I'm baaaaack

Hello!

Sorry. Blah blah, excuses excuses. Must do better etc etc.

Catch-ups to come soon...

Reasons to be Cheerful - April '11

A little bit of a catch-up, framed in a list of Reasons to be Cheerful, just cos I need a bit of reminding sometimes.

Most of our days are now spent in the garden. There is nothing J-cub loves more than carrying around buckets of water, and any attempts I make to pick up a watering can are met with "No! Jacob!" and he comes and takes the watering can off me to do it himself. Most of my plants are therefore drowning, but it's nice that he's being helpful. And he looks about 6 in this photo, I can't believe how fast he's growing up:

We're looking after the school guinea pigs for the Easter holidays. We have the option of looking after them longterm, as the nursery class are kind of sick of them. I had guinea pigs up until J-cub's first summer, when old age and intense heat got to them. I've missed them so much, but having the cats is hard enough work on their own, without any further complications. But ... J-cub loves them, they're extremely tame and lovely, and they're cutting the grass for me. So maybe they'll stay:

My lovely fellow-babywearing friend Hannah came round for a sling workshop and an afternoon of fun. We went out for a walk in the woods (I use the term loosely, it's a managed forest and the bit in this photo has been harvested recently), just the two of us, and managed to craftily take photos of each other in a faux-walking pose, then photoshop them together. Awesome:

And, even more awesome, J-cub fell asleep, for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long, on my back. It was lovely:

We've moved J-cub's table out into the middle of the lounge, and he's started having his breakfast there, and having lots and lots (and lots) of tea parties throughout the day. I love our quiet breakfasts:

It's been hot enough for the paddling pool :D. J-cub hasn't quite got the hang of paddling in the pool, but he likes splashing round the edges and throwing things into it:

A day after last year's paddling pool was revived, a friend let me know that TK Maxx were selling Nemo paddling pools. I really need to do a separate post about J-cub's Nemo obsession. Suffice to say, he now has a Nemo paddling pool in the lounge, full of blankets and cushions, where he likes to chill out during his lulls. It'll replace the one in the garden in due course, but it's just too damn perfect at the moment to risk being all dirtied up:

Al-fresco meals. At least one a day, sometimes in the nude, always met with relish, and usually abandoned part-way through to go and chase an ant or investigate an interesting bird-call:

Languid days spent on the beach, investigating rock-pools and chasing crabs:

And most emphatically NOT PADDLING. Looking at worms near the water's edge yes, stepping into the (tiny, sun-warmed) waves no:

Playdates in friend's gardens, where the paddling pool, sandpit and slide are fought over, cries of "Mine!" grow ever-more deafening, and parents sit around and happily reminisce over that long-ago first summer, when we could sit in air-conditioned joy in Starbucks, drinking mocha frappuccinos while our babes drowsed in our arms (not that we'd change anything now, you understand, it's lovely to be out in the sun and their chattering and babbled conversations are amazing to listen to ... I just can't wait until they understand the concept of sharing):

And that pretty much brings us up to date. We're spending this weekend moving J-cub's bedroom from the box-room to the second bedroom. He needs the space, we don't. He's also (gasp) pretty much ready to go in to a bed. I am terrified. Wish us luck.

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?

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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.

November Photo Update

More lovin' between J-cub and Tilly-bear...

A walk around the village to see fireworks (and eat apple pies in front of the village shop, it was awesome)...

J-cub discovered finger puppets and has become very adept at puppeteering...

And there have been far too many days that look like this, as a poorly baby has had to cope with a tummy bug, a chest infection, an ear infection, and his last 4 molars trying to put in an appearance. All at once...

Which has led to countless coughing/panic attacks complete with inconsolable screaming and eyes that don't seem to recognise us, raging temperatures, sleepless nights, a washing machine on constantly, a kitchen knee-deep in vomit-covered laundry, watching Coast at 3am, falling asleep at work, refusing to eat for a week, returning home after driving half-way to nursery before J-cub has thrown up all over himself, and a permanent comfy-area in the lounge for desperately trying to cope with very little sleep...

(Oh and note how the sofa is lower on the left than on the right? The springs broke. We now need a new sofa on top of everything else.)

October Photo Update

We kicked October off with a return-to-pre-baby-life as we DJ'd at Chick Habit in Cardiff. It's been too long since I last DJ'd and I was very nervous, so I enlisted my lovely friend Claire to work with me. After getting told off for playing 'too much heavy stuff' we kicked the boys asses by filling the dance floor and keeping them there. We rocked. It was freaking awesome, and we rolled into bed at sometime around 5am. It was light.

We had a couple of days of Indian Summer, and took full advantage of it with snoozy walks through the forest...

J-cub perfected his innocent 'I'm not touching that dummy Mum, honestly' look...

And was just generally gorgeous...

J-cub and Tilly's relationship went from strength to strength, with her joining us for pre-bed story time...

I re-read all 7 Harry Potter books in preparation for the 7th film, and J-cub got in on the action too...

He's so clever ;)

September Photo Update

We both had the first week of September off, and spent it trucking back and forwards from Cardiff. We had a gorgeous park-picnic with friends, enjoying the last of the Summer sun and chasing ducks and dogs around, then went to the Doctor Who exhibition. J-cub was less than impressed by the Daleks, and was not even excited to see K-9. I had a great time though, and had to stop Jamie smuggling Amy Pond's outfit out under his jumper.

We went to IKEA twice, to get some toy storage for the living room sorted, and a new chest of drawers for our bedroom, and just because it's a great day out (really, it is, J-cub loves all the play areas and I could spend a fortune in there).

He especially loved the cot layouts, I think he would have fallen asleep there if I'd let him...

We spent a day scrubbing the garden furniture and toys, J-cub helping by cleaning his car (and emptying my buckets of soapy water as fast as I could fill them)...

We spent rainy days inside huddling under umbrellas, which also make excellent boats...

We learnt that J-cub's all-in-one waterproof is just that - he stuck both his arms up to the shoulders into a bucket of water and was as dry as a bone underneath...

Saturday morning laundry provides me with 50 minutes of peace as J-cub sits on an upturned nappy box and quietly monitors the washing machine...

I learnt that I can sit atop a toddler swing relatively easily...

We took a poorly boy to soft play to cheer him up, and he conquered his fear of ball pools...

And we replaced the faithful Jumperoo with a rocking dinosaur called Dorothy, who J-cub fell desperately in love with...

August Photo Update

When I last posted before the Great Lull, it was just before my birthday. We spent the day at our favourite beach on Gower, just as we had done 2 years previously when I had a tiny bump and very little idea of what was in store.

It was a gloriously sunny day, and it was fab having my new wrap to carry Jacob down the long walk to the top of the cliffs surrounding the bay, and then to carefully climb down the steep path to the beach.

He had a whale of a time throwing sand around, falling face-first into the sea, and chasing seagulls. He got a little bit chilly after a while (his lips started turning blue...) so we sat him on the rocks in the sun and wrapped all 4.6 metres of wrap around him to warm him up. We finished the day with fish and chips and triple-layer Rocky Road cake, it was gorgeous.

The day after my birthday was our 8th Wedding Anniversary, and we celebrated with a play in the paddling pool...

...which concluded with a very cold baby making himself a bed in front of the telly and cuddling his cat for a good hour before he warmed up. Awwww.

Umm....

Every day I think that if I leave it any longer, it'll be really hard to catch my blog up. But then I can't think how best to catch up the last week, fortnight, month ... 2.5 months ... so I wonder off to look elsewhere on the web, and my thoughts drift away, and I forget again. But the guilt never quite stops niggling at me.

Guilt because I haven't done a proper baby memory book for Jacob, or even printed any photos of him and put them in an album for him - there's nothing tangible to provide him (or me) with memories of these precious first years. And this blog assuaged that guilt a little, giving me an easily-accessible record of the little things that are so important.

I've been reading the most perfect blog this week, with the most perfect momma and her beautiful daughters and life, and the guilt has just overflowed. How have I let this lapse? All those moments that have passed without me recording them...

So I typed 'm' into the address bar, to drag this blog up and make amends. And 'ynameis-beth.blogspot.com' didn't appear. Because it's been that long.

When I'd finally coaxed my fingers through typing the whole address, and logged in, I found 3 comments awaiting moderation. Shouldn't I be emailed about that? Settings amended, comments approved, and here I am. Thank you, lovely Emily, for thinking of me and reminding me what I should be doing. Sorry I didn't hear you earlier.

I love your pics of J-Cub. He'll really appreciate them when he's older. I wish I could remember to take photos of Megan. She's growing so fast, I'm not keeping up with her. Must try harder. 200 posts, that IS something momentous, I'm only sorry I didn't say so earlier! :D

By Glovecat on Day 34 - New boots on 11/7/10

You make me laugh. I love you comment about J's modelling hip and the insistence that there is a tangerine there SOMEWHERE. See, I miss your posts so much that I'm guiltily going back over your old posts and commenting, hoping that you'll put up some new ones. It's been 2 months, according to my dashboard! TWO MONTHS! ;D

By Glovecat on Day 36 - Liony bum on 11/7/10

Wah! Now I see that you responded to my stupid comment. I shall have to see if you've "bumped" me up yet (like the pun!)... You have gone strangely quiet, I hope you're doing well and that you are simply enjoying life too much to blog about it! All is well in babyland, though i find it hard to get much done other than what Megan wants me to do... She's lovely though, we're totally besotted! Big hug to you, mama, will you update us and post something soon? xxx

By Glovecat on Day 41 - He's on the phone. on 10/8/10

Message received, loud and clear. I'm sorry. I WILL do better. I'm going to find photos and updates and thingys and quirks to post over the next few days.

But in a few words...

* Going back to work after the summer holidays was shit. That's initially why I stopped writing. It was horrible, I was accused of some stuff I didn't do, and it was all too hard to deal with. I'm still not terribly happy being there, but there's not a lot I can do about it. I'm learning to take each day as it comes, and to be constantly checking my back and covering my ass so it doesn't happen again. They chose the wrong person to fuck with.

* Jacob has taken to nursery like a pig to swine flu ... we've had illness after illness and it's getting ridiculously hard to cope. Poor poppet.

* Jamie's back/neck/arm/shoulder/hand etc are causing lots of gyp and general day-to-day living problems. We are awaiting referrals to physio and testing for arthritis. Gah.

* The cats are very annoying in winter. Because they want to go out, but it's cold and wet, so they want to come in. Then they want to go out. We don't have anywhere for a catflap, so there is lots of anguished miaowing all the time.

* Jacob is amazing, wonderful, funny, growing, lovely, loving, perfect - each and every day. New words, new signs, new little routines and rituals that make him happy. My favourite of today.... him walking very purposefully around the lounge, then stopping, and very, very, slowly casting his eyes at me from under his fringe, just to see if I'm watching. And when I am, bursting into giggles and falling over.

And my baby seems to be no longer a baby ... he's a boy:

'Hiding' in the corner

Day 39 - Blog update (2)

(Friday August 27th)

It stopped raining today!

I was supposed to be going to a meeting of local babywearers for the first time which I was really looking forward to, especially after all the rain over the last week. Waking up this morning to find a gorgeous sunny day, but to still feel like my head is stuck in a pile of cotton wool was horrible.

Instead we spent a lazy day tearing up reams of toilet paper (when one of us took their eye off the other, and didn't respond to the ominous silence quickly enough), sleeping, almost running, falling over, playing in the (HOT!) garden and not eating wiggly worms. Because I have the reflexes of an archerfish.

On the bright side, we learnt the sign for worm.

J-cub refused a nap at 2pm, but conked out in the ring sling during the washing up at around 4pm and was quickly spirited into the cot. I had to wake him at 5.30, which I hate doing but I knew he'd never sleep tonight if I didn't, and I was royally punished with an ear-splitting, floor-thumping, kicking, biting, hitting, screaming tantrum which lasted over an hour.

He therefore didn't get his dinner til gone 7pm, but seemed happy enough watching funny kitten videos on youtube for the rest of the evening until bedtime at just before 9. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

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And now the blog is up to date again! We've got an excitingly busy weekend coming up (it's my birthday on Monday, fact-fans) but I'll be back to share my spoils by Tuesday at the latest. Happy Bank Holiday!

Day 29 - Blog update

(Tuesday August 17th)

I'm about to publish 19 new posts, written over the past few days, cobbled together and had photos added to today. If you want to read them in the right order, you need to go back to Day 11 and scroll up. I think it's 3 pages back.

Thanks to Emily and Rach P for giving me a little kick to get on with it, there's nothing like someone telling me they're reading the blog/missing my posts for me to think "Argh, I haven't written anything for WEEKS!".

It's just gone 1am and I'm shattered.

But J-cub said "Tilly" this morning, so it's not all bad ;)

I apologise in advance for the (poor) quality of my writing, the fact that some posts are quite scanty, any typos which I haven't caught, and the abundance of smilies. Sometimes, needs must.

Give me some comments, go on, you know you want to. It gives my life meaning again. And virtual cake tastes delicious.

Good night.

Apologies for my absence (2)

Quite simply - I've had a bereavement this week which I won't elaborate on as it's far too personal and complicated. I'm going to try and jump straight back into the swing of things with a bit of a catch-up.

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The introduction of a magna-doodle (and by magna-doodle, I mean a Tesco's own version which was considerably cheaper) into our lives courtesy of Auntie Rachel has unleashed J-cub's inner artist (I couldn't remember my son's name while I was typing that sentence. What does that say about me?!). Once he worked out which way round to hold the pen, there was no stopping him. Last weekend, we popped down to our big YMCA superstore, and there was this lovely wooden easel just inside the door (the fact that it was In The Night Garden was just icing on the cake). We immediately grabbed it and asked how much it was. The poor boy who'd just spent ages assembling it informed us it was £4.99, and begged us to take it home whole. We happily complied (and were also given 4 cups for paint and a bag full of chalk and crayons) and squeezed it onto the back seat next to J-cub, where he cooed happily at it until we got home. He's now mastered crayon (on paper) and chalk (on everything). There's a dry-wipe board on the other side, but he's not getting pens until he's about twelve.

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I've been gardening during the bright spells we've had this week (the sun which apparently is beating down on the rest of the country has mostly been avoiding us), and J-cub has loved 'helping'. You can tell from his long-sleeved top and heavy dungarees that despite the sun, it was fricking cold. He was a fab helper though, he dug over all the patches I'd just weeded (without eating any soil!), he picked strawberries, tasted them, and spat them out again (I swear he's the only child in the world not to like strawberries), and mostly practised his walking-on-grass skills (which, he informs me, will be useful for future gardening times when speed is a necessity).

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We've been for walks. Walks which don't involve a sling and don't involve a buggy. This is a whole new world for me; a world where it takes an hour to walk round the block and every ant, stone, cat, leaf, earwig, bin and garden must be examined carefully and exclaimed over. It's wonderful.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

J-cub can reach and operate the door handle. Oh dear. He hasn't yet managed to do so whilst pulling the door towards him, but I fear it can't be long.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

J-cub's signing has come on in leaps and bounds. I don't think I've said much about baby signing, but we went to a few Tiny Talk classes when he was about 9 months old, but they were on a Saturday and cut into our family weekends, so I bought some books (My First Signs, My First Animal Signs and Sign About Meal Time) and we've taught him ourselves. The CBeebies programme Something Special, aimed at children aged 4-7 with learning difficulties, has quickly become J-cub's favourite and he's slowly picking up the more regularly used signs from the show (and can do a passable monkey impression after the vastly annoying "oo-oo-ah-ah-ooh" monkey song).

So to have a quick recap of his current signs, J-cub currently uses the following: hello, bye-bye, baby, clean/wash, tired, bed, biscuit, apple, food, drink, gentle, cuddles, more, yes, no .... that's all I can remember at the moment.

I love it when he strings signs into sentences. Over the past couple of weeks while he's been poorly, we've been letting him have digestive biscuits as a) he'll eat them and b) they cheer him up when he's feeling wretched. After a few days of us asking "Do you want a 'gestive biscuit?", he started signing "gentle, biscuit". Whether it's because gentle sounds like 'gestive', or because it's gentle on his tummy, or just coincidence, it's lovely, it works, and it's now his most commonly used sign. In the photo above he's half-way between gentle and biscuit.

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J-cub has barely eaten since his ear infection of a couple of weeks ago (and that's on top of all the barely-eating he's been doing since his birthday). Baby-led weaning is all about letting them set the pace, and not forcing them when they don't want to eat. But when your baby eats nothing but yoghurt and digestive biscuits and peanut butter sandwiches and ricecakes for weeks on end, it's hard not to be concerned.

This evening though, he ate. I made him Swedish meatballs with a tomatoey sauce and peas. After some initial reluctance and suspicion, he wolfed it down. Then he ate a ricecake (we weren't really prepared for him finished what was first offered), and then a massive bowl of yoghurt. And he ate the meatballs with a fork, and the yoghurt with a spoon (well, mostly). I was such a proud mummy. That'll probably fill him up for the next couple of months anyway.

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How beautiful is my boy? We've been having a bit of a stand-off about baths recently, he's screamed as soon as his feet hit the water, and cried throughout enforced hair washing which makes me feel terrible. We haven't been swimming at all since our last term of Water Babies finished, and I think he's just got a Thing about water. This evening though, having sweated heavily through last night's sleep and today's two naps, then eaten meatballs in tomato sauce and copious amounts of yoghurt for tea, we had no option.

With a little help from a small green cup, J-cub and water rekindled their previous affection. He found it hilarious when he accidentally spilt water from the cup onto his face (which made hair washing much easier), decided that bubbles were yummy (he picked them up individually and ate them!), and drank water from the cup and directly from the bath whilst lying on his front. We stayed in until his lips turned purple. It was lovely.

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So that's all for now. I might do a Saved post later, then again I might not. I had a good one for today y'see. I'm off now to drink my cares away with a very rare alcoholic drink (rare as in I don't often have alcohol, not rare as in a thousand-year-old bottle of whiskey or something) or six. Night night.

Update

The longer I go without posting, the harder it gets, and the more pressure I put myself under.

Over the last few days, I haven't been visiting fellow hundred-dayers' blogs, or friends' blogs, or blogs I follow, just because I feel so very guilty about not having updated here. I'm trying hard to learn to give myself a break, and realise that it doesn't matter. And I know I've said this all before, in all my previous catch-up posts. I just feel like I have to justify myself each time. I think what I need to do, is to allow myself to blog when I haven't done a list item, so the updating of the blog doesn't become such a mammoth task (I've been doing it during J-cub's naptimes today, and as a result, the house looks like a bombsite as I haven't had time for tidying).

I've only done 4 items over the last 10 days or so, so I now have a hell of a lot of catching-up to do. I think it's safe to say that I'm not going to make it (have I already said that?), but it doesn't matter. I'm still learning the discipline of getting things done, and as this project as about Making Me a Better Person, I think from that perspective, I am succeeding. I'm less lazy than I used to be, and I'm learning the most important lesson of all (for lazy people) - procrastination just makes you feel twice as guilty tomorrow.

J-cub's been poorly for the last couple of weeks, he's had an awful cold with a cough that's stopped him sleeping at night, and knocked him out for hours during the day. As I've been up with him during the night, I've used those nap times to catch up on my sleep, so have had to spend all my other free time trying to keep on top of the housework. He's starting to feel a bit better now, and can fall asleep without hacking coughs waking him up again. It's been a very tiring couple of weeks, especially as its my last two weeks of maternity leave and I wanted to enjoy them a bit more fully.

That's right, I go back to work on Monday. I'll be working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and right now I can't really imagine how I'm going to cope. It's hard enough to stay on top of things when I'm at home all the time, so thinking about laundry and housework and cooking after I've been at work for 9 hours just seems impossible. I'm sure we'll get used to it though.

Anyway, enough doom and gloom. Let's have some positives.

-I finally succumbed to peer pressure and bought a Baltic amber teething necklace. Despite not being able to find any evidence that these work (or even an acceptable explanation of how they work), I was at my wit's end with J-cub's teething and bought one. It's made such a difference. If I forget to put it back on after his bath, then the next morning he'll be rubbing his ears, chewing on his finger and crying constantly. With the necklace on ... nothing. No Calpol, no teething powders, no teething gel, no cold teethers from the fridge. I'd recommend it to anyone now ;).

Hippy chic

-J-cub had his first go on the swings. Our tiny play-park has a sign on the gate saying '3-8 years only', so I hadn't taken him. I keep seeing pictures of friends' babies on swings though, and thought J-cub deserved to know what it felt like to have the wind in his hair. He found it quietly amusing, and so relaxing that he fell asleep. Ahhhh.

Swing-swoo, Marjorie-doo

-J-cub has started to understand how to be funny and make us laugh. He started copying us when we looked at him through the gaps left by his large foam numbers, and discovered that if he pressed his face through the hole, we laughed. A lot. He's now mastered pushing the number out of the hole, and pushing his face all the way through and grinning. It's very cute.

Lolz

-J-cub climbing the stairs then crawling into his room ready for bed at nap- and bedtimes. When it's bedtime, he'll go into his room and wait for us to undress him, then crawl to the bathroom for his bath.

-J-cub starting to sign 'more' with confidence. I changed the sign a couple of weeks ago as it was too similar to clapping, and having shown no previous interest, he suddenly wants MORE ;).

-Settling in at nursery is complete, and has gone well. They're happy with him, he's happy with them, and yesterday he coloured in a picture of a rainbow for me.

That's all I can think of for now. We haven't been anywhere much (apart from away for our weekend) because he's been too poorly. No swimming, no baby groups, just cabin fever again. But he's a joy to be with, most of the time, he's happy and chatty, and loves bringing me things to look at, and trying to say their names. He loves giving Tilly cuddles, and giving Maeby a wide berth. He's learnt that if he bangs the television with his fists or palms, it mysteriously turns off. He's learnt that if he makes enough of a racket at 5am, he gets an extra bottle. And he's learnt that more than anything in the world, Mummy loves cuddles.

Apologies for my absence

I don't seem to have had any time for blogging this week, and I've really missed it. It's as addictive as writing a diary, and I find myself composing incidents into blog-posts in my head. I think that's a potential worry - when the blog becomes more important than life, or when you start doing things just so they can become posts. At least I am aware of that potential pitfall now, so can do my best to avoid it ;)

I've just posted some of my list items from this week, but I'm a bit blogged out now so I'll have to finish tomorrow. I've been working in the garden as we've actually had some days of sunshine, and seem to have got loads done. It has left me simultaneously longing for summer - imagining days of picnicking outside with J-cub, and him toddling around while I garden - and dreading it - imagining days of falls on the stone paving slabs, slips on the decking, J-cub designing his own menu of slugs, snails, stones and mud ... I suppose it's just something I'm going to have to get used to.

A few notable moments from this week:

- J-cub going down for both naps and bedtime on Tuesday without a peep. He drank his bottle, I put him in the cot, and didn't hear another sound. No frantically trying to stay awake when he was shattered, no being practically asleep when I put him in the cot but wide awake and giggling 2 minutes later, no kicking and punching me, just blissful silence. Lovely.

- Having a lovely BLW-style lunch with a friend who's just started up her own blog. She's been having some troubles with weaning her lovely daughter Poppy, who is about a month younger than J-cub. Not wishing to offend, I made some gentle suggestions about trying a more BLW-style approach to solids, and it's been working really well for her. J-cub and Poppy enjoyed pitta bread/rice cake with houmous, chopped cherry tomatoes, nectarine and plum for lunch.

- Being brave enough to try baby group again, and having a lovely time. There were only 5 of us there, which made it not so intimidating. We talked birth stories (again), baby-wrangling on long journeys, setting up a book group, getting some padded flooring for the hall, and general baby nonsense. J-cub was a bit grumpy when we got there, but crawled around for a while until his requests for cuddles got more and more frequent, at which point I strapped him in the buggy and pushed him in circles (followed by the sole toddler there, who stayed so close to my heels that I nearly fell over him countless times) until he fell asleep (yay!). He slept for 35 minutes, then bounced back to life, playing happily until it was time to go. He happily transferred his requests for cuddles to the other babies, slightly baffling (or scaring) the little ones and cementing a new friendship with the toddler M by cuddling and kissing him whenever J-cub could catch him.

J-cub (left) and M (18 or so months old I think)

- Having an older (first-language Welsh) toddler come up to J-cub in the changing rooms at swimming saying "Babi, babi!" (baby, baby), J-cub turning to him and throwing his arms round him for a cuddle, with the toddler saying "Cwtch! Cwtch!" (cuddle, cuddle). So cute - and we had to prise them apart when it was time to get in the pool. We spent the whole lesson with shrieks of "Babi babi!" every time he came near us.

- J-cub eating a whole pear for his snack, leaving nothing but a tiny section of core and pips.

- Realising that J-cub now understands the meaning of the words: where, ball, catch, Tilly, Maeby, cat, duck, Jemaine (his giraffe), go, up, hello, bye-bye.

- J-cub very clearly saying "Duck!" when confronted with a duck. All other animals are "Ca!" (cat).

- J-cub climbing the stairs, bottom to top, entirely unaided. Over and over again ;)

Yay!

- Receiving a lovely postcard and hand-drawn picture from Tammy at The Heartful Blogger, which she kindly sent me even though I didn't win one during her giveaway week. Her son, Jake, had an operation yesterday, and I'm so happy that it went smoothly and his recovery is going well.

All in all - a very good week.