17 December , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 50/52 (2016)

Hello, and welcome to this week’s very late installment of ‘who’s ill this week?’

Sunday night Gabe woke up with awful croup. He’s had it before so we didn’t bother with phoning 111, we just gave him a puff of his inhaler that he got when he had bronchiolitis a couple of months ago, then stood outside on the balcony for a bit as the cold air is supposed to help. He spent the next couple of nights sleeping in bed with me while Barry got relegated to the sofa. The croup went quite quickly just leaving him with a cough and cold but our couple of nights of good sleep last week are now a distant memory.

The rest of us have got colds too but I guess that’s pretty standard for this time of year. With everyone feeling a bit sorry for themselves we’ve not done much this week. On Monday while Gabe was having a nap Toby and I made a robot out of old boxes and tinfoil. I’d been promising Toby we would do it for weeks after he saw it on CBeebies and I’d finally run out of excuses not to do it! To be fair I did most of it but it was mostly Toby’s design. I think it came out pretty well if I do say so myself! Excuse the mess in the background – the kitchen still isn’t quite finished!

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On Thursday we actually made it out of the house briefly – we had to pick up Gabe’s reflux meds from the chemist and managed to squeeze in a quick trip to the park too. Even Gabe got out of the buggy for a little play too.

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5 December , 20165 December , 2016 - Sarah 7 Comments

Living Arrows 49/52 (2016)

I’m not going to say much today, mostly because it’s only a few days since I published our last Living Arrows update! But, hurray – I’m finally back on schedule!

And I don’t want to tempt fate but we are all, for now, well again (except for a few sniffles but I don’t think they ever really go away in our family).

On Saturday we even managed to get out of the house and visit Jodrell Bank. It’s not a massive place (well apart from the ginormous radio telescope – you can see it in our November Me & Mine picture) but there was plenty to keep Toby occupied. There were a few things to play with outside and even though he didn’t understand the science Toby still had fun with them…

Toby enjoying the activities at Jodrell Bank

And at the indoor exhibits Gabe even got out of the buggy to join in (he couldn’t get out outside because I’d left his shoes in the car!).

Gabe having a go at the science at Jodrell Bank

Here’s hoping we all manage to stay well now until Christmas at least!

2 December , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

Living Arrows 48/52 (2016)

Hi. Did you miss me? The eagle eyed among you may have noticed I’ve not posted since last week. Do you know what though? I’m bored of writing this myself so you must definitely be bored of reading it – we’ve all been ill again; stomach bug and colds this time. Far too many bodily fluids to deal with…

So anyway, here’s some pictures of the boys.

Toby making gingerbread

Before the illness struck last week Toby and I made some gingerbread. They were yummy, if a little puffy because I halved the recipe but forgot to halve the baking powder!

And this is Gabe’s big fluffy bum, just because…

Gabe's big cloth nappy bum

21 November , 2016 - Sarah 9 Comments

Living Arrows 47/52 (2016)

I’m not going to write too much this week because, if I’m honest, I’d rather forget last week happened!

Barry was in Germany with work all week. Gabe got a temperature on Tuesday night, managed to survive a day at nursery on Wednesday (he had to, I was working), and then pretty much wouldn’t be put down, even to sleep for the next 48 hours. Thankfully my mum came to help all day on Thursday, and my dad came to the rescue at 7pm after I’d managed to break our bed (I knew there was a reason we moved to live near them!)

Anyway, Barry came home on Friday and then we both had colds and Toby got a temperature too. We all seem to be mostly recovered now but all in all it’s been a pretty rubbish week!

Gabe’s picture this week was taken at about midnight on Wednesday – it’s dark and grainy but sometimes I think it’s important we show the reality of parenthood. He had just stopped wailing and fallen asleep, while I watched Planet Earth on the iPlayer…

Poorly Gabe asleep on mummy on the sofa at midnight

And I took Toby’s photo when he was sitting up on the window sill in our kitchen/diner playing with the new star I got this week. It’s supposed to be a Christmas decoration but I like it so I think we might have it there all year round.

Toby sitting in the window looking at a light up star decoration

Here’s hoping this week is a better one…

15 November , 201615 November , 2016 - Sarah 6 Comments

Living Arrows 46/52 (2016)

This last week has been fairly uneventful, we’re still trying to get the painting finished in the kitchen so we haven’t been getting out at the weekends really. We did manage a walk into town on Sunday with Gabe in the buggy and Toby on his SmartTrike – he loves it but kept wanting me to go ‘really speedy fast’ and it nearly killed me!

Barry is away in Germany with work for the whole of this week so it’s just me and the boys and I’m in survival mode. I’ve made the most of them being at nursery today by having my hair cut and… having a nap! I haven’t actually done that since we moved here and they’ve been going to nursery but we didn’t have a brilliant night last night and I figured I could use all the sleep I could get.

This weeks photos were taken in the house this week, although autumn afternoon light indoors is awful for taking pictures! The boys are getting much better at, not exactly playing together, but at least co-existing in the same space without killing each other! Gabe has discovered the rocking horse this week – we got it for Toby’s second Christmas and it’s had plenty of use over the last two years. Gabe has been loving it – he really got the hang of rocking and was going for it so hard he was actually moving across the room!

Gabe riding on the rocking horse

Toby is almost impossible to take a posed photo of these days – the best photos I get of him are when he doesn’t know I’m taking them. This one came out alright though I think…

Toby not pulling a silly face for once

Hopefully we’ll actually get out this weekend and I’ll have some more interesting pictures for next week’s post.

9 November , 2016 - Sarah 6 Comments

Living Arrows 45/52 (2016)

I’m late again with my Living Arrows post this week. It’s been busy round these parts again – the kitchen is heading towards finished with a bit more painting to do, a new floor to go down and a new table and chairs to get. I’m really pleased with it and but I didn’t really enjoy spending a whole day unpacking all the boxes again and finding a place for everything!

Barry spent the weekend painting so on Saturday I took the boys for a walk into town to get them out of the way. It was really cold but we wrapped up warm and Toby had a lovely time collecting leaves and then running through all the dried leaves along the path.

Toby enjoying collecting autumn leaves

Gabe’s personality has really been coming out even more these last few weeks. His reflux mostly seems to be under control, we saw the paediatrician last week and she’s happy for him to continue on his meds and review things again in six months. The teeth that have been coming over the last few weeks have all finally cut now too – so that’s four molars and four canines in about three weeks! We’ve had quite a few grumpy days and nights but at least he should be over the worst of it now, and there are only four more molars to come before he has all his teeth! He’s coped remarkably well really, it must have been so painful for him – you can see the rash round his mouth on this week’s photo too, teething drool isn’t pleasant!

Gabe has been suffering with teething and has a rash round his mouth

His sleep has been slowly getting better too – a couple of nights recently he has made it until 3 am before his first wake up, which is a massive improvement on the 10 pm of a few weeks ago. There’s not much of a leap to make now before he’ll be sleeping all night….I hope! He has to sleep all night one of these days.

Gabe’s big news this week though is that he has started walking!! It was only two weekends ago that he started letting go when he was standing up, and managing to stand up without holding on to anything. He started trying to take a couple of steps last week but he’s really started to get the hang of it this week. So I’ll leave you with this….

1 November , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Living Arrows 44/52 (2016)

I don’t know where the time is going at the moment; October seems to have disappeared in the blink of an eye!

It’s been a pretty quiet week here; we still don’t have a working kitchen so we’ve not been spending a huge amount of time at home. It’s getting closed to finished now, or at least usable, so things should be a bit easier in the next few days.

Yesterday we needed to get away from the kitchen noise and dirt so after a quick trip to Aldi we headed to the park. Gabe still isn’t walking on his own but he loves walking around holding our hands so I actually got him out of the buggy and let him explore, and he had a little go on the swing too. You wouldn’t know looking at his face here that he’s now on the 7th and 8th new teeth in the last three weeks! He now has all four first molars, and three of his canines through the gum, with one more canine to go. And then I really hope he gets a long break from it before the last molars come – he’s not even 15 months yet!

Gabe having fun on the swing at the park

Toby is equal parts brilliantly funny, adorable and infuriating at the moment. He has suddenly hit that age of needing to know everything and the questions just don’t stop all day! He very much knows his own mind now too and will only do what he wants too (without a lot of argument!). On the whole though I’m loving this age with Toby, and most of the time I actually enjoy spending time with him. He’s such a cool dude too – just look at him in his sunglasses at the park…

Cool dude Toby on the slide in his sunglasses

24 October , 201623 October , 2016 - Sarah 8 Comments

Living Arrows 43/52 (2016)

Hurray! For the second week in a row we have a positive Living Arrows post. It hasn’t been the easiest of weeks in a practical sense – on Monday work started on our new kitchen and by the evening we were left with a completely empty room. By Wednesday the new false ceiling and wiring for the lights had been put in and now we are just waiting for the whole room to be plastered which is happening today. Once the plaster is on the kitchen can be fitted, and hopefully by the end of next week we might have a usable kitchen, even though it will probably still be a way off finished. In the meantime we have been spending quite a bit of time at my mum and dad’s house, there have been a couple of takeaways, and we have even managed to cook a few things in the spare bedroom using our bargain Aldi mini oven and hot plate!

However, apart from coping without a kitchen, and Barry having a night away for work on Wednesday, it hasn’t been a bad week at all. Toby is still doing great with his potty training. On Friday we went to Warrington to meet my friend Claire and her twins and he managed a whole day out, including an hour each way in the car, with no accidents.

Both boys’ Living Arrows pictures were taken on our day out. We went to Walton Hall and Gardens just south of Warrington. It was a big park with a great play area, a cafe and even a small children’s zoo (if you can call goats, rabbits and peacocks a zoo). There was plenty to do for the boys but sometimes all you need is your wellies on, a good stick and a muddy puddle to splash in.

Toby splashing in a muddy puddle with his new stick

Gabe has continued to show us his happier side this last week too. For the first time in ages he isn’t ill, and although his top two molars are only half through I think his teeth are giving him a bit of a break for now too. His sleep is still all over the place but we haven’t had any really awful nights for a while, and on Saturday night he made it until 4 am before his first wake up again.

Even though he spent most of the day in the car or the buggy on Friday Gabe seemed to enjoy his day out too. I can’t wait for him to start walking though so he can get out and start running around with the other boys. In the last couple of days though he has started standing unaided, and he can walk just holding one hand so I don’t think proper walking will be too far away. And until then, just look at his little face!

Gabe and his lovely smile

17 October , 201617 October , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 42/52 (2016)

It feels like we have finally turned a corner here in the Toby Goes Bananas house this week. In the last few days it’s like Gabe has turned into a different child. He has suddenly got a massive appetite and is eating everything I put in front of him, which after 8 months of struggling with weaning is absolutely amazing! He’s still got teeth making their way through but he doesn’t seem to have been in as much pain with them for the last few days. We’ve had a few nights of better sleep from him too – he’s still waking up but the other night he made it until after 4am before his first wake up, when it’s usually more like 10pm. Hopefully this is the first step on the road to sleeping through. I really hope so – three and a half years is a long time to go without a proper night’s sleep!

This week’s picture of Gabe is far from technically perfect – partly because Toby took it, but mostly because the light was rubbish. But just look at his big grin! When he’s wailing in your ear at three o’clock in the morning it’s hard to remember that sometimes he is actually happy but then you capture a smile like this and it doesn’t seem so hard any more.

Gabe giving a big grin

And as for Toby – I mentioned in last week’s Living Arrows post that we were making some progress with potty training… well on Wednesday he went to nursery in a nappy but after he used the loo at lunchtime they made him wear big boy pants – I’m not too sure if I’m entirely happy about that part but we’ll just gloss over it for now. He has only worn a nappy once since and that was only because I was scared about him having an accident in the middle of Sainsbury’s (and I was right to trust my instincts as he informed me in the yogurt aisle that he was doing a poo!).

Apart from that one poo in the nappy though he has only had one accident and I think that was because he was too busy playing. Every other wee and poo has gone in the potty or the toilet. He has been out in the car, to baby & toddler group, to the garden centre, to the supermarket…he’s used public toilets (with the help of a training seat) and generally just been brilliant about the whole thing.

And not only has he not been wearing nappies during the day, for the last four nights his night nappy has been dry too. I actually think he’s been pretty much dry at night for quite a while but he always used to wake up and immediately do a big wee in his nappy. That wee is now being saved for the potty. So it looks like, after our initial struggles, he might end up being dry day and night at the same time!

I’m so proud of my biggest boy. He can still wind me up in an instant but then he is three after all, and he flashes me one of his lovely smiles and I can’t stay cross at him for long…

Toby and his lovely smile

Work starts on our new kitchen tomorrow and we’ll probably move out to my mum and dad’s house for a few days so it’s all going to be a bit hectic for a couple of weeks. Hopefully I’ll still manage to get some pictures of my boys and I’ll see you next week for another Living Arrows.

12 October , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Living Arrows 41/52 (2016)

Honestly I feel like all I do in these posts is whinge about how tough things are but the last week really has been a hard one. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Gabe was getting his first molars – well in the last few weeks all four of his molars and one of his canines have cut and I think another canine might be on the way. The teething (and possibly still a reaction to his immunisations) has meant he has had very horrible nappies for a whole week, and all of that has led to some very sleepless nights. Hopefully now all the teeth have cut, and his poos are solid again we are over the worst of it. And perhaps he might even get a bit of a break for a while.

There has been a lot of crying over the last week but it’s not all been tears – Gabe is a trooper and has managed a few smiles in there too with his cheeky chops – and you’ll just have to excuse the biscuit crumbs!

Gabe managing a cheeky smile despite teething

Toby has been really good this week – we’ve not been able to do very much because of Gabe’s exploding bottom so he’s had to spend a lot of time in the house. I wrote last week about his potty training struggles but we are making some progress. He is still insisting on wearing nappies but, at home at least, most of his wees are ending up in the potty. Every one of those stickers you can see in this week’s photograph represent a wee that made it in there. And yesterday he even did a poo in the potty too! I really think I need to just let him do it in his own time and he’ll get there soon enough.

Toby's stickers on his potty - one for every wee

Apologies for the excessive poo mentions in this post – hopefully normal service will be resumed next week!