Marcus turns 5

Today is Marcus's fifth birthday! Some sort of milestone for him and us.

We had a pretty challenging first year when he came along in 2002. He wasn't a happy eater, and we had lots of reflux and spent many hours coaxing him off to sleep on the couch, or walking endless circles. Up the hall, around and through the lounge room, out the door and up the hallway again. Bouncing and singing. I would do ten laps and then try to set him down in the cot. Ten more laps, and try again. I would say now that we made life hard for ourselves in some ways. We were still cuddling him off to sleep when he was almost too big to fit on our laps.

He has grown up and passed some of the kids who have always been bigger than him. I think now he's probably going to be in the 185-190cm bracket. He is having a terrific time at prep, although suddenly being at school five days a week is taxing him a bit. One wierd side-effect is that there are all these clothes he never gets to wear. Two days a week is not enough to exercise his non-school wardrobe.

Neither Elf nor I had bought a computer game in our lives, but for Marcus's birthday we bought him Cars: Radiator Springs Adventures as he loved the movie, and will do anything to get on a computer. We have a ration of about half an hour per week of computer time, but as he learns to do more and more things I can see there will be a need to expand this. I have been sitting with him while he plays for about 18 months, but increasingly I am wandering off and coming back when he calls for help.

Michael likes the computer, but he has a very imperious attitude - essentially he gives the orders and I do the mousework.