We're back. Florence was amazing. It was a bit hot (33°C) so we didn't do much sight-seeing, but it was lovely just to relax between the wedding events, eat Italian ice-cream and get a feel for the city by simply wandering around. It's a lovely place - reminiscent of a dry Venice but less contrived, so we'll definitely go back there at a later stage to do all the obligatory tourist stuff.

The wedding events themselves - the buffet lunch on Saturday, the service at the city synagogue and then the evening reception (which I didn't attend) on Sunday, and the lunch on Monday were all incredibly posh and impressive. Clearly the families had pulled out all the stops. There was even a fanfare of trumpets and flag wavers welcoming the party arriving at the reception (in a palazzo on the river) on Sunday night. There was always amazing music and gorgeous food and wine on tap, all in the most fabulous locations. And if the Florentine views weren't good enough, you could always cast your eyes over the 200 guests - all beautiful and immaculately presented.

Not a bad weekend for star-spotting either, since Rufus Sewell was one of the wedding guests (would it have been crass to run up and rave about Dark City?) and Helena Bonham-Carter was on the return flight with her family.

Our B&B was lovely. It was on a fourth floor walk-up which was challenging at times, but took you up to a perfect authentic Tuscan house with roof-terrace. Our room was up in the eaves (with welcome aircon). Small but authentic and fastidiously clean. Only a couple of minutes from the Duomo too, and all the nearby shopping and eating. Would definitely recommend it.

Looking forward to pick Jody up this morning though. It's been relaxing to be without her (and it would have been a nightmare to have brought her along, considering the formality of most of the events), but I've missed her like crazy. Sounds like my parents have had a challenging but enjoyable time with her, but I'm sure they'll be exhausted once the pressure is off.

Yi-Shun and her friend Christine were staying in our flat while we were away and it sounds like they had a great time, though I am curious to get the full story. Am sipping a lovely cup of filter coffee this morning, since they bought me an individual coffee maker to say thank you. About time I got to appreciate real coffee instead of dreadful instant (I am a huge coffee fan). The perfect gift (especially as we're about to move a few minutes too far away for Starbucks take-out!)

Miles was great in Florence. As usual he was Mr. Laid-Back, and got quite a few people clucking over him, most markedly the sultry Italian waiter at our restaurant on Saturday night who, when he noticed that my sling contained a small human being, ran around the kitchen staff proclaiming "Bambino! Belissimo!", offered to turn down the music and started placing our plates on the table very quietly and grinning at us like a Cheshire cat (these Italians are crazy)!

He's increasing in responsiveness all the time, and is a very smiley little boy in the breaks between sleeping and voracious eating. He's following objects (mostly people) around with his eyes now, and his head control is almost there. Course he's also twice the size of most two-month-olds but that's as expected. It's weird to look at him and see so much resemblance to me. Jody looks just like Roj but has my colouring, and Miles is the exact opposite. So strange to see so much of myself in someone so little, particularly a boy. Lovely though!

It's half term this week so no nursery for Jody, but we'll try and meet up with Sonia later in the week so the girls can have a play. Also starting to try and organise Jody's birthday picnic, despite the fact that most people invited will be away that weekend. Need to cross fingers that the weather will stay good. I hear rumours that this summer will be a hot one, but until this weekend it was difficult to believe. And there's nothing like planning an outdoor event to bring on the English drizzle.

Life with two under two continues. Mostly it's great, but it has it's moments. Because I'm generally sleep-deprived, my patience is shorter than usual and Jody's defiance and stubbornness get short shrift. She's also become a bit more whingy of late - I'm not sure whether that's down to starting at nursery, the arrival of a new brother, the change in sleep routine (she gets quite tired towards the end of the day now that she's not having a proper nap mid-afternoon) or just the fact that she's approaching 2. We try very hard not to respond to her when she whinges, but it becomes difficult when she whinges most of the time!

She displayed jealousy this morning. The two kids were downstairs with Roj and he was holding Miles who was crying. Jody fell and decided she wanted to be held by Roj, and because he couldn't pick her up she had quite a cry. It's never happened with me (luckily) and I suppose it's just conclusive proof that she's a daddy's girl. Happily the jealousy didn't result in any kind of aggression towards Miles - she is still very affectionate towards him at all times.

Miles's smiles are increasing daily. He has a very cheeky wide toothless grin which melts my heart completely. We're still only getting one smile a day or so, but increasing all the time. He's mostly wearing 6-month-old clothes now, having completely outgrown the 0-3 and some of the 3-6 month clothes. It's remarkable how different he is in shape to Jody though. He has a very long body and short stocky legs which he keeps tucked up under his bottom most of the time. She, on the other hand, has always been lean and leggy and continues to be so.

His sleep is still variable, which is unsurprising I suppose. He's quite a heavy sleeper between 9:30pm and about 2am, and between those hours he's often amenable to being asleep in his cot. However, from 2 he starts to get restless, either wriggling and crying out intermittently or waking fully for feeds on the hour until about 5:45am. From 5:45 for about an hour is his witching hour. He cries loudly and refuses to be pacified until he finally caves to a feed and then settles again for an hour or so while I have breakfast. Over the weekend he only woke once each night (between the hours of 11pm and 5:45am), but the whole morning section he was restless enough to keep me awake much of the time so my net sleep was not very good. It's all I can expect from a newborn - in fact he's a lot better than many already - but it takes it out of me, and particularly in my energy levels for dealing with Jody. At least his cold seems to have gone though. He's very snuffly during the night still, but I think that's just his newborn breathing rather than any congestion. He doesn't seem to object to lying flat on his back any more, although from the 2am feed he will rarely accept being in his cot. Things will get better I'm sure, and I do count my blessings that I get any sleep at all!

We have a busy social week this week. Yesterday we were at a christening in Barnes followed by a buffet lunch. Both children were demanding at times though Miles slept happily through lunch in the sling and there was an 11-year-old girl obsessed with looking after Jody for the duration (wish I knew more of those!). Tomorrow Rowan, Jerome and Ellie (3 years) are coming over for lunch after we get back from nursery. Wednesday Yi Shun (who has just completed her first half iron-man - congratulations!) is over from New York so we're seeing her at various times during the day (and hopefully introducing her to the joys of real fish and chips in the evening). Friday we're taking Jody up to stay with my parents and then flying out to Florence for the long weekend for Mark and Annabelle's wedding, from which we return (exhausted no doubt) on Monday evening.

In the meantime this flat needs a good clean (I'm sure it was spotless a few days ago - what happened?), and I have to sort out invitations for Jody's birthday party picnic in early June. Plenty of other stuff to do as well - my to-do list is increasing at an alarming rate. I don't even want to think about how I'll cope with moving house right now. We haven't yet decided whether we'll try and do it ourselves or get the professionals in. Either way is just a mountainous hurdle in my mind but one we will have to face somehow. This is turning out to be quite an eventful year!

Lovely to finally see Dave and Octavia's wedding pics, and Happy Birthday Gerard.

Jody's new sleep routine is fantastic. I'm now spending 20 minutes in her bedroom doing the same routine each night, and then leaving her to it. She usually comes out once within a couple of minutes, at which point I'll unceremoniously put her back in bed, and from then on it's deep sleep until around 6:30am. It's amazing! I'm not counting chickens because every other routine worked for a short while too, but for now my evening stress levels are almost nonexistent for the first time in about 3 months. Fab!

The big news for this week is that Miles is smiling. I saw the first flicker (after much coaxing) on Sunday and have been getting more and more response since. There's still a way to go before he gains confidence but the first step has definitely been made!

Almost as big news-wise is that we have accepted an offer on our flat. A couple came round on Wednesday morning, did a second viewing Thursday at 5:15pm, and put in an offer by close of business. Our agent negotiated it up (to more than we expected) and we officially accepted Friday. The surveyors came round yesterday and reported that everything's fine, so things will hopefully be moving forward straight away. The couple - get this - are buying the flat for their son. Lucky sod!!

It's taken a weight off, as you can imagine. Viewings have tailed off and will stop altogether soon (we've been advised to keep going til exchange), and because the people on both sides of us are not in a chain and the buyers are using cash, there's very little that can go wrong. We're therefore hoping to have moved into the new place by mid-July (with much stress between now and then, no doubt). Excellent.

Course I'll be a little sad to leave this place. I love it to bits (especially since we ditched the grubby carpet), and it has great sentimental value, it being our first marital home and the place in which I gave birth to Miles. Still ... I guess the thing is to move on and make great memories elsewhere - the place would certainly acquire a bitter edge with the four of us driving each other nuts through lack of space.

Sorted out the Florence wedding outfit dilemnas on Saturday with the help of Roj. Bought a nice extortionate Joseph jacket to finish it off which will no doubt be ruined by spit-up by the end of the trip!

Sunday we went exploring to Battersea Park where there's a little-known children's zoo. It was a bit of a disappointment since there was no petting section, but it was gorgeous weather and nice to be out and about. Also spent a long phonecall to Sven teaching him all I know about building websites (not that long then), and had a glorious 3-hour lie-in thanks to the magnanimity of Roj.

Yesterday was a remarkable day in that Jody had no tantrums whatsoever. She's getting much more headstrong and defiant as she approaches her second birthday so a handful of screaming fits are usually par for the course. She just happened to be in a fantastic mood all day which was just lovely.

I took Miles to the doctor in the afternoon. Thought I was going to subject him to his first set of immunisations but the health visitor said they don't do that til 8 weeks so I got him weighed and measured instead. 13lbs and 62cms puts him very high up on the charts (unsurprisingly). I get a lot of comments about the quality of my milk because he's looking so big already (the health visitor thought I must be knackered with all the breastfeeding I'm doing, and the girl who runs the toddler group calls me Gold Top!). On the plus side it certainly means I'm losing weight like nobody's business - already only 4lbs more than pre-pregnancy.

Feeding is going well on the whole, and Miles usually cluster feeds in the evening and has longer breaks at night. Yesterday was the first recent day when that didn't happen, so the night was pretty horrendous. He didn't go to sleep til 11:15, then woke at 12:30 and then every hour from 2:30, restlessly staying awake for most of the time from 4:45. Just shows you how you can't rest on your laurels this early I suppose.

I'm trying a different tack with Jody from tonight. She's sleeping through (til 6:30am on average) about two in every three nights now and I'm accepting the times she doesn't (Saturday night she was awake from 2 til 4 which was a bit extreme, but usually if she wakes up you can get her back in bed and to sleep within 15 minutes). However, the going-to-bed ritual is not working. After swapping from the harsh 'get to sleep' commands sternly uttered from outside her door to a more nurturing approach, I think I've gone too far and allowed myself to be her night-time plaything. So I'm going to start a 'rapid return' technique (another one I've heard about on telly from the Little Angels Dr Tanya Wotsit). She gets the nurturing bedtime routine - bath, stories and a couple of songs with cuddles - but then I'll give her a goodnight kiss and leave the room. She's certainly aware that the routine signifies sleep because she's been used to the same thing for the last 6 weeks. Every time she then ventures out of her bedroom, I'm just going to take her straight back to bed. No fussing, no big cuddling or talking. Just back to bed. The trick is to make it uninteresting for her to be wandering around, rather than intimidating. I want to quash her urge to play around with me at bedtime until she feels ready to go to sleep. I'm hoping this is an effective middle ground (so far tonight she's only emerged once so we'll see ...)

Miles has changed tack a bit recently too. He's now awake for at least half of every day and while he's still relaxed and happy enough to sit awake in a chair, he has begun to cotton on to the comfort of human flesh so is being a little more dependent on cuddles. Which is fair enough for a newborn really. At night he's much as he's always been but getting better at sleeping on a mattress rather than me. He hasn't completely kicked the cold though, so I'm still being soft on him in that respect.

He's also been busy growing. At 1 month he weighed 12lbs (that's a gain of nearly 3lbs), and measured 60 cm (sorry to mix metric and imperial) which - providing the midwives were accurate at his birth - is an increase of 10cm. Ten! He's certainly looking less and less like a vulnerable newborn daily - a real chunky little chap now and strong as anything. His head control is improving too, and his eyes are opening wider. He's still definitely much easier than Jody was at his age (I would never have been able to sit writing my blog with her awake in the chair next to me), but he's not quite as easy as the first month. Which is fine I reckon - the honeymoon period is over but at least I had one!

No news on the flat sale yet. Viewings are still dribbling in but no offers as yet. Still waiting on the result of these magazine ads. Luckily our chosen flat's vendor has agreed to take her flat off the market for up to 6 months pending our sale (and subject to a large deposit) so we're not in too fragile a position. Would be nice not to have to make this place look pristine every time I left though. It's exhausting to keep clearing everything up to the extent necessary, and I feel guilty that Jody's toys are mostly hidden away.

Had much too little sleep last night (around 5 hours interrupted) but followed it up with a very enjoyable morning with Sonia and Olivia (8 months) while our two eldest were in nursery. She's very kindly offered me the use of her flat if I get overwhelmed with viewings any time, an offer I may well accept despite the 50 minute walk each way as it'll prevent me spending too much money (nearby shops being my primary escape of late).

Roj is off in the US again for a very fleeting trip to Pittsburg right now but back tomorrow lunchtime. Not much planned over the next few days but our trip to Florence for a wedding at the end of May is fast approaching (and therefore also the need to buy suitable clothes - a challenge and a half with two in tow). Also have to put my mind to planning Jody's 2nd birthday at the beginning of June. Can't decide whether to wing it with an outdoor picnic or play it safe with a Gymboree session.

Frustration continues with the flat. Ok it's only been the bank holiday between now and the last time I complained, but in the meantime I've spoken to our agent who remains optimistic about the price (which he set) while blaming the price for the lack of offers (huh?). The flat's appearing in a few London property magazines over the next couple of weeks but if nothing comes of that it looks like we'll have to reduce it, and not only will that look bad but it'll mean 6 weeks of no offers (we've had 15 viewings already, so we can hardly blame a lack of interest). If only we'd exercised a bit of skepticism to start with.

Meanwhile we've also discovered that extending the lease on the new flat will cost us nearly twice what we budgeted, which nearly pushes us over our limit (when you consider stamp duty and general fees). Roj has had to examine our finances (thank goodness for a trained accountant for a husband!) to check we can actually afford it all (we just have to hope the vendor is as patient for our own sale as she said she'd be).

Toddler group was fantastic on Friday as usual. It's no harder with two because there are plenty of willing people on hand if I have to hand over one or the other. There seems to be a whole new wave of mums with more than one anyway so I get sympathy if nothing else (and a load of compliments I'm sure I don't deserve).

Had a good but exhausting weekend in Shropshire. Roj managed to come home at the last minute on Friday so I didn't have to do the dreaded trip alone. Zoe had prepared a fantastic surprise birthday lunch for Maggie at a nearby pub on Saturday with around 25 people which all went down very well indeed - a nice bunch of people and excellent grub. I seem to have spent a lot of time sitting around doing nothing all weekend, but still came back feeling knackered. Roj and Jody even slept in a seperate bedroom to enable all four of us to be a little less disrupted, but Miles is still dictating a fairly strenuous nightime routine mostly because he's still suffering enough from his cold not to be able to lie flat for extended periods which means an inclined body remains his cot of choice.

Still, it was nice to see the folks and the in-laws and take advantage of the gorgeous weather by sitting outside, albeit briefly. Jody absolutely loves going up there and raves about the grandparents and the animals at Nana's for weeks afterwards. Makes me feel a bit cruel for cooping her up in a London flat for most of her life.

Bank holiday Monday was nothing to write home about as Roj was at work most of the day. Briefly made it to a couple of different playgrounds in the day and contended with a very overtired grouchy Jody (who avoided daytime sleep of any kind to her detriment at the weekend). The bright side of the daytime sleeplessness manifests in a much better nightime routine though - only 20 minutes to go to sleep and then undisrupted until 6:30/7am. Fab!

My New Native sling arrived today and Miles is sleeping peacefully inside it right now. I made the mistake at lunchtime of putting Jody in it while I made her lunch and she settled right into it but then complained vociferously when I next came to put Miles in. I suppose I made my own bed there, but it's a bonus that it's a carrier which fits both of them - it should prove pretty useful even if I live to regret not getting one that distributes the weight over both shoulders.

Still have a long list of thankyou letters to write after Miles's birth. Decided that I need to start with one at a time rather than waiting for time to write the whole lot at once (chance would be a fine thing!) Have finally sorted out his passport photos though, which is providential considering we may well drag him to south France in the next couple of weeks. And have also even written up my birth story for those interested in that sort of thing. Progress on the to-do list may be slow but it is happening!