Uploading....

We've had such a fun holiday, despite Nathan getting a virus, then bronchiolitis, and then tonsillitis! We went to Sedgefield, then on to PE, then back to Sedgefield, and then on to Oudtshoorn, and then back home. We stayed with friends that we hadn't seen in years, which was fantastic!

Rather than upload all the photos twice, I've put some of them on Nellie's blog, since this was her first PROPER holiday in SA. She had such fun - it was wonderful to see how excited she got by everything. The rest are below in other posts.

This holiday also saw quite a bit of jealousy from Nellie's side. With Nathan being sick, he got a lot of attention and holding, and she's found that very difficult. Poor mite. But she's been really good about it all. She didn't throw tantrums, or behave poorly (on the whole). I discussed with her how I wanted her to approach her jealousy. I asked her to tell me if she was feeling jealous, and to ask for what she wanted from me. She cottoned on to that very quickly - and as a result got far more attention from me than she probably would have done otherwise: "Mommy, I'm feeling jealous of Nathan - please can you play with me?" I am really proud of how maturely she's handled it all.

Nathan continues to be a joy to all, despite his sickness. Several times we're convinced he started signing, but as we then went away (which meant he couldn't watch his signing video) that has tailed off again. I'm hoping that as he starts watching again, he will start signing to us again. He now talks 19 to the dozen (all babble though), with quite serious intent too, and loves it when we repeat his babble back to him. In fact, he thinks we're hilarious. If you consider it from his side, he obviously thinks he's talking, and can't understand why we would want to babble... silly parents!

He's walking beautifully now, but can't pull himself back up if he's fallen down. He still needs to crawl across to something else to pull himself up. He's also discovered feeding himself and the joys of grated cheese, Flings, droe wors and drinking from a pull-cap juice bottle (you know, those small juices for kids you buy in the shops with the cap you pull up and push down?). Oh the joys!! He's been in 7th heaven!

Nellie, meanwhile, has discovered the joy of monkey bars and loves to show off. She's also discovered the joys of washing dishes (!!!) and grating cheese (well, we need all the help we can get with feeding Nathan!) and of playing with her brother. She loves nothing more than making him laugh. She's really growing up (but still my little baby).

Anyway, head across to Nellie's page to see some of our photos.