George, the monkey has visited us.

Though it was about 3 weeks ago, I just didn't have time to pen it down, but now my parents are here!:
I think this idea is so sweet that I had to write it down in case someone else reads it and would like to do something similar.

One day Benji came home from nursery with a monkey, its little basket and a booklet which belonged to him.
I wasn't sure what it is, so I opened the little notebook to read that the monkey is George and the kids from nursery take turns to look after him. It said that in the basket there is a banana to feed him with a little toothbrush and towel to help him clean his teeth and face.
After turning the pages I saw that little monkey had a really good time so far. From February 2012 he visited quite a few kids, he has been to library, church, bicycling, baked cakes and he has even been to skiing and Portugal. He didn't have much time to get bored thats for sure.
I really liked reading it as I could see Benji's friends from nursery and could have a little peek into their lives. And now I know how his "best friends" Harry, Jamie and Freddie look like.

We also showed George our house, our fishes, washed his teeth (ok, not every day, and have to admit he sometimes ate frankfurters and not his banana...sssh), we also took him to the local library, to Kingsbury lake and playground, he slept with Benji every night and got introduced to all of his soft toys.
I was a little worried that he will find it difficult to give him back, but we read his little his little booklet again again (he wanted to, it was enough for me to read it once) about what he has done with his friends, and once I developed the photos we cut them out and sticked them to the book together (I have put a little story behind it once he has gone to bed). And the day after they read it together in nursery. I think he knew what is going to happen and it wasn't a problem at all to let George go.

Accidentally that weekend when George was with us, my friend who lives in Taiwan has visited us (we used to lived together at Elaine's a good 10 years ago) with her family, it was really good to see them live not just on Facebook, the kids got on really well (her husband is English and his son was born two weeks after Benji, and he is also called Benjamin). Benji said his friends is "other Benji" now.
It is such a shame that probably we will not see them again for another few years, I think our families would get on well if we lived closer to eachother.

The 3 years old!

I couldn't wait for this birthday as this was the first one he could really understand now.
He was counting back for days how many he has to sleep for his birthday and he knew that he is 3 years old, and there will be 3 candles on his cake.
When I asked him what kind of cake he would like he mostly answered "one with candies", so it was sure that there will be Smarties on the top of it, and because he like Túró Rudi (Hungarian sweet with cottage cheese), we decided that it will be made out of sweet cottage cheese. And since my parents were here for his birthday they supplied plenty of Túró Rudis in case his cake didn't happen in the way we planned it. (in the end he only ate the Smarties from the top of it though its not the fault of the cake...)
On Saturday he was so tired after playing (or more like watching in his case as he is not so brave to participate) football in the morning, that we decided better to give the parents after his afternoon sleep.
He woke up, we lined up all his presents on the table including his new bike, I put a Happy Birthday song on, we started to sing, but he became too shy that he started crying hanging onto my leg. Great....
Took about 10 minutes until he decided that he actually wants to open a present. (I have never seen a kid not wanting to open presents!)
I don't know what this new shyness about, but I hope he didn't burst into tears in nursery when they celebrated him today. Or he wont do next weekend when we planned another celebration with his friends and Zander.
He got a letter from me in which I summarized his 3rd years, so I won't put that here as well, and also that is only important for Him and me only. I will give these letters to him one day when he understands.
Also He and everyone else knows the fact that I love him very very much and I am proud that He is My Son!!!

The day after we celebrated Father's day, Benji had to sing Happy Birthday to Richard, as according to him it was Daddy Day, and he is so right!

Potty issues

I was planning to write this post for a long time, if we need to "potty train" or just wait until kids are ready. But I was kept postponing and postponing until Benji has started to use the toilet himself. So I can now draw the conclusion that no, there is no need to potty "train", when they are ready they loose the nappy in a week.

We didn't do anything either, apart from before bathtime asking him if he wants to sit on the potty or not. Sometimes he wanted to, sometimes he wasn't interested. We only needed to be strong and fight off the pressure of our environment like "Oh, is he still wearing nappies?!" or "My daughter is using the potty since she was 1.5" or "Shouldn't you make him sit on the potty every morning so he gets used to it"?
No, not really I thought, I knew he won't do his GCSEs in nappies..

And here we came: about 3 weeks ago the Nursery told us if the day after we want to bring Benji in pants and some extra clothes as for the last three days he was asking the staff when he wanted to use the potty or the toilet. First I was a bit scared as at home he never did tell us when he needed to use the toilet, but I thought lets be it!
The day after we took him in only in his pants, and he came home dry, only one accident! After this he started to say at home too when he needed it, and asked for the lots of "Good Boy" stickers which the nursery has given him every time he told them he needed the loo.
So in a week he become potty "trained". Even at night he doesn't need a nappy, but I still put it on him just in case, and until I buy a waterproof sheet onto the mattress.

I have now a very big and clever boy! So proud of him!

And my little one also, who in the last week at last pushed his first tooth through. Actually two of them, one up and one right under it. He even learnt how to scratch them together. eeeek
And he is so cute as he laughs with his two little mini teeth, I love him!

10 months old Little Mr

Little Bobin  has become 10 months old over the weekend. Actually he is not so little anymore (or never has been), he is about 11kgs (was 10.5 about a month ago), but he is cutely round, board shouldered and very bitable little chunky man.
He loves being naked, we were joking that he is going to be a nudist as he loves when we change his nappy or undress him. He starts laughing and "runs off" and really complains loudly if we try to put some clothes back on him.
His love of nakedness also shows at bathtimes as he giggles, splashes, laughs when he is in the bath and hates coming out of it. (absolutely opposite to his brother who still screams when we wash his hair or if the smallest drop of water touches his face).

He also started crawling about two weeks ago, and now he became really fast, especially when he is naked (see above...). He can pull himself up to standing as well, claps, waves, chats.
He still doesn't have any teeth, but I keep thinking is not long now as his gums are really swollen (although I think this now for a month). More over the last three nights he woke up really crying in the middle of the night and we hardly could settle him back again.
But he still doesn't like pureed food and rather chew on things. But without any teeth?! I am left with looking for sign of choking all the time. Oh well.

His fluffy red hair started to be blond at the roots, so look like he is going to be blond in the end. :-(

At the weekend it was really nice weather again (one of those rare days when it was better weather here than in Hungary..he he), so we were doing some gardening, window cleaning with Mr OCDs (Richard and Benji), we visited Tamworth playground where there was  a mini fun fair. Benji dared to go on the little airplanes with Richard (mini miracle...)

One nice sunny day

Sun came out again at last! Richard was working away so I was alone at Jayne's house with the boys (they were on holiday and we were house-sitting and builder-sitting) so Katy offered to go with them to Sutton Park. It was a really good day, had a picnic there, Benji really enjoyed himself, kicked the ball, run around, pissed on a tree (he left the nappies behind, but I would like to write a separate post about that when I have time), ate a big ice-cream, had big pillow fight. He was completely tired-out, didn't need an extra story before going to sleep just went quickly half an hour earlier.
Little Bobin liked it there too, just burnt his little fair skin by the end of the day, I don't think it has seen much sun in his life yet...

Best friends

Nowadays Benji is really interested about the meaning of "friends" and "friendship". His little cars come in pairs, he tells me that the little green car's friend is the red Ferrari, the soft toys come in pairs too, and I know that in nursery his friends are Harry and Olivia, but Declan is not.
We were looking at our wedding photo the other day and he had to name everyone he knew on it, then he pointed at Doug and asked who he is. I said he is Daddy's best friend.
Then for about 1-2 minutes we forgot about it, went on our ways, then all of a sudden he turns to me:
- Mummy?
- Yes?
- My best friend is Dina.

He said it in such a cute, serious way that I really wanted to lift him up and kiss his clever face to pieces.
(It is a shame that the named person couldn't see it...)

The magic of the first train ride

Ok, we have been on a train before, but this was the first proper one, the one he sees in story books and drawings, real steam trains!
I always wanted to visit the Severn Valley Steam Railway as I have only saw beautiful pictures of it in brochures and Tv programs.
I wasn't dissapointed despite we have only went two stops with it, still the countryside was gorgeous (just as well the car drive to Highley).
At the stop where we got off there was a garden railway project where we couldn't pull Benji away from, he had to see the train coming through the tunnel about 20 times. I am sure the train-mad volunteers who run this place appreciated his enthusiasm :-)

We've also visited the Steam museum where we "forgot" to buy the very expensive tickets to (I think it was expensive this weekend because it was a Peppa and George themed weekend). We were really grateful that we didn't when we later only met someone dressed up as George walking around in an enclosure where you could take pictures with him. Which Benji of course didn't even want to. Or dared to.