Birthday party

Emily's second birthday party today at the local soft play. Mike had been planning to come too but Matthew had a pretty shocking night (awake for nearly 3 hours) so I suggested he stay home and rest instead. So I got a bit less time to chat and a bit more time running round the soft play centre. Dead proud of my little boy though - not only did he get over being scared of the big punchbag-like dangling things on his last visit he managed to get over his fear of the big balls this time. Given he's been scared enough of the one at the playgroup in the village hall to tell us about it at random times 'big ball - scary' I was really impressed. Much fun manoeuvring them around the place especially rolling them down the tunnel.

Really lovely time with Charlie, Tom and Emily plus Henry who I didn't know already who is just one day older than Matthew :)

Stunned too that he wasn't flagging at all the whole time we were there including sitting nicely for his lunch and a cake. Unsurprisingly he fell asleep in the bike on the way home - and sadly then woke right up after only a 15-20 minute nap and wouldn't go back to sleep. Hurray for Mike entertaining him in the bath for a bit to give me a break. Shattered boy by teatime was a bit easily upset (eg by Thomas or James falling off the table) but we had some more fun afterwards with spinning round and round, sleepy bunnies and hide and seek, then an early night and sound asleep in 15 minutes flat - bit of a record!