Living Arrows 2019: Week Ten

Today is my first day back at work after maternity leave, our first day with both kids in nursery at the same time… gulp! As I write this on Sunday night, there’s a sense of eerie calm in the household. The bags are packed and by the door ready, outfits are laid out for all of us (well, Dave can sort his own!) and I feel quietly confident about my abilities to get us all up, dressed and out of the door on time. Ish. But enough about this week, let’s throw it back to the last one.

This last week we’ve done nursery settling in sessions, met with friends, done dog walks in the rain and made more model train tracks than you can shake a stick at. Not only that but we’ve introduced a Gro-clock with some success, made it out for breakfast by 8.15 on a weekend and ridden the train for the first time. Oh and Dave managed to run a 20 mile cross country race on Sunday… the madman! I think that’s called ending maternity leave with a bang!

Him

My sweet boy. Every day I feel like he gets more and more mature; from his speech to his general demeanor, my little boy is definitely growing up. This week has been lovely – we’ve seen his friends, done every craft going and even managed to sneak in some alone time with him without his sister around. He’s been helping me finish his bedroom off, wanted to help me cook each day and even had a swimming lesson that he positively enjoyed – does that mean we’re turning a corner? The toddler tantrum game is still strong with a couple stormers this week, my favourite being the one where he didn’t want to drive to nursery insisting it was definitely close enough to walk. It isn’t, we’d have arrived at bedtime, especially if we went at his pace!

This weekend we finally managed to squeeze a train ride in. I’ve been promising it for a while and it was about time I delivered. We grabbed the kids and the backpack full of Brio he insisted on taking with him (where better to build a train track than on the train!?) and took a trip to the next town; a whopping ten minutes each way. Oh my goodness was it worth it. From the moment the train pulled into the station, his mind was absolutely blown; he kept saying ‘wow’ over and over. In his eyes, the best bits were the tunnel – could’ve gone either way frankly so thank goodness! – and the pull down table tray. Little things, eh?! We called in to see a family member then caught the train home. As we walked back across the carpark, he couldn’t have been happier with lots of thanking us for taking him and telling us what a great day he’d had… my heart!!

Her

It’s been an emotional week with her this week; my little baby is no longer so little, she’s been to nursery! I’m not going to lie, it was an odd feeling to leave her. I was far better at leaving our son but this time around she’s barely left my side for nine months so I wasn’t sure how it would go. She loved it; barely a backward glance in my direction and a definite reluctance to leave. She’s now done two settling in sessions in preparation for her normal days which start this week and they’ve both gone well. With the change to our routine, I’ve been trying to stretch out her daytime feeds and she’s been thriving on solids so it’s worked well. That said, she’s gone backward in her sleeping… I’m not sure if that’s to do with less daytime milk or the arrival of yet more teeth. Either way, I hope it passes soon!

In other news, she’s gone from crawling to pulling herself up and this week she’s standing. That’s some mighty progress in just four short weeks. Her ability to move around more has made such a difference to the level of enjoyment she can get and our freedom from each other as well. She’s already clocked up a few new favourite places; if the utility door is open, she’s out with the dog’s water bowl like a shot. If not there, you’ll find her playing with the flush on the toddler’s ‘toilet’ potty. Some great places to hang out!

This post is linking up with the Living Arrows series over at What The RedHead Said. If you’d like to see more of our weekly updates, you can find them here!