During the Silence

In between Braxton Hicks contractions I'm sat in the living room, basking in the calm of late evening in our house, which means I can suddenly hear to clock ticking on the wall again. There are small hands and feet tickling my insides underneath my waistband and I can hear E and the Husband reading a book together in the nursery. E has just discovered that one of the characters has the same name as his cousin; it therefore deserves a hug and a kiss from him. He's been big on names lately: he's learned the names of just about the entire extended family (aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins) and most characters on the few TV shows he watches.

I apologise for the radio silence that's been dominating the blog lately. I've frequently meant to write and haven't been able to summon the energy to do a proper post when I actually had the free time. What hasn't helped is all three of us managing to come down full of cold this week, resulting in one night where no one went to bed until 9, everyone slept in Mama & Daddy's bed, and the adults slid into unconsciousness long before E passed out at the end of watching another Thomas the Tank Engine movie. It's also been a week of defiance in potty training, which - when compounded with having a slightly ill child - is enough to sap whatever extra energy you have left into the vortex of additional loads of laundry and mandatory bathroom-disinfecting sessions.

So have we been up to anything that doesn't sound miserable, disgusting, or highly contagious? In fact, we have. Let's talk about that for a while, shall we?

2 obsessions, caught on camera

We've started our Stay & Play group again and E's been loving it. Especially with the discovery of their Brio train sets. He could happily play with that set for hours. After all, this is the boy who once spent nearly 7 practically uninterrupted hours at his grandparents' house playing with a giant Duplo train set.

 We spent one day just sitting in the front yard of our block of flats blowing bubbles. I didn't have the energy for a walk to and from the playground and all of the following E around as he played, so this was the best way to get him some fresh air. Plus, we haven't just played with bubbles in ages. The cutest bit was listening to him shout as he ran around, 'Bauble! Bauble!' In his adorable pronunciation, this word works for both bubbles and marbles. Makes sense, I suppose.

On another day, I decided I really wanted to get in a decent walk, so I loaded the little mister into his buggy and we did the 2-mile loop that takes us along the brook in our neighbourhood. He was plied with Cheerios and raisins for the duration of our walk (I'm a lot slower than I used to be!) and we even got a chance to stop and feed all the ducks who were loitering in the brook. He was much more interested in it than he's letting on in the pictures.

On a few days we just made trips to the playground. One trip was to see his friend, Snowy, and the other was a bribe for coming along with me to a long and boring meeting and behaving himself the whole time. Of course, on that second trip, the rain cut us short. I was willing to stay out in a light drizzle, but proper rain meant getting back in the car and finishing the drive home.

The other thing I've been up to? Trying to chip away at the mental block I seem to have about planning E's second birthday party. Do I want a theme? What theme would he like the most? Should I even bother? How do I decorate if there's no theme? Will the fabric I ordered to make his duvet cover arrive on time? (There will be pictures of that once I have a sample to photograph!) Also, I ought to put up the rest of the pictures and video from the Family Fun Day that the Husband's work recently hosted. I owe you all a ton of posts, and I promise, though it may take me ages, I'll get round to them. After all, we're approaching the season of the year when EVERYTHING happens in my family...it's only going to get more interesting from here on out!