Sleepy

I love it when my boys are asleep.

Ben kept going as long as he could this evening, waiting for Gran and Grandad to arrive, but he just couldn't manage any longer and I ended up taking him up to bed about an hour before they arrived. Twinkle Twinkle time came early! Even if it did require 5 repetitions before he finally started snoring.

Charley has had cuddles with his Gran, and his entrée, dinner and dessert before settling down to sleep on his daddy's shoulder. He had a pretty traumatic bath earlier - he was hungry, stripped naked, dunked and had his bottom and boy bits cleaned and I think he was still remembering it during his dinner! Poor love. At least he's all cleaned up now.

Sleep is becoming a bit of an obsession. An obsession in that I can't wait to get some sleep without a child lying on each shoulder snoring or snuffling or coughing or begging for boob or yelling in frustration because he just can't get to sleep.

And so. We start with sleep.

Bad night again - this time it was Charley keeping me awake. He struggled to get to sleep as he was so congested, would only really settle laying on my chest suckling. He'd be ok to be rolled off so he was laying on my arm once he was asleep, but after 5 or 10 minutes like that my shoulder would be screaming in pain so I'd remove my arm - and of course by the time he woke up again he would be totally congested again and extremely fed up with the situation.

Ben was given a bit more autonomy with how much boob he got last night and in terms of how much he fed and how much I was left alone it seemed to work, he was happy to just have a little and go back to sleep. Again though the shoulder he was lying on would often be screaming in pain before he was ready to let go, so by the time it came to get up this morning I hurt so much I couldn't face moving.

Anyway I got tanked up on painkillers and anti-inflamatories and caffeine and I've survived the day.

Church by 10.45am - no crises, just takes a long time to get ready - Charley slept, and Ben stayed in the meeting until his cries of "want beebee cuddle mummy" got too insistent (and too loud) at which point we went into the hall next door for a cuddle. He was let into creche to play with Ede, and they even got a turn on the trampoline which was still there from yesterday!

The plan was to go out to a pottery cafe for the afternoon with Chris and her boys straight from church and although she took them home for lunch first we headed straight for the café as by the time Steve had finished packing down the lights we were all hungry.

We had a lovely afternoon though. Lunch in the cafe first, then when Chris arrived we headed over to the pottery cafe. Ede was fast asleep when they arrived and Ben spent quite a while trying to wake him up! He woke up in the end crossing the bumpy courtyard over to the studio which Ben was quite relieved about :) The two older boys painted snowmen (Ben's was his usual colour choice of mud brown although I'm sure it'll look much prettier once it's glazed and fired!) and then Ben wanted to do handprints so I found a tile for him to stick his pawprint on. Chris and I got to spend a while making our creations beautiful while Steve (bless him!) took the older two outside to play on the diggers in the freezing cold! He was exhausted - trying to corral two fiercely independent toddlers was hard work :) But, the afternoon wouldn't have been so lovely without him there!

So Gran and Grandad have arrived and had cuddles with Charley and have dropped off half a warehouse of presents and gone back to their B&B, and we've finished watching Strictly at last - how funny were McFly nearly bowling Harry boy over when he won :D What a fantastic show it's been this year!

And now it's time for a final nappy change while I re-write the blip after discovering that swiping sideways on the scratchpad means that I go "back" a page and lose everything I've written, insulin to be taken, painkillers to forage for, detergent to be added to various machines, and bedtime - hoping that we get a couple of hours at least before Ben wakes up and yells his customary yell down the hall requesting oh-so-politely to be collected out of his bed.

G'night world, here's hoping for a less painful night tonight!