and so it came to pass that at 2.30am I am the only member of the household awake and everyone else is happily asleep.  grrrrr.  My glands are swollen and it hurts to swallow.  Hence the need to get up and (quietly) gargle with aspirin.
But on a positive note, it's the longest Rebecca has gone in her own cot for a week.....  She's got 3 teeth on the way, and boy do we know it.  Won't sleep on her own, swings from happy to grumpy in a millisecond, and was sent home from nursery after an hour today, scuppering all my plans of getting any work done.  Ben seems to be happy enough at his place, bless him we are seeing such a change in him at the moment, his language is increasing so much, and the phrases he uses actually fit the situation.  He's also pretty knackered all the time as he is not napping in the day.  the good news is that he usually goes straight to sleep in the evening.
Right, one more gargle then it's back to bed to no doubt toss and turn for a while.

Big day

It's a big day tomorrow.  My "big" baby is off to his new nursery, and my little baby is off to her nursery for the first time. AAAARRRGGGHHH! I'm not too worried about Ben, we have been talking about his "new nursery with the scarecrow in the garden" for a while and we popped in today and he was straight in there playing with the toys, and cried when I made him leave.  Rebecca however, I am nervous.  but I also know she will cope because she has to!  I'm only leaving her there for a morning tomorrow so we will try adn break her in gently.  I am giving myself tomorrow and thursday "off" the  it'll be down to hard work next week when they are at nursery and I will try and get this blooming consultancy work sorted.....

oooh what a lovely holiday

we had such a nice week away in Devon, the cottage was fab, lovely animals to feed and weather was sometimes nice, sometimes grim but generally not bad for September.  Ben was a bit variable as he is in the middle of dropping his nap, but is still knackered so if we went anywhere in the car he'd fall asleep then wake up grumpy and not want to be wherever we happened to take him.  So swimming and beach were greeted with "I don't want to do that"..... until we gently got him into it.  Unfortunately he was absolutely adamant he didn't want to sit in the bike seat so we didn't get to go for a bike ride as both Paul and I would really have liked to do - Becca would have been fine, but he flatly refused, but then had a total paddy cos he wanted to go on a bike ride and couldn't get the fact that it wasn't possible if he wouldn't sit in the seat.  Toddler meltdown ensued.....!
But in all a lovely week, glad to be home but sad that paul is back to work tomorrow.  Ben keeps asking to go back to the cottage.  Luckily we are off to the Forest of Dean this weekend with the Haigh clan so I was able to say we are off to a new cottage this weekend :-)

holiday holiday holiday

Wooooohoooooo! we're off on our jollies tomorrow, down to Devon. It's been one hell of a long time coming and I am sooooo ready for a week away with my hubbie and the 2 ragamuffins.  It's Rebecca's birthday on Sunday (where did that year go??!!) and our anniversary on Thursday so we have lots to celebrate.  The kids have been so much fun recently but also absolutely exhausting.  Ben has dropped his nap, which generally means he becomes a little nutter about 4pm and runs around like a lunatic hitting Becca and saying NO.  Rebecca is obsessed with climbing stairs and generally following Ben about waiting to be hit.  Bless her.  He tipped a jug of cold water over her in the bath the other day poor wee thing,  It;s tough being number 2.
So here's hoping for some sunshine and fun :-)

Busy watching the Paralympics - absolutely amazing.....

Ch-ch-ch-changes....

well life got a little busy there - actually that;s not really true, it was simply that I got a little knackered and I couldn't muster the energy to write much.  But I have a holiday in sight (6 days and counting), I've had a nice relaxing weekend with the family at home, I EVEN managed to ride my bike into town today, the first time I have ridden it for3 years.  It was FAB.  I have vowed to do it more when I have a little free time.

On which note, there looks to be a little free time on the horizon.  I have a job!  which starts some time in December (or maybe November) as HR Adviser - 3 days per week and a decent salary.  They have been great at sorting out the hours so I can go in late and drop off the kids too. I'm really looking forward to it, although no doubt once I start I will moan, but it is a 12 month contract which is great.

So to prepare for that the kids are enrolled in new nurseries and start them the week after we get back from our hols.  I have the policies work to do for IC which I promised to do by the end of Sept but have no chance of doing by then, but if I can knuckle down and get them done in 6 weeks then I can have some time to myself before starting the job.  Woohoo - now there's a motivation!

I just hope Rebecca copes ok at nursery - I'm less worried about Ben, as I think he will be very happy at his place.  We had two settling in sessions this week but I stayed with her, I think we just have to take a deep breath and deal with it at the time.  She's really showing her personality now and often has us in stitches laughing at her.  She has to toughen up a little given that Ben has a tendency to whack her every now and again.  This evening he tipped half a jug of cold water over her in the bath, poor wee thing. Felt so sorry for her but also had difficulty stopping laughing too.  Her will get a big shock once she starts to fight back....