"We build too many walls and not enough bridges."

This weekend has been very special for me and Seth. After all the nagging from us Mrs M finally caved and sat down and played Lego with us. It was only brief but she did it and that meant a lot to us both. Mrs M is not a big fan of Lego, she hasn't got the patience for it, she cant stand the sound rummaging through a box of Lego makes and most of all i think she finds in virtually impossible to sit still for a long amount of time.

Seth decided that he was going to set her a challenge and if she passed the first part (a mini build) then she could move up to the next step, a larger scale build. Did she rise to the challenge?? well the Mini build was going to be a police car. The Gotham police always need an extra vehicle at hand for chasing down goons or arresting the various super villains so Seth's choice made sense.

To start with i think Mrs M was lacking the passion and wanted her Lego experience to be over pretty rapidly. Clearly Sgt whatever we are calling him is lacking a seat, theirs no gear stick (we must have 100 of them) and the reason there is no doors or an entire back for that matter is because apparently this is a convertible. Not wanting to make the activity easy for Mrs M as Seth was loving Mommy playing Lego i pointed out that there wasn't much room in this so called police car. So i asked what would happen if his partner was disabled (say he had had a run in with some bad guy, but insisted on going back out on the beat), You've got to think of everything when playing in Lego city and the Lego PD would never discriminate against anyone. Like i said i like to make things difficult, But where would he put his wheelchair...

Well Mrs M simply said she would add a ramp, doesn't really fix the space issue but she came up with something so that was great, I think secretly she was getting into the Lego building. Mrs M then decided that the police may need to use the police van for transporting Christmas tree's (Mrs M loves Christmas). I guess times are hard in Gotham and the police are all having to get second jobs now to pay off protection rackets etc.

Turns out that Sgt whats his name wasn't really great at his job though as 5 minutes later Mrs M decided that the Christmas tree caught fire...

I knew that she would get into the building eventually and Seth found it all very amusing. Although the van itself wouldn't have passed Seth's mini build first round the Story telling certainly did. That's what mine and Seth's Lego building is all about. The things we build aren't just models to look at, they are used in our Lego play and Seth loves making up stories for the characters so were really proud of Mrs M even if she did have to burn a Christmas tree to get our acceptance.

*Update*

Mrs M just read the post and apparently it wasn't Sgt whats his name's fault with the tree the Jones' at number 14 hilltop avenue left their fairy lights on. Well that told me!!!

"When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill."

I hate feeling ill, i know everybody feels the same about it but its not just the pain, uncomfortableness and general feeling sorry for myself but also the being pretty useless around the house. Mrs M has been great though sternly telling me to cuddle up with blanket on the sofa and relax. I have to do as I'm told or she will get very angry. The worst part of feeling poorly though is the not wanting to go out and do things as i feel really guilty on the boys.

I did manage to take Seth to Tae Kwon Do this morning though. By the time we had got home i felt ten times worse. Mrs M is not feeling great today either and Opeie is very snotty and not himself. Seth is fine though and i suspect this is all something he has brought home with him from school (dirty dirty children).

Well it was obviously going to be a relaxing day in the house for us today so i asked Seth what he wanted to do. Seth likes to search the internet for Lego manuals and then get me to rummage through his boxes of Lego to find the parts. Its certainly a great way to kill time especially on rainy days as it takes such a long time. Mrs M always says that she doesn't know how i have the patience but im fueled by a smiley face at the end of it.

Seth finally decided on a Jokers ice cream truck from the recent Lego Batman range and it was clear from pretty early on that it was going to be a pain as we were missing some of the important odd shaped pieces so in great Pauly style i decided to botch it and make my own version of it...

Seth really loves the time we spend sitting together playing Lego so i try and make sure we do it as much as possible, it's difficult sometimes with Opeie around as he loves to destroy everything (today he sat on the Funhouse and it took me a while to rebuild it). I'm looking forward to him being a little older so we can all sit down together and build.

I love the way it turned out and Seth was a very happy little boy. We have the hideout and we have the transport but sadly we don't have a Joker Minifigure so i guess I'm going to have to buy one soon as we've been through the Minifigure box today and sadly there's no parts to make a custom job.

Whenever we build something together its always the little extra's, the finishing touches that really add to the build and after we finished this one, Seth flipped the ice cream round and inserted a grapple hook that he had found as he said it looked like a grapple launcher. He's such a clever boy.

Well not only was it a fun way to spend an afternoon in the house but it also kept my mind of feeling so rough briefly which was great. We got all our custom Batman figures out and the caped crusader battled with various villain's before letting them escape in their new vehicle. Apparently our next builds will include Harley quinn's monster truck and the Batcopter so watch this space...

...Until next time.

"The smiles and cheer of little boys can be multiplied by wooden toys"

When we first found out that Mrs M was pregnant with Opeie my head was filled with idea's of all the toys that we would be playing with. When you have children if your anything like me you want them to be a scaled down version of yourself in a way. Obviously Opeie was going to get thrown into our world of super heroes and action figures it was inevitable.

Despite all of this the first toy that i brought him wasn't super hero related and it still surprises me to this day. Maybe it was the constant "your not introducing him to Marvel until he is at least 1"  from Mrs M. Or maybe it was actually common sense kicking in that young children need chunky safe toys with no small parts and cute faces as opposed to web shooting, shield throwing, steel clawed action figures (until he's at least 1 anyway).

 Ive always loved wooden toys, especially Seth's brio and Thomas trains. I had been in a shop buying Seth a John Crane train shed to go with his track when i spotted this toy and thought that it was very cute. i think we had only found out about the new addition that was on his way about a week before but when it comes to toys i needed to start early on.

To be fair Opeie hasn't played with it all that much but i think that's mainly down to the fact of the amount of super hero toys that his big brother has in his bedroom (oops). He always want's to be involved in whatever Seth is doing, whenever Seth gets a new toy it automatically becomes the must have item for Opeie.

Although it hasn't received the attention i had expected it will still be something nice for me to keep for him when he is older, although he may be a little more interested in the second toy i brought him (the Fantastic 4 and Super Skull which i will write about soon)this happened shortly after the purchase of the wooden toys when reality took over and i decided i needed to hoard as many action figures as i could.

"The more help a person has in his garden, the less it belongs to him."

Had a few days off from writing posts, sometimes i just need a break from the computer. Yesterday we went to see Lotty Mrs M's sister. She is house sitting for an older couple that she knows and they have the most amazing garden and house that backs on to Buildwas Abbey. The house was built by the guy that lives there and the enormous picturesque garden is very well kept by them themselves.

Mrs M's parents came over too which was great, not having much of a family myself i really enjoy spending time with these guys. They have always been so kind to me and we all get on really well. I love the fact we can all be quite sarcastic and take the mick out of each other and no one takes it to heart, they all have a great sense of humour.

After having a chat, several cups of tea and being well and truly dragged around the garden by Opeie now that he's up on his feet we went for a walk around the abbey which was a really lovely walk. The weather was fantastic which really added to the lovely sights and i got to take plenty of photos.

Mrs M is always happy to see a field of sheep, their one of her favourite animals.

After the stroll we headed back to the house for even more tea and great conversation. Opeie again was determined to drag us all round the garden, its so cute how he just wants to walk everywhere now. He's certainly making good use of his new shoes.

I dont think Mrs M enjoyed me taking the pictures very much. But she always looks yummy.

Before heading home we walked over to some stables down the road to see Lotty's pony Percy. I don't like horses i never have done but despite this i decided to go anyway. He was a lovely looking horse (if you like that sort of thing) but I'm just not an animal person at all.

It was a really lovely afternoon, the only thing that was missing was Seth. we always feel a little guilty doing things when he's not there but that's just the way things are i guess. Weve told him we will take him to see Percy one of the nights after school though. According to the Met Office it'll be raining for the rest of the week so I'm glad we got to do something nice this weekend.

"The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days."

Today we took Opeie to Clarks to get his First pair of shoes. His walking is getting a lot better and he is so much more confident on his feet. I'm not sure if it was for my first pair of shoes but i definitely remember my mom taking me there when i was little for some shoes. The measuring device always seemed really exciting but i guess Opeie is to young to understand at the moment.

The great thing about going to Clarks is the fact that you get your photo taken for your first pair and its a great little reminder for him and something that i can put in the box of things to give him when he's older. It'll be in there with the diary that me and Mrs M write for him, his shriveled up umbilical cord (who wouldn't want to be handed that!!) and items of clothing that we want to keep etc.

Ok so i may have told a little porky.... this is actually Opeie's 2nd 1st pair of shoes from Clarks. Im quite sure theres many parents out there that have done it. We were a touch over enthusiastic buying the last pair, he wasn't even up on his feet so he didn't get any wear out of them but at least we still got our 'first shoes' photo.

He's not that far off size wise from wearing his Spider-man Reebok trainers i brought him a while ago and then he will have his Captain America Reebok trainers to look forward to (which was one of the first posts i ever wrote).  My boy is going to have the coolest footwear, I'm a bit of a shoe fiend myself. I'm quite sure there will be many more 'first' shoes from Clarks it would be rude not to take advantage of the photo opportunity after all.

"round and round the garden, like a teddy bear, one step, two step, tickle you under there"

I had a lovely day planned for me and Opeie but it didn't work out the way i expected. The inevitable falling asleep in the car kicked off proceedings (Opeie not me, that would have been a different post all together). Then silly me not having ANY change for the car park (because despite running about packing a suitcase sized bag with everything Opeie needs i ALWAYS manage to forget something) which ended in us going home. Opeie slept for 2 hours which isn't like him at all, he was obviously shattered and hes not been feeling great this week with his poor teeth.

I made him a nice lunch and then we headed to the park. Opeie loves going on the swings. When your older you tend to forget how exciting going to the park was. My dad used to take us pretty much every sunday which was always nice. My favourite part was playing frisbee with him though, which i look forward to doing with Opeie.

The most appealing thing about the park (apart from the big smile on my sons face) is the fact that there is no need to spend any money. Lets face it the summer holidays can end up getting quite pricey. Its nice to be able to break up all the activities that cost with good old park time.

Remember the time when a stick or even a rock could bring you none stop enjoyment? how i miss those days. Opeie spent quite sometime investigating this piece of bark, I'm not sure why that piece stood out from the rest and he didn't let me in on his findings.

This is a bit of a lazy post i know but i had the camera with me so i thought i would snap away. We had planned to go and see Mrs M's folks before going to get her from work so we were just killing time. Opeie did the usual and started trying to steal my accessories so i just left him to it today (thankfully he didnt break my glasses).

 I guess he just wants to be like his dad, hopefully he will manage to keep hold of his hair for a bit longer than me though. We left the park and Opeie was shattered, after an hour and a half at the inlaws he had had enough and dropped off in the car (again) on the way to pick up Mrs M. So not quite the day we had planned but we got to spend it together. First thing tomorrow i will be filling the car with car park change.