Polly, you really are quite something. I remember someone saying to me when you were a baby that girls were so laid back and calm. I think it took about 6 months to realise this was crap.

You are an absolute whirlwind. But guess what? I wouldn’t have you any other way!

You make me laugh, you make me proud, you make me want to tear my hair out but you also make me so excited to see your future. People like to comment on how wild you can be, somethings negatively but mainly positively. I know you have your moments but I also see how much love you have to give and how you just want to have fun all the time. Your zest for life is what puts a smile back on my face after I’ve had to tell you to not run off for the 12th time.

I love how you want to chat to everyone and engage with anyone and I’m so sorry that not everyone engages back- honestly how grumpy have you got to be to ignore a 2 year old saying hi. I hope you never let this attitude hold you back- as Taylor would say, the haters are gonna hate.

I love how much you love the things you love. Cars. Puzzles. Bubbles (except when you insist on holding the pot and tip them on the floor). Lions. Rockets. The sea. Music. Babbits (rabbit’s!). The Go Jetters. Fire (not in a sinister way! You love shouting ‘fire’ ‘crash’ when the cars crash in formula one). The stick song. Cake. Buses. Water.

I love how inquisitive you are and always have been. I love your little surprised face where you make a perfect ‘o’ with your mouth and then give a cheeky smile. I love how you say hello and goodbye to anything- the river, the sea, trees, our car, the list goes on!

There’s currently an advert on tv with the caption- ‘holiday like you’re 7’, well you my little munchkin are the advert for ‘live life like you’re 2’.

So really just keep being you.

Love your very proud mama xxx

The day after my 27th birthday, this means the blog is celebrating its 1st birthday today! It’s strange to think how much has changed in this one year, the main change is currently sitting on my lap in a fire engine onesie. The second big change is the man in the kitchen getting himself breakfast, this time last year he would have been 3 hours in to a 14 hour day. We’ve had one of those weeks where I’m so thankful he’s working a different job as it means we can do beach mornings, family lie ins (i.e 7AM!) and birthday morning trips to get ice cream in the rain.

Henry is powering through his course and using any opportunity to study, he leaves his mark on the table with a scrunched up chocolate wrapper and the sign that he was interrupted by a toddler sitting next to him playing….

So it was my birthday yesterday and we treated ourselves to naughty ice cream sundaes before Henry had work but I couldn’t help think how birthday celebrations have changed over the years. Henry captured the afternoon perfectly with this snapshot and next to it is the aftermath of my 22nd birthday (21 + 1 as we wrote on the birthday banner I was wearing) where we went clubbing and I finished off the night in style by throwing up in an alleyway and passing out in the car on the way home. Real classy.

Bit of a change but it’s like I pointed out to Henry- plenty of time to go back to a bit of clubbing when I’m 40 seen as 40 is the new 30!

What else has happened in the last week or so? Well Polly got herself stuck in a tambourine which proved fun getting her out of, there was a slightly panicked moment when my sister and I looked at each other genuinely worried this would wind us up in A&E, I mean thinking about it who do you call if your toddler gets stuck in a musical instrument?! She also showed us how helpful she can be on the 2 trips to the shop we’ve made…

In the second picture she emptied the pushchair of all the food and made this heap on the living room floor before running off with the cheese.

She’s also getting so much better with little Seb and although she gets grumpy sometimes she’s also bringing him toys to play with and sharing her ‘food’ with him- a real sign of acceptance from the child who can hear a crisp packet rustle from 3 rooms away.

And wee man himself has rushed another milestone this week, but I’ll let him off as it’s one of the best ones- he’s laughing! Not loads but still it’s a sound that melts my heart.

Finally the cat also clearly wanted a mention this week as he’s done a couple of amusing things. Firstly he’s taken a liking to Polly’s bubble chair but wound up very confused the other day when the chair started playing music to him.

He’s always been a cheeky bastard and spends each of our meal times sitting like a dog waiting for scraps which he usually gets from a feral toddler who eats yoghurt without a spoon, but this weekend he truly outdid himself by actually sitting at her place at the table!

All in all we’ve had an amusing week and an interesting year that is definitely going in the right direction. I just want to say thank you really to you right now reading my crazy ramblings about just an ordinary family life and hopefully it’ll be another memorable year.

I meant to write up a post last night but Polly was a demon at bedtime and decided to argue for half an hour on what setting to have the bloody lullaby machine on so by the time she was settled I was ready for bed. Sadly there was something going on in the town that resulted in a helicopter going round in circles for the next half hour flying so low it was setting off the Baby monitor and provoking the seagulls into thinking they were under attack. The seagulls are bad enough on their own! Yet again we have seagulls nesting on the bathroom roof and yet again they are driving me to almost pulling my hair out! They don’t have an off switch and squawk at all hours and sadly keep waking everyone up at 6AM! The video at the bottom was taken last year when little Polly thought they were pretty interesting, now she just yells at them for being too noisy! The 6AM starts also mean that this scene is being repeated too often.

Polly is insisting on reading car books before either of us is functioning!

We’ve enjoyed a couple of walks together in the Byes this week as this amazing weather has continued. Henry and Polly got very excited when they spotted an eel!

Polly has also developed a quite frankly disgusting new eating style. We’ve started giving her a sippy cup with no lid as part of the whole teaching life skills to raise a tiny person, she’s taking it to another level. She is now dunking whatever she’s eating into her milk and eating it. I’ve just sat next to her eating scrambled eggs out of a cup of milk and caught her eating toast in this way on camera. Toddlers can be disgusting!

Seb has conquered a milestone this week by managing to roll from his back onto his belly. I was quite excited and then got emotional as he’s growing up too quick and I also realised I don’t really want an early mover with a wild toddler already loose in the house. He did also just add to the unusual lunch by exploding his nappy- great fun to deal with as usual, but is now being exceptionally cute by napping across me! He started in the bouncer but Henry woke him up by sitting down too loudly so he’s progressed to my lap with the cat looking on sadly that his spot has been stolen again!

I’m really not sure how he’s comfortable but apparently he must be as he’s snoring- just like his daddy!

It’s been a quiet week really apart from another crazy run around IKEA, this time joined by our friends Pati and George and Pati’s little sister Vicky. We had a lot of fun and Seb added to the craziness by doing the biggest poonami I’ve dealt with yet. In the car. In the car park of Aldi before our food shop. Aldi which sadly doesn’t have changing facilities. But enough about poo, for a minute anyway! I decided this week to do a day in the life blog post, so I picked yesterday and recorded everything I did between midnight Wednesday night and midnight last night. A bit of me was quite intrigued to know where my day goes so here it is.

23:48 (I know it’s 10 minutes before I was going to start but I was still doing the activity when the clock struck 12!)- Feeding Seb

02:30- Feeding Seb (bit of cluster feeding going on tonight so not sure how long each feed was)

05:23- Polly awake. I go and scoop her up and bring her in with us as my day is not starting before 5:30. Fingers crossed!

05:24- Polly back to sleep hogging half the bed

06:00- Henry’s alarm goes off. It’s a gym morning so he’s squeezing in a session before he has work. Polly stirs but amazingly stays asleep.

06:20- Feeding Seb

07:35- Polly is awake, this is a very rare lay in! So she’s awake and the first thing she does is chat about Seb who is of course asleep.

07:45- After lots of cuddles in bed with my 2 monkeys it’s head downstairs time. Teaching Polly to shuffle down the stairs on her bum was one of the first things we taught her after Seb arrived!08:15- Breakfast. I’m not sure where half an hour went, I know I needed the loo and I think there was a nappy to be changed and maybe a story to read, anyway it’s our usual of marmite on toast with Seb watching the whole thing from his bouncer.08:30- Feeding Seb while Polly plays.

08:50- Back upstairs to get dressed. Always fun and games with a toddler! Today she decided to pull out board games every time I was distracted with Seb.09:15- Feeding Seb (this boy must be going through a growth spurt!)

09:30- clean 2 sets of teeth, shoes on, Seb in the carrier and Polly in the pushchair. We actually bump into Henry as he is coming back from the gym and we are going out.

09:45- Bounce and Rhyme at the library. Polly spends half the time at the computer desk in the corner spinning herself round on the chair and Seb enjoys a nap to the sound of wind the bobbin up.

10:20- We head round the corner to the church toddler group. Polly makes a water/oil sensory bottle and eats half a plate of pancake at snack- of course she ignores the fruit when out in public. Seb wakes up for another feed and Polly gets stroppy during song time so we don’t hang about.

11:45- We get home after a drop in at the letting agent to ask about the dodgy roof tiles we’ve reported.

11:47- toddler tantrum. The sensory bottle wasn’t making as many bubbles as she wanted when she gave it a shake. Seb also needed a nappy change during this and had to be shuffled out the way on the mat away from the flailing legs of a 2 year old doing the classic starfish manoeuvre.

12:00 Lunch time. It’s a snacky sort of lunch today for me too- you’d think this would mean the baby weight was flying off but sadly I keep finding the chocolate during naptime.12:04- toddler tantrum. The orange needed peeling. As Polly takes a week to eat a meal still I do a quick toy round up and feed Seb while she’s finishing up (tantrum as well as the food).

12:45- storytime which follows into naptime as she’s cream crackered so falls asleep as I’m reading. I love these books so I carry on and finish the chapter even though they are both asleep in front of me.13:00- With Polly asleep I head downstairs with the boy and the monitor.

13:10- sneaky chocolate bar time and feeding Seb.

13:30- watch the news while enjoying some Seb cuddles.

13:50- Seb has some time stretching and trying to roll on the playmat while I put the bins and recycling out. 14:00- Hes’s still happy on the mat so I do the washing up and give the kitchen a quick clean.

14:10- A hot cup of tea! Playtime with Seb.

14:30- Seb fell asleep during tummy time- again! Do I sit and relax for five minutes… of course not. I tidy Polly’s bookcase instead.

15:00- I wake Polly up or she’ll be a demon at bedtime and then feed Seb,

15:15- The electrician unexpectedly calls in to tidy up a wire from our recent rewire. Polly chooses this time to do a poo and Seb has a slight breakdown about the whole thing- cue lots of tears.

15:25- Henry arrives home. He’s only got a short break before his next shift so is straight in the kitchen sorting out some tea that he’ll eat early and we’ll eat later.

15:30- Henry has some Seb cuddles and reads to Polly while I hoover the house.

15:50- family time! Polly reads the same book 6 times. Seb feeds and gets more cuddles.

16:50- Henry puts Polly’s tea in and runs out the door back to work for the evening shift.

17:00- Feeding Seb (does this boy ever stop!)

17:15- I sort out some washing but make sure my bum is on the sofa for Go Jetters as requested by Polly- it’s her favourite.

17:30- time for tea. Wouldn’t be complete without a toddler tantrum, she wanted butter on her plate like I had for the potatoes, unfortunately she just eats butter like cheese so I gave her a small bit then said no more, she didn’t approve. Then we had the usual fit about seeing a fly. Tea lasted so long that Seb enjoyed guess what? Yup you’ve guessed it- another feed.

18:15- Seb goes in the carrier and I do the washing up, sort Polly out some warm milk, make myself a cup of tea and we then watch the news.

19:00- Heart radio time and Polly insists on completing the same puzzle on repeat while we drink our drinks. 19:15- Upstairs and it’s bath night. Seb cries through this one and Polly spills a boat full of water over the floor, so a fairly typical bath time.

19:55- dry Polly’s hair while she reads her favourite car books again in the corner of our room and Seb chills out to the sound of the hairdryer.

20:00- Storytime. Polly now knows it off by heart. 20:05- Polly in bed.

20:15- Polly asleep after a slight protest where I gave her the wrong dummy.

20:20- Lots of feeding from Seb and lots of cuddles too.21:05- Seb settles in the moses basket and I stick my head in her room to check she’s definitely asleep.

21:10- I climb into bed as I’m tired after the early morning cluster feeding

During this time I also:

Did 8 nappy changes

Wiped away half a dozen tears

Given countless cuddles

Downed 5 cups of tea

Wiped a snotty nose several times

Read 5 different books

Completed a bus puzzle 4 times

Agreed with a toddler on a hundred vehicle assessments- yes ‘big bus’ went past

Picked up numerous toys

Used wet wipes to clean the table

Tripped over the cat twice

Fed the cat 3 times

Checked Facebook 3 times

Watched 20 minutes of trashy TV (Supernanny USA today)

Went up and down the stairs 30 times

Replied to several messages- lots of build a bear chat today!

Sung a combined amount of 45 minutes worth of nursery rhymes

Chased away the same fly a dozen times, then asked the cat to do his job better

Sworn under my breath only once (at the fly)

Snuck in 2 small chocolate bars and one chocolate rich tea (didn’t know that was a thing till today)

Redone my Mum bun twice.

Now I know where my day goes!

What a contrasting few days we’ve just had! Seb and I are currently on the sofa having a snuggle while Henry puts our little lady to bed, it’s a late one tonight as we’ve been out all day and didn’t get home till late, but we had plenty of fun!

The weekend started great with a lush morning at the beach on Saturday before it got too hot. Polly and Henry dug a huge hole which she was reluctant to leave and everyone had a splash in the sea, well apart from Seb who stayed asleep in the carrier the whole time, I mean why let a little thing like the beach interrupt your 3 hour nap!

Sunday bought the rain which the children and I of course got caught in. Polly lost the plot about the rain cover over the pushchair until it absolutely poured and she saw how wet I was getting and so gave up trying to kick it off, luckily I had my rain coat in the pushchair too so I could wrap this round Seb in the carrier. I must have looked a bit weird pushing the pushchair with a coat tied round me while I got soaked through- the things we do for our kids!

Monday morning was a total opposite again- I woke up feeling horrendous. After avoiding it with Polly sadly mastitis caught up with me- cue sad face! Luckily the doctors saw me straight away and the antibiotics kicked in within 24 hours. I did wind up having a 2 1/2 hour nap on the sofa with Seb on Monday afternoon so Henry actually managed some studying as I wasn’t yapping away and Polly was napping through most of that too.

Then to today, well it’s not that we’ve done much- we’ve been into Exeter for the whole day, but it was a fun day. We caught up briefly with my sister and her husband while pondering lightbulbs in Wilko. Then we caught up with my gorgeous friend Nikki who opened up Seb’s new savings account. We had a cheeky whetherspoons lunch before a spot of shopping. The day was made more amusing by my misjudged choice of footwear, flip flops, which I normally live in but sadly it was raining when we arrived and I forgot a little bit of rain turns Exeter’s pavements into an ice rink! Cue many old lady jokes from my husband as I clutched the pushchair he was pushing to stop me landing on my arse!

Another priceless moment came during lunch. After assuring Nikki that Polly did not have him wrapped round her little finger he found himself outwitted by her (again!). Her meal came with a mystery sauce that he was too chicken to try. Then he started a game pretending to eat her hands and of course she dunked her finger in the sauce so he did wind up trying it anyway! Oh it was a bacon mayo if you were wondering.

One of the jobs was getting little lady’s feet measured again so we headed to Clark’s where she actually picked out her new shoes, it was the first time she’s picked something for herself- luckily for us they were on sale! We also picked up the exact book my mind had created for her to start learning the different names for vehicles so they aren’t all aeroplanes, tract-tees and cars.

After a bit of a longer stay in the city than expected as apparently all black shoes are as rare me being on time we squeezed in a food shop before heading to Ikea to finally pick up a little table and chair set for Polly (a very late birthday present). By this time we realised we needed to eat so we snuck in some meatballs before letting the toddler loose- the pictures speak for themselves as to how much fun she had! Then it was home for a quick bath with lots of bubbles before a slightly later bedtime. I think it’s taken it out of Henry too as he’s not down yet so I’m guessing he’s fallen asleep on our bed waiting to make sure she’s asleep, this means I’ll have to move a fast asleep Seb if I want a cup of tea, dam it!

Isn’t it just glorious weather?! I’m really trying hard to not complain as we all know it’ll be gone by the time the schools break up and those snow memories weren’t actually that long ago, but a few degrees cooler might be nice! It just becomes a bit tricky with little people as you need to remember suncream, hats, sunglasses, to stay in the shade, to not be out during the midday sun, to make sure they are drinking enough, the list goes on, but at least it means we can go out and enjoy it. This is exactly what we’ve been doing.

Polly had a blast Monday morning with her friends in the local gardens. On Tuesday we had our usual trip to Henry’s grandparents which included a trip to the park. Polly was straight up the big yellow slide but she herself deemed the metal one ‘too hot’ and she then got a special treat when a group of helicopters did some sort of training exercise that involved them flying so low they looked like they were touching the trees. She’s so into her vehicles at the moment I’m going to pick her up some sort of vehicle encyclopaedia so she can start learning all their names- at the moment it’s either a car, bus, aeroplane or an ‘amunat’ (ambulance to the rest of us!).

Henry has been working 3 till close on a Friday which means we’ve been splitting up and spending one on one time with the children which has been quite nice as I was starting to feel guilty (I swear I feel guilty at everything these days!) about the lack of one on one time Seb was getting. So I’ve been taking him to a baby group and Henry takes Polly to the donkey sanctuary or the park or the beach. It’s quite nice to have an hour or so to just chill out with little man and Polly loves spending time with her daddy, as proven by the series of photos and videos I got from their food shop adventure this week.

Yesterday one of my Mum friends and I had an amusing moment at the library that made me think about the new friends motherhood has bought and how much I appreciate them. Becoming a parent is a scary thing in many ways but one of those things included the need to make new friends to help get you through the rollercoaster you’re about to embark on as these are your fellow passengers. So after my last post I just wanted to say thank you to all my new parent friends as the support they gave from that made me realise how much I can count on them. So thank you to the mums, dads, Grandma’s and nanny’s who we see every week at groups and play dates. You guys are amazing at making me feel sane and always manage to put a smile on my face and are ready with a hug when that’s what’s needed. It’s amazing watching our little people growing up together. Thank you to one of my oldest friends who is always at the end of the phone with advice and reassurance and who I can count on for a bit of gossip. Thank you to the friends I’ve made through social media especially the WTE June 2016 mamas and dadas, it’s so amazing seeing how far we’ve all come with the help of instagram, it’s a shame the actual WTE page isn’t as active but boy did we go through a lot on there and those threads got me through many night feeds, especially the solid gold ones that started crazy debates or just left your mouth hanging open- ‘I’m thinking of divorcing my husband cuz he gave our child ice cream (I’m pretty sure it was ice cream!)’. These amazing communities have all been lifelines and I just want each one of you to know how much I appreciate your friendship. Oh and the incident Hazel and I shared at the library involved a rather large spider sitting a bit too close for comfort during bounce and rhyme and us 2 (both afraid of those evil 8 legged monsters) taking 20 minutes to deduce it was definitely dead as each of our toddlers got so close they nearly stepped on it. See little moments that put a smile on my face!

This is actually the third blog post I’ve written in as many days but the other 2 aren’t ready for publishing yet and then I realised I actually needed to write one to publish now- oops. At least there’s the answer on how sleep deprivation can mess you up a little bit! That and just having the occasional, long and stressful day- today being one of them. It started off great, by 9AM we were all dressed and fed and ready for the day plus I’d sorted out a load of washing which actually made it straight from the airer to the drawers (shock horror!) plus I’d tidied the kitchen and sorted out the recycling. It was obviously too good to last. By 1PM I was ready for the whole day to just fuck off- yup that bad. Henry normally has Tuesday off. Today he didn’t. The Tuesday toddler group is a busy one, it’s a great one but it’s also one that Polly needs one of us with her as she’s prone to getting over excited and being a rascal. Today she decided to be a class A demon. As I was chatting away I caught the tail end of her and a bigger kid having a disagreement which Polly settled by facepalming the other girl. Most of the parents at the town groups are supportive of each other and try and reassure you that she will grow out of this bloody infuriating stage, unfortunately this girls mother wasn’t one I knew and instead responded to my apology with that look. That judging look that made me feel like a complete failure. I was all ready to leave then and there as I’m really starting to struggle with being the parent of a hitter as I know that reputation is starting to settle on her and it really does make me feel like I’ve failed her. Luckily at that moment one of Polly’s little friends came and sat next to us at the play doh table and her mum (who is quite possibly one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever encountered) came over and took a seat next to me. She gave me a hug (actually 2 hugs) when I got upset sat on the floor of that church hall with Seb strapped to my chest and our little girls making play doh butterflies and chatted to me about how hard this parenting thing is and that this phase really will pass. I needed her kind words so much right at that point and just want to thank her for that. Sadly the day still had some shit to throw my way after lunch when Polly refused a nap and screamed at me for 10 minutes while Seb also cried because she was crying and he wanted to nap. After I made it clear that she really was going to have a nap she did then lie down and go to sleep.

Thankfully this is when the day took a turn. Seb and I headed downstairs and ignored the hoovering choosing instead to sit on the sofa for a cuddle. I then watched my guilty pleasure (the latest version of 16 and pregnant to hit mtv) and Seb gave me some of his biggest smiles. Two hours after she argued about going for a bloody nap I actually ended up waking her up to find she’d had a personality transplant and was in a delightful mood wanting to play trains.

She’s grown up so much over the 8 weeks that she’s been a big sister and has become if possible even more adventurous, I just wish she’d stop smacking then I feel like I could enjoy it all a lot more and I’d be able to relax more and give her the extra freedom I think she’s craving. I can see how much she’s changing and I don’t want this to overshadow it as she has had some amazing moments that make me so proud of her, like earlier this evening when she pointed at a patch of sunlight and told me the sun was in the sky. Or an hour before that when my for the last 3 month fussy eater ate strawberries, orange, carrot and a pea after refusing all fruit and veg except banana for whats felt like an eternity. Or yesterday morning when she shushed the cat who was miowing too loudly next to an upset Sebastian who I was trying to comfort. Or yesterday afternoon when she leant out of her pushchair to try and put a paper cup in a bin. I could go on but I’m getting emotional again. So what’s the point of this post? I guess it’s mainly me trying to get across the other side of my beautiful girl to those who maybe aren’t seeing it right now and an apology really to those who have been on the receiving end of her smack. She’s honestly so full of love it breaks my heart to see her lashing out when she’s trying to learn the words to explain what’s made her angry. I just hope she gets through it before it causes any serious damage as right now this is killing me as a parent.

I’m writing this on my phone in the back seat of the car between 2 car seats on the way home from Suffolk in the rain, full of KFC and feeling bad for Henry in the front by himself! We’ve had a great week up in our old stomping ground seeing family and friends, introducing Seb and listening to how much Polly has grown- she really has in the 3 months since we were last up. We were planning on the trip nearer the end of June but our house needed some TLC and was booked in for a full rewire so we scarpered to give them the chance to do it quickly.

Polly has had a blast. She’s been to soft play a couple of times, Seb wasn’t so keen apparently and found it a bit boring- see photo attached. She’s also been spoilt with lots of birthday presents and just generally with plenty of cake and biscuits! They have been long days that have left her asking to go ‘night-night’ by the end and have also resulted in her sleeping like a log each night even with all 4 of us in one room. We stayed with Henry’s nanny which was really nice, Henry lived with his nan during his teenage years so it’s always nice for him to spend a chunk of time with her, and the dog of course! Also staying with Bear (the dog!) seems to have helped Polly’s sudden dislike of dogs which surfaced a few weeks ago which is a great bonus.

The general consensus from everyone is that Polly is wild and so full of energy I was asked every day “how do I keep up with her?!”. In particular she loved playing with her Godmother Michelle’s little boys, Eli & Niall, they had great fun at the park and always make us laugh. She also had great fun at a family BBQ on Friday afternoon with Uncle Bob chasing her round the house while she stole all the dogs toys and hid them in her bed, this was after plenty of laughter at the table with Auntie Carla who she has a real soft spot for.

Sebastian thought it amusing to book end the trip with well timed poo’s. Ironically we left at just after 4pm to come home after setting off Monday morning at just past 4am and each time with a loaded up car the boy thought it a perfect time to let one rip! The face of innocence in the following photo as he literally didn’t give a shit! I’ve also discovered he likes to have his face held when he’s sad at the fact that we are stuck in traffic and he calms down when I sing various nursery rhymes- a few hours ago old McDonald ended up with a very creative farm including crabs, snakes and a frog.

We finished our week with a picnic at Fram castle (aka the castle on the hill) with G-G (great Grandma) and uncle Oli. It’s strange taking your children back to places where you grew up, I mean it makes you feel old for a start! But it’s funny watching Polly running up a grass slope that you drunkenly rolled down several years earlier.

The week leading up to our trip was full of fun too with Polly turning 2! I can’t believe my big baby is 2! Henry last minute had the day off so we organised a last minute trip to soft play where she had lots of fun with some of her little friends- bad mummy didn’t take a single picture all day apart from the balloon dancing video before breakfast. I of course got emotional later on in the day while looking at old photos of when she was born- is this just another ‘Mum thing’ that I’ll cry every birthday?!

Seb and I had a little mother son date earlier in the week when we headed to the local church hall to watch the greatest showman with one of our mummy friends and her littlest one. They both did great and us mums even enjoyed hot cups of tea and cake! Oh and it’s just become my favourite film as it really is that good. Lastly a little anecdote as this really has been a long post! I took the little ones for walk in the byes last week, Polly was back in the pushchair after lots of running around waving at everyone and everything and Seb was asleep in the carrier. 2 older ladies stopped us when we were 2 minutes from the house and started cooing over the children when one of them took Seb’s hand and came out with the craziest thing anyone has ever said to me…. “oh he feels very cold, are you sure he’s still breathing?” And no she wasn’t joking! I flustered something about him fidgeting a moment before as I couldn’t believe someone would ask such a thing (dam you brain for coming up with the good comebacks once we get home). She then outdid herself by asking me “are you sure? Could you just check?”. After deeming that my baby was still alive under his sunhat she felt assured enough to leave us be. I’m still dumbfounded a week later! Why can’t people just say congratulations and move on!

Well time to sign off and publish as Seb is now stuck to my boob (again!) while I’m still wedged between the car seats and Henry is protecting our hot chocolates from a Polly monster sitting in my seat- just to clarify we are now at the services on the m4 not still going round the m25!

Something different tonight. I’ve been having a thoughtful day on what parenting means to me and I did say I’d do another post on the realities of parenting, so this is parenting 5 weeks in to the fun and games of 2 under 2 (which incidentally I can only say until Sunday as my baby turns 2! Where has that time gone?!).

Parenting is squeezing yourself on the back seat between 2 car seats to hold 2 little hands of people who are cranky and don’t like the stop start traffic coming out of Exeter, while being battered round the head with a happy meal balloon.

Parenting is mastering going for a wee one handed while holding an unsettled baby who if they cry they’ll wake up the toddler you just settled for a nap.

Parenting is giving up the other half of your custard cream and watching that little person loose half of that half in your cup of tea.

Parenting is swapping nights out getting shitfaced on tequila to chasing little people round soft play while getting hyper on slushy puppies.

Parenting is casually wiping actual shit from under your finger nail after clearing up a poonami incident that probably needed a hose instead of some wet wipes.

Parenting is crawling into bed at 9pm after a knackering day then waking up 4 times to tend to the little people before being woken at 6 with the cutest little ‘more-ring’ that washes away all that tiredness and gives you the strength to do it all again another day.

Parenting is inventing the ‘fly dance’ to distract your toddler who suddenly has a phobia of these flying cretins.

Parenting is loving someone unconditionally even if that person has vomited, weed and pooped on you at various points.

Parenting is putting someone else’s needs above yours at any time day or night even if it means letting your fish finger sandwich go cold because they are enjoying snuggling up to you.

Parenting finds you saying things that you never thought would come out your mouth- “you can’t colour your brother in”, “bath water isn’t for drinking”, “get off the table”- you get the idea.

Parenting is rewarding, fun, exhausting, messy, unpredictable, difficult, natural, eye-opening, brutal, uplifting and so much more.

Parenting is having your heart melt a little bit each day when a little person runs at you with her arms up shouting ‘mama’ and a littler person ends your day when he falls asleep on your chest as you are their comfort, their safe place and that makes you feel complete.

Well, we are hoping for a better weekend this weekend than last. Last weekend was one of those nightmare ones that you hope doesn’t come around very often. Friday evening Henry was at work and I was just getting ready to take the little people upstairs for a quick bath before bed as it was a bit later than I’d realised. Polly was stood in the middle of the living room and looked at me with a very confused face, she then opened her mouth and recreated that scene from Team America. For anyone not familiar with the film, she basically opened her mouth and redecorated the carpet, table and me with the contents of her tea. Lovely. Sadly, she got very upset by this sudden turn of events so ran straight at me for a cuddle, all I can say is thank goodness Seb was blissfully unaware of all this happily sitting in his bouncer chair. After a clean up and a cuddle we headed upstairs, giving up on the bath idea now as it was definitely too late. I laid her down to go to sleep and settled in our room to feed Seb when I heard the dreaded crying and puking over the monitor. Yup, she’d now taken out her complete bed including poor Frank the rabbit. This one was worse to clean. After another clean up I bought her into our room and settled her in our bed before returning to Seb. I genuinely thought that would be it as there was surely nothing left in her little body to bring up. I was wrong.

Over the next 2 hours she vomited a further 5 times, taking out our bed, our bedroom carpet, her carpet, all of her sets of pjs and several towels. At this point I had called Henry twice, once to ask if by the slightest chance he could come home early- a definite no as it was busy, and again to basically have a little cry. By 10 I decided to give 111 a little call to see what they advised as she couldn’t keep any water down and I was worried about dehydration. They put us on a call back from the Doctor list with an up to 2 hour wait (this turned into a 3 hour wait). During the next couple of hours Polly slept for a bit, on a towel in the middle of our bed, Seb settled in his moses basket and Henry (who finished at 10) and I sat the other side of the bed watching our poorly munchkin as she every now and then woke up to bring up some more. The doctor of course called when she was asleep, and he wanted her awake for the assessment, he gave a bit of advice and we all agreed to leave her sleeping at that point as the vomiting seemed to be getting more sporadic. Another few hours went by with sadly more vomiting, another 111 call, some crap advice this time and maybe an hours sleep for Henry and 10 minutes for me. By 5 she was definitely sleeping more than vomiting so when Henry’s alarm told him what time it was we both decided he may as well still go ahead with Bodypower as there wasn’t going to be much that he could do at home. After both little people woke up at 6:30 we headed downstairs for a duvet on the sofa kind of day. Polly still had one more puke in her and after a bit of toast and a nap with all of us cuddled up together she started to perk up a bit. Henry arrived home about 9:30 that night and we weren’t sure who was more exhausted, but we knew he’d had more fun that was for sure.

The next day Henry was back at work and Polly was back to her usual self, so we ventured down to see him and stayed for a scone and a cup of tea. I managed to catch up with the crazy amount of washing Pukegate had caused and Henry had the nice treat of being sent home at 3 instead of 5 as they were overstaffed. We had a nice evening together then I started to feel a bit off. Yup, my turn. This was one of those times when you realise how different life is when you’re a parent. Yes, Henry was there to look after Polly and put her to bed, sadly he doesn’t have breasts. That night was an interesting blurred mix of feeding Seb and running to the toilet that I really don’t want to repeat- ever. Thankfully Henry was off until 3 the next day so while Seb and I settled for another sofa duvet day Henry took Polly up to toddler group and then came back to do lunch and naptime. Unfortunately, this still meant I had to do teatime and bedtime while feeling a bit fragile still- again an experience I don’t really want to repeat. But hey, we got there in the end and Monday night there was sleep happening in the house for everyone. The boys (touch wood) seem to have avoided this delightful bug that I’ve christened ‘fast & furious’ as it comes on quick, ruins you, but then buggars off quite quick afterwards, I just hope there are no terrible remakes.

The rest of the week played out a lot better! We lost our IKEA virginity on Tuesday and planned our future dream home. On Wednesday we went to a local playcafe with Auntie Jen and little Harley and Harper. Polly and Harley had great fun running around all morning and we had a good catch up over several cups of tea. Then yesterday Polly had a blast at a little birthday playdate with some of her little friends.

So today we are hoping for a nice family day as Henry unusually has most of the day off and we have a little event to celebrate- it was our 4th wedding anniversary this week. I’m not sure where 4 years has gone, it’s passed in a blur of 2 house moves, 3 car changes, new jobs for each of us, twice, and of course 2 babies. Maybe that’s why it’s flown by. Still it’s been a blast Mr Woodard and here’s to many more, let’s go celebrate by riding little trains and chasing a toddler round soft play.