Monday, as a day, is my least favourite of the week, everyone is back to work the lovely weekend with hubby/daddy is over and I’m facing a day with two little ones to look after by myself. I love my children with all my heart but with Flixster being 5 months and the boy just turning 3 it’s hard to keep them both happy all day long…alone! So over the last few months on Mondays I’ve either been visiting my mum or she has been to visit us. My mum and dad live near Lytham which is about a 50 minute drive from my house on a good day with no traffic. Where they live is lovely and only a few minutes from the seaside which is ideal for the boy, there are lots of lovely parks nearby too which have been fully explored by us all over the summer this year.
I’ve definitely become closer to my mum since having my babies, I was always close to her but much more so after realising how much she has dedicated her life to bringing up myself and my brother. I now realise how much hard work having young children really is! So seeing her regularly has really strengthened our bond as mother and daughter. I now call Mondays ‘Mummy Mondays’ not only do I get to spend time with my mummy but the boys get to spend quality time with their mummy too….me. Having an extra pair of hands with the boys is fantastic, I get to spend lovely one on one time with the boy whilst my mum gets to spend time with Flixster. When I’m on my own with the boys Flixster takes up a lot of my time as he’s so young still and needs a lot of attention. He’ll only nap on me in the sling so even when he’s asleep during the day I find it difficult to play properly with the boy and I certainly couldn’t spend time on the trampoline or run around with him.
Today it was our turn to travel up to my mums house. I try to time the journey to coincide with Flixster’s nap, if I can get it right he’ll have a little moan in the car then fall asleep for most of the journey. If I don’t get it right he’ll scream in the car which I can’t bare so I have to keep stopping to cuddle him. The boy doesn’t like it when he cries either, he covers his ears, so when I know we are going to be travelling for a while I let him have the iPad and headphones to play with in the back of the car, it saves him from getting upset at his brothers distress. This morning after another bad night sleep wise Flixster was getting ready for a nap around 8:45am, the signs were begining to show, the moaning had begun and I needed to leave quickly to get in the car before the screaming started! I left the house in a hurry forgetting coats for both the boy and I and also forgetting my glasses. Thankfully the weather turned out to be nice and warm, so we didn’t need coats in the park and I was able to wear my prescriptions sunglasses to drive in. We arrived at mum and dads by 10am and soon settled into some coffee, toast and playing with the toys (this is almost always the first thing we do, raid the cupboards, isn’t it what all children do when visiting parents?)
As the weather had turned out to be so nice we made plans to go to a local park called Lowther Gardens, one the boys and I hadn’t been to before. It is only 10 minutes up the road by car so we all travelled together in one car. At the gardens we parked up and I asked mum if she fancied wearing Flixster in the sling as he was due another nap, something she’s not done before. I wear Flixster all the time in a sling so he’s very used to being all wrapped up and close to people. I never thought I’d prefer baby wearing to pushchairs being a big pushchair fan (I have had many and currently have 3 on the go!) but I do prefer him being close and me having my hands free to deal with the boy. Mum couldn’t wait to get him snuggled up and he was asleep within minutes, giving me chance to play with the boy on the play area.
The boy adores being with his grandparents and particularly enjoys time with Grandad, true on both sides of the family. After time spent running around the playground, climbing, swinging and crawling we went for a walk around the gardens, I tried to take in their sheer beauty, even in late September the flowers are blooming and the gardens looks beautiful.
We decided to have lunch in the cafe within the park and as it was so sunny we sat outside enjoying the weather. The boy was desperate for ice-cream and had to be persuaded to eat his lunch before we treated him to one.The cafe had a wonderful old cash register, the kind where the number go round, it as fantastic and made a fab noise.
Before heading home we had another play in the playground and I fed Flixster sitting on the park bench, something I would never have done with confidence when the boy was small. Breastfeeding Flixster has been a totally different journey than the one I took with the boy.
We headed back to mums before heading home ourselves, thankfully Flixster slept most of the way home, I thought the boy would have fallen asleep as well but he was so engrossed in his Cbeebies game on the iPad that he stayed awake. I don’t know why Flixster doesn’t like the car, but if he’s awake in there he’s usually screaming, if anyone has an ideas how I could stop this I’d be very grateful!
Lyric x