It’s been a funny week this week and I’m very out of sync with my days so I think I’ll have to set double the amount of alarms for the morning! Henry has been off for most of the week, studying hard on that last stretch, then I worked different days and the result means I’m not sure what month we’re in come Saturday.

With Henry needing some peace and quiet the rest of us have been out and about as much as we can which is why a simple trip to Lidl to get nappies turned into Polly ‘swimming’ in the river a couple of days ago! There are exactly 12 minutes in between these pictures…

Which shows how quickly throwing stones in the river escalates with a 2 year old.

Seb is proving to be twice as terrifying as Polly was now he’s mobile. I explained it to a couple of mum friends in that Polly did things quickly but very confidently, there weren’t many bumps when she started moving about as she knew she could do it. So I sort of left her to it really. Seb is a whole different ball game. He does not give a shit. He’ll stand up in the middle of the room and not care about falling back down again when he remembers he can only manage a couple of steps. He pulls himself up on Henry’s weights (that I keep telling him to move!) and starts playing with pegs so forgets to hold on. He loves opening and closing doors and drawers and doesn’t care if his fingers are in the way.

He’s also a monkey in the sense that he’ll put anything in his mouth which provided a fun experience last week where I had to examine each nappy till the fourth poo included the missing toy car tyre.

A few days later we sadly got the treat of Polly sharing bodily functions as we spent a puke filled Saturday with Polly barely leaving the sofa. She was a very good patient to be fair but did break my heart each time she was about to be sick saying “I don’t want it”.

We did have a fab day yesterday when we travelled up to see some friends who have just moved nearby. We ate way too much pizza, enjoyed lots of bubbles in the garden and all laughed a lot when Henry tried out the twisty slide on their amazing climbing frame in the garden.

Polly then surprised us while we pit stopped at McDonald’s on the way home. She, like most little people, loves colouring and up till now she loves to just scribble and declare a dinosaur or a unicorn. But this time the scribbles looked different and when we asked her what she’d drawn, she confirmed what we thought it was- ‘6’. Not sure why she’s favouring the number 6 but we did have a giggle when Henry counted she’d drawn 3 of them (don’t worry she’s not secretly a devil child as I pointed out the fourth one he’d missed!). It was though just one of those little moments that makes us stop for a moment and realise how quick they grow and change.

I’ll sign off now as Seb has now stirred 3 times in the time I’ve been typing, it’s his first night with the cot lowered down and the sides back up so it’s to be expected, I’m impressed he’s stayed put to be honest, although I fully expect this to be the scene come the morning…

So this week we’ve been attempting to get Seb to sleep a bit more independently. I’ve obviously taken full advantage of this and realised I could write a post with all the fun that I know will be coming our way (mainly my way as I started on a Saturday knowing Henry would be working the next 3 evenings because I apparently like making my life difficult). So here goes…

Saturday, night one, full of hope.

7:10- We head upstairs, I put some washing away quickly. I Foolishly swap the monitors around in sight of the toddler, I should point out one is a video monitor and the other just picks up sound but the detector bits don’t look much different to most people (just not two year olds).

7:20- Toddler throws full scale melt down about swapped monitors… “will mummy still hear me”. Yes my child the whole town heard you when you wake up.

7:30- Shattered toddler successfully back in bed. Bottle for the boy.

7:37- Shattered baby asleep after gulping the bottle. He’s had one nap today that lasted about an hour so it’s anyone’s guess as to how many of the wee hours we’ll enjoy together.

7:50- I head downstairs with 2 baby monitors and risk a cup of tea while watching actual grown up tv (maybe scoff the last Easter egg in the house too).

8:30- The boy has a little fidget, luckily it’s just a case of pop the dummy back in.

9:45- I head upstairs with a bottle to try a ‘dream feed’ and check Polly too, then I crawl into bed as I’m not sure what the nap situation will have created for later, oh and set 6:20 alarm.

9:55- The ‘dream feed’ backfires and he wakes up again very upset and needing a big cuddle.

10:05- He’s back to sleep so I nod off too.

01:15- Awake and bottle time.

6:10- Awake, Henry pops down to get a bottle quickly as my alarm is due in 10 minutes and I’m not moving till I have too!

Sunday, night two, still slightly full of hope…

6:50- I head upstairs, it’s bath night which is proving fun at the moment with a toddler who suddenly doesn’t like bath time.

7:30- I put Polly to bed without drama.

7:35- Seb has a bottle and drifts off to sleep looking angelic like they do when they lull you into a false sense of security.

7:50- Time to head downstairs.

8:55- Seb starts stirring so I head upstairs for a little cuddle. Lie in the semi dark for 5 minutes and realise that I’m actually shattered so do the arm roll hug to break free, head downstairs to grab the Polly monitor and press the button giving up on the next episode of Fleabag before heading back upstairs to crawl back into bed after a quick Polly check. Oh and set that bloody alarm again. Here’s hoping Monday night aka Game of Thrones night sees me able to have an hour and a half downstairs!

10:301 Seb woke up crying after me being asleep for long enough to wake up wondering what month we are in but nowhere near enough to feel rested, I juggle him downstairs to get another bottle.

3:20- Seb awake, luckily I married a genius who had bought a bottle up already, I mean he’d fallen asleep on the sofa for an hour or so and probably woke Seb up in the first place but at least he redeemed himself by being prepared.

Monday, night three, hope is starting to dwindle…

Two very tired children so I took them upstairs at 6:45 as Polly was asking to go to bed.

7:03- With Polly all tucked in with postman pat, the snowman, Arthur the dog and various others Seb had his bottle in our room again.

7:15- He’s overtired so of course fussing a bit, trying to scratch my face off, but eventually seems to go when I fake being asleep myself (this is a very dangerous sleep strategy that will have gone wrong for every single parent at some point- my personal favourite involved me sleeping in Polly’s cot with her for half a night by mistake (that bloody 18 month sleep regression was a fun one!)).

7:20- Time to creep downstairs to see how much Game of Thrones I can watch before he stirs!

7:55- He’s woken up and won’t settle so I bring him down for a little cuddle as I don’t want him waking Polly.

8:20- 20 minutes of cuddles and half a bottle and he’s fallen asleep on me.

9:30- Basically this is a failure night as Seb is incredibly restless (always on a Monday though!). He’s been asleep on me while Game of Thrones messes with my mind and now I’m deciding to just head upstairs as Polly’s monitor has cut out for some reason.

10ish- I went to check Polly to find her awake, great. She asks to come in the big bed, thankfully she goes straight to sleep

2:40- Seb has a bottle.

6:30- Henry gets up to go to the gym and wakes everyone up, at least he brings another bottle up before he leaves but there’s no going back to sleep for anyone.

Tuesday, night four, hope is almost gone…

6:50- We head upstairs- the hot water tank went this morning so we have a fun filled 20 minutes wrestling 2 little people through the shower before getting them into bed.

7:30- Polly requests mummy read the story so I do as I’m told before heading to our room to give Seb his bottle.

7:40- I log roll off our bed and hope for a better night tonight!

9:15- A tired Henry retreats to bed as Seb has a fidget. On the monitor I can see Seb slowly inching over towards a big daddy cuddle. I give up after 15 minutes and head upstairs with a bottle at the ready to find them having a little cuddle so I check Polly then squeeze into bed somehow.

2:20- Seb wakes for a bottle and I’m genuinely convinced it’s 6am- very disorientating. Ironically ….

6:00- Seb wakes for a little bottle! Henry is on the case and he drifts off back to sleep for an hour and a half afterwards! Win!

Wednesday, night five, all hope is gone now…

7:20ish- We all upstairs and the kids are in bed by 7:30, it’s promising and Seb settles fine after a bottle.

8:10- Yeah teething is a real bitch and has officially shattered our hopes of this being an easy process. This is the scene by 8:20 as I don’t want to risk waking up Polly.

Basically we’ll try each night to settle him in his cot but right now he needs a lot of extra cuddles as he has goodness knows how many teeth coming through. And hey he is now napping in his cot by himself which is big progress!

Of course night six when I’m at work goes beautifully and daddy has him in bed at 8 with no fuss and I arrive home to find him still asleep. Pressures on now though for a repeat performance from both the boys tonight!

He’s one. He’s actually a whole year (and a bit!). How did that happen? I feel like a broken record saying that again and again, but it’s true. I honestly can’t understand how we blinked and he’s changed from a tiny little newborn to this gorgeous little chap who brightens up every day. He obviously got very excited about the concept of his first birthday as he celebrated by standing, taking a couple of steps, actually attempting to crawl and learning to wave (with a bit of encouragement from Mr Tumble) all in a 24 hour period! He also ate a lot of cake. And some chocolate (it was Easter Monday after all). And some Eton mess. So I’d say he had a pretty good time.

Turning one also meant a trip to the doctors this morning though for the next lot of jabs. He was a real trooper though and a few tears is such a small price to pay for the amazing job the jabs actually do. And bless Polly, she was so worried about his ‘little bumps’ that she’s been trying to make him laugh all day.

The weather at the moment is so hit and miss that one day we need sun cream and the next an umbrella. Easter weekend saw us on the beach, in the river, eating chips in the park for tea and spending enough time in the Byes for Polly to actually figure out the scooter.

Polly thinks it’s hilarious that Seb is now getting himself about (mainly via a little bum shuffle) except when he took steps towards her to try and steal her snack. She is still obsessed with talking about questionable things, while getting dressed the other morning she declared “mummy, I did a fart and it went in the wind and across the road”. I mean I really don’t know where she’s getting it from, cough cough, Mr Woodard I know you let them watch the Simpsons when I’m at work so that’s where I’d put my money on!

Just a little post today I think, I mean the last one was quite an essay! But Seb is a bit fidgety and we could probably all do with a good nights sleep so I’ll sign off now and hopefully get back into a better routine with writing! I’ll just leave with some snaps of the proper sleep sessions everyone else in the house seems to enjoy more than me!

And yes Seb does rock a few cute pink onesies once the sun goes down!