I’m really noticing that my girls are growing up. Gracie has turned from a toddler into a little girl. The main difference is that Alicia and Gracie play together; they play schools, tea parties, mummies and daddies. It has meant that I can sometimes leave them to play together whilst I get on with a few jobs – this is a real ‘treat’ as up until now I had been leaving all of the jobs until after the kids were in bed. It’s a mixed bag though as they seem to either be really close, and want to be on top of each other, or they are screaming and fighting – usually over one toy! It’s a real cliché and I am sure that I was the same with my sister but why do they start a tug of war over one toy when they have hundreds they could play with?! They also have proper scraps now, pushing, kicking and hitting each other. When they are good they are very, very good but when they are bad... it gets ugly!! Unfortunately for Alicia she can no longer tell small fibs about why Gracie is crying because Gracie’s speech has advanced enough for her to be able to say ‘Alicia hurt me’!

We received the report from Gracie’s speech assessment. Her development is at the lower end of what is expected for her age. The therapist thinks that this is because her older sister is so very vocal that Gracie doesn’t get a chance. I have also noticed that Alicia needs a lot of attention from me to keep her interested and well behaved – scarily I can see that she gets this from me and I often have flashbacks of how I was as a child! Anyway – the therapist wants to assess us again once Alicia has started school, she also gave us some advice on how we can encourage Gracie’s speech. We need to look at Gracie when we are speaking and encourage her to string three words together rather than two. She is definitely coming on.

Gracie has also started to potty train. I have had the potty around for a while now and I am very open when I use the toilet – ‘Mummy is having a wee on the toilet’ etc. Kids really learn from watching and copying Mummy, but I am looking forward to a time when I can go to the toilet by myself! This week Gracie has been taking her own nappy off and sitting on the potty – I am so proud! I do a little ‘wee and poo dance’ when Gracie has produced something on the potty, which she thinks is hilarious. I also make up little songs about how Gracie is brilliant to use the potty. I decided to just take her nappy off when we are at home so that she can feel if she has an accident, and there have been a few! For every wee or poo on the potty there has been a corresponding accident on the floor – I even caught her weeing in my shoe but I couldn’t be too cross as she obviously grasped the fact that she couldn’t just wee on the floor!

Before I was a mum I was a woman and a wife – I’d like to think I was a fairly intelligent, independent, stylish, spontaneous, fun-loving kind of a girl with a healthy career and a fantastic relationship with my husband. I find that it’s quite hard to maintain that persona when my main focus is to be a Mum – sensible, caring, not so stylish, organised, no career and a different relationship with my husband! Whilst I wouldn’t change being a Mum for the world I do still want to have it all!

With three kids it’s near on impossible to return to my job, even if the childcare costs of three children weren’t an issue, the pressure of my old job and raising the babies certainly would be too much. I don’t think that I’d be able to give anything my full attention and I never do anything unless I know I can commit to do it well. However after giving up a job I worked so hard to get, I found it really difficult to accept that I was now a ‘housewife’ or a ‘homemaker’ – what do you say at dinner parties?! For a while I said, “I used to work in Compliance for a major financial institution but now I am taking a break to raise the kids”, but after three years of not working you can’t really say that anymore. Up until recently I’d been a little embarrassed to say; “actually I stay at home raising my three children and looking after the house”. It’s taken a while but I am now proud to make that statement, indeed privileged to be able to do so (especially as I know that I work a whole lot harder each day than I ever did in the office!).

That said I’d begun to feel that I needed more of a challenge – something to stimulate my brain and keep me in the game. I started to look for voluntary positions that would use my existing skills and also give me the opportunity to expand my repertoire. My local hospital has just applied for NHS Foundation Trust status and was looking for Governors to serve on their Board – aha I thought, I could be good at this! I attended the information awareness meetings and decided that I’d go for it. I applied for the post and had to go through a very formal election process, submitting an election statement and putting myself up for the vote. Last week I received a phone call for the Trust saying I had been elected for one year! I am very excited to get my teeth stuck into something again and am looking forward to starting my training. The post is unpaid but it is something that can fit around the children. I have to attend 3 meetings a year and do some work at home but it will not encroach into my day with the kids. It will also look good on my CV if I decide to return to employment when the kids reach school age.

As a wife I have to find the time to be there for my husband. We obviously can’t go out every weekend for a meal or do anything spontaneous, but we do make the most of the time we have. I hardly see Mark in the week so our weekends are precious. I always make sure that I put my make up on and wear something nice, and I try to stock the fridge up so that we have tasty lunches etc. Instead of going out we try to do different things at home rather than getting stuck doing jobs and going to bed. Last weekend we had a film night – it was Mark’s turn to choose so we bought some crisps, chocolates and popcorn, carried the duvet downstairs, pulled the sofa in front of the telly, shut the curtains, turned off the lights and watched Rambo! It wasn’t the best film I’d ever seen but we made it special by making an effort. This weekend we had a Martini evening – we bought ingredients to make Cranberry Vodka Martinis, cooked tapas and watched Casino. It just goes to show that staying in can be fun and special if you make the effort!

Gracie is no longer in a cot, she has now moved to a toddler bed!! I’m so proud of her – it’s such a huge milestone!

She made the transition easily and once she is in bed she generally doesn’t get out again. Having recently dropped her lunchtime nap she is usually completely exhausted by bedtime at 7pm. On the first night Mark and I heard a thump upstairs at about 7.30pm, but as it wasn’t followed by tears or other noises we thought nothing of it until we went to check the kids before we turned in… Poor Gracie was asleep on the floor – she must have rolled out!

I remembered a little trick that my sister-in-law had mentioned so thought I’d give it a go. Kerry used to roll a towel and put it under the mattress on the outside edge so that the mattress was slightly raised. This means that if your child rolls in the night he/she will roll towards the wall and not out onto the floor. We have had no more rolling out issues since!

My sleeping beauty

 

We all loved Disneyland Paris!!!! The kids are still the perfect ages to enjoy it, and really believed that they had met Mini Mouse and all of their Disney friends. The place is so well organised it really was a magical experience. OK, so it is very commercial, VERY expensive, extremely busy and full of fast food places, but it is so worth every minute just to see the kids’ faces. We stayed in the New York hotel which was clean and close to the parks. We all stayed in one room, which we thought would be a nightmare but at the end of the day we were all so tired from Disney that kids and adults crashed straight out. I’ve included some pics of us all having a great time.

After three days and two nights at Disney we drove down to the South of France – so far down that we were almost in Spain.
Holiday myth no. 1: The kids will sleep in the car if we drive at night… not a chance. They were up for a lot of the way (and way back). We also discovered they get car sick if we drive too fast!
Holiday myth no. 2: It is cheaper and easier to drive to the South of France – again – not a chance. With fuel costs, channel tunnel fares and the motorway tolls we could have flown first class!

At 3 o’clock in the morning we arrived at Argelès-sur-mer. It was hot, the car stank of vomit (and still does even though we have been back for a week) but do you think we could find the campsite? NO!! I’d managed to navigate the length of the country but couldn’t find the campsite! We pulled over in a car park and all slept until 8am!

As it turned out we were just round the corner from the Key Camp site – it was so much easier to see in daylight, we must have driven past five or six times in the night! The reps were fantastic and booked us in to our mobile home straight away. We had a fabulous week – the site was clean, the mobile home was large and had everything we needed, there was even a Fun Station club which Alicia couldn’t get enough of. The pool area was large and kid friendly so we hardly left the site all week. We made some great French and German friends. It was strange but great to see the girls communicating with their little French friend Simon even though they couldn’t speak the same language. We did encourage the girls to speak a little French while we were there, and since getting home I have resolved to introduce them to languages. I bought a French/English nursery rhyme CD from www.babyboomboom.com. I’ll let you know how it goes! Au revoir!

Alicia in front of the Cinderella castle

Gracie with her tiger face paint

Dad and his girls

The girls enjoy their day

Sonny staying covered up in the sun

Alicia and her French friend Simon

Snack time by the pool

Our luxurious mobile home

Where do I start this week?!? Alicia decided to draw on her bed with blue biro – all over the covers and the paintwork. Next she drew over her china play tea set, then she bit her best friend’s finger (‘but she was about to kick me Mum!&rsquo and polished off the week nicely by spending most of her swimming lesson sat on the side because she didn’t want to do anything. I’ve also had problems keeping Gracie out of the fridge: snacking and playing with the contents. I caught her spreading soft cheese and butter all over her wooden play toast (it was quite cute though so I snuck up with the camera and caught her in action). Arghhh!

I have decided not to dwell on those incidents though, and instead share the wonderful times we have had. We were so excited to find that there was fruit on our strawberry plants! The girls were thrilled with the ‘fruits’ of their labour – I’ve attached a couple of pictures of the proud moment when two months of hard work were devoured in a few seconds!

We also finally got around to decorating the spare room for Alicia. We are switching everyone around – Sonny will go in the nursery, Gracie will move out of the nursery and into Alicia’s room, and Alicia will have a new room – confused?? It meant we only had to decorate one room. We didn’t let Alicia in to the room until it was finished. I was so excited; it is a perfect little girl’s room. I wish I was 4 again and it was my room! We captured the moment on camera Changing Rooms style.

Next week we are off on hols. We are going to the south of France with a quick stop at Disney on the way down. We haven’t told the girls about Disney so it should be a huge surprise when we pull up at the hotel!

Gracie and her kitchen antics

The green-fingered girls with their strawberries

 Our Changing Rooms moment