123/365 – Quality Time

Over the last week or so, Little Bean hasn’t been quite my little angel. I’m fully aware that she is still in the realms of the Terrible Twos, but I have been more worried by her behaviour towards her baby brother.  She has been the model big sister since Beanie Boy completed our family, if he cries she rushes to his side and comforts him, provides him with a toy or pulls faces to make him laugh.  But just lately, she has started pushing him over, smacking him, throwing toys at his head and then yesterday she bit his finger, leaving angry teeth marks and a very upset baby boy!

Today, with thanks to Karin (Cafebebe), who offered to look after Beanie Boy for a couple of hours, I was able to take Little Bean out for some quality Mother/Daughter time.  I told her in the morning that we would be taking Beanie Boy to spend some time with Karin and Little Miss, and then we would be going out for a girlie day together.  As we drove away from Karin’s house, Little Bean declared, “Mummy, you forgot Beanie Boy!”.  I then tried to explain to her again that he was spending some time with Karin so that Mummy and Little Bean could have some special time, ‘just the girls’.

My original plan was to go swimming, but then I remembered seeing a place in Stamford called Pots Of Fun, so we headed there for some painting fun.  Little Bean chose a heart-shaped plate and set to work on choosing her favourite colours, purple and pink, to decorate it.  After a little bit of coaxing that it looked a bit ‘pale’, she chose a couple more colours and had a blast creating a masterpiece.  Still worried that Beanie Boy had been left out, she asked if she could paint something for him, and so we chose an egg cup and said that this could be her Christening present to him, which she decorated with her fingerprints all over.  We had to leave them with the lady at the shop who would glaze them and fire them overnight, ready for us to collect tomorrow.  I’m really looking forward to collecting them and seeing Little Bean’s face when she sees the finished product.  We finished our special time with a little picnic and then headed off to collect Beanie Boy.

I’ve now told Little Bean that we will make this a regular thing if she can keep earning the majority of her stars on her reward chart, and we can do different things each time (of her choice – within reason!).  She was really excited and gave me the biggest hug at bedtime. 

It’s so easy to take their good nature for granted when a new baby sibling comes on the scene, and I think that is what I have done with Little Bean.  We spent the best part of 2 years just the two of us, so I need to make sure that she still gets some quality time with Mummy in the future!!!