Comparison

After lots of comments from various people about how similar Beth and Toby look and inspired by Neri sending me early pics of Beth (thanks Neri), I thought I'd do a post comparing photos of them! To make it easy I'll put all pics of Beth on the left of the post and ones of Toby on the right. Apologies to those of you (myself included before these two came along) who are under the impression that all babies look alike anyway. For you, the pics will be rather boring!

There isn't all that much to comment on so I thought I would mention Toby's first (and second) trip to the swimming pool. It was while we were down in Leicester and grandma and grandpa came along to 'supervise' Beth. I got some swim nappies - the smallest size are two pounds less than Toby but they seemed to fit okay. I was expecting him to be unhappy getting changed but Toby took it in his stride and wasn't too bothered. His expression didn't even change when his toes got wet. The only time he registered anything was when his tummy got wet and even then he only opened his eyes wide.

We spent about half an hour in the pool floating around and although Toby didn't actually smile, he did seem to rather enjoy it. I can also say that he didn't even fuss when we got out and got changed. He's obviously a water baby. Beth had a good time too. Grandma invested in a pair of arm bands for her and they really boosted her confidence - at one point she was even heard to mutter 'get off' so she could explore on her own.

I'm quite tempted to look round for swimming lessons (the word lessons being used in the loosest of terms) for them both but they seem to enjoy just splashing around and doing their own thing that I'm not sure it's worth it at the moment.

Leicester & Allsorts

We're just back from a week at my parents in Leicester. We drove down last Friday and Steve came back and picked us up yesterday. It was a lovely week with the grandparents chasing round after Beth, all our meals cooked for us and no cleaning for us to do . . . perfect!

We spent a lot of time around the house mostly playing in the garden. Beth found grandma's umbrella and thoroughly enjoyed posing and playing with it. Unfortunately it is no longer capable of shielding off the rain but it was great fun while it lasted. The other great garden entertainment was courtesy of grandpa (thank you grandpa!) who showed off his skills by building Beth a sandpit. It was a hit and both Beth and Molly (the dolly and grandma + grandpa) spent many a happy hour playing in it. Beth also spent a while doing her experiments . . . she loves doing footprints on the mat after her bath so decided to try and do sand footprints on the lid of the sandpit. First she put her foot in the sand, walked across the grass and tried to make a print - it didn't work. Next she put her foot in the sand, kept it off the grass and tried to make one that way. Again no luck. Finally she put some sand on the lid then put her foot on that, whoopee, it worked! It looks like she will be taking after her auntie Jane and become a scientist.

Also in the garden, grandma designed and built a kite for her and Beth to fly. It was a very intricate design - plastic grocery bag and string :) but seemed to work brilliantly. I'm not sure who got more exercise from that activity but I do know that grandma slept well that night!! On a final note about the garden, here is a picture of the fruit and veg patch - it's fantastic and would make anyone want to take up gardening. During the week we ate quite a few things from it though some things aren't quite ready. Here's a list of what's growing on it: strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, rhubarb, beetroot, lettuce, courgettes, potatoes, leeks, tomatoes, sweet corn, coriander, basil, thyme, cucumber, and mange-tout (I'm sure I've left something out but you get the picture). Also, this picture was taken at 10pm - as you can imagine it can be quite difficult persuading a toddler that she should be in bed when it gets dark so late and starts getting light just after 3am!

On two occasions we went to Beacon Hill Country Park. It has a mixture of fields and woods to walk around and more importantly, a rhododendron labyrinth. There are little hidey holes, walkways, houses and wooden sculptures all around it. Beth had a fantastic time exploring - ducking under branches and loosing us all. It's amazing that we actually found her to bring her home.

Toby had a good week, too. He had his first bath with Beth - I'm not sure if either of them were pleased to be sharing their bath. Beth was very good and didn't splash or jump on him though she did become aware of the male anatomy even if she did just think Toby had done a poo!! Toby, who loves his bath, just seemed a mixture of a little amused at Beth being there and a little annoyed that she was getting attention meant for him.

Toby also had visits from a couple of friends. Abigail is a month younger than Toby and is the daughter of a friend from school - I'm sure they won't mind us setting them up . . . We also saw Jessie again, she is actually just over a year old so between Beth and Toby but still a baby to Beth as she wanted to pick her up and carry her around the garden.

One last thing, I managed to have Beth stand still long enough to put her hair up in pig tails. She was very proud of them and insisted on looking in the mirror for a considerable amount of time. And, here is a rare picture of me with Toby.

Crispy Cakes

Today I felt adventurous enough to attempt some 'cooking' with Beth. I decided to keep it very simple and we made rice crispy cakes. Beth helped to break the chocolate up and put it in the bowl (and in her stomach) and also started the microwave. She did a fantastic job of mixing everything together and spooning it into the cases - I'm sure there was double this amount to begin with . . .

Of course the best bit was licking out the bowl. The finished result looked pretty good and I'm sure daddy will enjoy them when he comes home though I won't be offering them to the neighbours - I'm sure they may shy away from the extra ingredient (generous helping of saliva!!). Overall very good fun but amazingly it only took about half an hour from start to finish, a lot of energy for a short amount of fun. :)

Just thought I'd include a picture of Toby to again prove he's around - we had him weighed today and he's now 12lb 10oz.

Village Walk Around

Yesterday we managed to explore another part of the village - there are loads of footpaths going in to the fields around us and until now it's been too muddy to have a good look. The weather was lovely (though a bit windy) and it was really nice wandering through the long grass in the meadows, playing hide and seek - the grass was almost as tall as Beth.

We found a couple of reservoirs where people were fishing, it was very relaxing and peaceful. I always like the idea of fishing, not for actually catching anything but just because you get to sit in nice surroundings without being bugged by anyone!! You could almost see our house from up there, this photo shows the estate of houses.

Toby was with us but slept most of the way round in the Bjorn. He seems to be calming down a bit probably because he's almost got rid of his cold. Today he laughed for the first time - it was a lovely sound. :) He has also taken a liking to his binky, Beth would never take one (except for now when she wants one as soon as Toby has his). Anyway, that has probably also helped to calm him down.

Rolling

We've had a couple of weeks of sickness, Toby still has his cold and Beth has an ear infection. Both Steve and I have head colds - all great fun. I think it might be because the weather has suddenly changed and it's pretty warm and sunny. Hopefully we'll be cleared up and well very soon . . . The warm weather is very nice, Beth can actually go outside without her big coat on so you will all get a break from the photos of English landscape with Beth in the foreground bundled up in 'the coat'! Here's one last one - taken last week when we went for a walk in the woods under Roseberry Topping.

Apart from the cold, Toby is doing great. He still isn't sleeping longer than three hours at a time but his tummy time is doing him wonders and yesterday he rolled (multiple times) from his tummy onto his back. Bit worrying, if he can do that at eight weeks, what else will he be doing soon!! Perhaps he's trying to beat Beth's milestones and be crawling before six months.

Painting

Even though the weather was lovely today, we did an indoor activity this afternoon and broke out the paints. I'm very ashamed to say that it was the first time in Beth's life that she had painted at home (the thought of multi-coloured walls had put me off).

She had a fantastic time experimenting with colour mixing and created some masterpieces. :) It was surprisingly easy to tidy up since I used a paper plate to hold the paint and the kitchen table cleans very easily (and it was really cheap so I'm not too worried if the paint doesn't come off!). I think we'll be doing that again - perhaps we'll try to design our own greeting cards . . . if we start now, we might have time to do enough for Christmas cards!

Farm Visit

Today we ventured out with Beth's cousin and his family to the farm (Big Sheep Little Cow). It was a pretty nice day but not very sunny. The farm is quite small and you go in groups to see the animals. First we feed the hens - they were a bit pecky and Beth wasn't overly keen despite Rosie's Walk being one of her favourite books!

After that we met a little mouse, very cute until it relieved itself in Steve's hand. Beth was adventurous enough to stroke it though she didn't hold it. Nightly readings of Goodnight Moon until she was 18 months has set her in good stead to like mice and expect to find them in every nook and crannie!

The next room had turtles and hedgehogs in - she fed a hedgehog, more than I was willing to do since they eat worms that look like maggots. The next bit (in my opinion) was the best bit, everyone got to give the pig, Wilbur, his bath. Beth enjoyed this but I suspect just liked the fact that she got the chance to play with a bucket of water and sponge!

The last part of the tour was seeing and bottle feeding the calves and lambs. You can't really see Beth in the picture but she was quite insistant on holding the bottle herself even though the lamb was far stronger than her.

After the farm we went to Fountains Abbey again (see a previous post) for lunch then 'the boys' assembled and flew a kite. We've had it for ages, I think it was a Costco one we bought a couple of years ago and it just sat in the garage forgotten about until now. It was pretty good - fairly light and aerodynamic since it wasn't hugely windy. Beth helped to fly it but Toby just hung out in the pushchair. :)