A day of two halves

I’ve got back into a bad habit of frittering the evening, night and into the wee small hours away, and last night didn’t get to bed much before 2. So I wasn’t particularly happy when Small started bouncing on my head trying to persuade me to get up when I’d had less than 6 hours sleep, and then Big came in and stropped at me to get up NOW to pour the milk on her breakfast. Not a good start to a celebratory day, but I was trying to keep it fairly low key anyway, honest.

Took me til after lunch to pull myself together and clear off to do the bits of shopping necessary for a party-ish get together. We spaced presents out during the day – Big gave him his scooter just before I went out which worked marvellously to distract him from my departure. I was really impressed, we took it outside, and he just got on and set off! He was very pleased with it 🙂

Got back with most of the necessary shopping (forgot milk! doh) minutes before Barbara turned up with her younger two, closely followed by Sarah with her two. Finished washing up (!) then set to inflating things for children to bounce on or play in, and children set to playing. Small *very* happy to have his own buggy for his doll now, although I think Big may covet it quietly given that it is quite pink 😉

Lovely, lovely afternoon with friends in the garden in just about perfect weather. Not too hot, not too cold, lots of children just happy to be about. Small played with his new toys, got a tiny bit stroppy about not sharing, but most of the time was lovely, and Big pulled it together and only had the occasional low level strop, for which I was extremely grateful. Oh, and Barbara brought me flowers! How thoughtful is that! 🙂

Ppl drifted away about 6ish, and I settled two tired children down to Cbeebies and went upstairs to run them a bath. When I came down they were running around the garden again! Eventually persuaded them upstairs and into the water, and took the opportunity to go try to sort the garden out. Lots of playballs, everywhere, and *why* isn’t it mandatory to have a decent way of getting the air out of inflatable toys? The castle thing just ended up bundled back in the shed, I couldn’t get it to go down properly.

Small listened to quite a bit of Big’s bedtime story tonight, and that was after he’d listened to his off the path present before his bath. Then he came downstairs for milk (hey, if he’s two, does that make me a *really* extended breastfeeder? Or is it wimping out if it’s only the one feed and that isn’t even every day? 😉 ) and fell asleep in my arms. Aww.

So, both children in bed by eight o clock ish! I got to put on some bizarre cop drama set in Newcastle, couldn’t tell you anything about the characters or plot (although Cole seemed familiar, is this a new series of something I could have seen before?) but got to listen to the accents…and then it was Castaway at 9pm. I’ve been wanting to see that for ages, and it’s always seemed like too long a film, so tonight I indulged myself, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Excellent day. Thank you Small. And now I’m going to put an investment into tomorrow by *going to bed*! More details and photos tomorrow.