Well oops, it’s been a little while since my last post. We’ve been getting back into the swing of juggling work and children and life in general so writing has slipped my mind the last few weeks. The kids have been amazing with the new adjustment as we’d all got very used to being together as a family for meals and bedtimes etc so it’s been a bit of a shock to the system for all concerned! Polly has been a helpful big girl doing little things like strapping Seb into the pushchair for school runs or tidying up the toys at bedtime which has really helped. She hasn’t lost her Polly sass of course but these little moments are helping make the sass more bearable!

We had a relatively quiet half term with a couple of beach afternoons and a few plays at the park. To be honest we’ve all needed the week to have a bit of downtime too so we’ve watched a lot of Bluey and had a lot of sofa cuddles too. Bluey did provide a heartwarming moment the other day though- we were watching ‘The baby race’ where the mum reminisced with the kids about the baby milestones and by the end both Polly and I burst into happy tears and had to have a little cuddle and chat about her baby years.

The weather seems to have finally realised it’s June and not October though which is a bonus, although it did change very abruptly so one minute Polly was asking for a hot chocolate after school and the next day I was frantically trying to find all the sunhats out.

We’ve also had the week of cake and birthdays thanks to the girls. I still can’t believe Polly is now 5 but I also can’t believe Clara is now 1.

On Polly’s birthday we worked back to back so it meant presents at 7AM in bed which was a hit. We ventured to the park to have a play with some friends and eat lots of cake. I also had some explaining to do as silly mummy realised at 11:30PM the night before that she’d bought age 4 balloons by mistake. Luckily Henry made up some story that it was a way of saying goodbye to her being 4, only trouble was she asked every hour afterwards when the 5 balloons would arrive.

Instead on Monday morning they were greeted with more balloons as the littlest baby isn’t a baby anymore. We were both off and Polly had a non-pupil day so we headed to the zoo for our first proper family day out as a complete family.

We had a blast and picked up a couple of hilarious anecdotes. The highlight being when Henry tried to take a selfie of himself with a peacock sitting on a fence, the peacock didn’t think much of this and turned around, bitch whipping him with his tail in the process. The look of horror on Henry’s face as he thought he was about to be savaged is still making me laugh!

At the cheetah enclosure Seb expressed his concern for the animals inside- “oh no they trapped!” Not sure yet how to explain the workings of a zoo to a 3 year old! Polly then got into an argument with a random 10 year old on what the cheetah could eat and how it probably wouldn’t be too fussy about eating birds or people given the chance. After the zoo we headed for a cheeky McDonalds where Clara was treated to her first happy meal- most of which she threw at us while staring at Henry daring him to tell her no, she did also discover and then devour my banana milkshake.

When we got home it was time for another bout of happy birthday singing. The big 2 helped Clara blow out the candle and then her first instinct was to stick her face in the cake and take a bite!

So we had a busy end to the half term week and Henry also squeezed in having his first covid jab (such a relief to be getting these now- I’ve been able to book mine this morning)- before we headed off to Roadford lake for a walk with Nanny and Pops on Sunday. The kids are very taken with their new puppy and spent the evening pretending to be Rosie which obviously gave us a nice relaxing evening before the zoo trip!

Well that’s all I have time for now as I’ve got to go and wake up Clara bear as it’s time for toddler group- so excited to be back at these now and they’ve definitely helped her get used to the fact that there are more than 5 people in the world.

I’ll try not to leave it so long next time!