Starting out with four, and needing God...

I have just discovered Kari Jobe's music lately - such beautiful songs, and what an amazing voice God has blessed her with! I have been listening to lots of worship music on YouTube while I've been resting and breastfeeding these last two weeks, and especially the last week for some reason. I'm involving myself at MOMYS (Mothers of Many Young Siblings) a lot more for the good influence and wisdom there - I'm excited that I have full access there since Benjamin was born, now that his birth makes me an official MOMYS (4 or more children under the age of 8)! I love the fellowship there, and that the ladies there are so Christ-centred. They lean on God for all that they need to do the task to which He has called them. I know I need to do this too. I HAVE to. I can't meet the needs of four little boys aged four and under otherwise! I'm not able. I'm insufficient! I'm human! But His grace is sufficient for me, and His strength is made perfect in my weakness. I've got to remember that I CAN'T do it, nope, no way, no how! ;) With that in mind, I am DRIVEN to God's feet all day long to seek His strength and to allow Him to clothe me in the patience and peace and joy and self-control and allll those things I desperately need to do this next stage of mothering and discipling my Many Small Children (to coin a phrase from MckMama! ;) ).

I've started to read the Bible more, just little bits, because at MOMYS they sometimes post about Bible verses they're reading and people post their thoughts on the verses. This encouraged me to get my Bible out and really meditate on some verses, which I really haven't done for a long time. And then the next day I really wanted to do the same again with a different verse. So I'm really thankful for the good influence! :)

Neil is going back to work tomorrow, after his paternity leave. He took Friday off as holiday time to round out the week, so it's been a longer break with the weekend on top, than the usual paternity leave, and that is lovely! I have been resting the whole time, doing very little around the house or in terms of childcare. It has been such a precious time for me. I'm sad and nervous to see it come to an end! But I would be in a whoooole different anxious place if I didn't have the perspective God is giving me right now - about needing Him to do it. I feel strangely (!) confident about setting out to do the long days with FOUR little children now, much more so than I ever did with 1, 2 or 3 small children when I started out those times. I hope I am not being naiive! But I really do feel confident. I think it's going to be okay. My parents are coming for the week, and staying with my grandparents. They'll come over late morning till Neil gets home every day next week and help occupy the boys. Mummy even said I can go and lie down and get a nap if I need to during the day, but I am not sure if the boys will be manageable for them while I do that - we'll see. I'm so happy to have them coming over to visit and the boys are so excited too! In some ways I am feeling relieved that I will have help next week. I still get tired SO quickly if I do stuff like go for a short walk with the baby in a sling, so I'm nervous about my stamina with these energetic and not-awfully-obedient little boys!

On the other hand, though.... I feel so eager to get "stuck in" and do the wonderful job that God has called me to do! In order to do it, I need to crank up my organisation skills a notch (or two!) - more so with each baby, I'm finding. And I've been browsing the archives at MOMYS and starting to piece together a flexible basic schedule for our household, to help the days run smoother. I'm sure it will need a lot of tweaking before it works for us well, but it's a start! And I need to seriously crank up the discipline with the boys as well. I feel a bit like I can't really get ON IT to the degree that I want/need to until after my parents have left. So, although I feel like I will really need their help, and will so appreciate it and be sad to see them go again, I am also looking forward to being on my own with the boys, to really set up my home and things with my children as I want to and press on consistently without distraction or help. Help is WONDERFUL, but it can impact an intense focus on something like discipline.

Anyway, so it's nearly time for that to begin! I'm so glad my parents are coming, and so excited about the road ahead! I feel sure there will be PERLENTY of days (weeks?!) where I am NOT in this place and feel overwhelmed and far from God, and so on. I'm sure of it. But this confidence beforehand is new for me. I hope it means things will go okay, and REALLY hope feeling this way might indicate a better experience? I am hoping I do not get postnatal depression to any degree this time. I did not last time (I did with the older two, just feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope - which I see is something that raising 4 such little ones might lead me to feel again!) but then Neil was home to help all the time because he was out of work for the first 6 months after Nathan's arrival. I really want to DO it, to the glory of God!! I hope that is how it will be.

Anyway, I still plan to update with photos and all the things I mentioned last time! But the reason I actually opened this blogger box to update today is because I wanted to post a video I found on YouTube. I was listening to Kari Jobe and clicked on another video link after the one I was listening to finished. It turned out to be a church presentation of a Bible story with Kari's song "I know that You are for me" playing. I watched it just out of interest. It made me cry. I just found it so beautiful, and for that reason I wanted to share it here in case it blesses someone else.

Benjamin Isaac! (and random photos)

I'm a bit late announcing here, but never mind! I have been updating at my pregnancy blog though! Benjamin Isaac was born at home at 7.30pm on Thursday 9th June 2009. He weighed 8lbs 11oz! He has a head-full of dark brown hair, and murky dark grey eyes (which I think may turn brown, as Arthur's did). He has Nathan's chin and Arthur's eyes, my fingers and toes, and looks ever so much like photos of Neil as a newborn (except for the chin!).



I don't know his length, because they have apparently stopped measuring the length at birth here now :( The Health Visitor is coming tomorrow though, and she will measure his length then. It won't be accurate as a birth length (he'll have grown a bit!) but oh well. We're not sure of the length of my labour because I refused to be checked at any point, but my first contractions started around 1pm and were pretty short and painless at first. So it was probably my quickest labour yet! :) Second stage was 11 minutes (longer than the last two times!).

Benjamin is so precious! I am so in love. It's so surreal to have four children, and four SONS at that! I feel so blessed by God, and so in awe of His loving kindness and generosity. I have a lot of work coming up, raising four boys. With ALL my heart I am longing for God to bless us again, to open my womb and enable me to conceive again, in His perfect timing. Right after Benjamin was born (I mean, RIGHT after, you know, before I got my stitches and all that!) I had my first moment of ambivalence EVER. For the first time I stopped for a second and wondered if our family might just possibly be complete with four little boys. I don't know why. I felt like I could be content with that, and I have never felt that before - I have always felt like I would struggle to come to terms with not having any more children. I also felt no sense of loss or sadness about maybe never having a daughter. So I did wonder if that meant we would not have any more children. I was quite taken by surprise at the way I felt, actually! I questioned myself over whether I would actually LIKE to have any more babies, and I thought I would :) With the birth only minutes behind me, I didn't feel overly excited about doing it all over again though! ;) But it didn't take long for those feelings to change. I feel like I'm back in much more familiar and comfortable territory, enjoying my newborn baby and rejoicing over the birth, and eagerly looking forward to another pregnancy and birth and new baby! It felt a bit strange to NOT be in that place for a short while there, and I'm glad I don't feel that way any more! I have already spent much time praying and thanking God for a new little blessing, and asking that He bless us with more when He knows in His wisdom that it's the right time. I am also spending a lot of time in prayer over how to parent the children He HAS blessed us with already. I want to be a good steward of the blessings God gives to us, and I feel like I'm NOT, so I need to focus more on praying and working on that. Another first is that I asked God to please help us to get a handle on the actual parenting and the home (me in particular), BEFORE blessing us again with another baby. I really want to do right by the children, and mostly by God, but I see absolutely no reason not to have a billion more babies if God sees fit to bless us that way - I know that He will equip us for the task to which He has called us! :)

Thanks to Laura, I recently discovered Voddie Baucham's teaching on the family and have started listening to his sermons online. I LOVE what he teaches!!! Yesterday evening Neil and I listened to his sermon on child training and we are re-motivated and optimistic once again! Today the discipline is way more consistent and calm, and the boys are currently TIDYING THE LIVING ROOM!!! I know!!! They have been disciplined a LOT to get to this point though, but it's actually bearing fruit which is very encouraging. They are not doing it with a bad attitude (incredible!!!) and are busy talking about how they are doing great teamwork :) Such a change...

I googled and found a great list of pretty much ALL of Voddie Baucham's sermons and videos online. It's here in case anyone is interested. I am looking forward to working my way through the whole list while I'm resting with my new little man!

I am now really really behind on photos here! I have sooooo many taken in the last two months, that I haven't posted at ALL - I'm talking hundreds!!! I can't post hundreds, obviously, but I'll try to catch up a bit. I want to have some of these photos down "on record" in my blog, for looking back on. I have finally finished editing photos of Matthew's birthday (now a month ago, already!!) but there are 114 of them!!!!!!!! I took over 300 on the day, but narrowed it down to 114 worth posting, haha! No, I'm NOT going to post 114 photos here, lol! I will have to sift through them and see which FEW will sum the day up best! I'm sure there will be more than 20 though! Will post those soon. For now, here are some taken on random occasions:

First time for all THREE little boys drawing together at the table! Nathan was so excited! He actually loves scribbling with crayons, and being properly involved in ANY activity with his big brothers. He does also like to try eating the crayons too, though!...













They also LOVE using the jumbo chalks on the patio (and all over the garden, fences, flowerpots, stepping stones, shed and house walls (!), etc!). Here are quite a few photos that I took of the boys enjoying chalks in the garden one warm afternoon:

Little boys drawing pictures :)



Discussing the details of a drawing:



What do you think, Mummy?!



"Don't eat the chalk, Nathey!" (see the wet on the tip of the chalk he's holding, and the slightly ewwy expression on his face, hehe!)



A little series of photos to illustrate the way Nathan sometimes wins his brothers over. He came along and wanted the green chalk that Matthew had. See him whining for it in the second photo? Working on that. *sigh* Anyway, see Matthew's body language - "No way am I giving up my green chalk!" and then the next photo, as usual Matthew gives in and generously gives whatever it is to Nathan that he was whining for! Nathan was more than pleased, and cheerfully scribbled with the chalk. It was funny, but we ARE working on this because we don't want Nathan thinking he can whine for what he wants and his brothers will always be so soft on him and give in! Anyway, here are the photos :)







Matthew's drawings tend to have a lot of tiny detail. He is very creative with any arty stuff he does, and Arthur is so different - he's logical in his creations, and Matthew is just, well, creative. He absolutely loves any sort of art and craft activity:



Little Nathey, coming to tell me something (not that he's talking yet, but he tells me ALL SORTS in his own little language, bless him!):



Classic! Hehe! ;)



I have a ton more, but I think that's probably plenty for one post! I will try to update again soon with a bunch more. I have some sweet summery photos taken in the garden on hot days, before Benjamin was born. And Matthew's birthday photos, of course. I'll update again soon! I have a week before Neil goes back to work, so hopefully I'll get chance in that time! I'm RESTING, not looking after the boys or the house in any way, while Neil is home, and it's wonderful - I can't think why I didn't do this the other three times! Daja just wrote about this very thing in her blog yesterday, with a lot of interesting stats and information!

I will be back soon!

Labour?

Just a quick update here to say that I *think* things might be hotting up for labour here. It was my due date yesterday, and things have been very quiet in that department, till I had a "show" when I got up which has continued through the morning and ended up with some light bleeding too. I am starting to get some contractions now which are short and irregular and not too painful, so I wanted to update here to say that I will be updating my pregnancy blog as long as I can through labour (if this really is "it"!), if you want to follow me there. If you've never read me at my pregnancy journal though, beware the TMI, haha! I do not hold back about anything there and am as long-winded about detail as I am here! You have been warned! ;) I will absolutely update here with baby news when I'm able, if there's any to report later on or tomorrow!

Also, thanks so much for all the comments on my last post, I so appreciate it!! The boys have been easier to handle for some reason these last few days. Arthur and Matthew seem to be suddenly playing more imaginative games together and this is keeping them busy and happy for long periods of time. I am also getting down new educational toys for them every other day, that I bought in advance as "ammunition" (lol!) for the time around the birth and the early postnatal period. They are excited, learning all about dinosaurs and opposites and things at the moment! I also meant to clarify - the peeing and spitting is BOTH boys equally, not predominantly Arthur (Matthew is actually the worst with the spitting). Arthur is the one who is being incredibly rude to our faces, and that doesn't seem to be something Matthew naturally does, but he's learning from Arthur :S So, it's definitely both of them individually, not Arthur having problems and Matthew picking up the behaviour or anything, just to clarify. We've kept the living room much tidier the last two days and they seem happier in that environment too (poor things!). It's mainly their own mess everywhere which is the problem, but the last two days I have disciplined them if they refuse to tidy, until the room is clear, and they've been way better since that.

Okay, that's all for now. I am going to time contractions - exciting! :)

Nearly at my due date....

It's July 1st! July is actually here! I am 39 weeks pregnant today!

I am so stressed about it being July and being 39 weeks pregnant today. Right now I just feel like I want to run away and hide from the inevitable events of the next couple of weeks. Everything feels soooo overwhelming right now.

It's so HOT and humid! I am sooooo bad with hot and humid weather, I just can't stand it. I feel ill in hot weather when I'm NOT 39 weeks pregnant with little ones to look after! I am so beyond thankful for our plug-in A/C unit that we bought from Homebase a few days after Matthew was born (in the last heatwave we had! Why is it only when I'm about to give birth?!). It means we have to hang a hose out of the window and I am not crazy about spiders coming into my bedroom (the boys found a female false widow spider in the garden the week before last (Neil killed it) and then last week Neil found the male and the nest complete with hundreds of spiderlings and a new egg sac (*shudder*) in the pedal of his bike in the garden!). I'm pretty sure a couple of dozen of those spiderlings have not been accounted for! So I'm paranoid about open windows right now. I don't want false widow spiderlings coming in and maturing into adults who will then give my babies venomous bites!! Scary. I found one inside so far already. Anyway, I digress. I'm so thankful for the A/C unit! It means my bedroom is only 76 degrees (25 celsius? I don't speak celsius!) instead of 91 overnight (33!) like it was before we bought it when Matthew was newly born! Crazy! It doesn't cool the other rooms too well, but it's so much better than nothing! We are just having the curtains and windows closed all the time when the sun is on the house, and it's too hot for the boys to play outside. This morning early there was some cloud so I let them out before 9am for a while. They wanted to come in after 40 minutes when the sun came out. It's just so oppressive! We're eating ice-lollies and drinking plenty but generally pretty bored inside.

It doesn't help that I'm suddenly completely incapacitated, it seems, pregnancy-wise. I am healthy and this pregnancy has gone wonderfully smoothly! I feel so blessed! But also, I'm just so huge and exhausted lately, and no matter my night-sleep, I feel desperate for a long nap every afternoon, which I can't get. I am pretty much able to do Nathan's naps, nappy changes for the younger two, and get their meals, and that's about IT. Which sucks for the boys really. There is NO housework getting done, and let me tell you, not doing housework + heat and humidity = fast mould growth, oh yes. And stinky home. We don't even have something useful like a washing line, or anything outside which we could hang clothes on! But I refuse to use the tumble dryer, so the result is lately that we have no clean clothes and a multiplying mountain of dirty laundry all over the house, urgh. I tried last week to do some housework (just basic maintenance!) but spent the rest of the day feeling nauseous and faint and exhausted, and basically had to lie on the sofa for nearly 3 hours that afternoon while the boys wreaked havoc around me! So, Neil said no more attempting to keep up with housework. But then, the house goes to complete ruin! Which is a) disgusting, and b) really upsetting me to look at. Also Neil is doing bits and pieces in the evenings, which I feel kind of bad about. He has enough on his plate really.

The boys' behaviour. Again. I almost don't want to write about it here because I have done so soooo many times this past year and it's always worse and worse and worse, and I always get a ton of advice that conflicts and end up feeling kind of embarrassed about admitting to what goes on in our home in the end! :S

But it's bad. Arthur and Matthew are spitting and peeing everywhere. I kid you not. They are trashing the room daily (more than once usually, especially Matthew). They are drawing on the walls. ALL my glass in the living room has dried spit on it. All of it. Mirror, door glass, windows, everything. It has been running and then smeared about with fingers, and is now dry like that, but today I have not managed to clean the glass in there. I sit in the evening and look at it and just feel so depressed. They do that to the glass every day, several times a day. They get disciplined every single time they spit, but they still do it the same. They are going out of their way to disobey me as much as they possibly can. Neil gets the exact same behaviour from them, it's disgusting really. They are so RUDE to our faces. They use nasty tones and aggressive faces, and blow raspberries and stick their tongues out at us. This is mainly Arthur, but Matthew is learning. I can't fathom how to discipline Arthur, because he is simply not responding to the strongest discipline we know how to dish out, even if it's repeated endless times per day. He is lately lying like crazy, and Matthew is starting to as well. His attitude and spirit is getting so awful, everything is about him and no matter if he has to hurt somebody else or lie through his teeth or blame some innocent brother, he will if it gets him what he wants, or helps him avoid something he doesn't want. I'm so disgusted, and I am struggling because I feel terribly guilty and at a loss about it - I'm the parent and this has to rest entirely on MY shoulders (well, Neil's and my shoulders, collectively). *I* am responsible for his behaviour and attitudes and it's my responsibility to mould and shape that in him, and I'm absolutely MISERABLY failing. The fruit is almost all bad.

We are honestly for the first time reaching a stage where we are feeling desperate enough to need some sort of professional help from a real-life "Supernanny" or someone, and we've never thought that could ever be us, no matter how bad things got with the boys. I can't really understand why, although I'm sure I must be being reeeally naive or just stupid about something, somewhere along the line. People suggest things, like, maybe it's to do with the baby coming? Or maybe they're just too bored and not stimulated enough? Maybe they don't get out enough? Maybe they should be at school? Etc, etc, you get the picture. I'm not convinced one bit about any of the above suggestions - it's been going on too long to be baby-related, although it's mayyybe possible that the behaviour worsening is related to it in some way? I don't know. Arthur is so very excited about Benjamin coming soon and talks eagerly about it all the time. Matthew says nothing about it, and seems not to have made much of a connection yet, so far.

Bedtimes are getting difficult. If Matthew does not nurse to sleep (and he won't be doing that all that much longer because I will probably want to wean him in a few months if he hasn't done so by himself), then it's impossible to get them all to settle properly for bed. Now, don't get the impression that I mean children who won't "settle down" and lay down in their beds, no no. I mean, children who scream and shout hysterically back and forth to each other and say as many rude things as they know how to say, and make sure they do the opposite of what we ask them repeatedly to do, as forcefully as possible for as long as possible, while their poor baby brother sits dazed in his cot next to their bunk bed in complete confusion at their noise, tired and wanting to be able to go to sleep. It makes me SO ANGRY, I can't even describe it. They always end up downstairs in seperate time-out zones, but still shrieking and spitting and laughing hysterically so that Nathan still can't go to sleep and we can't "switch off" their noise to our ears to allow ourselves to calm down and discipline them properly. This kind of bedtime takes 2 hours. Two hours of this continuous behaviour. I can't stand it!

Tonight I just cried and cried at bedtime. I lost my temper with Matthew after about 40 minutes of it and then held him while he cried, and Nathan cried next to us in his cot (while Arthur cried in the other bedroom with Neil) and just could not breathe for crying. I never ever do that in front of the kids, but I just had nothing left to prevent it. They did calm down after that, but urgh.

I have a stressy home visit from midwives tomorrow, well, two. A normal antenatal appointment in the morning and then a big appt at noon where some midwives are coming over and bringing the senior Supervisor of Midwives from the hospital, to discuss in detail my decision to have a homebirth despite being Group B Strep positive (thus declining IV antibiotics). Urrrrgh. My doula is coming (did I say here that I have a fantastic Christian doula?!?! I do! Thank you Lord!) and I'm glad of that, and Neil is going to try to get work to let him be here over that time to take the boys somewhere (shopping centre?! Too hot for outside!) while it happens.

I feel about ready to just have a hospital birth anyway, with the state of the house and the boys' behaviour. More than that though, I am just feeling slightly panicky about the fact that I'm 39 weeks pregnant and due to give birth REALLY soon. I don't want to!!! I want to hide and for it not to happen! I would happily continue my pregnancy for another few months right now! ;) I just can't fathom how it will be when I have tiny Benjamin here AND the house as it is and the boys' behaviour as it is, in such a short time from now. I have no idea how on earth I will avoid postnatal depression with that kind of set up. I had it mildly after the first two boys, mainly due to finding it hard to cope afterwards. None whatsoever with Nathan, possibly because Neil was out of work and home to help all the time. So, I'm anxious.

Well, my laptop battery is about to die and I made a deal with myself to go to bed when it dies! So I must stop for now. Sorry it's just a huge rant. I need to pray a lot. I'll update properly soon.