Time flies when you're having fun

Or even when you're not, as it turns out!

In all fairness this week has improved as it has gone along, it started out fairly dismally, with me feeling utterly pants and like i was doing an abysmal job of keeping my children happy, and has improved a little each day since.

I think Wednesday was the turning point.  With us all being  ill recently we've been spending such a lot of time cooped up indoors.  No one has wanted to visit, obviously, us being germ-ridden and all, and i have found it really isolating.  I'm not what you'd call a social butterfly but i do find it hard when days and days go by and the only adult conversation i have is a brief "handover" to Chris on how the boys have been and what we've been up to, in between him coming in from placement and heading out to work.  That coupled with me feeling generally rotten physically, and also dealing with some complicated emotional stuff has really made for a fairly miserable mix these past couple of weeks, but by Wednesday we were all finally well enough to visit actual people without infecting them, so we went over to Bradford to visit some of my family.

First we called in on my sister Sophie, she lives with her husband (i still find it a bit weird that my little sister has a "husband") and their two little boys.  Zach is the same age as Toby, and her youngest, Leo is 8 months old.  She's also pregnant with baby number three (yes, she is in fact a CRAZY PERSON!) who they've just found out is a little girly! So my first ever niece is due in June, at which point they will have a 2.5 year old, a 1 year old and a newborn.  Let's not even go there!

So yes, we went to their house first, and it was really nice as Toby and Zach played really well together (and they don't always!) and by some miracle Rudy actually fell asleep whilst we were there without any screaming or protesting about it first!

Then we headed up to my Mum's house, she lives with my other sister, Megan who is 12 and my 9 year old brother Kieran (the baby of the family).  My Mum had the great idea to head to the farm shop so that we could buy something tasty for dinner and so Toby could look at the animals, so that's what we did.  Rudy protested some of the way there and most of the way back, but that's nothing unusual.

Toby liked the pigs best and kept saying "Oik Oik" to them.

He also thought the straw was funny, although he didn't touch it with his hands but he kept looking down at it and saying "Oooh prickly!"

Here he is checking out the goats and holding Grandma's hand-

We got some tasty things from the farm shop and had a nice afternoon back at my Mum's.  I got to chat to my Mum about some stuff that's been on my mind recently which was a help, and Kieran kept Toby amused playing cars.  We didn't get back until late and both boys were very disgruntled as they had essentially "gone to bed" in the car so were none too pleased to be woken up by being taken out of said car and brought in the house but within half an hour or so both were tucked up fast asleep in their appropriate places (Rudy in our bed, Toby in his) and all was well with the world.

I'd picked up a hideously disgusting carrier bag of "free dog bones" from the farm shop for Fudge.  Well now, actually that's a lie.  I'd glanced at the bones and decided i couldn't face carrying them around the shop but my Mum had offered to do it, unfortunately i'd then put them in the boot of my car and happily forgotten all about them so they'd been in there all day while we were out, and they were very...ahem..."fresh" i suppose would be the right word?!?  Hence on Thursday whilst Toby was in nursery, i could be found cleaning blood out of the boot of the car.

I remarked to Chris that i can well see how murderers get caught out, even when they think they've done a bang-up job of cleaning up behind themselves, as the stuff gets everywhere!  I kept finding little blood drops and thinking "What the?!..." Yuk.

Then Thursday evening was Toby's last Aquababies class, which i've already written about so won't go on about that any more!

Friday we had playgroup in the morning, which was nice as it's the 1st time we've been able to go for a few weeks (what with the aforementioned bugs and all)

And this weekend we have mainly been playing with playdough, pirates, fire engines and cars, listing things for sale on ebay, and eating pancakes! I found a box of 10 eggs in the fridge with an expiry date of today so decided i'd get some practice in for the upcoming pancake day and we had pancakes for lunch both yesterday and today!  It's been a quiet one but Chris has been off and we've managed to get a fair bit of tidying/sorting done around the house, which although very dull, does make the difficult days a tad easier when it's only the boys i have to deal with and not a pigsty as well!

Oh and here's a pic of Rudy with his new BFF:

That's Sophie la Girafe.  And a very tasty head she has too! Still no sign of any actual teeth but i'm sure they're on their way.  In any case, i can't see how he can continue with this level of gnawing and drooling if he's not going to get any until his 1st birthday like Toby did!

Rudy is 4 months old (as of yesterday) which is a little scary to be honest as it means time really IS flying.  Chris and i have already had the "back to work" discussions and looked at the figures etc and decided on a plan but i hadn't actually done anything about it...until tonight...when i finally rang work and spoke to my (acting) manager who confirmed that what i want to do should in fact be fine, i just need to put it in writing and we're all set.  So that was a relief.  I had a really bad experience returning to work after mat leave with Toby so i think i'd been preparing myself for something similar this time but it looks like it will be much better :)