Charlie is enjoying standing up and moving himself from one support to the next (cruising). And discovering the disadvantage of getting up higher is there's further to fall. He has some handsome bruises from a disagreement with a dining chair!

Philip has a place at the local maintained (i.e. free) nursery school from November (after his 3rd birthday). Everyone says it's lovely, and it's less than 5 minutes walk away, so we were quite keen for him to take up a place if offered. It's an afternoon place which isn't ideal as he's still sleeping some afternoons at the moment, and it's not his sharpest time, but he'll probably be more on the go by then. The really daft thing about these nursery places is they're only 2 1/2 hours which means you have to find childcare to fit around it if you're working. Luckily, it looks like the childminder that has Charlie can take Philip too and take him to nursery and back. She has another toddler a bit younger than Philip too so she's going to be busy :-)

Still battling with Philip with the sharing thing. Had a lovely time with the boys this evening though all bashing musical instruments together. Ed reckons I don't have to make even more noise than them but I was enjoying myself!

The beginning of week 2 of "the return to work". Which is of course a misleading phrase. All I am doing is swopping some of the work of worrying about nappies and child entertainment for drawings, reports and talking about trains in an office. The hope is that it's a swop we can all cope with.

Charlie continues to seem very settled with the childminder and arrives home cheeky as ever, if somewhat overtired. This evening he gave big hugs to everyone. Philip seems to enjoy nursery and arrives home very talkative and assertive, and also tired. Ed and I make a big effort not to appear harrased, to listen to and read stories and sometimes have energy left over to cook dinner.

In fact today went quite smoothly after a fairly early start. Philip and I were at the nursery on the dot of opening time and I was in work 15 mins early. I spent some of the day doing a computer work station assessment to check I'm sitting correctly at my desk, sorting yet more e-mails accumulated during my years leave and at a team meeting - so not too much technical nitty gritty, resulting in a clearer head than last week. Current project, just for the record, is "as built" drawings for a railway improvement scheme that'll open next week near Hull.