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What’s in a Name? (Part 2)

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Do you know it took us over 2 years to twig that in naming them Jake & Ellie we may have subconsciously named our children after the Blues Brothers?

Both of us love not only the film but also its music. Jake & Ellie / Jake & Elwood. Although I’m pretty sure that ‘Elwood’ wouldn’t have been our first choice for a 2nd boy.

Seriously – 2 years!

We, or at least I, have a dilemna of a different sort now.

They’re 2 years & 8 months now. They’re not babies any more, & for some time now have taken great offense at being called that. From virtually as soon as he could talk Jake would indignantly tell us: “I not a baby, I Jake!” whenever we used the B word.

So we now call them toddlers. But, hang on – isn’t ‘toddling’ that thing they do when they’ve just learnt to walk & are still very unsteady on their feet? When they don’t so much as walk but move forwards with their feet going as far sideways as they do forwards, & fall on their plump little bottoms a lot?

They definitely don’t ‘toddle’ any more. They haven’t ‘toddled’ for a long time. Now they walk, they run, they sidestep, they jump, they climb, they roll.

In fact we had our first “I’m not a toddler!” from Jake at dinner-time tonight.

So what are they then? Pre-schoolers? They’re not even at Nursery yet – we’re planning that for next year after they turn 3 – so aren’t they a bit young for that still?

Maybe it doesn’t matter, but so many toys & other children’s products are labelled as for ‘babies’, ‘toddlers’ or ‘pre-schoolers’, & I’m not sure what ours are anymore!

So what do you /did you call yours at a similar age? Does it matter?

Whatever they are, & whatever they become, to us they’ll always be our Jake & Ellie. I just feel privileged to be able to share in their journey.

After all, everybody needs somebody to love, right? (Sorry, couldn’t resist…)

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Funky!

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You may have noticed that there’s been a dearth of posting-type activity on my 3 active blogs recently. You knew I had 3 blogs, right? ;)

The truth is I’ve been in a bit of a funk. And I’m not even sure why. I mean Spring is springing, the Sun is sunning, we’ve had 2 nights in a row where I haven’t needed the heating on, Jallie are eating & playing in the garden. Most importantly, Jallie are happy & developing well.

Their seemingly constant illnesses has been bothering me though I think. Through most of the winter they seemed to either have a cold or cough, often both. Recently they both have had stuffed & constantly very runny noses & a nasty cough, both of which were disturbing their (& obviously our) sleep. Jake’s cough was often so bad that it caused him to throw up. Now that they’ve both lost the cold & the cough Jake has caught some sort of bug. He’s vomitting regularly, is pale & a bit subdued & has slight diarrhoea, although he’s mostly happy & playful, as ever. It takes a lot to get my Jakey down!

Unlike me, it seems. There are other things I could point to that might be a factor, but nothing certain.

Everyone copes with the blues in their own way – some good, some not so.  Some drink (when I was younger maybe), some turn to legal or illegal drugs (not my style), some comfort eat (guilty! mostly sweets). When the real world is getting me down I tend to escape into fantasy worlds, which for me means gaming. My game of choice at the moment is an online game called Guild Wars, an MMORPG. For those not familiar, it’s a bit like World of Warcraft, like a strategy game with swords (or in my case mostly bows & arrows).

I’ve been spending most of what leisure time I have building my characters’ skills, exploring, following the many story-lines & slaying monsters – immersing myself in a fantasy world, pure Escapism. And great fun.

So my blogging has suffered. And I’m now starting to feel bad about that. Not only have I not been posting much, I haven’t been reading much & – worst of all I think – I haven’t been responding to comments.

So I’ve decided to give myself a big kick in my Drakescale-armoured backside (now that takes some agility – all this hero stuff must be rubbing off on me!) & just get on with it. Hell, I enjoy blogging!

So: apologies for the break in transmission, normal service will resume as soon as possible :)

UPDATED: In cricket they call it “The Commentator’s Curse”. Since writing the weather has turned cold & wet again, Ellie has caught the vomit virus – & so have I.  Anyone out there played “Quake“? Remember the Vomitorium? Yep. At least I have better reason to be feeling down…

UPDATED AGAIN (Thursday 14th): We all seem better now. And there seems to be evidence of sunshine outside. *Happy face on*

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Silent Sunday: Happiness is a Cardboard Tunnel

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Silent Sunday’s great! For more go see Mocha Beanie Mummy

Silent Sunday

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The Gallery: Simple Pleasures

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Sunshine, a ball, & good company: what more does a boy need?

There are many more Simple Pleasures in Tara’s Gallery at Sticky Fingers, so why not head on over & take a look (click the pic.):

20 Things That a Year Ago I Never Thought I’d Be Doing Now

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1) Sniffing for Poo on babies’ bottoms

2) Looking for Poo on babies’ bottoms

3) Finding it

4) Finding it on the (wooden) bedroom floor

Chris Packham

Image by WorthingTheatres via Flickr

5) Cleaning it from the bedroom floor

6) Actually finding it all quite funny

7) Becoming an expert on Poo: move over Chris Packham! Did you know that there are many different types of baby poo? There’s… (Internal Censor: “Shut Up”)

That’s enough about Poo I think. Most of the above also applies to Wee, so we can skip that part…

Eight)*  Saying “Did you remember the helicopter?” & meaning it

9) Spending a significant proportion of my days blowing raspberries, going “wibble wibble” & pulling silly faces

10) Singing CW McCall’s “Convoy” while going up & down stairs with the rest of my bonkers family, the 2 small ones in hysterics

11) Developing an intimate knowledge of what happens when incey-wincey spiders go up spouts

12) Singing about wheels on busses. They gone ’round & ’round, apparently. Who knew?

13) Using my iPod Touch to help babies get to sleep

13) Developing complex & detailed baby-calming strategies including, but not limited to, hair, face, nose, neck, tummy, back stroking; whispering; pseudo-hypnotic techniques; singing; holding; letting go; rocking; walking

Yes I know there are 2  ’13′s; I was born on the 13th so it’s sort of my lucky number.  And I just like to be bolshy sometimes.

Also: when The Bloggess does a list she always misses out ’13′, so I need to even things out. Don’t judge me, y’all: I’m just balancing the Cosmos ;)

14) Having to buy & charge more batteries than I thought even a gadget-freak would ever need

15) Getting more exercise than I have in years just from lifting babies in & out of cots,  carrying them up & down stairs, playing games carrying them on my head / shoulders / back, bench-pressing them. I should be ready for London 2012 at this rate.

16) Becoming an expert in the dark arts of flat-pack cot assembly / disassembly / reassembly.

17) Watching a lot less TV, & not missing it (much).

18) Making “brrmm brrmm” noises while pushing a twin buggy

19) Being vomitted on. A lot

20) Loving being a Dad of twins :)

* WP kept converting the number eight into an emoticon & wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain “it’s just a number!”

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Silent Sunday: Rockin’ That Hairband!

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Silent Sunday is normally hosted by its creator, Jay at Mocha Beanie Mummy. She’s taking a well-earned break this week, but I prepared one so I’m blimin’ well posting it anyway!

Silent Sunday

A Positively Positive Post? Possibly

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This week for me has been largely about being positive. (And no, I haven’t suddenly turned into a Life Coach).

Things with Jallie are great at the moment; they seem to be competing with each other to walk / talk / run / sing / dance / somersault / write novels / cut the deficit / bring world peace. (Some of those may be slight exaggerations). Every day they seem to come up with something new.

Other things though: not so good. In fact, a bit crap. Things that could easily get me down, & have at times.

So I read Mari’s ’30 Posts of truth – Something you love about yourself‘ at her blog ‘Mari’s World’, part of a project initiated by Kirsten at ‘A Karma Project‘. In her post Mari mentions how 1 of those things is seeing the positive in people.

Then I read Tim Brownson’s ’50 Reasons Why I Suck’ at his ‘A Daring Adventure’ blog. (And yes, he is a Life Coach, but a really good one). The post was a particularly devious way of getting his readers to think of something that they’re great at. He’s great at that sort of thing…

From Kirsty at Imperfect Pages’ ‘Imagination and a Very Cute Baby’ I learnt about Clare Grant’s ‘3 Beautiful Things‘ concept of every day posting 3 things that have made you happy in that day. So I blatantly copied Kirsty’s idea of setting up a Posterous blog for exactly that.

As you may have guessed I’ve been catching up on blog reading a lot this week!

I generally think of myself as a positive person; I at least try to be about my own life. If I’m cynical about something it’s only because I’m being realistic…

I must admit, the main problem I’ve had with my 3BT blog is keeping the list down to just 3 per day. And yes, I realise that could be quite annoying ;)

So how about you? Are you ‘glass half full’ or ‘glass half empty’? Or are you like me & have trouble remembering which is which, & just pleased to have a nice drink?!

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Did My Baby Boy Just Say “Bugger”?!

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I’ve been posting for a while now about how quickly Jallie are growing up & developing.

Part of that has been developing an independent will. I still remember being a bit shocked when I initiated a game with Jake, he looked at me, then turned around & crawled off as he wanted to do something else. That’s not supposed to happen: he’s my little baby boy!

It’s also meant that they can & do throw tantrums. Tantrums at 10/11 months? Oh yes! If I do something they’re not happy with, or stop them doing something they want to do, they sure let me know about it!

I sometimes think that this blog appears to paint too rosy a picture of life with our little darlings. This is mostly because I do love them to bits, & I’m delighted with how they’re growing & developing: mostly, everything’s good. Also, although I can do my fair share of whingeing – as anyone who’s followed me on twitter will know – I think of myself as a positive sort of bloke.* If I’m having problems I’m more likely to not talk about them, & just get on with trying to sort them out. And yes, I am aware that this is probably not a healthy, balanced approach. It is quite a male one, though.

When I’m ‘on’ the part of my day I most dislike comes after their morning nap: changing their nappies then dressing them. For reasons I can’t fathom, they hate it. It’s almost always a fight, a struggle, a wrestling match. They do everything in their power, twisting, turning, levering themselves up to stop it. You know when a protestor is dragged away by Police & plays dead, going as limp as possible? Yep: they can do that. They cry, they scream. Not always, but often.  It’s the same too when we dress them for bed. They seem to particularly hate being on their backs. And they’re surprisingly strong!

Trying to put trousers / tights onto a squirming, twisting, crawling baby can be a nightmare, made even worse with my dodgy fingers. We’re still trying to work it out. It may be the time of day; I had to dress them again this afternoon & they put up no fight at all!

So, this morning I eventually managed to get them changed & dressed, after the usual fight. Then I noticed that Jake’s trousers were on backwards!** “Bugger!”, I said in frustration.

Then I heard a little voice. What it said sounded suspiciously like “bugger”.

So,  my baby boy’s first words:

1) Daddy
2) ball
3) bugger?

Bugger.

Still: 2 out of 3 ain’t bad! Gotta be positive, right?

* 1 of the reasons for my new Posterous blog ’3 Brilliant Things’, where every day I post 3 things that have been good about my day.

** As it happened I had Jake’s & Ellie’s trousers mixed up anyway. They’re twins but they’re quite different sizes..