Well, thankfully after the first few days of fighting Toby and Gabe have settled down a bit and I think got more used to having each other around all the time again.  We’ve had a fairly quiet week this last week though. I think the boys needed a bit of time to decompress after the busy last few weeks of school.

We went to a bug hunt at our local library on Monday which Toby and Gabe both enjoyed, on Tuesday we went to collect a carrier from our local sling library to use on holiday. Gabe doesn’t really fit in our standard carrier any more (a Lillebaby original) but we don’t use one enough for it to be worth buying so we’re just borrowing a toddler carrier for our holidays – we had the same one at Easter and it was great. The sling library is held in a garden centre cafe and there’s a little play area outside so the boys were happy to play there for a while.

On Wednesday we went to my mum and dad’s house in the afternoon – I was supposed to have an opticians appointment and they were going to look after the boys, but it got cancelled so we just went anyway for something to do. We had a quiet day at home on Thursday and then on Friday my mum came over to watch the boys while I went to hospital about my prolapse in the morning and then to my rescheduled opticians appointment in the afternoon.

On Saturday Barry took Toby and Gabe up to see his mum and dad so I could do some last minute holiday shopping, and then yesterday we mostly stayed at home again.

Other than that there’s been quite a lot of telly and playing at home. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a Year 1 workbook from Aldi for Toby. I wasn’t planning on making him do any of it but thought it might be a good thing to have about if the mood took him. He noticed it the other day and has made his way through a good few pages – it has English, phonics, and maths sections so he can pick and choose what he wants to do, and there are gold stars to put on every page that is completed.

Toby isn’t the biggest fan of writing so anything that encourages him to do it is a good thing in my eyes.

Gabe’s big news this week is that he has been making a bit of potty training progress. We’re not really forcing anything, I’m very much a believer in leaving them to do it when they want to. But we’ve moved the potty to the living room and are encouraging him to have a wee on it when it’s time for a nappy change. He’s had 5 wees on the potty this week which is a good start – I just didn’t want to have a situation like we did with Toby where he was scared of doing anything on the potty for ages and refused to go anywhere near it.

Like I said, I’m not pushing Gabe at all at the moment, especially as we’re going on holiday next week. But if we can make some more progress while we’re away, and then maybe try and get him out of nappies before he starts his new nursery then I’ll be very happy. And if he’s not, well then never mind and I’m sure it won’t be long before he is.

Yesterday Barry and Toby nipped out to Hobbycraft and while they were out Gabe and I did a bit of baking. I love making cookies with the boys, they’re so easy and it’s something they can join in with. Gabe likes trying to recognise the numbers on the scale, and then mixing and balling the cookie dough to put on the baking tray. He was very pleased with the final results…

We’ll be in France for next week’s post but I’m taking my laptop and hopefully the wifi will be reliable enough for me to get a post up!