wrap it all up in a post which I don't usually do. Here goes in hopefully the order of the week.
Andrea from Fox in Flats started her Arm Party Dare which I wrote about and joined in.
1, 2, 3
4, 5, 6, 7
It was so much fun and I still had a bunch of bracelets and wrist wear I didn't use. Thank you Andrea for this awesome dare!
The wonderful Lisa from Madam Bipolar put a call out for guest bloggers. I love and admire her blog so jumped at the chance although I didn't think my work would be good enough. I wrote about my experience with Trichotillomania titled The Road to Blue Hair.
www.madambipolar.com
Lisa's encouragement and lovely words were all worth it as were the comments left on the post. If I help one person by reading my story then I'm more than happy. Madam Bipolar is one of the most informative, interesting and real blog out there on the interwebz.
Thursday night my mum, lufflump, sesame and me were fortunate enough to receive an invite to the Dreamworks new area at Dreamworld. The lovely ladies from Reprise Media gave us the full VIP treatment by feeding us good quality food and drinks, giving the kids goodie bags, letting us run wild in the new area and securing awesome seats for the Madagascar live show.
Balloons, food, drinks, goodie bags, kids and parents!
Sesame slept the whole time even through the show and lufflump ran wild! We went on the Dronkey Flyers, MAD Jungle Jam and a pink horse on Shrek's Ogre-Go-Round. We met Shrek, Princess Fiona, Puss, and the three Penguins from Madagascar.
Lufflump loved the show. It was hard to stop him from getting up on stage but being his first live show that's understandable. He just wanted to play with Alex! He also loved his toy, Gloria the Hippo. He slept with her in his arms that night and has played with her ever since. A new fave for sure!
Bloggers took over the first two rows!
Thank you Megan and Reprise Media, Dreamworks and Dreamworld!
Fave photo of the night!
After Dreamworld we stayed at my mum's house until Saturday. I also managed to come down with some horrible illness causing headaches, swollen glands and temperatures. It's always a good break staying down at mum's.
First smile captured on film, burping sesame, lufflump all set up, squished in the back seat of mum's car
We went to the beach, the mister did some jobs for mum, I was able to go to bed super early, sesame slept reasonably well and lufflump always loves running around there.
Saturday we left mum's and went to a Rave event at New Farm park so the mister could get some fire twirling in. Last time he fire twirled lufflump was only a few months old, if that. We had a lot of fun, dancing and enjoying being out with friends. As you can see in the video poor lufflump just wanted to play with the fire like his daddy. Please excuse the crappy video.
Sunday the Easter Bunny came! Lufflump doesn't like chocolate and EB knew so he brought olives instead of eggs and hid toys around the courtyard for an Easter hunt. EB hit the nail on the head with lufflump's presents, he was so happy!
Olives!
My dad came over with chocolate and we all watched movies together. Easter remains a fun holiday!
