Chris pointed out to me recently that I was sometimes having unrealistic expectations of Eleanor. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how I’ve forgotten a lot of what it was like to have a two-year-old and, even when I remember how Rosemary used to behave, that doesn’t really guarantee that Eleanor will react the same, or develop at the exact same rate. Then, too, there are the raised expectations because Eleanor picks up a lot of things (as, I believe, do many younger siblings) from her sister earlier than she probably would otherwise have done.

So I’ve been working on adjusting my expectations of Eleanor a little recently. This includes expecting her to have a meltdown a few times a day and, for the most part, ignoring them all. It includes, not getting uptight or telling her off about fairly minor things – if she tips all the Duplo out on the floor, leave it there; if she pours her drink on the table or the floor, take her cup away and give her a cloth to wipe it up; if she runs off when out, pick her up and carry her for a bit, or stop and kneel/sit on the floor and have a chat about the stones or the ants or something. Distraction, ignoring unwanted behaviour (unless it’s dangerous), using a simple ‘no’, rather than making a big fuss. These are all things I should know, but somehow I think I was expecting her to behave just like Rosemary (perhaps because she does copy her so much).

I’ve found it’s working pretty well. Today, she played with the Duplo by getting pieces out and putting them together, rather than just tipping them over the floor, and put them back when she’d finished with them. She didn’t pour any drinks anywhere. She walked slowly and calmly to nursery school, running in the places she’s allowed to run. OK, so she did then take an age to get to sleep and got up two or three times, but I didn’t have to deal with that, because I was walking Wesley.

Being reminded of the need to adjust our expectations of Eleanor has made me think about our expectations of Rosemary. As with Eleanor, I think I (we) tend to expect Rosemary to be a lot more mature than she is. Of course, as children get older, it is important to increase our expectations, but it’s also necessary to balance them and ensure they’re not too high. Too high expectations and the child will always fail to meet them; too low and they won’t push themselves at all. Trying to pick up when Rosemary is ready to move forward in some area, and help her to do so, while at the same time not pushing her to move too far is very tricky.

Take reading, for example. Rosemary tends to come to a point with reading where she doesn’t want to do it much – where she’ll have been reading whole books in a night, she’ll suddenly refuse to read more than a page, or she’ll read half a book, wriggle and moan and act silly and make it take a huge amount of time. This usually comes at a point when she’s getting ready to move on a stage, but sometimes I jump in too soon and it will have the opposite effect and mean she refuses to read entirely for a while. The teachers are usually pretty on the ball about when to move her forward, at least they have been so far, and I’ve stepped back in pushing for her to move up a stage without at least checking with them first.

But there are other things that can be done. This week, Rosemary’s been reading her school books in her head and I’ve been asking her questions about them – she reads a page and I ask her about that page. She asks for help with any words that she’s not sure about. We’ve also done some reading in her head and then reading aloud with expression – she did a brilliant rendition of ‘Dad looks so silly.’ said Wilma last night. I suggested these because it seems like she’s really wanting to start reading to herself and I thought this would be a step in the right direction. But then I jumped too far ahead this evening, when I suggested that she might have a go at reading the first Jack and Annie book to herself. She threw herself on the floor and acted like – well, like her little sister.

So I’m now determined to work on reassessing my expectations of both children on a more regular basis. We don’t need to do this as much with the adults in our lives, as we’ve worked out what our expectations should be of them and and know they’re not going to change much (for example, Chris is rarely going to put the tea towels back on the oven door and I’m rarely going to put my shoes in the shoe box; these are things that we each have to live with). But children – especially young ones, I think – are changing and growing and developing at such a rate that we really do need to adjust our expectations of them regularly.

We’re a bit shell-shocked here at the moment. Eleanor has been, generally, a pretty happy, polite and remarkably compliant child. We’ve had problems, of course – sleep problems, tantrums and breastfeeding issues – but nothing major or unusual. Of course, there’s nothing particularly unusual happening now, but it’s still come as a shock.

Because Eleanor is discovering the appeal of independence and the joys of boundary pushing. Apart from the waking up at 4.15 every morning for close to a fortnight now, which is really really messing with my head, she’s started deliberately doing the opposite of what we want her to do over the last few days.

She’s not allowed in the office on her own (mostly because there’s a dangerous window, but also because of work and computers and wires and stuff), so she is constantly running up the stairs to the office.

When it’s time to get dressed, she’s mostly running away and needs to be chased round the room – or the house – to catch her. If there’s time, we can put her in the girls’ room with her nappy and clothes and she’ll get dressed on her own (because she loves doing things herself and hates having to get help); if there’s less time, we can give the clothes to Rosemary and she can usually persuade her to get dressed; sometimes, though, time runs out and there’s schools and/or nursery schools to get to and the only thing that works is to hold her still and put her clothes on her – kicking and screaming be damned.

She has started taking her shoes off while out and about – sitting down on the pavement and taking them off, taking them off in the park (something she’s been allowed to do in the summer, so less of a surprise) and this morning she refused to put them on and took them off about five times before I said (OK, shouted) I’d just put them in the bag and carry her, which would mean she wouldn’t be able to walk on any walls or walk up the hill – as soon as these consequences were pointed out to her, she wanted to put them on.

She also seems to want to do everything and try everything and is getting a bit conflicted or perhaps confused about what to do at any given time – she’ll get out the blocks and be building towers, then spot the blackboard out of the corner of her eye and run off to draw on it, then she’ll decide it’s time to hide and seek, or that she’s going to wash her hands or brush her teeth. She’ll want immediate gratification in most things – she’ll be eating some toast and decide she wants noodles, then strawberries and then something else and something else… Often there are four or five half-eaten things on her plate at the end of breakfast time. Oh, yes, and she’s worked out how to open the fridge. It involves dragging a chair over to it and climbing up and pulling hard until the door opens. So far, all she’s managed to get out is a satsuma, but it’s only a matter of time before she pours a carton of juice all over the floor or gets the butter down and digs into it with a spoon (for some reason she likes to eat spoonfuls of butter – Rosemary used to, as well).

The worst one, though, is running off when out and about. Today, on a corner, she ran off down one street when we were going up the other (on the pavement, thankfully). She got a good way along before I caught her. She ran off into the playground when Rosemary was going into school. She tried to run off into playgroup (she doesn’t start there until next September!), then up the slope to one of the doors. When we got to the park, I told her there was no time to go into the play park and that it was too wet, anyway. She ran off into the play park and managed to climb all the way up to the top of the little play house (on the roof, this is) before I caught her. She went on my shoulders the rest of the way to nursery (and had a cry because she couldn’t go to the Co-op, another because she couldn’t go to the doctor and another because she couldn’t go to the library). When I picked her up after lunch, we popped into town to get her feet measured (I had thought perhaps she was taking her shoes off lots because they were too tight, but no). She ran into three shops and out of two shops and the library, and in the opposite direction to the one we were going in three times. Thankfully, she never ran into the road, but she’s so fast it’s definitely a worry. I think we have some reins somewhere that we used briefly with Rosemary (I hate them so much!), which I’m very tempted to dig out. Don’t think she’d stay put in the buggy or the backpack unless plied with huge bags of Haribo.

I know this is normal. I know Rosemary did it. I know most children do it. I know it’s a really important part of development and learning. I know there are strategies to deal with it (or cope with it – gin perhaps?) that I need to remind myself of pronto. And I also know that there are way more than equal amounts of wondrous and miraculous things that she is also doing at the moment. But knowing all that does not make it any easier or less tiring.

Good luck tomorrow, Granny Jenny!

I had a beautiful afternoon with Eleanor today. It took me back to Tuesdays with Rosemary when she was at nursery school; when life wasn’t such a rush and a juggle.

Eleanor started nursery school a couple of weeks ago, and we had been trying out my mum picking her up and taking her home for lunch and a nap, because the idea has been for a while that we work during school hours and keep the rest of the time for family and us*. Eleanor hadn’t been falling asleep until so late, though, that she was getting home at 5.30 instead of 4.30 or 3.30 like normal, which felt too late to us. So we’ve changed it so she has lunch at nursery school and then we bring her home – theoretically to sleep, but perhaps that’s not going to happen!

I picked her up at 1pm today, and she gave me a big cuddle and handed me her things and chatted away (she’d fallen asleep at circle time apparently and had half an hour’s sleep before lunchtime, when they woke her up). We left and walked home through a sunny autumn day. We chatted about the wind in our hair, popped into the RSPCA shop to put some money in the dogs, walked past the waterfall, talked about what she’d done at nursery school (painting, playing shops, playing in the sand and the water), what she’d liked most about her packed lunch (she listed everything!) and then we chased our shadows all the way home, dipping in and out of splashes of sun.

She then spent the afternoon with boundless energy, baking pretend cakes and making pretend soup (pie soup and carrot soup), reading stories, drawing, building towers, splashing in puddles (we found two tiny puddles in the back yard) and, finally, sitting down for some ‘dot dot’ and then an apple and some Octonauts on the iPlayer.

She stayed up until bedtime and continued to be happy and enthusiastic and energetic pretty much all the way (apart from a little bit of a disagreement about it being time to go to bed). And, though it was quite tiring (especially after being up with both girls since before 5am and baking and crafting with them instead of just leaving them to their own devices – or to TV on the netbook), it was one of the nicest afternoons I’ve had in a long time and I think Tuesday afternoons might very well turn into Mummy-Daughter Tuesdays again – if she doesn’t fall asleep the second we get home next week, of course.

* Yeah, right. Never works out like that, of course.

One of the most commonest phrases you’ll hear me and Chris uttering to Rosemary (not quite as common as ‘Just sit still for a few minutes!’) is ‘Remember you’re a role model to Eleanor.’

Eleanor copies pretty much everything Rosemary does, whether it’s good or bad, whether it’s funny or dangerous, whether it’s thoughtful or careless. Eleanor loves her big sister and idolises her.

We are frequently telling Rosemary off for Eleanor’s actions:

• Rosemary gets down from the table after one forkful of dinner; Eleanor follows, despite having been shovelling her dinner in; ‘Rosemary! That was your fault!’
• Rosemary runs out of the bathroom with her toothbrush in her mouth; Eleanor follows; ‘Rosemary! Don’t teach your sister to run with things in her mouth!’
• Rosemary asks for a treat; Eleanor asks for a treat; Rosemary accepts the ‘No, not today’; Eleanor lies down on the floor, kicking and screaming ‘I want a treat! I need a treat! I need a treat now!’; ‘Rosemary! That was your fault!’

The other day, it suddenly struck me how often we do this. Not that it’s not true that Eleanor copies Rosemary’s unwanted behaviour, because she really does. But is it fair to put all this responsibility on Rosemary? In fact, she did complain about it recently, bemoaning the fact that she has to try to behave so well and think about how her actions affect Eleanor before she does them. Surely other children of her age, without younger siblings have a bit more freedom to muck about.

When it struck me how much we do this, I sat down and apologised to her. I told her all the fantastic things she does for Eleanor and teaches Eleanor. I told her how well Eleanor is brushing her own teeth, after having spent a week with just Rosemary taking her in for bedtime tooth-brushing. I told her how good Eleanor is at role-playing because she has a big sister who will play with her and be patient with her for hours at a time. I told her Eleanor is getting better at drawing and holding her pen the right way, because she watches Rosemary do it. I told her how lucky Eleanor is to have a big sister to sit with her and help her play her new Wonderpets DS game, explaining what to do and helping with the bits she can’t manage. I told her how lucky Eleanor is to have a big sister who will help her get dressed and even wipe her bum for her.

I told her that she is a brilliant role model for her little sister and that we forget that fact far too much.

And, then, this evening, I went and told her off for running around too fast with Eleanor and causing Eleanor to hurt herself. I really do forget how good a role model Rosemary is far, far too often. We are the adults, and we need to take some of that responsibility back off our five-year-old daughter! Not that we are wrong to remind her to set a good example, of course, but we could do it in a less critical manner, I think.

Eleanor is starting nursery school tomorrow. She’s starting a couple of months earlier than Rosemary did, because the nursery school has changed the age when they start taking children (from 2 years 3 months, to 2 years). She is very excited about it and is talking about doing ‘painting and drawing and having friends’. She’s been wanting to go for a while now, as she’s heard Rosemary talk about it and, whenever we walk past (at least a couple of times a week), we say ‘That’s where you’ll be going to nursery school.’

She’ll be going for two mornings a week and, apart from tomorrow, when we will all (including Rosemary, who has an inset day) be picking her up, will be collected by my mum and taken back to her house for lunch and a nap. I’m actually feeling a bit odd about that, though. Workwise it’s the most sensible thing, as it means we can continue with working school hours and trying (!) to keep work out of the rest of the time. But I have very fond memories of collecting Rosemary from nursery school, usually at least once a week and I do feel a bit sad about missing out on that experience. We’ll see how it goes, anyway. It might turn out not to suit anyone, or to be perfect.

We’ve been kind of working on the assumption that Eleanor will jump into nursery school with as much enthusiasm as Rosemary did and no qualms. When I took Rosemary for her taster session, the staff suggested I leave her for half an hour, which I wasn’t expecting at all. Rosemary was not at all bothered, but I was rather freaked out by it. Eleanor hasn’t had a taster session. The nursery didn’t suggest it and nor did we – possibly because we’re all working on the same assumption that she’ll take to it as easily as Rosemary. I think she probably will, but it did occur to us recently that there is actually the possibility that she will totally freak out and not want to be left there.

Today, we went out and bought her a little ruck sack to take her change of clothes and nappy in – and one day her lunch. We filled in the registration form (likes prawns and playing with her sister; dislikes doing what she doesn’t want to do – yes, I know that’s not very helpful information, but hey). I have dug out some clothes for her to wear and a change of clothes and have put a wash (and dry) on because I couldn’t find a single pair of socks – lots of single socks, just no pairs, despite the fact she has two pairs of each colour sock. I have the pen ready to write her name in everything in the morning – yes, I didn’t get around to ordering the labels, let alone ironing them in. Next week, perhaps.

It’s a great nursery school, which Rosemary enjoyed a lot. They’ve made a few small changes since Rosemary was there, all of which sound quite valuable (e.g. a proper key worker system; a board showing what activities are available; proper learning journals which parents can view at any time). As we did with Rosemary, we’ll also be sending her to the local (attached to the school) playgroup, though she can’t start there until next September. As an October child, though, she’s going to be at both settings for a lot longer – she’ll be at nursery school for almost a full three years.

So I really do hope she loves it as much as Rosemary did.

I always think of Rosemary as having a very wide taste when it comes to food, however, it’s becoming apparent that this isn’t really the case. She has a number of meals that she really, really likes, a number that she’ll eat and then she has the increasingly frustrating refusal to try new food.

We’re not overly fussy about the girls finishing everything on their plate – coming from the baby-led weaning roots, we’d be unlikely to be, after all. We do have a few rules, though. You must try new things. You must retry old things every few months in case your tastes have changed. And you must be polite. It’s fine not to like something, but it’s rude to say ‘That’s disgusting’ or ‘Yeuch’ or to pretend to vomit.

Unfortunately, Rosemary has recently started to say ‘That’s disgusting. I’m not even going to eat that. At all. Never,’ as soon as something new appears on the table. If we manage to talk her into trying it, she’ll put a tiny amount in her mouth and at the least screw her eyes and nose up and say ‘No. Don’t like it,’ and at worst make fake vomiting noises and throw it off her plate.

And now Eleanor’s copying her. Mostly just in the refusal to try something new and, at the moment at least, she will still usually try whatever it is off one of our plates. And she’s only really doing it if Rosemary’s just done it, too, but I’m sure if it continues like this, it won’t be long before she, too, is steadfastly refusing to try anything new.

And boy are they missing out. Last night, Chris made a delicious Gratin Dauphinoise (sorry, no picture) and a couple of weeks ago I made this (badly photographed, but very tasty) asparagus and pecorino quiche. Neither of which the girls ate. Yes, I know, all the more for us, but it’s a problem that we are finding challenging.

Baby-led weaning gave us very unfussy children for such a long time, that it’s a bit of a shock to the system to have this seemingly suddenly have to deal with food refusal. I realise that we are actually very lucky and that we could have children who refused to eat anything but one item, or one colour, or who would not touch any proper food. We are lucky that the foods they love are healthy ones, such as vegetable risotto, minestrone soup and creamy leeky tagliatelle and prawns in a Cajun spice and yoghurt sauce (the latter is Eleanor only – she is completely addicted to prawns). They also like a decent amount of fruit. We could feed them for a week on healthy recipes they like.

But we want them to experience new flavours and foods and to have some reasonably basic table manners. Is that too much to ask?

Do you have any tips for introducing new meals without an argument? Is this a phase that will pass in a few months (please don’t tell me it will last a few years)? Do you have fussy eaters and how do you tackle the issue? Do you have good eaters and do you think you’re just lucky or did something you do bring it about? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

We like words. Chris studied linguistics. I studied languages. We’ve both spent considerable periods as editors. We read. A lot. We’re also very interested in how children learn language and build vocabulary. And how the meanings of words can change over time. And how the words people use to talk to you and about you can affect you. So we can get a bit het up about the words people use around children – especially ours.

The word ‘naughty’ was pretty much banned from the house, though it has gradually crept back in as Rosemary has grown – probably wrongly. Far too often, it seems, ‘naughty’ is used to describe the behaviour of babies and toddlers, when the concept of naughtiness is beyond their comprehension. A baby who cries a lot is described as ‘naughty’ or ‘bad’. A baby who is quiet and calm is described as ‘good’. My mum will probably remember me reminding her frequently not to say ‘She’s been really good today,’ when handing back a baby or young toddler. What you mean is ‘She’s been quiet,’ or ‘She’s been very happy, today.’ And I would never let a ‘She’s been so naughty!’ go without questioning.

As children get older, of course, they do develop the ability to be naughty but, for a while even, there remain underlying developmental reasons. Boundary challenging is an extremely important part of growing up and learning, for example. It might be bloody hard work for the adult dealing with it, but it’s still essential. That doesn’t mean we should allow them to get away with breaking all the rules, but that we should make it clear to them what the rules are and that they need to keep within them. Rather than saying ‘Don’t be naughty,’ try saying ‘We don’t do that,’ or ‘That’s not acceptable.’ Or be more specific – ‘Kicking is wrong. It hurts when you kick me.’ ‘Don’t throw all the pens on the floor. Please pick them up, now.’

I really, really hate the word ‘naughty’ and it upsets me to hear Rosemary using it. She’s used it to describe some of her classmates and it worries me that their teachers or parents are using the word and they are being labelled as the ‘naughty child’. I’ve recently started hearing her use it to describe Eleanor’s behaviour, or to Eleanor, and I have explained to her how she’s not really being naughty, but she’s exploring her world and testing out the rules. I’ve told her it’s better to say ‘Don’t do that, Eleanor. It’s not nice to…’ And she’s quite good at taking it on board, but still slips now and then. (Though there are a whole bunch of issues with the word ‘nice’, too, which I won’t go into right now.)

There are many similar words which I dislike being used with children – dummy, silly (but I’m quite happy to say ‘Silly Mummy’ for some reason), stupid, rascal, minx – though it’s not completely unusual for me to have to kick myself when I find myself using one of them. Rosemary has expressed a dislike, herself, of being called ‘weird’ and I try to make sure I don’t use that, but have sometimes lapsed.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who think this is all being over-the-top (and probably veering towards the stuck-up middle-class pushy parent). And there are others who will go a lot further – for example, I know people who avoid the word ‘No’ for a long time and I can definitely see the reasoning behind this, but just can’t seem to stop myself from uttering it a few hundred times a day.

There are also words and phrases that have gender-stereotyping connotations and that I try to avoid or cringe when I hear them – tom boy, boisterous, ladylike, for example.

Do you think words matter for children? Are there words or phrases you avoid using on or with your children? Do you worry about them picking them up at school and with friends? Do you think it doesn’t matter?

Eleanor has started asking ‘Why?’ It took me a while to register that she was doing so and seemingly actually asking ‘Why?’ rather than just repeating a word she’s heard Rosemary use.

‘We need to hurry up and get dressed.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we need to go and meet Granny.’
‘Why?’
‘So you can go to Painswick and see Tulo*’.
‘Oh. All right.’

The thing that fascinates me is that, unlike my (probably inaccurate) memory of Rosemary’s first Why phase, she does stop asking when she gets an answer she’s satisfied with. I’m sure Rosemary just kept asking until she got fed up, as did I at some point, which led my dad to retort with his mum’s stock phrase (must be said in a Welsh accent):

‘Why is a letter and you should know better.’

A phrase I have been known to use myself, but so far not on Eleanor. Perhaps that phase is yet to come.

Rosemary,  is asking ‘Why?’ more too (so, yes, Eleanor’s probably been influenced by her) and actually listening to fuller answers. Previously, she’d listen to the first few words and then drift off to some imaginary land. Now, she’s asking follow-up questions and listening to the answers to those, too.

This great for Chris, who has a scarily wide knowledge of just about everything. For me, whose most common response seems to be ‘Oh, gosh. I don’t actually know. We’ll have to look that up when we get home. Or ask Daddy. He probably knows,’ it’s a little worrying. I may need to read an encyclopaedia.

*AKA Edward, AKA Mr Tibbles (my sister’s or mum’s cat, depending on who you ask!)

Do your children ask ‘Why?’ Do you enjoy it? Or find it difficult because you don’t know all the answers? Any tips on websites that will give you quick answers to questions your unsure of?

We’re quite lucky to have two children who aren’t overly fussy about their food. We sometimes get frustrated with Rosemary’s changing tastes, but she has a wide experience of food and will try most things – though her most common epithet is ‘Yucky’. She has recently started clarifying that something is yucky for her and talks about people having different tastes and is getting better at saying ‘I don’t like it, myself,’ rather than just ‘It’s yucky,’ which is good. Eleanor will try pretty much everything and likes most of it. For most meals there is one or two particular items that she’ll devour and want more of (tonight it was couscous and prawns) and other things that she’ll nibble at and then leave on her plate (or throw to the dog – which she is not supposed to do).

Because we don’t have too many big problems about eating, it’s quite rare for me to consider doing something innovative to make mealtimes a bit more fun (beyond sticking some fancy pasta shapes in the minestrone). The other day I laid out two plates of food in a pretty (well I thought so) pattern (salad – lettuce in the middle with cucumber, tomatoes and green pepper around, in a symmetrical pattern; slices of quiche, around the outside with slices of cheese in between and egg mayonnaise in the middle). I didn’t really have any particular aim in doing so, except that I’d got some nice plates from my mum recently and hadn’t used them yet. Probably I was aiming for getting Chris to say ‘Oooh, very pretty,’ or something along those lines. But, as it turned out, Rosemary was really impressed with how pretty the pattern was and both the girls enjoyed being able to pick what they wanted and leave what they didn’t (for the record, Rosemary had cucumber, tomato, cheese and egg mayonnaise and Eleanor tried everything but had seconds and thirds of egg mayonnaise, tomato and cheese).

And then Rosemary decided to make a face with the food and it struck me that I have never ever done this for them. It’s the sort of thing I see all over the place as a means of persuading recalcitrant children to eat their vegetables (or just any food that isn’t chocolate or crisps), or just of making dinnertime a bit more exciting, but I have never done it myself. Poor Rosemary had to make her own food face. (In case you were wondering, she did get me to eat the hair – she really doesn’t like lettuce.)

Do you have problem eaters and, if so, what have you tried to help them enjoy food more? Do you do anything to make mealtimes fun or is it just a case (as ours tend to be) of sitting down and eating, while maybe having a chat about what happened that day? Do you ever make food faces or patterns?

Eleanor has hit the 18-month frustration stage. Otherwise known as the ear-splitting scream stage. Or the head-banging, kicking, defiant, stubborn, really, really hard work stage. I had forgotten about this stage.

I had forgotten about this stage. I think perhaps it’s a bit like labour and you wipe it from your mind, forgetting just quite how painful it can be. If you didn’t, you would never look at your husband, let alone throw those pills in the bin.

I am remembering now, though. Remembering that constant choruses of ‘No!’ are futile, as are detailed (or even simple) explanations as to why, exactly, your child needs to stay in her buggy, put her shoes on, lie on the changing mat, or put down the £300 crystal vase in the shop no parent of a toddler should ever even dream of entering.

What works are distractions – “Oh my God! Look at that elephant over there! Quick, or you’ll miss it!” “Look at mummy. Isn’t she funny? Have you seen her do the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch before? Oh, alright then, I’ll blow a raspberry instead. Bbbbrrrrrbbbb.”

Distraction only works sometimes, though, and the same thing can lose its effectiveness pretty quickly. The best solution is, of course, the staple of every parent’s arsenal – bribery. Especially, at this age, in the form of food. The trouble is, second-time round, those bribes become unhealthy pretty early on.

With Rosemary, bribes were mostly dried apricots, or maybe the odd Nairn’s oat digestive. With Eleanor, though, you can’t get away with that. She has seen the good stuff. She is not to be fobbed off with desiccated fruit. The best we can usually manage is a bit of flapjack, but usually it requires the application of chocolate, ice cream or crisps – Quavers being the current favourite.

Quavers have been used to get her into her buggy, to keep her in her buggy and even, after a particularly demanding afternoon, to dissuade her, if only briefly, from yet again demanding Dot Dot*. Whoever invented the term breastfeeding on demand, had not experienced a still-breastfeeding 18-month-old. You can’t breastfeed them on demand. You’d wither away. Or your nipples would fall off.

I would never have imagined that I would hear myself saying it, but Oh Boy, am I grateful for Quavers**.

* Dot Dot = Breastmilk – absolutely no idea why

** No, this is not a sponsored post, though if someone would like to send me a large box of Quavers I wouldn’t turn them down. No siree.