Travel pftthththtthth

Well, we're still here! Slightly nightmare day. We missed the flight, oh man!

We had to get up at 5am, but Arthur woke to be nursed around 4.30 so I was awake anyway. He wouldn't go back to sleep once we were up and active, which is hardly surprising as he finds everything so interesting and distracting these days! We were supposed to leave at 6.30 for the airport, but urgh I can't remember what happened but we had a billion things still to do and didn't leave till 6.50am. The roads were okay. A couple of traffic spots on the M25. Then we got to the airport parking place and realised we were running kind of late. Neil got the bags out of the car and I got Arthur out of the carseat, only to discover he had done the world's biggest poo (ever) which had gone right through his nappy, vest, and trousers - ewww! So we had to change him on the back seat of the car, and it took AGES because we didn't have extra clothes to hand and the poo was just evvvverywhere. And we forgot the yucky smelly vile baby wipes that we use when we're travelling (the non-cloth ones). Bleurgh. So out came the cloth wipes and we wet them from a bottle of water that we had in the car. It was all just so disorganised! Arthur seemed extremely cheerful about it all though! Then we missed the first bus to take us to the airport terminal. Once we were on the next one, we realised that there was no way we'd make it before the check-in desk closed (40 mins before the flight). It was 40 minutes before the flight on the bus :(

When we got to the terminal, Neil handled the bags and I hugged Arthur to my front, diagonally across so that his whole body could be in contact with mind, cradled his head under my arm and RAN with him down the length of the terminal (this boy weighs at least 20lbs now!!!) to see if we could just make it to the check in desk. I was pretty proud that I could run like that with my hefty boy clutched to my front! He seemed to enjoy the ride :) Of course I arrived completely breathless to find a closed desk and a lady with a walkie-talkie who talked into it for me and confirmed that there would be no boarding of late passengers for our flight :( We were THREE minutes late. Three. How much does that suck?! But oh well, what could we do. I could have cried, and in fact I nearly did, but I couldn't see Neil anywhere so I had to go and look for him, and that kept me busy.

We then spent over an hour in the airport terminal (oh joy) because first we were sent to the ticket sales desk to see if we could board a flight to somewhere else in France that would be near enough to our destination. But there wasn't another one near enough for my parents to pick us up at the other end. The next flight to where we are going isn't till tomorrow. Then I needed to call my parents to let them know, so they didn't leave for the airport to collect us! I used FIVE POUNDS on the stupid darn grimy un-private payphones. First I realised I didn't have my parents' phone number with me and I have it on speed dial at home so I hadn't memorised it! Aaargh! So the only people I know who have their number are other members of my family, all of whom were making their way to where we were meant to be going, and they wouldn't be home to call. I don't know their mobile numbers. Finally I called directory inquiries to get the number of my dad's company because I knew they would be able to tell me his number in France (they call there on a regular basis, since my parents still run the company from a distance). They were engaged for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes of me dialling repeatedly and getting progressively more and more piddled off at the engaged tone and the general situation. Yeurgh.

FINALLY I figured I could call the international operator and try to get my parents' number in France. It cost soooo much money!! The first time I phoned them, the conversation only got as far as, "Which country please?" - "France." - and then, click, I was cut off because that's how long A POUND lasted on that particular call!!! I was so mad. About £50,000 later I finally had my parents' number, so I called them and Mummy answered, and I said we missed the flight, and she said Daddy had already left to pick us up :( :( I felt so bad. Poor Daddy. It's an hour's drive to the airport for him. And he forgot his mobile so we couldn't let him know.

Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Arthur, meanwhile, was the picture of perfection! He was tired and hungry (FIVE hour gap since his last feed because of all the palava, ugh), and being carted round without having any attention, probably fully aware how tense Mummy and Daddy were, but he never made one peep or even squirmed in our arms the whole time. I think he was so interested in all the people everywhere, but even so, he was just sooooo good. I was so proud of him.

In the end we got the bus back to the parking place and I nursed him in the car. He was pleased to have milk! But he didn't nurse well because everything was too interesting. He normally nurses for naps or in a quiet familiar room, because he is too distracted otherwise, so it was hard for him to nurse with any focus for long. Milk went everywhere, because he kept popping off and turning his head this way and that to see what was what!

I was so upset to miss the flight. It's a special weekend and I thought maybe we would not be able to go at all. I didn't think there would be any flights available over the weekend. We considered driving and going on a ferry, or getting the train down to France later today. But urgh, even the thought was just too tiring.

Arthur slept all the way home (90 minutes). We hit some traffic. When we got home, I phoned my parents again. After some researching, the long and short of it is that we have booked a flight to leave tomorrow (yay!) at the same time as today's attempt (early, urgh). This time we will leave PLENTY of time!!! And go to bed in like half an hour from now (it's 8pm). Neil called his work and explained, and asked if he might take Tuesday off as well as Monday, so that we could have time to catch our breath before turning around and flying home again! They were really nice and said yes, so I called the airline and changed our return flight to Tuesday :) Then we let my parents know, and they were really pleased. So it's okay. Phew! We leave tomorrow.

Neil and I have both been totally exhausted this afternoon and have had headaches. Arthur is teething pretty badly today and keeps pressing and rubbing on his ears (which are all red) and crying. It's not like him to even cry at all, so we know he's a poor boy. When I nurse him, his gums are like a hot ring of fire on my breast. Poor baby. We gave him teething powder a lot today, and he smiles just when he SEES the packet, so I'm glad it's helping him. He didn't nap well this afternoon, and Neil was wonderful and took him out for a while so I could sleep, as my headache wouldn't shift. I slept a couple of hours and felt better, if a little groggy, for the nap.

Arthur had a bath with Daddy and then I did the normal change for bed/massage with talc thingy that we do, and he had a gooood feed in bed and then was out for the count! We have never known him to go to sleep so well. I'm glad he had such a great feed too. After all this distracted feeding with huge gaps today, my breasts were like rocks at bedtime! I'm glad he drained them both before sleeping! :)

He is still asleep and dinner will be ready soon (wonderful Neil again), so I will finish this for now. Just wanted to write about the day. I will probably not get the chance to update while we're in France as there will be family family everywhere and I love spending time with EACH of them so I will use all my time for that instead of going on the computer.

I had meant to respond to lots of the advice (thank you all!) left in my guestbook about the solids thing, but no time really. I had basically meant to state what we were doing and not leave it open for discussion (this is a rather blunt way of saying it, sorry!), because I have no qualms about my decision to delay introducing solids to Arthur. Everyone has different experience and stories to tell, and I appreciate that, but I feel strongly that this is the RIGHT thing for Arthur at this time. I also feel that for me it is RIGHT to avoid telling my health visitor about this right now, because her opinion of weaning doesn't appear to be based on recent (totally valid) research, so she *will* think I'm doing the wrong thing. And she won't be right about that. I don't need the pressure of that so I know it is best to avoid that situation by not telling her.

If I had more time I would go into a LOT more detail (be thankful, haha!) about the reasons I am confident about my decision, and why I am not worried about some of the concerns people have raised. But I can leave this link to a page at Kellymom.com about whether a baby is ready for solids - in particular it takes apart (or gives relevant research to disprove, etc) various myths about weaning issues, like if you don't start solids by a certain age it will get harder (not true for healthy babies - Sarah, I guess your baby's illness is what makes him different here?), the baby having reached a magic weight, babies will sleep better if started on solids, etc. Great page. I feel such a sense of relief after reading it. And also this one - from AskDrSears.com - a question that asks if an exclusively breastfed EIGHT month old needs solids.

Anyway so I am happy with it all. Nothing will change that. I don't believe it's necessary to Arthur's wellbeing to give him solid food yet. So that is that :)

And my dinner is ready so I have to go. I hope tomorrow is less eventful! Have a good weekend everyone :)

Here we are, full time!! Solids and stuff...

I’m here!! Ooh a new diary. I miss the old one :( But hey ho. It’s hardly any different really. You’re all still here, and I like the colours and the picture of Arthur :) So I am sure I’ll get used to it.

I have about 0.2 seconds to actually type anything, since Arthur is getting bored already watching me on the computer. He is playing with his musical bug thing but it’s getting old. We need to go out now and buy more teething powder. He is teething again (hurry UP tooth!) and we ran out of the nice nice powder yesterday. It does seem to help him, and he always opens his mouth for it and sticks his tongue out for me to put the powder on if he needs it! It’s so sweet. He keeps his mouth closed if he doesn’t need it and I offer it to him. Clever boy :)

Well. What to write? We are going away tomorrow for a long weekend – I didn’t get chance to write about this in my pregnancy/Arthur diary because I don’t know why. Time got away from me, or else the subject slipped my mind when I was updating. But anyway, I think I said here a couple of entries back, my grandparents are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary and we are all (my entire family of 9 people!) going to stay at my parents’ house in France to celebrate together :) That sounds so nice. I am looking forward to it, but urghhh we are so tired and the journey doesn’t thrill me. It’s such a quick flight, but the weather is going to be rubbish tomorrow. And the stupid darn flight leaves at 9.45am. With check in, parking and driving there, we have to get up around 5am. Bleurgh. Sooooo not looking forward to that.

I posted an entry just before this one with all the links to Arthur’s video clips. They are all in my pregnancy journal but they ought to be here as well.

Ooooooh!!! Arthur is obviously trying to get my attention, because he just did a NEW thing while I was typing!! He has always rolled from back to tummy, and only rolled from tummy to back like two or three times since 4 months old, and those seemed by mistake. He gets frustrated on his tummy because he tires himself out and can’t roll onto his back. But just now he rolled from his tummy to his back!!! I had to stop and clap and say “Yaaaaaay!” and stuff :) Then after finishing his minute-long beaming smile (!!) he rolled back onto his tummy again, and IMMEDIATELY rolled back onto his back!!! Now he’s like a little roly-poly thing as I type this – tummy, back, tummy, back! But only one way though. Yay for Arthur getting more roly :)

I am baking another bran loaf. It was that good :) I’m taking it to France for my family to marvel at.

Arthur has forgotten how he rolled now and is fussing on his tummy. I had better go and rescue him, and buy those teething powders. His cheeks are all puffy and red. I wish that first tooth would get a move on! I am fully expecting it before the end of this month, given that it is his 7th month and that’s when Neil and I got our first teeth. C’mon toothie!!

Ohh no wait, I can’t stop yet – I have to tell you briefly about solids. We’re quitting them. Arthur had rice cereal and breastmilk on day two and sincerely disliked it! He spent most of the time giving me a very odd look, a very weird grimace and tucking his chin onto his chest to avoid me! So I chucked it away. I tasted it myself, and yuck oh yuck, I don’t blame him for not liking the stuff! It’s so bland and blah. So I researched (for hours) online that night and decided to skip the rice and try him on a veg or fruit. I had planned to start him on carrot first so I just did that yesterday. I actually finally decided to try the “baby-led weaning” idea (breathe a sigh of relief Meg! ;) ) and just give him a very soft mushy whole carrot to hold, and see what he did with it. But I boiled the proverbials off a carrot for like 25 minutes and STILL it wasn’t soft. So I gave up (Arthur getting cranky in highchair) and mashed it. Not-entirely-soft carrot doesn’t mash well, I have discovered. I tried pureeing it but it was too tiny an amount for the blades to reach it! So I added a few well-directed squirts of breastmilk and mashed for dear life till it was reasonably smooth. Arthur was interested in the first taste, but mostly he was interested in the novelty of the bowl and the spoon, etc, which actually I think he was doing with the rice feeds too. I don’t think it was the food that excited him after all. I fed him mostly from my finger-tip to make it seem more familiar to him.

He actually seemed kind of unhappy in the highchair – that’s the second time he’s been like that as I’ve put him in it since we first tried him on solids. He started to whine like he wasn’t happy, and you know Arthur is the MOST laid-back baby. He never cries or whines about anything, unless he is tired. He has never even cried about being hungry. Unless of course that’s because he never is! I nurse him lots :) But anyway, so that wasn’t so nice. He keeps giving me looks like he can’t believe I’m doing this to him when I put food to his lips! If some dares to actually enter his mouth, he holds it there on his tongue with the MOST disgusted look on his face, mouth open, hehe! But he does have a go at moving it around his mouth and eventually to the back where he struggles quite a bit to actually swallow it. Poor sausage. He isn’t enjoying solids at all, and I see no point in persevering at this stage. I tried him on rice cereal – easy to swallow as it’s just slop. I tried him on something more interesting and the experience of a slightly different texture. He really doesn’t like it, so solids are off the menu for a while. I haven’t decided how long yet, but I know my milk is still all he needs, and he is obviously thriving on it alone. He loves to nurse, and so do I, but we both find that eating solids makes us feel a bit like this:

That is a new face for Arthur, ever since starting solids. He actually looks more miserable with it normally than in that photo. He does it if I approach him with food or a spoon, and if some food is in his mouth then he makes that face basically the whole time. I don’t think it’s purely a taste thing either. The funniest thing though – when I finally gave up and dumped the carrot on his highchair tray for him to examine and play with a little, I went and fetched the camera to take some photos, and the INSTANT he saw it, he went all smiley and cover-boy!! Hehe! He really knows what the camera means now, and he does smile a lot for it, even if he had previously been a bit miffed with the situation. So these photos of him with the carrot LOOK like he’s having a whale of a time, but he really wasn’t before the camera appeared. Little poser ;) So here are some more photos of the last solids for a while :)

He did swallow some bits of carrot though, despite all that. Yesterday he had rice in his poo! Today it’s carrot-poo. One difference though is that he is pooing ALL the time!! Normal poo and all that, but like 4 big poos a day! It’s amazing. I don’t know where he was keeping it all before! He took very little actual food down though, so I don’t know why he’s suddenly pooing like crazy.

Anyway, I have spent FOUR HOURS researching extended breastfeeding and weaning to solids online, and I feel very confident that he absolutely does not need to be on solids yet. I can not recommend Kellymom.com highly enough. Seriously. It is so well-researched, and puts a lot of commonly believed myths to death. Yay! I don’t believe his iron levels will be a problem if I continue to exclusively breastfeed for a while longer. If it goes on for aaaages (like to 8 or 9 months, which I seriously doubt) then I can get his iron levels checked to be sure. But the research is not supporting the theory that babies get deficient in iron if not introduced to solids shortly after 6 months. Iron in breastmilk is less than in formula, but it’s MUCH more readily absorbed than any other source of iron. Anyway tons of stuff on that at Kellymom if anyone is interested. Great great site. However, I knooow my health visitor is likely to strongly disagree with my choice and site a ton of reasons that are disproved by the latest research, so I don’t plan on letting her know unless I happen to be seeing her and she asks me directly. Which I hope will not happen! ;)

Well I have to go. Arthur is now sitting in the ring (poo and nappy change occurred half way through writing this entry!) and starting to get bored with his confinement! Plus my bran loaf is smelling gooood, so I should probably check on it. And um. Oh but here’s a lovely photo of my large-nappied (!!) boy in an outfit I won at eBay last week. And his blue suede shoes (my absolute favourites on him at the mo!) and a new hat for the sunny weather. And a big smile as always :) Will write when I can, but possibly not till we’re home from France after the weekend.

Bran loaf. And other waffle.

Here I am again at this strange diary! I need to write here more, then it won't be so strange anymore. This is a continuation of my pregnancy journal and my general journal from before that. I like how one diary is getting both of those things combined. It is oddly relieving to feel that I can now waffle about absolutely nothing like I used to, and not be all interesting and stick to baby-related stuff! ;) Also that same feeling is kind of.... weird. I haven't let myself ramble on about sweet nothings for a long time. I do miss it though. I love a good waffle.

So what's new? Five days till Arthur is six months old and I change to this diary for all my Diarylanding. He is napping right now. Man it has been a big fight to get him to nap the whole day! He took a very broken hour this morning and it took TWO hours to get him to nap this afternoon (trust me, he was tired enough and showing me all his "I want to be ASLEEP!" signs), and then the first 40 minutes he woke five times, and now he has been sleeping an hour and a half. Phew. He may wake while I'm doing this though, so I'll just carry on as long as I can.

I am baking bran loaf at the moment. I haven't baked anything in about fifty million years, but BRAN loaf?!! Whatever possessed me?! I hate bran. My bowel hates bran. But a lady at the mother's fellowship group on Thursday was handing out slices of her homebaked bran loaf as Arthur and I arrived, and I couldn't exactly say, "Yuck! No thanks!", so I took one. It was... nice! Wow. So she was really pleased and wrote out the recipe for me on the spot, AND handed me a food bag containing a cup of bran! So now I have a cup of bran, and I got tired of staring at it lying sadly in its food bag on the counter. So now it is mixed with milk, sugar, raisins and flour and is baking in a loaf tin in the oven. I hope it turns out okay. I miss baking. It is so easy, but I just always feel like it's going to be a huge chore so I never get round to it.

I phoned Buckingham Palace this morning! Did you know that there is some sort of hoax message that people keep being left that tells them to ring a certain number, and it's Buckingham Palace? That's what it said on the message when I got through. But I was a legitimate caller! :) My grandparents celebrate their diamond (60th) wedding anniversary on May 12th - they were married in 1945, wow! If you are celebrating your 60th, 70th or subsequent wedding anniversary, or celebrating your 100th, 105th or subsequent birthday, a member of your family can apply to Buckingham Palace to have the Queen send you a congratulatory card. It used to be a telegram. But anyway. So my grandparents are obviously gagging for a card from the Queen! They phoned me a couple of weeks ago, politely begging me to apply on their behalf, hehe. So I have. And today the confirmation came in the post, completely getting their surname wrong (they used Grandoug's middle name instead of the surname - tsk), and omitting the fact that he is Dr. and not Mr. Which I know he would be miffed about. So I phoned the Palace to correct them.

Weird thing about that. I obviously have a oh-bum-the-word-I-want-just-left-my-brain mindset about the staff at Buckingham Palace. I just what-is-that-buggery-word?!-ly assumed that they would talk posh. But a lady picked up the phone (it wasn't HRH) and said, "Baackingum Palis?" like it was someone idly barking, "Castumur Survisiz!" at Tesco. Oooh that's what's-that-darn-word?! of me as well, isn't it.

Anyway I sorted it out. My grandparents will be very pleased :) We are all going to stay with my parents in their home in France from Friday 13th to Monday 16th May to celebrate. By "we all", I mean the grandparents (obviously), me, Neil and Arthur, and my brother and his lovely fiancee Sarah. That's all my family. I am looking forward to it.

Arthur's awake. Back another time!

Stuff. Missing my parents and family portrait

Hello!

Oooh how weird it is to be writing in a different diary to my Arthur one! Well, this will be an "Arthur" one too, because how could I help but write loads about my cutie-boy?! But also it's just for me to dump my brain, etc (!!), and that is something I haven't done in a loooong time at diaryland. Not properly anyway. I hope that won't put people off reading, if you guys thought you were coming to read all about Arthur all the time? I hope not, but if so, then oh well. I guess it's mostly for me that I vent my thoughts. People can read me if they like, but I still hate to think I'm boring people, heh.

I guess today is not a great start, since I am feeling kind of down tonight. My parents have been visiting for a long weekend and I had been looking forward to seeing them for ages! And now they have gone home, this evening. I feel blue :( I think I do really well with getting on with the idea that they live in another country now, when I have always been so close to them and they have always lived like, in the same house as me (!!) or else since I've been married they have lived in the same town. Then off they went to France, just like that! I used to think I could never leave home. I didn't go to university because I couldn't bear to leave my parents. Not that I ever would admit to that at the time, because how uncool would that be?! Hehe! One time I tried TEMPORARILY moving three roads away into a flat with a friend (who wanted a flatmate for a mere 3 weeks!). I was soooo miserable just on the first night that I came home after that. It used to worry me though. In my teens if I went on even a week's summer camp I would be a huge laughing stock because I'd be crying all the time from homesickness. Blah.

After I turned 20 I started to wonder how I would ever leave home, and I knew my parents were getting curious about the same thing - not particularly planning to let me live with them forever! I got engaged, but worried and worried about leaving my parents all the same. Even with Neil being so lovely. I did start to pray about it though, and I got people at church to pray with me about it too. God is so good. When we got married, we had an offer on a flat, but it fell through while we were on our honeymoon - I distinctly remember the weird feeling of making stressy businessy phone calls to boring English estate agents (no offence if you are one!) at odd times of the day (time difference!) from beautiful summery stress-free parts of California! Weird. But yeah, no home when we got back from honeymoon. So we stayed with my parents for 3 months after we got married, till we bought a different flat and it was finally ready to move into.

Urgh, I don't really want to relive this at the moment, do I? Oh well. Anyway so yeah, in the end we moved, it was hugely stressy, but that was only because I got M.E. within oooh 4 weeks of our honeymoon, and went rapidly downhill health-wise. But I could not get over how easy it seemed to be living with Neil and not my parents. I know God made that possible for me. I don't know how, but he did. When they said they were moving to France, I started praying right then, because even though it was going to take them a couple of years to renovate their house and leave England, I knew it could take me that long to deal with it and be ready for them to leave.

God did the same thing for me that he did before. When they left it was okay. But I miss them sooooo. It's always worse after I've just spent time with them. Especially now Arthur is here. Somehow seeing them with him makes my heart ache and when they go I tell Arthur that they won't be back again tomorrow like for the last few days. He smiles so much when he sees them, now that he is familiar with them again. But it aches my heart to know that he doesn't realise they won't be back again for a while. I wish they lived down the road again, like my own grandparents when I was little. I am really close to them and I know it's because we saw them so frequently when I was little. They were always on hand to babysit or take me to the park to feed the ducks, or look after me when my mummy went into hospital to have my brother. I was so hoping Arthur would have that kind of relationship with my parents, but I guess it would be hard to manage that with them living so far away. Frequent visits, even as frequent as we can make them, won't be enough. It can't be the same.

BUT, we are going to see them in a few weeks, because May 12th is my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary!!! They wanted to hold a small family gathering at my parents' place in France, so it will be just them, my brother and his Sarah, and my parents, me, Neil and Arthur. I like that :) That is all the family I have. Except my mum has a sister, who has a husband and a son. That is it. Everyone has been an only-child for 3 generations! Until me and my brother.

I plan to seriously mess that pattern up! ;)

Sooo that's not so bad, because we will see them in a few weeks, for another long weekend. But still. I miss them the moment they are gone - even while they are still waving at me from the car in my own street. I just miss them and I feel sad tonight.

I went shopping with them today. Mummy pushed Arthur in the 3-wheeler while I tried on some clothes - first time in ages! I bought two sort of floaty shirt-type things. They fit my bust. Hoorah. I had to buy a ton of t-shirts a couple of months ago just to have clothes that fit my bust. Before that it was still maternity clothes, but that started to get silly, since my bump was all gone! And now t-shirts are getting old. I want to feel more feminine, so that means shopping. I am wearing one of the tops now. But it isn't making me feel happier yet.

I tried on a ton of shoes too, but I didn't find any that fit me properly. Pfthth. I have this pair of brown Vans that I bought in a factory outlets store in California in 1997! They are all I wear. Seriously. I started wearing them in 1997, and I wore them like every day since. And I'm STILL wearing them every day. Now, 1) those are some GOOD quality shoes! but 2) something has got to change there! They are looking tatty. But they are just soooo comfy, and so familiar that it's like they are part of my foot. My feet miss them if I wear a different shoe, so my other shoes (such as they are) are being neglected.

This is boring, isn't it?

Blah blah blah. Do I have anything of interest in my life apart from Arthur?!! I am beginning to wonder!!

Arthur is just so wonderful :) I love him so much. He was smiling so big at every single lady in the queue at the checkout when I was buying my tops today! Mummy stood with him at the checkouts while I stood in line. Every lady who paid and walked past him got a beaming smile! And they all smiled back - he's such a cutie! Finally, one lady stopped and told him that he's such a flirt, hehehe! He is a charmer with the way he eyes people and smiles at them though, so it's kind of true ;)

In 12 days Arthur will be six months old, and hopefully I will do the diary changeover on that same day. I am planning to make my last diary entry in the pregnancy journal, complete with milestone photos, particularly since he'll be starting solids that day - yay!! I thought it would be nicest to have the solids photos in that diary as a closing thingumy. It's weird, but because 6 months is such a milestone age for so many reasons (solids, for us; half-a-year-old, etc), I am feeling mixed emotions about it approaching. I am excited about what comes after Arthur's first six months of life, like all the new things he's going to learn and do, and how much he's going to grow and develop and change. But I feel sad that it's the end of his "little" babyness. He will no longer be exclusively breastfed. He will be on the verge of sitting, crawling, standing, etc. Another six months will see huge changes, and we'll truly leave those precious first six months behind. It requires a different kind of parenting also. Discipline will start somewhere along the line (though obviously not yet!), and tantrums, different parenting activities to suit a baby who is becoming a toddler, and who eats food with us, etc. Thinking about having another baby. It feels kind of scary, the whole package. But I know every day is a step-by-step journey, and it's not going to all hit me at once! So it's not really scary.

If you've read my pregnancy journal (which I am guessing everyone has, since that's how you know about this one!), then you will already have seen the family portrait I'm about to post, but I wanted to add it in this diary as a starting point, because as this diary begins, this is my little family. There will be more family portraits to come, so I wanted to put the first one here as a starting point. So here it is:

And that is all I think. It's 8.30pm and Arthur is asleep, and I guess I need to update my pregnancy diary to write stuff about Arthur (because there's always stuff to write about Arthur!), but I am not in a cheerful enough mood. I hope I won't always use this diary to spout thoughts when I am not feeling cheerful!! I am usually happy so I shouldn't think so. I think I will go downstairs and see my Neils. Neils is what I call him. Don't know why, it just is. It's an affectionate thing between me and him. And my parents sometimes call him that too :) It's so nice that he is close to them. I really like that. I hope they are having a good ferry crossing tonight. I miss them :(

Quick intro

Welcome to arthursmummy.diaryland.com! My little boy is Arthur. I am his mummy. I just wanted to get the username for the future, and to use this diary as a practise diary for now, for various layouts for my other diaries. Sheepdip and alicesbaby are my other diaries, although I currently only write regularly in alicesbaby, since I was trying to conceive Arthur (who is now 4 months old). But I always planned that diary to be for all my pregnancies, so I will need somewhere to write updates about my cutie boy when I am pregnant again someday! So this will be the place.

For now, though, I will try out some layouts and keep it on the back burner :)