The Mummy Adventure

I do my best thinking when I am walking.  It seems so cruel that I feel at my most creative when I don't have an opportunity to record it and I often compose whole blog posts in my head that I cannot recreate at all when I finally put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.  This is one of those.

After two years and three months of recording our lives, I thought I would explain why I called my little space on the internet 'The Mummy Adventure'.  I have touched on it in the past, but I wanted to try and put into words the thought behind the name.

I don't think being a mother is a job.  I don't see it as a role or an occupation.  I see motherhood as a journey, an adventure.  It doesn't matter if your child was planned and longed for or a careless accident after a few too many tequilas on a Friday night.  It doesn't matter if it took 10 years of trying, hormone treatments and IVF or those two blue lines appeared completely unexpectedly.  It doesn't matter if your child has your genetics or not.  That first time that you touch those tiny little fingers, the first time you see those ten precious toes, the first time you hear those little lungs announcing his arrival, that is the very first day.

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Wonderful Words

There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to explain what is wrong.  A lack of communication can cause no end of problems and life as a toddler is tougher than we give them credit for. So maybe they do get to ride around in comfy chariots, snack throughout the day and nap every afternoon.  Maybe they  do have a pair of adults running around after them making sure they have everything they need - it doesn't always mean they can let us know what they need.

Dylan's vocabulary is growing daily and he is always amazing me by using a word I had no idea he could say.     He is desperate to learn more about the world around him and is a little sponge, taking everything in.  With his new words, comes a better communication and I am learning more about him all the time

He becomes cheekier every day and he can let me know that something is broken, that he wants help, that he needs reassurance, that he is hurt and that he is tired. I still need to read his cues, but he helps me by vocalising his thoughts.  When we play, there is conversation.  Gone are the days of my voice filling the silence, Dylan chats away and sings along warming the room with his beautiful voice.

We still have a long way to go and with the increase in vocabulary we are also seeing an increase in frustration and tantrums as he still doesn't have the words to vocalise everything he wants to say.  Sometimes his pronunciation is not quite right and it takes me several guesses to correctly work out quite what he is on about.

Some of his mis-spronunciations make me giggle on a daily basis.  He often asks for a cheese and ham 'wosinge' rather than a sandwich and he loves to dance around to his 'shit-kick' as opposed to music.  As his speech improves some of those cute baby words are turning into real understandable ones though and I miss the cute variations that we once heard.

Every day he is learning, repeating and understanding more than ever before and his language is turning him from a baby into a little boy.  He has become more assertive, more determined and more interested in everything and he revels in learning about the world.  His words help me see it through fresh eyes as he wonders at a leaf falling from a tree or the animals he can see in the clouds.

With language comes power and Dylan is certainly learning his.

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