A sunny weekend and the best house guests

Last week our amazing friend Nikita came to stay with us with her daughter Lola for a long weekend. They'd come down to the Island to visit a couple of times last summer, but this was the first time that Arlo and Lola had hung out and been old enough to really acknowledge each other. Watching them together really gave us the warm and fuzzies. The sun shone, Lola learnt how to say 'Aaaaar-loo', Arlo learnt how to crawl as fast as Lola could toddle, and they both spent a lot of time chasing each other round and round the house. They are BFFs already and it's just so lovely to see.

Having a house with two babies in it is really different to having a house with one baby in it. That may sound obvious, but there were lots of pros and cons to having them spending their days together, and it inevitably got me thinking about what it would be like to have two all the time, and if Arlo had a little sibling to boss around and throw food at and make laugh on a regular basis.

The good stuff: they make each other smile and giggle all day long, amuse themselves, play games and keep each other busy (ish). They also totally knacker each other out which was amazing - tired babies sleep really well, which makes for nice evenings for us. But what also happened was that the house was even more of the following than it usually is (and it usually is): noisy, messy, covered in smushed banana. I'm not really bothered about all that stuff, but it did feel like we needed to be a bit more on the ball than usual. If one's napping then it's a fairly safe bet that the other isn't, so goodbye to collecting your thoughts (as well as tidying, washing, drinking coffee, trying to quickly apply blusher in a bid to look remotely normal/ alive-looking) during nap times. It was wonderful to see them together but looking after two between the three of us was hard work too.

Conclusion: one baby is enough to keep us busy. For now. But frequent house guests are the best. Our little house felt all quiet and empty after they left. Come back soon Nik and Lolly!