Oh no! runaway train!

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Leon's been on about an Engine Shed for some time now.

Check out Leon's snazzy new pj's thanks to his God Father Adam. We love em!

Boxing Day at Nana and Grumps

Leon spent most of the afternoon either on his bike or poking it with spanners while we watched South Pacific.

He loved his new tool box/work station. It must be a boy thing, he was straight in there, absolutely loved it.

This is a picture done by ellen of a window from Ely Cathedral, when we arrived, Leon made a bee line for the picture, saying it was the Cathedral, picked up up and sat down to admire it.

Christmas stream of consciousness

Reuben's first Christmas. Leon's first sentient Christmas. In our new house. I cooked Christmas dinner - a nice big roast beef. I forgot the Yorkshire puds, other than that it was passable. It was really nice to sit round the table with Ellen and Dan, shame I forgot crackers too but Ellen, wonder Nana, made some and even made the hats. We didn't get to pull them or make them go bang (we could have done the Good Life trick and said 'bang' but didn't).

Ebay mum had scored a few bits of wooden railway for Leon. We tried to spread out the presents and make sure Leon participated in us opening our presents to avoid melt downs and misunderstandings. He was pretty good but the excitement did get to him by the end of the day. We did boxing day at Ellen and Dan's, they were able to give him a couple more presents, ones that we keep at theirs, like a magnificent tool set. Leon spent much of boxing day afternoon poking his bike with a toy spanner. It must be genetic.

Leon's play is getting more interesting along with his speech. He makes up stories with his train set now and shouts no! no! stop pushing! as Thomas is forced around the track by the naughty trucks, just like in the books. He's obsessed with fire and bonfires and fireworks too, he seems to be setting fire to his cars and then rescuing them, fortunately only in his imagination. Luckily thanks to an early run in with a hot radiator, he has a healthy respect/fear for fire. It doesn't stop his fixation. He talks about the fires in the boilers of the trains, he knows they can be distinguished in that way from the trucks and carriages. I think Ivor the Engine has something to do with this bit of knowledge too, he loves that too. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has become a favorite too he loves the bits when the car flies and floats as much as any other scenes with the car in. Any scene without the car in it he heckles the tv until it's back on screen.

We've managed to escape so far the bad flu bugs so far apart from Tob's been off with a bad cold and both Leon and Reuben have a cough that seems to only really come out at night, apart from runny noses, during the day they are fine. Leon's coughing at night wakes him up from time to time and we've had a few nights where he's been awake at 2am, chatting away to me while I convince him to go back to sleep, which after about an hour he does do, the stuff he talks about is amazing. I can see why way back when, people thought kids could be possessed by the devil, the things he comes up with. Don't ask me what, I'm only half awake too, it just strikes me as surreal the things he talks about, also bare in mind I can only pick up bits as not all of it actually makes sense.

Reuben is sleeping through about 50% of the time, and when he doesn't he wakes up about 5am for a feed and then sleeps until about 8am, which is wonderful. That is, if Leon doesn't wake him up all bouncy like a coiled spring from 6-7am. Leon bounces out of bed into us and jumps on us until one of us takes him downstairs. From the minute he wakes up to when he goes to bed he doesn't stop moving or talking. The catarrh he had had for the past few weeks is suppressing his appetite, I weighed him yesterday and he's lost .4 of a kilo, or just under a pound. He was 14.5 kg on his birthday and he's now 14.1kg. I hope I can feed him back up again soon. For a start Reuben is enormous and will need to go into the forward facing seat so we want him over 15kg to go into a group 2/3 seat by March. Reuben is already in clothes for 9-12m - not width but length, he's a bit chubby but it's mainly sheer stature. He's sitting up reliably, still not rolling over. Weening has only just started, he was 6 months last week, I tried from about mid December but he's only really starting to take an interest now. It has improved the poo situation - it's getting more solid and regular so less major leakage like when it was a twice weekly explosion. It's every day now, sometimes twice!

Leon was taking food out of my hand at 4 and a half months, Reuben is a big baby but has been very relaxed when it's come to introducing food. I breast feed just morning and night now as he prefers a bottle - or rather I prefer not to have my boob out while he looks around the place and takes forever to feed, I need him to be free from distractions to breast feed which just doesn't happen during the day. I had exactly the same with Leon at this stage. 50/50 works well though.

Reuben's very noisy when he plays and likes to make his presence known, he laughs a lot and loves to be tickled. When he wakes up in the morning, quite often he doesn't cry for a while, choosing first to squeal to get attention, which usually works. When I go in the morning, I'm mostly greeted with the friendliest, most playful of grins.

Leon is a charming little boy - I often wondered what it says about me and Tobe that Leon is comfortable to sit on any of my friend's laps and is affectionate with many people he likes, especially other kids dads, more so than the other kids. I don't think it says anything about us, it's just him, he's a people person (some have put it down to him being a Scorpio but that's a bit too much of a generalisation for me). Reuben is charming too but in a different way, I've yet to work out how, but I think he's going to be out going too. They are lovely boys and I feel really lucky as they make parenting mostly a pleasure.

Winter baby

Ely Switch on

Leon now has his own perch on the Silver Cross. He walks pretty much everywhere but usually about half a mile from home again he gives up an takes his place on the pram. It's better than carrying his 15kg body I can tell you. It's also handy when it rains, I can hold a brolly over him as I push the pram which is alot less miserable for him than walking in the rain (unless there's loads of puddles of course!)

On Friday evening, Ellen, Dan and I took Leon and Reuben to the Christmas lights switch on. We didn't stay late enough for the switch on but we did have a good time :)

Weaning time at the Joneses

It's that time again. We've had a really nice quiet family weekend doing as little as possible. I've done very well bidding on Ebay for some wooden railway bits for Leon over the coming year. We started the weaning phase with Reuben today; some banana mixed with breast milk. He took to it really well and followed his satisfying transistion to the world of spoons with the mother of all poos. Fortunatley for me, Toby was changing him. I've been posting the grobags that Reuben's just grown out of on ebay too, so the camera has been out all day. Not bad for a cold wet Sunday.

Ebay and on

I've just spent the morning putting size 1 nappies on Ebay - just the stuff that Reuben won't be needing - still loads in use. I'm getting the hang of selling stuff on ebay now and have another big parcel to take to the post office today.

Reuben is asleep upstairs, he's getting the hang of going into his cot during the day which means he's getting longer day sleeps rather than just cat naps. I am hoping that Leon will go down OK at midday, yesterday he wouldn't have his midday nap or go to bed in the evening without being confined in his cot - the past week or so he's had the cot side down and could get in and out but went to bed fine, just yesterday found it entertaining to keep getting out.

The weekend was relaxed and uneventful, just chillin out as a family, the odd bit of house work but mainly just chilling out.

Time flies when you've got two of em!

Apologies for the gap since my last confession. Much has happened, including Leon turning two. He is a right little chatterbox and we are getting full on tantrums and carpet beating now.

Reuben is sitting up, playing with rattles, still averaging just a couple of poos a week and is sleeping well not to mention growing very well.

My week is heavily structured and I walk into town most days for playgroups, music classes and the like. This has been good for my waistline and I'm steadily loosing weight and feeling fitter. Leon's birthday party was an enjoyable experience, and we have discovered that Leon's still a bit young for fireworks.

Ellen and Dan are a great help with getting through the week with the two of them; Tuesdays they take Reuben while I take Leon swimming and Wednesdays while I take Leon to Music Class.

Jan and Maaike have been and gone, everyone enjoyed it, especially Leon and Maaike. Jan and I got on better than we have ever done and we both acknowledged this fact which was really great. Dad came up for Leon's birthday and got to see the new house for the first time too, that was good too. Dad has been sooo busy this year what with work and having kittens twice. Oh and Mum and John came to stay too so October has been a busy month all in all. We don't have alot of good photos for show for it really either. I will see what I can find.

Tractor Leon

We went to the Ramsey Plough Fest on Sunday, as you can see Leon had a whale of a time. It was very interesting to see all these old vintage tractors ploughing up fields. Every once in a while you would be faced with a modern one which was about 3 times the size of the old ones and you realise just how big they are. Tobe got to plough an actual furrow and as you can see there's a very proud picture of Leon and Tobe in a tractor taken by it's owner. I wandered around with Reuben in the papoose and due to the fact the weather looked like it would turn for the worst, I put the mexican blanket round him. I then got every other person cooing and ahhhing about him. I doubt I went more than a couple of steps without someone melting at the amazing cuteness of the boy. As Tobe was with Leon and had the camera, all the pics are of Leon.

On Monday out in the garden playing with the tractor and sand, I came out to find he'd piled the tractor with sand and ericatious soil mud from the Acer tree. He'd been out there for ages which was great for me as I was cleaning the kitchen, I'd glance out the window to see what he was up to. All I could see was he was happily playing with the sand. It was only on close inspection I saw the extent of the mess once he'd gone for his sleep and I went out to clear up. It just made me smile. I did move all the pots well away from the sand pit...