That could refer to the weather over here at the moment, but actually it's how I feel about my DD2 at the moment! Normally she is SO smiley that she's my Little Miss Sunshine, but her smile has been largely absent since the weekend.

Well, we may have found out why today - she came out with a rash so I reluctantly dragged us all down town to the GP, expecting to be told it was "just a virus, should be gone in x days", humoured in other words, and left feeling like I'd been a panicky mum wasting my time. However, she has an ear infection, which the GP thinks may be connected to the rash, so we are on Amoxycillin for the first time. Happily she seems to like it - pretty good considering she usually spits out medicine (most of the dose goes on my glasses when its paracetamol)! With DD1 I added paracetamol to the antibiotics to get her to take them. They're all so different! Oh well, it has to get worse before it gets better.

Great timing too - Alan is in France for 3 days. He arrived at Charles De Gaul to find the army swarming over the airport due to a bomb scare, then had a good laugh as a taxi which had been left with the handbreak off rolled away from the driver and across 3 lanes outside the airport - thankfully not the one he was about to get into! The driver looked a tad surprised!

DH really annoyed me the othe night when he said he was really looking forward to being retired. I'm not entirely sure where my annoyance came from (probably lack of sleep!) but it's made me think a little. I felt like he was wishing his life away, like he wasnt enjoying now. I feel that, although this stage is tough with the lack of sleep et al, it really is the main thing, for me at least, and I wish it was for him too. I know when men have a career and if we women decide/are able to concentrate on the kids, we are looking at two totally different time scales, but I feel that I am in my prime, that THIS is my time, for better or worse, and that it will soon be gone. I think with DD1 I was keen to see her progress, sleep through etc, all very good targets. This time I'm more laid back, been there seen it, whenever....! Part of that must be 2nd child syndrome, but some must be coz I really dont know if I will ever come this way again and I want to enjoy it, even the unenjoyable bits! Does that make sense? Talking of unenjoyable bits, she's waking up, ni'night!

I thought I'd upload some photos of my garden - I havent seen it all day coz the weather's been so foul!

Here's what it looked like today, complete with squirrel!

And a few days ago, when the sun was out....

Come down the garden with me! Through the arch with the apples and tomatoes on it (pear tree nearby - sob!). Here's the sunflowers and sweetcorn infront of us.

Here's Emma playing in the farthest corner; lets go over there!

Looking back you can see the beans and garlic best, and the plum tree trying not to break under the weight of fruit. I saw the wasps on it last week - not already! Then I realised that they were after the aphids, not the ripe fruit. So, they are useful after all!

Well, things are growing fairly well, but the slug and snail population are benefitting most at the moment!

Hope you enjoyed a tour of the estate!

Here's two pictures taken earlier in the week when we still had some sun (torrential rain all today), one last night at bedtime and one at the end of today - a snapshot of the week!

Does this mow the grass, mum?

Look, no hands!

Sophie's getting strong - she surprised me with her strength and balance, as I've not tried her with this little car before (used to be Emma's).

I'm cute, and I know it!

Ta-da! Emma's project for the day (as she was trapped indoors by the weather and school hols all day) and the new, rather large wellies that arrived in the post today (size 1 - got to grab a bargain when you see it, eh?).

Today was Emma's last day at Preschool before breaking up for the summer. In September (on her 5th birthday) she will start at the Primary School Reception class which happily is in the neighbouring classroom (so I hope it wont be too traumatic for either of us). She's been going for half her life (started January 2005) so it will be strange not going to the Preschool for 2 more years (until Soph is old enough). I'm not sad (yet) but feel I ought to be! Em says she will miss her teachers, but mostly she says she cant wait to start Big School. Lets hope she still feels like that in 6 weeks.... & 7 weeks time!  She seems very ready for school, having met most of the Foundation standards already (she loves letters, counting, art, etc!), so as long as she responds well to the new teacher, the length of the day and the rules and regulations, I think she will love school. Oh, and the other children! But she knows half of them already! I got a lot of "oh, so you're Emma's mummy" a year ago when most of them were starting!

Before I came on Minti tonight I was having a reminisc and trying to plan a visit for the summer holiday to a garden I used to work in. It is not to be - they are back to opening once a year again (when they were skint a few years ago they opened more I believe!). I worked at Toddington Manor in 1989/90 when I was a student, doing my work placement year. I had a motorbike accident while I was there, so they only got 10 months out of me! Anyway, for those of you who like gardens, here's the link. I really did love the garden there, and I'm feeling all mushy and nostalgic now!

When I was trying to sort out Emma's sleep back in 2003, one of the things I took on board was to have a sleep-phrase (cant remember the proper word), something like "night night, sleep tight" or "it's sleepy time"! Well, I devised rather a long one for Emma and have lengthened it since Sophie's arrival, but have unintentionally come up with an extra one for Sophie. They both seem to love these rhymes, and I hope it puts them in the mood for sleep, but I also hope it creates some nice memories and maybe even a family tradition! I thought I had one of those until I mentioned it to my brother, who doesnt remember it at all! We had an "aunty" (mum's best friend) who used to come and stay from time to time. Aunty Betty had never married nor had children but she was a Brown Owl in the Brownies (junior Girl Guides / Scouts) for 50 years, so she could hold a room full of kids in her thrawl, and we loved her. At bedtime when she was visiting, she always said "night night sleep tight, dont let the bed bugs bite, may all your dreams come true" and we would chorus back "and yours too!" So with Emma I lengthened it, adding after this "Mummy loves you, Daddy loves you, Jesus loves you! Sleep well and have beautiful dreams. Its time for bed, it's sleepy time!" (We now add in "& Sophie loves you Emma, and Emma loves you Sophie"!) We have had the whole thing dissected by our canny 4 year old over the years, from having the heretical "no not Jesus, neenaa!" (police car) to "what bed bugs mean?" Now with Sophie I've got in the habit of holding her looking out of the bedroom window just before I draw the curtains and saying goodnight to everything. It's still a work in progress, and I'm no great poet, but so far it is something like "Night night garden, night night trees, night night birdies, night night bees, night night sunshine, night night rain, its time to go to bed now, see you all again! Night night Jesus, please stay by my side all through the night as Im tucked up tight, and through the day as I laugh and play, and be my friend for ever!" OK, a bit twee, but 9 month olds arent harsh critics in that department! So, do you have anything like this, or did your parents? I cant be the only one, can I???

Well, I actually managed to get some serious cooking done today - yipee! I'm not a great cook, but I do enjoy being able to get a recipe book down and make something nice from scratch. It's something I've not done for ages as I'm always getting interupted by one little girl or another. Well, today I'd promised I would do some food as part of a rota organised through church for a new mum who is post C-Section and has a 2 year old who's taking her time getting used to being a big sister, hubbie back at work, grandparents gone. So I made the blandest lasagne I could (cant be too careful when breastfeeding!), and Sophie napped most of the time I was cooking! Then i got carried away and made a crumble. I was making double, so we got lasagne too, and I made us rhubarb crumble and played safe and made them apple crumble! So nice to cook uninterupted!

Emma breaks up from Preschool tomorrow, then we have 6 weeks and then she starts at Primary School. Hmmm, not much uninterupted time for a while is there?!

Just out of interest, I thought I would ask, what is your standby recipe when asked to take something round to someone, and what's the nicest thing anyone has ever made and brought round to you?

The two aggravations yesterday - they're getting worse!

Now today the squirrels (must be them, cant think who else) have felled about 4 sweetcorn (maize) stems just as they were coming into flower. Never seen anything eat them before!

And Emma.... hmmmmm! She signed the car paintwork. Well, it was pretty easy to work out who had scratched it when it was spelled out right in the middle of the bonnet, about 1cm high letters!

My inlaws popped in for 6 hours on the way home from holiday. Bless 'em, he mowed all the grass (first cut of the year - yes, it was a jungle), and she caught up the washing up! Poor Sophie didnt recognise them and burst into tears & had a good scream when I handed her over. It's been two months. They'll be visiting again in two weeks, and then we'll be visiting them two weeks later, so hopefully she'll recognise them for a while by the end of the summer!

What was the name of that sitcom with Victor Meldrew in it in the '90s? Anyway, I've had two of those moments today.

The more minor one was when I went to admire my 1st crop of pears growing on my 3 year old tree. A week ago there were approx 12 little pears promising lots, and I thought with that lovely (!) rain they should be looking good, but they were nowhere to be seen. Looking closely, I think it's those pesky squirrels again - in previous years they've pinched strawberries, plums and apples, and they pinch bird food all the time, but to have stripped the tree of ALL the pears - where's my shotgun?!?! (Dont worry, I dont have one - when I see squirrels I send Emma out on full volume scream to run down the garden after them!)

The other one was Emma. You know how people send kids to their bedroom when they've been naughty? I never have, in part coz she might just go to sleep (as her dad did as a kid), but also as I really dont want her wrecking the place. Well, she didnt quite do that today, but instead she pulled all her clothes out of her drawers and put them behind the door to keep me out! I decided to play it cool, explained that she had to put them away, and when she ran out of steam after 20 mins, I scooped up the rest of the clothes into a big bag and said she could only wear what was in her drawers already until she put the things in the bag away. She says she'll do it tomorrow - we'll see. She only has two pairs of knickers in the drawer, so I hope she relents before Monday morning!

Waving & nearly crawling.

Finger food.

Emma had her face painted at Preschool this morning (open day) and I thought "aha, Foto Friday!" and grabbed my camera. Then she put one of her many works of art on her head, so I snapped that too - good for a laugh!

Below is a photo of Sophie surrounded by some of her nappies - she's a modern fleece baby - I've fallen for Fleece Pocket Nappies, my favourites are from Minki, the prints are sooo cute, I cant wait to put her in them (plus they work better than the AIOs and disposables). My SIL was asking what they looked like so I snapped her with them and thought I would share them with you too.

Here are two pics taken today, one by Em and one by me. Sophie has the ability to sparkle when the camera is turned on her - proud mummy or what! She's got her 9 month Health Visitor (Nurse) check on Monday - should do fine. She rolled off the hotel bed twice while we were there (thereafter put on the floor to play and big sis warned not to step on her - seemed less risky!) and today she pulled herself up on the side of the bath to peep over at Emma and was up on her knees looking like she was thinking of crawling this afternoon. Fun times are coming, eh?

Well, Alan went back to work after our holiday today.  I still have a pile of washing to catch up with, the house is a mess (as usual, but it was going to be cleaned while I was away, except the friend I was paying is 5 weeks pregnant so didnt want to risk overdoing it!) and Emma has post-holiday-itis. Or perhaps she's missing Daddy. Or she has a cold. Which ever way, she's been pretty awkward. She had 2 Tuesday Tantrums before she even left the house yesterday! And Sophie has a cough and is in a really cryey mood, and didnt let me get much sleep after 4.30am this morning.

We had a lovely if wet time on holiday in Jersey (will post about it in the Holidays Group sometime) but we didnt get all that much rest and were so zombified that we didnt realise we hadnt settled our account when we left the Hotel on Saturday morning until Tuesday morning at home - oops!

For those who asked, Rugby doesnt seem to have drowned in our absence - when I got home I checked in the rain guage (yes, I have one, my dad always wants to know what weather we've had!) and we had just less than 2" (actually 42mm) in the week we were away. From watching the news, I think some places had that much rain in a few hours.

While we were away the inevitable happened and my great-aunt died. It's a little sad but she was a grand old lady who was very ready to go. She was 98.5 and was slowly deteriorating with Alzheimers. Her little sister died 18 months ago and she had to move out of their shared home into a Nursing Home, and she kept having trouble remembering who was dead, which must be awful when you keep realising your siblings and your parents have died - like hearing it for the first time again in some ways. She worked in London during the Blitz in WW2 and then joined the Red Cross for the rest of the War. She worked as a fashion buyer and manager, which was pretty good going for a single lady back then I think, and she was a very determined, gentle, dignified old lady. I'll miss her. She retired in the late 1960s, a few years before I was born (can you imagine being retired for nearly 40 years?!) The funeral is next week, but it's such a lot of driving with two youngsters on board, so we'll just send flowers or a donation to the Red Cross.

RIP!