Sam's Birthday Week

 My boy is 3. THREE. Insanity. You may recognise this cake. He had the same last year. We didn't have cake candles then either, but it was sparklers then, not tealights. Bad mummy!

 That face though. So happy to have blown out candles that they could have been anything with a flame.

 He is still all about the nee naws and choo choos. ONLY MORE. Especially the trains. We got him this Thomas 'take n play' set, and mum (who came up the night before and stayed for the birthday) got him a couple of trains to go with it. Ethan chose some chuggington trains, and he was good to go. For literally days. And that's only so far.

 Today was family dinner at the Brown's house, and therefore 'proper' birthday cake was required, which was good, because atleast half of the Peppa Pig cake went in the bin. Quite frankly, it was disgusting, and tasted faintly of plastic.

 Thomas cake was requested, and I made my idiot-proof and delicious Milk Chocolate Cake. It always works and is moist and delicious, without going soggy. Proof: I made this one at 8pm after a hugely busy day and an iffy night with Henry. I put the ingredients in in a different order, because I was tired and couldn't remember what I did last time. I baked it at a different temperature by accident. I had not quite enough cocoa and added a bit of hot chocolate powder to make it up. 

It was perfect. I'm going to rename it the magic cake, because I literally cannot mess it up. substitutions, whatever. It's unstoppable in it's quest for chocolatey satisfaction.

 

 I slightly messed up my proportions with the decorations which is not unusual for me - Ethan had a race track cake 2 years ago and I managed to make the track only wide enough for one car - but I think I am getting better! And yes, that's a tiny Tardis. I had a little blue left, and what else :) Ethan thought it was great, and Sam liked it enough that as soon as he'd blown out the candles (proper ones this time, thanks to Grandma) He grabbed it off and ate it. He didn't even have any of the cake itself, just that and a tree! I also - typically - couldn't find any of his Thomas toys, so it had to be a James Cake instead.

He then had a few more presents, another Thomas that lights up and moves, and a wooden train whistle (which may disappear now and then) from Grandma and Grandad, a colouring and sticker book, and a CD and book of nursery rhymes which we've already had on and he's danced to, from Aunty Joanne and Uncle David, and this from Aunty Stella and Uncle Carl...

 I've just noticed Henry's demon eyes in the background!

It's a bull shaped space hopper! The advantage being it has four feet, rather than a round bottom, nice and stable. He's been bouncing around on it for about half an hour (about as long as you can do anything when you're newly three and have eaten a large chuck of icing) before being forced to dismount and get ready for bed.

We had a visit from the Dummy Fairy too this week. It went well... until bedtime. He didn't want his new glowy nightlight, he didn't want the fairy to take his dummies to make new ones for little babies, apparently the babies don't want his dummies. There were a few wakings that night. However he only asked once or twice the next night, and not since, so hurrah!

Three years. He still loves ears for comfort, especially now he has Henry's. He still has trouble keeping his covers on, not only himself, but his entire bed. He still curls his little body up and sometimes sticks his bum in the air in that classic sleeping baby pose. And yet he's also so grown up. He sings. He loves numbers and counting, and is starting nursery school after Christmas. NURSERY SCHOOL you guys.

 It's flown by since he was a little dot, the littlest of my three, none of whom were particularly small. He came speeding into the world with his little crop of dark hair and hasn't stopped since. We spent a few hours in hospital (a 3am birth will do that) and then phoned around to let everyone know at about 6:30 before beating a hasty retreat from the postnatal ward. We took him back to Grandma and Grandad's house to meet his big brother who adored him.

He still does, most of the time. They are wonderful playmates and well matched verbal sparring partners, though thankfully mostly the former. There's the same gap between them as between Sam and Henry, and Sam has that same adoration for Henry, it's lovely to see, the circle of brotherhood continuing. 

Happy birthday mad boy. We love your crazy dancing and mad debating skills, even if they do usually just come down to simply insisting you are right until we give up. Don't change too much my darling.

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

37 weeks, more nesting, and potty training.

 These are last weeks pictures, so technically 36 weeks, but let's not split hairs. Any pictures taken this week would have been in my mismatched pyjamas, so you're welcome ;) Also no matter how many times I say there's no need to have my head in the picture, there's atleast one chin too many there!

 I added this one too because it makes my legs look longer and a lot less tree-trunky! 

Last week we happened upon a free face painting stall in town, and Ethan chose the superman design. I was a little unimpressed by the woman doing it, she seemed a bit grumpy, but she had already been there for 2 and a half hours, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, seeing as it was free and all.

 This week the facepainter was in town again and Ethan chose spiderman. She seemed a bit less grumpy this time, which was nice ;) It was extremely helpful too that many of her designs left the mouth clear, as we went off to get lunch after, and it stopped him getting upset at his smudged face.

More nesting has occurred. If this continues post baby (highly doubtful) I'll have to drop the 'Un' from my blog title! This time it was completely illogical too. I've been ironing muslins and burp cloths. Things that are actually DESIGNED to be thrown up on. I spent far too long standing at the ironing board and it made my back hurt, but they looked so nice and neat!

It won't last, they'll end up shoved in the nappy bag (I've got the free Pampers one as a temporary measure as I can't find one that I like and is not ridiculously priced) wrinkled and not even folded, to be grabbed out for feeding and absorbing of baby sick. ah, the fun bits to look forward to!

I also have some plans to shift a few bits in the bedroom today, including a couple of small dumbbells. Those will be rolled as I have previous experience with them a while ago. Rich left them in the storage box in the living room without my knowledge, and I went to move it so the boys had more room to play. It did not move. My shoulder hurt for a LONG time!

Sam is potty training. It was foolish to start now, but he got a bit of a chance to try on holiday and did really well, so we thought we'd continue. The difficulty is that we don't really have time to stay in the house for a week and really crack it, as Ethan has to still go to school and stuff! He's doing ok, and is almost 100%, if he's bare from the waist down. Add pants, and it drops to maybe 75%. Add trousers and it drops drastically. One day.

Almost no one wants to see pictures of potty training in progress (those of you who actively do, this is not the place for you, sorry. Only I'm not sorry.) so I'll show you this one of him:

There's the (clean I assure you) potty, so it's relevant. The fact that he looks like Gollum with his donut is not.

3 Weeks to go til D-Day. Baby boy is now considered full term, and I am getting nervous. I spent 2 hours awake last night between 2:30 and 4:30 after a particularly horrible dream where Sam fell out of the boys' bedroom window (he was caught by a friend luckily, and it was you know, a dream). I then worried about all sorts. The biggest worry is that I won't get to the hospital in time. They get more irrational after that, ending in me being stuck at home in labour while Rich is stuck in traffic trying to get home from work with only Ethan and Sam for company. Ridiculous as I've got a vast network of people to take them at the very least, so worst case scenario I'll be birthing at home alone, but with no little observers at least ;)

In seriousness though I did have a little worry about Rich missing it. Probably because the last thing I read before bed was a comment on facebook by my lovely friend Catherine, who said that her third was 1 hour 45 minutes from first pain to first cuddle. The boys were fairly quick, Ethan was less that 10 hours from first inkling to birth, which I'm told is quick for a first baby. Sam was about 4 and a half hours. If I'm going with that kind of pattern, this one will be a couple of hours. I'm going to put my scientist head on though and say that there isn't enough data to show any kind of pattern or correlation, so it'll be fine. I'm also going to put my fingers in my ears and say "lalalala" just for good measure.

 One final distraction then:

I've not done a video before so I hope it works :)

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!