Unbelievably so, it’s been AGES since I’ve written anything about the boys, Jack and Oli. I think blogging managed to be something that I’ve let run away from me, in the midst of now having two of the little blighters in the house.
I’ll try to make a more conscious effort in future, as I really want to have a record of their goings-on, but to be fair, there’s not a massive amount of time left in the month!
So, right now, Jack is 3.5 yrs old (ish) and Oliver is about 7 months old.
Oliver is a real bundled of smiles and dribble wrapped up in baby clothes – since he was very small, the drool has simply POURED out of his mouth, but not that he’s teething or anything, but just got the setting on maximum for it. As such, he’s always wearing a bib, and goes through easily ten in a day, as they become soaked to the point of when you try to wipe the next bit dribble away, you’re actually making more of face wet!
He’s still not sleeping through the night, which is a real kicker for his mum and I. We were sort of thinking that we were making some real progress in convincing ol’ blondy that he could survive longer sleeping patterns, but just as he’s getting there, he’s gone and caught Chicken Pox. Not a massive surprise, as Claire’s been making them both share time/air with other infected nippers, to try and get it before school starts again, and before Claire has to return to work after maternity leave. Jack seems immune to it, which is totally odd, but Oli is absolutely plastered in spots, to the point that his head is a Braille horror story. In the past day or so, he’s grown some pox-spots in or near his ears, which have made them so sensitive that Superman would worry. So much so, he gets really upset if we accidentally breathe upon it from a distance. Tears. Screams. Not good. Especially at 5 am, which he’s taken to waking up at, permanently.
He’s waking around midnight/1am and crying and screaming himself into a state – Claire’s taken the brunt of these Oli-poundings, but the truth is, he’s awake and thrashing around for about an hour before he can be tempted into having some milk and going back to sleep.
As you can imagine, with Oli waking at midnight and then again at five, it’s not leaving any of us any real time to get some proper sleep, but although you get used to it as a new parent, 7 months is really starting too drag on a bit, young Master Rigby!! (hint hint!)
Oli’s on the tipping point, too, of crawling which is so funny to watch. He’s been able to rolly-polly around the floor by himself and sit up-right for a while now, and he can wiggle himself into the baby-crawling position, and then he rocks himself forwards and backwards as though he’s teasing us. Then he decks-it on to his front and then slams his out-stretched arms down in front of him, and pulls the world towards him on his tummy, whilst kicking his legs like he’s in the swimming pool behind him. This is a bit different from Jack, as he used to do the the full-on army/commando crawl, and then converted this straight into walking; so we were robbed of the crawling-baby back then. Maybe Oli will be the one to enlighten us as to this elusive art?
Jack – When he’s in the company of Oliver, he’s usually either all over him, by cuddling, kissing or pulling at arms/legs/etc (affectionately – mostly!) or he’s dancing or waving his arms whilst talking Whale-speak to him. Either way, Oli has nothing but smiles and ‘coo’s for Jack, his constant entertainer.
Occasionally, Jack does get a taste of the green-eyed monster though, although this tends to be when Jack is a bit tired and aware that he’s not the centre of attention at that particular moment. But to be fair, it’s not an easy thing to judge, as to when to show Jack the attention that he’s craving, and when not to, as to try to teach him that our little family has grown by 133% since Oli’s arrived in town.
Jack is growing and learning new things all the time. He’s recently been into historical events such as The Titanic and Cook’s HMS Endeavour, as well as dinosaurs, Range Rovers, Land Cruisers and the like. His vocabulary is expanding massively, and sometimes, this totally catches me off-guard when he says something using a word that I didn’t know he knew. Or, even funnier, is when he re-uses something that we’ve said but in the wrong context, as he’s just relaying words. Little star.
In September, Jack moves onto the next part of his pre-school stuff, and will be attending the local school for three hours in the mornings, five days a week. Up until the 6 weeks (!!) holidays, he’s been going to pre-school for three hours in the afternoon.
