The Three of You – Life with a 6 year old, 4 year old and a 17 month old

It is blowing my mind how fast you three are changing right now. From the shape of your bottom Sonny (yes, a mother knows *everything* about her children, does she not?!) to the specific noises you make Abey to Jack, the beautiful evolvement of your language, I feel like I’ll blink and you’ll be tussling (in deep voices) over who gets to use the bathroom first and asking each other for dating advice. For those of you who are long term readers of the blog, you’ll know the format of these recaps; sporadic and totally from the heart brain dumps of my babes every 6 months or so. So here goes:

Abey, or ‘Doobs’ as we call you, let’s start with you. You’ve hardly known much of life outside of Coronavirus or indeed, outside of a lockdown. You attended nursery briefly at the end of 2020, but there were too many children and staff testing positive that we made the decision to take you out. Plus, now your brothers are home, you are SO HAPPY hanging out at home, watching their classes, playing alone, and trying to get everyone’s attention as admittedly, you’re not getting too much one on one time these days. You’re not saying much more than ‘bzzz’ for ‘book’ but you make a lot of noises, points and shouts to try to communicate your needs and I’ve no doubt that the words will come soon enough. You understand a lot I’m sure of it, including when I ask you to go and get yourself a banana, which you do perfectly, only returning to mama to ask her to peel it for you.

Plus, now your brothers are home, you are SO HAPPY hanging out at home, watching their classes, playing alone, and trying to get everyones’ attention as admittedly, you’re not getting too much one on one time these days.

Your absolute favourite things is tipping out anything and everything (the smaller the pieces, the better), dropping small things in obscure places (our swing recycling bin has been placed firmly out of your reach) and removing felt tip pens, scribbling on your clothes/ the floor and putting the tops back on them. We’re perhaps making progress on the early toilet training front; well we’re at least getting a lot less dirty nappies. That and you do the CUTEST thing where you make a pretend pushing noise when I ask you (about twenty times a day) if you need the potty. Your final two teeth are just coming through but otherwise you handled teething like a trooper – of course we had a few off days and disturbed nights but really, who actually knows what growing teeth feels like!?

Watching you squeal with delight when your brothers get up to mischief and you feel part of the action has to be one of my favourite ever things. Indeed, you’re starting to feel out your place amongst them and as you haul yourself up on the sofa next to them during TV time, helping yourself to popcorn as you go, or squeeze past their limbs in the bath to get to the much coveted wooden nail brush, I know that you fit right in. You no longer share a room with them though – you started to used to sleep real badly buddy and also were a struggle to settle (I think there was just too much going on) and your 5am wake ups weren’t going down so well so now you have your own little room where you sleep pretty solidly through the night. For some reason you wake up in the mornings always half crying but we pop on some nursery rhymes and you’re usually happy, listening to them alone for a good fifteen minutes or until Sonny climbs into your cot. Abey, I am so excited to see the kind of little boy you grow into as well as the relationship with your brothers flourish as you’ll soon no longer be the toddler crashing into their marble run. I’ll be ready and waiting and watching, but as always, there’s no rush (no ones checking off any milestones over here) – we love you always Abey.

Abey, I am so excited to see the kind of little boy you grow into as well as the relationship with your brothers flourish as you’ll soon no longer be the toddler crashing into their marble run

A big fan of Watford football team, telling jokes, building marble runs, listening to Circle Round, exercising with Joe Wicks, you love learning and you LOVE LIFE my darling Jacky boy. Every time I feel like you’re growing up too fast, you come out with the most sweetest phrase and I’m reminded that you’re still very much a little boy, navigating childhood. Yes, you know all about Brexit and vaccines (thank you The Week) and have a super sophisticated turn of phrase (“just give me a minute, please”), but you still want tucking in at night, can’t pronounce a bunch of words (I sometimes correct you but would rather you learnt naturally) and still whisper to Sonny in hushed and obedient tones: “mummy said we can only have one story.”

You love learning and you LOVE LIFE my darling Jacky boy

You truly are an awesome big brother; you look out for Sonny especially and just today I watched you sit with him totally unprompted during his Zoom class and gently encourage him to put his hand up. You two make a great “partnership” – I probably talk to you most days about being team – and I hope you stay so close forever. I honestly don’t know what you talk about all day long together and yet come bedtime, I’ll still often find you both in your top bunk messing about with a pack of football cards or a book of jokes.

I’m so proud of you Jack: since around the age of Reception, you used to loose your temper quite badly on occasion – and no doubt it’s still there because you are a person who I’m quite sure is full of passion – but after hundreds of conversations/ tears/questions, you are learning so beautifully to control your emotions and communicate calmly. You lost your first tooth on the weekend (literally – we cannot find it anywhere!) which makes me all sorts of emotional but has led to some interesting conversations now that there’s one part of your body that is younger than all the rest (your new adult tooth poking through). You’re wise beyond your years, sensible and loving, and it’s such a pleasure being your mama. I LOVE YOU!

Sonny – you personify the word “cheeky.” With your giant brown eyes, dimpled cheeks and now overgrown shaggy hair, you tilt your head, smile widely, utter the words “pllllleaaaase” and you generally tend to get anything you want. You’re very cute Sonny and very kind – you were the one cooing over Abe when we brought him home from hospital, holding his head ever so gently, and making him smile in those early days.

You’re now in Reception and with your oversized school uniform and likeable nature, you transitioned very easily and bagged yourself the job of class counsellor as voted for by your new buddies (which possibly made my year.) The main news for you is that you’ve stopped using your beloved dummy, which along with your Ewan the sheep, were always your staple comforters, day and night. With homeschool now and continuing for the foreseeable future, I decided it could be a good moment to gently say goodbye to the dummy. It’s not been a big deal at all – helped by some light bribery in the form of promising a small gift if he could go 5 nights without it – but even without that I’m confident you would have intuitively known it was time to close that chapter.

The main news for you is that you’ve stopped using your beloved dummy, which along with your Ewan the sheep, were always your staple comforters, day and night.

You truly are the sandwich brother – it’s true to say you spend most of your time with Jack but you also love nothing more than rolling around on the floor entertaining Abey. You’re happiest when cutting, tying or gluing something – anything – and you’re not super interested in reading or writing yet – though you are good at both when you do sit down for a moment. You’re like a little magpie, and if one of my earrings is missing, I know exactly who has nabbed it. You’re also definitely my most cuddly kid – you love snuggling up with a blanket and your sheep (I reckon/ hope you’ll be an old man and still have your sheep) and you’re known for taking yourself off for daytime naps. Sonny bunny, you’re one in a gazillion and I love you so much.

Thanks for reading, and for making it through this slightly gushy post. I’m not usually one for outpours of emotion, but hey, I’m proud of these kids. Off to check out tomorrow’s homeschooling schedule and to upload a bunch of your work. I love you boys.

Emma xxx

P.S Life With a 3 Year and a 1 Year Old and My One Simple Tip to Entertain Kids