Lucky us!

We are very lucky to have my Mum (and Nana) living in Wellington now. They've been here since Oct 08. We are also lucky (and maybe a little unlucky hahaha) that they live about a 10 min walk, 2 min drive from our house.

Every weekend, usually a Friday night, my Mum has Annabelle overnight, and keeps her for most of the next day as well. This weekend is a typical example: I'll be dropping Belle off around 3pm today and we'll also probably drop Zoe off sometime tomorrow morning. They'll both stay there (or go out and about to whatever adventure Nan chooses - Zoo, Te Papa, Bontanical Gardens, etc) and Chris and I will go round about 4pm, we'll have dinner together, then bring the girls home. It's HEAVEN!! It means that we get one night a week where we only have to worry about one crying girl in the middle of the night. And we get a good chunk of Saturday to either get housework done without any 'helpers' or just have a blobby day to ourselves.

Once Zoe is a wee bit older, maybe a couple more months, then she'll join in the overnight. We'll experiment with what will work, but probably at first both girls will stay over together. As strange as it sounds, I think having Belle there will be a calming and familiar influence on Zoe.
Then we might alternate weekends. So we get a chunk of time with each girl on her own. I think ideally I'd like to do both options, so it'd go Belle stays over one weekend, Zoe stays over next weekend, both stay over the 3rd weekend. Then start again.
That way we'll get quality time with each girl for a weekend, then a weekend of quality time with just each other!! lol

I love my Mum!! <3 <3 <3