Blessed again! :)

Because I SO want to keep up a bit better with this blog again, and because I have a good reason for last entry's rantiness (!!), and because it's just too fabulous not to share...

I am thrilled to be expecting my 8th baby, due January 4th 2016. :)

I tell the world early because every single day of a new life growing inside me is worth celebrating, even if it ends sooner than I expect. With this pregnancy, as with most of my others, I am bleeding. I have had two scans, and will have another on Friday of this week coming. Everything looks good so far, and I had a blood test done for the first time (for hormone levels) which also looked normal and healthy. Because of my history I have every reason to be hopeful, but I am always anxious! Trying to rest in God and rejoice in the gift he has given to me. :)

I am blogging, as always, at my pregnancy blog (link on the right there) if you want all the TMI, lol! Negative comments will be deleted because I don't care to take on the stress. :)

Arthur knows about this pregnancy, because by accident, he saw me looking at a photo of a pregnancy test that I'd taken and put on the computer to share at my blog (he was watching through the window while they played in the garden!) - d'oh! ;) He was completely ecstatic and beside himself with joy, and has done a great job keeping it a secret from all his brothers in the 2 weeks since then! He knows he has to keep it for another week, until we have the next scan. We are hoping to see a heartbeat, and after that will tell the children. I know they will be excited - just today Matthew was mournfully wondering aloud whether we would EVER have another baby (*big sigh*)! ;) It has been by far the biggest gap between babies - all of our babies have been conceived between 8 and 11 months after the previous baby was born, and so our age gaps have been in months, not years: 19, 19, 18, 17, 17, 16 (getting shorter each time!). Lydia is already 18 months old, so if the previous pattern had continued, she would already be a big sister by now, and as far as the children know, there's still no baby on the way! This time the age gap will be 26 months - Lydia will be 2 years, 2 months, and 2 weeks old when this baby is due.

I am so excited!!

Here's how I shared with the world this week, and I was overjoyed to do it this way, because after all these little boys, I have never had the chance to say one of my children will be a "big sister" before:




My little girl is SO girly, and adores clothes and shoes, dressing up and showing her daddy and brothers what she's wearing! She has such girly mannerisms and squeals over things like sparkly boots, and the tutu I finally caved and bought her recently! :) I am so enjoying the girliness of having a daughter - it is definitely VERY different from the experience I have had with my six little boys over the years, even though each of them are very unique and different from each other. I would love to add another little girl to our family, but I know that the stats are leaning heavily in favour of another boy! ;) That's okay because I adore little boys too! I'm just so happy and excited to be blessed with another pregnancy, and another baby to love and nurture!

Thank you Lord, so much, for blessing me again.

So it has been a while...

I see that I haven't updated my blog since... November! And that was the first time since16 months earlier! :( Such a shame! I didn't even update here to say that Lydia was born in October 2013, though that much was obvious when I updated in November to say that I'd been breastfeeding for 10 years! :)

I don't get time to blog any more - well, I do keep up with my pregnancy blog, mostly just waffling about the possible prospect of having another baby (no news yet), but it does at least get more attention than this blog these days. I miss blogging here, but I keep up with mini posts at Facebook, which uses much less time. When I post here it's not really noticed any more, and I'm more motivated to post at Facebook - though I know it's really only for me that I should be blogging! :) I wish I had kept up here, because then I would have a lot more memories recorded, and things to look back on.

For a while I took some time to copy and paste my favourite (newsy, kiddie-related, or photo-laden) Facebook status updates and photo albums, into monthly posts here. I started a couple of years back and maybe got 3 or 4 months' worth uploaded here, and then ran out of time to continue and forgot about it. I still plan to do that, so I've got our "story" to read here as well as there. I like to pad out things here as well, much more wordy and newsy than at Facebook, but since I don't get chance to write here at all, backdated Facebook posts are better than nothing!

So people have asked for updates on my children, and I would like to post about them, so I'm writing this first. I am going to write a post for each of them, which I'll start in draft form and just work on whenever I get chance. It might take me a while, but I hope I will finish in the end, not too far from now! ;)

Everything is going well here. My little ones are now aged 10 down to 17 months. I adore being their mummy! It's REALLY HARD and hugely rewarding, completely overwhelming and a huge blessing, all at once. We moved away from London last year, as we couldn't afford a bigger house than the one we were living in (a tiny (600sq ft) terraced 2-bedroom house with 7 children!). Neil still has the same job in West London, so he works flexi-hours, getting up at 4.30am for a 2 hour drive to work, to start at 7.30am. He is usually there before 7am but has a little nap before he starts work. He finishes at 4 and is home between 6 and 7, depending on traffic. It's CRAZY, but it's what we have to do right now. He is in a good job with good prospects, and he can't find work that earns as much here.

We have a 4 bedroom detached house now, more than twice the square footage of our previous one, and with a garden 3x the size (ours was TINY before though!). The cul-de-sac we live on is lovely and the neighbours seem nice. The countryside around here is beautiful and it's waaaaay less polluted! :) We have some lovely country parks only 5-10 minutes away from our home, and a nice big driveway to put our huge van on! ;) We are very blessed! It has taken a while to feel settled though, and honestly I'm not there yet. That may just be because we're not really involved in the community in any way yet, since we're homeschooling and haven't found a church we're happy with yet. I have only ever lived in the same place since I was a baby, so it's REALLY WEIRD being somewhere different, lol! I am not someone who loves change. Despite all the blessings of being here, I do still really miss "home" - some of the boys are the same way, although we do love our new home! :) I'm sure we'll settle in eventually, and we ARE, it's just taking longer than I expected. We have been here 7 months now.

School is... going differently than I had originally planned! ;) We are unschooling at the moment. Makes me feel flappy, but it's working for the boys very well right now. I would MUCH prefer to be doing structured lessons, but that's for a whole 'nother post that I am sure I won't have time for. The great thing about homeschooling is flexibility! :) We can change things any time to fit. Right now, this fits. That's about all on that for now.

So, I will start some draft posts on my little ones, and in the mean time I will post a couple of family photos that were taken this month, one of which I already shared on my pregnancy blog (click to see it bigger). See that post, if you have questions about Matthew's hair being long, because I haven't got time to say it again - I must go to bed! :) The first photo doesn't have Neil in it, because he was taking the picture. Love seeing my little ones heights, and look at my baby girly growing up into a proper little girl already!! Love these precious gifts from God! :)

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! :)

Week in Review - first try! :)

So I notice that:

a) I never update any more!
b) Some of my bloggy friends (the homeschooling ones) write regular Week in Review posts.
c) It might be a good idea to give it a try, because it's quick and easy-looking, and I would actually BLOG and keep track of things again! Maybe!

A blog that I read with faithfully regular Week in Review posts is Tristan's (Our Busy Homeschool), and today's blog post of hers finally provoked me to write my own, copying her format to try it out for myself. I am BAD at consistency (I know you know this already!) but here goes nothing! :) Even if it's just occasional, it will be stuff that I long to keep recorded, ACTUALLY RECORDED!

Week in Review

In my life this week...

I am 20 weeks pregnant! I had "The Big Scan" on Friday, and would you believe it?! After six precious sons in a row, the gift from God I am carrying is a baby GIRL!!!!! My first daughter! I actually still can't comprehend it, and I expect it will take a while to sink in. We are all (big brothers included) absolutely thrilled and so joyful to be expecting a baby girl! :)

Matthew's appointment came through for his assessment. Another thing that's NEW news if you are a reader who only knows me at this blog, as I haven't updated for a long time about anything in-depth. Arthur has been through assessment this year for Autistic Spectrum Disorder (specifically the child psychiatrist (who he saw once for a phobia of dogs, which he's doing better with now) suspected Asperger's Syndrome). He was just diagnosed last month with Asperger's Syndrome - not a big surprise to us, but it has meant the last year has been much more challenging than the one before it, and so on. His behaviour is HARD to manage, and his mannerisms are "different" to other children. He is very bright and chatty and lovely! He is pretty "classic" Asperger's though, apparently. Matthew's behaviour is different to Arthur's but almost more difficult to manage. I have no idea, I'm no expert, and I understand Arthur better than I understand Matthew, but my gut feeling is that Matthew is also on the autistic spectrum (not necessarily Asperger's though), and has sensory processing disorder, ADHD, and speech issues (he is now on the waiting list for speech therapy as well), as well as possibly dyslexia and dyscalcula. He has learning difficulties that are more problematic than I first thought when I started homeschooling him. He isn't making progress with reading, writing, or maths, and can't concentrate for any length of time, and rapidly progresses to crazy wild behaviour where he's beyond-reach as far as verbal reasoning goes, and disrupts any effort to teach him anything. I can't tell you how hard it's been this past year, with everything else going on (which I can't remember if I mentioned here, and have no particular desire to right this minute). Which leads me neatly to...!

In our homeschool this week...

Ah, now this will probably necessitate some lengthy explaining, since I haven't updated my blog in so long... Not sure I want to get into that right now, but hmmm. Suffice to say that we are currently pretty much unschooling. This means no formal education (curriculum work, etc.) but everything is child-led, and various things are available for them to choose from. This is NOT a preferred choice for me, it makes me fidgetty, lol! But right now it's where we are at, for various reasons which it would take too long to go into tonight. It is also NOT a permanent situation. I am hoping it's temporary, and even this week we've been discussing how to ease some curriculum subjects back in, for one or two of the boys. This week, Arthur has been out to Heather's house (my doula, who homeschools her 15-year-old daughter), to do a history lesson with her daughter, for a full morning on Wednesday. This isn't every week, but it did happen this week. Arthur loves it! He has a workbook that is rapidly filling with all sorts of very creative activities on medieval British history that Heather's daughter has prepared herself, and photos of him in costume, etc! So fun! Arthur is hugely into sea creatures at the moment, and we have just bought the Apologia Science: Zoology 2 curriculum, which is all about sea creatures and oceanography. He is so excited and can't wait to start it tomorrow! I intended him to work through much of it independently as that's how he works best, but I think that I will have him read it aloud to me (or I'll read some of it, whichever he prefers), and I'll oversee the written activities, and obviously do the science experiments with him. I expect Matthew and probably Nathan will also be intrigued and want to join in when it comes to it, as well. Otherwise we've had beautiful weather this week and most of the boys' time has been spent in the garden, or we've been out to a big "beach" (complete with water fountain for water play!) at the park one day this week, and we spent another day visiting a homeschooling family we know fairly locally who have six children as well. The children all get on so well together, it's lovely how excited they all get about our visits! Matthew and Nathan have drawn a lot this week, and written letters and such as they've wanted to. Matthew has been tracing sea mammals and dinosaurs from reference books. They've done puzzles, built Lego, and played strategic games. Arthur has created maps with alternate battle plans for armies in the 2nd World War this week, for some random reason! He was very focused on it for a long time, and eager to show and explain it all. He has (as usual) spent hours each day this week reading mainly reference books (British History, World History, and the enormous Complete History of the World book on the shelf that he can barely lift off! Amongst many many other non-history books). He hasn't done much fiction reading this week.

Helpful homeschool hints or advice to share...

I am the opposite of the fount-of-all-wisdom at this stage, lol! I NEED advice from homeschooling mothers, or mothers of children on the autistic spectrum, or mothers of eleventy little children, that sort of thing. But I don't think I have any to give out! The only advice I would give is to PRAY in all things, including homeschool. I do not know what I would do without God, in all this. Talk about anchor in the storm! :)

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

Okay so I've answered this already, for the most part! Monday we went to Vicki's to visit and play with her six little ones. Wednesday was Arthur's history lesson and Heather's daughter brought him home and then helped me take the boys to the "beach" park in the beautiful weather, for the afternoon. They made a ton of friends (Arthur especially, in his element organising and leading the children who were there in strategic water-channelling-through-sand battle games!) and had a blast. On Friday, Heather came over to spend time playing with the boys while Neil and I went to have our scan, and find out that we have a daughter! Saturday I went to the women's breakfast at church (VERY inspirational talk), and then Neil took all the boys to the park to play ball games and build forts (and crawl in the grass, depending on which child we're talking about, lol!), while I rested off a bout of IBS at home. :S Sunday (today) we went to church as a family, the boys enjoyed their groups and playing with the kids afterwards for an hour or so, and then this evening I went to the evening service on my own (we alternate).

Things I'm working on...

Ideas for school this coming week. I bought a Kumon workbook for Matthew on telling the time, as he just can't grasp it, no matter the fabulousness of the Right Start Mathematics curriculum in its clear explanation and games to teach him. He just. doesn't. get it. I can't break it down any simpler, so I'm hoping if he has a workbook all his own, to fill in any time he fancies and get a certificate at the end, he might get somewhere with it over time. I will help him if he lets me. I also got a wipe-clean book for Nathan and some dry-erase pens to go with it, with loads of activities to do inside it, including writing, numbers, dot-to-dot and matching activities, drawing activities, and telling the time. He seems eager to test it out, and I'll leave him to do that as he wants to, and supervise him when he does. He prefers things that way.

Matthew's 7th birthday is on Friday this coming week! Definitely included in my list of things I'm working on! ;) I have all his presents and wrapping paper ready to wrap them, but he can't decide on a cake design (he has suggested 7 different ideas so far!) yet. I will hurry him so that I can prepare now!

I'm sure I'm working on other things (I always have a million things in my head that I can't keep track of, but which are all very important or relevant to be working on RIGHT NOW! ;) I feel so scatty these past few years, with so much to be responsible for all the time! But I do love what I do!) - but I can't remember any of them right now.

I'm cooking...

I'm way too disorganised for meal planning right now, though I would love to change that. All I know this week is that I have chicken thighs to make into chicken in white wine, lemon and rosemary, for Neil and I one evening. I am hoping to do some sweet baking this week, as I seem to have urges to bake things lately. Banana cake if the boys don't eat all the bananas (they usually do, though we buy 5 bunches per week, and even then those only last half the week, lol!), brownies or cookies maybe. We'll see! :) Also I want to make pizza for dinner one day this week, and a pot roast leg of lamb another night.

I'm grateful for...

God in my every day life, my weaknesses and my desperate moments, especially. Lots of those lately.

Church. My heart was heavy tonight (no time to explain, but a good reason unfortunately), and I went to church, totally felt God's presence during the worship time, listened to a sermon that was really relevant to me right now, and then went forward to be prayed for at the end of the service, where God was gracious to me and gently pushed me waaaaaaay outside my comfort zone (where I needed to be) to crying with actual people (gasp!) and thus receiving the kind of prayer and comfort I actually needed. So grateful for my family in Christ! :)

My children! My many blessings from God, and my much-longed-for baby girl after all these years of bearing children! :)

I'm praying for...

Help from God to manage the week ahead. Patience, self-control, and wisdom, specifically. And I am praying for help in consistently training up Samuel, who is 2, over the usual two-year-old behaviours. He's a darling sweetie-pie, happy and cute as anything! But you know two-year-olds! ;) I need to work with him on learning to obey Mummy and not touch/climb/tip those things he knows he's not meant to. I'm praying for wisdom and patience in understanding and dealing with the behaviour from Matthew (especially), Arthur, and Benjamin. Benjamin is nearly 4 and has some autistic tendencies that I'm suspicious about, but he's not quite like Arthur or Matthew, so I don't know. He has bouts of odd behaviours, on and off. This past week he has been doing his thing again where he does weird shouting and twists his cheeks aggressively in his fingers at the same time, compulsively. He can be a bit volatile and aggressive/melt-down-ish when he has these "bouts", and there's obviously a trigger but I have no idea what it is. It gets wearing after a while so I am praying for patience and wisdom with Benji. Also praying for general guidance in terms of "the next thing", schooling, and moving - we sold our house months ago and still have our buyers, but have looked at SO many houses in so many different locations now, and STILL don't know where we are meant to move to! We want to stay HERE but in no way can we afford a bigger house here, so...

Something I have my eye on...

Baby girl clothes!!! Oh my goodness! So much fun!!!! :) I have been out to local shops looking at baby clothes this weekend, but they're not great shops so I didn't see anything I like. I will hit some nicer shops soon! :) Meanwhile I'm "window shopping" online, and browsing through eBay, where I am having to suppress actual squealing a lot of the time, haha! I can't believe I actually get to look at little dresses and pink butterfly sleepsuits without it being a wistful thing - I am growing an actual baby to buy them for!! :D I am even looking at newborn cloth nappies - we haven't used any cloth nappies with Elijah or Samuel - well, I think we put Samuel in a kissaluv size 0 for his very first nappy after birth, but not at all for Elijah. Benjamin had newborn nappies for a couple of weeks, until he outgrew them (quickly!), and then no more. We used cloth full-time for Arthur and Matthew all the way through, and Nathan for 6 weeks maybe? Or a bit longer. It got too much, with so many in nappies and the laundry piling up with so many little ones as well, never mind nappies to wash as well! I still have them in the loft, but no desire to use them in such an intense season - not willing to part with them though! ;) BUT, I wonder about the chance to buy some ultra cute girly print nappies for my newborn baby girl. I can handle newborn cloth, but beyond that probably not for now. So I am looking at newborn sized nappies for the early weeks/months, and that is a TON of fun! :)

Wow, that wasn't particularly quick or easy! But fun, and I'm glad to have it written down. After this one, hopefully any Week in Review posts I make will be shorter and less detailed, because I have had to do some explaining here and there in this post, because of not having said about certain things in recent months, that relate to the week's "stuff".

I hope anyone reading this has a good week! :)

Elijah has arrived!

I'm a bit late on updating this blog! I've been writing at my pregnancy blog frequently for a few weeks though, before and after Elijah was born, so you can catch up there in more detail if you don't follow that blog.

Elijah Douglas was born on Sunday 27th May at 2.20pm. He is my littlest (term) baby yet, having been "small for dates" in the last couple of months before he was born. He weighed in at 6lbs 8oz which isn't too bad at all! Such a sweet little bundle!

This photo was taken when he was 8 days old at a photo shoot my friend Paul from church kindly did for us, for free! He has never done newborn photography before, and I love how his photos turned out! To see the rest of them, I posted them here at my pregnancy blog yesterday.

Elijah was born at home, although we were back and forth on that because my waters broke 2 days before. In the end, there were no complications (other than a true knot in his cord, but he was FINE), labour was 3 hours-ish and all went well. I haven't written a complete birth story yet, but I wrote quite a bit of it here if you are interested. I will hopefully get round to writing a proper one when my doula gives me her notes so I can compile them with my memories of the experience! :)

Elijah is just over 2 weeks old now. He is doing great, feeding and growing well. He hasn't been weighed over the last 5 days, but the last time he was, he weighed 7lbs 2oz. He is going to be weighed again by the Health Visitor the day after tomorrow, so we'll see how much he weighs then! He feeds a lot, and has no particular pattern. Just lots! ;) He sleeps pretty well between feeds at night, and we are co-sleeping - this is the first time we have no baby bed set up anywhere in the house for a new baby! No crib, cot, Moses basket, nothing. He sleeps with me, since it went so wonderfully exclusively co-sleeping with Samuel for 16 months. I guess that is the plan, to do the same thing this time with Elijah, if it goes just as well. I love it! :)

The boys love him! Oh they love him! Arthur has been so excited, and Matthew too. The little ones ask to see him all the time - I have mainly been resting up for the first 2 weeks postpartum, like we have been doing since the 4th baby (Benjamin) was born. It makes a big difference to my recovery. Usually Neil goes back to work after 2 weeks, but Elijah's birth was timed very appropriately with the Queen's Jubilee weekend right afterwards, and that meant two bank holiday days within Neil's paternity leave (thus two extra days!). Matthew's 6th birthday is this Thursday (how on earth is my second son six already?!!!) so Neil had already booked that day off work as a holiday. His company have kindly cleared his calendar for the whole of this week since there was only really Friday left at work, and I have the luxury of my sweet hard-working hubby at home for THREE whole weeks after Elijah was born! He has been wonderful, so wonderful. He has done everything with/for the boys, including bedtime with all 5 for the first 2 or 3 nights without me, as I was either sleeping or breastfeeding. Since then I have breastfed Samuel (and sometimes Benjamin) at bedtime as usual, either with Elijah asleep in the other bedroom, or with Neil holding Elijah and having some bonding time, if he's awake. But Neil has done all the meals, nappy changes (except Elijah's of course!), outings, laundry, dishes, night wakings for the boys (Elijah's are obviously my responsibility!), everything. He has also brought me almost all of my meals in bed for nearly two straight weeks. He brings me water to drink, painkillers when I've needed them, and made sure I have everything I need. He has helped me when Elijah has had a couple of really fussy evenings and was FULL of milk but would not settle, by walking the house with him snuggled against his chest. My legs are jelly if I try to do that, which is normal for me so soon after having a baby.

He is such a WONDERFUL husband and daddy! I know he has been tired out with the boys' antics and not enough sleep at night sometimes. They haven't always been easy to manage! He is getting a better understanding for some of the things I deal with in the long hours that he's at work in the weekdays - those occasional times when I phone him saying I don't know what to DO with these kiddies, and I can't do it!! He totally GETS that now. ;)

Samuel is doing well with Elijah's arrival. He loves his new baby brother and is very interested in him. He likes to stroke him or pat him gently on his tummy. He is having a LOT of screaming tantrums, including rolling about the floor and banging his head purposely on whatever he finally rolls into (wall, table leg, etc.). I think some of that is probably to do with a new baby arriving, but he was doing it to a lesser extent before Elijah arrived, so I think it's partly the age/stage he's coming to. He definitely seems happier when I am downstairs snuggling him on the sofa or letting him breastfeed, and I am beginning to do that more and more now that I'm getting back to normal activities. I know he will settle more as I am back to normal more. But he's otherwise happy and settled, and enjoying his baby brother. He's still such a baby himself, at just 17 months!!! He looks ENORMOUS to me now, as the next baby up always does when a new one comes, but he's still my baby Samuel-beep! :)

Benjamin seems to be having no issues with Elijah, which is encouraging - usually it's the nearly-or-just-turned 3-year-old who has the most trouble adjusting, for our kiddies. Nathan didn't seem particularly troubled when Samuel was born (he was a few weeks from turning 3) so maybe it makes a difference that there are more older siblings who are thrilled and excited about the new baby? I don't know. Anyway, Benjamin is the youngest so far to have 2 little siblings, at 2 years and 10 months old. He will be 3 next month! Can't beliiieeeeve it! But he's doing great, and very keen on "The Lijah", as he pronounces Elijah's name! :) Nathan loves to see and stroke Elijah, and comments fondly on his every little twitch or squeak. He's just as happy to run off and play the moment he's distracted from Elijah though - he seems very settled in himself which is good to see! We will see how we all deal with the changes when Daddy goes back to work next Monday! :S I hope things will go smoothly. We are not planning to do any school work at all until July, so it will just be basically me adjusting gradually to the normal activity/workload of a 12-hour day without Neil around, and learning to juggle six little boys, and settling Elijah into some sort of routine of naps and feeds, etc. I'm actually feeling confident and looking forward to the challenge, which is good! :) I'm sure there will be bumps along the way, and days where I have no idea what I'm doing or how on earth I will cope! That seems to be normal after each baby.

I am doing fine, recovering quicker this time than after any of the others. Maybe it was the full night of sleep I had before the birth, the breakfast I ate hours before labour started, or the short labour itself that didn't drain me as much as longer ones would? Maybe it was the lack of stitches (for the first time, yay!!!) and pain therefore? I don't know. I have felt stronger much much sooner this time, and have been up and about sooner too. I did have a blocked duct in my breast last week, and ended up with a low fever and feeling really achy and fluey for a day or two. With Heather's help and advice, I managed to overcome that with massage, hot and cold compresses and LOTS of breastfeeding, and the lump has gone and I feel fine - phew! I have had a lot of headaches, but I seem to have allergies to something or other, especially when it's a windy day and I have the window open all the time. I sneeze a lot and get awful sinus pain in my face that nothing will fix, urgh. I have had a fine itchy rash on my face as well, which is weird, but it's mild and it comes and goes. No idea what I'm allergic to, as I never used to have allergies and have never had testing. Anyway, headaches, blah. But at least they are not there all the time.

I am so delighted with my tiny manny! He's just such a sweet little baby, and I love him so much! I'm so relieved that he's here safely, after a few worrying moments along the way when I was pregnant, and when my waters broke but labour didn't start. SO relieved and happy! :) He is waking up for a feed now, so I will stop. Here are a few photos of Elijah, taken 2 hours after he was born, when all his big brothers came in to meet him - look at Arthur's expression in the first one! That sums his whole experience up. He is SO thrilled! :) Elijah was 4 hours old in the last photo.

Here he is at 6 days old, sleeping where he always does, on my bed with me! :)

Off to feed my tiny sweetie! :)

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! :)