Abaddon

Emma with the Abaddon (cuddly toys)

defying gender stereotypes

michael at nursery singtime (obviously not singing at the time)

the babysitters!

blacks at gartmore dam

mummy and michael

emma and daddy at the swings

enjoying the roundabout

mummy and michael going up the hill on Easter Sunday to roll the eggs

emma at the flowers

daddy and michael ready to roll the eggs

michael in the woods (he said there's no bears there)

football at the park

sticks

more of emma and the flowers

dog cupcakes by mummy and michael for georgia's birthday

note how the plastic balls match the tights

michael on a ride at the links market

on a tireswing with granddad black at cluny clays

on the go kart (ok it's a bike) at cluny clays

eggs by michael and mummy (the one on the front left is emma)

michael and the magic pen books

emma relaxing in her buggy

this is how i got emma to look at the camera. no babies were harmed in the taking of this photo

It's been a busy few weeks in the black household. Michael's spent the last 3 weekends over in Glenrothes with Granny and Granddad Black. He's had a lot of fun there.

The weather's been quite nice over the last few weeks as you can see from the photos, which has allowed everyone to get outside and play. The kids are back outside on their bikes in the street, and michael's not quite ready to lose the stabilisers, but maybe soon.

Emma's vocabulary is increasing. One of the more strange things she's started saying is her own word for soft toys. She says something which sounds like "Ah - buh - dun". There's some discussion in the house as to whether it's "Abaddon" (biblical term with debated meaning, possibly destructive-related) or "Aberdeen". I'm sure the red faction within the family will think it's the latter.

Michael's vocabulary is also increasing. He's memorised a couple of Articles of Faith (#3 and #8). Every so often he comes out with quite big words that surprise me (e.g. enormous). When we were playing Mario on the wii the other day, when the boss was finished Michael said "He's history!", which took me by surprise.

The good news on the sleep front is that Sarah seems to have cracked a reasonably good routine for getting emma to sleep. It seldom takes more than 5-10 minutes now to set her down. She still wakes up in the middle of the night (or sometime a couple of hours later). The only time recently that it took longer was when Sarah was away and Granny and Granddad Black were trying to put her to bed. I wasn't much help, but Granddad tried walking her about Tullibody in a buggy for about an hour, which is usually a sure-fire way to get her to sleep, but he said she just chatted away for the whole hour. Eventually he drove her about for a while in the car, and that seemed to do the trick.

We went up to Stirling University to roll our eggs for Easter today. There's a nice wee spot that Sarah had gone to with Colette and the collective kids a few days ago. They were all a little scared by the swans back then, who were being quite protective, but thankfully they left us alone this time. Michael was excited to see the eggs break, and also played a game where he asked me which stick he thought he could throw the highest, then threw two up in the air at the same time. Sarah said I was being pedantic when I said that we really needed a third party to throw the sticks to be a proper game/experiment. Sarah was right.

Emma now seems to be working on more communication. She's now pointing to where she wants you to carry her to.

Michael's been really good the past couple of weeks. As always there's been some exceptions, but he seems to be very polite and friendly. He got some magic pen books for christmas, and he's really got into them over the past couple of weeks. It's a big red pen that you put on certain places in the books, and it reads the story. I've still not worked out how it works.

I've been feeling a little better over the past two or three weeks. I've been able to take Emma to the park a couple of times, and went out for the easter rolling eggs today. We all went to the park across the road on Friday. It was good fun. Sarah managed to kick the football into somebodies garden, and then had to go around and do a grown up version of "Mister, can I get my ball back please?". Afterwards we went to nandos to 'celebrate' me being sick for two years (and a week). Nothing like spicy chicken to celebrate long term illness. Here's to no more years! Emma's place at the restaurant was a total mess afterwards, but both her and michael loved the warm pitta bread with hummus starter.