Dylan is 4

... well he was 3 days ago - although being mean and nasty parents we actually told him it was on Saturday as that was when his party was and that made it easier for us - it's just there hasn't been an opportunity to update the blog since....  Many thanks for all his cards and presents

Minion cupcakes? Must be a Thomas the Tank Engine themed party then.
Thankfully no one noticed\commented.
For bake-off officianados 24 minion cup-cakes took about 2hrs.  The eyes are the slow bit...
Two flavours of cupcakes obviously!

 So where are we?  Well Dylan is 96cm tall and weighs bob-on 14kg and he's growing and generally doing very well.  We've all been suffering from the lurgy this past month; Dylan picked it up from work and gave it to the Mother who then passed it on to me... and then she got it back.  It's moderately amusing having a 4year-old with a croaky voice but only as he was perfectly happy.  It's the first real cold he's had at his new school and I think some of the other parents were alarmed at his coughing.  They certainly looked shocked!  We have a meeting in Oxford on the 2nd March to talk to someone else about what's going on with his diaphragm after which we may be able to sort out some sort of plan of action.  Ideally we'd like it all sorted before he goes to school in September.... wow he's going to school in September.

"I'm a big boy now and so I know how to use knives"

 Becoming 4 has been useful to us in some ways.  We used being 3 as a mechanism to remove the dummy, becoming 4 means that frankly he can feed himself and take his own outdoor clothes off.  This has extended meal times even further than they were - we have had comments back from school after he took an hour to eat a small sandwich, a satsuma and a box of raisins.  Perhaps he needs some competition.   

On the beach at Trevone ready to make sandcastles.
We took a couple of days off to hire a VW Campervan (T5 not an old one)
to go to Cornwall, highlight for Dylan seemed to be sleeping in the roof

Dylan and the World's smallest snowman - Hound Tor
(the snowman is there, honest).
I got everyone excited by the thought of snow on Dartmoor... and there wasn't any.
Thankfully small boy wasn't too fazed by this and enjoyed the day out and we kind of had a snowball fight

Actually, his size is a minor problem; because he's relatively small for his size but he's really quite confident on his bike* but none of the bikes that he fits have brakes and so in three months he has trashed his welly boots as feet are the only way to slow down.  This is not doing the Mother's blood pressure any good.  He does now at least stop at junctions but only as I got really cross with him about wandering out into the middle of the road on his bike**.  Although I have put him on the next bike up, his hands are slighty too little to use the brakes.  He also makes muttering noises about now that he's on the "big bike" cars can't hurt him.  I can see I might need to have words with him about this...

* Going downhill on tarmac I have to run flat-out to keep up with him
** This was just after seeing another boy walk out in front of a landrover on the way between school and the car.  Thankfully landrover managed to stop.