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