Hello Feesh!

During our holiday in Dubai (yes, we’re back home now…booo!) we used to visit the hotels humongous aquarium on a daily basis. Little Z has always been fascinated with fish, usually of the goldfish variety, so we knew he’d love it.

Each day even before breakfast was finished he’d announce his plans for the morning.

“Feesh!! See feesh!! Feesh!”

We didn’t mind as its so massive and contains so many different types of species there’s always something you hadn’t seen.

Each morning Little Z would have the funniest conversation with them through the glass, mostly along these lines…

[Knocks on glass and waves wildly]

“Hello Feesh!! Ello!! Ello!”

[Fish swim up curious to see if Little Z is about to feed them. They swim around or off once they realise he’s not their feeder]

“What da doing? Come ere!”

[Keeps waving…]

“Where going?? Come ere…Come ere!!”

[Looks up at us]

“Aww naughty!!”

This went on daily, sometimes more than once a day but it would make us chuckle each time. The “Feesh” weren’t always “naughty”. Sometimes he’d just accept they didn’t want to “come ere” and attempt to leg it down the big halls.

I think he would love a goldfish of his own but as fish tend to die in our care (and being not too sure how to explain fish death to a nearly 2 year old) we may wait a while.

The Most Favourite Thing About Our Holiday

We have been in Dubai for almost a week now and soon it’ll be time to come home. Little Z had been absolutely loving it and taking it all in his stride. In fact, some days and in some ways it’s like he’s a completely different child.

My very fussy non eater EATS here! Properly eats. Some days one of the first things he does is ask for food. This is amazing for him. He’s mostly asked for pizza or chips for breakfast, which we’ve not yet granted, but this is like music to my ears. I just hope this is something that’s here to stay.

We are staying in a hotel which is completely centred to families and thankfully has about a bazillion children’s activities. It also means it has about a bazillion other children all running around and causing havoc. The staff are just amazing though. Little Z now constantly runs into the arms of most security guards (of which there are many dotted around) and other staff. Each enjoys chucking him in the air and he screams with delight. This is not something I want to take back home with me. I don’t think I have the energy to stop his attempts at running into every strangers arms. Still, here it’s a wonderful sight and has boosted his self confidence no end.

Being surrounded by a bazillion children has its advantages, especially at dinner. The other night we met the girl version of Little Z. She was like a carbon copy in character. Having been seated at the table next to them Little Z and Girl Version Z ran through their obligatory rituals of smiling shyly at each other, followed by playing peekaboo, pointing and calling each other “baby!” and then flinging food around and giving their wipes a sneaky lick…followed by some defiant not so sneaky shoving into mouth when told not to lick them. We’ve not seen them much since that might but it’s very reassuring to meet another toddler that behaves the exact way as your own toddler.

The hotel has some indoor aquariums that stand at about 80ish feet tall. They house some amazing species of fish and sea life. Little Z asks to see them about 3 times a day and will spend ages saying and waving hello to each one and telling them to “come here!”. They sometimes oblige if they’re feeling generous.

But his absolute, most favourite thing about the holiday so far? That would be the escalators in the shopping malls. His face is a complete picture any time we pass one and he can barely contain his excitement when standing on one. Of course, as soon as we get off at the end he wants to immediately get on one going in the opposite direction. We once may have got on them 4 times in succession to avoid a very loud public tantrum.

So basically we could have just taken him to the Trafford centre for a few hours.

Through the Eyes Of A Toddler

The theme in the Gallery this week is Eyes.

It immediately made me think of this photo that I used in a post a while back. I can’t even remember which post it is now but one comment on it has stuck with me every since:

Life seen through the eyes of your child is like seeing life all over again.

It is completely true. Z is completely fascinated with all that he sees. Everything is new and wonderful and is a brand new adventure.

We are usually always in a rush. Isn’t everybody? We are rushing to be on time, or to get there slightly early for once or rushing because we are late. Little Z usually puts an absolute stop to the rushing by declaring “Look! Wow…nice”, or words to that effect.

Like the time he made me drop everything just to point out that Alexander Meerlov was on TV

Or like this morning when he made me stop trying to strap him into his car seat to make me look at the “birdie” that was perched in the tree merrily chirping.

Or like the time when he was utterly shocked and amazed that the washing machine had, in fact, broken!

Or how he just watched the water during a trip to the lakes in complete silence. (For about 30 seconds)

Check out the other entries by clicking below…

Dearest 23 Month Old

Hello Toddler…we’re going on holiday!! Oh yes, after almost 2 years we are braving it and going abroad. Some (a lot) of people are saying we’re crazy to be taking a toddler on a plane but I’m sure it’ll be fine. Millions of people do it every day, right? I’m sure it’ll be ..umm…we’ll see. I’m slightly concerned you hate sand though. A week on the beach. Hmmmm.

Anyhow, you said your first 3 word sentence this month, hurrah!! It was “Look At DAT!!!”… So so cute. You don’t actually say hundreds of words do I was getting a bit worried that you might be referred for speech therapy and planning on hiding under the window when they came round for your 2 year check so was pleasantly shocked when you said it. You also like asking “What da doing??!” very regularly. You tend to just babble through, unconcerned, through any words you don’t know and just gesture wildly. It’ll probably come in use on holiday in parts they don’t speak English.

You’ve also learned how to open the most difficult doors at your Aunts house. You’ve been opening every other door in your existence for a whole now but, one day recently when we came back from watching Skyfall, we were greeted with an almighty booming declaration of “HE OPENED OUR DOORS!!”. We stopped dead in our tracks, petrified at first…then registered what was bring said. It brought back a flash of Jurassic Park. You know, that scene where the dinosaurs learn to open the doors to the kitchen and people realise they are doomed. Doomed!! (Not that you are anything like a dinosaur, you understand? Although you do regularly mess all my pots and pans up! And last week you managed to flip the lid of the cooking oil and spill 2 litres all over the floor. Do you know how hard it was to clean that up? I was sliding around 2 days later despite having mopped it repeatedly).

You’re much more confident in yourself now and show a bit more determination if someone takes a toy from you. Our stance is still very much “share share” but that secret worrying part of me now worries a bit less about your self confidence. And maybe I won’t sign you up to karate classes just yet.

We are going to have to start organising your 2nd birthday party soon!! I’ve already seen the perfect cakes. (yep there’ll be two, again!), both are Sesane street related. Actually, I should probably order both today. And maybe the decorations…and maybe all the plates and stuff too. Argggh, let the party madness commence!

So until next time baby Toddler….mmmmmwah!

Being Superheroes

Recently I keep coming across things that make out parents are in fact superheroes. Juggling family life with with long hours of work as well as raising children and spending hours driving around from club to club dropping off and picking up from their after school obligations. Heroes with invisible capes. With no ability to fly but with powers to juggle and organise and throw a party together in an instant and, mostly, to do it all without much sleep.

It got me wondering about the kind of superheroes we have in our little family of 3. Then it came to me. We would be the Avengers. It’s obvious when you think about it. Really.

First, The Other Half. With his assertion first thing in the morning of “YOU’VE GOT ONE MINUTE!!!” to get us all out of the door for work on time he would have the entire street, understandably, mistakenly believing we are all part of a critical world saving mission. And sporting his one red eye from “a suspected scratch on the cornea” he is only an eye patch and long leather jacket away (oh, and bald head) from being Nick Fury. The leader of the Avengers.

Next you have the toddler. Little Z. With his ever growing defiance and fear of nothing he could only be Tony Stark / Iron Man. His stunts include repeatedly trying to jump off anything with a good height and any kind of berating induces either a fit of toddler anger or just determination to do it again. He prefers not to wear the iron man suit though. Opting instead to do all his own stunts as Tony Stark.

(I know this post is about parent superheroes but he is Tony Stark. He doesn’t care about rules).

And finally me. With my powers of shouting at the other half and stomping around grumpily at everyone over the last week (“You said you’d clean the bathroom!!!”), I instantly rule myself out of being the black widow. Damn. With my stomping, phantom increasing blood pressure, and inability to touch my toes, I fit one of the other Avengers to a tee…

Our poor neighbours.

Maybe next week we will be less superhero and more 1900s silent movie.

(All photo credits to IMDB)