We survived the first family visit

but only just!

So my sister, BIL and nephew (2 and a half) were here Wed - Sat.

Lovely to see them but I didn't quite realise three things:

1. how much effort it is to work full-time plus attend to business emails plus cook plus feed and get up for babies in the wee hours of the morning, etc, etc.


2. exactly how much of a noise nazi I am (shhhh, K, the babies are sleeping. S, please talk quietly, etc. - am TERRIBLE terrible host)


3. how hectic the bedtime routine is (I've taken your advice and am doing a very loose bedtime routine), especially when you look at it from an outsider's point of view

Good thing it is my sister so I'd already told her beforehand that she needs to cook supper one night which she did (I also roped her in on Friday night's cooking). In case you couldn't tell, I'm the bossy big sister :)

Thing is, with D and me, we do the babies and once they're down, I start supper, usually around 7 but sometimes later. In winter, I cooked much earlier and simply served it up at 6:55 (I'm not joking - I used to be STRICT with our supper times) but now that it's summer, it is BLAZING HOT here and my kitchen is a cauldron until about 6:30.

With guests and a two and a half year old, I felt the pressure of knowing they NEED TO EAT (and pre-babies, we ate at 7pm sharp every night :)) even while attending to babies, making bottles and preparing my lunch for the next day (I am one of those people who is all set the night before, simply because I am USELESS in the mornings).

But we managed.

Of course, then all my sshhh-ing couldn't have been fun either since our dining room is right next to the babies' bedroom.

Since they were already a bit overstimulated due to the extra guests, I really wanted them to sleep as well as they could.

Alas!

Kendra woke up 5 times (yes, you read that right) the first two nights and then 4 times the third night, while Connor woke up twice and then three times. I classify "night" as between 7 pm and 7 am. Still, both nights, we got up a combined total of 7 times for the babies.

(I've started tracking their waking up in The Notebook. Need to write another post on the sleep thing, which is clearly not working so well. My sister said to me on Sat, "you look like you've had a rough night" and yes, it was rough but that was only two hours from 5 am!)

BUT ... it was so lovely to have them here. My sister's K is soooo cute and is talking up a storm, highly independent (no, Mummy, I do it myself!) and was fascinated with the babies. Now wants my sister to have a baby sister for him He can't pronounce his r's so calls Kendra "Kenna" - very cute. Connor and Kenna.

Let me end with a cute story as it's nearly 10 pm and I need to be up bright and early for work tomorrow.

My sister and K were in the babies’ bedroom (I have a chair there) while I was changing Connor. So I hear whispering and I said to her, "what’s he saying?"

"Mummy, M called Connor a beautiful boy!"

He IS my beautiful boy! But hmmm, maybe I need to start calling him handsome or something appropriate for boys as K was appalled and when I slipped up and called Connor "gorgeous", he again gave me a withering look.

As only a two and a half year old can do :)