The Buckfastleigh Train

This was Leon's first experience of a real steam train. I was completely in awe, let alone him. It was beautiful and the power of the thing was literally awesome. It was a privilege to see Leon experience it for the first time.

Pennywell farm and cream teas

We drove through Dartmoor and saw many villages as pretty as this one, this was a particularly good vista. Stopped to look at the collection of rocks known as Hell's Hounds.

It was a bit windy up there and Tob's idea of stopping here for a picnic was swiftly changed to a trip to Lustleigh where we ate our lunch and washed it down with cream teas.

Pennywell Farm was a kiddie extraviganza with many cute animals and rare breeds as well as fun things like trampolines and tractor rides.

Our caravan, guarded by an attack gnome child.

The first week away, South Devon

It was a really good beach, the only one brave enough to go into the sea was Leon of course.

A303, show the boy a bunch of big stones

We stopped en route at Stonehenge to show the boy a bunch of big stones. I spotted a bloke wearing a sarong, guessed he was probably an actor, saw his wife and recognised her as Tamsin Greig the mad woman from Black Books. As we passed them the bloke, Richard (Rick) Leaf who when I looked him up on IMDB turned out to be more famous and successful an actor than Tamsin but I didn't recognise him, in his sarong, offered to take a picture of the four of us with Tob's camera, really nice of him, then I was close enough to Tamsin to say 'is it you?' she said yes and I fired her with a torent of complements. Her son said yes it was all true, they were a really sweet family. As they were on holiday, like we were, I swiftly wished them a good holiday and moved on, not wanting to spoil theirs.

Leon loved the big stones and did actually say 'big stones' at one point much to our glee and amusement.

Pictures - on the way down to Devon

We stopped at my Dad's to introduce him to Reuben and say hello! He was working so we literally dropped in for 15 mins, changed the boys in the grass in the carpark and went on our merry way.

Down in Devon

We came back from a lovely 2 weeks away in the west country on Friday. Tob's parents had a good idea and some Tesco vouchers which paid for most of a holiday at Haven down on the South Coast of Devon and a week at Butlins Minehead. I love the west country and considering the state of the worldwide tourist trade, holidaying in the UK is a safe bet a the mo, not to mention being alot cheaper.
The pool at Butlins was fab and much fun was had on the slides, chasing Leon the fearless around and hanging out with Jan and Maaike. The changing rooms at Butlins were really good too, as well as well heated, something that most pools can't seem to get right.
The Butlins experience was mixed, the place was OK, the kiddie stuff was good in places, not so great in others. The staff were very nice, the next door neighbours not so great, on the last night I ended up telling them to please turn off their telly and tell their kids to go to bed at about 1am. I must have been a bit scary as it went quiet immediatley.
We went on some fabulous day trips, to farms and on steam railways which was an absolute joy - to watch Leon see a real steam train moving for the first time, and sitting in a train. Every time it slowed down or stopped he got most upset. The Pecorama in South Devon, I re-named Slope World as apart from being an exiting mixture of model trains, real trains and well thought out children's climbing stuff with slides, the whole thing is situated on the side of a cliff pretty much providing Leon with his favorite past time running up and down things, hence 'Slope World'.
Leon's vocabulary has gone mad and he's making sentences now, short ones, but sentences none the less. He's also able to copy stuff we say now too. He definitely sees the benefits of language and is developing everyday.

8 weeks long

Well here we have Toby and Reuben at Ellen and Dan's on Sunday, I thought they looked particularly happy and scrummy. Then Leon and Lily on Monday afternoon round at Emma's having tea together. Emma has a 2nd baby girl, Daisy who is 3 months older than Reuben so we can see eye to eye on alot of things. Finally this morning we went to the hospital for Reuben's 6-8 week check and he's 12lb 9 oz, and 59cm long. Leon was 11lb5oz at 9 weeks and 60cm long, which surprised me - they are equally tall; Reuben's just got more flesh. I imagine it's that my milk flow being better means he's just made the most of it. Good on him.
After the check up, I started to head home amid protests from Leon so I gave in and took him round the back of the hospital to the park. Behind there and the houses is open fields. I could see a tractor ploughing so asked Leon if he wanted to go and see the tractor in action. He of course did, so we went round the back to have a proper look, hence the photo. He can nearly say tractor, but digger is easier so he called this one a digger. It was hard to disagree when I was explaining that the plough digs up the earth, plus it being yellow. In his world diggers are yellow and tractors are mainly red and blue with the odd green one.
We are off on holiday the end of the month and I need to decide which forms of transport we take for the boys - there's the zapp with the car seat and the single maclaren for them but should I take a double buggy too? we have a tandem one which folds quite well but is old, heavy and quite hard to push. On the plus side, Reuben loves it and sleeps like...a baby in it. Or there's the side by side Maclaren, which folds well, is easy to push, takes loads of stuff on it but leaves Reuben more exposed - he will sleep but as soon as the sun comes out, I need to cover his half with a blanket. Monday I took the Tandem buggy into town and Tuesday and yesterday the Maclaren. I'm leaning toward the Maclaren as it's easier to push and I can get more crap on it - it has a fabulous rain cover - both days we got caught in wind and rain and the rain cover is quick to put on and very secure - no nasty Velcro to come loose in a gust of wind unlike the Zapp cover which is the worst design I've ever seen, especially when the pushchair is such a good design. Today I'm back to the pram and toddler seat which is overall my favorite; it's comfy for Reuben and Leon, who has a brilliant view and I can keep entertained on long boring walks up Lynn road. It carries the most stuff underneath - I can loose £30 worth of shopping, nappy stuff and toys no bother in the tray underneath. It isn't exactly designed to go into a small car though, it is my car!

Rainy days and trying to take pictures of them together

The past week, the weather hasn't been great, but we usually come prepared with sun hats and sun cream plus wellies and brollies etc. Leon's been teething rather badly and day before yesterday Toby came home early with toothache. He was off yesterday to get it sorted, turns out it's not a filling but he has an abscess so they've given him antibiotics. Very sad, the two of them yesterday both with tooth problems.

I've got to gather the troops now for a trip into Norfolk with Ellen for the morning, then back here this afternoon to have the mums and kids round. Definitely garden weather.

peas...pod...bigger pod

Reuben, then Leon, 18th Jan 2007, so he was a 2 and a half months next to Reuben on the 9th of August, so he's about a month and a half. In the same outfits. Reuben is a big boy...

First smiles

Reuben's in his own room now for about a week, mostly feeding twice a night, around 2am and around 5am and once only about 4am - I'm hoping we can get him down to once a night soon. He's very good though and with Toby giving him an expressed feed last thing before we go to bed and putting him in his cot, he's falling asleep by himself without having to be fed or rocked to sleep. When rocking is needed, the pram has been brilliant during the day.

Reuben is starting to play with the hanging toys, well bat them anyway and will sit in the bouncer and watch his brother playing.

I'm coping pretty well with them both in real nappies, it is more washing but I'm managing with mostly just the one wash a day for everything so it's not presenting too much more work for the washing machine.

Leon's vocabulary is exploding this is a list to date, some more regularly than others but it's coming on every day.

daddy

mum

shu = shoe

cake (cake or biscuit)

ta = thank you

plee = please (not very often!)

bii = big

bee = bib

ba = bath

buu = bus

bee = any flying insect

naa = no

noo = nose

yaaah = yay!

rea = red

bue = blue

ge = green

wye = white

baa = black

red car/boo car/wye car /red buu etc

big car

daddy down = I want to get down from the high-chair

daddy shoe

daddy car

no-way = I don't want to do that

mar mar = marmite

goggog = yoghurt

app = apple

water

police car

dactor = tractor

rain

poo

pee pee

up!

ztheee = three

he counts using made up 'see' type sounds and when he counts the last one exclaims loudly.

The Beach 2008

We had a fabulous day, kids seem to be contagious, last year just us with Leon, this year 6 kids! An adorable girl about Leon's age, who fell in love with him, he was completley oblivious sadly. The other 4 were all under 1, mainly about 9 months Reuben being the baby at just over one month. We talked real nappies, it was amazing to be in the company of 3 other mums using real nappies again.Toby was totally exausted by the end of the day chasing round after Leon.