Pre birthday update

Hello pie fans!

Well, it's been a few weeks at least...actually a whole month (again, I know) since any Isaac related news. So here goes.

Isaac is now TEN DAYS shy of his second birthday. WTF? WHEN? When did my little baby boy suddenly nearly become TWO?! Best get on with birthday presents and cake!

Until a few weeks ago he didn't like slides. He could climb up them, but then didn't know how to do the next bit and no amount of Mummy help would teach him. Then we were at a local messy play morning (that happened to have a slide) and he observed a little girl's technique. Now? There's no stopping him! Literally. He spent half an hour sliding that day. The next time we went to a kids play area he spent another good half hour sliding. He can't get enough! Everywhere that has a slide must be slid upon. He loves the sliding. Nuff said.

He has lots of new words and ways to express himself now too. He says penguin! But called them pengas (with a soft g). TOO CUTE! It's because we have a lovely book (Me by Emma Dodd) that we read at night. I ask him which one he wants and it's usually either 'penga' or 'beebee' (Star Baby by Margarent O'Hair). He loves his bedtime stories. 

And talking of bedtime. I got him a duvet this week to see how he gets on with it. I plan to take the side off the cot soon and want him to be used to sleeping without his sleeping bags before we take the plunge. They've been so incredibly helpful, but I think it's time to move on, especially as I'm starting to think about potty training...but not quite yet. 

Other favourite words include: "Mum! Look!" "Where go?" accompanied by open hands gesticulating 'where?' "Cake" remains a firm favourite. Anyone would think that the boy lived on cake and cake alone. I do feed him a range of foods (when he'll eat them)! Cake seems to be a general term for food or being hungry. He knows "cook" now too and takes great pleasure in telling me that I'm cooking. There are loads, seriously. They all make me smile and some of them make me chuckle. He's ace.

He sees me with my Mummy bag of endless pockets and depth and apparently decided that he wants one too! He purloined this one of mine during an unpacking fit one day and gets very upset if he has to go anywhere without it. I decided I didn't really like it being dragged everywhere because it's one of my favourites so I have made him one of his own in a messenger style. It's pretty good, even if I do say so myself. It will get its own glorious post when I get around to taking pictures of it!

This was taken last Sunday on a walk up at Shipley Country Park. Yet another lovely place to walk the dog and take Isaac to see greenery and wildlife. He loved looking at the birds and the big pond there. He's very good at walking and walks nearly all the way into town without wanting to be picked up now. That's pretty good for one with such little leggies! We still use the hip seat, but much less now as he boldly strides about checking everything out.

The best thing I've bought for him to play with this summer has been his sand and water table from ELC. Hands down. He'll spend an hour at this thing playing with the sand. The water didn't do so well and ended up as part of the sand, so now it's just sand in there. Admittedly he chucks the sand all over the garden, but hey, he's having fun. That's the main thing. 

He still loves his books and we've snuck in a few episodes of Timmy Time on the BBC iPlayer. My GAHD he LOVES TT. Seriously. Then again I love it too. It's beautifully made, has simple story lines without (like a lot of kids TV) being horrifically dumb and makes us both chuckle. We love how different the characters are; even the two grown up characters in it are a hoot! 

Enjoying Mummy's hairband.

On a more serious note: he seems to be adapting well to our new house and living without Daddy. They see each other every other evening and every other weekend. He gets to see his sisters a fair bit too which is important because he loves them so very much. It's important for them to see him too, of course. I'm sure the change in circumstances will have affected him, but I'm doing all I can to make things right for us. We're still busy meeting up with people (when parcel collection doesn't scupper our plans gah!) and going out to parks and on dog walks etc. Busy keeps us happy. He met his French cousins for the first time last week which was great - they all got on famously!

We're headed south this weekend to scatter Grandpa over the Solent and pay our final respects. It will be emotional I'm sure. The whole family will be together again which will be nice. Blended family is a strange one, but seemingly the norm these days. Isaac will grow up not knowing any different. For that I am grateful; he won't remember Mummy and Daddy being together so less pain there than if he did...I hope? Only time will tell. 

Anyhoo, back to happy thoughts of the all important second birthday! See you next month? Or maybe before...

Happy birthday Grandma

This lady right here is my Grandma, my Dad's Mum. I never got a chance to meet her and my Dad didn't know her for very long either; she died when he was seventeen. What a trauma for him! Imagine having your mother ripped away from you at a time in your life when you're still finding your feet. 

I think she has a beautiful face and I can see a lot of my father in her. I like her laughter lines and her lovely smile. I wonder what she was looking at when this picture was taken? I love the spots on her clothes and how dark her eyes are.

This is the only picture of her that I have and I've had it for a good few years now. She's been all over the country with me and has made me feel happy when I've looked at her. 

I wonder what she was like? Dad tells me that she would have loved me very much. I think I have her cheeks.

She would have been one hundred years old today. So happy birthday to you Grandma that I never met. I hope we do one day.

A note on crochet (and a bit about knitting)

I have cancelled my subscription to The Art of Crochet. There are several reasons for this.

1. I have completed all of the square patterns at least once.

2. I'm not so keen on the other patterns in the magazine.

3. I will have very limited space in my new house for storage of crafty items.

4. I don't think I can learn much more from it.
5. I prefer square patterns from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton and ones I find online. More imaginative and purty.

I've achieved what I set out to and feel no remorse about not completing the throw. I have The Art of Knitting after all! One subscription is enough for anyone. I only know the basics of knitting so I shall see how I feel about it when I can confidently say the first four things listed above about it.

On a crochet related note, I have made another amigurumi! Meet Barry.

He's a bit cute inne? He was made for my friend Kate because she loves penguins...a lot. He's another Lion Brand pattern (link here, you'll need a [free] account to view it).

In other yarn related news: the sweater I started for Isaac in January. You know...the one that nearly made it to finished item status? Well, it's never going to be finished because now it's TOO BLOODY SMALL for him. Plus it's summer. So meh. Nevermind. I learned that sweaters aren't as hard as I thought they would be and that knitting with circulars isn't as bad as I originally thought. R.I.P. lovely jumper. I've edited my Ravelry queue so I should ctually find myself achieving more, especially if I finish what I cast on and don't buy yarn unnecessarily! I'm told it's manageable. We shall see!

Green grass, blue sky and a picnic

Click image to enlarge

We really are lucky that there is such beauty so close to where we live. We arranged to meet my friend Steph and her daughter for the morning at Carsington Water as our sprogs seem to be nap synced. There are three walks you can do; we opted for the gentle walk as Steph is due any day now with Daniel (can't wait to meet you little man!) There was lots of chasing each other around and "this way!" and "a bee!" It was so lovely to get out into the sunshine and pretend I was by the sea a little bit. I even managed to take Rinny who loved it and didn't bugger about at all! A dog's gotta get out sometime, right?

And now for something completely different

Yes. A new chapter in my life is starting. One where I am no longer married to and no longer living with Isaac's father. I've debated writing about this heavily with myself and have come to the conclusion that I am going to want to remember how I felt at the time and so here I am. 

I honestly and truly thought thirty was just a number, life goes on, one year older and nothing changes, right? Oh how wrong can a person be? Thirty, for me, was an epic milestone. A time for massive reflection, consideration, decision making and action. There are things I know in my heart to be true that I've ignored for a long time and things I thought would go away and haven't. 

As far as ending my marriage goes, well, it was the single most difficult thing I've ever done. So many ripples with endless possibilities. It's not as if my decision only affects me and certainly wasn't one made lightly. In the beginning I was really really angry, then really really sad. Now I've made peace with it (this isn't one of those posts so don't expect juicy details) and am looking forward to the future. We have an Isaac plan which looks pretty bloody good and means he'll get to see lots of his Daddy. It's not as traumatic as I thought it would be, now, and we're both very positive about the decisions we've made. It's down to people outside of the decision to accept our choices. They don't have to understand it or even like it. Just accept it and move on. We are.

As for Isaac? I know he won't grow up with Mummy and Daddy living together as a happy family unit and this is what breaks my heart. Even now as I write my eyes prickle. I swore I wouldn't make him feel what I did as a result of my parent's separation. I can't guarantee that, but through communication and honesty I'm hoping he'll understand and not hate me for it.

So now I return to a me almost forgotten. It's something getting to know her again. I thank each and every one of my friends who supports me in my decision and loves me for who I am, even though I lost sight of that a long time ago. 

That covers all I wanted to. Anything else is not yours to know.

Boy in a box!

You know the general consensus that the box is always better than the toy? Well, here's all the proof you need.

And then it was June

Where does the year go? I blink and I haven't posted anything for over a month (again, I know). I've been sorting out pictures this morning and the month of June so far is looking shockingly empty Isaac photo-wise. The ones I do have are taken on my phone, so not the greatest quality.

Isaac continues to be a source of joy and happiness for me. He's always up to something hilarious which is really him learning, but could just as easily be mistaken for him trying to make me laugh. His latest favourite thing is a battered old Roses tin from Halloween a few years past. He likes to sit in it, wear it as a hat, throw it around and generally terrify the dog with the loudness of it. Poor Rinny looks like she's going to have a heart attack sometimes, but how to and indeed why kerb the enthusiasm of a child? It's tremendously difficult to snap him these days so most pictures are a blur of Wiggler!

He's recently discovered his pockets and loves to put things in them. We recently went on a short shopping trip to a local home store and I asked him if he wanted to take some toys with him. Off he went to find George Pig (borrowed from Roisin) and his little brontosaurus and put one in each pocket.

He's much more precise with a pen now and his scribbles are very controlled. I'm interested to see what he will draw when he'd older as I understand that boys draw differently to girls, not so much the things/objects.

He's in his own big room now so all his toys are up there with him. He really loves it and it means we have mostly reclaimed the living room! It also means his sisters' room stays tidy when they aren't here.

He's such a clever little boy. I know I'm going to say things like that because he's my son, but he really is a clever one. He always gives us his plate when he's finished. He's more than capable of drinking out of a regular glass at meal times. He loves to put his books and toys away when he knows it's time to do s. His words are coming along now and he'll try to copy me when we're reading a book. He particularly enjoys Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Goodnight Moon, Star Baby and For Just One Day. He still loves his Richard Scarry book and we keep that in his room so we can ready him different bed time stories. I'm getting very excited about reading him longer bedtime stories as he get older, bigger books like The Chronicles of Narnia, Peter Pan, Just So Stories. Then there are Grimm's Fairy Tales, Aesop's Fables etc and the myriad new books in the children's literature section of the book shops that I haven't even begun to explore yet...there a just so many truly great books that I've known and loved that I want to share with him! I think it's important to share stories and toys from times gone by because, if I'm honest, kids culture these days scares me a little in that it seems to treat children like imbeciles, not little people who are going to be adults one day. I just hope his love of stories and books continues.

Trying on hats in H&M

He has a very serious side too where he's desperately trying to tell me something, but he just doesn't have the words yet. Gesture helps us a lot in understanding him and he understands pretty much everything we say to him. His attention span is phenomenal for one his age; he'll quite happily sit and play with the same thing very intently for up to twenty minutes! I was playing with him on & off with the same thing for an hour the other day! Of course there are times when he'll pull out every single toy in his room and not be interested in one of them for longer than thirty seconds. Some of his favourite toys include cars, dollies, his push along clacky dinosaur and his farm animals.

He likes walking around the shops with me; he'll chat to the shop assistants, peruse rails of clothes (with some of the cutest/funniest faces you've ever seen) and sample textures and smells, he likes to take things off shelves and then re-stack them - he never leaves a mess. I'm really a very lucky Mama! He LOVES the shoe department the most, particularly massive high heels! I guess it's because he doesn't see them at home so they are a novelty.


HE EATS VEGETABLES NOW! Almost forgot that! How? Simon and I have decided to change our diet and eat more simply during the week (steamed vegetables, grains and a simple sauce) so we thought we'd implement the change on Isaac too and so far no complaints. He's eaten butternut squash, ASPARAGUS!, potato, carrot, and green beans! We are most pleased. He also like lentil dahl as long as it's whizzed up to a smooth paste. He LOVES bread and is always asking for toast. Since he decided to eat vegetables I'm much more relaxed about his vitamin & mineral intake and if we have a bad day then I'm not so stressed. Some meals he'll eat loads and then at others next to nothing. We're all trying to limit our cheese intake and highly processed foods such as Quorn and tofu which looks to be more achievable now. Happy lady! Eating out is now much easier as a result also and waitresses and waiters alike are powerless to resist his cheeky grim and charm. Eating out food that tends to be cheese related because obviously that's all that vegetarians eat. When are restaurant management going the EDUCATE THEMSELVES?! Pigs may fly.

Lunching with Mama

So, that's enough waffle for this month. I shall leave you with the Wiggler doing his ghost impression. Not that he knows what a ghost is, but it was a very good impression none-the-less complete with shouting and staggering!