Seaside Saturday

We have had a busy weekend! We spent Saturday at Clacton-on-sea as my mums side of the family (which is huge) all hired caravans for the weekend, so we gatecrashed for the day on Saturday. Jacob slept absolutely terribly on Friday night, he was up at 3am and that was it. Awake for the day. The drive to Clacton was about an hour and a half so we'd arranged to leave at ten which is Jacobs nap time and hoped he would sleep the whole way. He managed to hold out until ten which really surprised me seeing as he was up at 3. Although he was extremely grumpy! He's totally gone off cereal for breakfast too and will only eat his toast or chocolate chip brioche. I bought some of those Innocent Kids smoothies on sunday so hopefully he will like those so I know he's at least getting something good in him in the mornings! I think he's still teething as he has been extra dribbly and the bibbles have come out again! They ruin all of his nice outfits as they don't really match and I don't want to buy loads more as he has so many. Just none seem to match!
We took Jacob to the seafront in Clacton. Its mostly a pebble beach but he absolutely loved it! He kept trying to go into the sea, and loved the water running up over his feet. He was so excited and actually managed to run around on the sand and pebbles. Not bad considering he's only been walking a few weeks! Although he does think he's some kind of Olympic sprinter now so we've had lots of bumps and bruises recently!
We spent most of the afternoon at my mums caravan with all the family and Jacob seemed to really enjoy himself, which was quite surprising with so many people there. He had quite a late night too by the time we left so was quite unsettled most of the night, but he stayed in his own bed all night which was brilliant.

Lou and Aaron asked if they could take Jacob out for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon. They've looked after him before so I wasn't worried at all. And he loves them so was more than happy to go! Rich and me went to Tesco on our own which was really weird! Jacob came back all ready for a nap after Lou's dad played football with him and he was running around her garden but he decided sleep was not on the cards! He has been so funny with sleeping still and his naps are all over the place. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!!! 

More celebrating and a new trick...

We had a little birthday gathering for Rich on Saturday. Nothing big and fancy, just a BBQ at home with family and a few of Rich's friends. Rich got a new BBQ for his birthday so he couldn't wait to try it out. It was a really lovely day. I can't believe how much food everybody ate! We bought so much and everyone who came brought something too and nearly everything got eaten. Jacob enjoyed lots of birthday cake, and managed to make so much mess with his dinner. Jacob didn't nap all day because so much was going on and if he misses his naps we know we are in for a bad night usually. He kept waking up every hour or so after going to bed around 7pm, then once we went to bed around 11, he just would not settle back off so I gave in and brought him into our bed. I absolutely love having him in there because he can be so cuddly and I used to love just laying with him when he was tiny and didn't constantly want to run away from me. But on the other hand, I do really try not to do it unless it is a total last resort because I don't sleep well if he's in our bed and it can take a few days of controlled crying to get him to stay back in his own room. Which I hate doing!!! So many people have such different opinions on controlled crying, and I refused to ever do it for around a year. But when Jacob was still having a nighttime bottle out of habit and was waking at 4am screaming to get up, I thought we'd give it a go. And after two really horrendous nights and almost giving up because I felt like the worst mother in the world (and I was petrified my neighbours thought I was neglecting him!) he slept through on the third night. Which was amazing. He very rarely sleeps right through still as he normally wakes up and cries if he can't find his dummy. Which can sometimes be once or sometimes be five or six times. I'm sure he will sleep through one day...when he's 25 or something!

Enjoying dinner...

CAKE!

The dreaded moment when Jacob takes out his own eye happened yesterday. It is far too small now so has so much room to move around and if he rubs it, it can move so easily, and as we found yesterday, come out. He managed to get it out twice before we even left the house yesterday morning, but he was only on our bed so it was easy to find. We were on our way home from Tesco in the car when I turned round to say something to Jacob because he was in the back waffling away, to which I was greeted with a one eyed little monster. He was sitting there chuckling away, obviously because it doesn't make any difference to him whether he's got it in or not. So I was in the back of the car scrambling around for this tiny little prosthetic eye. It made me laugh because of all funny experiences with your children, I never thought one of mine would be searching for my sons little plastic eye because he had managed to take it out and launch it across the back seat of the car. I cannot wait until Friday so he has his new one! 

We ended up staying home today as yesterday was so chaotic for Jacob and after last nights horrendous nights sleep I thought we better try and have a more settled day. We had a family roast dinner and as always Jacob shovelled away everything on his plate. The boy eats anything which is so amazing as a lot of kids who've had chemo can tend to become fussy eaters. Rich is an unbelievably fussy eater and I'll eat anything so I was determined for Jacob to be the same and enjoy his food. Plus it's an excuse for me to make more fancy stuff for us! Like we do most Sundays, we went to feed the ducks in the pond just up the road from our house. Jacob always tries to climb over the edge into the pond, so you have to have eyes in the back of your head as he's so quick now! 

He's gone to bed quite good so let's hope tonight is a better night!!! 

Snuggling Ralph.

Today was Ralph's last day with us! I'm sad to see him go! 

My little piggy.

The boys at the duck pond.

My world. 

<3