Rainy days and Mondays

don't bother me that much.

I don't like rainy days in the summer, but in the autumn, well, you expect rain and I can live with it. It's rained in epic proportions for most of the afternoon and it's still coming down now.

My lovely sister-in-law, E, has just phoned to tell me that she and her boyfriend got engaged this weekend and will probably be getting married next September. We are absolutely thrilled for the pair of them and can't wait to celebrate with them. As luck would have it, we are headed up to them in a month's time to celebrate an important birthday for E (cough, 30, cough!) so no doubt we'll be breaking out the champagne then.

Before then, of course, I have two birthday boys of my own to contend with and one more shortly afterwards. I realised, as I paged through the calendar, that there are exactly five weeks between Dan and Jack's birthdays, with Luke's falling inbetween. Still, given that their due dates were all in the same week (Oct 25th, 28th and 31st) a five week spread of birthdays is pretty respectable! A friend had her third baby boy this weekend and looking at her photos took me straight back to Dan's early days.

I'll be back sooner than usual for a birthday blog for Daniel. :-)

School run mum

September's here and I'm back on the school run.

Luke started school in Reception with Mrs M and Jack has Mrs T this year. They've been back a week and a day and both seem really settled in. Here are my two smart schoolboys.

I think Dan is missing them though. Several days this week he has seemed on the verge of going to sleep on the school run, but once he catches sight of them, he perks up again and makes it through until bedtime.

This photo is partly for Marie, if she's reading, so that she can admire his taste in books and partly for anyone else to say things like "wow, when did he get so big?" Dan will be one in a few weeks time and is definitely losing his babyishness. Two weeks after that, Luke will be 5 and three weeks after that, Jack will be 7, so the party season is truly upon us.

It is very strange to think that this time a year ago I was so close to delivering, without knowing it. For those who don't know, Dan was born a month early due to an infection and was initially pretty poorly for a couple of days. Thanks to fantastic care and antibiotics, he then started to improve really well and we were out of hospital just over a week after he was born. I was used, once upon a time, to telling the story of Jack's delivery as though it had been great drama and woe -it took Dan's delivery to make me realise that there are worse things than being in labour for a couple of days.