Leaning on God, loving my littlies, and photos!

It's late so hopefully a short entry, but you know how I am with that kind of thing?! ;)

I'm relieved that the last cold was a "normal" one for us. The boys were actually fine during the day except for the odd sniffle, and kind of miserable for 2 nights (better after Calpol though), and that was pretty much it. We didn't have to wade through the snot-trenches or anything, and my version didn't progress beyond the sore throat (I heart my new bottle of mega-dose Ester Vitamin C!). Nathan hasn't seemed to have much more than a slightly congested night and a little extra fussiness. I'm sooooo glad. The cold before that was horrible and it made me worried, the next time we caught one! But it was fine after all :)

But, both Arthur and Matthew are having alternating constipation and diarrhoea - what is up with that? For weeks now, really. They are both constipated (with some drama and difficulty) so we are trying to really focus on their diet to help them with that. Problem is, they are both SO PICKY with food at the moment. Arthur, as you know, always has been. Matthew has always been a great eater, but has recently started being really picky, as bad as Arthur lately. Which is probably just an age thing for him (I hope!). Anyway that won't help the constipation issue. Arthur is having diarrhoea now and again, and Matthew isn't so much - I would say he is having "teething poo" rather than constipation. Talking of which! AT LAST, alllll this teething and the many bottles (!!) of Calpol he's been through over the past few months - finally I see his first two canines about to break through! I'm soooooooooooo relieved! It actually looks like he's going to get all four together, but two of them are slightly ahead. They are both on the same side of his mouth, on the right side (looking at him). The top one is going to come through first, I think. It looks pretty close. Both my boys have had the teeth on that side break through first, before the other side.

Anyway, yay! Productive teething at last! Not all that long now before we start it all over again with Nathan! Arthur and Matthew both started miserably teething (needing us to help them bite on cooled teethers, etc) from about 11/12 weeks old. Nathan is 12 weeks old tomorrow, but he's 4-5 weeks behind because he came that early. No signs yet!

Matthew's canines will quite change his smile. I am so used to his four top and four bottom teeth filling his smile, with that characteristic gap either side where the canines are missing. I am excited to see those gaps filled in and a more "grown up little boy" smile as a result, but sort of sad to see the end of this stage that will never come again! I am enjoying my children so much at the moment. I cherish it all!

I am SO thankful to God for blessing me with my husband home all the time - never mind the complete and utter lack of money (and did I mention roughly £30,000 of credit card debt (should I say that online??) as a result?!), I am just so glad and grateful for our situation all the same. We are in some serious financial poo, but completely and utterly trusting God. I KNOW he has the right job planned for Neil, at the right time. He is also our Provider, so we will not be in want.

The other day Neil and I were praying together after the boys were in bed, and feeling slightly desperate about the total lack of jobs presenting themselves when Neil searches, and the scary money situation, and oh! I wanted to write about it at the time it happened! I just remembered that. Oh well. I had a really vivid "vision" running through my mind as Neil was praying, and it was sooooo awesome and encouraging. It's long and drawn out, and quite personal (revolving around me), but basically it pointed us to God, and ONLY God. To forget the "world" and what it represents. I had to get into ORBIT in my little vision, in order to get away from the "worldly" view of things, seriously! I look through worldly eyes too easily. The sun represented God in my mind. Staring right at it (in orbit, no less!) should burn my eyes right out, but it didn't. Everything else paled in significance against the sun, the source of power and heat to everything around me. The sheer incredible size, and the intensity of the light and heat. Still, even despite that, I kept on looking over my shoulder at the earth when thinking about our situation. I felt that I heard God say to me to keep looking at Him until I don't even know if it's day or night, such is my focus on him. That really challenged me. It's so hard to maintain that kind of focus! I said, "But Lord, what about the fact that life is knocking my body and mind about, all the while I'm trying to focus on looking at you?! It's distracting me!" and instantly saw myself (in my mind's eye) suspended in orbit, my eyes fixed on the sun. A meteorite came whizzing in and WHACKED my body. I still kept my eyes fixed. Another came from the other side and broke my body (like in those horrible slow-motion safety videos where dummies get hit by something at 60mph). Then my body fell off me! It just fell right out of the picture, and I still remained. And I "felt" God's simple reply to my question - even if life's blows break my body, it doesn't change who I am in God. That part of life is fleeting anyway (the bit with the body around me, that is!). Living it for God is so important. There's nothing else anywhere NEAR as important. I have to keep that perspective.

Right after we prayed and I shared the vision in my mind with Neil, I just felt my heart SWELL with joy and thanksgiving and praise to God. I just thought - we have SO MUCH!!! We lack for absolutely nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. All we really need is to feed, clothe and shelter our children, and ourselves. We have food practically at the click of our fingers - failing that, a car and fuel in order to transport us the incredibly short distance to the local supermarket, which is just groaning with a million foods to sustain and nourish us. God blesses us through my wonderful parents, who are currently paying for ALL of our grocery shopping. Thank you, Mummy and Daddy. Thank you God! We have a home. It's smaller than we would LIKE it to be now that we have all these tiny energetic male persons around the place, but oh how blessed we are! It's a warm, comfortable, happy home! A shelter is constantly over our heads, and we have warmth all the time, no matter the weather outside. We have special rooms to sleep in, cook in, and get clean in. We live in absolute luxury! We are so over-run with clothing for the five of us, that it is really time we downsized and decluttered a bit. I buy almost everything second-hand, and we lack for nothing.

We lack. For NOTHING. Because we are so very blessed. We have HUGE-O debt. But we have such a faithful God, and I know he will provide an income for us again. He knows what is best for us FAR better than we can know, so what good is it to strive and worry, and think we can figure out a better way that will fix things quicker. No, God knows best. I just pray I can keep this attitude through the rest of life's trials! I feel like maybe it's easy enough for me to have faith over something like our financial situation (is it?!), but maybe I would TOTALLY stink at holding the same faith in God if my children were deathly ill or something. With all my heart, I would WANT to hold firm to God without wavering, but I am anxious that I won't. Well, I will just pray, and I know God will help me, because I surely cannot do it in my own strength.

After Neil has a job, we will be making a debt relief plan, and turning the whole thing over to God (we already are, really, but we can't do anything to our debt without an income, yet). I know he'll help us climb out of it.

We ended up realising that we just have soooooo much to be grateful for - yes, RIGHT NOW! The rest paled into insignificance. We are still praying for a job for Neil soon though! There's no harm in that! He is waiting to hear back on a job (which has been soooo long coming that it's probably not going to amount to anything), and has just heard of a new opportunity in the company he LEFT last summer! The one he'd been working for these last 10 years, and finally escaped from to the new (sucky) job that didn't last. It's different from what he was doing, and at a different location (central London, urgh), but he's interested. And it would pay well.... and he knows he can do it, and so do the company. So, I think he is going to apply. God is in control.

Lately I have also been joyfully praying about the six children that I'm longing to have. Every time I think about it, my heart just leaps for joy. I absolutely beam from ear to ear as I pray about it, and God knows my heart. I begin to wonder if my desire to have six children (and I will so gladly take more if he chooses to bless me that way!) is possibly something God has actually put on my heart, to be lived out? It's just that I have never, ever, had such a huge pressing desire in my heart for anything. It's not a number I chose, or a number I necessarily intend to stick to. It's just THERE. I clearly remember being six years old and having some time to myself just thinking about what I wanted to be/do when I grew up. I just wanted to have six children. But I really thought about it. And I've been referring to that moment all my life, to other people. I remember telling my family and they just laughed and said I would see, when I really did have children - I would NOT want six! I remember being in my teens and thinking about having all those children soooo often. My desire increased and I wondered if I would actually prefer to have 8 children even more than having 6. I remember talking to friends at school about it and getting severely laughed at once again! Everyone said I was nuts - affectionately so, but still!

I didn't stop thinking about it and dwelling on the dream happily, after leaving school. Since it was ALL I wanted to do, I discovered I did not want to do a single other thing, which led to some serious depression and lack of direction for a while, till I became a Christian. And met my husband, hehe! At that stage it seemed like a dream of having six kids was just crazy imagination, and not rooted in reality at all, so although I still dreamed about it in the back of my mind, at the forefront, all I wanted to do was just "have kids". My husband said he only wanted 2 or 3 anyway.

Now I'm having the kids, ohhhh how I'm longing for more. My desire for the bunch of kids I always dreamed of is increasing all the time! In fact, I am not sure how I will ever be comfortable with STOPPING having babies! I'm sure God will enable me to be at peace about that, once I have had the number of children he has planned for me to have, though. As we trust him for our every need, I think God is relaxing Neil over the issue. I'm so excited about the now quite REAL possibility that maybe I will really and truly get to have the six children I have always longed for in my heart. I'm excited at the thought that maybe I could even have more than six! But I guess time would not be favourable for that (I'm 32 now, with 3 kids, and expecting to be pre- or peri-menopausal by the age of 40, like my mum (and her mum) was).

Every time I gaze at my new baby and praise God for him, I just FILL with the most incredible joy! When I think about my THREE little boys.... when I say thank you to God for my three precious babies, I find myself always saying, "Oh for three more, God!" and my heart about bursts with excitement! I don't know why. It just makes me wonder if this is a sort of "God-calling", rather than a personal desire that I thought up originally, or something, you know?

Wow, I'm rambly tonight! ;) It's been ages since I have really rambled aimlessly like this in my diary. I miss it! I'm a rambler by nature :)

I have a few photos to post! First, here's one of Matthew and Nathan that is a video about 1 second long, haha! Matthew asks to "die dow, Ninny" ("lie down with Nathan" - see how fast his speech is suddenly improving?! I had expected as much, when he was ready to do it!) a million times a day at the moment. He lies down on the sofa and says the above phrase, and then I am supposed to lie Nathan next to him. He isn't pleased if I don't! As SOON as I lie Nathan down next to him, Matthew says, "teeeez", hehe! He completely expects me to produce a camera and snap a photo of them, hehehe! You KNOW I do it, don't you?! Any opportunity I get :) So, I took what I thought was a photo, but the camera was still set to video, and so I got a 1 second clip of my littlest boys! If it had been a photo I would have reeeally wanted to post it, so I'm posting the "video" anyway. I love it as a photo!

Here are a few photos of my beautiful boys, from the last few days:

Those are like just the TIP of the iceburg, when it comes to all the gazillions of photos I've taken this week of the three boys together! Now that Nathan is able to be put down with them for a bit longer at a time (like on his playmat, lying down with them, etc), I'm snapping photos like crazy! The boys move so much that at least one or two of them is blurry in about half the photos I take! I just snap and snap, because if I take enough pictures, I will eventually get a few good ones. I hope! So I have a ton more to post from various little photo sessions, but not tonight. I have only uploaded a few of my favourites tonight, to cut time.

Here's a photo of Mathie - I love this one of him under a towel! It's totally blurry but that's half the charm of the photo if you ask me, hehe! He was playing "boo" under the towel. Neil was whipping it up and putting his own head inside to say "boo!" to Matthew, who LOVED the game! One time he popped his head inside, he took the camera with him :)

Here are a couple of sleepy photos - Matthew sleeping after he'd fallen out of bed on two different nights (top half on Neil's mattress on the floor in the first photo, as he had obviously fallen out of his own bed and found the nearest comfy spot to lay his sweet little head!) - he does fall out quite a bit, but we have a folded duvet on the floor next to his bed. He rarely wakes from falling out of bed, and he isn't falling out quite so much as he did at first, now. And then a photo of Arthur sleeping late in the evening, because, well, Matthew was getting all the photo attention!...

Last but not least, I have a rare video to post (gasp!)!! I remembered a good long while ago, that Andrea (and somebody else, I can't remember who!) asked me to post a video clip of Arthur talking (something about a cute accent, which only seems normal and flat to me!). I really haven't been able to get much on video of Arthur talking clearly enough, but today (or was it yesterday?) I took a little video clip (on the camera) of Arthur lying with Nathan on the playmat. It's only about 45 seconds long, because the camera video clips are HUGE files and take forever to upload, so I'm trying to keep them short. So here's just a little tiny sample of my chatty boy doing what he loves best! ;)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

There are ENDLESS things I keep wanting to update about, that Arthur has said. I often want to just log into Diaryland and write out a conversation we just had, or some sentence he said that made me chuckle, right there and then when he's just said it. But I don't, and so I forget. I don't want to forget the things he says! I will try to do that once in a while, to preserve my memories a bit.

Today at bedtime (we often have quite profound conversations at bedtime!), he said that when he grows up he will have breasties and then he will need to wear a bra! I told him that only girls have breasties (for some reason this is what we call them - it came about earlier in our breastfeeding relationship, I know not quite how) and he is a BOY, and so he will never have breasties or wear a bra. He has one of my old nursing bras in bed with him to snuggle (aww!) which he has named "Snuggly" :) So I think that's where the conversation arose from. But anyway. He said, "Okay, so when I grow up to be a GIRL, I will have breasties and wear a bra." I said, "Um, no. You will grow up to be a MAN because you're a boy." He said, "Well, some boys grow up to be a girl and have breasties...." (!!!!!!). I told him that only very RARELY does that happen, but that it isn't how God meant it to be!

He is also thinking a LOT about the concept of birth (conception even - existance versus non-existance) and death lately. A lot of our bedtime discussions are about this. Some of his questions are SO hard to answer! Even if I think I may actually know the answer to one or two of them (!), it's so hard to figure out how to word it and explain it in a way that he can relate to and understand.

Also, this boy's memory continues to astound me. He has such a long-term memory of random things! Yesterday he randomly said, "You know... We used to have a diesel car, didn't we?" I had to think about that one! Yes, we did, briefly. It's the one Neil was driving when he was involved in a big car crash on the motorway, driving up north to his dad's funeral. The car was totalled. I'm still so thankful Neil wasn't even injured! Anyway, so I said to Arthur that, yes, we DID use to have a diesel car. He mused, "Yeees... But we haven't got it any more because Daddy crashed it." He was only 16 months old at the time!!!! Neil says he thinks he has talked about that car and what happened to it since then, but not for many many months now. But to remember that it took diesel fuel?!?! Mind you, Arthur is very into anything vehicular. He refers to cars on the road by their names, like "Look Mummy! There's a Chrysler!" etc.

At bedtime I now breastfeed Matthew with the lights out. We all sit on Neil's floor mattress. Matthew nurses, and I have the other breast ready too, in case Arthur wants to nurse. He is anxious that it will make him sick, bless his heart. So he often declines milky at bedtime now. I can see in his eyes how much he wants to, but he keeps on saying that it might make him sick :( It breaks my heart. I cheerfully tell him that it won't, and suggest he has a tiny bit if he's worried about having a lot. I always tell him it's okay if he doesn't have milky any more. I don't think he feels ready to stop though, and I'm sad that anxiety and vomiting turns out to be the deciding factor in our 3+ beautiful years of breastfeeding!! He still asks to nurse at least 3 times during the day, and I will let him one or two of those times, depending on what the other little boys are needing from me. I have added a snuggle time with Arthur at bedtime, just me and him. He LOVES it. I am hoping it's enough to replace the closeness of our bedtime milky. He lies next to me and beams continually, gazing into my eyes and saying softly, "I love snuggling with you!... I love spending time with you!... I love you so much!!" and other heart-melting things like that :) He's so gorgeous!

So at bedtime I nurse Matthew with Arthur close by. I pray aloud as usual for the boys. Then I tell them I am going to sing a worship song now. I like to expose them to our worship to God in the home, not just at church. I want them to SEE us loving God and living for him. I want to be a good example for my little loves. I want them to WANT to choose God too, for themselves. I can't decide that for them, but it means so incredibly much to me that they DO, so I want to encourage them and be an example to them. Also, I am finding that I love to worship God with my little ones gathered close to me! It's so precious. A couple of nights ago, one worship song turned into four, and as I nursed my sweetie boy with Arthur curled up at my side, I really did just PRAISE God. I sang the songs that were the simplest in terms of their words, for the children to understand what I mean when I sing to God. And partway through singing, I just wanted to raise my hands to God in worship. I don't think I ever have with the boys, at home. At church, but not at home. So I did. They were so quiet, watching and listening. I felt a little hand gently touch the palm of one of my outstretched hands, and then disappear again. After I sang that song, I asked Arthur if he would like me to sing another worship song. He said, "Yes, please sing about What a Faithful God You Have." I loved hearing him suggest a song, because it had to mean something to him for him to suggest it. I haven't sung that one (What a Faithful God Have I) in ages, but I did so for him. I like that he thoughtfully remembers certain lines from it, like, "Lord of mercy, you have heard my cry", and he talks about the part where God is there for us in the storms of life. There is nobody in the world who I LONG to be a light for Jesus to, more than my own children. I just love them so!

Well, it's getting incredibly late again, so I must finish this and go to bed. Is it weekend again already? I can't keep track - the days and weeks are just zipping by! I have more photos (and endless flotsam in my head!) so I'm sure to be back again soon :)

Poo :( And photos!

Thank you so much for the lovely comments on my last entry! :) It's actually a really good thing I wrote that entry, because I NEEDED to go back to look at it several times over the next couple of days, due to the boys just behaving atrociously, urgh! I still love them though.

Tonight it's late, but I am here anyway, for a few minutes. I am SO peeved. It's 1.15am and Arthur is currently awake and sobbing (Neil is with him). He was awake sobbing 5 minutes ago, 10 minutes before that, and Matthew was awake crying 5 minutes before that, 10 minutes before that, etc. They are both FULL of cold, and I mean chock-full. Ugh. That will explain why Matthew has been clingy and whiney for a couple of days, and why Arthur had a runny nose when I tucked him into bed tonight. Uggggggh. And, furthermore, it MIGHT explain why Nathan has been inexplicably screechy and inconsolable most of today. Ugggggggggggh.

Nathan has been snot-free for exactly ONE DAY, from the last cold (he's only 2 months old!!!) which lasted him THREE WEEKS! These things last sooooo long in small babies. The boys are so miserable. Arthur can't breathe and he gets a vacuum when he swallows, which is making him cry like his heart is breaking. And he doesn't want us to blow his nose. Matthew has been conked out since we gave him Calpol 40 minutes ago (even through Arthur's crying), but Arthur doesn't want Calpol.

I think I will just take Nathan to bed with me in a minute and not bother transferring him to the cot (he's asleep on the sofa next to me). If he gets congested in the night, there's nooooo way he'll sleep in that cot. He really isn't sleeping in it at all well at the moment. I was so looking forward to getting stuck into Baby Whisperer type stuff with his night sleep and naps (there are no such things as naps as yet - it's all random so far), but I had to wait till he was past the awful congestion from his cold. He can't figure out mouth-breathing, he's too little. So a cold is MISERABLE for him. I can't understand where they caught a cold though. I guess the only place it could have been was at church on Easter Sunday. But there was no creche and I don't recall them having contact with toys or direct contact with other kids. So it's a mystery to me.

I'm so fed up about it! I hate it when my sweeties are poorly, and it's especially hard to bear to see my TINY baby with a cold. It lasts so darned long and he can't breathe to feed or sleep, and thus I will not get sleep till like next week. I will have to hold him on me sitting up to help him breathe. I can't sleep sitting up (I'm just rubbish at that in general).

I'm just being selfish really, thinking of how tired *I'll* feel and how *my* back is going to ache, and how *I* might end up having another cold when *I* have only just started to get proper energy back from the last one which kicked my butt. Neil is still feeling kind of weak and tired from the last cold, because he had it last.

THANKFULLY, a new bottle of 1000mg Ester Vitamin C arrived this morning (eBay). We ran out right before the last cold, and this eBayer took AGES to send the new bottle I won. So we didn't have any Vit C when we were poorly last time. I'm soooo hoping it will make the difference for Neil and I this time.

*sigh*

And now, to cheer myself up before I head to bed, I will post a photo of my sweet boys (the older two!). They are being pulled on a "boat" across the "sea"! They LOVE this game. Matthew is waving bye-bye to me (blurry hand):

Also, the boys looking at the CBeebies website together on the laptop:

And drawing together with crayons (YAY! Matthew has finally reached the point where he can do this activity with Arthur! He's interested in drawing, and not eating the crayons ALL the time!):

Yay, I'm glad to have posted those! I think I have actually caught up with all the photos outstanding! I have a few new ones on my camera from the last couple of days, so I'll try to keep up with uploading and posting more regularly now, so I don't have such a backlog (and thus such a huuuge task to do!).

Um... I'm trying to think of something happy and positive to end on!

Sarah and Thea came round today to visit! Bennie (my brother) had to work. They hadn't met Nathan before (well, Bennie has) so it was exciting! Thea is 10 months old now. She's so big! She is crawling and pulling to standing on the furniture, and she's just gorgeous, so smiley and cheerful all the time. The boys LOVE her. Arthur helped to change her nappy and put her coat on when it was time for them to go home. He spoke to her like I do to the littlest ones, in the same sing-song tone, hehe! He was saying things like, "Come on Thea.... Let's put your arm-y in.... Let's just do your zippy up!" etc! I am so nauseating for the -y endings on words when I'm feeling mushy towards my little ones. It's an affliction. I soooo hope we didn't give her this new cold. *sigh*

Oh. Arthur is maybe sort of kinda starting to potty train. But only because we are having a Huge Poo Crisis and the potty is saving his bottom from getting toooo sore if he does it there instead of in his nappy. He's perfectly ready. We are just run off our feet and not finding time to start potty training him. And he doesn't seem to WANT to, which is fair enough. But right now, given the option of pooing (he's horribly constipated and starting to hold it in and not tell us when he's been, etc, thus the nasty rash and mucho pain when pooing) in his nappy, where we then have to clean him up amidst screaming and thrashing of limbs (and resulting poo EVERYWHERE and snapping patience), or in the potty, where he doesn't have to go through quite the same ordeal afterwards, PLUS we praise him and he gets Smarties - he is choosing to go on the potty. He would rather not, until we remind him that it's not so nice to have his pooey nappy changed these days, and ask him if he wouldn't rather do it on the potty. He ALWAYS tells us he has to poo before going. He sits and poos. No problems. He wore big boy pants yesterday because I casually wondered out loud whether he might like to wear pants which would be easier to pull up and down (subtle!). He said no, until I reminded him that he has some Roary the Racing Car pants put away somewhere, and then he said yes with shining eyes! And wore them for an hour, me reminding him every 10 minutes to tell me/get on the potty if he felt he needed to wee, and asking him if he needed a wee yet, etc. He said no every time, including about 60 seconds before he peed through the Roary pants and onto the carpet. So, not to great on the wee front. And no pants today, but he can whip his nappy off and sit on the potty easily enough to try to poo. He wees in the nappy without much thought. He DOES wee on the potty too, if he happens to be sitting there already. But his main progress on the potty is doing a poo there, which is great!

Anyway, potty training is by no means official, but he's doing things on it to save his poor bottomm (and our poor frayed nerves!).

And that is all for now. I will take my tiny boy up to bed and catch the sleep I can get before the sleeplessness kicks in. Ohhh, Matthew is awake and crying :(

I Love My Boys

Arthur.

I love your sparkle and your sense of humour. I love your determination and your confidence. I love the moments when you are not sure, also, and let me in to your struggles. I love our talks and our close cuddles. I love your smile – it lights up the ROOM, let alone your face. I love your brown eyes and your loose curls – a combination of my own mummy and daddy’s features. I love your kind, generous nature, and your sweetness towards your brothers. I love watching you learn and grow. I love you more than you’ll ever know.

Matthew.

I love your mischievous nature and your playfulness. I love the way your enthusiasm for life is infectious. I love your tenderness and gentleness towards your brothers. I love your sweet precious face, your grey eyes and your fair hair. I love the way your eyes look when you are about to do something cheeky. I love hearing your voice as you learn to talk, and seeing your body change as you learn to get about with increasing speed and become more like a little boy and less like a toddler. I love your very confident and determined personality. I will never tire of hearing you laugh. I adore you.

Nathan.

I love your precious newness. I love your sweet little face, and delight in your new smiles and the way you try so hard to talk to me. I love holding your gaze with mine. I love breastfeeding you. I love your snuffles when you wake and look for me. I even love your angriest cry! I love the way you smell. I can’t get enough of your sweet soft cheeks and the incredibly soft rolls on your little chubby thighs! I love watching you smile at your brothers. I love seeing how desperately you want to interact with Arthur, how much you want him to look at you sometimes. I love you more than words could describe.

I am just bowled over. I love my children so much. I could never have imagined how blessed I would be.

Thank you Lord.

Pukiness and photos (not of the pukiness, hehe!)

Hmmm.

Arthur was sick again at bedtime tonight - weird. I am not sure what to make of it! Neil and I can't figure it out, and I phoned my mum but she can't think what's going on either. He's FINE otherwise. The only other time he has been sick at bedtime was 2 nights ago, so it can't be a bug (apart from the fact that we can track back seven days or more without any opportunity for him to have picked up a viral bug) as he's fine in between and the two incidents were 48 hours apart.

The only thing in common is the fact that it was exactly the same timing - after a bedtime breastfeed, while I was singing lullabies. He generally takes a lot of milk and does get too full. I don't know why he wouldn't self-regulate though, you know?

Again I did not panic - go me! :) Arthur did, however :( Poor boy. He really is scared of being sick. He fought it for ages and just sat there grey and panicky with hastily grabbed towels from the boys' bathtime in front of him on the bed. Nathan was crying and crying, and had been for a while as we were both busy dealing with Arthur, so I went out to settle him (leaving Arthur with Neil) and that's when he was sick.

Things making me nervous:

* Neil said it was projectile
* He didn't feel better afterwards. He stayed grey and panicky and said he still felt sick - for ages actually, best part of half an hour or so. We even expected him to be sick again so we stayed there at the ready, but eventually he settled down.

I'm not sure what to expect, since he still felt sick afterwards. That usually means he'll be sick again sometime, but WHY would he be? What could it be? Having said that, 3 hours have passed and he's still sleeping peacefully, like the last time this happened. He was fine and dandy last time, not a peep all night and then acting and eating normally from the moment he woke in the morning. But that time he was fine after he threw up.

I'm hoping Neil's opinion on the projectile factor is just him not knowing what REAL projectile vomiting is like!

The common factor is the breastmilk, which seems odd to me. I will say though, I do have ridiculously huge quantities of milk at the moment. But, enough to make a 3-year-old vomit after having fed his brothers with it too?!?! That sounds just... like I'm boasting, haha! Just crazy. There isn't a way to know how much Arthur is getting in that short bedtime breastfeed. The boys only nurse for about 3 minutes really, maybe 5 minutes at the absolute most. Some days just a couple of minutes maybe. As soon as they're latched on, I pray and then sing a song, and that's it, I make them stop. Arthur is by far the most efficient of my boys at getting the milk though. The side that Matthew had at bedtime is always fuller than the side Arthur had, and they were nursing for exactly the same amount of time.

Tonight, I nursed Nathan for a full side before I went up to put the boys to bed (Neil was bathing them while I breastfed Nathan). At bedtime, I offered Arthur the side that Nathan had nursed from, and Matthew had the other side. Neil told me he estimated that Arthur had had maybe HALF A PINT of breastmilk, after cleaning everything up after he threw up! That's crazy much after nursing the baby there first!

Although, now I'm wondering.... all the milk Arthur got would have been hindmilk, and plenty of it. Right now, my milk is geared towards Nathan's needs, and breastmilk for a 2-month-old is pretty near a peak for fat and calorie content. The fat content will gradually decrease as Nathan gets older. My milk will probably be VERY rich and creamy right now, especially the hindmilk. Soooo, maybe it's too rich for Arthur in that quantity - his body is certainly not used to it, and it's not geared for his needs.

Is that a crazy theory? My mum wondered it, and Neil said in hindsight that he had wondered about that too, but didn't want to mention it in case I took offense! ;) But I wonder why Matthew isn't affected? My mum said that maybe it's because he doesn't take as much from me in that one sitting. Also, he's younger. And his tummy has always been far stronger than Arthur's - Arthur has such a sensitive stomach and is so picky about strong flavours. He once threw up at the table when I forgot to put sugar in the topping for the apple crumble! He only put a bit of the crumble in his mouth, and reacted waaaay over-the-top and then threw up! So, maybe. It seems a bit far-fetched to me, but I can't think of another explanation. I truly hope it isn't something infectious, but I can't think how it could be.

Neil thinks I should cut down the amount of milk Arthur gets - that I should ration him, sort of. He nurses twice a day (including the bedtime feed) and EVERY day I have to turn him down several times, asking for milky. He has a fairly good-sized nursing session in the middle of the day when Matthew has gone for his nap. I nurse Matthew to sleep and then come downstairs and offer the same side that Matthew had, to Arthur. He will curl up with me and watch part of a Pixar movie or something, and breastfeed for a while - longer than bedtime. Once or twice he has said he had too much milky after he has finished a day time session, but not like he does at bedtime.

I feel reluctant to partially wean him as I always wanted him to self-wean and he definitely doesn't seem to be ready for that. I NEVER thought I would have wean (or part-wean) because I had too much/too rich milk for my 3-year-old! Craziness. I know my milk will get less like this (and less in volume hopefully) as the months go by, but I don't know how long it will be before it's okay for Arthur again.

If it even IS the breastmilk that's the problem. Aaargh! I just don't know what to make of it!

Anyway. Change of subject! Thank you Shelley and Siobhan for your comments last entry! :) I'm glad I am not as daft as I feel with the mushy nicknames! ;)

I have sooooo many photos to post that I'm really behind on, so here goes. Some of them are from last month even. I will just post as many as I can before Nathan wakes up to nurse (due any time really as he's been 3.5 hours since the start of his last feed now!).

I have to mention that the entire house is an absolute PIT at the moment, mess-wise - urgh! It's rather visible in some of the photos. *sigh* But oh well. Tis a season. I have plans! I have been so frustrated with this cold knocking me down harder than I expected and taking ages to clear up. It has meant that I haven't had energy to do anything with the mess for two weeks - I have just had to sit around looking at the state of it all and picking up the odd few things that cannot even be noticed by 30 minutes later! Tsk. But it will soon change! :)

Here are a couple of pictures of the boys in their new playpen (thank you Melanie! *hugs*), which is actually now rectangular shaped so that it doesn't take up so much room. It's GREAT for a time-out, a safe zone for Nathan in his bouncy chair for a few minutes, a way to seperate Arthur and Matthew if the need arises, and also to give them their own space for playing cars or something on their own. If Matthew won't stop leaping on Arthur to play rough-and-tumble when Arthur DOES NOT want to play, and something is about to boil over in the kitchen, it's also a good place to plonk poor Matthew for a few minutes (he does not like this!) to keep the situation in the living room from becoming worse than a boiled-over pot in the kitchen! They LOVE the playpen. It's a shame we really don't have the space for it. It has reduced the living room space to like a postage stamp (or so it seems!) and that's our only room to live in during the day. Which is crazy with two small energetic boys! We go out for long periods for them to run and play at the park, etc, but lately we've been stuck inside because we've been poorly so it has been difficult! We are hoping to get somebody to store our armchair soon, so that will make more space for the playpen and give a bigger room space again.

Anyway, these pics are from last month - we were getting things ready for them to go up to bed, and suddenly noticed they were sitting in the playpen and had pulled lots of books down from their bookshelf, and were reading soooo sweetly and quietly! :)

Here's Arthur making a sort of den out of the playpen, to play with his cars where Matthew can't interfere!

Here are a few pictures of my sweet little boys playing cars together - something they do many times EVERY day. They both are obsessed with playing with toy cars. They play on their own, individually, more often than not. But they also sometimes play together, or side-by-side with the cars. They really enjoy each others' company with this game - though Arthur can't stand it when Matthew messes up a carefully arranged line of cars! Matthew just loves driving them around the floor and arranging them (not so much into lines though). Arthur plays "supermarket car parks" and "traffic jam" and so on. They can play with cars for ages, and they're in their own little worlds while they do. I love watching them!

Arthur making a "car picture" with Neil. He asks to do this EVERY DAY! Seriously! It's something we do sometimes for school - school is pretty much mainly crafts and cooking and other fun things. He is learning about things as we do these things. I sometimes do a more focused activity based on a letter of the alphabet, say, and the other day we made a fun number chart with all sorts of different things to stick on it. We made a tractor picture a few days ago with a dried beans-and-lentils road! That was great fun :) It's on the wall at the moment. I must take some pictures of what we're doing from time to time. Anyway, Arthur's favourite thing is to use his own scissors to cut out pictures from his car magazines, and then glue them all onto a piece of paper. That boy knows all the different makes of car just by looking at them! I have no clue about this kind of thing! Neil has been teaching him ;)

Neil got his ancient keyboard down from the loft recently, for something to do with the boys. They LOVE the keyboard! Arthur especially loves putting the tacky demo music on and pretending he's playing it, hehe. Matthew, for some reason, keeps pushing the volume up and then he is terrified of the sound that suddenly deafens him and cries. But then when we turn it down and he recovers, he goes right back and puts the volume up again for another scare! Funny boy :)

Both the boys have been really tired at the end of their colds - we have been exhausted and feeling weak too, so it must be part of the virus. One lunchtime Matthew was eating his lunch in the highchair and he fell asleep whilst chewing! Bless! At least he'd had the mainstay of his lunch - they have Nutella sandwiches after their main ones and before yoghurt/fruit, and that's what he was eating when he dozed off! Neil said he was slumped with his eyes closed, food in hand, but with his mouth still juuuust about chewing, hehe! He took two photos :)

He went straight up to bed from the highchair, and didn't wake when his face was wiped or when he was carried up to bed! Sweet little chocolatey boy :)

I got money for my birthday from everyone who normally gives me something! They said to spend it on stuff I wanted to get, instead of putting it into the bottomless pit of nothingness that is our bank account right now. So I did, and I'm so excited about my birthday presents in a childlike way, really!

I bought:

* Pink stripey PJ bottoms from eBay! I love pyjamas!

* A pair of luxury Marks and Spencers pyjamas! :)

* Chris Tomlin's CD, "Arriving" - we sing a lot of those songs at church, and I just LOVE his music.

* A FLYLADY ORDER!!! I'm so excited! I have ordered her feather dusters, the ultimate timer, a rubber scrubba (!), and a water bottle, which will help me drink my water. I can't WAIT till it arrives!

* THREE new nursing bras! Again, soooooooo excited! They are all Elle Macpherson Maternelles, as those are the most comfortable bras I have ever worn, and they fit me well. They are a tad too tight when my milk is plentiful like from when it comes in after having a baby till maybe 4 months postpartum, or so. But they are GREAT! They are pretty expensive though. I have three lavender-coloured ones - one was bought new before Arthur was born, and the other second hand from eBay a few months later. I treated myself to another new one when I was pregnant with Nathan - it was much cheaper than usual though, as it was from eBay. One of the older ones has broken now, which Arthur has adopted as his "snuggly" (bless him!). I went to order one, and Googled to find the cheapest option. I found Zodee and they cannot be beaten for value, seriously! The bras come from Australia so I have to wait a bit to get them. But the deal was sooooo good for three bras that I couldn't resist. I am getting two pink and one green bra! I love a touch of colour to my underwear, haha! :)

* Also I bought five books from Amazon:
- "Raising Boys"
- "The Mom Walk" (under recommendation from Sarah)
- "The Mission of Motherhood" by the same author.
- "Christmas Jars because I have wanted to read it for some time. I read it the morning it arrived and it was a sweet, inspiring read. I am excited about reading! I love to read, but just haven't done so properly for AGES.
- "Let Me Be a Woman" by Elisabeth Elliot, an author also recommended to me by Sarah. I am desperate for books to inspire and uplift me as I do my "job" of mothering. I also NEED stuff that will point me to Jesus while I do it. I absolutely have to lean on God for everything. That is how I will absolutely definitely manage to cope with six children if we have them! Only in God's strength. So I need to start drawing on it as I keep having children!

I also bought a couple of bags of Cadbury's Mini Eggs from the supermarket :) And two pairs of FLUFFY pink socks from Tesco! I love them! I have a huuuuge weakness for socks (and pyjamas!). They were £1.50!!!! Here are my birthday feet :)

And they come in very handy for doing things like this!

I am so thrilled with allll my lovely birthday presents! I love to buy my own presents, hehe! I get exactly what I want, and I can get excited about things arriving once I've ordered them :)

And lastly, here is a photo of my sweet little Nathan - it's one I have already posted in my pregnancy diary, but I don't want to post a ton of photos here and NONE of them have Nathan in them! Plus, I love this photo! :)

I have a good many photos on the camera again, of all three of the boys (not all in one photo though, sadly!), so I will hopefully have more to post soon! Sorry there were sooooo many in one entry this time - hope it didn't take an age to load for anyone!

I absolutely must go now! Nathan has woken and nursed and gone back to sleep. I actually typed a little of this entry with my big toes while I nursed him, hahaha! The laptop was on the floor out of reach and I was sooooo longing to continue this entry, so out of sheer desperation (!) I used my toes to type, hehe! They ache now. Nathan went over 4 hours from his last feed, sleeping almost 3 hours in one block!!!!! He is still sleeping right next to me on the sofa, on a little made up "bed" of flannelette sheets, while I sit here and type this. His feet are touching my leg. I love him so!

I need to finish a Tesco online order (hopefully be delivered tomorrow, though it's a bit late now!) as we're pretty much out of food and a few other things. Then I will scoop up my tiny and go to bed :)

I am SO-oh-oh blessed. Did I mention that recently? Well, I am. God is so good to me. I have three sons! My heart aches and my brain boggles at the realisation! God is sooo good to me.

The Big 4-0!! Jove's party pics, and other stuff

I have just realised that Arthur is now 40 months old! How have FORTY months gone by since I became a mummy? Although, it feels sometimes like forty YEARS since I became a mummy, and I'm amazed that I have had three children in that space of time! I can't remember/fathom what life was like before I had children, it's really weird.

Anyway. Arthur is a third of the way through being 3, this month. How crazy! I'm sure he just had a birthday or something.... Matthew is now 21 months old - just three months before his 2nd birthday is here! Yikes! My big boys :)

We've all been ill since my last diary entry here. I meant to come back almost immediately to post pictures from Jove's party, but haven't had chance really. I'll post them this entry though! Arthur got a nasty cold the day after my last entry, and then Matthew got it. Nathan and I succumbed too, shortly after that. Neil has eventually got it, but a reeeally mild version. He has hardly had any symptoms of a cold as such, but he's had the aching and the exhaustion. It's been a really weird cold. It has FELT a lot like flu for the aches and complete exhaustion and weakness, but has otherwise behaved like a cold (no fever, for example). I am sooooo eager for the end of the germy season!

It has affected each of us differently, but I know it's the same bug. I had a horrible throat for almost a week and lost a few nights' sleep with it, yeurgh. I also got laryngitis - I HATE that! I am a real talker and cannot stand losing my voice! I couldn't sing to my boys or talk much at all. I couldn't be understood on the phone. Ugh, I am so glad to have my voice back now, albeit husky and loooowwww, hehe! Matthew has had his worst bug/cold with this one. He has seemed to have a strong immune system so far, catching everything more mildly than the rest of us, but this time he has been as poorly as anyone else.

Nathan is totally congested and can't breathe to sleep or feed, ugh. His is taking AGES to clear up. He has been congested just as badly for nearly a week straight now. Every night I think (sleepily!) that SURELY tomorrow night he'll at least be a little less congested, but noooo. He and I are not getting much sleep. Thank you God for blessing me with my sweet husband home all the time right now, because this is how I am surviving! I get to catch up on sleep through the morning whenever Nathan lets me. Most mornings it isn't much at all (given that he's still as congested as during the night), but this morning and yesterday morning I had a couple of hours sleep which made a huuuuge difference. He sleeps with me in my bed right now.

So then after a week of the cold (having been nowhere out of the house due to being all poorly), Arthur started having diarrhoea. He had awful diarrhoea for 48 hours straight. He was eating normally and full of his usual energy till the second day and then he had slightly less appetite and flagged more easily. The second night, he was awake a LOT, crying with abdominal cramps. So I took him to the doctor. She said it could be the end of this particular cold-y bug for him, and maybe just the way HE would deal with it - not necessarily how the virus would hit everyone. She said that the diarrhoea that she was seeing at the moment was lasting typically 48-72 hours before clearing up. He only had one more bout after seeing the doctor and that was it. But 2 days later, Matthew started having diarrhoea, and continued for about 36 hours. He also seemed otherwise fine (full of cold, eating normally, energetic, etc), but it was a pain!

I am anxious about Nathan because a 9 week old baby does NOT need to get 48-hours-worth of severe diarrhoea! It would be baaad news. I'm worried it's part of the cold bug, because he definitely has that. Plus, *I* don't personally want to add the runs for 2 days to the things my body is dealing with right now! I am struggling to stay hydrated enough with having a cold myself and breastfeeding 3 little boys - one of whom is a new baby who is having YET ANOTHER growth spurt (seriously, this boy will be off the chart soon if he doesn't slow down!), and increased breastfeeding for the other two due to the diarrhoea, etc.

I AM washing with soap after the older boys nurse, every time. I am also FED UP with doing that! I am getting sore. But oh well. I have Lansinoh cream if I need it, and it will only be for a while. And hopefully worth it, if it DOES happen to have been a separate bug that I might have managed to prevent spreading to Nathan. I don't know where they could have caught a separate bug though.

Anyway. Tonight at bedtime, Arthur was sick! But we THINK it was the chicken sausages we had for dinner. He hasn't been ANYWHERE for like a week, except to Tesco the day before yesterday (but it was a brief trip and he was in the pushchair the whole time), and to the park today (where, according to Neil, he just ran and ran, and didn't have contact with anybody or anything). That's it! We hadn't had chicken sausages before, and these ones were really rich and heavily spiced. They were okay, but I wouldn't personally buy them again. Anyway, Arthur only ate sausages (not THAT many though), and a few baked beans. He didn't have anything bland to go with it. He is still soooo picky at meal times. *sigh* He had banana for dessert.

I have a TON of milk these days and every boy gets very full when they breastfeed. I do find that AMAZING. That my breasts can do that! I think the supply and demand thing is just boggling. At bedtime, we put Matthew and Arthur to bed together now. They have a bath (every other night), and then get into night nappies and pyjamas (having to retire the sleepsuits for Matthew - he has a thing about undressing himself when he wears them, sadly!) in their bedroom. We then read a couple of stories on somebody's bed (they choose whose bed each night), and then we turn out the lights and I sit on somebody's bed (not necessarily the same one we had Story Time on) with a boy on each side of me, and let them breastfeed. I LOVE this part of their bedtime routine and it's the one nursing session I'm most protective of. BUT, I don't physically enjoy it very much. Having two older toddlers breastfeeding at once can be a really overwhelming sensation and not too pleasant! It's sometimes just too much and it makes me want to pull my own skin off. Also sometimes it's sore to nurse them. But I don't want to change it. I have found that bedtime "milky" is the perfect time to put my arms around my boys and pray out loud for them and sing to them. It distracts me, and blesses them, and it's part of their bedtime routine that I want in there anyway, even if I wasn't breastfeeding them. On the occasions where I find it too uncomfortable, I sing a SHORT song, hehe! As soon as I have prayed and sung to them, that's the end of Milky Time.

When I pray with them I always thank God for our day and pick out specific things to say thank you for. I always pray for each of the boys with any specific needs they have, and I pray for their sleep, and for good dreams, etc. I pray for healing if they need healing. The songs I sing are always worship songs. I sometimes even find that while I'm singing worship songs in the dark with an arm round each of them as they breastfeed, my heart unexpectedly soars and I can actually have a little time of closeness with God for myself. Not always though!

Then the boys have to get in their beds and I sing lullabies. I always sing the same three in the same order, I don't know how that started, but it's nice anyway! I sing "Golden Slumbers" because my mummy sang it to me when I was little, and her mummy sang it to her. Then I sing all three verses of "Away in a Manger" because it's sleepy and the boys like it. And then I sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" three times, more slowly than it's usually sung, and I improvise so each "verse" sounds different - I make it more and more lilting and sleepy as I go along (doesn't always have the desired effect though, hehe!).

Arthur now stays in bed and is often asleep by the time I'm finished singing. Matthew is currently being "trained" to stay in bed. *sigh* It's working though. Before that, he was getting out and running round emptying clothing out of drawers, jumping on Neil's bed, making a TON of noise and disturbing (or even worse, exciting) Arthur, laying on his bed kicking the wall, etc. Now he gets disciplined for kicking the wall, and for getting off his bed after they get in bed from having milky. And it's a LOT better already. He got off the bed twice tonight, that's all! And kicked the wall "just" 3 times! I am right there to discipline him when he does, so it's swiftly dealt with. We pretty much wait with the boys till they're both asleep right now, but I'm planning to "wean" Matthew off that gradually. Right now he gets upset if we leave while he's falling asleep, and cries at the gate (we put the portable safety gate from the kitchen doorway in their bedroom doorway at night) for us.

Anyway. They both - Arthur in particular - finish that brief Milky Time at bedtime very full of milk. Arthur often groans and says he's had too much milky! I have often wondered if he is actually queasy from it, as he seems to act that way and sometimes continues to groan and complain of having had too much milky for a while after they're in bed. I suppose it's kind of like I would feel if I drank a full glass of water as fast as I could (my flow is very fast and they all have trouble keeping up when my milk lets down).

Tonight was like that, and he stayed quiet while I sang the lullabies, just tossing and turning a bit. And after that he threw up! I did know he was going to, though, because he was acting scared and whimpery and he wouldn't tell me why. Then he started crying, "Noooo" and something went TING in my head - he's just like me, scared of being sick, and wanting to fight it rather than have to DO it. I knew that's what he was doing. Sadly I only had a small terry towel to hand so all his bedding and pyjamas needed changing, but the thing I am MOST proud of is how I handled it! I did not freak out or panic!!!! Yay me! I was aware that I was shaking a little bit while he was actually throwing up, but it was at the same time as I was rubbing his back and saying soothing things to him - I really and truly did not freak out, I'm so amazed!

I FELT way outside my comfort zone, though. I am just so proud of how I kept calm. I think it was actually more to do with the fact that Arthur was in more distress than I was, and I cared waaaaaay more about how he was feeling than about how I was feeling. I wonder if he had breezed through the ordeal, I might have had the opportunity to panic more? Anyway. I just called downstairs to Neil who was walking Nathan back and forth to settle him to sleep. It's funny, I knew I was somewhat panicky by the fact that I was saying such ULTRA calm things, almost ridiculous in the way I worded them without thinking about it (does that even make sense?!) - "Neil, can you come upstairs without hesitating please?!" hehehe! That was my instinctive calm version of "NEIL!!!! Get up here NOW!!" ;) He brought Nathan with him, and I calmly told him to "take him out of the room immediately", hehe!

Anyway. Poor Arthur! He does get so scared. He is so like me. He does have a sensitive palate and tummy, it seems, and Neil was instantly convinced that Arthur was sick because the sausages had just been too rich for him. That sounds a bit flimsy to me - d'you think? But I guess it's plausible. Arthur definitely returned the sausages, and felt waaaaaaaay better after being sick. Neil told him not to worry, that he didn't think he was poorly, just that the sausages had perhaps been a bit too rich for his tummy, that's all. After we stripped him down, Arthur sat next to me and Matthew on Neil's floor mattress, while Neil changed Arthur's sheets. He did a big sigh and said to me, "Mummy, I don't want to have those chicken sausages ever again!" and rolled his eyes with a sort of tired exasperation, hehe! He told me, "I really don't like being sick...." and I told him that I really really don't like being sick either, so I understood exactly how he felt. We talked about it for a bit. It's so nice that he is now old enough to really communicate absolutely ANYTHING when he's ill in any way.

He went to sleep fine after that, and Matthew did too. It's after midnight now and they haven't made a peep since. I was perfectly happy with the thought that it really was just the sausages at the time (maybe that's another reason why I didn't panic like I usually would? No risk to ME if it's not an infectious thing?), but you know me - I have since started questioning whether it's likely to REALLY be just the sausages, and wondering if he might have picked up something he could share with the rest of us. But I don't think he has been in contact with anyone, or even anything. And he hasn't been sick again. His diarrhoea finished days ago, so he's all clear from that, and his cold is gone too. He's the healthiest one amongst us now! The rest of us were at least a couple of days behind him on the cold-y thing. He did get very full on my milk, so maybe it was a combination of rich dinner and tooooo full with the bedtime milky? I always tell him to stop before he gets TOO full of milk, but he never does. He likes the length of time that he's used to, with nursing. I now have more milk than before, so in that same length of time, he is getting a lot more milk, and quickly too.

Anyway, I'm waffling! But I hope Arthur really IS alright and that I have nothing to worry about.

Okay, I must post the photos from Jove's party, if nothing else! Everything gets so out of date before I get around to posting it here! I wrote about the party last entry. The photos we got were mainly of our boys climbing on the soft play stuff and in the ball pool. Arthur went on the older kids' stuff with Neil, and Matthew stayed in the toddlers' area with me (nice friends of Jemma's held Nathan!), but after a while Matthew was much more keen on following Arthur on the older kids' stuff. He was way too little for most of it though! He watched for a long time, and at the end Neil took him round some of the slides and things. Arthur just climbed around like a monkey and had a wonderful time! Matthew liked the ride-on cars soooo much. Arthur came into the toddler area after a while and enjoyed those cars as well. I wish we had a suitable outdoor space for them to use a car like that. I always intended to get them one. In the 3rd photo here, Matthew is at the bottom of the climbing thingy (barely visible actually!), and you can see him in the 4th photo in the background while Arthur is in the car. The last one of this little set shows Matthew watching Arthur on the big kids' equipment! He loves to do whatever Arthur does, and he is definitely every bit as hardy and adventurous, even more so perhaps!

Then there was party food! I think it's the first party for both the boys where they've had a sit-down children's party meal. Arthur had one at Josh's 3rd birthday party, but Matthew has never had one - how exciting! I was holding Nathan and Neil was watching the boys during the food time so I didn't really find out how they took to it. Arthur picked at his plate and only ate the odd thing from it. Matthew ate his pretty well. They sat opposite each other at the far end of the table. They looked soooooooo sweet sat at the table with all the little ones there! I mean, ALL the little ones looked sweet! ;) I'm so "myownkids" focused, hehe!

After a bit more running around (and pooey nappy changes for all three of our boys! What fun!) it was time to do sing Happy Birthday and for Jove to blow out his birthday candles. He had a FABULOUS cake! Now that Jemma has posted her photos, I can marvel at the detail of it here! ;) I loved the "rubble" - I am soooo going to use that idea on Matthew's birthday cake when he turns two. He is heavily into tractors, like I mentioned last entry (THANK YOU Vikki for the Tractorland link!), and I'm thinking of a similar cake theme, based on a tractor instead of Bob the Builder - though he LOVES Bob the Builder too, and was delighted with Jove's cake! If anyone has seen Jemma's montage of the party on her (locked) diary, I was amused to see the video part of the birthday cake, as Arthur was hopping around in the background, beside himself with excitement during the whole thing, bless him! He loooooves cake, particularly chocolate cake, and had his eye on it for the entire mealtime! ;)

Anyway, I got a couple of photos of Jemma's lovely family as we sang Happy Birthday to Jove!

Jemma sent me a photo of Matthew that one of her friends took at the party, so I'll post that here too - this was taken after he spilled a whole drink down his front and had to be changed into.... a non-existant outfit! Because we had neglected to bring anything in his size. We had brought Arthur a change of T-shirt (in case he got too hot running about, as he is apt to do), but nothing else at all! Poor Matthew had to wear an "age 4" T-shirt and a pair of age 2-3 Thomas the Tank underpants over his nappy to stop him taking it off without his jeans on!

So we had a lovely time! Thank you Jemma! It was lovely to see Jaya and Jove too, as it had been a year since I saw them last. I feel like I know them so well just through Jemma's diary, I suppose in the same way that she knows my boys through mine! They seemed completely familiar to me the whole time.

Well I have had to stop this twice to breastfeed Nathan, and now it's ridiculously late (2am!) and I should take Nathan up to bed. While he's this congested, he isn't sleeping at ALL when we put him down (he wakes instantly, unable to breathe), so I am just putting him next to me wherever I am, once he's asleep, and he is sleeping better that way. I'm able to attend to him the moment he stirs or fusses, and that means he is more likely to stay asleep. The poor little chap. I am just trying to help him get a solid block of sleep the best I can. During the evening he sleeps on the sofa next to where I'm sitting. I make a bed for him with sheets and lay him there. He's sleeping again now, so I should finish this, get ready for bed, and scoop that sweet baby boy up and take us to bed.

I have a bunch of photos to post of the boys. I really want to get to that soon. I never seem to get back to finish what I meant to finish, as quickly as I hope to! Just in case that happens again, a few things I meant to record here for prosperity:

* Matthew's jumping. Did I already write about it though? He is jumping ever so early for his age. He has been jumping HIGH with both feet, very steadily, since about 18 months old. I know it's a 2-year-old milestone, and Arthur started jumping pretty much around the age of 2, maybe the month before or something. Matthew practises jumping OFF things with two feet, and lands ever so securely from jumping HIGH into the air from the sofa or from an upturned toy box! He is just unstoppable, that boy! He can also do continuous jumps with both feet, across the room, without faltering. He jumps quite a long way with each jump!

* Matthew's speech is coming on. He has a lot of words now, though many of them are pronounced toddlerishly (word?!). He says a FEW two-word phrases, which I think he was starting to do the last time I wrote about it - like saying "Bye Arthur" or something (he still pronounces that, "bah, Ah-yah"). Nathan is pronounced, "Ninny"!! It's so cute :) All day long we hear, "Ninny! Ninny!" He ADORES Nathan, I mean, ADORES him. Seriously. He cries if he doesn't get to see "Ninny" before his nap, when he gets up from his nap, before bed, etc. He just looooves "Ninny". He likes to kiss his face, hands, etc, evvverso gently. He has learned to kiss properly, starting with his lips slightly pursed together, and then making a little "puh" sound when he places the kiss. He has practised soooo hard timing the "puh" sound at the same time as making contact with Nathan's face/my arm, etc. He's SO adorable. I want to just scrunch right up inside with how in love I am with that boy!

* Slightly embarrassing nicknames. *sigh* You all know I had some humdingers for Matthew when he was a baby. I think I listed them once or twice, and thankfully nobody left me awful comments, hehe! I just can't seem to help myself - I have a THING for silly affectionate nicknames for my babies, and they just pop out of my mouth and mutate over the weeks and months, and I. can't. stop. myself! Somebody help me. I remember Matthew was "binksie boy", "twiglet", "lambie-loo", and many others! I think it is getting worse with each child. *sigh* I am actually reluctant to write here the nicknames that have sprung forth for Nathan, because I'm kind of embarrassed!!! But I want to be able to record them so that I don't forget. I want to read them back one day when I've forgotten exactly what I used to call him, and when I remember them I'll get a warm fuzzy glow - it will be worth the humiliation for that golden moment, haha!

So, my current affectionate nicknames for Nathan (so far, I know there'll be more!) are (crinnnnnge....): "Nathie-noo-kneecaps" (I know), "Mummy's Little Loo Foo", "Lil Baffly Lamb" (I don't understand that one either! It just rolls off the tongue and makes my insides mushy when I say it to him. *sigh*), and a multitude of one-word names, many of which are food related - he is my "waffle", "muffin" (also even "muffin-woo"), and "lamb-puff" (don't ask!). He shares some nicknames with Matthew, like things starting with "mini" (mini lamb-puff, for example), and whereas Matthew is my "mini squinky boy", Nathan is my "tiny squinky boy". The lamb-puff one came from goodness knows where - it just fell out of my mouth one day during a particularly mushy moment, and I honestly nearly ovulate all my eggs at once when I press my cheek against his tiny squidgy one and whisper "sweet little lamb puff". I am obviously certifiable, but hey, at least it's the GOOD kind of crazy, right?! ;)

Mothers Day, and Jove's party (pics next entry)!

Why oh WHY does this crack me up so very much?!...

Hehehe! It's only 5 seconds long but it just tickled me for some reason. I admit, I replayed it quite a few times! ;)

In other news! Matthew is doing well in his toddler bed. The first night he fell out a LOT, but mostly stayed asleep. Neil found him in a different part of the room every time he woke up to check him, hehe! When Neil went up to bed, he found Matthew fast asleep on Neil's bed. He put him back in his own bed. When Neil woke next, Matthew wasn't in his bed, but after a quick search in the dark, he found him on his tummy on the carpet in front of Arthur's bed! Funny boy! Completely unconscious every time. I was up breastfeeding at 3.30am (Neil was completely asleep and unaware of this one), and heard a thud, followed by a sleepy, "Ohhh no!" which is what Matthew says when there is any sort of mishap or bump, hehehe!

He still falls out, though not so much I think. He never wakes! Last night I checked on him late in the evening and his bed was just empty! It was so dark that I couldn't see him in the room so I had to go in and fumble about! I found him on the soft padding of duvets and pillows on the floor. He had tumbled off the bed wrapped in his little duvet cover, so only his face was visible in the pile of soft bedding! He looked like a cute little mouse all fast asleep in there. He didn't wake when I put him back in his bed.

Matthew is such a sweetie! I love him so much! He is teething at the moment. He has been for a few MONTHS without a break actually - he's working on his canines (no sign yet). All his first molars are right through, so we're waiting on those canines before the fun fun 2-year-old molars to complete his set! Arthur had canines by now so I'm wondering where Matthew's are at. Judging by his symptoms I keep thinking, "Any SECOND now, surely!" but nope. Today he has red rough cheeks and a raw looking chin, which is a first, so maybe they're actually coming? He has been having Calpol most days for weeks and weeks, which - is that okay? He has been in pain with his teeth for a long while. He has been drooling aplenty all along, but never the sore skin till now. Poor boy! I hope they hurry up.

Yesterday we went to Jove's 2nd birthday party!!! It was so much fun! Jove's Mummy is Jemma, who has a locked diary, but some of the people who read my diary will know her! I haven't seen Jemma since Jove's 1st birthday, so it was lovely to meet up with them again. Jove's party was at a soft play centre, and the boys had a blast, having never been to one before. I think we'll have to go back there again sometime! Jove had a fab birthday cake, and the design (which I won't spoil since Jemma hasn't posted pics yet - although she HAS already said that it was a Bob the Builder cake!) was so good, and ideal for Matthew as he's a HUGE Bob the Builder fan too! I said to Jemma that I might have to nick part of the design idea for Matthew's birthday cake! I am already thinking about it, though there's not much point since it's not till the summer! He is heavily into tractors at the moment - they are definitely his favourite vehicle right now, though he loves ALL vehicles and pretty much focuses on them all day long. I think I might either do Bob the Builder (if he's still so into it) or a tractor design of some sort (incorporating part of Jemma's design - I loved the "rubble"!).

We did take pics at Jove's party but I haven't had chance to upload them, and anyway I think I will let Jemma post about it first! The boys ALL (three of them!) did poos at the soft play centre though. That was a lot of stinky nappy-changing! Nathan did two, actually - I had to change his second one on the car seat when we got back to the car after the party finished! And Matthew had a whole cup of orange juice spilled down his front at the birthday lunch. Every item of clothing he was wearing got soaked, including his socks! Of COURSE we had not brought a thing in his size with us. We had an "age 4" T-shirt in case Arthur got too hot racing around in his long-sleeved top (he gets hot, that boy!), so that went on Matthew like a beach T-shirt! He will undo any nappy he is wearing, so thankfully I found a pair of Thomas the Tank big boy underwear (age 3!) in my bag! And we put that on him over his nappy. He had to keep his socks on because you have to wear socks at all times there. But that's all the poor boy had to wear! He didn't seem to mind, and he ran about enough so that he didn't get too cold.

On the way back to the car we wrapped him up in the fleece Coorie sling that I brought in case I wanted to wear Nathan in it (he slept in the back of the tandem pushchair for the first time! Also in lots of broody mothers' arms, hehe!), to carry him there quickly. It was really cold and windy yesterday, brrr! On the way home, we stopped at Tesco and I ran inside to buy him some super cheap trousers to keep his legs warm. When I got inside I discovered it wasn't the type of Tescos that sells clothing! Poo. But they DID sell underwear and baby basics. I bought a 4-pack of TIGHTS, haha! My first purchase of girly toddler clothing, hehehe! I put him in the NAVY pair, rather than the pink or purple! ;) I am definitely a BOY mummy, and had no clue how to get the things on him (despite having worn tights myself in the past!). Once on though, I marvelled at them. They are soft, fit him perfectly, keep him warm, and he couldn't take them off :)

Neil rolled his eyes when I got in the car clutching tights for an 18-24 month old! I told him they'd probably come in handy one day :) I will hang on to those pink and purple pairs. The cream and navy pairs I think I may well use again on Matthew, if it stays chilly and windy like this, hehe!

Matthew is talking more! He is saying lots of new words, and we are starting to notice new ones every other day really. Not MILLIONS of them yet, and many of them are hard to recognise, but there's definitely a big increase. Today Arthur did a wee on the potty at bedtime (he wees and poos on the potty at bedtime pretty much every day! But we haven't taken him out of nappies as yet), and for a wee, he gets a Smartie. For a poo, it's 3 Smarties. Anyway, he asked for his Smartie, but because he had already brushed his teeth, we told him he would have it in the morning (this is something that happens a lot!), which he was fine with. Matthew appeared by my side a moment later, with his best adorable pleading expression on, asking, "Mar-mee?" I didn't know what he was saying, and the more wrong guesses I made, the more frustrated he got, and he started to cry :( Eventually I wondered if he had overheard the mention of a Smartie, and asked him, "Ohh, do you mean a Smartie?!" He took a HUGE breath of relief and said, "Yeah!" hehehe! He didn't get one though.

He says "cream" very clearly, with a 'w' instead of the 'r', which I always love! Little ones' pronounciations are so cute! He loves cream though - by that I mean nappy cream. He would loooove to get his little hands on a tub of the stuff, but so far we have managed to keep it away from him! I know it's just a matter of time though, somehow! Arthur smeared it all over his face when he was 22 months old, when I was putting Matthew down for a nap upstairs! Jemma wrote a recent entry about Jove's recent monkeyness, and it reminded me with a scary jolt that Matthew is approaching an age where the REAL monkey behaviour is about to start! I'm pretty anxious about it because he is already SUCH a monkey! Much more so than Arthur ever was. I'm dreading the water-on-the-HiFi, rice-on-the-floor, bread-with-every-slice-bitten-once, crayon-on-walls stage again! Yeurgh!

Okay that is all for now. I hear Nathan stirring - he has been fussing all evening and not staying asleep for some reason. Oh! I meant to write in my pregnancy diary about having taken him to the chiropractor 2 days ago! I will try to get an update there soon.

Oh I almost forgot - it was Mother's Day here on Sunday! I got a bunch of daffodils at church (I love that tradition!), which all the ladies got, whether they were mothers or not. Arthur was finally old enough to be one of the little ones handing them out! He was so sweet marching round purposefully holding his bunch of daffodils like an Olympic torch, looking for a lady without flowers to give them to! I felt so proud watching him.

My parents were here visiting for 3 days over the weekend! Yay! We saw them briefly on Thursday when they arrived, and then for a couple of hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! My mum brought ME a gift-wrapped box of Thorntons chocolates on Sunday, and handed them to me saying, "Happy Mothers Day!" So sweet of her! She has never let us do Mothers Day because she didn't want us sucked into the commercialism of it. So it felt really odd to have her give ME something like that on Mothers Day! I was totally not expecting it. I told her that she was MY mother, but she said, "You're the main mummy now" :) It made up for the argument Neil and I had as we got up with the boys early that morning, about me not allowing him to get the sleep he needs (say WHAT?!) and thus he was tired and cranky with the boys. I intervened and he snapped at me about it. *sigh* Thankfully he was big enough to tell me he was wrong and was sorry for it afterwards! He will hold Nathan during the evening if he is fussy, so that I can use both my hands to type. He watches the things he likes to see on TV (CSI and so on) while Nathan is on his front. So apparently this is my fault, that he's up late! Many are the times I have suggested he put the unconscious boy in his cot and go to bed, but he says things like, "Oh I'm not tired now." or, "I just want to watch the end of this." or, "Nah, there's a movie starting in 5 minutes that I've been wanting to see."

Anyway, it was all good in the end, but it wasn't the best start to Mothers Day! He never remembers the day anyway, but he did sheepishly wish me a Happy Mothers Day at church when he realised! ;) I spent the day happy to be a mummy to three precious little boys! How blessed am I?!! Yay! And my own mummy being here on that day AND surprising me with a gift was soooo special. So I had a happy day!

Okay, must go. Will update again soon!