Clap Your hands Say Wee!

Phoebe can't talk much yet, but she can certainly communicate.
She signs a little, she says a lot through waving at things, through crying or squealing, and, just recently, through clapping.
 She got the hang of clapping the week before last and was very proud of herself*.
She clapped, and she grinned, and she generally illuminated the whole room with her glee.
So when she did a weewee on the potty and was looking particularly proud of herself, the obvious thing seemed to be to clap.
I clapped.
Eleanor clapped.
And of course, Phoebe clapped.
 Since this occasion every time Phoebe does a weewee on the potty she claps.
She also claps if she hears someone flush the loo**.
She clapped tonight, with a somewhat awestruck expression, when she heard the shower running.
 And then, just as I was putting a nappy on her at bedtime, she realised she needed the potty.
She cried at me.
I didn't get it.
She wriggled her bottom in a holding-on-for-dear-life-and-a-dry-flexitot*** fashion.
I didn't get it.
She stared into my eyes in an attempt to drive the information directly into my brain.
I didn't get it.****
Finally, in desperation and with little hope of getting anything through my exceptionally dense skull, she clapped.

I got it.



*So she carried on clapping, she felt she deserved the applause.
** It's nice to be appreciated.
*** It's a type of nappy.
Made from bamboo.
**** But wouldn't it be cool if I had?

The Differences

Spending last weekend without Eleanor really underlined the difference there have been between Phoebe's early months and Eleanor's.
 Phoebe has never had to be alone: even when I've been in the kitchen, surrounded by bubbling pots and sharp knives, I've always been able to leave her playing happily with her sister.
This weekend though reminded me sharply of Ellie's first year: every time I had to leave her alone the eight-month-olds' separation anxiety kicked in, producing a panicked, sobbing baby girl, perhaps even more distressed simply because she has always had a sister to rely on in the past.
 Fortunately I always hurried back so hopefully the all important lesson -that just because Mummy goes away it doesn't mean she's gone for good- will soon be learned.

Meanwhile I started pondering the differences between Phoebe and Eleanor.
 It isn't that I hadn't noticed any differences before, in fact when Phoebe was first born all I seemed to see were differences: she was about twice the size that Ellie was at birth, she fed and slept happily, gained weight and grew easily*, she was nothing like her sister at all, even in appearance**.
 But as I got used to Phoebe the differences became far less pronounced: these days she even looks much as Eleanor did at this age, just a little larger.
 So it took a little thought to notice just how different these two are.
To begin with there's Phoebe's reaction to music.
Play a decent piece of music to Phoebe and she will sit transfixed.
In fact I gleaned the time to type this by putting on Turandot in the background***.
 To Eleanor the correct response to music has always been to get up and dance, or to try to sing along.
Even before she could walk or talk she would start to wriggle and wave to the music, or start to yowl along until it finished.
Phoebe, however, listens.
Sometimes she'll try to join in, drumming or shaking a rattle in very inaccurate time, but mostly she just listens, she will even let me sing her to sleep.
 Then there's the way Phoebe wakes up happy whereas Eleanor always gave the impression that she was thoroughly distressed to find herself back in the same world she left when she went to sleep, in fact Ellie is still sometimes grumpy on waking up, Phoebe, meanwhile, wakes up wreathed in smiles.
Phoebe can't walk yet but Eleanor was walking happily at six months, Eleanor's first word was "Cat" but Phoebe's was "Daddy" (neither thought I was worth remarking on), Phoebe is cautious around strangers whereas Eleanor would and will smile at anyone,  Eleanor grabs any new toy and dives straight in but Phoebe will study it from every angle before tentatively trying something, like a scientist testing a hypothesis.

 Does all this mean that Eleanor is doomed to be a gregarious pessimist, while Phoebe will be a happy intellectual?
I severely doubt it.
But it does show that, despite all their similarities, despite sharing their genetic makeup, their upbringing and -reluctantly- their toys, they are and always will be individuals.
 And it means that for all my experience with Eleanor, I still can't count on anything.

* My baby is not a rhinoceros, she is perfectly average, Eleanor was born tiny and got tinier.
** Eleanor looked like an unfledged crow or possibly an alien, Phoebe just looked like a baby.
*** This sounds terribly pretentious but if I'd put on the Teletubbies it would just be ordinary bad parenting.

Slight Piatus

We haven't done much on the home-ed front this week, having spent most of it entertaining my Mother who has been up visiting us.
In addition to this, Eleanor and Richard were away camping all weekend, leaving me at home with Phoebe.

But while it's been a quiet week for Eleanor,* Phoebe has been doing all sorts of things.

To begin with, she's been a holy terror at night, constantly waking up, wanting attention, refusing to settle, and generally disrupting the sleep patterns of all who love her.
 I know this might not sound like a good thing, well, let me be honest: it's not a good thing.
It is the start of sleeping through the night though.

You see it works like this: Phoebe wakes up wanting Mummy, Phoebe gets Mummy, Phoebe goes back to sleep.
Which probably sounds like a recipe for disaster but is, in fact quite the opposite.
Every time Phoebe wakes up, cries, and gets attention, she learns that I will come when she needs me.
She also learns to be less insecure, to be less afraid of sleeping alone, to need me less.
 So eventually, when she wakes up, even if I'm not there, she'll just put herself back to sleep.
After all, she'll know that if she ever really needs me she only has to call.

As well as this she's just cut another tooth, she's learning to pull herself up and support her own weight**, she can now say Daddy (or Dadda), Ummy, and Yeh! (the exclamation mark is definitely pronounced), and she has started to use the potty.
Which is terribly exciting when you're only eight months old.
All in all it's hardly surprising she finds it a little hard to sleep sometimes.***

*Where quiet means "Grandma's here! Grandma! Pay attention to Me!!"
** She had the good manners to postpone this event until her Grandmother was here to see it.
*** There's also something called Reverse Cycling to contend with, which can be defined thus: "The world is so exciting and I am far too busy to feed right now so I shall wait until bedtime when I have nothing better to do".