I always confuse myself a bit with these monthly updates. I do them about the month previous - so Orry turned 5 months old at the end of March. which means that the post is titled 5 months old, but is about when he was 4 months old (ie: March). But anyway...
Here are the side by sides!
 |
| 4 months old |
 |
| 5 months old |
 |
| 41 months old (3 years and 5 months) |
 |
| 42 months old (3 years and 6 months) |
Orry is still getting bigger (as you can tell!) and is now 21 lbs (!!!) still quite literally topping the chart for his age. We went to a birthday party and someone asked how old Orry was and when I replied they said "oh! he is a big boy isn't he?" to which Finn chimed in: "No, I'M the big boy. Orry is just the FAT boy!" :)
Here's a chubby knee:
Healthy and happy though other than a few niggling things. His skin is still a nightmare. Dry and flakey leaving the crack between our beds to look like this (gross):
The big news in Orry's world is that he got his first tooth!! Hooray!
He can also hold his head up quite confidently now. He desperately wants to crawl though so spends a lot of time trying to get on his knees (often resulting in a face plant). I think he's so set on crawling he's not at all worried about rolling over - which he still can't do (not that I mind too much - it's quite reassuring knowing that he will still be where you left him if you leave :) )
Here's some pictures of him mastering this skill:
You can also see in these photos that he's not always as serious as his pics make out! He does smile a lot - not quite as easily or as often as Finn did but he IS a happy baby. He smiles QUITE easily at strangers though (especially women) much to the delight of everyone when we're out!!
Here's him with his friend Michael having a laugh:
(I looked after Michael for a bit while his mum was trying to pack for a move... made me so appreciative of mothers of twins!! Yikes!)
(also worth noting that in this picture Orry is 4 months old and Michael is nearly 7 months old...That's my giant baby for you!)
Serious (but gorgeous)...
And happy (still gorgeous):
And here's a video of him laughing just to prove it:
Finn of course is silly and funny and laughy as ever:
One of Finn's favourite things at the moment is actually telling jokes. Or should I say "jokes."
He's not quite sure about how they work - but they are hilarious none-the-less!!
He's not always happy though. He's started throwing big tantrums... we're doing our best just to ignore him when he gets like that and invariably he will just fall asleep in the middle! (though that does help a lot with his mood)
In other Finn news, he has started to write! For a long time he just scribbled and scribbled. And then he randomly asked me to show him how to do his name and my name and he carefully copied it exactly. I was AMAZED! I'm sure they must work on it at school but it was the first I had seen it. So so proud (and a bit guilty for underestimating him...)
Finn also loves what he calls 'tricking.' It's basically funny things to do physically either by himself or with someone else. When James comes home Finn starts immediately with "do tricks on me!! let's do tricking!!" And next thing you know they are on the floor inventing all sorts of gymnastic moves. When he does it by himself he gets excited to show you his new trick - and it almost always involves some sort of standing on one foot (which is apparently really really tricky to do :) ). He also likes to do tricking on his "skateboard" otherwise known as the board on the back of Orry's pram. Again, it mostly involves standing on one leg - and we are always suitably impressed!
Finn and Orry are getting along a bit better. When Orry first came we thought we had really lucked out on how much Finn was loving and involved. I'm not sure we ever shared this lovely video of a bath time...
But once the novelty wore off he really wanted nothing to do with him at all. We've mentioned before that he didn't want to hold him or talk to him or anything. He's still not massively affectionate but slowly and surely he's starting to enjoy actually engaging with him. He takes pride in being helpful and fetches things I need or 'looking after' Orry, which is mostly just patting his tummy and saying "It's ok, I'm right here" which makes me laugh! (I love when he parrots myself back to me - it always makes me laugh. Especially when he says things like "Thank you Mama, that was very kind of you" or "I couldn't have done it without you" in response to me cutting him a piece of cheese)
And every so often they actually play together, or at least Finn tolerates Orry's presence in his game. But it certainly warms the heart to see them.
So what did we do in March? There were three big fun things that happened in March, and a lot of just general hanging out. First the hanging out - not too exciting but happy memories none the less!
 |
| This is from a Saturday morning when James took both boys for a walk to the bakery - A lovely start to the day! |
We also went to the cinema for the first time, to see Paddington. Finn LOVED it (or maybe just loved the eating of popcorn while staring at a screen... hmmm...) and Orry was very well behaved (though did have a poo explosion needing me to strip him down and change him in the aisle with the film going on... awesome...
But now the big things! March started (and February finished) with a visit from my cousin Andey.
We had a great time showing her around London and Finn LOVED having a playmate living at his house. I think Finn's favourite trip though was when we went to Borough Market and he got to get something from the fruit stand (he went for strawberries).
We also had an invite to the grand opening of the new children's gallery at the National Maritime Museum (one of the perks of being employed by a London museum is all the things it gets you into in other London museums!). It was a very exciting (and very posh!) affair but central to everything was children - so it was very fun! Especially because all the children were encouraged to dress up as pirates. And dressing up is always fun.
At the event itself there was a photo booth - great fun was had by all!!
And last but not least in March was, once again, a trip to the Isle of Man! I think we've been there once a month this year! This time was for a wedding.
It was a lovely trip, as ever, with lots of fun hanging out in the flat
 |
| Finn made a list of all the things he wanted to do that day |
Some trips to the park
Including one instance where I could only find one of Finn's gloves. And this sent him into a spiralling tantrum. Not helped by all of us on the bench carrying on enjoying ourselves. But it did create one of our favourite pictures of Finn ever!
And some trips out with Granny (including a trip on the steam train (of course!!))
And the wedding itself. Finn stayed with his cousins for a sleepover (which he was incredibly excited for!) but Orry came with us. He was very good on the way there and actually fell asleep in the car which never happens!
He was very well behaved throughout the service except for one very loud poo. Which of course made me terrified that it was going to leak out the back, as it always does. But I kept checking and it seemed fine (he was on my lap facing me so I was eagle-eyed on his back). Until I started to feel the warmth and realised that, no, this time he didn't leak up his back - it all came out a leg hole. Right onto my lap. And my dress had absorbed quite a lot of poo. Luckily my dress happened to be solid brown! So hopefully not many people noticed that I was walking around with a big poo stain... I did make a joke to the bride that "it's the sign of a good wedding with you end the night with someone else's poo on your dress!" but she didn't seem to think it was as funny as I did... Anyway! Orry had to be stripped down and changed in the church. I'm sure there's something sacrilegious about that but hey!
He's cute though, so we forgave him :)
Overall a very good month!!
