James Proclaims!

It is Sunday afternoon as I write this. Mini Proclaims is napping, having recently covered herself and much of the dining table in my home-made sweet potato soup. She does enjoy a bowl of soup. Not to eat seemingly, more to ‘accessorise’. ‘Soup’ is a word she does occasionally use in conversation, and her vocabulary is still fairly limited, so I assume she has positive feelings about the stuff. Not all soups presumably – at this point it may be helpful to refer you to a 2015 post I wrote about soup, rather than revisiting the risks of using the word ‘soup’ too generically here.

But she is now asleep, which remains a necessity, both for her and the rest of the Proclaims family. When my youngest daughter finally decides that an afternoon nap is no longer something she is on board with, I fear for the mental health of the rest of the family. Mini Proclaims is not always naughty, but she is a particular kind of naughty.

Little Proclaims, is currently sat opposite me as I write this and busy ‘creating’. Creating largely consists of sticking pieces of paper together with sellotape and then claiming that they are something that they bear no resemblance to. She enjoys creating. Little Proclaims is never ‘knowingly naughty’. This is not to say that she is never badly behaved. Little Proclaims frequently behaves in ways that make her parents lives more difficult, but this behaviour stems from misunderstandings, tiredness, hunger and general frustrations that the world is not exactly as she thinks it should be. She doesn’t ever intend to upset anyone but she sees life through the lens of a five year old and sometimes that causes problems.

Mini Proclaims is four months shy of her second birthday. She is a smiley toddler who likes to cuddle. But sometimes she is naughty because she thinks it’s funny to be naughty. She will literally do things to get a reaction and then laugh when she gets that reaction. Often she will wait until she has managed to attract your attention before she even starts to do the thing that she knows she shouldn’t be doing. Like if we accidently leave the stair gate open, she will literally sit on the bottom step until she sees me looking and then race up the stairs laughing as soon as I make some kind of effort to rectify the situation. Or she will ask for food and then once said food is provided, will tip it on the floor with genuine glee. Or mid change, as you reach for the fresh nappy, you’ll suddenly note the absence of a recipient and a small bare bottom racing away accompanied by giggles.

Little Proclaims enjoys singing. She is too young for us to know whether this is something she is going to be good at, but we have already established that she is enthusiastic. Tuneful or not, nothing warms my heart like hearing her sing. One of her favourite songs to sing is from Matilda the Musical. It’s called ‘Naughty’ and the main recurring line in the song is “sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty’. But even when she is at her most challenging, I don’t think Little Proclaims believes that sentiment.

Recently Mini Proclaims has started joining in with the singing. She doesn’t sing many of the lyrics but the general tune is broadly accurate in the context of her being under-two. When she sings along to ‘Naughty’, I believe her emphatically.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=v5H1Dnxie6M%3Fsi%3Dt8HhJhtDh8d89olS