Cutting back on TV, photos, and other updatey bits!

Soooooo much to write! And basically no time left to write it - it's 11.45pm already, and I should actually go directly to bed instead of opening up this box!

Thanks so much for the comments on my last post! I really appreciated the reassurance and support. The weird feelings stayed a couple of days, after Neil was better again, so I wonder if it was hormone-based. Anyway, the second half of the week was GREAT, and this week is going well too! Yay for HAPPY hormones! ;)

It's also MARCH (what? how?!), so I want to update briefly on my February reading goals. My book of the Bible for February was Galatians, which I finished a bit early. It's only short so I read it twice to take it in better :) I started Ecclesiastes for my March book of the Bible. I think it will speak to me in a whooole different way since having children, and I'm eager to read it again! I read "Desperate Housewives Passionate for God" by Stacy MacDonald and Jennie Chancey for my February book. I personally LOVED it. I found it interesting to read, reassuring, challenging, encouraging, inspiring - all the good stuff! I will want to read that again, definitely. It really pointed me to God over the whooole task of bearing and raising children, which I NEED to be constantly reminded to do, it seems! Also it gave me a good kick up the backside re. the helper to my husband side of my God-given role! Hmmm. It was helpfully challenging for me because I struggle MOST with submitting to my husband, and also with not being self-centred where he's concerned. I really want to change in this department and I know it will be my biggest leap in maturity for a good while, when I do. Also probably a BIG challenge for me. I'm naturally more dominant than Neil, and especially with hormones attached, he seems to irritate the heck out of me such a lot! He also does not take the lead in our family, spiritually, and I often find that for big decisions, I research stuff and think it through more (and for some frustrating reason, can see things in my mind's eye more realistically in terms of future plans), and thus contribute more strongly towards the decision-making process.

I struggle with submitting to Neil's decisions (which would not be a case of he decides, I smile meekly and say "Of course, dear!" or anything like that, in case you were wondering!) because truthfully I trust myself better than my husband to make the "right" decisions. On the rare occasions that I give in and let his decision run, it's so often that it turns out it would have been better if we'd have gone with what I suggested, and sometimes there are even really nuisancey (or troublesome) consequences for his decisions. He flops a ton in terms of his walk with God, and I am not saying I am great in this area either. But he has never been the spiritual leader in our marriage. Good chunks of that time have been spent with him completely absent from God, and me missing a husband who will pray with me and feeling frustrated under the surface with him for it. He won't discipline himself to commit to God on a daily or regular basis, and it frustrates me. I am NOT good at this either, just to say!

The leaving-the-babies-to-God decision (which I know most of my readers disagree with, but hey ho, I'll blog about it anyway!) has been a tricky one really. I strongly feel that it's absolutely what we should be doing. I can't find anything to say we should be doing otherwise really. It just boils down to trusting God and giving up alllll the control of that area to him. If Neil is praying and close to God, he will agree and we'll forge ahead with that decision (with me elated, lol!). If he ISN'T, which is most of the time, then he is constantly concerned about how many children is "too many", the whole "4 children is enough for us" thing, and a bunch of concerns about cars and what other people think and so on. I hear this viewpoint a LOT, and not just from Neil, but it so frustrates me because it's a viewpoint that isn't looking at God at ALL, and I wish he would! I read the posts at MOMYS a lot, and it seems a lot of women out there (in this small minority, that is! ;) ) are longing to let God be in control of the family size, but their husbands do not agree, and so they must submit to their husband's wishes. My heart goes out to them so much! I am not sure how to do that, if it becomes our story. I will have to, obviously. But how do I do that without immense frustration and even resentment or bitterness?! I don't want those things between us! It would be wrong in any case, but I don't want it either. I would know that his decision would be based on stepping way back from God and looking at everything from a worldly point of view. When he doesn't, he TOTALLY agrees with trusting God for our family size and the timing of our babies. But he's rarely there these days, and this is how it has been for the majority of our marriage. It was SO MUCH FUN when he was unemployed for 9 months and we had to throw ourselves on God for everything!! His faith grew so much, and we prayed together daily and it was great to see him look to God all the time. Since he started his new job that's quickly changed, which I'm sad about.

Anyway. I love my husband and he is such a good man. He desires what's best for the children and for me, and he loves God and I think wants to serve him well. He has always had this "slump" cycle thing in his walk with God, which involves a lot of slump and much less passion, and he just goes with it and says that's the way it goes for him (another frustration, since I learned that it takes discipline!).

This seems to be turning into a "complain about my husband" post!!! I don't want it to! I love him, and he's a great daddy and a sweet husband. He is stuck in a rut, that's all. I find it frustrating and wish I could pick him up out of it myself, but that's not how it works.

With that in mind, I plan to read "The Power of a Praying Wife" by Stormie O'Martian in March. I already planned to read Gary Chapman's Anger Management book (Anger: Handling a Powerful Emotion in a Healthy Way) right after the February book (which I had expected to finish early enough to fit it into Feb too), and I started it a week or so ago. I think I might try to read the two together this month. I don't want to wait on either one - I need the teaching on anger management, and I also don't want to delay on being inspired and taught about how to pray for my husband. I think praying for him is the key to releasing frustrations and seeing God move in his life, so I want to get going, and read this book as I do. I don't know if I'll manage two books in one month, but I will try!

There's so much else to write about!

This week I am cutting down on TV big time for the boys. I have absolutely had enough with the TV!!! I can't believe we had got to the point where it was basically on all day. Seriously. I was brought up in a home where TV was a no-no for kids, and we had I think an hour a day (timed!). When we were very little like the boys, we didn't watch any except for a lunch time couple of short programmes that my mummy sat with us to watch, and chatted about it with us afterwards. I found it hugely irritating to go to friends' houses after school for those friends whose families had the TV on all the time. It drove me nuts! Neil's family is quite like this, and Christmas visits had me climbing the walls by Day 2, honestly! People eat, talk and think with the TV droning or twittering noisily away in the background, and I just can't do that - it drives me crazy! I swore I would never let my own kids watch a ton of TV, and here I am, feeling worse than ever about it because of my own convictions from childhood! I don't even know how it got this way, but I'm thinking they watched some TV and it seemed easier to deal with things while they were distracted. And they liked what they saw, so they watched a little more, all the while I thought, "Um, this can't be good! I should not let this happen!" but I did anyway, and so on and so on. I got nervous about cutting down on the TV eventually, because I did not know what to fill the time doing! That was basically an alarm bell for me.

Yesterday they watched morning TV till about 8.30am (Neil puts it on for them when he gets up with them in the morning, which is around 6.30 usually - he is wonderful and lets me lie in till 7.15 when he has to get ready for work and go). They play and have breakfast in that time too, but it's on, and they go back and forth to it. It used to stay on ALL morning, and then we'd have lunch and I'd switch it off, and then they'd put it back on when they finished lunch (I know, I'm so ashamed!!). They watch CBeebies, which has a lot of good educational stuff on it, and no adverts, but still. Toooooo much TV. They like to watch Milkshake on Channel 5 in the morning because of Peppa Pig and Thomas the Tank Engine, but I HATE Milkshake because it's jam-packed with adverts, horrible ones that are heavily gender-biased and full of noise and aggression (or really nauseating little girls with make-up on posing with plastic dolls with perfect figures - gaaahhh!!). I would like to never have Milkshake on again! It finishes at 9am and that's usually when we switch to CBeebies.

So, yesterday when Milkshake finished, I switched OFF instead of over. And distracted the boys playing with them so they didn't really notice. They did not miss it or ask about it till I went to prepare lunch at 11.45am-ish. Then they asked to have the TV on. I said they could while I made lunch, and they watched about 30 minutes and then we ate and the TV went off again! Yay! In the morning I put worship music on for a while, which was nice! It means unplugging the DVD player to use that plug for the CD player. The TV is wired up weirdly so that if the DVD is unplugged, the signal is gone for the cable channels (we have cable because it came as part of the TV when we bought it - Freeview I think). So, I used that as an excuse sometimes, when they asked to switch the TV on! I just said they could, but there would be no signal right now ;) We actually went out to the park (gasp!) yesterday afternoon where I discovered that pushing a pushchair with two little ones sitting in it and one child standing on the buggy board on the back HURTS my pelvis now! It's a really easy-to-push pushchair and steers like a dream, but on grass or a slope with 3 kids on it - not so much! My pelvis is starting to act all pregnant on me and my bump is getting big fast it seems. So I need to either go on the paths, or else have at least one child walk next to the pushchair! It's easier for me in other ways to have them all riding because then they don't run the risk of running about or not coming to me when I call, etc. I need to TRAIN my children! But in the meantime, it's easier to have them ON the pushchair till we're where we want to get to.

So we went to the park. The boys had a great run about and played hide and seek for ages. Nathan had his first proper outside walk, in shoes!!! Such a sweet little milestone! :) He did great. He hasn't had much practise wearing shoes, and when we put them on him he was turning his left foot RIGHT in before stepping down on it, so he was falling over all the time. I figured he just needed a bit more practise, and I walked him about a bit in the living room each time he got shoes put on ready to go out recently. Yesterday he was walking way better in the living room before we went, and not falling much. At the park I let him walk holding my hand, and he did GREAT! You should have seen the smile on his sweet little face, he was just sooooo pleased and happy to be out of the pushchair and walking around! Whenever his brothers zipped by chasing each other and shrieking with glee over their game, he would stop and flap his arms with excitement. As they went away from us, he'd start to walk again with such determination, eyes fixed on the boys, but his face would fall once they were out of sight round a bush again. I soooo felt for him! I can see how much he's LONGING to run and play with them. He wants to join in everything they do at the moment, and is delighted and gaspy with joy if they pay him attention or try to make him laugh or play with him. He's the sweetest pie! I'm eager for him to learn to run so that he can play with them better at the park. They never keep still, and my heart aches for him wanting to join in so badly! Anyway, he did really well. I let him walk on his own on the grass too, and he did great with that. If he fell, he picked himself up quite well. At home he is now walking 90% of the time, and rarely crawling really. He does still crawl, but it's not his preferred method at all now. He has recently started standing up from sitting in the middle of the floor, and walking to wherever he wants to go. If he falls to his knees or bottom while walking, he used to (a couple of weeks ago) just crawl to wherever he was going, because it was easier. But now he doesn't do that at all. He picks himself up and continues walking. If he falls again, he picks himself up and continues walking again. He's definitely a toddler now! I can't believe he's a toddler. I still refer to him as a baby, honestly. He's so little!

Anyway, so when we got home from the park it was 4.30pm and I let the boys put the TV on while I got dinner started. Apart from while we ate dinner, it ended up being switched on till CBeebies finished at 7pm when they were getting ready for bed, as it usually does.

Today was even better!! When Milkshake finished, I switched the TV off and plugged the CD player in. Arthur complained about not watching TV and I said we watch far too much TV and it's not good for us! He did not say, "Ah, right Mummy, that sounds sensible!" or anything like that, haha! ;) But anyway, on we went with the day! I put worship music on again in the background. The boys played and I did some chores and played with them, and tried to put Nathan down for his morning nap (during which time there was some major frustration going on downstairs with the boys and thus much NOISE from Matthew, so Nathan didn't go to sleep!). After that we switched the music off and had NOTHING ON!!!!! So nice! I decided to start reading aloud to the boys - not their own age-appropriate books, but ones that were for older children, but nice to read aloud. I have been reading a lot about this online lately, and about the importance of having the parents read aloud to the children regularly. The best stuff are the classics and such, apparently. I'm excited about doing this! They don't have to sit by me and pay attention, they can play so long as it's quiet enough for me to read to them, and just listen as they play.

So today I started reading the Little House on the Prarie books! I read the first chapter of Little House in the Big Woods (I LOVE these books, and can't even begin to guess at how many times I've read them since my own childhood - I still read them quite frequently and enjoy them so much!), and the boys said they didn't want a story because they were busy playing with the railway track. They seemed surprised when I told them they could continue playing while I read to them. I read the first line of the first chapter, and Arthur dropped his train and came running to the sofa to listen properly! :) He was riveted the whole way through, and kept gasping at things or asking questions. At the end of the chapter I said I would read more another time (it was about 10 or 15 minutes by then and that was my goal for starting with), and he was like, "WHAT?! But there's another page you haven't read, right there!" hehe! He has never known chapters before, and when I explained it to him, he was most put out about having to wait for the next installment! ;)

When Nathan napped eventually, I had a shower! Such bliss! The boys asked to watch some TV at 11.30am when I started to talk about making lunch, and I suddenly wondered if it was a habit at that point in the day. So I said there was no signal right now and we would leave the TV off for now. Arthur complained about that (it's mostly Arthur asking, actually), but I just told him to play or look at books while I made lunch. He got on with that in the end. So we missed the middle-of-the-day TV today, yay! In the afternoon we played and I vacuumed (huge ordeal due to terrified child(ren)). I put on a calmer worship CD (Kathryn Scott) and that ended up playing on repeat for a couple of hours which we all seemed to benefit from! Then later in the afternoon we all moved into the kitchen. I set the boys up at the table doing a craft activity, Nathan walked around opening cupboards (he loves it in the kitchen, and would have grabbed at all the craft items if they'd tried to do it in the living room), and I cleaned! I cleaned the sink, washed up some things that have been sitting waiting for AGES (like plastic toys that got dirty, and have been sitting next to the sink for EVER), cleaned the surfaces and re-positioned the things on top, and then started dinner. It felt GREAT!!!! It's just how I want it to be really - kids doing fun stuff at the table while I GET THINGS DONE in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning. And the little tiny boo toddling around and banging cake tins with a wooden spoon to his heart's content! :)

The boys were still doing their craft thing (I cut out A4 card into a car shape - they chose their colours - and then cut some black card circles for wheels, white squares for windows, and got out the glue and the box of sequins and cut bits of paper, sweet wrappers, tissue paper, etc. and let them stick the wheels and windows on their cars and then get decorating! They LOVE this kind of craft!) at 5.30pm and dinner was cooking. I remembered that they have two particular favourite programmes at the moment, both quite new on CBeebies - "Grandpa in my pocket" and "Chuggington" (trains, an absolute guaranteed hit where my boys are concerned!), and those are shown one after the other from 5.30pm. I felt kind of bad but I did not tell them the time or switch on the TV. By 5.45 they had finished and were starting to get down from the table and clean up. Chuggington is on at 5.45 and it's their absolute favourite - they get so excited about it and sing the theme tune (soooo cute together!) and Nathan even stops to dance and smile when they sing it! :) So I told them it had started and they ran to watch. It's 15 minutes long. While they were watching, Nathan went into Misery Mode and clung to my legs screaming for the whole time I stood at the stove trying to cook pasta sauce! He pushes and climbs and makes my balance wobble, and it drives me NUTS after about 5 minutes, honestly. I usually pick him up and play with him or cuddle him way before this when he goes into Misery Mode (either due to teething, tiredness, or it being past dinner time - tonight it was all three!), but I had to finish the dinner quick as it was running late. So he clung and scrabbled at me and screamed for 15 minutes, aaaargh! The boys were watching In The Night Garden by then, which lasts 20 minutes, and I let them to it because it was hard enough dealing with Nathan and the dinner. As it finished, Neil arrived home and as soon as I heard the key in the door I switched the TV off, and THERE IT STAYED! Yayness! So they watched breakfast TV and then nothing else but 40 minutes of TV at dinner time! I'm so pleased with that, and will definitely be planning to continue doing the same from now on. I think there'll be days when I fall back on the TV when things get difficult, and that's okay, I'm just so pleased to have cut back hugely on the TV, and to see that I CAN do it! The day was actually so pleasant and felt easy a lot of the time. I didn't miss the TV at ALL, and the boys didn't seem to either. They had their difficult times and were disciplined a good bit as usual, but seemed easier in their behaviour than usual. I'm just so pleased with the day! :)

I wish I had got photos of Nathan walking at the park, or of the boys doing their craft this afternoon, but I didn't get chance. I do have a photo that's getting old now, of Arthur and Matthew doing a similar craft one afternoon. I got small boxes and let them choose their colours, cut paper the right size for the sides of the boxes, and made two wedge-shaped boxes. I let them glue on the paper and stick the wedge-shaped box on top of their covered box for a roof. They glued on windows and a door that I cut ready for them, and then "tiled" their roofs with lolly sticks! They had a great time doing that. They love glueing and constructing things, and anything decorative and glittery. Vehicles and animals are favourite things to make. It's such an easy activity for me to set up for them, and I just use my imagination as to what they'll make, and get the bits ready, so it's not hard. They are always so pleased with their finished products! Here they are at the kitchen table making their houses, and admiring their work!









I just find glueing crafts and collages so much easier in the preparation and clean-up than painting or playdough. We do those too, but not so often. I wish I could do painting with them every day. They love it! It's so much mess and clean-up though! I think Matthew likes glueing with glitter best of all though :)

A recent (gasp!) photo of Matthew!



He's so hard to photograph these last few months! He won't look at the camera or he'll run away! Or be in too-constant-motion to get a clear photo of. But I got this one a couple of weeks ago, yay! His eyes are definitely more greeny these days. They're not clear grey any more like they used to be. They seem to be a grey-green mix so far. I wonder how they'll settle! They're still changing, it seems.

This one of Arthur was taken a month or so ago. He got these Melissa & Doug block boards for Christmas (from us), and he LOVES them. He likes to make them on the table next to the board instead of on top of it, which is a lot harder! He is always so pleased with the pattern when he's finished!



Some recent (and random!) photos of Nathan, taken over the last month in chronological order:

Nathey-noodle: Two teeth you see here! He now has a third, as of last week, AGAIN at the top, next to his top front teeth on the right side there. Where are his bottom teeth?!?!



Chubby widdoo weggies! I can't help myself! Never mind the laundry taking over our house in the background behind the kitchen safety gate! By the way, he was doing his new trick in this photo - he takes his trousers off and stands on tiptoe to post them over the top of the gate in the kitchen doorway (where all the laundry goes to be sorted and washed)! I also discovered last week that I can hand him a dirty item of clothing, and say, "Nathey, can you take this to the kitchen for me?" then he'll smile like he's really pleased, take the item, and toddle off to the kitchen gate! He works so hard on tiptoe to post it over the top. It's almost out of his reach really, and items like his biggest brother's jeans often just fall back on his head, but he picks them up and tries again till he gets them over. I still clap and praise him for this every time - it's so cute when he does it, and he's SO thrilled with himself every time he posts at item over! He goes looking for clothing, and if I bring in a clean load to fold, I often find him happily toddling back and forth with bits of it to the kitchen gate, back to the dirty pile, lol! If he runs out of clothes he can sometimes get upset that there are no more to "post"! Such a sweet pea. Anyway, here he is, having taken his trousers off to put in the wash (long before he was finished wearing them, I might add!). I love his little chunky legs!



Nathey in a box! :) Just a couple of weeks ago. He LOVES playing in boxes!



Nathan sleeping, a couple of weeks ago. He nurses to sleep, except when he doesn't fall asleep on the breast. If he's tired he does. I always give him his little flannelette moses basket sheet (his blankie) to hold while he nurses, as this saves me getting poked and scrunched and yanked about while he's breastfeeding! ;) If he falls asleep on the breast, this is pretty much how he looks when I get up - clutching his blankie to his face and just looking precious. *sigh*



The light is a bit odd on that one, because it was a DARK room and I used the flash therefore, and then altered the picture afterwards. He looked much more adorable in dim light :)

I just found a picture that I am not sure if I posted before. I really love it so I'll post it. It's of Nathan's hands on my open Bible, when I was reading the Bible in the day with the boys a lot (must start that again!). He was 8 months old. I love his precious little baby hands on the precious Word that keeps me going! My heart feels so tender and joyful when I look at this photo. So I'll post it, even if I've posted it before. I just came across it while I was checking Nathan's photo file for things I hadn't posted yet.



Okay, it's now ridiculously late so I must go to bed! I'm glad to have caught up a tiny bit. There's so much I wish I had time to write, all the time, but never mind! I am busier than ever now, and couldn't wish for anything more wonderful than where God has put me right now! I'm so blessed. Thank you Lord!