A milestone just took place in our toy strewn living room as I cleaned up the baby (not sure when I’m supposed to stop referring to him as the ‘baby’?) from the spaghetti bolognese that his sister refused to touch… Polly did her first wee in the potty! Don’t panic there isn’t any photographic evidence (I’m not going that far on here!) although Grandpops and Auntie Pati we’re both on FaceTime to each of us parents when it happened, so Polly of course proudly shew both of them what she’d achieved! This feels like a big step as she’s been so anti potty that I was beginning to wonder whether it would ever happen. I mean she’s not just become ‘potty trained’ in the last 2 hours, we have a long way to go yet, but her little face filled with pride has definitely made our day. So, if you see me in the factory shop tomorrow morning I’ll be buying stickers for a fake it up reward chart that distracts her from her desperation to wear her ‘big girl pants’ immediately as a few more potty achievements feel likely needed before we say bye bye to one set of nappies.

Summer seems to have finally kicked in which is giving lots of opportunities to get out and about in the town, the river seems to be a firm favourite at the moment, we spent a couple of hours down there yesterday afternoon playing with friends. The fearless big girls were in their element and had to be lured away on the promise of a play in the nearby orchard once it became a bit too cold for jumping in. Seb of course tried to eat every stone he could find!

However these children are keen to remind us that Christmas is now less than half a year away!

We snuck in a couple of days away, popping up to Suffolk to spend some time with our grandparents and to just have a bit of a breather before the summer season kicks in at work. We had a fab time with big breakfasts

A couple of lunch dates

A trip to a farm shop

Seb discovering a new mode of transport

And my brother attempting to teach Polly to play chess before Seb decided to eat the pieces instead

All in all a pretty good trip, which is why this was the scene I left behind when I ventured to work early in the morning after a very late trip home…

Just before we went we were treated to a visit from one of my favourite people, who’s recently popped out the most gorgeous little man, Oscar. Nikki is honestly one of the most loveliest people I’ve ever met and I know she’s going to be amazing at this whole parenting thing, so congratulations again my lovely, Polly was also made up at the chance to hold ‘baby’, declaring ‘I love him’.

We also celebrated Father’s Day where the children stole back the Terry’s chocolate orange and ate half of it together while the mugged off and completely unaware Daddy did the washing up! These were the pictures he sent through as an update while I was at work!

We’ve also taken a big step in the world of sleep. We moved (well I moved) Seb’s cot into Polly’s room last week. He’s definitely not sleeping through (in fact Henry is currently upstairs giving him another bottle) and the first couple of days were an actual disaster but we’ve made a bit of progress with him actually going to sleep for that first stretch, I’ll try not to say this too smugly though as I know little people like to trick us into a false sense of security then shatter our dreams just as the promise of sleep seems like an achievable accomplishment!

I feel like this has been a bit of a lazy post, filled with pictures to make up for my lack of writing the last few weeks. And I hate to make excuses but with 2 little people, work, a house to keep sort of clean and the nice weather luring me outside I’m struggling to make regular updates on here, they definitely aren’t the weekly event they used to be! So I think I’ll just carry on like this, posting when I can, but next time I’ll try and remember a few more anecdotes instead of relying on lots of photos!

So our baby girl is now 3. This feels big. Like a lot bigger than 2. I’m not sure whether it was the fact that she very much knew it was her birthday or that 2 days later I confirmed what days she’d be at nursery when she starts in September or the fact that the ‘baby’ seems to be rapidly turning into another toddler, but somehow I feel like she’s actually a mini teenager already! I mean she has the attitude of a teenager sometimes and ‘no’ is her favourite word at the moment.

Unfortunately in the days leading up to her birthday she had a sickness bug, a fairly savage one that of course favoured the nighttime hours (why do they always strike worse at night when it’s dark and you get no warning of flying vomit until its way too late?!). The first night (Wednesday) had me sleeping on her floor after she’d puked most places out, occasionally jumping up with the bowl every time she stirred. The next night I was working and finished late, by the time I got home everyone was in the big bed (this was a rare puke free night!) and I really didn’t want to risk the magic healing of sleep on a toddler, so I slept in Seb’s cot. It was a bit cramped but definitely an upgrade from the floor!

Monday, which was her actual birthday, was the first fully functioning day for our little lady, it was also sunny. So we headed to Greendale farm shop/play area for a fun hour or so. They’ve got a random fire engine there too which proved a big hit for the big one- she currently tells us that she wants to be a fire fighter when she gets bigger.

Unfortunately we then got a bit smug as they were both behaving so beautifully we headed up the road to a bigger farm shop that we used to visit a lot more, and we went for lunch. It was quite simply, a disaster. Polly threw a strop as she didn’t want to eat anything then Seb absorbed her bad mood and refused to stay in the high chair. Safe to say we ate that lunch quicker than we’ve ever eaten any meal in our lives!

We did save the last 5 minutes of our slightly tarnished trip out when we headed for the toy shop there and asked Polly to pick a little birthday present. She picked an umbrella.

I mean it did then rain half an hour later and this weather the last few days has made this the best present ever so I’d say it was a fairly smart choice!

The next day saw an impromptu beach trip when the sun popped his hat on for an hour or so. These trips are the best as the kids love the freedom, particularly when it’s as empty as we found it! However, both children were soaking wet and covered in sand, oh and half naked, when I realised the only thing I had to deal with the aftermath was a muslin cloth. But it’s amazing what wondrous tricks they can perform, plus Seb is still at the age where he can get away with cruising through town half naked in the pushchair.

On Friday we carried on the birthday fun with a trip up to Cardiff to the science museum there where they have toddler days once a month. We arrived to pouring rain and got lost in the pouring rain, even the new umbrella wasn’t enough to help much.

Before retreating to a Wetherspoons for a quick lunch, this gave the rain a chance to stop and us idiots a chance to realise the museum was the next building along! Anyway we dried off and then spent the next couple of hours having an absolute blast.

We also stumbled across a carousel on the way back to the car where Polly and I had a go riding ‘unicorns’!

Seb like I say is very much entering the world of toddler-hood. He’s started throwing a fit when having a nappy changed, feeds half his tea to the cat and this afternoon actually got the greatest showman soundtrack playing all by himself.

Oh and he’s decided that sleep is for the weak. But as he’s incredibly cute I might forgive him one day for the fact that he reduced him and I to the sofa at 3:30 this morning for a 2 hour ‘nap’ with the cat.

We’ve also decided to make a slight change to our work schedule. Henry is within sight of the end of the studying but this has also coincided with the shifts getting busier and longer so I’ve taken on his Saturday shifts to ease the burden on his shoulders so that the end goal can be reached quicker and as a little team instead of him breaking himself. This does mean he’s had to get creative with ways to distract the kids while he can get the books out. Sunday saw him creating a makeshift farm for them so Polly could ‘collect the silage up’. In the hands of two little rascals who then thought it looked more like snow this is the outcome…

At least one of them helped out with tidying up!

On that note I think I’ll wrap it up as I’ve still got to do the washing up and some actual ironing before bed, I might even watch another episode of Chernobyl to try and catch up with my traitor of a husband who watched ahead of me, if Seb will allow it of course and succumb to more than two hours sleep in one go!

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!

In the week that Seb said his first word (cat) and Polly livened up a dinner time by asking me to smell her fart I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about the things we expect from our little people. More so about what society thinks about our little people, so here it is- my guide on what our babies and toddlers should be doing…

• Sleep through the night. Yup the big one. As soon as that baby enters the world, the whole world has an opinion on when they should ‘sleep through’ (I use this phrase lightly as everyone also has different ideas on how many hours this means- 5 hours, 12 hours, no one actually seems to know) all I do know is society seems to think it should happen immediately, oh and I also know that babies don’t sleep and so before anyone asks- no Seb has never ‘slept through’.
• Go to sleep without fuss. Another big sleep topic is how much intervention we should give to get that magical sleep. Society seems to tell you that they should ‘self-soothe’ which seems like some class A bullshit to me as most adults can’t do this. As adults we might cuddle a partner, snuggle up in a comfy blanket, fall asleep while binge watching something on Netflix yet, a newborn baby is expected to lie down and fall asleep quickly with no comfort or effort least it cause us an inconvenience.
• Eat all healthy food. Shock horror both my children eat chocolate, cakes, clotted cream and Polly has a weekly bowl of ice cream at Nanny & Pops’. Don’t get me wrong they do also eat healthy food, Seb’s favourite food right now is peas, but society says that’s all they should be eating even though we as adults have a horrendous idea of diet that has led to an obesity crisis. Everything in moderation is surely a better approach than a blanket ban on anything with a hint of sugar?
• No crying. Anywhere. In public. In restaurants. At the shop. At home. Anywhere. The looks you get from strangers these days if your little person even so much as sniffles tells you that society has a serious problem with crying children.
• Must share all toys and food with complete strangers on demand. This one is a tricky thing as yes kids need to learn to share but society expects them to do it on demand without warning and with no explanation other than- ‘you need to learn’. When you flip it round for us bigger people it doesn’t sound quite right though, I mean if I walked up to your table in the restaurant had a sip of your drink and took your phone of you for a browse you’d be pretty pissed off but if my 2 year old pinches someone else’s sippy cup and five minutes later that someone else pinches the crayon she’s using we have to brush all of it aside and say ‘they need to learn to share’.
• Be potty trained as soon as they can walk. Polly is 3 in June, she’s not potty trained. However since she was about 18 months old I’ve probably been asked about 687 times when I’m going to potty train her. The answer- when she is ready. I’m not sure why random strangers think my toddlers toilet habits are any of their business (I mean I don’t ask people in the queue at Tesco whether they use Tena lady) but the gist I get is that I should have got her out of nappies a while ago- it’s a good job I don’t listen to society.
• Give people hugs and kisses on demand, even if they don’t know who they are. I’m not going into detail about how messed up this concept really is when you actually think about it, just be prepared that I will not force my kids to do anything like this just to make you happy as how the hell do I then teach them about consent in a few years time.
• Say ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘sorry’ whenever asked to. I mean I am guilty of this a bit as we are really pushing please and thank you right now and I will get Polly to apologise when she makes a bad choice but I won’t force her to say ‘hello’ to people she doesn’t want to talk to, I mean as adults we don’t want to talk to everyone so why should a 2 year old.
• Learn to count, recite ABC’s etc as soon as they start talking. I think I’ve been asked these sorts of questions about 686 times since Polly started talking (good luck Seb you better start swatting up now). The answer- no she’s not. She counts occasionally and knows some of the alphabet but she has her whole life ahead of her to learn these things, right now she’s learning to play, have fun, socialise etc and they seem in serious danger of being pushed aside by a exam result obsessed society that seem to have forgotten that she’ll be learning all that stuff at school anyway and right now I’d rather read her a storybook than have her recite the letters in it.
• Stay away from all technology. This is another tricky one as there’s not much hiding from it (right now I’m writing this sat on my phone and Polly is sat next to me watching Jurassic park on the TV while playing with the house phone) but society seems to think little people shouldn’t be in a 10 meter radius of anything touch screen or their brains will fry- again I’m not sure what age they are allowed maybe within a 5 meter radius or even when they are allowed to shock horror touch an iPad. I mean the kids don’t have a crazy amount of screen time and don’t really have much to do with iPhones etc but they do have some contact with it as guess what- it’s everywhere! Surely this is another case of moderation?
• Like any present given to them at birthdays, Christmas etc, say ‘thank you’ and be grateful. I don’t think this needs much explaining but maybe as adults we should just ask ourselves- have we always stuck to this throughout our lives before getting offended that a toddler isn’t bouncing off the walls at the present they’ve just opened.
• Hit all their milestones when google dictates. I could write a whole post on this alone. Society seems to think they are dr google and people love to comment on your child’s ability whether they are doing some too quick or too late. The truth is- they all do this stuff at their own pace and in 20 years time at a job interview it’s not going to matter if your child crawled at 8 months or 14 months or if they never did but for some reason Karen in the post office is horrified that your 11 month old isn’t clapping yet.
• Use their imagination then stop being silly when we tell them to change. Again fairly self explanatory but also fairly annoying. If my 2 year wants to think that the car she’s playing with can fly then dam it she’s playing with a flying car.
• Try anything new (food, activities etc).
• Not need comfort as soon as they start walking and talking- no more dummy, breastfeeding, bottles etc. See the above rant about sleep comforting but to just add to it, society is horrified to see these things and random strangers like to mutter things when they see you attempt to comfort your child with anything other than your own presence.
• They must like everyone and be friends with everyone. No random person at the bus stop my 2 year old doesn’t want to be your friend just because we are waiting for the same bus.
• Must understand all world dangers immediately- roads, rivers, strangers (incidentally some strangers get a ‘hello’ and others are ‘dangerous’). So yes society I will use reins on my 2 year old as surprisingly she doesn’t fully understand the concept that if she runs in front of a car she may never run again.

I could probably go on and on but we just hit the good bit in the film (quote Polly- “naughty dinosaur”) and I feel like I could rant the rest of the day away. The simple thing is society has some funny ideas about how we should be parenting and in the smartphone age where the internet is ready to judge your actions at the drop of a hat, maybe we should just give a little less of a shit what people think and realise all these wonderful children and parents are different so screw you society I’m going back to watching a ‘scary’ film with my 2 year old whose wearing a nappy and has eaten several biscuits today while the baby plays on the floor not quoting Shakespeare but occasionally shouting ‘cat’ while pointing at the roaring dinosaurs.

Almost a month…. big oops! I think life has just been speeding away recently and so days melt into weeks and then you realise you haven’t blogged for nearly a month. It just seems a bit tricky sometimes to juggle it all to then find a half hour slot to write something when my brain is actually engaged and I’m not about to fall asleep in that moment of peace instead.

So what’s new? Well even though it’s been a while not a lot of big stuff has happened.

The weather has let us down this week with rain creeping back in and forcing us into a couple of house days- the house needs a bit of TLC though really, just little things like organising kids clothes and having a bit of a declutter. But as I watch the rain outside I’m struggling to believe we were sat on the beach last Friday afternoon. It was Seb’s first time actually on the beach and it was a lot of fun. Polly and I enjoyed a cheeky mr whippy with a flake (crafty sod serving us who asked the toddler whether we wanted that extra feature!) then we found a little patch of sand. Polly instantly started making sand angels and covered all 3 of us in sand and Seb instantly started eating handfuls of sand while squealing with delight. We even dipped our toes in the water.

Seb had his first year review last week, a bit of a tick box affair but the health visitor has confirmed what we knew, the boy isn’t moving around as much as he should be so we need to work on that and try a few tricks to get him going. She commented that he’s too focussed on the little detailed things like pushing cars and reading books so she tried forcing him to go and get the toy he’d been occupied with. She found out first hand that communication isn’t a problem for him as he simply pointed at her then at the toy she’d pushed out of his reach, silently demanding she bring it back!

Polly is of course just Polly. Full of her wild energy like usual. Her imagination is going to a whole new level at the moment, cushions on the floor become dragons for us to fly on, Santa calls her on the phone (actually the dvd remote) and asks her to go for a sleigh ride and of course the bathroom light became the man on the ceiling! Still slightly scared of my own bathroom after that one.

They do seem to be getting cheeky together though and scenes like this…

Are becoming quite common, when I turn my back for 2 minutes to dish up tea- she took a wrap off the side and the plates from the cupboard for a quick picnic with him as a starter. So most of the time they are getting on, except in Tesco on Tuesday when they pulled each other’s hair, screaming together while we went through the till.

My moment of peace seems over, Seb has woken from his nap and stick man has finished so I’ll check out again and I really won’t leave it that long again, I promise! But if I get a bit lax here’s a cute picture to finish on that might make up for my poor time keeping! This was the scene I left behind on Monday morning before my 7:30 start…

We are sat under a blanket watching the little mermaid and finally I have 10 minutes to write a post! It’s been a week since the birthday boy’s celebrations but it feels like it’s flown by.

We had last week off work and started the week by travelling up to Suffolk to see family and friends. For the first time we stayed in a premier inn together to make it more of a holiday and to give us a bit more space and flexibility now we are a family of 4. And it was great. Polly was in her element and each evening jumped into her bed declaring ‘kites off’ (that’s ‘lights’ to you and I). It also meant a huge bed to jump on and a perfect view of the main road so she could enjoy lorry watching each morning.

We did get a bit used to having meals prepared for us or picnics so this week has been a shock for us and our oven! The children did really well with all the different places, one of the priceless moments happening in McDonald’s where we had a cheeky breakfast, discovering that both children love a hash brown! Polly had a Philadelphia bagel and spilt some on her colouring, so naturally she licked it off the paper save wasting it.

We met up with a couple of friends and their little ones which is always lovely as it gives the kids a chance to play together. The Humphrey boys’ car collection went down a storm and everyone enjoyed soft play on the Tuesday morning.

Tuesday evening also included a long overdue catch up with my cousin. We have that perfect sort of relationship where we just pick up where we left off each time and there’s always a lot of laughing as a result. We pigged out on a huge (eyes bigger than our stomachs) dominos order with Polly stealing an entire garlic bread for herself and Seb sticking his hands straight in my jam roly-poly and custard.

We finished our Suffolk trip off with a birthday meal before the long drive home. Henry enjoys any excuse to order something fancy and didn’t disappoint with this ‘milkshake’ that needed a knife.

We had Thursday at home, with me discreetly trying to sort washing out, pack last bits and generally get ready for a surprise weekend away. This is actually harder to do than I thought even with Henry being oblivious to these goings on. We ventured down into Cornwall for a day trip to the Eden project. We’d not been since having the kids and were keen to get exploring again. Seb wanted to touch everything and both of them wanted to ride in the ‘amazing’ (quote Polly) pushchair we hired out. Oh and I might have got stuck at one point… We had an amazing day there with the weather only turning as we were walking up the hill to the car.

It’s safe to say he was genuinely taken aback to learn he wouldn’t be driving home and instead would be heading a mile up the road to check in at another premier inn!

The next morning we headed out for some exploring. Portloe was just up the road and top of our list (mainly after watching ‘Wild West’ numerous times!). We had a little wander about before going rouge with Dorris the sat-nav offering her opinion of our exploring (turn left immediately and do a U-turn…). Going rogue resulted in our first ride on a car ferry- which Seb may have slept through but Polly thought was amazing.

This isn’t the ferry by the way it was a boat in the river!

We then picked up a picnic before getting lost down some country lanes, however going rogue paid off again and we found the perfect spot for our picnic by the river.

That evening we headed to a nearby pub, picked out of our ‘Wild Guide to the southwest’ for a nice meal. Seb got so excited to see our mains after eating his that he then started making the most noise he’d ever made in his life- it was happy squealing but it did result in me nearly choking on some beautifully cooked pork crackling as we decided a swift exit was in order as the 7:30 diners started to arrive. Oh and this is his new trick…

Sunday morning dawned and suddenly I’m now married to a 30 year old! The weather decided to cut our Cornish exploring short is spectacular style. We made it up to Port Issac, I got out the car, nearly fell over, declared a firm no then crawled back in the car and set Dorris the task of finding lunch. We ended up in a little pub in Camelford where the big embarrassing badge got Henry a free desert complete with candles.

The weather forced us back to Devon sooner than expected so I had to get creative to kill some time before a surprise meal. We wound up in soft play of course. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun with us trying a new place out. I’m not sure who had more fun though!

The squashy log was carried around for about half an hour as she got very attached to it for some reason!

We then had a fab meal with the family where we all failed at photography but did catch the birthday boy out with a huge chocolate cake and a room full singing him happy birthday!

The birthday celebrations carried on till Wednesday too with a lunch date with Pati and George. We ordered way too much of course and Seb finished the meal by trying to finish my cider and instead chucked it over the floor.

It’s been a fairly full on week and a bit and the boy has been well and truly spoiled but 30 is quite a big one I think, and Polly keeps telling us. Well I’ve written quite a bit and the little mermaid finished a while ago, she’s obviously taken advantage of my distraction and stuck Cars on now. 🙈

I should go to bed, I really should go to bed but I’m currently sat on the sofa watching what I want to watch (well I will put it on when I’ve finished this), I have a cup of tea to hand that I’m hoping doesn’t need the microwave treatment like the last 2 did and both children are asleep, well Seb is asleep on me (judge all you like, I don’t care as I enjoy the cuddles) but I’m so tired I should be upstairs. We are going away in the morning- alarm set for before sunrise but I’ve not stopped all day so I’m enjoying some chill out/almost ‘me time’.

I was meant to get things organised yesterday but I hate packing and will put it off till the last possible moment so I stupidly left it all for today, while trying to tidy the house, do 2 loads of washing and keep 2 little people alive while Henry works a split. But I think I’ve got there, just the toothbrushes to chuck in the bag then we’ll be off.

We very much need a little break as we’ve not had one since I went back to work in October and that was a week at home so it’ll be nice to have some quality time together. Even if it is a night less than we thought as this muppet buggered up the booking and has us checking out on Wednesday not Thursday- oops! But it does mean we’ll travel back at night and therefore we’ve gained a whole day on Thursday. It’s just a good job we hadn’t actually made any plans for that morning!

I’ve been secretly organising some things for the later part of next week as a certain person won’t be in the twenties anymore next weekend. It’s been so hard keeping things from him though as we normally share everything- and I mean everything! He’s tried guessing a few times but I’ve just said no to everything and have sworn the guys at work to secrecy or I’d spoon their eyes out.

The good news is we seem to have kicked the horrendous flu bug we all had, just the odd runny nose or cough every now and then. All I can say is if any of you go down with it… God help you! Polly actually didn’t get off the sofa for 3 days, normally she won’t sit on it for 3 minutes (unless paw patrol is on, then she could actually become part of the sofa as she’s so transfixed on those bloody doggies).

I do feel very out of sync with the rest of the world now though. We’ve not been to a toddler group for a good 2 weeks (half term didn’t help in this) and the furthest we’ve really gone has been the byes apart from our usual weekly trip to Nanny and Pops’. This is also why I’m looking forward to a full on few days next week.

Seb is now 10 months old- I have no idea how this has happened! He still refuses to even try and crawl but did squeeze in a couple of milestones while still single digit months. He pulled himself up for the first time on Monday, in the bath, which was terrifying and didn’t last long as he didn’t know what to do with himself next! He is also walking holding our fingers, looking very proud of himself. But the cutest thing is his little finger pointing that’s usually aimed at the cat or his own reflection and I really need to catch it on camera!

There’s not much else to really report, hopefully the next blog will have a bit more action. In the meantime I’m about to dig the remote out from under Seb and yes I did actually get a warm cup of tea! Just a shame we’ve eaten all the chocolate in the house.

So it’s just gone 1 in the afternoon, Henry has gone food shopping and the rest of us are cuddled on the sofa watching Cars… again. Yup the lurgy has hit our house.

Last Thursday I started feeling a bit off, nearly a week later and I’m still producing enough crap from my nose and chest to fill a swimming pool and I’ve spread it to the rest of the house- oops!

There’s been more sleep during the day than at night, plenty of sofa cuddles and enough CBeebies to send any sane individual round the twist. Henry and I have dragged ourselves into most of our shifts, on a couple of occasions we’ve been sent home- Henry spectacularly lasted less than half an hour on Sunday.

Sunday was a slight sore point as we’d been looking forward to a birthday pool party for ages, I’d got the day off for it and the swimming costumes were ready but this was the morning Henry and Polly ‘officially’ went down with the bug. So instead of family swimming, we had family sleeping on the sofa.

Standards do go a bit out the window when everyone is sick as no one has any energy and to be fair everyone in the house is either asleep or in an animation coma so they don’t really care that the hoover made it out the cupboard 4 days ago and hasn’t found it’s way back home yet, or that the recycling pile on the kitchen work surface is looking like a life size replica of the leaning tower of Pisa or that the towel wash has been waiting patiently by the washing machine since Monday. I could go on. The important thing is that all 4 of us are alive even if pasta, fish fingers and toast has become our staple diet.

There have been a couple of hilarious highlights though- of course. Not sure whether it was Henry (who gets a bit emotional when he’s poorly) having a slight breakdown at the Cinderella Story on Sunday- not letting him forget that in a long time. Then there was me who fainted while changing Seb’s bum the other morning- it wasn’t a bad nappy, I just stood up too quick. Henry came in just in time to guide me onto Polly’s bed while he redressed a very confused baby. Then there’s the little queen herself who did a ‘sick day’ in style today by eating cheese on toast while watching This Morning and reminding me we need more chocolate in the house. Then there’s Seb himself who ate two meals sat on the floor the other day with the rest of his family watching on while shivering under blankets with a sweat on at the same time.

But enough of the self pity. I just thought I’d share an insight into a household where everyone is poorly and where on Monday morning when the work alarm went off at 6:30AM we basically drew straws on who was facing the public first- I didn’t get dressed till 4PM so that shows who ‘won that one!