A few firsts....

Arthur went to his first birthday party on Monday!!! It was Joshua’s first birthday (the little boy of our friends Gordon and Katie at church) – I can’t believe he is one already!!!! It was so nice. Everyone met in the park and they set up a table with food and cake and drinks and stuff, and put blankets down under the trees for the little ones :) There were soooooo many babies!!! I don’t know how many – maybe 15 or 20? Katie and Joshua are active participators in several different mother and baby groups throughout the week! Most of the babies there were Arthur’s age too, between 6 and 9 months old, which was nice. I never saw so many babies Arthur’s age in one place before!! All of them but one were crawling though, and poor Arthur sat there (hugely – waaaay bigger than most of them!) all immobile. He was too busy being interested in them though, so that’s okay. I am hoping he’ll pick up some tips, hehe! The blankets with all those 6-9 month olds on looked soooo funny! It looked like a very badly organised exercise class, because they were all doing these weird rocks and stretches on all fours, and lunging this way and that, all of them intently focusing on a toy or something, as though very serious about warming up for an exercise class, hehehe! It really did look funny. They were all so serious in their expressions whilst trying out their new skill!

One mum did say to me though that I should not wish for Arthur to learn to crawl. She said be thankful he isn’t doing it yet! Hers crawled at 5 months – so early! – and she has been run ragged ever since! She said life will change enormously once he is moving everywhere – something I am seeing from the diaries of my friends who have babies who are crawling. So I am not impatient at all. I don’t think I ever was really, just a little frustrated on Arthur’s behalf, because he gets so frustrated at not being able to move forwards while on his tummy when he sees something he wants to reach. The house is a megariffic mess though, so I am very thankful that he isn’t crawling yet! He is starting to really get into things, even with such limited mobility. He can drag himself around with his arms quite well, in circles and to the sides, and push himself backwards, but not forwards. He can lunge and stretch with an arm forwards to reach a toy that’s maybe a few inches out of reach, and get it. But no crawling or forward motion yet.

But somehow he is finding all sorts of things to be a monkey with, even without moving far! We were late for the party and I had a TON of stuff to take with us – blanket, suncream, hat, present and card, nappy changes, change of outfit, toys, endless other items! So I was compiling all this stuff, and I put it in a huge pile near the door, and put Arthur on his fleece blanket on the floor with 2 interesting toys while I rushed to the kitchen and washed my hands and then went and brushed my teeth. I was careful to check the floor for things he might find that he shouldn’t, but I guess I didn’t check well enough (bad Mummy). I rushed as much as I could getting my teeth done, and while I was rinsing I noticed Arthur was very quiet in there. I thought to myself, “Hmmm, I wonder if he’s old enough yet so that quietness means trouble?!” and when I got to the living room, he was making the same funny noises that he made when he ate the piece of paper. I think I must have only been away about 90 seconds, if that, but he had ignored his interesting toys, somehow moved off the fleece, and was gagging himself with a biro!!!! Yikes! Thank goodness it was the type that is a fully sealed unit that doesn’t come apart, and with no separate cap. He looked up at me and his face was COVERED with blue biro, hehehe! I was just so glad he was okay, and I was feeling kind of shaky about how it could have been serious and urgh I was so neglectful, etc, etc, but when he looked at me and beamed (removing the biro from his mouth!), and I saw his chin a perfect work of art with scribbles of blue biro all over, I couldn’t help but laugh and laugh! He looked so funny, bless him! Fortunately I had just covered him in suncream and when I added a wet cloth to that, the biro came right off and didn’t leave a trace – phew! Monkey boy. And bad Mummy. I need to seriously pay much more attention to things now.

Anyway the party was lovely. We arrived at 3pm and stayed till it finished at 4.30. Arthur was tired by then because he had not napped for a while, but it was such a nice day and we were already out there in a nice park, so I put the full sun-cover over his 3-wheeler and because the one I have is head to toe and black, it’s nice and dark in there for him, and I pushed him around the park. He was asleep in 3 minutes flat, and he slept his usual 30 minutes, and when he woke, we came home again :)

Okay I hope I don’t come under fire for this because I know I have a lot of American readers, but I have noticed something that I have an opinion on (what a surprise, heh). It is totally not meant to be an attack on anyone or any group or nationality, etc. I am just noticing something that I don’t notice here, and being really perplexed/weirded-out by it! What is up with it being a tradition almost, to put a baby in front of a huge gooey cake on its first birthday, and watch it get the stuff all over its face? I am noticing EVERYWHERE online (i.e., pretty much exclusively US) that the photo of a baby with cake and hideously toxic-coloured icing all over its face seems to be the “traditional” or “must-have” photo keepsake from a baby’s first birthday. Why is this?!! So far I can only seem to find that people think it is cute or something. I think it’s awful! And extremely low on the cute-factor scale. Maybe that is because it’s just never done here though? I love the photos that I see of babies on their first birthday all dressed up for their party, or opening presents, or sitting in front of their cake with the candles burning while everyone sings. But I can’t bear those cake-face photos. Why are they cute?! The colourings in those cakes or their frostings just scare me when I see them over such tiny pure little faces. They do not look nice! I like photos of messy food faces on babies, so it’s not a messy thing, but yeurgh. Sugar and possibly near-toxic additives and colourings plastered everywhere, all for the sake of a photo that doesn’t look cute to me at all? I don’t get it. I wouldn’t like Arthur to get near that stuff, even on his first birthday party. I hope he will have a birthday cake and maybe he will want to try a bit of it, but I would make it with that in mind and not make it too unhealthy for him. Yeah I know it’s a one-off, but still. I notice that sometimes the mothers are saying how they will be sure to pick up the gooiest messiest frosted cake for the best photo opportunity. I just can’t get on with that idea at all. I know I’m probably going to be told I’m being stuffy and it’s all in the name of fun, but oh well.

One-year-olds that I have known all have just as much fun and so do the adults, at their parties, WITHOUT the chemicals and sugar everywhere! There is more personal touch involved from what I see. Joshua’s birthday cake was plain sponge with jam in the middle, and just a dusting of icing sugar on the top, no icing at all, and a single candle in the middle. It wasn’t boring, because who is the cake for anyway?! Joshie was not old enough to care about what his cake looked like, and he didn’t seem that fussed about whether he even tasted it or not, but most of the babies his age did have a little. The nice thing was that the cake was baked by Joshie’s grandmother. I like stuff like that. Of course, she could have covered it with messy frosting and still have it homemade with love, but thinking about it, if there had been such a cake at that party on Monday, I think every mother there would have had the same, “Yeurgh!” reaction that I feel about them. I can’t think of many of those mothers being thrilled to give a piece to their little ones.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to make this a debate or rant or anything – that is soooo not my intention, I hate when people get cross with things that I say and debate it in my guestbook or whatever, so I don’t mean to do that. I just keep coming across the cake thing and have developed some strong feelings about it, personally, and have SUCH a different experience of birthday cakes for one-year-olds here that Joshua’s party seemed to trigger the desire to spill my thoughts on it a bit in my diary. I hope I didn’t offend anyone. I’m sure lots of you love the messy cake thing and plan on (or have done) doing it when your little one turns one. That is fine for you. I just don’t get it and wouldn’t go near it for Arthur.

When my brother was one I remember his cake. I was nearly four. Mummy baked him a normal round sponge cake and it had white icing on it, the water-and-icing-sugar kind. In the middle there was one white candle. I just thought it was wonderful! He didn’t have a party, there was just me and Mummy and Daddy and him. I remember we sang happy birthday to him, and then he tried and tried to blow out the candle like Mummy was showing him how to, but his bottom lip kept jutting out so he would blow up to his hair instead, hehe! I got so impatient!! I just kept on taking a deep breath and threatening to blow that candle out, but Mummy kept warning me not to ;) I was mischievious a lot as a child! When he was two he had a party, but just with his best friend and her sister (since her sister was my best friend at the time). I remember that too. He had a lovely cake that year. But all the icing on cakes at little ones’ birthday parties seem to be firm, like the fondant type, not messy. Or non-existent, especially when the mothers don’t want them eating a ton of sugary stuff when they are tiny. I haven’t really thought much about Arthur’s birthday, mainly because the very concept seems outrageously foreign to me!! To think of him actually HAVING a birthday is just weird! Surely he’s going to be a baby forever?!! I can’t believe he will actually have a birthday. It almost feels like November was SUCH a month – being hugely pregnant and giving birth to Arthur – that it can surely never happen again! That must have been the last November ever to happen, it was that momentous!! Silly. But anyway, it will roll around again, and sooner than I think too. I liked Joshua’s party, but Arthur is a winter baby and can’t have a nice party in the park like that. I don’t know what we’d do. I have only ever thought of having family around – and I’d hoped my parents would come over to England for his birthday. I really hope they will. I miss them too much. I know I would make him a cake, but I have no idea what kind, or whether he’d be having any or much of it. I guess if he’s eating everything by then, he will have some. But I wouldn’t give him icing, just cake. The magic part of a little one’s birthday party for me is the singing and blowing out of the candle, not the eating of the cake afterwards. I can’t wait for all the birthdays that he’ll have where he sits there proudly while we sing just for him, and then blows out his candles. I know I will wish I could stop time and live that moment forever. Little ones grow up way too fast.

Anyway! Back to the party! So it was nice to talk with the other mums. I already knew one or two of them, from church. Everyone said how HUGE Arthur is now, and asked me things like, was he sleeping better, and how are the solids going, etc. I said he is basically still exclusively breastfed and their eyes nearly popped out! I thought maybe they would be on my back about getting him on solids, but it was soooo nice because one lady said how much she sympathised, because her son was super picky with his food and she found it hard. And another lady commented on how well I was doing, because he is looking so big and healthy and it must be tiring for me to be providing such a big baby with all his nutrition. I didn’t really think of it like that. Anyway, they were very nice and supportive. I was proud to breastfeed him right there on the blankets (with the video camera running too!) later in the afternoon when he got hungry and wanted to nurse. I realised how easy I find breastfeeding now. Arthur is so adaptable now and he climbs on me and nurses from all angles, so I really do sit there like my mental image of a calm and relaxed nursing mother has always looked, without being hunched over him or tense, and he just nurses, and it’s lovely. I am so happy with our nursing relationship. I just love to breastfeed, and I feel so proud to do so in public. Of course it is easier when the “public” are other mothers. None of them were breastfeeding though, and I noticed one of them saw me breastfeeding Arthur all free-and-easy like I was, and looked a bit…. I don’t know, unimpressed or something? Anyway she looked away quickly. But I still felt proud :)

The other little babies were eating rice cakes and stuff while the adults ate strawberries (some of the older babies ate the fruit and things though), and birthday cake and cookies and other yummy stuff. I felt yucky and unwell in my tummy due to the last day of my antibiotics – it really gets to me by the last day of a course of antibiotics – so I didn’t eat much. My chest is nearly back to normal, thank goodness! I am finally feeling better :) Anyway, one mummy came up to me with a rice cake and asked if Arthur would like one. I said sure. He has never tried one, but I thought he wouldn’t go for it. He took it eagerly, like he does with anything put in his hand, and it went straight to his mouth. He chewed and chewed on it with his gums, and it got soggy and started to disintegrate, and amazingly he swallowed the bits!!! Yay! He did gag a little here and there, but he was mainly soooo distracted and interested in all the goings-on around him that he didn’t have much time to bother gagging on food! He ate most of it, and left a soggy heap of the remains on the blanket :) Then the same lady asked if she could offer him a corn puff thingy with apple and orange powder in it. I wasn’t crazy about the orange powder, since the weaning book says no citrus till 9+ months or something, but I really did not think he would go for it, and it was such a tiny amount, so I said yes. He tasted it a bit but basically left it uneaten.

I was so impressed with the rice cake though! I had not thought of those before. The next day we went to the supermarket and I bought organic sweet potatoes, more organic bananas, and two packs of organic baby rice cakes – one plain, and the other with apple and cinnamon! For lunch I gave him half a banana and two long thick slices of apple (not cooked). He seemed to really enjoy lunch! He ate a little of the banana just like it was, and chewed on the apple for a long time, but didn’t break any of it off at all. He was very chatty and vocal whilst chewing on those! I mashed the rest of the banana right there on his highchair tray, and didn’t bother making it extra soft with breast milk this time. I got two baby spoons, the ones we have been using all this time (soft tips and bright colours), and gave him one while I put some banana on the other. Between the two of us, he ate the whole lot!!! That is quite a big meal of solids for him really, and I was pleased. I stripped him off and put him in the kitchen sink (clean and shiny these days!) and bathed him and washed his hair. Banana just gets everywhere!

Lunch for Arthur is around 11.30, sometimes a bit later depending on his naps. In the late afternoon, around 4ish, he ate an apple and cinnamon rice cake! He seemed to really like it, although he did gag on a lumpy bit at one point. I could see it on his tongue and it was soft, and I’m sure he could have dealt with it, but I scooped it off for him since he was gagging and sticking his tongue out, and looking at me like he wanted me to fix it for him! I tried one of those rice cakes and they are really nice!

Well today he has not been interested in solids at all. I gave him half a banana and a plain rice cake for lunch, and he gummed on them a bit but didn’t eat them really. I mashed the banana in a bowl and he took maybe a baby spoonful, but gagged such a lot. He is super gaggy today. I don’t know why he is so gaggy these days. Much more so than when we first tried him on smooth and runny baby rice. It’s odd. He gags so much that he retches, and saliva just runs off his tongue like he’s going to chuck it all up, but he doesn’t. That shouldn’t be happening, should it?? I do think it’s mainly to do with taste though, not texture. I gave him a touch taste, literally, of my baked beans sauce that I had with lunch, and he was interested in tasting it, but once the flavour was on his tongue he gagged and did the watery tongue thing, so it CAN’T be texture. Hmmm.

Anyway. So solids seem to be starting! And in a nice way, because he is pretty much self-feeding and choosing himself what he has and how he takes it, and we aren’t doing the purees. Proper solids!

And today he did his first big-boy poo!!! We had been waiting a good while for it since the last poo, and he looked very worried while he did it and looked at me for reassurance after the awful noise in the nappy had finished (!!), and when I looked in there to change him, there were BIG BOY POOS in there! Poos with some shape and substance! Not much shape and substance, but some. Until now, he has had classic breastfed poo – mustardy and runny. These new poos weren’t as foul as I had expected. I was so surprised to see them brown and less runny! I looked at Arthur and said, “Did you do Big Boy Poo-Poos?!!” and he gave me such a huge smile with his hands tucked under his chin, like he was super pleased with himself, hehe! How nice. I hope none of you are reading this over a snack, hehehe! ;)

I have photos – not of the poo-poo of course! ;) But of yesterday’s successful lunch (in the living room (messy) instead of the kitchen, just because), and today’s less-than-successful lunch! Today I am so glad I sat him in just a nappy on the splash mat on the floor, because he dumped the mashed banana all over his legs and we had to just get in the bath together after that! We were late for my osteopath appt because of that, but oh well. I should have thought about the clean-up part taking some time! Anyway, here are a few photos of that:

Yesterday’s lunch – very happy boy!...

Today’s lunch – more interested in the spoon, and then it was much more fun to have banana everywhere (except for the usual initial “ewww!” factor that Arthur seems to get!)…

Neil got a haircut yesterday, and it had grown long really fast (his hair is like that), so the cut made it super short all of a sudden. He doesn’t like it, but it will grow out quickly. Anyway, when he got home from work with a new shorter haircut, Arthur was really unsure around him! He must have looked too different to seem familiar for Arthur, poor boy! Normally he is literally shrieking with joy when Neil walks in, and reaching and reaching for Neil to take him from me and make him giggle! It’s so cute. But he was very uncertain, and once or twice reached for me to take him back! Poor Arthur! He is fine now though. I knew he would adjust quickly. Here is a photo of Arthur being very uncertain with his daddy’s new hair (I think they look really alike in this one – even their hair grows the same way!):

Oooooh I know what else I wanted to write!!!! A major milestone! First post-partum parsnips at laaaast!!! ;) Yay! And it only took us 7 and a half months, hehe! And – go me!! – it was MY idea!! Although it’s not as great as it sounds, because I was busy thinking how I MUST schedule my smear again this cycle. I chickened out of the last one because I was too anxious about it being painful. It always is when there have been no parsnips for a long while. So I was talking to Neil this evening about how I should make another appt, and worrying about it being painful, and then figured we should have some parsnips to try to fix that. Very non-passionate, hehe! Also I would not get it on until I had wiped the gross dried banana bits off the splash mat in the kitchen first, haha! The joys of parenthood! And of course Arthur made waking sounds at a reeeally bad moment, which just made us laugh so much with the irony of it all (!), but he didn’t wake, which is good! :) But I could have been a bit more romantic I suppose. The hormones just aren’t there for me because it’s the last thing I feel like doing, but anyway, you don’t need to know much more about it since it’s MINE to know ;) But I am super happy because I feel like a non-pregnant/milk machiney person again, and it was amazingly non-painful :) So that is groovesome.

I can’t wait for the weekend because it’s Grandoug’s 80th birthday. Well, his birthday is next week, but the family get-together is on Saturday :) I love his birthday get-togethers! It’s only 9 of us (including Arthur) but I love them. We always go to their house. My parents are coming over from France, and I am LONGING to see them!! I still speak to my mummy on the phone every day pretty much, but it’s so lovely to actually see her. So different. And I can’t wait for them to see Arthur. Mummy says they can’t wait either. They are only here from Friday to Sunday, and we’ll only see them on Saturday which is a shame, but better than nothing.

Katie invited me to go to a mother-and-baby group that she goes to, which is where most of the mothers and babies at the party came from. They are all the ones with babies Arthur’s age, so I think that would be good. Plus they seemed like a nice bunch. Except Arthur was chewing on a nice rattly toy on the blanket, and a little boy called Ben crawled right up to him and snatched the toy right out of his hand, even though it was in his mouth at the time!! He sat back and put it in his own mouth. Arthur just looked so shocked and surprised! He didn’t look upset though, just amazed, like he had never seen anything like this before and he didn’t know what to do! He just stared at the little boy with his hands still frozen to his mouth, exactly as they had been when the toy got snatched from them. Ben’s mum rushed over saying she was sorry he snatched Arthur’s toy, and she took it from Ben and gave it back to Arthur, who put it right back in his mouth and carried on like nothing had happened! It was very interesting to see him with other babies. I think he needs more exposure to them actually, so it would be good to join the group. Somehow I am pretty nervous about it though. I am worried that I am overprotective of Arthur, and I don’t know how to stop being like it. It pulled at something sharp, deep inside, when the little one took the toy from Arthur. I feel so terribly protective of him, it’s such a fierce feeling. I don’t know if that’s good though. It’s like I don’t know if I can bear to see him with other children because there are sure to be some bad things that happen along the way, and times where he is actually hurt on purpose by another child, or crying and upset at something someone else did to him. I don’t know if I can bear that, but surely that’s awful of me? He needs normal experiences like this, and a cool and collected mama to run to, to make it better. Not one who wishes she could wrap him in her arms and keep him all to herself forever more, or one who would gladly give the offending child a good pinch for hurting her little precious! I feel like I should be different, and can’t make myself be. I hope it won’t be detrimental to Arthur’s development. I just feel so in love with him that it’s hard to squash the feelings.

Well it’s sooooo late, but I needed to write all this down. Arthur is stirring so I will go now. I’ll update again soon :)

Blinkies, food thoughts, and paper!

Thank you for the messages re. my Flylady discovery!! :) I am in more of a slump with cleaning today (knew it would come) but the motivational emails are helping me. They got me doing another 2 minute Hot Spot Fire Drill and my first 15-minute decluttering time in the current "zone", which - thankfully! - is the living room. The living room is soooo yuck. And since the humid weather, I am disgusted to say that it smells AWFUL in that room. I think it is the carpet. Yeurgh. I soooo need to do something about that. But my sink has not been shined today :( I got dressed and made the beds, but then I needed breakfast and then Arthur needed a nap and he didn't nap well, and so on. But tomorrow I will clean that sink first thing! I did my before bedtime routine this evening :) But I can feel the novelty wearing off.... Need to hang in there and get my house clean! And more importantly, get myself into new habits for the rest of my life.

I have two antibiotic capsules left to take, with breakfast and lunch tomorrow - hooray! Today I feel crappy in my tummy so I'm sure they are starting to get to my gut. Bleurgh. I am glad I finish them tomorrow, because if I am feeling yucky from them, I should think Arthur will start to as well. Last time I was on them (for the womb infection), it was a 7 day course, and Arthur seemed uncomfy and had runny poo by day 5. So I hope he will hang in there and not be bothered by them before I finish the course. He is kind of fussy today, so hmmm. I feel better in my chest today, but I still have a bit of a cough. Getting there though! :)

I have a load of new blinkies on the left there! I love blinkies! I found some more that relate to me and what I am about, so I added them. And replaced a couple with ones I liked better.

Arthur is having a baaad sleep patch again. He wakes at least 2 hourly at night at the moment - less than 2 hours a couple of times last night, urgh! He cries immediately and won't be comforted by anything but the breast. I am going with it as best I can because I don't know if he might have a tummy ache from the antibiotics or something. I will see if he settles during the week. Last night I tried getting my snatches of sleep in the spare room to see if that would help me get better sleep. But I am so tired out today. I felt like I needed a WHOLE night's sleep when I woke up this morning! So tonight I think I will try sleeping the whole night with Arthur. I am pretty sure he will wake very frequently again, as his evening has been even more wakeful than yesterday evening, which is unlike him. If the night is going to be a tough one, I think I might fare better if I only have to roll towards him with my breast and doze while he nurses. I think it will still leave me feeling like I have not had much sleep though. I hope whatever is disturbing him goes soon! He has also been very hard to settle down for sleep the last few days, I don't know why. I find myself getting frustrated or disappointed that we seem back to square one, but I try to keep myself cool about it and remind myself to hang in there because it could just be a blip, or because he's not comfy for a good reason. Plus he needs me, for whatever reason right now. Nobody else will do. Tiring though that is, it is also pretty special :) And he will only be little like this for so long and then it's all over, and he'll never need me like this again. I try to treasure even the exhausting nights when I keep this mindset about it!

I tried Arthur on some mashed potato again a couple of days ago. He wouldn't take it! Oh well. He gagged so much on it that I held the bowl in front of his mouth because it looked like he was going to be sick for sure. He wasn't though.

I have been thinking about his weaning. Mainly because when I went to the doctor about my chest, Arthur sat on my lap while she listened to my chest with the stethoscope (good as gold!), and then she asked me what contraception we were using. I was in a hurry because I had my osteopath appt, and I did not fancy lots of lecturing from my doctor about stuff I was clued up on! I don't know, I guess I just felt it coming. So I said we weren't using any contraception, and thus began the lecture. I don't know why I didn't feel like telling her there was no need to worry about our contraception since the last time we had parsnips was to attempt to induce labour!!! And that I have the libido of a cowpat since Arthur was born. She went on and on about how I could so easily get pregnant again if I wasn't careful. Thinking maybe it would speed up the conversation, I stupidly lied and said my periods weren't back yet. Bad move. Big lecture about how you can get pregnant before your first period after birth. D'oh, I should have known she would say that! But I did not fancy going into all the detail of how my cycles are currently infertile because my luteal phase is too short to support a pregnancy, even if conception took place. I SHOULD have said all that stuff. It would have helped me not feel so much like she thought I knew nothing about getting pregnant. Tsk.

So I said something along the lines of, "Oh right, I'll bear that in mind then!" and tried to escape, but the doctor then started on WHY my periods might not be back yet. She asked if I was still breastfeeding. I said yes. She asked how often, and I told her. She asked how much food Arthur was eating. I said none. Urrrgh. You can probably guess the rest. Apparently I should be CUTTING his breastmilk feeds down to make way for more solids. He is apparently getting TOO MUCH of my milk and therefore isn't hungry enough for solids, which is apparently WRONG. I was running more and more late for my appt and the conversation was making me really annoyed, so I just nodded and smiled a lot, and tried not to engage the doctor on any of it, since I didn't have the time to educate her. She told me I should make an appt to see the Health Visitor URGENTLY about Arthur's weaning. Pfthth. Of course she is talking out of her bottom. Bit rude of me, but it's true. I can't believe a doctor told me that my 7 month old baby should be forced to reduce his breastmilk intake and made to eat food that he isn't interested in yet. That is nutritionally terrible advice for a start. But I am not going to "start". The subject winds me up so much, that I am going to leave it there. I have no intention of seeing my health visitor about it. I know what I'm doing, and what is best for Arthur (for the fifty millionth time!!!!). Tsk.

BUT. I have been thinking about his weaning. I know he does NOT need solids like everyone constantly bangs on about him needing them. Certainly not yet. I know he is thriving on my milk alone and will do for quite a while to come. I am happy with the idea of baby-led weaning, like I said recently. But for whatever reason, I do feel that I would LIKE to see him taking a little more solid food than he currently is, soon. It vexes me (there's a word I haven't used much!) when he gags on purees at an age where he should be fine with even lumpy solid food, developmentally. I wonder if I ought to be exposing him to solids more often, whether or not he takes them? So I have decided that I will make a routine of it, as best I can (being so disorganised!) - every day I will make him a little something at lunchtime, and offer it to him. If he won't take it, that's okay. If he tastes it and hates it, fine. But at least he begins to get the idea that this is lunchtime, and it's when we eat food. I will eat with him too.

Today I started this new plan, and I sat in the kitchen with him in the highchair, and peeled a banana and started to eat it. Of course, he wanted it very much! So I broke off a whole half and handed it to him in one piece. He took it eagerly, but immediately had a moment of "ewwwww Mummy, why did you give me something so MESSY?!!" and dropped it in disgust, opening and closing his fists like he was aghast to have them so slimy and messy! I just left him to it, and after a bit he picked the banana up again. After a few pick-ups and drops, he put it to his mouth, gummed a little piece off it, pushed it around his mouth with his tongue and gums, gagged a little, and swallowed it! Then he did it again :) He gagged such a lot every time he had anything in his mouth, complete with screwed up eyes and shuddering shoulders! I don't know why he is still doing that. But at least he was happy to keep putting it to his mouth, which makes me hope he'll get used to it and stop gagging so much. He is not interested in taking food when I offer it to him (i.e. try to feed him), but he is interested in feeding himself.

After a few little bites and licks, the banana bit got too slimy to keep a good grip on, so I peeled another one and gave him a new piece to hold. I mashed the slimy one right there on the tray, and squirted some breastmilk into it to make it softer. I thought he might like to have banana in two different consistencies to try. He played about with the messy stuff for a long time (after the initial "ewwww, my hands!!" thing again!) and then started tasting his fingers and re-bananaing them and tasting again. I also helped him navigate four or five tiny baby spoon-tip-fuls of banana to his mouth. He gagged a lot but he took a lot of banana down and didn't seem to hate the experience. I hope he will be fine with banana. I figured it was a good one to start with, since he seemed to prefer that to everything else when we were trying purees. So this week I am going to offer him a piece of banana while I eat my lunch every single day. If it goes well and he seems to be getting used to eating, I think I will try him on mashed potato again, or mashed sweet potato for lunch after that. I would have started on mashed sweet potato except that the supermarket were all out of organic ones, and I am not giving Arthur anything that isn't organic.

Also, I thought back to when we first tried him on foods. Banana is the only thing he'll go near. I know that it's quite common for breastfed babies to prefer banana as a first food, because it's sweet and sort of similar to breast milk. But I think maybe Arthur likes it because it's the only thing we used to regularly give him "touch-tastes" of before he was old enough for solids. He used to love it when I put my finger to the gooey bit of my banana, and then to his lips. He would open his mouth to let me put my finger on his tongue, and then make a nice tasting-face, and then grab my finger to suck on it! A lot of his gagging these days seems to me to be more to do with the taste of food, rather than the consistency. It doesn't seem to matter what consistency the food is, he will still gag the moment he can taste it, whatever it is. So I am thinking maybe it would be good to go back to touch-tastes again. Maybe we could give him touch-tastes of whatever we are eating, even stuff we wouldn't let him ingest yet, with no pressure, so that he can get a feel for tastes. That might help him. I don't know, but I think it's worth a try.

I am happy to have an exclusively breastfed 8-month-old, if that's how it goes, but I feel like I would like to make more effort from 8 months, to get him used to eating a bit more. I don't want to force him at all though. I just think I might step up my frequency of offering foods, and just generally make a bit more effort. I have been very relaxed about it so far, and I want to stay relaxed, because it isn't a big stressy deal after all, to get a little baby eating as fast as possible! He is fine the way he is. But I think I will try this new way and see how we go.

Anyway, here are a few photos of Arthur's experience with the banana today! It ended, of course, with banana EVERYWHERE, especially in his hair! So he went in the way-too-small tub that I bought him (which he hardly fit into at all!) on the plastic sheet thingy I am half-way through sewing together, and we washed him down. Neil was very patient trying to get all the banana out of his hair with a washcloth, but he still had a little in there when he bathed with Neil this evening!...

See the new sippy cup I bought him on Friday?! He has had a little breast milk from that today. I read that it's a good time to start offering him some breastmilk in a sippy cup. He was not that thrilled. But I will offer it to him every lunch time with whatever food I give him anyway.

Oh I know what I forgot to tell you last entry! I was making a shopping list on a notepad, and Arthur was being extremely, um, *helpful* (!!), so I tore off a sheet of the notepaper and let him scrunch it while I sat with him making the list. He scrunched and scrunched happily for a while, and then made a funny sound, so I looked up and he was acting sort of gaggy (uh-oh!). When I took the piece of paper from his hands, it looked like this:

Hehe! I should have paid closer attention, or else just not given him a piece of paper when he is eating everything (except for food!). He looked at me and I said, "Open your mouth, Arthur!" and tried to see in. When he opened, I could see a pretty big-looking bit of paper flapping away right at the back of his throat! I reached my finger in there, but he gave me the most disgusted look I ever saw, clamped his mouth shut, and gulped very determinedly, all the while keeping his disapproving gaze on me! When he opened his mouth again, it was clean and empty, and then he shut it again and smiled like he just did something very clever, hehehe! Such a monkey. So I immediately phoned my mum in a flap about whether he would be okay after swallowing a piece of paper, and she said not to be so paranoid, and that the paper was probably digested into nothingness already by now, and that these things happen when you have little ones. Neil keeps worrying that Arthur might have a tummy ache today from swallowing the paper, but I am inclined to think my mum is right. We may see it again in a day or so, or it may be gone for good! ;)

I can't believe this boy is willing to eat ANYTHING, except for food! What a pickle! ;)

Well I think that is all for today. It's very late AGAIN and I need to clean my teeth ready for bed and try to get some sleep before Arthur wakes again. He is the loveliest baby boy. I just love him so much. He is just so soft and squidgy and his hair is the nicest thing I have EVER felt against my face. He smells so gorgeous. I could eat him! He gives cuddles with his arms around us now, and kisses on demand! He mostly gives open-mouthed kisses, but does give pursed-lip ones if I approach him slowly with pursed-lips to show him how! Heh. Also he just giggles and laughs sooooo much. He always did, but it seems he is doing so more than ever now. If Neil is holding him and I fall out of sight behind Neil, Arthur squeals with delight and leans his body right round Neil's shoulder to see me. He loves when I follow them up or down the stairs, and laughs and squeals to see me tagging along behind them! We found a new game this weekend that makes Arthur giggle a lot - again it is one with Neil holding him. I stand over on the other side of the room, or even out of sight around the corner, apparently paying no attention to Arthur. I see him making moves and faces for my attention out of the corner of my eye, and then suddenly I look right at him and make an excited face (wide open eyes and huuuuge open smile, shoulders hunched), and run across the room towards him! He squeals and shrieks with excitement as I get nearer to him, and finally dissolves into helpless giggles when I reach him and plant big kisses on his cheeks :) He's so lovely. I love him gigantastically. He's the most precious thing that ever lived, possibly. And I am so blessed to be his mummy, and to have him as MINE! My lovely precious baby boy.

Flylady ROCKS!!!! :)

I am sooooooo tired. Too tired to update but I wanted to check in anyway. I have a chest infection. Blah. I KNEW my chest wasn't right, I told Neil so but he said it was probably nothing. Anyway, I have antibiotics to take for 5 days, and I am on day 3. So far I am not bothered by them and Arthur seems fine too. I am taking multi-billion dophilis bacteria twice a day though.

I got my period a couple of days ago too, and it's a good old fashioned nasty one, so I'm extra super uber tired, and crampy and that. But happy :) My luteal phase lengthened to seven days!!! Seven!! I did not expect that much of an improvement so I'm thrilled and relieved! The last two cycles have been four day luteal phases - yikes! My temps were weird but at least I did ovulate and had good fertile signs, and a better luteal phase. And a normal period. So that's a good thing.

Hopefully once the period and the chest infection clear up, I am going to feel a LOT better in myself.

I just want to say that I love Kat. Love her. So much! Thank you Kat for taking the time to respond to my desperation about the house and my inability to fix it, and leave me that helpful link to Flylady. I can't tell you how much it has meant to me, and I don't think I would ever have found Flylady otherwise. I spent hours reading her website and cried with relief to read her words, because FINALLY somebody understands that I am not just a slob who is in bad habits about cleaning, but someone who just cannot seem to organise her home or her life, and has always been this way. Also she understands that I have always carried so much guilt over it. It's crazy. It's like her descriptions of Sidetracked Home Executives (SHEs) are ME!!! I am a SHE :) I joined up instantly, and I'm now on day 4 of FLYing, and I also joined the SHE forums which I also read in tears because of how there are hundreds of women JUST EXACTLY LIKE ME with the same struggles and feelings about their homes and lives and families.

It sounds like I am making a bigger deal of this than it is, but I wish I could tell you how much of a difference just 4 days is making to me. I get motivational emails every day from Flylady. They bless my heart and make me smile. She always says, "I am so proud of you!" and my eyes fill up. Maybe I needed to have someone build me up with words like this? Or maybe it's more to do with the fact that I really have struggled with organisation sooo much my whole life that I have had long periods of depression and self-loathing over it, and finally someone tells me I am not alone, I am not just a slob, there are lots of women out there with the same issues, I CAN change, and they believe in me. And what is more, they are proud of me for asking for help and working on changing it! I feel so much happier and more confident than I have in ages. I never knew what it was like to feel confident that I could be a "real" housewife. I have always had this secret fear/dread/shame that I will never make a good home-maker. It's all I've ever wanted to do, and yet I can't seem to do it. How hard can it be anyway? But I have always found it impossible. My whole life I have been in trouble for untidiness or disorganisation, both at home and at school. People tried all sorts to get me organised and tidy. I got punished, and I got "motivated", and I had reward systems, and good examples, etc, etc. In the end I just got people giving up and they pretty much all ended up trying to shame it out of me. You know, sometimes I tried so hard to get organised and tidy my room and stuff. It would always work wonderfully for maybe a week or a month if I tried extra hard, but I could never keep it up. I just figured I'm lazy and disorganised and just don't work hard enough like everyone else does. There's something wrong with me and I should be ashamed. Especially since I got married and became a wife at home after my illness - because I should be making my husband's home a relaxing one to be in, and fix him good meals after a hard day. I still feel ashamed that I didn't. Motherhood made me feel anxious and ashamed before it even HAPPENED because I was already thinking ahead to how I couldn't make a nice home for my children. Just lately, about a month ago, I lay awake many hours worrying that perhaps I would have to give up my dream of having a large family, because I had noticed that mothers who do tend to be organised people. I did not want to let my children down by having a ton of them and then bringing them up in a chaotic way so that they did not benefit from a sense of order or a relaxing home or a mother who was doing a good job in the home. I even decided that I would only want what was best for my children, therefore I would see if I was any more able to keep house and organise myself after we had 2 children, and if not, I would have to consider not having any more. I felt heartbroken at the idea, but this is how big a deal the whole thing is to me. It's the best way I can get it across to you, to give you this example. My whole life it has been such a major issue with my self-esteem.

So that is why I love Kat! :) I had no idea Flylady (or anything like her/it) existed. I am following her "baby steps" plan for new Flybabies, and reading messages at the SHE forums (too chicken to post just yet!), and so far I have got myself dressed to my shoes first thing every morning for 3 days, made the beds right after that, and then cleaned my kitchen sink till it shone!! My sink shines! My heart sings! I even shone the bathroom sink because it felt so good to have a shiny sink and not have to feel like I have to clean the rest of the whole house to do the job right. There is no pressure on me, others like me are out there doing the same thing, and I have every reason to be PROUD of myself! Any normal person can shine their sink and tidy their home and it's no biggie. For me, it is. I am not like other people. I am a Sidetracked Home Executive! And proud to be, now that I see there is no reason to be ashamed, and I can change :) The relief, years and years pressing down on me, is immense. My sink is shiny. I feel confident about the future and my abilities in being a good housewife and a great organised mother of a brood of children! I feel happier about this than I ever have.

I did my first Hot Spot Fire Drill today!!! I cleaned out a "hot spot" (place that gathers clutter like an end table or something) in a 2-minute Fire Drill (at a run!) this morning, and I could have danced for joy when I had finished. I am just so excited about cleaning, because Flylady makes it so much fun, and it's only ever a few minutes here and there - I am not allowed to do more :) I am getting a Flylady timer so I can set the timer for my cleaning sprees like Flylady suggests. I am just so happy to have found that website, and - can I say it enough?! - so grateful to Kat! Thank you!!!!

Okay, enough about Flylady and cleaning! But you can be sure I'll talk about it a lot from now on. Flylady says it takes 28 days for a SHE to make a habit (21 days for everyone else). She also says it may take months, maybe 6 months to a year to actually finish cleaning and tidying my home and make my new routines complete habits. That is so well tailored to someone like me. To SHEs! I have a morning routine (dress to my shoes, make beds, shine sink) and a before-bedtime routine (load dishwasher, lay out clothes for tomorrow, clean teeth) which I do with ease and excitement every day, and that is all I have to do for now. I do the Hot Spot Fire Drills and 15-minute declutter games like the 27-fling boogie (so much fun!!) now and then when an email arrives and tells me to drop what I'm doing and do one right NOW!! I love it. I know the novelty will wear off and I'll start to struggle soon, but that is where the forums come in, and the motivational emails from Flylady will help me there too. There is also a lot of stuff on her website for when we start to struggle, since she knows the kind of person I am, and that it doesn't come easy. I'm so glad. I'm so relieved. I'm going to have a clean home and maybe even be one of those housewives I've always envied, organised and wonderful in the kitchen, etc. It's going to be me. I just know it is! I'm so excited!

Okay, enough! ;)

We went to my grandparents' house today for lunch. Arthur was wonderful and cute and giggly and interested in everything. He is at such a delightful age. Everybody loves him, and he is so much fun! He did not nap though - everything was too interesting. He got about 20 minutes in his travel cot, but he couldn't go back to sleep and he was just so tired. I drove home as Neil had wine with lunch (I did too, but only like a THIRD of a glassful!), and Arthur fell asleep when we were nearly home, so I just turned around and drove and drove till 30 minutes had passed, and then we came home. He went to bed at 6.15 tonight. He was crying and rubbing his face constantly from 6pm, poor little boy. He was so exhausted.

He says mama all the time. All the time. It's so delightful! Yesterday he said "dada" as Neil approached him with a nappy, and today Neil was watching Wimbledon on the TV at G & G's, and Arthur was in my arms, leeeeaning and leaning towards Neil with outstretched arms, and finally he said, "Dada!" and Neil turned round :) His "dada" isn't as clear as mama yet though. I love that he is calling us by name! I don't know why but I thought that would be a long way off yet. He seems so tiny to be standing on his leggies and yelling our names when we aren't watching him! ;)

Talking of which, here he is a couple of days ago, wearing just a fuzzi in the too-hot weather:

Isn't he clever?! Look at his lil stumpy leggies! He is built exactly like me. *sigh* He isn't quite that proficient at standing yet. He toppled over a few seconds after this photo was taken, but I can let go now if he is holding onto something. He prefers to just hold my hands rather than have me hold him under the arms now. He's always trying to shake my hands off him, hehe! The thing is, then he tries to let go of one of my hands, and he just can't balance yet with one hand. He's keen though! He can go from standing to sitting very neatly now, and I am beginning to be familiar with the little impatient movements he makes when he is sitting and wanting to stand up. I just offer him both my hands (held open in front of his body) and he takes them in both his hands, and I see his leg muscles working, and give a little pull and up he comes! He is really good at making the right moves to go from sitting to standing and standing to sitting, but he hasn't got the balance or muscle strength down yet. He'll get there quickly though, I'm sure, because he's constantly wanting to practise!

It has been so hot all week. Finally today (Saturday) it is cooler. So cool in fact, that I was actually chilly outside!!! Yay! And the sun did not shine for even a minute today. It is a nice respite, but horribly grey and dull. The humidity built up all week till Thursday was just unbearable. On Friday it got more breezy. Friday was a great day! I had my period and was managing well :) I had a shiny sink and a renewed spirit! Arthur took two naps - 9.30-11.15am and 2-3pm, no resettling for either of them! We went out for a walk after his morning nap, and had a nice breezy not-so-hot time in a small park near our home. Arthur was cheerful and babbled happily, and he looked cute! It was still pretty hot so he wore his fluffy nappy and a T-shirt! I love that nappy! Here he is at the park:

After his afternoon nap we played and giggled, and then we went to the supermarket and did all the food shopping. I even bought cleaning supplies!! How fun that was!!! :) I bought a washing-up tub that was supposed to be for Arthur to have water play in, but it's soooo tiny and they didn't make any bigger ones. He'll never fit in it, but he can sit in front of it and have some watery fun. I am sewing him a waterproof place to play or be naked in the hot weather. I'm putting a couple of my homebirth supplies to good use! I am sewing a cheap shower curtain (I bought 5 for the homebirth) to an old double duvet cover (given to us for the homebirth), and cutting off the excess, turning and topstitching, and voila, a clean, comfortable, waterproof blankie that won't feel too hot and sticky to lie on, and which will be big enough to cover the whole floor! Arthur can pee on that to his heart's content! Or have indoor water play even. I have nearly finished it, but Arthur got fed up that I was sewing and not playing!

When we got home from the shopping, I put the groceries away, ran Arthur's bath, Neil arrived home and bathed with him, we made Arthur laugh like I have NEVER heard him laugh before (Neil was clapping at a fly over the bed, and Arthur was literally laughing till he had to gasp for breath!), and then he went to sleep at around 7pm and slept till 11.30pm. Blissful day! I said to Neil in the evening that if every day was that straightforward, in terms of Arthur napping well and being well-rested, and me having a routine and feeling confident in myself, then being a SAHM to a little baby would be a BREEZE. Bliss. Just what I have always wanted to do. And it still IS, but it has been hard so far. I hope that things are settling down for us. Friday was so lovely!

Arthur's night sleep isn't the greatest at the moment. He is waking every couple of hours again at the moment, so not as bad as it has been, but not as great as it could be either. The problem is that he cries like his heart is breaking if I don't nurse him. I can't bear to let him cry like that, and I will always nurse him if that is what he wants. But I am tired. I don't know why he's doing this again suddenly, but maybe it's the heat, or a growth spurt, or a phase of needing extra comfort from mummy? I don't know. I don't care either. I just want to bless him and love him, day and night. He is blessed and comforted at my breasts, so I will nurse him as much as he wants me to. I hope he does settle back again soon though!

We finally got our child benefit through! Yay! I can't believe how much money we lost by being so disorganised and claiming 4 MONTHS after he was born!!! Oh well. But we get regular payments from now on, which will help the old bank situation! And Arthur got a letter in the post today, saying he is due for his first routine hearing test next month! I can't believe he will be 8 months old!!! I say this every month, don't I?! He is 7 and a half months old already. At 8 months old, his next health visitor check is due, and the next check with the doctor too. It's written in his red health record book - 8 months! I remember looking at that page and thinking how I could NOT believe he would be that old! And here we are! I have no worries about his hearing. Babycentre says that babies with hearing problems tend to stop babbling from about 6 months old. Arthur babbles non-stop. And says Mama and Dada!! He can definitely hear :) It's the wait for the sight checks that is making me antsy. It is so long to wait before I can find out if he is colour blind. My brother is colour blind - my mum is the carrier. I have a 50/50 chance of being a carrier too, and if I am, any of my sons could be colour blind. I hope Arthur isn't. But he really could be. Hmmm.

Well I can't think what else I meant to write now. Thank you Mo, Kat, Jemma and Robbi for congratulating us on Arthur's first word!!!! I really appreciate your messages, as it was a big deal to me, and a huge milestone for Arthur too! I never really thought about it like that at first - his FIRST WORD!! I was so excited to realise it like that! :) My baby boy is growing up too fast! Thanks for being excited for us!

Okay I am going to eat some ice-cream and do my before-bedtime routine! I am so excited!! I'm going to load the dishwasher and rejoice at my clean sink! I cleaned it twice yesterday, once with bleach! It never looked so clean! And I have noooo guilt about the rest of the kitchen being so yucky. I will get there. I am proud of me too :)

Mama....

The "hmmm" from 2 days ago turned into proper wondering yesterday, when Arthur got upset at bedtime after I finished nursing him. He was almost asleep, and I left the room while Neil lay down with him till he fell asleep, and he just got more and more awake and upset. Neil would turn him over and pat his little bottom, saying, "Shhh, sleepy time" like we do, but Arthur finally had enough and started crying, and wailing, "Mamum! Mamuum!" over and over! I felt in my gut that he was calling me, although I still wasn't sure about the vocalising being a coincidence or something. It was the hardest thing to hear him call me by name and not run to him as fast as my legs could carry me, arms outstretched!! But I did get there pretty fast! :) When I got in and let him comfort suck for a while, Neil said, "I think he might have been calling you" and I told him I was wondering the same.

Which brings us to today. Today I am finally sure of it! My clever baby boy can call me by name! ALL day long he has been calling me Mama, Mamum, ah-Ma, or ah-Mum! It's the most lovely sound I ever heard, since his first cry at birth. He has done it so often that I can't even count the number of times - dozens and dozens, for sure. It's like when he first signed milk actually - one day we were wondering did he just sign milk? Then the next day we knew he just did! Then the next day he signed it like 50 times, all day long, hehe!

Today, if I leave the room (I watched out of sight once or twice!), he stops playing, looks around, and says, "Ah-Ma?" - complete with question mark intonation on the "Ma" part! If I have to be away longer than this (like when I have gone to the loo or something), he stops making a questioning tone and goes right to, "Mamummmm! Ah-Mumm!" sounding more and more put out all the time! He has such a determined personality, he always knows exactly what he wants, and makes every effort to communicate it right away!

Although my heart ached at one point today because he is back in yet another bout of painful teething, and he was gnawing on his hands and crying about it for a while, so I gave him teething powder, rubbed Bonjela on his gums, and gave him a cold teething ring to chew, and then a cold cloth after that, but he still had pain :( I was right there holding him on the fleece blanket on the floor, and he looked at me, crying round the fist he was chewing on, and sobbed, "Mamuuum!" It just about broke my heart, because I was right there, he didn't need me to go to him, and I couldn't do anything more than I had already done for him, and yet he still was desperate for me to do something to help him, so much so that he was asking me to :( I just held him close and kissed him and talked to him in soothing tones till he calmed down a bit, then I nursed him right there and then. He was a bit better after that. But I didn't even think about how it can be hard to hear your little one call you by name sometimes. I thought it would always just feel wonderful! Of course, it is wonderful all the same, because I just can't think of any greater gift he could give me right now. I feel wonderful when I hear him say my name. I feel like standing on a mountain top and yelling, "MY BABY CAN TALK!!!!" because I'm so proud!!!! Of course he can't really talk as such, but he has his first word that he can really SAY, and he knows how to use it in context. It's not just a random "mama" that happens to get addressed to me sometimes. He knows I am Mama. He knows how to say it, and how to use it to his advantage. My clever boy! :)

So that is my wonderful news today!

It's still hot. But I am getting the hang of keeping the house cool a bit better now. I need to keep the windows and curtains closed on the front of the house all day long (where the sun is on it all day), and then the heat is much better in those rooms. I open the windows at the back though, if the air is cool enough, which it was today thank goodness! Today I even opened the back door to the garden. This is where I realised how hideous our garden has become! Ugh, I am disgusted that we let it slip into that state. It's a small garden but it was simple and easy to care for when we moved here - it has a patio area right outside the house, and then a lawn, and another patio area right at the end. Very small patios though. Right now, the lawn is not grass, but 3ft high weeds (thistles - yes, 3ft high thistles! - and those yucky spindly things with a billion fluffy bits all over) and moss. I think the grass died long ago. The patio outside the back door is covered with large sheets of cardboard that was the packaging to various baby items we bought in the last year, and which were too big to keep in the house or be collected on bin day. And, I'm thoroughly ashamed to admit, underneath the cardboard is a sad, rainlogged (and stagnant, ew!) birth pool :( We are so crap. Oh, not forgetting under THAT is the old kitchen floor. Yeurgh. So there is nowhere to even STAND outside the house at the back, it's so gross. I really wish we'd taken better care of it. It's such a mammoth job to do now, but I think we must do it. It's not very nice out there so we hadn't planned on using the garden for Arthur's play really. We have a lovely park nearby which, although a drive away, is well worth ditching the garden for on a nice day! But I didn't realise how much I might want a place to put Arthur in the open air while I hung the washing out or something. Today I hung washing out, treading carefully round the stagnant pools (ugh!) and crackly weeds, and Arthur sat in his highchair in the kitchen (which opens onto the garden), calling, "Mama? Mamum!!" when I had been out of sight too long (ie 5 seconds)! Later on, I scooped him up in my arms and we stood out on the cardboard for a few minutes in the air. He seemed fascinated by the gross garden, and that made me wish all the more that we'd looked after it, ready for him. It's noisy and smelly out there because there is a car workshop over the fence, so it's really not a nice garden to spend much time in, but it would be nice for a little while maybe. We need to fix it.

But there's little chance, since the house is in a fairly similar state and seems to be so forever, and we need to tackle that first. Not only are we miiiiles from having it babyproofed, we also have a messy, unhygenic, depressing house to live in. I am feeling pretty down about it at the moment. I am always reading other mothers, even those with more children than I have, or PREGNANT women with more children than I have (Robbi for example!), who write that they just cleaned the bathroom and now they are going to tackle something or other else. I can't understand why I seem to be the only one with a pigsty for a home and seemingly no time or energy to fix it! I am beginning to see that it must just be me - I must be super-lazy or disorganised. I think I am both, and always have been really. But even though I am wanting to fix the mess and trying to organise myself, it still isn't working one bit. I may get the dishwasher unloaded and reloaded again SOME days, and I do get laundry done pretty much every day. But CLEANING?! Never. I'm ashamed, but honestly, never. And there are no clean surfaces to lay even a PEN on. Not one. Even the seating is overflowing with stuff. Upstairs is a little better, especially since we worked on the spare room to move the furniture a bit. But there's still a huge pile of crap against one wall. But I could lay a pen on the desk, so there's obviously more space up there!

Ugh. I am just so tired of the mess. Very little of the floor is visible in the day. Mostly because Arthur's blanket is down with his toys on it, but even when that is picked up at the end of the day, the rest of the floor is awful. I am getting downright nervous about when he starts to crawl, and finding myself thankful that he hasn't managed to yet! He seems forever on the verge of it, but we are just not ready for him to be mobile. But at this rate, we never will be.

I am the stay-at-home-person. Why can't I get my finger out and just DO it?! There must be time and opportunity. Everyone else seems to find it. I suppose I use his nap times to make and eat lunch, and catch up online mostly. I do the laundry and dishwasher when Arthur is awake and watching me from the highchair, but he never sits there happily for long enough for me to do much more than that. It's so crap of me. Yuck.

Anyway.

I will talk about Arthur for a while now! I hate moaning in my diary, and I think I do it more than I like!

Let's see, what else is new with Arthur? I keep trying to remember things as they happen, to write here, but then when I am sitting at the computer I can't remember them. He is still not enjoying the heat, and he has quite a bit of heat rash now, mostly around his neck and on his shoulders and face :( I don't know how to prevent it, as I keep him as cool as I can, although that's not really cool enough. It doesn't seem to bother him too much, although he has been scratching at the back of his neck today till he drew blood :( Poor baby. This weather is due to last all week though, so hopefully he'll start to adapt to it a little or something. I hope.

His favourite toy at the moment is his workbench! I bought him a wooden workbench a couple of months ago, because I liked the look of it, and I thought it would be stimulating to him in several different ways at once. It has pegs that you can bang through with a hammer, and a bendy wire-type-thing with big wooden beads threaded on it, and wooden circles that spin when you push at them with beads inside so that they rattle. And a squeaker! And some other thing. And it's very colourful and reversible - different colours but same features on each side. Arthur LOVES squeakers! They have made him smile since he was 2 months old. All I have to do is press a squeaker on a toy a few times and he beams soooo wide! Anyway, he will sit at this little workbench (which is only about 12 inches wide and a couple of inches off the floor) for ages and push at the various bits. I haven't given him the hammer because he just wants to eat it and smack himself in the head by mistake, etc! It is a 10-months+ toy though. If I support him, he loves to stand leaning over his toy basket, sweeping his gaze over all his toys! He will do this for a few moments before reaching out for the one he has chosen - usually the workbench at the moment. He can stand just holding onto the edge of the basket for support, but it's not sturdy enough to take his weight like that so I keep my hands under his arms incase he falls. He's very wobbly on his legs with balance, but very strong at standing up! He will not sit or lie for ANYTHING once he's standing! If I finally get him down, he goes like a board that I have to lower to horizontal (!) and then when he's down, he cries :( The boy loves to stand, and that is that!

What else is he doing now? There must be things I have forgotten to tell about for a while?... He lifts his arms now when I say, "Arms up, Arthur!" if I want to take a t-shirt off him when he's sitting up, or lift him out of the highchair. It's so cute :)

Ohhh yesterday he knocked a toy out of reach, playing on his tummy, and after trying and trying to reach it, he finally went limp and just watched it for a moment, then suddenly popped his head back up again and started to pull on the sheet he was lying on, watching the toy all the time as it got dragged towards him!! Once he got it near enough, he grabbed it and continued playing with it! I was so impressed by that! Clever Arthur! :)

He started banging two toys together a couple of weeks ago, and he now loves to do this all the time with the stacking cups! They make a nice clack-clack-clack noise :) He also bangs together two plastic stacking rings and anything else that he might have in each hand! He had been banging a single object against the floor, a toy on the floor, himself or the highchair tray for quite a long time, and then suddenly it seemed to dawn on him that it would be more fun to bang two items together that he was holding - maximum control! ;)

Also I started offering him a third item when he was already holding one in each hand, because I saw it as a developmental milestone for the next month or so on Babycentre and wondered what he would do. I could see the dilemma going on in his mind, hehe! He eventually dropped one of his items and took the one I was holding, whilst keeping the other item in his other hand, which is apparently what he's meant to learn to do, so that's good! Other times, he refuses the new item. I like to see which things he likes or favours, by what he does when I offer him more than he can hold at once!

What else? Oh he LOVES it when I sing "Wind The Bobbin Up" and do the actions with him! I think I mentioned this a little while ago. We sing it several times a day now because he just loves it. He smiles as soon as I start to sing it, or when I sit him in front of me and put my hands in the first action as I start to sing, so I know he recognises it now. He loves when I clap! He always grabs my hands and holds them on the outsides as I clap them, and if I stop, he does this slightly impatient move where he picks up and drops my hand again almost at the same moment. I have seen him do that with toys that he wants to see move, so I know he is trying to make my hands continue moving in the way he likes! Very determined little man!

I want to get him a spinning toy. I put his stacking rings on their sides and tweak them so that they spin for a few seconds, and he loves watching this. He watches them intently, never me. If I stop and one of them has fallen within his reach, he does that same pick-up-drop thing, and then waits a second or two, watching it with an expectant look on his face - it's so cute and funny when he does that! I love doing it just to see him do it :) So I know that's what he's trying to do when I stop clapping - make me keep clapping!

He is 7 and a half months old this week. How crazy is that?!

We haven't tried him on any food since the other day with the mashed potatoes. I want to buy a sweet potato and mash that up for him to eat while I am eating my lunch. Although maybe I should stick to us eating the same things for a while? I could have baked potato for lunch one day - mmm! And he could have mashed potato. I still want to introduce each new food gradually to watch for any allergies he might have. Ooh, I didn't even think about this rash he's got having something to do with the mashed potato! That was a new food. But hmmm, I think it's heat rash. But it IS on his face, round his mouth and stuff, so hmmm.... Isn't that a weird place for heat rash? We'll see if it clears up.

Arthur nearly fell off the bed in the spare room at the weekend! Neil and I were in there talking about how we could move the furniture around to make the most room for a wardrobe, and we put Arthur on the bed on his playmat. We were standing right next to the bed and watching Arthur, and we literally both glanced away at the same time, to a wall of the room, as we talked, and suddenly Neil yelped because Arthur had hit his legs on his way down to the floor!

I can't believe how fast he moved from playing to nosediving! He must have done a double roll in under a second, hehehe! Anyway, thankfully Neil was standing with the side of his leg against the bed, and Arthur rolled over the edge against them, so Neil just made a quick move and trapped the poor boy between his leg and the bed till we got our arms there to pick him up again! He never hit the floor, but when I bent down fast to grab him, his butt was sandwiched between Neil and the bed, his legs UP IN THE AIR and his head about 6 inches from the floor!!! What a scary moment! I'm so glad he did not hit the floor. He didn't seem at all bothered by the experience, and seemed to be waiting patiently in that odd position for someone to rescue him! Actually I think he was just fascinated by the new view of the room, from upside down, funny boy! We soooo need to be super careful with him now. It seems we can't take our eyes off him for a second. We should make sure he is never in an unsafe place though. He is safe on our bed as it has 3 sides completely walled-in (two bed ends and a wall), and the other side is half bedguard, and then the bottom half is a gap, but we roll up a duvet cover and lay it securely across the gap, then put a pillow over that for good measure. It won't be safe when he can crawl, if we are not there on the bed with him to watch that he doesn't clamber over it. In the night I go between the bedguard and Arthur, so he has the wall and me to reckon with! We are desperate to fix up our permanent family bed on the floor asap. I can't wait till that's done!

Okay this is a lonnnnng entry and it's getting late. I have an osteopath appt tomorrow. Neil has private medical cover at work, and he is now seeing this osteopath too. He just put me on the company's medical insurance which means we have to pay a small amount extra on our outgoings each month. BUT I get to see the osteopath for freeee!!! The extra per month is less than the cost of ONE osteo appt, so since I have them weekly, we are saving money! Yay! Neil will take me off again next year, since I'm sure I will be finished with my treatment by then. I hope!

I think I may go to the doctor if I can bear to tomorrow. I am still sick, and although the coldy stuff is finally starting to go, my cough is weird. I don't usually get coughs after colds, only with flu usually. And now I have a weird groaning sound coming from the bottom of one of my lungs. It isn't wheezing, it's something else. I can't describe it too well. But I listened to my chest all over with my stethoscope and it's definitely isolated to the bottom lobe of my right lung. Not sure what to make of that, so maybe I'll ask the doctor.

Also my period is not here yet - yay! I know it is right around the corner, and I have cramps like it is already here, but I am hoping soooo much that it will hold off till tomorrow, because then I can rejoice and say my luteal phase has lengthened since my periods started back!! Only by one day, but oh well. I am antsy about it staying so short, the same length each cycle. I want to see it gradually lenthening, so I would like to see an encouraging sign! The last two cycles, having checked my charts again, I am pretty sure I had a four day luteal phase. That is sooooo short. The first cycle I had spotting at 4DPO, so maybe it was even shorter than that really? This time I really want to see it lengthen to 5 days. It needs to be 10 to support a pregnancy. And although it seems ages away, our goal of December for trying for another baby is actually only 5 and a half months away. Yikes! Possibly not time enough for my cycles to get better. Oh I can feel a huge waffle coming on about this, so I'll stop! This is stuff that I should save for my pregnancy journal anyway! I'll update about it there sometime.

Okay, that all. It is 11pm and time for bed. I will leave you with a photo of Arthur, taken yesterday during one of his naps in the too-hot weather. He had the fan on him but he was still sweating. One great thing about the hot weather is that he only wears a nappy, if anything at all, and I LOVE to show off his gorgeous cloth nappy collection!! Cloth bums are the cutest :) Here he is sleeping in his Starbunz "Bam-Bam" stuffable nappy (it's fluffy!!)!...

Night night! :)

First day of baby-led weaning!

Just a quick entry while Arthur finishes his nap. Toooooooo hot. Yuck. Also I am still not well, which double sucks in the heat. I don't know what to do with Arthur when it's this hot and humid. Neither of us are enjoying it one bit. He has a little bit of heat rash behind one ear and some on his neck, poor sausage. AND he has been without clothes for 2 days! I only put him in a nappy now and then, like for nap time so that he doesn't wet the bed. At least he doesn't have too bad of a nappy rash at the moment. I try to keep him aired! He is the sweatiest baby I have ever encountered! I thought Cameron was sweaty (mind you, he REALLY was), but Arthur is worse. He just hates the heat, like Mummy. Bleurgh.

We have had the fan on all day and all night, but it's only like an office desk-top fan and it has to be on Arthur all the time or else he just sweats big beads and gets cranky. So I'm melting while he naps! Horrid heat. I don't think I could bear to put him in the car seat, clothed or not, so that leaves us rather stranded. There is no way either of us could tolerate a sling! I guess we could go out with the 3-wheeler, but then that's just something for him to sweat against, and something for me to overheat pushing around and getting in the sun more than I want to. It sounds rather pathetic, but when the summer gets hot and humid, I mostly spend each day in the house not moving very much, just trying to make it through the day to the evening, and then being wakeful and overheated all night till the few hours of slight coolness in the early morning. And then it all starts over again. It's just too much for me. I sleep so crappily in the hot weather, even without an equally hot and wakeful baby! I wish I was a hot weather person. But maybe then I wouldn't love love love winter and snuggly cold weather so much!! I wish for Arthur's sake he was a hot weather person too. But I do know he loves the winter, and isn't phazed by being too cold at all. He always seemed to enjoy the cold air when he was tiny and new.

Happy happy though, because Wimbledon tennis started today! Yay! :) It doesn't get very interesting till next week though. It makes me want to sip a tall glass of cold fizzy drink with a lemon slice on the rim. Ahhh.

Yesterday, true to my word, we ditched the purees and started baby-led weaning! Yay! Neil and I had leftovers of the lamb and vegetable gratin for lunch, and since we had mashed potato with it, we decided to make Arthur some mashed potato (instead of the original plan of having chicken and mashed potato together) and put a bit of it on my plate for him. For his mashed potato, I mashed it the same amount as for an adult, same consistency, and pumped maybe an ounce of breastmilk while it cooked, to mix in with it. Then we all sat down on the blanket on the floor (covered with a sheet!) to eat. Neil and I ate off lap trays so that Arthur could sit right up close to us without any pressure to start with. I put his bowl of mashed potatoes on my tray, but I also put some potato on my plate for him to grab at too. Also he wasn't even wearing a nappy, which made it a lot easier for clean-up time!

The first thing I found was that Arthur STILL preferred to grab the food on my plate that he wasn't supposed to have! Also I should have been careful about that, as it was hot (not burning) and I didn't catch his hand in time once so he got his hand on my food and looked a bit shocked and like he might cry, because it was too hot. It didn't burn him, thank goodness. I need to be way more careful. I felt bad about it.

But we ate our dinner, and I ended up piling mine nearer and nearer to me on the plate, hehe! And guarding it with my hand! So that wasn't how we intended it, but oh well. He put his hand in his potato and looked really disgusted to have got himself messy! Then after that he played with it more and more. He didn't put his hand anywhere near his mouth though, and we had almost finished our meal and were about to give up and wipe him down, when suddenly he put a potatoey thumb in his mouth and made curious tasting faces! We did not make a big thing of it, because he somehow seems more put off trying food when we make a big deal out of it. I think that's partly why he hasn't wanted to eat so far.

Anyway after that his hand went back and forth, back and forth, from plate to mouth! He didn't actually ingest much, because he mostly just tasted his fingers, and he gagged a fair bit on a couple of tiny lumps. But that didn't seem to put him off at all, as he put his hands back in his mouth right afterwards.

Of course mashed potato got EVERYWHERE! The sheet went straight in the wash. Arthur went straight in the bath! After he finished with the potato, he used his potatoey hands to fiddle with his hair, ears, and toes, and then (he was sitting the whole time), he suddenly realised if he looked down he could SEE his bits!! He only ever fiddled with them lying down during a nappy change before, so this seemed to be a real eureka moment, hehe! Of course they got covered with potato! I wish I could show you the last photo we took, of Arthur with a huge grin at the camera, potato on every single part of his body, including his lil bits, hehehe! But yeah, it's too nudie for here.

But here are two that you may see :)

I have more I want to write, but Arthur is awake and I'm nearly a puddle, so I will finish here and maybe do another entry again soon. I think I am getting my period tomorrow. Pfthth. Will update soon.

Standing and baby-led weaning and stuff

Thank you for the notes and messages again! Thanks for the congrats on my new niece (yes, she will call me Auntie Alice! Yay!), and for the wisdom over Arthur's bouncing (!) and also to Jeannie for reassuring me over my feelings about stuff. *hugs* And hmmm, the "me" time... I forgot about that, whoops! I am not sure what to do with myself though. I guess I come here and type. Mind you, lately I have been watching Pride and Prejudice, and over 3 days have managed to watch all 5 hours! :) I love Pride and Prejudice (that particular version anyway - the BBC one with Colin Firth). It relaxes me to disappear into it. So that has been nice.

I am STILL sick. Blah. I know my cold is lots better though. It's just that somebody filled my entire sinus cavity with sage and onion stuffing, or something. And I can hear like I'm underwater. And I have a bad cough. I am still achy and exhausted, but hopefully it will go away soon. I'm hoping over the weekend, since that is when I get to rest a little more with Neil around to help with Arthur. Anyway that is why I haven't updated for another couple of days. I have just felt crappy.

It's hot and huuumid today. Yuck. I've said it 2,495 times (!) and I'll say it again - I hate summer. I love the blue sky, and the green leaves, and the summer "smell" on the breeze (when I have my sense of smell, that is), and the birdies cheeping away till 9 or 10pm, and the lovely association with the memories of being out from school for the summer, and going on summer holidays. But I hate the heat. Even puny amounts of heat. Basically once it gets to 70 degrees I am moaning about it! But 70 degrees when it's not humid is gorgeous. Today it has been 85 though, and should be a bit hotter tomorrow. Yeurgh. We had all the windows open today but Arthur has been such a sticky little boy, even just wearing his nappy. He is like me with hot weather.

I think I am not that tolerant of sunlight. If I go out in it for just 30 minutes, even covered in sun cream and wearing a hat, I feel unwell by the evening. Usually feeling like I am getting flu or something, and not right in my tummy. I have noticed it too many summers running for it to be a coincidence. Also my arms get a horrible bumpy rash, and it's definitely not sun cream that my skin is reacting to. The only constant factor is the sun, as it has been happening since I was ten. My great aunt is allergic to the sun. She can't even walk in it now that she's elderly. She feels terribly ill and sometimes even faints, and it doesn't have to be hot sunshine, so it's not the heat. She gets a rash too. I hope I don't get like that, otherwise I will have to totally avoid the sun, and that would not be good! I am noticing that my symptoms are a bit worse than they were when I was in my teens though. Hmmm. Weird thing.

Okay, here is my scrumbly cutie-boy in a summer romper outfit playing with his jingle ball on the sofa. Obviously I don't leave him sitting on the sofa like that, but sometimes it's easier when I'm feeling yucky to sit on the floor and have him ABOVE me so that I don't have to congest my head further by reaching/looking down all the time. Anyway, he likes it there :) He is getting soooo good at sitting, and even balances perfectly on uneven squishy surfaces! Anyway, here is my lil gorgeous man:

And here he is after I'd snapped a few similarly smiley photos, and he was getting bored, hehe!...

Agghhhhhhhh, I love him so much that sometimes it's like someone really DID shoot me with an arrow through my heart like in the cartoons! Not in a bad way at all, just almost painful in its overwhelming physicalness. Yes, I know there's no such word as physicalness. There is now!

He is still not crawling, though now rocks on hands and knees with his knees drawn right up under him to his tummy. He mostly has his head down though, and doesn't seem to have figured out lifting both ends at once! On the few occasions that he has though, he seems happy just rocking. He rocks so violently, it's funny!

STILL no teeth. Aaargh! He even seems to have come down a bit from the bad teething he was having a few days ago. I'm sure it'll be back with a vengeance though, because he only usually gets a few days respite from teething pain. Why won't they come THROUGH?!!! Tsk.

Have recently noticed that when Arthur is getting upset about something, like he is tired and I put him in bed and get ready to nurse him, and he's impatient, or he's got himself stuck and starts yelling for help, that he moans, "Ma-mam... Ma-maa!" at these times. I just wonder.... I don't know if I'd call them real "mama" words, but he definitely makes those word sounds when he's cranky and wanting me to do something. I like it :) I refer to myself when I talk to him all the time, and when I do, I call myself Mummy or Mama. Often it's Mama, like when I say, "Mama's just going to the loo" or "Mama will be back in a minute", etc. I don't know why I use that name, since I always presumed to call myself Mummy, but I just seem to have settled on it as it seems easy. Anyway, that's the word he seems to be making when he's particularly wanting me for something. He won't say anything resembling it at any other time though, so I'm not sure!

I've decided to persue baby-led weaning completely now. Yesterday I tried Arthur on some very nice apple puree, and he made the most disgusted faces at me and spat it out. After that I went online and did some searches on baby-led weaning (coming up with very little) and then asked at a couple of parenting websites, whereupon I was given lots of good advice and much reassurance from others whose babies have not been interested in purees or at the "right" age, etc. And I joined a yahoo group especially about baby-led weaning! Yay! So far everyone has been really helpful and given me loads of advice.

At the moment I feel like I'm the only person in the world who is still exclusively breastfeeding her 7-month-and-one-week-old baby, because that's how people make me feel about it. Friends, family, anyone in the healthcare profession. But finally I have found people amongst whom I don't feel odd or wrong, and actually Arthur seems to be among the youngest of the babies there, which is lovely! They make me feel like I have nothing to be ashamed of if he's still taking only breastmilk at 8 months even. But we'll see how that goes.

As of today, Arthur will never be offered a puree of any sort again. Nor fed mushy slop from a spoon. UNLESS things go really wrong with any other method or something, or unless he suddenly really WANTS to be spoonfed some puree. Tomorrow (if his naps coincide) we are giving him some of our dinner. Just like that! We're having roast chicken and mashed potatoes. He can have some chicken, and I will make his potato with just breastmilk. If he hates it, then never mind, but even if he is interested in touching and handling the food, that would be good. I don't mind if he eats it off my plate. I think he will MUCH prefer food in this way, because he is so much more interested in our "grown-up" things than his toys or things that set him apart from us in any way. He gets most frustrated when he isn't allowed something of ours that he wants because we're using it or something! I think it's only fair that he be offered food the way he sees us eating it and finds it interesting. I don't blame him for rejecting the baby-food way. So we'll see how this goes, but I'm not going to stress too much about it. He'll eat when he's ready.

Um, what else? I ovulated, yay! But that was only the day before yesterday, and today I already have cramps and it's sore this evening when I nurse Arthur, and I have the odd spot on my neck (yucky pre-period sign for me, blah). So it seems that I am about to have the shortest luteal phase EVER, which sucks. I want them to lengthen! I don't want to have to choose in 5 months time between having another baby and night-weaning Arthur so that I am actually ABLE to conceive. I hope it evens out by itself. People say that when he's on solids it might even out more, but that would be because he is taking less milk and more nutrition through solids, and that is DEFINITELY not my aim, not till he's at least a year old anyway, no matter how much he ends up enjoying solids. And nooo, that's not because I have a hang-up about me being the sole source of his nutrition. It's because it's better for him that way (research-based, incase anyone objects!).

Dum-de-dum. What else can I write? Surely more has happened than this?! I have just not been well enough to take Arthur out of the house ALL week. I feel bad about that, but I really have been quite poorly so it's all I could manage to just look after him in the house on my own.

Next week Arthur is 7 and a half months old! How the time is flying!!

Oh oh oh, I know what I wanted to write! He stands and doesn't fall now, if he is holding onto something!!! If he is standing (which he is doing a LOT with me supporting him, as he loves it so much!), sometimes he puts his hands out and rests them on me, and then I can take my hands away (keeping them nearby!) and he will stand leaning on me for a while quite steadily! I saw this reflected in the mirror today and couldn't believe how weird it looked to see my tiny boy STANDING, with so little support! He seemed suddenly like such a big boy! Or else soooo tiny to be standing up on his lil leggies! His legs don't buckle as much now, unless he's bouncing, which he has started to do a little more when standing now. He can also stay standing with one hand on me, when twisting his top half round to see his daddy! Clever boy! :) He loves to stand. I will have to get some photos of him doing it. He always wears a HUGE smile when standing! He is so proud of himself!! Mind you, he wears a big smile most of the time :) My lovely smiley boy.

We are starting to shift things around upstairs so that we can change the layout of our bedroom. We are taking the darn cot-bed apart again and putting it in the loft. Tsk. I know we'll probably use it eventually though, like when he goes into his own bed, or maybe with another baby. But we decided to take apart the bedframe and make a proper family-bed on the floor, like the books recommend. That way we will have the most space (our kingsize mattress with his single mattress right against it, making the biggest bed EVER!!), and Arthur is not at risk of falling out once he starts crawling. The whole idea is a huge weight off to my mind, so the sooner we sort it out, the better. We just need to find a place to stow our huge bedframe! Neil moved the spare bed in the other bedroom, to make room for one of our wardrobes from our room. Then we need to move the other wardrobe to the opposite side of our room which should leave a huge space for a wall-full of mattresses! I can't wait. It sounds like the most heavenly bed. Spaaaaace. Comforrrrt. Saaafety. Permanent sleeping arraaaangements. No more clutterrrr. Ahhhh.

Oh, talking of sleep, Arthur is doing so well these days! He naps well in the day, and I don't know why, because I haven't done anything different! At least, I don't think I have. His daytime naps are great because he goes off to sleep easily on the breast, or if I pat his little bottom. Often he won't take me patting his bum but then if I just nurse him again he calms down and sleeps almost straight away. He has started sleeping past his normal 30 minute wake time almost every time now! I don't know why, but I'm not complaining! So his naps are a better length - usually between 1 hour and 1.5 hours, but he tends to sleep longer in the afternoon if I put him down late enough - over 2 hours usually. He seems to need more sleep in the day than the "average" baby his age. He is not quite able to cope with just 2 naps a day, no matter if they are a good length. I think he would manage if they were 2 hours long each. He just can't seem to go more than a couple of hours awake without getting tired and cranky, so if I go by that then he ends up with 3 naps a day still. Which is fine really. Today he had two because I tried stretching him out a little, but he was overtired and upset at bedtime so I won't do that again for a while.

At bedtime he goes to sleep much better, though it takes a little longer than at naptimes. He rarely tolerates me patting him to sleep, and just gets totally sad and cries :( He definitely likes the breast at bedtime! These last 3 or 4 days he has been super breast-clingy for some reason, and cries like he's heartbroken if I gently remove him when he's nearly asleep, or try a different method like patting.

Last night during one of his wakings he went back to sleep by himself without any help from us! And today, for the first time, he went to sleep by himself at naptime. Neil lay next to him on the bed, and Arthur fussed and turned this way and that, and then suddenly he was out! I like the little mannerisms that I can read on him now that tell me he is getting himself to sleep. He lifts his chin and makes such cute little movements with his mouth, pursing his lips and stuff, it's the cutest thing! I can't describe it well enough here.

He has been asleep now for maybe 2 and a half hours. He is dressed in just his nappy and a popper vest, and the fan is osscilating in the hallway, but it's still so muggy and warm in the bedroom. Our Grobag thermometer is lit up on 27 (81), which is the top of the thermometer and translates as "too hot" - bleurgh. He feels comfortable though - I keep checking his arms and legs.

Oh, since he got dehydrated with his cold-thingy, we have kept him in just one night nappy overnight, and not changed him between 12 and 2am, and he hasn't leaked! At first that wasn't so good because we wanted a sign that his hydration was improving, but now he is definitely much better and he wees lots, but he still doesn't leak in the one night nappy! Hooray! I think maybe he is still rehydrating, but hopefully we can keep things the way they are with the nappies at night. I keep going to make up a night nappy before I go to bed, and it's such fun to realise we don't need one!! :) He is less disturbed during the night because of this, and is easy to resettle when he wakes now. He does still wake between 5 and 6am and think it's time to get up! But after I nurse him, Neil usually lies with him in bed and he goes back to sleep after a while. If it gets to 6.30 and he's still wide awake, Neil takes him downstairs for the day :) This week I have been in the spare bedroom because I haven't been well. I would have kept both of them awake with my sneezing, nose-blowing and coughing. Not to mention tossing and turning, and constant fluffing of pillows, etc! I am glad though, because I think I have had better sleep for it, and I've needed that to help me recover. I will stay in the spare room till I am completely better I think. Although last night I nursed Arthur at 1am-ish, and next thing I knew I was waking up with his lovely little warm body curled against mine, and it was 3.15 :) Ah I love my little boy! I can't wait till we finalise our sleeping arrangements and I can get a good night's sleep in my own space, whilst still sleeping with my little one. AND managing to sleep with my husband at the same time, hehe!

Neil made THE most delicious dinner tonight. He made lamb and vegetable gratin. Gggggaaahhhhgggghhh. Soooo yummy! He is wonderful. And yet he still does not get rewarded with parsnips! Poor Neil. I need some different hormones.

Okay it's 9.30pm so I think I will turn in early and try to kick this cold once and for all. Plus I like the new position of the spare bed! I have always been so excited about sleeping in a room when the furniture has been rearranged! I used to spend all day on a weekend rearranging my bedroom furniture in my teens (and before that too), and then it was always sooo exciting to sleep in my new arrangement with a different view of my room for the next few nights. Like being somewhere different, but safe and familiar at the same time. I'm strange. But loveable! ;)

And it's bedtime for me. I'm just going to get a water refill and kiss my baby boy sooo gently that he doesn't even know about it, and then go to bed. Hopefully we'll have a good night!