gajumaru

• Lovely visits from my mum originotley and dad, and Leo's mum strongwomanplant, who are all delightfully keen grandparents and so good with E. It's a pleasure to see them and I wish they lived closer.
• A Long Walk and Lunch with theladylily, talking of many things. We are trying to make it a monthly occurrence and I Like It. I'm really enjoying how having a baby has deepened my connections with friends who are parents, many of whom I haven't seen since they had their kids.
• I went out! For burgers! I took E in the sling and spilled lettuce on myself and ate a big pile of food. It was great. I breastfed in awkward positions at a high table on a bench that was too close to it. I had lovely chats. It was so good to go out socially and feel like a real person again. I'm really appreciating my friends who are willing to include E in our hangouts, stop the conversation when E is demanding my attention, give me physical assistance, hold them and play with them to give me a chance to do something else from time to time. It's so lovely to be able to be a friend and a parent rather than having to choose.
• Another weekend, I spent an afternoon at our local Toby Carvery with E and a good friend, alsobvery adept and willing to help look after E. We drank wine and ate lots of roast potatoes. E was very interested in the Christmas lights. I really like being able to take them out. And it was so nice going out locally and being able to walk home.
• An excellent long weekend with E's wonderful Oddparents Z&E, our dear queer friends who live in Birmingham. It was great to see them as always, and as always they gave us loads of support with childcare and housework. We did a couple of big batch cooks, and spent a couple of hours on Saturday playing Bards Dispense Profanity, which relies entirely on Shakespeare quotes. It's much funnier and more harmless than Cards Against Humanity while still being plenty rude. Also suitable for playing while breastfeeding!
• Also that weekend w finally got round to refilling the hot tub for the first time in a couple of months. Since it's nearly winter, we also added the play pool balls which we use as a hilarious insulating layer to keep the heat in (2000 of them, because apparently that's how many you need to get a layer two balls think on top of a six person hot tub). We took E into it. They loved it. Best baby sensory play ever!

The hot tub is expensive to heat. We've used it once since Z&E left, but not this week, and we're about to go away for a weekend. I think it might be sensible to empty it and refill it again when we want it, rather than paying to heat it in cold weather when we're barely using it.