40 months old!

Dear Jamie

The thing I'm loving the most about you at the moment is that you talk all day long. You give a constant narration to what's going on. I can tell exactly what's going on in your head, that's for sure.

You tell me all about what we’re going to do during the day: “I have beckbast, den I geen by deeth, den I botch piderman, den be go in mummy's dar, den we see gandma gandad, den I play out-tide, den I play wid Jak, den I eat diny deddies, den…den…den… It’s hilarious and I love listening to all the things that you’re going (wishing, lol) to do.


You have a brand new bellybutton this month. You went into hospital for an operation to repair an umbilical hernia on 10 March. You handled it like a trooper. I was a basket case. But that’s another story. You had a waterproof bandage on your bellybutton for 10 days. They told me at childcare on Friday that you were continually lifting up your top and showing everyone the bandages. We took the bandaging off on Friday night and your new belly button is so neat and tidy. I’m so glad that it’s healed up so well.

You spend a lot of the day climbing just like a typical three year old boy. You make an obstacle course out of the lounge suite and climb, jump, hop, tumble, around and around and around. You often announce to me “I do dime-ing now!” Or you say “I do dum!” which is your way of saying you’re going to run around and around the dining table like a maniac.

When you came out of hospital we told you that you couldn’t do any running or jumping for a few days, because you had to take good care of your belly button. And you were so good! You really did take such care not to injure yourself. You'd say to me "Gan I do dime-ing and dumping now Mummy?" and I'd have to say that you couldn't just yet. I was so proud of you for taking it easy!


We have been flying around the lounge room a fair bit this month. You pile all your “luggage” - usually all the books out of your book basket, plus a few select toys - into a pile on one of the arm chairs and direct me to squeeze myself in next to it. Then you take your spot on the couch and “drive” our airplane. You have the cutest steering hand movements happening. We talk about what we see from the airplane windows. Usually we go to Wiggleworld and exclaim as we see the Wiggles, or Captain Feathersword, or whoever else takes our imagination at the time.

The favourite game for a few days was “dinosaurs”. You would ask me to “Bay de di-saur busic Mummy?”, so I would put the radio on and find some music that was playing, and we would march like dinosaurs around and around the dining table. We would have big long necks to eat all the leaves from the big tall trees. We would have little wagging tails – and you were quick to point out when my dinosaur tail stopped wagging, you really are quite a task master. We crawled through tunnels, we swam through rivers, you got stuck in the mud and I had to push you, we were fantastic dinosaurs.


We had a bit of a break with the swimming while you were healing from the operation, but you start again next week. You are doing really well. You can doggy paddle with help and do wonderful big jumps into the pool. Daddy took to rewarding you with a small toy after swimming lessons, and now you’ve grown accustomed to it enquiring “daddy, doo got a dew besent for be?” when we get home. LOL. Daddy will have to think up an exit strategy for that, or go broke!

This month you were diagnosed with a severe speech disorder. I discovered that you are eligible to go to kindergarten a term earlier to give you some speech support, so we have been visiting kindergartens in the area to try and see which one will be the best for you.


We have our homework to do for your speech and we spend a half an hour or so most days doing your “special sounds”. At first it was tough to encourage you to do the exercises. But now I’ve learnt and I have several special toys that we do in the middle of doing the individual exercises. We do your Winnie the Pooh jigsaw book and the Buzz Lightyear colouring in book. You love the attention and the special games and now it’s not at all hard to convince you to do the homework.

You love to sing. You can sing the entire Spiderman theme song. You're still going, long after I've stopped at the first verse. LOL, it's totally hilarious to hear you singing "piderman piderman, dub waa-er a pider dan... pin de beb a-y bibe..." The melody is unmistakeable. The words are there, sort of...

Today you recited the entire “Hey Diddle Diddle” nursery rhyme (well, all of it except the first line, that is). Later on tonight you got out the nursery rhyme book and were wandering around spouting phrases from "Humpty Dumpty". I love hearing you sing and say things that you’ve learned. You seem to have a great memory for things like that.

I still sing the Wiggles' “Fruit Salad” song to you just before you go to sleep. It's a weird choice, but you've been asking for it for sometime now. I had to actually google the lyrics, because I didn't have a clue what they were. We also sing “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and “Twinkle Twinkle”. Strangely, you have been requesting different colour sheep the last few nights. The night before last we had to sing “Baa Baa Green Sheep” and tonight we had to sing “Baa Baa Yellow Sheep”. You are an interesting little boy! And I love you so very much :).

You are a total cuddle bunny. Even more so this month, because of the upset of the hospital and being sick. You quite often come up to me and hold your arms up with the request "I bawnt a duggle Mummy!" You love kisses too. We do great pantomimes of blowing and catching kisses. I have yet to find a child who doesn't delight in that. After we waved goodbye to Grandma and Grandad tonight, you exclaimed with great delight: "I gawt Gamma's giss in by hand!"

But, I tell you what. This month you totally melted my heart. Totally melted it into a goo-ey little puddle. I was kneeling on the ground helping you get dressed when you turned to me, pointed at me and looked me straight in the eye. And then you said, with considerable emphasis “I luv DOOOO!”.

I love you too, Rabbit! I love you more than I could ever say.