Arthur's 2nd Birthday (lots of photos)

Sooo behind again! But here, at last, is the entry about Arthur's birthday, which was 3 days ago!

My baby is twooooooo!!! Waaah!

And now I shall compose myself and tell you all about his special day :) Neil has taken the boys to the park (it's Sunday) so I have a window to update here. I need to hurry though, and I have 28 (yes, twenty-eight!) photos to post in this entry (sorry if the page takes ages to load!) so I had better make it fairly brief on the actual typing! I need to write another entry today if I get the chance, because I have other things to write about and more recent photos, which just can't go in with a special entry all about Arthur's second birthday! But if I don't write about those things soon then they'll become past news and I'll have new things to write about AGAIN which will have to wait till I've caught up with the old stuff. Again. So, on with the entry!

Arthur had a lovely birthday! Thank you all so much for the birthday greetings for him and the sweet comments on the entry about his birthday party! Those were all so nice to read! :)

I took photos throughout the day on his birthday, and here they all are! When he got up, he ate "see-youl" (cereal) for breakfast and then played happily with his cars for a while:

The postman came and brought an eBay package that contained a couple of pairs of warm winter mittens for Arthur! They are a bit big but oh well. Arthur loved them and wanted to try them on straight away!

The postman brought other things for Arthur but we had decided to go to the farm in the morning and open presents and cards later in the day, so we subtley put those aside while he enjoyed his new mittens! We ran late getting the boys ready to go out to the farm and packing lunches, etc, but we finally headed off to the farm at about 11am. We got there at about 11.45 so Arthur's anniversary of his actual birth (11.28am) happened en route to the farm!

Matthew instantly fell asleep and napped the whole journey which worked out wonderfully, and when we arrived at the farm and parked up, we got the biggest surprise when we turned round and saw this:

Arthur never falls asleep in the car any more, unless it's like mid-afternoon and he still hasn't had his nap yet! He always takes an afternoon nap now (after 1pm usually), never in the morning. So we sat in the car and waited for him to wake up. Matthew woke pretty soon after we arrived, but he was as good as gold and didn't make a peep for the first 15 minutes! He is such a good baby :) He just looked around and tried to grab his feet, etc. When he got fidgetty, we walked him around in the car park for a bit (it was colllld though) and then Arthur woke after a half-hour nap. He was hungry so he ate his packed lunch in the car and then Neil put Matthew in the Baby Bjorn on his front, and I dressed Arthur up against the cold - we didn't have a winter hat for him to fit so he wore one of MY hats for a while! He has such a big head for his age! It was big on him, and he took it off after a while, but still. A couple of really nice hats have since arrived from good old eBay, and we've discovered that he SNUGLY fits age 3-5 hats!!! Yikes! But anyway, here are my lovely boys, all ready to go to the farm!

The first thing we came to inside the farm entrance was a big barn which we had to go through to get to the place where you pay to get in. It had different areas in it with different animals. There were cows, goats and sheep. And a big hutch with black rabbits! Arthur looked interested in them and kept breathing, "Wowww!", but he got somewhat wary of them as we got really close up to the bigger animals. We bought a bag of feed for the sheep and goats, and I showed him how to feed the goats. He fed them once with my hand under his, and then said, "Like..." which means, "I don't like that..." and didn't want to see animals any more!

So we went through the barn to the huge open air part of the farm, where Arthur walked around the numerous adventure playgrounds and up over the grassy hills! He especially enjoyed just walking and climbing over the grass and things:

Here is a video clip of Arthur climbing the hill in the above photo - Neil was filming while I took the photo!

He walked further and further till we had to encourage him to turn back a bit, as it was getting a long way to walk back to the farm buildings! After that we wandered around in the farm area for a bit, hence several photos of Arthur standing in large spaces looking at things:

He liked the big tractors and other vehicles. We saw pigs and chickens and ducks outside, which he was interested in, but he didn't like them up close. He liked to wave at them cheerfully from afar, calling, "Heyo Piggy!" or "Heyo Kickin" - very cute! :)

He still didn't want to go back in the big barn and see the bigger animals, so we found some ride-on tractors for under-5s. His little legs were still too short to pedal them, but I pushed him around for a while. He loved the tractors and kept going back to them afterwards!

When we had paid to get in, the lady had told us that Mrs. Pig had her piglets YESTERDAY so we had looked for her (Arthur kept asking, "See pigs? See pigs?" right from the start) but we couldn't find her anywhere. Finally I found a stone enclosure where Mrs. Pig and her babies were, but Arthur was in run-around-madly mode and didn't want to see the pigs. After a while of riding on all the ride-on things, he let us lift him up to see the pigs over the wall.

Here's a little video clip of Arthur seeing the pigs:

Matthew was surprisingly fascinated by them too! Mrs. Pig had ELEVEN babies!!! They were soooo cute. I felt quite akin to her, watching her lying on her side with little scramblers climbing about and suckling away, hehe! Even though I only breastfeed two ;)

I fed some more of our bag of feed to some more sheep and goats (Arthur didn't want to) and we looked at the cows again and some rabbits and guinea pigs and chickens. Arthur liked the ducks outside :) After that, we went to the handwashing station and washed our hands, and then we walked to the lavender garden (they harvest lavender and sell products made from it), which had some benches and a sort of ornamental wagon frame for little ones to climb onto. Arthur and I shared an apple there, and then Arthur sat on the wagon and looked around, pointing at lots of things in the distance and saying, "Wowww, look!" :) Neil took some video footage of him and Matthew never once took his eyes off Arthur from his position on Neil's front! He watches him constantly, whatever he's doing. I managed to catch this in quite a few photos from that day which I'm pleased about! There are only two photos from the whole day with Matthew and Arthur near each other in which Matthew ISN'T looking at Arthur, and one of those was where he was more interested in the pigs, and the other one where they're in their car seats and Matthew just wanted his feet more than anything else in the world! He just adores his big brother. I love watching him so eagerly attentive to him all the time!

Here is a little video clip that Neil took while Arthur was on the wagon (and sharing my apple!):

After the lavender garden, we made our way out of the farm. Arthur didn't want to go home, but we had seen everything and Neil and I were hungry (we had stupidly only packed a snack for us with Arthur's lunch, and it was already after 2pm), and we suddenly realised that Matthew had been over 3 hours since he was last fed! Matthew was SO good, we kept on saying to each other how wonderful he was being! We were just so proud of him. He didn't cry or fuss or want to get out of the sling ONCE in the whole 2+ hours that we were there. He slept well in the car on the way to the farm and didn't fuss while we waited for Arthur to wake. He had been 3.5 hours since his last feed at home and he still wasn't fussing. He is a very alert baby and always extremely interested in the world around him, so I think he must have just been enjoying the outing so much that he didn't think about food! But it was so nice that he was so good. It made the outing even nicer for Arthur, that we didn't have to stop and focus on Matthew at any point.

Anyway, so we figured it was time to go home. Arthur went on another tractor thingy that wouldn't go anywhere, back at the entrance to the farm:

Then he was very excited to go up to a big tractor that's there for viewing and climbing on. He wanted to sit on the seat and "drive" so I lifted him up. The light wasn't very good for photos by then, so they've come out a bit bright and dark all at once, but here they are anyway:

Then we went back to the car and drove home. Here are the boys all strapped in and ready to head home!

Matthew napped (amazingly!) all the way home in the car, and when we got home I nursed him which he was very happy about, since it had been 4 hours since his last feed by then! I can't get over how GOOD he was! Lovely boy :)

When we got home, we continued with "things that Arthur would like to do on his birthday" - after Matthew was fed, Arthur got to snuggle with me on the sofa and have some milk. Neil took a photo of him breastfeeding on his first birthday, and so we thought it would be lovely to have a photo of him breastfeeding on his second birthday too. Did I mention how ULTRA PROUD I am to have made it to 2 years, and still be nursing my two-year-old?!!! I'm sooooooooooo happy I made my goal! I'm so incredibly thrilled to still be breastfeeding Arthur at age two. Yay!

After he had some Mummy-milk, we brought out the last of his birthday cake with extra Smarties and new candles to blow out! He ate a little slice of cake (very happily!):

After the cake, Matthew went for a nap and Arthur opened his presents and cards from us and from people who sent things in the post. He got a little Postman Pat train and figure (not actually Postman Pat - some other character from the programme) from Millie, one of my online M.E. friends, some paintbrushes and pencils and a video of a farm story that I don't know from Grandma, and some lovely cards.

Neil and I gave him a whoopee cushion (found a self-inflating one on eBay for a couple of quid!), a wooden train set and a dress-up Noddy soft toy. Here he is opening his presents!

He wanted to play with his train set so we put some of the tracks together and he played with that for a while. He got very frustrated (much banging of forehead on floor *sigh*) when the trains came off the tracks by accident, but otherwise he LOVED the train set! Here he is playing with that right after he opened it:

Arthur loved his whoopee cushion! We took a while to get some good farting sounds from it, but he laughed and laughed till he hiccuped! I may have a nice video clip of that for you soon![edited to add: here it is!]

He still loves the whoopee cushion and requests "Mummy, sit!" on it, several times a day!

He also loved his Noddy and gave it cuddles! Also Noddy had to be put to the breast very carefully (by Arthur) after Arthur had had some more milk! Arthur even tasted Noddy's nose just to be sure I had really given him some milk! He didn't show loads of interest in the dress-up activities on Noddy, but he played with Noddy for a long while :)

It was so nice to breastfeed Arthur on demand on his birthday :) He nursed a lot, and I'm sure he would have done so a lot more if we hadn't been out and active part of the day. He ate his sandwiches really well for lunch, and the apple at the farm. He ate yoghurt-covered raisins too, but he didn't have tea. He had lots of breastmilk during the afternoon and wasn't hungry for tea. He did have a cereal bar before bed, and obviously a bit of birthday cake! He had a few Smarties as a treat at the farm as well, which he was so excited about :)

After he opened all his presents and played with them a bit, Matthew got up from his nap, and Arthur blew raspberries for the fun of it, anywhere he could find a suitable "surface" to blow on! This was mostly Daddy's bicep, as it amused Matthew, who was on Daddy's lap at the time :)

The last big activity that Arthur wanted to do on his birthday before bed was to empty the dishwasher, hehe! This child LOVES household chores - he always has done, from before he could walk! He especially loves to fold clothes and process the laundry (in and out of the washing machine and tumble dryer), and his very favourite thing is the dishwasher. He helps to empty it every time and knows where everything goes. I often find the spoon drawer awash with spoons, big and small, where Arthur has taken them one-by-one from the dishwasher and dropped them over the edge of the open drawer :) He's such a sweetie. Here he is helping Daddy unload the dishwasher:

The very last photo of Arthur on his birthday was taken during some fun rough-and-tumble time with Daddy - another thing he enjoys immensely!! I really like this photo because it has caught the feeling of the moment well, and I like that it's against a backdrop of party decorations, on his birthday :) He was being eaten alive in this photo, hehe!

Then he got ready for bed, read the Toddler's Bible ("Mummy, read Buh-boo!") and breastfed TO SLEEP, which I never really do for him at bedtime any more. But it was the perfect end to the perfect day for Arthur, and I was gladder than glad to do it. He nursed to sleep pretty quickly as he was tired after his exciting day!

And that was Arthur's 2nd birthday! I think he had a lovely day. He was more wary of the farm animals than we'd expected, but there were other things to do at the farm so it was fine. We have quite a bit of video footage from the farm and of him opening presents - and especially him trying out his new whoopee cushion, haha! I am behind on writing this entry because I had planned to get both the photos AND the video clips up for posting in the entry about his birthday. But I still haven't had a moment to make the video clips and upload them, and time is passing, so I had to just do the photos and write the entry. I'll hopefully get a couple of birthday clips up soon though. Maybe I'll just add them to this entry when they're done, and mention that I've done so in another entry, just in case anyone wants to see them.

I took Matthew and Arthur to the baby clinic the day after Arthur's birthday, so I have that to write about in another entry - hopefully this evening if I get the chance. I got Arthur's weight and height so that I could have accurate "stats" for his 2nd birthday :) I'll write about that later, and also other stat-type-things for his 2nd birthday, if I remember! And loads to write about Matthew! He's nearly 5 months old and growing and changing all the time! I neeed to write about my sweetest tiny boo! But his lovely big brother has had reason to take the limelight here for a week or so :) Such a big boy I have now! A 2-year-old!!! I have a 2-year-old. Wow. I can hardly believe it.

Arthur's 2nd Birthday Party!!

It's late AGAIN, but I absolutely have to write about Arthur's birthday party before I end up with a TON of new stuff to write about as well, from his actual birthday tomorrow.

We left it pretty late to organise anything for his birthday, party-wise, because we just didn't know what to do. I really wanted to do something though. He doesn't seem old enough, in himself, for a children's party yet though. I mean, he doesn't have a circle of friends yet, he's too little to have "made" friends in any case. I think a children's party would have been for me rather than Arthur, and since he hasn't really socialised much yet it seemed odd to gather a bunch of kids and throw a party this year. I really want everything about Arthur's birthday to be what HE would like best. What he likes best is adult family members, at the moment. He likes the attention and enjoys interacting and playing with adults way more than other children. He loves to follow and imitate older children, but not those of his own age, and we really don't have any older children to invite! So we did exactly the same as for his first birthday - we invited family to a little party for him on Sunday morning. We had planned to go to church but that morning was the only time everyone could make it. It had to be the weekend before his birthday and not after, because my parents were only here that weekend.

The day before his party, I made his birthday cake - milk chocolate cake (with evaporated milk in it) with chocolate fudge icing and smarties on top! I made it in the shape of a car, because that's what Arthur chose when I asked him if he wanted a cake shaped like a car or a train. It had a big number '2' in Smarties on the top, and two candles. I can NOT believe that for the second year running, I did not get a photo of the actual cake! Last year I took a couple of stills from the camcorder, but this year I didn't. There is a video clip of me carrying the cake in and us singing Happy Birthday, etc, and you can see it quite well in that, so that will have to do! I'll post that clip in a minute.

First, here is Arthur helping me to mix his own birthday cake, the day before his party :)

The party went SO well! Even better than last year, everybody said so! We were so pleased. My parents were there, and my grandparents, and my brother and his pregnant Sarah (not showing yet (14 weeks) though she said her uterus had "popped up" 4 days earlier and she could feel it - how exciting!!!). And I'm soooo happy that Neil's sister and her hubby came with sweet little Ella! Also Neil's brother, Ian, came too. He couldn't make it last year, and nor could Leigh (Ella's daddy), so it was a bigger party than last year. Ella is 16 months old now! She is SO so pretty and such a sweetie. She is saying some words and very sociable. The age gap is beginning to close between her and Arthur, which is lovely. They are only 7 months apart. It was hard to believe that Matthew will be that age at Arthur's next birthday - he and Ella share the exact same birthday, one year apart! I can't imagine Matthew walking and chatting and stuff. But anyway, I digress!

So it was lovely. Our little living room was FULL of people, and since that's our only room downstairs (apart from the very messy and small kitchen), that was the only place for everyone to be. Everyone sat on the sofas or on chairs in a circle around the room, which seemed odd in some ways because there was this ring of adults all looking on at ONE child on his birthday (with Ella popping in and out of the circle!), but then, Arthur LOVED it. He loves all the family and he loves attention like that :) So it was perfect for everyone. Everyone loved seeing Arthur, of course!

Anyway. After Arthur went to bed the night before the party, Neil and I were up till like 2am getting ready. Urgh. We had so much tidying to do and stuff. We left a LOT of stuff untidy and un-cleaned, but we also had to put up the decorations we'd decided to have. We had balloons (saying, "Happy 2nd Birthday!") hanging from the ceiling from gold string, so that little ones could be lifted up to bop them :) And I recycled a huge pile of Arthur's paintings (which were only going to turn into a big out-of-hand stack, or else break my heart by having to be thrown away in the end!), by making two templates of the number 2, one big and one small, and cutting out a bazillion of them from his paintings. I hung them up amongst the balloons with gold string. They looked pretty and colourful and in a way, Arthur had made them himself as he had done the paintings. Everyone liked those anyway :) We also had balloons on the front door with ribbons, like last year. I just like that kind of touch :) I kept the withered old balloons with their ribbons from his first birthday, the ones that said "Happy 1st Birthday!" and went on the front door. I know I will never be able to part from them! I found them at the weekend as I was digging around for decorations to use. It was quite a heart-squeezing moment! Suddenly it felt craaazy that a whole year had passed since I took those balloons down, already! Here are the ceiling decorations during the party:

After everyone arrived, Matthew went for a nap, and ended up sleeping almost 3 hours - right through the rest of the party until after everyone had gone home! I'm glad everyone had a chance to see him before he went to sleep - Uncle Ian had never met his newest nephew before! Everyone said how much he has grown and commented on his hair - it's suddenly growing in like crazy. I mean, every day for the past 4 days it has been visibly longer, more coverage of his head than the day before. It's brown, not blonde or red! He has really kept us guessing, hehe! It does have a lot of blonde in it, so I'm sure he'll be fairer than Arthur, but his general hair colour is definitely brown. It's filling in so fast. He already looks so much older to me, just from having hair :( I just want time to slow down!

Anyway so then we did the birthday cake thing, and Arthur did a good job of trying to blow his candles out. He blew soooo gently that they barely flickered, so I helped him. Once he got applause for the first candle being blown out, he seemed more motivated to blow the second one, but I still had to help him. He LOVED the Smarties. He has never had any before, and he ate them first, from his piece of cake! :) The cake turned out really well, and I'm pleased! It was yummy! We still have a small part of it left and we're going to add more Smarties to the icing and put the two candles in it again for another round of "Happy Birthday" with blowing out the candles again tomorrow! Only, with just Arthur, Matthew, Mummy and Daddy this time.

Okay, here is the video clip of the birthday cake part :)

Here's Arthur sitting up with my brother to eat his cake, and then a sweet photo of Ella enjoying her piece!

After birthday cake had been eaten and the plates moved out of the way, we let Arthur open his presents and cards from everyone. We gave him his cards to open first, and he was so sweet, he was so excited about each one of them and never seemed to want to shove them aside to get to the presents! He exclaimed, "Oh, WOW!" at the pictures on the fronts and opened the cards to "read" them. I read the words to him and he got a Noddy badge on one of them which he was thrilled with.

The first present he opened was from Bennie and Sarah, and it was a little Thomas the Tank Engine push along toy, with battery-operated sounds. You can switch it to "train sounds" or the theme from Thomas the Tank Engine. He was so excited!! He loves Thomas the Tank Engine - a newly discovered thing for Arthur, but he has taken to it straight away and just loves it! It was attached to the cardboard packaging the way all children's toys seem to be these days - you know, bound with wires in high security fashion, almost impossible to un-pick! He had a good go at it for a while, and eventually just said, "Mummy?" and when I said, "Yes, Arthur?" he said, "Get it" and handed it to me, hehe! He could hardly wait for me to unpack it, and then he just sat strumming the back wheel, which is the part that makes the music as you push it along the floor. He wouldn't push it on the floor, he just wanted to flick the wheel to make the sound, funny boy! He played with it constantly for the rest of the party, and indeed the rest of the DAY, only putting it down briefly to unwrap another present, before picking it up again and strumming away at the back wheel! He completely loves it. The sweetest thing is, he has been "sharing" it with Matthew this week, which really tells me how much he loves Matthew. Matthew is enthralled with it too! His eyes go all bug-like with eagerness and he grapples at it because furious grappling makes it play the tune, and Matthew loves the tune to play :) Sweet boys!

Here is Arthur opening the Thomas the Tank Engine toy!

He also got a Bob the Builder tool set - including hat! - from Ella and her mummy and daddy, which Ella loved as much as Arthur did:

He got TWO Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs from Nana and Grandy, which he has watched WAY too much already - he loves them to bits. He keeps asking to "wat' train now", no matter if we only switched it off 10 minutes ago! He loves it. He recognises the engines by name already and gets really concerned when the engines have a crash or something or go off the rails. He always draws my attention to it, even if I have already seen that episode 5 times already and know what has happened. He says, "Oh no!" and then "train fall!" and then looks so upset about it. When I say cheerfully, "Never mind, he'll be alright in a minute!" he looks at me and says in a small voice, "Cuggle train?" So sweet! At the moment, if anyone falls or gets hurt, they have to have a cuddle from Mummy, according to Arthur :) Apparently this includes trains on the TV who fall down after de-railing! He really wants me to somehow reach into the TV and give the train a cuddle, he seems so concerned for them! He's such a sweetie pie.

Here is Arthur opening the DVDs - he is really into unwrapping presents this year, much more so than last year!

After that he played with his train and had people push it back and forth with him, and just generally seemed REALLY happy, which was lovely! :)

Here's a little clip of him playing (ish!) with Ella, with his train. He shares pretty nicely, but he is getting more to the age now where he's starting to want toys when he wants them. He is always generous with them though. He shares with Matthew by giving Matthew a toy (placed right under his nose or into his hands), and then after a few seconds of looking pleased with what he has done and watching Matthew play with what he brought for him, he says, "Ah-yah turn!" and takes it back! I am teaching him about turns and he is practising it a lot with Matthew. He is happy and generous as long as he gets his turn when he wants it! If I tell him it's still Matthew's turn, he gets upset and cross, but he does then try getting another toy to replace for Matthew so that he can get the toy he wants from Matthew. Clever boy :)

Anyway - the clip!

A bit later on he had his lunch, some cheese sandwiches, sitting with everyone in the living room instead of banished to the kitchen table, hehe! He had a lap-tray and was very pleased about it! Thomas the Tank had to sit right next to him while he ate. Arthur was very specific about where Thomas had to sit!

Ella ate her sandwich lunch too, and after lunch everyone was still here and chatting, and Ella played with Arthur's enormous array of toys while Arthur - guess what?! - spent some more happy time pushing Thomas the Tank Engine around the floor and strumming his back wheels for the sound effects! :)

After that, my grandparents went home and the rest of us went out into the rather cold and muddy NEWLY-FINISHED back garden!!! People wanted to see what Neil had done (most of them knew the dump it was beforehand!) and Arthur and Ella seemed really excited about getting their coats and shoes on and going outside for a bit, so we all went out. There's nothing much for little ones to do out there yet, no outdoor toys or anything, but they had so much fun all the same! They stood around just looking at the space and squealling with delight! Arthur ran back and forth and Ella watched him and squealed, and they did some jumping and cute little dancing together, and Ella kept wanting to give Arthur huge bear hugs which Arthur seemed thrilled to receive. They get on so well, they are SO cute together! Here are some lovely photos of them, so you can see what I mean!

And by the way, here is that end of the garden (where Arthur and Ella were standing in the photos) in July. The official "before" photo!

Here is the other end of the garden, before Neil's hard work!

Neil did a great job!! :)

After we went in the garden for a while, everybody went home, and my parents headed back to France on the overnight ferry :( Arthur had a nap, and after his nap he was still so excited about the garden that he insisted on going out there again with Daddy in the last light of the day, just to run and throw the ball about a bit. I put Matthew down for a nap while they were out there, and the muffled shouts and happy squeals coming from outside were just so sweet and heart-warming that I snuck into the kitchen and stood next to the noisy tumble dryer, filming them through the window with the camcorder. I just wanted to record it, because it felt like such a nice moment after such a lovely day. Here's what I got on camera:

Arthur had such a lovely day! It all went so wonderfully and we were so happy about that, and so pleased that everyone came. It would have been completely perfect if Neil's mum and youngest sister could have been there, but they live too far away and we didn't give much notice before the party anyway. But it was lovely!! I'm so happy!

Tomorrow is Arthur's actual birthday! He's really going to be two. I have gazed at my two babies' age tickers at the bottom of my diary this evening, seeing them both aged in months together for the last time. I will need to take my '2 under 2!' blinkie off :( I wonder if I'll ever use it again? I think I would be NUTS if I did! ;) So probably not.

It's soooooo late. I need to go to bed, because a) I'm exhausted like always, and b) we have a fun day planned for Arthur tomorrow and I need my sleep for it! I wrapped Arthur's presents from Neil and I this evening, or I should probably say, from Neil, Matthew and I! It was lovely to sign his birthday card from "Mummy, Daddy and Matthew" for the first time :) He is going to open one present in the morning (he won't know he has any others till later!) and his cards, and we'll do the birthday cake again just before we go out mid-morning.

We are going to take Arthur to a local-ish farm - it's one I went to with my local M.E. support group (hello any AYMErs who still read this!!!) shortly after I got healed of M.E. We saw lots of lambs being born and stuff then, but this time of year there will be animals to see close up, and you can pet some of them and feed them, and there are little animals too, like rabbits and hamsters. There are playgrounds and things that I know Arthur will just LOVE. When I went there with the M.E. group, I was nowhere near having children yet, but I remember thinking to myself that I would bring my own children there one day when I finally had some! And now I'm doing it!! I know Arthur will love it - if he doesn't surprise us by being all anxious about animals close-up, that is! He loves animals in books and on TV, and does pretend play about them all the time. He loves farm vehicles like tractors, and he LOVES just being outdoors and playgrounds and stuff. We thought hard about what he might really enjoy doing as a treat, and we think this is it. Either that or a real train trip on a children's railway thing, but there isn't one local enough anyway.

After the farm we'll have packed lunch in the car on the way home and then Arthur should conk out for a good nap. After his nap we are going to let him open the rest of his presents and then do whatever he wants to do with the rest of his day. He might want to play with his presents, but the things he asks to do most often these days are going out to the park, going in the garden, and painting. He loves painting. We did painting this afternoon, actually. He painted three pictures and figured out how to use the glass jar that held the paintbrushes as a printing tool to make circles when he turned it upside down and dipped it in the paint! He loves messy crafts!

So tomorrow will be all about my sweet lil Arthur Boo! My big boy. I can't believe how the time has gone already. And yet it also feels like forever. Tomorrow he also gets to breastfeed on demand. I don't care one jot about whether he eats food or not for tomorrow. He prefers to breastfeed, and I am not about to refuse him tomorrow, not once, if he asks to nurse. I am happy and relieved about that plan! :) I am pretty sure he'll want to eat birthday cake though!

This time two years ago I had been in labour ALL day long, and in the birth pool in our living room for the past few hours. It was at about this time (half past midnight) that it was becoming too unbearable and I had stopped progressing, and we decided I would transfer to hospital for pain relief. Man that was one LONG night! But joy came in the morning :) He was worth every nanosecond of pain, ten times over. I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Arthur was born at 11.28am, and so tomorrow he will be two years old from that time. We'll be at the farm :) I wonder what we'll be doing every year to come at 11.28am? Some years he will be at school at that time. I can't imagine any future years. Time just stands still where I am, because there is so much to take in. I want to stop and smell the roses while I have the chance. I know the season will pass all too quickly and he'll be all grown up before I am ready for it!

Tonight while I breastfed him in bed with the lights out, I prayed out loud for God to bless him, and thanked my wonderful God for the precious gift he gave me in this lovely little boy. I thanked him for the past two years, and prayed for Arthur's next year ahead. I prayed that God would help me be a really good mummy to Arthur this year. I prayed for a good day tomorrow. It felt wonderful to do that with Arthur right there at my breast, listening. I told him before I started, "Mummy is going to talk to Jesus now, and say thank you for her lovely Arthur, and ask God to bless us." Arthur just said, "Yep!" and latched on happily as I began to pray :) It was lovely.

Two days left...

Ohhhhhh my gosh, he's going to be TWO! I sort of want to freeze time all of a sudden! Two more days of having my little one's age called by months rather than years. Two more days of having two children under two (my most strenuous achievement in life to date!). Two more days until he really really becomes an official "little boy", more than a baby.

But, two more days until I am the proud mummy of a two-year-old! Two more days until I almost pop with proud satisfaction of the fact that I will have reached my original breastfeeding goal of TWO YEARS!!! I am so so so so proud of myself. I know it's not quite time to say it yet, but I doubt he'll self-wean tomorrow (!!), so I really think we are going to make it - two years breastfeeding!!! That's a goal that has taken a long time to wait for. Two years feels like forever. It feels like forever since Arthur arrived. I can't really remember things well before then. I mean, obviously I CAN, but not in detail. I can't remember how I felt without having Arthur around any more. Or what it felt like to wonder what it might be like to be a mummy and have a little one.

Anyway. I can't wait to replace the 18-month breastfeeding milestone blinkie with the 2 year one that I have had waiting for a while!! I have always felt that I would like to breastfeed my children for a minimum of two years. Nothing to do with the fact that it's the WHO's recommendation - it's just my own personal desire. But back in those first few weeks and months with Arthur, I didn't really believe that I'd still be breastfeeding him as a two-year-old. I felt sure he'd self-wean before then - lots of toddlers do. But I remember thinking if he self-weaned before the age of two, I would feel sad, like I never quite made it to giving him ALL that I had hoped, with breastfeeding. Obviously it wouldn't have mattered because he would have had all that he wanted, hence him choosing to wean of his own volition. But anyway. I am pretty sure I'll feel sad when he does eventually wean, whatever his age, but I know I have achieved what I wanted to achieve, for Arthur and for me, if he has been breastfed for two years. So yay! I am so proud and happy and excited to have made that goal after all this time! I hope for the same with Matthew, and any other children that I have, but just as with Arthur, I feel doubtful that Matthew will get to the age of two without self-weaning. Maybe it's just a "thing" that I feel, and it's not true. Although Matthew is different to Arthur with breastfeeding. He likes MEALS, not snacks. If he isn't hungry, he is annoyed that I'm shoving the breast at him (!!), whereas Arthur always eagerly took the breast any time I offered it, hungry or not! Arthur still depends somewhat on nursing to fall asleep at nap time, though he can go to sleep without (after having nursed to get sleepy). Matthew doesn't depend on that, even at his young age. So I think that sets Matthew up for a greater likelihood of self-weaning earlier than Arthur. I still hope we make it to two though!

Arthur is two this week. Matthew is 5 months old next week. Waaah! I know they're both still sooooo little, but it seems like time is just zipping away and they're growing up quickly. It's nice in some ways to leave the terribly hard early months behind, but I miss other things about that stage too.

I am still having good days and bad days. Bad days seem reeeally bad. Yesterday was one. My parents' visit has just vanished and now they're back in France. Yesterday Neil went back to work (he had some time off last week, as well as my parents' being around - it was lovely!), and my Mummy was not here for the first time in a week, and the day sucked and I felt exhausted and yeah. Today is better. We have been to the supermarket, and because Matthew was crying so much in the car, I put them in the tandem pushchair (we have a Jane Powertwin), having forgotten the sling (tsk!) as it would give him a better chance of dropping off to sleep while I shopped, than if he was perched in an uncomfy baby seat on a shopping trolley. People always look when I have the boys in the Powertwin. It's a lovely pushchair and quite eye-catching. It looks very smart! The basket underneath held all the stuff I wanted to buy, and Matthew went to sleep so I ended up deciding to push them into town to let him sleep for 30 minutes or so. I bought a birthday card for somebody special :) And some glue and glitter shakers. I feel a new craft activity coming on for Arthur! He LOVES crafts, and I love that I am providing that kind of fun for him already. We have a lot of supplies. I had been looking forward to doing stuff like that with my kids for so long that I bought or saved things for it long before he was old enough to do it! Now we have marker pens for toddlers, pencils, crayons, TONS of paper (all colours), craft card, stickers galore, playdough and a bazillion cutters, paints and finger paints, paintbrushes and BIG sheets of paper for painting on, and a big floor mat to protect the room while we do stuff! There are more things for sticking and more fiddly crafts that he isn't old enough for yet - some of them are left over from when *I* was little! I loved craft activities with my mummy when I was little.

I bought some black card recently and I have just been waiting for the right moment to introduce Arthur to glue and glitter! Messy, methinks, but fun. He is really keen on stickers right now. He makes pictures with stickers. I just sit him down with paper and spread stickers all around him and he goes right to work, with excited cries of, "Oooh, dee-gers!" I can't wait to do glittery stuff!

I have SO many photos to post, that I don't know what to do about it! Mainly because we had Arthur's birthday party on Sunday, and of course there are lots of photos and some video clips from that. I should post those in a seperate entry, or it will be too long, but I also have a few photos from before the party, during the time my Mummy was around helping me with the boys.

Here is Arthur doing stickers with Nana:

And the lovely Nana with her newest grandson - who has taken to her just as much as Arthur always has!

And a couple of others - Neil took this photo of Arthur being all joyful and proud of a HUGE tower that he built with his mega bloks! Neil said he helped him make the tower stable at the base and Arthur did the rest! He loves to build. LOVES it.

And a photo for my personal records - I have a thumb-sucker! Matthew is using the dummy less and less these days, his choice really, not ours. He doesn't use it much anyway, but lately he wants to suck on his fingers or thumb to help him sleep. He seems to be settling to his thumb. I think it's the sweetest thing! Arthur never did anything like that, but then he literally used me as a pacifier, and I was happy with that. Except for the HUGE sleep deprivation that came with it! I couldn't do that this time, so I wondered if Matthew might self-soothe in ways that Arthur never did. I love seeing him all cosied up to sleep, sucking on his tiny thumb :) Here he is, fast asleep a few days ago in his cotbed:

Okay I guess that should be it for tonight. I wanted to write more and I REALLY want to get that entry up about Arthur's party before his actual birthday. I will have lots more to write about after his birthday, so I wanted to get the party entry done first. But it's late, yet again, and I should call it a night before Matthew wakes for a feed. He is teething pretty badly this week. We have had to give him Calpol most evenings, otherwise he wakes crying by 9pm, poor love. He woke this evening crying anyway, even though he'd had Calpol. He is very windy and archy-backy with his teething, and has a nappy rash too. Poor sausage. His gums are so hot and feel "sharper" than they did a couple of weeks ago. No actual teeth, but urgh, all that moving around in there, it must be so achy and sore for him. I hope it passes soon!

Anyway, must go to bed. I'll try to update tomorrow with the party photos and video clips! And then my baby boy will be TWO! We are doing some special things on his birthday. But I'll write about that tomorrow. I hope I get chance to update tomorrow evening! Thanks so much for the messages - yes, November 5th WAS Arthur's due date anniversary :) It made it feel quite fitting that we had his birthday party that day, even though it was 4 days BEFORE his actual birthday. We've been so busy with birthday things that I have barely noticed Fireworks Night come and go. Lots of noise and stuff every evening, but the boys are sleeping through it so that's good! Okay, must go. Back tomorrow, I hope.

Nearly TWO!

Sooooooooooo behind here again!! Thanks so much for all the reassuring messages after my last entry re. endoscopies, etc! I meant to respond in more detail to some of the messages but alas I have no time to even write a diary entry tonight. I SO need to catch up on some recent stuff and some photos so I will do one anyway, even if I'm up a bit later than I should be. Otherwise it'll just start to bug me that I haven't written about things.

In about 2 minutes I have to go and make the pasta sauce but after dinner I'll try to continue and at least post a few photos.

I had a tummy bug last weekend! My first in over a decade!!! But no throwing up, thank GOODNESS!! I felt like being sick for 3 hours straight on Saturday evening. It reminded me soooo much of morning sickness. I forgot how horrid than can be! I just figured it was a particularly bad case of IBS, as I seem to have problems with nausea a lot and it coincides with bad IBS so I put them down to the same cause. For that reason alone, I didn't freak out about the nausea too much, as I never actually vomit with even extreme nausea with my IBS. But I then spent the ENTIRE night on the toilet, and got 45 minutes sleep. Thankfully the nausea eased off around midnight so I didn't have to panic too much about being sick once I realised it wasn't IBS! It seems to have taken me ages to recover though. I had further toilet-y problems the whole next day and night, and didn't eat, and had a temperature during that time. I got really dehydrated, but I did manage to drink hideous dioralyte so I'm glad of that. My milk seemed to almost dry up in the end, and I restricted Arthur's feeds right down to save what I had for Matthew. He was fine. I nursed him as frequently as I could to give him antibodies, and Arthur still nursed when he'd finished, for nap and bedtime. Neither of them caught it though, and nor did Neil. Weird. I have no idea where I got it, and everything I had eaten in the previous 48 hours was either something harmless like marmite on toast, or something that Neil ate as well. And he was fine. So I guess it was a bug.

Anyway. I am better now! Neil had to take Monday and Tuesday off work (again - thankfully they didn't make a big thing about it) because I couldn't even hold Matthew, let alone do anything upright involving my muscles (!!). I just got soooo weak. My legs still shake today if I do too much but otherwise I'm fine. It took me a long time to eat normally too, in fact today is my first day of a vaguely normal diet. I could eat marmite on toast after a couple of days, but anything else made me feel instantly really nauseous. Weird.

I also got a reeeally sore breast while I was recovering, while my milk supply was low. Just a patch that hurt like diddly, but it wasn't red and I didn't have a high temperature, so it wasn't mastitis. I massaged it while the boys were nursing, and otherwise just hoped my milk would hurry up and return. Fast-flowing milk seems to fix the bruisey feelings I have had in the past so I hoped it would again. My milk improved loads a couple of days ago, and today it's back to letting-down and leaking randomly, and the painful patch has all but gone, so that's a relief.

I kept forgetting to write here that a couple of weeks ago my weight was down to 9st 6lbs, almost 3 stone lost since the end of my pregnancy!!!! Last week I weighed 9st 5lbs, and I lost weight with my tummy bug - I was 8st 12lbs after that. But I know I'll put some back on now I'm getting back to normal. But even so that's like 42lbs lost, or something near that. That's a LOT! Today I realised I could fit into the trousers and jeans I was wearing before I got pregnant with Matthew - size 12 again, yay!!!! I was size 10 in jeans before Arthur, but I don't think I ever will be again. My shape is just permanently different, since having children. Not bad different, just matter-of-fact different. More so since Matthew than after just one baby. But I'm HAPPY to be back in size 12 jeans! Once I was out of maternity jeans after I had Matthew, I was finding size 16 a squeeze! My wedding ring fits my finger again too, but still a little snugly. I must remember to put in on more, after all these months/years of not fitting it and thus being out of the habit of wearing it! I love wearing my wedding ring :) I love wearing my engagement ring with it, but the two together are actually too small for my finger still, and anyway you can't really wear rocks and look after babies. Too easy to scratch them, etc. So that's okay. I'll put it away for now.

Okay, back from dinner!

It's Arthur's 2nd birthday in SIX DAYS!!! That's toooo soon! I feel a mixture of excitement, sadness, disbelief and pride, over the fact that my baby boy will be a two-year-old soon. There. That's the very short version of a LONG waffly diary entry all about my feelings on that! ;)

Matthew is waking. I'll have to try and write a little more once he's asleep again after I feed him.

Back. He's sooooooooooo sweet! I love feeding a sleepy baby in dim light all snuggled up to me in my bed :)

My parents arrived on Tuesday (it's Friday night now) and Mummy has been here every day playing with Arthur and generally being wonderfully helpful around the house. She took Arthur out for a walk twice, and he LOVES spending time with Nana. He always asks for Gan-gy (Grandy) as well though, and Grandy has been very busy with work while they're here (he owns a business in London) and also helping his own parents - Grandoug had surgery for something on Monday and so he helped fetch him from the hospital and stuff like that. He has hardly seen Arthur, but on the couple of occasions he has popped round, Arthur has been soooo excited to see him! He runs at him with elbows pumping and this HUGE grin on his face, and then stops about 2 feet in front of him, suddenly unsure and shy, as he doesn't really know Grandy all that well. But Grandy just scoops him up in his arms and gives him cuddles :) When Nana arrives each day, Arthur is so happy to see her, and then he starts craning his neck to see round her, saying, "Look Gan-gy" (Looking for Grandy). He looks out of the window for him saying the same, or sits on the sofa watching the front door and saying, "Wait Gan-gy" - so sweet! He just loves Grandy.

He is all better from his poo crisis. I haven't even gotten round to phoning for his sample results yet, but he is not doing horrible poo anymore. He is also eating much more of a variety of food. He still won't eat most things I put in front of him, especially new things, but we got him onto white bread at last and that helped to sort out the poo thing I think! He now eats both white bread and brown bread. He eats cheese and marmite sandwiches, and the canned spaghetti in tomato sauce with peas or sweetcorn, and he'll take fish fingers or even (**NEW FOOD!!**) chicken breast cooked by ME if it's chopped up small and put in with the spaghetti sauce. Better than before, so I'm happy enough! He eats apple and raisins and yoghurt. Today he amazed us by eating quite a lot of Neil's soup. It was a Heinz tin of soup though so not great for salt content. But he just ran to the kitchen drawer, pulled out a teaspoon, went to Neil's side and started helping himself to spoonfuls of his soup! He ate really easily and quickly, and it was surprising because it was a "Big Soup" (Minted Lamb - gross if you're asking me!), thus chunky, and had potatoes and lots of veg in it. It was tomato based too, which he usually hates. He spooned in big chunks of pototo (a vegetable he's always rejected for its texture, no matter how we present it), and everything!! It was really... odd, for Arthur to eat something like that.

Anyway he's loads better. He is taking antihistamines this week to see if it stops him banging his head so much. I don't think it'll work. I don't know what is up with his head/nose banging, but I'm not sure it's allergies. Anyway he has nearly completed a week of it, and a week is all it should take if it's allergies, for us to know.

Arthur says things in 3-word phrases now, most of the time. He is starting to say 4-word phrases more, or mix 2- and 3-word phrases together in a mini sentence, to tell us things or explain what he's doing. The other day he sat down on the sofa, pointed at the kitchen and told me, "Mummy kit-tin, make Ah-yah toas'!" - otherwise translated, "Mummy, please go in the kitchen and make me some toast!" hehe! One of his favourite phrases right now is, "Ah-yah HI-din!" with mischievous expression, before ducking behind something (usually the curtain in the living room, with just his head and shoulders hidden) to hide. I have to look (or Nana does) and pretend he's absolutely GONE and I can't fathom where he might be, despite the whole bottom half of him visible right in front of me, haha! If I pat his bottom and say, "Who's this?!" he'll stay silent, still hiding from me, and if I ask again, he might whisper back as quiiietly as he can, "Ahh-yahh..." because he can't seem to resist answering a question that he knows the answer to, even if it means giving himself away! He's so funny.

Arthur is getting Noddy and Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs for his birthday from Nana and Grandy. And something else, I think. But those were the things I asked them to get when they asked me what he might like. If he watches children's TV programmes, we have always watched CBeebies, and rarely noticed the children's stuff on Channel 5. But lately he has been watching Milkshake in the mornings (on Channel 5) with Daddy, and he loves soooo much of the stuff on there. He really likes Elmo's World, which we cannot watch without thinking of Alex Bean every single time we hear the theme :) He also especially likes Fifi Flowertot, Hi-5, and Noddy. He has always liked those though, from a time when we used to watch Milkshake a bit when I was pregnant with Matthew. Lately he is so keen on Noddy that he'll ask to "wat' Nonny" at times of the day when there isn't any Noddy on TV. And recently he saw an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine and was instantly transfixed. He is sad when it finishes now and asks to "wat' tains" (watch trains) all the time. I knew he'd love Thomas the Tank if he ever saw it! He's soooo into vehicles and trains and planes and stuff. The other thing I asked Nana and Grandy for is a Whoopee Cushion, haha! Arthur finds farting sounds SO hysterical that I know he would love a whoopee cushion like NOTHING else. I mean, I just would love to see him discover what one does and try it out again and again. I don't mean to encourage revolting 9-year-old-boy behaviour in my sweet innocent toddler, but I do want him to have FUN and get things for his birthday that he'll just get lots of laughter or fun and enjoyment from. So I do want him to have a whoopee cushion! :) I had one when I was a child. They're just so outrageously rude, you can't help but love them, hehe! Arthur currently asks "Mummy, nee-ows" (Mummy, make a noise!") at least a DOZEN times a day. He wants me to make farting noises. Oh my. If I make one, he absolutely creases up laughing until his eyes are watering and he's hiccuping - I kid you not! And then asks for another, and another. And another. If I make a different type of noise, like a cow mooing or a little tune, he makes his request more specific - "Mummy, fwarp"!! ;) So the whoopee cushion will take this burden from me! I am not sure where to find one on the high street though. I hope it's not going to be too hard to find. I know I'll find one online but there's not enough time now.

We took our time to decide on a suitable birthday celebration for Arthur, but it's going to be the same as last year - a family gathering with cake and balloons and presents, here at our house. A lot of two-year-olds will have a birthday party with kids, but Arthur doesn't need that yet. He hasn't got a circle of friends yet, and although he seems happy to go and see Joshie and play with him, he is still at the stage where he's much more thrilled with the attention of a group of adults than other children. If we were choosing what HE would like to do, I think it would be to have family around, as he knows them and enjoys their visits so much when they come round individually. It will be lovely to get everyone together for him, and we'll enjoy that too. Everyone will. I know Bennie and Sarah can come (can't WAIT to see them - first time since I found out they are having a baby!), and my parents. It's on Sunday (the day after tomorrow) because my parents are going back to France that night. It's near enough to Arthur's birthday though, and his actual birthday (Thursday) will be just our little family. Neil is taking the day off work and we'll think of some things that Arthur really likes to do, and go and do them.

My grandparents may be able to come on Sunday. It depends on how Grandoug's recovery from his surgery is going. We invited my SIL and BIL and Ella, but they had a tummy bug last weekend too and are waiting to see if they're all better before committing to come. Neil's mum and youngest sister are too far away to come at such short notice, which is a shame, but we'll take photos and video like last time.

I think it will be really simple, just cake and presents and lots of attention for Arthur. That's all he needs really! I am looking forward to it but there is SO much to do to the house before it can happen! Neil finished the garden yesterday - yay! It looks so different, and just right for a toddler to play in. I will try to take photos soon and then post before and after shots here :)

I am going to make Arthur's birthday cake, like I did last year. I'm making a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and Smarties, in the shape of a car. I asked him, if Mummy makes him a big cake for his birthday, would he like it to be shaped like a car or a train? And he said, "Car!" so a car it shall be! I'm sure I'll have to make way more complicated cakes for future birthdays, to go with requested themes or to incorporate favourite TV characters or something, so I'm glad of another simple year this year! When I was two, Mummy made me a chocolate birthday cake with Smarties too :) I forgot about that till this evening. How uncanny!

Matthew is doing great too. He is so strong! So different to Arthur. He is so eager to move on and do things that Arthur is doing. If Arthur is playing with cars on his toy garage, and I hold Matthew near enough so that he can watch Arthur playing, his eyes practically bug out on stalks with excitement and curiosity, and if I hold him closer still, he uses ALL his strength and crunches his abs to reeeach out and grab the cars on the garage. His whole body shakes and quivers with how focused and excited he is to be getting his little hands on those thrilling-looking toys that Arthur gets to play with! He's the sweetest pie, honestly.

When he's on his tummy, he props himself on his HANDS now to look around, with straight arms, not his elbows any more. He rolls constantly, over and over, and rarely stays still for more than a few seconds. If I lay him down on the blanket on the living room carpet and go in the kitchen to get a drink of water, when I come back, he'll be about 6 rolls across the room, examining a letter or Duplo brick or sock or something, with that same quivery excitement and eagerness that I mentioned earlier. He is just so excited by all the things around him and can't seem to WAIT to get big enough to do things with them!

He is laughing a LOT more these days. He's really ticklish :) He is suddenly really entertained by sudden moves or sounds, whereas that used to scare him only a few weeks ago. He loves to be "wheeee'd" up in the air, or fake-dropped in my arms along with a sudden sound. He just likes company and "conversation", and smiles at absolutely anyone and everyone. People comment on how good-natured and sociable he is. He's a LOVELY baby. I'm so blessed! I love my boys so much.

Which brings me nicely to photos of the two little cherubs! I have a few - first a set of four that were taken when Arthur was very specific about wanting himself, Matthew and me in the photos! He even had me put Matthew EXACTLY where he needed him to sit, and then I sat where I was told too! Unfortunately I was also the photographer, and since my arm isn't very long, Matthew seems a bit cropped down there in the bottom corner, the little sweetie! He's the smallest, you see. I just kept on pressing the button and took a million photos, and these are the four I like best :)

And then some of the boys from a couple of weeks ago - we put them in matching "Funky Little Dude" outfits for going to church a couple of Sundays ago - here they are just before we left! Matthew is pretty stable at sitting up when propped on the sofa now, but on this occasion he was too eager to lean towards Arthur to fiddle with his face and clothes! Arthur found it funny to have Matthew fallen across him so we took a photo of that too!

And later that same day (after church and a change of puked-on top for Matthew!) - another photo session requested by Arthur :)

And Mathsie-woo, my sweet lil boo...

And now, to bed. It's 1am. I'm NUTS. But hooray, a diary entry at last! :) Will update again (and return emails I hope!) asap!