Bonus post...

As Libby is now bathing, I thought I would add my tuppence worth.

This week's been fairly stressful, in some ways, with major life uncertainty all round. We're not really sure what we're doing/where we're going etc.. In addition, the children (one in particular) have been pushing every boundary they can lay their hands on, and Libby over the edge.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to say.

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I'm in the middle of 'Life of Pi' at the moment (which, much to my disappointment and Libby's relief, has nothing to do with maths). It's actually very good - in contrast to most 'award winning' books (pardon my prejudice). There are some good lines I felt obliged to share. Now I just have to find them...

Be warned, you may need to think:

"I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both."

"...athiests are my brothers and sisters of a different faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap."

"I'll be honest about it. It is not athiests who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics...To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."

Toddler Diaries 'Weekly update #1'

It’s about time I blogged this week. Missed my slot yesterday as I had a lie in (not a very quiet one with the racket going on downstairs) and Daniel is having one this morning. I was all set to go to Tesco at 6:30am with the three musketeers but then discovered it doesn’t open until 10am on Sunday morning. Can’t think of anywhere else to take them this early on a Sunday (I think it’s too early to subject oneself to McDonalds) so Daniel will just have put up with the noise. Our neighbours say they never hear us in the morning. I’m sure they’re lying. Oh well, it’s not too bad for now; Bethany is reading Topsy and Tim to Caleb, and Josh is colouring.

His passion for colouring this week is unabated. When we took Caleb for his jab on Wednesday, Josh asked to go in the buggy so he could colour en route. All the practice is paying off and he’s getting quite expert at it. His fine motor control has improved so much that he even managed to write his name yesterday! He delighted me this week by needing a poo in the middle of my hair cut. I made sure he did a wee before we left and told him I didn’t want him doing a wee in the middle of my hair cut, I forgot to mention poos! The hairdresser didn’t seem to mind me getting up to sort Josh out!!

Caleb continues to top the weight chart. Although very heavy he’s still not as fat as Josh was as a baby. Caleb is actually just on the chart, whereas Josh was off it. He’s such a chatty little chap and cheers us all up when he wakes up in the morning. He’s not the one who wakes us up; it’s usually the other two. Caleb loves his sleep and tends not to open his eyes between 7 pm and 7am. If he wants a feed in this time he just sucks his thumb vigorously to let you know and then feeds in his sleep, rolls off and carries on sleeping. He’s done a couple of nine-hour stints this week, which has been nice. He seems to have rapidly progressed to 3 meals a day and will eat most things, (especially the sweets and chocolate I caught Bethany feeding him), although he wasn’t so enamoured with leek and potato mushed together - who would be? It smelt gross, looked gross and tasted gross (yes, I did try it). He’s on a mix of homemade food and bought stuff and despite my best intentions I feel like we are probably heading towards the latter. He was very keen on the ice-lolly he shared with me yesterday, I thought it would have been too cold for him, but he seemed to like sucking it!!

Bethany is definitely a terrible two at the moment and is becoming a real handful. When she is nice she is very very nice but when she is naughty she is h****d. She has inherited stubbornness from both her parents, not a good combination. Not sure whether her behaviour is just personality or middle child syndrome. She does make us laugh though with her funny little sayings and her love of handbags, make-up and jewellery. Definitely some Wendy genes in there somewhere. She informed Daniel this week, (whom she often refers to as Daniel rather than daddy), that “mummy has too much going on in her life”. I have to agree.

The Toddler Diaries

Thought I’d have a go at a blog whilst my fix is brewing. Hopefully the coffee will transform me from scary Neanderthal to an almost fully functioning human being. (I’m not sure if anything can do that!) Unfortunately it’s Saturday morning, which means it’s Daniel’s turn for a lie in, a proper lie in. This means as soon as the small Neanderthals wake up I drag myself out of bed and very blearily take them downstairs. This is as opposed to letting them jump all over us, tickle our feet, tunnel up and down the duvet, until the duvet falls off and then finally Daniel asks me if I want him to take them down stairs- are you kidding? How can you tell that I’m really pleased to be given the opportunity of serving my spouse in this way!! To be fair Daniel lets me have plenty of proper lie ins, it’s just hard on a Saturday morning.

Sorry for the lack of blog in the last week, I’ve had bloggers block (Oh no they want to watch Barney - I’m a mum, somebody get me out of here!) I thought maybe I should write one once a week instead. It’s quite hard coming up with something everyday, especially when you have a million other things to do.

Overall, the week wasn’t bad, although it’s always a bit of a grind towards the end of each day. Communicating with Daniel via MSN is helping. Daniel loves it because it’s free and I like it because I can gripe at him as it happens. I think his colleagues are amused or even bemused by the interesting sounds emanating from Daniel’s computer when I send him a wink (ask me if you don’t know what I’m on about).

Ballet had to be the highlight of Bethany’s week. She is very keen to go back and wants me to buy her a leotard and ballet shoes. I asked Joshua before hand if he wanted to do it to, Billy Elliot and all that. But he just looked at me and said, “No mummy, I’m a boy, just look at me”. He did enjoying peeking at Boo through the glass whilst the class was in action and I caught him dancing around when we got back. I said he could join the class the following week, but he said he’d rather just dance at home. Fine, it’s cheaper if only Bethany goes.

Remarkably Joshua hasn’t worn his Mr Incredible outfit all week. Yesterday he woke up and said he wanted to be Joshua. This morning he’s back to being Andy from Toy Story. Every time he watches the Toy Story films he watches intently to see what Andy does or doesn’t do, or what Andy has or hasn’t got, so he can adjust his life accordingly. I warned Daniel that Andy doesn’t have a dad in the film so Joshua may feel the need to get rid of him.

Joshua informed me the other week that he doesn’t like Daddy because he goes to work everyday. I’m nice because I stay at home with him. I tried to explain to Joshua that if Daniel didn’t work he wouldn’t get, amongst other things, any toys. He’s obviously been thinking about this and said to me on Thursday morning. “Mummy, it isn’t working, if Daddy’s going to work where are all the toys, I’m not getting them everyday”. He was quite pleased to discover it was working because hidden in mummy’s cupboard was ‘Slinky Dog’ the latest addition to his Toy Story collection.

We had a great day on Thursday at Guy’s park. My mum (Guy) apparently owns quite a few parks in Hertfordshire. She’s even had the foresight to build an outdoor paddling pool in one of them, good planning mum. After a very early picnic, (it’s never too early for lunch when you’ve been up since 6am) Joshua and Bethany spent a couple of hours just messing around in the pool with other preschoolers. They loved it. We then went to the café for ice cream. Not having been to such an establishment for over a week, we were beginning to get withdrawal symptoms. Finally, a play on the swings and the slide (before the school hordes invaded the park.) to round off a very happy summer day.

A Passion for Colouring

Libby mentioned in an earlier post that Joshua seems to have got the hang of colouring - well here's an example. He was up at 6.10 earlier this week sitting by our bed colouring. And yesterday, when he couldn't do any more colouring because it was bedtime he almost had a fit. He was mightily reassured when Libby told him he could spend tomorrow, and every other day colouring!

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By the way, if any of you have been finding stray bits of html in our posts (e.g. div style="text-align: justify;") you may wish to upgrade to Firefox. It's something to do with Explorer not liking the way we write our entries in Word and paste them into the browser. Anyway, getting Firefox will be good for your soul.

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Bethany had her first ballet class today - can you believe it, at two! She was extremely keen on the idea beforehand, and even more so afterwards. Libby says its the hardest she has ever concentrated in her life - obviously a bit of discpline is what she needs. I'm not sure she's quite got the ballerina figure yet though!

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I'm having very little inspiration this evening - so I'm annoying my brother on MSN as an alternative. For those of you who are interested in these things, I think the long awaited 'mystery photograph' results are about to be announced.


OK, the ironing awaits...

Toddler Diaries 'Milestones'

Haven’t really been in blog mood this week, in fact I haven’t written anything since last weekend, what a slacker. I’ve been preoccupied with stripping wallpaper and predestination, the usual things!! I feel I need to write something today to mark some important milestones. I never wrote anything down with Joshua and Bethany so consequently quickly forgot when they did what. With hindsight I realise it’s quite nice to look back and remember so I’d like to do a better job from now on.

Bethany seems to have potty trained herself at lightning speed, that is once I caught up with her and let her get on with it. A few days of no nappy and that was that, she’s hardly looked back since. More remarkably they have both been dry at night for a whole week. This has surprised me, especially with Joshua whose nappy was never dry in the morning. They seem both to have happily accepted the turn of events, so hopefully that’s it.

Caleb, not to be outdone, has started sleeping through the night (sometimes). He goes to bed at 7pm, I feed him when I go to bed even though he’s still asleep, put him back in his cot and then he usually sleeps until about 6am. I can hardly believe it after the time we had with Bethany. She used to wake up every three hours until she was almost two!! I’m sure starting Caleb on solids has helped him sleep longer (although he’s never been that bad). So far he’s had rice, apple and banana and seems rather pleased to be eating proper food. I actually made some baby food for him yesterday and froze it in ice cube trays just like you’re supposed to. The other two would never eat anything I made and threw it up, so I never got round to this. I feel that as Caleb has so clearly read the baby manual and taken it on board, I should really read it too and try and wean him on real food. Bethany definitely never read the book, or at least only glanced at the front cover and decided it wasn’t for her.

The other thing that happened this week was that Joshua actually started colouring by himself. He usually gets me to do his colouring for him because he can’t colour to the standard he wants. I had a chat with him this week and said I wasn’t colouring in for him any more but he could do it himself. To his and my surprise he sat down at the table and produced an excellent colouring of Woody the cowboy. He went to fetch his toy so that he could get all the colours in the right places. Clearly his skill in colouring and the level he wants his colouring to be at have coincided. Hooray!

All these things have been very nice all happening at the same time, but I have learnt to enjoy them as they come but not hold my breath, because, with babies especially you think you’ve got them sussed and then they go and do something different. They like to keep you guessing. Over all though definitely a good week for parenthood.