September in Review - One Month in One Post

September was a wild month.

Lily turned 6!

I flew to New York

I got back from New York and had a 2-day workweek, followed by a long weekend with Lily's birthday party among other adventures.

Our nanny was on holiday the next week... another 2-day workweek for me (not ideal!) and 3 days of childcare (also not ideal).  I tracked time for Laura's Time Tracking Challenge and she gave me some great feedback and ideas for surviving a childcare free week.  Mostly that I need to find some backup babysitters.  Anyone know any south wales based babysitters?

Everyone survived though, and it was fun to do some toddler things.  Obviously we hit up gymnastics

Over the weekend I took all 4 kids to St. Fagans Museum BY MYSELF while Andy had a bike ride (I went climbing with a friend on Saturday, so this was the trader-off).  St Fagans has my favourite swing ever.  I don't think they built it just my family but 2 big-kid swings and 2 little-kid swings is perfect for a family of 7 / 6 / 2 & 2 year old kids:

The next weekend We celebrated Andy's Birthday, of course I will not say how old he is because that would be rude...

Then Andy did an all day bike ride and I watched all the kids all day and it wasn't so bad! I picked up one of Lily's friends in the morning and took her to Lego Club with us at the library.  There was a sign on the wall that said "do not leave children unattended" which I thought was funny because one or more of my children are always unattended.  Two year old twins instantly means one does not have enough attending. 

On the Sunday we visited friends we haven't seen for over a year and a half and it was super nice to see them again.  We played in the forest and built a hut and had more cake

THIS WEEK

On Tuesday I went to London with work.  It was great to go away and the hotel was super nice (as in, it was not a Premier Inn... but anyone who stays in nice hotels would probably not think it was super nice... I guess I should say it's nicer than I'm used to!).  I went out to dinner with colleagues and met with people that were nice to see in person.

On Wednesday I was in the London office in the morning and then took the train back to Cardiff and went to a hipster wine and cider bar to meet Andy for a date night!  A year ago I booked tickets to the Banff Mountain Film Festival.  We went to the film festival in November 2025 because Kyria was over and I asked if she could babysit and she was a great sport and did! I remember it was a bit tricky getting out (twins were good-ish sleepers but I wanted to make sure they were down before we left) and we got to the show 5 minutes before it started and it was all quite... rushed.  And also awesome! I booked tickets for this year because I figured that in a year life would be easier.

And then, honestly, kid stuff got much harder for about a year.  But our lovely Nanny agreed to work straight through to bedtime and so Andy and I met in town and she managed to do a 4 kid dinner and bedtime and we got back to an empty dishwasher and sleeping kids and it was amazing.  And now that we know she can run a 4 kid dinner and bedtime (FYI, I basically cannot run a 4 kid dinner and bedtime, so this is totally impressive of her) we can start to pick some more future date nights.

Then September was over.

I have basically stopped tracking things (ie sport) so I feel I can't do a "september by the numbers" but I do love those.  I did about 2 weeks of good Peloton workouts.  I did mostly track my food and sometimes not.  

I read two books, both good.  Road to Tender Hearts was really nice and in another stage of life I would probably have found it more memorable.  It was a fun read.

September was busy and chaotic.  October is busy too, but I'm really hoping it will be a routine-based busy and not a chaos based busy.  I can do chaos, I don't love it though.