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….

Living Arrows

My Wild Ones // Swans, Stickmen & a very big pond

After last week’s success, and blessed with another sunny day, Claire and I decided to take the boys for another Wednesday morning walk. This time we headed to our local loch (the very big pond!) for a walk around – there’s a path all the way around which is just about the right distance for little legs to manage.

A very big pond

As you can see it was a beautiful day, although rather cold but there was plenty to keep the boys occupied as we made our way round.

Toby has only just started to enjoy listening to stories and we bought a copy of The Stickman at the weekend which I think I have read about twenty times already. It meant of course that every stick he picked up was a ‘Stickman’. Even after reading the book though he still took a bit of convincing that these swans weren’t ducks or geese.

Swans

He was fascinated by them though, I love this expression of on his face as he watched them swimming around.

Concentration

Thomas and Toby were happy running backwards and forwards but after having carried Edward for most of last week’s trip to the park Claire had come prepared this week and he was happy on his mum’s back.

Claire and the boys

Although we’re happy to let the boys explore and stop to look at things we were on a bit of a schedule too as we had a doctor’s appointment to get to. Toby loves pretending to be a tiger at the moment and a bit of roaring soon got him and Thomas running off up the path.

On your marks

They must have walked twice as far as us though as they would run off ahead, then run back to be roared at so they could run off again. They thought it was hilarious!

Giggles

Of course Toby had to find a really big stick, I think we were lucky he didn’t have anyone’s eye out!

Big stick

There was, of course, plenty of puddle splashing going on too…

Puddle jumper

And our walk ended with the now obligatory biscuit…

Biscuits

And Gabe? Well this week Gabe was awake at least but he actually spent most of the walk with the sunshade down on the buggy because the sun was right in his eyes so I don’t know that he saw much. Maybe next time I’ll put him in the carrier and then he’ll be able to see a bit more.

Gabe

MyWildOnes

My Wild Ones // Exploring the Glen

Where we live there is a big public park known locally as the Glen; it has three different play parks, a cafe, a museum, lots of open space and then down the side there runs a burn which leads through the woods to the Abbey and the walk back to the car takes us past the ruins of the old Abbey too.

The old Abbey

When Barry first moved to Scotland we quite often would go for Sunday morning strolls alongside the burn and up to town to blow away the cobwebs hangover but since having the kids, although we go to other parts of the park sort of regularly, we haven’t really been down by the water.

Toby Tiger

This weekend though the rain stopped for the first time in what feels like months and we decided to get out of the house and go for a bit of an explore. (And that’s Toby doing his tiger impression in the photo above!)

My little adventurer

It’s always a bit of a mission to get out and do anything with both kids but Toby doesn’t really care where we go as long as he gets to wear his wellies and pick up some good sticks, and Gabe was happy having a nap in the carrier.

Crossing the bridge

We really enjoyed our walk looking at the water and watching the squirrels.

Squiggles

And there are a few different bridges to go over and under, and steps to climb.

Under bridges

Even though I’ve walked this way loads of times before, Toby hasn’t and it was so much fun to see him enjoying himself and seeing it all for the first time.

Sticks

Toby can happily walk quite a long way these days so it does open up the possibilities for adventuring a bit more. Hopefully the weather will start to improve soon and we can get out and about a bit more. He’s definitely happier running about outside than he is cooped up in the house. And Gabe will always have a good sleep in the carrier, and it’s actually much easier than trying to get him to nap at home!

Sleepy Gabe

We just have to be really careful we don’t tire Toby out so much that he has a danger nap in the car on the way home – afternoon naps these days can put bedtime off by a good couple of hours so we can’t go too far away for now at least!

MyWildOnes