Update, Arthur's monkeyness, and foody photos!

Thank you so much for the messages!!! :) Hmmm, tea tree oil... I think I may have some somewhere. In fact I'm sure of it... I just can't think where I put it. I'll have to hunt around. I have lavendar oil but not calendula so will have to go and get some asap. Thanks for the great tips! Matthew got a single dose of oral antibiotics so I am not sure whether or not that could affect his little tummy just on its own. I haven't started him on dairy yet so not sure how to get extra friendly bacteria into him?? In fact I've stopped the solids these last few days, and he's just having plenty of breastmilk. He was taking down so little as it was that I figured it would keep things simple to just do breastmilk while he was poorly. I need to increase his solids (or offer more meals - I still only offer him one or sometimes two) when he's better. I'm so slack at this!

That's interesting about teething and bugs (and maybe it IS a boy thing?), because Arthur was always that way. If he was teething (as in actually cutting a tooth or just about to, or having got a new one in the last few days) he would get something viral EVERY SINGLE TIME from about 10 months old. Every time. Mostly he happened to be exposed to lots of bugs because his peak teething time when he got the most teeth in the shortest period, was this time last year (well, Jan to April), and he was attending regular playgroups at that time. But sometimes he was not, and we would just have to go out to the supermarket or for a WALK and he'd come down with a cold with his new tooth, urgh. It got so that I sometimes used to keep him home if I had the choice, when I knew he was cutting a new tooth, just to give his poor little system a chance! So maybe Matthew is going to be the same. I don't actually SEE any very obvious evidence of new toothies coming yet though, despite all this awful teething. I see the bottom two middle ones beneath the gum but I know that doesn't mean they're going to pop through right away. Surprisingly, it's his TOP front middle teeth that are looking different today and yesterday. His gum there looks a whole different shape, and it's more swollen and I can see the actual shape of the teeth outlined against the gum on the front. Maybe those will push through first? Arthur had the classic bottom middlies first and then ONE top middle followed by a top lateral - he was a one-sided boy for a while, hehe! But I suppose they can do anything really, these toothies!!

I also use those Ashton and Parson's teething powders, Jemma! Absolutely NONE of the other brands do so well, and in fact one time when Arthur was about Matthew's age, we ran out and couldn't find any A&P's, so I got some Nelson's (or was it Boots own?) and he was absolutely REPELLED by the stuff! I can't think what was so different about it, but he wouldn't have it! Matthew was the same when we tried him on it. A&P's was recommended to me by another mother when Arthur was 2 months old. It's the FABBEST teething powder around! But it isn't doing a lot for Matthew at the moment :(

I am starting to feel more like Matthew has had some sort of tummy problem. I'm not sure about whether it's been viral or not though. Arthur shares the breast with him and I have been kissing him (plenty of his drool, etc!) allll this time, and we're all fine. I'm sure I'm run down enough to have picked something up, even mildly, if it had been viral?? But anyway, last night every time I fed Matthew during the night, he would strain as usual (he's recently been pooing horribly every time I feed him) but just fart and not poo. Then every time I put him down in his cot half-asleep, he would fart again as he got comfortable. One time he did SIX noisy farts in a row!!! This morning he did a little poo and lots of farting! No poos for the whole morning either. It started to remind me of after you've had a tummy bug or other diarrhoea-causing thingy, once it stops you tend to be FULL of air (or is it just me?!) and farting away like crazy until you get eating normally again! I seem to recall that isn't very comfy, but still you feel WAY better than when you were poorly with the diarrhoea, so... It made me wonder if Matthew HAS had a little something, and a large part of his pain might have been a crampy tummy, poor lovey. That's just the WORST. I feel so sorry for him in hindsight!

I am surprised at how much better he seems today already! Yay! I think it's the tummy issue clearing up that's helping so much. He has done 3 poos today (mostly later in the day) and they were still basically horrible but fewer of them. BUT he had one nappy where he only did one tiny wee for a nearly-4-hour stretch (there was a reason for the lonnnng spell in the same nappy, as I'll go into in a minute!) so that worried me a bit. He is still feeding normally and getting plenty of breastmilk though, so I am doing all I can for him. All his other nappies have been VERY wet (both before and after that nappy) so I think he's fine. I will keep an eye on it, but I think he's getting better now. He had been fussy over his feeds for a few hours before that not-very-wet nappy though, not taking much milk during the feeds for whatever reason. He had some big feeds later and weed aplenty!

Matthew's abcess seems the same to me, so far. Neil thought it was a bit smaller this morning, but I don't think it is yet. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day though. Nappy rash is still horrible, and the barrier cream isn't cutting it so I must get those oils tomorrow. It's easier to do his antibacterial cream now that he's not pooing so much.

Matthew's mood has been SO much better today! He didn't cry much. He did still cry more than usual and seem in pain sometimes, but he only seemed to need one dose of Calpol during the day. It was soooo indescribably relieving to watch him just "potter around" for like an hour non-stop this morning. He just crawled to a toy, sat up and played with it for a while, crawled to another toy, sat and played with it, patted his legs and made chatty sounds, crawled to the toy garage and tried to push trains down the ramps (!), crawled to another toy and sat up to play with it, etc. He seemed happy and interested and it was just sooooooooooooo nice to watch him!

All that sitting practise that he was doing before he could quite get the hang of crawling has really paid off! Now that he can actually crawl, he doesn't have to worry about what to do when he gets to something, or stay on his tummy to play. He sits from crawling and crawls from sitting in one smooth (very quick flip-like!) move which seems like he hardly needs to even think about it to do it, which is great for him because it means he can go straight to sitting at something to play with it when he has crawled there. For lots of toys, sitting makes the play easier (or even possible at all) when sitting rather than lying on his tummy, so that's lovely for him. He likes to practise it a LOT still.

We have had a rather.... interesting day, courtesy of my like-mother-like-son little monkey boy! Late this morning, Matthew had had his long nap earlier in the morning and was acting happy, and Arthur had been bugging me to take him out for a walk all morning. The weather was unexpectedly sunny and not toooo windy, and so I thought it would be ideal for us to go for a short walk before Arthur's lunch and then naps for both boys after that. So I got Matthew changed and dressed and ready to go out, and then changed Arthur's nappy and got him dressed too. Then I went in the kitchen to get washed up and dressed. I have basically learnt to wash and dress in the kitchen since Matthew was born! It sounds gross (and probably is) but I don't care. It's less stressful than leaving them alone while I disappear upstairs to get myself ready. There is no time before they are up in the morning - they're up before ME usually! So I'd rather stay in the next room where I can keep putting my head round the doorway to see what they're doing while I wash.

Anyway I went in the kitchen to wash, and as I finished and reached for the towel, it struck me that Arthur was being "too quiet" (you know that sinking feeling?!) so I popped my head round the door whilst drying, and there was Arthur, having somehow reached Matthew's antibacterial cream down from the top of the merchant's chest (I did not put it on the edge), and he'd bitten the tube until it burst open IN HIS MOUTH. He was frozen in this horrified stupor with his mouth hanging open and filled with white cream, disgust all over his face. He was holding the bust tube in one hand and there were globs of cream on the floor and his hands and his face, ugh. He looked at me and said, "Hulk!" (which is "help!" spoken open-mouthed around a ton of nasty-tasting cream ;) ) so I cleaned him up best I could. I wiped his mouth out with a cloth and to my surprise it wiped RIGHT off, not even leaving a white residue or anything, which was good. I got it all, well, everything that I could see. I DID tell him off though! Little monkey!

Once I'd cleaned him and the carpet and put the tube out of reach, I consulted the leaflet that came with the medication and discovered that I had to seek a doctor's advice IMMEDIATELY if it was ingested! Yikes! I had no idea if he'd actually swallowed any, but it was entirely possible given how much was filling his mouth (it went right to the back of his tongue almost) and how explosively it probably came out when he burst the tube. I asked Arthur if he'd swallowed any down to his tummy and he said yes, but I am not sure if that is true so I couldn't rely on it! He often says yes in response to questions that are related to something he DID do, as though he hasn't quite understood the question.

I phoned the doctor straight away but they were closed till afternoon surgery (four hours away!!) so I phoned the chemist where Neil had got the cream, asked to speak to the pharmacist and explained it all to her. She asked me questions about how much he might have taken, and his age, etc, and told me she ought to seek further advice so she took my number and called me back. When she called back she said he needed to be seen by a doctor asap! I told her the surgery was closed for lunch and she said that if it opened again within say 45 minutes then fine, but otherwise I must take him to Accident and Emergency!! I phoned Neil at work to let him know and he managed to get out of work to come with us. We drove to his office and picked him up and then went straight to the children's A&E near where we live. Urgh.

We had a long wait and during that time, Arthur played with the filthiest looking toys I have seen in a LONG time, and got coughed all over by a really unhealthy looking boy the same age as him. His nose was streaming and his cough was awful, and his mum was worried about his asthma so she brought him in. I hope he was past the infectious stage (though I think probably not) because otherwise Arthur was WELL exposed to whatever he had. Yuck. I hated watching him get too near that little boy, playing with him all innocently! His mum didn't keep him back from playing with Arthur and I felt rude telling Arthur to stay away from him, and also it was just too long and boring a wait for poor Arthur to have to sit with me away from the toys just to avoid him. Ugggh. I sooooo hope he won't come down with anything, Matthew too. He was in either my or Neil's arms the whole time. I tried breastfeeding him once or twice but he was too interested in his surroundings, hence the not-much-milk and the resulting rather dry nappy, I think.

We eventually got seen and Arthur's stats were fine. His oxygen saturation was 97% and his pulse 117 - both healthy and normal. He had no erosion inside his mouth from the cream and his heart and lungs sounded fine. The hospital had decided to contact the London Poisons Unit (yiiikes!! Thank goodness I didn't know this before they told me!!) for advice and were told that Bactroban (Matthew's cream) was only mildly toxic! Anyway they said they thought he would be fine, and that if he HAD ingested any cream, he might have an upset tummy in the next 12 hours, but he was healthy and energetic and fine at the time of our visit so they were happy with him, and we came home again. The boys were very late for their naps and Arthur only had a snack at lunch time which I had hurriedly stuffed in my bag as I left with the boys to pick Neil up. He has made it up with lots of breastmilk this afternoon and some healthy snacks. His late nap meant he didn't go to sleep till 8.45pm which is CRAZY late for either of our boys! But oh well. They are asleep now and have slept peacefully so far. Matthew has woken twice to nurse, and I'm thrilled to get the opportunity to get milk into him so that's fine.

What a day! My MONKEY boy! I say he is like-mother-like-son, because he is exactly the age I was when I was discovered with an open bottle of my grandfather's blood pressure pills, and nobody could tell if I'd taken any or not (or how I got hold of them in the first place, for that matter!), and so we had to go to the hospital. In those days, the way of dealing with that kind of thing was NOT pleasant. It meant mucho epicac orange juice to drink followed by terrifying endless uncontrollable vomiting, and resulting lifelong phobia. *sigh* These days they give kiddies this tar drink that makes all the bad stuff stick to it inside them (or something) and then they just do a BIG tar poo which has hoovered up any pills they took and passed them out neatly and conveniently! I WISH they'd had that when I was two.

I am also just like my own mother, who at this VERY age was discovered in the garden one day with half a slug in her hand and the other half in her MOUTH!!! Ugggggghhhh! ;)

Okay, enough of the gross talk! Hehe!

I have so many photos to catch up on! I think I will start with Matthew's foody ones :) I haven't been keeping up here with how his introduction to new foods is going! It has now been a month since he started solids and I kind of feel like I should have offered him a bigger variety by now. And meals too, rather than one item of food at a time (or two). I am just so ridiculously disorganised. I am working on it though, this New Year. Not a resolution as such, as I don't tend to make those, but yeah. It's not fair on the little ones to continue being THIS disorganised in everything! I know Matthew would probably love full meals by now! When he's better I want to start cooking properly for him, and hopefully his interest in MY cooking will start to wear off on Arthur. *sigh*

Anyway! Here is my happy boy trying pear for the first time:

I can't get over how thrilled he is with ALL foods (so far!). He did make this face about the skin....

... but only because it was a bit new and a completely different texture to all his other things so far! He didn't keep the expression for long! My boys are SOOOOO different! Let's just remind ourselves of Arthur's expression the first time he tried pear, hehehe!...

And he's been the same ever since! Which is why I have high hopes for Matthew, being so different with foods and all. In fact you can even see Arthur in the first photo of Matthew and the pear above, being highly unimpressed with some meal that Neil is presenting him with, haha! It's funny how they show such traits so clearly when they are still just tiiiny babies, and it's part of them for years to come.

Matthew has also been eating apple:

Apple and cinnamon rice cakes (which he loves!):

A fistful of baked beans, which was kindly donated by his brother without me noticing! Arthur was having beans on toast at a close enough distance to reach out and plonk a handful of baked beans in front of Matthew, saying, "Air-go Ma-Ma!" ("There you go Matthew!" - he's so generous with him!) and Matthew was soooo thrilled! He couldn't get enough of the baked beans and shoved them into his mouth with his fist once he'd picked them up, and even licked his hand afterwards! I let Arthur give him a few more and gave Matthew a spoon to fiddle with as well, which he did try to eat them with actually. He just loved the baked beans!

Also Duplo, which, whilst not exactly a FOOD, he still looks very cute chewing on, and thus I couldn't resist adding this photo! :) Not sure why he's dressed like Joseph in a nativity play, but methinks we were having a silly Mummy-and-Matthew moment and he seemed to find it funny :)

And then most recently, delighted with his pizza crust:

And eating wholemeal toast, and starting to get a bit fed up of the continual paparazzi-style harassment every time he tries to sit down and enjoy a new food, hehe!

He did try a pea or two recently, and I can't remember if there has been anything else. Nothing that I've taken photos of, anyway. I'm going to make him a chicken and leek casserole thingy this weekend, if he's better :)

Okay Matthew has been awake again (seemed unsettled but he's asleep again now) and I've been and eaten some food, and now it's reeeally late so I should finish. A car alarm a few houses away went off about 10 minutes ago and it's STILL going, ugh. It's - oh my gosh! - 1am!!! Neeeed to go to bed. But tsk that a stupid car alarm is going off at this hour! And it's one of those that is like a car horn being leaned on permanently, not a rise-and-fall sound. Yeurgh. It's so loud that I know there's no point me getting in bed and trying to sleep. It'll only wind me up and get me annoyed. I'm just glad the 3 boys are sleeping through it - not sure HOW though!

Okay I'll post two more photos and then I have to go and put my head under a pillow or something. Here are my two sweetie boys about a week or so ago! Arthur still loves to "hold Mashew" and asks quite a lot. He sits on the sofa and waits expectantly, patting his little legs that are stuck straight out in front of him! I put Matthew on his legs like I used to when he was tiiiny, and Arthur puts his arms round Matthew with a huge smile and says, "Ohhh getting huuuge!" hehe! :) He soooo loves his baby brother! Here he is doing just that:

And a minute or two later, when they'd flopped back on the sofa:

I love them sooooooooooooo!!!! :D

Oh thank goodness, the horrid noise has stopped! I'm going to revel in the lovely silence from my comfy bed :) Night night! I'll write again over the weekend, as I have so much to update. I've told Neil I need to make time to write my diary a bit more to catch up, so I should be back soon (I hope!). Thanks again for the helpful and supportive comments! xxx

Poor Matthew :(

Too long again since my last entry, and I have wanted/needed to update but simply haven't had time or energy.

Matthew is poorly :( I can't quite figure it out though. Maybe it's several things all together that are confusing the heck out of us?

He has an abcess right where he poos from, poor little love. I don't know how he got it, but he did suddenly get a NASTY teething-type nappy rash a couple of weeks before where blood came to the surface of the rash (owch!), so maybe something got in there and it healed over? Anyway. Last week it was getting more noticable so I took him to the doctor and she confirmed that it did seem to be an abcess. It extends inside as well - poor Matthew! She gave him a 5 day course of antibiotics which he had to have 4 times a day. He took the first dose very reluctantly (he HATED it, and this boy is very easy about trying new things that go in his mouth, so he really had to hate this pretty badly!), and then the second dose he just screamed and arched his back and writhed about resisting it. We got most of it down him, and I was cuddling him better thinking, "I am not doing THAT to him again!" when he vomited the whole lot back up. It's the first time he's ever vomited properly, and DEFINITELY the last time I want to force him to take something that he doesn't want. Seriously.

So then it was the weekend, and thus no doctors except for emergency clinics. I didn't know if it was an emergency as such, so I kept an eye on it. The doctor had offered me that option at first, but I said I thought it was already getting worse just over the previous 48 hours, so she gave me the antibiotics for him. I started putting breastmilk on it, since that was better than nothing. Might as well, I have it right here and it has antibacterial properties. Breastmilk is amazing stuff and can do incredible things! So I figured it was worth a try while I waited for Monday to roll around. If it got really bad I would have taken him to the emergency clinic.

Well, over the weekend it actually reduced in size!!! I was so impressed! I literally just gave a well-aimed squirt of milk direct from source (!!) at his bottom every time I changed his nappy, before putting the new one on. I made sure it covered the abcess, and I didn't dry it off. It definitely reduced it over the next couple of days, but on Monday it was not getting any smaller, and Tuesday it increased in size instead so I stopped applying the breastmilk (although I don't know why, since I might as well have carried on for a bit) and made an appt and took him on Wednesday. By Wednesday it was looking horrible.

We saw a different doctor as ours wasn't there that day, and she was lovely. She said it definitely needs antibiotics. I had the choice of trying antibiotic cream on it, or a different oral antibiotic to see if he tolerated it. I would MUCH rather use the cream, but she couldn't tell how far inside the abcess extended so she said it MIGHT not work if I can't apply the cream to the whole thing. We'd have to try it and see. But I chose to try it first. If it doesn't work we'll have to try another oral antibiotic, which does NOT thrill me.

Okay so that's part one of the scenario. Part two is confusing me and I'm not sure what to make of it. Part one is just a complicating factor.

I gave Matthew wheat about 10 days ago, or maybe 2 weeks, I can't remember exactly when. I can't believe his first wheat product was a pizza crust, haha! I made sure there was no cheese or sauce on it, and just a little stick of it about an inch and a half long. I handed it to him to chew, as he was practically BEGGING me for some of my pizza and getting upset because I was sitting out of his reach so he couldn't swipe some! I figured what the heck, we're doing "baby led" weaning and we have to find out whether he can eat wheat sooner or later, so here we go. He LOVED it! He attacked it with more gusto than any other food so far. The next day I gave him a stick of toast, wholemeal with nothing on it, while Arthur and I ate toast one morning. He demolished it, seriously! I have never seen him actually EAT so much of a piece of food that he's chewing. He chewed up and swallowed most of the piece of toast, so I figured now we'd find out how he is with wheat! He had toast again the next day too.

The NEXT day, he had a definite "here's the wheat!" poo (no need for further info!) and it was not quite his normal type of poo. Over the next couple of days he had more runny/huge/mucousy poos than normal. BUT at the same time, he started to get very teethy and we were having to give him teething powder and Bonjela several times a day sometimes. He seemed bothered by his gums a lot and gnawed like CRAZY on anything, ramming his fists at his mouth and stuff. So I knew he was hitting a big bout of teething, and I hear (can't remember from Arthur - already!) that teething can really change poos. I just don't know whether it can change poos THIS much.

Anyway so the teething has gotten progressively worse since about a week ago. These last few days have been the worst. Except that he doesn't have the red cheeks, hmmm. He keeps battering the heels of his hands against his mouth and gums, and making like a straining sound (the same type of fussing that he was making when not able to crawl really) and then crying. Teething powder and bonjela haven't been having much effect although he's still eager to have them. I took him off wheat after those first two days of toast, and the poos remained horrible, in fact they got gradually MORE horrible as the days went by. After a few days I figured, okay so the poos are still here but the wheat is gone, so it wasn't the wheat. So I gave him another bit of toast (which he was thrilled about, and ate most of it!). That appeared about a day later in his poo but it wasn't an overly horrible poo on that occasion.

All this while, the abcess was getting worse. His poo was bothersome by the day he was forced to take the antibiotics, and it has just continued to get worse since then. He is more miserable and screechy and jaw-clutchy every day that passes, and I started giving him Calpol incase it was just REALLY bad teething pain. It did seem to help after about 20 minutes, so I knew he was in pain. I couldn't tell if it was the abcess or the teeth, and the doctor told me that he would definitely be in pain from the abcess now, so I give him Calpol every 4 hours to the maximum daily dosage. Even so, it seems to wear off after about 3.5 hours and he's miserable(r) until I can give him some more, and then continues to be so until it kicks in a while later.

Meanwhile the poos continue to worsen. They are getting more and more frequent as well as mucousy and yucky. He seems really uncomfortable in his tummy these last few days, worse each day. I can't fathom what that is about. We haven't been anywhere at all that he could pick something up, and everyone else is fine (even the brother who shares the breast with him!), plus it doesn't SEEM like a bug to me. When I mentioned the pooing to the doctor she felt his tummy (which was soft and normal and he didn't flinch or anything), and just said it was probably a little tummy bug. I HATE when doctors say that. It feels to me like they always pass off unexplained tummy problems in children as "probably just a little tummy bug" when - not that I actually KNOW - I just feel like it isn't. Maybe it IS, but it's a bit weird isn't it? He's feeding fine, a bit fussy when he's very uncomfy or tired, and it's been going on for so long now, and not just the same all the way through but this gradually worsening thing. By Tuesday (it's Thursday today) he was pooing every time I fed him, literally. Sometimes I'd feed him, change him and clean him up, and then put him on the other breast and he'd poo again. He also started pooing early in the morning when he woke for the day, at around 6am. The doctor said the cream might be less effective if it was continually being washed off with poo and nappy wipes! She told me to put it on him twice as frequently as it says to, if he's pooing a lot.

Of course today (the first full day of his antibiotic cream treatment), his abcess looks like it might have popped (something the doctor thought might happen soon, and she said it would be no bad thing, but not something compatible with nappies) and still looks huge and dreadfully sore. So we have decked the downstairs in my home birth supplies (plastic sheets and old towels and sheets - my, that stuff has come in so handy over the years, hehe!) and left him pretty much nappy-free as much as possible. Of COURSE it would choose to blow freezing gale force winds from the Arctic today which gust in around our doors no matter how we try to block them (one gust even blew our loft hatch open (upstairs!!) this afternoon!!). And Matthew's poos would be reaching an all time record for frequency and discomfort (11 nappy changes today, and the first one was at 4.15am, since when I have been awake, ugh). And NATURALLY he would of course really get the hang of purposeful crawling yesterday evening and spend today practising it. I mean, he's been crawling for a week or two, but so hesitatingly and in such a cute slow way! He did this thing where he'd lift his hands up and down at twice the frequency of his knees, hehe! It's as though he knew he had to put his hands up and down on the floor to move, so he tried doubly hard and they just went up and down on the spot and then his knees followed in a more normal manner! It's hard to visualise from my explanation but it was very cute :) I'm sad that he's already stopped doing that. Now he's crawling forwards smoothly. A bit doddery sometimes still, but he's definitely crawling forwards continually in a scissor-like movement - hand and opposite knee and then the other hand with its opposite knee. So yeah. Lovely timing of everything! I ended up dressing him over no nappy as it was so chilly and drafty, and then I realised that I could put him in a little nappy (say a Kissaluv) with no wrap and that would at least catch wees and poos a little and I'd still KNOW the instant he'd done one.

It has been a really hard day. He has been crying and miserable alllll day long, and only quiet and settled-ish when asleep for a nap or at the peak-time of his Calpol kicking in. He has a new nappy rash from allll the cleaning of his bottom that I've had to do, and I've been putting barrier cream on that like crazy but it still looks sore as anything. His abcess is the same, and looks awful. He's a bit coughy this afternoon. He has taken his Calpol fine all day but sometimes I've needed to distract him or coax him to take it a bit. He just doesn't seem himself any more, he seems poorly and I can't seem to do anything to make him better, and MOST frustratingly, I can't figure out what it is that's wrong with him, exactly.

Is it the wheat? Can a wheat allergy present like this in a young baby? Does it go on this long? Or can I exclude that because of the length of time or symptoms that don't match those of a wheat allergy in babies?

Is it just HIDEOUS teething? Is he just reeeeally unfortunate in the teething stakes? He seems absolutely beside himself with how bad his mouth feels at the moment. Maybe I'm misinterpreting his signs though? Maybe he's doing all that face-ramming and chewing and grimacing and strainy-expressions and crying because of some OTHER pain, and not teething pain especially? How do I figure out where the pain is?! Does it sound like I'm wrong about it being teething pain? Can teething REALLY cause this amount of poo trouble? I've heard it can definitely cause poo issues - some say it can't and that if your baby has diarrhoea when teething it's more likely a bug than teething-related. But plenty of mothers will swear blind that their child's horrible diarrhoea is down to their teething, as it happens every time or something. Or they just know their child. But even in those cases, can it be this bad? Could I put it all down to teething? I just don't have the knowledge or experience of such things to decide an answer, and I REALLY need to be able to figure out the answer, even if just for my peace of mind.

Could it be a bug? I know there are some WACKY bugs out there these days - diarrhoea for weeks, etc. But I don't know. I don't even know if I can totally call this diarrhoea. To the extent that I'm going to google "diarrhoea breastfed babies" in a minute to see exactly what that is supposed to look like. 'Cause I don't know if that's what he has. Mucousy, is that normal? It doesn't seem normal to me.

WHY am I so clueless about everything?!?!?!?!!!

I don't know what to expect for tomorrow. Or tonight for that matter. Matthew conked out at 6.30 tonight, not an abnormal time for him, and he'd had a very tiring day and a long stretch from the end of his last nap. He slept peacefully till 10.30 and then when he woke I nursed him and he strained a bit while I did so, but didn't poo. He farted once I put him almost-asleep in his cot on his tummy. I think the antibiotic cream will take a few days to even start to make a difference, so I think we'll be looking at another day of misery tomorrow :( Plus the tummy/teeth thing, I don't know what it's about so I can't begin to estimate when it might go away, or how to help it do so. Poor Arthur hasn't had the best day either. We haven't been out because Matthew has been too poorly and the weather toooo horrible (lashing rain and gale force winds, and cold with it), and the same kind of weather is forecast tomorrow. I don't know what he'll do being healthy and stuck indoors like this two days running! I'm praying for help with coping with him! He also gets less attention and activities from me. This morning I was SO indescribably exhausted from my midnight-4.15am sleep (with a 2am waking) that once Matthew was napping I just had to lie down and close my eyes as I just felt grim and my eyes were sooooo sore. I usually do stuff with Arthur while Matthew sleeps - things that I can't do with him when Matthew is around, and that's so nice, but today Arthur had to just get on with things himself a lot, which ISN'T FAIR for such a little one. When Matthew was up, he was miserable and I couldn't sustain any activity with Arthur for very long. He ate lunch and tea ALONE on the sofa watching TV while I nursed and tried to settle a very unhappy baby down to sleep upstairs for his naps. That's just WRONG, but I didn't know what else I could do about it. Matthew needed to sleep. I needed him to sleep. Arthur needed him to sleep. But he was taking ages about it and Arthur needed to eat. The TV has been on for HOURS today. I hate that. Hate it. It's on way too much here as it is, which I really dislike and MUST change, but it's been awful today.

I did manage to do a short playdough session with Arthur this afternoon, but it meant that Matthew lay on the living room carpet crying miserably while I did so :( I tried alternating between the two of them for a while, but in the end the playdough was the thing that had to go. Poor Arthur. He has been wonderful though, and not complained. He loves Matthew and wants him to feel better. He says, "Poor Mashew, need Mummy make feel better!" He is just precious. I wish I had a clone for days like this! After Matthew went to bed, I let Arthur stay up a bit longer than usual (only to about 7.30pm, he's usually in bed before that and sometimes asleep before that too), and we built a Duplo farm and talked about things and played a bit with Noddy and read his "By-boo" in bed.

Nappies are just going round and round in the washing machine and tumble dryer! We're almost out of nappies for Matthew with all the ones he's gone through in the last 24 hours! He even wore one of Arthur's earlier and it didn't fit him toooo hugely either! He's growing.

Well. I don't know what to think. Does anyone have any advice, or knowledge about this stuff? Anyone who can answer even one of my questions above? I'd really appreciate a note or comment about it. I think if there is no improvement tomorrow I will either call the doctor again (but I don't fancy dragging the boys out to the doctor's again, especially in this horrible weather) or else if I get time, maybe I could copy and paste some of this entry to a parenting forum where there might be more people to read it and give advice? I don't know.

I just want him to feel better!!! My poor baby love.

Matthew is seven months old, by the way! He turned 7 months on Tuesday. I can't believe he's nearer his first birthday than his birth. That is crazy. I'll replace the breastfeeding milestone blinkie in a bit. I am proud of breastfeeding him for 7 months like I was with Arthur, but it's odd - since I am still breastfeeding Arthur and it's been like 26 months (!!), 7 months doesn't feel anything like the HUGE number it felt like the first time around, with Arthur! It just feels... I don't know, normal to be breastfeeding a 7-month-old. It feels to me like, "Well, what else would I be doing?!" hehe!

Okay it's getting late, and I have nooo idea of the potential sleep disturbances ahead so I had better go to bed while things are peaceful.

I am longing to post photos. I just uploaded ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX photos from my camera, that I have been taking since the Christmas/Boxing Day stuff!!!! Yikes! Obviously I need to seriously cut those down before posting them here, hehe! But I neeeeed to start posting them, otherwise it's just going to get WAY out of hand! ;)

Okay, back when I can. I'm just too tired in the evenings to post lately. Or tending to a wee one.

I love my little boys. They make my heart mush. I love them so.

All okay!! And Boxing Day pics & video, and lots of talking stuff!

It's okay, my mummy is okay!! :D

Thank you so much for allll the messages and prayers and thoughts and well wishes, I appreciate them soooo much. Mummy saw the doctor and he did various things and asked various questions - I don't think he did an ECG though, hmmm. But anyway, he said it is not her heart, as it seems absolutely fine. He thinks it was possibly oesophageal pain and is not too worried about that. He gave her medication to take if it happens again, and if it works then that will comfirm an oesophageal "flare up" or something. He also gave her referrals for various scans, like for her spleen and gallbladder and pancreas and so on, but she doesn't want to have those. He didn't say she HAD to, so.... Anyway I am just SOOOOOO glad it is not her heart!!! Pheeewwww! :) She and Daddy both said they were glad I stepped in and made her go to the doctor, so that is good. I'm glad it all worked out well. Soooo relieved.

Yay!

So now I can get on with the million-and-one things that I still haven't posted about. Because I am getting SO hopelessly behind on it, I'll just start with those photos and video clips from Boxing Day and get that done and over with! We went to Neil's sister, Rosemary's house. Neil's mum and youngest sister were staying with them over Christmas, and his brother was also there over Christmas Day and Boxing Day, so when we arrived it was like a FULL family Christmas, in the end, for that side of the family - which was lovely! The only person missing was Neil's dad :( Nobody was sad though, it was a really happy time and it was so nice to go.

Ella is 18 months old now, and she and Arthur are able to interact and be interested in each other more and more every time we get them together. I LOVE how the cousins in this family are so close together! Arthur is 7 months older than Ella, and Ella shares the same birthday as Matthew - one year ahead of him! My brother's new baby is due a month before Matthew's first birthday. It's so nice. I know Rosemary and her hubby are planning to TTC again soon-ish, so I hope they'll conceive when they want to! She has lost soooo much weight in preparation, which is exciting to see! :)

Okay, video clips - here is a little clip of the three little ones playing on the floor together. Arthur was giving Matthew and Ella kisses, just spontaneously! Actually I am pretty sure they started out as nose-presses (which he does on people and things a LOT - I think his nose itches him or something, but he does have an annoying tendency to take that out on people!) but turned into kisses when everyone started saying how cute it was, etc :)

We got huge tins of chocolate for everyone as it was the easiest Christmas present to manage with zero time or energy to prepare much in advance! Also unless someone is on a diet or happens to weirdly hate chocolate, it's pretty much a safe thing to go with if you can't think of anything else! I know *I* love to get huge containers full of chocolate, hehe! Anyway, they DID go down well with everyone. And Arthur discovered the joy of banging them like drums, which very quickly inspired Ella, and so the two of them had a great time bashing the heck out of unopened tins of chocolates! I wish I had thought to get the camera on them earlier, as they were at it for a while, but it had to stop once Arthur got bored of using his hands and started doing a sort of quick-step dance on them to make a noise with his feet, haha! That was not so safe, especially if Ella copied, so that was the end of that. Matthew loved the noise, particularly because Uncle Ian was holding him so he could bounce and jump to it all he liked by pushing with his little leggies. That boy LOVES to push push push push PUSH with his lil legs. He can jump and bounce WAY longer than anyone's capacity to hold him in the right position! He would adore a door-bouncer, I'm sure. Arthur would never have gone for one. I know it will only be a matter of next-to-no-time before he's up on those legs and controlling the bounce himself though. *sigh* Anyway, the video clip! It's only short:

A few photos from the afternoon there – Arthur and Ella driving cars!...

The second of my children to INSTANTLY favour Auntie Lil above any other new family member! ;)

That's Arthur's new Thomas outfit, by the way. Minus the padded gilet/waistcoat thing, as it was too warm in the house for that. Matthew was wearing red fleece trousers and a little top with a very detailed design on the front with reindeer and Father Christmas and presents and stuff, saying, "Christmas Delivery!" :)

Ella's favourite hidey hole in her home is in the kitchen under the work surface, and Arthur just about fits in there too! They played a sort of hide and seek game in the kitchen together, which was very cute. Us adults had NOTHING to do with it, they entertained each other, which was lovely. Ella went in, and Arthur got highly excited and went in too. Then he popped out and round the fridge, which made Ella peep out looking for him. When he saw her peeping, he got all squeally excited, and then she would duck back in and wait, and sure enough, he'd go and peep in to see where she went, whereupon Ella would SQUEAL with excitement and then Arthur would do his little excited hopping thing and then squeeze in again with Ella. And repeat the whole thing again many times! Hehe! Here's a photo of them squeezed in there together:

Uncle Ian helps Matthew gives kisses to Auntie Rosemary (who is delighted and admittedly broody, hehe!)...

... and to Ella...

Auntie Rosemary and Arthur helping Matthew to open one of his presents from them:

I love the photos from Boxing Day. They give me such a warm sense of FAMILY. I love that Neil's family is bigger than I have ever known from my own family. I keep finding myself just staring at him and his siblings - all FOUR of them together. My own family consists entirely of single-children or two-children families. And there are only 2 two-children families (including me and my brother!). The rest are all single-children. My whole childhood I longed for siblings, and thought wistfully of having lots of children, and of my kids having lots of brothers and sisters, and maybe even lots of cousins. I had ONE cousin. One! Seven years younger than me, and we saw him once when he was a baby and then not till his teens! I love big families. I really want one of my own. I get fascinated seeing several siblings together. It just interests me so much to see SEVERAL different combinations of the same parents. With two kids, it always seemed to me like there's one. Or the other. When there are more it's so exciting and fascinating, like the possibilities are ENDLESS!! Which of course they are :) I can't really explain my fascination very well. But anyway, I love to see Neil with all his siblings. They are all so different and yet share so many likenesses. Some look more like each other than others, and they have like one major trait that they obviously share together, and then loads of others that are unique to them. Neil shares more physical traits with Rosemary, and Ian and Lilian are very alike physically. Anyway it just intrigues me! I love allll that family around my children at Christmas :) I missed my own family a lot this Christmas but that's why it was just SO nice to see lots of other family instead. Neil's family really feel like my own family. It sometimes still feels VERY recent that we got married, but in other ways, like the way I feel with his family, it feels like forever. I like that!

Anyway, it was lovely! Matthew had a weird moment or two while we were there - the first of possibly many, for him. He is getting close to the usual age for separation anxiety to set in, and he has always struck me as a type of baby who would be more likely to go through that than Arthur (who, as I recall, NEVER did). He is less "attached", and more of an anxious personality, than Arthur. When we arrived there, I carried him in and stood around greeting people, etc. He watched everyone from my arms and got a lot of people cooing over him and stuff! When we got into the living room, he seemed just interested in looking around at everyone, and I needed to get things out of my bag which was right at my feet, so I handed him to Grandma (Neil's mum) and she sat with him on the sofa next to me. He looked at people and then looked at me. Then he looked at people and looked at me. He seemed perfectly calm. Then I bent down to pick something up out of my bag and suddenly he was absolutely hysterical! I mean, he reacted suddenly as though he had been badly hurt, physically. But I knew he hadn't. He cried soooo hard, I don't think I have heard him cry like that before even. I felt a bit bad afterwards because I just took him FAST out of Grandma's arms and walked away from the gathering. But all I could think about was taking him in my arms and calming him down, and I felt that something about the gathering was upsetting to him, so I had to get him away so that it was just me and him, to try and soothe him. I hope Grandma wasn't upset about it! She didn't seem to have a problem when we came back so that's okay.

Even in the few seconds that it took to reach him to take him from Grandma, his face was just streaming with tears and he was gasping and sobbing. His expression was sheer panic and distress, my poor baby! I didn't understand it really, and everyone was just saying, "Oh poor little thing, he's just overwhelmed with all the new people!" I guessed that was it, but I didn't really get it. It's so unlike Matthew. But then we don't usually go out and meet up with lots of people at once that he doesn't know, and I guess it's a new stage that he's coming to, not one we've known before. He cried and sobbed for ages, even in my arms, and when he had calmed down a bit, he would start up crying again just by looking over my arm at the people over at the other end of the room.

When I spoke to my mum about it later, she said she thinks he must have been okay with the unfamiliar people because he was keeping me in his sight to ground himself and feel safe. Which did ring true - he did keep on looking at people and then giving ME a very direct look, and he did keep "checking" with me very frequently. She thinks he must have looked for reassurance JUST as I ducked out of sight to pick that thing up from my bag, and that was enough to completely panic him in that situation. Poor lambie love! My heart just SCRUNCHES with love for this little beanie boy, and especially on occasions like this, when he becomes oh-so-vulnerable and NEEDY of me to feel safe and secure. Sometimes, without me, his whole world is panic and confusion. I can't even put into WORDS how that makes me feel. I don't think there are words that cover the range of emotions it gives me. I guess if you have babies, you know this feeling. It's the most incredible surge of PURPOSE mixed with uncontainable LOVE and PROTECTIVENESS, and the kind of joy that makes me want to sob, but there's also a sadness in there that he is so miserable and frightened without me. There is something in there also that I can't describe, a sort of.... I'm not even sure it's a RIGHT way to feel... a sort of POWERFULNESS that just feels amazing. Like pride, perhaps? I. Am. MUMMY! Only *I* have the ability to make my baby feel better when he is like that. It's an awesome feeling. Anyway, all that is rolled into ONE emotive feeling. It just feels too much to contain really, but it's an amazing way to feel. I do love my baby boys sooooooooooo!

Well, later on, Matthew needed a nap so we put him down for his sleep in Ella's cot upstairs. He went off okay, and I was worried about hearing him when he woke, as we came back downstairs to mingle. They assured me we'd hear if he cried, but I felt so upset because he did wake and cry without us being there the INSTANT he woke, and someone else had to tell me, "Oh, he's crying..." rather than me hearing it for myself. That just feels allll out of whack for me, as it's not how I have ever done things with my babies. I like to keep them very near to me and be aware of their every sound at all times. I like to be right there the INSTANT they need me. But by the time I'd raced up the stairs to get to Matthew, he was once again absolutely distraught - red-faced, streaming tears, expression of absolute panic :( Poor Boo! I don't think he had a horrible time there, and he was happy to be held by everyone through the afternoon or play on the floor without Neil or I being right there with him, but he hasn't been the same since. He has gone straight into proper separation anxiety. Maybe he was just on the edge of that anyway, and the visit tipped him over the edge? Anyway. He cries when I leave the room. Not always, and actually it's a little better this week than last, so maybe it did distress him more than I thought?

He got very upset at church last Sunday. I was exhausted with a headache so I stayed home to sleep, and Neil took the boys. Neil was wearing him in a sling facing out (my fabbo husband!), and when he walked into the big hall full of people, Matthew had a similar distressed melt-down to the one he'd had at Rosemary's. My whooooooooole heart just squeezes with an overwhelming urge to protect him, and hold him soooo close to me that he's almost back in my body again. I remember feeling that way with Arthur, because I described it similarly. I think I described it as having such a longing to hold him close to me that it was almost like an urge to push him right through my very skin, so that he was almost back inside my body again! Like only that level of closeness, the type I had when he was in my womb, would do, to satisfy the urge I felt. It's a strange way to feel. And it can't be satisfied once they are born and detached from you physically, so it leaves me feeling hollow and like I can't reach that itch that I'm longing to scratch. I don't feel that way all the time though. It's just sometimes, when things trigger me to feel extra squeezy and protective towards one of the boys like this.

Anyway, the day went wonderfully other than that! We were pleasantly surprised by the car journeys there and back. The last time we attempted that journey was in July or August I think, and it was a NIGHTmare. We vowed never to attempt it again, I think! But what a difference a few months make in the lives of a baby and a toddler! It's only an hour's drive there and another hour back. For two under two, that was HORRIBLE. Matthew screamed the whole time and Arthur wasn't too happy either. This time, we had Arthur's Thomas the Tank story CD that he got for Christmas, and Matthew is past the stage where he screams the entire time he is in his car seat, so it was a completely different story. Arthur was actually silent for large chunks of the journey, listening to the stories!!! Amazing! He normally NEVER stays quiet, now that he's doing allll this talking. He narrates EVERYTHING at every second, to nobody in particular. He talks constantly, to us, to Matthew, to himself, to toys, to things he sees outside the car, etc. He sang along with some of the music on the CD, which was ever so sweet! Matthew just looked out of the window and cooed and babbled and watched Arthur sometimes (Arthur faces forwards and Matthew backwards on the same back seat, so it's quite easy for them to see each other at the moment). He was fine. He didn't even nap on the journeys! He is getting older so fast....

Matthew LOVES music. He starts to flap his arms or jump his legs the instant he hears it, and if he's playing with something he'll get a startled "interested" look and drop what he's doing and twist his whole body round to where the music is coming from. I have played lots of different types of music for him and he seems to love it all. He has a particular liking for jazz, I think. He seemed extra happy and enthused, and it held his attention for much longer. It was extra lovely because it happened to be a CD of my daddy playing his own jazz compositions :) It was a lovely moment telling Daddy that Matthew had been so taken by his music. He loves to jump to music. Mind you, he'll jump pretty much any time you stand him upright! My jumping bean :) Here's a little video clip, taken a couple of days after Christmas, of Matthew and me. Arthur and Neil had gone out for a walk, which gave me some MUCH needed one-on-one time with Matthew. I put the radio on and just held him so he could jump, and I set the camera up to catch him doing it for a moment. I HATE how the sound is out of sync again. Urgh! But oh well:

Here is another little video clip, about 30 seconds long or something, that I took a few days after Christmas when Matthew's rocking on all-fours was a new thing. He spent so much time practising it, and Arthur was so excited about it! He liked to join in with Matthew and show him how, or just "wock a Ma-Ma!". I filmed a little clip of them rocking together. Matthew is the noisy one, for once, hehe!

And I think that is all the video clips caught up on now! I didn't post them all but I figured it was getting a bit overly video-clippy here around Christmas! All the Christmas and Boxing Day photos are also here now, phew! Now there are just fifty million photos to catch up on from after Christmas! Except I have posted the bath crayons and the finger painting.... There are still plenty that need resizing. I shouldn't take so many photos! Or else I should find more time to resize and post them. Or something! I hate to get so behind on stuff like this!

Talking of which, there is ENDLESS stuff to write about Arthur. He is changing so much all the time, and his speech is just coming on in leaps and bounds, seriously. Just in the last week there have been such huge changes. And then just in the last two days even further changes. TODAY there are things he's saying that he wasn't saying yesterday, and when I tell Neil about it when he gets home from work, he is all, "Wow, he didn't say that yesterday!" I guess he has just reached that stage in speech development where it really accelerates fast.

I can't even begin to estimate his vocabulary. I thought earlier on that I might try to write down as many of the words he uses as I can think of, but it's just a huuuge and time-consuming task, and I am sure to miss out a load of words. He uses HUNDREDS of words now. All sorts of words. He pronounces words more clearly every day. He says some BIG words with several syllables as clearly as Neil or I do. "Disappeared" has already gone from "diz-a-peerd" earlier this week to a totally smooth "disappeared", exactly as I would say it, tone and everything. Today he was looking for Neil (who was at work, as he knew!) and suddenly just held his hands up and said, "Daddy's disappeared!" - really fluently and clearly. He sounded like an older child, which took me aback for a moment. Today and yesterday that has been happening a lot. Ever since he started saying things, I have been his echo - if he says, "Ah-yah eat whan-wibv" (looks impossible to pronounce but go slowly letter-by-letter and you'll see it's a version of "sandwich", spoken by a toddler who hasn't mastered 's' or 'ch' yet, hehe!!) then I would automatically echo him, "Arthur's eating his sandwich, yes!", I suppose to reinforce the correct way to pronounce it and to build the sentence. Today and yesterday, for the first time, I have sometimes started to do my usual "echo" after he says something, only to realise that there is no need because I cannot improve on the way he just said it! Yikes! It is really making me feel startled, for some reason, when it happens. I mean, he still says LOADS in a very toddler-ish way, but it's just the odd thing that is coming out very clearly now.

This week Arthur has started filling in the "gaps" in his sentences, which have been missing for so long. He has started using the word "a" and "to" in his sentences, and combining them with other words, saying things like, "Hatta change top - got yoggut on it!" (hatta is "have to" which he is suddenly starting to use a lot). Or "Ma-shew dunna poo!" hehe!

He has a whole range of new verbal "concepts" that he is using now. If I ask him where Gordon is (one of his trains) and it's behind him, he'll look around and then tell me, "Bay-hyn Ah-yah!" (behind Arthur!). He is also starting to make use of the past tense in his speech a lot more. He says he "saw it" rather than "see it", to tell me he saw something at the park earlier, and he says, "been" instead of "go" too. He also understands and uses various phrases relating to possibility, like "I think so...." or "might be...." or even, "I hope so!" He also uses "maybe". And he says, "... be niiice..." (that would be nice!) if I suggest something he would like to do. He uses them all in context with good understanding. Sometimes he will want to switch on the TV to see if a favourite programme is on, and I tell him that I don't think it is on right now. He wants to check anyway, telling me, "Might be.... Hatta wait see! Might be coming next!" hehe :)

He also has the concept of who he is, a bit better now. I recently got so fed up of making fart noises on demand (!!) that I told him that Mummy doesn't make fart sounds, because she's a lady, haha! ;) He said, "Mummy, LADY!" and I said yes. He then said, "Daddy lady!" and when I'd stopped laughing (!) I told him that Daddy was not a lady. Since we were being silly about it in the first place, we went ahead and told him that Daddy is a BLOKE, hehe! So now he will proudly say that Mummy is a lay-deee, and Daddy is a BOKE! (p.s. Daddy makes fart sounds, because he is a bloke, haha!). After a few days this continued to include Arthur and Matthew, who he understands to be "Ah-yah BOY! Ma-Ma bay-bee" Just today he started using "I" and "Your" in his sentences. He told me "your turn", but I think he was referring to himself, because it was actually Arthur's turn to have his nappy changed (right after Matthew) and I often say, "Right, your turn!" to whichever boy it is next when I'm doing nappies! I do more often say the boy's name instead, but I think he's caught onto the "your" thing from that anyway.

Yesterday he was standing at the front window, under the net curtains, looking up at the sky with his head tilted to one side. He was in his own little world and I don't think he even knew I was watching him, or listening. He was mumbling away about cars and people and things he could see, and then he went all quiet looking up at the sky. After a while, he said, using a very thoughtful sing-song tone, "How'd sun come out?.... How'd coud (cloud) come out?.... How'd a'mals (animals) come out?.... How'd car come out?.... How'd hnake (snake!) come out?...." and then he paused for a long while, standing very still and looking up, and then said, "I wonder more?...." I have NO idea where that all came from! My parents are insisting it's his first poem, haha! They think it's too cute and have actually typed and printed it out on their computer, and they're going to put it up on their shelves with "Arthur, aged 2" at the bottom of the page, hehe!

He has developed a real friend in his dress-up Noddy doll. It's just a stuffed doll toy that has some zips and buckles and buttons on its clothing so that little ones can practise doing those things for their own self-dressing. It's about 14 inches tall, and Arthur just loves it! We gave it to him for his birthday a couple of months ago. Noddy is being practised on a LOT these days! Arthur gives him pretend baths in his Bob the Builder tool box, hehe! He holds Noddy's hand and says, "Come on, Noddy!" a lot, and helps Noddy "daw cay-yons" in his pretend bath, bless him! He suddenly stops playing with something to announce, "COME ON, NODDY! Time a lunce!" and then marches with him into the kitchen, where he straps him into his own booster seat at the table, and then fetches one of his own plates and a spoon from the drawer, and helps Noddy to "eat lunce"! He likes to make Noddy some food with playdough. We make him orange carrots, lots of green peas, and we have a great playdough plunger that squirts the playdough out like long spaghetti. So Noddy usually eats spaghetti, carrots and peas! Arthur can NEVER resist trying some himself. *sigh* No matter how many times I tell him not to put it in his mouth.

Noddy gets his nappy changed, because "Noddy dunna big poo!" and Arthur puts him right on the changing mat and marches off to fetch wipes and nappy and wrap, shouting over his shoulder to Noddy, "Back MIMMIT!" (back in a minute!). He returns with a surprisingly accurate collection of cloth nappy paraphernalia for a nappy change (usually Matthew's things, more appropriate for a smaller Noddy-type-person!), and he sits down with them at the changing mat, saying, "Come on, Noddy! Hatta change nappy! Dunna poo!" He lifts Noddy's legs in the air by the ankles with one hand (just like I do) and commands him, "Legs uppa air!" (legs up in the air - something I say to Arthur when I need his co-operation over that to clean him up) Then he wipes him very carefully with a cloth wipe, and for some reason his feet as well (!), and declares, "Make nice keen!" (make nice and clean)

After that, Noddy always "need milk Mummy, whoa-fa" (needs milk with Mummy on the sofa) and he is handed to me, so I put him to the breast (Arthur did NOT approve the first time when I put him to the breast OUTSIDE my clothes, no no! It HAD to be authentic!) and Arthur watches carefully while I make tiny slurping noises on Noddy's behalf. He giggles and looks almost embarrassed or shy, and then when he's finished nursing, Noddy "hatta burp", so he sits on my knee where I make a burp-ish noise for Noddy and that sends Arthur into fits of giggles! Then Noddy "need nap" and Arthur wants to take him up to his bed, but usually Matthew is sleeping and I don't want to go upstairs and disturb him so we stay down and put Noddy to sleep in a quiet corner. Arthur covers him with a blanket and pats his back sooo gently, and whispers, "Shhh, ky-et..." (quiet) until he tells me, "Noddy seeping!"

He is just so SWEET with Noddy! He is also starting to show his toys things as though they are real people, which is the cutest thing. At the doctor's the other day, he wanted to take Terrence (from Thomas the Tank Engine) with us, and I made sure he kept hold of him while we were there, as I didn't want him left behind. We had a bit of a wait when we got there, and I suggested he show Terrence the fish (there's a big fish tank there full of fish), and he went up to it and held Terrence up to the glass very carefully at an angle so that Terrence's face was at a perfect position for him to "see". Then he stood there quietly, just letting Terrence see, sometimes saying things in a little shy voice, like, "Look Terrence!.... Oh look, fiss!.... Look dat Terrence, lotsa fiss!" He looked so tiny against the huge tank, and even more so because he was wearing his big winter coat too. It probably doesn't sound overly cute here and now, but let me tell you it was one of the cutest things ever at the time, and I felt so burstingly proud of being his mummy at that moment (in the FULL waiting room) that I could not stop a huuuge beaming smile from spreading across my face! I felt quite embarrassed about it and held Matthew in front of me on my lap so that my face was more hidden, but I honestly could NOT make my muscles relax that smile. It just came upon me! Fortunately, everyone else in the waiting room was smiling fondly at him too, so that wasn't so bad :)

Let's see, what else is Arthur saying? This entry is getting sooooo long and it's very late now, but I want to finish this once and for all! He comes out with unexpected things sometimes - well, at least *I* don't expect them when he says them! He saw some giraffes on TV the other week and said, matter-of-factly, "Diraffe, got long legs"!! He lies down on the floor next to Matthew (still one of his favourite things to do) and says, "Ah-yah lie down floor, just like Ma-shew does!" That's a new thing in the last 2 days - "just like Ma-shew does". The "does" is new. He is using it in other contexts too. He points to Matthew's head and then to his own, and says, "Two liddoo boys!" :) And he says, "Ah-yah liddoo boys.... Ma-shew nuther liddoo boys!" (Arthur is a little boy... Matthew is another little boy!) Today he says "littoh" instead of "liddoo" - he is changing things DAILY. If they are both doing the same activity at the same time, Arthur likes to comment, "All littoh boys eat toas'!" or something. If I'm eating toast as well, he'll say, "Oh-body eat toas'!" (everybody eating toast!)

He likes to commentate at nappy change time ;) He often tells me, "Tank-you Mummy, take poo 'way" - what a sweetie! As I start to take his nappy off, he'll say, "No poo... just a big wee!!" :)

He knows his full name now, and says it ULTRA sweetly, but I don't tell our surname here so you don't get to know ;)

When he plays with his trains or cars, there's often a point these days where there's a "cash" and then he delights in bringing someone in to rescue things! He brings James in, singing out, "Dames a RESSOO!!" (James to the rescue!) :) If something goes wrong in his games or with Matthew, he'll often comment in a worried tone, "Oh no! What happened dere?!" If he hears a noise (small as anything, even) while I'm trying to settle him down for sleep at night, he'll sit bolt upright with a finger to his ear, saying, "Wotsat?!" and require a full explanation before he'll settle down and ignore the sound!

Today I was changing Matthew's nappy, and lately Matthew has this fun new game where the instant his nappy is off, he does a strong twist to one side and squeezes his legs together, the monkey! He can hold that taut position for as long as he darn well likes (seriously, a LONG time!) and I can't do a thing to clean him up while he does it. I find it quite exasperating after a while! He is too little to pull back or to respond to vocal commands and stuff, so it's hard to handle! He DOES respond to his name, so I try saying his name in various tones to see if one of them will make him flip back and relax for second so that I can pin him in place (!!) and get the nappy change done. If I get remotely aggravated in my tone, he maintains his taut position but starts to GIGGLE! I swear I am going to have all kinds of TROUBLE with these boys as they get older! I fear I shall go completely grey when they are aged 2 and 3! Yeurgh! Anyway, as you can imagine, this kind of game is RIGHT up Arthur's street. He makes haste to come on over and join in, barking "Ma-shew!!" at him in various tones and then giggling with him in response. Today when this oh-so-fun game was taking place for the 3rd time that day, I was starting to get a bit exasperated with Matthew and suddenly Arthur giggled and said, "Gooniss shakes!!"!! I guess I must have said, "Oh, for goodness' sakes!!" once or twice in the past when I've felt exasperated! Anyway he has been saying it ALL DAY since then, but what makes it so funny is that he uses it perfectly in context, and that somehow just tickles my funny bone to watch :) He had a biro today that was not drawing right when he held it at the wrong angle (he was signing his name in Nana's birthday card), and he would pick it up, try to draw, tut and say, "Gooniss SHAKES!" and then try again, hehehe! Funny boy :)

Okay that HAS to be all. I'm tired out and it has to be crazy late by now. I'm nervous to even look at the clock and see what time it must be! I've been writing this since 10.11pm! Urrrrrrgh, oh my bungle (new word for Arthur's benefit!) - it's 1.25am!!!! Thank goodness it's weekend and I get to lie in tomorrow, pfhfhfhffffffffffewwww! I heart my husband! We have been planning to have an evening where we do a "marriage MOT" tomorrow. I'm happy and Neil seems happy and things seem to be trundling right along, but we need to fix a lot of stuff in our marriage at the moment, or so it feels. I don't know if the stuff that feels like it needs fixing is just there because we're just recovering from having a baby and also coping with a toddler as well, and sleep deprivation, and hormones on my part, etc, etc. But, things are not as I think they SHOULD be, with us. Or as I want them to be. I am slightly dreading the huge heavy talk that it is sure to be, but it does need doing, and Neil agreed to it when I suggested it last week. We set this Saturday for the date, so that's tomorrow. I have no time to go into more detail here, and not much motivation to dredge it all up anyway, but suffice to say top of the list will probably be parsnips, God, and.... okay, parsnips and God, really. There is more, but they seem like smaller things. NOTHING is happening with parsnips OR God in our lives at the moment, and both those things need to change. We need to discuss why it's like it is, and how we'll change it. And stuff. I hope we won't both just be too exhausted and soup-brained to talk about it when the day is done tomorrow. I feel like that nearly all the time lately, like I shouldn't be operating machinery or driving! Speaking of which, I MUST GO TO BED!! Back soon, I hope. Thanks again for all the lovely supportive comments :)

Heart attack?

I think my mum might have had a heart attack. Or something pre-heart-attack-ish. I speak to her on the phone almost every day, when I get a window - either while the boys are napping or in the evening after they have gone to bed. Sometimes if I'm having a hard afternoon with the boys then I'll get playdough out and sit with Arthur while he plays with it and phone her then. Or put Thomas the Tank Engine on and use the lull to speak to my mummy on the phone.

Today I put the boys down for their naps and went to phone my mum. We chatted about this and that for a while and about the boys, and then she said a funny thing happened yesterday in the garden. She was cutting some roses to put in a glass in the kitchen, and on her way back from that she got this pain in between her shoulder blades. I immediately thought, "Uh-oh..." because I know that shoulder-blade pain is a common referral site in WOMEN (not men) from the heart, say with heart disease or a heart attack. Anyway she then went on to say that it got so bad that she was calling my dad to come and rub her back to see if it might get better. She figured it was a muscle or something that she'd strained. She said nothing they did made her any more comfortable, and Daddy suggested that she go up and lie on the bed and she said she sort of laughed over the fact that she was acting like an old lady (she's 59 on Tuesday), because she said she didn't know if she could walk upstairs. She told me she was kind of doubled up from it. It started to ease off after half an hour and by bedtime it was all but gone. She told me about it because it seemed so weird, and she didn't get why it had gone away at bedtime, when a muscle strain probably would still be dragging on a bit. She also told me that she felt inexplicably tearful somewhere in the middle of it all - just out of the blue.

I did not mean to panic her, but I told her she needed to see a doctor straight away. She asked why and I had to tell her that it's not uncommon for women to get referral from the heart to the shoulder blades. I asked her if she had had any nausea or dizziness, or sensations in the arms, neck or chest. She said no to all. I know that the emotional aspect that she talked about is another possible "sign" of heart attack - although it's usually called "impending sense of doom". Sometimes it's just becoming unexpectedly emotional over seemingly nothing. She did say that when she breathes in deeply, she still feels discomfort through her chest. She said the pain went right through her ribcage, front to back, and that the remnant feeling is like a "band" (uh-ohhh...) around her ribcage.

It might be a muscle strain though. But she hadn't just done anything to strain herself and it came on suddenly while she wasn't exerting herself.

I know I shook her up with what I was saying. I could hear it in her voice and she told me after a while that she felt shaken up by it, and I SO didn't want to do that, but I did have to get it across that she MUST see a doctor right away. She doesn't like to complain about stuff that seems "silly" (which she had classed this as yesterday) and she gets uncomfortable about going to the doctor anyway. I made sure she would call the doctor as soon as she had spoken to me. She asked what they would do if it WASN'T a strain, and I told her I guessed they would do an ECG. As far as I recall, if she has had any sort of heart attack, it would register on the ECG - am I right? She told me I hadn't worried her overly, and that it was good that I was being sensible, but I hated having to say all that stuff. *I* would have been scared.

There is heart disease in the family. If I think too far ahead I get very anxious about my children. There's a LOT of heart disease in my side of the family, and Neil's is just as bad, so our kids have a double whammy of genes. Neil's dad had 2 heart attacks before he was 60, and his whole side of the family was riddled with them. The youngest to die of one was only 28! On my side of the family, the heart disease is on BOTH sides (both my parents) but more recent in my mum's side. Her dad died of a heart attack in his 60s. His brother died of a heart attack. Their mother died of a heart attack. You get the picture? Mummy is the next surviving person in that line, followed by her sister (both in good health up till now). Urgh.

I should be scared WITLESS. It's something I have been terribly anxious about all my life, knowing the family history of it all. But I feel oddly calm about it at the moment. Maybe because it's just a possibility and not a definite, and maybe because she hasn't keeled over with an actual heart attack yet, or maybe because it wasn't a dreadful phone call to tell me my lovely mother had a heart attack, rather it was a normal conversation where it was ME who broke the news instead of the scary scenario of hearing it from someone else. It's not a nice calm, it's like that eerie calm where you're not sure of anything, and everything feels weird. I don't like it. I don't like it. But it's better than tears or panic. I'm surprised as I always expected to react that way if ANYTHING ever happened to my mummy. She is my best friend. I don't think there is anyone I am closer to. Maybe not even Neil? It's a very different type of relationship though, so I'm not sure. I love her. The same squeezy love that I get over my children.

Anyway.

She has an appt first thing tomorrow morning to see her doctor. I hope to goodness she phones me up all embarrassed about how it's some ligament that she pulled and how I made her scared over nothing! She IS grateful already for me taking it seriously, I know that. But I hope I'm proved wrong. I reeeally feel that I am not wrong though, and THAT scares me.

I have a horrible headache and I'm tired right out, so that other stuff that is LONG overdue posting about will have to wait again. I just wanted to write about this stuff before tomorrow. Then if it's bad news I won't have to drag over how it all came about, etc.

Arthur is saying so much stuff that totally amazes me, full sentences and more adult pronounciations, and I have lots of it to write here so that it doesn't get forgotten. And Matthew is being the cutest pie. And has some issues that I meant to write about - he somehow has an abcess RIGHT where he poos from. I took him to the doctor about it yesterday and she prescribed antibiotics, ugh. I hate having to give him those. We still haven't picked them up - Neil is going to get them tonight, but I think he has fallen asleep settling Arthur down, as it's been silent in there for 40 minutes now. Better go and wake him before the whole evening disappears. I have so much cheerful stuff to write about but I don't have the heart to right now. Maybe tomorrow. Please pray for my mummy, if you pray. I am too, but I kind of feel tired out in that dept too. *sigh*

A first for each boy...

Shortest entry EVER, as it's too late to even start one! Two bits of boy news:

Arthur's first ever prayer tonight at bedtime: "Shank-you Dee-duz ah Mummy Milk" (trans. "Thank you, Jesus, for Mummy Milk") HOW precious is that?! :) What an apt "first thing" for him to feel thankful for :) His favourite thing today, just as I went to breastfeed him in bed tonight? "Like Dee-duz" :)

Matthew crawled yesterday for the first time!!!! He was DESPERATE like never before to reach something - Arthur and I had playdough out and he was beside himself about not being able to do it too! It ended up sort of funny in how different it was from when my first child crawled for the first time. That time we were being all "first-time parents" about it and never missed a single move he made, always encouraging and coaxing and stuff like that. With Matthew, I was so preoccupied with Arthur's constant demands and questions and things while we were doing playdough. I just had this awareness of a small person trying to squiggle too close to the playdough, out of the corner of my eye, and so I was absentmindedly lifting him away from it each time he got near to it. It was only after I had lifted him 2 or 3 times in a row that I realised I was having to do that awfully frequently, as in, he must be moving much faster than usual to make me have to lift him back so soon after the last time I did it! I was kind of thinking, exasperated, "Ohhh Matthew!! Stay put!" and then realised, "Oh my goodness, he must be CRAWLING to the playmat!" hehe! So I put him two feet away and watched, and up he went onto his hands and knees, incredible determination all over his face, and crawled the five little hand-hand-knee-knee-hand movements that it took to reach the playdough stuff and then flopped down onto his tummy! I did it again and he did the same thing without hesitation. I phoned my mum and Neil straight away, and gave Matthew a safe playdough tool to chew on as a reward - he really just wanted something from that box to put in his mouth, so he was happy! Arthur kept saying, "Oh my GOONISS!!" over and over, and, "Mah-shew CAWL!!" :) But he was tired and cranky after that and would not do it again when Neil got home. Today he seems to have forgotten how on earth he did it the first time (!!) and hasn't seemed able to do it again. He is mighty frustrated about that today, poor sausage. I'm sure he'll get it again soon. It was quite some motivation that time though, so maybe that's what made the difference.

Anyway, big milestone for Tiny Boo! Six months, 3 weeks and 4 days old. A couple of months (almost) younger than Arthur was. If he does it again I'll try to get it on camcorder and post it here :)

LOTS more to write and as always, the post-Christmas stuff to write and post the photos, etc, but no time right now. Neil back at work and I'm super knackered. Matthew waking like crazy at night at the mo, and I'm not used to the days after Neil's long break. I'll be used to it in a day or so, I'm sure.

Here are a few rather blurry photos (especially of that particular little boy who does not ever stop moving!) that I took of the little boysies a few days after Christmas! Sorry about the blurriness. I like Matthew's smiles so I wanted to post them anyway :) I will be back again soon!

2007 already! Arts and new milestones...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! 2007... Wow, how did that happen?! I miss 2006 already! It was just a LOVELY year for me - I got to be all pregnant again and have another scrumptious baby boy! And lots of other lovely things besides. 2007 feels a bit unfamiliar and cold so far and I'm not sure what it will bring or whether I'll like it yet. I mean, I know I'll love lots of things about this year! I have two lovely boys who I will enjoy watching grow up this year - they will bring me sooooo much joy and love and contentment! But I wonder if it's going to be a year that puts me RIGHT out of my comfort zone - like if (read: when) we have to move house and I have to leave the town I grew up in for the first time in my life. And stuff. And I probably won't get to be pregnant again this year. Some of you are probably thinking I am CRAZY for even considering the possibility! But Matthew will be 18 months old at the end of this year (wha???!) and even if I didn't get pregnant till December, that would still be a 2¼-year age gap, and I don't think I want to go as far as 3 years apart. I think. For now, anyway. But this could all be a nice fictional dream anyways, because Neil was just saying yesterday how he thinks it's just nice to have our little twosome. I will give him some time ;) I got my first post-partum period yesterday, so it’s made a whole lot of brain fluff rise up and whirl around – just hormonal musings, plenty of which have been waffled about in my pregnancy diary last night. It’s nice to have my body working normally again after having a baby, though I am feeling kind of crampy and dizzy and pfthth now, which isn’t quite so fun. But oh well! :)

I meant to update again the NEXT DAY after I wrote the entry about Christmas, but I just don't seem to get time. I have soooooooo much to catch up on, a TON to write about, and a bazillion photos to post. Not to mention the video clips! Neil is still off work on his lovely long break and that means things are different here for a bit. I am getting a few more chances to do stuff that is just about ME, which I am finding a bit hard to just relax and DO, but I'm trying because I really really reeeeally need it! And it's fun when I get chance to just chill out with my own stuff. I have been playing The Sims 2, sewing a bit, and sleeping in :) It feels sooooooo wonderful! It's my first break since having Matthew, and such a relief. The first week just felt like normal, like a weekend (with Christmas in there too). I didn't want to do things for myself because, I don't know, it felt weird and also I didn't know if Neil would mind. But that just meant that half Neil's holiday went by and I felt no more rested or refreshed than when he was at work or home for the weekend. So this second week (he goes back on Monday 8th) we have been carving out a bit more time for me to be "off duty", since before I was still attending to the boys with Neil's help, or helping Neil do things with them a lot of the time.

The day before yesterday, for the first time since I had ARTHUR (I think), I went shopping in town ON MY OWN!!!!! I have been to the supermarket a few times on my own since I had Arthur (and once since Matthew too), but it's different to leave them at home during the afternoon when they're napping-and-then-awake with Neil, and just go and shop! Not because we need milk and bread, etc. But just to shop and browse and be myself for a bit. It was lovely! It was also waaaay too crowded as the sales are on and we live somewhere that is a big centre for shopping, so bazillions of people come flocking in for the January sales, ugh. But oh well. I have the local know-how, haha! So I parked quickly while everyone else queued at the more obvious car parks, and walked a bit further to get to the shops. I walked HANDS-FREE!!! No pushchair, no little hand to hold! No weights on my back or front, as I didn't have a baby in a sling, or a huge bag on my back with a million baby-travel-items in it! I could walk at my own pace, which was just soooo much fun that I practically RACE-walked, hehe! It was so freeing to walk fast without things weighing me down or stooping down, or pushing something. And not to have to keep stopping and starting. I got such a buzz out of it that at one point I got overwhelmed with the urge to squeal, “Wheeeee!” as I strolled along! ;) I didn’t, though.

I went to look for things to spend my Christmas money on – for ME. I thought I might get some cosy PJs or maybe some new jeans that fit me well. Or something. I looked in lots of shops but didn’t have time to try anything on, as I had to be back to nurse Matthew by a set time. I gave him a huge breastfeed before I left, and I didn’t want to be away for more than 3 hours from his last feed. I really could shop for like 5 hours +. Really. I wouldn’t even notice the time go! It felt quite restrictive to know that I only had three hours! Which is crazy really. In the end I found it really hard to relax and just be me. I kept thinking about the boys and wondering if they were up from their naps and if it was going okay. I wondered if Matthew was fussing, or still asleep, or getting hungry. I wondered if I should call Neil (I took the mobile phone) and see. I found it very hard to focus on shopping for just myself. In the end, the only thing I got for myself was 2 boxes of painkillers and a prescription for, um, Fybogel. Yeah baby! I so got my groove on during THAT outing! ;)

I spent some of Arthur’s Christmas money from my grandparents (“Spend it on something he would like…”) on two Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs :) He has four now. Before I went shopping I sat down with him on the sofa and said, “Arthur... For Christmas, Granny and Grandoug gave you money!” He looked at me like he knew it was a big deal. I said, “We use money to buy things at the shops.” He nodded and waited, so I continued, “If you like, Mummy could take your money to the shops and buy you a new Thomas the Tank Engine DVD. Would you like that?” and he did this huge long gasp while I was saying the words “Thomas the Tank Engine DVD” and the moment I finished my question he exclaimed with GREAT enthusiasm – “Oh yes PEEEASE!!!” He is so lovely! He was so excited. He kept saying, “Mummy go shops, buy nyyyooo dee-vee-deeee Ah-yah!” He could hardly wait for me to go! So I browsed, and ended up buying two. He still has some money left (they were generous!) and we think we’ll put that in his Child Trust Fund. There’s nothing else he really needs right now. I got him the entire first series (26 episodes!) of Thomas the Tank – some of which are duplicated on one of his other DVDs, but only four of them out of 26. I also got “It’s Great to be an Engine!” because it has episodes that he hasn’t seen before, and engines that he reeeally likes.

I also went to the Early Learning Centre and bought 6 big containers of ready-mixed liquid paint (6 different colours) because the ones he currently paints with are actually a set of six finger paint pots which I watered down a bit so they were suitable for brush-painting with as well. They have almost run out. Some of his Christmas presents from us were craft-based, as he LOVES art and craft things so much already. We are wondering if he might be starting to have something of a flair for art, maybe. He could get that from Neil. My mum says I am artistic, but I don’t know about that. Creative, maybe, but I never really DID much with arts and crafts, once I got older, so I don’t know if I would have been any good at it. I wasn’t very confident about myself when it came to drawing and stuff. Neil, on the other hand, is definitely artistic. He used to use his pocket money to buy things like a book about birds when he was a child, so that he could sit for hours and copy the pictures, drawing them carefully. He is good at drawing even now. He had quite a passion for it as a child and teen. He is also musical, playing many more instruments than me, and at a higher level too. We might be wrong about Arthur being arty, but he just seems to enjoy it so much. It isn’t just the he loves it though. He has done the odd thing that has surprised us, but then maybe we just have NO idea what the average 24-26 month old is supposed to be able to do in that area. Right after his birthday, he painted a picture of Gordon from Thomas the Tank Engine. Often he will sit with the paints and cheerfully tell me he is going to paint such-and-such. He is always drawing something specific when he is scribbling or drawing on the furniture even (on those rare occasions when he discovers a pen that I’d forgotten about!)! After I’ve told him off for it and explained why we don’t draw on the walls/table/shelves/floor, he STILL has to tell me that it’s a “beeb lorry” or a “whiw-wer car” (that’s silver, by the way!). Anyway, so he told me he wanted to “paint Gor-nin!!” all morning and so I got out the mat and paints and apron, etc, and he sat down happily with a big sheet of A3 paper and the paints. He got out a brush, asked me to take the lid off the blue paint, and when I did, he painted a long line which turned out a little bit wavy, and then stabbed the paper with the paintbrush several times underneath the line. And voila! He announced, “Gor-nin!!” and beamed at me. And there he was – long and blue with five circular “dot” wheels, evenly spaced along his undercarriage! Today Neil built him a horse out of toilet roll tubes and stuck it all together with selotape. The first thing Arthur did with his pens was to painstakingly draw two circles, one on each side of the horse’s head (in EXACTLY the right place on both sides) for eyes, and then fill them in carefully with tiny scribbles! I didn’t know he knew how to do that yet.

Anyway, so he loves painting, and for Christmas we got him some supplies. We got him a set of 14 big chunky sponge shapes for sponge painting, and a set of 6 paint pots with open/close lids – the type you put the paintbrush through via a hole in the centre. So I got some paints to go with those. I am eager to get him an easel because it would be easier than the floor mat (though we’d obviously still have that out under the easel!) and also you can get ones with whiteboard on one side for wipe-clean pens and stuff, and a blackboard on the other side for chalks. I think he’d love chalks, but we have never introduced him to them because he still has a tendency to put things in his mouth. Wax crayons and washable pens are one thing, but chalk is another! Yeurgh! We do lots of sticking and glitter and collage-y stuff, and I want to expand on that this year. I can’t wait till we can do more fiddly crafts and collages!

Oh that reminds me, some of the MANY photos that I have waiting to post in my diary are of Arthur doing some painting recently. I think I made a video clip or two as well… I’ll have to check. I made so many that I can’t remember what I’ve done now!!

Okay, there are two little video clips – taken a couple of days after Christmas. The first one is Arthur making some circles in his painting with the paintbrush jar, and also doing some handprints with me. He wanted me to do my handprint too! He’s wearing an old baggy T-shirt of Neil’s. He looked like a little angel to me, wearing it! I just love him soooooooooo! :)

Then the next video clip is of Arthur putting handprints on a fresh sheet of paper, and counting them. The sound is out of sync with the visual again, which you can tell by me counting one, two, three, four as I seemingly point to the wrong handprints! Tsk.

Here are a few photos of the same painting session :)

Another thing that we got Arthur for Christmas was some bath crayons. I had heard of them before from various online diaries and friends, and it sounded like something Arthur would LOVE, so for Christmas we got some for him! He was SO excited when we opened them up before bath time one night after Christmas and told him that he could draw with these crayons in the bath - all OVER the bath if he wanted to! He couldn’t wait to go “up bath, daw cayons!” Here he is using his bath crayons for the first time (Neil’s above-knee area carefully avoided, haha! Arthur still always baths with Daddy. Neil does wear boxers when he baths with the boys though, after a few eye-watering hair-pulling incidents from the early days, hehehe!):

Just before I breastfed him in bed that night, I asked him what his favourite thing was that day. He didn’t even hesitate to say, “Like daw!” The next time he used the bath crayons, he had also been out that day and seen a deer at the park. So when I asked what his favourite part of the day was, he said, “Like deer!” and I asked if he had particularly liked anything else that day, to which he replied (pausing to think first with finger on chin, hehe!), “Like deer…. daw…. a’ out!” (I liked the deer, drawing, and going out!).

Urgh, it’s getting craaazy late and I still haven’t written half of what I wanted to say in this entry!! Matthew is doing fine. He has been the crankiest boy since Christmas, fussing and seeming angry a lot. I know it is to do with wanting to crawl. He still isn’t crawling, he’s just rocking on his hands and knees all the time. After about a week of intense grumpiness (!!), he suddenly seemed to think differently about it. He started working very hard at going from hands-and-knees to sitting and vice-versa, and the new focus seemed to cheer him up no end. It has been quite funny to see him swinging his bum this way and that, trying to swing his leg under himself, and leaning so exaggeratedly on one arm as he attempts to sit up! He sort of backs himself around in circles, like a lil puppy, hehe! Anyway, by doing this he has sort of started to move himself backwards when on all fours, but not really crawling still. He seems a bit frustrated by it, but at least he’s happy working on a new thing that he IS making progress with. He enjoys this practise best when he has no nappy on, or even better, no clothes on, and when I take his nappy off these days he is SO eager to get practising that he WHIPS over onto all fours before I can stop him! Today he has finally got the hang of it, and I’m so proud! :) I took video footage but he’s all nudie so you don’t get to see it! He flips onto his tummy, shoves onto all fours, and literally swings his legs under his tummy in one smooth movement, pushes with his arms, and voila – he’s sitting bolt upright with one arm supporting him, hand on the floor! Then he lets go the floor and for the first time he is REALLY sitting well – ramrod straight back, both hands held up in front of him. He uses his torso muscles to keep himself steady, and those muscles must be getting pretty strong now because he does lean and sway this way and that a bit, but he can still keep himself from tipping over just with his back, side and tummy muscles. He looks SO pleased with himself! He can also pretty easily go from that position to all-fours again, so he is now all set up and ready to crawl, able to sit back when he needs to. How I wish he’d figure it out! Not that I’m eager for another mobile youngster about the place, but he is just so fed up about it and thus the rest of us feel it too!

Other big news from today is that Arthur did a wee in the potty for the first time this evening!!! We are NOT pushing potty training yet. We have owned his red potty since he was a year old I think, just as something for later. It has always been amongst his toys or somewhere normal and familiar to him. For a few months we have been telling him that it’s where he will wee-wee when he’s bigger, and when he was undressed for a bath or something, we’d tell him that if he wanted to wee, he could sit on the potty and wee there if he liked. We never did or said anything more than that really. He has done a lot of wees on the floor and when he does we have started to ask him not to wee on the carpet if he can help it, but to wee on the potty or in his nappy instead, if he needs to go. I know he can control it. Actually he pretty much checks off everything on the “readiness for potty training” checklist from Babycentre. But we are in no hurry. Nappies are so easy, and what is more I absolutely LOVE his cloth nappies! I will be sad to stop using them on him! Also, when a child is ready to potty train they will literally lead you through it, so I am not in a rush. Arthur often sits on his potty and makes funny little fake effort sounds and tells me he has done a wee-wee, but he never actually has. It’s usually a light-hearted game between us that he laughs about and finds amusing, which is nice :) Tonight he was sitting on his potty pretending to do a wee-wee. I was laughing with him over something to do with it, and I said something like, “Shall Mummy help?” and bent near to him whispering, “Pss-pss-pss-pss!” And he did a wee while I was making that sound!! I had heard of making that sound from mothers who do EC (elimination communication – urgh, google it, it’s too complicated to explain here quickly!). I was so surprised that he did a wee! He stopped, giggled, and then said, “’Gain Mummy!” so I made the sound again and he weed some more! He did a whoooole big wee-wee in that potty, and when he stood up he looked in and shouted, “WEE-WEE!!!!” pointing at it excitedly! We made a hugearooney fuss of him, of course, praising him up for being such a big boy and saying how proud we were of him for it, etc! Yay for Arthur!

Then I asked if he wanted to see where his big boy wee-wee goes, and he said, “Oh, YES PEEEASE!!” :) So I took him and the potty up to the loo, where I tipped the wee in and showed him, telling him that’s like Mummy and Daddy’s wee, in the toilet. Then we flushed it away, Arthur peering eagerly over the bowl to watch, and when it was gone he cried out, “Oh my GOO-NISS!!!” hehe! “Oh my goo-niss” is today’s phrase-of-the-day, it’s very cute! I don’t know why he started saying it today, but he’s been saying it for EVERYTHING all day. Oh, he dropped a toy car down the back of something this morning and said, “Oh no! Dizappeared!”!!! He said it soooo clearly, each syllable. He has started to use a lot of 3-syllable words lately. Fantastic, disappeared, delicate, difficult, dishwasher… I can’t think of the others off the top of my head. He says them pretty well. And he has suddenly started to say better pronounciations for things this week – two of his first early words were “orange” and “ambulance”. Both of them sounded like “ahh-daaan” when he said it. He continued to say those up till last week, and then one day he said, “orringe!” when he saw the orange crayon! That same day, he heard a siren outside and said, “Am-ber-lance!” I don’t know why it happened all of a sudden. Today is the first day he has started to pronounce Matthew’s name more accurately. He has been “Ma-Ma” all this time and I am very fond of it therefore! But today he called him, “Mah-shew” many times. He also used “Ma-Ma” a lot still, but I know the end is nigh for that lovely nickname! I know it also means that there may only be hours or days left of the precious way he says his own name: Ah-yah. I just want to cry thinking that he will not say it like that anymore! But if he can say Matthew, he can certainly say Arthur :( I know it will be soon. Boo-hoo!

Anyway. So my big boy!! I have no expectations for potty training just because of the wee in the potty, but it was just a big moment! At bedtime when I asked what his favourite part of the day had been, he said, “Like out” (he liked going out) and then was too eager for some mama milk to say any more. After I said night-night and left him with Neil, I heard him suddenly call out, “Oh Mummy!” and start to cry. I started to head back, but I heard Neil talk to him. He asked what the matter was, and Arthur said, “Like wee best!” and cried some more. He had meant to tell me that the wee was his favourite part of the day but forgot when I was there, and he sooo wanted to tell me when he realised, bless his heart! I heard Neil say, “Oh, you liked your big boy wee the best? Don’t worry, I will be sure to tell Mummy when I go downstairs.” And Arthur stopped crying and settled down right away, so I didn’t go in. My sweet boy :)

It’s toooo late to continue for now. I’ll be back soon with the rest, and all those photos and videos. I have some sweet ones of Arthur and Ella from Boxing Day! Must post those soon! Haven’t had chance to email or do much else actually, since my last entry, so I’ll hopefully get to that soon.