Of sleepovers and biscuits

So, we woke up this morning, Steve back to work, me back to normality. Apart from Ben being at his friend's house still. An easy morning even though everything took far longer than it ought! We made it out of the house by 10.30am or thereabouts, and managed to time it just right so that Libby and the children were also leaving their house at the same time to go off to buy ingredients to make biscuits so we let ourselves into their house.

Nat and Ben were a funny mix of excited and unhappy about the fact that I was there when they got back :) Excited to see me but sad because it meant that I was there to take Ben home. They weren't happy at all about that part. Even if they had just about reached their limit of how much time they could spend together without arguing!! Ben had been a little wonder child and had eaten well, gone to bed and sleep easily at 7.30pm, woken for a wee around 10pm ish, gone straight back to sleep, woken at 7am, eaten well again (confounded poor Libby by asking for "red cereal" (that'd be Krave lol) - thankfully the Special K box has red on it and he ate that cereal quite happily, even having a second bowlful when they got back from the shops!) and been generally brilliant. It's nice to know he can be so fab when he's away from home!!!! It'd be kinda nice if he was that brilliant at home too but.... y'know.... actually, I don't mind. If he has to be wonderful, I'd rather it be when I'm not there so he doesn't show me up too much ;)

We spent a while with Libby and her children. The boys made biscuits (why didn't I think of biscuit dough as edible playdough before?!), we had lunch, they decorated their biscuits with the sweets they'd bought from the shop earlier. That explained Ben's comment that "Libby has sweets at her house" when I saw him!

Then it was time to go. Nat had a date with the school he's going to in September (gosh he's growing up fast, it doesn't seem that long ago I was giving him a bottle of milk, pregnant with Ben, the dads helping other friends move house...) and we were supposed to be going to buy milk - except someone turned the taps on in the sky just as we approached our house and we gave up on the idea of buying milk and raced to the front door just in time instead!

Ben was exhausted. The past week finally caught up with him. He played a couple of rounds of Mario Kart while I made a batch of biscuit dough and then begged for a booby cuddle - and promptly fell asleep. And was NOT keen on the idea of waking up. For anything. He didn't want to go to bed though, he wanted to be downstairs where we were so we let him be, asleep on the sofa, while Steve put a pile of baby stuff in the attic and cooked dinner and I cut out biscuit shapes to bake. Dinner done, washing up done, laundry on, tidied up, ready for bed, took Charley up. Steve tried to wake Ben to get him into pyjamas to bring him upstairs... he was having NONE of it! Screamed and screamed until I brought Charley (who looked quite concerned) downstairs and gave him a cuddle. Very very tired boy!!

Oh yes, the baby stuff! We have finally realised that the way we do stuff as a family really negates the use of quite a bit of our baby paraphernalia so it is being dismantled and put in the attic. Possibly to clean up and sell on, if anyone is interested. The buggy system (apart from the carseat, which we do use!!) is finally in the attic (given that I can't actually get it out of the house without a fight, and use wraps 99% of the time, it's not getting much use this time around). The cotbed has been dismantled and is up there (we have space in our bedroom!!). As soon as I've tidied up the junk covering the changing table that'll be dismantled and put up in the loft. The bouncy chair has been outgrown and is up there, as is the donut thing. The bumbo will be going up once I've tidied the kitchen a bit more, so we can get the highchair installed instead.

Charley'll be 7 months old in a few days' time.... hardly seems possible.