Month Eight as a Family of Four

Eight months ago (last Wednesday) our smallest member made his dramatic entrance into the world making us a family of four and changing our family dynamic.

Last months update brought you a crawling baby and a threeanger. This month? Well…..

The Three Year Old

First of all the Toddler Terror STILL needs a new name as he is no longer a toddler but in fact a fully fledged pre-schooler. I’m thinking I might just have the Big One and the Baby which is how I refer to them in *whispers* real life!

We’re now, finally, fully potty trained and after a couple of weeks of really testing my patience regression, where we also tested the limits of the washing machine we seem to be on track. Say what you will but chocolate bribery worked best in our house.

We’re also very into having pictures taken, which as a blogger is wonderful to hear cries of

Mummy take my picture

it’s a little bit more worrying when he reaches for my camera to do it himself.

We’ve also been testing boundaries, daily. Over how much TV. When to go to bed. When to put our shoes on. I get that he’s trying to assert himself but he really does pick the most inopportune times, racing round the house after a naked 3 year old while the Baby crawls after you giggling away when you should have left 15 minutes ago? Blood pressure boiling points.

Speech is interesting with our little parrot repeating everything we say, it’s so much more fun now we can hold an actual conversation with him, however weird and wonderful.

Mummy?
Yes love?
I have a willy
yes you do

*where is this going??? I’m not ready for this*

Daddy has a willy, Baby has a willy

*frantic mmmhmmmm clearing throat noises*

You have a bum
I do

*silence*

Mummy

*here it comes…..*

can we watch thundercats?

*crisis averted*

And of course he could watch Thundercats, anything but having that conversation so young!

Baby Boy

Still on the crawl. And thankfully just that as one of his little friends (who is a whole 6 hours older – hi R!!) has discovered not only pulling herself up but the stairs! Crawling is enough for now. Especially now we have the tree up which is of course his favourite place to sneak underneath.

What’s not to love? Presents. Wires. Baubles. An eight month olds dream.

We’re still working on sleep, my goal at the moment is getting him into the cot at naptime when I can. Being a second child is difficult, at this point with the Big One (see new name slipped in already!) we had a solid routine. I knew when naps were happening and they happened in the cot. I had 2 solid breaks a day where he slept and I caught up on housework. The Baby? Still has to nap on the go at times. A fair few of his naps are in the car seat and sometimes they are cut short because I have to haul him and the car seat from the car onto nursery where he is greeted by lots of love and kisses from his big brother. Very cute but not always great from a mummy point of view.

I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse that he’s like his brother and an early teether with multiple teeth coming through at once, we now have SIX teeth and grinding. He looks like a little old man at times…

We also discovered a love of spag bol, and got the obligatory picture.

Brothers

Still such a beautiful relationship blossoming, the biggest smiles from the Baby are reserved for the Big One (and boobie).

I’m yet to get a lovely picture of the two of them together on my own, but we had a photo shoot at The Studio where Nikki captured the pair of them perfectly (I’m just waiting for the image to share eep) for now this is one of my best efforts.

Check out the cow lick going on!

We are having toy squabbles though, everything is the Big Ones and shouts of THAT’S MINE can be heard echoing round our house. Even over actual baby toys.

The Husband and I

Have been ships in the night and are really looking forward to a full Christmas break together. With friends visiting, the Rugby 7s, selling our baby stuff at the Baby Bazaar (no more babies) and Christmas parties it’s been a busy month.

We managed to sneak in a family brunch which then led to a post-brunch date night where we put the world to rights.

Now it’s time for some family Christmas time, making magical memories with new traditions, even if the Big One declared Home Alone too scary thwarting some of our plans….

See you next month (probably after the cruise which we’ve got around to booking our flights for!)