A tough week.

This week has been the hardest by far. I think this morning I cried my first tears of exhaustion. I'm going to have a quick vent to make myself feel better and then I'll move onto some wonderful positives. Mama has norovirus so I'm basically a single parent and boy do I feel for you single parents out there now! Where do you go for help?! I feel like I can't have people round in case they get ill and running the house and looking after Squiblet 7-7 is just pretty exhausting! She's been great though. Lots of smiles and cuddles and just generally being chipper. She's been refusing food and messing about at meal times a bit more lately.  I think it's because our niece (almost 2) was here at the weekend and she wasn't well so she was refusing her food and putting her head on the table...so clearly squiblet thinks that's the way to get cuddles and attention. Eurgh! It's just annoying that it had to happen now when I'm running on empty! Still, my friend with twins says you just put the food out and if they don't eat it, don't beat yourself up about it, just leave them be, and I guess that's what I'll do. But it's not great when she's throwing things on the floor!

So...positives...I promised you positives and there are lots! Her walking is just amazingly brilliant now! She can do it on her own but she lacks the confidence still. I have made a few local mum friends and she has made some friends at play group and that makes me feel better! I was worried that everyone was so cliquey that I would never find a way in! She is climbing climbing frames and whizzing down slides and she is all smiles and giggles (mostly!). Her emotional intelligence is really developing which is wonderful to watch as it is something which I really value. We have been using Todd Parr's emotions book and talking a lot about people feeling sad or grumpy. Now, sometimes when she is being a bit grizzly she smiles at me and says "grumpy". It's like putting a label on her feelings makes them feel better, it's amazing really. Her speech is coming along too. She is putting more words together now and saying please and thank you all the time which makes me smile. She's great. Writing all this positive stuff is making me feel so much better but I still feel so tired I want to cry! We are having some kind of packet risotto for dinner. The packet says "add hot water". I used to be a Veggy box- cook-it-all-from-scratch type of person! It makes me feel a bit sad.

Oop. Sounds like she is waking up. Today really wasn't the day for a 50 minute nap.  I need my 2 hours!

Hope this isn't too negative.

Must go

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