Pfff. Hi. December is a lot, isn’t it?

When it comes to parenting at Christmas, I’m influenced by various things, most importantly, my faith, which means the season is not just all about presents and Santa.

But I have also been influenced by a movement called MyFirstFiveYears. I listened to all their podcasts when Sophia was about 1, and they had some really helpful advice about Christmas. Christmas is really overwhelming for everybody, especially little kids. That’s why I try to keep Christmas low-key and not hype Sophia up for weeks on end. We even very deliberately have three different times of opening presents. We do a Thorpe Christmas with Nathan’s side of the family, a Richards Christmas with mine, and an Aintree Christmas on Christmas Day, just us. These are spaced across several days because, as the folks on MyFirstFiveYears say, it’s just too overwhelming to open all those presents and see all those people at once.

Very sensible, you may say.

And yet, for a few days now, Sophia has woken up in the morning and cried, saying how tired she is. She’s been difficult to get dressed. She changes her mind about what breakfast she wants or what drink she fancies. She’s not wanted to go out. Admittedly, she’s been under the weather. But tonight I spent an hour getting her down, and for at least ten minutes of it, she was shouting at me, telling me ‘you’re not NICE Mummy!’.

This is just not like her at all. I’ve been reflecting on it, and I think there’s just something in the air at this time of year. I can try and keep it all as low-key as I like, but sparkly lights, and Christmas ads, and extra bits of chocolate are just everywhere. Not to mention the anticipation of this big exciting thing that everybody keeps talking about! Daddy’s super busy, and although I’m not, I am looking after her baby brother who is still relatively very new.

So, tonight, we had a really tricky bedtime. Aidan, being the chilled lad that he is, was feeding away with all this going on. In the end, I said ‘lie down, please, or I’ll go and get Daddy’. ‘Yes, get Daddy!’. Oh damn. Daddy was at church for the brass band concert. But amazingly, about a minute later, he walked through the door because it was the interval. So, Nathan was able to come and have a little chat, back me up, and tuck her back in bed (which I could not do because I was feeding).

Eventually, she fell asleep, and I gratefully accepted a mug of mulled wine from Nathan and helped myself to my third marzipan flavoured, chocolate coated, Christmas tree shaped icecream of the week (yes, I do know it’s only Tuesday…).

So there we are. It can be tricky with two. But it’s not all bad. We’ve been to Enchanted at Knowsley Safari with Polly & Martin. We had a lovely chilled day on Saturday during the storm while Sophia got over her bug, watching films in our PJs. On Sunday, we went to ASSF, then the Chinese in Formby, then the Wreathing Service where Sophia was an angel. Today, Aidan came with me to get my fringe cut. He wasn’t very impressed. It’s definitely not all bad.

We also hit another milestone: Aidan is 3 months old, smiling and cooing away!

What Sophia said: One bedtime (not tonight), she was pretending to read a book to herself and she said ‘Once upon a time there was a girl called Mummy and she was cold and missa-bull’. I’m hoping that she’s heard me talking about the weather, rather than thinking I’m a cold and miserable person. But after the evening I’ve had, who knows?!

More next week x

PS Since drafting the above, she’s woken up crying for me and says that she isn’t cross any more. Hooray!