babies, poppies and birth stories {little loves}

This week has been a kind of manic one. After a very chilled out half term, just being together as a five with Rich was off work and the big two off of school and preschool... this week has been back to the real world with a big fat bang.

Rich has not only been back to work, but working really long days, leaving me suddenly thrown in very much at the deep end in looking after three children. But do you know what? I swam. We all lived to tell the tale. Everyone was where they needed to be, when they needed to be there, with everything they needed. People ate when they were hungry. I showered and did my hair and makeup every single day. We have clean clothes on our backs (and mountains of clean laundry all over the house too... I found time to clean it, just not that final step of putting it away but we're getting there.) It's been a pretty manic week too I have to say, between all the usual commitments we've also had a work trip to London for me, an evening at school, an afternoon parent's session at school, and we're off to register that littlest lady later today. So I get a medal, right? Might not be totally doing the stepford wife bit just yet, but I'm feeling pretty proud.

And check out those two littlest loves of mine. They are so stinking' cute... although I do wish my bigger love was at school less and at home more to get involved in all the cuddles. And the biggest one too for that matter. Thank goodness for weekends full of family time.

After all that previously mentioned juggling, there hasn't been a great deal of time for reading this week. So all I've really read is blogs. One of the good things about breastfeeding a newborn is that every few hours I am forced to sit down with only a feeding infant and my phone for company, so I'm actually getting more time to read blogs than I did before. I suspect for the foreseeable future blogs will be about the only thing I read, so I'll share three I've enjoyed this week...

Do I Want A Boy Or A Girl? from Write Like No Ones Watching

Charlotte is about to find out the gender of her baby and this post could have been written from my head a few years ago when I was expecting my second after a little boy. Only difference being that I went for a surprise and spent nine months being told it would be lovely if I had a girl. I can't wait to hear her news soon....!

A Big Boy Bedroom from Lets Talk Mommy

Jenny shared her little boys new bedroom and considering it shares the same colour scheme as my little man's room, it was right up my street. She's picked out so many lovely items and details to make it really special for him.

"We're Having A..." from Running in Lavender

Technically this is a watched as well as a read, but it's cute nevertheless. If you haven't seen Heledd's gender reveal, then go and have a look.

With an absent husband in the evenings I've managed to watch a lot of my favourite programmes this week. Most exciting of all has to be that The Vampire Diaries started again last week... that programme is totally my guilty pleasure and I cannot get enough of it. The Blacklist is also back, which is one the hubby and I like to watch together. We've also been boxset binging on Prison Break, although we're about to finish the first series and neither of us are sure whether we'll bother watching anymore of them. Can't put my finger on why, but just not totally loving it... I think maybe it's just a bit too cheesy in places. And there are so many boxsets that we want to watch that we'd rather move on to something we'll potentially love instead.

This little bub... enough said really! Pretty sure no one really cares what I'm wearing when I have this little one as an accessory.

Talking of accessories I'm definitely finding myself reaching for a scarf every day this week. I do love a scarf, and the fact that it can totally make an outfit. And its one of the few things I like about the cooler, damper weather. I'm determined to add some more colour and patterns to my scarf collection this winter though as all the ones I have appear to be cream, grey or white. 

I got to hear all about how our little guy is doing at school at our first parents' evening this week. Is it weird to say I was really excited about parents' evening? I just couldn't wait to hear more about school and how he's settled in. We know from what he says and just generally how he is that he has absolutely loved his first term. He speaks so highly of his teachers and always has a story to tell us about what he gets up to. But it was so nice to hear the other side of it... and I'm pleased to report his teacher had similarly positive things to say about him as he does about her.

She said he is a keen and inquisitive learner and that the school environment it a really great one for him. He is confident to choose activities and gives everything a try. She's really pleased with his mathematical skills and says he's got a really sound grasp of the number system and just seems to "get" numbers. And she reported that his reading abilities are far and above what would be expected for his age. She said that they are working hard to keep pushing him on in both maths and literacy through additional group work and activities so that he can keep making such great progress, which was really good to hear.

We also got to have a nose through his books and around his classroom, which I absolutely loved. I'm so proud of what a great start he's made at school, and long may it continue. 

I've been pretty busy crocheting the past week. I made my mum a poppy to wear (don't worry we still donated to the British Legion) because she has wanted a crocheted one for the longest time, only no one she knew knew how to crochet until I learned in the summer. It was a lovely quick 15 minute make and I think it looks pretty cute.

I feel like it might be getting to the time I need to start putting pen to paper (or rather my fingers to the keyboard) and start writing my latest birth story. I found writing the beautiful boy and the beautiful girl's births quite emotional and cathartic and generally really good for me in making sense of it all. Our littlest lady's birth ended up being so so different to the previous two, and I'm looking forward to taking the time to get all my thoughts about it out in words. It's my weekend challenge to at least make a start on it...!