Chickenpox

I think we got off lightly with Jacob - he had a couple of days of feeling under the weather and one afternoon of being sick with a very high temperature - but by and large, he came through it ok. Sam, on the other hand, is really suffering with it. I took this photo on the second day when the spots were largely confined to his head and neck and it wasn't too bad:-


but by Wednesday morning he'd got more on his face/neck and they'd spread to his torso and legs - he was absolutely covered. The blisters have pretty much all scabbed over, apart from a few on his legs, but they're proving quite sore; he can't sit down comfortably because of ones round his groin and bumhole, and because he's a mass of sores round his armpits and shoulders, its difficult to pick him up without hurting him. This photo gives you an approximation of how he's feeling right at this moment:-



Hopefully the sores will heal up quickly so he's able to move around as per usual, and get back to Playgroup next week.

Someone remind me again why we don't immunise against this?

Thomas Part Two

About 2 or 3 years ago, Jacob was mad keen on Thomas the Tank Engine but, as with most things in Jacob's life, he went off it completely after a while. So by the time Sam was able to take notice of such things, Jacob had moved on to Spiderman, Batman, Transformers, Ben 10 et al, and for a while Sam was happy to watch these programmes, play with the toys and wear the clothes/dressing up outfits. Which was ok (ie it led to less arguments about what was on the tv etc), but I couldn't help feeling that Sam was missing out a bit on the stuff that was more suitable for his age.

Anyway, on Sam's third birthday, he was bought a couple of Take-along-Thomas toys and some train track; my initial reaction was that Sam wasn't going to be interested in them - after all, we've got a box full of Thomas stuff from the first time around, and on the rare occasions I'd managed to wrest the remote control away from Jacob, he'd shown no interest in watching the tv programme. However, something must have sparked within him, because now Sam is a fully paid up member of the Thomas the Tank Engine Fan Club. And as such, a visit to the Thomas Day Out at the Bolton Abbey/Embsay Steam Railway was a must for a Bank Holiday Saturday.

Here he is driving the train:-



With Bertie the Bus:-


And showing a great desire to have his photo taken with Daddy and another of the tank engines (note that lip making a guest appearance):-


He's also (courtesy of the books) a great fan of the Mr Men and his favourite item of clothing is a Mr Tickle top. He also has Mr Happy Adidas trainers (don't blame me, I didn't buy them for him), Mr Bump and Mr Happy t-shirts, a Mr Happy umbrella and Mr Men underpants. He has also developed his own sign language for the various Mr Men, and is making a very good stab at actually saying their names too.

And I'm just happy that he's coming out from under Jacob's shadow and developing his own tastes and interests. Even if it does make for more arguments over the tv remote ;)

Monkeys!!

These two pictures just about sum up Jacob and Sam at the moment:-


and:-


He can get that lip out by well over an inch, its quite an achievement.

But most of the time, they are just both cheeky monkeys par excellence:-

5 Today

Where did the time go? It doesn't seem five minutes since Jacob looked like this:-


And now he looks like this:-



(that's not actually taken today, he's got chickenpox and is covered in spots, so no photos atm, I think)

Mummy in Stereo

Sam has now mastered "mummy", so when I'm in the kitchen and he comes up behind me saying "mummy, mummy", I honestly don't know which child it is until I turn round. Which is nice. However, now I have two of them going "mummy, mummy" every moment of the day - arghhh!!

Jacob has also taught Sam to say "bum".

*sigh*

Next!!

Just a little moan about my increasing irritation with Next kids clothes. IMO, Next seem to do the best character clothes for boys, so you can buy clothes with Star Wars, Mario, Ben 10 etc etc on them, which all parents of boys will know is absolutely de rigeur for your young man-about-town.

However, when it comes to pyjamas and swimwear, they seem to have a very odd sizing policy; they sell stuff in the 3-4 year size and then 5-6 year, but nothing in the 4-5 year size. This, to me, is really odd as there's a 14 cm size gap between clothes for a 4 year old (up to 104cm) and a 6 year old (118cm). If, like Jacob, you're on the small side and only just growing out of your age 4 clothes, it means that you're going to be wearing clothes that are massively too big for you. Next's kids' clothes tend to be generous in their sizing too, which will make it worse.

I don't know if its because they think swimming trunks and pyjamas don't matter - the first ones just get wet and the second you wear in bed - but I still don't think that's a good enough reason for wearing too big/small clothes.

I've just bought a couple of pairs of swimming shorts for Jacob and I've opted for the smaller size - I'm hoping that Next's generous sizing will mean he can still fit into them, but I'm not convinced at all. I can't decide whether to send them back and take a punt on the bigger size or just spend some time on the interweb looking for something similar.

Bah.

School Photo

He looks so grown up in this picture; where did the time go? :)

Progress

Sam has words!! Three of them!!

No (he's good at this, says it a lot)
Nana (when he wants a banana)
Loon (balloon, like the one Jacob brought back from the birthday party this arvo)

Progress!