Dear Alice and Violet - 40 months and 11 months!

Dear Violet,

So you are now 11 months old and I just can't believe you've been with us for almost a year! But on the other hand, I can't imagine for one second how we got by without your lovely smiling face!

You had a review with the health visitor a few weeks ago, and you weigh 21 lb 8oz and are 77cm long.

She was really impressed with how good you are, and particularly impressed with your recorder skills!! At the moment you love anything musical - the recorder, or the harmonica, or keyboard. You love to copy what anyone else is doing, and pass the harmonica back and forwards making noises. You like to sing and dance, although you're dancing looks a bit like twerking!

You are walking holding my hands, and using the furniture to scootle round. This past month you stood up on your own (you sit down any time I take a camera out!) and keep doing it when you're not realising. You're also doing the weird half walk / half crawl that makes you look a bit like a spider! I think you'll be walking at some time in the next month.

You will say "t" for ta, and make "b" noises for ball, and Mitch swears you say dada! You are pretty much constantly babbling and talking about something, I just have no idea what you are saying.

You are so happy the majority of the time, and just like to be surrounded by people. You like smiling and cuddling and just generally playing the part of the lovely happy baby! Everyone always comments on how placid and laid back you are - you are just content being loved. You brighten up my morning with your lovely smile and giggles, and you never fail to cheer me up.

You had been sleeping through for the past month or so, but you're back to up once a night again, perhaps with your teeth? You have 6 little teeth now and particularly enjoy nibbling on anyone who stays still long enough! (In hindsight after reading this back - you were getting a cold and back to sleeping through - hurrah!)

You are a bit of a destroyer at the moment, much to Alice's annoyance! You like knocking down towers, squidging playdough, making a mess, throwing things on the floor, and generally getting in Alice's way. She gets quite frustrated, but we're trying to explain you just want to play. Sometimes I'm fairly sure you're getting your own back!!

Food wise, you just love meat. If I never tried to give you anything else you would be overjoyed! You are just a little carnivore and will throw anything none meat related on the floor! You like chicken, beef, pork, ham, fish and anything that's not a vegetable - the complete opposite of your sister. Between the 2 of you, you'd demolish just about anything!

Alice calls you "cubby" and she is always asking where you are. If she gets up in the morning, and you're still in bed, she's forever asking for you and cuddles. If we meet anyone, she loves to introduce them to "my baby Violet" and tell them she's "the best baby sister ever". Although she also spends half her time pushing you away from the iPad.

We have booked you a little birthday party for next month that you won't even understand, but I just want to get everyone together to celebrate how brilliant you are, and how lucky we've been to have you for a whole year!!

Dear Alice,

You are 40 months old this month, and in a few weeks you start at a school nursery! You are so excited, and pretty much every day ask if it's September yet. I'm hoping this excitement lasts for when you actually go! You've had a couple of visits and you loved it, plus it helps that Amelia and Phoebe are going to be there at the same time. You have a little nursery uniform, and you look soooo big and grown up in it!

You like singing own songs, making up words, and just singing your way through the day. One of your favourite things to do at the moment is replace words in nursery rhymes with the word poo, such as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Poo" or "The Grand Ol' Duke of Poo". You think it is literally the funniest thing anyone has ever done ever!

You also like telling jokes, and I've tried to teach you a few but you like to make your own up more. Such as "Why did the tomatoes cross the road? Bears." Then you laugh manically!

We started working on recognised letters and numbers a few weeks ago, as you seemed quite interested. Well you've picked them all up! You recognise all the numbers 1-10 and most of the letters with a few common mix ups (b and d etc). I am absolutely amazed by how quickly you've picked it all up. For some reason, you still miss the number 15 out when you're camping though - every single time!

You had a little haircut last month as your ends were getting a bit tangley, so we cut your hair to just below chin length, and it's made you look so much bigger! I miss your long hair a little and your first little curls, but it looks much healthier now.

You are such a lovely little soul. You are funny and witty and clever, and you like to be in charge. You throw massive tantrums and huge diva strops, but when it's all over and you come for a cuddle I just want to bottle you up. You can be quite a sensitive little one and sometimes it's easy to forget when we're all joking and playing that you're only 3, and sometimes take things a bit literally! I am so nervous about you starting nursery - you come across so loud and proud and over the top, but I know you get your feelings hurt quite easily and I'm nervous about how you'll be with the other little ones. You're so clever, but sometimes can be a bit overwhelming and in your face when playing with others, probably because you've never spent huge amounts of time with others and mostly just with me. It keeps me awake at night thinking about you making friends and being happy - but I know it's right for you.

A few weeks ago you had a wasp disaster! You'd been on a bug walk with the childminder, and the leader of the walk disturbed a wasps nest! You got off lightly compared to some of the others, but were still stung 10ish times. Daddy had to come fetch you as it was my first day back, and I felt awful all afternoon, but Kinder Eggs and cuddles fixed it.

You also had your preschool injections, which I was terrified about! I knew this time you would know it was me who had taken you, and I thought you'd hate me! But you were brave and we went to McDonalds after, where you weed on the floor - c'est la vie!

You are so happy with the childminder. I feel like we completely lucked out with someone who is so lovely, and it just means I don't have to worry about you or baby Violet at all when I'm at work. You go places, explore, play games and learn so much with her!

Your sleep is finally on the up these past few weeks, after a few months of 5am get ups! We have finally got it to 6 (hopefully!) and that's fine with me. You like to get "snuggly wuggly" under a blanket with me which is my favourite place to be.

You are both my absolute favourite people in the world.

With love and light xo

Difficult

I've only updated 3 times this year. That is crazy! I used to write in here all the time, but I guess it all comes down to time and sleep. Both of which I'm always massively short on!

At the moment I just feel a little bit overwhelmed. I keep going back to Bilbo's quote - "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." Like whatever I'm spending time on, everything else is being neglected.

There's tons of decorating and sorting I'd like to do round the house, but it's just literally impossible to consider with the kids at home. We could do it in the evenings, but by the time the kids are in bed and we're sitting down it's hard enough to muster the energy to get a drink and change the channel, let alone start a project.

Then there's cleaning and tidying etc. I try so hard to keep on top of everything and always feel like I'm coming up short. Like if only there were more hours in the day my house would be nicer.

Mainly it's the kidlets. At the moment I feel like no matter how much I give them it's not enough. That's not their fault, but Alice is so intense and full on right now, and she just needs you to be on the ball and playing from wake up till bed time, and sometimes life isn't like that. She's so incredibly clever, such a pleasure to be around some of time, but also incredibly difficult and challenging some of the time as she tries to figure herself out. We try and keep consistency, patience and fairness, but sometimes on little sleep it's hard to be the best mum. Then you just feel guilty for snapping, pledge to try harder, rinse and repeat!

I don't want to come across as moaning - I am so incredibly lucky and so happy to have my 2, but life is not easy right now and sometimes it helps to write things down.

Alice is just so incredibly driven, and fiercely independent and opinionated. All things I don't want to discourage, but all things so difficult to control. She has an angry tantrum streak at the moment that I'm trying my best with, but I think it just comes with the "intense" territory! I feel like however I approach it, it's not going to be right - I'll either be too firm or too soft. I care so much what other people think about my parenting, and I guess that's something I need to work on right now. I'm trying my best, I just worry it's not good enough sometimes.

She's just so clever - you can't sneak anything at all past her. She always knows what's going on, and it's difficult to keep her occupied for long. I'm hoping with time this will get easier, and I'm hoping when school / nursery starts that it'll make a difference. I think that's a big thing - she is so ready for nursery and has been for a while. If she'd been born a week earlier she'd have been attending since April, but at the moment she's starting September 10th. She is just so ready for an extra challenge and more intellectual stimulation I can't provide!

I think what's made everything a little overwhelming lately is my happy baby Violet currently isn't happy! I'm hoping it's teeth, but she is not my happy little grub. She's up frequently in the night, often for a while, she won't settle at bed time for hours (not fun when you are so ready to chill out!), and wants to be held all the time.

I think a lot of the anger I've seen in Alice this past few weeks is jealousy. Up until now, baby Violet was happy just lying in the same room as us while I played with Alice. But now Violet is up and crawling and standing and trying to walk, she wants to play with all the toys and play all the games, and Alice doesn't do sharing. So I guess this could be a good thing - everyone has to learn to share sometimes. And obviously I'm now split in 2, trying to make sure neither child injures themselves or each other!

So - Again, not moaning, I know this is what I signed myself up for and I love them more than anything. But tips? Advice? Suggestions? Please tell me I'm not the only one struggling to stay up past 8 and forever feeling like I've been dragged through a hedge??!

With love and light xo