I haven’t had much of a chance to post this week, things have been a bit hectic.

Daniel started the week a bit off colour and not his usual chirpy self. I put it down to teething but on Wednesday he started vomiting every hour at least and didn’t seem to be able to keep any food down at all.

Rachel did this a lot when she was a baby. She seemed to catch some sort of vomiting bug every month. We were so worried that we brought her to the doctor quite a few times. We have since worked out that she gets like this any time she has the slightest temperature, so it was probably all teething related. It appears that Daniel is going to follow in her footsteps.

Jake on the other hand has decided to use his pee as a weapon against us!

Jake has been dry during the day for 4-5 months with very little accidents. We have been lazily putting off training him at night despite the fact that most mornings his Huggies Pull Up Pants were dry or almost dry.

Well they were up until this week! This week Jake has not only begun to wake up with his nappy soaked right through to his pyjamas, but he is also having accidents at each nap time and has had a few while outside playing with Rachel.

He used to get really upset every time he had an accident, now he thinks it is funny. We decided to take the plunge and put him to bed without the pull ups tonight and he stood at the stair gate and called us repeatedly to take him to the toilet, even though he didn’t need to go. But the little tinker just knew that we wouldn’t take the risk of him wetting himself again.

I think that he is either using his toilet habits as a way of getting attention, or he has just gotten lazy. Maybe both.

Hopefully if we perservere for a few nights (or weeks) we can remedy this. But with all the wet bed clothes, vomit covered blankets, babygros, soiled trousers etc my washing machine has been on continuosly. I thank the lord that I was not a mother 50 years ago with no washing machine and no tumble drier. That would be hell on earth!

The day begins at 6.30am with a cry from Jake that his shorts are wet. I get up to discover his Huggies pull-up pants and pyjamas are wet through. He gets washed and changed and joins me on the sofa for a few quiet minutes cuddled under a blanket before the other two wake up.

The quiet moment passes quickly with the arrival of Rachel at 7am. She demands breakfast and complains because we have run out of Weetabix. A fruit salad and some toast later we have two full and happy children. The I hear Daniels tell-tale babbling in the baby monitor.

I lift him to discover that his diarrhea has not yet abated and quickly strip off his clothes, bedclothes and nappy and scrub him down.

The morning continues with all the children (and me of course) getting washed and dressed. I begin to prepare for the important meeting we have later that afternoon with a marketing consultant by printing out vital documents and emails while frantically serching for my car keys and purse.

11.30am and we are ready to leave. A friend is going to kindly drop Rachel to school so I leave her off first then embark on the 15 mile drive to Belfast.

After stopping for some vital groceries I arrive at my mothers house in time to be vomited on by Daniel. Of course I haven’t brought a change of clothes, and I don’t think that smelling of stale vomit would convey a very professional image to the marketing consultant. So I run about in my bra trying to wash out and then dry my top before the goop dries in.

2pm, both boys are washed and fed, Jake is watching Shrek, Daniel is sleeping. It is time for me to hand over to my mum and set off on my 20 mile journey to Antrim.

I arrive on time, the meeting begins and we start to talk about how we intend to launch our first ever product, a set of preschool educational flashcards. (Feel free to purchase a set, I can highly recommend them!)

We explain how Gerard hand-illustrated the cards for use with Rachel when she was younger and we found them so beneficial in developing her early conversational skills and now her word recognition and reading skills, that we felt we could produce them commercially and turn them into a viable business venture.

The consultant spent almost three hours suggesting ways in which we could promote and market the product, most of which would cost way more than we can afford. It was highly informative though and definately a worthwhile experience.

We got home at 6pm, made dinner, got everyone washed and ready for bed, then collapsed in a heap in front of our PCs to try and plan the way ahead.

I wonder what tomorrow will hold?

I don’t like The Pill. Never have. I don’t want to pump hormones into my body, I don’t want to increase my chances of getting breast cancer, I don’t want to put on a ton of weight.

For these reasons and also the fact that it can be so ineffective I have never used The Pill as a method of birth control.

We have always relied on charting my time of the month and condoms. My first two pregnancies were planned but my third was a complete surprise and evidence that condoms can be useless too!

We now find ourselves in a bit of a dilemna. I don’t want to take the pill, especially as I am still breastfeeding Daniel. Gerard has been on the waiting list for a vastectomy for the last year and is not likely to get an appointment with the consultant for at least six months and then he will have to wait just as long for the actual operation.

So what do we do. Daniel is now 8 months old, by the time both Rachel and Jake had turned one I was already pregnant again. I am starting to panic about history repeating itself. Not just because I don’t want another baby, but also because due to my tendency to develop severe SPD I don’t think my body could cope with another pregnancy.

I would like to try some natural means of contarception, something that doesn’t involve hormones being pumped into my already unhealthy body. I would feel much more at ease if I had some added protection instead of just condoms. But what? My GP hasn’t any good suggestions, maybe I’ll google it when I get a minute.

Just the other day my mother and I were discussing the obvious benefits of breastfeeding and pondering as we often do why more people don’t give it a try.

I mentioned that like Esther at All Things Creative, I always found the first few weeks very difficult. No matter what position I tried to feed my baby in I always ended up in great pain, with cracked and bleeding nipples.After the birth of Daniel I was even tempted to give up and try bottle feeding for a change.

However each time, as soon as my baby turned 3 1/2 weeks, the pain disappeared as if by magic and from then on breastfeeding was the easiest and most beautiful experience in the world.

My mum, in her infinite wisdom, came up with a great analogy for the process. She believes that breatsfeeding is like learning to play the guitar. Stick with me it makes sense in the end (kinda).

When you begin to play the guitar you end up with very painful and blistered fingertips, caused by holding the strings for too long. But after a few weeks of practice your fingertips form callouses and the pain disappears. In my mothers mind breastfedding is very much the same thing.

I don’t like the thought of calloused nipples though……not very sexy at all!

While watching the children play outside my mums mobile home today, we were accosted by a brood of very loud ducks.

A river runs right past her caravan site and every now and then the ducks come up to be fed. Normally our kids can’t get their bread quick enough but today they were a little afraid.

Rachel asked me why the ducks were fighting, and sure enough when I looked, two of the ducks did seem to be quacking very loudly while pecking and jumping at one another. I told the kids to stay away and then drew my mums attention to the spectacle.

She laughed and pointed out that the ducks were in fact not fighting but engaging in “an act of love”.

I felt like I was about 3 years old! I’m sure that she, like me will be telling her friends this evening about the silly things her daughter said today and laugh at the innocence of it all.

It’s nice to know we don’t grow out of being naive!

For weeks our wee man has been rolling around on the floor. He could spin in circles and get to where he wanted to go by rolling over and over. But tonight, just as we were watching Coronation Street and enjoying some of the childrens Easter Egg, Gerard noticed Daniel chasing the balloon.

We watched in amazement as Daniel pulled himself forward in a bid to grab the evasive balloon, but each time he reached it, it slid from his grasp and he had to go after it again.

All this was done with a lot of grunting and moaning but as soon as he finally got the balloon he collapsed on top of it and began to lick it vigourosly!

It was one of those moments where you realise that nothing will be the same again. We are going to have to re-childproof our house (I think I’ll be popping over to LuckyMom for some tips!), as in the last two years since Jake was crawling we have definately let our standards slip. The cupboard locks are broken, we have fitted automatic closers on all our doors, and many of Rachel and Jakes toys have hundreds of little bits that can be easily choked on.

More importantly Daniel, who will probably be our last baby, has taken his first steps towards independance. Our baby is growing up. Its really hard to believe and sometimes to cope with the idea that this is the last time we will do all this……..

As a follow-up to my post on recycled gifts I thought I would also cover ways to make the most of retail sales.

I am always on the lookout for reduced items when i am out shopping. If I see a shop with a sale I am always on the lookout for possible gifts. My weekly groceries from Tesco or Asda are often supplemented by gift sets, toiletries, books and toys.

Although I plan my gifts for family and close friends very carefully and try to get them something specific that I think they will love, for people like teachers and aquaintances sale goods can save me a fortune.

I always have some emergency gifts in storage if I need them, and they don’t cost me an arm and a leg. I also stock up on gift bags and wrapping paper so that I am never unprepared!

We have spent most of this Easter break either at Gerard’s Mums house in Ballycastle (a beautiful Irish coastal town) or at my Mums mobile home in Waterfoot (a beautiful Irish coastal village).

We all enjoyed some much-deserved time off and some great quality time together as a family. It was the stuff that memories are made of.

Today my Mum and I took the kids to the beach for a few hours to run off some energy. The weather was great for an Irish April day. It was sunny and mild but not particularly warm.

We set off, buckets and spades in hand and began by building sandcastles, which Rachel wanted to decorate, Jake wanted to demolish and Daniel just wanted to eat. There was a lot of fighting, some crying and some gagging, but we worked it out by digging a mote around the castle and sending Rachel and Jake off with their buckets to get some water. For 20 minutes they watched the water disappear into the sand and ran to refill and pour again.

As the minutes passed, the children’s clothes seemed to fall off! At first it was their socks and shoes, then they had their trousers rolled up, next the trousers were off, then the t-shirts. Before we knew it, both of them were running up and down the beach in their see-through white underwear, oblivious to the cold.

Daniel’s first encounter with sand was hilarious. He freaked as soon as I took his socks and shoes off and he felt the sand beneath his toes and he tried to pull himself back onto my knee. Slowly he became more confident and began to touch the sand, then eat the sand and of course as Karen Walrond at Blogging Baby predicts he rubbed it into his eyes again and again and again!

When it was time to leave, I couldn’t put Rachel and Jake’s clothes back on as they were saturated, but as the dip in the ocean was rather impromptu I hadn’t brought any dry outfits. So I hunted our van for some spare clothes, and my children ended up leaving the beach with Jake in a Batman dressing-gown, Rachel in a green top and purple skirt both of which were given to me by a friend and are at least two years away from fitting her. They looked like a pair of clowns.

They came home exhausted and hopefully they will sleep well tonight. I know I will!

Over on Parenting Ideas today is listed some tips to help parents save some cash.

One that I use frequently is recycling gifts. Very often my kids are bought clothes that do not fit them, or that they grow out of before they wear, they also receive at least a few duplicate toys and games each year.

I never throw these out. Rather I keep them in my ‘gift box’ and sooner or later an occasion arises when I can repackage them as a gift for someone else.

Obviously I don’t do this for my closest friends or family. But when Rachel gets invited to one of her friends many birthday parties, quite often I can save myself some money by wrapping a something from my gift box rather than purchasing something new.

Also if a mum from school or mother and toddler group has a new baby, I may just have the perfect gift for them.

I don’t see it as being tight fisted or mean. Just a way of recycling something that would be of more use to someone else.

Does anyone else have any good money saving tips?

I have spent along time trying to cook baked potatoes. I love them in restaurants but every time I cook them at home they are hard in the middle no matter how long I leave them in the oven.

Last night for the first time I got it right!

Here is what I did. I microwaved them first! Simple isn’t it, 18 minutes in the microwave, then 15 minutes in the oven at 200 degrees centigrade and they come out crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy inside.

Gerard and I enjoyed them with some chicken and pepper sauce, while Jake loved them with baked beans.

What culianry masterpiece shall I attempt next? Maybe I’ll learn how to poach an egg!