So last night we signed a building contract. Phew - what an effort to get to this point but it is all starting to feel worth it and slowly fall in to place!
This blog has been sitting, nagging at my mind for attention but the continued uncertainty has meant that I've not had any confirmed news to report for a long time - a series of major changes in plan and dead ends. But now, it's time to slowly open the flood gates.
Starting first, and most importantly with family. Phoebe is now at preschool two days a week, and becoming quite the miniature-sized grown up. The phrases and concepts she comes up with every day continue to amaze us - yesterday she was concerned that some other cars (4x4s) have their spare wheel visible on the outside, and asked why our red red car (the Peugeot 406 "snail" station wagon) does not. Liz's reply of "it's in the boot, hidden away" has prompted much concern about the welfare of the wheel, and whether it will be capable of helping us when required. She's very clever - being a space-saver spare I actually share her concerns.
Her sleep most nights is easy, with her last night asking Liz around 6:30pm to be taken to bed. She still comes in once or twice a night to lie down with us, which we've now accepted as at least it's all calm and relaxed. Then this morning she wasn't up until after 7. This is still unusual - my noise-making getting off to work around 5:30 each morning tends to wake at least someone.
Our little man William is such a delight to have around, he's always smiling,
poking out his tongue, climbing up to us for a cuddle, and chasing his sister or the dog around the house. He has a funny little "ha. ha. ha." laugh which never fails to make his parents smile. There's no stopping his crawling, and he'll climb up anything and push off for a second or two's balancing before falling down only to try again. Steps can't be far away now. And the quantity that the little guy
can eat! His munching sessions can stretch to 45 minutes. Teenage boy in house will require overdraft, that much is certain.
He too sleeps pretty well, certainly much better than Phoebe did at his age. Down by 6:30 or so most nights, but then often after an hour or less decides he wants to be up to see what's happening in the world for an hour or so. He was quite sick last week which mucked all our sleep up but that's now the exception rather than the rule.
Between two parents getting two babies off to sleep, we have the routine working pretty well really and Liz and I actually get to have evenings together again. This has been extremely helpful with the huge amount of progress we've been making on the house and land design, at least on the nights when we aren't too exhausted to do anything other than flop on the couch to unwind.
The house will be the subject of almost all upcoming posts...
[More photos
here on flickr]