First day of maternity leave

Today is my first official day off to 'rest' before the arrival of the little princess :)  But, sad as it sounds, I seem to have lost the ability to relax and chill.  There are quite a lot of things to do though.  Apart from getting all the baby shopping things done and ready, on top priority is to get my thesis completed and out of the way!!  Otherwise, the MD may not happen :)  There's only this week as it's the school holidays again next week for 3 weeks, and I do want to spend as much time as I can with Isaac before I have to split my time. 

Why do chefs wear a hat?

Isaac wanted to play 'masak masak' today and be the chef.  He took the round plastic bin that we stored the pieces in and put it on his head and said 'Chefs need to wear a hat so that when they bend down to cook their hair won't get burnt by the fire.  They also need gloves so that the fire will not burn their hands'.  Hmmm.. was it not for hygienic reasons?  Wonder who he asked the 'why' question to.  

Blizzard and snow end of March??!!

Totally unexpected heavy snow when it's supposed to be spring time soon.  The timing was perfect though as it was the weekend.  Despite the wind and cold, we all headed for Camphill for a morning of sledging (first time in Liverpool).  Everybody (except me of course) had a go on the sledge downhill!! Yes, even mummy :) Isaac went downhill at least 6 times.  He would have gone many more times but was unfortunately limited by the long hike back uphill afterwards.  Think Richard was really tired at the end too.

Snow at least 6 inches deep - Isaac could hardly walk

 

 

Isaac thought he was the expert and was trying to teach his popo to sledge

Isaac's developmental update

Richard and I totally depend on the nursery to teach you about writing, reading etc as there's just no time in the weekdays and find weekends not really the time to 'educate' you as that's when we have fun together.  So, hopefully during the few months that popo and gong gong are here, you'll learn a few more things :)

Learning to write your name

 Well, we think you're doing not too bad.  You can just about write your name, and learning phonics and trying to read.  While in the car looking out of the window or watching TV, you will suddenly shout out 'Mummy, B.. 'buh, 'buh'' and some words you say, you will suddenly stop midsentence and start 'phonicing'.  You can also undress and dress yourself (when the clothes are not too tight), learning to put on shoes and socks, and love buttoning and unbuttoning.  This is to the extent of you wanting to wear everything with buttons or zips :)  

There's a few TV programmes that you really like, and which we quite enjoy too :)  Top of the lists are '64 Zoo Lane', 'Mickey mouse clubhouse', 'Mike the Knight', 'Octonauts' (we actually learn from this too), and 'Tree-fu Tom'.  Like all kids this generation, you also LOVE the iPhone and iPad, and play lots of games on it.  Your favourite is 'Jetpack'.  We were quite impressed at how you actually learnt to play this game all by yourself.  You know that you can only use the iPad in the weekends though, and we plan to stick by this for as long as possible. 

Following the Tree-fu Tom's spell pose

 

Happy birthday Mummy!

We celebrated my mum's birthday.  Nothing extravagant but it's really nice to be able to spend this special time with her and papa (quite rare and difficult to coincide birthdays for visits here).

Nostalgic - 36 weeks

I started to unpack all of Isaac's old clothes, toys and things he used as a baby (eg: steriliser, carseat, pram) over the last 2 weekends in preparation for the little girl's arrival.  It was really nostalgic going through all the sleepsuits that he wore as a tiny baby and toys that he played with.  Isaac actually recognised some of them and said 'I've seen them in the pictures before', or 'that is mine'.  It was also a good clear-out session of things from the garage as I packed away all the boyish things to give away.  Then, the washing began.  Thank God for parents who have arrived :)

Different colour theme this time round

Last weekend, Isaac graduated to his new single bed (dinosaur themed set as that's his craze now), while the cotbed was reassembled into a baby ready cotbed  again.  There was also a rearrangement of Isaac's room to fit the baby's cupboard for clothes.  Yes, totally DIY weekend for Richard :)

Quite happy to sleep in it but still prefers to run into our bed in the early hours of the morning

All in place if baby decides to come early - Isaac did still try to climb in and sleep in it coz it's in our room :)

At night, I started going through previous blog inputs from 4 weeks before Isaac was born and could not stop reading.  It brought tears to my eyes recalling Isaac's first year (well, maybe I'm more emotional now with hormones surging ;))

The period of 'why, where, how'

You are definitely at a stage of development where you need and want to know about everything!!  You ask 'why or how' in every other sentence that you speak. Some examples:

'Why is the water coming out from there?'
'Why is the aeroplane flying in the sky?'
'Why is baby kicking in your tummy?'
'How do I make this?'
 Most of the time is 'Why mummy, WHY?'

One of the awkward one was 'Mummy, where is baby going to come out from?' We somehow managed to distract you and didn't have to give an explanation.