Abba-dabba

Abba-dabba is how William says 'abracadabra'. He gets to say it alot as he reads along when we read stories about Winnie the Witch.

:)

Grandpa visited from Australia recently,and he was a hit with William, who managed to con him (very easily!) into buying more train tracks.....just by saying "we need more train track". They also had a bit of a jam session together....see the video link below. Duet on tin whistle and clarinet.



As William says: I did it all by my own.

Here he is with a very big straw that he and daddy constructed together last week.

B & W Sophie

This is a blog entry mostly about William, surrounded by pictures of Sophie. Thanks to Andrew for the lovely pics, and to Sophie for being a lovely model. She is 5 weeks old now, and all is well.

We're beginning to get used to having two kids. We're realising that we need to balance time between and with them both. We find some things difficult and other things easy. I'm practising looking after them by myself at different hours of the day (depending what shift A is working). It is going well though... I can say this now, as I slept relatively well last night. If you'd have asked between 7-8pm last night, as we dealt with a succession of vomit and leaking poo (Sophie) and wee in the kitchen (William), the answer would have been a different one.

It is hard to know what William really thinks of nursery, as he doesn't often tell us what he does during the day while there, but this week was the first time that he shared some info, telling us that "Emma has a rat in garden". I was really pleased that he was beginning to be able to convey things to us that we didn't know anything about. Thanks to Emma for having shared this exciting news with William. Emma (whom I’ve never met) is part of our evidence that William seems to be popular at nursery, or at least able to get on well with other kids. Her mum told me recently that she talks about him a lot! Whenever her mum asks Emma what she has done at nursery she always says, 'played with William'! There is another boy in William’s room, called Sai, whose parents have told us that ALL Sai’s toys at home are called William.

Mr. Nude

Did you know that William is a superhero??? He is Mr. Nude and we recently took this footage of him, in a suburban backyard, in green and leafy Oxford. He cunningly hides his superhero identity by maintaining the facade of 'just' being an ordinary two and three quarter year old. Here he 'directs' Nana (his trusty side-kick) on how to 'take the washing off the line', but he is really relaying the secret location of the dragons gold to her.



And a couple more pics of Sophie, below. She continues to feed pretty well, although now she has started some larger possets. It all means more washing, but at least the weather has been pretty good recently, so I can get it all dry. We haven't weighed her for a couple of weeks, but she seems to be growing out of her clothes, so it must all be fine. William continues to be a very sweet and caring older brother. He says "Don't worry Sophie" when she cries, which very cutely sounds like "Don't worry Topey".


Happy after a feed

Nudey Sophie

Sophie's first week

Sophie is doing very well with her feeding, and even sleeping. The last few nights she has made it even easier for her parents to love her, by sleeping for 4-5hr stretches between feeds, at least once a night. This little block of continual sleep is meaning that we feel slightly less like the undead and more like human beings during the day. Relatively speaking, we feel refreshed and energised! Relatively speaking.

Her general cuteness also makes it very easy to love her. Andrew is smitten, and volunteers for the first night shift to be awake and play with her so that they can cuddle and hang out together.

Sophie had her first bath on Friday, and seemed to enjoy it. She didn't cry at all (which is the complete opposite to William's first bath). Although she looks a little concerned in this photo, she seemed very relaxed throughout. It probably helps that the weather is very warm and sunny at the moment. Speaking of which, we've had a great weekend socialising at pubs and restaurants. We spent a lot of Saturday at the Isis Tavern, introducing Sophie to some Oxford friends. It was very relaxed, with the kids all running about, kicking a ball or watching swans in the nearby bend of the Thames river. William and Sophie have both been very well behaved and made it seem.....well, we can't say 'easy' but perhaps 'not as difficult as we might have thought'.


And this is the view that I see quite a bit of these days while breast-feeding on the couch, and will continue to look at over the coming months - the view out the front window of our house:

Bring on the next (and last) week of paternity leave and carry on with the blue skies and sunshine!

A new baban draig

Sophie Rhiannon Marshall
was born on Thursday 8th April, 2010
at 11.07pm, weighing 9lb 1.5oz

After a relatively quick delivery, she cried immediately after being born, and was very wakeful and keen to feed in the few hours following birth. Her eyes are hazel/blue. Her big brother (now known as draig fach = little dragon) is very sweet and gentle with her, and always curious to see what she is doing and tell us when she "makes a little noise" as she gurgles. She is feeding very well, and both mum and dad are trying to get as much rest as possible during the day, as so far, she likes to be awake throughout the night.

1.5 days old, endearing herself to family (= future babysitters!)

12 hours old, in the hospital

William with his little sister, 16hrs old

Nuppinck

Williams new answer when we offer him two choices:
Do you want to wear wellies or shoes?
You can have pasta or rice for lunch, which would you like?
NUPPINK!


I’m 40 weeks and 3 days pregnant. William was born on his due date (apparently only 4% of babies are, but, there might be a genetic link for it on the Marshall side, with Stephen and his sister Linda born on their due dates), so I have no previous experience with going over. Although I am impatient and now almost constantly physically uncomfortable, we are unexpectedly cherishing the time with William. Today has been a lovely Easter Sunday. In the morning we visited a farm, were in addition to seeing what was likely to have been the three billy goats gruff, William played with an eclectic digger and rode on a small tractor. Then we’ve filled the rest of the day with hours of playing with trains and multiple re-designs of the train tracks, building towers with duplo, taking all the bedding off both mummy and daddy’s bed, and William’s bed, and jumping on them, setting up a tray of special dirt/compost and planting mushroom seeds, and walking in paint and then on black paper. Phew – no wonder William’s parents are exhausted!




We also had an Easter egg hunt in our back garden, and the look in William’s eyes as he found each shiny egg that Andrew had hidden was joyful innocence and excitement. It makes everything worth it. This evening William hasn’t wanted to fall asleep and has been chatting to himself and his toys in his cot for the last hour. We’ve been listening to him, trying to decipher bits of conversation. It isn’t easy, but it is very cute to hear him singing songs to his toys.

Our friend (and William's godparent) Simon has travelled up from Southampton this evening, to look after William and I tomorrow while Andrew works a 13hr shift. What a saviour! I bet he'll have to sing 'Two little dickie birds' 50 times for William tomorrow. But, right now, Simon and Andrew are rehearsing for a concert they are both singing in on 1st May. I find it entertaining to listen to them singing Latin, interspersed with swear words as they stuff things up. :)

Roll on Spring!

My window box is now looking good, after months of bulbs lying dormant. The crocuses are up and out. The mini irises will open next. It is very cheering to come home to. I'm working at home this week (almost 38 weeks pregnant, but no hints if any immediate action on that front) which will be a lot more comfortable than getting the bus and walking in to work each day. Quite frankly though, I'm ready to stop work as soon as I can. I'm not super mobile and feeling uncomfortable much of the time. I'm ready to move on to the next phase....which probably means that the baby will be 2 weeks late!

William caught up with his second cousin Zoe last weekend, when Richard, Carmen and Zoe came over to Wales for Mothering Sunday. They look pretty cute together, holding hands. My favourite is the picture with William checking out the price tag on some pots, looking just like a married couple going shopping at the garden centre together!