8 and a half months old

Five days ago Sophie first pulled herself up to standing. Today she started cruising along the edge of the bed! Watch out everyone - here she comes! [Mum tells me that I walked at 9 months, so perhaps she has my genes in her legs]

This picture was taken by a professional photographer who came to a music group that Sophie and I attend. I know I am biased, but pretty cute. :)

A weekend in Brussels

Last weekend we had a lovely long weekend in Brussels, visiting Andrew's relatives. We quite like taking the train with the kids - it works well being able to walk when we need to and so they are much happier than if they'd been strapped into a seat in a car or on a plane. So we took the Eurostar across, and stayed with Richard, Carmen and Zoe. They have lots of parks nearby their apartment, so we could enjoy the Autumn colours and new play equipment. We also had the chance to catch up with Bethy and Plonkie.



As they don't celebrate Bonfire Night on the continent, we brought our own sparklers across with us. As it is dark at 6pm, you don't need to stay up late to play with them.

Three on a bike

Well, I'm back to work (part time) on Monday and so Sophie has started 3 days a week at William's nursery. How do we get two kids to nursery I hear you ask. Using our newly acquired family bike! It has an extended frame so that two seats fit on to it. Apparently an Italian car designer designed it many years ago. We'll be rugging the kids up well, as rain, sleet, snow or shine, this is the way they'll be getting to and from nursery. I wonder whether I'll be able to cycle them up the hill without having to get off and push?? Ah, it'll be good for me!

Back from the hiatus

We've moved house, had a big Summer holiday in France, Sophie has started eating solids and going to nursery 3 days a week. I'll skip over all of that for now, to give you some recent pictures and video footage of the kids.

August

More photos to share with you! Firstly the smallest – Sophie is 4 months old and getting stronger. She can happily sit up in a supported bumbo seat.



Sophie has progressed to sleeping in the big cot now – it makes her look much smaller all of a sudden. She is really happy in it, and it saves our backs from bending down quite as far. Of course, it does also take up a much larger chunk of our bedroom.



She is also enjoying spending more time on her front these days, and reaching for things. She can fairly reliably grab things with two hands and get them in her mouth now.



Now the oldest, and best at telling us what Sophie wants and what Sophie is thinking about (such an interpreter). William surprised me the other day by knowing exactly how to hold a guitar and play it – here is some footage. I guess that he has seen Andrew do it and that was enough.



William and I made play doh together last weekend. We both had lots of fun making it and it turned out well. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get a photo of the great dragon that Andrew and William made with it but here are some shots of William making it and playing with it (“Still hot from saucepan Mummy”).



Although it looks like William will probably be on the short side in height, he obviously won’t take no for an answer, as he tells us daily that “I’m growing up (to) clouds”.

My friend Clare taught William a cheeky face a few months ago (thumbs in ears, hands wiggling, tongue sticking out and wiggling) which he thinks is hilarious and uses on lots of people. A few weeks ago he showed us a new face (?learnt from another kid at nursery) which I cal the 'scary face' - not that it deters him from using it on me all the time!


Finally, a picture of William and I eating ice creams in Brecon. Think that this is the first time we’ve ever given him a whole cone of his own to hold and eat – it disappeared within 60 seconds.

Milestones

A number of milestones have been reached recently:

Sophie can now roll over by herself, from her front to her back.
Jo can bath two children all by herself (a milestone which Sophie felt should be recognized by doing a squirting poo up her back, all the way to her neck! Great!).
William has done some very good jumping, both off the sofa into a pile of cushions, and into the pool (he goes underwater, then bobs up again and can swim to Andrew).

Sophie is also happy to laugh and chuckle when something amuses her.... such as a flying tree frog called William.

Sunday evening

I’m just coming to the end of a whole weekend looking after two kids myself, with Andrew working 14hr shifts Fri, Sat and Sun. It has been tough, but I think I’m slowly getting better at it. This morning I said to Andrew that I could never ever do this as full time house wife, i.e. every day. But, tonight (Sun night) I am less exhausted than I was on Sat night (when I fell asleep before Andrew came home). I wonder if I’m getting some stamina? Of course, I still don’t know how housewives do it, as I seem to have achieved very little this weekend other than look after the kids. I’ll need the time with William in nursery this week just to get the shopping, cooking, washing cleaning done (and I have a cleaner!). Poor Andrew is working more long shifts on Mon, Wed and Thurs this week, so he’ll be pretty knackered by the end of the week. I lift off my hair (a hat just doesn’t seem enough) in salute to all families and how they cope with the normal hubbub of life. How they manage when both parents work I guess we’ll start to find out in November….. I guess regular nutritious, healthy, home-cooked and tasty meals might fall by the wayside. Standards of household cleanliness will slide. We’ll all wear our clothes until they fall apart. No-one will be wearing ironed clothes (no real change there though!). Exercise will be difficult to fit in.

Or maybe I should try and be a bit more optimistic. We might be able to work out a way to get some free time. The kids will get easier - well, William should from here on, Sophie probably still has some high maintenance times ahead before she gets easier. While we're all exhausted, William, Sophie and I have done lots of fun stuff this weekend, including a tractor ride, picking raspberries and making Summer pudding, making foot prints of the kids, going to three different parks and eating with friends.

I might go and pour myself a glass of rose.

Oh darn, Sophie has just woken up, there goes my wine.