Mischief and Makaton

Having three kids usually means our house is a constant hive of manic activity and I rarely stop to notice the relationships building between siblings. This last couple of weeks however I have really seen such a big change in the way Rosie and Joe interact. If she starts crying he is the first one there to offer comfort. He will happily put his beloved train set aside to sit and play with her, they make each other proper belly laugh and its become apparent to me that their relationship will only continue to flourish as they cotton on that they share the same mischievous nature (already dreading the teenage years!)

Karen has started doing Makaton (signing) classes now and has been attempting to teach me a bit too, in fact its become quite fun and the boys seem to be embracing it too which is great. I was extremely proud of the new words I'd learned to sign and put them together to make the sentence, "Play ball outside with Daddy" – totally useless to Rosie as she can't even crawl yet! I have been persevering with "Daddy" though and it seems to be paying off as she attempts to do the sign by tapping her fingers to her hand and saying Dadda! I've tried to capture it in some pictures below.

Rosie had her first visit to the dentist last week and I'm happy to report they were pleased with her entire set of 'tooth' (a half sized one at that!). As odd as a visit to the dentist seems when your child only has one tooth it is reassuring to know there was no cause for concern around the gums etc. Below is a picture of the bud proudly showing of her first dentist's sticker!

Saturday saw Rosie getting her first flu jab and whilst I wasn't there at the time Karen tells me she was extremely brave and only cried for about 15 seconds. We were informed that she might be a bit grouchy but she didn't appear too bad throughout the day. She did wake up coughing that night though and couldn't settle herself so I took her back downstairs and sat her on my lap until the coughing calmed again. I really cannot remember the last time we shared such a long time cuddling as she is usually so lively, including bedtime. It's even more rare that she falls asleep on me – this time however, when the cough subsided she looked at me for a few seconds with those ridiculously cute big brown eyes of hers then placed her head on my chest and went back to the land of nod...such a special moment – I wish it could have lasted forever.