last week already!!!

Hi ladies,

Hope ur all having a good week..... thursday again already.... time is flying by!! Ethan is back to school monday- and im really gonna miss him! :( It was soooooooooooo lovely to get him home on Friday after a week long trip to his Dad's. I'd missed him terribly, and he has been an angel since he's been back too :)

So, on saturday Ben and I went to a wedding reception. Not the one we were supposed to go to, but we had a fab time anyway- WITH NO CHILDREN!!!! ;) needless to say Sunday was a complete wash out because i was SOOOOOOOOO hungover :/ lol

Monday we went up to scum and went to Ben's 'local' - the shed (in fact thats where this wedding reception was- think im becoming a bit of a local too!) as it was a family fun day in aid of, well, i'd like to say charity, but it was actually to raise funds for their new furniture...... are u getting the picture of the sort of plac 'the shed' is????? and that's not it's affectionate name, it's actually called 'the shed' and no, its not an abbreivation either :S lol ....... anyway, so we went up there and the boys came along too...... it was a lovely day, although i ended up feeling a bit awkward as all of Ben's wife (and im hoping at some point ex-wife) family was there too.... hmmmmm enough said about that day i think :/

Tuesday the kids and I went out with my aunt to Finkley Down Farm in Andover..... I used to go there when i was a child and it was lovely to re-visit :D My Nan owned 14 acres of land up there and it's where her father lived and ran a farm so my aunt and i went to see the land. She sold it last year as builders want to turn the area into houses, a school etc but the locals have been up in arms about it all so building permission still hasnt been granted. Although she no longer owns the land, she does have some sort of stake in it so we were being nosy to see what was happening.... the answer was nowt! and there's just animals grazing, but it was a great end to the day, seeing where my aunt, uncle and mum used to play etc :)

Yesterday we went to my cousins for the day, her garden is a little suntrap and the kids haven't seen each other for ages so that was really relaxing.... She's just found out her baby is breech, and at 34 wks pregnant she's not impressed :(

Not sure what to do today though. Ethan is going swimming with my Dad again, i cant wait till he starts his proper lessons next week though :)

We're going to yet another wedding recption on Saturday, i'm very excited!!! So sunday will probably be another wash out again ;) lol.

So, this weeks topic..... Well, Ethan didnt sleep..... at all....... by the time he was 3 months old he wouldnt nap during the day, unless in a car (and at that time i didnt drive!) and he didnt sleep through the night properly until he was 4! He went to bed when i did, (about midnight) slept on my chest in my bed, had two 9oz milk feeds in the night and woke up at 5am, every single day.... when the clocks went back it was awful!!!!!! lol....... I soon lost count of the amount of nights i spent walking up and down Hayling Seafront with him screaming in the pushchair.... it was HELL! I had really long hair, and his 'thing' was playing with my hair, and if he couldnt do it he went mad. I spent my 21st birthday night laying on my bed with him trying to get him to sleep lol. I once spoke to my then Health visitor about it, she told me to wear a hair net..... he just took it off lol.... We moved and he had his own room (he was 14 months) and he'd wake up in the night (after going to bed at the same time as me) and i'd end up sleeping in his toddler bed with him. it was the only was i got any sleep. Then he learned to climb over his stairgate on is door when he was 2, and that again caused havoc. When he was 2 and a half i went back to work (i'd been working one day a week for a bit) and i found it sooooo hard because i was constantly shattered. In my new job i had a lot of reponsibility and had to do something about it. So, i bungee-corded his door handle to the bathroom door handle and let him cry it out..... didnt work though 'cause he stripped himself off knowing damn well that i wouldnt let him go to bed without a nappy on.... he did the same when i tried locking myself in the bathroom...... it was an absolute nightmare..... I moved again just before he was 3 and he calmed down a little, but was still a bugger. Moved again about 6months after that and i just gave in, and let him sleep in my bed with me...... He did this for about 6 months, then i cut it down to a few nights a week until it was just once a week when i was heavily pregnant with Eryn. He has slept in my bed a few times over the last year, and i had Eryn in my bed too, but not recently. He still doesnt need a lot of sleep. He goes to bed about 8 and gets up between 5 and 6..... apparently 7am is a lay in..... but i have to say it was probably a lot of my own doing. Because we only had one bedroom when he was born, and 'cause his dad worked shifts, it was easy to give in to him. If i hadnt have done, he probably wouldnt have been so bad for so long.

As for Eryn, yes, she slept in my bed, but that was for ease more than anything else. I found breastfeeding her mad me tired so, laying down with her i'd fall asleep too. But since she was about 7wks, she's gone to bed about 7. When she was in her crib i'd rock her to sleep, but soon put a stop to that when i realised she couldnt go t osleep on her own. But then i got into the feeding to sleep trap, and it was like Ethan, all over again lol. But my darling Ben soon put a stop to it and got her sleeping in her cot, in her own room, in no time at all :D He would just leave her to cry (or scream) it out, but i wouldnt, so i would check on her every few mins. But it worked :))))
After Ethan, I'd always said that i'd never et a baby sleep in my bed again, but, being on my own it was an easy habit to get in to- no one there to tell me not to etc.... and, in all honestly, i loved cuddling my babies all night :) Eryn still gets into bed first thing in the morning, unless im already up.Sometimes she wakes about 6, but mostly it's just after 7. Which is a much more reasonable time LOL...... my oh my, i've written a shed load..... hope ur all still awake lol..... have a good week ladies xxxx