Weigh-ins for the boys, Arthur's "talk" and other newsy stuff...

It keeps being too long between entries and it's starting to drive me crazy! I always feel like I have SO much to write to keep up with everything, and lots of photos to post too. This weekend I've had several opportunities to write my diary but I just haven't wanted to. It sometimes gets so that it feels like a chore to update, because there is so much to "get done" in an entry that I can't just enjoy writing for pleasure like I used to. I just ended up flopping on the sofa in front of the TV for the last couple of evenings instead, and was surprised that it felt like a blessed relief. I don't know why it gets so that I feel like my diary is a source of actual pressure. It's not other people, it's me. I SO don't want to miss things here. I want to record everything that means something to me. Which is tooooo much stuff to keep up with at the moment! If I let some of it go, then when I next update, I feel like I can't write the latest stuff till I've filled in the gap with the older news first. So I write that, and then it gets too late or my entry gets too long, and so the latest news gets put off till next time. And by the time I write again, it's OLD news and I have more "latest news" which has to be put off for the old news, etc. It sometimes feels like I'm chasing my own tail, but I CAN'T just decide to not write my diary! I don't know why, even. I just can't imagine not writing my diary. I know if I didn't write here, whole CHUNKS of my life with my little ones would vanish out of my memory (within a scarily short space of time) and I don't want that! I just can't figure out how to record the memories without the huuuuge-o task of doing so, and the subsequent pressure/chore feelings. It has been so nice to just put my diary out of my head and RELAX in front of some comedy programmes and a movie for a couple of nights. I think I would like to do that more often, but when I'm updating my diary, it takes me HOURS - at least three solid hours when I'm writing a long update (which I always have to these days, to keep up). And the times when I'm NOT writing my diary, I'm thinking how I MUST write my diary soon because I'm getting crazy-behind. Urgh!

I have no idea how to solve this! Any advice?

Well. For now, I will continue as normal! I don't want to miss stuff if I can help it! The stage of life I'm at now is absolutely crammed full of precious little nuggets of experience that can't, can't be lost in the mists of time!

Matthew cut his first top front tooth yesterday! It's toothie #3. The other one is about to come through. I reckon it might be through tomorrow, but we'll see. He has that grey dent/hole type thing in his gum, which always starts from 3 days before the tooth comes through it, and it's been there about 2 days now. He's doing well with them so far - MUCH better than when he cut his first tooth, thankfully! I can't imagine him with a toothie grin, top and bottom! His little baby bottom teeth are soooo cute, sticking up out of his gum like they do! They are such teeny weeny little teeth, and they have a tiny gap in between them. I don't think I ever saw such tiiiny teeth before! Everything about Matthew seems so tiny to me.

Speaking of which, FINALLY I get to update about his 8-month check! It was done a couple of weeks ago, at 8 and a half months. He passed all the things they check at that stage with flying colours. He crawled to the door to meet the Health Visitor, and she said as she stepped into the house, "Crawling beautifully! I can check that one off then!" :) He sat and stood with support and all that stuff just while we were chatting, so she didn't need to ask me about those things as she could see them for herself.

He was weighed and measured - oh bum, I've left his red book downstairs! I can't remember the exact stats, so I'll just get it....

Okay, he weighed 17lbs 1oz at 8.5 months. He is STILL dropping on the percentiles chart, urgh. He is now at about the 7th percentile. But he's happy and healthy and reaching milestones early, etc. So the health visitor was not worried. He still nurses about 4-5 times during his "day" and about 4 times over his 10-12 hour "night". He eats anything and everything, as you know! He actually ingests a lot, much more than Arthur ever did at this age. I don't give him big portions yet because he will EAT it, and despite his weight being on the low side, I want his nourishment to be at least 90% breastmilk till he is 12 months old. He has no shortage of breastmilk and is still fed on demand there, day and night. So I'm not worried about his weight really. He's my little peanut!! I love his littleness!

Arthur has his 8-month check late, at 9.5 months, but he was weighed at exactly 8.5 months too. For comparison, Arthur was 22lbs 11oz at 8.5 months!!!! He was at the 80th percentile, taking barely ANY solids (he only started tiny tastes of solids for definite at 8 months)! My diary says that he had gained a whole pound since his previous weigh-in TWO WEEKS earlier!!! And by his "8-month" check a few weeks later, he weighed 23lbs 3oz! These boys are SO different!

Matthew measured 69cm (27 inches) long, which puts him at about the 20th percentile. He is pretty much keeping to his percentile curve on the chart for length. Arthur was 75cm (29.5in) at his late 8-month check, putting him at the 80th percentile again.

For head circumference, I felt a bit shocked to discover that Matthew is at the FIRST percentile - exactly halfway between the 2nd and 0.4th percentiles on the chart!! His measurement was 43.5cm (17 inches). But, I did know that he has such a tiny lil head :) So I suppose it shouldn't be such a huge surprise. There's just something about figures and stats being a bit shocking when they are at either extreme on the chart, I suppose. He has only had two other measurements for head circumference, and those were both RIGHT on the 25th percentile, so I'm not sure why on earth he's dropped right down like that. It makes me nervous, though I don't know why it should. But the health visitor didn't comment on it at the time, so maybe it's okay? Arthur's head circumference was nearly 2 inches more than Matthew's at his age! But then, it's obvious that Arthur has a completely different head shape to Matthew anyway. Arthur has been wearing age 3-5 hats over the winter!!

So, my little Mathsie-peanut!! He's SUCH a tiny boy compared to his brother! Can you imagine if they had been twins or something?! I come across non-identical twins from time to time who are just SO completely different in body type, etc, and it's just amazing to think that they're twins at all! But then, the same differences occur in different-aged siblings and not so much notice is taken. If Arthur and Matthew were twins (obviously not a realistic possibility, but still!), they just would have been amazingly different babies to see side-by-side. They are teething at about the same rate (Arthur's first top front tooth came through within the same week that Matthew's has) and at 9 months both were doing the same things, motor-wise, pretty much. Arthur didn't start crawling till 8.5 months, whereas Matthew was 6.5 months, but Arthur literally went through crawling, pulling up, cruising, and climbing in a 2-week period! Matthew has progressed more gradually, so that at 9 months, they have pretty much been at the same stage. I think Arthur was already doing MORE than Matthew, even! He caught on SO fast, that boy! But wow, they would have been SO different to look at! Anyway. I just found that interesting :)

Matthew was due a nap before the Health Visitor had finished, and was getting tired and cranky after being weighed and measured. He was too upset to pay attention at the fine motor skills tests - even picking up a raisin did not tempt him!!! But the Health Visitor asked me if he was doing those things and I told her he was. He did pick up a raisin just before she left, so she got to see him do that one. He transfers objects from hand to hand to explore them, and he tracks objects out to his peripheral vision, etc. She wasn't sure if he might have a slight squint in his right eye (well, the right eye as you look at him, so I guess that's HIS left eye). I was totally surprised by that as I've never noticed any sign of one, and I remember I actually thought Arthur had a squint when he was a few months old. I took him to the HV and asked her about it, and then to the doctor, but he was fine. So I was surprised not to have noticed anything and to have someone suggest that my baby might have one this time around. She said she might be wrong, and she can't actually confirm it with her test - it's that slight - because he was very active and moving about a lot. Usually she would refer to a doctor for a squint at this age, but she's not sure so she wants to re-check it at 12 months. She also wants to weigh him again at 12 months, and do his head circumference again too. I KNOW he's a healthy baby but I DO hope he's picking up a bit on those charts by then. It makes me feel like they're watching and he "should be" moving up or else something isn't going right. And I don't like that feeling. Something deep down just automatically feels like "something" is my fault. Probably just a normal way for a mother to feel, but anyway. I don't like it.

When the HV checked his hips, they were fine, but when she turned him onto his tummy to check that his leg creases were symmetrical (which would indicate no hip problems, when holding the legs straight and knees together), they WEREN'T at all. When he was on his back, his creases were symmetrical, but not on his front. She suggested seeing the GP just to double check, as it MIGHT indicate a slight mis-alignment with his hips that would need looking at and treating. But when you put Matthew on his tummy, he INSTANTLY gets mobile and tries to wriggle away if you hold him. He did this with the HV, but then went still for a few seconds as though he knew he was stuck (!) after she didn't let his legs go, so that's when she checked his creases. At the end of the visit, she put him on his tummy again and I put a toy in front of him. He didn't try to move away and his creases were perfectly symmetrical :) So the HV said not to worry about seeing the GP after all, and that he was obviously very eager to be mobile all the time!

She weighed Arthur too, but with clothes and a nappy, so not awfully accurate. He weighed 31lbs which put him at the 75th percentile, and measured 93.5cm (37in - just over 3ft tall!), putting him at the 80th percentile for height. I reckon his weight would probably be around the 60-70th percentile if he had been weighed accurately, and that would actually be right in line with his normal weight. Since I got pregnant with Matthew, his weight went down to the 60th percentile (I was worried it was because my milk dried up during pregnancy, but they told me it was much more likely to be due to the fact that he started walking around the end of my first trimester) and stayed there. So he is following his curve well, which is nice to see! :) I am so annoyed because I have lost Arthur's red book with all his previous chart stats and stuff. I know it's in the house somewhere (ugh, it's such a DUMP!), but I haven't been able to find it for months. The Health Visitor wrote his latest measurements on a slip of paper and put it in Matthew's book instead. Anyway, it's recorded here too, for prosperity!

My desk here is literally AWASH with pieces of paper with things that Arthur has said, written all over them! I am so behind on recording these precious little memories! I keep not getting around to putting them on my diary, so the pile of papers gets bigger and bigger! Some if it is sadly out of date now, and I guess I won't get to record those things. But so that this doesn't happen again, I'm going to get started on some of the things Arthur has been saying recently!

* Looking at photos of Matthew when he was only a few months old: "Awww! Mashew tiny in this picture!" :)

* Driving past a HUGE display of beautiful daffodils one day - we'd previously been discussing about flowers and trees and stuff that God made, etc: "Look at orla (all the) daffo-deews!! God made the daffo-deews! Thank you God for daffo-deews!" We drove round them FOUR more times, he loved them so much!

* Bennie (my brother) and Sarah came round to look at slings and cloth nappies (32 weeks now, wheeee!!), and Arthur took GREAT joy in showing them our entire collection of newborn sized cloth nappies (about 50, plus wraps!), one at a time! He knew much more about them than they did, and handed each one to Bennie in turn, saying, "Dis a wrap.... An' dis is a nappy.... Dis is an insert..." etc! In the end, Bennie was half buried in nappies, and suggested to Arthur that they put the nappies back in the box. Arthur took the first nappy from him, saying, "Good idea, Bennie!" hehe! He sounded like he was a teacher talking to a pupil!

* Giving Matthew a toy to play with (this one is a few weeks ago now): "There Mashew, my swee' dahling..." :)

* After his normal nursing session one morning (again, a few weeks ago now), he asked for some more milk a little while later. I gave him a little and then said no more (it was getting too near to lunch time). He asked, "I like a lilloh (little) bit milk..." And I said no. He said, "I like some TINY bit milk?" and I said he couldn't even have a TINY bit of milk! ;) I went in the kitchen after a while to prepare the lunch, and after a few minutes, Arthur sauntered in casually, running his hand along the fridge as though he had nothing in particular on his agenda, and then hugged my legs gently and looked up at me with the most angelic look on his face. Then, still hugging my legs, he said, "Mummy, swee' dahling?" So I replied, "Yes, Arthur?" and he said, "I'd like some lilloh bit milk!" Smooth-talking little monkey! :) He used his MOST winning tone, and the sweetest cuddle to my legs, and fancy calling me "sweet darling" like that?!!! He knew exactly what he was doing! The WORST thing about it, is that I did nurse him, just a little bit. *sigh* He hasn't used it on me since, so hopefully it wasn't TERRIBLY the wrong thing to do, and he DID eat lunch all the same. But I just couldn't resist his charms, hehe! ;)

He uses funny little phrases in response to things we suggest or say now, that make us laugh all the time. Some of them that I've written down are:

* "I cer'nly DO, Daddy!"

* "That would be nice, wouldn't it Mummy?"

* "Oh, thank you Mummy!" or even, "Thank you for showing me, Mummy!" :)

* He says, "Have a nice day, Mummy!" when I wave him off on his pretend car, and "Be care-foh Daddy! Be care-foh onna ladder!" when Neil goes into the loft - with such genuine concern in his tone! He even couldn't concentrate on a story while his daddy was in the loft, and walked off after a while saying, "I just checking see if Daddy alwight..." and then I heard, "ARE-OOO ALWIGHT DADDY?!!" as he shouted up the ladder! He only came back when Neil had called down that, yes, he was alright thank you, and he would be careful on the ladder coming down. Bless :)

* Matthew was interfering with a game he was playing with his trains one time recently, and Arthur called from the living room (sounding most annoyed!), "I need some help wid dis litter (little) boy!"

* He was sticking the cut n play veggies together and the carrot wouldn't line up JUST SO for him, so he got frustrated and called to me, "I having a problem with the carrot!" I love how easily he communicates issues or frustrations now!

* He's starting to get very serious and sort of acting like he's the grown up person teaching US things, sometimes! A couple of weeks ago, we were driving over a bridge that went across the River Thames, and he shouted from the back of the car, "I see the sea!!" So I started to explain that it was a river, and he interrupted me, saying, "It's act'ly water" in a very serious tone!

* Today he was sitting with me on the sofa, looking up out of the window, and he pointed out and said to me, "You see doze white clouds?" When I didn't respond right away, he repeated the question, so I said, "Oh yes, I see them..." Then he told me, very seriously, "Dat means it gun rain!" and nodded his head at me wisely! It DID rain, an hour or so later!

* One for my personal treasure trove: Arthur finished nursing one time a couple of days ago, and smiled up at me, saying, "That's nice milk, Mummy!" LOVE that one! :) He wanted Noddy to have some Mummy milk later that day, and insisted on tandem nursing with Noddy. He eyed Noddy with some amusement as he nursed, and then I said to him, "Do you think Noddy likes Mummy's milk, Arthur?" and he immediately came off the breast and said, "Ohhh YES!" as though it was crazy to suggest otherwise! :) It's frustrating for me, because Arthur uses the rise and fall of his tone SO much in how he delivers his little sayings, and I CAN'T bring that across here at all. It sometimes makes for more than half the cuteness of what he's saying, so it's frustrating to me that I can't record that here :( But oh well.

* A couple of days ago, we were playing with playdough and he was looking for the parts of a set of coloured stamps to make patterns in the playdough. He found one, and sat up, saying very matter-of-factly, "Well, we've found the green... Now where's the blue?"!! Some of the things he says sound SO grown-up. Most of the time his voice is still so chipmunky and his sayings so sweet in their toddler pronounciations, but sometimes he comes out with a perfectly pronounced, even-toned phrase that makes him sound like a much older child. It's so weird to hear him like that. NICE weird, but it's just something I'm reeeally not used to hearing yet!

* I asked him if he was going to share a toy with Matthew the other day, and he calmly replied, "No. I jus gon' hold it allbyself!"

* "allbyself" is a BIG phrase right now! About 50 thousand times a day, I hear the phrase, "I wan' do it allbyself!!" He can say it more clearly ("all by my self") but he is usually so intense in his frustration over something that he HAS to say it super fast so that it sounds like one word! That's how it is most often used at the moment.

* One time recently, I was cutting something out of a piece of paper, and Arthur wanted to use the scissors when he saw me. I told him that he was too little and that they were for Mummy and Daddy to use. After whining, "But I waaaaant toooo!" and still getting the same response from me, he stopped and looked thoughtful, and then said, "When Ah-yah grown up?..." so I said yes. There was a pause of about, oooh, 5 seconds (!), and then Arthur called out cheerfully, "I grown up now!! I use it now!" :)

* He was watching Matthew one time and suddenly said, "I wish could go out wi Mashew...." (aww!) I explained that Matthew was too little to walk and run with him yet, and he said, "When Mashew grown up..."

* I asked him, "Do you want to go out to the supermarket?" and he answered, "No, I just staying home thinking." He adopted a "musing" pose, semi-reclined on the sofa, with his finger on his chin, and then suddenly he shoved his hand RIGHT down inside his trouser leg to the ankle, and said, "I looking in my pocket!" Funny boy! He comes out with such silly things sometimes! ;)

* At dinner one evening (macaroni cheese and salad):

Arthur: "Mummyyy? What are you chewing?"

Me: "Cucumber, Arthur."

Arthur: "Cucumber?!?! Mummy, don't eat cucumber with the pasta! It weew mess it all up!"

* Last period I had, I came downstairs in the morning and took some painkillers straight away for my cramps. Arthur asked me what I was doing, so I told him I was taking some painkillers because my tummy hurt, here (and I patted my tummy where it hurt). He watched me take them, and then got a pained expression on his face and started patting his tummy in the same spot, saying, "I need some pinker too! I like some tablers just like Mummy. I got a sore tummy too!" I especially love "pinker" for painkillers, and "tablers" for tablets :) Neil calls them tablets, so that's where he knows that one from.

* We were looking at a picture with two mice on it, and I said, "There are two MICE!" Arthur frowned at me and said, "No, not MICE - mouse!" It sounds simple, but I actually found that pretty hard to explain to a two-year-old who doesn't count or understand plurals yet!

Except, on that subject, Arthur has recently started to count to three! In his Toddler's Bible, there are pictures of pairs of animals with the Noah's Ark story. He counts each pair, "One, two" pointing to each animal as he counts. I think that's repetition since I count them with him like that as we look at them all. But there was a donkey on the opposite page to the one with a picture of a pair of donkeys. When I asked, "How many donkeys are there?" he counted the pair, "One, two..." and then pointed to the other one and said, "Three!" He did that several times over the next few days with other pictures in his Bible. And when he only saw one animal, he'd say, "Only one fnail (snail!)... I think the other one disappeared!" and look all worried! So I now know he can count one of something, two things, and identify a third thing as well!

He also finally realised recently that "Mummy haven't gotta willy...." I told him what ladies and girls have instead, the word for which I am not about to write here because of gross googlers, and he repeated the word with such a tone and facial expression of "Oh my gosh, what a completely ridiculous suggestion!" hehe!

Did I tell you that we tried a day of potty training to "test the waters" so to speak (no pun intended, haha!)? It must have been a couple of weeks ago.... Oh, it was the day before Jove's party, so it must have been March 2nd. Anyway, he was eager to put big boy pants on and sit on the potty, so we gave it a whirl. I was not about to go all gung-ho though. I just wanted to be easy-going about it and see how it went. Sitting on the potty got to be NO FUN after about the second time, and the total result over the course of one morning was 0 pees in the potty, and 6 pees in the big boy pants. Thankfully we have 10 pairs of big boy pants! :) There were a few puddles to clean up, which I did not mind cleaning at all. But he got so fed up with going near the potty, and he ended up refusing to let me change him out of pee-soaked pants and trousers, and in the end I just cheerfully told him he had done well wearing his big boy pants today and that we would try it again another day, and changed him into a nappy. He protested HUGELY though. I have read stuff about not stopping once you start with potty training, otherwise the child can feel like they've failed, but when I talked with my mum about it beforehand, she didn't agree with that. She said she had taken a very easy-going approach to potty training, and thought there was nothing wrong with you and your child seeing it as something to "give a try today and see how we go", and then if it doesn't go so well, to cheerfully say that we can try it again another time. It seemed reasonable enough to me, and it made it suddenly SO much easier to embark upon a bit of potty training now that the "all or nothing" mentality had lifted. Mummy said I was dry in the day times by 19 months but not a night for quite a while longer. My brother was a bit older, but he still wet the bed till he was 7 on occasion. She said it was NOT a difficult process, but it was gradual because she took it easy like she suggested. I like that approach, I think.

Anyway. We haven't tried big boy pants since then. I am not sure Arthur's really ready, since he was NOT keen on peeing on the potty. He was very keen to wear the pants and totally happy to do every single pee in them, no matter that it got him wet. He stills sits on the potty now and then when he's out of a nappy for bathtime, say. But I'm happy to wait a while longer. I'm happy to wait, full stop, really. Anyway, I just wanted to make note of that here.

There's more stuff to write that Arthur has been saying - let me just get those written down and then I'll HAVE to stop as it's waaaaay past midnight (and 1am, for that matter, urgh):

* Arthur was eating beans on toast for lunch and I was sitting next to him with Matthew on my lap (late lunch for Arthur, and Matthew was about to go down for a nap, but he was VERY interested in Arthur's lunch!). He said, "Paps Mashew might like some Ah-yah beans?" and offered some on his spoon, tentatively. Matthew ate them eagerly! Arthur asked him, "What d'you think Mashew?" :)

* When we were sorting socks recently, Arthur seemed to decide to give each individual sock a cuddle, for some reason! There were about FIFTY socks!! He took each one in turn and folded his arms over it, tucking it right under his armpit. Then he rocked his arms a little and said, "I just giving that one cuddle.... Ahhh! He's so lovely!... (to the sock:) Ahhh, uv you!" :)

* The other day he peered into the kitchen with a wrinkled nose and a frown, and said, "Dere's a smew (smell) in there...." and he looked over the floor. In a very doubtful tone (with matching expression!), he said, "The floor not look very clean to me.... Dere's a smew in there." I asked him what it smelled like, and he answered, "Smews like dirty..."!! Note: The floor was definitely filthy, but I could not detect any horrible smells in the kitchen, so I don't know where that came from!

* In contrast, we were upstairs after his nap one afternoon and he sat down in the hallway and looked around, and then threw up his hands in surprise, saying, "Wowww! Look how tidy tis HERE!" Hehe! It was NOT tidy, but in comparison to downstairs, it was absolutely pristine ;)

* He talks so sweetly to Matthew! He is always sitting down by him and looking RIGHT into his face to tell him things and explain stuff. I love watching the backs of their little heads and bodies as they sit side-by-side, involved in communication that is ONLY between them and nobody else. I can't wait till Matthew is talking too, to hear the sweet little conversations that will take place between them! Matthew sometimes listens to Arthur with such an earnest expression now. Arthur just chats to him whether he's listening or not, although sometimes if he's clearly NOT listening then Arthur stops to get his attention again!

One time a week or so ago, Arthur was sitting up on the sofa with me. I was eating a chocolate chunk cookie and Arthur was being allowed a rare treat of sitting with me and sharing a piece of my cookie. Matthew was playing with bricks on the floor. Arthur was acting SO proud to be sitting there doing something so privileged and grown up! He started talking to me about Matthew very much as though he was another grown-up with me, and Matthew was the only little one around :) It was more his tone of voice than anything else, that conveyed that. I wrote down the conversation afterwards:

Arthur: "I wonder what Mashew doing?"

Me: "I think he's playing with some bricks. Isn't this a yummy cookie?!"

Arthur: "Oh yes! Iss yummy!"

Having finished, Arthur climbed down from the sofa.

Arthur: "I'm gonta see what Mashew doing!"

Me: "What's he doing?"

Arthur: (goes over and looks carefully, then turns to me with very grown-up expression) "He's playing wid bricks." (nods wisely!) "I'm gonta sit down wi' Mashew... I sitting down next to Mashew."

Me: "Oh, that's good."

Arthur: (turning to look into Matthew's face, and talking to him) "We had a yummy cookie Mashew! An' we had toas' an' pwisps (crisps!) an' yoggut as well! That was nice, waddunt it Mashew?!" He's such a sweetie :)

* Today Matthew was crying SO hard while we were trying to change him for bed. He was tired out and hates being messed with when he's tired. Arthur seemed very concerned and came to sit by his head while we changed his nappy and clothes on the floor. He stroked Matthew's head and held his hand, and leaned right over his face, saying stuff. I couldn't hear what he was saying at first over the NOISE of Matthew's crying, but I leaned in closer and heard Arthur saying:

"It justa bad dream Mashew... It's okay Mashew... I hee you Mashew (I hear you - something I tell him when he's crying and I'm unable to pick him up and attend to him RIGHT at that second)... There's no scary bad coming Mashew, it justa bad dream." Bless his heart! Arthur has been having MANY bad dreams lately, several per night for a while. They are about various things, but recurrent ones are about a "scary man" or the cow, or just something he can't explain. One night he just started shouting for me, not crying, and his voice was absolutely full of terror. He was shouting, "I don't like it Mummy, I don't like it!" So I went in quickly and he was sitting up in bed, trembling so violently. He couldn't even look at me or relax into a cuddle, and he just kept staring at the door. He wasn't asleep, they are always just bad dreams that he wakes from. Usually he cries but this time he seemed too terrified to cry even. It took ages for him to relax enough to have a proper cuddle, but I held him in the meantime and talked soothingly to him. He couldn't tell me what had scared him. He kept saying, "I don' know what it was" or, "It was some-sing... I don' know what..." His voice shook and his body shook, and I just felt terrible for him. I talked to him about what everyone was doing - Matthew was asleep in his cot, Daddy was downstairs watching telly, and Mummy was on the computer, and everything was okay in the house. I asked him if he wanted me to ask God to help him, but he said no, and I did not want to push that further without his consent.

In the end he suddenly sighed and said, "All gone now" and then he stopped shaking after a while and I nursed him and he went back to sleep. The next day I talked on the phone to Mummy about it, and she SUGGESTED that I pray with him!!!!! If you know my looonnnng-term history, my family are not Christians - well, my mum DOES believe in God, but yeah they have never been supportive of my becoming a Christian and all that stuff. So this was a happy moment for me, to hear my mum suggesting that I pray with my little boy!

That night I talked with Arthur at bedtime. We read some stories from his Bible about God helping people, and then I talked to him about how God helps us, and how he loves us. I told him that, if he would like, I could ask God to help Arthur with his scary dreams. He said, "Oh, that would be nice!" hehe! So I told him what I would say when I asked God, and since he still seemed eager, I prayed out loud with him. I just said, "Dear God. Please let Arthur have no more scary dreams. Please help Arthur not be scared any more. Amen." I wanted to keep it really simple for him. Arthur said, "Ah-MEM!" with great enthusiasm :) And then I told him that if he DID have a scary dream that I would come in and cuddle him and we could ask God to help him right then and there, to make him feel better and not feel scared about the dream any more. He seemed happy with that idea, so I nursed him and he went to sleep. He didn't have a bad dream that night, and he hasn't had any in the two nights since either! Praise God!!!! :) If he DOES though, I feel much happier knowing I can go in and we can call on God to help him with his fear.

A few days ago, Arthur saw an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine with an engine called Arthur. We haven't seen that engine before, and at first he was saying, "Nooo, it not Ah-yah!", but then he heard the narrator CALL the engine "Arthur", and then he started to call it "Arsur". That's the first time he has pronounced his name any other way than "Ah-yah". "Ah-yah" is incredibly special to me, and I have LONG been dreading the day he got grown-up enough to stop pronouncing it that way, although I knew it would come. It's just the sweetest little name, the way he calls himself!

Yesterday he used the name "Arsur" for something, and when I asked him to say it again, he said, "Ah-yah". So I knew the end was nigh for my beloved baby name that he's been using! A bit later on that day, we were folding laundry and he was handing me items, naming them as he did so, as usual. He handed me a pair of his trousers and said, "Arsur's trousers..." I looked up in surprise and said, "Whose trousers?!" and he said, "Ah-yah's", but then the next item was handed to me as, "Arsur's seepsoot" and when I asked whose again, he said, "Arsur's" - waaaaahhhh! After that, ALL the items belonging to him were "Arsur's" and sometimes he got the 's' to sound more like 'th' even. A couple of times over the rest of that day, he referred to himself as "Ah-yah", but today he has only called himself "Arsur" or "Arthur" :( I'm sooooooooooo sad. I know you'll think I'm crazy, and it's just something to move on with, and even to CELEBRATE, because it's a big deal that he's finally pronouncing his own name in the proper "grown up" way. But I'm so sad to lose my "Ah-yah"! I'm just so glad to have him on video saying it, many times! My baby boy is growing up so fast.

Okay it's soooo late. I wanted to post photos, but there's just no time left. It's Mother's Day today, or it was. Neil forgot again, just like last year. By noon, I finally just reminded him to phone his own mother and he still didn't really mention anything to me about the occasion. I had to pretty much say, "Um, it's Mother's Day today..." before he said, "Oh, I forgot again! I sort of remember with my own mother but I guess I just don't really make that connection with you!" Hmmm.

Well, I have never been big on Mother's Day anyway, as my mum wouldn't let us celebrate it with cards or presents as she didn't want us exploited by the commercial side of things and spending our money on stuff. So it is not in my heritage, as it were, to celebrate it. BUT, I do feel like I am stretched to the max, giving everything I've got, to the "job" of motherhood. It's wonderful and demanding and rewarding and draining, and I wouldn't rather do ANYTHING else in the whole world. At the moment it's pretty intense, with two little ones, and there's this day that's set apart to acknowledge and celebrate mothers and all that they do, and I just feel like I would like a little recognition on that day from my nearest and dearest, along with all the other mothers out there. So I guess I feel a bit peeved that nothing happened for me on Mother's Day. Nothing happened after Neil remembered either. I did the food shopping, the day went as normal. I DID buy myself a lot of chocolate though ;) Really though, I should be happy enough on Mother's Day that I AM a mother, and that I have been blessed with two beautiful, healthy, happy children who love me. That is enough to feel fulfilled on Mother's Day!

Okay, I have to stop now! You're going to want to beat me about the head with whatever is close to hand when I tell you that it's 2.45am and Monday morning looms with Neil back at work after the weekend. I am stupider than stupid to stay up this late, even for a diary entry, because I KNOW I will seriously not be up to giving all that my little boys need of me tomorrow. And that sucks. I am just going to pray that God will help me tomorrow. Not that I remotely deserve it, but still.

Remind me to tell you about Arthur stuffing a yoghurt-covered raisin up his nose next time. It was nearly a trip to the good old children's A&E again, but thankfully we didn't have to go in the end! That boy...

Lots of photos of my little boys!

It's already soooo late (again) and I meant to write a big long wordy update but I wanted to include a few new photos with it, and when I uploaded my camera stuff, there were 67 photos on it!!!! So then I had to resize and all that jazz. And now it's crazy late and I haven't done anything but fiddle with photos this evening! Urgh.

So I decided since there are soooo many photos, this will have to be a photo entry to catch up (with brief descriptions - well, as brief as I know how to be, anyway!), and then I won't have such a backlog of those, and I can concentrate more on the writing next time. I am also SO behind on emails. My poor parents haven't had photos of their grandsons in almost THREE months! That's just terrible :( I must get them emailed, but there are literally 200-300 photos to send them. Yikes.

Okay, enough with the chat, or I'll never get to bed! Oh, but Matthew is 9 months old tomorrow!!!! How surreal it is, every time he turns a new month old. It just doesn't seem possible that I have a 9-month-old baby! Or will have, tomorrow. Three months tomorrow till his first birthday. Nooooo! I am desperate to slow down his babyhood! I am loving it so much and I don't want it to rush by too fast! He's such a precious little baby boo-bean. I need to write about his 8-month check. I'll try to do that next entry.

Photos!!! Here is a rather blurry set of photos, which I took because I wanted to record something that is a VERY common view for me these days. Matthew is a real "ankle climber". Arthur never was. He was too interested in crawling or pulling up to explore AWAY from us, whereas Matthew is constantly pulling up on my legs as I'm trying to walk, and clutching at my clothes, etc! He's very clingy today because he's teething (still no top front teeth but the gums there are SO red and swollen and they surely can't be much longer coming?!), so there has been more of it. But otherwise he's generally happy, just climby-on-me-ish! Sometimes it does drive me a bit crazy. But he's so cute all the same, so it doesn't matter! It DOES drive me slightly mad when Matthew is climbing up one of my legs and Arthur is whining and screechy and hanging off the other one. But such is life with a two-year-old and a baby, and honestly? I wouldn't swap it for anything (this said hours after they've been asleep and I've had time to regain my sanity a little!)!

So, here is Matthew this morning. Yes, I am wearing pyjamas AGAIN. At least they're not pink this time! :) And I did get out of them by the afternoon. *sigh* He drops to his knees and crawls off between my legs after he's had enough pulling and climbing!

Arthur is a real sweet and sour combination these days! Delicious in general, and sometimes completely sweet and lovely as he has always been, but other times just reeeeally hard to be around and know how to handle. He seems to get a little worse week by week at the moment, but I know it's just his age. Since a few months before he turned two, I've been browsing posts on parenting forums about 2-year-olds and their behaviour, etc. I thought Arthur was doing the "two" thing early by having some meltdowns and stuff, so I looked. BOY was I wrong! Now I really know I am in the "two" territory! Before there was definitely an increase in tantrums and stuff, but it's absolutely nothing compared to this now. But at least I know from reading all those posts over the months, that it's normal, he's at EXACTLY the age everyone seems to say it peaks at (but the peak lasts for several months), and it DOES go away. Weirdly, the mothers desperate enough to post messages about their two-year-olds and complain that everything was okay a few weeks ago, but now it's unbearable (!) had 27- or 28-month-olds. Mostly boys, but still plenty of girls. Arthur just turned 28 months and he has been like this for maybe 2 or 3 weeks, getting worse gradually. So at least I know he's RIGHT on track, hehe! It looks as though we just ride it out. It can't be easy for him, either.

He has had a few REALLY sweet moments today, lots of cuddles and affection and being helpful. But he has also had a couple of screaming meltdowns and plenty of whining and angry "NO! Stop that Mummy!" type of phrases!

Here is Arthur this morning. He looks remarkably relaxed for the fact that the most glass-shattering screechy scream is eminating from his open mouth. He was annoyed with me about something:

Here he is hating me for making him stay on the sofa till I say he can get down, after he did one of the million things I'd asked him not to do repeatedly today:

BUT, then a bit later, after Matthew was asleep for his nap, I took Arthur up to bed and breastfed him to sleep as usual. When I take him off the breast, he usually stirs and starts to say that he wants some more milk, but he's always asleep and still has his eyes shut even. It always comes out as a slurred mumble, and he gets as far as, "I like shmmoremilll...." and then he's too far gone into sleepiness to form any more words (or even finish the word 'milk'!), and I slip away :) I don't care that he is two and still needs to nurse to sleep. He can go to sleep without nursing because he does it every night at bedtime. I LOVE nursing him, and he prefers it as his way of falling asleep. It does create the odd issue when Matthew won't settle and Arthur CAN'T get to sleep for his nap without nursing. But that's rare, and it's well worth it just to have these magic moments with him still.

So I nursed him to sleep, and he did the slurred mumble asking for more milk, and then just lay there unconscious. I lay for ages just watching him sleep. He looked so beautiful to me and I couldn't even imagine the annoyance and frustration he'd brought up in me earlier. He was QUIET, and still - two rare things for Arthur! He has such round pink little cheeks, and such rosebud lips. I love his long dark eyelashes - he gets those from Neil, and Matthew has them too but not so dark. I love them! He was wearing such a "grown up" little outfit - blue jeans and a shirt - and earlier I'd been telling him what a big boy he looked in his shirt and jeans, just like Daddy wears! He looked so grown up to me earlier, but all that fell away as I watched him sleeping, and even with his big boy clothes on, he just looked like a baby to me, all round and pink and sleeping peacefully with his arms outstretched.

I did leave eventually, but I couldn't stop thinking about how he'd looked to me just then, and after a while I went back in with the camera to make a record of it :) Here he is, having his afternoon nap today:

Those were taken with the flash (he didn't stir). He has a blackout blind so he sleeps in the dark even in the day. His room was approximately this dark (without the flash!):

Here are a few of Matthew, taken a couple of minutes after I took the above ones of Arthur. It is completely necessary to my sanity that my children nap at the same time in the afternoon! I will arrange my ENTIRE day to achieve it! ;) I need that time out, and it has been really hard to learn how to juggle it, but WELL worth it. Here's the tiny man:

No blackout curtains for Matthew, who is a better sleeper anyway, but I am currently trying to finish attaching blackout lining to the curtains that hang in his room. So far they've been in a pile downstairs for over a month (having barely got started) and there's a big sheet of blue fleece (nappy-making fabric) over the window instead. *sigh* I wish I had double the hours in a normal day! I'd get everything done that I needed to, probably.

The boys play together SO sweetly, completely spontaneously, and for LONG periods of time. I feel so blessed that they get along so wonderfully, and that they are already entertaining each other and playing like this with only minimal supervision at times, at such a young age. I didn't expect it till Matthew was MUCH older, so it's lovely! They pretty much make up their own games. Matthew is emerging as a very playful little boy. He isn't the giggler that Arthur always was as a baby. He does laugh and giggle every day, but less than Arthur did. Mind you, I never met a baby who laughed as frequently and heartily as Arthur! He is still the same today :)

But Matthew is very playful. Now I think about it, he's shown many signs of that since the early months, but I didn't put it down to anything until now. Interesting. He makes fun for himself putting things on his head - that's one of his favourite things to do right now! He pulls clothing over his head - anyone's, and clean or dirty will do! He pulls it onto his head and then falls down with a thud! And laughs about it - funny boy! It's even better if someone else comes along and plays with him - peekaboo goes down well, but the boys also have a game they seem to have made up which Arthur calls "Gimme!" hehe! Matthew picks up a sock or brick or anything fist-sized, and holds it out to Arthur with shining eyes and big excited smile, and Arthur grabs the other end and tugs vigorously at it, jerking Matthew's arm like crazy, and saying, "Gimme, gimme, gimmeeee!!" I'm not sure where it has even come from! Anyway, Matthew LOVES it! He squeals and gasps and giggles and eventually the item is yanked from his grasp, and then he picks something else up to have Arthur do it again!

I think I have a photo of them playing "Gimme!".... Yes, I do! It's from a couple of weeks ago:

It's a very joyful and blurry experience, hehe! I found a couple more from the same little photo session, one right after that particular game of "Gimme!" and then another game that Matthew likes to play (on his own) - Arthur calls it, "Playing Dropsie!" This involves holding one or more items, holding them up in the air and dropping them, preferably with eyes shut so as to be prepared for pain if it's a heavy item and it lands on your leg or foot! Then you pick the items up again and repeat ad infinitum. His latest version of this is starting to involve a lot of long-distance (seriously, I'm quite amazed sometimes!) throwing! Anyway, photos:

But Matthew just loves to put things on his head, or wrap himself up in clothes so that he falls over or can't see! It's the most fun when Mummy or Arthur (or Daddy, for that matter) play it with him. Here are a few photos of games like this that have happened recently around here (all initiated by Matthew and eventually "noticed" by Arthur!):

Matthew has started to be interested in helping with folding the laundry, just like Arthur was at his age. But Arthur's was absolutely pure PASSION, and Matthew is just curious. Arthur is delighted that he's showing an interest, hehe! Well, that and also slightly peeved to have to share his favourite activity with someone. And Matthew gets in his way a lot while he's trying to make piles. I tell you, Arthur is so unusual in this respect! He loves housework. He MAKES me do housework just so he can get to do some! He has always had a special soft spot for laundry. He unloads and folds (well, hands me each item in turn, saying what it is - "Another bottom wipe.... another nappy.... another insert.... teeea-towel.... another bottom wipe..." etc!!), and a new CRAZY thing is that I can now pull out the wet washing into the laundry basket, push it round in front of the tumble dryer, and call out, "Arthur! Could you put the wet washing in the tumble dryer for me please?" and he comes RUNNING! I get on with a different chore, and he literally loads the tumble dryer for me. He loves it! It takes him ages because he likes to put things in one-by-one (each wipe or sock individually!) and name them as he goes. When it's loaded, I shut the door and turn the dial, and press the start button. I see me being able to teach him to do that within a few months. I think he would be thrilled to set the tumble dryer going all by himself. He's very into "Do it allbyself!" these days!

Anyway. So far, they sit and "fold" laundry together. Which, for Arthur, means naming and sorting and unfolding things that I've folded to "just check" them again, and for Matthew it means lots of chewing. This boy is at his most content when he has a random sock (clean or dirty, he doesn't mind) either in his hand or in his mouth! He is almost always to be found clutching a sock (or one in each hand, odd ones usually!) as he crawls around the house. He scavenges socks! We have very few matching pairs these days as a result. Here are a couple of photos of the boys as I found them in the kitchen one day. They're not as recent as I thought, actually - about a month ago now already! When I saw them, I asked Arthur what they were doing, and he said, "We just folding, Mummy!" and then he crawled off into the living room, calling out, "Mashewww! Fowwow me, Mashewww!" And Matthew did! He squealed and giggled all the way behind his brother (there was a slight bottle-neck at the fridge) into the living room, where they stopped and played with bricks and trains together :)

I love my boys!!! I do, I do! They are just the sweetest little people I ever met. I love them so completely that I don't know what to DO with myself. Precious little loves...

And now Matthew has woken and nursed and gone back to sleep, and it's laaaate, so I'm going to bed now. I'll try to update again as soon as I can, to write the other stuff. I don't want to forget it before I write it! I have notes on what Arthur says, and Matthew's (and Arthur's) stats from Matthew's 8-month check written down too, but there's sure to be more that I'll forget, or it will just get toooo out-of-date to write, if I don't hurry up and do it soon!

Jove's Naming Ceremony, and other things!

Okay, back for part two (the first part is ranty, I have to warn you! Hence the need for a nice fresh Part Two!) of tonight's diary entry! I really could have arranged that sentence better, couldn't I? Oh well.

Soooo, as I was saying, I will start at the beginning of the EIGHT-day hiatus (!!) that has happened since my last diary entry, and try to post as much as possible before it's just getting stupidly late and I have to go and get some sleep. It's midnight already so that probably shouldn't be far from now...

I found a good way of getting some necessary "daytime" cooking done the week before last. Usually I cook anywhere from 4.30pm, depending on how long that night's meal will take to cook. But say if I want to make stock from last night's roast chicken, or a batch of vegetable stock for a soup I want to make this week (I'm going to try making Creamy Leek and Potato soup this week - my first serious soup!) - then I need to prepare the ingredients for that much earlier in the day, and let it simmer through the middle part of the day, or the afternoon. Then I can cool it and process it into containers and into the freezer before I have to change tack and make dinner, and it's not left to do after the boys are in bed for the night. BUT, little boys are up and about in the daytime, so it's hard to find a good time to do it. Last time I made stock, I hit on a way to do it! As soon as Matthew went down for his morning nap, I cleared the kitchen table and spread Arthur's activity mat on top of it. I sat at one end of the table with my chopping board and chopped an onion and stuff, and Arthur did some crafts! I froze some paint in an ice-cube tray a while ago, for a new thing for Arthur to do, so I got those out and he LOVED them! He loves cold things, which is good because otherwise he would have HATED that activity! They were way too cold to hold after a while, but he stuck at it and enjoyed it:

As soon as he'd finished doing that, we put his drippy paintings to dry and I got out the glue and some pictures and shiny foil and bits of pasta, etc, that I'd been saving up for him to do sticking with. These days, I scavenge every leaflet, magazine, item of junk mail, etc, etc, for pictures that Arthur might like (car insurance things are GREAT because this boy loves cars, and they are sure to have at least one picture of a car on their stuff!), and I cut them out. I actually really enjoy the scavenging part! :) I like sifting through stuff and I get a little buzz out of happening upon a tiny picture of something that I know will bring a smile to Arthur's face. And then I save them all up for a soothing moment of quiet, say when the boys are napping or in the evening for a few minutes. And then I sit in the quiet house and cut all the pictures out. Cutting carefully around shapes of things on paper is sooooo soothing. I don't know why. It's on the same level as sitting with a bunch of colouring pencils and a child's colouring book and filling in the shapes with their chunky black lines.... I love stuff like that! It's so comforting and soothing, just something from childhood that makes me feel at peace when I do it. So I like hunting for pictures for Arthur to use for sticking! :) Today at Tesco I rifled through the Free Papers stand outside and picked up several pretty irrelevant magazines. I'm going to have a lovely time cutting out pictures of planes and cars and baskets of fruit, etc, sometime soon! :) I also cut out pictures and patterns from spare scraps of nappy-making fabrics, as that gives him lots of different textured stuff to stick with.

Anyway. Arthur had never actually had the "control" over the glue before, as I'd helped him with it in the past (it's that white runny glue, not a glue stick or paste). This time I poured him a tiiiny amount into small cup, and gave him a glue spatula, and showed him how to use it and stick things on. I spread his bits out for sticking, and left him to it:

He had a lovely time! He stuck things to cover the whole piece of paper, and he was soooo pleased with his finished work! He couldn't WAIT to show Daddy when he got home from work. Yesterday I cut a piece of A4 card into two pieces, and Arthur stuck lots of pictures and fabric on one side. When it was dry, we turned it into a postcard! I drew a line down the other side to divide it into an address section and a note section, and then I asked Arthur what he would like to say if we wrote a postcard to Nana and Grandy. He said, "I don' know what-ta say Nana an Gwandy...", which, by the way, is his latest thing. When asked any question about anything, he pretty much says he doesn't know the answer. He'll say, "I don' know what-ta choose....", "I don' know how-ta fits it...", "I don' know the name...", "I don' know wits colour it is..." (definitely fibbing on this one, as he has known pretty much all the colours since he was about 20 months old!), "I don' know what-ta do...." or even, "I don' know how-ta say the words!" which is soooo heart-rending, because lately he has been trying to say LONG and complicated sentences and it's frustrating him so much when he can't make the words in the right order. He'll start over a couple of times and then just flop in discouraged frustration, whimpering sadly, "I don' know how-ta say the words!" He seems more disheartened about things lately, and goes into tantrums more easily. I think he must be reaching that age where it's very common for this kind of emotional development to be peaking. He can be VERY difficult right now, but along with it has come this vulnerable little thing who is just finding life a bit overwhelming at times, and he is SO wonderful at communicating about it with me. I think it is preventing a lot of tantrums, the fact that he's able to tell me so much about how he's feeling and what exactly is frustrating him. The worst may be yet to come, so it might not prevent things for long! We'll see! The vulnerable side of him is something I totally didn't expect to see at this stage, and it's melting my heart for him all the time. I find myself being extra tender and gentle with him lately, and giving him a lot of extra cuddles, and being very patient with him over things he's trying to express to me. I try not to OVER-help him with his words, because this eventually frustrates him as much as if he can't say what he wants to say, and it can trigger a "flash" tantrum if I'm not careful! I am learning! It's hard to find a balance with a 2-year-old in the throes of that stage of development. Poor little soul! It's a hard life!

Arthur was 28 months old yesterday. Two years and 4 months. It has just occurred to me that he's only TWO months away from being out of the "twenties", in terms of months, and into the "thirties"!! Yikes! Thirty months also makes him exactly two-and-a-half. Where is the time going?! And Matthew will be 9 months old next week. He is now way closer to his first birthday than to birth, and that just seems craaaaazy-impossible, somehow.

Does anyone know anything about the Love and Logic parenting series? I would really value your comments on it, if you do - whether it's good or not, whether it works or not.... I hadn't heard of it before this week, when one of my friends at a buddy group online mentioned it to me. I know I said last entry (or the one before) that we have CHOSEN to smack Arthur and are confident about having done so. But, you know parenting! And, more to the point, you know me! I never seem to be confident about a method for very long. I WISH I didn't have to smack Arthur, though I have now stopped being quite so narrow-minded as I was before, and will never judge anyone for smacking their child. If Love and Logic is a good method and it WORKS for us, then we'll gladly ditch the smacking and use that instead. I soooo don't want to be chopping and changing methods with Arthur all the time, but I do want to settle on the RIGHT one for him. We'll smack him and stick with it, but at the same time we would MUCH rather not. We're kind of mixing methods this week, which is very inconsistent of us. *sigh* He's having some time-out (having to sit on the sofa and not get down till we say so - which he hates at the moment, so it works) and smacking for when that doesn't work. Which isn't something to continue doing, as it's too mixed up and inconsistent. I want to know if Love and Logic is worthwhile enough for me to spend some non-existant money on the books that teach about it, BEFORE I make the purchase. If you have any knowledge of it, please let me know so I can make a decision about it! Thank you!! :) From what I can see so far, it looks like the MOST gentle and calm discipline method I have come across yet by far. I love that there doesn't seem to be any stern-ness or anything. Maybe I am missing stuff that I haven't been able to find out yet though? Anyway, all advice and opinions on that one gratefully received! :)

No noooo, this won't do!!! It's 1am and I'm WAFFLING!!! Aaargh! No time for waffling! On with the entry!

Arthur's latest monkey-ness:

Nappy cream AGAIN! He climbed up to reach the NEW pot that I bought, and retreated to a corner of the living room with it. He was soooo quiet (I was putting Matthew down for his nap) and as I came downstairs with that sense of trepidation, I could hear this squelchy-squelchy sound and these whispered, "Oooh!.... Haaa!.... Wowww!" sounds, as he worked his fingers and hands in the cream with great delight! Little monkey! He had plunged his hands RIGHT into that pot and cream had shot up his sleeves and I STILL can't get the stains out of his soft brown top :(

Here are a few photos of my increasingly BUSY little Mathie-man:

Finally able to have full access to the toy storage unit boxes! He rifles through them constantly, and tends to push the middle shelf ones until they crash onto the floor, spilling their contents, and then he can just play with them easily! He also stands on tiptoe where you see him in this photo, and holds on with both hands to the shelf above with all the closed boxes on it! He looks scarily STUCK when he's hanging on like that, as though he can't undo his action and he'll end up falling, but he never does. He likes to try new things and stretch to new places!

In this next photo, he was "talking" to me (pulled up on my leg to see me), and I had a nanosecond opportunity to snap a photo of something vaguely toothy! You can't see his second tooth in that photo but it's as tall as that first one now. He is about to cut his first top tooth as I type this - there was a fine white line sketched across his gum there this afternoon, so I think it's about to break through.

And here he is with a Mr. Men book :) He is becoming quite hard to photograph sometimes, just like Arthur, because he's in motion ALL the time, it seems! If he's down out of my arms, then he wants to be exploring constantly, and even when he's standing still because he has pulled up somewhere to "talk" or something, he bounces and bops and waves objects and thumps the sofa and so on! He's never still:

Sweet little sausagey-poo! :)

On Saturday (a week ago - already! Where has the week gone?!), we all went to Jove's Naming Ceremony!!! I hadn't seen Jemma and Jaya and Stu since Jemma was 10 weeks pregnant with Jove, so it was LOVELY to see them all again, and of course to meet Jove at last! We were late getting there as there was the usual disorganisation over getting all four of us out of the house at a set time (*sigh*) and then the car was being iffy, so I came back in the house to phone Jemma and tell her that we'd be there a bit late. Fortunately (for us!) things were running a bit late there too, so we would not miss anything. The boys both fell asleep on the way there - it was nap time for them so I'm glad they did. Matthew had to go without a proper afternoon nap as the party started at 2pm (we got there about 2.40pm) and that's about when Matthew normally goes down in his nice quiet cot for a 2-hour nap! He slept 30 mins in the car and we drove round and round and ROUND the streets near Jemma's house to let them sleep for the full 30 minutes and wake by themselves (both of our boys can never sleep past 30 minutes when out and about, and it's BAD news to wake them sooner than that!). Then we went in.

The house was full of people, and the first person I met was Jemma's MIL holding Jove. He looked gorgeous in his little white outfit! It felt like I had only seen him last week or something (!), rather than never having met him before, because of how well I "know" him through Jemma's diary! Isn't that funny?! But nice :) Then Jemma came to greet us and she held Matthew, who took a few wary looks back and forth between her and me, and then burst into tears and wailed and wailed inconsolably! He's soooooo different to Arthur. At Jaya's naming ceremony on her first birthday, Arthur was exactly the same age as Matthew was at Jove's (our kids are exactly the same age gap - well, a 4-day difference!), Arthur was this completely confident little chunk of a person! He was so happy for Jemma to take him, literally before we even got through the door when we arrived, and didn't even look for me while she held him. He even got interested in her hat, I seem to recall. In fact - here's Arthur at Jaya's Naming Ceremony, in August 2005:

I'd love to have a comparison photo of Matthew with Jemma, but (apart from the wailing!) I was a bit rubbish with my camera at this particular event - I think it's because I had two littlies to watch this time, and there were lots of people, and I just kept not thinking of my camera! I even left it in the car and only remembered it once the ceremony started! I went out to get it, but missed half the ceremony in the mean time, and when I got back, Arthur and Jaya were in the house with the toys (the ceremony was taking place out in the back garden) so I stayed there with them for a while, and since I had my camera with me, I took some photos. But they didn't come out too well. Arthur had his back to me all the time, looking at toys! And Jaya is as energetic and interested as Jemma always says in her diary, and never really kept still enough for me to photograph her properly! So here are the few blurry-ish photos that I took:

Jaya was eating something in this one!

He finally found the Thomas toys, quelle surprise! :) In the verrrry corner of the photo on the bottom right, you can just see the edge of Jaya's red dress as she disappeared out of the room, hehe! She was on the move all the time!

Arthur was unexpectedly reserved and quiet at the party, which surprised me really. I thought once he warmed up to the new place, he'd get stuck in with his normal energy levels, but he kept himself to himself a bit. He played with the toys inside, and also in Jaya's room upstairs for a while too. Neil and I took them upstairs so I could feed Matthew in peace at one point, and Jemma said Arthur could play in Jaya's room (which was gloriously full of toys!). He absolutely loved the tea set and the Peppa Pig stuff, as he loves Peppa Pig and watches it most weekday mornings when it's on. It made me think that we really don't have enough "girly" toys around the house for Arthur. We must get him a tea set - he would LOVE one! He so enjoyed playing with Jaya's, and Matthew had a good bang with a plastic spoon and a chomp on a plate as well!

The rest of the time, Arthur was outside in the back garden. After the ceremony, almost everyone was inside, as it was quite a cold day, although sunny for the most part. The food was inside too! Arthur wanted to ride the ride-on toys outside. He spent ages in the Coupe car thingy (MUST get one of those - that exact car has been on my to-buy list since he was about 10 months old, but lack of garden till a few months ago, etc....) He didn't shove himself around the place in it frantically, as I thought he might. He just carefully and SLOWLY went this way and that, going forward, reversing carefully, going forward, reversing carefully (etc!), and if I suggested coming inside or something, he'd say, "No, I just parking..." (hehe!), and if I asked again a moment later, he'd sound more impatient, saying, "No, I steew (still) parking!"

(By the way, this is NOT a reflection on my parking skills! ;) I am a marvellously quick parker and since Arthur sees my fab example, I can't fathom why he is determined to be so SLOW at it, hehe!)

He DID come out of the car for chocolate birthday cake, of course! It was YUMMY! I had a near-perfect opportunity to take a photo, as Jaya was sitting at the table outside, by herself, eating birthday cake. I brought Arthur's piece out and he walked up to the table and went to sit in the chair opposite Jaya. I thought, "Ah-HA! Photo opportunity!!" But as Arthur sat down, Jaya choked on a crumb of cake. She nodded when I asked her if she wanted a drink, so I went to get her some water. When I got back, fumbling for my camera (!), she took a sip of water, hopped down from the table, and disappeared! I did soooo want to take a photo of the two of them together! I did get this one of Arthur being annoyed that his drink wasn't close enough to grab, a few seconds after Jaya left!

After that, he went back in the car while another little boy (a fair bit older than Arthur) rode the tricycle and pretended to crash it into things! Arthur surprised me again by being a bit quiet and seeming unsettled by him, when he would usually respond like you see Jaya responding in these photos!

By the way, HOW gorgeous did Jaya look in her dress?! She had sparkly gold shoes on too! She looked like the hostess of the party, hehe! :)

That same little boy came over to Arthur a lot and tried to chat with him and get him to play games with him, it was very sweet. Arthur always looked a bit worried, and said funny little polite things about just parking the car for now, etc! He wouldn't vacate the car, and in the end the boy said to him, "I'll tell you what, you go on the tricycle, and I'll go in the car!" and he started to get off the tricycle. I wondered what Arthur would say or do to that, and when he saw the boy was coming over, he said to him, "No, you (meaning himself - he gets "me" and "you" mixed up a bit at the moment, regarding himself!) go in the car, YOU (pointing at the boy) go on the try-see-coh!" I liked how he was able to process what the boy suggested in just a couple of seconds, and turn the sentence around to the opposite suggestion, and then say it. I always think that language acquisition is just an AMAZING thing. Where does it come from?! It just seems so quick all of a sudden, that they go from saying their first word to full sentences and complex concepts within their own speech and responses to other people. Amazing.

I can't BELIEVE I did not even get one photo of the birthday boy himself!!! Jemma and I will have to get together again soon, and then I'll have a better chance for photos, and the little ones will have a better chance to play. And maybe Matthew will be more relaxed next time too! I think he was really overwhelmed with all the people. He's a really different baby to Arthur - much more sensitive and easily upset. He gets anxious about things easily, and shows clear signs of the normal separation anxiety that Arthur never went through. He had several more wailing panicky incidents over the course of the party, as people tried to engage him a little (everyone wanted to touch his hair!), but there was a moment where I was hovering at the buffet trying to select food and eat it with one hand, whilst holding Matthew in my other arm, and a very nice man came over and swept Matthew up with a cheery, "I'll hold him for you, while you eat!" I braced myself for the panicked crying, but none came! I ate what I wanted and chatted to people, and Matthew was totally easy-going in that man's arms! I even gave him some finger food (well, so did the man who was holding him - whose name escapes me now!), and he was just his normal self, quite relaxed! How funny! I don't know what it was about this man, but he obviously felt secure with him, which was nice.

We left the party at about 5pm, I think. It was still going strong, but Matthew was finally melting down, poor love! He just cried and cried. I had fed him so it wasn't that, but he hadn't had a proper nap and he's a boy who needs his sleep JUST SO, in order to function happily during the day! I think in hindsight, he was too hot as well, as we'd dressed him warmly enough but he was then in our arms all the time so he probably got too warm. And he's not a lots-of-people person, so I think it allll just got too much for him. He was fine in the car but a bit unhappy during the evening, and quite wakeful after he went to bed. He was teething too.

But it was so nice to go to the party and see Jemma and Stu and their sweet little ones again! I keep feeling like there was something else I had meant to write about from it, but I can't think of it now.

Oh my goodness, it's SO LATE!!!! I will have to stop here, and post more photos and other news in my next entry, which will hopefully be soon. Thanks Megan for missing me!! xxx

Don't let me forget to tell about Matthew's 8-month check which happened on Monday! He was weighed and measured and all that, and Arthur was too! I must write about that next time. And we went to CHURCH on Sunday - gasp! We haven't been in a while again, but I was on creche duty. And on Tuesday I met up with Katie and her little ones at a local playground that I did not even know existed!!!! It's a lovely one, within walking distance from here. Must write about that too. And a BILLION things that Arthur has been saying. And a ton more photos. And our car being a bit wonky at the moment. And I think that's all. But I'll catch up on those things soon! Oh and I've got another period (my 3rd postpartum one now). I need to make an entry in my pregnancy journal, rather than waffle about that stuff here! But I'll get to that another time too.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeep....

Meals, and then some ranty stuff (sigh)...

Ohhh, so long since my last entry again! And this time I have soooo much to write about, and lots of photos, etc. Urgh! I think this is going to be a really mixed entry. Maybe I should split it all up into several entries, one right after another? Although, the comment system I have really bugs me. I like it, but I don't like how each comments box is restricted to the entry it goes with. Unless I go back and check the previous entries again, I can't see if anyone has come along and left a comment for that entry at a later date. People could ignore the comments boxes in the previous posts and just comment on the lot (if they want to) in the most recent box? But still, it's annoying! I miss just having a long roll of comments dating back from like FIVE years ago when I first set it up! I like to see the continuity. It's so annoying that my guestbook isn't working, and that signmyguestbook.com are so completely rubbish (have been contacting them on and off since May 2005 (!!!!!!) about my pregnancy guestbook going wrong, with not one reply, and now my other one has gone wrong, tsk). But other than that, I DO like the haloscan comments thingy. I just don't like the lack of continuity. Hmph!

Well, let's see. It has been over a week since my last diary entry, and I have so much to write about. I think I will start at the beginning of the 8 days, and work from there! We'll see how much I get done. I guess I'll start with stuff that could turn ranty (warning!) and if that just sucks as an entry then I won't tarnish Jove's lovely birthday party/naming ceremony with that! I will start a new entry for that, if it works out that way :)

Thanks for the nice guestbook entries full of encouragement over my home-cooked meals!! :) That was really nice to read! Except, Shannon, where were you on Sunday?! You said you were buying the plane tickets - I had an extra plate at the table and everything! Hehe! ;) I can't believe another week has already zipped by, and I made that week's Meal Plan last Sunday, shopped for it that afternoon (another blissful Me-on-my-own outing!) and cooked a whole new load of meals all week! I didn't miss a day this week, and I used different recipes to last week. Today I made another Meal Plan for the week ahead, and this afternoon I shopped. I am trying something new again this week that I haven't made before - lasagne. I went specially to the Italian Deli which is a car drive away, just to get the BEST lasagne pasta around. My parents still buy lasagne pasta there and they live in France, hehe! It's good stuff. I hope I can pull it off! If I can, it will be a regular on the menu :)

Arthur is still not eating any of it. Although tonight we had the first meal that was "semi" home-cooked - a bit more to Arthur's taste maybe? And he ate some!!! It was fish fingers, homemade oven chips, peas and sweetcorn. He ate plenty of peas and sweetcorn, and two fish fingers, just like that! He lifted a chip to his mouth on a spoon but shook his head at it with a disgusted look before it got there, and put it back down. That's a HUGE improvement, but then it IS the sort of meal he's more likely to go for, and he used to eat fish fingers and enjoy them months ago. He has always liked peas and sweetcorn, he just hates it when they are smothered in bolognese sauce or part of a casserole.

Matthew still eats everything, but he is starting to give some foods a slightly cheesy look and then bash them around on his highchair tray more than actually eating them. That's our only sign so far that he dislikes anything! He does still put them in his mouth but it's just without the same intense enthusiasm that he gets over other foods! He definitely does not go for sweet foods. He didn't do much with his rice pudding yesterday, and mostly played with it. If he put it on his tongue, he wanted to pull it off again shortly afterwards! How funny. I would have thought he'd be even MORE eager over sweet tastes, as most babies are, but hey ho!

He eats and drinks SO independently now! I mean, with baby-led weaning he has eaten independently from day one, feeding himself - but he barely needs any intervention from us over the duration of the meal now. A couple of times I do need to scoop half his meal back onto the tray from his bib/lap (eww!) but that's it. He did a little gag tonight on some fish finger coating, but that's when I realised that he almost never gags any more. He just totally has the hang of eating and swallowing table food, the same as an adult does. And with only two tiiiny little half-teeth sticking up out of his bottom gum! :) He gagged on a bit of raw carrot at Jove's party last weekend, but he was being held by someone and I think he's used to being completely upright and free to move himself as he needs to for chewing and swallowing, so that's probably why.

His new thing is complete independence with drinking! When he's thirsty he makes a sudden decision to have a drink, and that usually means scraping any remaining food off his tongue first with his fingers (yuck! What a funny boy! But at least he's got the idea that it's a good idea to have an empty mouth before filling it with water!) - or sometimes he swallows it as fast as he can, and then needs the drink even more urgently as a result, hehe! Then he simply reaches for his drink (it's a sippy cup with two handles and a soft-ish spout), grabs it by both handles, and it goes straight in his mouth and he tips it up easily and takes four or five BIG swallows before setting it down again. Arthur was always so bad at drinking water. He's much better now, of course! But Matthew is a real guzzler already! I can see myself needing to watch that he doesn't glug down toooo much water and fill his tummy up with that before he's far into his meal, and also I can see him being the child whose fluid intake we need to watch before bedtime after he's potty trained. He's usually so eager to get back to his food after taking a drink, that he simply discards the drink with a flick of his wrist as he lets go the last handle, and it thuds down onto the floor! It is just tossed aside, having served its purpose! He doesn't even notice it hit the floor, because he's already busily piling fistfuls of food into his mouth! He makes me want to laugh so much while I'm watching him eat :) But I don't think it's ALL that fair to sit through all his meals laughing heartily and pointing at him (!!), even though it's only affectionate laughter, so I keep myself to the odd quiet chuckle now and then :) He's such a sweetie. This evening I noticed each time he took a drink during dinner, he held his cup with only one hand and tipped it up just as well as with two. He's learning all the time!

I have some pokey bruisey discomfort that turned out to be stomach ulcer-ish last time. Tsk. It's not bothersome yet, and it only started a few evenings ago, but how annoying that it's there at all. It cleared up completely and I'm annoyed that it's back, because it got really quite unpleasant before and I do not want to have that endoscopy that I managed to avoid last time! I'm thinking maybe I should start back on the repeat prescription of the stuff that I was taking last time. I should see the doctor before I do that, though, and who knows when I'll get time to do that. Pfthth.

I wanted to say some things about a smacking comment from last entry, but I don't know if I can be bothered. Urgh, except I will bother actually. I won't fart around with my words, I'll just get straight to the point so that I can get the ranty bit done and then on with the rest of the stuff that I'd LIKE to write about.

Fi, I really didn't enjoy reading your first comment. The second one was very nice, but it's the same as last time you commented on something in my diary - you left a deflating comment first, one that could only have been intended to make me feel crushed and a bit crap as a mother, or like I don't really know much about little children. And then a nice one (to make up for it??) - or two nice ones, I think it was, last time. While I DO find the nice second comments you leave encouraging, and anyone DOES have freedom of speech I suppose, given that my diary is public and so are my comments - I would much rather you just didn't comment at all than leave a spirit-crushing comment followed by a "see, I'm a nice person really!" one. The second one IS nice, but the first one really deflates me and that feeling lingers even after the niceness of the second one. Am I making sense?!

Also, no, we do not have to agree to disagree on the smacking. That is what we'd have to say if we were in a debating forum, and we are NOT. It's completely irrelevant to me whether someone disagrees with things I'm doing that I write about. If you agree and want to support me over it, by all means, please comment and encourage me! But if that isn't your aim, please don't comment at all. I know Jemma does not agree with smacking, but she managed to leave a positive comment all the same (thank you Jemma!).

Again, like the last time, I feel like I need to re-explain the incident in town with Arthur running away just to justify my actions. I DON'T have to do that, but it leaves me itching to anyway, just to make myself feel better about it. Which is another reason that comments like that aren't nice to post. They make me feel like I should question my choices that I felt happy enough with before, and they make me feel like I must have done the wrong thing. What I chose to do with Arthur in town was NOT up for constructive criticism. I was just writing about it, as an event that happened, like people do in their diaries. At no point did I ask for anyone's advice or opinions on it, to help me do better next time! It's just my diary. That's all.

I ran after Arthur in the shop because he was headed for somewhere unsafe (the open door and thus the road) and he was not heeding my call to come back. I had no choice but to run, and I'm sure he DID think it was a fun game, but that doesn't mean the right thing would have been to just wait and let him reach the open door in the next few seconds so that I didn't make it a chasing game. I had to run just to make it there in time to stop him, or else I'd have walked.

I let him out of the pushchair after a while because that's how I chose to do it. I didn't personally want him confined there for the entire outing, no matter that he'd mucked around before. Maybe I'll learn from that and realise that he needs a stronger discipline by being stuck in the pushchair for the whole time after he disobeys me once, but that's not what I'm choosing to do yet. It seems too restrictive for my active little boy, and it would make for a miserable outing for all of us.

He went on the Postman Pat van because he'd seen it on the way from the car park when we arrived and was excited and wanted to sit in it, and we happened to pass it again on the way back from Woolworths once he was in the pushchair for running off. He had never been in a moving toy vehicle before - this was his first time - and had never seen a Postman Pat one before either. In hindsight I could have used it as a discipline issue to really get my point home with him, and it will be an excellent example of something to try another time if the going gets rough, but a) I had no intention of withholding a potential First Exciting Experience as a discipline tool that day, and b) I did not fancy a huge-o meltdown right there and then as a result of doing "a", when it could have been avoided (and was) by the fun distraction of the First Exciting Experience. Next time he ran off again (further down the line), he went back in the pushchair, as before. I don't think getting him out at that point undid the original discipline of putting him in at Woolworths. I don't ever plan to just let him out of the pushchair willy-nilly at his every request after he's put there for something he's done - in fact I denied him countless requests to get out after he'd been put there, explaining why each time - and I don't push the kids deliberately past fun things to do and let Arthur get down and play with them when he wants. As it happens, he was terrified of the Postman Pat van, so it wasn't a First Exciting Experience after all. But it was a "first" for him. If he'd LOVED it and wanted to go there every time we go into town, I could very usefully have that as a bribery thing for the future - "You can't go on the Postman Pat van if you run away from Mummy in the shop." I DO think about stuff like this already, by myself. I felt sort of like Fi thought I was a bit daft, and hadn't thought about stuff like this, when I DO think about things carefully and make my choices after I weigh things up.

That is it, I think. Rant over. I just felt the need to stand up for myself a little. I CAN handle my own children. Sometimes I feel pushed to the limits and like I CAN'T handle them, but I am their mother and I CAN. I know I can. I'm learning as I go along, and I'm going to make mistakes aplenty along the way. Sometimes I don't know if my choices are right or wrong, and I get anxious about that as I only want what's best for them. A lot of the time I honestly don't seem to have a CLUE about what I'm doing, especially regarding discipline and any other things that Arthur is really challenging me on and I can't seem to find a solution for him/me/us. Some of it IS just his age, and yes, little kids DO run off. I do actually know this. I also know about children testing boundaries and the need for consistency. I KNOW stuff, I'm not stupid! I'm human and I'm soooooo not perfect, and never will be either. Please don't squash me for my choices, or my struggles, or basically ANYTHING to do with raising my own children. If you disagree with something I'm doing and it makes you want to give me a piece of your mind, please exercise some willpower and DON'T do it. It damages my self-esteem and brings unhappiness into my day, and it makes me wobble for an anxious moment on the tightrope that is Parenting Confidence. Mothers NEED to feel confident in themselves, and they need to have self-esteem, and if they are blessed enough to finally manage to achieve some while they have tiny kids, YAY for them - please don't rock the boat at that point! It's all so delicately balanced! ;)

And on that note, I think I will post this entry because, as expected, it has ended up being ranty and leaving me feeling squirmy and uncomfy. I want to write about happy stuff, my little boys, and Jove's party! And post a ton of photos. It's getting late already so I don't know how much I will get done before needing to be in bed, but I'll do a separate entry for those things. They don't belong in this entry, I think. It's just been bugging me all week, and I felt the need to write what I just wrote. Now it's done, and I'll start the next entry right now! If you're reading this as the most recent entry, I'm clattering away at the keyboard on the next one as you read this! :) It takes me AGES to write a proper long entry so I'll be an hour or so, but it's coming :)

Long entry! Discipline, real cooking, and other waffle!

Thank you for the comments and notes on my last entry! :) Megan, we don't have an exersaucer, but I think Matthew would love one! We don't have the space for one though, either to store it or for Matthew to use it. I think he'd get frustrated doing one push with his legs and hitting furniture every time! He loves to jump too, and people watch me knackering my arms while he jumps and jumps and JUMPS with me supporting him, and say we should get a door bouncer. I think he'd love that too, but again, no space. I know they only take a doorway up, but the only doorway we've got downstairs is to the kitchen and he would be rather in the way, bouncing in there! We'll have to make do. He will outgrow this stage before I know it, I suppose, so it's okay.

Thanks for the well-wishes over potty training. We did not start potty training yet. I looked online and found some potties that have lids, and I was about to order one at Kiddicare.com, but then since we were about to head out to buy big boy pants, I thought I would just check Argos to see if they had anything like it, and they DID - this one! I reserved one at our local store and we went and picked it up when we bought the pants, yay!

When I was getting the boys ready for our shopping trip (the day before yesterday), Arthur was all excited about it. I told him we were getting Big Boy Pants with whichever pictures on them that he liked. I told him we were getting a special potty that was just for him to use like a big boy, and he was excited about that too. He wanted to go NOW! :) When we were all ready with our shoes on and everything, I said, "Yay, let's go!" and Arthur suddenly went anxious looking and said he didn't want to go. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "Don't want big boy pants, don't want potty." He looked worried. I told him we didn't have to buy them today and we could stay home instead. He said, "Yes...." and then in a small voice, "I think I like a lilloo bit milk onna sofa..." bless him! That's his thing when he is feeling unhappy or insecure or has hurt himself or something. He just wanted the comfort because I guess the idea of ACTUALLY going and doing this "Big Boy" thing was suddenly a bit too much for him. I was all ready not to go at all, but he nursed for a minute and then jumped up gleefully, shouting, "Now let's go SHOPPING!" hehe! So we did!

We went to Woolworths and bought two packs of big boy pants, age 2-3. Arthur had a moment of the same unsure thing where he didn't want to look at the pants or buy any, and I was going to leave it but then he chose Thomas the Tank and Bob the Builder pants. He wanted Fireman Sam too, but we'll save that for another time, further down the line. We went to Argos and picked up the potty, but I didn't tell him that's what we were doing. He didn't see it or know what was in the box, as I didn't want to push the issue. Because he has been a bit reserved about it, I haven't started anything to do with potty training yet, except that we've opened the packs of pants and they're strewn around being looked at in awe from time to time, or being used as chew toys by Matthew, hehe!

Arthur was really good in town. He only had to be put in the tandem pushchair twice for not stopping/coming to me when I called him, and he had no tantrums at all. Not that he usually has tantrums but then I rarely take him places like that so I don't know if he WOULD have tantrums in crowded public places. If I take him out, we go to open spaces without a ton of people. He needs to run and run and run, and burn off energy when he goes out. He LOVES big open spaces outside! Sometimes I feel like it's not that fair on him to take him to places where he has to be so restricted, and we don't have any actual need to go places like that very often, so... He DOES sometimes need to go places with people and cars and stuff to learn about how to behave in those settings, I think. Yesterday we went into town again (two days running, wow!) because Arthur was going crazy in the house. The weather was awful, but hey ho. It did not go so well, and Arthur completely ignored me the entire time. On the way up in the lift from the car park, I calmly explained to him about staying close to Mummy and stopping when Mummy said stop, etc. He nodded and seemed all set. We literally took a step out of the lift and he instantly disappeared down an aisle in a big department store. I called him but he did not stop or come back, even several calls later. He went so far and so fast that the only way I could tell where he was, was from the people further across the store parting awkwardly as though something small was barrelling through them at about knee height, at 90 miles an hour! Urgh.

He went in the pushchair for that but was quite happy, as though he'd had his fun and he didn't mind the punishment a bit, therefore. He got out later and did the exact same thing. We went to Woolworths again and he gave me the slip within a minute or two, and I ended up having to park Matthew on the centre aisle and RUN through the shop up and down aisles trying to catch up with him. I was cross with him and he went back in the pushchair, but again, he didn't seem bothered at all. So frustrating! He stayed in for a while, and then got out to ride in a Postman Pat van for littlies, but was scared silly by the loud music it played RIGHT in his ear (why do those things have to be SO loud right in the kids' ears?!). We went in another shop and on the way out, the alarm went off so I froze with the tandem pushchair half over the threshold, and turned to see if a security person was coming (I hate moments like that - everybody stares at you like you're a shoplifter!), and at that instant, Arthur took off at a run out of the shop. We were in a pedestrianised area but it didn't go very far down the road beyond that shop, so I was worried. I yelled for Arthur to stop and come back, but as before, he didn't. He turned a sharp left and went instantly out of my range of sight. I panicked and left Matthew in the shop doorway, and ran out of the shop. I couldn't see him ANYWHERE, and it wasn't crowded at all so he couldn't be lost amongst people. The little menace had ducked around the store front which was curved, and hid in the nook furthest away from the door! I was SO angry with him when I found him, urgh. I had just about had enough. It's just NOT on for him to do that, it's not safe. We have a wrist-link that we could use (sort of like a leash for a dog!) and also reins, but he's a bit old for reins I think. Neil said maybe we should use the wrist-link. I know Supernanny recommends that as a punishment out of doors for kids who won't stop or come back when their parents call them. That soon clears the problem up, so maybe we'll try that? Being put in the pushchair seemed to be a similar solution for us, but yesterday he was just not having any of it. I didn't want him confined to the pushchair for the entire outing, as that would defy the point. He needed to burn off some energy at some point.

In the end, 5 o'clock struck on the church tower in the market square and the most beautiful peals rang out from the bell tower. I LOVE music from church bells. Not the dong-dong-dong type, but the tuneful peals that rise and fall and make your heart soar and plummet and tears come into your eyes. I could listen to it forever, really. I ran us all to the church and we stood in the grounds and listened. It's enclosed there, so Arthur got to run and run (which he did constantly, and didn't stop once except to ask me to wipe the mud off his hands when he overbalanced and fell on them, climbing a grass verge). Matthew and I sat and stared up at the bell tower, totally engulfed by the beautiful sound echoing right into our ribcages! It was gorgeous. The music lasted 5 minutes and then we came home. So at least Arthur had some run-around time.

He did slip my grip in the underground CAR PARK on the way home, and shot across it into the open space (there were only a few cars left, but still, that is NOT on!). Soooo dangerous. I called him, but again, he didn't stop or come back. He got smacked - first time in public for him. I think I would not have liked to do that if there had been people right there loading their shopping into cars, but there weren't and so I did.

We do smack Arthur, by the way. I know I don't write about it here anymore, but we do. I write about it in my home journal, which I WILL someday open up properly. The difference between when we used to smack him and now, is that before now we used to get so frustrated and think, "Urgh, our discipline methods are just NOT working, I don't know what to do!" and smack him out of frustration and just sheer desperation to get the point across and the authority that was necessary for whatever the incident was. We weren't happy with doing that at ALL. Arthur doesn't respond to other types of discipline. I don't care to hear suggestions any more - he really doesn't! Maybe it's our fault for not doing it right or not persevering, but this kid is NOT easy to discipline, trust me! No kids are, but you know.

We NEVER wanted to smack our kids as a discipline method. The difference now from before, is that Neil and I have officially CHOSEN to use smacking as a discipline method, and we're settled with it. There, it's said here. We smack our child. Think what you will! We do not beat, harm, or traumatize our child, and believe me, it is 100x better than before when I was smacking him with HUGE-O guilt and out of frustration, feeling at the absolute end of my tether. The more gentle discipline methods we tried left me actually smacking him MORE and less gently than how we do it now. It would just get to that point.

I don't believe I need anger management. I really dislike smacking Arthur, but in the type of way where I really dislike having to discipline him in ANY way that he doesn't enjoy over something. I do not lose my temper and whack him with rapidly fraying control like I was beginning to over the frustration of the other methods we tried not working. It's a calm and controlled thing and he knows exactly what happens and how it works. The fact that he's still in nappies is helpful at the moment because we prefer to give him painless "swats" on the nappy rather than the type of smack that will inflict pain in any way.

We don't smack him in company, because it isn't nice for him or us (or anyone else). We use more distraction and restriction to deal with certain behaviour in those settings, but that does lead to him doing things we actually want to discipline him over, but don't do so much because we're out. The being-put-in-the-pushchair thing, for example. I was not about to smack him in the street for running off, but as you see, the result was that he got away with a ton of stuff that he shouldn't. We don't save up smacks for when we get home, either. That's not fair, especially at his age.

I am NOT a pro-smacking activist! I used to be a really anti-smacking person, and I still wince and feel sad for the kiddie if I ever see a little one being smacked when I'm out and about. But we have chosen to smack our little one for discipline purposes, and I have a new respect for my parents! I don't mean that I respect people who smack their kids (maybe I mean "understanding" more than the word "respect" actually), but I think I was a little narrow-minded before in that I was so determined that EVERYONE was wrong if they chose to do it. I have learned so much about so many things on my parenting journey, and most of it has involved completely (and sometimes radically) changing my attitudes about things or people. I am getting more open-minded, I think, and I HOPE I'm starting to let other people do their thing without letting it wind me up, even if I disagree with it.

(Bit of a disclaimer: after reading this back, I just want to make clear that I am not calling anyone ELSE narrow-minded if your viewpoint is that everyone who smacks their kids for any reason is WRONG! I felt that *I* was being narrow-minded. I know that sounds like I'm painting everyone who shares my previous mindset with the same brush, but that's not what I meant when I wrote that!)

Although Arthur did get smacked in the car park yesterday, at the same time I did decide that in some ways I had not been fair to him in the first place. He needed a different kind of outing. Given how wired he was before we went out, I should have taken him to an open space where he could run without me having to restrict him, and next time I will know better and do differently, and then I won't need to smack. I am always looking for ways to avoid that situation, but I will smack him if he disobeys me and especially if it's a safety issue.

So there you have it. I still quibble over the decision from time to time, and I save that kind of thing for the home diary. When I'm confident, you'll hear it here, hehe! It's too hard to hear criticism over something that is already a hugely emotional issue when I don't feel sure about what I'm doing.

Arthur is being extremely "two" this week. And last week, for that matter. He is actually being a bit of a nightmare at times. Lots of the time! Yeah. Not like himself at all really. Well, yes, like himself, but just a wildly mood-swingy version of himself! He isn't throwing a lot of tantrums as such. I do NOT want to deal with those more than I have to, and I work hard at diverting them when I see the pitch rising towards one. He is pretty easy to divert because he's so interested in so many things right now. Often a sudden, "Oh my goodness, I almost forgot!!..." type of exclamation from me at that rising-whining point, grabs his attention, and then I use exaggeratedly excited tones to suggest an activity that I HOPE will interest him and make him forget the tantrum he was about to throw!

He whines and whines and whiiiines, and it drives me crazy. Suddenly this week, his response to most questions (even NON questions) is an angrily shouted, "NO!", whether it makes sense or not! I had hoped we'd avoided that one, as most kids seem to go through that younger than Arthur is, but nope. Current much-used phrases driving me out of my tree are (don't forget to imagine the mosquito-esque nasal whiney tone!): "But I don't wannnntooooo!!" and, "I waaaaaant itttt!" when he had just said he wanted (or didn't want) that something about 0.2 seconds earlier. Then you give (or take away) said thing again, and the opposite phrase is whined to you. Keep changing and he keeps changing back and forth with you. Urgh! He whines like this through pretty much the entire of our family meal times.

Oh! I am doing family meals!!!! I am writing about it elsewhere so I keep forgetting to write about it properly here! I'm SO proud of myself! I am THE most disorganised woman on the planet, and have never been good at cooking meals or keeping to time, or even being organised to do either of the above, in my life before! I have been working so hard at it over the past month. For a couple of months now (from New Year) I have had the intention of organising myself and my household properly, and being a more effective housewife! I had a big goal of the house getting clean and tidy (NOT achieved in any way, shape, or form, so far!) and providing my boys with healthy home-cooked meals, which I would serve up every day when Neil got home from work so that we would all eat together as a family. I intended to get organised about it and make Menu Plans each week (very much like Megan has also started doing recently), and have exact shopping lists and learn to budget, etc. But it seemed such a huge mountain to climb. I didn't even know how to cook many things!

I am SO proud of myself! This week has been my first week with a set Menu Plan from Sunday to Sunday. On Saturday I made the week's menu, and went shopping for ALL the ingredients to the exact number of potatoes, etc! I spent less and had that panicky feeling like I did not have enough for the week in my shopping trolley, but it was a great success!

It's Thursday now and the meal plan has gone perfectly well so far this week! Every night we eat between 6 and 7pm. Timing is the hardest part for me, and I still need to work on it. Before this week, we were eating too late and I felt all out-of-control by the time Neil got home, knowing I was running late and flapping about how the dinner wasn't ready, and the boys being late for their food and bed, etc. I was pretty down on myself over it. This week things are going so much better! We are eating better than we probably ever have before, or at least better than we have since we both lived at home and our mums cooked for us! We have dessert with every evening meal. It's good for the little ones (my baby-and-toddler cookbook says so, and it's another way to get them some healthy nutrients if you cook that kind of dessert), and I could use the extra calories. Neil's just happy that I'm determined to do desserts every meal, haha!

Here's my Menu Plan for this week - I had to change a couple of desserts round when I just didn't get chance to cook the one I planned due to an ankle-climbing small person and also lots of crying and whining (from two small people!).

Sunday 25th Feb:

Main course

Roast chicken
Roast potatoes
Roast parsnips
Carrots
Green beans

Dessert

Vanilla ice-cream and banana

Monday 26th Feb:

(Make chicken stock from yesterday's carcass, strain and freeze. Freeze cut up left-over chicken as well)

Main course

Spaghetti bolognese
Lettuce
Cucumber

Dessert

Baked chocolate pudding and custard

Tuesday 27th Feb:

(Take fish pie (made last week) out of the freezer to defrost for tomorrow's meal)

Main course

Sausages
Mashed potatoes
Baked beans

Dessert

Fruit salad - I bought:

Nectarines
Bananas
Apples
White grapes
Kiwi fruits
And clementines :)

Wednesday 28th Feb:

(Take chicken pieces out of freezer to defrost for tomorrow's meal)

Main course

Fish pie
Lettuce
Cucumber
Cherry tomatoes

Dessert

Apple, raisin and cinnamon crumble with custard

Thursday 1st March:

Main course

Chicken stir-fry with rice, using:

Thawed chicken pieces from Sunday's roast
Frozen chicken stock from Sunday's roast
Carrots
Mushrooms
Sweetcorn
Peas
Rice :)

Dessert

Was going to be apple strudel but we had some chocolate pudding and apple crumble leftovers, so we used those up with custard instead!

Friday 2nd March:

Main course

Macaroni cheese
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Grated carrot

Dessert

Fruit salad (as Tuesday)

Saturday 3rd March:

No family meal today, as we're out most of the afternoon (more on that in a minute!) and the boys will have what my mum calls "Nursery Tea" - a little ones' meal early before bath time, and then Neil and I will eat after they are in bed - we still have a couple of evenings like this each week at the moment.

Sunday 4th March:

Main course

Beef and vegetable stew from frozen (I made it in bulk last week and froze it in portions)

Dessert

Rice pudding and jam to stir in! :)

I am finding it challenging to cook at 5pm or whenever I have to start, because although the boys are starting to play together (how LOVELY to be at that stage!) and occupy themselves for good periods of time, the cooking time is pretty frantic and stressy, because one or both of them will cry about something, or Arthur does not want me in the kitchen, he wants me somewhere else and is very "two" about it. Or Matthew keeps coming in the kitchen and eating fluff or crumbs from anywhere he can scavenge them (I DO sweep the floor, but he has special senses), and so I have to shut the kitchen door, and that leads to much wailing and banging on the door, which basically continues until I stop what I'm doing! Chopping onions and rubbing butter into flour are the worst things to have to do if Matthew is in that frame of mind. Lately I am trying to be more organised so that I nurse him shortly before I start cooking, and then he is usually way happier to play with Arthur, without me there, for a while. I know they are both so little and it's a lot to ask of them. They are so good really! Arthur has a tendency to get over-boisterous with his brother during play so I have to keep hopping back and forth between them and the cooking. Some days it's every few SECONDS, and that is very hard to manage. We always eat late on those days, and Arthur gets shouted at, and I hate both those outcomes.

Arthur is not eating a single bite of anything I cook for him. *sigh* He hates "family meal" and whines that he wants to get down from the table before he's even AT the table yet! We have a rule that he sits there till we're finished, and the meal is not drawn out at all - in fact it's a bit rushed for me, but we are going by the little ones' pace really. They're too little for sitting at the table for AGES just to watch us eat. Matthew eats absolutely everything I put in front of him. Everything! We are noticing that he has a distinct preference for savoury foods. He will eat the desserts, but he does it with little enthusiasm, hehe! We were surprised to find a baby who isn't that interested in sweet foods and SO totally eager for savoury food of any sort! The only exception for Matthew is desserts that are MILKY. Like his fromage frais. He also likes custard and rice pudding. Not so crazy about the fruit pie or crumble, etc that come with the custard, but he really likes the milky stuff.

With my new cooking thing, there have been too many new foods for Matthew these last couple of weeks to list, but he's currently eating new things like cherry tomatoes (halved), salad, sausages, cream cheese sandwiches and lots of other things. He doesn't bat an eyelid at new things and just shovels them right in to chomp on them, as though he's been eating them forever! Oh and he's on citrus fruits now, which he seems to like a lot. It's another potential allergy food which is checked off the list. He has had eggs in desserts (as in, cooked into pies and stuff, not actual egg yet), and also a little bit of scrambled egg, all with no problems - yay! The only thing left now, I think, is nuts. I'm going to wait till at least a year before giving him peanut butter or hazelnut spread, and hopefully he won't react to those things either. It will be a big relief to have all those things tried and tested with no problems. I can breathe a sigh of relief!

I'm so excited!! We're going to Jove's 1st birthday party (and naming ceremony!) on Saturday!!!! I'm so looking forward to it. I'm excited to see Jemma again as I haven't seen her since she was 10 weeks pregnant with Jove, so I have never even MET Jove yet!! I'm also eager to see Jaya. She and Arthur seem so much alike in their ways and energy levels (!). They are such a lovely family. We went to Jaya's 1st birthday and naming ceremony and it was lovely, so I'm really looking forward to Jove's! Yesterday we did pick up a little something for Jove in town, and Arthur (in his non-run-away moments) wandered around the shop aisles looking at things as he passed them and saying, "Hmmm.... We're looking for a peasant for Doooove..." very thoughtfully! Hehe! (don't worry Jemma, we will not be turning up with a random impoverished person on the day, hehe!)

Maybe I am painting Arthur in a bad light this entry? He IS challenging and boy has this week been hard with him! But his difficult-ness is part of "swings" in his temperament. So the upside of that is his sweet funny affectionate little self, which we do see in between crazy angry toddler mode! He also continues to say such sweet little phrases, and keeps us laughing all the time with the things he comes out with.

Also, who has taught my son to be such an 8-year-old boy?! We have no such influences around, and my husband DOES have a tendency for such humour, but I'm 99% sure he doesn't show it to Arthur. He still loves fart sounds and just things going splat or crashing in a funny way. At dinner the other day, I made baked chocolate pudding for dessert (cocoa - high in flavonoids; milk; egg - all that good stuff!) and custard, and he seemed excited about what might be coming next. When I got it out of the oven to show him, he went all giggly and when he could breathe enough to say something, he scrunched his shoulders up to his ears with glee, and with his most mischievous grin, he said, "We're having POO!" and dissolved into fits of laughter again. Every night there is now a point in the meal where he starts to giggle and does the gleeful thing, saying, "We're eating POO!" Silly boy! Except, also, urrrgh! Where is he getting this stuff from, and why-oh-why is it even funny, without the influence of other giggling boys to make it seem so?! *sigh*

Today he climbed onto the sofa with me and sat right on my tummy (I was lying back for a moment), and declared, "I going on holiday wiz Mummy!" I don't know where he heard the word holiday, as I don't think we've used it with him yet in context.

He has such an imagination. He is ever-so like me. My mum seems to be saying so more and more as I tell her things about him lately. That running away in shops - I was exactly the same. My mum is therefore able to give me such nuggets of GOLDEN advice as: Never EVER take such a child (at this age, especially!) with you when you go to try on bras in the department store. My mum was just "between" bras when I slipped the curtain in the changing room and bolted for the escalators! Ironically, it was at the very same department store where Arthur legged it away from me yesterday. Oh the comic relief for my mother! But she is very good and offers me much sympathy and compassion at the same time as having the last laugh! ;)

Today Arthur came into the kitchen just as I was about to serve dinner, and said, "I think I saw a mon-ser!" On further questioning, he told me that, "I think the mon-ser is pink!.... Mon-ser going to eat fam'ly meew (meal) and sit in Ah-yah tair!" :)

Arthur has been having bad dreams for the last month. He has never had bad dreams before that we've known about, but I've read they are very common starting at about age 2, so I guess it's normal, but I hate him having to be scared in his sleep! He has recurring dreams that scare him, always with the same two scenarios. One is a monkey face. Matthew has a top with a monkey face on it, which is made out of leather (the face, not the top!) and stitched on. It's not the most appealing image, actually, and he hasn't worn it yet. I got it out as it's the right size for him now and when Arthur saw it, he immediately said, "Don' like monkey face! Mummy take it 'way" and seemed very unsettled and anxious. Since then, he has had quite a lot of dreams where he wakes up crying and when he is able to answer our questions about what's wrong, he says, "Don' like monkey face!" in a pitiful little voice. If he talks about it after a dream, it makes him cry just to say that sentence. He can tell me about feelings like if he was scared, so that helps.

The other dream he has is the one that happens most often now (the monkey face one was more frequent a couple of weeks ago and seems to happen less now - I put that darn top AWAY and I'll probably sell it on eBay or something now). I don't know where it has come from. When he goes to bed at night, sometimes he will suddenly look anxious and say in a whisper, "I think I heard some-sing strange..." (his sentences are getting so grown up now!) So I ask him what he thinks he heard, and he doesn't look at me but just continues looking at the doorway anxiously and says, "I think cow coming..." When he wakes from this bad dream in the night, he cries and says he doesn't like the cow, or that the cow was coming. At first we just comforted him and said there were no cows and it was just a dream, and didn't know what to make of it. Then I spoke to my mum about it and she vividly remembers when she was 3 or 4, having nightmares about an elephant coming in her window. Just that, and it terrified her. She said the WORST thing that adults would do was to say there was no elephant (there, there), because it made her feel alone and like they didn't believe her, so they couldn't help her! She suggested taking him seriously and looking for the cow to make sure it wasn't there, that kind of thing.

So the next time he had a bad dream about the cow, I talked to him about it the morning after. We were folding laundry and he was in a cheerful mood so it seemed like a good time to broach the subject:

Me: Arthur, you know you were having a bad dream about a cow?

Arthur: Yes... (serious tone!)

Me: Where was the cow coming from?

Arthur: (looking thoughtful) I wonder where cow comes from?....

Me: (trying a different tack!) Was the cow coming, in your dream?

Arthur: Yes.

Me: Where was the cow?

Arthur: The cow inna freezer (pointing at the freezer door across the kitchen).

Me: Was the cow in the freezer?

Arthur: Yes. (very uncertain tone)

Me: What did the cow do?

Arthur: Cow try to give Ah-yah cuddoh.

Me: Oh! Was that nice of the cow to try to give you a cuddle?!

Arthur: (shaking head very seriously) Nooo. Don' like cow give Ah-yah cuddoh.

Me: Was it scary when the cow tried to give you a cuddle?

Arthur: Yes. Cow scawy.

I can't fathom how this cow dream came about! But anyway. If he hears "some-sing strange..." now, we look in the freezer. Arthur seems worried looking in there, but he doesn't shy away from it or seem too frightened by me opening it or anything like that. He comes to look, and so I encourage him to check all the shelves, saying, "Is there a cow there?" and he always says no. When we've checked everywhere, I ask again, and he sounds MUCH more cheerful when he says, "Cow not here!" If he's in bed with the lights out for the night, we get Daddy to go and check to see if the cow is there, and Arthur seems to relax when Neil comes back saying he's had a good look in the freezer and there is no cow there.

Bless his heart! He's such a sweetie, and these vulnerable moments due to his overactive imagination make my heart just melt for him.

Well, it's getting so late again. Oh! I almost forgot, Matthew is doing a new thing today. We play a game where he reaches for my face while I'm breastfeeding him lying down in bed, and he looks right into my eyes before he grabs, and I catch his hand all of a sudden, whip it to one side and peep out from behind it, making a sound that is sort of like "keh-keh-keh-keh!" (excited tone). I have no idea where that sound came from originally, but I guess I must have made it once, randomly, and it makes Matthew smile so I keep doing it! Today he reached for my face while we were in bed, and I did the thing with his arm and made the sound, and his eyes lit up with his smile as usual. When I didn't do it again right away, his expression changed to this earnest look, and he started saying, "Keh! Keh!" to get me to do it again! He hasn't done any vocal stuff in terms of making word-like sounds yet, so this is a first for him. Arthur was saying "Mama" to me at 6 or 7 months, so this is one thing that Matthew is behind his brother on, but then I suppose I am not able to give him so much one-on-one (or ANY, for that matter) time as I did for Arthur. I wish I could give him more! When Neil got home I told him about Matthew's sounds with the game, and picked Matthew up in the hope that he'd give a demonstration. I turned him to face me and held his arm up, peeped out from behind it and said, "Keh-keh-keh-keh-keh!" and Matthew eyes lit up and he said, "Keh-keh! KEH!" I didn't say it right back to him because I was saying, "See!" to Neil or something, and that made Matthew make the "keh" sound SO forcefully that he lost co-ordination over how to form it and started straining with a "keh"-like grunt on the end of the strain, hehe! I should try to spend more time with him without Arthur's distractions, to encourage him in making sounds and that. It's so cute to hear him responding vocally to me, and see his little face as he makes such efforts to communicate with me!

Matthew stood alone today for a few seconds, and it wasn't by accident. Yikes. I don't know how long it will take him to walk. He's only 8 months so I'm thinking AGES yet, but Mummy walked properly at 9 months. I was 14 months. Arthur was 11 months and 3 weeks. But he only started crawling at 8.5 months so he went crawling to walking in 3 months. If Matthew does that then he'll be walking at 9 months - well, going on for 10 months. Which I can't believe possible somehow. One thing he DOESN'T do that Arthur was doing though, is walking when you hold his hands. Arthur was goose-stepping eagerly (hehe!) with underarm support from about 7 months. He'd walk all around a room like that and not stop till you did! Matthew acts like he's not sure what to do with his legs when I hold his hands while he's standing. He bounces and bends his knees and tries to jump. He even tries jumping forwards, like, propelling himself towards me by jumping instead of stepping! So perhaps that in itself means that he'll be a while walking yet. He is starting to cruise at the furniture, but Arthur got the hang of it in like a DAY, whereas Matthew is big on bouncing on the spot and seems uncertain of moving his feet one by one, even though he is trying it a little. He doesn't cruise far, only one or two side-steps at a time.

Oh, and Arthur surprised us by having taught himself to do forward rolls! He can do a perfect forward roll, putting his head on the floor and tucking it under, and then rolling over with his spine in contact with the floor all the way down. It looks really quite controlled, and he ends up sitting with a HUGE beaming smile on his face! Yesterday we just watched somewhat agog as he did continual forward rolls all across the living room floor! He can do one right on top of another. I don't know how he learnt - I recall having to be taught that at school! He does do a lot of flinging himself about on the 3-seater sofa though, almost absent-mindedly sometimes. Maybe he's been flipping over by accident while I've been upstairs putting Matthew down for a nap or something? Although, that idea sends shivers down my spine! It doesn't seem very safe! But anyway, he can do forward rolls :) I am thinking he would LOVE a toddler gymnastics type of class, if I can find one in our area. Neil suggested it while we watched Arthur doing his forward rolls yesterday, and I can't believe I never thought of it before for him. I'll have to look into that.

This week we finally applied for Matthew's child benefit. *sigh* Yes, he's 8 months old. Yes, they can only back-date payments for 3 months. Yup, you're meant to do it as soon as you have the birth certificate. It's a good example for you of exactly HOW disorganised a person I am, and what a completely LOOSE ship I am currently running! I still plan to change that, but it's such a big task that it's going to take a long time I think. At least with Arthur we got his child benefit at around 6 months instead of 8! *sigh*

Okay, really late now. Going to bed. Will try to update asap after Jove's party! :) I'll leave you with an "I've really got children who are big enough to play together!" photo :) Okay, they're still soooo little! But they DO play together so sweetly already, it's lovely! Playing with trains and cars on the sofa: