Polly is just eating her tea so this could be a big mistake where I’m left wiping sweet potato mash off the laptop or it could just give me long enough to write a little update on what we’ve been up to. I’ve given her a knife tonight for the first time so that might keep her occupied. Not a big sharp knife before anyone just paused reading to call Childline, the little shovel like tool that came in the fairy set she was given when she was born. She’s been using a spoon and fork quite happily for a while and yesterday used a fork to push scrambled egg onto her spoon so I thought I’d see what she actually does with a tool more designed to do that. She’s sort of doing it but at the same time she is pouring her milk into a little pool on the highchair to dunk her food in. Not sure where she gets these funny ideas from?!

Yesterday we travelled up to Somerset to visit Nanny and Pops who are renting out an old castle for the week- yes an actual castle with a moat and everything! Nanny’s sister and her husband arrived not long after as they are staying with them too. It was a really nice day where Polly enjoyed playing in the ford and also tried to bust open the money compartment on a fruit machine in the local pub. Thankfully the landlord was very accommodating and friendly and even rustled us all up some lunch even though they don’t normally serve during the day.

Henry took Polly to one of the church toddler groups today as I had an eye test, his first time to that particular group and they came back with a cute little craft that Polly had tried to dismantle on the journey home. They had fun which is really nice to hear as I didn’t know how he would be about going to the various groups we’ve been frequenting over the last year. Turns out he loves them and is keen for us both to go along to them when Bear-bear enters the world so we can both get in on the tea drinking and chit chatting that happens in these amazing places where your sanity is restored.

I’ve had a couple of people ask how he’s getting on with his course and the good news is it seems to be going well. There’s a lot of reading involved so he spends any evenings off sat with the laptop ploughing through and takes advantage of quiet mornings where I’ve taken Polly for some tea drinking and chit chatting. It does seem to have caught up with him this week a bit though as 2 mornings in a row the 5AM gym alarm has been ignored in favour of a lie in until the toddler deems it breakfast time.

I’ve also noticed the tiredness starting to creep back in after a fairly energetic second trimester that looks like it’s drawing to a very sudden end into an achy, Braxton Hicks filled third trimester that I’m not sure whether starts this week or next week- different sources say different things. All I know is that my toes are rapidly disappearing and taking my bra off as soon as I walk in the door is my new favourite time of day. I also thought about my hospital bag for the first time today and used my toddler free time in town to use all my Boots points buying travel sized toiletries and giant pads for the war zone that a baby will create in my nether regions in a couple of months time. I mean this carrier bag of bits will likely sit in a corner of the bedroom till at least March but I feel slightly accomplished that I’ve made a start on something else baby related as those weeks really are ticking by fairly quickly.

Time to go as the now fed toddler is definitely pulling poo face while frowning at me from her toy kitchen, think I might take advantage of the trip upstairs to live out my favourite time of day as the end of the day aches are setting in. Oh and the knife didn’t really get used appropriately as she just used it to spread the mash to every corner of the highchair tray instead, oh well, we’ll try that one again another day.