Archive for July, 2011

Sleep


30 Jul

Last week, on Wednesday night, Toby slept for 5 hours without waking. That was the longest he has slept for a really, really long time. He used to sleep 5 or 6 hours when he was a newborn, but that hasn’t happened since he was 3 months old. As I said, until last week.

Normally Toby will sleep for 3 hours after getting him to sleep at night, and after he wakes the first time he sometimes wakes only two more times in the night, though mostly it is a lot more than that. I stopped counting a long time ago. When I say that he wakes, I don’t know that he totally wakes up, but he wriggles and calls out for me and wants milk, and if I don’t respond quickly then he wakes up properly and it is always harder to get him back to sleep from that state. Occasionally he continues to wriggle and then I put him on the potty, but mostly he settles down though he can suck for a very long time. Needless to say, I feel like I’ve been quite sleep deprived for a long, long time.

I hope that I am not jinxing the sleep situation here by writing about it, but Toby slept for 8 hours last night. Yes, that was EIGHT lovely hours. I wonder how long it will be be before that happens again. 🙂

19 months old


30 Jul

Camera Roll-100
Photo taken by Steph.

I’m already over a week late with Toby’s monthly update, but there isn’t really much to mention besides his rapidly expanding vocabulary. I am totally amazed at how many more words he has, and how much more understandable he is, from just a month ago.

I am really enjoying his language exploration. I remember Nathan doing pretty much the same things, so it is sort of a trip down memory lane as well. When we walk places, for example, Toby will walk for a bit and then say ‘stop’ and simultaneously stop walking. He will wait for a bit, then say ‘go’ and start walking again. Often he waits for me to stop walking as well when he stops. I had forgotten that Nathan used to do exactly the same thing.

Penguin hair


28 Jul

Today I woke up with a penguin tangled in my hair.

I wonder whether that has any meanings that can be read into it….other than the fact that Toby took a penguin figurine to bed last night and i happened to put my head on it during the night. I did vaguely wonder what was sharp and sticking into my head….seems it was just a penguin beak.

Baby gift finished


28 Jul

Baby gift

I finally got the top and shorts finished for baby Thomas who is now more than two months old. So I guess it is a good thing I have made size 68, which I assume should fit at around 6 months old.

Boring day


24 Jul

Yesterday we went television shopping. Our TV has been working only intermittently for the last couple of months, and on Friday it finally died it’s final death. We don’t watch a lot of television in our house, but this weekend happens to be a Grand Prix weekend and also the end of the Tour de France, so the big screen was going to be useful. Except that it no longer works.

So yesterday found us looking at new televisions in several shops, with a trip to a sewing shop in-between for my lesson on a new machine that I got for my birthday. Then, after lunch we looked at televisions again. We were out later than expected, so had Japanese food for dinner and went home to put the kids into bed.

In the evening just before helping Nathan to sleep I often spend a few minutes talking to him about the day. When I put him in bed last night he told me that we wouldn’t talk about the day. I asked why not, and he said because it was boring. I asked what was boring…..looking at TVs was the answer. I reminded him of the other things we did, not that they were particularly exciting but I was sure that he enjoyed them, but the boredom of TV shopping dominated the day.

Endangered


12 Jul

We have been watching on iView the BBC series Last Chance to See. Nathan is really enjoying it. We watched some this afternoon, and afterwards I came across Nathan and Toby sitting side by side in the hallway.

Nathan: Mummy, we are on a boat.

Me: Really? Where are you going?

Nathan: We are on the edge of extinction.

Sewing


07 Jul

All Imported-1032

My latest creation is a long sleeve t-shirt for Nathan. I recently made myself a long sleeve top out of the same stripy fabric, and Nathan wanted one the same (now he wants us to wear our tops at the same time so that we match!!). I made his and then decided it needed something on the front. Nathan requested a car appliqué, so I used one from an Ottobre magazine and tried sewing it on with a stretch stitch that does two stitches forwards and one backwards, thus making the sewn line thicker and more noticeable. I had never done it like that before, and it took me a while to work out the best place to turn….it ended up being after the first forward stitch, which is quite logical if I had stopped to think about it. I decided it was too hard to do this stitch on really tight curves, so I just did normal stitching around the windows and the inner circles of the wheels.

I’ve discovered that I quite like sewing, but I am definitely no seamstress. I can carefully follow a pattern so that it works, but when it comes to making any adjustments I am totally lost. I remember making clothes when I was a teenager, and got really frustrated if something didn’t work because the sizing didn’t fit me perfectly. The kids are pretty much a perfect shape, so there is little, if any, adjustment needed with the patterns I am using, though Toby is a bit on the skinny side and I foresee some changes to patterns in my future for him. I think I am certainly capable of making a t-shirt skinnier for my little boy, for example, but I am still lothe to make anything for myself.

To get some more confidence in making adjustments to patterns when sewing for both myself and the kids, I have decided to do a pattern making course at CAE. I have chosen a course that is run on two Sundays for 6.5 hours each day. It will be the first time I will be voluntarily away from Toby for more than an hour (or however long he was with Andrew and Nathan on some short walks they have done together), and only the second time we have been separated (the first being when i was in hospital having surgery on my toe). So doing this course is going to be a big deal for all of us, with Andrew having to cope with toileting, sleep time, and the two kids on his own, Toby who will have to cope without me for a day (he is very much a Mummy boy when tired or upset), and Nathan….well, he just loves being with his Daddy so he will have a ball no matter what happens.

Last Import-4

Words


06 Jul

Mummy to Toby: do you want to do a somersault?
Nathan: is it summer?
Mummy: no, it is winter.
Nathan: I want to do a winter-sault.

Daddy, reading book to Nathan and Toby: …..four cuttlefish……
Nathan gives Toby a hug and says: cuddlefish!

We had fajitas for dinner tonight. I said something about the fajitas…..
Nathan, pointing to the heating vent: there’s one there!
Mummy: what is there?
Nathan: a heater!

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