Blog From A Broad

i *heart* my husband's relatives

Paul's oldest brother, his lovely wife, and Harry the Dog came up for a visit last weekend. They absolutely adore Jack, and I love how much they're taken by him. On Saturday, they took the dogs and Jack out for a stroll and on Sunday, they took Jack into Cambridge for lunch and sightseeing. It gave me a chance to finally attack the garden and chop my way through the jungle that is our backyard. I can't really do any work to the garden when Jack's around because there's nowhere to put him to protect him from potential dog poo, a deep and very cold pond, or yummy looking rocks/dirt/weeds/bugs. I managed to cut back most of the overgrown plants, although the pond plants are beyond my powers and require a bulldozer. It was lovely to work on the garden with two waggy dogs following me around. Roll on summer.

Jack was coughing a lot at night and kept waking himself up. At one point, I was cuddling him back to sleep but every time I tried to put him down, he let out a very pitiful cry of "mama mama mama mama!" I know I complained that Jack wasn't communicating yet, but I didn't really want it to happen like this. Breaks a mother's heart, it does.

Jack hadn't been walking much lately, so it was surprising to see him walking most of yesterday afternoon. He stood up with his two little feet spread wide apart, toddled across the room, fell down on all fours, turned with a look that said "Am I great, or what?!", and got right back up again. He kept it up for ages, absolutely thrilled with himself. Is it just me, or does it seem like kids learn skills in batches? It's like one day every few weeks they demonstrate a dozen new talents.

While I was vacuuming yesterday, I turned around to find Jack mimicking my back and forth movements with a broom I'd left against the wall. He was sitting on the floor pushing the broom across it, and did this happily the entire time I cleaned up. Wonder if I can teach him how to run the washing machine?

That is all.