The first week back to school after a holiday is always an adjustment for everyone and last week wasn’t any different. I had somehow managed to book myself up for nearly every morning when Little was at nursery so I had a social week rather than the normal quiet one I crave after half term.

On Monday and Tuesday I went to regular meet ups and Baby Group, but on Wednesday I went back to Baby Music Class. I went to Emma’s Music for Babies class for 2 years with Little and I was sad when I decided it was time to stop going. Little had started to spend most of each class running around the room rather than participating so I it wasn’t worth it anymore. Baby Boy seemed to really enjoy his first class, happily bashing the instruments and attempting to eat the piano. He also loved the sensory section and grinning at the other babies. Emma runs music classes for babies and toddlers in Chigwell and North Weald and I really recommend them if you are local. 

On Friday Little had an inset day from nursery and it was meant to be Sports Day for M. The weather wasn’t playing ball with that idea though so M had her normal lessons and Little and I had a morning at home before going to dance class. Little had been reluctant to get dressed to leave until the last minute so it was all a mad rush. Instead of looking for a free parking space I went into a car park where I knew there would be space and I parked near a ticket machine to be as quick as possible. As I was poking buttons on the machine in the rain and trying to make sure Little didn’t run off a lady told me the machine wasn’t working. I kept poking buttons and she repeated again the machine wasn’t working and I should go to another machine with an edge of “why isn’t this lady listening to me when I’m trying to help”. I turned to her and told her that it would take a long time to walk to another machine with the children and I was running late. I might have blurted all this out in a crazy lady way because she offered to rush over (in the rain) to get me a ticket. I really appreciated her help and afterwards resolved to stop stressing and be grateful there are lovely people in the world.

On Saturday we went to meet my sister in London. The weather was looking a little cold and I didn’t want to spend much so she suggested the British Museum. It turned out to be a great idea, so I blogged about our cheap day out in London.

On Sunday Baby Boy woke up at 4am and started chattering away. By about 4.30am he was starting to make a lot of noise so I decided to take him downstairs. He keeps waking up early in the morning, although luckily not every day or I would really be struggling. He is waking up before it gets light so I can’t even blame the sunrise. Eventually Baby Boy wanted to go for a nap so at 6am I went back to bed too. Luckily G normally gets up with any of the children who wake up early, but as it was the weekend and he had only gone to bed a few hours before I decided it would be better to leave him to sleep and I would catch up later. Well, when I say catch up I mean get a few more hours so I could function a little better.

After I emerged from my room at 9.30am I pretty much spent the rest of the day tidying and sorting. Not that you can see the results of my hard work, in fact I am currently sitting in my living room surrounded by more mess than normal. If you go upstairs to my spare room however there is now some floor space. This is helpful because it means my mum can sleep there for her impending visit and because Baby Boy might sleep in there soon. I put loads of bits in the loft and I’ve sorted out bags for charity, recycling and rubbish which I need to make sure actually leave the house so it looks like i have made progress.

I don’t know what it is about a tidy room, but my children seem to gravitate towards them, probably because they are so rare in this house. They love to go in and leave things everywhere. It’s not even that they go in there to play, they go in the rooms holding things, look around and think “ooo it’s tidy in here” put the bits down to investigate then leave the chaos behind. I'm not sure how people with tidy houses manage it without driving themselves mad tidying up the same space repeatedly. Of course there is the possibility that some children tidy up after themselves. I wonder what that's like...