Cutting back on TV, photos, and other updatey bits!

Soooooo much to write! And basically no time left to write it - it's 11.45pm already, and I should actually go directly to bed instead of opening up this box!

Thanks so much for the comments on my last post! I really appreciated the reassurance and support. The weird feelings stayed a couple of days, after Neil was better again, so I wonder if it was hormone-based. Anyway, the second half of the week was GREAT, and this week is going well too! Yay for HAPPY hormones! ;)

It's also MARCH (what? how?!), so I want to update briefly on my February reading goals. My book of the Bible for February was Galatians, which I finished a bit early. It's only short so I read it twice to take it in better :) I started Ecclesiastes for my March book of the Bible. I think it will speak to me in a whooole different way since having children, and I'm eager to read it again! I read "Desperate Housewives Passionate for God" by Stacy MacDonald and Jennie Chancey for my February book. I personally LOVED it. I found it interesting to read, reassuring, challenging, encouraging, inspiring - all the good stuff! I will want to read that again, definitely. It really pointed me to God over the whooole task of bearing and raising children, which I NEED to be constantly reminded to do, it seems! Also it gave me a good kick up the backside re. the helper to my husband side of my God-given role! Hmmm. It was helpfully challenging for me because I struggle MOST with submitting to my husband, and also with not being self-centred where he's concerned. I really want to change in this department and I know it will be my biggest leap in maturity for a good while, when I do. Also probably a BIG challenge for me. I'm naturally more dominant than Neil, and especially with hormones attached, he seems to irritate the heck out of me such a lot! He also does not take the lead in our family, spiritually, and I often find that for big decisions, I research stuff and think it through more (and for some frustrating reason, can see things in my mind's eye more realistically in terms of future plans), and thus contribute more strongly towards the decision-making process.

I struggle with submitting to Neil's decisions (which would not be a case of he decides, I smile meekly and say "Of course, dear!" or anything like that, in case you were wondering!) because truthfully I trust myself better than my husband to make the "right" decisions. On the rare occasions that I give in and let his decision run, it's so often that it turns out it would have been better if we'd have gone with what I suggested, and sometimes there are even really nuisancey (or troublesome) consequences for his decisions. He flops a ton in terms of his walk with God, and I am not saying I am great in this area either. But he has never been the spiritual leader in our marriage. Good chunks of that time have been spent with him completely absent from God, and me missing a husband who will pray with me and feeling frustrated under the surface with him for it. He won't discipline himself to commit to God on a daily or regular basis, and it frustrates me. I am NOT good at this either, just to say!

The leaving-the-babies-to-God decision (which I know most of my readers disagree with, but hey ho, I'll blog about it anyway!) has been a tricky one really. I strongly feel that it's absolutely what we should be doing. I can't find anything to say we should be doing otherwise really. It just boils down to trusting God and giving up alllll the control of that area to him. If Neil is praying and close to God, he will agree and we'll forge ahead with that decision (with me elated, lol!). If he ISN'T, which is most of the time, then he is constantly concerned about how many children is "too many", the whole "4 children is enough for us" thing, and a bunch of concerns about cars and what other people think and so on. I hear this viewpoint a LOT, and not just from Neil, but it so frustrates me because it's a viewpoint that isn't looking at God at ALL, and I wish he would! I read the posts at MOMYS a lot, and it seems a lot of women out there (in this small minority, that is! ;) ) are longing to let God be in control of the family size, but their husbands do not agree, and so they must submit to their husband's wishes. My heart goes out to them so much! I am not sure how to do that, if it becomes our story. I will have to, obviously. But how do I do that without immense frustration and even resentment or bitterness?! I don't want those things between us! It would be wrong in any case, but I don't want it either. I would know that his decision would be based on stepping way back from God and looking at everything from a worldly point of view. When he doesn't, he TOTALLY agrees with trusting God for our family size and the timing of our babies. But he's rarely there these days, and this is how it has been for the majority of our marriage. It was SO MUCH FUN when he was unemployed for 9 months and we had to throw ourselves on God for everything!! His faith grew so much, and we prayed together daily and it was great to see him look to God all the time. Since he started his new job that's quickly changed, which I'm sad about.

Anyway. I love my husband and he is such a good man. He desires what's best for the children and for me, and he loves God and I think wants to serve him well. He has always had this "slump" cycle thing in his walk with God, which involves a lot of slump and much less passion, and he just goes with it and says that's the way it goes for him (another frustration, since I learned that it takes discipline!).

This seems to be turning into a "complain about my husband" post!!! I don't want it to! I love him, and he's a great daddy and a sweet husband. He is stuck in a rut, that's all. I find it frustrating and wish I could pick him up out of it myself, but that's not how it works.

With that in mind, I plan to read "The Power of a Praying Wife" by Stormie O'Martian in March. I already planned to read Gary Chapman's Anger Management book (Anger: Handling a Powerful Emotion in a Healthy Way) right after the February book (which I had expected to finish early enough to fit it into Feb too), and I started it a week or so ago. I think I might try to read the two together this month. I don't want to wait on either one - I need the teaching on anger management, and I also don't want to delay on being inspired and taught about how to pray for my husband. I think praying for him is the key to releasing frustrations and seeing God move in his life, so I want to get going, and read this book as I do. I don't know if I'll manage two books in one month, but I will try!

There's so much else to write about!

This week I am cutting down on TV big time for the boys. I have absolutely had enough with the TV!!! I can't believe we had got to the point where it was basically on all day. Seriously. I was brought up in a home where TV was a no-no for kids, and we had I think an hour a day (timed!). When we were very little like the boys, we didn't watch any except for a lunch time couple of short programmes that my mummy sat with us to watch, and chatted about it with us afterwards. I found it hugely irritating to go to friends' houses after school for those friends whose families had the TV on all the time. It drove me nuts! Neil's family is quite like this, and Christmas visits had me climbing the walls by Day 2, honestly! People eat, talk and think with the TV droning or twittering noisily away in the background, and I just can't do that - it drives me crazy! I swore I would never let my own kids watch a ton of TV, and here I am, feeling worse than ever about it because of my own convictions from childhood! I don't even know how it got this way, but I'm thinking they watched some TV and it seemed easier to deal with things while they were distracted. And they liked what they saw, so they watched a little more, all the while I thought, "Um, this can't be good! I should not let this happen!" but I did anyway, and so on and so on. I got nervous about cutting down on the TV eventually, because I did not know what to fill the time doing! That was basically an alarm bell for me.

Yesterday they watched morning TV till about 8.30am (Neil puts it on for them when he gets up with them in the morning, which is around 6.30 usually - he is wonderful and lets me lie in till 7.15 when he has to get ready for work and go). They play and have breakfast in that time too, but it's on, and they go back and forth to it. It used to stay on ALL morning, and then we'd have lunch and I'd switch it off, and then they'd put it back on when they finished lunch (I know, I'm so ashamed!!). They watch CBeebies, which has a lot of good educational stuff on it, and no adverts, but still. Toooooo much TV. They like to watch Milkshake on Channel 5 in the morning because of Peppa Pig and Thomas the Tank Engine, but I HATE Milkshake because it's jam-packed with adverts, horrible ones that are heavily gender-biased and full of noise and aggression (or really nauseating little girls with make-up on posing with plastic dolls with perfect figures - gaaahhh!!). I would like to never have Milkshake on again! It finishes at 9am and that's usually when we switch to CBeebies.

So, yesterday when Milkshake finished, I switched OFF instead of over. And distracted the boys playing with them so they didn't really notice. They did not miss it or ask about it till I went to prepare lunch at 11.45am-ish. Then they asked to have the TV on. I said they could while I made lunch, and they watched about 30 minutes and then we ate and the TV went off again! Yay! In the morning I put worship music on for a while, which was nice! It means unplugging the DVD player to use that plug for the CD player. The TV is wired up weirdly so that if the DVD is unplugged, the signal is gone for the cable channels (we have cable because it came as part of the TV when we bought it - Freeview I think). So, I used that as an excuse sometimes, when they asked to switch the TV on! I just said they could, but there would be no signal right now ;) We actually went out to the park (gasp!) yesterday afternoon where I discovered that pushing a pushchair with two little ones sitting in it and one child standing on the buggy board on the back HURTS my pelvis now! It's a really easy-to-push pushchair and steers like a dream, but on grass or a slope with 3 kids on it - not so much! My pelvis is starting to act all pregnant on me and my bump is getting big fast it seems. So I need to either go on the paths, or else have at least one child walk next to the pushchair! It's easier for me in other ways to have them all riding because then they don't run the risk of running about or not coming to me when I call, etc. I need to TRAIN my children! But in the meantime, it's easier to have them ON the pushchair till we're where we want to get to.

So we went to the park. The boys had a great run about and played hide and seek for ages. Nathan had his first proper outside walk, in shoes!!! Such a sweet little milestone! :) He did great. He hasn't had much practise wearing shoes, and when we put them on him he was turning his left foot RIGHT in before stepping down on it, so he was falling over all the time. I figured he just needed a bit more practise, and I walked him about a bit in the living room each time he got shoes put on ready to go out recently. Yesterday he was walking way better in the living room before we went, and not falling much. At the park I let him walk holding my hand, and he did GREAT! You should have seen the smile on his sweet little face, he was just sooooo pleased and happy to be out of the pushchair and walking around! Whenever his brothers zipped by chasing each other and shrieking with glee over their game, he would stop and flap his arms with excitement. As they went away from us, he'd start to walk again with such determination, eyes fixed on the boys, but his face would fall once they were out of sight round a bush again. I soooo felt for him! I can see how much he's LONGING to run and play with them. He wants to join in everything they do at the moment, and is delighted and gaspy with joy if they pay him attention or try to make him laugh or play with him. He's the sweetest pie! I'm eager for him to learn to run so that he can play with them better at the park. They never keep still, and my heart aches for him wanting to join in so badly! Anyway, he did really well. I let him walk on his own on the grass too, and he did great with that. If he fell, he picked himself up quite well. At home he is now walking 90% of the time, and rarely crawling really. He does still crawl, but it's not his preferred method at all now. He has recently started standing up from sitting in the middle of the floor, and walking to wherever he wants to go. If he falls to his knees or bottom while walking, he used to (a couple of weeks ago) just crawl to wherever he was going, because it was easier. But now he doesn't do that at all. He picks himself up and continues walking. If he falls again, he picks himself up and continues walking again. He's definitely a toddler now! I can't believe he's a toddler. I still refer to him as a baby, honestly. He's so little!

Anyway, so when we got home from the park it was 4.30pm and I let the boys put the TV on while I got dinner started. Apart from while we ate dinner, it ended up being switched on till CBeebies finished at 7pm when they were getting ready for bed, as it usually does.

Today was even better!! When Milkshake finished, I switched the TV off and plugged the CD player in. Arthur complained about not watching TV and I said we watch far too much TV and it's not good for us! He did not say, "Ah, right Mummy, that sounds sensible!" or anything like that, haha! ;) But anyway, on we went with the day! I put worship music on again in the background. The boys played and I did some chores and played with them, and tried to put Nathan down for his morning nap (during which time there was some major frustration going on downstairs with the boys and thus much NOISE from Matthew, so Nathan didn't go to sleep!). After that we switched the music off and had NOTHING ON!!!!! So nice! I decided to start reading aloud to the boys - not their own age-appropriate books, but ones that were for older children, but nice to read aloud. I have been reading a lot about this online lately, and about the importance of having the parents read aloud to the children regularly. The best stuff are the classics and such, apparently. I'm excited about doing this! They don't have to sit by me and pay attention, they can play so long as it's quiet enough for me to read to them, and just listen as they play.

So today I started reading the Little House on the Prarie books! I read the first chapter of Little House in the Big Woods (I LOVE these books, and can't even begin to guess at how many times I've read them since my own childhood - I still read them quite frequently and enjoy them so much!), and the boys said they didn't want a story because they were busy playing with the railway track. They seemed surprised when I told them they could continue playing while I read to them. I read the first line of the first chapter, and Arthur dropped his train and came running to the sofa to listen properly! :) He was riveted the whole way through, and kept gasping at things or asking questions. At the end of the chapter I said I would read more another time (it was about 10 or 15 minutes by then and that was my goal for starting with), and he was like, "WHAT?! But there's another page you haven't read, right there!" hehe! He has never known chapters before, and when I explained it to him, he was most put out about having to wait for the next installment! ;)

When Nathan napped eventually, I had a shower! Such bliss! The boys asked to watch some TV at 11.30am when I started to talk about making lunch, and I suddenly wondered if it was a habit at that point in the day. So I said there was no signal right now and we would leave the TV off for now. Arthur complained about that (it's mostly Arthur asking, actually), but I just told him to play or look at books while I made lunch. He got on with that in the end. So we missed the middle-of-the-day TV today, yay! In the afternoon we played and I vacuumed (huge ordeal due to terrified child(ren)). I put on a calmer worship CD (Kathryn Scott) and that ended up playing on repeat for a couple of hours which we all seemed to benefit from! Then later in the afternoon we all moved into the kitchen. I set the boys up at the table doing a craft activity, Nathan walked around opening cupboards (he loves it in the kitchen, and would have grabbed at all the craft items if they'd tried to do it in the living room), and I cleaned! I cleaned the sink, washed up some things that have been sitting waiting for AGES (like plastic toys that got dirty, and have been sitting next to the sink for EVER), cleaned the surfaces and re-positioned the things on top, and then started dinner. It felt GREAT!!!! It's just how I want it to be really - kids doing fun stuff at the table while I GET THINGS DONE in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning. And the little tiny boo toddling around and banging cake tins with a wooden spoon to his heart's content! :)

The boys were still doing their craft thing (I cut out A4 card into a car shape - they chose their colours - and then cut some black card circles for wheels, white squares for windows, and got out the glue and the box of sequins and cut bits of paper, sweet wrappers, tissue paper, etc. and let them stick the wheels and windows on their cars and then get decorating! They LOVE this kind of craft!) at 5.30pm and dinner was cooking. I remembered that they have two particular favourite programmes at the moment, both quite new on CBeebies - "Grandpa in my pocket" and "Chuggington" (trains, an absolute guaranteed hit where my boys are concerned!), and those are shown one after the other from 5.30pm. I felt kind of bad but I did not tell them the time or switch on the TV. By 5.45 they had finished and were starting to get down from the table and clean up. Chuggington is on at 5.45 and it's their absolute favourite - they get so excited about it and sing the theme tune (soooo cute together!) and Nathan even stops to dance and smile when they sing it! :) So I told them it had started and they ran to watch. It's 15 minutes long. While they were watching, Nathan went into Misery Mode and clung to my legs screaming for the whole time I stood at the stove trying to cook pasta sauce! He pushes and climbs and makes my balance wobble, and it drives me NUTS after about 5 minutes, honestly. I usually pick him up and play with him or cuddle him way before this when he goes into Misery Mode (either due to teething, tiredness, or it being past dinner time - tonight it was all three!), but I had to finish the dinner quick as it was running late. So he clung and scrabbled at me and screamed for 15 minutes, aaaargh! The boys were watching In The Night Garden by then, which lasts 20 minutes, and I let them to it because it was hard enough dealing with Nathan and the dinner. As it finished, Neil arrived home and as soon as I heard the key in the door I switched the TV off, and THERE IT STAYED! Yayness! So they watched breakfast TV and then nothing else but 40 minutes of TV at dinner time! I'm so pleased with that, and will definitely be planning to continue doing the same from now on. I think there'll be days when I fall back on the TV when things get difficult, and that's okay, I'm just so pleased to have cut back hugely on the TV, and to see that I CAN do it! The day was actually so pleasant and felt easy a lot of the time. I didn't miss the TV at ALL, and the boys didn't seem to either. They had their difficult times and were disciplined a good bit as usual, but seemed easier in their behaviour than usual. I'm just so pleased with the day! :)

I wish I had got photos of Nathan walking at the park, or of the boys doing their craft this afternoon, but I didn't get chance. I do have a photo that's getting old now, of Arthur and Matthew doing a similar craft one afternoon. I got small boxes and let them choose their colours, cut paper the right size for the sides of the boxes, and made two wedge-shaped boxes. I let them glue on the paper and stick the wedge-shaped box on top of their covered box for a roof. They glued on windows and a door that I cut ready for them, and then "tiled" their roofs with lolly sticks! They had a great time doing that. They love glueing and constructing things, and anything decorative and glittery. Vehicles and animals are favourite things to make. It's such an easy activity for me to set up for them, and I just use my imagination as to what they'll make, and get the bits ready, so it's not hard. They are always so pleased with their finished products! Here they are at the kitchen table making their houses, and admiring their work!









I just find glueing crafts and collages so much easier in the preparation and clean-up than painting or playdough. We do those too, but not so often. I wish I could do painting with them every day. They love it! It's so much mess and clean-up though! I think Matthew likes glueing with glitter best of all though :)

A recent (gasp!) photo of Matthew!



He's so hard to photograph these last few months! He won't look at the camera or he'll run away! Or be in too-constant-motion to get a clear photo of. But I got this one a couple of weeks ago, yay! His eyes are definitely more greeny these days. They're not clear grey any more like they used to be. They seem to be a grey-green mix so far. I wonder how they'll settle! They're still changing, it seems.

This one of Arthur was taken a month or so ago. He got these Melissa & Doug block boards for Christmas (from us), and he LOVES them. He likes to make them on the table next to the board instead of on top of it, which is a lot harder! He is always so pleased with the pattern when he's finished!



Some recent (and random!) photos of Nathan, taken over the last month in chronological order:

Nathey-noodle: Two teeth you see here! He now has a third, as of last week, AGAIN at the top, next to his top front teeth on the right side there. Where are his bottom teeth?!?!



Chubby widdoo weggies! I can't help myself! Never mind the laundry taking over our house in the background behind the kitchen safety gate! By the way, he was doing his new trick in this photo - he takes his trousers off and stands on tiptoe to post them over the top of the gate in the kitchen doorway (where all the laundry goes to be sorted and washed)! I also discovered last week that I can hand him a dirty item of clothing, and say, "Nathey, can you take this to the kitchen for me?" then he'll smile like he's really pleased, take the item, and toddle off to the kitchen gate! He works so hard on tiptoe to post it over the top. It's almost out of his reach really, and items like his biggest brother's jeans often just fall back on his head, but he picks them up and tries again till he gets them over. I still clap and praise him for this every time - it's so cute when he does it, and he's SO thrilled with himself every time he posts at item over! He goes looking for clothing, and if I bring in a clean load to fold, I often find him happily toddling back and forth with bits of it to the kitchen gate, back to the dirty pile, lol! If he runs out of clothes he can sometimes get upset that there are no more to "post"! Such a sweet pea. Anyway, here he is, having taken his trousers off to put in the wash (long before he was finished wearing them, I might add!). I love his little chunky legs!



Nathey in a box! :) Just a couple of weeks ago. He LOVES playing in boxes!



Nathan sleeping, a couple of weeks ago. He nurses to sleep, except when he doesn't fall asleep on the breast. If he's tired he does. I always give him his little flannelette moses basket sheet (his blankie) to hold while he nurses, as this saves me getting poked and scrunched and yanked about while he's breastfeeding! ;) If he falls asleep on the breast, this is pretty much how he looks when I get up - clutching his blankie to his face and just looking precious. *sigh*



The light is a bit odd on that one, because it was a DARK room and I used the flash therefore, and then altered the picture afterwards. He looked much more adorable in dim light :)

I just found a picture that I am not sure if I posted before. I really love it so I'll post it. It's of Nathan's hands on my open Bible, when I was reading the Bible in the day with the boys a lot (must start that again!). He was 8 months old. I love his precious little baby hands on the precious Word that keeps me going! My heart feels so tender and joyful when I look at this photo. So I'll post it, even if I've posted it before. I just came across it while I was checking Nathan's photo file for things I hadn't posted yet.



Okay, it's now ridiculously late so I must go to bed! I'm glad to have caught up a tiny bit. There's so much I wish I had time to write, all the time, but never mind! I am busier than ever now, and couldn't wish for anything more wonderful than where God has put me right now! I'm so blessed. Thank you Lord!

Some weird emotions...

I can't fathom what is the matter with me tonight, and I'm not sure what else to do but blog about it. Neil has had a migraine today. He really doesn't get them that often, and there's some question as to whether they're actually real migraines and not just bad bad headaches, because he has to go to bed and throws up sometimes when he gets them (nobody in his family suffer with them), but then he gets nauseated when he stubs his toe - the man is not built to withstand any level of pain! ;)

So, it's Sunday and we haven't been to church. We actually haven't been all year so far. I'm feeling close to God, it isn't that, but that's for another post anyway. At first I was OH SO UGLY in my heart, resenting the fact that Neil was out of action on the weekend, which I cherish as time when I have an extra pair of hands to help with the boys, and it's not "all on me" to meet all the needs. I don't FEEL resentful about the actual work with the children, but I soooooo look forward to weekends for the ease in the intensity of things with Neil home! Anyway, yuck. I felt annoyed that he was feeling ill, not sympathetic! How horrible of me. So, he felt worse and worse and worse, and threw up a couple of times. He has been in bed all day long and not able to sleep, and still his headache isn't easing off, so he's still nauseous because of the pain. Poor poor Neil! I feel way more sympathetic now, obviously. I'm so embarrassed by the attitude of my heart, especially with how totally sweet Neil was to me just YESTERDAY on my birthday, tsk!

So it has been a long day with the little ones, but really not bad at all. We did not do much, and I've started Tomato Staking and really training Arthur and Matthew (see Raising Godly Tomatoes link in the Websites I Like part of my sidebar) yesterday, so I have spent MUCH time today persevering with that. Never mind that, it's a whooooole 'nother subject for another time.

I made dinner and ate it with the boys, and then bathed the three of them and got them ready for bed. I put Nathan to bed and when he was asleep (it took a while!) I tried to talk to Neil briefly about what he wanted to do while Arthur and Matthew went to bed. He was in bed in their room (where he still normally sleeps - another long story for another time) so we had to figure something out. Arthur is anxious about people throwing up and Neil was feeling sick with a bowl by the bed! Never mind that *I* am beyond absolutely petrified about it. Unless you've read me for ages, that's yet ANOTHER long story for another time! ;) It has felt like a scary day for me with nausea and vomiting near me. I have surprised myself and not actually done any PANICKING though, with the boys to keep me busy. I just feel so anxious and can't seem to submit it to God - I mean, I pray but the anxiety stays, and I don't know how to let it go to him.

So Neil staggered downstairs, bless him, to lie on the sofa while I put the boys to bed. They went to sleep quickly because it was late for them already and they were tired.

I really don't know how to describe how I'm feeling, since it's taken me by surprise and I am not sure what to make of it, but as soon as Arthur was asleep (Matthew went to sleep first), I felt like clinging to him! I snuggle them in bed till they are sleeping, that's just how we put the little ones to bed. So I didn't want to leave them! I suddenly felt a sort of realisation that they had been my security in some way, through the day, and particularly the early evening for some reason. Which doesn't seem right at all! But that's the best I can describe it. When they're about, my hands are always busy, and the house is always noisy to some degree. There is always movement and activity. With all that stripped away, I felt vulnerable and anxious, with nothing to busy my hands or mind. When I came downstairs, I felt scared to even go near Neil, I know it's daft. I just struggle with this fear of vomiting, and always have done. Anyway. I told him, "Well, they're asleep now." and that was IT - just hearing those words aloud. I started to cry and cry and STILL have not stopped, and that was an hour ago!!!! He didn't answer me - he either doesn't answer or he just mumbles too quiet for me to hear if I try to talk to him, and I know his head is hurting and he feels grim, so I understand. I did not disturb him crying, hopefully he doesn't even know about it. I suggested he go back to bed, and he shuffled up fast with his bowl :S I'm nervous that he's going to throw up in the bedroom with the boys and they'll wake and be scared. He could go in the other bedroom but Nathan is in there.

Anyway, GOSH I do not understand where alllll this crying is coming from! I'm sincerely hoping it's hormones. The boys were SO incredibly well-behaved this evening while I put Nathan to bed, and it took a good while too. They kept so quiet and played so nicely with their cars and trains. They used a jigsaw board to make a ferry and put their cars on it. I could hear Arthur saying to Matthew, "Matthew, I want the ferry to start loading now, so could you pass me that lorry please?" and Matthew replying, "Yes, here 'tis Arsur!" That's just how they were the whole time, and speaking in hushed voices for Daddy, because I had asked them to. They usually do not obey me like that when I ask them (hence the need for a little training!). I told them how proud I was of them and how much I love them, oh, several times between settling Nathan and them falling asleep! I just love them so much.

When I came downstairs their toys were still out on the floor - trains all lined up in a queue, "ferry" waiting by the car box, just little things scattered about like the comb on the floor from when I combed each little head of hair one by one when they were dressed in pyjamas after their baths. Hastily discarded little clothes, stepped out of in great excitement because they love bathtime. Battered favourite books, damp bath towels, a wooden toy that I just realised has BLUE CRAYON scribbled all over one side of it (tsk!) - all these things made me sob like my heart was breaking to look at them, or touch them. Because, crazily, I felt so lonely for my children. I missed them so much. I felt like I needed them about me, and my heart ached for them, even though I'd just tucked them into bed a few minutes ago and they were only upstairs sleeping where they always are at that time of evening! I felt so silly for the way I was feeling, but I couldn't stop crying about it for anything. I felt so vulnerable and weird with Neil unwell and unable to even talk to me. I felt so anxious and lonely, a horrible gaping kind of feeling that made me want my mummy! Except this time, it was more like I wanted my children. I prayed to God because I can see that CLEARLY I need to lean on God like I tend to seek out people for feelings of security. But I don't know how to transfer alllll that rawness to God when it's upon me and overwhelming me. Urgh.

I started to tidy away the toys, but got too tearful about it and just couldn't bring myself to put them away. I didn't want to wipe the room clean of their before-bedtime play - it was comforting to me to see it there. The nearest thing I've felt to this is GRIEF, so what is that about?!?! I have nothing to grieve right now! How unbelievably incredibly thankful I am that my children are alive and healthy, sleeping safely in their rooms upstairs, close to me. I can't fathom what real loneliness for a child that is gone forever must feel. I'm starting to think that level of pain can't possibly be survived, and I pray (frequently!) that God will protect us from that experience in life.

I feel less lonely now that I've been writing here for a bit, which is a relief! I don't like feeling that kind of raw loneliness, and really there isn't any reason for it, so that makes me feel a bit silly on top of it all! I occasionally feel the sweet presence of my tiny baby boy inside me, kicking or bumping me gently, as I write this. Right now I don't even have the words to express my gratitude to God for my little ones. It just boggles my brain that I have them, that they're mine, that God has seen fit to bless me this way, this much. That they're as precious as they are, and that I love them this fiercely.

I worry a bit about where my identity is wandering to without me having particularly taken note of it along the way... I mean, I was thinking about the feeling that I've had this evening, that they have felt like my security. They shouldn't be. God should. And I think things like, "They complete me!" or "I need them. I would be lost without them." But, those statements should really only apply to God, and God alone. I hope I am not putting my children on a pedestal and idolising them in any way, above God. God should always be first in my heart.

Anyway. Those are some thoughts. It has helped to write them. It's 10.15pm now so I think I should finish up the Tesco order that's due in the morning (totally wonderful invention - groceries that are delivered to a pregnant-mother-of-little-ones' door!), and go to bed. I'm nervous, lying there in the silence and darkness, when somebody is ill in the house. I feel insecure and vulnerable, and can't sleep much at all. But I am going to try to just pray a lot and maybe take some Bible verses to bed with me in my head, and meditate on those. And joyfully snuggle my baby boy whenever he wakes (which is still quite a lot!). And hopefully Neil will sleep and feel better in the morning, and NOT throw up any more. Hopefully the boys will not stir and wake, and disturb him. They usually do wake or stir a few times between them - sometimes from bad dreams. Arthur is a restless sleeper, and always has been. So I hope they will let him sleep! I also hope he'll consider calling in sick tomorrow from work. He's NEVER okay the day after a migraine, and the slightest thing sets him off again. He has a couple of hours of driving in his commute now, so that would not work if he got his headache back! He's stressed about work right now, so it could even be the cause of the headache - most of his "migraines" are bad tension headaches, clearly linked to stressful things, or even excited tension over going to a movie premier or something! He has way too much work to do right now, more than he can manage, and he's been working from home in the evenings and at weekends many times lately. I know he will need to be at work tomorrow but I don't see how he will be physically up to it, so I hope he won't ignore what his body is yelling at him and just try to go to work because he's anxious about it. I'm just going to pray that he's fully well, somehow, in the morning, and able to do the day at work. That would be the best outcome! :)

I am really looking forward to the day with my littlies tomorrow! Oh God, please bless me with the patience, grace, gentleness and self-control that I'm going to need! I've discovered that if he doesn't, then I can't do it. Clear as that. I am not up for the task with these sweet little boys, except for the grace of God each day, and even then there are MANY days where I forget to ask God and choose to receive from him (or just plain daftness on my part, or stubbornness - not turning to God for these necessary things each day), and seriously run the risk of messing my kids up in my own strength! No, I NEED GOD to parent my children each day. The more children I have, the more keenly I am made aware of this fact! ;)

Well, I just heard someone stirring upstairs, so I crept up and whispered to Neil to see if he had called me. He had woken from a short sleep (first today, hoorah!) and his voice sounded way stronger when he replied. He still has a headache but it seems to be different now, not so intense. And his stomach is cramping, which I'm hoping is hunger since he hasn't eaten all day and has thrown up. He feels nauseous when he gets hunger cramps though, so he couldn't tell me at that moment whether he was doing any better. But I'm encouraged! My sweet little loves are sleeping peacefully. I love to listen to their breathing and kiss their soft cheeks as they sleep. Nathan is stirring a little, here and there. He usually has one waking per evening (STILL!) at some point, sometimes more, so maybe he'll wake soon? I no longer nurse him in the evenings, and have also managed to cut out nursing him in the first half of the night (my "night" asleep, that is). Somewhere around 3 or 4am he gets less easy about being patted on the bottom to settle him, and I bring him into my bed and nurse him like I used to. He still sometimes has these major angry screaming fits in the middle of the night and won't be settled without a long chew at the breast - at least that's how it feels lately to these poor pregnant, barely-lactating nipples! Owch. So, I give him a SHORT breastfeed and then after that he's reeeeally cross. That's not so much fun for the 30-60 minutes he keeps it up for, between 4.30 and 5.30am, I can tell you! He usually has 5 days in a row or something, and then a short while without it before it happens again. I really need to fully night-wean. I have hardly any milk left now, and I neeeeed better sleep!

Anyway, I digress. It's getting towards 11pm and I need to just add a few more items to the Tesco order before going to bed. It's always good to have a place to write feelings down when I have nowhere else to "dump" them! I feel better :) I'll definitely be back with photos soon! Thanks so much for the birthday wishes! I had such a lovely day! :)

Thirty-three!!

I have a bit of time to update briefly, because the boys are all at the park right now with Neil. We lost our internet connection yesterday, but thankfully Neil made phone calls and managed to fix it this afternoon! So I have been checking my messages, and then I thought I would update here before the boys get home.

It's my birthday today! :) I am 33! The weather is beautiful, cold but milder than recently, and there is not a single cloud in the sky. I really would like to be at the park with my sweet boys, but I had not eaten lunch yet when it came time to go (Neil let me lie in this morning so I had a late breakfast!), and I knew I would only last 10 minutes at the park before I was getting weak and giddy - that's how it works with pregnancy, it seems, if you don't fuel-up before a walk! So that wouldn't work. I stayed home, and though I feel a bit guilty that I'm not out there with the sweetest people on earth to me, enjoying the beautiful day in miles of greenness, it IS nice to have a competely silent house and relax in my own home for a little while!

I have had a lovely birthday so far! I woke late, and by then the boys had been out to the shops and back with Neil! I had no idea I slept that long! They had bought me some presents and wrapped them up, and they were SO excited about it. Arthur told me when I came downstairs that the ones that were shaped like chocolates were from them, bless his heart! ;) So, I got Toblerones, Maltesers, and a box of Quality Street! Yay for chocolate! Watch me double my body weight by the end of this pregnancy, haha!

Neil bought me a mini-treadmill exercise thing!!! I was not sure what to make of it, but he said he got it because I mentioned a few weeks ago that my legs were getting tired walking up the stairs all of a sudden. This happens to me at around 17/18 weeks every pregnancy, to do with my bump suddenly shifting size and centre, so that it's suddenly harder work on my thighs to do things like climb stairs. My body feels it for a bit and then adjusts. He thought I was saying I needed more exercise and bought me a mini-stepper! Ironically, I opened it after opening all the boxes of chocolates, haha! ;) Right now I am not planning to use it, because in the last week I have started to have some bad pain at the front of my pelvis which makes it hurt to walk or do any sort of scissor movement with my legs. I get this each pregnancy but it does mean being careful what I do with my legs and hips from then on. But it was a sweet thought on Neil's part!

While the boys were eating lunch, there was a knock at the door, and when I opened it, there was a man standing there with a big bunch of flowers with a helium balloon tied to it that said, "Happy Birthday!"!!! I signed for them, he wished me a happy birthday, and I brought them inside feeling just flushed and happy! I called to Neil that someone had just delivered flowers, and he didn't say anything even though I knew he could hear me, so I knew it had to be from him :) I read the card attached, and it said, "Ali, Happy Birthday - hope you have a lovely day! Lots of love Arthur, Matthew, Nathan, Babydot, and me xxxx" HOW SWEET IS MY HUSBAND?!?! I was so overwhelmed at that moment that I welled up and felt all emotional for a minute. The flowers are all freesias - my favourites (that and roses, I love the sweet smelling flowers and I had both in my wedding bouquet), and they look and smell exquisite! They're just so beautiful. It made me feel so wonderful to receive those flowers today!

Arthur and Matthew wanted to choose me a birthday card each at the supermarket, instead of making one (we usually make cards for people's birthdays and things), and they chose such lovely ones and drew with crayons on the inside. Matthew's had a badge on it which I'm wearing now, that says, "Top Mum!" :) And Arthur chose a beautiful photo on the front of a card for the one from Neil and the boys - it's a woodland stream that cascades down into a waterfall, and the shutter-speed is slow so the water moving is all blurred and misty-looking. Arthur said it looked beautiful and he thought I would like it :)

I feel so blessed that my birthday falls on a Saturday this year (I was born on a Saturday!), because that allows me to have a very pampered birthday with Neil home, and that's always nice! I'm so happy as always, to have another birthday and be another year older. I never regret the passing of time! I'm excited about what 33 has in store, and getting to 34! Every year is exciting and such a blessing, especially now in my 30s, having my babies and bringing up my children!

Okay, the laptop battery is low and the boys will be home soon. It sounds crazy of me, but I WANT to do some housework, just to clean up the kitchen ready for dinner (sausages, mash and baked beans!!). I never did finish the Christmas cakes in time for Christmas, so I marzipanned one a few weeks ago and iced it yesterday with the boys, and that will be my birthday cake! I LOVE Christmas cake, so I'm excited!! It feels special as a birthday cake, and I know the boys will be excited to stick candles in it and do the traditional Happy Birthday thing!

I'll update again soon - I have a ton of photos, and stuff on my mind to ramble about. Thanks for the congrats on my news last entry! :)

Scan results!!

Healthy baby, growing right on target for 20 weeks. It's another BOY!!!! I'm so excited and thrilled and thankful to God, and a million other emotions I can't even label right now! :) I wrote a ton more and put the ultrasound pics and today's belly pic in tonight's post at my pregnancy journal (new link up on the sidebar there!).

Thanks for all the lovely comments about my new blog layout! I'm still working on the sidebar content, so I'll add more there when I have more time. I'll update again soon! Jennisa made me a signature for the end of all my posts! See?!...

New Blog Layout!! :)

Yay, my new blog layout is all but finished!!! Jennisa is going to install it tonight, but being in the UK here, it's already the end of my "tonight", so I will have to go to bed! I just didn't want to leave the new layout up without a post to go with it, and I am not likely to get chance to turn on the laptop till after the boys are in bed tomorrow evening - almost 24 hours after it is installed here! So I wanted to post. It's not here right now as I write this, but hopefully any time soon! :) I'm so excited, because it's tailored to ME and so I feel like it suits me really well. I especially LOVE my new header, with my little boys' sweet faces looking at me whenever I check my blog! I chose a Bible verse to go in my header. I have a million billion that are appropriate and personal to me, but this one is so simple and sort of a P.S. to the photos above it. God has really been SO GOOD to me, and I still have to pinch myself that I have all these sweet little ones! :)

Thanks for the comments on my last post! I really appreciate the support and encouragement!

My thoughts are all about the scan coming up the day after tomorrow, at the moment. I can't wait to see my littlest one again and find out if he's really a he. I hope we'll be able to name him shortly after that. We managed to find someone from church to come and watch Arthur and Matthew for us while we go to the scan, which is a HUGE blessing! We'll take Nathan, and hopefully he'll nap in the pushchair or something marvellous (he'll be due a nap around that time) so that we can focus on the scan, and not have to be anxious about soothing him if he WON'T sleep when he's due a nap!

Housework is still going well. I vacuumed again downstairs today (it's every Monday according to the list!) and Matthew was completely hysterically frightened again, but I figured we need to persevere. I soothed him for a long time, then built a fort in the boys' bedroom with a huge sheet and some other bits and pieces, and took the older two upstairs to play there while I hoovered. I think he did better this time, once I was actually hoovering. I didn't hear any crying over the hoover this time, and when I switched it off, he was happy as anything talking about playing hide-and-seek with Arthur at the top of the stairs. They played up there for a long time afterwards, and that was nice for everyone really. They had fun! Nathan really wanted to be up there with them and cried about it - he is so longing to join in everything they do right now, poor lovey! He still has no qualms about the hoover. Today he was actually kind of a nuisance with it while I hoovered! He kept standing next to it while it screamed away, yelling "Doh! Doh!" at it and banging it repeatedly! He also crawled to the plug and unplugged it twice - the first I knew was the hoover dying on me! Not good - he really is fascinated with plugs and it makes me nervous. We have those safety thingies in all the sockets anyway, but when I have to use something that's plugged in there instead, he is eager to whip it out. He has amazing finger strength to pull out plugs, I've noticed! He can pull out plugs that *I* find tricky to remove! :S

Okay it's late and I'm going to bed now. I just wanted to update with great excitement about my new blog layout, which should be visible to all pretty soon, if not by the time I've posted this? Who knows! I know it's "tonight" in the US, at some point, haha!

If you are looking for a bloggy makeover, I promise you absolutely do not need to look any further than Jennisa at onceuponablog.org, seriously. Not only does she do a great job and have a LOT of variety to choose from, but she's soooo likeable and friendly and easy to work with. She has done a great job for me! I will go back to her for header photo updates from time to time, and if I EVER haul my entire pregnancy journal over to blogspot, you can bet she'll be designing the layout as soon as I can arrange it! Thank you Jennisa, I'm one happy customer! :)

Doing much better. Snow photos! And housework!!!

Thank you so much for the comments on my "difficulties" post! I appreciated the support so much, and also the advice and reassurance! I have been meaning to post here EVERY day since then, to update about it, but I take such ages to write a post (being so long-winded and all!) that I haven't had time for a bit. It's already heading for midnight and I should be in bed right this minute, so I haven't got time again, but I really wanted to update here and say thanks! And also post those pictures of the boys in the SNOW that we had a week or so ago, at long last!

Things are sooooo much better with me (as Mummy!) at the moment, and I'm so relieved and happy about it. Maybe it was hormones? I don't know. I DO know that after I wrote the last post here, that evening, I prayed about it a bit and then decided to go spend some "browsing time" at the MOMYS (Mothers of Many Young Siblings) forums. I am so glad I did! I find that place such a source at the moment. I know there are a few who dislike MOMYS, but I for one love it! Lately it's a great source of ideas, support, reassurance, advice, etc, etc. I rarely post, and mostly just read and read and read. That evening it just felt like - I can't describe it even... like a soothing breeze over me, physically, just to click and open the forums. It felt like a place where I could breathe easy. Nobody actually really knows me at all, since I have only posted in the pregnancy forum so far, and then only a couple of times. But it's like taking a heavy item of daily clothing off my back and shoulders and setting it at the door as I go in, which feels so fresh and relieving. I really haven't figured out exactly why, or exactly what that feeling is stemming from. I'm not having an awful time of it amongst the rest of the world (online or in "real" life) with having more than the average number of babies close together, or with our plans to trust God with our family size and the timing of our children. So it can't be that. I'm noticing that in general, mothers of lots of kids are often different in their mindsets than mothers of 1, 2 or 3 kids. In a refreshing way, to me, anyway. So maybe that's it? I used to only see the mindsets of the smaller families (I know I'm being vague, sorry! I'm really just hoping to write this quickly, knowing my tendencies to the opposite (!) and wanting to get to bed not-too-late!) and had no idea there were other ways of doing or seeing, or thinking, in terms of the role and task of motherhood, and raising children. This last year I have begun to read things and become aware of things that have opened my eyes to a lot of stuff - stuff that I absolutely did not anticipate being able to do/think/maintain! Kind of like last year when we LEARNED to trust God like no other time in our lives, with no income for 9 months. I don't think we would have ever learned that lesson without that experience, and from it we've discovered the "buzz" of trusting God with the big things in life! And thus, baby #4 on the way! ;)

There is a lot of dying-to-self involved in the kind of motherhood I am now chasing after, which feels like an impossible mountain to climb, but I'm already starting, or have been these last few months as these new thoughts and ideas and realisations have been sinking into me. And I am beginning to see that it IS do-able. Just totally NOT without God enabling me. I mean, totally not possible otherwise. Incredibly hard even WITH God! But do-able, even for someone like me! The rewards, oh the rewards! will be so worth it, if I keep at it. I am excited and LONGING to work at this!

Anyway, I am absolutely sure I will fall fifty bazillion times and write about it here, haha! But I will get up again, and God is patient and he always perseveres with me. It's a new, wonderful goal, that changes my whole perspective on motherhood. And people are understanding me LESS for it, especially other mothers. Ahhh, maybe THAT'S why I feel such a physical sense of relief at MOMYS?! I figured it out just by blogging my thought processes, hehe!

Well, so that evening I read a ton of stuff, for hours on end. I found so many helpful ideas on anger management (in terms of feeling overwhelmed by small disobedient children, for example!), discipline, what might be making my 4-year-old tick, etc. And just tons of reassuring stuff from mothers of MANY little ones, now no longer little - very very wiiiiise mamas! They have the most laid-back approaches and the best understanding of little children, it seems. They are least desperate for control! ;) I learned a lot from just reading other people's posts and the responses to them. Next day I did not shout or smack at all. I instituted standing in the corner as a consequence for lots of things. I also brought back time-out in the porch which had been happening very rarely with the cold weather (understandably!)! I remembered I am training, training, training, not controlling or doling out consequences for certain behaviour. I am training, with loving intent, desiring my work to bring about a fruitful and life-giving result for my children, not me. I was also very helpfully reminded at MOMYS that evening that a 4-year-old is a LITTLE ONE, still immature in responses to things and behaviour, because of only being 4-years-old!!! I can't think how I got so that I didn't see it like that. It helped a LOT. It does mean that I re-realised that I have 3 children who lack maturity and thus are still in "training" stage, needing my constant input and a TON of patience and persistance! Apparently this lessens somewhat after age 5 or 6 (depending on the child) IF loving work has been done with the little one before that age to help bring them to maturity. Hard work! But a helpful perspective.

Of course in the time since then I have lapsed big time and lost my temper and yelled at the kids and so on and so on. But I am talking to them more about it, asking their forgiveness more, and trying to learn to behave more gently and patiently towards them. They're only little! It's hard because it isn't coming naturally, but I think my hormones don't help. Some days it's not too hard at all, and other days I want to pull my own skin off all day with irritability! So I guess the hormones aren't helping sometimes.

Anyway! My thoughts on my 4-year-old are that he doesn't need to go to school or nursery, developmentally, personally, behaviourally, or anything like that. I know lots of 4-year-olds behave similarly and improve hugely for starting school, but I don't believe school is necessary, even though the above example makes it look that way! That's a bigger subject that I haven't got time to go into tonight though.

A few days later I was back browsing MOMYS and praying for insight again, and found a link to Motivated Moms. There was a post about keeping the house in order (or the apparent lack of ability whilst juggling homeschooling and a bunch of small children!), and somebody commented to say that they'd tried FlyLady and a lot of other stuff, but they found Motivated Moms and it changed their household! So I figured it was worth a look! I have done FlyLady on and off for a couple of years, and not managed to keep up with it. It's helped a lot while I've been "on" it, but apart from that, it has not worked for me. So I went and found that it's an e-book (to buy) with printable chore charts. Now, that might sound like a huge drag, but I looked at the sample pages and figured it might work. Also, it was not expensive, being an e-book. So I bought it and downloaded it. I still have the spring cleaning e-book that I talked about recently, and have been working on that slowly along with my 5 Things that I write myself to get done each day.

So last weekend I downloaded the Motivated Moms thing. I chose the weekly chart, not the daily one (less to print out over the year and I like seeing my week at a glance), and printed 3 weeks of charts out. I am getting skeptical now - I have such weak sticking power to this kind of thing! I'm great while the novelty is burning away brightly, but once it wears off a bit, that's basically the end of the Great New Thing, except for occasional bursts of new motivation and short-lasting willpower. I annoy myself mightily in this department, but that's how it has been with me so far.

On Monday, I started my first day of Motivated Moms and today is Friday and I have done almost a week. Now, I do not want to discount the potential of the novelty factor (knowing myself like I do), which is why I only printed 3 weeks worth! If I get to the end of that still motivated and active, then I will be excited, and print out another month! Otherwise, I do not want to waste the printer ink or the paper! ;)

I have NEVER done this much housework! But I haven't had to think about it. It's just listed, and I check it off. I have daily chores, and each day of the week there are a few that are specific to that day as well. The list covers everything, which I hadn't expected. I HAVE to vacuum and mop every week! I don't think I've done either in MONTHS. I am not even kidding - well, I did hoover the living room after some spillage of glitter or something a few weeks ago, but that was a pretty isolated incident! I know, it's terrible. We have some DIRTY carpet! Matthew is hysterically terrified of the hoover, worse than he has ever been, though Arthur seems to have outgrown his same anxiety now. Nathan is my first baby to be unaffected by the hoover (hooray!) and toddles over to it saying, "Doh! Doh!" (his "word" for everything, question or statement!) in a very determined way! He stands there pressing on it and poking it while it's screaming away noisily! It's lovely to have a baby (toddler, aaaargh! How can this beeee?!?!) who isn't shaking and turning purple with crying and screaming whenever I bring out the hoover! Poor Matthew is struggling with it though. I'm hoping he'll get used to it, and I take the older two to another part of the house (upstairs, if I'm hoovering downstairs, for example) to be away from it a bit. Arthur's job is to cuddle him and make him feel better, and help him not be scared. He likes to distract Matthew with fun games like building a "tent" with their bedding in their room, or he even resorts to frantic peekaboo games that work with Nathan (bless his heart!) when nothing else is working! I usually have to remind Arthur a couple of times to be sure he's doing his "job" (looking after Matthew) while I hoover, but he does GREAT. Matthew wails and screams for me upstairs, and I call up reassuring stuff and hoover as fast as I can, but by the time I switch it off and go upstairs, he's having lots of fun with the games Arthur made up to help him :)

Anyway - I do ramble on, don't I?!

So, I have to sweep, mop, vacuum, run the dishwasher, do laundry, plan and cook meals, read to the little ones (yes, it's on the list - it's not a CHORE as such, but I love that it's listed as an important tast each day!), clean the sinks, wipe the surfaces, make the beds, etc, etc, every day. The extra chores for each individual day are proper/deeper cleaning, like over the course of the week by doing as I'm told on the checklist, I have cleaned the bathroom thoroughly, cleaned the windows and mirrors downstairs, cleaned some 8-years-worth-of-GUNK light fittings (yeurgh!), cleaned out some of my "pantry" and the bottom section of my refridgerator, and changed bedsheets. Just this week! Who knows what's on the list for NEXT week! :) I'm beginning to see that if I can keep this up, my house will actually get CLEAN and decluttered! It's not so heavy on the decluttering as FlyLady (by a long way!), but it does allow for decluttering. To be honest, now that I'm really cleaning below just the surface layer, I'm motivated to do more decluttering than I was before, when I was trying to declutter as a main focus rather than clean. I see that the above list of this week's things are actually OBVIOUS things that a housewife should do! But I haven't been able to organise myself to do many of them for a long long time. I keep up with nappies, meals, naps, laundry, and occasionally find time to run the dishwasher, normally. That's been my norm for a LONG time! I couldn't see how I could ever fit any more in, and the house was a complete state! It still is, but already it's so much better.

The boys suddenly have two rooms to play in downstairs (we only have two rooms downstairs - the living room and the kitchen) because since I cleared the kitchen floor and mopped it (which took most of the week, given the amount of stuff cluttering it up!) and kept up with the laundry to the point where I actually had to wait for some more stuff to get dirty this morning to have a large enough load to put in the machine (!!!!!!!!!!!!!), the kitchen is suddenly a clean and safe place for little children to be!! Who knew?! We keep a gate on the kitchen doorway to prevent them going in there, and let them in for meals - how awful that sounds! But it was just a horrible horrible mess all the time. Food was on the floor like I promise you have not seen the likes of before, and it was sometimes mouldy food. Yes, all my warts here! ;) MOST of the floor was covered with laundry, and not clean laundry either. Plus boxes of stuff that needed to be thrown out or cleaned properly. Not a place the little ones could be, sadly.

Now, the kitchen is clear and the floor completely clean. I sweep 2 or 3 times a day on my knees with a dustpan since we don't own a broom (!!), so it stays clean and tidy. There's hardly any laundry like I mentioned, though what laundry we DO have is in load-type-sorted piles on the floor still (we have no other storage space for dirty laundry in our tiny house). The surfaces are cleared, cleaned and kept wiped each day, and the kitchen table too. The boys love it in there! Nathan especially likes all the cupboards that he can open, and the tupperware, and the tins of food in the low cupboard! :) He walks all over the kitchen, round and round. He has improved leaps and bounds in his walking this week, and I wonder if the extra space is the reason, or if it's just a coincidence? The others had just a little space too and improved suddely like Nathan has just the same. He's walking almost all the time now, rather than crawling, and increasing his speed. He can steady his balance if he loses it, most of the time, and today he pivoted on the spot and walked back in the other direction without faltering. It's so sweet to see such a tiny one toddling about. I want to eat him whenever I look at him. He's so incredibly cute ALL the time these days! ;) He has curls at the back of his head. And two teeth now, both top middles. He wrinkles his nose when he smiles at me. I actually physically hurt sometimes with how much I love him!

So, he is enjoying the extra space! They all are. A bonus of having the kitchen clear is that the way is clear to the back garden again. They're getting even more space with being able to go outside as well. When they come in with absolutely MUD-CAKED boots (because the snow has thawed and turned our garden into a mud puddle, which they love!) and clothes, I peel them off in the kitchen, pop the muddy washables straight in the machine, or in line for the next wash if there's something in there washing already, and clean them up at the sink. Then when they're in the living room, clean and playing, I get down on my hands and knees with a cloth and some spray, and clean all the mud off the kitchen floor. While it's drying, I WASH THEIR WELLY BOOTS in the sink!!!! I can't tell you how amazing this is for me to be writing this, let alone doing it! Seriously. It's like I'm someone else! I love it. THEN, I put the boots to dry and clean my sink, since that's on my list to do each day. Then I cannot describe the warm buzz of joy that comes from drying my hands and preparing to play with my kids in the living room, whilst looking at my still-wet CLEAN kitchen floor, with two pairs of shiny clean wellies by the back door, and a clean sink, remembering that 10 minutes ago it was a mud-fest! It's SO motivating!!!! I just stand there in amazement that I'm actually doing it. I soooooo hope I keep this up.

Along with the cleaning has come activity for the boys. In that they help with the chores. Arthur has changed so much for this! He actually whines and pesters me all day to do them: "I just want to do some haaawwwsworrrrk!" or "Mummy, when can we do some choooorrres?!!" I have to ask him to stop whining, but it seems crazy when I think what he's whining about, hehe! Finally it's time to start (like when I've woken up enough (although I'm finding the chores really GIVE me energy, and I have to start them to get to that point, hmmm!) or finished my drink/breakfast, etc!), and Arthur gets so excited! Matthew seems eager as well, especially when he sees Arthur's excitement. They do laundry for me when we're all in the kitchen. They sort loads, load the washing machine and tumble dryer (usually one boy on each as we switch loads), and set them off under my supervision. They also load and empty the dishwasher with me, and set off a new wash cycle with me supervising. They LOVE pushing buttons and setting off the machines! :) Yesterday we had to wipe down the cupboard doors and the machines, so I assigned those chores to the boys, and they loved it! Arthur wants to sweep the kitchen floor, which I'm now letting him help with. Before now I wouldn't let him because it was SO SCUMMY. He takes ages and misses a ton of crumbs and fluff, but he does a great job and works so hard! I give him lots of time and praise.

I make the beds fast when I dash upstairs to the loo in the morning. It's easier to tell the boys I'm just going to the toilet and then whip round super fast making the beds after I've used the loo, than to tell them I'm going to make the beds, for some reason. I'm slower, and they're more apt to misbehave downstairs!

Anyway, it's going sooooo great. I haven't heard Arthur say he's bored much at all, and he seems so much happier doing chores than anything else! He has always had a big thing for housework, from baby-hood, younger than Nathan is by a good few months. He also likes a clean and tidy home, it balances his little head out. Some people are more frazzled than others by a messy and cluttered home, and he's definitely one of them. Not so the other two, but it's still much better for them too! I'm not doing everything on my list each day though, but I am so happy with the improvement with what I AM achieving, and also I know it's only the first week. Practise at it will make it easier in time, right? I'm not fitting in Bible reading, which I added to my daily "chore" list (it's NOT a chore!) - only 1 day out of 5. I do like to read my Bible in the evenings more, but am not sticking to that too well either. I want to make sure I read it in the daytime with the boys. I am also not checking off the exercise box each day (hahaha!!! ahhhaaa hahaha! mwaha... ha.) or the quiet time box - I LOVE that there's a box to check off each day for quiet time, because I really want to implement that properly at some point. I have wanted to for a couple of years, and did implement "big boy quiet time" with Arthur when Matthew was a baby, but it was never very quiet, and became kind of stressy and in the end I just stopped enforcing it. I would LOVE to have quiet time in this house as a permanent thing! There are other things I'm working on right now, though, and so I'll let myself off the hook for the quiet time thing till further down the line, for now.

I have stopped doing my list of 5 Things completely, because suddenly this Motivated Moms thing is eclipsing everything else and is so much more efficient, for me. Also it takes all my time! I am dashing about a lot. I love that it's easily broken into little tiny bits of jobs, so I can do tiny bits of housework between doing things with the boys or changing nappies, eating, etc. If I see a calm scene of little boys doing jigsaw puzzles or stacking toys for a rare 3 minutes (!), I often then dash off to the kitchen and clean the sink, or run upstairs and strip the sheets off a bed. Then I've done a job to check off, or part of one, and yet the boys didn't notice I was gone, and I'm back to continue playing with them really fast. My body isn't used to proper housework, haha! My back and arms and shoulders hurt with the hoovering and mopping and window-cleaning! It's kind of embarrassing!

I just hope I keep it up.

So, things are going better. I have been ever so long-winded tonight! It's so late and I must go to bed.

Oh! I almost forgot! MY TURN has come around on the Bloggy Makeover list!!! Wheeee! I went on Jennisa's waiting list about 6 weeks ago, and now it's my turn!!! Yay! Right now I'm working with Jennisa on how I want it to look. I want COLOUR this time. I hope nobody's eyes get sore, haha! But I want some bright colours. That's just ME, I have always liked bright colours for books or drawings, or decorating things. I do also love blogs with gentle tones and muted colours, but what's MOST personalised to me is bright and colourful. So, changes coming soon, to this blog! I can't wait to have it all done, and to be posting at my new, really personalised blog!! Hopefully it'll motivate me to post more often too! I really don't like leaving it so long between posts. I don't know when it will be finished, but I'm thinking soon. The main layout is finished already and I like how it looks. Now Jennisa is working on sidebar tabs and little touches like that! :) Watch this space!

Also, I haven't updated my pregnancy diary (sidebar link coming for that with the new blog layout) in a while. I will get to that soon, for anyone wondering! I am 19 weeks pregnant - I can't believe it's going so fast! Almost halfway! On Wednesday I'll be 20 weeks, and I have my scan that day too. We still haven't figured out child care while it happens (they are not crazy about small children at the scans!) but hopefully we'll sort that out in time! I am really hoping to find out whether the tiny one is a boy or a girl. Or should I say, CONFIRM that the tiny one is a boy?! I'm sooooo sure it's a boy. I'll be sure to update about it at both my pregnancy diary and this blog if we find out - exciting stuff! :)

And lastly, before I fall heavily into bed, I MUST post photos of the snow we had a week or so ago! It's getting out-of-date now, so I want to get the photos posted here. We got almost 10 inches of snow!!!! We haven't had that much snow in 18 years, and I can't remember more than an inch or so at any one time since my childhood. So that was fun, and the boys were so excited! Here are the photos:

The view out of our front window when we woke up in the morning:



Neil attempted to go to work, but couldn't get the car out! The road was icy under the snow and so he couldn't get the wheels to grip anyway. He worked from home for 2 days. On that first day, he had to take the Chrysler for an MOT (we're hoping to sell it, since it has been sitting on the driveway for EVER and we drive the Citroen C8 now as our family car) and I took a couple of photos of him taking the snow off the car. He used an ice-scraper first, and the sweeps it made really showed the thickness of the snow:



But it didn't get the job done fast enough for him, so he grabbed an old piece of rough wood and did the rest much faster! I can't believe he didn't consider the paintwork in that decision, hehe! But it worked, anyway :) In the end, he couldn't get that car out on the road either, so the MOT had to be cancelled.



Here follows millions of photos of the boys in the back garden that morning! I had planned to take them out to the park for the huge-expanse-of-whiteness experience, but I had NO idea that we'd get that much snow, and it wasn't
safe to drive that day after all. They had a great time in the garden, stomping and falling over in the thick snow!







I bundled Nathan up in lots of layers and his snowsuit, hat and gloves, and sat him in the snow for a minute or so. I held him for ages out there, but my arms got tired and I couldn't play with the other two, so I sat him in the snow for a minute! It was thick enough to just hold him like a Bumbo seat! He just took it in, and seemed to enjoy it. He mostly looked around rather than wanting to eat it or anything like that. There are lots of these photos, sorry! It's his FIRST SNOW! I couldn't help myself! ;)









He set off crawling after a little while, and seemed interested in the snow:





After that he pulled up to stand at a flowerpot, and started to act a bit fed-up and cold! Here he is starting to whimper at me about it!



Neil took him inside for me so that I could stay with Arthur and Matthew. We built a snowman! :)





The boys played on their ride-ons for a bit, and then we got too cold and went inside. It was so much fun in the snow!





There was still plenty of snow on Day Two, so we went out in the garden again while Nathan napped. Our snowman had inexplicably leaned over during the night, but nothing had thawed much. Arthur felled the snowman and stayed out longer than Matthew, dissecting it with a plastic shovel, laughing in a somewhat manic manner as he did so!! Should I worry?! ;)





Matthew was so tired in the last photo! I think he even took a nap that day (he stopped a month or two ago). The snow thawed over the next couple of days, but the snowman lasted a while.

Okay, it's sooooo late and this post is now really long, so I must go to bed! I'll update again soon! Thanks so much again for the supportive comments last time I posted! :)

Difficulties...

Rare middle-of-the-day posting! I have no time to post, REALLY no time, because all 3 boys are busy around me, and I never turn on the laptop when they're awake in the day time. I used to, but it didn't seem fair to them, so I stopped.

Today I'm really struggling, and since I'm already being unfair in so many other ways, here I am on the laptop, NOT improving things for them, but instead having a quick vent in my blog, to hopefully "reset" the way I'm feeling by letting out some thoughts. Or something.

I soooo hope this is just pregnancy hormones, but even if it IS, right now I am just so woefully inadequate at this Mummy job that it doesn't matter WHY, even if it's hormonal. I don't believe I should give myself any excuse really. I am so disappointed in myself. I seem to be ANGRY with my children almost all of the time these days, and I can't figure out why, because I surely didn't used to be?! But angry is not good, and it means I am disciplining them in anger because I can't seem to cool off no matter how I try, before doing so. Which means they're disciplined inappropriately, which sucks. And, whereas I never used to shout at them, and then went to occasionally shouting at them, NOW I seem to be continually shouting at them. I really really really strongly disagree with shouting at children!! But here I am doing it. Some days by bedtime my voice hurts. It's awful of me. Also, aside from that, Matthew and Arthur are driving me crazy today. And every day, for a while now! They are more than just excitable and mischievous (which they always have been!) - now they are also wilfully disobedient, aggressive at times, rude, whiney, etc, etc. And don't get me started on Arthur's LYING. I know a ton of people, it seems, who dismiss 4-year-olds lying because it's normal at that age, but I can't stand just letting completely unacceptable behaviour slide because of their age! It feels like I've been disciplining them over the same stuff for EVER and I don't see any changes afoot. I can't figure out whether it's their incessant behaviour over such an extended period of time that's driving me crazy to this point, or whether it's just me being influenced by hormones (where I would otherwise be managing things better?).

Being angry with them, and them behaving horribly for so many straight hours out of each day is starting to make me feel like I don't enjoy them, and that combination (the not enjoying plus the angry) means that I'm even less likely to treat them nicely, which I MUST do! I mean, I'm the grown-up, I'm the Mummy! I need to pull myself together and parent them properly, with LOVE and all the things that spill over from being genuinely loving towards your children. Lately I don't seem to be spilling over much. I am just irritable and expecting the worst from them. I have zero patience and even normal happy play is starting to irritate me. It's scaring me because I feel like I'm slipping into "something" that I can't get out of, or at least the sides are slippery and I can't get my footing, and in any case, I have NO IDEA how to climb out.

I'm starting to pray rather frantically about it, and asking God to help me BE adequate for them during the daytimes, and also for patience, gentleness, self-control, etc. But I am not finding that I am doing any better for trying to lean on God. Which makes me think... am I NOT leaning on God like I think I am? Or AM I leaning on God, but there's something "else" that I'm supposed to do to make it all click and to do better with God's strength pouring into me?

I am not sure how I am supposed to do this! Effectively and lovingly parenting 3 little boys, aged 4, 2 and a half, and 1, that is. Even if I get back to the whole loving and effective thing, still, how do I go beyond that and actually train, teach, discipline, and provide quality time for each child?! I read so many blogs where the mama does this so well, and many with more little children than I have, so I SEE it has to be possible! But at times like this I am thinking I am not the same kind of mama, I don't have what it takes to do that. I know that many of them rely heavily on God for the strength to actually do those things at all, as they can't do them in their own strength, so the same should be able to apply for me - I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength! But somehow it doesn't seem to be panning out that way. I'm tired of putting it down to pregnancy, because that's a bit lame, and also even if it IS pregnancy affecting things, I mustn't LET it! Nothing must get in the way of me doing what God has called me to and raising these lovely little boys well.

Right now they are all playing pretty sweetly, pushing large toy vehicles around the floor pretending they're going on ferries and trains and all sorts. It took a good 20 minutes of whining and pestering for me to get the message across that they (Arthur) needed to play by themselves for a little while so Mummy could get her thoughts straight about the rest of the day. Lots of interruptions and whining about not being able to DO anything unless I play too, etc. WHY do I find this irritating?! It's part of my wonderful blessing of a job, that's all! Everyone talks (or cries) at me at once and my head wants to just explode. I want to scream and cry too! I think maybe I'm just being childish about things lately. I just wish I could shake it off and do better, but it's been a long-ish stint where I'm being just inadequate and poor at what I'm doing.

Nathan needs a nap soon - his "one" nap at lunchtime went hideously - he didn't go down easily despite being tired enough, and ended up crying his heart out for like 20 minutes (till he kind of made choking sounds so I went in and picked him up fast). I hate doing that with him. I lowered his cot mattress to the lowest setting last weekend (he was climbing out, and it was long overdue) and now it's nearly impossible to lower him all the way to the mattress over my growing bump, and even more so to do the thing we're STILL doing with him (aaargh!) which is patting his little bottom (he sleeps on his tummy) till he's asleep or nearly asleep. Otherwise he stands up and screams for... ohhh, he can keep it up for 1 hour and 20 minutes, I have discovered (to my shame!). If I try to do the patting now, I get instant heartburn and/or some lovely regurgitation! So I don't want to do that any more, leaning down that far. So he cried for ever, and then I nursed him to calm him down and he went out like a light. But only slept for 25 minutes before waking crying again. So he needs another nap today! He's transitioning from 2 naps to one, but at the moment he's had 2 naps a day for at least a week. It all depends on what time he gets up in the morning. If it's before 6.30am he needs two. If it's 7am he can stretch to one, but his normal waking time is anywhere between 6 and 7, totally unpredictable!

Okay, I am starting to ramble onto other things, and I didn't mean to write a long post today. Nathan has toddled over (he's toddling everywhere now!) and is poking his little fingers into the holes in side of the laptop and trying to climb onto the sofa (he's a pro these days - he can climb all the way up the sofa and onto the windowsill behind it, and stand UP at the window banging on the glass!), so I think I will go. I just wanted to let out some of my increasingly pent up feelings about things, about ME, in particular. I really am getting frustrated with myself, and not liking who I seem to be turning into. I want to get back on track, but I feel weirdly like I don't have a connection when I try to pull on myself - nothing happens. Urgh.

They're still sweet little treasures though :) And I enjoy them many times each day, it's just that it's a shame how it's gone from enjoying them almost ALL the time, to short bursts of enjoying them in between long stretches of finding them intensely irritating and annoying. So sad, and I need to DO something to change things, or myself. They still seem to be happy (though Arthur has issues with anger and frustration as he has for a couple of years now), but I don't want it to continue because I fear messing them up.

Well, Nathan is tired and crying, Arthur has just got happy with a game after whining for the last 5 minutes straight (I fixed a ribbon for him so that it would tie things together in his game and he's happy now), and Matthew is balling up each playsilk and then stroking each one like it's a little pet, saying, "Aw, this one's so fweet!" :) I love that he says "fweet" for "sweet". Arthur used to say "fnowman", so it's similar. Although Matthew doesn't say "fnowman", he just misses off the 's' and says, "nowman" :) Talking of fnow, or "noes" as Matthew seems to call it (!), we had a ton of it (for London, anyway!) a few days ago. It's thawing fast today but we had 2 days of great snow play for the boys. I have photos, so I'll post them soon!

Sorry for being down. I feel like I'm struggling to do my "job" at the moment ALL the time, and it's starting to get me down about myself a little. I don't need sympathy though, I think. I just need to pull myself together! I'm annoyed at myself about it! I will try to carve out more time to spend with God. I think that is definitely the answer, and things will improve from that alone. Also, Neil and I need to re-initiate the prayer times we used to have every evening. He is overwhelmed at work at the moment with way more than he can possibly do (small team to start with and somebody went on maternity leave for a year in December). He has been working in the evenings from home most evenings lately, and weekends, up to midnight or so. On the snow days he worked from home during the day too, as the road was just an ice-rink, quite apart from the 10 inches of snow we had, and we don't have gritting machines round the residential roads.

Anyway if we're praying together I know things will go better, I just know it. So if we ever have time together (!) then that will help a lot! Okay, I need to go and put Nathan down for his nap and hand out snacks! :) Back soon.

February!

It's February, yay! I love having another winter month behind by this time of year! Tonight it started snowing - we really haven't had any significant snow yet this winter - and there's a good inch covering everything now. I'm really excited about it because the boys are SO thrilled with snow, and they have no idea about it because it snowed after they went to bed. Tomorrow morning, I plan to actually organise myself (!!) and get us all out early to the park so they can really play in the snow before it melts. I'm not sure if it will melt tomorrow though. The high is going to be 2 degrees (celsius) with 70% chance of precipitation, so probably it will just snow more and the stuff that's there won't melt. Yay! Should be fun, if a bit COLD!

I have a new fondness for January, given that I've now had one of my precious babies in that month! My own birthday is in February (21st) and I will be 33. Nathan was DUE on the 10th of February, so I did have a lot of excitement and joy about February once upon a time, haha! He came a month early, of course.

Now that it's February, it means that I only have 5 months till my next baby is due! This month I will reach the halfway point in my pregnancy, have my Big Scan (18th) and hopefully confirm whether or not this baby IS a boy (which, he is!) and be able to call him by name after that. It's passing so fast!

In my post early in January, I mentioned that I have decided to have a few New Year's Resolutions this year (which I NEVER do), to get things on track where they have been slipping (or simply inadequate for years). I write a list of "Five Things" each day that I want to make sure I do. It always starts with getting washed and dressed, because it's, um, still not a habit for me after just not seeming able to get that done for ages and ages, and so if I make it a goal that I can cross off a list, it helps me to get it done each morning! I did have to add "in the MORNING" because sometimes I was not finding time to get washed and dressed till the afternoon. *sigh*

Anyway, I am happy to say that I'm still keeping up the Five Things lists every day - I write them before bed each night and haven't missed a day yet. Two of the things are always goals for my children (reading with them, taking them out, reading the Bible with them, etc), and two are always housework-related, and the other is getting myself washed and dressed. I have only ever done all five things ONCE! But the happy news is that I'm not beating myself over the head about it. I still see 3 as good, 4 as very good, and 5 as excellent. I was sooooo pleased the day I got all 5 done, last week!

Last week was a weird week. The first half was unusually GREAT, I took the kids to the park, made great, tasty, nutritious meals from scratch, handled the discipline, naps, meals and nappy changes without trauma, and kept up better than usual with the housework. I felt good, and I was happy and still able to function in a useful manner (!) when my husband got home from work in the evening! I say all this so you know that it's NOT a usual thing! I need and want sooo much to improve on all these things. Anyway. Then the second half of the week (particularly Thursday and Friday) were DREADFUL. Absolutely dreadful. I somehow ended up on Planet Hormone and it was not a fun trip. I also had lots of dizzy/faint spells and felt completely exhausted for no reason at all (except for the small detail of growing another human being), and the boys were just unbelievably horribly behaved for like 48 hours straight. Well, the older two anyway. Nathey is just a precious little pea-pie still, and apart from his new extreme climbing thing (!) and the disturbed nights, he is such an easy-going baby and not remotely hard work at all. Anyway, they did not let up, once! I was reduced to tears by the afternoon on both days, which is something that never happens to me, even when they're extremely difficult. I absolutely felt unable to cope with them at all, and had no idea what to do or which way to turn. I felt like they were being purposely MEAN to me and it just felt like I was at school being bullied! I'm sure that's due to hormones though, that perspective. I also suddenly had zero tolerance for the slightest irritation (not a great combination with kids who are behaving horribly all the time!) and spent way too much of my time angry and shouting at them, and disciplining them inappropriately, etc. Which left me feeling unhappy and self-loathing - another bad result! Ugh, what a mess!

I truly hope that was 99% due to hormones and that it has all blown-over now! I haven't had the same pressures with Neil home over the weekend, so I really hope that I'll be back to normal when he goes to work tomorrow!

Some other things I had on my New Year's Resolutions list were reading goals. I set out to read a book of the Bible each month, and also to read a book a month about parenting, Christian living, or some similar subject, something that would teach, challenge or uplift me in a godly way. I started a list of books that I wanted to read, but only had 7 at the time. I have a few more now that I know I want to read.

My book of the Bible for January was Ephesians, and I have read that now. I am starting Galatians for February. I read The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell, for January. I wasn't very organised with my reading, so I ended up having a 3rd of the book left to read on January 31st!! Hopefully I'll learn from that for future months! ;) The book was WONDERFUL! Thank you again to Mallory, who sent it to me as a complete out-of-the-blue surprise, all the way from the US, last January. I will say that the whole book was very interesting and challenging, and I learned things I did not have a clue about before - important stuff about how my kids tick. I identified Arthur's primary love language as quality time, but physical touch is RIGHT behind that for him (I think that's why his need for very extended breastfeeding was so intense). This is SO helpful to know! My own primary love language is quality time, without a shadow of a doubt. It's clear as day to me from my own childhood, but also now, in my relationship with Neil. I can't quite identify Neil's very well, but I THINK it might be words of affirmation. I need to work on that! Matthew and Nathan are too young really, to have a primary love language, but Matthew definitely seems to be consistently focused on both giving and receiving words of affirmation. He's SO affirming to others in his speech, always praising his brothers for drawings, constructions, walking or getting down safely, etc. He always says, "Good boy!" or "That's briwant!" in a very excited tone. He told the midwife "Good boy" when she wiped the gel off my tummy after listening to the baby, haha! He glows when I tell him I love him or I'm proud of him, which I do pretty frequently, mainly because I am totally in love with his precious reaction when I do so! :) I do the same with the other boys, of course, but Arthur doesn't receive it in the same way that Matthew does. A very helpful and insightful book!

Also, the chapter on Love and Anger reeeeally opened my eyes to a bunch of stuff. Arthur has a lot of anger, that I am NOT dealing with well (now that I see so from reading the chapter). So that is VITAL for me to have discovered, and now I can start to fix that. I also realised that I have way too much of a problem with anger myself, and I can't parent my children effectively - especially help them to deal with their own anger healthily - until I become more mature in my own dealings with anger. So, tonight I bought Gary Chapman's book called Anger: Handling a Powerful Emotion in a Healthy Way (it's the 2nd book down). I see it as high priority so I'll probably read that book right after I finish the February one, after it arrives in the post. So that was soooo invaluable.

My book for February is Passionate Housewives Desperate for God by Jennie Chancey and Stacy MacDonald. I've been interested in reading this book since it was published over a year ago, but finally I bought it a couple of weeks ago and because it's a NEW book for me, I'm too impatient to wait any longer to read it! ;) So it's my February book. It's only the 1st of February, but I've read the first 3rd of the book already, and it's refreshing reading so far. I'm reading it with a discerning heart and much prayer, because of the mixed reviews, but it's what I'm about. I just WANT to be a housewife and serve my husband, raise a bunch of kids (as many as God will allow us!) in godly ways (NOT doing this too well as yet...) and keep house. I am so far not raising the kids as I want/need to, most definitely not keeping the house in any fit state for any family member, and not doing as God would have me do in terms of the way I think or act towards my husband. I HUGELY want to change all these things, in fact, it's my passion to do so. I KNOW without a doubt that this is what God is calling me to do with my life. I have always wanted it, intensely so, even from a very young age, so I know that is God pressing it into my heart. I'm so blessed to be actually living it out all these years later, to have been blessed to find my sweet husband and marry him, and to have my sweet children and a womb filled with another, and the prospect of more in the future! God has been so gracious and so good to me. But I am not living out the life he's blessed me with like I know he wants me to. I know he doesn't condemn me, but I really WANT to improve things in all areas. So, this book is something I want to read. There are plenty of other sources of biblically based encouragement and inspiration, that I go to on a regular basis, and I read my Bible, though not so much as I would like to (till this last month). Anyway, that is why I am reading this book. I think I will finish it way before the end of February, in which case I'll start another one right away - maybe the Anger Management one, if it arrives quickly?

One blog that inspires me regularly (amongst many others!) is Biblical Womanhood, which I've been reading for a couple of years maybe? There is sooooo much helpful stuff on home-making there, and organisational stuff in the home particularly, which I REALLY need to hear about! Recently, Crystal (the author) started a Spring Cleaning project based on an e-book (Spring Cleaning for Normal People from Simple Mom). I decided to join in! At first I thought there was NO WAY I could actually do it, so I didn't intend to even begin. Then I figured the e-book was only $7 and I could use all the helpful resources I could get on organising and decluttering my home! So I bought the e-book (my first e-book!). And Crystal is in her 3rd trimester of pregnancy with two little ones at home, so she's taking it super slowly, and that suits me well. I started to believe I could actually take part, and maybe see some good results! So I am joining in! :) Here's hoping and praying that I'll actually stick with it and see it through to fruition.

This past week was Assignment #1, to read the first 16 pages of the e-book and throw out all visible trash in the home, and also to put any visible items that were to give away or sell, into their respective boxes. So, I have read the 16 pages, thrown out trash, and put all visible "don't want it"s into a charity bag. I haven't made a sell box because I know I will never get round to selling stuff, especially with the local post office now closed down. I'm really pleased to have completed this week's assignment!! :) They're posted on Mondays so I made it in time! Yay me! I decluttered the bottom step of the stairs this week and ordered a slim bookshelf from Ikea to go in there against the wall. It arrived and I put it up, and it stores all the boys' boxed jigsaw puzzles and games perfectly! It looks soooooo much neater than before, and I have a place for all those things, yay! I also got two pine boxes from eBay this week. One is now storing ALL the toy cars and trains and vehicles, which has freed up two battered cardboard boxes that were holding those things on the living room floor before. That also looks MUCH better! The other box I am not sure about. There's no room to put it, though I definitely have things I want to put in it. I think I want to store the art supplies in it, or at least the paints and glue and craft stuff, because I have no place to put those things and they're multiplying as the boys get older and can use more different types of craft things. I have a ton of bulk-buy (thus CHEAP) paints coming in the post from a school supply shop online, and I have no idea where to put them!! We will definitely use them, but ugh, where to store them?! The box would help a great deal if I could find a place to put it. Our house is so tiny and all the space is used up. I need to downsize and declutter a great deal. At the moment, I have done so many small decluttering projects in January without expecting to, that we're currently reconsidering our plan to hire a professional declutterer. Because MAYBE I can do it?? I don't know, it's the most enormous mountain, you wouldn't believe it. The house is a total state, and the clutter insurmountable, or at least it feels that way. But maybe.... For now, we'll see how my continued efforts go, and this Spring Cleaning project, and reassess at the end of February.

Okay this is a long and waffly post, and it has become very late, so I must go to bed! It's still snowing!! I see a good couple of inches on the car and the roof tops out there! Neil says there's a weather warning for London overnight tonight and tomorrow, for the snow. We never get this much snow! :) I wish I had time to post a few photos, but I'll do that next time. For now I just wanted to update a ton of stuff that I want to keep account of, and record my thoughts on. Back soon!