Julie's Boggle

Jonathan has never really been that interested in drawing.  Yes, he likes to pick up a pen and scribble from time to time, but it’s not something that he actively pursues, and if given the opportunity to draw, he’ll often turn it down.

His teachers have observed that while he’s quite manually dexterous with screws and small parts of toys, he’s awkward with pens/brushes and scissors.  Nevertheless, over the years, Jonathan has certainly created his fair share of artistic scribbles and pages dripping wet with thick layers of paint.

In all this, I’ve never seen Jon draw anything more recognisable than a circle and generally scribbling is the order of the day.  So the other day when I’d finally persuaded him to “draw” on a birthday card for his cousin, I was surprised when he drew a large shape and told me it was a racing car.  I suggested he add wheels, which he duly did, and then I suggested a driver.  When he produced something that looked approximately humanoid, I was blown away!  The steering wheel he added on his own initiative.

If you can’t see any of those features in the above drawing, here’s an annotated version:

Jon then went on to draw a red track and some sort of train perhaps over his car before getting bored and wandering off, leaving me to admire what is arguably his first proper drawing.

Jon hurrying into nursery on his first day

At the beginning of the current school year (i.e. back in September 2010 for all the non-UK readers), Jonathan started at his new (and much larger) nursery school in Durham where he goes 2½ days a week.

His strong desire to be around other children (even if he hardly ever gets to know any of their names!) and his love of the nursery’s vast toy collection has meant that he’s always been very happy there.

He seems to have two favourite activities: riding bikes in their big outdoor area, and eating lunch.  The latter is done on his 2 full days when he takes a packed lunch -it’s like a picnic!- and eats in the Lunch Room with other full day children.

The subject of potty-training is a delicate one and reflects Jon’s strong desire to be independent and to keep some things private as well.  He doesn’t respond well to us asking him if he needs to go, so clearly the win-win situation would be if he just decided to go to the toilet all by himself.

The catch is that he hasn’t reached the stage (even after all this time!) where we can just leave it entirely to him, because he’ll often get caught up in something and try to ignore the bursting sensation until the inevitable happens.  So we have to ask.  Which generally seems to increases his determination not to go.  So we have to wait a bit and ask again, more assertively.  And so on.

(Fortunately Jon doesn’t have any problem with his teachers at nursery making suggestions about a toilet break to the room at large, so we haven’t had any accidents there for a very long time.)

Jonathan preparing "the words" before playing the piano

When it comes to toys, Jonathan is very much the boy cliché.  He’s quite a train fanatic but really anything with wheels, wings or rotors will do fine.  Lately he’s developed an appreciation of puzzles – Thomas the Tank Engine ones are his favourite!

A slightly unusual fascination is Jon’s love of all things musical.  He will play with electronic toys that play tunes / make noises long past the expiry of any standard attention span, and will jump at the chance of making music.  (I hope that we can persuade him to try it out some proper music-making when he gets older!)

Jonathan (3.5years) with Jessica (9m)

Arguably one of the biggest changes in Jon’s life over the last 6 months – aside from moving to Durham – is Jessica’s inclusion in the family and the changing format of that as she grows.

Jon is very fond of Jess, and long may this last once she’s able to move around more swiftly and nick/break his toys.

He enjoys having her company when he’s playing and has been heard to say “I loves Jess very much”.  Not always borne out in his actions, but we’re grateful that the thought is there!

Now that Jonathan’s talking is fully developed, the questions are never-ceasing.  Some of them are quite deep, and others just need to be asked straight back at him to halt the silliness.  It’s great to be able to have a proper conversation with him, the only drawback is that Jon doesn’t multi-task at all.  So if it’s time to get shoes on and go to nursery, getting into questions about why one needs to wear shoes to go out, and what day is it today, and why does he eat lunch at nursery is a sure-fire way to be very late indeed!

Jonathan is a complicated little guy who can be charming, sensitive, helpful, funny and exasperating in equal measures – probably not that different to plenty of other children his age.  And like all the other parents, at the times when he’s driving us to distraction with his stubbornness and refusal to listen to logic, we need to do our best to grit our parental teeth and remember how much we love him.

Our lovely boy at a photo shoot we had done in SA last year

Jonathan at his old playground in London in December

Jonathan was 3½ at the end of December and from the date on this entry, it’s fairly clear that this has taken me a long time to write.  I can certainly blame the delay on general busy-ness of day to day life, but also, this has been a harder entry to write because Jon’s a lot more complex than he used to be even 6 months ago.

Admittedly a lot has changed in Jonathan’s life in the last half year.   And in turn he’s responded and changed and grown himself, becoming easier in some respects, harder in others as you’d expect.

Jon very happy munching a piece of cake

There are so many ways that Jon is still easy.  One of these is eating.  He’s got a great appetite, loves most food and the fixation he had on it as a baby hasn’t gone away, but now he can put words to it.  “I hungry Mummy.”  Always interested in what we’re going to eat and (now that we eat at college occasionally) where we’re going to be eating it.

The bits where Jon is not easy around food, is all to do with his determination to be independent at seemingly random times!  E.g. wanting a particular food that isn’t available, and refusing to have anything else.  In these instances he can be amazingly stubborn; almost – but not quite – to the point where he will lose his meal to the cause!

Not much has changed with sleeping either.  Jonathan’s a reliable sleeper who is seldom disturbed by anything.  Getting him sleeping after lunch though has become a rare treat – it started dying out around the time we introduced a bed, but we keep an firm grip on the “Quiet Time” session that replaces it.  In this time, generally an hour to 90 minutes, Jon plays with toys in his room and can usually be persuaded to be quiet enough not to wake sleeping Jess next door.

Railway track constructed during Jonathan's quiet / nap time

Somehow, without very much enforcement, we’ve naturally evolved into a situation where Jon believes quite firmly that, once put in his room to sleep, he must stay there until we release him.  This obviously precludes going to the toilet in the middle of the night so will have to change in due course, but for now, it’s very handy.   Playing quietly in his room if he wakes before us in the morning is definitely the ideal state of affairs!

While Jonathan seems to enjoy his own company, he also loves being around other children.  Not in the sense where they try to share the things he’s playing with, but if they could be around and playing alongside with things he’s not interested in, that’s great.  This can be witnessed on an almost daily basis where Jon will be very keen to play with his scooter in the courtyard out the front if – and only if – there is at least one other child playing outside already.  Otherwise, he’d rather be indoors.

Once Jon has got to know another child on a one-on-one basis, he forms a much stronger bond with them and is more animated than usual in their company.  In London we had a number of these little friends but one of the changes for Jon since we’ve moved to Durham is the loss of this social circle.  It’s definitely harder with his new nursery being bigger, and us not having a permanent church community while Tom’s training, but for now Jon’s list of close friends is rather short and it’s hard to know how to fix that.