The Samuel-baby!

It has been SO very long since I posted photos of Samuel (or anyone else, for that matter, lol!). I currently have EIGHT posts in draft form, to catch up here, but none of them are complete. I am adding to them as I get time, and will post them as I finish them, hopefully in some vaguely useful order, hehe! The first thing that occurred to me though, is that the last time I posted photos of Samuel was to compare him at age 3 months with my other boys at 3 months old! I also posted a set of photos of him sitting up with Neil one evening watching sports on TV, but he was only about 3 months old then too! Now he is a precious 9-month-old baby boy, and I could probably write about him FOR EVER. I adore him.

Samuel is slender and lightweight like Matthew was - what a surprise! ;) He is SO like Matthew, as he has been since day one. He is BLONDE!!! And blue-eyed. And just yummy yummy yummy. He is easy-going, happy and laid-back. He loves his brothers and thrives on attention from us and them. All of the boys completely love Samuel, and play with him often. They love to tickle him to hear him laugh, because he has the most precious baby laugh EVER! :) He plays happily on his own amongst them, without attention, too. He crawls and pulls up to stand, and cruises around the furniture. He cut his first tooth (a top one, like Nathan and Benjamin, but earlier than they did) last week with no particular trauma. His brothers always send him off for naps or bedtime with a loud chorus of "Night niiiiiiiight!" whilst waving at him as I start up the stairs with him in my arms. Now he waves back and has started saying, "Rah-raaaaah!" back to them! He babbles and today finally got around to babbling "mamamama" instead of the usual "dadada" or his favourite, "rararara". He nurses day and night on demand (but not at all "demandingly" like one or two of my other babies - again like Matthew!). He sleeps by my side and has never slept in a cot yet, though he needs to move there soon :( He sucks his thumb such a lot of the time, during sleep, play, when sleepy, bored-looking, hungry - Samuel loves his thumbie! He only sucks his right thumb and has never sucked his left one. I love his thumb sucking right now. It is so helpful when he wants to settle himself, so helpful to me sometimes, and also SO. INCREDIBLY. CUTE!!!

And I love him!!! Did I mention that?! Oh my heart strings! My ovaries! I love that baby boy incredibly! *sigh* I am just bliss-filled to be his mummy.

Let's start where we left off - I guess the first ones to post would be from when he was about 4 months old:

Precious baby!






This next one was his first cold - all the boys caught a couple of colds in a row in April. They were not super poorly, but felt a bit under the weather, so I put a DVD on for them in the afternoon. I sat Samuel with them (always RIGHT in front of him, except to quickly take this photo!) for a little bit and he was so happy there!



These next photos are also from when he was 4 months old. When he wakes from a nap on my bed, I like to take photos of him if the light is good. I haven't done this for AGES and I really must again soon! The boys love to come upstairs when Samuel wakes, to see him (Matthew and Arthur especially) because they love him so much! I took these photos one time when Matthew came up to play with him on the bed. After a while Arthur came up too, and I took some more photos:





Samuel loves Arthur's watch, and Arthur was showing it to him in these next photos. He started to laugh at Samuel because he kept trying to plonk his open mouth on it, hehe! I love these two photos! :)




More 4-month-old photos! :)






Five months old! See the first glimmers of his new glittery blonde hair showing through his leftover newborn hair! I was so excited to see this when it appeared! :)







At the park on Matthew's birthday in June, aged 5 months and 3 weeks - happy baby! Benjamin loves him too! :)




These three photos were taken the day Samuel turned 6 months old, with his most devoted and adoring brother, Matthew :) I love these photos, both for Samuel and his sweetness, and for Matthew and his quiet, loving way that he has with babies, especially "his" babies. I did not set these photos up, I just grabbed the opportunity when I saw them sitting together.





More Samuel-at-6-months photos! The first one was taken right after the little photo session with Matthew, above. He went for a nap, and zonked right out. I couldn't resist another photo of his sweet little sleeping face.



Nap time on a different day:



My beautiful baby! :)



Pausing to have his photo taken whilst doing his latest favourite thing: scooting! He started scooting - army-crawling - along the floor using his elbows to pull himself along, at 6 months old. At first he only used his left elbow, so that he could reach and grab toys with his right hand (he is very right handed, so far!), but after a few weeks he was using both elbows and getting about pretty fast. It was such an efficient method of getting about that he didn't bother with actual crawling until he reached 9 months old!



This is an attempt to get a photo of all my boys together - I took a few that didn't come out great, and then the boys suggested I sit in with them, and that one came out okay! Well, as okay as it can with little monkey boys pulling faces, lol! ;) Samuel was 6 months old here too:



I love this next set of photos. Still with Samuel at 6 months old (this is going to be one LONG entry, lol!). The boys were playing with the wooden railway and trains one afternoon, and Samuel was lying on the floor, happily examining and chewing on a piece of wooden track. Predictably, Matthew became distracted from a fun game by his baby brother's presence and could not resist coming over to love on him. This is how Matthew is with Samuel, and has been since he was born. Matthew is SUCH a loving and tender big brother to all the little ones, but he's especially fond of Samuel. He told me a couple of months ago that Samuel is his best friend, and that he hopes we have more babies because he loves baby Samuel soooo much! (he got his wish! 7 weeks into a precious new pregnancy here!) I happened to have the camera handy, and just sat back taking photos of him. See how much he loves his baby brother!...








Look how smiley!!! These photos were taken on Benjamin's 2nd birthday in July, so he was 6 and a half months old here. He discovered the mirror behind the big chest for the first time, and has since spent many a happy time looking at himself in it and touching the image of his hands and face, etc. Sweetie pie! :)




Well this is SO much longer and more photo-heavy than I expected it to be, so I think I will have to split the Samuel catch-up into two seperate posts! I will go ahead and post this now, and gradually add photos (if I can find them!) to the final part and then post that when it's finished. Hooray for actually POSTING though! With photos! :D

Jumbled thoughts and prayers...

It's midnight, Lord. I should go to bed, you know I should.

I feel so tired that I don't quite feel well, and I know why it is. Today you gave me such a wonderful blessing! A surprise that I had no idea was coming! You are so gracious and perfect, and I love your timing!

Today I discovered that you have opened my womb and begun to form a precious new person inside me! What a wonderful God you are! How I worship you, Lord! I am beyond joyful and excited, oh my heart just leaps about for joy at what you have done! My head is swimming with thoughts and feelings, and excitement and happiness top the list. But late at night is always the time when I am most susceptible to "thinking"....

I am so tired, and I know why. I know that the tiredness will get worse, and the nausea will begin. It's Saturday and I know that tomorrow my sweet lovely husband will let me lie-in. But if I think like it's a weekday tomorrow morning... then I feel nervous. I think about homeschooling the boys, tired like this, and I feel nervous. I know that in about a week I will reach the stage where morning sickness kicks in, and then I wonder how on earth I will manage, Lord.

Last time I was pregnant, school ground to a halt for 3 months while I rode the waves of morning sickness and total exhaustion. I know that other mamas do this and they are encouraging and say it's just for a season. And homeschooling allows us to be flexible. But I am nervous, Lord. I feel I can't let anything slow me down. We just got off the ground with homeschooling, and oh you know me Lord - you know how hard I find it to get organised on ANYTHING, and how I have never ever, in my own strength, managed to stick to ANYTHING that takes perseverance. There's always "something" that interrupts and I get off track again very easily. My own strength and effort isn't enough. But this time, I can't fail, Lord, I can't. I must continue with school, and I wonder how I will do that.

I praise and thank you Father, for my children! I thank you for pressing homeschooling into my heart and CALLING me to do it - ASKING it of me. And I have. And I will! As long as you still ask me to do it, I will do it with great delight, because I want to do your will, and because I LOVE it. I love not sending my children to school, I love being with them all the time, I love being the one to teach them. So I praise you for homeschooling, and the gift it is to my family.

Please help me, Lord! To get up every morning with strength and determination, and with a good attitude. To persevere and really develop character through it. How my character needs work! I know it. Thank you for this opportunity to really stretch myself. But God, I know I am going to fall FLAT on my face unless you enable me. Once I am exhausted and sick and struggling, how am I going to make meals for my family, keep some sort of lid on the laundry and housework, wipe bottoms and change 3 sets of nappies several times a day, stay on top of naps and routines around them, homeschool the children who are needing school, discipline little ones appropriately and endlessly every day, and be NICE to my children hour after hour?! How can I do it, Lord?! I know the answer - I totally can NOT. And that's what worries me. But you know I promised you I would not worry about stuff... I am trying, but it's hard when the habit is so ingrained.

I am worried that I am bleeding, and whether that means I will lose this baby, or just do my "usual" early pregnancy bleeding and all will be okay.

I am worried that I can't be a good mummy to six small children aged 7 and under.

I am worried that we will not have "enough" - money, space... our home is small and we really can't afford to move anywhere close enough to where Neil works...

I am worried that my milk will dry up too soon, and I don't want to wean either my 8-month-old OR my 2-year-old...

I am worried that I can't homeschool because I just won't be "enough".

I am worried that I am going to get a lot of flack for being pregnant again, from various sources.

I am worried that something will be wrong with my baby. I only just now started to take my pre-natal vitamins, and I took a not-safe-for-pregnancy medication once, a week or so ago.

I am worried about getting the boys out for air and exercise when I palpitate just getting up from sitting to standing, and then have to sit back down again to rest from that exertion! Lord, what shall I do?!

But. 1 Peter 5: 6-7 says this, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

So:

I thank you that this baby is fearfully and wonderfully made! And that I am too!

I thank you that you chose to bless us AGAIN! It makes me laugh for joy every time I think of it!

I thank you that the Bible says I should not lean on my own understanding, but to TRUST in the Lord with all my heart.

I thank you that I can find so much encouragement in your Word!

I thank you that my husband is happy that we are having another baby, and my children are so excited to meet the baby already. I thank you that my husband is WONDERFUL, so supportive and lovingly helps me so much with the little ones. Thank you that he's a great daddy! Oh how you've blessed me!

I thank you that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! I thank you that I don't HAVE to be enough - that's the whole point - because I'm NOT, and can't ever be. If I am enough, it's evidence of your power in my life, and I know that you can make me able.

I thank you that you will not call me to a task or purpose that you will not equip me to do.

I praise you that you consider me enough and love me enough to want to bless me with opportunities to refine me. This is another one of them! I am so glad to know that some serious dross is about to be burned off me in the process! :) Remind me, help me remember that, when it's hard, Lord.

Thank you for LIFE, for life growing inside me! Please help Neil and I to spend time praying together every day about each day ahead, and about our growing family. It's so hard to carve out the time, and it's easy for it to be forgotten, but it's life-giving and essential. How we NEED you Lord!!! How we need you. More than ever, I want to press into you and seek you, and find your peace when I am afraid about things.

Amen.

This is random, and I am tired, but I needed to write this prayer, so I could sort out the jumble that is my head tonight. A precious new baby brings me right back to my knees before God - the reason and the source, and the way forward. I need God more than I ever did! I love Him more than I ever did!

I am so blessed to be mummy to six children. I count this little one even now, so early, so in-the-balance, because he or she is HERE and alive. I just praise God, and I'm overwhelmed with His goodness to us, and His love for us. So happy! :)

I am pregnant! Expecting my sixth baby on May 23rd 2012! What a wonderful surprise! So much to look forward to, and pray about. God is so good to me!

[note: please do not mention at Facebook if you know me there, yet! Thanks! :) ]

Link to a breath of fresh air :)

I rarely link posts at my blog (though I probably would do if I was writing here more often! I READ tons of wonderful blog posts regularly, but it's my own blog that gets neglected!). After my post yesterday, the timing was SO perfect for me to read Sherry's post at Large Family Mothering. It just really uplifted me to read it at this particular time, so I wanted to link it here, for my own reference as well as anyone else's.

But, not too bad today! Less yelling than usual, and I'm remembering the verse about "a soft answer". Thanks for the comments on yesterday's post - I so appreciate them! xxx

A soft answer...

"A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Proverbs 15:1

Oh, chip away at me on this one, Lord, because you know I need a chisel more than a gentle moulding here! Help me talk KINDLY to my children at all times, ALL times, because it's not right to do anything else, and in any case, a harsh word stirs up anger.

A bit disappointed with myself lately. Maybe I'm tired? Not an excuse. But something seems to be making my patience thinner than ever, any time a bookcase gets emptied out... or a child dashes in the kitchen while I go to the toilet, to mix the last of the milk with raisins, tomato ketchup, honey and custard powder... or at least two voices mingle distortingly in the high-pitched whiney nasal tone I hear every few minutes throughout the day (it seems!) to tattle on each other for something miniscule... or someone intentionally blocks the toilet AGAIN with an entire loo roll... I just lose my patience easily. Not my TEMPER so much, just patience. I get irritable, as whiney as my children (ugh!) and yell at them. Yuck.

I'm getting in a bad habit of being impatient at times - too often. I don't use soft words, and guess what? The anger level is rising in my children! I love how WISE the Bible is. The annoying thing about me is that I realise the problem, fully see the solution, and yet PERSIST in the type of behaviour I KNOW causes the problem!!!!! Aaaaargh!! >:-/ (a cross face, if that wasn't clear before now, lol!) I get myself stuck in a rut and then when I WANT to change it, I struggle terribly to do anything about it. It's like the boys provoke me to yell more than ever before, when I am actually trying to stop it! ;)

This morning - and I am NOT proud of this - I had a bad 5 minutes. Or maybe 10. Urgh. Arthur and Matthew were causing trouble and then being rude to me over their consequence. To which I, being the responsible and mature adult that I am, responded by yelling at them. And, angered, they yelled back. Seeing my mistake and the fruit of it, I - nope, don't be fooled, I was a TWIT and yelled BACK some more. Ugggghhh. *sigh* Then I picked my crying baby up off the floor and swept off upstairs to put him down for his nap (which I had been trying to do when the ridiculous arguing started in the first place - what, am I EIGHT YEARS OLD?!?!! I'm so annoyed with myself for being so childish!!!).

Whilst breastfeeding Samuel on my bed upstairs, I had time to cool off, and the more I cooled off, the more I cringed at my behaviour, and the more wretched I felt! I just kept thinking, "WHY can't I pull myself together?!" By the time Samuel was asleep, I was praying about it - a step in the right direction.

I am so helpless over all this parenting business without God. I may love being a mummy and I may have always wanted to have children instead of anything else in the world, BUT that doesn't make me a "natural" or a "super mum"! I am SO. VERY. FAR. from that mark. Naturally? I am too lazy and self-centred for parenting. I have the organisational skills of a turnip, though I love to aspire to great things. Turnip, in reality. Turnip parenting 5 children, as loving a vegetable as it might be (!!) NEEDS the power of the Holy Spirit to enable it to do the job!!! ;)

Often I pray such blando prayers that I know God hears, but I guess if they're bland, my heart isn't IN it enough? I don't know. This morning, with my sleeping baby on the bed and my children squabbling and building dens downstairs, I started a blando prayer and I guess the Holy Spirit showed up because before I knew it, there I was on my knees on the bedroom floor, crying, my WHOLE HEART in my words, "I CAN'T DO IT, LORD! I NEED YOU, LORD!" And oh how I meant it! I prayed for a while, and then got up, with ZERO confidence in myself (nervous to even go downstairs, lol!) but, comfortingly, with every confidence in Christ who strengthens me (and He does! Hooray!), and went back to my children. Matthew had emptied the bookshelves over the floor. He did not get lunch until he put them back. I did not yell! :)

I did yell some more this afternoon, but there were SO very many occasions where someone small would scream in my face about something, and my anger would rise and then suddenly a small word pressed into the back of my eyes, "soft..." and I did not yell. I got down to his level, took his hands in mine, and used a softer voice than my normal speaking voice to explain that screaming is not nice, Mummy doesn't like it, and he needs to apologise to me for it. The DIFFERENCE! Immediately, soft calm eyes looked into mine, and with a relaxed body, the little person nodded and said, "Sorry Mummy." Quiet, relaxed, and OH SO RIGHT in my spirit. So easy to move onto cuddles, and it's exactly as I WANT to parent them. I do, sometimes. I just seem to yell more lately, and I want to get back to NEVER yelling. It is not in my own strength that I was able to do that this afternoon (trust me, I have tried it in my own strength and not managed), and I am so grateful to God for the glimpse of the fruit that can be gained from absolutely submitting to Him in my mothering, and not allowing myself to go my own way. I just haven't been turning to God enough recently, and I need to change that.

Tomorrow the challenge begins all over again, because I'm just as weak and wretched for the task tomorrow as I was this morning. But I have hope! I have Jesus! And so long as I submit to Him, I KNOW He will enable me. The task I am carrying out is the very one He has called me to, Himself! So He is sure to enable me, if I am leaning on Him and seeking Him.

I love what I do! I love it so very much. I love Jesus more, though. :)

Keeping up....

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9

I need some sort of cuckoo clock with this verse popping out every 5 minutes around the clock. Seriously.

I am really struggling lately with carrying out this verse in my role as Mummy to my five little men! I know what the "good" is that I am meant to be doing. It varies depending on the age and personality of each child, and the season of parenting I’m in. Right now one of my biggest sources of weariness is Benjamin’s shrill screaming tantrums that he gives us many times each day, lasting at least 20 minutes straight and often longer. He screams and won’t be calmed down by anything (or nothing at all!), until he’s a quivering, crimson mess with hair sweated through to the tips. It’s honestly worse than a pneumatic drill for decibels and distraction! The boys are fed up with it, I’m fed up with it, and we can’t hear ourselves or get anything done. I should have nipped it in the bud earlier than this, but it started a couple of weeks or so before I got a kidney stone which has led me a merry dance for a month now – finally resolved last week though (SO THANKFUL!!!) and I already have half a post drafted about it, for my records. Will finish it and post it soon! So Neil went back to work today, having had to look after the little ones for WEEKS on holiday time from work, and now I must deal with the issues at hand!

Mucho training is needed in so many areas! I’m not feeling defeated or overwhelmed by the task, for once! I am digging deep into Scripture and finding strength where I should always be looking for it in the first place (*sigh* I am such a s-l-o-w learner!). But off the top of my head, here’s a rundown of the things I know I need to tackle imminently. Not sure of a game plan yet, but I know God will help me with that:

• Benjamin’s tantrums

• Teaching sweet attitude and first time obedience to Benjamin. These are biggies, but bare essentials, and I left it WAY late to even attempt these with the others (with continuing consequences). I know from other wise mamas online that I have ALREADY left it late with Benji, though he's only just two. Onward, though! :)

• Teaching sweet attitude and first time obedience to Nathan. Oh, and Matthew and Arthur while I’m at it. *sigh* I really wish I had been diligent in the earlier years. I am ongoingly tackling this with the boys now, but it’s endless and usually seems fruitless, and can become extremely wearing – hence the need for the cuckoo clock as mentioned above!

Well I thought I would have a load of things on a list, and there really IS so very much to do, but now that I am looking at my list, I can see that ALL of it springs from the basic need for my children to obey me and have a good attitude about it, 99% of the time. A tall order, yes, but I am not a slave driver in my approach, just firm. And I know that little children can and do learn these things when taught diligently, so I have hope and press on.

Sometimes though, I struggle with working Galatians 6:9 through. I start to question myself on things when I'm tired and three children are crying at once, and I'm not talking about having a quiet cry about something for a few minutes! ;) I'm talking about one irate tantrumming child, one hungry or tired baby crying to be picked up, and one child who is angry because I'm the world's worst mummy right at that moment to him, for a temporary specific reason. Loud, emotionally loaded, and incessant crying! In that moment, when I am unsure which child to deal with first, and I choose (for example) to continue consistent discipline with my toddler who, when reminded that we don't throw XYZ toy, yelled at me, "No way! I corn lis-nin!" (I can't listening, otherwise translated as, "I'm not listening!", and yes, Benjamin has picked this up from one of two older brothers who no longer say this after what feels like months of continuous discipline over it) and needs to apologise before anything else happens (breathe, long sentence!), I end up second-guessing whether I'm doing the right thing, in the midst of the moment. I can't think straight sometimes, and my efforts seem to make things worse sometimes, and I think that really I'm just totally GUESSING at the "good", the RIGHT thing to do, sometimes. Then I think of the verse, about how we should not grow weary of doing GOOD, and I think, "But what if the GOOD I'm persevering with ISN'T the GOOD I think it is?!" What if I'm doing it all wrong?! I want to persevere with good as a parent, but then I have moments where I come unstuck and have NO idea what is good and what isn't!

I really want to reap a harvest with my children! Basically as little ones, they have two commands in the Bible to learn and follow, and we learned this verse as our first memory verse last year:

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with a promise; that it may go well with you, and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." Ephesians 6:1-3

They need to learn to obey us. Obeying means doing as they are asked:

•Immediately
•Cheerfully
•Completely

And they need to learn to honour us, which means respecting us, not being rude or answering back or having a bad attitude towards us.

There are too many families online for me to even link to (though I should give it a go sometime for the encouragement of others who might read this), who raise their children in this way from a YOUNG age, kindly and lovingly, and these children are a delight to be around, well adjusted, joyful and confident. Family life is much more calm and less chaotic than ours, and I know I need to press on in these areas to see this kind of fruit. I wish I had learned this stuff earlier! Now that we're working on it, and have been for quite a long time - a year or more? - it is hard going! I don't know whether that's just normal and you just press on? Or if it's evidence that things need tweaking to be effective and lead to good fruit and a more harmonious family life?! I have no idea what I'm doing, but for the first time I feel like I am aiming in the right direction. I was always so frustrated before, having no idea but ALSO not knowing what my goals should be or why! I honestly feel like the most DENSE parent out there, lol! I know every parent has their moments, but I feel such a twit, as far as parents go! ;) I feel like people knowing about this would be rolling their eyes saying, "And she's got FIVE?!?!"

Well, this post was really to just sort of to write about my journey of cluelessness, um PARENTING, haha! So that I don't forget, and so that I might even learn from it, and look back someday and go, "Ahhh, that's where I turned the corner!!" or, "Ahhh, THAT'S where I should have tried X, Y or Z instead! Oh dear!", hehe!

I just wish I had some sort of accountability from WISE WISE persons, who actually do know all the answers from experience, and who have set about raising their children exactly the way I want to, and who can tell me if I'm on track, or veering waaaay off course. I know that God is my source. I pray about it a lot. But often still feel a bit lost on what I should be doing. I do feel that God leads me to wise advice when I ask him to help me and give me wisdom though. If it's of God, it's nearly always confirmed around that same time with a Bible verse. Ahhh, I don't know! Sometimes I just feel so lost in what I'm trying to do that I don't know what I'm doing, HOW to do it, or even if I should be doing it at all!! I think this is a better way of describing the way I was feeling when I wrote my last blog entry in JUNE (gasp, way too long ago!) about having so many children that I didn't know what to do!

It really isn't the number of children, although I am noticing that having more children forces me to face up to things that I must deal with as a parent but which I could (and probably would, knowing myself!) let slide if I was under less pressure with fewer children. It's the parenting of them and not knowing how, or what I'm doing. The number of children means I have more plates spinning, which is a bit overwhelming sometimes.

You know what? On my worst days where I feel the most overwhelmed, I never, not once, ever feel like I have "too many" children. I have five wonderful, darling, precious children. My children are all boys. I would be a rich, rich woman if I had a pound for every time someone said the words, "All boys?!?!" to me now, lol! Ohh I've heard that one a lot. Everyone wants to know if we've been trying for a girl, or longing for a daughter. You know what? I've never been more thrilled to have five boys and NO daughters. I would love a daughter. I'm girly. I want hair to French plait and pink glittery crafts and ohhhh, girly bedding and sweet little sundresses!!! It's possible to feel that way without the slightest pang whatsoever when I think of my houseful of little boys and the distinct possibility of always being the only girl in my houseful of boys! :)

I love having boys! I love having babies! I love having children. I would joyfully and gratefully welcome more of them, if the Lord was pleased to bless us that way. Lately, with my health having a "moment" with the kidney stone, losing a ton of weight, and generally getting run down - it's been a bit scary at times for me. And that has made me nervous of pregnancy and more babies. I get panicky and think, what about my body?!! Will it cope?!! But when I fix my eyes on Jesus and I trust God with my body, and my womb, and thus my babies, the fear evaporates. Slowly, sometimes! ;) But it does. And that's kind of a marker for me to know what's the right thing to do. Fear isn't of God, and looking at my fertility in a "worldly" way, for want of a better description, worrying about the physical side of things, whether it would be daft and overwhelm us, and alllll the other possible concerns with having more babies - none of those bring me peace. The only peace to be gained for me there is taking control of it all by preventing the chance of any more babies, and that's the same kind of feeling of "peace" I used to get when I was a teenager, deathly afraid of vomiting and carrying around a pack of tummy pills in my bag. They were my security because if I felt anxious and queasy for any reason, I would PANIC. But if I had my pills - just to peek in and look at them in my bag, a sense of calm would come over me. They were there if I needed them.

There's a great verse in the Bible that a Christian counsellor once shared with me that transformed my thinking over many things in my life at that time:

"But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment." Isaiah 50:11

I light my own fires when I try to control things myself, when I make my own security by setting things up just so. It's freeing and releasing to give control of BIG things to God - big things rightfully belong in God's control anyway. I know from experience that it's torment to try to hang on to control of such things myself. Greater strength is needed to keep hold all the time, and greater is the anxiety over it. Letting go is NOT my forte! ;) I struggle with that immensely, BUT it's worth it. The feeling of worry over babies and the future, and wondering about preventing more of them felt EXACTLY like that previous experience of trying to control things, feeling a sort of sense of peace, but that peace just masking the torment. So I am not going to do that.

Well, I could write all night, but it's getting late and Samuel is now stirring awake for a feed. I love that sweet little baby! I have so much to write and so many photos to post! I really will try to get to it soon! I'm just glad to start a catch-up on thoughts and things - important for future reference. Back soon, I hope! :)

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe...

... who didn't have THAT many children in the grand scheme of things (and was also not as old as all that, and her shoe looked like a regular-shaped house), but nonetheless had absolutely no IDEA what in the wide world to do.

*sigh*

Can't really elaborate, nor post on Facebook. Not really looking for advice, just completely overwhelmed to the point of despair and wanting to make note of it here for future reference.

Please help me Lord!

My Second Little Pair...

Benjamin will be 2 years old in just 7 weeks!!! I can not believe it! He is 22 months already! He is lately becoming more of a little boy - though definitely NOT one yet, as he's still such a baby one. He is so chubby and squidgy and toddley and GORGEOUS! He's hard to photograph, very assertive, sings to himself (whilst swaying happily, bless him!) more than any of my other children have at any age. He talks a lot, mostly stringing a couple of words together or pointing out one-word items. He is saying the odd 3 word sentence now and then. I wish I had more time to update here with his progress as it's the kind of thing I love charting! :(

But for now I just wanted to update with a set of photos. As he gets nearer to age 2, he is closing in a bit on Nathan - the gap in size is closing a bit (Nathey is so tiny, and Benjamin bigger than average I think). For the first time amongst any of our children we have had people asking if they are twins, but only when they're in the pushchair. Nathey is still taller by a fair bit. When you see them play it's obvious Nathan is older too.

They pair up a lot now, to do things like rough-and-tumble. It's so sweet to watch them because they're such a happy little pair, and I love the fact that they are my SECOND such pair of little boys! :) Today Nathan was "reading" a story to Benjamin on the sofa, and then Benjamin started wrestling with Nathan afterwards and sitting on him, etc, hehe! I took photos and wanted to share them here. Benjamin is getting so big now! Nathan has such a mop of dark hair, and I gave Benjamin a haircut while he napped on the sofa last week (the only way still!). Must do the other boys next!












Love my little two! I can't wait to have a 3-year-old and a 2-year-old again! I love those ages, even with all their challenges. So much fun! :) Also, HOW wonderful it is to have little ones close in age! They are so blessed, as you can see in the photos! :)

I NEED to update with so much more stuff, and photos galore. I don't know when I'll have time. But for now, I had a moment to post this, so here it is! Hopefully I will be back to post again soon!

Comparing my babies at three months old!

If you've been reading my blog for a long time then you'll know that I have a kind of tradition when my babies get to be 3 months old. When Arthur was 2 and a half months old, I took a photo of him wearing a white sleepsuit with little green stars on it, lying on a homemade changing mat cover. For comparison, I took a photo of Matthew wearing the same outfit on the same changing mat cover, at approximately the same age. It was amazing to see how very different they were as babies, comparing those photos! So, when Nathan reached that age, I did the same thing with him, and again with Benjamin. I think Benjamin's was slightly later (almost 3 and a half months) because I couldn't find the changing mat cover and spent a while procrastinating while I looked for it! I gave up in the end and took the photo with him on a towel, but this time with Samuel I have found the original cover! :)

Samuel is now 3 and a half months old, and the comparison photo was taken a few days after he turned 3 months old. The sleepsuit got a LOT of wear from Benjamin for several months after Benjamin wore it for his photo, and usually my babies don't wear that one much, but it fitted Benjamin SO well that he wore it a lot! Thus it is baggier than it used to be, sadly! And has a LOT of staining on it, hehe! But I'm glad to have the traditional photo of my newest 3-month-old in it all the same, for comparison.

Here are the usual line of photos, starting as always with Arthur, and in chronological order: my baby boys at 3 months of age, give or take a week or two! :)

Arthur:



Matthew:



Nathan:



Benjamin:



Samuel:



I still maintain Samuel looks ever so like Matthew, and there's also some resemblence to Nathan too, but he's also just "Samuel" in his look too. He's SUCH an incredibly lovely baby, and I am just so blessed to have five (FIVE!) sons!!! I am so grateful to God for blessing me so abundantly with little boys! :)

I have such a lot more to write about Samuel, as he's growing and changing so fast, but said little treasure is rolling around next to me on the bed, looking as though he would like me to pick him up and snuffle his sweet lil neck, so I will go! :) Hopefully I'll post more soon!