Living Arrows 14/52 (2017)

It’s been another fairly quiet week but a busy weekend. On Tuesday Barry and I did manage to go out for lunch on our own which is a pretty rare occurrence. I was working on Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday were quiet days pottering around at home. We had one of our usual walks to the shops and the park on Friday, and Toby has realised that the ice cream van is often near the park so we had a little treat too.

We’ve been using a reward chart with Toby for the last couple of weeks – he had started wetting himself nearly every day after being dry for months and it was just through sheer laziness. He had also got into the habit of getting up early and coming into our bed, which I don’t really mind too much but Gabe is usually in there too and he was waking him up as well.

Toby in Cartmel

So anyway, we made a chart which was ‘Toby’s race to the beach’ and he could move a space nearer to the beach for every day he had dry pants, for every morning he stayed in bed until the sun came out on his Gro-clock and extra spaces for being especially kind or helpful. We added in smaller rewards along the way -Toby is a bit obsessed with Kinder Eggs at the moment so they featured quite heavily, but we’d also put in a trip to soft play when he was getting towards the end of the chart. Read more

My Wild Ones // Growing confidence

At home Toby has always loved climbing all over the furniture, and us! Whenever we were at the park or soft play though he seemed to lose some of that confidence and would only try things with one of us holding him, or sometimes not all.

In the last few weeks though he seems to have suddenly grown in confidence. He is trying things he wouldn’t go near a month ago and what’s more he’s really enjoying it.

Last weekend at the park he climbed up one of those cargo nets for the first time. I could see his legs shaking but he held on and made it to the top. He was so pleased with himself too.

Toddler climbing a cargo net at the park for the first time

And then he was happy to spin round and round on the roundabout until he got dizzy!

Toby going round and round on the roundabout

Yesterday we went to soft play and although Toby is usually OK once he gets going whenever we’ve gone before he’s needed one of us to go in with him. Not today though. It was pretty quiet and I think that helped, and of course being a school day there weren’t any big kids about but he ran off into the pre-school section without a backwards glance! He kept coming back to report what he’d done – ‘I went on the blue slide mummy’, ‘I went through the tunnel mummy’ which was very sweet but I didn’t have to go in with him at all.

And then he decided he wanted to go into the over 4s section. There were a few bigger kids in there but there can’t have been anyone over 5. I went in with him the first time just so he could find his way around and I could make sure he didn’t get stuck! He was walking over nets and bridges which he’s never done without a lot of encouragement before. He went down a spiral slide which I’ve never been able to convince him to do before.

Toby exploring the big kids soft play

And he went down the massive slide all by himself too. Usually I have to come down on the other slide with him on this kind of slide and he’s never been on one this big before. Look how much fun he’s having though!

So much confidence flying down the big slide at soft play

I’m sure over the coming weeks and months we are just going to see Toby’s confidence growing and growing. My big little boy is growing up!

MyWildOnes