What J likes part 1 - age 17 months - part 1

I thought it'd be fun to list what J likes at the moment at 17 months. Some of these border on obsessions, given how much he does them:

• dancing (by bending knees and bobbing up and down) - this makes mummy laugh :-) At the weekend we were doing the hokey cokey and other action songs and he was grinning the whole time. He's very good at spinning round too)

• music (J responds so much to music - sometimes he sits transfixed, sometimes he dances. When I turn on music in the car, he has started making froggy (the frog that's hung on the carseat in front of him) dance by grabbing the legs and waving them up and down. He has a big grin on his face when he does this.)

• other children (younger and older) - he's fascinated by them and loves watching and interacting with them. He's really quite sociable (which is great!) - although he may be a bit quieter in a new setting, he's not a shy child.

• cooking - he's loved mixing and stirring for ages, but the latest thing is making omelettes (cracking open eggs, pouring them into the bowl, using the electric mixer (and imitating it), cutting the butter - all done with a great deal of concentration).

• the word 'couscous' - he laughs whenever I say it :-)

• pushing round his shopping trolley

• trucks, dustbin trucks, cement mixers, planes, trains. Please don't say "typical boy" - he loves such a range of things that are "typically boy" as well as "typically girl" things. I cringe at the toaster he has - it came from an NCT sale and is pink and has "girls only" on it. Yuck yuck yuck...  but he loves the way the toast pops up and has no problem with the colour or inscription (yet!).

• Making cups of tea, offering them to others and pretending to drink them himself (with lipsmacking etc too)

• vacuuming (or rather, pretending to vacuum, as it's too noisy for him when switched on! Again, he likes imitating the noise)

• cleaning with a dustpan and brush (we were staying with friends at the weekend and they were concerned that J was going into the cupboard below the sink where non-toddler friendly things were kept. J showed no interest in anything other than the dustpan and brush, and kept getting them out all weekend :-)

• hairdryers (he returns to the drawer where mine is kept several times every day and then carries it round, making the noises, pointing at his or my hair and trying to plug it in.

• Thomas the Tank Engine, Peppa Pig, Maisy (pictures, stories, DVDs... everything)

• the moon (he spotted the moon for the first time last week, and now points at it very insistently every time we see it)

By the way - I have been wracking my brains for "moon" songs - any suggestions? All I could think of was "Au Clair De La Lune" (link to wikipedia) but got stuck with the words. For the record - here's the first verse:

Au clair de la lune

Mon ami Pierrot

Prête-moi ta plume

Pour écrire un mot

Ma chandelle est morte

Je n'ai plus de feu

Ouvre-moi ta porte

Pour l'amour de Dieu

• fastenings (he can sit for a very long time with things as simple as the fastening of my bag or the buggy so and I've just bought 2 special boards as part of his Christmas present. I think they're great - let's hope he does too: a latches board  (link to Amazon)

and a basic skills board (link to Amazon).

[Yes they are aimed at older kids, but his fine motor skills are so good I think he'll be ready for them before he's 3 or 4 (which is what they say!)]

Right - that's enough for now! To be continued...

No TV - no problem

Well we have been without any TV since 21 September, and so far it's been absolutely fine. Once or twice I have got up from putting J to bed and thought that I would have flopped on the sofa if I'd had a telly - but it's not that I really want to do it. I have started listening to Radio 4 in the evening which I haven't done since J was born - I feared it would wake him up as the kitchen is near his room, but have found that it doesn't now (it might have done when he was younger as he was a poor sleeper) - and I am really enjoying the variety and the new ideas. I am missing reading at the mo (I'm too knackered come bedtime) but Radio 4 in the evening is helping with that.

We've now got several DVDs for J including Peppa, Thomas, Maisy, Fireman Sam and In The Night Garden. J's favourites are the first three mentioned above. I really regret buying In the Night Garden - soooo boring.... whereas I really look forward to the next Thomas episode (we have 3 DVDs and each has 26 episodes!). We have 2 episodes of a DVD each evening - 10 minutes - and I sit with J on the sofa and point things out or talk about it after (as much as you can with a 17 month old!) which means it's more of a shared activity. I still don't think it's "necessary" but J is very active much of the time and I think he quite enjoys the sitting down together.

The DVDs have actually formed a useful part of the evening routine - after losing bathtime (due to scoliosis) and breastfeeding (about the same time as stopping bathtime) we seemed to have nothing specific to do between wash and bed and it felt a bit unstructured and could stretch out for ages. Now we read books (lots - sometimes 5 in the evening!) and might play a little bit and then finally J has a beaker of milk watching the 2 episodes of a DVD.

I've just borrowed a DVD for me (The Time Traveller's Wife) and am looking forward to watching that some time. Instead of watching rubbish on the TV (I'd fallen into bad habits out of tiredness) I will try and make conscious decisions about what I choose as DVDs. Or at least that's my good intention!