Waffly stuff

Thank you for the comments after my last entry!!! I was SO excited to see comments in my new comments box! :)

As always I'll start by saying that I don't have any time to write, blah blah blah - I really don't, but somehow I always end up writing for HOURS anyway! It's already 10.50pm so I'd be reeeeally daft if I did that tonight. I guess I have photos somewhere, but I don't think there are any new ones uploaded from the camera yet. I just ate dinner and Neil is watching a DVD that he likes (and I don't) and I was just scaring myself googling "pain between shoulder blades", so I figured I should stop doing that and maybe luxuriate in an actual WAFFLY diary entry - the kind where you just let your brain flow through your fingers as they type, without anything prepared in advance. I LOVE writing like that! It's why I even STARTED writing diaries. But lately I'm always playing catch-up with news and photos about my sweetie-boys. Which is so much fun and something I prefer to do anyway, but I do still miss letting my thoughts run out onto the keyboard.

I have some weird pain at the moment which has been bothering me for a few days. I am pretty sure it's just indigestion, but something about it is nagging at the back of my mind and worrying me, so I got to googling (never a very good idea!). I have a horrid dragging ache under my ribcage and just feel really bloated and indigestiony. But lately I have had a pretty bad pain in between my shoulder blades, and it doesn't feel muscular. Something kept on nagging in my mind from my nursing studies, about referred pain, but from WHAT? So I googled, and found that I could be having a heart attack and should be calling my doctor RIGHT AWAY! Yikes! But then again, I strolled around the supermarket only a couple of hours ago and didn't fall over, and I am pretty healthy and still young, so I'm pretty sure it's not that. Then, it could be gallbladder trouble or an ulcer. Urgh, I really shouldn't google! It's probably just indigestion and some weirdo shoulder thing, being all coincidental with each other. I think I will go to see my doctor on Monday anyway. The indigestion is bothering me, and the shoulder blade pain much more so, and I have been having bad headaches that last a few days at a time recently too, so it would probably be a good idea to run those things past her. Now that I have little ones, I feel so much more anxious about my wellbeing. I go straight to "Ohhh, I hope it's nothing that will require medication that will mean I have to stop breastfeeding my little ones!", and then a split second later I'm right at, "Oh my gosh, I hope I don't DIE! I mustn't die, I mustn't die, please God don't let me die! My baby boys need their mummy!"

Am I crazy? I just seem so easily thrown into panic about something happening to me so that I can't be there for my boys. I HAVE to be there for my boys. They need me. It breaks my heart to even think for a second of them losing me. I find myself praying many nights in bed that God will not take me or Neil from them while they're growing up. Everything in me wants to protect them from anything that could be an emotional struggle while they are children. Or EVER, really, but especially while they're growing up. My sweet boys. I love them so much.

I also find that I am frequently anxious (especially at night, again) about losing one or both of them. I can't FATHOM how anyone could have children and one day lose one of them, and not just totally die from the pain of it. This is the first time that I have ever realised that the intense maternal love I felt for Cameron was not the same as the love I feel for my own children. Even when Arthur was a baby, I felt that I loved Cameron just as much as Arthur (which was really saying something!), so I guessed I must have loved him as my own, like I had thought all along. The bottom fell out of my world for a long while after he died, but I still survived and I'm still here and happy and seeing life normally, etc. I am beginning to feel like I love Matthew and Arthur even MORE intensely than I loved Cameron. But maybe the memory of how intensely I loved Cam while he was still around is fading, that's all? Or maybe my capacity to love grew since Cam was alive, and now I can love more, so I DO - more than I ever loved Cam? Anyway, the long and short of it is that I feel like I could not live if Matthew or Arthur died. I mean, physically, not emotionally. Like as if you removed my windpipe so that I could no longer breathe, that kind of thing.

Yesterday I was standing in the porch and I had a random moment of achiness, of just MISSING Cameron. I don't get those so often now, and they always make me wonder why when I get them. It has only just occurred to me that it's now September, the month that he died 3 years ago. So that's probably why then. It's so weird how something in me just picks up on the subtle vibe of the time of year, even when the weather isn't the same as it was that September or anything. I can't imagine him if he were still alive any more - he would be 14. An adolescent. Since he was never meant to be more than a child, it makes it impossible to imagine. And I don't think I even want to. I am starting to forget things about him, the way he looked and his mannerisms and things. That's scary when that kind of thing happens. He used to feel like part of my very being, body and soul, and now I am forgetting exactly what he LOOKED like. I don't like that feeling.

Urgh. I didn't plan to write like this!

Anyway, my precious boys. I get anxious about losing them lately. I don't know if that's just normal or if I'm getting a bit over-the-top about it, hmmm. Matthew sleeps on his tummy from bedtime until his first waking, and sometimes we remember to turn him onto his back during the evening, but it we forget then he'll wake when we turn him at our bedtime. So sometimes I want to just let him sleep and I leave him on his tummy. I feel absolutely WEIGHED DOWN with guilt over that, and fear that he won't ever wake up as a result. I should just turn him and be done with it, but he sleeps so peacefully and well if I leave him to sleep till he wakes naturally, and he ALWAYS wakes when I turn him at bedtime. Sometimes I lie in my bed next to his cotbed and just can't sleep until he wakes anyway. I try not to worry and to relax and go to sleep but I just can't. Other times lately I have been laying my hands on him as he sleeps and praying that God will protect him and keep him breathing and safe and alive, and just try to give my anxiety over it to God. Last night I did that and he slept from 8pm to 4.30am - his longest stretch yet!!! But all on his tummy. I still feel anxious about that.

I feel like.... my boys are my LIFE. I don't know if that's how it SHOULD be. I know God should be Lord of my life way more than I let him be. He should be the most important thing in my whole life. And somewhere under the clutter, he is, really he is. I love my God. I have been neglecting my relationship with him terribly these last couple of years, but I LOVE him so. I feel like my life is like a house - Jesus is my foundation, and my family are my walls. Neil, my husband, is my roof over my head. I NEED all those parts and would struggle terribly without them, I wouldn't be complete. But the house is empty without my children. My children FILL the house. If I lost them I would just be empty, empty, empty. I get scared about that happening. I really don't like how anxious I am in life. I should give it all to God more, but I struggle with that soooo much.

This is such an anxious entry! I think I will waffle about something else. Hmmm.... I can't think of anything else! That's crazy! It's 11.20pm, I should go to bed. Oh, I know! I must have a billion little things to share that Arthur did or said lately! Those always fill me with joy and will be a GREAT way to finish this rather morbid entry!

Arthur's rate of picking up new words is increasing every day. I think he must be saying about 10 new words every day at the moment, roughly. He is combining two words together a lot more just in the last 48 hours too. Mostly his name and another word, to tell me he wants something or he's doing something, etc.

Did I tell you that he has REALLY taken to Monkey (his favourite stuffed toy) lately? He has never really had an attachment as such, to any toy or blanket. His comfort thing has always been the breast instead. But lately he is mimicking everything I am doing with Matthew, with Monkey! It's the sweetest thing! It started a couple of weeks ago when he wanted soooo badly to help me "bup" Matthew but he was patting a bit too hard and Matthew was squirming so I told him he couldn't help me right at that moment. He got frustrated and then suddenly fetched Monkey and said, "Bup!" with great delight, and started patting Monkey soooo carefully on the back, just exactly as I was doing it to Matthew! Since then, his caring duties towards Monkey have expanded and become more detailed. He puts Monkey on the changing mat and says, "Taynge!" (change) and then leans riiight over him so that his nose is hovering above Monkey's tummy. He sniffs for a moment, wafting his face back and forth over Monkey, and then straightens up and declares, "Poo-poo!" Then he needs wipes to clean Monkey, and I help him with the velcro fastenings on one of the Very Baby fitted nappies that I made for Matthew in the teeny tiny newborn size. It is now Monkey's nappy, officially! It's a little bit big on Monkey but it definitely fits him. I also gave Arthur a tiny baby popper vest with Winnie the Pooh on it, which NONE of my babies are ever going to fit in unless they come early! It fits Monkey generously :) After Monkey is changed, Arthur puts him in the bouncy chair and takes GREAT pains over clipping him into the harness, which is quite difficult for his little fingers, but he works and works at it until Monkey is clipped in. Then he stands by the chair with his foot on the side of the seat and his hand on the back, "rocking" the bouncy chair with his foot! He sees me rock the chair with Matthew in it, with my foot all the time, so he tries really hard to mimic me doing that. It's impossible for him to do it the way I do though, because he's too little, so he has to stand and almost fall into the chair as he tries to rock it standing on one leg! After he has rocked for a few seconds, he suddenly whispers, "Oh!" and then puts his finger on his nose and says, "Ssss!" - soooo cute! I LOVE how he puts his finger on his nose instead of his lips to "shh" me because Monkey is asleep! It's exactly what I do if Matthew is cranky and tired but he won't go to sleep - I rock him in the chair and when he is dozing off, I say to Arthur, "Oh! Matthew's asleep!" and then I put my finger to my lips and say, "Shhh..." and then I tell Arthur that Mummy is going to take Matthew upstairs and put him in his cot because he's asleep. I guess I do it exactly the same way every time, though I don't mean to be so precise! Anyway, it's so sweet to see Arthur trying so hard to do exactly as he sees me doing with Matthew. Right after Monkey is "asleep" in the bouncy chair, he takes him out and goes to the stairgate with him, gesturing to me that he wants to take Monkey upstairs. If I take him up, he is so excited as he climbs the stairs! He says "Ssss!" several times on the way up, reminding me that Monkey is still asleep. He runs straight to Matthew's cotbed and pops Monkey in, and then looks at me and whispers, "Ohhh....Ssss!" with his finger on his nose :) My cute lil boy!

I do this thing with Matthew that makes him smile reeeeally big. I take both his tiny hands in mine, and I say, "Buh... buh... buh... buh... BOOGIEEEE!" With the first "buh", I pat both his hands on his tummy, and then a big higher with each "buh" sound until they're at his shoulders and then I wiggly-shake his whole body at the shoulders with his arms as I say, "BOOGIEEEE!" I don't know where it came from - I just started doing it one day :) Anyway, the other day Arthur was playing happily with his toys and chatting away to himself, and suddenly I heard, "Bap... bap... BOOBIEEE!" hehehe! I looked and he was bopping Monkeys hands with his own, up Monkey's tummy as he said "Bap... bap..." He was too busy grinning at the word "BOOBIEEE!" to remember to shake Monkey's body! It was sooooooo sweet, seriously. He has done that quite a few times since, and he has also done it with a teddy bear he found in his basket today too :)

I keep thinking how sweet he is being with Monkey, but right after a particularly tender loving moment, he is still a bit prone to squashing Monkey as hard as he can into his potty and then sitting down hard on him! Or positioning Monkey JUST SO on the carpet, getting on his car and DRIVING OVER poor Monkey for kicks!!! I am a little confused by his mixed messages, hehe! But he's a sweetie :)

Okay Arthur just woke calling "Mumma! Muuuummaaa!" so I went in and he was asleep on his front with his legs all curled up under him. I lay my hand on his back and covered him up with his duvet, and he didn't stir, so I guess he was dreaming. I sat with him a while in case he was going to stir again and want me, and then I bent down and kissed his sweet face and left him to sleep. I can NOT get over how blessed I am to be a mummy, and more especially, mummy to TWO such sweet and precious little boys!!! I drove to the supermarket this evening for a rare luxurious trip to do something on my own, after I had put the little ones to bed with Neil. I missed them the INSTANT I pulled off the driveway and every road further away I drove, my heart tugged more for them. But I drove beaming from ear to ear with joy over how lucky I feel, how blessed I am, and how excited I am to finally be a real life MUMMY!!! I keep thinking back to my teens when life felt so boring and empty and like I was just having to pass time WAITING to get to the bit where I got to have children. It's all I wanted. Sometimes it felt like it would NEVER happen, but here I am, and I'm so proud! So proud of what I've achieved - two little boys, grown inside my body and pushed out by moi, nursed at my breasts and held in my arms, and *I* am MUMMY, the person they most love and want to be around in their whole lives so far! I can't imagine anything more wonderful, except to be Mummy like this to even more children! :) So proud of what I've accomplished just today, or last week, or last month: two children under two and managing life with some sense of normality and a cheerful heart! So proud of my boys themselves, of the sweet little people that they are, of how cute and smart and funny and gentle and handsome they are, and of how much joy they bring to so many other people's lives as well as my own. And sooooooooooooooooooooo thankful to God for bringing it all about. I just feel BOWLED OVER with how blessed I am and how much I love my baby boys. I am getting more and more magic moments these days, where I just feel so happy with my situation that I wish I could freeze time for a moment and capture it forever. It's still hard work and I still lose my temper sometimes or don't know how I'll ever get through the day, but I am having soooo many more occasions where I LOVE LOVE LOVE where I'm at and I look at my kids and think, "Can it GET any better than this?!" Then I just want to POP because I know the answer is, "Yes, it can, just you wait and see!"

Yet more photos, counting, and waffly stuff

Just a relatively quick update to say, YAY!! - I just signed up with Haloscan.com since Signmyguestbook.crap seems to be so useless lately, and I finally have one of those comments box thingies that I have seen on so many of my friends' diaries!! Yay! I even got to fiddle with the template so it matches my diary and has a photo of Arthur-Boo in it, so I'm all happy happy now! :) Please use my comments box if you have trouble with my guestbook (or just because it's more fun!) - I've made a link to click on up there on the left, under "leave me a note". Just click on "comments" and the box will pop up :) Yay! I reeeally need to update the photo up there - it's Arthur when he was about 5 months old, and that seems sooooooooooo out of date now that I have another baby boy who is only just over 2 months behind that age now! How crazy. But I'm waiting for the "perfect" photo of the two of them, both wearing sweet expressions, and preferably on the sofa because the colour of our sofa happens to match the colour of this diary (and I'm picky like that, hehe!). So far I have plenty of photos building up, of my two sweeties together, and some on the sofa too, but they mostly come out GREAT for one of them and really NOT great for the other, or not-so-good of both of them! I need to keep on taking photos. I'm such a perfectionist over the photo that will be the one everybody sees when they come to my diary. It has to say PROUDLY, "These are my BOYS!!!" so I want to do them both justice with the photo. Still working on it!

So far here are some recent photos of my sweet lil men :)

The above photos were taken when Matthew was 7 weeks old, so not very recent now, but even though they didn't come out great for both boys, I love them because it looks like Arthur was whispering something to Matthew which upset him hugely, and Arthur was utterly gleeful over his mischievousness, hehe!

Here are two more from around the same time - these were the last two of about fifty million that I took of them because Matthew was wearing an outfit that was a gift from a sweet lady who is one of my parents' neighbours in their village in France. I wanted to take a good photo of him wearing it so my parents could give it to her, so I dressed the poor boy up and snapped a billion photos. Of course he got fed up SUPER fast. Arthur, however, has always loved having his photo taken, and when Matthew finally went into meltdown over the whole tedious session, Arthur almost scooped him right up in the big hug he gave him, as though he was trying to make him feel better about it! I took a (blurry) photo of that, but I wish I had caught in on the camcorder, because he was being SO sweet with Matthew. Eventually he gave up and just beamed good-naturedly for the last photo while Matthew bawled next to him, hehe! Anyway, here are the photos:

And here are a couple that I took of the boys last week, first thing in the morning when they were both still wearing their sleepsuits - my little sweeties!

Look at those boys - they are so different! They LOOK so different, but also their personalities really are so different. Arthur is so cheery and laid-back, and Matthew is quite an anxious little person - you can see it in the photos. He is easily nervous about things. He gets that from me. I have always been a super-anxious person, it's the thing I struggle the hardest with. I'm sad that Matthew has inherited that tendency from me (my mother is just the same, as was her father), but thankful that he has an absolutely wonderful older brother to look after him in Arthur, as he is so easy-going and confident and has no anxious tendencies at ALL. Also he LOVES Matthew so much. And at least Matthew has a Mummy who totally understands how he feels. *sigh*

However, when his anxious side isn't getting on top of him, Matthew seems a very calm and happy baby, which is lovely. He has such a gentle nature, I think I mentioned it already, either here or in my pregnancy diary. He LOVES to talk. He would rather talk than eat. Did I say that last entry already? I forget what I've already said here from entry to entry! He also has a tendency to get mighty upset if I am not looking RIGHT into his eyes while he's "talking" to me, even if I break his gaze for a SECOND to acknowledge something Arthur is doing! He starts to cry right away, and I have to work a little to "chat" him back to contentment again! Unfortunately, this is also a trait he has picked up from me. *sigh* I could talk the hind legs off a donkey. I hate it when someone isn't paying me their absolutely undivided attention for the whole 10 hours that my "about my day" talk lasts!! ;) Neil is very patient with me. My dad is the same way as me (my mummy is patient too!). He gets it from his mother. Poor Matthew with his anxiety and chatterbox-ness! I hope he isn't colour blind as well. Arthur isn't, so perhaps I haven't inherited the gene and I'm not even carrying it to pass on to my boys, but then again maybe I AM and Arthur got lucky. I hope Matthew misses it too. If I am a carrier (and I have a 50/50 chance of being one, since my mum is a carrier and my brother is colour blind), any sons that I have will each have a 50/50 chance of being colour blind. Or not. Arthur definitely isn't - his colours are so clear and he can tell me them so well that I know he is seeing red and green easily and not mixing them up like my brother does. I have a while to wait before I can tell if Matthew is okay or not.

Anyway, here are a couple of photos of my sweet lil Matthew being happy with Daddy:

Neil is blowing raspberries at him. Matthew LOVES raspberries - they are his favourite noise in the whole world, and he smiles enormously and his little eyes light up when you parple your lips or blow raspberries with your tongue! He worked and worked for a couple of days at copying us when we did it, and now he can blow his own raspberries with his tongue! He doesn't stick his tongue out very far though, but he makes the appropriate noise, which is the enjoyable part, apparently! He blows bubbles too, which I don't remember Arthur ever doing, and he drools like crazy all the time. He is teething a lot today. He has a nappy rash and is fussing more, and he is biting his fingers so that they are going all red and puffy. I gave him the knuckle of my little finger to bite this afternoon and he bit and bit and bit for 5 minutes straight. I gave him a teething ring and he chewed that for a while, but he's too little to hold it and co-ordinate it to his own mouth yet so in the end it was easier on my arm to just give him my knuckle to bite rather than hold a teething ring at the right angle for half an hour! Poor Mathie.

Mathie is what I seem to call him a lot lately. Nobody else does, just me. I call Arthur, Arthie a lot too. I guess I am one of those people who finds it impossible to avoid shortening names to cutesify them or something! Matthew's nickname from me seems to have turned into Mathie-Moo, or even Mathie-Moo-Moblet (no idea why!) if I'm in the mood for a longer nickname! Poor Arthur has to put up with "Arthie-knees", hehehe! I think that must have arisen from a combination of his name and another of my odd affectionate nicknames for the boys - "sweet knees"! I have no idea why these things come out of my mouth, really I don't. I guess I am just weird! ;) Also both boys are lately known (by me) as "lamb" or "lambie", or even "lambie-lamb". It can get as bad as "lambie-lamb-lamb", and "lamb-lambie-lamb-lamb" has been known on occasion! Urgh, my poor children! ;)

Matthew REALLY loves mirrors at the moment. He gazes at himself for ages, as though he just doesn't understand, and then he starts talking to himself with a very serious expression, hehe! I hold him in front of the mirror in my arms for ages sometimes, and he smiles at me but looks rather serious about that other baby in there with me! On his playmat, there is a centre-piece that has a mirror dangling down, and he loves to stare at himself in that. He talks much more cheerfully to the baby in THAT mirror (the one that isn't hogging his mummy's arms!) and gives it all sorts of very cute shy looks and smiles. I got a couple of photos of him doing this at 8 weeks old. I wish I had more time to get photos of him that are as good as the ones I took of Arthur at his age, but I just don't get the chance now, with Arthur around as well. I still try though!

Wow, I think I am almost caught up with all the photos now, yay!!! I have one more from last week to post here, but I have some on the camera from the last few days to upload sometime too. Phew! So many photos, so little time!

We finally used the Mothercare vouchers that were given to us by the church to buy Matthew a Bumbo seat! I had heard about them when Arthur was a baby but I didn't want to buy things to put him down in. I wanted to hold him all the time and keep him close to me. I would like the same with Matthew really, except that it just doesn't seem to be physically possible with the second child when the first is still so little and so demanding of me. Unless I wore a sling of course, but my back hurts enough without wearing a sling these days, and anyway, slings aren't all that tandem-nursing-friendly. Matthew seems happy enough to be put down for short periods of time, but he does get really really upset after a short time and then sometimes I end up having to leave him crying while I attend to Arthur's meals or nappy changes or something or other. I HATE letting Matthew just sit/lie somewhere screaming his head off and getting himself so upset, but sometimes I just don't seem to have any choice. I hate that. Especially with Matthew being such an easily-anxious baby. He really seems to get upset, not angry. I wish I could hold him close to me more. I hope I'm not hurting his sensitive little soul in the process of all this :(

Anyway, but we bought a Bumbo seat. It's for 3-14 months, but his head control is very strong so we sat him in it and he did great! He enjoyed it because it let him look around and see everything clearly. But he gets tired of it quite quickly at the moment, and wants a change of scenery. Also the position means he is a bit scrunched over his tummy so he brings up more milk sitting there than anywhere else. But he seems to like it. I think he'll like it more as he gets older and can see further. He'll love watching Arthur play across the room before he is old enough to sit up by himself or mobilise. He LOVES watching Arthur, no matter what he's doing! He seems to really adore Arthur so far. I'm so thrilled that they love each other!

Here is Matthew in his new Bumbo seat last week:

See his completely straight feet?! I still marvel at them joyfully all the time, after what Arthur went through and how Matthew could so easily have inherited the same condition! Yay!

Of course, Arthur likes to squeeeeze himself into that Bumbo seat as often as he can too! He likes to share all of Matthew's things!

I am realising lately that Arthur understands some new things. He seems to know a lot of opposites now. He knows (and says, in the right contexts) hot and cold, high and low, and lately he has been running his hand up my arm to my shoulder while he's breastfeeding, and popping off the breast to say, "Up!" and then sliding it back down to my hand and saying, "Dowwwn!" He does this over and over and OVER, as though it is a fun game to him. Yesterday we were playing with playdough during one of Matthew's naps and there were some big pots and some little pots. I picked up a big pot and said, "Oh look Arthur! Here's a BIG pot!" His attention was immediately caught, so I picked up a small one and said, "And here's a SMALL pot!" I put them together and pointed to each one clearly as big and small. He got SO excited, bless him! He went through all the pots (we have a lot of empty playdough pots from old playdough that has long been thrown out) declaring excitedly whether they were big or small. I loved his enthusiastic pronounciation of those words as he tried them out for the first time - "Beeeb!" and "whshmooow" hehe! I LOVE the effort he puts into trying to make a sound. I don't think he has tried any words yet that start with "sm" and he had a really good go at it, ending up with a whooshing sound that merged into an "m" sound. So sweet! I try to describe them in my diary as accurately as I can because I don't ever want to forget exactly how they sounded.

Also I discovered today that Arthur can COUNT!!! Yikes! I have NEVER counted with him, and today we were choosing a clean nappy for him to wear (I have started involving him in this in an attempt to make nappy changes easier, and he likes to choose his own nappy), and I figured it wouldn't be a bad thing for me to start counting out the wipes as I take them off the shelf (yes, we finally put those darn shelves for the nappies up above the tumble dryer this weekend! They aren't finished yet though). I thought it would be good to start exposing him to counting, as he's getting old enough really, and he is so enthusiastic about learning new things in general. So I took them off slowly, and as I did, I counted "One....two.... three...." and Arthur suddenly piped up from the kitchen doorway, "Foh.... Fie.... Shhhheees.... Eh-wum.... Ay...." Oh my giddy crumpet! I said (well, nearly bellowed, such was my excitement!), "ARTHUR! You can count!" and he smiled at me and said, "Ny.... TAM!!!" I kid you not. The boy counted to ten right in front of me! I was sure Neil must have been counting with him, but when he got home I told him about it and he was as gobsmacked as me because he said he HAS been teaching Arthur counting, but he has only been saying, "One, two, three" with him so far. So where has he learned it? I can't understand it. We think it HAS to be the telly or something. There's just no other way he could have picked numbers up. Also he says "ten" with such pride and like it's the last number, so he MUST have seen examples of counting to ten on TV, otherwise surely he wouldn't say it like that? But again, I rarely leave him just WATCHING TV on his own, except when I have to go and settle Matthew to sleep upstairs, and I don't remember any obvious counting things from what he is watching.... But I guess there must be some that I'm missing. It really shows me how much he takes in, even when I think he isn't really paying much attention to something. He notices EVERYTHING lately.

Of course I tried to get him to count for me again twice over the next hour but he wasn't having any of it. He cheerfully chucked the ten balls I lay in front of him all over the room, and didn't respond at all another time I asked him about counting! ;) But later on he had two Duplo sheep (or "meep!" as Arthur calls them - he really hasn't got the hang of making the sounds of words that start with "sh" yet!) in his hands and I said let's count your sheep and then started off, "One...." and he said, "Too..... Fee.... Foh.... Iy.... Shheeess.... Em.... Ayt... (and then he just did a shoulder-hunching grin for "nine").... TAM!" I always repeated the number AFTER he said it, but he seemed to know the word of the next number without me prompting him. He just amazes me! I don't know that he can actually COUNT objects though - I phoned my mummy and told her about it and she asked if he was COUNTING or RECITING. I guess he's reciting. But still, my clever Boo-bean! :)

Okay it's suddenly CRAZY late and I will kick my own butt tomorrow morning when I wake exhausted out of my brains because I was up too late on the computer! Matthew has slept soundly in this room with me while I've been typing which is good. I still feel weird about invading his sleeping space, but at least he doesn't seem disturbed by it at the moment.

Neil isn't well - he has a cold which has started with some weird weak exhaustion and big sweats. He said it's going round the office, urgh. I got paranoid about the boys getting it, but so far so good. Arthur had a weird night the night before last where he woke moaning and crying at least once an hour all night, and he sweated a lot then, but he seems fine now and hasn't had any cold symptoms like the ones Neil has come down with since. I felt horrible yesterday, achy and weak and knackered. I took the boys out for a SHORT walk but I actually got scared that I would fall over at one point, my legs felt so weak and loose in their joints. I felt crap overnight and woke up in a sweat, but this morning I perked right up and feel fine now. I am thinking that Neil gave it to me but I have somehow fought it off maybe? Which is WONDERFUL because it means I am making antibodies to it and passing it to my boys in my milk in frequent doses. Maybe that's why Arthur seemed to fight it off also? Neil is really full of cold now so it's definitely different to how Arthur and I have been. Matthew seems fine - I think his fussiness at the moment is more due to his teething than a virus, so I hope my milk is helping them stay well. I am desperately hoping it will make a difference to them over the coming months, because they will be exposed to SUCH a lot of nasty things at playgroup over the autumn and winter. I am so glad they are both getting plenty of my milk at this time of year!

Arthur ate a fantastic portion of spaghetti with grated cheese and sweetcorn tonight, sitting at the table in his booster seat!!!! Yay! I don't know what swayed him - he hasn't eaten this well in a couple of months now. He seemed really hungry and asked for "Teee, teee, TEEEE!" from about 4.30pm. Also I just bought him a toddler's plate and bowl with the Teletubbies on them :) He just LOVES them. He wants to play with them all the time and pretend he's eating off them! So he's thrilled to see the Teletubbies appear on his plate as he's eating. That was the idea when I bought them, so I'm really glad they are helping!

Anyway, MUST go. I'll try to update again soon! Oh but I meant to answer Julie's questions from the message she left me - Matthew outgrew his Moses basket at 2 or 3 weeks old!!! He has slept in his big cotbed ever since, for both naps in the day and sleep at night. He comes into my bed (the spare bed next to his cotbed) for feeds during the night, and when he is finished, I sit on the edge of the bed, burp him, and put him right back down in the cotbed. He fidgets for a moment and goes back to sleep! It's so amazingly different from my experience with Arthur! Just these last couple of days while I've been feeling weak and crappy, I haven't had enough strength in my arms to hold and jiggle and rock and walk him to get him sleepy for his day naps, so I have sometimes just taken him upstairs when he starts to get yawny and fussy, and put him straight down in the cot (on his tummy during the day, on his back at night), and flopped down on my bed for a moment to recover a bit. He fusses and cries a bit, and if he starts to sound really cross about it after a minute or so, I pick him up again and jiggle him till he is calm again, and then put him back down. Eventually he has been fussing/crying for a minute or two while I lie there saying things like, "It's okay.... Sleepy-bye time.... Mummy's still here..." etc, and then he GOES TO SLEEP!!! From wide awake!! It's just amazing. I never thought I would have a child who just went to sleep like that! I have high hopes that he will sleep through the night at a much younger age than Arthur did, and that there will come a time (hopefully sooner than later!) when I can see him getting tired, take him upstairs, put him in his cot and retreat, and know he'll fall asleep happily by himself! I just feel so JOYFUL about the very thought of it! I am so glad to have persevered with him over it, because he hasn't done it by himself. He seems willing to accept the way I'm leading him, and happy in his cotbed, but other than that, Neil and I have really put effort into helping him with his sleep. We feel so proud of ourselves and happy that he's taking to it so well. It's so nice to have evenings to ourselves already - we had wondered before Matthew was born, whether we'd have our evenings to ourselves at all during his first year!

Anyway, it's just getting later and later here, so I absolutely must go. Matthew has been asleep 6 hours now so he'll wake any time for some milk and I need to brush my teeth and drink a TON of water. I am so thirsty with all this milk-making! :) Back soon!

Big update part two, and more photos

Another entry at last, yay! Not sure how long for though, because it's after 10pm and Arthur is weirdly wakeful this evening. He has woken twice this evening already, crying for me and wanting to nurse. He has been all soaked with sweat both times so maybe that's all that woke him. I hope he's okay. He's teething STILL, and seems quite bothered by it all the time really. His nasty nappy rash has at least eased off for the time being, but his cheeks are red and it looks like his gums are sore. He is working on his eye teeth (canines). He has one bottom one fully through, another bottom one half through, the little white tip of a top one poking through, and a very red swollen gum where the fourth one will soon be. Poor Boo. But after these, there will only be the 2-year-old molars to go - four more teeth and he is FINISHED with baby teeth!! Yay! I will be so pleased, really. He has had a horrible time with teething since he was 10 weeks old.

Speaking of which, Matthew is nearly 11 weeks old now and has been pretty obviously teething for the past week or so. This week he has been worse than last week, and today and yesterday we actually had to give him a mini dose of teething powder. He has been drooling like CRAZY for a couple of weeks, and chewing on his hands now that he's found them. The last couple of days, he has made his index finger red and puffy with how hard he's biting it. Neil gave him his knuckle to bite on this afternoon when he was crying and crying and CRYING, and he went all quiet and gummed Neil's knuckle for like 10 minutes straight, as hard as he could. He also has a bit of a nappy rash this evening which I reckon could be part of it all. Poor babies! I ordered some teething rings for him, with my online order of oven locks and oven knob covers, etc, which have suddenly become necessary with our new oven! Its door and knobs turn and open sooooooo smoothly and easily and Arthur just keeps on fiddling with it. We tell him no and take him away from it, etc, and he generally minds us but then when we're not there for a moment he'll still go and play with it. I found him shoving his ride-on car in the oven yesterday with great effort and concentration! So we decided to be safe and order an oven lock (which I hope will fit) and some covers for the oven knobs). He knows not to go near the oven when it's on because he understands the concept of it being hot and that he can get hurt.

Anyway, so yeah, teething boys. But we're all okay other than that. Neil and I are tired out of our MINDS, but that's the way it goes at the moment. Neil feels like he's getting a cold this evening. Urgh. I hope he isn't. We REALLY don't need to get sick with anything right now.

We took the boys for their immunisations last week but the appts were mixed up (my fault, I think??) and I had the wrong time, so it turned out that we had MISSED their appointments a couple of hours earlier - I felt soooo bad. Three other people could have had appts that covered our big jab session! And we were just a no-show, that's so bad. We waited a while in case the nurse could manage to see us anyway, but she was out until her next clinic started, so we had to reschedule. The next available appointment was SEPTEMBER 13TH!!!! I'm so annoyed, that is such a long wait when Matthew is behind on his immunisations already and I had really wanted to get Arthur protected with the MMR before we started going to playgroups when the start up again in September. But oh well.

We did get to see the Health Visitor though, and she weighed Matthew again for me. He weighed 11lbs 13oz (exactly a whole pound lighter than Arthur at the exact same age!) and that puts him at around the 25th percentile again. She said he looks healthy and happy, and she isn't concerned about his weight gain. She wants to see him again in a month, or for me to take him to the drop-in baby clinic in a few weeks.

Arthur is awake AGAIN - only 30 minutes after the last time. Hmmm. Hopefully he'll settle back to sleep easily - Neil is in there with him now.

Anyway, it looks like Matthew has chosen the 25th percentile, since he has been there for the last two weigh-ins, which is fine. I just still feel a LITTLE bit concerned, since the last time, he was just above the 25th, and this time he was just below it. He is difficult to feed - I mean, he is not a big eater. Soooo different to Arthur! He won't feed for long, and he's fidgetty while he does. Today has been particularly difficult, and I feel like he hasn't really had much milk today at all, as all his feeds have been very brief and on-and-off-ish, and it has been very hard to keep him on the breast for more than a minute or so. He did have a long feed at bedtime though, and went to sleep on the breast (which hardly ever happens) and actually pulled off in his sleep when another let-down of milk happened, so I know he had had enough milk that time. He seems full at the end of these ridiculously short and fidgetty feeds though, and burps and brings up some milk, etc. He doesn't seem hungry again for a few hours afterwards. But they are so SHORT, surely he can't be getting enough, or enough of the right kind of milk?! His poo is normal though. He gets hind milk for sure when he is on a breast that Arthur just had a feed from too. Anyway, I just hope he isn't gaining too little and dropping down that percentile chart even more. I shouldn't obsess over the darn chart, I know, but I can't seem to help dwelling on it a little. Tsk.

One thing about Matthew is, he is MUCH more eager to talk than eat! Arthur was the kind of baby who would rather eat than do ANYTHING, hehe! Matthew can wake up after a LONG stretch without milk, suck luxuriously for a minute or so, and then turn his eyes up towards my face, realise I'm there, and then he can't seem to stay on the breast, such is his eagerness to smile and coo and "chat" with me! He tries to talk around the nipple but that doesn't really work! I chat and smile with him for a while, but then sometimes I have to tell him, "Focus on your milk, Matthew, we have plenty of time to talk in a minute!" and look over at something else for a moment. I hate looking away from him when he is trying to smile and "talk" with me, but I do it when he has hardly started his feed but won't continue for wanting to talk with me. He gets back to feeding till I look at him again, and then he breaks off to coo and smile and stuff :) He's a sweetie. His latest thing is blowing raspberries and bubbles. Arthur never blew actual raspberries with his tongue, but Matthew loves doing it, and if I do it back to him his little face lights up like a Christmas tree and he beams and beams at me. He loves raspberries :)

I am sooooooooooo behind on photos, but I have been meaning to write about what Arthur is doing lately, because he's changing so much all the time and I know if I don't write it down NOW, he'll change again and I'll forget this stage ever happened. So I want to write about it. Thing is, there's SO much to write about, and I'm not sure where to start after all this time not updating.

Let's see. He knows SUCH a lot of colours! I can't remember the ones I already said he knew a month or so ago. Over the last month he will accurately point out items in the colours: red, yellow, orange, pink, blue, green, aqua, brown, black, white, purple, beige, grey, silver, gold and turquoise. He did learn tan, but I think he has forgotten that one now. This last couple of weeks, we have taught him navy, khaki and maroon. I just tell him colours of things as he's playing with them, like, where I used to say, "Oh, you've got your car!" I now say, "Oh, you've got your red car!", etc. Or I ask him, "Where's your purple cup?" and he'll fetch it. When he used to fetch me a green cup instead, I would say, "Oh good boy, that's your cup, but it's not the purple one - that's the green one". He has this toy car in a really dark green. Lately all very dark colours are "dack" (black) so I thought I might as well teach him that there's such a thing as light and dark in the same colour. Yesterday he held up that toy car and said, "Geem!" so I told him it WAS green, but it was DARK green. That evening he held it out to me again and said, "Daah geem!" and he has done that twice today as well. He's very pleased with his daah geem car at the moment, hehe! A few weeks ago, he was pointing at all the things on the sofa and naming their colours (he loves naming colours on the things he sees these days - he will do it on walks, during ANY activity in the house, in the car, in picture books, etc), and he pointed at the sofa cushion and said something that I didn't hear properly, so I absent-mindedly said, "Yes, RED, clever boy" and he gave me a scornful look and pointed again and said, "Ni-MOOM" in a very direct tone! He was correcting me! The cushion was indeed more of a maroon colour than red. I was boggled, seriously. That boy is a smartie-pants :)

He is saying SO many words, more and more every day it seems. His words aren't clear and easy to understand though. He says them consistently but they come out sort of like "ni-moom" for "maroon" - almost there, but really you'd have to be Mummy or Daddy to understand it straight away! He keeps saying things I am SURE we haven't taught him. He has plastic fruit and veg in one of his toy boxes and he was sifting through them a couple of weeks ago. He suddenly plucked out the peach and brandished it at me excitedly, and said, "Peepf!" I have NO idea how he knew that word - we never have peaches, we hadn't played with that toy fruit for MONTHS, and I don't remember seeing any references to peaches on the TV while he has been around. Weird.

I LOVE the way he pronouces things! His words are soooo cute! Like "peepf", that's one of my favourites! Another of my favourites is "bwips" (bricks). His little voice is so tiny and chipmunky, and I love how over-exaggerated his consonants are and how long and careful some of his vowel sounds are. I love how he tries so hard to make a vocal sound that he hasn't mastered yet, like the "ch" sound in peach, and it comes out all cute instead :) I know it'll change before I know it and get pronounced all normally and the cuteness will become less and less, and so I am just cherishing all these little newnesses while they're still new. Neil and I both feel that we'll be so sad when he learns to pronounce his name more clearly. He still says, "Aaah-yah!" for "Arthur" at the moment, and we love it! I wonder how Matthew will pronounce his name? Or Arthur's name, for that matter!

Matthew is starting to stir in the cot so I'm not sure if I've got much longer. His nights are the same as when I last wrote - a good block of sleep during the evening, usually 5 or 6 hours (though it was 7 and a half last night!!!) and then 3-hourly-ish after that first waking. He slept with me the whole night a few nights ago, because I was soooo tired I just couldn't stay awake while I was breastfeeding him in bed. All his night feeds are snuggled up against me in my bed, and then I sit up, burp him, and pop him back in his cot which is pushed right up against my bed. I have to admit, I really miss the snuggly closeness of co-sleeping with Matthew, but I need the space to sleep, and he seems happy as anything in his cot so it's working well for both of us. But I still sometimes miss the closeness of co-sleeping. It's so special. *sigh* I LOVE that I breastfeed him in bed at night though :) I'm glad we still have SOME snuggle time in bed at night!

Okay, some photos, before I run out of time! Here's one of Arthur just over a month ago, building a Mega Bloks tower! He loves building, but lately he is getting more and more easily frustrated with building. I think it's that stage where they get easily frustrated and have tantrums, etc, that's causing it. A brick will not go on properly and he'll smash the whole thing down, crying and screeching at it. Or he'll build it high and then it will topple before he's finished, and he's just angry and distraught about it. Poor lovey, it's such a hard stage to go through, learning about life's frustrations! I feel bad for him, because I know he only has outbursts and tantrums because things get on top of him and he doesn't know how to manage his emotions yet. That's all it is. It's hard for him. It'll pass, and each tantrum blows over, but it's still hard for him to be this age. I don't know why they call it the "terrible twos". I don't know ANYONE whose child has not been going through it BEFORE the age of two. It's just a toddler phenomenon, rather than specific to the age of two, that's all. Anyway. My toddler is frustrated a lot these days, and life is hard for him to feel in control of. I need to give him more of a sense of structure, I think. Toddlers thrive on structure, and I read that it helps them to feel more in control, so I must try to help him with that.

Anyway, I digress. I meant to post the photo of Arthur building a particularly huge tower! Here it is :)

He LOVES playing with his toy cars. He has loads of cars and trucks and lorries and emergency vehicles. I got him a pretty good selection of matchbox type toy cars, and he just adores them. He plays with them for ages, just running them around the floor or the furniture, or poking them into small spaces, naming their colours, or just naming the specific vehicles. He says, "car" properly, but his other pronounciations are hard for anyone else to know what he is saying. Lorry is "yah-yah", ambulance is "ahh-dan", police car is "na-na" for some reason! Fire engine is "en-nee". He has been consistent with these pronounciations for these words for a couple of months now, so we are very familiar with them, but nobody else knows what he's talking about, poor Arthur! One of his favourite things to do with his vehicles is make a long line of them somewhere - preferably along the shelf on his toy unit. He LOVES doing this, and spends ages lining them up and when the line is full he will carefully select one car to remove and replace with another one, complete with very cute serious commentary to himself as he does it, and "hmmm" sounds as he thinks about which cars to move, hehe! I managed to take a photo of him doing this a few weeks ago:

Arthur is showing some signs of getting ready for potty training, and he has been showing some of them for a couple of months now, but I am still not convinced it's time to act on it yet. He is still so little, and I am in no rush to see him leave behind his lovely cloth nappies! It's hard having two full time in cloth nappies, but I still love it to BITS, and will be sad when he is done with them! I know it's only been 10 weeks, but I still think it's going to seem really odd to suddenly only have one child in nappies and only one baby's cloth nappies to wash again! I'm so used to the vast quantities of two little people's cloth nappies to wash, and I love it! Plus I still have some sewing projects that are half done, nappies for Arthur - or fabric that I am LONGING to make into nappies or wraps for him, and I know Matthew will grow into them one day anyway, but I will feel sad to never get round to those projects before he's done with nappies!

Anyway, I don't think he's done with them for a while yet, but still, he's definitely showing some signs of readiness. Not ALL the signs, but plenty of them all the same. He can (and does) pull his nappies up and down. He can control it when he wees, if he's peeing on the carpet and I ask him to stop, he does so immediately. I should point out, this is a rare occurrance! He very occasionally wees during his short nappy-free time before a bath, but I'm beginning to read his body language and know when he needs to wee when he is having nappy-free time. I ask him and he doesn't answer me yes or no yet. But he does tell me when he's done a poo, IMMEDIATELY that he's done one. He has only started doing that in the last few days - well, he's been telling me that he's done a poo, or needs to do a poo, for a while, but not right away. Now he comes and finds me and gets my attention so that he can give me a very serious look and say solemnly, "Poo." ;)

He seems to be hating nappy changes more and more (he never used to mind them at all), and especially hates being changed when he's done a poo, even though he wants to be in a clean nappy really. He likes to sit on his potty, and he knows what it's for. He makes such cute little pretend effort noises when he sits there, as if he's pretending to poo or wee, hehehe! He has never done anything on the potty though, and we never make anything of it. We ask him if he's doing a wee-wee or a poo-poo, but just casually as though we're asking him if he's cooking when he stirs an empty saucepan with a wooden spoon. I don't want to push him at ALL over potty training. I'd much rather he leads us through it, but I don't actually know HOW to potty train a child. I guess I should read up a bit and find out how it works. But for now, I'm just glad that he's relaxed with the potty. Except that sometimes he is um, perhaps a little TOO relaxed there, and wants to sit on it while he eats, etc, hahaha!

I bought Matthew a bath seat recently, so that it would be ready well in advance for when he's able to sit up properly and they are sharing bathtime together. When it arrived, Arthur instantly declared it to be a "poppee" and when he was having nappy-free time later, he was determined to pull it out of the packaging onto the floor, and wedge himself in it, making his pretend wee-wee and poo-poo sounds and cheerfully exclaiming, "Poppee, poppee!" I told him it was Matthew's bath seat, but he still insisted it was a "poppee" and spent the best part of an HOUR getting stuck in it and climbing back out of it, and playing with the spinning balls on the front, etc! Funny boy. Lately I have managed to convince him that it's Matthew's bath seat, and now he calls it a "bah-peep" instead of a potty and then says, "Mah-mah" so I know he understands that it's Matthew's bath seat now! Here he is the day he got it out of the packaging:

Another sweet word of Arthur's that he uses ALL the time, is "heppin" (helping). I LOVE this one! He is so eager to "help" all the time around the house, and I love it when he is vigorously yanking towels out of the tumble dryer and gasps breathlessly, "Ahh-yah, heppin!" He uses it so much now that it sometimes gets used when he's not actually helping as such. Like if he's riding his car all around the living room and he drives it up onto a pile of laundry or something, and I ask him to come down off the pile, as he struggles to get the car off the pile, he says, "Heppin!" So I wonder if he's using it for various things, like doing as he's told, as well as helping. He's such a total SWEETIE!! I love him so much! :)

Today Neil took him to the park and they climbed a big hill. Neil told him it was a hill, and when they got home, everything was a "heew"! The stairs were a "heew" and climbing onto the sofa was a "heew". He seemed so excited with his new word and he seemed to want to create a context in which to use it again and again!

Arthur is very quick at picking up dance moves. Not specifically actions to childrens' songs, but actual dancing. I have noticed this in the past but I am noticing it more and more lately. He HAS to get that from Neil. Neil was really into dancing when he was at uni. He went out dancing a lot and was good at it. COOL dancing, you know, not the foxtrot or anything like that, haha! Me on the other hand - I am just unconfident about dancing and always have been. I have rhythm but I don't think I am naturally a very good dancer. I always just feel like I look stupid and get self-conscious. Neil's dad was also an excellent dancer and just looked naturally good at it on a dance floor. My mum always said that Arthur had that dancing "thing" that Neil's dad had, even when he was a little baby! He always enjoyed being boogied to music, any type of music. Matthew doesn't seem as thrilled about that so far, so maybe they'll be different in that as well. They are so different in so many ways! Anyway, Arthur loves to dance. He dances with his feet and his hips and his arms. Neil taught him this throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air move and he does that with such enthusiasm, it's SO cute to watch! He has rhythm and can move in time to the music, but the more excited he gets about dancing, the faster he goes and the less in-time he stays, hehe! He can dance whilst watching Neil dancing in front of him, and copy Neil's actions as he does them, really accurately. I'm impressed! I never danced that well, so it's nice to see him happily dancing away with Neil. Mostly he still just bops around crazily though, and jumps and turns around and around. I love watching toddlers dance! It's so cute :)

I have a million photos (or so it seems!) of Arthur at the park, from various outings. One from when it poured with rain and he got soaked despite having his raincoat on. He wouldn't keep the hood up, but oh well. He had lots of fun! Another time I took Arthur and Matthew to the local park with swings and we sat under a tree and had a picnic. It was an attempt at making eating interesting for him, and he did actually sit down and eat some of his sandwich, and a slice of apple, getting up and dashing about now and then between bites. Matthew got REALLY cross about being out (he still hates outings of any sort unfortunately) so we had to get up and move after a short while. We walked to the swings and Arthur ran and ran and RAN on the grass, and a nice guy gave him a tennis ball at the tennis courts, all for his very own. And Matthew cried the WHOLE time. But never mind. Arthur had fun. I found it hugely stressful but oh well. I guess I should persevere!

Anyway, here are a few photos from those occasions:

One time a few weeks ago, we went to the park with two other mums from church, and their little ones. One of them was my friend Katie and her little boy, Joshua. Joshie is Arthur's favourite friend and they really get on well together. If he knows he's going to see Joshie, he spends ages saying, "Goggie, Goggie!" over and over before we meet up with them! Josh was 2 in June so he's a bit older than Arthur, but they are just the sweetest little friends! He has a new baby sister who was born 11 days before Matthew so Katie and I have a lot in common! They were round here a few days ago for the morning and when they left, Josh waved so sweetly at Arthur and said, "Buh-bye Ar-fuh!" It was soooo sweet. They cuddle each other a lot and even give the occasional kiss :)

Anyway, so they were at the park, and so was another lady with her two little boys, aged 4 and nearly 2. The 4-year-old immediately took charge and declared himself to be "the leader", and directed the three little boys to take up some sticks and follow him through the park as we walked along! He was so sweet with them and treated them gently. Arthur was ULTRA excited to be playing with other children, and even more so to be following the lead of a big boy! He is so excited by bigger boys. He just wants to be around them all the time. They all picked up a small stick each and followed the boy around, and he gave them the task of "chopping down trees" (lightly tapping at every tree they passed with their sticks, pretending to chop it down). Arthur was BESIDE himself with excitement, and I was so thankful to have my camera with me because the cuteness was almost indescribable, hehe! He alternated between gazing at the other kids in adoration/excitement, and going completely rigid and letting out this huge squeal of excitement with a wiiiide-open mouth, like he just couldn't contain it and had to keep on squealing about it, hehe! The little boys sometimes looked a bit put-off him with his loud squealing, and they were so calm and quiet in comparison! Poor Arthur, he just couldn't seem to help himself! Katie commented that Arthur is very gregarious - he seems so eager to play with other children. I should get him more social time with other kids. It'll be easier once playgroups start up again for the new term in September.

I took about 30 photos at the park that time, but there are only a few I feel comfortable posting here, as I don't want the other kids in my diary in case their mothers wouldn't like it. The ones I can post have the other kids with their backs to the camera, mostly, or just Arthur in the photo. Or they're too distant to see much detail. Here's Arthur with Joshie:

And a few photos of Arthur with the other boys, "chopping" trees - note the squeally excitement and the one where he just got so excited that he started RUNNING randomly, hehe! The other boys just looked at him like he was a bit nuts ;)

And a few of just Arthur - still excited, bless him! ;)

I can't believe it's almost time to think about an actual playgroup/nursery for him!!! I am thinking to start him at a normal pre-school playgroup when he's maybe 2 and a half. He'll start nursery in the afternoons once he's 3, but that's not for ages yet. Until he's 2 and a half I will take him to mother-and-toddler groups galore, as much as I can handle with Matthew in tow (who I REALLY hope will get more tolerant of outings and not make it so difficult that we have to keep leaving places early). I am DREADING the bugs and colds and yuck that will come with it, but that's just part of the territory when you're a toddler (or a mother of one!). It was my lovely GP who put my onto the idea of starting him at the type of playgroup where the mothers don't stay with their little ones, when he's about 2 and a half. She said to start looking around just before he turns two, in case there are waiting lists. I guess there are places he could go now where I don't stay with him, but I have no desire to take him to those yet. He's still so little, and there's really no need. He gets the same social/play/exercise/activity exposure at a mother-and-toddler group where I stay with him, as he would at a leave-him-there playgroup anyway. He is confident and never looks for me when we're at a playgroup, but for me, that isn't reason enough to test him yet. Same as at church creche (when we actually go!). I know they think I'm NUTS for sitting out the whole sermon in the creche with Arthur and one or two other babies and two helpers (it's a SMALL creche!). Every mother there is desperate to pry herself loose from her baby at only a few months old it seems, and will try endlessly for months on end, saying what a good morning it was for their little one when they only cried and had to fetch the mummy in 3 times that morning! They ask me every time if I would like to leave Arthur and go back to the service and I get some funny looks when I say no every time. Especially since Arthur is running around playing with toys, seemingly oblivious to my presence! But I am staying with him. I stick with Arthur like glue till he's 2 and a half, and even then I'll see how I feel. Maybe he'd be fine, but I don't care to test him. He's still just a baby. School is YEARS away. He doesn't need the practise yet, not for a long while. I am eager to give him plenty of "practise" at learning new things socially and activity-wise with Mumma close at hand. Whether he feels he needs me there or not, I will be there, and maybe that will help him feel more secure during this early phase, ready to be more independent when he's old enough to start trying that kind of thing.

Did I mention that he calls me "Mumma" now? I love it!!! I usually refer to myself as Mummy, but he calls me Mumma. It's not "Mama" any more, it's changed to sound slightly different now. I love the name Mumma. I almost want him to keep calling me that instead of Mummy, but then I fear that Mumma stands more chance of getting shortened to Mum than Mummy does. I hate "Mum"!! But I'm sure he'll end up calling me that - it seems like ALL kids do these days. But then, maybe I'll warm to it once he's the one calling me it. My brother and I still call my mother, "Mummy", or "Mim". I don't know where Mim came from! It's a more affectionate name for us to use for her than Mummy even, and we mostly call her Mummy. I love that we do, although I admit it didn't always feel cool while I was at school. I felt I had to try to avoid saying "Mummy" around my friends in case they laughed at me. I would say, "My mum" instead. I think I even tried calling her "Mum" once or twice and it just felt WEIRD and awkward, like I had called her by a name that was somebody else's and not hers. Anyway, I hope my little ones will call me Mummy, but I know they are probably more likely to call me Mum. But oh well.

Arthur is waking AGAIN. That's at least once per hour so far. He's moaning. I hope he's okay, poor baby. I wonder if we should give him some Calpol?

I have a load of photos of the boys together (some getting rather old now as they were taken a few weeks ago) and quite a few of Matthew, but I've run out of time. I need to check on Arthur (who is quiet again now) and get ready for bed (YIPES, it's after midnight!!!) because Matthew will probably wake for a feed soon - he's been asleep 6 hours now. I'll try to update again soon, and one day maybe catch up on all those diaries I'm missing!! Thank you for the messages again! :) Back soon!

Vaccinations tomorrow, urgh.

Back again, just for a moment! Both boys are asleep for their naps but Matthew doesn't sleep as soundly in the day as he does at night, so I don't know if this will wake him or not. I'm sorry about my guestbook - it seems to be playing up a lot lately, tsk! Not sure what to do about that, but please feel free to email or leave a note (if you're a D'lander) instead. Signmyguestbook.com have been so crap lately, but I love my guestbook so I keep hoping they pull it together and provide a half decent service again! Thanks for the emails and notes and messages after my last entry!! :)

Arthur's MMR and Matthew's Hibb booster jabs are TOMORROW afternoon. I am dreading it. Urgh.

Our oven broke. I had fish fingers in it for Arthur's tea last week and I opened the door when they were done and the door fell apart in my hands! The glass front fell out on the floor and everything, and a hot part fell on my arm but thankfully I didn't get burnt. Stoopid old crappy oven! Anyway we examined it and it really is not fixable, so yet more £ to shell out for some household item. Two weeks before, the last of our set of 4 lamps in the living room broke (just died, not the fuse or the bulb or anything) and so we had to go and buy another full set. We got cheap ones so I hope they last! Anyway, the oven is built into a fitted kitchen and so we are getting a CHEAP oven fitted in at great expense on Friday. Fortunately we don't really use the oven that much. We use the gas hob or the microwave quite a lot so we've managed okay without it.

We had a HUGE thunderstorm a few weeks ago and it was Arthur's first real experience of one. He got soooo excited at the window, yelling that there was "ray" and "nuh-nuh" (rain and thunder). We let him stand at the front door to watch, and he was so excited! Loads of spray came in and he got soaked, but it was 30 minutes before bathtime so it was okay. Neil even swung him out in it for a second so he could REALLY feel the rain! He wanted to reach out and touch it. I LOVE thunderstorms and heavy rain. They are so exciting when you're a little kid! Here are some photos - I used the flash by mistake on the 3rd one so it's come out WAY too bright, but oh well. He looked so excited in that one that I had to post it anyway :)

Ack, Matthew is awake. I guess it's not a good idea to type during the day when he's asleep then. Oh well! At least I got a few more photos and stuff posted! I'll try again later, or maybe tomorrow if the boys aren't feeling too poorly from their jabs and I have a moment to get online. Back soon!

Big catch-up (part one!) with photos :)

I'm BACK!!!! :) Yay! Well, for about 5 minutes, as this is the first real opportunity I seem to have had to update my diary for WEEKS and it'll be over when Neil and the boys get home from the park. It's raining. I hope it hasn't turned into a horrible outing for them all! Matthew hates outings, whether he's in the car, sling, pushchair, whatever. He just seems to hate it and cries, so that makes it no fun for the parent who is taking them out, and not much fun for Arthur either really. But hey ho, we persevere! Arthur has to go out, and at the moment I feel like I will go CRAZY if I don't get some time alone in the house without noise or impending responsibility, etc. Even an hour is nice, and they've been gone that long now so I think they'll be home soon.

Matthew sleeps next to where the computer is and we just can't figure out an alternative place to put it so we are not getting on the computer much at all any more :( I am seriously going crazy with how much I miss my Diaryland friends!!!! And my Fertility Friend buddies too. I want to just browwwse diaries like I used to and keep up with the lives of people I know and love here at Diaryland. I can't remember the last time I signed anyone's guestbook, but now I don't even know what's happening in anyone's lives! I hope you guys are all doing well. I promise I'll try to catch up soon. I WILL find a way to use the computer, hehe! Most of all I miss updating my diary when I feel like it, and when I have a backlog of photos or newsy stuff to write about Arthur or Matthew. Or just my thoughts. I do sometimes get online to check eBay or emails and messages and stuff, but it's the clattery typing of a 2-hour diary entry that isn't fair to Matthew while he's asleep for the night. Neil misses his horrible shoot-em-up game too. We are really trying to figure out a way to change this!

I used the last HOUR updating my blinkies - yes, I am still horribly addicted to them, hehe! I'm so sorry about the vast amount of them flashing away at your poor eyes, lol! I got rid of some old ones. I am not co-sleeping with Matthew right now, but the way things are at the moment is that Arthur still co-sleeps with Neil (while I do "night duty" with Matthew!) so I kept that blinkie. I can't find a breastfeeding milestone blinkie for Arthur's current age so the latest one (18 months) still stands. I have a TWO YEAR one all ready to use though! :) I hope we make it! I'm pretty sure we will.

Okay so now that the blinkies are all updated, I can start the mammoth task of catching up with news about the boys and life in general, and of course all the millions of photos! Fortunately for my diary, I haven't had time to take as many photos as I would normally have liked, so there aren't TOO many to post all at once! Still quite a few though!

Well! I can't believe summer is nearly over and we're into the second half of August already!!! It just went by in a flash. Neil and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on August 14th :) Matthew turned two months old the same day. HOW have two months gone by since I gave birth?!?!! He is 9 and a half weeks old now. Crazy.

Arthur is 21 months old and now that autumn seems to be approaching, it's rather freaking me out because the end of autumn marks Arthur's birthday, and I seriously, SERIOUSLY cannot fathom having a two-year-old! It seems crazy to me. Two is soooo.... not a baby anymore, in any sense of the word! It's so "little boy" and grown up. I can't believe he's going to be two in a matter of a few months. BUT I feel excited and proud to be able to say that I am a mummy to a two-year-old! Though I'll miss being able to say that I have two children under the age of two. Which is a weird concept in itself to me! All these milestones are just whizzing by and being snatched from under my nose just as I'm pausing to inhale their sweet fragrance, they are just passing SO fast! I feel sad about that but then the next stage is always so exciting that I can't stay sad for long because I am too eager to embrace what comes next!

I had my 8-week postnatal check with the Health Visitor last week and it went fine. I did the Postnatal Depression Screen and scored 8, which is "nice and low" apparently. I scored 7 with Arthur, I think, about the same. So that's good. I don't feel depressed, and I'm coping better and better all the time with two demanding little ones! Though there are always going to be good days and bad days, days that flow wonderfully and make me feel like SuperMummy, and days that are just HIDEOUS and I can't imagine how I got through them. I think that is normal motherhood for you though! And I'm adjusting to that and accepting it, so that helps.

Okay, some photos! Then if I have time after that I'll write some more newsy stuff. If the boys get home, I'll maybe save this and try a little clattering-keyboard session this evening, but not for too long in case I disturb Matthew too much. He pretty much sleeps when we attempt to use the computer but he stirs more and I feel bad about invading his sleeping space anyway.

So here are some sweet photos of my lil boys with their Daddy. Matthew was 7 weeks and 4 days old when these were taken, so I guess it's been a couple of weeks (ALREADY!) since then. Neil was trying to get Matthew to smile at him - which is NOT a difficult thing these days, that boy is just like his brother and smiles and smiles and smiles at just anyone! He's such a sweetie :) In the first photo, Matthew was "talking" to Neil, another thing he likes to do a LOT! Arthur was looking a little put out in the second photo but he was actually just fiddling with something on his fingers. In any case, Neil was telling Matthew how scrummy he was and then turned to Arthur and gave him a huge hug and a kiss and told him he was lovely too :) And then Arthur wanted to kiss Matthew (he does this a LOT), so they're sweet photos :)

Arthur is still doing great with Matthew. He doesn't ever show any jealousy towards him, and the only times he even shows the tiniest bit of frustration is when he really wants to breastfeed, or for me to do something for him and I am feeding Matthew or trying to burp him or settle him if he's crying a lot. Then he will pat the bouncy chair and say, "Dair" or pat the changing mat on the floor and say, "Nat!" and then, "Ma-Ma" (his word for Matthew), which is his way of telling me he wants me to put Matthew down in the chair or on the mat so I can attend to Arthur for a while! If I can't do that right at that moment then he gets cross or whiney, but how long that lasts depends on how tired he is or what kind of mood he's in. If he's tired and cranky it can turn into a tantrum but otherwise just a moan for a few seconds before moving onto something else.

Sometimes I have to tell him to wait when I am breastfeeding Matthew and Arthur wants to join in. If I have Matthew across my body then it's too fiddly for me to latch Arthur on the other side. I CAN do it, but lately I am telling him he needs to wait a moment till Matthew is finished. It's easier for me that way and Arthur CAN wait. If I know they both want to breastfeed at the same time and I haven't started with either of them yet, then I'll set it up so that they can both nurse. I put a pile of pillows by my side and lay Matthew on those so he's in a sort of football hold under my arm, but on the pillows instead of held in my arm. Then I latch him on and Arthur has plenty of room on the other side to nurse too. My milk flows WAY more strongly when they are both nursing at the same time!

My instinct is to give priority to Matthew with breastfeeding, since I know that's all he can have and he needs all that he asks for. But if Arthur has hurt himself and wants milk then I will actually take Matthew off the breast and nurse Arthur instead, if his position means I can't shuffle him to one side a bit and make room for Arthur. It is just a case of playing it by ear really, with tandem nursing.

I am loving tandem nursing on the whole and I would definitely do it again - well, I would certainly not try to avoid it if I happened to still be breastfeeding Matthew when I am expecting another baby, but I wouldn't TRY to make it happen if Matthew was actually showing signs of weaning himself. Tandem nursing is so wonderful and so precious, but I am also finding it extremely demanding. It's one of the most challenging things for me, about being a mummy to two little ones at the moment. Arthur has been going through a normal-but-tiring phase that I had read about in my tandem nursing book, where he is pretty much refusing to eat any solid foods and the result is that SOMEHOW I am almost exclusively breastfeeding a new baby and a toddler! And believe me, a toddler has a MUCH bigger appetite than a baby! Arthur asks for milk so frequently sometimes that I seem to do nothing but breastfeed one or both of them, all day long. It's SO exhausting, and draining, and I just get so thirsty and hungry all the time. Thirsty more than hungry though. I never seem to have time to get myself enough to drink so that doesn't help.

The thing is, I know it's just a phase and I don't want to push him, as it's going to pass and pushing him could backfire big time. The book says a few weeks to a couple of months of meal-refusal is common (and nothing to worry about, since my milk is very nourishing even for an exclusively breastfed toddler, though I know he is surely going to need more after a couple of months). He will still take snacks so I make sure the snacks are fruit or cheese or cereal bars. He really likes raisins and cereal bars, and I get him the toddler ones that are fortified with iron and stuff, so that is good.

We thought maybe the meal issue was to do with him having outgrown his highchair or something, at the age he is at now, so we have ditched it (with much joy - it's a pain in the arse and we'll be buying a different type of highchair for Matthew) and bought him a Handysitt booster seat so he can sit up to the table. He LOVES the booster seat and it has meant he has been a little more open to eating SOME meals, but not totally.

Okay the boys are home. Will try to type more later.

Back again - it's 8pm and the boys have both been asleep since about 7pm. Matthew is RIGHT behind me in his cot-bed (the back of my chair is 2 inches away from the cot side!) but so far he seems to be peaceful enough and doesn't seem disturbed. I'll see how much I can get typed before he gets stirry.

So the tandem nursing - hard work. Thankfully I have plenty of milk and they both get whatever they demand of me. Sometimes I feel like they EMPTIED me as I've gone down like 2 cup sizes since they started, hehe! But then Matthew will want to feed again and somehow there's still some there because he gulps and I feel the let down. So that is a wonderful thing. I honestly think they take pints and pints and pints of milk per day from me though. It feels more work for my body than ANY of Arthur's growth spurts when he was a little baby. That's another thing, I haven't actually noticed Matthew having growth spurts by his feeding. Maybe that's a feature of tandem nursing or something? There must be perlenty of milk if two of them are nursing like they are, so maybe there's no need for him to feed around the clock to work up my milk supply? It's there already, or something? I don't ever breastfeed Arthur overnight, although if he wakes and cries for me during the evening (very rare) then I'll nurse him. Matthew wakes for feeds 2 or 3 times over the 12 hour night, and not at regular, predictable times, but perhaps an example would be 1.30am, 4am and 6am. If he has only 2 wakings or if I feed him from the same side all night because I've forgotten which side I'm on, I am really engorged by the morning. I was never engorged with Arthur at any stage, so I guess I really am making enough milk for two and when only one nurses for a longer period, the milk for the other one builds up (owch!)! But then they both get a mega feed in the morning (and AFTER Arthur eats an okay breakfast too, so it's not interfering with his appetite that time).

Anyway. I hope Arthur gets more interested in food soon. We're working on getting him exposed to a bigger variety of foods, as his "acceptable" reportoire is getting smaller and smaller. Everything new I put in front of him (and eat with him - another technique we're trying), he wrinkles up his nose at, and makes a "blech!" sound in his throat! Matthew stirs.... Nope, he's okay. I'll continue!

Arthur is REALLY at the "No!" stage of toddler-hood! He says "no" ALL the time, but not just randomly like I sort of expected. If he wakes at night and doesn't see Neil there when he expected to, he'll say, "Nooo..." in this sad little voice (immediately followed by "Mama, maamaaa!") and that's usually the first sign we hear of him waking up in the evening when it happens. If he knocks down something he was building by accident, he says the same "Nooo..." in a sad voice and then gets cross and frustrated with the bricks and bashes the whole tower down angrily. If the Teletubbies is finishing (the bit where they say bye-bye), he makes such a funny exaggerated frowning expression and says, "No!" The way he says no sometimes makes it sound like the 'o' drags on and on, but like "nawwww" rather than "nooooh". Most of the time he sounds so sweet and funny when he says it that I can't help smiling! I try to hide it though. It would be most exasperating to Arthur if he saw me smiling at his frustrated outburst all the time! ;) Of course he also uses "no" for the usual stuff, in answer to most of my questions! He shakes his head instead sometimes, but he doesn't say no to EVERYTHING, only things he doesn't want. Which is a lot of things these days!

We are no longer using the "Naughty Step" method of discipline with Arthur. It didn't seem to be working and I kept on trying and trying to find a reference ANYWHERE that might tell me if he was too young for it, which was my hunch after a while, but I couldn't find anything. We stopped it anyway but his behaviour got more difficult to handle without a method of discipline (obviously!!). We really really don't want to smack (read: spank, for US readers!) our children. It's just not something I feel comfortable with, and I really don't believe it's even necessary for disciplining a child - but that is just for ME and MY children, I absolutely do not mean to judge anybody who DOES choose to discipline their children in that way. I was smacked as a child (a LOT, I was pretty naughty, hehe!) and don't particularly hold any grudges against my parents for it, but I don't feel I want to repeat it with my own children. As a child, being smacked HURT, and felt intimidating and harsh. My parents would usually combine smacking with having lost their temper with us (quite understandably, I am realising, now that I am older and wiser!), and my memory of that method of discipline was angry faces and angry eyes and intimidating grown-ups standing over me. I LOVE the Supernanny approach which teaches that you don't need to intimidate a child to discipline them, and that you should come down to their level so that you don't intimidate them, etc, and never shout or lose your temper or get angry. I can't WAIT to learn how to do that!

My mummy and I talk a lot about discipline and it's great to be the child who was disciplined by her in that way and to now be talking to her about how it was from THEIR perspective. She told me they never wanted to smack their children but they just felt driven to it and didn't know how else to gain control over our behaviour sometimes. She said they would go through times when they would smack us and then have long talks and decide it wasn't right or that it wasn't working (as it didn't seem to be taking effect sometimes), so then they'd try to stop and end up "driven to it" again. My poor parents! I appreciate soooooo much more what they went through now that I am a parent myself, and I haven't even got to the stage where my kids are old enough to REALLY play up yet! I am so glad I am really close with my parents and can talk to them in such detail about these things. It really helps to figure things out.

Anyway, what eventually happened is that Neil and I felt more and more out of control over some of Arthur's behaviour (especially hurting us on purpose), and loss of control plus loss of temper = lashing out angrily to try and "fix" it, and the result of that has been that Arthur has been smacked a few times. The first time I smacked him, he was kicking and scratching at me (and laughing), and I warned him that if he did it again I would smack him. I did not get wound up, I just calmly warned him. He did it again immediately so I smacked him on the leg. He laughed, which I totally did not expect! I felt BAD for smacking him but this HUGE sense of relief at somehow having grabbed some control of the situation, though it didn't seem to affect him then and there. He was still behaving like that later that day and he hurt Neil the same way, and when Neil warned him and then smacked him, he cried. Then we both felt way too bad about it and said to each other that we were never doing that again. We spent time with Arthur hugging him and telling him we loved him and that it was wrong of Mummy and Daddy to hurt him back for something. Urgh. And then about a week later the same thing happened and he got smacked again :( We just felt absolutely OUT of any other options, and didn't know what else to do. We can't just let him hurt us like that. But it definitely doesn't feel like a good thing to hurt him back - what does that teach him?!

I finally bought two Supernanny books so that I could have an easy reference to some of her ideas that I definitely want to use, and I was hoping the books would tell me about the right age for using the techniques. Sure enough, he is too young for the Naughty Step technique. She recommends starting that at age two, which we will most definitely do. I love that method. It WORKS, and it's gentle and simple and doesn't intimidate the little one, or raise a parent's temper. She said that before age two, children are not able to understand the process that goes with the Naughty Step technique, and she suggested that you remove your child from the situation they are in if they misbehave. So if they hurt another child while they're doing some fun activity together, they get taken away from the fun activity and thus the message gets across much more simply for them.

So we've been using a similar approach since I read that. Arthur is quite predictable at really playing up during nappy changes, especially pooey ones. He kicks and squirms and does his best to sabotage our efforts to change him hygenically! If we ask him to stop, he laughs and does it more. If we tell him that hurts Mummy and he mustn't do it, he hurts me harder. So we now set it up to our advantage. We give him a toy or object that he loves playing with, or put something on the telly that he loves, just for the nappy-change. The moment he starts acting up, we tell him he must not do that and explain why, and then tell him that if he does it again we will take the toy away from him, or switch off the Teletubbies, etc. You can see him stopping to think about that, something he didn't seem to do much with the other methods we tried, and then if he REALLY doesn't want the Teletubbies to get switched off, say, he will usually frown at me and say, "Nooo!" So I tell him he must be a good boy and lie still for Mummy, or not kick Mummy, or whatever. This is often all I have to do, but if he does kick me again then I have the wonderful luxury of NOT getting worked up in the least, and simply telling him he does not get to watch any more Teletubbies because he kicked Mummy, and leaning over and switching it off, and there we have it! Discipline achieved!!! :) It's so simple and SUCH a relief when it happens. I feel completely in control where I NEED to be in control, and yet I don't get angry or stressed, and I don't have to hurt Arthur, and he doesn't get intimidated by me. Soooo simple! :) He cries a lot when I switch it off or take away the toy he is playing with, but I just explain again why I did it, and he has to lump it. He doesn't play up again after that, during that nappy-change. I think if he DID, I might be stuck, since I would have used my "bargaining tool" (as Neil and I call it, hehe - "I'm just going to change Arthur"..."Okay - wait, have you got a bargaining tool?" hehehe!) and then I'm not sure what else I'd use to get my point across.

Anyway that is working MUCH better for us, but there are still windows where he does something we HAVE to take a stand against and it happens to be in a situation where he doesn't care one bit about any object or entertainment around him, and thus we have nothing to implement that kind of discipline with! Sometimes in those situations we might remind him of something that's coming up later that he enjoys, like he likes playing "tents" with Daddy under the duvet cover before he goes to sleep at bedtime. Neil sometimes tells him if he doesn't stop X, Y or Z right now, he will not get to play tents at bedtime. And we have to follow through on whatever we say, which is sometimes so sad. I hate having to take things away from Arthur that he loves, but I love him enough to discipline him when he misbehaves, and it's important that I am consistent with whatever method we choose to use. I hate it MUCH less than using my hand to strike him though. Much less. So we'll continue like this until he's two and then reassess, and maybe start the Naughty Step technique then, or maybe wait a while longer. Supernanny said some children aren't ready for that till they are 2 and a half.

Anyway, what a LONG waffle about discipline! I think I'll post some more photos and change the subject!

Bedtimes are going better and better. Matthew seems very strong, physically, and his head control is really good. We decided he is ready to join Arthur and Daddy for "big boy bathtime" in the evenings!! This has been something Neil and Arthur have done since he was just a few months old. I don't think we really intended it to be a permanent thing, but it's just how it panned out. I have never bathed with Arthur since, and Arthur has only ever bathed with Daddy since then! I bathed him once a couple of weeks ago because he pooed EVERYWHERE (teething poo) and had a horrible painful rash on his poor bummy that made him cry and shake just by walking :( It got that bad out of NOWHERE, in just a couple of hours, and then we noticed the tooth. Pesky teething! Anyway so I bathed him before Neil was home from work that time, but other than that he has had every single bath with Neil since he was a little baby. So it's quite a big thing for Matthew to join in! Here is Matthew's very first "big boy" bath, with Arthur and Neil (no bubbles on that occasion due to over-paranoia about Matthew's new delicate skin!):

He did really well! I thought he'd cry but he didn't, he just seemed calm and happy to be there. He only freaked out a tiny bit when Arthur tried to wash his hair (which you can see in the photo!), but he was happy as anything otherwise! He has had quite a few baths with Arthur and Daddy since then and he seems to love them! While they are bathing, I sit by the bath and wash Matthew's hair so that Neil has hands free to hold Matthew and play with Arthur, and then I take Matthew and dress him for bed while Neil gets Arthur ready for bed. I lay down in bed with Matthew (in the spare room) and breastfeed him - the only time I ever breastfeed him BEFORE sleep. We are still following the E.A.S.Y. routine with Matthew so he gets fed when he wakes up, and it's going well. So I nurse him before bed, and if Neil has finished getting Arthur ready for bed before I'm finished with Matthew, he and Arthur play tents and read the Toddler's Bible and stuff, till I hand Matthew to him for burping and rocking. Then Neil puts Matthew to bed once he's all sleepy (he goes right to sleep, but it can take a while to get him sleepy enough), while I breastfeed Arthur in his bed. Arthur goes to sleep well, usually. Sometimes I get sore and have to stop breastfeeding him if it's just going on for EVER, and then Neil comes in and lies with him till he's asleep while I tidy the toys away downstairs. It sounds complicated but it's not, it feels easy and it really works for us. Both the boys are usually asleep for the night by 7.30pm, and they both sleep through the evening till at least our bedtime. Matthew will go till 1.30am or sometimes a bit later if nothing disturbs him before then, and Arthur usually sleeps through the night. Sometimes he wakes or stirs a lot and Neil resettles him pretty quickly.

Anyway so it's GREAT to have our evenings to ourselves! We have the air-conditioning roaring away upstairs all the time, despite the weather being a lot cooler. The house still seems too warm (21 degrees or warmer without the A/C in the bedrooms) so we keep it on. I am slightly nervous about when it's too cold to use it anymore, because the sound it makes is REALLY useful in helping the boys not be disturbed by random sounds, or by each other when they wake in the night. We watch the TV in the evenings without headphones, which is something we haven't done since Arthur was a newborn!!! He was just soooo difficult with sleep and woke at the tiniest sound, so we ended up wearing headphones in the evenings to watch TV and creeping around like mice! I'm so glad that's over with! We'll have to try and continue with normal household sounds for Matthew. I'm sure he'll be fine with it, if he's used to it. I expect they might wake a little more at first once the A/C is off, but hopefully they'll adjust quickly.

Time for more photos I think! Matthew doesn't seem bothered by my typing but I want to hurry and finish, as this entry is getting long and it's getting late too. My dinner is almost ready so I need to hurry up.

We got a WONDERFUL package from my lovely friend Lisa a few weeks ago! Lisa found me through my pregnancy diary when she was pregnant with her sweet little girl, Aeres, who is the same age as Arthur. It was SO exciting to receive a package from the States with SUCH beautiful gifts inside, some for Arthur, some for Matthew (the CUTEST outfits!) and a special one for Neil and I - a beautifully framed photo of Matthew and Arthur when Matthew was 10 days old!!! It's my very favourite photo and I had longed to get it printed and framed (which Lisa didn't know!) so it was really touching to receive such a special gift. Anyway, here are a couple of photos of Arthur while he was opening Lisa's package - he was so pleased to see the framed photo! He said (with huge pride!) "Aaah-yah!" (Arthur) when he saw himself in the picture, and gazed for ages before he said "Ma-Ma" as well :) He also insisted on trying to put the new teeny tiny shoes for Matthew on his own feet!

And here are a couple of photos of Matthew (at 7 weeks old) in one of the super cute outfits that Lisa sent:

See my sweet smiley boy?! I love that baby boy SOOOOOOOO much, I just can't tell you. He's the sweetest thing! He is starting to fill out a little more this week, and today we noticed the beginnings of little rolls at the top of his legs and arms :) I wonder if he'll be a chunky chubby boy like Arthur was? They are VERY different shapes though. The health visitor weighed Matthew a week ago and he was 11lbs 4oz - only a 5oz gain (just under) since almost 2 weeks before. It dropped him to the 25th percentile (from the 50th), and although the health visitor said it was fine, it still felt kind of strange to me because of how Arthur did the absolute opposite at the same age - jumping from the 50th to the 80th percentile and staying there for many months!

She said that it was obvious that Matthew was a very different shape to Arthur, longer and leaner, like Neil. She also reminded me that it's normal for breastfed babies to gain more slowly at first than formula fed babies, and thus it looks like they have dropped their percentile on the charts, as the charts are based on formula fed babies (how stupid?!). She said Arthur was not the "norm" for weight gain in breastfed babies! So I shouldn't worry about Matthew's weight. He is content and doesn't seem hungry in between feeds. He doesn't feed overly frequently, and he gets full enough to refuse and bring up a TON of milk at the end of each feed, so I'm sure he must be getting enough, BUT his feeds are crazy short. He finishes all he wants in 4 or 5 minutes. The health visitor thinks because of my strong let-down reflex, that he really is getting all that milk in such a short space of time, and he doesn't need to nurse for longer. But she said I should always offer him the second breast anyway, even if he refuses. I realised that I had stopped offering the second side because I guess I was pre-empting his refusal. I am happy to relax about his weight once I have tried offering him the other side for a while and his percentile stays the same. I've been doing it more since she weighed him and he mostly DOES take a little from the other side. Not much though - he seems pretty full.

Also he was weighed four hours after he was last fed, as he had just woken up from a 3-hour nap and she weighed him first and then I fed him, so that will have affected his weight a bit, she said. And he was weighed on a day where I had been unwell for 3 days (I was better by the next day though) with some weird sinusy dizzy thing that I couldn't figure out for ANYTHING, but which oddly seemed to noticably affect my milk supply. It bounced back up after I felt better though, but anyway she said that could have affected it too. She is going to weigh him on Wednesday just to see how he's doing, but she is happy with him as he is.

Wednesday is a big day for the boys. We are going to the clinic to have vaccinations done :( Matthew is having his first round of the 6-in-1 Hibb booster, and I've made a double appointment because Arthur is going to have his MMR. I am horribly nervous about it. But it just needs DOING, and then it's done. We'll be doing the playgroup scene like crazy (I expect) from September and measles is at its highest rate in 20 years in this country. I delayed the MMR for a while but always intended him to have it, so I guess it's time. I hope hope hope it's all going to be okay though. I'm sure it WILL be, but it's easy to get nervous with all the hype, you know? Anyway, fun fun Wednesday, Calpol at the ready, etc! I will be glad when it's over and done with, and I just hope they don't suffer too much with side effects.

Oh, I know what else I meant to catch up on! We have had two visits with Neil's sister and her baby girl, Ella, since Matthew was born! The first one was when Matthew was a couple of weeks old and they came to visit us. I found a few photos on my camera of Arthur entertaining Ella with a muslin cloth on the sofa (!!):

Funny boy! I love how Ella was clapping him in that last one, hehe! Anyway then we drove to see them (an hour away) a few weekends ago because Neil's mum and youngest sister were staying with them and they still hadn't met Matthew yet. It was a lovely afternoon but SUCH a total nightmare getting there and back, to the point where we had to decide not to do that kind of drive again. We have put a limit on car journeys now, based on what the boys can tolerate, which is pretty short at the moment - only 30 minutes. Any longer than that and the journey is a totally stressed out nightmare for everyone, and we end up having to stop at least twice to calm Matthew down or something, and we end up frazzled and late for the thing we were driving to, and Matthew is just exhausted and sobbing and overheated and Arthur is getting fed up too. It's just not worth it. People will have to come to us for a while. But it was nice to see everyone while we were there, and they made us a lovely lunch (which they had to keep warm in the oven for a while!) and it was great to see Ella, and to watch Neil's mum proudly holding another new grandchild.

Ella had a push-along car thingy that converted so you could ride it, and Arthur LOVED that! He rode it a lot in their garden:

Even better, they had a black rabbit called Harry, and Arthur could not get enough of trying to see Harry at ALL times, while Harry tried desperately to escape and hide all over the garden! Arthur isn't (yet) the kind of toddler who bears down on small creatures and birds aggressively at high speed, thank goodness! He just wants to see them, and stands back a bit, but if they go out of sight then he wants to find them so he can see them again. Here he is watching Harry, who is frantically disappearing at a run out of the shot, hehehe!

I love this photo of Arthur and Ella with their lovely attentive daddies! It was just a random shot of various happenings around the garden while we were all out there, but I love it because it captures how lovely Neil is at playing with Arthur and how careful and attentive Leigh is with Ella. He is such a nice guy, and such a lovely father. Ella is walking now, and she kept trying to keep up with Arthur, but he just RUNS all the time and poor Ella just kept getting left to watch him! She'll be keeping up with him in no time though, I'm sure. Anyway, the photo!

I keep forgetting that Matthew and Ella share the same birthday! How amazing that is! She's such a sweet little girl, and she smiles prettily and waves and is just generally completely adorable! It was so nice to see them.

Urgh this entry is soooooo long and it's getting so late. I need to go to bed! But I have SO much more to say and soooo many photos to post yet!

Here are a couple of photos that I love (taken when Matthew was about 4 weeks old, and not quite at the peak of his hatred of car journeys!) - Neil took the boys out for a short drive to the park to give me a break to rest one Saturday, and they both fell asleep in the car (very unusual for either of them actually!). When he got home they still hadn't woken, so he came inside and fetched me to see them, and I took a couple of photos. That's when we really realised we suddenly had a car full of boys! I mean, only TWO boys, and tiny ones at that, but the car was full! You can't fit another car seat between theirs, even in our big car. It was just full of sleeping boys :)

Okay that is all for now. I think I'll just have to save the rest for another entry, which I'll TRY to get done soon. Matthew seems to have slept fine with me typing away and hasn't stirred any more than usual, so maybe it'll be okay to try to go online more often? I still feel funny about it though. It's like I'm invading his sleeping space and it just doesn't feel right somehow. Anyway I will try to get updated and all the photos posted soon, and then hopefully not leave it so long before catching up again! Back soon I hope!