Me & Mine – September 2016

This month has been really good for our family, we had a whole week away all together, sleeping in the same hotel room and spending all our time together. It was a really nice holiday (you can have a look at our vlog here) and both Sam and I saw a noticeable difference in the kids without the distraction of all the toys and the TV and the humdrum routine at home. They had our full attention most of the time, unlike at home when we’re at work, doing washing, hoovering, dragging them around the shops and other boring things, We spent a lot of time pretending to be various things that Athena dictated!

We spent a heck of a lot of time outdoors, trampling around forests and exploring ruined castles. Strolling under the twinkling lights of Blackpool beach and strolling around quaint Lake District towns. We’ve always loved the outdoors and it was nice to have such warm weather to explore it together in. 

I’ve spent a lot of my spare time watching Gilmore Girls, and have also been sleeping when I need it which has made a change but meant that I’ve been doing a bit less of the other bits and bobs that needed doing, although I have managed to attempt to start a big de-clutter by listing a load of things on ebay. Before we went on holiday I took three bin bags to the charity shop of baby bits and blankets etc and I need to do the same with toys for the local hospice as that ‘C word’ is just around the corner and we’ll probably end up with a few more! I’m coming down with another cold

Athena settled in brilliantly at Preschool, has made lots of friends already and comes home full of stories. The teachers are all really brilliant with her funny little foibles, when she arrives and tells them “I’m not Athena i’m Puppy Girl” for example… She’s exhausted all the time though so we’ve spent a lot of afternoons on the sofa watching kids films on netflix in the afternoons in lieu of a nap. She’s still being a really fussy eater but I’ve just started reading ‘7 tips for raising happy eaters’ so maybe that will have changed by this time next month! Oh! She has also started doing big cheesy grins for photos now, and when we ask her to try and smile with her mouth closed she jus’t can’t get it…

Sam loved not being at work for two weeks and spending time with us, he’s also spent time with his best buddy buying a boat, sailing said boat from Southampton to Littlehampton, which took five hours and gave him a lot of sun burn.

Arlo has started to get ever so slightly less clingy and dependent on me, and we have even cracked him slowly but surely beginning to self settle at night (okay, I still have to be right there next to him but at least I’m not having to feed him to sleep for hours on end!) Now if we could just stop him from waking up several times over night that would be nice! The week before we went away I spent a week sleeping on the sofa and Sam settled him each time he woke up, which he can do a lot quicker than me as Arlo always wants to breastfeed if it’s me. I got a lot more sleep that week even though it wasn’t ideal being on the sofa!