After having some initial successes at blogging at fairly regular intervals, I managed to have the usual life backlash. In other words one, two or even all three of the baby, the missus and myself would be unwell for a time, sometimes one illness rolling into another.

Then we would have a return to the bad old days of cack sleep from the toddler, knackering everyone out. And of course when he got an illness we felt it best to keep him away as much as possible from the Nanny’s toddler. Which meant I was looking after him for more days – tiring me out even more. And so I would become susceptible to illnesses…. And the cycle began again.

It would be a little foolish to think that we’ve broken that (only last night he woke up at 1.30 and didn’t got back to sleep properly for an hour and a half), but I am going to schedule blogging a bit more to try and work around these problems.

Wish me luck!!

There have been ups and downs, of course there has, but we’ve ridden them all confident in the choice we made to be with each other.

We’ve not joined the ranks of the married couple as yet, but cannot rank this as being as important as our relationship and our child. I’ve always been of the same opinion, that marriage isn’t as important as the actual relationship.

I’ve seen and heard of relationships that get focused on a marriage, in fact focused on a wedding day, without first making sure that the foundations of their relationship are strong enough, that all the imperfections are not papered over, but accepted and known of. It’s sad when these relationships collapse, but it’s also easy to see the writing on the wall in hindsight when the focus is on a day, an event, a wedding – a celebration of something that barely exists.

Seven years ago Blair had just been to be buddy-buddy with Gadaffi. It’s amazing how the world changes.

It’s amazing how I look forward to the next 7 years, and more.

As a family we have been financially scraping by for a while, supported by family in no small part. These last few days have brought news that suggest that not only will the scraping by continue, but it may get worse.

With all these scrapes, things might be getting scrappy.

This is a lesson we learnt by the middle of the week. As the stay-at-home dad I treat weekends as a certain amount of a break. I look after the boy until 11am every weekday, and on all but 2 days a week I also look after him for the rest of the day. So on weekends I delegate responsibility, and I decided to continue that into the start of the week.

Unfortunately my version of delegation is a bit too subtle so we end up just drifting along doing very little, not helped by the little ones bad sleeping pattern at the moment.

We managed to get past all of that though and had a great final few days of the week, including a lovely time in Richmond Park that was only slightly spoilt by the failure of the sun to break through the clouds. My personal fave moment then was seeing the little one, recently found stick in hand, running towards the birds (not in a chasing way, just fascinated). He looked like a little savage stalking prey. That’s my boy!

We also managed to get to the Wacky Warehouse in Greenford on one of the days which was great fun. He generally loved all the soft-play things, clambering around, though wasn’t as happy with the deep ball-pools which he would slowly disappear into…

Rounding out the week with our usual visit to Monkey Music, but this time with Mummy, made it a good birthday week for me overall.

The other half is taking the week off and we are planning on doing lots of things with the little boy, out and about. So I won’t be posting much this week. Enjoy the break!

Well for that I am now sorted, as I was lucky enough to win a Filofax Family Lifestyle pack from the Mothers Who Works website (http://www.motherswhowork.co.uk). Here is the info from their website:

“To help manage multiple schedules, a special week-to-view diary provides an overview of personal and family plans at a glance, while a whole host of useful features spread over 330 pages includes everything from a birthday party checklist to meal planners; and reminders on everything from your children’s sports activities to your pet’s vaccinations!

The best-selling Filofax Domino organiser comes with a super-practical elastic closure – making it easy to preserve its sleek and trendy good looks.

Inside, you’ll discover that each page in the Lifestyle Pack has been organised to make your life as simple as possible. For example, shopping lists are conveniently arranged into food groups and there are simple sheets to fill out which provide a babysitter with all the information they need without you having to write them an essay!”

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At the moment there are lots of things in there that aren’t much use to us – a toddler is unlikely to attend many sports meetings. However that doesn’t mean that they won’t come in useful in the future!

Read more here.

Yesterday we got a call to say the course was cancelled, due to lack of uptake. Now it’s disappointing to me that all our plans are messed up, and I won’t be able to take this course that I was looking forward to. But also I’m disappointed that apparently there aren’t enough people who want to learn about better ways to feed their baby and toddlers.

I know the price isn’t cheap, and maybe River Cottage shot themselves in the foot with that one as this is a new course and maybe an introductory price or invitations to parenting bloggers would help to kickstart interest, but still. There were only 20 places that needed filling, well 19 after I had booked.

BTW the River Cottage website still has the course for sale. So these are the reasons why, for me, despite loving the programmes and books they make, River Cottage = FAIL.

In the meantime check out the video for Jake’s single –