Finally, we made it through the last week of school and it’s half term! Toby has been so tired the last week, I’ve had to wake him up a few mornings, he’s been getting upset for no reason, he’s been wetting his pants a lot, and on Wednesday he managed to fall over at school four times! He’s now full of a cold and we’re going away today for a few days in the Lake District but I hope he manages to get some rest and recover while we’re away.

It’s been quite a dramatic week for Gabe too – on Tuesday night he slipped just before bedtime, caught his lip on the sofa on the way down and managed to rip his frenulum (the bit of skin that holds your top lip to your gum). Apparently it’s a really common injury in children but it’s pretty gory, and there’s quite a lot of blood! We called 111 who advised we take him to A& E but by the time we got off the phone the bleeding had stopped and he was back to his usual self. He was fine the next day and didn’t have any problems eating or anything so I guess it hasn’t affected him too much. He did then run face first into our other sofa on Friday and make it bleed again but hopefully it’s healing OK again now.

To start our half term we went to see the Blackpool Illuminations on Saturday night. To be honest I don’t find the Illuminations very exciting but I think that’s probably because I grew up with them literally at the end of my road. The boys have never seen them before though so we were hoping they’d enjoy them.

Our friends Claire and Dave came up with their twins and after an afternoon of playing at our house we headed over to Blackpool which is only about 20 minutes away. The evening didn’t start well with Toby feeling car sick but he perked up fairly quickly when we got there.

We had a chippy tea, and then waited ages for a tram to take us up to the far end of the tableaus where we met my dad. We then walked back to where we’d parked – even Gabe walked the whole way! It was quite busy though (and very windy) and keeping tabs on the boys wasn’t easy, especially when Toby kept running off. I’m very glad we had the reins for Gabe at least.

We were lucky enough to see three of the illuminated trams go past while we were walking – I think all the boys were pretty impressed with the train tram…

Gabe loved looking at all the lights too. The only bit he didn’t like was a pop up mummy that made him cry! 

It was a late night for the boys though, and it all got a bit fraught towards the end. Toby ended the evening in a grump because we wouldn’t buy him a light up plastic sword, and apparently that meant the whole day had been boring and he hadn’t had any fun at all. I try to remember that he’s only four, and it was late and he was tired but every time we try to have an nice day out it seems to end up like this and it makes me wonder why we bother sometimes!

Anyway, it’s off to the Lakes today, and hopefully we’ll all manage to relax and have as stress-free a holiday as possible!