Here's a picture of Orry asleep by the trains. Cori didn't believe me when I said it had happened, so rare is this:
It came about when I was patting him bum when he was lain out by the trains. Having been laughing at it for a while, he then seemed drowsy, so I did it softer, until he drifted off. We were all very jealous of him resting thus!
The latest batch of Finn's dancing came to an end just before Easter, and so we were able to go along and watch him do his thing. I hadn't seen him in months, so it was nice to see him much improved (in dancing and listening/following instructions). He did some things really well, but we suspect that a lot of his evident enjoyment was just in running around - whenever he was asked to move about dancing, it ended up being a mad run in a wide circle round the room whilst doing some vague gesture at actions with his arms when he remembered. He and we had fun though. Orry also had fun, but mainly after the lesson/show had ended and we supported him to go racing around shrieking after the older children. You can see Finn-in-the-orange-shirt in action here (in the second picture everyone is being a circle):
The second half of March is dominated by illness, but we did get in two good trips out before illness disaster struck, firstly to the London Transport Museum:
Normally I would complain about going there so often, but I was surprised that my annual pass had run out, and I hadn't realised - so it had obviously actually been some months since I was there. How fast time flies!
We also took the unusual step of going to South Kensington for the Science Museum. We saw the bubble show, which Finn enjoyed. Orry also enjoyed it - mainly for the "Bubbles!" We didn't have enough time to see much else, because we'd left it so late in the day to set off there, and we are still waiting on our promise to go again. We did get to see the toilet display though, which Finn took a picture of:
The illness which stopped everything for over two weeks was mainly Finn's. Although Orry was miserable and feverish for 24 hours or so, it soon passed, and Cori had a fever and a terrible cold, but never had to give up and go to bed (as much as she might have liked to have!), it was Finn who couldn't shake the 100+ fever which made him sleep almost all the time, stop eating, and generally feel terrible in between. Not great.
The last of these was when I tried to take Finn outside for even just a very short trip (even just to the bins or something of that ilk) - it didn't last long and Finn valiantly lasted until we got home, where he made a nest in the room where I was sorting out the laundry, and promptly fell asleep for the next two hours.
The amazing thing about it was how long it lasted. Not just days, but well over a week. A whole week! With a temperature up to 103 (39.4 C) frequently, an almost complete absence of eating, and almost constant sleeping. Amazing.
The fold-down futon/sofa in the lounge was soon a permanent bed, and I took to sleeping with Finn on it, to make the lightest work of calming him from his frequent coughing-fit wakings. It was also there that we were camped out throughout the long days as Orry was in nursery and Finn slept between bouts of coughing and needing to hold our hands.
It was very difficult to get the time off easily from work, but we managed to share it out between us, and my days off were very pleasant indeed - lots of sitting around working on the computer as Finn slept, or else catching him in OK moods for periods to do something nice. Cori was very jealous as she seemed to always have Finn when he was at his miserablest and I managed to catch these happy moods between fevers when we were able to do things like read books, eat hot cross buns (with a fork, due to Finn's fever-aggravated aversion to stickiness), and make a Lego forklift truck:
One blessing about the illness was that it came just at Easter, so the second week of illness allowed us a few days without having to take them off from work. And another blessing was that the reign of illness-terror was past its peak by actual Easter (everyone was fine by that point, just in the post-illness-exhaustion stages), so that Finn (and the rest of us) were able to enjoy the day.
Unlike previous years, Cori decided that she'd try to make the day a lot more "American." This meant egg painting, plastic-eggs-with-stuff-inside hiding, egg eating, minor presents etc. (This might all be normal in the UK too, but certainly not to me). The two of them enjoyed it! Though Orry didn't care too much about the finding of the eggs once he discovered that they had sweets inside... (I'm embarrassed to say that he actually ended up vomiting by the end of the day because we were bad parents and completely lost track of how many sweets and (dairy-free) chocolate he had been eating! He didn't seem to mind. He grabbed for another sweet right after.)
Finn had received an egg from granny when she was visiting some weeks earlier, and you will note that he'd been slowly picking away at the packet to get in - he was very happy to finally be allowed (despite the face, which here looks more like a "huh?" - sorry about that)!
Finn and Orry were also delighted with the presents they got from their American grandparents and Cori. Orry got bath toys (including a turtle who enjoyed hanging out with the bigger "dinosaur" toys) and a dinosaur book where the T-Rex has a sticky tongue - a big winner by everyone - and a lovely dog that waggles when you pull it! Finn got a heap of dragons, perfect for the jungle scene which he'd received from Auntie Casey in the Summer. They were, and remain, however, "din-o-saurs!" to Orry, which are very good truck travellers...
And, in case you missed it from the earlier picture, Orry really enjoyed the chocolate of the occasion...
Another thing we did at the tail end of the illness was take our first trip with Orry to The Farm - a City Farm a bus-ride away on Holloway Road.
Finn has always been, and still now is, quite unmoved by animals. He was always more interested in the train carriage in which some pheasants live at the farm than any of the actual animals. In contrast, however, Orry seems to love animals and be amazed by them. He was just in awe of the geese and ducks, even just a yard inside the place, and it went on from there:
He loved walking around and shouting at the cats, hanging onto the fence to get a good look at the goats and cows, shouting "baa!" at the sheep, and laughing at and waving at the chickens:
A great success all round. It was just a shame that Finn was still under the weather and so was slumped in the push-chair for most of the time.
Another thing done under the shadow of the valley of illness was a little "Nature Trail Adventure", which involved talking a walk just around the block with our usual tick-sheet of things-to-see, a camera and, because it was a nature trail, a magnifying glass.
We saw a "yellow" thing (through a magnifying glass):
A "white" thing (through a magnifying glass):
A "pink" thing (which would be more obviously pink when not in silhouette):
And a "holly":
I put the words in quotation marks, because Finn is beginning to read, and so these are the words which we spend a long and arduous time to work out.
Finn has been reading his letters for a very long time, and we've been playing at having him read words for a long time, but it's only recently that we've decided that he's very much capable of reading simple stuff, if we just got him the right things to read and work at it.
We are struggling in finding the right stuff for him, as almost every book with have has words in which conflict in their sounds, or don't sound out correctly ("k-i-t-e", "c-l-o-u-d" and "h-i-g-h", for example, all feature in the "first reader" book that we've got expressly for the purpose!). Finn is, however, really good now at sounding out the words, first with one letter at a time, then, going through and adding one sound per letter until he's got the whole thing. He's very good at it. It is a big strain to do it in whole sentences though, as he has to sound out each word, and cannot yet recognise words immediately, so a sentence is an enormous memory game, and quite frustrating and unrewarding for him at the moment. He's gaining on it all though, which is great... We should probably get onto some word games, so that we can pin down the sight-words.
Here's a picture of jolly Finn to celebrate his good learning-to-read:
In contrast, here's a picture of Finn still poorly (hence the tears), when he'd put on his clothes himself. Unpictured is the shirt tucked into the underpants, nor the dad who was at this moment in realisation that he'd picked the younger son's trousers off the rack - they look so similar until they're on!
Sort of connected to the reading theme, it's probably worth noting that Finn loves to learn. It sounds silly to say, but we were surprised to notice it the other day in his choice of books and (while-Orry-is-napping) TV (on the computer). Far-and-away his favourite things are ones which teach him things. The body books, of course, and also the TV shows where the presenter teaches the troupe of kids about how bridges work, or how to create a picture of the stars etc. It is all very encouraging - I just wish we were betted enabled to make the most of it.
The Nature Trail Adventure was significant for our not taking a carrier or pushchair with us - Finn and Orry walked.
Orry is now a good walker (through certainly in need of a hand when outside or not on carpet - he often falls on his bum), so it is nice to be able to walk out with him. Previously he's always been in the carrier from the moment we leave the house until we get to somewhere, so it was a very exciting revelation for him to walk out the front door and down the stairs and out into the estate etc.
Here is that first time:
We went on a walk to the park, for the first time since Orry's been on his feet. He enjoyed it, a lot!
As you will have seen, Orry's general disregard for the rules also extends to slides and playgrounds - he enjoyed going up probably more than he did going down the slides. But he does need more practice on the going down - the heels go to get caught on the slide and get him stuck. A parent to lift his feet up, or at least to be on guard, seems to be required!
One of things that Finn got from his grandparents at Easter was a pack of tattoos which are appropriate for his age (a "Tattoos for Boys" pack bought off the internet a while back, complete with skeletons holding scantily-clad ladies, severed bleeding heads, and swastika-emblazoned ghouls was not appropriate!). First Finn, then Orry, and then Cori have now all got one on their arms, which, two weeks later, remain as fresh and complete as they day they went on... Great tattoos, but a bit odd to have them on for so long - for Cori as for children (at it's not for lack of trying! They're just really good tattoos). They boys enjoy them though, and have now almost grown used to having them on their arms:
In actual fact, Orry enjoys his immensely, and now has "Tatt-oo" amongst his words. Whenever anyone mentions the word, he will try to pull back his sleeve to show it off, and whenever we roll up his sleeve or take his jumper off, he's points it out to us and names it for us. He's very happy about that. We now hear from nursery that the carers in his room have had to explain to the other parents why their children have learnt the word "tattoo"!
The Big Outing in March was Cori's trip out with the two of them to the seaside (or is it Estuaryside?) to Leigh-on-Sea. The trip was to visit a friend, and her children. The adventures began even in London, where Finn was delighted to see the public art around the Gherkin:
When out in Essex, most of the time was spend on the beach (in coats, as you do at this time of year!), where Finn was adamant that he should wear wellies, for fear of getting sand on him. Orry didn't seem to mind though, which made Matilda happy:
Finn was pleased that Matilda had a camera also, and so they had a good time swapping them to see what they were able:
A good time had by all, including the mums (picture courtesy of Finn):
The Great Excitement at the very end of the month was that the Manx cousins were in London visiting their South London grandparents. This meant that we had an unexpected meet-up with them when they decided to go on an outing to the Museum of London.
It was great to see them, and it was actually very nice to show them around Cori's home-Museum. They cousins were all of the right age to have done some Roman history, and were about to start their Great Fire history etc., so the galleries were a great thing to show off. Cori even got a chance to tell her story of Saint Olaf and the pulling down of London Bridge, which she'd discovered for work only weeks earlier!
Then, in a rare treat for everyone involved, we decided to go out en masse for dinner. We had a wonderful time, the boys ate with gusto and joy (Finn, amazingly, ate all of his pizza, and Orry, inevitably, ate all of his fish and chips!), and everyone enjoyed the company. Lovely!
Also lovely was Finn's enjoyment running round taking photos after the meal, though it did leave his parents feeling slightly awkward about the ruckus being caused in the otherwise adult-only quiet restaurant!
The cousins were seen again before they returned to the Isle of Man, but not until we went with them to visit cousin Georgie... in April...
