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!