Photos and Happenings from the First Week of Summer

One week of summer down!  Here are are some bits from the first week of summer:

Long Slide

When Elisabeth was here she visited Wales's longest slide, which opened a few weeks ago (or, actually, just over a month ago because it was when Elisabeth was here that the news excitedly asked "Is This The Longest Slide in Wales?"). On Thursday we took the kids to check it out for ourselves.  

It is, indeed, long! It was hot and I failed to get a good photo:

There was a cute kids park too (my kids are cute, but the park was also cute)

Everyone got on a wide slide together and I said "oh let me take a phot before the crying starts!" and then everyone went down the slide and at the bottom Aubrey somehow fell off the side and went mouth first into a rock and there was a lot of blood and it was time to go home.  Her face has recovered, but sadly her shirt is now in the clothing scrap pile.  Maybe this relates to my aforementioned inability to get stains out of clothes, but I could not get the blood out with a double wash or air dry or stain remover or sun.  Oh well.

That afternoon,  I decided to "cool mom" and give the kids ice cream for snack!  Then, everyone had a really rough behaviour afternoon and I maybe I am not actually a cool mom.  But in this moment they enjoyed it.

New Planner

During one of the mornings of parent-childcare I managed to sit down and order our 26/27 planner while some subset of the kids played! This is a crazy new level of parental independence during parent-childcare.  I haven't looked in it to check I didn't make any mistakes BUT It looks good! 

We order our planners from Personal Planner and have for years - I love having a big family planner to work with.  I also love that it prints birthdays and memorable dates in the planner.  This year I splashed out on some new pens too:

Last week at some point the twins helped us decorate our existing weekly spread:

Does this week look way more fun when unreadably stickered?

My Science Kid

This week Ezra donated his brain for science!  Cardiff University has a Tiny Tots Research Lab which was doing an experiment on something and I signed Ezra up.  In April Ezra did an experiment with a smartwatch and tangrams. We got invited to another part of the study where he got to play a game on a tablet (Scratch Labs Junior?) and then they monitored his brain for ???.  I probably should have listened more.

I was mostly watching this one:

She is my first ever "plays quietly with toys" kid.  It is so new and different.

In the research study, Ezra liked the tablet but did not like the gel that they put in the EEG hat thing.  

First Doctor's Appointment of the Summer

On Wednesday Aubrey had an allergic reaction to a new suncream (I think it may have gotten in her eyes) and ended up at the doctor.  She looked truly awful and unhappy but with time and antihistamines she was better in the evening.  It was so sad to see a poorly kid and so good to see her feeling better!  

I often feel I go to the doctor with a kid who looks healthy but I think is ill (they perk up for the Dr!) but this time I had a kid who looked terrible and the doctor spent a good amount of time making sure she wasn't actually as ill as she looked

She was back to normal that evening, poor Aubrey.

Unphotographed things from last week

• I had 2 really productive days in work and then one way less productive day.
• My gym buddy and I walked up a local mountain/hill (my favourite local small hike which I did with Kyria and Elisabeth
• I made a really good dinner of veggies and vegan sausage in the air frier
• Andy and I got everyone to bed at 8pm last night and there was a TEAR FREE and super easy twin bedtime.  Before bedtime project there were both tears and long bedtimes.  Hopefully this is a sign of actual progress
• I finished Aubrey & Clara's photo albums through April, and Ezra and Lily through March.  It would be awesome to get caught up by August... I think my block with albums was that we took so so many photos on our Portugal holiday and it was an overwhelming amount of photo updates to manage.  But you eat an elephant one bite at a time and you update an album one photo at a time.
• I did not make my two strength training sessions this week. My brother was visiting (and sleeping in my office/peloton room) and my kid days are tiring.  
• I wore my apple watch this week and apparently I do 10,000 steps on kid days by never sitting down because I definitely don't do any actual exercise.
• After the last day of school I washed all the kids school uniform and pulled out everything that was too small and/or too stained and then ordered everything we need in a slightly larger size ready for September.  Last year all the uniform was sold out when I was trying to get it before school so I am glad I have already done the audit, and a mere £60 we are all kitted out for next year.   Lily managed to not destroy a fair amount of uniform which is now boxed away for Aubrey and Clara.

All in all, a good start to the summer holidays!

Twin sleep updates, bedtime improvement plan, 10% of my waking life is too much time spent on someone else's sleep.

Elisabeth is recapping her Cardiff visit over on her blog - it seems crazy that it was over a month ago she was here!  She recently posted about our trip to St. Fagans, which is my all time favourite museum.  I also can't believe a month ago I had two helpers for twin nursery and lunch.  

In some ways, I feel like Elizabeth's trip was the start of the twins being interesting little people.  I know that sounds terrible, but for me, twins are hard. It was hard to experience them as little people and not just moving bundles of need.  There are so many needs! Clara is especially clumsy, and can trip over nothing, and can be (understandably!) upset about it.  Aubrey is generally so happy, but also know her mind, and know the right way to do anything.  Clara is far more experimental.  Between them, there can be very strong (and very loud) disagreement on many things

However, recently, there is also a lot of fun.   They talk to each other! They build magna tile castles together! They play funny games and chose their own entertainment and sometimes can entertain themselves for 15 or 20 minutes.

They play with the big kids sometimes

They are really cute

Anyways - one thing Elisabeth's post made me realize is that it has now been almost two months of terrible horrible no good very bad bedtimes.  So while they are becoming cute little people, their bedtimes are a growing source of frustration.

When Elisabeth was here we were working on twin bedtime - they had just moved out of cribs in May (for safety reasons - I would keep crib to 5 if I could!) and every night was a long long bedtime battle/process that was just... bad.

Plus, we have 2 other kids to get to bed.   Crib bedtime started at 6:45 for twins, 7:15 for Lily, 7:30 for Ezra, and everyone was generally asleep by 8pm (one parent could usually start tidying up at 7:30).  Bedtimes for everyone were now taking a lot longer - and sometimes twin bedtime pushed big kid bedtime back to the point that no one was able to start dinner clean up until 8:30 or 9. 

Like all good problems, bedtime needed a spreadsheet.  

It was easy to see why Andy and I were starting to lose the plot - bedtime was taking an average of 1hr 15 minutes.  Every week, we were spending 8 or more hours of our life putting twins to sleep.  7% to 10% of the waking day was used "doing bedtime"

Neither Andy or I have done an evening activity in 2 months, Andy quit his run club, I barely made it to one book club, we missed our dinner date, we barely maintained a basic FLOM (we were so wiped out from bedtime that we couldn't really plan), I went to the office once since moving to beds.  It has been, honestly, bad.

Yesterday we devised a bedtime improvement plan.  I am cautiously optimistic.  There was some crying yesterday, but not a lot, and bedtime took 30 minutes, not 90 minutes.  I remember reading once that when it comes to kids sleep there is time and crying and you can chose one or the other or both. I don't have time for both.  

Fingers crossed for better bedtimes. It will be way more fun to enjoy time with fun little people when I know the fun will end with sleep. 

End of school, transitions, Weekend plans, Clothing Improvement Project, Summer Planning.

 I love the energy of transitions.  Yesterday was the last day of school.  Drop off was chaotic and I couldn't get the year-end photo of the kids together, but I got one of Lily and my mom got one of Ezra since we ended up doing separate drop offs.  I looked back on little Lily and Ezra and from September and even without a new photo they look so small!

We had 5 kid friends over after school for ice cream (and 3 sets of parents) and with our 4 kids and 2 parents the garden felt FULL.  Big kids take up so much more space than little ones.

Then we had kids charcuterie board for dinner. Remember like 2 years ago when I wanted to make more kids charcuterie boards?  Maybe I will bring this back, the kids loved it:

I mean yes, it's basically sandwiches for dinner.

This weekend I have Rachel morning today, and I will likely use it to go to the gym and do some logistics.  I keep thinking it would be fun to do a swim on a Rachel morning but not wanting to book anything until I'm sure that's how I want to spend my time... then when I try to book the swimming is full.  I guess there have been enough mornings where I wished I was swimming so maybe I should just go ahead and book?

I am also working AGAIN on clothing improvement project.  l bought this new shirt, please ignore silly face:

I am excited to have another shirt because of the 3 I have been rotating, one now has a stain (waah!).  

This has to be another post on laundry because why are my clothes getting so stained all the time?  What am I doing wrong... besides having lots of kids.  And cooking with Olive Oil.  It's probably the oil.

Planning Summer - Magic is just labour, hidden well

I have mostly figured out the kids summer plans.  Next week my brother is coming to visit, and there are 2 days where I'm in work my mom and brother were watching the big kids while our nanny watches the twins (she could theoretically watch all 4, but that is a lot of kids, and honestly everyone has a better time with more age appropriate days).  

Yesterday I looked through a bunch of local events to draft up what the big kids could do on those days to keep them out of the house (I'm working from home) - they're going to a film (Toy Story 5), taking a boat trip, doing a litter pick from the library, and going to a bouncy castle.  I think the days should go well, but it definitely reminded me of Laura Vanderkam's saying "All magic is just labour, hidden well.  My mom and brother should have a good time, the kids should have a good time, the twins should have a good time, I should be able to get a day of work in.... and all it cost was an hour of my logistical planning during my very scarce childcare hours to make it happen.

And for a very random change of topic - San recently posted about situations where people may or not be... A**holes.  I love this post because I love seeing how people experience the world.  I think San is very similar to me in that she generally gives people the benefit of the doubt in situations, and we have both been told before that maybe others are *not* being their best selves.  Pop over to her post and ponder the question - are people A**holes?  Or very very unaware?  

Morning thoughts on the last week of school, sports day, teacher gifts, work focus (or not)

It is (finally) the last week of school.  Here are some last-week of school thoughts.

Weather, first on my mind:  It has been epicly sunny recently.  I do not remember the UK ever having this much sustained sunshine.  It's been hot but not too hot - even though it's getting to 80 every day it's also pretty dry and there is a breeze.  I have to put suncream on the kids daily.  Lily has lost two hats in school.  Ezra lost a hat at a birthday party but luckily I got it back.  It's warm.

Childcare: Our amazing Nanny is back full-time today after two half days. I've did two kid pick ups this week.  It turns out that when I pick up kids after a full day of watching twins I am tired and worn and filled with dread, but when I pick up kids after a day of work and then only have 2 hours of watching kids and twins before dinner I really enjoy it.  Interesting to know.

Sports Day Saga: Ezra and Lily finally had sports day - this was delayed twice due to rain and twice due to heat.  Sports Day is a British tradition where school kids compete in egg and spoon races and other random sports and parents come and watch and it's a BIG DEAL.  I knew about it before I had kids because many colleagues would take random half days from work because it was sports day.  

The schools usually split into 4 or so houses that all compete.  Sometimes it's hard for me to remember the difference between living in the UK and living in Harry Potter.  

Teacher Gifts: I joined WhatsApp again after a long absence and got added to the school group for Lily.  One of the moms sorted a present for the teachers via the chat, but besides that I'm fairly sure I'm going to leave all WhatsApp groups in August.  I can see where I will sort of need it for the PTA but mostly it seems unnecessary and I still prefer text.  

We bought £5 Starbucks gift cards for every teacher in the wraparound club the kids go to.  I know they don't get paid much and I so appreciate having wraparound care!  We will drop them off today with the card.

We also have £5 coffee vouchers to the outdoor teachers (PE/ART).  Ezra made the following card for his PE teacher:

Twins have their year end party for their Friday nursery, which is at 11:15 on Friday and has a raffle.  Do you love a school raffle? I do.  I feel like it's so much better than donating money when I might win a really random prize.  The only issues is I cannot tell if the 11:15 party has food. 

End of Year Wrap Up: I think we've returned all the school books to the school. We've also donated some furniture to the after school club.  The kids have loved the school lunches this week because they had sausages TWICE - I think they are using up all the leftover school food.   We've had a pile of art home for Ezra.  We returned bookbags and didn't get them back.

It's all winding down.  Or winding up? Hard to tell.

On Friday, to celebrate the last day of school, I've invited some kids from Lily's class over for Ice Cream after school.  Which means I need to get ice cream. And cones. And sprinkles.  

Everything feels fast and flexible right now, which is fun but not the best for focusing in work.  Maybe no one focuses in July?  I'm not sure August will be the month of focus either, but professionally I'm not sure it's great to achieve nothing from May to September (which is how I feel about my year).

Is school end a distant memory for you?  Do you achieve anything professionally in the summer or is it a write-off? Do you do teacher gifts, class WhastApps, or class parties?  Am I insane for inviting 5 people over for post-school Ice Cream or is it a major life hack because we don't have to leave the house?

Sunday Chat - this week in review: Lots of moving parts, tricky bedtimes, cute kids.

This week was another mixed work/childcare week.  One of the tricky parts of splitting childcare with the husband while I'm on a 4 day week is that he covers 2 days and I cover 2 days and then I have 2 day of work and 3 days of kids and that is a lot of kid days.

My work days were Monday/Tuesday this week.

On Wednesday my brother and I took Aubrey and Clara to a local farm / wildlife park.  It was cute but not £30 cute

On Thursday we went to a local splash pad and park.  This was a serious highlight for all:

Clara LOVES water

Aubrey is not so sure - she mostly liked getting her feet wet.

Unfortunately twins did not nap, which was no good very bad for me.  I set up outside Rice Play:

And then all the rice ended up on the patio and then Clara started eating it (it's 5 years old, and painted, and gross) and then everyone was sad.  Then I ran out of patience and we ended up watching some 4pm TV.

My brother came with us to the park, and at 3pm when twins were not napping he went for a nap.  He has been a huge help on this visit, but also helpful in realizing that the daily experience of managing small children is super exhausting.

Before he got here he was cycling 100km a day through France in 40 degree heat.  He says it's way more tiring to be here watching kids.  Touche.

On Friday twins had morning nursery and I enjoyed an hour of Rachel time by doing a strength workout.

Saturday was a family trip to the bike park.  We used to take Lily and Ezra here every weekend for toddler session but I find taking 4 kids to be fully overwhelming so I have not been.  Andy has taken the kids.  This trip had 3 adults (with brother) but it was still a fully overwhelming start as Aubrey scraped her chin on the ride from the parking to the trail.

I know I'm supposed to be more relaxed about kid injuries etc on kids 3 and 4 but I'm actually more stressed about it because I really don't have time to be in A&E for hours with one kid.  Plus there is enough crying as is without broken bones etc.

Still, it was cute.

I rode a blue trail with Ezra

And Lily and I played on the pump track too

At one point (not pictured) I found Clara riding a boardwalk section alone.  Andy was with Aubrey.  I guess that's fine?  Here's Lily on the boardwalk at a similar age, but Clara was going much faster because she is mental

I have very fond memories of the bike park, however I think they are mostly from when we paid £7 each for 2 kids to ride, and not £7 each for kids and then £13 for big kids and then £15 for adults.  We used to spend £14 for a morning, this trip was £60.  Not something we will be doing often unfortunately, but fun for a one off treat.

I can tell life is getting expensive.  I knew 4 kids would be expensive but would like it to wait until after we are done paying for childcare.

And today is Sunday.  I started with a Rachel Morning (YAY!) and went to the gym with my friend (impromptu, amazing!).  I have made a rough outline of my week and there are a lot of moving parts:

This week

• Nanny is coming back on Monday (yay!), but working short days Monday and Tuesday (at least)... So I have 1/2 days work on Monday & Tuesday
• My brother leaves on Wednesday
• Gym with Gym Buddy on Wednesday (haven't seen him since June!)
• School sports day on Wednesday, although hopefully canceled due to heat
• London with work on Thursday
• Last day of school on Friday & having people over for ice cream to celebrate

Things that are helping / things to remember

• Taking Floradix/vitamins/iron is a good idea all the time, not just when life is good
• Meal prepping salads to help get good nutrition in during the week
• 3 Strength, 3 Stretching, 1 Pilates is the sports goal
• Rachel day on Saturday - Yay

Twin Sleep

This is a whole different blog post but twin bedtime routines are still generally terrible, lasting around 2 hours.  This means that Andy and I get almost no time together, and that neither of us is able to leave the house in the evening anymore.  I also spend most of the day getting progressively more stressed about the awful bedtime we will get. 

I started a new strategy yesterday and I am sticking with it for a week - we finish bedtime routines, and then twins go to bed.  If they get out of bed, I put them back in.  Yesterday Aubrey figured it out in about 20 minutes, Clara still took over an hour, but I am hoping some consistent boredom will get them to go to sleep.  Bedtime battles suck. Wish me luck.

Right, that's a hodge podge post of the week! Time to stretch and shower and enjoy the last 40 minutes of Rachel Morning...

July Goals, New Month. Learning to Pivot is more important than learning to plan but also learning to plan was a 2026 goal of mine so here's a monthly plan.

"Just because this month looks different than I expected, there is no reason to just throw it out the window" wrote Sarah yesterday.

And it's true.  Things will be very different than planned this month without childcare, but it will still be a month, and all the nice thinking about July I did last week is actually still kind of relevant to the July that exists this week.

No one has died, no one is sick, no one is fired.  In the grand scheme of things this is such a minor blip in my professional life.  I've taken a combined 2.5 years of maternity leave at this point, and probably 3 months of day and half-day childcare leave over 8 years of being a parent, even if I miss 3 months of work (which I likely won't) this will be so... minor in the grand scheme.

(Even though I'm aware of the grand scheme, the tricky bit is going to be the day to day and my general proclivity to annoyance and childcare overwhelm.  It's all good while I post this blog during my 5 hour Rachel morning.  Let's see how I'm doing on Friday after 3 solid childcare days.)

Anyways, July still exists! I even did some color fun on my Sprouted Daily Planner:

I have to laugh at my "3 normal weeks, 1 camping week" assessment of July.  I guess this does show at that there are no normal weeks.

Hard Landscape of July:

• Date night 1st July
• School summer festival 3rd July --> attended! Fun!
• July 4th and Book Club (Tonight)
• 1 Office Day
• Andy Rachel Day Date Afternoon 11th July
• School Sports day 
• Last day of school July 17th

I've unfortunately had to cross off Andy and my dinner and our Saturday day date.  Another time.  We really don't have much grown up time at the moment.  There's not much that can be done about that, but I am slightly envious of all the "date night with my husband" people that exist (and I realize most of those don't have 2 year old twins hence the date nights are more possible)

July Goals 

• Strength train 2x a week
• Stretch 2-3x a week
• Pilates 1x a week
• Protected Rachel Time every Saturday, at least 4 hours
• Update all photo albums through March 2026 (Basically, February and March)
• Update family budget (I always do this, but I still leave it as a goal!)

I even made a tracker.  I am so proud of myself.  

Will I keep it up? Maybe.  Was it fun to make? Yes.

I'm not putting a goal to this, but I would like to sort out my eating. I've realized that when watching children, my food consumption is basically peanut butter and toast.  Who has time to make a salad while watching 2.5 year olds? Or a veggie scramble? not me.  It probably would be better to figure out how to eat some more nutritious meals, and so I'm toying with a week goal of meal prepping for myself.  But also, I am tired of making food and thinking about food all the time.  So it's not on my month goal list at the moment. Maybe August.

What's your July like? Any goals this month? Do you like a tracker?  

SAHM Survival days, one week down, it's cute but it is a lot.

I have now completed two full childcare days since I found out we don't have childcare for a few weeks. 

Wednesday was OK, I took them to toddler gymnastics and then to a park after nap.  

Thursday was... dull.  I realize that some people are stay at home parents and just do toddler things all the time but I do not understand how those people do it.  Twin toddler are cute an funny but by 10am my brain felt like it was rotting into oblivion.  Maybe I am just succumbing to hustle culture and I need to learn to slow down and do nothing and enjoy the moments etc etc...

I will post a DITL post about Thursday another day.  It looked cute on paper.

The good thing was that by 8pm I was completely exhausted so I went to bed and then got up at 4:30am so I could do some exercise before another twin childcare day.

I like to measure life on a scale of Good to Covid

Ezra was 18 months old at the start of covid, and Andy and I both worked 32 hours a week at the time.  We split up days as follows:

5am-7am: One parent free time for hobbies, other parent sort house and life admin.
7am-1pm, One parent watched Ezra.  Other parent worked
12:30pm Ezra went down for nap
12:30pm-6:30pm Morning work parent watched Ezra (hoping he stayed asleep to 1pm!) and other parent worked.
9pm-9pm: One parent free time for hobbies, other parent sort house and life admin.
9pm - everyone asleep

So really, right now is definitely more good than covid because we at least aren't trying to also work while watching twins at home?   But still, I don't know how we lived like that.

I also compare things on a scale of Good to Newborn Twins.  Right now is far easier than newborn twins.

BUT... it should be easier because we tried as hard as possible to get all our childcare needs met and also the twins are 2.5 and not newborn so there is no reason I should have to spend all day watching them put sticks into puddles and tell me they are wet.  I know they are wet.  A nursery teacher could tell you they are wet.

I have thought of a million ways to cope with the next few weeks but unfortunately really it's just going to be a bit of a struggle.  Andy and I are cobbling together split workweeks for next week and the week after.  I have emailed the twin's Friday nursery to ask if they could go any other mornings in the next 2 weeks.  Big kid's school finishes on 18th July and I'll probably take 2 weeks off after that.  And hopefully our brilliant nanny will be back after then.

I told my brother our predicament and he is flying in from France tomorrow to help, which is awesome.  Even if he can't totally watch the twins (honestly, I don't think anyone really wants to look after nappy age twins) he CAN make it way more fun for me to hang out with twins and also hopefully give me some downtime in my twin days.  

Also, I am particularly worried that when given the opportunity to go to work, my brain will not be able to focus, and then I will shame spiral out of my workday because it's very hard to PIVOT ON immediately from 3 days off for 2 days of productive normal work and then straight back into kid life for 3 more days

The only way through is through.  It's cute but it is a lot.

July 1st - Life Improvement Plans and Immediate Alternate Plans.

The year is half over.  That's crazy.

The first half of the year was a lot - both good and bad.  The travel was great, I went to Europe THREE times! The kids went 4 times! We proved we can travel as a family.  I can tell I'm going to love traveling with my kids when they are all at least the age of my oldest.  

Work was a bit... unfocused.

My general resources felt a bit... depleted.  Especially in the last 2 months.  I think I got carried along with all the travel planning and adventuring that I never really had time to stop/rest/reflect/recalibrate and all that important stuff.

Last week I did some lovely planning and goal setting for the next half of the year.  I felt like I finally had all the pieces in place for things to improve, for more Rachel time, for better work output.  For living a bit more intentionally than reactively.

And then on Monday brilliant nanny had an unfortunate accident which means she can't work at the moment, and we're not sure when she's going to be back.  I don't want to vague blog but it's not my story. I do know a colleague of mine had a similar injury and was back in work 2 weeks later, however her work involved typing and sitting while nannying involves physically managing small children, so I'm not sure how this will all play out.

The weird thing is, while I'm sad for her and hope she recovers quick, the sudden disappearance of all childcare doesn't even feel stressful anymore. It just feels like this is exactly the chaos that I have been in for years and it's almost easier to be in the thick of it than on the other side.  It's easier to not plan and vision and instead live life a week at a time in the gaps in between watching toddlers and then more watching toddlers.

Someone asked if Andy and my work is flexible.  It turns out, any job can be flexible when you tell your employer "this is my situation and I can't come in".  I doubt I'm going to get fired, but I also don't know how much work I'll miss.  

I had a July onward goal to do exercise 3x a week, and maybe I can fit that into the twin days during their 1 hour nap.  Today I spent naptime catching up on work.  That's not sustainable longer term, because I definitely can't condense my 32 hour workweek into two days and 3 hours of nap.

Yesterday I was in work in London all day and I had my best work day in ages.  It felt a bit like celebrating on the edge of a volcano, knowing that childcare was going to fall apart today.  And tonight Andy and I are going out to dinner (it was booked ages ago, at a pop up restaurant!).  We can toast to the end of life as we know it.

Edited to add: It is now tonight and the twins didn't fall asleep until after our reservation and so we did not go out to dinner at a pop up restaurant, instead we spent a £30 deposit to not get dinner.  Again, this feels par for the course.

I guess, because blog posts need to end on some sort of positive note, I will add that yesterday I was on a train with 3 super nice doctors from our local hospital who work in paediatric oncology and it made me think that no matter how tired and grumbly and annoyed I am, I am also super thankful that I never have to see anyone in that field.  After our train ride the ladies said "nice to meet you, hope you never see us again".  They were lovely and I agree.