Update

[vin_petrol]

Generally speaking, all going well here.

Amelia got a bit of a snotty cold last week, and went rather downhill on Friday. Her breathing sounded awful. We took her to the doctor (who wasn't in the least concerned about her rattly breathing), and he discovered she had a bit of an ear infection, which was making her miserable. She was prescribed Amoxicillin, which she takes easily enough, and she's much improved now. She's still got an amazingly snotty nose though. As she will ill on Saturday Trash didn't bother going up to Middlesbrough to see them play Liverpool. It was obviously going to be a loss for Middlesbrough anyway :-) [Non-football people: amazingly, Boro won 2-0!]

We also took Amelia into my office yesterday to meet my workmates. She was transfixed by my colleague Godwin ... from Nigeria! Thinking about it, that could quite easily be the first time she's ever seen a black person. You could see her little brain thinking "what?! do humans come in this colour too?!" :-) It did bring home to me what a male dominated industry IT is though. I've spent a few weeks in "woman's world", doing things like going to Tiny Tots and doing the school run, so I've been surrounded by large quantities of women. My office is a huge nest of specky boy nerds. This is one of the reasons I talk to woman a lot when I go out. I see plenty of men at work.

We went to a parents' evening meeting with Evie's teacher last night, and she seems to be progressing fine at school. Apparently, she's moving away from playing with the boy from across the road (Matty) and playing more with the girls now. Her literacy and numeracy skill are as expected, considering she's 4! :-) She has a few cute 'confusions' in her learning: she mixes up 'h' and 'n', due to the difference in the length of the stem. The teacher did tell us that she had noticed no change in Evie's behaviour since Amelia arrived, which is good. Often the teachers can notice a change in a child when a younger sibling arrives.

We had another social worker visit this morning, which went well. Amelia was a little poppet throughout and a living advert for "I am a well attached little child".

I think I may try to get out somewhere soon and see some people. I think I've stayed in for about three weeks now. The only interrupted night's sleep I've had have been due to Evie though. She still sometimes wakes up about once a week with some spurious issue. Last night her quilt fell off her bed and knocked her lego model over. I wondered off to sort this out, and on my return Trash queried if Evie's leg had fallen off, so loud had been the wailing. Amelia has actually always slept through, even when ill. To be honest, Amelia can sleep for England - she loves it. Weekend mornings seem to feature Evie and I getting up at some god-forsaken hour (06:30 or similar), then later prodding Trash and Amelia out of bed at 09:15 because we need to be getting on with stuff. Amelia is sleeping now, which is why I have the chance to bash this entry in.

Evie has been playing with her Lego a lot recently. Not quite sure why - she wasn't too bothered for many years, and it's a chunky old set of Duplo blocks. Possibly because I do stop Amelia from playing with it, so it's quite clearly "her toy". I really enjoy playing with Lego with her though. When I was a sprog, my Lego was a really important toy to me. I used to build huge quantities of spaceships, rockets, moonbases, etc. When I tired of a model it would suffer a terrible crash into my bedroom wall. I find clicking Lego bricks together very therapeutic. So I'm now searching on ebay to get her a load of normal Lego.