Di-dor DAT!

With a dinosaur-printed vest to cajole J-cub into believing he was a dinosaur, I managed to get the damn hat on his head today. He'd been happily running around shouting 'Di-dor DAT!' (dinosaur hat, to those not familiar with J-cub parlance), but as soon as I got the camera pointed at him his hat-based objections returned with a vengeance. And, to add insult to injury, the blasted thing is just a wee bit too small. That'll teach me just to blithely follow a 2-3 year old pattern without measuring his evidently massive head. Still, it's cute, no?

Tonight is also our first night in a fleece soaker, as we've been having increasing problems with failing to find a combination of nappy/nappies/inserts/wraps which will contain his overnight wee. The mornings often involve a full wash of PJs, vest, sleeping bag, fleece sheet, regular sheet and mattress cover. The fleece covers are supposed to be great though, so we'll see what the morning brings. And once again, cute, no*?

*If anyone dares answer 'no', I will cry.

Quiet weekend

The end of this half-term break has come about all too soon, as always. And, as always, I steadily came down with some sort of exhausting virus which left me in bed all day Thursday and Friday, with Jamie following me over the weekend and J-cub spiking a temperature all day today. Fingers crossed it'll pass for them as quickly as it did for me (although actually, in retrospect I've been ill pretty much all week, and only today am I feeling better). Meanwhile, we've done lots of nothing this weekend, apart from watching Finding Nemo sixty-three million times (I swear, J-cub wakes up chanting 'Meemo, meema, meemo, meema' every day) and spending an awful lot of time cuddling.

J-cub's cries of 'Tuddle Tilly!' every time she curls up to sleep are now grumpily tolerated, although not so much when he tries to sit on her.

We've had the return of Buckethead very much in evidence this last week...

And inexplicable signings of 'crocodile' in the bath, even though there are no crocodiles to be seen and he doesn't seem particularly perturbed by whatever dangers he's imagining...

I spent today's naptime dusting off my shiny new sewing machine and whipping up a fleece lined Dinosaur hat, which I was super-proud of (especially after I'd unstitched the first attempt, which had the stegosaur spikes going up the back and then down one side) but which J-cub flat out refused to wear. 'Dorodee dat!' he shouted angrily, banging it down on her head. And, to be fair, Dorothy is a dinosaur after all...

So long half-term, back to work tomorrow ... :(

Jan/Feb Photo Update

By no means a comprehensive photo update, because I don't want to bore you. Here's some gems though...

Oooh look, Christmas tree in the background! See, it did happen. Here, J-cub has taken a bunch of annoyingly-breakable plastic mini-things, and sorted them on top of a load of numbered blocks. Because he is a genius (and not at all obsessed with sorting, stacking, lining things up etc). This is his 'Yeah!' stance.

Ooop North, visiting the Pili Palas - due to the cold there was a distinct lack of pili but this Royal Python called Samantha captured J-cub's heart instead. He was far braver than the rest of us.

There were also a lot of lovely birds, which flapped and flew around all over the place, just out of reach and often just out of sight, leading to J-cub's complete bemusement and bafflement. He could hear them, he could *almost* see them, but they were just too fast to catch.

The in-laws beautiful living room proved the perfect velodrome for JC's trike (which we sensibly crammed into the car at the last minute).

Back home, being utterly gorgeous.

Oooh, see, this is why I shouldn't stop writing for so long. J-cub's affections are no longer solely reserved for Jemaine. In fact, Jemaine is very much playing second fiddle now to bunny, who has slept in J-cub's cot since birth but he's barely paid attention to. Now though, bunny (seen here being signed for) is synonymous with nanny (dummy), and we barely get through 10 minutes without one or the other being begged for. (Also note the Gruffalo t-shirt, and Gruffalo DVD on in the background. The Gruffalo is very popular right now).

New year, new carrier. This is our beautiful SSC, bought second hand to try out and instantly fallen in love with. It's a Babyhawk Oh Snap! and it is so comfortable, and so easy to use. Everywhere we go now, as soon as I open the door J-cub begs 'Mummy back? Deee [please] Mummy back!'.

Bear hat, Gruffalo coat. J-cub is now officially the coolest kid at school. When I went to pick him up from nursery the other day, his little posse all gathered around his coat and raaaaar'd it at each other. Yesterday, I tried to put on his blue hat with a bug on the front. 'No Mummy, no bat [hat].' (J-cub ran off, and returned a second later with his bear hat) 'Bat!'.

And just cos he's awesome...

J-cub's bucket o' bapples and those who like to eat from it - giraffe, zebra, reindeer and Mummy-with-a-bag.

Nonsense

I think there are just too many things to write about, which I feel deserve their own blog post, but I can't sort through my thoughts to get anything cohesive down before my mind flits off elsewhere. I haven't even written about Christmas. What sort of a record of my life is this, when my child's first (well, second, but the horrendous GE bug we had in 2009 cancels that one out) Christmas isn't fully documented. Let's think of a list, shall we? And then, maybe, if I have time I can come back and write more about them, and if not, I can just tell my stupid brain to shut up about it and get on with wittering about Spring or something.

1. Christmas. Was awesome, and we weren't ill. J-cub liked his Christmas presents, although the most popular were, predictably, the cheapest and most throwaway packs of crayons etc. And the Megabloks pirate ship and the Happyland rocket - lovely plastic tat which has lead to an explosion of imaginative play skills. Woop!

2. Imaginative play. My little toddler is walking toys around, and having them eat out of 'buckets of bapples Mummy!', and putting them to bed, and attacking them with sharks, and putting them on the toilet, etc. Awwww.

3. Talking. Now in (mini) sentences - two words strung together is now a constant, and he can very easily say-and-sign his way through entire conversations. I've given up recording his vocab, but it must be huge by now.

4. First trip to the North Wales side of the family (it's a 6 hour drive, I just haven't been able to face it before now). We did it, J-cub loved it, we went to a butterfly farm and J-cub stroked a snake. It was cool.

5. Potty training. We haven't started yet, but I have Thoughts.

6. Moving to a bed. Ditto.

7. Gym class. We now go to a weekly gym class, the 'free play' aspect of which J-cub fully embraces, and the 'structured activity' bit he deems as an assault on his human rights and either shouts 'NO!' repeatedly while perched atop a piece of apparatus or runs around screaming bloody murder.

8. Birthdays. J-cub is going to be TWO in 15 days. HOW is that possible?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Okay that's all I can think of. There's more, and I'll add to them, but now I've got that out of my system I can get on with talking about other things, and not feeling this cloud of 'Update properly or your blog will be incomplete' hanging over my shoulder. Because really, who cares*?

I'm going to find some pretty pictures now and put them up instead of doing anything more worthwhile with my time (plus, there's some sort of football match on the television and my feet are too cold to sit in the kitchen and sew). TTFN fact fans.

*I do, and I hate it when people say 'who cares?' about things that are important to me, but I recognize that I'm an idiotic Virgo and not everything has to be perfect. Let It Go.