Ralph about kitchen

Ralph's favourite place at the moment is the cereal cupboard - mainly empty.

Oh, and under the chair is pretty good too...

The Office - 2027

Billy wanted to wear a tie like "You used to when you used to go to work" (the cheek of it!) I found him a nice red leather 80's number...

Beware the office of 2027. I think I'll encourage him to find a career that doesn't need a tie day-in-day-out.

Roman Numerals

Billy is writing in Roman Numerals - he's fascinated with them, dunno why (clearly another geek in the making). He's at XXVII and counting..

Billys Boxercise

...and that's how you do it

Working Life Parable

Here's one to live by: I read it in "The 4 hour work-week" ages ago - I'm working on it and getting there (slowly) - Perhaps if I worked harder at it?... Nah.

An American consultant was at a pier in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied only a little while.

The consultant then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked the Mexican how he spent the rest of his time.

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor.”

The American consultant scoffed, “I am business consultant and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.

“You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American consultant replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, senor?” asked the fisherman.

The consultant laughed, and said, “That’s the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public. You’ll become very rich, you would make millions!”

“Millions, senor?” replied the Mexican. “Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

Wine, Laptop and a Ralph

Happy days glass 'o' wine, moochin' on my laptop... Oh and Ralph decided 10pm was a good time to come and play.

Bath time

Ralph has bee standing and creeping for quite a few weeks now. Here's some slippy evidence of it.

Pizza pasta

Who needs cutlery?

Mmmmm sleepin'

Had my milk, nothing like a sleep on my play mat. Afternoon happiness.

Wii Disk Repair

Within days of getting a Wii, and Wii Fit (for Jo) (honest). The 5 year old leaves the Wii sports disk on the floor and the 8 month old uses it as a knee pad while crawling across our wooden floor.

And the disk no longer boots. Billy doesn't seem to appreciate the full magnitude of the situation, managing a 'sorry' in a 'whatever' tone of voice. Perhaps he's right? For £20 we could get a new one.

Anyway I sent it off to http://cd-repair.co.uk/ and for £3.50 they give the disk a serious polish and set it back within the week. Nice service. You can actually see the disk is thinner! But it works fine now. I don't think there's enough plastic above the data-layer for a second chance though.

Ella's first day

At big girl nursery

Pigeon faster than broadband

This is great, and of course it could have carried more data in the same time...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8248056.stm

Todays date

The media have been really quiet about the fact that todays date is 9...9...9. If I were a terrorist I wouldn't touch this day with a barge-pole, but then again I'm fairly sane. And I'm sure there are those who would. The security forces will almost certainly be on a hightened state of alert because of the date. I'm certainly not going to be cowering under my bed just before 10 past nine. Surely people should also be axtra vigilant if this is the case.

Iceland in Hexham

So Iceland sits in Woolworths' grave in Hexham. Frankly, I'd rather the unit was empty - at least then there would be hope. Depressing black on yellow signs are visible from the outside telling me its a pound for this, or two pounds for that. But I know I'd get more nutritional value from chewing the boxes. I won't go in; I'd rather go to Robbs and bring their average customer age down to just under 67.

The business Case for...

Nice article... against putting an economic value on what is good for peoples lives. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8238919.stm

Peter Jones' inexcusable vanity

What is Peter Jones doing?! He had it all... wealth... and relative anonymity. But he seems intent on some kind of naff semi-celebrity with his money-supermarket ads. Even if he is a major shareholder in the financial comparison site it is inexcusable vanity. And at least as hammy as Michael Winner.

Ralph

At the services

Diesel and Petrol Prices

These have been about the same give or take a few pence for a few weeks now. I heard a rumour it is because the USA finds it more cost-effective to import petrol from Europe than to refine it's own crude... hence pushing the prices up over here.

Ouch!

Ella fell in IKEA and bashed her two front teeth. After a trip to the dentist we were told her teeth are likely to change colour to yellow, grey or black. Hopefully they won't fall out. But it looks like the end of her pearly white smile for a few years. :-(

Ralph is Crawling

Ralph has managed to start crawling at six months. However, he doesn't seem to like spending a lot of time on his knees. He gets up onto his hands and feet and spider walks a lot of the time. He is also trying to pull up on furniture!

Sports day

Its all very non competitive. . .

--
Peter Davies (mobile)

Tooth News!

Ralph has cut his first tooth (bottom right). He seems to be working hard on the next. Constantly chewing!

On the same day as Ralph's first tooth was discovered our dentist confirmed that Billy had his first wobbly tooth!

Weaning time again

We have started weaning Ralph, but as yet haven't found anything he particularly likes. He turns his nose up at baby rice, porridge, sweet potato, carrot, apple and banana. We are attempting to use the baby led method, although I am still making some purees to see if he will take them.

He seems to like the baby led method. We just present he with a few bits and pieces of fruit, veg and today some toast! He plays with it, gets some in his mouth, chews a bit... then spits it out.

Ho hum, I guess we will get there eventually.

Ralph can sit can sit!

Ralph has been sitting well for the last couple of weeks. He will launch off his bottom every now and again in order to grab something but usually ends up head butting the floor. (Thankfully this doesn't happen often!)

He is up on his hands and knees a lot trying to bunny hop his back legs. He has managed to travel (although I haven't witnessed how) to be found wriggling under the various bits of furniture :-)

Ralphs Smarl

Ralph has a habit of doing a kind of smile that has an element of snarl to it. He also spends a lot of time with his mouth wide open like a basking shark.

--
Peter Davies (mobile)

Fun in matthew charletons

Diy shopping is such fun

--
Peter Davies (mobile)

Ralph goes swimming

So Ralph went for his first swim in a public pool today. We took him to the Hexham swimming pool expecting to dip him in for five minutes before having to swiftly remove him before he turned into a block of ice. As it turned out the pool was quite warm and Ralph loved his first swim. He was very relaxed and didn't cry or even flinch at the noise or splashes. Well done Ralph!

Freecycle (literally)

Ella got a new second-hand bike today from (quite literally) freecycle. One bike not skipped; one happy little girl.

--
Peter Davies (mobile)

More paper please mum

Billy is learning to write at school and this is spilling over into how he plays at home. He frequently hunts out bits of paper to make posters, books, general signs, love letters (to anyone and everyone he knows). He is so enthusiastic about putting pen to paper it won't be long before he writes his first best seller!

Ella is Three

So Ella has had her third birthday. I am happy to report that apart from being contrary about most things and being Veeerrryyy picky about what she wears, her behaviour has improved quite a bit over the last month or two. She is getting better at communicating to mum and dad about what she wants, although her grasp of language is still developing. She frequently says "you jumped me" when she means "you made me jump" and will say things like. "I like birds and flowers, do I".
Her general preoccupation each day is with princesses and fairies. She wants to dress up as cinderella most days, although for her birthday we did introduce her to the wonderous tinkerbell.
Ella is a very good big sister to Ralph. She likes to make him laugh, help with his baths, and frequently volunteers to do the "nappy run". She is very gentle with him, and will stroke his head with real care.

Ralph Update

Ralph is lovely at the grand old age of 15 weeks. He laughs and gurgles at all of us and will sit and watch what we are up to quite contentedly most of the time. We have created a baby gym for him from a sun shelter and various hanging toys. He seems to be quite enjoying punching his jingling hippo. His hand control has improved over the last couple of weeks and he is trying quite hard to reach out and grab objects. He seems to be feeling some teething pain already, he is constantly chewing his fist. He can't roll over yet but can get onto his side from his back. Just wait in a couple more months there will be no stopping him!

Ella Bouncing at the MetroCentre Today

Ella enjoyed this more than Billy...

I know this one, I know this one

The kids have been watching oggy and the cockroaches with a vengence recently. Shouting out thinks like "water", "camera", "can't see", "black and white checks" etc. during the credits. And shouting "I know this one, I know this one, I know this one" when the title comes on... whether they've seen it or not - usually the former. New baby Ralph enjoys the fun but doesn't join in (yet)

What is going on with Ella?

Ella is still an enigma. She is funny and caring especially with her new baby brother but on the other hand she can be contrary, surreal, defiant, and destructive. Or is this just a description of the terrible twos? Her favourite word is 'No' so I guess this is a good sign that it is a phase!

What is Billy like now?

Well at the grand age of four and eight months Billy has developed an interest in playstation games, Star Wars and Indiana Jones. He is confident in school and is reading well. He likes to hear the Beast Quest stories at bedtime. He is a fab little boy and makes his mum and dad proud every day. We think he has a career ahead of him in journalism because he seems to be curious about everything. Of course he wants to argue the point over every little thing which can be maddening!

Hello Ralph

In the first week of Jan Ralph Edward Davies was born. A healthy 8 lb and 8 oz. After week one we can say Ralph is a very contented baby. Fingers crossed he will stay that way!