Suckers!

This was how my week went. Worked hard - hardly saw girls and when I did - ran rings around me with general levels of cuteness and charm. The rules of manipulating your parents by the Hammond girls:

1. If you don't like your bed linen, eat too many blueberries, throw up and go shopping the next day - then you can have a lovely new pink one.

2. If you don't fancy sleeping - cry lots, come down stairs and then spend the next hour giggling and being unbelievably cute so your parents are reluctant to put you to bed.

3. Be very grumpy all week and then look sad, be emotional and need a cuddle, as you are sure that then all will be forgiven.

4.Make faces with vegetables and smile for the camera. They won't be able to resist.

5.Sit up (for the first time), smile sweetly and you can have anything you want.

6. Make sure you do the crowd pleasing things such as poo on the toilet, giggle when required and help tidy up.

They really do know what they are doing. I am so doomed. I am so doomed....

The incredible wriggle monster!

Anna is so very close to becoming mobile. Batten down the hatches, nothing in the house will be safe. I have previously alluded to my joy of the passive and stationary child. I can see the glint in her eye and the fact that she is slowly developing skills that mean I am in trouble and it will not be long before she is crawling all over the house. She is progressing so well and I am really pleased, then you have to take a deep breath and remember the impact of that progression and the potential risk to all your possessions. She is wriggling, turning, grabbing and there is only one thing to say - god help us all!!!!!

I must remember I have two children....

Any reader of my blog could recently be forgiven in thinking that I only have one child, so obsessed have I been by the goings on of daughter number one's bowels and toileting habits that Anna has barely got a mention. She remains scrumptious, but she sleeps so much I don't actually get to see her much. We did however get to spend a lovely couple of hours together yesterday while Lucy and Amy went to the gym. The fact that every time she is with me, I mess up her routine, means that she was awake and I got to see her! She is such a smiley and happy little thing. Nothing much seems to bother her and she is without a doubt the most contented baby I have ever come across. She is one chilled out little muffin! She is becoming really interested in her surroundings and wants to grab and feel everything. She has got a really firm grip on her when she grabs your hair or glasses! I still don't know how she manages to shoot her poo all the way up her back when she is sitting upright in her walker! There I go again, I am bowel obsessed.....

Yipeeeeeeeee!

The adult section of the family Hammond is finally winning its long and arduous toileting battle with daughter number one. The young lady pictured to the right has done four poos on the toilet in the past few days. Yipeeeeeeee! They have ranged from the eye wateringly massive to the tiny weeny and Lucy is so proud of what she has achieved. She has got her buggy back and I too have beamed with pride as she talked to me on the phone when I was at work to tell me and I put her on loud speaker. I know I am strange. Amy said a lovely thing today that must have a mention as it is so true. Lucy has been such a good girl today and she spent a long time playing with craft bits and pieces on her own. Just being busy and just being Lucy. Amy said ' that are some things your children do that simply make you fall in love with them all over again.' She is right, simply watching Lucy be herself is a joy. Well done poo monster, we are really proud of you!

Here come the shopping girls...

Shopping with children can be a nightmare. Me and my girls went shopping today - for a family with two young children we had an incident free day. We are so lucky as both our girls are very good and patient. I am the only one who really does not like shopping - I would rather impale myself upon a pencil I think! It has been an event free week as we all recover from various viruses. Lots of sympathy and shop bought drugs has been the order of the week. Both girls are much better - although both still have coughs like sixty a day smokers and old men! Lucy lost a lot of her skills when poorly, so it has been a week of slowly getting back to normal - eating proper meals, using the toilet to wee and doing a bit more than flopping in front of the telly. She has lost her baby buggy again as she point blank refuses to poo on the toilet - different year - same battle! Am going away this week for work, so will really miss all my girls (wife included!)...I do hate being away from my family.

Anna has her first sleep over!

Anna has had her first friend to stay over - all be it for a couple of hours. They bathed and blew a few bubbles together, giggled and crashed out in Anna's cot. A few hours later Lilly went home. I suppose that is the baby equivalent of partying late into the night. Looby has caught my virus today and has been very poorly. She has barely moved off the couch and insisted on having one of us with her at all times. She also insisted we spent the afternoon watching Cbeebies too. Poorly, but not stupid!

Happy New year!

New year has been and gone and I have man flu. Lucy made an excellent nurse maid this afternoon, telling me that I'm not poorly anymore and that I should give her a cuddle and stroke her arm. I get the feeling that with all these women around I am never going to get any sympathy! 2009 is upon us and I think that the year holds many lovely things in family life. Challenge number one - a toddler that poos on the toilet! The amazing Anna-Banana will become a moving, crawling-into-everything baby - nothing will be safe...