The pace and the panic

It's 11pm already - ALREADY! Every day is whirling by, except for - you know - the "slow hours", and even those are pretty speedy these days. I am so tired, sooooo tired at the moment. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that I'm 28 weeks pregnant and tiredness is normal around now, but also that I have six little ones to keep me on my toes at the same time! Nights are disturbed aplenty, always. It used to be just Elijah (14 months already!) waking me, but now I am waking more when he's still slumbering peacefully next to me than the few times a night he still wakes and wants to breastfeed. My leg will go into cramp, or I will need to go to the loo, you know all that normal 3rd trimester stuff. My restless leg syndrome bothers me once I wake up and makes it hard to sleep again, but mainly I have been having awful hayfever since March and I am wondering if (as August rolls around) it will ever go away?!?! I have never had it this bad before, but it seems like half the world is having the same trouble this year, so hopefully it will go eventually. I can't get back to sleep at night after I wake for any other reason, for my nose itching and sneezing and being like a solid brick, etc. I'm. so. tired.

Neil is working longer hours - or, well, he's not, but he is out of the house longer, because his car died and now he is taking the bus to work. He leaves by 7am and is home around 7.30pm on a good day, maybe up to an hour later if the buses are horrible. It has been three or four weeks now, and I think I am adjusting this past week. I was absolutely not managing to cope with the extra hours at all before and the boys were so late in bed every night, while I barely clung to my sanity! ;) But this week is better, so far, and the end of last week was too.

The only thing is the panic! The way the day starts off at a cracking pace at 7am - breakfast, more please Mummy, cleaning up spills, wiping the baby (who hates being wiped so so so much!), clean-up after breakfast, loading the dishwasher and starting it, stopping eleventy times to settle disputes and discipline/correct/warn or retrieve an overly adventurous toddler (I have two now!), shoving the wet washing into the tumble dryer, picking through the mountain of dirty clothes/sheets/towels/wipes, etc to prioritise and start the next load of washing, stopping a dozen times to discipline/correct/warn, and "could you please lift him off the school table and move that thing he keeps using to climb up there?!", sweeping the kitchen floor, surveying the somewhat-acceptable kitchen for a moment in semi-satisfaction, and then moving on to choose clean clothes for the boys, stopping half a dozen times to discipline/correct/warn and give out clothes, asking the recipients way too many times to "please put your clothes on... please put them on now... I said put your clothes on!.... Matthew! Clothes! Now!" Then the frenzy of nappy changes and dressing little ones who aren't yet old enough to do it themselves without some (or complete) help. On a good day it's 8.30am at this point. Then I am able to wash and dress myself, stopping, of course, a dozen times to discipline/correct/warn, and "Stop screaming at me please! I can't come and see because I haven't got any clothes on yet!", and sit down freshly washed but sweating profusely, on the sofa to complete the morning "necessaries" and snuggle my littlest two for a bit. Stories get read, nursing sometimes happens, and the ever necessary corrections and dispute-settling, amongst cuddles, construction and drawing appreciation, and hearing endlessly about whatever Arthur is fascinated by on that occasion (always something historical or nature/animal based lately).

Even though it's a packed "rest" time, it seems short-lived because within no time I have to haul my reluctant body up to put Elijah to bed (he naps mid-morning, sometimes as early as 9am if he woke before 6am - he doesn't have an afternoon nap this way though, and that means he's tired at bedtime!), and then sort out morning snack, mediate squabbles and clashes of interest, switch the laundry, fold all the dry stuff and put it away (completely out of breath, always now, from carrying it upstairs and putting it away in the drawers) while stopping now and then to stage-whisper down the stairs (so as not to wake Elijah) to "Let him have that toy", "No, we don't say "stupid" in this house", and "I will sort that out in a sec when I've finished this!"

Then I *believe* I interact with my children for a while, lol! I often forget this part of the day as it seems like a blur, but I'm not usually doing chores after switching the laundry, and Elijah is sleeping so I'm usually spending time with them, but it seems a very "on the go" sort of time, because before I can believe it, Elijah is waking and I need to make the lunch - we eat as soon after 12 noon as possible, usually. So, just like that, the morning has gone! I make lunch, Elijah hungry and usually screaming at the kitchen safety gate while I spread sandwiches at a frantic pace and call out for a big boy to please read him a story for just a moment. A loaf of bread and three knives dirtied with various spreads later, and, "Not yet!", "No, it's not ready!", "You'll know it's ready when I SAY it's ready!" and the boys pile into the kitchen and eat lunch. I want to lie down but I need to feed my body and my tiny unborn baby's body, so I eat a sandwich and some yoghurt, and probably a glass of milk, alongside "Sit down at the table", "Please eat nicely... no, that's NOT nice!", "I will get you more when I have finished my sandwich", "Right, that's it! Out of the kitchen for 5 minutes!", and wiping the baby (the one who hates being wiped so so so much), cleaning up that spilled milk, comforting the child whose dessert fell on the floor which I may as well have not swept earlier, and shooing giggling children out from underfoot after they have cleared their plates away, to wipe the table, bench and booster seat, and this time pretend to ignore the fact that the floor needs sweeping.

Switch the laundry, mediate/discipline, find a change of clothes for the baby who managed to evenly coat himself in yoghurt at lunchtime, and say yes to a request from two children to draw at the kitchen table, thankful that I just wiped it and don't have to say "Not yet darling, the lunch things are still on the table." Throw their supplies on the table, and set about the next round of nappy changes along with Elijah's clothing change. Stop to think, "Did I wee yet today?" No, so that's my next task. Or even if I did, it's pretty much necessary again anyway. Find a suspicious puddle in the bathroom and some wet toilet paper in the bath plughole, and call boys to order on it. Mediate over finger-pointing and not-too-pleasant reactions to my solution to the problem, discipline for said reactions, comfort that child who tripped over the Duplo evenly spread across the living room rug, and firmly motivate boys to tidy up. Turn drill-seargent as certain children do not react well to being told to tidy up, and supervise until it's done properly. Fetch a drink for the constantly-asking child. Admire the drawings in the kitchen, agree to afternoon snack, and stop to take a drink of water myself and think, "Did I DO that wee when I went up to the bathroom after lunch?!" No, so off I go for another attempt! More snuggles on the sofa when I return, and reading to little ones, appreciating nuggets of information from the big ones, answering seemingly endless questions from the middle ones (by way of explanation, they are ages 4 and 5!), probably breastfeeding at least one or two littles at some point, and kissing bumps and scrapes, sympathetically acknowledging every single tiny scab, red mark, and yellowing 3mm bruise on the two-year-old as he enjoys showing me such acquisitions!

Somehow in this blur of an afternoon, it's nearly 4pm and I have to think about dinner. Baby-meltdown approaches (it's a time-of-day thing for this little one as he gets tired and hungry all at once) so I need to be quick, but of course it's also the time for an increase in the need for mediation/discipline/warnings, etc. for the other children. On a good day, I am making dinner by 5pm and serving it shortly thereafter (an hour or more later on a not-so-good day), while Elijah screams at the gate and I puff about the kitchen sweating and calling for a big boy to "please bring him the keyboard and play him a tune, for just a moment!" There's just time to toss the dry washing from the tumble dryer up on top of the machine, and throw the wet load in and start it going, as I call the boys in for food. I feel too hot and tired to eat mine, but I tackle it anyway because I should feed my body and my baby's little body, alongside "Well, that's what we're having", "Don't be rude about my cooking please!", "Fine, go to bed hungry then", and "Please stop saying "bottom-poo" over and over like that, it's silly and annoying, and it's not nice at the table anyway!"

Dinner time is over just like that, before I've really finished eating, and children are misbehaving and needing correcting/disciplining/warning, and ultimately sending out of the kitchen to play, while I wipe the baby (that same one who really really hates to be wiped so so so much), get the squashed banana off the floor, clean up that spilled drink, tell the whining child that if he is still hungry he can eat the food that he has left on his plate (for the 4th time), call out to the pair of boys in the living room who are leaping about and screaming, to calm down, and launch straight into searching for pyjamas and night nappies, without really pausing to see that the day is almost gone, Neil is on his way home, and it's after 6pm (or a good bit later on a bad day!).

The boys are in high spirits at bedtime, and at their most selective when it comes to hearing my instructions, unfortunately! I change nappies, and dress little ones for bed, constantly stopping to separate boisterous children, insist on pyjamas being put on (for the dozenth time), and agreeing to that story being read after I've finished. I brush five sets of little white teeth - Arthur brushes his own. Some children really really don't like having their teeth brushed, which makes it a challenging task. Rush to fill a drink for the child about to die whining of thirst, fetch the baby down from where he shouldn't be again, and Neil arrives home, which sends the hyper-ness into orbit! At this point, maybe because finally it's not just me again, my body seems to crash and I feel totally exhausted, physically. I seem to have less tolerance for trouble from little boys, but I read a story and try to tell Neil this and that of importance about the boys' day so he can follow-up and chat to them about it as he helps me get them ready for bed.

Then, bedtime in a whirlwind. A mix of tired kiddies, hyper kiddies, disobedient squealing kiddies, and those reading a bedtime story. Elijah refuses to settle to sleep breastfeeding, so I take him back out to Neil and take over from him with the other boys in their room. I nurse Samuel to sleep, stopping regularly to ask Benjamin to please lie down and be quiet, and then the bigger boys are coming in way too noisily from their story time, to go to bed. Four sets of back-rubs, prayers, and individual stories (they all request birth stories, or occasionally our wedding or honeymoon holiday), and Neil is back from walking Elijah to sleep. Usually only Arthur is still awake, and I feel breathlessly tired and stagger downstairs at last to find that it's after 9pm somehow, and the day is over with.

The panic sets in - which I started off this post to write about, but got rather side-tracked, lol! - because it's 9.25pm or something, and I HAVE to do more than just what I "do" all day, with my children. But it's all a whirlwind of "my all" and that uses up the day in a blink, and suddenly it's mid-evening and the time I had planned to use for "planning" for the next day/week/month is half used up, and I am actually too tired to make my brain work properly in any case. I spend an hour or so pootling about on Pinterest scanning for ideas and trying to organise my thoughts, and having a moment of social sanity for my brain at Facebook. I look at photos I took of my boys that day (if any) and smile and feel mushy inside because I love them so much and I enjoy dwelling on them, even if they drove me crazy that day! ;) And my restless leg syndrome gets more and more bothersome until I have no choice but to call it a night.

Then, the night wakings, and the day begins again just like the one before. Tired evening follows and another occasion where I can't find time or energy to plan what I guiltily feel I SHOULD be doing with the boys. Like school! Notice that in our day, no formal schooling is taking place! We have become quite the unschooling family, but it's not my preference at all and I constantly feel anxious or guilty that I'm not exposing them to enough learning experiences to meet their needs.

Then tonight I read this blog post, which someone had posted at Facebook:

Hope When You Feel Like a Homeschool Failure at raisingrealmen.com.

And it's not the first thing I've "come across" in the past week or two. People seem to be randomly posting things that speak right to my heart about this issue, as if it's put there by God to comfort and reassure me, to remind me that there is more to homeschool than academics. And, for a perfect example, this post at finding joy, only 9 hours ago:

why being a mom is enough

Reassuring. I am sure God is trying to speak to my heart, and that in itself reassures me. I know the panic and guilt will creep back by tomorrow morning, and probably even by the time I put the laptop away and let my head hit the pillow tonight, but I wanted to blog about it this evening (despite the late hour and the tiredness) because it's something "solid" now that it's in writing and that means I can come and take hold of it whenever I need to. Maybe someone else can too.

My kids are learning more than I expected them to, without formal lessons, which is so encouraging and uplifting! But I would so like to get time sorted out somehow, so that I can do more of the type of schooling I really want to be doing - at least covering the 3 r's formally, would make me feel better, and I think Neil would prefer that too. They ARE learning the 3 r's without me doing that, bizarrely! ;) But yeah... I would like to do it a bit differently. I nearly typed "better", which is telling of my need to stop with this thing that general society has going on, where unschooling is weird and totally not going to work! ;) It's not better, it's just different. And different is okay. Isn't it? It IS okay to be different. That's one of life's harder lessons, and you have to battle it all. your. life. if it applies to you (which it always has anyway).

Anyway, I needed to write this tonight. I kind of like that I got side-tracked because now I have the memory of the frantic typical day written down! I know the day will come allll too soon when I forgot what that's like and long for it wistfully. I don't resent it, I love it, though it's draining and exasperating at times. I believe them when they say it passes all too quickly, and I am trying to cherish it while it's here! I still can't believe I'm 37. I know I'll be 47 before I can blink. That makes me want to CLING to NOW, and just BE in it, experience it, enjoy it, be thankful for it. And I really really am. I just need to somehow keep on swimming, at the same time... somehow.

Week in Review - week ending June 30th

Week in Review

In my life this week...

I've been ridiculously tired this week. My baby seems to be having a growth spurt, because my bump is growing very quickly at the moment, and her kicks seem bigger almost every day that passes! Heather was concerned about me at church last Sunday because she said I looked exhausted and pale, and thought maybe I wasn't getting enough iron. She suggested Floradix so I went and bought some, and have taken it as consistently as I remember to since Monday (two doses a day, sometimes I forget the evening one). I will be 24 weeks pregnant on Tuesday, so I'm excited about that milestone! :) Yay for viability for my little one! :)

Because I've been SO tired out physically, I haven't had much left emotionally and mentally either, so it's been hard to manage the boys this week. I had help on Thursday because Heather came over for the day to help out (she does this every Thursday, pretty much, mainly to do housework for me!). The boys have bickered and argued and melted down WAY more than usual this week, and it has been extreeeemely wearing, even if I didn't have the hormones and exhaustion to add to the mix. Benjamin and Samuel have inexplicably thrown many screaming-on-the-floor tantrums each day, which isn't really like them, and Elijah has been clingy and screechy when tired or hungry, as he usually is, and ohhh it has been a hard week! I think (?) maybe everyone is overtired. Some nights they had a later bedtime than they're used to, and didn't make up for it by sleeping in (they get up between 6 and 7am regardless), so maybe that didn't help? I have no idea! But I hope next week is better!

In our homeschool this week...

So many bits and pieces, which I'll try to note here as much as I can.

We read and worked through some more of Arthur's Apologia Science: Zoology 2 course. We are still working through all the activities in chapter one, and taking our time to do so, because there's plenty there to work on! The experiment this week was about the pressure exerted on our lungs in deep sea water, which involved a balloon inflated in a plastic bottle and then stamping on the bottle to see what happened to the balloon (or, the lungs!). All SIX boys were fascinated with this experiment, and Elijah and Samuel have played with the bottle and balloon (still in situ days later!) ever since!

Matthew has done some maths in the form of maths games online this week, and also has done a lot of writing letters on paper as part of play with his brothers. His letter formation is surprisingly good - at least I shouldn't say that (!) but I was surprised, as the times I have tried to get him to do handwriting lessons (which he dislikes intensely and has resisted!) his letter formation has been really poor and it seems like he's not aware of what letters he's even writing, just copying squiggles that mean nothing to him. This week he wrote nonsensical words like "pore" (with the 'e' back to front) and then asked me what it said - lots of words like that. His letters were all really clear, which was encouraging to me! :) We've done a lot of "chatty maths" with Matthew and Nathan, in a very casual way, again this week. Things like doubling numbers, adding, and so on. This has gone well, in terms of what they seem to understand of it (especially encouraging re. Matthew, much more so than Nathan).

Nathan has done a LOT of drawing again this week, and colouring. His pictures that he is drawing are becoming more complex and detailed this week, I have noticed. He has been building Lego and Duplo a lot as always, mostly machines and things like that, which are also becoming more complex lately. He has been working on his wipe clean book (covers maths, handwriting, telling the time, etc.), and asked me how to do the pages on telling the time. I gave him a quick explanation of how to read the clock to the hour, and that's it, he said, "Oh, okay." and completed all the questions and drew hands on clock faces, etc, within minutes. TOTALLY gets telling the time to the hour. So different from Matthew, which is both a relief and a concern - such a nice relief to be able to teach a child with such ease again, and reminds me of my concerns over Matthew...

Nathan has also been writing letters a lot this week, and randomly wrote the word "me". I told him he wrote a real word and asked if he knew what it said. He looked pleased with himself but said no, he didn't. I reminded him of the sounds of the letters and he knew it said, "me". That sounds simple, but it's the first time he's allowed me to do anything involved with teaching him to read at ALL, which is lovely! :) He seemed really pleased and smiled about it for ages, so hopefully he'll be more open to these things from now? Our All About Reading curriculum arrived from the States this week - less than a week shipping time!! :) I spent a couple of hours putting it together and it looks great! :) The boys seemed excited when it arrived, so I'm hopeful about it. I need to make some time to prepare to teach it, and then we can get going (hopefully!).

Arthur went to Heather's house for a history lesson Wednesday. They did various crafts and activities related to more medieval British royal history, and then apparently Arthur started to seem bored and act silly, so Heather took her daughter and Arthur to their allotment as a change of pace! :) They did a lot there. Arthur learned to identify a lot of different vegetable plants, and did some weeding. They harvested rhubarb and Arthur brought a huge bag of it home! We have had rhubarb crumble twice this week, hehe! While Arthur was out all morning, the boys at home played with homemade playdough (big success!) and spent ages in the garden, and did drawing, etc.

Lots more strategic war games initiated by Arthur this week. He continues to read history reference books at least 2-3 hours per day, chatting his way through it as he is in his own little world while he reads and learns. He recreates much of it in play as he goes, or right after. He also is spending an hour at least each day reading animal/nature reference books, especially fish, reptiles, insects and dinosaurs at the moment. He casually chats about all sorts of things in history, starting, "Did you know that such-and-such happened when...." etc. which opens up into a conversation about why, and what happened next. He has a firm grasp on everything historical that he talks about and can answer questions on a tangent even.

On Friday it rained all day. Arthur read SIX books (two of them in part)! Four of them by 2pm! He started with Enid Blyton's 'Island of Adventure' book (requested more in the series - I have the rest of the set of 7 or 8 on the way thanks to a great deal at eBay), then started the Boxcar Children series - we have the box set with books 1-4. He had lost the first one so he started with the second, and then read the third. Then became desperate to find the first one, so searched the house for ages in a bit of a state (!), and finally found it and read it! :) He read part of Roald Dahl's Matilda, and book 4 of the Boxcar Children, and then part of one of the Enid Blyton Faraway Tree books, which he's read a zillion times so far. He has started a tradition of his own, reading a chapter of the first of those books (The Enchanted Wood) to Matthew and Nathan on the sofa at bedtime, while Neil and I take the younger three boys up to bed. He reads so well, and brings the story alive with his voice and the way he dramatises it, and they love it!

Also on that rainy Friday, both Arthur and Matthew had individual time on the laptop for what they call "map work", which is basically travelling the world via Google maps, usually with various atlas and reference books spread out all over the table. If I let them, they can spend HOURS doing this without getting bored! But I usually try to keep it between 1 and 2 hours depending on what else is going on in the day, or around that time. Sometimes it's only 15 minutes or so.

Benjamin was recognising some letters on Saturday - he wanted to know what the xylophone letters (notes) said, and I told him their phonics sounds. He picked them up pretty quickly. He has been playing the xylophone a lot since then, and not just to make noise, which is nice! :) He really otherwise shows no signs of any sort of academic readiness, so if he does, even slightly, then I'll make mention of it here! These are milestones, even if they're little ones! :)

Elijah's "work" this week has been to continue his exploring. He is still loving Peekaboo, and banging things as his favourite laughing games. He loves round and round the garden on his tiny hands, and initiates by putting the tip of his thumb to the palm of his other hand and murmering in a sing-song way, as though he's saying the rhyme himself. :) He sits and "reads" books for 30+ minutes at a time, either by himself or side-by-side with Samuel, who has been doing this activity since he was Elijah's age. They are not necessarily picture books, but they turn each page, and "read aloud" as they go. Sweetest sight ever when they're sitting in front of the bookshelves working their way through piles of books on the floor side-by-side! :)

Elijah doesn't have any words yet, as such, but he says, "Aaaaooow" carefully when he hurts me (he headbutts and bangs with his hands a LOT, and not being affected by "no" yet!) if I say, "Ow!", as part of understanding what he did, and then he shakes his head for no. He says "Daddy", "deh-deh" (for I want that), "dowww" (just once so far, said very carefully and slowly, for 'down' when he wanted to get off the bed after waking from his nap), and "deh-dee" (very similar to Daddy, for "drinky" when he is thirsty at bedtime/naptime as he sits up and reaches for the drink).

Elijah figured out climbing into the open bottom drawer in the living room to get to the surface of the merchant's chest where lots of things are piled! Also how to use a toy or sofa cushion to get onto the new chest (many times) and onto the window sill - scary!! He did this by climbing from the object onto the school table, and from the school table onto the window sill! Yikes! :S He is head-butting a lot (walls, doors, floor, people, etc!), either for fun in calmness, or when he's more agitated, in frustration - another child to be on the autistic spectrum maybe??... Been there, done that, so I have suspicions, along with the ones I already had from his early babyhood and colic, sensory preferences, intolerance of baths (he's temperature sensitive like Arthur), laughing at typically scarily loud noises, etc. Hmmm...

He enjoys putting things into things right now, and shaking them in containers, taking lids off and trying to put them on again (mucho frustration). He likes banging like crazy on the baby keyboard to get "music" out of it. He likes banging ANYTHING hard against anything hard and noisy (mirrors, radiators, doors, etc) - he does this with such intensity and vigor! Gritted teeth and shiny eyes, lol! He and Samuel enjoyed a metal baking tray full of uncooked macaroni pasta on Friday after dinner, with a couple of metal spoons each. The NOISE!! They loved it, but Samuel got tired of the noise quite quickly. Elijah couldn't get enough and I had to call it a night for him eventually - I think he would have carried on all night otherwise! ;)

Places we've been and people we've seen...

On Saturday (a week ago, not this past weekend), we all went to a midsummer fete with a traditional Victorian fairground and lots of stalls and things. The weather was dreadful (rain and wind!) but we had lots of fun all the same! Samuel was traumatised sitting with Neil on the carousel, but Benjamin loved it! This photo is the only one I got where Samuel wasn't screaming with his head back! Poor boy! I got one of Benjamin too, but he was sitting with Heather's daughter and I don't want to post any photos of her "face-on" on my blog in case Heather would not like it. Little 'Lijah waved his paper flag enthusiastically while he watched his brothers go round!

We ate hotdogs (real sausages, none of that carcinogenic stuff!), popcorn and cupcakes, and wore raincoats! ;) Here are the littlest boys begging Daddy for popcorn, and enjoying it! ;)

Heather makes crafty things and often sells them on stalls at such events, and she had a stall at this one. We helped them out by Neil taking our big vehicle to load up all her craft things and then transported them to the fete (and back again at the end of the day), and Arthur begged to go early to help set up. Neil left him there setting up with Heather and her family for two hours before the rest of us turned up for the start of the fete, and Arthur had a lovely time helping (and was apparently very helpful!). He discovered a pond with ducklings and baby coots, and was desperate to show his brothers when we were there. Before we came home, we spent a while at the pond watching these sweet little birds!

The next day at church, it was an all-age family service (no children's groups) which our church does once a month. This time it was something we hadn't experienced before - "Messy Church" with a nature/creation theme! Samuel went off with Heather and created with playdough, painted with vegetables, and built Duplo. Benjamin did playdough with me, and then chose to work on the collage/sticking with glue activity table. He also did some painting with vegetables and built Duplo. Nathan was mostly focused on building Duplo, unsurprisingly! He built an impressive ship, which all the kids played with afterwards! He did some playdough as well. Matthew didn't seem to gravitate towards any of the activities particularly, and seemed happy just building Duplo most of the time. Arthur spent some time with Matthew at the Duplo centre, and then took himself off to do some collage, cutting and sticking nature pictures - he was very focused on this for a long time. They're all a bit young for the creative writing stuff that was going on, and didn't seem interested in the oil pastels and still life artwork. It was a really fun morning though! :)

On Thursday, Heather came round for the day - she does this most Thursdays to help me with the housework and the boys (mostly housework, usually). She took Benjamin and Arthur to the shops to buy clothes pegs, and then later Matthew and Nathan to the high street for various things. They went to lots of shops, browsed for ages in the charity shop (bought toy cars), went to the cafe for milk and chocolate sticks (!), and then to the library where they looked at books for a while. The boys spent a lot of the day in the garden - I forgot to say, they used adjustable pliers to try fixing Neil's bike in the garden, turning it upside down and stabilising it, then trying to attach the wheels! They asked for a screwdriver but I didn't know where I had one, and didn't REALLY want them to use it - I reckon I should relax more and let them at it next time... Arthur made rhubarb crumble with Heather later, doing all the measuring and everything except stew the rhubarb, and rub the butter in (dirty fingernails no matter how he scrubbed them from garden play right beforehand!).

This Saturday (just gone), all six boys went to the park with Neil for the afternoon. I tried to rest up and clear my head a bit, which should have been blissful but I just didn't get anywhere and felt tired and deflated by the time they got home! :/ Oh well!

Yesterday (Sunday), we went to church, the boys went to their groups and had fun, and we spent the afternoon at the park in the glorious summery weather. I took a lot of photos, but haven't had chance to get them off the camera yet.

Things I'm working on...

Slot games for Elijah, which I've done in the past, but have been reminded of at Pinterest lately! Easy DIY stuff - hopefully I'll find time to prepare a few things for him soon! I want to prepare All About Reading, or at least figure out how I'm going to transition Matthew (see if he needs any pre-Level 1 help first). I also want to prepare science curriculum stuff ahead, including field trip ideas (rock pooling on the south coast is one of the things I want to do SOON).

I have started a written list of my morning routine with check boxes. It's just to keep me on track a bit better, because the morning has so many things that must be done, and if I'm having a tired or vague day, I come completely undone with the sheer juggling thing that has to be done, especially if the boys are being constantly troublesome with each other and I have to keep jumping off my train of thought to discipline or re-direct, or do the next thing that needs doing, before I've figured out what I even NEED to do next! Everything quickly gets overwhelming, and I want to cut through that. This was my first list on the fridge door, earlier in the week (and I had coloured in all but 3 boxes by 9.51am! Yay!):

It is really helping me keep on track so far! :)

What else? My grandfather's (Grandoug's) 88th birthday is this week, and the usual family get-together is on Saturday, which we're all looking forward to. I always make him a birthday cake, so I need to organise myself for that. Benjamin's 4th birthday is three days later on Tuesday next week, so I need to be organising myself for his cake and other birthday-related stuff too!

I'm cooking...

Apart from birthday cake?! ;) Some other food, probably, lol! Yep, still way too vague on that front, but c'est la vie right now! My children are getting fed, so it's okay! ;)

I'm grateful for...

Lovely weather! My little ones! Looking pregnant - I love it! Baby girl clothes arriving in the post! Church on Sunday evening - my turn yesterday to go, while Neil put the boys to bed. I found it sooooo refreshing this week, just some space to BE with God, to worship and pray, and to listen without distraction, to learn from the Bible. Loved it! :)

Elijah and Samuel cutting molars this week - Samuel working on all four 2-year-old molars coming through, and Elijah cut his first molar this week too - I'm so grateful that neither of them has had any particular symptoms! Some of my little ones have had a miserable time with molars and been quiet unwell, but these two boys are doing fine so far, for which I am really thankful! :)

I'm praying for...

Wisdom and direction re. our house move. We have to move, but we can't afford a thing in any useful area (as far as commuting and so on), and we don't know what to doooo. But meanwhile, we HAVE to move! And time is running out. Three and a half months to go until this sweet little baby arrives!

Something I have my eye on...

I can't think of anything right now! A good night's sleep?! ;)

I'll hopefully be "on time" next time - I know it's already a day into the new week and I'm only just now finishing my Week in Review post for last week. Ah well, at least I'm updating! It is taking me AGES to compile these posts though, more than I thought, so I am not sure if I can keep it up, and I'm terrible at making things more concise! ;)

Week in Review (well, fortnight!) - June 21st 2013

I forgot last weekend! So I'll try for a general review covering the past fortnight this time! :) I'm not sure if I'll be all that consistent, but I'll try - and thank you for the sweet comments on my first try at this, last time! :)

Week in Review

In my life this week (fortnight!)...

My pregnancy is going well! I'm 22 weeks now. I have had a growth spurt (or rather, the baby has!) and my bump is much bigger than before. I'm feeling well and it's SO nice to have my stamina back. I get tired and breathless fairly easily, but I have normal stamina now - I can stand to sing worship songs with a baby in my arms at church and not feel faint, lol! I have had the MOST joyful couple of weeks since we found out that we're having a baby girl, and I think it's sinking in properly now. :) I have already bought quite a few items of VERY cute girly clothing at eBay, and I'm trying to slow down a bit now because I know that Neil's sister and my brother (who each have a daughter) are passing on ALL their girly baby clothes to us in the coming months! Yay! :) It's so exciting!!!!

In our homeschool this week (fortnight!)...

Well, my memory is now completely hopeless, so I am not sure if I can even remember last week! Arthur had another history lesson with Rosanna (my doula's daughter) which he had a great time doing - he made another part of some medieval armour he's been working on - he has done the shield, and this time he made the breastplate. It's sized to him so he can wear it and have a lot of fun doing so! ;) He does a lot of writing and "book work" with his history lessons, as well as hands-on stuff and crafts, little plays, etc.  He really resists written work for me, so I'm glad he's doing SOME at least, elsewhere!

We've done some conversational maths with Matthew and Nathan this past couple of weeks, here and there - usually as they're getting dressed or ready for bed. They seem most open to it then, and take in more too. Nathan has no trouble understanding any concepts (so far). Matthew struggles with almost everything, in his head, but he seemed to take in and comprehend the addition stuff we were talking about in casual conversation. Hmmm...

I ordered 'All About Reading' Level 1 this week. We have 'Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons' which we used with success, I guess, with Arthur when he was 4-5 years old. He was bored by Lesson 70, and by then I wasn't sure if it would work for Matthew, so I researched and bought Rocket Phonics, which is GREAT! Arthur was away with reading by then and would have done well anyway, but following through with Rocket Phonics made a big difference. We got halfway through the 2nd (and final) textbook, but haven't done any more. There are some grammar tips in the remaining lessons which would be handy to do with him, but otherwise he is reading fluently at almost teenage level so I didn't think it was necessary. He reads for several hours each day (silently), but he likes to read things out to me that he's just discovered and which interests him (nearly everything, lol!), so I make sure I get to hear him read frequently and correct any mispronounciations. He still makes mistakes, but then he hasn't been formally taught some of the more complicated rules of reading the english language. I think I will look for a grammar curriculum at some point soon to fill in the gaps.

Anyway, I have been teaching Matthew with Rocket Phonics, and he loves it, and he IS progressing, but painfully slowly. He's not really reading, even though he can sound out the words and sentences at the stage of the book that he's at, just verrrrrrry slowly - and he retains almost nothing for the next lesson. I have had my eye on All About Reading for many months, coming across excellent reviews, and testimonies from people who have dyslexic children who are something like 9 years old and still not reading, etc. Also we use All About Spelling and it's FABULOUS, so I am already leaning with a bias towards trying All About Reading. I talked about it with Neil and he said YES, buy it and try it out. It's SO expensive, so it wasn't an easy decision! I was going to buy the pre-reader level for Nathan and eventually Benjamin and the others, and maybe to let Matthew fly through first for confidence, as well as Level 1. But the cost was too much, so I ended up going for Level 1 alone. I think he will be fine starting that without any pre-reader stuff. He doesn't know his alphabet thoroughly enough yet, though he has a pretty good grasp of his phonics alphabet - he just doesn't retain much so he may have forgotten half of it already! :/ I need to run over that with him first. And I feel confident doing an overview of the alphabet, uppercase and lowercase letters, and phonics sounds with Nathan before starting him on Level 1 straight off, as well. I have told them both that I've ordered it, and that it will be FUN! :) The bonus is that we're tracking it from Wisconsin (it's on a plane today!!!) and they are loving that each day! :)

Arthur has spent many hours this week (and last week, but more intensely so this week) following his history reference books through the wars and using whatever is at hand to recreate the strategic battle plans, and then acting them out with the pieces. He LOVES doing this right now, and he is learning a TON about the various historical wars. Mainly the First World War this week, but also wars worldwide from hundreds of years ago. He knows so much stuff that I don't know, now! I actually thought to take a couple of photos of him doing this around breakfast time this morning, so I could add it to my review post here! :) He chose to build simple army components out of Duplo this time, to re-enact some of the battles in the first world war.

Arthur has various BIG history reference books that he reads for pleasure, but this one he's using is The Usborne History of Britain. It's HUGE, and absolutely fantastic. My mum bought it for him, for his 8th birthday (if memory serves!), and he has read it cover-to-cover more times than I can count since then, and dips into it daily for his latest points of interest. It covers history from prehistoric times to modern day, and is full of photos and charts and so on, and the text flows really easily for kids to read, from what I have seen. When Arthur reads with interest, he retains pretty much everything, so he has the most amazing grasp of British history now! The things he comes out with when other adults randomly include him in conversation about something in British history from 1000 years ago or something, usually makes them lost for words for a moment, before thinking what to say next. They usually catch up with me at another time when he's not around to express their awe at his knowledge and compliment me (ME! Haha!) on the homeschooling progress! ;)

We've started the Apologia Science curriculum (Zoology 2) on sea creatures! Arthur has decorated a blank workbook by cutting out pictures of various sea creatures, and we've started work on the reading (we take turns reading aloud, but he read today's in his head and told me he remembered what had been read MUCH better that way, so I guess we'll go on like that then!). He is so excited with the material and can't wait to do all the experiments. So far we've done the first little one, creating gyres (circular ocean currents) with Cheerios and a hair dryer (and a brother blowing, since we only have one hair dryer, lol!):

 

 

He is doing some writing and drawing to fill in the various worksheet options (he isn't interested in all of them, but that's fine), and they're being glued into his workbook, along with photos like the one above, to show experiments. Right now we're trying to drink down a 2 litre bottle of cloudy lemonade as fast as we can, haha! We need it for the next experiment with a balloon, to demonstrate deep sea underwater pressure. I am really excited about this new curriculum! It gives tons of ways to stretch their "muscles" learning-wise, and it's FUN! We can record it, that's another plus, because Neil is really keen to have things recorded in case we are called upon to show what we've done at any point (which I know we have every right to refuse, in the UK, but anyway). I really like that aspect!

Arthur's interests spill over onto his brothers constantly. He draws them in with such enthusiasm, into his battle strategy games, sea creatures stuff, archaeology, dinosaurs, weather - any of his interests which flare up at any given moment. He CAN'T be ignored, such is his infectious excitement about these things, and they just get carried along and end up learning along with him, which is wonderful!

I have tried working on colours with Samuel this week - he is exactly two-and-a-half today! Halfway to another birthday already! Yikes! I have a sneaking suspicion that he is colour blind. Arthur and Benjamin are not. Matthew and Nathan are. Arthur and Benjamin knew a dozen colours with EASE (I told them once what a colour was, and therefore they knew that colour from then on) at 19 months old or thereabouts. Matthew and Nathan didn't know their colours, even the basic ones, consistently until somewhere between 2 and 3 (nearer 3), and even then it wasn't a dozen of them until more like 3.5. I only worked on blue, yellow and red with Samuel, and he didn't retain it at ALL, and couldn't tell me which was which afterwards. Soooo.... I know that's very little to go by, but a mama of many boys, some colour-blind, some not, KNOWS! ;) Or probably does. Now for Elijah - it'll be a while before we have any clues with him yet. And our baby girl will NOT be colour blind, but I'm hoping very much that she doesn't carry it (like I did, and which she has a 50% chance of doing).

Samuel has been doing lots of spontaneous practical skills this week, things like pouring water. He likes to go round after everyone has left the table and pour what's left of each glass of water into one empty glass. He is learning the limit and what will make it overflow, and I've noticed his ability to pour carefully without spilling is really good for his age. He likes Montessori activities and gravitates to them constantly, so I think it would be good to set up some of the many Montessori activities I've pinned to Pinterest, for him to do.

Elijah is climbing, being strategic about placing toys, boxes or sofa cushions in specific places to enable him to climb somewhere he wants to be, opening and emptying cupboards, and has finally mastered taking magnetic letters and pictures off the fridge, and having them facing the right way to stick them back on properly again! He spends ages doing this over and over at the moment:

 

The main thing Nathan wants to do right now is draw. He wasn't well last week and the thing that seemed to cheer him up and improve him the most was when I let him have his dot-to-dot colouring book and some paper, pencils and crayons in bed for a while. He builds and creates a LOT, always more imaginative and complicated things than his bigger brothers, and he spends a lot of time and energy doing so. He gets very upset when things are damaged by careless brothers, poor love! I hope he'll be receptive to the reading curriculum, because I'd LOVE to teach him to read now. He wasn't interested in learning to read yet, last I knew - which was some months ago now.

Benjamin plays, draws, (he still scribbles, like his brothers at his age - he'll be 4 in a few weeks, so if he's like they are, he will suddenly start drawing recognisable things overnight pretty soon), builds things, enjoys fine motor activities, spends hours with playdough, etc. Nothing "academic" yet at all - he ISN'T ready in the least, and it astounds me to think that despite being 3 (and NOT READY!!) he would be donning a school uniform and heading off to proper school in just over 2 months if he wasn't joining his homeschooled brothers! Some kids MIGHT be ready, but unsurprisingly most are not, and my summer baby certainly isn't. I have no plans to do anything academic with him this year, and maybe not for the first part of next year, depending on how he naturally progresses over that time. We'll see. NOT on my radar yet.

So much for a quick review post!! :/ I just can't do "quick"!!

Places we've been and people we've seen...

We've been to our old church twice in the past fortnight, with our usual church the middle weekend. Both were special occasions, and the boys have LOVED seeing their old friends and doing fun activities. There were games and fun stuff, and a bouncy castle, etc.

Matthew's birthday was last Friday and now he is SEVEN!!! Nathan came down with a temperature of 100 the night before, and a sore throat, but he seemed fine the next day, thankfully! Rosanna came round and Matthew requested some party games that are for littler children than he is, but he just wanted them so we did them. He wanted pass-the-parcel, pin the nose on the clown, and musical bumps, balloon bobbing, etc. They had so much fun! He didn't want a party with a bunch of kids (which would overwhelm him anyway, even if he was excited - his autistic-type tendencies mean he doesn't deal well with party-type situations in general), but we have almost enough children for a proper party anyway, so it works! ;) He got a kite for his birthday and wanted to go out to a big field (dog-free for Arthur) in the afternoon, and we had PERFECT kite-flying weather so we went! Rosanna came too. I have a ton of photos, which I desperately want to find time to post as a separate post here, for memory's sake, but I know that I've not managed to do that for MANY birthdays now, despite really wanting to. :( So I'm not sure if I will, but I will try!

Nathan was fine over the weekend and then on Monday he was crying with tiredness by 10am and slept until noon. When he woke he was dizzy and nauseated for 3 hours! :( Poor boy was so miserable! He recovered gradually and then was FINE, running about in the garden with his brothers and eating normally again. Weird virus! Then on Tuesday evening Benjamin was flopping about exhausted before he's usually tired, and when I took his temperature it was nearly 101 and he had a sore throat. :( He had chills and aches and nausea overnight and was pretty miserable, but FINE the next day like Nathan had been. A bit more tired than usual, but that's all. Thursday night (last night) he had a temperature of 100 at bedtime, but wasn't distressed with it, and he's been complaining of a poorly tummy (he couldn't define it as nausea or pain so I'm not sure exactly how he felt) on and off in between. It hasn't affected his energy or appetite, so I don't know what to make of it! I'm wondering if tomorrow will be the day he has dizziness and nausea like Nathan did? And if anyone else will come down with it - it seems to have at least a 4 day incubation period before symptoms start, but overall it's just SO WEIRD!!! :/ We haven't seen people because of not being sure of our germy status, these past couple of weeks, so we'll see how we go over the next week.

The boys have been out in the garden a lot because the weather has been gorgeous and warm. The last couple of days have been colder and with heavy rain showers. The boys had water play, chalks and paintbrushes, etc. on the good weather days, and had a huge mud/water fight which necessitated immediate baths upon entering the house, hehe! Fun times! :)

Things I'm working on...

Keeping up better with the housework. I have energy and a slightly less foggy brain again, so I'm trying to tackle kitchen chores at the start of the day and it makes a big difference. I clean up breakfast, start the dishwasher, put the night load of wet washing in the tumble dryer, and start a new load of laundry in the washing machine. On a good day I will sweep the floor! ;) I change nappies and dress little ones, then get myself washed and dressed, and then it's time for Elijah to nap, usually, as all of the above takes half the morning! Once Elijah's napping, the boys have usually been too noisy while I put him to bed, and their well-known consequence for this is 10 minutes of silence (nothing whatsoever to do/read) sitting on the living room floor when I get downstairs. Right after that I read aloud a chapter from Wind in the Willows, which they love, even if the littles don't understand all of the language. Then there is an opportunity for school type activities, and then 'Lijah wakes and it's time to make lunch. Elijah is clingy and screechy if I'm not holding him or RIGHT THERE within sight lately (well, the last couple of months really), which is tedious during times of pressure like getting a meal ready on time! I need to enlist the kids to help with chores and meals and so on. They are really resistant and it's hard work with the Asperger's Syndrome reactions. I need to work on a new way to tackle this. They do entertain Elijah for me as best they can, and often very successfully, while I start lunch. The afternoon is free-flow. I need a bit more structure, maybe. I am working on thoughts anyway. I also want to work on getting back to more focus on God in our days.

I'm cooking...

Who knows!! lol! It's been one of those weeks where I have no idea whether I'm coming or going when it comes to meal planning! Three times I had no idea what to give the kids for dinner (when it was already half an hour late) - they did get fed, by the way! ;) Neil and I have had a takeaway twice after the boys were in bed asleep. I had to throw out two packs of minced beef which I'd planned to make into spaghetti bolonese, because it has been "one of those weeks" and I forgot/didn't think in time before they went past their dates. :( I HAVE baked banana cake twice, and chocolate chip cookies today though! And a chocolate "house" birthday cake, as requested by Matthew, of course! :)

I'm grateful for...

Healthy children. And that this virus seems very mild. And that it's not Lyme Disease - Nathan was bitten by a tick about 21 days before he started being unwell and I was beginning to get worried about that, with how weird the symptoms were. Then Benjamin caught it from him, so yeah - phew! ;)

Kicks from my baby girl! :)

Summer time!

I'm praying for...

Wisdom and patience in parenting my more difficult children.

This virus to go away! We have our annual family gathering for my grandfather's 88th (!!) birthday on July 6th and CAN'T go if we have any sort of virus lurking about, given how old and increasingly frail my grandparents are. I couldn't BEAR that! :(

Something I have my eye on...

Still baby girl clothes, lol! ;)

Shoes that are small enough for my tiny walker (he's a proper toddler this week! Hardly any crawling and steady, faster toddling EVERYWHERE!) - I found two pairs of shoes in size 2F (!!!!) and 2.5F on eBay, so hopefully he'll fit one of those (probably the smaller pair right now) and can actually have some protection to his feet outside now!

That is a CRAZY long Week in Review post!!! Have a good weekend and week ahead, everyone! :)

Four weeks in with six littles

Elijah is 4 weeks old! I need to update my pregnancy blog (where I keep posting about the baby's development and my recovery until about 6 weeks or so postpartum). We have done our first week with Neil back at work, and it did not go too badly! There were the usual ups and downs. I got such reassurance from reading my blog entries after each baby (mainly in my pregnancy blog) at the 3-6 week point, and finding that no matter the type or personality of baby I'd had, there were always the moments where it felt utterly impossible, and I absolutely did not know how I would manage. There were always the moments where I sat in tears saying, "I can't do it, Lord!" and it seems to be normal for me to be always feeling exhausted and moving about at running pace, sweating like crazy! Fitting in my own needs for food, drink, rest and the toilet is always hard, but not as impossible as I used to think it was. Last year's kidney stone might have something to do with me managing to find a way to keep my fluids up this time though! ;) I had forgotten how "normal" all those things are for me, in the first month or few with a new baby, so it was reassuring to read about the previous times.

Tomorrow is Monday, and another week begins with me in the role of mother-of-six-children-aged-7-and-under. I decided to make a plan for the week, because I am CLUELESS about how to go about looking after six small children (honestly, completely clueless). I have prayed about it ("Lord, please give me wisdom and guidance because I have no idea what I'm doing, and I need you!!!") and decided to plan a bit. I am not even sure whether that's a good idea, because deciding I should or shouldn't be achieving X, Y, or Z goals could be the wrong thing to do, and make things more difficult. I don't want to put too much on my plate - maybe the right thing to do is to free-wheel for another few weeks to get through the newborn phase and my own recovery from birth, like we spent last week doing? I don't know.

The thing that made me think to plan a bit for the week, is that we're about to start the last week of June - ALREADY!!! Then there's the first week of July, and THEN the plan was to start school again. That's just "this week and next week", which is suddenly very scary! I know things can change a lot in a couple of weeks with a very little baby, but still - yikes! I don't know how I am going to do homeschooling in just two short weeks when I can barely manage to remain standing with the children dressed for the day (they haven't been that even, some days) by evening time!! So I thought a simple (SIMPLE) plan might be a good idea to start getting myself into gear slowly.

Last week, like I said, we "free-wheeled". That is, my only goal was to keep myself and the children fed and hydrated, maintain nappy changes for FOUR children who are full-time in nappies (urgh) and basically survive. My biggest challenge, which I was nervous about before it all started, was to juggle naps for Samuel and Elijah. Samuel (who just turned 18 months, can you believe it?!?!) still nurses to sleep, and needs a nap mid-to-late morning. He gets up early for the day, usually 5.30am or thereabouts, and is tired out by 10am. This is GOOD, because he sleeps the rest of the morning and wakes up in time for lunch (noon-ish). Then he is good and tired at bedtime because it's been a while since he napped. I do NOT let him nap after lunch. It bodes badly for bedtime and night sleep! So I am glad that he takes naps in the morning and really try to encourage this. The problem is, Elijah is a pretty fussy baby and cries a lot of the time he is awake. He will not settle in the morning at ALL. He gets tired and will go to sleep if rocked/walked/breastfed/bounced in the bouncy chair enough, but usually I need to rotate all of the above until finally one of them gets him to sleep. This eats up ALL my time in the morning. I gave up trying quite so hard by Wednesday, as I had been spending most of the morning up in the bedroom trying to get him sleeping, but he would just wake up soon after going off to sleep so I would have to start all over again. Meanwhile the kids had no Mummy around, and Samuel was not getting his nap until way too late, and was tired and sad. I was stressed about all of those things and it was not a fun way to spend a morning! So, noticing that Elijah wouldn't stay settled and asleep in any case, I decided to just do all the usual things to settle him whilst downstairs with the boys, and not stress over the fact that he just wouldn't sleep or stay asleep all morning. That made things much easier, emotionally, but it still meant that I couldn't spent the 10-15 minutes needed to shut Samuel and myself in the bedoom and breastfeed him and start his nap. On Thursday (I think), Elijah actually went off to sleep for long enough, and at the right time in the morning, to get Samuel down for his nap! Great feeling! He is very unpredictable still, and most of the time there isn't a window. Whenever this occurred with Samuel (as the baby) and I was trying to get Benjamin down for a nap, he wasn't as young as Elijah and also was a VERY contented happy baby. I could just put him in the bouncy chair and ask Arthur to watch him for me and give him toys or bounce him a bit, while I put Benjamin to bed. I don't feel safe doing that with Elijah when he's this young, and also he's NOT happy for more than a minute or so! So this is still hit-and-miss, and will continue to be through the week ahead, but hopefully it will go okay...

Elijah does tend to sleep much better in the afternoon, but every time I think I can see a predictable pattern emerging, I soon learn that not everything is as it seems! ;)
The boys have done pretty well. They have watched waaaaay too much TV. We have found YouTube videos that have kept them really entertained. They have never seen Looney Tunes cartoons, Wacky Races, and things like that, before now. There are so many of those available on YouTube! So they have really enjoyed those, and spent most of their days laughing until their sides hurt! ;) They particularly like the roadrunner/coyote ones, and Tom and Jerry. I sometimes sit and laugh my sides sore right along with them! The three older boys have "quiet time" whenever they want to upstairs in their bedroom, usually only one or two at a time though otherwise it's anything but quiet! ;) They play with Lego, Lincoln Logs, and jigsaws mainly, and can enjoy that for hoooouuurs. The littler ones are happy downstairs anyway, which is good! Other than that, it's a boring old time for them while I adjust to managing, and try to ride out Elijah's "fussy" stage, which I know he'll grow out of, but it's not easy meanwhile. The bonus for the boys is that they now have a LOT of brothers to play with! Benjamin is nearly 3 and totally a part of the "older set" in terms of play, now. He's assertive, confident, and picks things up quickly, so although he's quite young really, he's well in there with them! Four little boys can play together, pair up in various ways, three of them can play together, etc. They are less and less listless and bored, the more siblings they have, as they have a lot of playmates now and really enjoy each other's company which is lovely to see.

Anyway,  must post this before I run out of time or Elijah has a few troubled hours and before I know it, I need to go to bed! I wanted to write out my simple goals for the week, sort of to keep track, but also so that I can look back on how I tried to manage things in the early weeks with a new baby, when I'm next in that position. I just want to have one thing to check off in terms of the boys, another in terms of the house, and a SIMPLE meal plan. Simple as in meals that are easy to make, as easy as possible really, even if they're not the ideal.

Okay now it's time I went to bed (much later in the day!) and Elijah is waking up about 5 minutes after I put him down, fast asleep. He's been up all evening, mostly crying, which isn't unusual for this little manny. Neil is wonderful and gets very involved, walking with him in his arms and all that stuff that I don't have the physical stamina for yet. We go back and forth when Elijah is crying for the whole evening, I breastfeed him and snuggle him on my front (sometimes he goes off this way if I'm patting his back), or else bounce him in the bouncy chair (Neil says he can't seem to do the rhythm that Elijah settles with, like I do). When those things don't work to settle him, Neil paces the living room with him. We often put worship music on. Elijah really likes music and often calms right down when he hears it. Anyway, must just copy and paste my plan for the week and then get ready for bed. Neil is walking with Elijah right now and I need to finish this quick. I am planning to get to bed at 10 or 10.30 this week as much as possible, even earlier if I can. Right now it's 10.40, which isn't ideal. The nights are REALLY broken so I need to get as much sleep as I can.

Week commencing 25th June 2012

Elijah is 4 weeks old. My "goal" with him this week is to try to establish some sort of pattern for his sleep/wake/nap/feeding by the end of the week. NOT a schedule, just a feel for his rhythm, as something to build on for the following week.

Monday 25th

* Appointments - none
* Meal - Vegetable soup, rice, grated cheese.
* Goal with children - Read stories (two different sessions for two different age ranges)
* Household goal - Laundry: 2-3 loads, including sorting and sweeping the kitchen floor afterwards.
* Meal prep needs - Thaw a "meat base" for Shepherd's Pie tomorrow.

Tuesday 26th

* Appointments - none
* Meal - Shepherd's Pie
* Goal with children - loads of jigsaws together. Get out ones they haven't done for ages.
* Household goal - Fold and put away laundry.
* Meal prep needs - Make mashed potato at 3.45pm. Top the Shepherd's Pie and bake 45mins around 4.15ish.

Wednesday 27th

* Appointments - Health Visitor coming here 10.30am.
* Meal - Beans on toast (boys). Salmon in white wine sauce with pasta and veg (us, later).
* Goal with children - Bake cookies or equivalent.
* Household goal - Tidy and sweep living room
* Meal prep needs - Get salmon out to thaw (am).

Thursday 28th

* Appointments - none, but put bins/recycling out for collection first thing.
* Meal - Macaroni cheese
* Goal with children - Do a prepared craft activity with them (prepare this one evening).
* Household goal - Dishwasher catch-up
* Meal prep needs - Start dinner at 4.30pm

Friday 29th

* Appointments - none, but remember to make/finish Tesco order online for delivery tomorrow.
* Meal - Pot roast
* Goal with children - read stories (two sessions for two age ranges)
* Household goal - Clean something in the bathroom (preferably the toilet, ew)
* Meal prep needs - Start the crockpot at breakfast time.

Saturday 30th

* Appointments - Tesco delivery in the morning.
* Meal - Pot roast sandwiches (lunch); Pasta with tomato/pesto sauce and cheese (dinner)
* Goal with children - 1-on-1 time (Mummy); Outing (Daddy)
* Household goal - buy and install a new toilet seat
* Meal prep needs - Make sure crockpot is clean; Put chicken in crockpot overnight.

Sunday 1st July

* Appointments - Cameron's 21st Birthday. Go to cemetary if chance.
* Meal - Chicken pasta bake.
* Goal with children - 1-on-1 time (Mummy); Outing (Daddy)
* Household goal - Plan next week; check bedding, change any/all if necessary.
* Meal prep needs - Use whole chicken from the crockpot to make chicken pasta bake starting at 3.45pm; use the rest to make 2 chicken and vegetable pies for the freezer (takes ages so use every free moment you have).

So that is the plan! I am not necessarily expecting to even get all of those simple goals met every day, but I'm going to try, especially where the children are concerned. I am not sure about the prepared craft thing - I SO want to, and they would so love it, but I am not sure if I will get chance on any evening to prepare such a thing. We'll see. I haven't written on the plan, but I also need to make sure I meet my own needs for 6-8 tall glasses of water per day and my vitamins. I started on Pregnacare breastfeeding/postnatal vitamin supplements at the HV's suggestion and I am remembering them for the most part. Also I am trying to eat well! Breastfeeding 3 littles here, including a very-frequently-feeding newborn! Neeeeeed to eat and drink well.

Okay, that's it. Elijah is awake and crying and I need to get ready for bed and take him with me so that Neil can go to bed. I hope he won't be up for a long time into the night, but we'll just have to see.

Fitting FIVE boys into a 12x9ft bedroom!

We have finally moved Samuel into the boys' room, just last night. We were meant to do that earlier, but things kept putting it off! We really can't wait any longer, so I'm relieved that it's done! I have just 10 days to go until my due date! :)

So last entry I wrote belatedly about when we changed the room around to fit four little boys into a 12x9ft bedroom, and now it's time for the promised post with the photos of the new layout for 5 little boys, in their small bedroom. It's the bigger of our two bedrooms, so the only choice really! I am so pleased with how well they fit in, and how much play/storage space they have left with how small the room is, AND how much they all love it in there together! :)

First off, here are pictures of the room after the change-around, ready for the big day!

The bunks in the L-shape give soooo much more space to the room, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out! On the other wall you can see their double chest of drawers for their clothing, which I mentioned last entry. I did figure out storage for Samuel's clothing in the end. Those drawers used to hold the older 4 boys' clothes - one drawer per child - and the two drawers across the top were for their pyjamas. I discovered that Arthur and Matthew's pyjamas actually fit into their own drawers, so that made a top drawer available! :) Nathan and Benjamin have a lot more pyjamas than the older two, because of a million hand-me-downs mostly, so they needed the other top drawer to store their pyjamas in still.

So I changed the drawers around. They came with animal and fish drawer handles which were randomly placed, but I decided to pair them up to help the boys remember which drawers are which. In the photo above, I hadn't got round to doing that yet, so they're still randomly placed, but there's a photo I'll post in a minute of Samuel at the drawers where you can see what I'm talking about. I put the animals/fish in alphabetical order because I have a tendency to be a bit like that! ;)

So Arthur has the top drawer with the fish handles, then the other top drawer with mis-matched handles is the remaining pyjama drawer. Below Arthur's is Matthew's drawer with hippo handles, and next to it is Nathan's drawer with ladybirds. Then at the bottom, below Matthew's drawer is Benjamin's, with lion handles, and then Samuel's has starfish next to Benjamin's. I am pretty sure that if we ever store all SIX boys' clothing in these drawers, it will be totally feasible, and I will find another place to store pyjamas. I love the thought that we have this big chest of drawers with six drawers in it, and I might one day have a different child (of my own!)'s clothes in each one of those drawers! Precious! :)

On top of the chest of drawers, we put the Ikea storage unit that we bought at eBay recently. I am so excited about that piece of furniture, because they get bid on a LOT and are not that cheap. This one is in excellent condition and the previous owners happen to have chosen the exact colours for the storage boxes that we would choose to complement the boys' bedding set! Perfect. They had bought two units and bolted them together, one on top of the other, and although we had the option to undo their system and have them side-by-side, we actually wanted something just like this, so we kept it as they had. Even easier for us after purchasing it! We didn't have to build a thing, just brought it right in from the car and voila! It uses no extra space on top of an existing piece of furniture, which is definitely a big bonus.

Those drawers are so useful for storing quite a lot more stuff that we thought they would! The top unit has mostly clothing in - out of season clothes like bulky jumpers and gloves and hats, and also a big box for summer clothing. Some of the boys have summer clothes at the back of their own drawers, but the extras that won't fit, or things like beach-wear, are in the Ikea box. There are almost-ready-to-be-grown-into clothes for Nathan in one of the top green boxes, and another of those has alllll the underwear aged 3-5 for when he finally potty trains. He's 4 years and 4 months old and not potty trained yet. We have tried, and he is NOT ready, just like Matthew was not ready at this age. He will be though, and I'm happy not to push him for now. He is on new medication to help him with chronic constipation that has caused him a lot of trouble over the past couple of years, and it's FINALLY working well, so after that is settled down for a while, I think we'll have a better shot at potty training him later in the year.

Anyway! Getting off track! So those are the top drawers. One of the big boxes is empty, so there are still further storage possibilities! :)

The lower unit is at a more accessible level for the boys, and we have chosen to store some of their things in these boxes. These are things that they can play with when they come upstairs for Quiet Time - which is reserved only for the older 3 (ages 4 and up). The toys are ones that are suitable for that age-range and which we don't allow downstairs because of small parts for the little ones, so it makes it special for them to play with those upstairs and keeps the little ones safe at the same time. They play with these toys unsupervised, and do great. Here's a photo of the contents of their drawers in the bottom Ikea unit:

The green drawers contain Lego from various kits, a wooden farm set, and various build-it kits like Meccano. The bigger red drawers contain Lincoln Logs (two kits that I had shipped over from the States a few years ago - I love Lincoln Logs!), and then two drawers full of various jigsaw puzzles. Some are 45 pieces (Nathan works on this kind of size) and others are up to 200 pieces (Arthur's range). I think there's also a Logic Links game in there for Arthur, but in general, all the games are stored in the big cupboard that they're not allowed to go in. These drawers hold the things they're allowed to play with for Quiet Time, but they may take something else upstairs that they choose, or ask for something that's put away, like a specific game or more challenging puzzle (there are lots more puzzles in my room under my bed), if they like. They LOVE Quiet Time! :)

Here are some photos taken at bedtime last night, when they were all allowed upstairs to enjoy Samuel exploring the room! He couldn't keep still, and was so excited! He has been in there before at bedtime, but not for long before being whisked away (crying!) to be put to bed in my room. He loves being with his big brothers! Bedtime was 7pm but we knew it would be a good while before they were even ready to get into bed. We let them roam about, and Arthur asked if he could read them a bedtime story while Neil fixed the new safety gate to the bedroom doorway. I sat and watched them, and took photos, while Arthur read the story.

Matthew on his bed, wanting me to take his picture :) It looks as though the drawers are leaning out dangerously, but I promise they are straight against the wall! The camera did it! ;)

Arthur on his bed, asking, "Shall I read them Paddington?" He reads with a torch after the others are asleep, so he always has a book or two on his bed that he's in the middle of. I suggested he choose something else other than Paddington, because it's a bit grown-up for the littler ones and doesn't keep their attention for long!

He chose "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" in the end, and they really enjoy the Dr. Seuss books so they were thrilled! Nathey and Benji are so sweet in these photos, especially the smiley one! Ahhhh, love them soooo! :) Samuel usually sits to hear a story but was too busy wanting to explore the room this time!

Here are the boys in their beds, ready for the curtains to be closed! You can't see too clearly, but Nathan is in the far corner (that has been his bed for a long while now) with Samuel on his new big boy bed, crawling towards him - he could NOT stay still, lol! Benjamin's new bed is at the other end of Nathan's. They are little enough to top-and-tail, and very excited about sharing. Benjamin used to sleep in Samuel's bed on the floor, and he was the only one I had concerns about, whether he would miss his usual bed and feel funny about Samuel being there "in his place". But he was fine! He and Nathan slept really well there, and Benjamin seemed happy about being "moved up" and for Samuel to be in the bed he used to sleep in, so that's a relief!

I don't know what the time was when we closed the curtains and started trying to get them to sleep. It took a while! ;) But that was to be expected, and will probably be similar for maybe the first week. After that I am really hoping things will settle down and they will be used to bedtime. It might be that we have to stagger their bedtimes for a while if it doesn't. I recall doing that around the time that Samuel was born and for his first few months. Bedtime was crazy chaos otherwise, and the little two were so tired and ready for sleep, but the big two would keep them awake. So we took the little two to bed and once they were asleep, the big boys would go to bed. If Matthew was tired, he would go up with the little ones, on the understanding that he made NO noise in his bed while we did their bedtime stuff (back-rubs, breastfeed for Benjamin, etc.). Arthur is the only child in the family who really isn't a natural at sleep. He is restless in bed, his head whirls with thoughts all the time, and he isn't tired until quite late. I think he will be a natural night-owl type, like me, as he gets older. Matthew and Nathan in particular are the opposite, and always have been. They're always tired by bedtime, and go to sleep quickly and easily. Nathan will go to sleep within minutes, no matter how early he's put to bed! 6.30pm will do nicely for him if we are organised enough! He has always been a boy who needs his sleep, and took 2 naps a day still at 2 years old, when Arthur was giving up naps altogether!

Here are the "after" photos, taken with a flash once all the boys were asleep. I think I took these photos around 8.45pm. Nathan was asleep LONG before that, maybe an hour even, and Matthew not long after. I am not sure when Arthur dropped off. Benjamin didn't go to sleep while he was breastfeeding, so he took a while longer than usual, and Samuel was probably the last to go to sleep. He was too distracted to breastfeed for long with me in his bed, and wanted to crawl about and get out of his bed, etc. Neil walked him, which is what he usually does during the evenings if he wakes, and it works quickly. But he was distracted with me in the room, so in the end I went downstairs and he settled off to sleep on Neil, and then Neil put him on his new big boy bed!

My sweet little sleeping top-and-tail boys!

Tiny Samuel zonked out on his bed (never mind facing the wrong way! I moved him after the photos) with Nathey in the background.

The night went pretty well. They didn't wake during the evening, and Samuel stirred awake and fussed a little bit around midnight, so that was pretty good for the first evening. I kept my door open so I could hear anyone's wakings and come through to help if necessary. Usually I have the door shut AND a fan on in my room, so as to keep Samuel (who has been in my bed with me since he was born in it!) undisturbed by any wakings of the boys in the other room. It has meant I haven't been disturbed by sounds from the other bedroom as well, until last night. I don't like to shut them out though - I want to hear if they're okay in there! Neil is with them overnight, so I know they're okay, but I worry about my little ones when they first move away from Mummy's side, in case they miss me or get particularly upset. I will always go through and breastfeed anyone who is really distressed at night, and I wanted to be sure I could hear Samuel. It was a warm night in their room so the fan went through to them in any case, so I didn't have it in with me.

Samuel woke and cried 4 or 5 times in total, and I woke each and every time. I nearly went through once because he had only just gone back to sleep from the last waking, and I was wondering if he was feeling sad. But he was settling quickly with Neil giving him a cuddle or a drink, so in the end it was okay and I didn't need to go through. Neil wanted me NOT to come in if at all possible, because he wanted to start as he meant to go on, if you know what I mean. He thought it would just prolong the wakefulness if I went in - something we've found at times with our previous little ones. I found it a bit difficult and heart-wrenching though! :( And OH how I missed my baby next to me at night! It is supposed to be a lovely free feeling to walk into one's own bedroom and potter about at a late hour, and then get into one's own bed and stretch about and not worry about disturbing anyone, not have little feet in my face an hour after I got to sleep, and not be woken to breastfeed or say, "It's too early darling, lie down!" for the fifteenth time, but I felt no such relief. I was looking out of the window just enjoying the night air and thinking, and I just realised that I don't NEED or even desire that kind of respite at all. I know some will say that I've only got like 10 days or something until that small window of a break is over and I have another little person in my bed to nurse and change and settle all night for the forseeable future (another 16-or-so months?). I see the rationality of that. But I don't feel it. I don't need it. I don't even want it. There are some exasperating nights when somebody small is really fretful or seems to wake every 30 minutes all night long when I'm tiiiiiired out and wanting a break from it all. Early wakings every single day, or those times when a little one is about to do something new and wakes for a block of 2-3 hours for several nights running to process his thoughts on the matter - those are frustrating and tiring times! But even thinking about those times, I really really REALLY don't desire a break, even now I've got one. I was so sad going to bed without Samuel there, knowing it was a real milestone moment, because that's IT. No going back. 16 and a half months of sleeping next to him since he arrived, has ended, and there won't be even one more night of it now that it's finished. It's permanent, and that season with him has suddenly passed. I know there are more seasons, each so precious, to come for him, and I'm glad and excited about that, but I do somewhat mourn the loss of the last one - that particular season from birth to "I'm about to be a big brother!!" is soooooo precious, and I cherish it so dearly. It isn't affected at all by the fact that I'm about to be blessed (and I do mean BLESSED) to experience the whole thing again with another sweet baby boy. It's THIS boy I'm moving on with, and THIS boy's company that I will miss! He was such a sweet little bed-fellow - my easiest of all the boys so far. *sigh* I do love that baby beep!

I had trouble with restless legs last night as usual, but it was a bit easier to get to sleep knowing I could fling myself about the bed as much as needed without waking Samuel up. I could also change ends if it helped, or open my window, etc. At one point in the night Benjamin and Samuel woke up at the same time - I think Samuel cried and that woke Benjamin, and he was a bit upset about it. I was worried about that before the big move! But Neil told me that Samuel was fine sitting on his bed for a moment while he tucked Benjamin back in, and then went back to Samuel to give him a cuddle, and both boys went back to sleep, so that's MUCH better than we'd anticipated. I hope it continues that way, and that if Samuel wakes, the boys will quickly get used to his sounds and sleep through them, like they have when Nathan moved in, and then Benjamin. I got up when they all did this morning, about 5.30 or so, and when they were all settled downstairs I went back to bed. I'm so glad for the weekend because I have become very sleep deprived with insomnia and other pregnancy-related fun, so the weekend thankfully offers me a chance to catch up a bit, and Neil is wonderful and lets me take advantage of that.

Samuel still napped in my bed with me today. I am not sure what to do about his naps, and I'm not sure about the safety gate on the bedroom door either.... We need it there when he's in the room, to keep him from coming out near the stairs, but it's IN the doorway (it's pressure fitted, so it can be removed whenever) so the door can't be closed. But when some of the boys are up early in the morning and others remain sleeping (read: Arthur!), we HAVE to close the door so they are not woken by the boys' sounds downstairs, and now that means taking the gate off, which is a bit of a faff. Also if Samuel naps in there during the day, he will need the door closed as well, otherwise he'll never sleep through the sounds downstairs, and that means he won't have the safety gate on. The bedroom door is easily pushed open, so even when it's closed, it's not safe for him without a safety gate. Hmmm.... Right now he can continue to nap in my bed, but when Elijah arrives that's it for naps in my room, so we need to think of a solution.

Anyway, hooray, the long-awaited transition has been done, and the boys are all doing fine. Mummy is a bit sad and wistful! But she always is at times like these! ;) At least I did not cry about it, like I have done with some of my others when they moved out of my room/bed. I am MUCH closer to giving birth than I ever have been before when we've done this, so maybe it gives me a focus and that helps. Talking of which, while the boys are at the park with Neil, I now need to go and see what I can check off on my "To Do Before Baby" list! There is still plenty to do. I have flapjacks baking in the oven, and pizza dough rising. They have no idea I've done those things and will be THRILLED when they get home all tired and hungry. My boys LOVE my homemade pizza (it's Nathan's favourite food!) and flapjacks! :)