Poo

Tom had us awake and seeing to him when we went to bed, but settled down and surprisingly we didn't hear from him until I went in to get him at 7 (I felt sure we were in for a bad night).

He had a good breakfast and a very good play - full of energy and then went for a nap. When I went into his room to get him up, I could smell that his nappy needed changing. I opened him up and found a lake of poo. The biggest to date - oh my god! I ended up having to get Matt up to help as he was putting his hand in it and then trying to eat it! (It got all over his cheek - yuck!) We ended up hosing him down in the shower to get him clean. It confirmed the fact that he isn't 100% at the moment. Let's hope it's his one and only!

As you all know, I am going to try to set up a celebration cake business. However, it has been proving almost impossible to get organised whilst looking after Tom 24/7. It has got better since he has been sleeping properly, but still it has been almost impossible to find time to put together some marketing material, cost analysis etc. As Tom is now over one, we've decided to enrol him into a nursery, starting with 2 mornings a week. It should be good for his social skills and will give me time to try to get organised.

I made a couple of calls earlier this week and made appointments to see two nurseries today. First one was in Hollinswood (where Abi goes). I really didn't know what to expect, having never seen a nursery before, I was also a little clueless with questions to ask. A member of staff showed me round. I wasn't wholly impressed. The baby room was tiny and included cots, so babies would have to sleep in the same room as play was happening. They had an outside play area, but it was shared with the attached school, meaning it couldn't be used during school playtimes. Food was brought in from outside caterers (I know not to trust them!), they didn't even have a dedicated change area, meaning babies had to go to the disabled toilet for changing. They did have programmes of structured play etc, but I left feeling uneasy about the whole set up.

After Tom's lunchtime nap, we went to Leapfrog Nursery in Priorslee (where Jessica goes). It was completely different. The staff were a lot more professional, my show around was fantastic, very knowledgeable lady, they had separate rooms for eating, playing and sleeping. A dedicated nappy changing room, a room for storing milk, all food is made in house (I saw some and it looked good). They also had an outdoor area for each stage of development. There were lots of nice little touches, each baby has a photo box (a box covered in photos of their relatives, so if they are feeling insecure, they can hold it / hug it), they have their nappies changed every 2.5 hours, food of some sort every 2 hours and drinks every 2 hours (better than Tom gets at home!) Anyway, I came away feeling much better about the whole thing. Will make some phone calls on Monday to arrange to whizz round some more before making a decision. I'm hoping that some time away from him will also refresh me.

That's about it for today, we were going to go for a walk around Priorslee Lake after visiting the nursery, but it started to rain and we didn't have the right gear on us, so we went to Asda and picked up a curry instead.

Tom's in bed, he's been grizzling every hour or so, but just a little yelp, so we are hoping he will eventually settle and have another good night.