I know I only have a couple of years of experience of doing the juggling act of working while parenting, so in a few years I might be able to create a longer post! Until then, here’s a few things that it’s taught me and pushed me to:

• Time is everything. When there are 24 hours in the day and you’ll be spending 10 of them at work, the kids will be spending 12 of them asleep and you have 2 precious hours with those beautiful little people, you’ll use up every second on the floor playing, reading, laughing, dancing. On days like that screw the washing up, the laundry- all of it. All of that can wait, dancing along to The Greatest Showman soundtrack is a way more valuable use of time.
• Time (again!). Due to the above you find yourself doing things at ridiculous times (there really are 24 hours in our day!). This is the reason I may be found sorting out washing at 1AM, Henry takes trips to the gym at 4AM and most days dinner in our house gets cooked up at the same time as lunch.
• Multitasking is the key to survival. I’ve found that it is totally possible to fold up washing, cook 2 meals, feed the cat, listen to a 3 year old chat about tractors whilst listening out for the baby monitor, all at the same time, although you don’t want to muddle them up and put cat food in the cooking.
• Couple time is precious. We work back to back 4 out of 7 days (and I work most of Saturday), which means the family day we have (one day off is a full study day) is so important. It also means that on those occasions where one of us creeps in the door to find the other one still awake we will sit and have a cup of tea together and just spend some time together, even if it is midnight and the muppet whose stayed up is back to work in 7 hours!
• You can’t do it all. You really can’t and something has to give. This something changes all the time though as different things wrestle their way up and down the priority list- sometimes it’s the washing, sometimes it’s the garden, right now it’s keeping up to date messaging friends (sorry about that guys! I’ll try and bump you all up this list- the washing can definitely take a hit!). One thing is set though- the kids will always top the list.
• You’ll always feel like you’re not giving enough to each half of your life- home and work. The kids will tug your heartstrings when they ask why you’re leaving the house again and you’ll then feel guilty when you can’t stay those extra 10 minutes at work on a busy shift where everyone else is volunteering. I know it’s that stupid guilt creeping in again. I’ve honestly got a lot better and try not to let guilt sway my emotions but there will always be days where you want to cut yourself in half.
• People love to give you their opinion about the fact that you’re a working mother like we are still in the 1950’s and I shouldn’t have the nerve to be more than 10 feet away from my kitchen. For some reason people also get offended when I ask if they are offering to pay my rent when they tell me it’s shocking I’ve left my children at home- and don’t even get me started on the comments of “daddy being at home babysitting”, like the fact that he has a penis means he’s lowered to a ‘babysitter’ instead of the parent he actually happens to be. The fact is- there is no ‘right way’ of doing this parenting/working thing so I try not to let these opinions bother me too much as everyone’s situations are different- just don’t call my husband a fucking babysitter!
• It’s all for the kids anyway! All this blood, sweat and tears is for our little family to have the best life we can give, so we will always be prepared to give more to all aspects of the home/work balance as you don’t get much more motivation than being solely responsible for tiny humans- they definitely make it worth it though!

One day we will lead a quiet life, but it is not this day! Nor apparently any of the days we’ve had recently. Last week the annual folk festival hit the town with bells, Morris dancers and a whole host of fun. This also meant a fairly flat out week at work between us, some late nights, a wild night for me on Tuesday and Grandpops down to join in the fun all week.

Saturday kicked off the singing and dancing for us with a little wander around after I finished work with Auntie Emily being literally dragged around by Polly. It was also Seb’s first real experience of the whole thing as he was only tiny for last years- safe to say it took him a couple of days to work out what had happened to his little seaside town.

A couple of days later he was definitely getting more adjusted to the volume of bells in the town and started to get his groove on.

And by Tuesday evening it was party time!

Tuesday night was also party time for mummy. It was our only night where both of us were off so naturally I shotgunned. With the help of my partners in crime (cough cough Emily and Laura) I had one of the best nights out I’ve ever had! We drank a bit too much, danced all night and laughed a lot (and I mean a lot!). No video needs to be seen of that night though!

Polly of course truly outdid herself this year. She also did all of the above, including drinking too much juice on Tuesday to the point her nappy leaked and she ended up weeing down my leg at dinner. She got her groove on many times with lots of her little friends including a spectacular session on the seafront during the samba band’s performance on Wednesday evening.

Then there was the face painting incident. She sat beautifully while the nice lady transformed her into a tiger and got very excited roaring at us….

Then precisely 45 seconds after this photo was taken she decided (like any 3 year old would) that she didn’t want to be a tiger any more, so she rubbed a huge patch off her face and burst into tears. Definitely worth the £3 and 10 minute wait for that one.

And who could forget her hijacking the instrument mans performance where she got a bit carried away after being asked to ring one of the bells and decided she wanted to be the star of the show, refusing to move till the man let her have a turn like the big kids. Thankfully she was easily distracted with a horn of all things!

Thursday actually turned out to be the last day of the festival as Friday was cancelled due to the horrendous weather that battered us at the end of the week. We had a fab morning with Auntie Jen and the kids cousins, with us stumbling on the bubble man and having a cheeky hot chocolate and cake after the rain threatened to end the fun.

With the bells coming to an end though Henry and I are a little bit shattered which has led to a few scenes like these…

And back to today’s dramas. Well we have actually had a nice day, we went on a fun filled play date this morning which was a great return to normality. Then this afternoon we took a trip up to our friends farm where Polly was in her element with the cows and tractors, she loved watching the milking and we also got to meet a calf born in the time we were up there!

We got a bit time lost though and ended up on a mission to find some quick tea which ended up in a trip to the next town along the seafront to the trusted McDonald’s. Sadly a bunch of teenagers added an interesting twist to the evening and we got to witness a 14 year old assaulting an innocent teenager at the next table- a wonderful thing to explain to a 3 old year trying to eat her fish fingers in peace. Polly was fairly excited to meet the policeman who came to chat to us afterwards and Seb even stroked the poor mans beard! Our children are apparently untroubled by events like these though and even watching a teenager being punched in the face wasn’t enough to deter the next Beyoncé

And on that note we’ve decided to have a tame evening watching a bit of tv, sharing a can of Thatchers and eating our weight in chocolate- maybe tomorrow will be a quiet one?!

So I’m now 28, which means the blog turned 2 this week. I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since I took the plunge and started documenting our lives. There have obviously been a few changes in that time, one of them being how I actually write these posts- 2 years ago I would have put Polly down for a nap and planned what I was about to post while sipping a cup of tea, whereas right now I’m writing in between breaking up wrestling matches between the little monkeys, I’m ignoring the washing up in the kitchen and a cup of tea is proving a far off dream. So life is fairly full on, slightly crazy but oh so fun.

We celebrated my birthday by heading to the Eden project in the pouring rain during the school holidays, we won’t be doing that again! It was absolutely heaving, but this was the first time that Polly was properly into it and she loved running from plant to plant and puddle to puddle. We’ll also know for next time that if we get put in the furthest car park away then the bus down is actually free (we didn’t have change so wrongly assumed this and definitely made fools of ourselves with a mile long walk in the rain with only one single pushchair and only one umbrella), luckily the girl loves a puddle!

We get told a lot, and I mean a lot, how much both the kids look like Henry, so it was quite a relief this week to see some more of my genes creeping through with the help of food. Polly started the day living her best life with wellies off and a Philadelphia bagel in McDonald’s…

And Seb was living his best life later on in the day with 2 spoons, his hands and a chocolate brownie with ice cream…

Yup definitely my kids…

I also shock horror got dressed up in the evening and went for cocktails which was a lot of fun. There was a lot of laughing which was the perfect way to round off a birthday.

We are now saying that Seb is walking, I mean he pretends he isn’t but I now have too many sneaky videos of him strutting across the room behind my back that his trick of dropping back to crawling when he clocks me filming won’t wash anymore, I’m pretty sure he’s only doing it so he can get carried around now.

Summer is proving very hit and miss so we’ve just been taking any opportunities whenever we can to get outside and enjoy the sun in between showers. The kids had a blast in the river last week with their cousins with Polly using any excuse like this to just get naked and run in the water, obviously Henry’s genes creeping in there 😉.

Polly is definitely getting too smart for her own good and definitely too cheeky, maybe my genes on this instance. She had a great day last week when Henry took them over to the Wiscombe hill climb, she’s still carrying the racing programme round with her chatting about the fast cars that go ‘bang pop’.

And finally the boy, well he’s still doing ridiculous things like getting up at 4 to squeeze in the gym before either of us goes to work and is resorting to all sorts of methods to keep the kids busy while he studies- cars, books, colouring, food, Netflix, letting them chase the cat round the house. The truth is it has taken us a little bit longer to get him to the end but he’s definitely within touching distance of finishing his training which will hopefully see scenes like this…

Time to sign off now as the beach beckons before work later and that washing up sadly won’t do itself (maybe I’ve offended the washing up fairy) and the kids are quickly destroying the house! I’ll try and post again soon as tomorrow is the beginning of folk week which should produce many anecdotes as it has done in the past!