Ohhhhhh I am so annoyed that it has taken me this long to update!! It has been crazy busy around here. Or not busy as such, just no time somehow. We are so completely exhausted at the moment because we have been staying up late getting things done that are long overdue (like sometimes a pregnancy diary entry for me, or the extremely long-winded work of transferring SIX HOURS of camcorder footage of Arthur's first year (and my pregnancy with him) onto a video tape for my mum's birthday. Her birthday is in 3 days and I just finished it this morning. Poor Arthur has had slightly less attention and focus from me than usual as a result, for the last few days! I stay up till midnight doing the video stuff every night after he has FINALLY gone to sleep (except when I update my diary instead or something), and still don't get finished! I'm so glad it's done!
The great thing is that I got to watch it all back, and it has brought back so many wonderful memories. I am SO thankful for our camcorder! We captured some priceless moments, like Arthur's first laugh. Lots of clips of him laughing, actually. I could spend the rest of my whole life just listening to his laugh. It's the best sound ever :) We have footage of him hiccupping in the womb, kicking weird shapes all over my belly, and then we have labour, birth, and all the firsts - smile, laugh, sitting, solids, standing, crawling, cruising, babbling, walking, and the First Birthday of course! It just filled my whole spirit to bursting to watch it all back. I am so blessed to have such a special little boy! I absolutely can't get my head around the fact that I'm getting another one (well, baby, but I feel sure it's another boy) to do everything all over again! I'm so happy :)
It's so amazing how since I have been a mother, I have been able to feel extremes of things that I never reached before, and more weirdly - both opposites of those extremes at the same time. Right now I am so ultra happy with my life and my baby boy and another on the way. I keep thinking how I just love it so much that I wouldn't change a THING. But at the exact same time I am so dog tired that I can't even describe it here. This is due to Arthur's sleep and stuff. Which I would DEFINITELY change if only I could! I go from rose-tinted glasses to total despair over the sleep issues and exhaustion in a split second, but never lose either one of those feelings while I'm feeling the other one. If that makes sense! It's a weird way to feel!
I am trying VERY hard not to think about what Sprout's sleep might be like after he/she is born. I mean, I know at first it will be tiiiring for Mummy! But I honestly want to curl up on the floor and cry if I even consider the possibility that Sprout might be the same way inclined as Arthur in the sleep department. I really don't know if I could cope if that was the case. My health visitor told me that Arthur's sleep issues would be considered some of the most severe at a child sleep clinic (which she keeps trying to refer us to)!
I don't know. I sometimes think that he sleeps as badly as he does because of the way we've done things with him, the co-sleeping and demand breastfeeding day and night, and everything so totally attached. I always used to let him nurse to sleep, and so I sometimes wonder if that "did it" to him. But when I am less irrational in my mind about it, I realise that none of these things caused him to be this difficult with sleep. He just IS. Some babies are by nature, and others are not. I wasn't the easiest sleeper when I was a baby, although my parents had comparitively less trouble with it than we are having because they did what everyone did in those days, everything by a schedule, own cot, own room, and cry-it-out. I think they would have had a lot more trouble getting sleep otherwise! Then my brother came along. By 3 months old (or even a bit younger I think) he was sleeping SIX PM TO EIGHT AM!!! Every night. No peeps, nothing. Some babies just are like that, and others just are NOT. Arthur is not. I just hope and pray that Sprout will be a good sleeper by nature! Otherwise I don't know what to do. I think I will have no choice (if I'm going to stay sane) but to do things differently this time around, which makes me feel sad, but I honestly can't do it again. I sometimes don't know how I am coping with things NOW, let alone the last 14 months.
Arthur is 14 months old!! A few days ago :) I changed my breastfeeding blinkie again! He is still going strong. I don't know that he gets much milk at all but he loves to comfort nurse, and you would NOT believe how happy I am to just be a "human pacifier". I hear so many complaints about that term, as in, mothers don't want to BE that, but I do. My Babycentre update arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago about "Your 14-month-old", where it told me that most 14-month-olds are attached to a blankie or stuffed toy by now, and many are still sucking a thumb or dummy. Maybe Arthur wouldn't naturally have gone for those things anyway, but it made me feel GREAT because he has never shown any interest in forming comfort attachments of any sort. He nurses on demand so if he has a need to suck, I meet it immediately. The update said to encourage the attachment to the blankie/soft toy, because it would help the child when they were apart from you. Wha???! Arthur has never been apart from me. Ever. I forgot that until I thought back and realised that in 14 months he has never known a moment without me near him. Sometimes he goes out with Neil for a couple of hours but he is attached to his daddy too. Twice I have been out of the house without him. Once to the doctor's when I had a womb infection at 12 days postpartum, but he slept in his Moses Basket from before I left till way after I came back, so he never knew. And Neil was with him. And the other time when I had my hair cut in about 15 minutes flat at a hairdresser down the road when he was a few months old. I can't remember if he was asleep at the time or just doing something with Neil while I was out. Anyway, he hasn't known a single second of his life without me or Neil right there.
People are starting to question this about our parenting. My grandparents keep suggesting that they take Arthur out one day, for the sole reason that it will give him a chance to be without me or Neil for a while so he can get used to it for when the new baby comes. They said, "I mean, he's not going to have you around like this after the new baby is here!" Um. Why not?! I didn't say that, but I just thanked them and said I would think about it. Urgh. Sometimes I just feel on a different wavelength to the people that question stuff about how we are choosing to raise Arthur. They don't understand our choices at ALL, so it's hard to reason with them over it. Not that we should have to, but I like to be understood and not have people just thinking we are doing something stupid, so I try.
EVERYONE at church is from the opposite viewpoint to ours over attachment parenting and stuff. Except something REALLY interesting happened at church on Sunday (yes, we actually went to church!!!!). One of my friends there has an 18-month-old who is very highly strung, let's say. That isn't how I want it to sound, but I can't think of a better description off the top of my head. He seems to me to be such an insecure little boy. He cries at the SLIGHTEST thing, and his mum tells me he won't tolerate anybody else except his parents. He will cry for like 10 full minutes over the smallest thing, even when he is being cuddled better by his mummy. Arthur and him stand out from each other so markedly (people comment on it) at creche, as they are such complete opposites. I know Arthur is laid-back by nature, but he just never cries about things. If he is knocked down by another little one, he doesn't cry, he just wears a "bothered" expression, looks thoughtful for a moment, then picks up the nearest toy and plays with it. He is the same way if he falls when he is walking. This other little boy had both the same situations that same day and screamed (my ears even buzzed!) for ten minutes after each occasion. He is like that a lot though.
Anyway, it was interesting that his mum approached me and asked things about Arthur, like how was he with his grandparents, and how does he react when we leave him. So I said, "I have no idea. I have never left him." She seemed so surprised, and we talked about it for a long time. She is pregnant too (due two days after me!) and I think she is looking to make some changes in the way they do things with their second little one, to avoid the problems they have encountered so far. It's funny how that seems to be the way it goes, with your first child being a learning curve and then making adjustments from your accumulated knowledge and experience the second time around! I'm sure the second time will be another whooole new learning curve though!
Anyway. I plan to stay just as attached to Arthur after Sprout is here as I am now. I don't see why I would need to be any less. I think it will be hard, but that's not a reason not to do it really. Except maybe with the sleep, because I need my sleep like nothing else at the moment, and I'm sure it will be even more so when I am looking after a newborn at night too. That's why we are trying to gently encourage Arthur into sleeping through the night and sleeping more independently, ready for when we desperately need to just SLEEP at night or else be focusing on the tiny one, nothing more. It's going very slowly though, as we are trying to make it as gentle as possible for Arthur.
He is currently night-weaned, between midnight and 6am. He NEVER gets the breast during that time. I did nurse him through the night when he was poorly with his cold though, and once the other night because he is teething badly at the moment. I will always do that if he is ill or teething or frightened or something at night. But otherwise he is now used to not getting nursed in that window. But he is STILL waking throughout the night!!!! I can find no reason for it, and the method we've been using swears that my baby is now sleeping peacefully through the night, and so sure of that fact that they don't even offer troubleshooting help or anything! So I don't know what to do. Except be very very very tired. All. The. Time.
His day naps are worse than before too, as he now only takes two half-hour naps in the day, and those are touch-and-go. He wakes easily, and if he does then there is no WAY he will consent to being put back down for some more sleep, even if he is dropping with exhaustion. It can be so frustrating! He gets so tired out and still remains just as wakeful and unwilling to take longer naps. Sometimes it drives me crazy. I think more so because I am so tired. I don't know how much of it is pregnancy tiredness, but yeah.
Bedtimes have become more difficult lately. He is taking an hour or more to go to sleep (with me next to him or nursing him), and keeps on sitting up and asking for a drink for the 50 millionth time, and patting me (none-too-gently!), etc. It's so sweet, and I never withhold drinks of water at his thirstiest time of day (especially now I don't really have much milk), but it does DRAG bedtime out a lonnng time. And so we have enough time to eat dinner and do very little before needing to go to bed ourselves. Arthur is lately waking in the evenings at least once too, which is hard.
I love being a 24-hour parent (who isn't?!) but sometimes I get shamefully resentful because I LONG to just have a predictable block out of the 24 hour period to just SLEEP. Which shouldn't be too much for a human being to ask, should it?! Even 5 hours would be nice. Just solid sleep, where I know I won't be interrupted and I can just relax into my pillow without the tension over how soon Arthur will wake and how much sleep I might manage to get before then. And then when he wakes sooner than I had hoped, how long there is left in the night, and therefore how many times he might wake yet, and thus how on EARTH am I going to cope with his active little self the next day when I am so sleep-deprived and exhausted? I am just feeling tired of the ongoingness of it, night after night for fourteen months.
But I hate that I am complaining about anything to do with being Arthur's Mummy. Hate it. But the feelings are still there all the same. I just so desperately want to sleep. If I say that out loud then it automatically makes me cry. I hate that I am gradually becoming less tolerant of things in the day, and more snappy with Arthur sometimes. I HATE that. I know it is just that I am so so so tired at the time, but I still hate it. Arthur can't help it. Or if he can, he doesn't know how. He's too little.
Anyway, you see? I can not do this again, with Sprout. It HAS to be different. I think I might die otherwise. Which obviously is a stupid thought/thing to say, but I just really really have to get better sleep the next time around. Somehow. I hope Sprout will be easier about it by nature because I dread having to enforce anything to get my sleep, if it becomes necessary further down the line. Urgh.
End of waffle on sleep!
I should go to bed now. It's 11.30pm. But I have SO much that I should catch up on about life and about Arthur and everything.
Neil had a job interview over Christmas. We had to come home from France a day early to accommodate his second interview. We were excited because they seemed really interested in him, but then they told him he didn't get the job. So, oh well. He was really disappointed, but he will keep applying and we just wait and see where God will lead us next. Finances are still up a certain creek without a paddle, but life goes on! Arthur has no socks that fit him, but I feel GREAT tonight because I just won a big lot of 23 pairs of socks in his size at eBay, for a few £ - all exactly the kind of designs I would have wanted to go out and buy for him new! And twenty three pairs!!!!! We will never have a sock crisis again, hehe! Until he outgrows them, that is. Little things thrill me :) Especially when they cost next to no money.
Oooh I am on a "housewife" kick at the moment! Hehe! I think it's a pregnancy-related thing, because it is soooo not normal for me! I just want to clean and sort and declutter ALL the time! I lie awake at night (during my precious sleep time!) fantasising about transforming the kitchen and exactly how I will go about cleaning the floor, etc! I also feel so eager to do lots of the little DIY jobs that we never finished around the house. I'm glad of it, whatever the source! It feels great to actually DO these things, because it makes me feel like I'm doing something constructive at last. Plus things get done. And I get such a buzz from a newly decluttered area, or a door that hasn't closed for years that finally latches neatly shut because I took a hammer and chisel to the frame and made a proper latch :) But lately it's ALL I want to do. That and sew.
Arthur surprised me lately by developing new anxieties - I thought he never had ANY! But he has suddenly become anxious (read: terrified) about any machine that makes noise. Pretty much. Or at least, the ones he isn't used to at the moment. For now, this means the hoover (streaming tears and wails of terror - VERY unlike Arthur), the hairdryer, and the sewing machine. So I have to sew when Arthur isn't around. Except yesterday I had to sew something urgently in the day, and it was only a tiny thing, so I sewed with him on my lap just because I couldn't bear to see him so terrified and clingy! He still hated it, but he was better on my lap.
I am going off on many little side paths here, and I can't remember my original path! Oh well.
Oh yes, I was going to write that Arthur is teething at LAST!!! He hasn't had a tooth in four months now! But he is about to get a whooole bunch of them at once, I think. I was prepared for that though, because me and my brother both had the same exact teeth that Arthur currently has, at his age (just the six, four at the top, two at the bottom), and then in the space of two months we got six more, including all four first molars. We got the top molars first. Arthur has been teething horribly for a week or so now, only now he is waking crying sometimes and doing the odd dreadful poo and having more nappy rash, etc. So I know we are going to see new teethies! His gum over the two teeth either side of his bottom middle two looks very active. One side has that characteristic "dent" in the gum that happens a few days (three days for Arthur, every time) before the tooth shows through, and he has a top molar coming too. His poor gum is so swollen around that molar, it's enormous. I don't see a dent in the gum yet, but he has white pressure marks there, so it must be soon. Poor baby! He has had the same lovely toothy smile for soooo long now, that I feel sort of sad to see it change. I will miss those two cute little bottom teeth all on their own!
Today Arthur and I walked to the post office! It's only a 5-minute walk there and another 5 minutes back, but that's a LONG walk for a tiny person! Soooo many steps to take! We haven't really gone out for a walk like that before. He was so cute. He held my hand all the way, and his eyes just boggled at every tiny thing he saw as he walked along. I love watching little ones take the world in with their eyes and ears as they go places. He was very excited about the cars on the main road. I had him held tight and safe, but I felt sort of breathless with protectiveness with my tiny person all free of slings and pushchairs and other protective restraints for the first time near a busy road! I had to physically fight the urge to just sweep him up into my arms where he would seem safer and closer to me. I was glad to get back onto a quieter road! I hope it gets easier the more we do it, because I would hate to be a super-paranoid mother all the time. The feeling was overwhelming, almost animalistic. Weird.
Anyway he is walking like a pro all the time now. He is starting to walk very fast when he wants to get somewhere in a hurry, and has attempted a joggy little run twice, but both times he has stumbled over very quickly, hehe! He would LOVE to run, but he will just have to be patient and perfect his walking and balance a bit more first! He walks very carefully around his toys now, instead of ploughing right through them. If he sees a thin path winding around them, he turns this way and that as he walks, to negotiate the spaces between the toys (we DO tidy up from time to time, but you know how it is with toys everywhere in the day!). He walks sideways where the way is narrow, and then forwards again when he is through. I love watching him getting around.
He has started climbing onto his toy garage lately, urgh. He yells out like he just conquered Everest when he gets on top of it - I never let him climb on it so this only happens when my back is turned for a split second, and then I find him kneeling on the second storey with both arms raised in victory! It's plastic and NOT meant to support an Arthur, so I know it is going to end in tears one day if he keeps doing it. I am trying to discourage him, but these days that in itself is an act of encouragement!
Let's see, what is Arthur DOING these days? I try to keep a written record of the stuff he can do now and then, because I know I will want to remember it when I next have a little one his age, etc. Right now I feel like I will remember how old he was when he did such-and-such for EVER, but I know I won't remember for long really. I want to know all these trivial little things, to have them all there to read about, when my memory fades. So I write that he can do this or stack that, and it probably sounds dull or like I'm writing it out of pride or something, but I promise I'm not! I just want to record it. It all goes so fast and I want to cling to every moment of his rapid development. I don't want it to blur between children either, and forget which child was doing what, when.
So, what can I write about? Arthur doesn't say much still. He "talks" constantly, and sounds like he is saying real words, but it is still just babble. He uses all the intonation and stuff that we would use in normal conversation, so sometimes it sounds so funny to hear him chatting away and yet it's not language we can understand at all! He says, "Haaa" for hot, and mama and dada, obviously. He says oven (oh-en), iron (uhn), wow ("aaoohh", still!), hair (heh), ear (eee), eye (ahh), "Row row row" for singing, and "yum yum yum" (a-num-num-num)!! He can point to nose, ear, eye, mouth, hair, and socks. He understands a lot more these days when I talk to him.
He takes his socks off and spontaneously walks with them to the dirty laundry pile and puts them delicately on the top of it! I don't know why he started doing that, but I LOVE it, it's so cute! He also puts his shoes on the shoe pile when we take them off. When his daddy gets ready to go to work in the morning, Arthur goes and gets his own shoes and closes the door behind him, shutting him and Daddy in the porch together, almost as though he is saying he wants to go to work with Daddy! He is very close to Neil these days, but then they did always have a good bond. It's so lovely to see :)
He can twist the dial on his musical toy now, and is starting to wind things up with the same action. He also switches the washing machine OFF or changes the programme when it's running, but turning the dial! Little monkey!
He is seriously into anything dextrous. In France we really noticed that his fine motor skills were coming on well, and that he was preferring to spend nearly ALL of his time working on them - anything to do with his hands. My mum commented that he doesn't play like I did at his age - I was more relational and vocal, talking in sentences by 18 months - but then I think that is more of a girl thing is it not? Anyway she said that Arthur played EXACTLY like my brother did at his age. All with his hands and not much speech yet. He walked earlier than both me and my brother though.
Arthur can stack four large soft cubes in a tower, and can now stack a tower of five wooden bricks. He stacks five stacking cups in the right order, and he puts all the rings on his ring stick thingy. He gets them in the right size order all but one of them, and once he got them all on right. His stacking skills match what Babycentre says for 20-24 months, but then he has really been working on them all the time! He just loves stacking and things like that. He tries to put Duplo pieces together and can now put two pieces of his Mega Blocks together. If I stick a load of Duplo together, he takes great pleasure in taking it all apart piece by piece, never leaving two stuck together anywhere!
He loves containers and lids at the moment, more than anything else, I would say. He loves matching lids to containers, and will try a lid against several containers before he finds the one it fits on. He can fit and clip fast a lid into place, and gets very excited about his achievement when it's done! He loves to put everything in sight into the nearest tub or box. I often find his Duplo tub brimming with stuff, and when I look through it I find (apart from Duplo!), socks, wooden bricks, jigsaw pieces, shape sorter pieces, plastic fruit, lids from tupperware in the kitchen cupboard, a crust of toast, a letter that had come through the door that morning, his sippy cup full of water, and a tambourine! He just loves to clear things away and tidy. He always has shown that trait, but I am still amazed that he does it! Neil and I are SO untidy!!
He brushes his hair with my hairbrush, mostly starting above his ear and brushing upwards and forwards, bless him! He then likes me to kneel down so he can brush mine :) He likes to feed me any of his food that he isn't that keen on! Which is very little at the moment - he is really starting to become more adventurous with food. He still acts suspicious around a new food or new way of presenting a certain food, but he is accepting new things a lot more now. He loves peas and picks them out of his meal to eat them. He still adores raisins, and they will calm ANY upset or tantrum-in-the-making! Who needs chocolate and sweeties when you have raisins?! I think, to Arthur, they are every bit as good as sweets. He just loves them.
He likes cheese at last, and will eat a lump of it as a snack. He also likes cucumber and eats it eagerly in slices, and eventually carefully spits out the rinds! He likes to put anything that has fallen from a spoon, or out of his mouth, carefully back onto the plate or bowl! But then he doesn't like the fact that his hands got messy picking the food up to put it back! He is a tidy boy :) But still very capable of being messy when he wants to!
He eats really well, and his appetite is great. He always has a whole banana for his afternoon snack. Sprout is poking me. It's the weirdest thing that I am going to have another baby, don't you think?! Sometimes when I feel kicks and pokes I just can't believe it's a real baby in there, like Arthur is a real baby. Wow.
Anyway! What else? Oh, one of Arthur's favourite things at the moment is to take out all the food cans in the kitchen cupboard, one by one, and walk them across the kitchen to the chair. Then he will put the can on the chair, and walk back to the cupboard for the next one! He likes to arrange them on the chair, which gets difficult as the seat gets filled with cans. He has to work out where to put his can down without knocking one off, and sometimes one falls down and he stops and picks it up again, and other times he spends ages going all around the chair looking for the best space, and when he finally puts his can in it, he squeals with glee and clenches his fists (something he does when he's very excited or happy!)! When the chair is full or the cupboard has no more cans, he either leaves them all on the chair (job for Mummy!) and does something else, or he reverses the game and takes them one by one back to the cupboard. He really likes arranging them on the shelf and can spend absolutely ages arranging things in the kitchen cupboards! The kitchen is by far his favourite place to be at the moment. He loves the sieves and the tupperware. He loves the glassware (if only I would let him near it) which I NEED to move asap! I am finding more and more obscure things in the washing machine these days when I go to put a laundry load on! I find his hairbrush, a can of tomato soup, a soft stacking cube, two clean wipes and the tea towel - stuff like that! One time I didn't look and put pooey nappies right on top of some of that stuff - ewww! I learnt my lesson, and now I always look before I load!
Do you know what? I am SO excited about having two in cloth nappies! I am glad Arthur will not be out of nappies yet when the next baby comes along. I just LOVE cloth diapering (why isn't there an English version of that phrase?! "Using cloth nappies" just isn't the same meaning somehow)!! I think people generally think I am crazy, but I honestly wouldn't change to disposable if you PAID me and magically made them chemically safe for the environment and my baby's bottom. I still wouldn't use them. Cloth is too much fun, and the fabrics are too cute and soft and they just LOOK fantastic on babies. I love washing them! Am I mad?! Hehe! But I do. It's so satisfying tossing in a dirty load and having them come out clean and smelling laundry fresh, and soft and cosy ready to put on my little love again. It's a minor point for me, the thought that we never spend any money on nappies or wipes, we never run out of supplies, we never have pooey waste to dispose of in our bins, we don't contribute to the landfill problems, etc. Those probably should be my MAIN reasons for loving cloth, but if I'm honest, they're not. I just love the cuteness and softness and laundry freshness! And eeeeeeease. Cloth is so easy. I know that NOBODY believes me at church. Nobody. They say (with incredulous expression), "How can you use cloth?!" and I just say it's so much fun and it's so easy and I love it. And they do that thing with their heads/necks like a chicken does when it pulls its head backwards into its neck sort of, and make a "you're off your trolley" expression. Then they ask, "Don't you just hate dealing with the poo and the washing?!" And I say, no, the poo isn't a big deal, you just tip it down the loo and flush (so much more hygienic!) and the washing is SO MUCH FUN!! I love clean nappies, and they are so easy to wash. Everyone in the world seems to think that I must be soaking my nappies in something vile which clutters the place up with nappy pails and stinks and makes transferring the dirties to the washing machine a PAIN. Which I absolutely do NOT do, as that would be a crazy livin'-in-the-past thing to do! I would probably not love using cloth so much if I did that! I hate the idea of soaking. Fortunately you don't have to. So I don't :) Also, nobody at church can fathom any type of cloth nappy that isn't a terry or a Kushies nappy - urgh! Someone very kindly gave me all their WELL used Kushies from when they had decided to give cloth a try, and there is no way I am using them on Arthur because they are just horrible in comparison to the lovely stuff he wears, and they look so uncomfy. Modern cloth nappies are fabulous.
Arthur currently wears (for anyone out there using cloth, who knows what I'm talking about!) mostly Fuzzi Bunz, size large, and he has a few XLs for night times, but we don't use them much. He has a lot of size L Fuzzis, all different colours - I love them! I stuff them with one microfibre insert and one hemp insert, and that does him fine for several hours. I don't like to leave him more than 3 hours without a change. He wees so much that I just don't like him to stay in a nappy longer than that, even if he feels dry in a fuzzi and it's not leaking. The other things he wears in the day are Kissaluvs size 2. They are like a bikini cut on him, he is so chunky, hehe! But they are trim and cute and soft, and we have 8 of them so we might as well be using them. I boost them with a hemp or microfibre insert between the nappy and the wrap. He now only uses Motherease Airflow wraps (the side snapping ones), as they fit him great and look really cute! He has the eco-friendly prints with animals and stuff on :) He wears size large and size XL over his night nappies.
His night nappies are homemade, as they are the only ones that work well for him, though occasionally I stuff an XL Fuzzi with two hemp prefolds. He is a heavy wetter at night! I made him 5 stuffable nappies for night times, with a towelling outer and a microfleece inner. That way they keep his skin dry (with the microfleece) and fasten with a nippa (Snappi), which gives him the best fit. I stuff them with two hemp inserts and two microfibre inserts. I really want to make him some more, even though I guess he doesn't really need any more of them. I want red towelling. Or white towelling so I can dye it red. But I can't find any manky old white towels in the charity shops, which is all I could afford right now, so I will wait! But I am so getting some red towelling for some bright night nappies eventually!
Um, what else nappy-wise? He does use the hemp Cuddlebun I made with the hemp booster, but not so often. It's usually the one I put in the changing bag when we go out, as I'm proud of it! :) I love the fabric, it's so cute! We never use baby wipes, we don't even have any in the house! They smell so horrible and leave a yucky film, bleurgh! I am more repulsed by them than ever now that we haven't had any since Arthur was a tiny newborn. They just seem horrible in comparison with a soft cloth wipe and water. I have made a ton of cloth wipes, but some of them are too small now that his butt is so much bigger than when I made them for his newborn-self!! So I have been sewing a few new ones now and then on my overlocker. I am making extra-large luxury ones, out of towelling on one side and velour on the other. I lurve my cloth wipes! Once or twice I have had to use a baby wipe on Arthur when we've been out somewhere, and yuck oh yuck, the first thing I want to do when I get him home is wash his bum!! We use the cloth wipes to clean him up in the highchair as well, and for dribble, spilled drinks, and wiping after taking medicine or brushing teeth, etc. They are very useful!
All our cloth stuff washes on HOT and tumble dries on HOT as well. Except I never tumble dry PUL wraps - they live longer that way, and dry quickly in any case. We just toss our clothes and all sorts in with dirty nappies. Everything gets blitzed on hot anyway, so there's nothing yucky about it.
Wow, that was a long ramble about cloth nappies! But I loooove them so! :) I will be so sad when Arthur potty trains :( But hooray, I will have Sprout's nappy career stretching ahead of me! I'm looking forward to two in cloth nappies. I can't wait to see teeny tiny cutie little newborn nappies in my clean laundry piles with Arthur's comparatively enormous ones! Aw, I can't wait!!
Arthur is meant to be getting his plaster casts on again this month for his left foot, but they never got in touch with an appt, so I paged the physio twice but nothing came of that either. Pfthth. So I think I will wait a bit more. Or maybe phone them on Monday. I haven't decided. I was delaying Arthur's MMR till after the casts, so I ought to get them done I guess. He is walking great but I know he will need at least two casts. His left foot definitely turns in as he walks, though it doesn't seem to affect his actual walking. It turns in almost from the knee, as well as the foot itself bending inwards, so I know he will need the casts to correct it. The main thing I am worried about is how on EARTH to prevent him putting any weight on it the first day he has it on. I honestly do not think it will be possible. He is so wriggly and active that we can't hold him still or prevent him pushing and shoving against things with his legs, even just to change his nappy, cut his finger nails, or brush his teeth - let alone hours and hours after he has a new cast put on until the bedtime and the next morning!!! I don't think it can be done, which means his cast won't set properly, which means there's no point in putting the cast on. But he needs the cast. So I don't know what to do about that. I think I will ask the physio, but I am worried that she'll just say, "Well you'll just have to make sure he doesn't!" and leave me to somehow do the impossible. Because I physically can't prevent him from putting weight on his leg for hours on end. At all. So hmmm.
Urgh, I know there's more in my head to write, and I feel like I only got half of the things that were pressing actually written, but it's stupidly late and my brain has gone pulpy. So I am going to bed. I will leave you with some photos of my lil man, the ones I said I would post that I took after we came home from France :)
Here are four photos of Arthur helping Daddy run his bath :) Arthur loves to put things in the bath - that's his "help"! When he has already tossed in the rubber ducks, toys, bath books, facecloths, etc (which he had already pretty much done in these photos), he starts on other objects he can lay his hands on around the bathroom - like toilet rolls and the wastepaper basket! Here's the Monkey Man being helpful:
And here he is after the bath, playing with a cup of some sort on the bed (note poor teethy cheeks and sleepsuit (size 12-18 months!) gaping horribly around his night nappy! Fortunately we just got him some 18-24 month sleepsuits with his Christmas money from my grandparents, so now he has sleepwear that fits him!):
I'm pretty sure I have a couple more photos on the camera, and I know I have a movie clip or two to post, and a couple from over Christmas and New Year, but I'll get to those soon I hope!
Bed. And thank you for the notes and messages! I SO appreciate them :) Bed.
