Thanks to everyone who has been following this blog.
I've not been updating it regularly for a while now and I'm not sure if I'm going to continue with it.
If anyone wants to keep up with pics and things of our wee family then look me up on facebook under Marion McCready.
I'll not close the blog in case I decide to keep it going after all!

My wee Sorley seems so grown up now. That's him now aged two and four-and-a-half months though most people think he's three coming on four!
So we thought it was about time we gave him a wee brother / sister. Yep, I'm pregnant and due at the end of September. Don't know yet if it's a boy or a girl, we're going to have to pay privately to get a second scan to find out!

Some pics of the wee boy, as you can see he's as much fun as ever. Sure he has his moments but generally only when he's not well and not been sleeping well, otherwise he truly is a constant delight to us.

He really is going to love having a wee brother / sister to boss around!

I think he'll also be a great help, he tries to be very helpful most of the time as it is.

Though I think the 'sharing' all his toys might hit him a bit hard!

In saying that he loves playing with all his cousins and *most* of the time is happy to share his toys with them.

I'm very excited about the new baby. I think the second time around will be less stressful and more enjoyable now that I know what to expect and how to deal with it all.

Today the snow came, finally! And as you can see, Sorley and I had some fun out in the garden.


Sorley in his spiderman outfit chosen by his spidey-mad big cousin for Christmas!

Sorley up to mischief in his new bedroom!


Sorley's first proper bed, a whale bed with Bob-The-Builder bed-spread. Sorley loves his new bed.

Hello, anybody out there??

Yes it's been a while, I'm sorry. In fairness Sorley broke my camera months ago and I've only recently managed to get a new one.

He's a big, lively two year old boy now! At the moment he's into Winnie the Pooh and birds. Whenever we go out and he sees a bird he shouts 'bird, bird', and he imitates the soft toy bird he has that makes a proper bird sound.

He had a lovely birthday party with his cousins and friends and was like an animal on the bouncy castle! A friend of a friend gave us the big garden toy for nothing, he has so much fun on it. He loves to go down slides head first and he loves his food.

He calls dad 'dado' and says 'pah' for please and sorry. He's getting good at swimming, I try to take him most weeks to the local pool. When the phone rings he races to answer it, has an unintelligible conversation followed by a very clear 'ba-bye' .

Warning - Hunners of Pics

Bremen July 2008





It's been a while since I've done a slideshow so I though I'd do one of our recent holiday to Bremen, North Germany.
We had a really lovely time and Sorley was an angel to travel with, he just took everything in his stride. Sorley's confidence has really grown with all the new experiences, and he had a really great time.

In the last month Sorley's had a rotten cold, been canoeing for the first time and really come along leaps and bounds in his language skills.

He had a miserable time with the cold - fevers, hacking coughs, zero appetite and a permanently runny nose. Thankfully he's over it now, he's normally such a happy and good fun wee boy but in the midst of his cold the only thing that would stop him crying was his dummy and the Telly Tubbies - I kid you not. I limit his tv watching to first thing in the morning and he gets bored of the cartoons after a while but when he was ill, to keep the peace and to cheer him up as much as possible, the telly tubby dvd lived in our dvd player. Thankfully now he's well, the telly tubbies are well and truly back on the shelf and he's not reaching up crying for them!

So we got Sorley a life jacket and took him canoeing on Loch Eck which he seemed to enjoy. I sat at the front of the canoe with him sitting in front of me looking out into the water, he would chuck his plastic ball and we would canoe towards it and pick it up for him to throw it again!

About three weeks ago Sorley all of a sudden started saying recognisable words and I realised that he'd been trying to repeat the words I say after me but it only came out as babble before. So what does he say? Well some of his favorite new words are - a baw (a ball), more, appo (apple), yeah, hello, an extremely emphasised 'oh no' (which mummy said when he belted daddy's ornament off the floor!). He has also got the biggest frown possible which he gives me if I tell him off, and when I wag my finger at him saying 'naughty, naughty', he just laughs hysterically and wags his finger back at me!



It's hard to be angry with this little boy!

he was a poor wee soul when he was ill


a rather concerned look!

me and my mummy - sometimes when I'm in the kitchen he just stands at the baby gate shouting 'mum' and I shout back 'Sorley' to which he laughs hysterically - he's easily amused my baby is!


helping daddy out in the garden


not many places left sacred now!


enjoying his afternoon nap

So What Have We Been Up To??

Well we've just enjoyed a couple of nice and quiet weeks after what seemed like a couple of frenzied weeks of activity before that.I spent my first night away from Sorley which was 2 full days and 1 night, and guess what - he and daddy survived! I was at a poetry festival in St. Andrews which I blogged about in my other blog here.


We were also invited to a wedding held in St. Conan's Kirk, a beautiful church on the banks of Loch Awe
The reception was in Ardanaiseig Hotel which is also on the banks of Loch Awe and where we spent the night, a beautiful place and the bed was big enough for Sorley to sleep comfortably long-ways between me and daddy.
This is Sorley in his kilt outfit for the wedding - ok I know the slippers don't match!

Some pics of my mischievous boy, pulling mummy's wardrobe to bits
Don't think this picture needs any explanation
look who's worked out how to climb onto the windowsill
who needs toys when you've got the good old pots and pans
sometimes he'll climb into his pram for a wee rest

So what's new with Sorley - he completely has his own little language now, it feels like he understands everything I'm saying so I have to be more careful what I say in front of him. He likes provoking me to reaction, I can't leave any shoes lying about or else he'll pick them up and lick their soles to see me shriek in horror. He sings along to most things, the hoover, the beeping of the 6 o'clock news - I mean everything!
My dog has turned into a neurotic mess because of all the noise Sorley manages to make out of anything.
Mostly it's been raining lately so we've not been out much but today was gorgeous so we had a picnic on the promenade, Sorley walked for a good while along the promenade then we went to the swing park where he found some 6 and 7 year old girls who adored him and played with him.
He loves meeting other kids, in fact he loves meeting anyone and is a right wee entertainer, not in the least bit shy. He also loves giving little girls kisses!!

I'm pleased to report that his bum's back to normal - Sorley's that is!

And I've found the lead for my camera so here's some pics -

SORRY!

Sorry I've not blogged in ages but I can't find the lead to transfer my pics from my camera to the computer. However here's a wee update, at last we had our day of snow in which Sorley and I even managed to build a snowman! He's teething at the moment and which is resulting in diarrhea and the worst nappy rash he's ever had, I hate seeing him in such discomfort but just using water instead of baby wipes, airing his bum a lot which means plenty of accidents for mummy to clean up. I tried egg whites suggested by someone at the mums and toddlers but his poor bum totally flared up again with it so it's just back to sudocrem.

To take his mind off it I took him on a wee trip across the water to Fun World which is a big indoor kids play centre, it was great, Sorley had a total ball of a time and I enjoyed it too. It was good taking him across on the ferry myself with the pram, it really wasn't that much trouble, plenty of people offered to help me carry the pram down the stairs etc. He had a good wander about on the ferry, when we got off Fun World is a 15 / 20 min walk along the promenade which gave Sorley a chance to fall asleep and work up energy for when we went in.

We've been invited to a wedding in a couple of weeks so I bought Sorley a wee kilt and shirt to wear, it's so cute and my mum is going to buy a wee waistcoat to go with it, hopefully by then I'll have found my camera lead and posts pics of the handsome wee boy.

I had a lovely Mother's Day on Sunday there, at the mums and toddlers they helped Sorley make me a card and gave all the mums mugs with creme eggs in them all wrapped up in pink which was really nice.

The wee rascal's now at the hair pulling and slapping stage when he gets really tired - mainly aimed at me, having read up on it it seems they all go through this. What I do is firmly say no and put him down or even walk out of the room which seems to work. What all the books say is nip it in the bud now when he thinks it funny and it's not really sore or when he gets bigger it'll be a nightmare to deal with!

Despite the sore bum, most of the time he's such good fun and makes me laugh all day.

Look who dropped the nappy bin on his toe

and mummy just stands there taking pics!

Took Sorley to a different mums and toddlers group today and what a difference. I've discovered that the majority of the town's mothers take their kids to this group. There was loads of kids, many around Sorley's age and he had a great time. Everyone kept an eye on their own kid and there was very little in the way of mishaps. The people who run the group are friendly, everyone chats whilst watching the kids and there is even a singsong at the end for all. What a relief to find this group, I'm definitely joining it.

Sorley had a wee fall at my mum's yesterday on her driveway, the poor mite's face is scratched all down one side and my mum was pretty terrified about bringing him home to me! But he's okay. The clever boy can now blow his nose if I hold a tissue to it.

I'm thinking about going back to uni this year, the original plan was to have another baby then do a post-grad course at uni that will actually get me into a job. But thinking about it I really don't think we could afford for me to do another year at uni once we've had another kid. For the course I'm looking at I think I'd have to be at uni for two full days and two half days in the week which means I'd take Sorley up with me for the two half days and put him in the creche up there and for the two full days he'd spend the morning at childcare (my husband's cousin had just qualified for childcare) and the afternoon at my mum's until J could pick him up at 4pm. So sounds like a good option, just got to work out funding then apply for the course!

A Day in the Life of...

It's been a while so I thought I better update and add some pics (especially for aunty Sheetal!!). Sorley has really grown up in this last month, he's been paddling on the beach, walking up the glen and climbing anywhere he can get to. Also mentally, this boy misses nothing!



He wakes up in the morning normally between 8 and 8.30am - here he is sleeping.



Breakfast time!
He used to eat weetabix happily but recently decided he doesn't like it anymore - he swats the spoon saying 'no' and I end up covered in it! Tried numerous other cereals and giving him dry cereal with a cup of milk but none of that worked. So now he eats toast with cream cheese (cream cheese is his favorite food at the moment) with a cup of milk and while his hands are busy with all that I shove spoonfulls of weetabix into his gob!



In the morning we head out in the pram walking the dog, shopping or going to the mums and toddlers group. There really are some right little thugs at that playgroup, every week he gets pushed over or another little boy deliberately blocking his way etc, it doesn't help that all the other boys are around 3 or going on 4 years old, and some of them are tall for their age. Of course I keep an eye on Sorley at all times and he does, for the most part, love running around and playing but he knows now that not everyone wants to be nice to him and I feel a little sad that he has to learn this so early on.



Lunchtime is normally sandwiches and sometimes soup as well, he'll eat banana, cream cheese or egg mayonnaise in his sandwiches and today I discovered he'll eat sliced ham also.




In the afternoon we play in the garden or go for a walk or go visiting. Walking on the forest path up the glen really helped Sorley's balance for walking outside so now he runs around our back garden quite the thing!




In the evening he runs around the house pulling everything out of everywhere, playing peek-a-boo behind his pram, or climbs all over the furniture in the living room. From the second this boy is awake he is never still for a moment. He really is so much fun and completely wears me out!

NO!

You guessed it, the favorite word is 'no'! Not nah / nay / nih but the queen's english perfect no! When did this first come about? When asked non-stop for kisses by demanding grannys. Now the answer is the same whenever and whoever asks my son for a kiss. And if you don't take no for an answer and keep asking eventually your get a smack across the face as my mother found out!

The sleeping problem turned out to be just a blip and he's back to his usual 9pm-8.30am. Sorley's also made the change from 2 naps in the day (before lunch and before dinner) to one long nap in the afternoon.

Started taking him along to a local mums and tots group, the mums sat talking while the kids, mostly aged 2-3 year-olds whizzed about on scooter things. Sorley ran about after the older boys and while watching him I noticed that the son of the woman who runs the group was going up behind Sorley and hitting him on the back - this was going on in another room from where the mums were and I was standing in the doorway between both rooms. Perhaps I should have told the mother what her child was doing but after listening to her go on about being unable to control her son's temper tantrums I decided to deal with it myself. So I swiftly walked to where the children were, pointed my finger at the child in question and simply said 'oi, don't do that' in a strict tone accompanied by an evil eye. Well the child was sweetness and light towards Sorley and myself for the rest of our time.
Sorley was oblivious to it all and had a great time!

Walking today with new wellies and reins!

To say Sorley enjoyed his new found freedom is an understatment! It was pretty cold outside so after about 20 mins I took him back home and he cried as if it was the end of the world so husband took him out for a while longer and brought him home when his wee legs could no longer hold him up.

The best part was watching him discover the joy of jumping in puddles!
I really want wellies now.

His first wellies

Sorley had a great time stomping around the garden with his wellies on. Tomorrow I think we'll take him for a proper walk down town now that I've found the reins, he's a hundred percent steady on his feet and has a huge amount of energy.

He had his MMR jag a couple of days ago which he coped with extremely well. I did extensive reading up beforehand because of the 'scare' and feel fully satisfied and comfortable about allowing him to have the jag.

check out the jammies!


Sorley's sleeping pattern hasn't quite recovered from the festive season and the last few nights he's been waking up at 3am, we bring him into bed and he plays, tosses and turns for 2-3 hours and eventually sleeps. We can't really go on like this so if he wakes up tonight and cries, it'll be heartbreaking, but we're not going to bring him into bed and hopefully he'll fall asleep fairly quickly in his cot. He still sleeps in our bedroom and can be hard to ignore when he stands in his cot and shouts MAM/DAD instead of the usual dada/mama! But I'm hoping he won't wake up.

How messy is your computer desk

Inspired by eipwek's before and after pic of her computer desk I've decided to come clean on the guddle of my computer desk which I've long since given up on keeping tidy as the perpetrator of this crime is not me, or Sorley...

The month of December was fun while it lasted but I'm glad it's all over - the trauma of birthday then birthday then wedding anniversary then Christmas then New Year was all getting a bit much for me and for the little boy also.
Husband's back to work tomorrow so everything will, at last, get back to normality.

I didn't take so many pics because we had borrowed a digital video camera over Christmas but here's some -



The presents being carefully guarded by Clyde...and these are just Sorley's!




The rocking horse




The sweets





The face he now pulls when I point a camera in his direction





Our lovely new furniture acquisition called a 'Monks bench' which solves our seating problem, doubles as a toy box and really takes up very little space in our living room



Who's a handsome boy then









We took Sorley out to the Christmas Eve midnight joint service with the local churches where he was an absolute angel, got him up at 9 on Christmas Day to open his presents and then went out to the Christmas day service in our own church where he was also an angel despite having not got to bed before 1.30 am the previous night. We spent Christmas at my mother's which was lovely.

What's new with Sorley? - he now says 'ta' and thinks that gives him a right to grab anything he wants, he shows a fit of temper when he doesn't get what he wants by jumping up and down and slapping my knee (I really have to try hard not to laugh it's so funny)! Ever since my dad told him off for pulling at the fireplace by saying 'ah ah ah' Sorley says it incessently, says it when he's doing something he knows he shouldn't which is quite handy when I'm not in the room so I know when he's up to mischief, he says it to me and his daddy when we don't do or give him something he wants.

His favorite food is still garlic bread and now it's also little pork sausages which he polishes off quite the thing.

A New Decade

You may have noticed, if you have checked my profile in the last week, that I've now reached the grand old age of 30!!

Yep it was my birthday on Sunday, well actually it felt like my birthday all week-end. We went to Glasgow on Saturday and visited Kelvingrove art gallery and museum which I've not been to since they did it up. It's a stunning building and the wee boy loved running around the long halls looking at stuffed elephants, tigers etc. Here's some pics from the museum!








Then we had dinner at TGI Friday's which was fabulous and I has a champagne and raspberry cocktail, well it was my 30th!!


Then we went to a pantomime at the Kings Theatre




and saw this -

It was hilarious and Sorley was mesmorized all the way through it.
We stayed the night at a hotel literally minutes from the theatre.


The next day we shopped, walked around Glasgow and even got to hold a Golden Eagle!

It was a perfect birthday and I got lots of lovely pressies including a painting of Everest, a silver ring with 3 little diamonds, a drawing set with a wooden model figure, a set of pastels, a leather hat, a little silver hip-flask and money! I sure am spoiled!

The Big Day!

What a day, the wee boy was spoiled rotten!!

He had a great time, woke up to his trampoline, new books, clothes, money, a talking JoJo doll, activity table and a lovely large wooden bead frame! Then in the afternoon he got a bounce and spin zebra which he loves bouncing on (I'll get some pics to post up later), a toy hamster which runs madly in a plastic ball, a lovely wooden noah's ark with animals set, more clothes, and a ten shilling note which will be worth a pretty penny by the time he turns eighteen. I think thats everything he got!!

We made it an animal themed party and ordered a box of assorted animal noses that all guests had to wear - cruel I know!

I didn't actually take that many pics of the day because we had a video camera but here's a few -



The Night Before - daddy putting up the birthday decorations!









Sorley getting ready to bounce to the banjo music





Some party food




The Cake!



Reading his new book!



dad's got a dog's nose!



Quack Quack!



The grandparents, aunty and Sorley's wee cousin!



Birthday cards!





Sorley at the end of the day, shattered and eating mrs noah!






After Sorley went to bed hubby and I popped open a bottle of champagne that my sis-in-law brought over from Australia when I was pregnant with strict orders not to open until bubs 1st birthday - well we made it! Cheers sis!

We have survived
our first year of parenting!

BIRTHDAY BOY TOMORROW

I really can't believe it, my baby's now a toddler and is turning ONE!
He's had a rough week - his front top teeth have been coming through and really caused him pain so it's been out with the bonjela and calpol.

He has gradually weaned himself off breastfeeding, the only feed I can get him to take now is the first one in the morning. So I started him on Goats milk out of his sippy cup and you could see he was pretty impressed with milk out of a cup that he doesn't have to work for!

Today I've been rushing around in the dreich (wet) weather picking up last bits and bobs for the birthday party. Funny to think that a year ago today I was in the middle of what turned out to be a 35 hour labour, despite what everone says I have not forgotten the agony!! But it's not going to put me off having more - just not anytime soon!

Because the wee nipper loves to jump and bounce so much we bought him a junior trampoline for his birthday, I can't wait to see his face when he gets a shot on it to morrow! Tonight will be decorating the livingroom, blowing up balloons, puting candles on the cake, right now hubby is practicing 'happy birthday to you' on his banjo for tomorrow.

It's a bitter sweet feeling, I look forward, God-willing, to the wonderful years ahead watching my little boy grow up but if this last year is anything to go by I know it's all going to happen far too fast.

I've been tagged by Eipwek!

Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.



(1) My Birthday, Wedding anniversary and Christmas are all within 3 weeks of each other making December officially my month, though now it's mine and Sorley's month seeing how he held off to the 1st of December to be born!

(2) I was in a labour ward playing cards with my mum and mum-in-law inbetween contractions when I should have been attending a graduation ceremony for my masters degree!

(3) I'm passionate about poetry - reading and writing!

(4) I love, I mean LOVE, good food - the way to my heart is definitely through my stomach - just ask my husband!

(5) I only ever wash my dishes in boiling water - if the water is cool enough to handle without rubber gloves then it's definitely not hot enough for washing dishes!

(6) It feels like a waste of a cup of coffee if I have no chocolate biscuits to dip in it, though in order to beat the belly my new mantra is 'coffee for coffee's sake' - I say this aloud to myself when making a coffee to help resist the biscuit temptation, sometimes it works!

(7) I have a collie-cross named Clyde after the river that flows past my town.

I tag:

katya
husband's Blog
message in a bottle
the funny bone
jeanette
michael manning
heidi

Tried with another pic just to be sure!!

It's official - he looks more like me!