I’ve been meaning to do a ‘typical’ day/week post for a while . Here it is. There’s loads missing as I can’t remember it all properly and it’d be boring if I put even more detail in and every other line would need to say ‘Look at facebook/BBC News/BBC sport/Pinterest, etc’ on my phone’!
01.42am: Woken up by the sound of A2 pooing and trumping. Blearily change nappy and realise A1 is in our bed. Manage to keep A2 asleep for nappy change but obviously she wakes up when I put her back into the Sleepyhead. Replace dummy. Stroke nose. Turn white noise on. Repeat.
01.55am: Give up and feed A2. Manoeuvre A1 back into a vertical position and curl around A2 to protect her from A1 wriggling and kicking.
03.10am: A2 awake again. Coughing and snuffling. Replace dummy. Stroke nose. Turn white noise on. Repeat. Give up and feed again.
04.12am: Woken up by A2 coughing. She’s still asleep; in the Sleepyhead but I don’t remember moving her back. Try to retrieve covers from Mr.J but fail as he’s tucked them under him.
04.30am: A2 awake. Bring her into bed and feed her. Manoeuvre A1 back into a vertical position and curl around A2 to protect her from A1 wriggling and kicking.
05.20am: A2 coughs herself awake. Bring her back into bed and cuddle her back to sleep.
06.30am: A1 “Can I watch Storytime on your phone Mummy?” A1 doesn’t wait for an answer and climbs over me.
A1 “Can I watch Hungry Cat-pillar on your phone Mummy?”
Mr.J “I can’t find it”
Me: Half asleep. “It’s on youtube”. Back to sleep.
07.00am: Mr.J “Bye, have a nice day”. Get up, get dressed – in yesterdays clothes but with fresh undies. Change A2’s nappy and get her ‘dressed’ (eg: clean vest and sleepsuit). Surprise poo. Lovely. Clean furball off the carpet. Clean cat poo off the carpet and curse the cat for the gazillionth time.
07.25am: Go to get milk in. Mr.J has already done it. Find and clean up more cat poo. F*****G CAT!!!!!!!!!! Put Peppa Pig on to entertain A1. Make and drink HOT, CAFFEINATED coffee. [That’s v unusual for me, even after a moderately bad night]. Talk politics on Whatsapp with work friends.
07.45am: Get A1 dressed and prise him away from TV without any whining after only one set of Peppa Pig. Go me! Make his breakfast and start sorting mine just as the online shopping arrives. Unpack it; realise, as usual, I’ve bought stuff we had plenty of and forgotten stuff we’ve run out of or needed.
08.10am: Start my breakfast and despite topping A1 up three times and him having the same as me, have to share mine.
08.30am: Clear up the breakfast aftermath. Put clothes in sink to soak in a pointless attempt to get blue colour out. A1 playing with his trains and A2 playing under baby gym.
09.00am: Change A2s nappy again. More green poo [lovely side effect of Rotavirus immunisation]. Change her vest as well as nappy leaked. A1 very helpfully passes the wipes and wants to help wipe too. First win of the day – finding out that Orchard Toys will replace game parts for free so request a ‘Sausage tile’ for our ‘Shopping List’ game.
09.30am: Help A1 change the faces and accessories in the Thomas book. Think this is a bit Might Boosh!
09.45am: Consider going for a walk round the block. Look outside and see apocalyptic grey clouds as A2 also starts crying for a feed. Feed her whilst A1 entertains himself turning the breast pump on and off but it’s keeping him happy so that’s fine!! Already counting down until bedtime.
10.00am: Put A2 into Sleepyhead for a nap. Move monitor into my bedroom so I can hear her. Go up after 10minutes just to double check she is still breathing. Return with playdough.
10.10am: Play. With. Playdough. Help make trains and roll cherries to go on top of the ‘cupcake’ (Bloody Americanisms; correct to ‘Fairy cake’ each time!). Anally try to stop A1 from blending the colours together.
11.15am: Feel quite drowsy – the caffeine is wearing off and playing with play dough is not sufficiently engaging!
11.30am: Start to get the shakes so hastily make lunch and clear up play dough. Second win of the day – look at how well I’ve sliced the loaf!
Run upstairs to check on A2 before my lunch is ready and she she’s stirring a bit so inhale my spaghetti on toast whilst A1 has his beans on toast. Highlights of my lunch conversation:
A1: Have you got spaghetti Mummy?
Me: Yes
A1: Can I have some?
Me: Yes, you can have some of my spaghetti
A1: No thank you Mummy, I don’t like it.
Followed later on by:
A1: Why has the zebra (on his placemat) got two ears?
Me: Most animals have two ears, that’s just how they’re made. How many ears do you have?
A1: One, two,…..three!! You have three ears Mummy.
12:15pm: A1 puts his wellies on and gets a bit of fresh air. He’s been outside for about 1 minute before it starts to chuck it down. Time enough for me to eat a chocolate biscuit unseen though. Aunty W arrives and he demands she reads some stories with him, despite her explaining she’s trying to make some lunch.
12.30pm: A2 wakes up; I decide she must definitely be under the weather to have napped for so long. She sits in the bouncy chair quite happily whilst I make bread for tea and take A1 for yet another poo. Think he’s already been twice today. Play with trains, duplo, shopping list game and books whilst chatting to Aunty W, who gets all the smiley time with A2.
14.00pm: Resist buying clothes from Frugi sale and cut short saying bye to Aunty W as A2 is screaming and there’s been a loud crash of Duplo. Ask A1 if he’s thrown Duplo at A2. He reluctantly admits that he did. Take A2 away for a cuddle and calm her down. Feed her again and put her into Sleepyhead upstairs.
14.10pm: Return to see A1 using his initiative dangerously climbing the shelves to try and reach the sellotape. Fix the book box as per his request and survey the state of the house. Have a quick tidy up and offer to play with jigsaws, read a story or one of the (many!) busy bags I’ve made. He asks for sticky felt so I get the fuzzy felts out. They entertain him for 2 minutes before he somehow decides to empty the DVDs from the TV cabinet. Tidy the DVDs away (not in their groupings as I just CBA) and realise how dusty everywhere is so spend 15 minutes doing some dusting before A2 wakes up again.
15.10pm: Change A2s nappy again. It is toxic green. Mr.J says I can’t include the picture. A1 has gone to play upstairs by himself. I can hear him playing wth his food and kitchen but after a while it goes unnervingly quiet. I go to investigate and find this – A2s books in a line on the landing. I explain that he needs to tidy them up and once he’s done that he can watch Peppa Pig.
15.45pm: This is best told in video format….
16.00pm: Peppa Pig is on. I sit down with them both and have a drink. With this blog in mind, I think, I’ll get a nice picture of them together. A1 wont look at my phone as I’m getting in the way of the TV so I pause it and ask him to smile with his eyes open, like he did for his nursery picture. This is the result.
16.20pm: Man up and limit A1 to one Peppa Pig. He immediately bursts into tears so I pick him up and explain why he can’t watch any more TV. [He hadn’t napped and he needed an early night and watching TV won’t help him go to bed later]. He is still upset so I blow raspberries on him and he starts laughing. Parenting win!!!
16.30pm: Prepare tea with help from A1. He gets his own plate and cutlery out and helps me butter the bread and pour the frozen veg into a microwaveable bowl. [I will say here that I usually cook meals from scratch but today we had reheated, home made shepherd’s pie with frozen veg for ease as Mr.J had a bigish lunch and wouldn’t be home in time to eat with us]. A2 is once again happily sat watching us from her bouncy chair.
Conversational highlights from tea time were:
A1: How old are you Mummy?
Me: 33
A1: Oh. I’m 2. I had a chocolate train. But I don’t have any chocolate now.
Me: Yes, you did have a chocolate train but it’s all been eaten now.
A1: But we have got chocolate ice cream. In a tub. In the fridge. But we can’t have it now.
17.30pm: Clean up kitchen. A2 is asleep in the bouncy chair and A1 has gone into the garden again to play on his bike. Again, it starts raining but he wont come in. Instead, he orders me to clean up the cat poo. I oblige. He reverses his bike onto the grass and says “Oh bugger. I’m on the grass”. I ignore the naughty language and inwardly cringe and giggle. When I next look, he’s sat on the floor with the bike flipped up. “Whoops. I’m OK. I tripped up.” Tired much!! It then started to get heavier but he still needed a lot of persuasion to come inside!
17.45pm: A1 now dressed in only vest, underpants and socks. A2 happy as long as she’s upright. Read ‘My first 100 numbers’ and manage some proper counting and then ‘Press Here’ before bath time. Mr.J calls to say he’s on his way home.
18.00pm: Both kids in the bath.
18.20pm: A2 in the sling whilst I read bedtime story to A1. A1 is clearly ready to drop. 2 pages in to ‘Henry Helps Out’ and Mr.J waltzes in, offers to read and steals the easiest bedtime of the week! I’m sent to look at photos to put in some frames we got for the hallway.
19.30pm: A2 is still awake in the sling and we still have no pictures printed out and haven’t agreed on what might go where. A2 is getting grumpy so I feed her and hope she’ll nod off. No such luck and Mr.J is just getting his tea and doing some more work.
21.30pm: Mr.J and A2 have had a nice chat and A2 has been kept upright but she’s getting tired and grumpy. Feed her in one arm and finish this blog post off with my other hand.
21.45pm: A1 has woken up. Mr.J has headed upstairs and is missing the Wales game. Meanwhile my brew is getting cold so I’m signing off as I’ll be drinking it and heading to bed now that A2 is finally asleep.
All things JenkinSunts! 
Ohh wow that was exhausting just to read it! And sounds quite a bit like my household – how old are your two? My first (I could call him J1) is 3 in August and my second (J2?) is just over 4 months old and also had his shots this week, but isn’t too badly off aside from having slight swelling on his already chubby thighs! I was up at least 4 times last night so hoping tonight it’ll be a bit quieter on our end!
They’re 2.5 and 3 months old (today). That was definitely one of our worse nights but the days are always exhausting! I hope you have a quieter night too!!x