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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 25th Feb:

Main course

Roast chicken
Roast potatoes
Roast parsnips
Carrots
Green beans

Dessert

Vanilla ice-cream and banana

Monday 26th Feb:

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

Main course

Spaghetti bolognese
Lettuce
Cucumber

Dessert

Baked chocolate pudding and custard

Tuesday 27th Feb:

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

Main course

Sausages
Mashed potatoes
Baked beans

Dessert

Fruit salad - I bought:

Nectarines
Bananas
Apples
White grapes
Kiwi fruits
And clementines :)

Wednesday 28th Feb:

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

Main course

Fish pie
Lettuce
Cucumber
Cherry tomatoes

Dessert

Apple, raisin and cinnamon crumble with custard

Thursday 1st March:

Main course

Chicken stir-fry with rice, using:

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

Dessert

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

Friday 2nd March:

Main course

Macaroni cheese
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Grated carrot

Dessert

Fruit salad (as Tuesday)

Saturday 3rd March:

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

Sunday 4th March:

Main course

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

Dessert

Rice pudding and jam to stir in! :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arthur: Yes... (serious tone!)

Me: Where was the cow coming from?

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

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

Arthur: Yes.

Me: Where was the cow?

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

Me: Was the cow in the freezer?

Arthur: Yes. (very uncertain tone)

Me: What did the cow do?

Arthur: Cow try to give Ah-yah cuddoh.

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

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

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

Arthur: Yes. Cow scawy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Birthday and potty training (?) and photos

Soooo much longer than I meant it to be, again! Also, soooo much to write, once again. Photos galore, also.

I guess I need to bullet-point it again this entry, otherwise it will get craaazy.

* Thank you for all the sweet birthday greetings! :)

* My birthday was fairly crappy, though. I was going to enjoy a blissful lie-in and a relaxing day, since Neil had taken a day off work to let me do this (lovely Neil!), and also go for a walk by myself, and maybe go out with the boys and Neil as well, at another time. At 8.30am, I was woken by the next door neighbours having PVC windows and doors fitted throughout their house. Ugh. What are the odds?! They've lived here for like 12 years! Tsk. Of course that was a noisy-beyond-noisy job that lasted 8 hours straight. Ugh ugh ugh. By 9am I had a headache, and that headache went on to take its place in the Headache Hall of Fame. It lasted 12 hours, scoffed rudely at the three doses of co-codamol that I took over the course of the day, and meant that I could hardly do a THING, let alone anything nice or relaxing. I couldn't go to bed to get better, because of the awful noise. And it was sooooo sore that at times I couldn't even look at my little ones or smile or break into any sort of facial expression. I NEVER get headaches that bad. Except, I used to get headaches that bad (almost identical too, with the ignoring-the-painkillers thing, and the length of time it lasted) the day before I got my period, before I had any kids. I stopped having those after I had kids (thank goodness!). Hmmm.

I am currently on day 25 of my latest cycle and no signs of ovulation yet, so it's dragging out for sure. I wonder if my body is getting confused! I never ovulated this late, even on other postpartum cycles. I figured maybe I was not going to ovulate and I'd just get my period and my body was NOT happy about it! But, I had that headache again the next day, AND the next, but it was milder each day. The fourth day (yesterday) I had it in the morning but it was very mild and then it cleared up and didn't come back. And no period. Weird.

Anyway. So my birthday kind of sucked really. I DID get some cards and a seriously HUGE amount of my favourite type of chocolate biscuits though! Neil had a headache the night before my birthday, which was when he had planned to go out and buy the few other things he wanted to give me on my birthday. So he said I should have a "second" birthday on Saturday, when I felt better, and he was home from work, and he'd had an opportunity to go shopping! :) But it didn't happen, in the end. Eventually it will though, and I'm looking forward to it! I felt REALLY bummed on my actual birthday, but I don't feel so sore about it now. My birthday has been and gone, and oh well, these things happen! I'm happy and healthy and have all that I have ever wanted (my babies!) so I did not stay blue about it for long. It WAS lovely to come here and read my birthday greetings that you guys left though, in light of how rubbish the rest of the day was! Thank you! :)

* Neil had bought me a Marks & Spencers birthday cake!!! I have yet to find a more delicious shop-bought cake than M&S birthday cakes. In my late teens, I used to ask my parents for one 'specially, when my birthday was coming up. It was a really pretty cake. When the boys were ready for bed that evening, my headache was starting to ease off, so Neil and Arthur went into the porch with the door closed, so that I couldn't see, and they put the candles on the cake and Neil lit them. I kept hearing these muffled squeals and squeaks of excitement from Arthur, hehe! I sat on the sofa and held Matthew, who was way too wriggly to hold, since he knew something was going on in the porch and wanted to investigate! They turned out the light and came in, Neil carrying the cake and singing "Happy Birthday", and Arthur just soooo excited that his feet seemed to barely touch the ground at all for all his jumping and hopping about! He blew the candles out for me, of course :) Here are some photos of afterwards:

So, you can see, my birthday ended on a good note! :) The neighbours chose HIDEOUS windows though. *sigh* But never mind.

* I don't think I can deny much longer that Arthur is basically ready for potty training. Yeurgh! He has asked to wee on the toilet once since the time I mentioned last entry (was it last entry?). We can't get rid of the noisy fan in the bathroom, as the bathroom is in the centre of the house and has no windows, so it has to have that vent with a suction fan. Mummy suggested that maybe we could take him to the toilet if Matthew isn't napping, and have him use the potty when he IS. I wondered that too, but kept thinking maybe it's holding him back a bit, to refuse him access to the toilet once he's potty trained! But I do not want to mess Matthew's sleep about. Neil and I either don't use the toilet while Matthew is napping, or else we go but we don't switch the light on (or flush till he wakes, yuck!). So it's not like this would be an exclusive rule for Arthur that we're not adhering to ourselves. We just neeeed a bigger house. Well, not NEED, but our little home has been feeling very cramped for a long while now.

Anyway, I am wondering about getting Arthur a potty that has a proper loo-seat type thing, and a lid. I don't know what to do really, and nor does Neil.

On Thursday, Arthur was trying to poo in his nappy. He's a bit more constipated since we have been having family meals (that I cook) because he won't eat them and so he's not getting a balanced diet as a result, like he used to by eating jarred toddler meals. We are still persevering! I would worry if he wasn't still breastfeeding - how I LOVE basically everything about breastfeeding my toddler! :) Anyway, so he'd been trying to poo a few times that morning and eventually getting cross and saying, "Not working!!" Then later, I was in the kitchen putting some clean nappies away on the shelves above the tumble dryer (which is where the nappies live in our house!), and Arthur was clinging to the highchair leg and straining again. He was sounding very annoyed about things (!), and then suddenly he said, "OH!" and stood up with a shocked expression and his hands turned palm-upwards. There was a pause, and then he said, "What happened there poo?" So I thought, uh-oh! And asked him what DID happen. He looked like he was trying to find the right words to describe it to me, and finally said, "Poo went.... BOOF!.... inna nappy!" and he punched his fists forwards hard on the word "BOOF!" to emphasize his point! Hehe! When I told my mum that, she said, "It sounds like he's definitely ready for potty training!" She said if he can communicate such precise details so clearly with me, then it's definitely time to start. The checklist (of readiness) says about the child being able to tell you when they have pooed or weed, and also that you can tell when they are doing a poo by their behaviour, etc. He has been doing those things for many many months, but this is pretty clear!

(p.s. his description definitely looked accurate to me when I changed him a few minutes later!)

Yesterday I sat with Arthur folding clothes from the tumble dryer (still his favourite activity EVER, even over playdough or painting, or anything on TV!), and while we folded I started to talk to him about potty training, just to sound things out. Here's how the conversation went - it started when we were folding some of Daddy's pants (UK for underwear, not trousers!):

Me: Arthur, did you know... in the shops you can buy pants that are Arthur's size, just like Daddy's?

Arthur: Ohh yes?

Me: Did you know... you can buy pants that are Arthur's size, with Thomas the Tank Engine on!

Arthur: (awed silence)

Me: You can buy pants that are Arthur's size, with Bob the Builder on, and Postman Pat, and Underground Ernie. Would you like to wear some of those pants?

Arthur: Oh yes pleeease!!!

Me: Those pants are for big boys, and Arthur is getting to be a big boy now. But d'you know what that means? It means no more nappies. Would you like it if you wore no more nappies?

Arthur: Oooh yes pleeease!!!

Me: If you don't wear nappies like a big boy, then you have to do all your wee-wees and your poos in the toilet or in the potty. Would that be okay?

Arthur: (very matter-of-factly) Ohh yes.

Me: (emphasizing carefully) It means you don't do your wee-wees and poos in your nappies any more. You wear big boy pants and you do all your wee-wees and poos in the potty or the toilet. Are you okay with that?

Arthur: Yes! I wanta do it NOW! (gets up) I wanta go out shop and buy some peshal (special) pants NOW!

Which we couldn't, right at that moment! But you see, things are definitely rolling along, and I think *I'm* the one who is dragging her heels, not my toddler, like I always thought it would be! I know our days are numbered with Arthur in nappies, and I feel sad and wistful when I look at his cloth nappies on their shelves, or when I fold my favourite ones onto their piles when they come out of the tumble dryer. I can't remember a time since we knew we were getting ready to try for our first baby, that I wasn't MADLY excited about using cloth nappies! I was sewing them from January 2003, almost two years before Arthur was born! That's four years that I have thought of cloth nappies when I think of my children. I NEVER once thought of my own children NOT wearing the lovely things. I just never thought far enough ahead to consider them when they were potty trained and out of nappies. I'm so sad that this exciting time is coming to an end with Arthur! Yes, I did just call the nappy-wearing stage an exciting time ;) I just feel this weird sense of... relief that I have another baby already and he will be wearing their lovely cloth nappies for a good while yet! I am in the middle of several sewing projects that I never get chance to finish - nappies for Arthur that are half-sewn, wraps that are bigger than the usual toddler sized wraps, because Arthur is toddler-sized but is long in the rise, so most toddler wraps don't fit him any more. I just sew him ones that DO. I picked up a half-finished wrap today and went to sew it, and got this huge wave of sadness just looking at it in my hands, because maybe there's no point in finishing it for him? He might never get to wear it, or get much use out of it now. Matthew will, one day, but it's not about that, it's just this sadness that the JOY of cloth nappies is nearly over with my first child. Not that I wanted to keep him in nappies forever! It just feels a bit like an empty hole, looking at his enormous collection of nappies on the shelves and knowing he's done with them. Or will be soon. Boo-hoo!

Anyway. Other than that, I guess it's great that he seems ready and excited! I don't know WHAT I'm doing, of course. I'll take him to buy the big boy pants this week, and perhaps we'll get stuck straight in and start using them? I'm not sure whether to just GO for it and ditch the nappies except for night times, or take it more gradually, yet. I'm nervous to GO for it, because I can't be on with the accidents, if I'm honest. I would never blame Arthur for accidents - they are part of potty training and absolutely sure to happen! But I just don't want to deeeal with them right now. Our carpet is full enough with poo and wee as it is right now (yeurgh!). Or maybe we should just get the accidents over and done with as fast as possible and THEN get the carpet cleaned?! ;)

Anyway. That is the latest on that.

Matthew is letting go when he has pulled up to standing, and can stand alone for a couple of seconds at a time before thumping down on his bottom! At first I thought it was just a fluke, but he does it a lot now, so I'm pretty sure he's trying to do it. His two new teeth at the bottom are starting to really show now, though they're still only a few mm above the gum yet. No sign of any more yet, but he's still biting on things really hard and drooling like crazy.

He has taken to biting my NIPPLE lately. Several times a day I am nipped by those RAZOR sharp new toothie-pegs! Yowch! I am starting to recognise that it's happening more when he's had enough to eat, so I need to pre-empt him and take him off the breast before he gets nippy! I'm trying to react strongly enough to deter him, but it's not working so far! I make a sudden noise and pull away from him, saying, "NO biting!" and then that's the end of the nursing session. He just smiles. *sigh* I know that once he gets those top teeth, I will NEED to do something about it, otherwise I'm going to get actual bleeding injuries! This is where almost everyone I know says that it's time to wean when they get teeth and start biting. But I know that's rubbish, so I'll persevere! Arthur was not a biter. I don't think he EVER bit me, with any of his teething or anything. He was much more interested in the MILK, hehe! Matthew has always been less interested in the milk than Arthur. I think he'll self-wean much younger than Arthur for that reason. Another sad thought for me! But I do know there are things to try, to stop a biter from biting at the breast. So I'll try those things and we'll carry on!

* Photos! I have to go to bed, as Matthew has been awake and breastfeeding, and now it's got late. But here are some photos, taken today, of my little mobile man - a rare opportunity to take the kind of photo that I used to take of Arthur ALL the time when he was tiny, because Arthur and Neil were out at the park :) He is SO lovely! He just stood and patted my knees and explored a bit, and we listened to Elgar's Enigma Variations :) I LOVE that music. It gives me such a swell of patriotism! And there's a particular part that always makes me ache with... something, until I get teary. MUCH more so when I am looking at my precious little one whilst listening to such moving music. Anyway, here is my sweet little Mathsie (which he still gets called most of the time by me - I don't know why!). You can see a gleam of white on that bottom gum in one or two of the photos! And see his sofffft soft hair! It's as soft as it looks, perhaps even more so! It's GORGEOUS, I can't even describe how it feels to stroke! I love him sooooooooooooo much. So much.

And, not forgetting my other little scrumbly boy! Here are the photos I mentioned last entry, of Arthur with his new haircut and wearing his new big boy (no poppers in the crotch) dungarees - which I've just realised will be useless for potty training. Pfthth. Oh well! Here is my sweet (and ever-energetic!) Boo-Bean:

Isn't he lovely?! I am just continually SO besotted with my little boys. I just want to sigh and sigh with how happy they make me! I am so blessed. Thank you Lord!

Arthur-talk, photos and monkey boys!

Thank you all so much for the comments and notes after my questions on cows milk and potty training!!! You guys are wonderful! The things you wrote were so helpful and interesting, and I will definitely refer to them later.

BUT tonight I have such a lot to write, as I haven't had chance to write for the last two evenings - Neil has been on the computer more those evenings and I have only had the chance to check my email and messages before bed.

It's my birthday tomorrow!!! Yay! I can't believe when someone asks me how old I am, that I am now saying (or will be, from tomorrow), "Thirty-one" That's just craaaaazy! It really does just become a spoken number, that's all, after enough birthdays. I remember the day when saying my age made me FEEL that age, if that makes sense. Like, "I'm sixteen.... Oooh, I'm really SIXTEEN, how cool! Yes, now that I think about it, I really DO feel like a grown-up sixteen-year-old now, and the more I say it, the more I feel like it describes ME!" I will never nevvver NEVER feel 31. Or thirty-anything, probably. It's just a number to me. I can no longer tell you which age I DO feel though. I just feel... me! I sometimes feel quite surprised that I'm really a "woman in her thirties" because that's like MY PARENTS, haha! Or at least, how the 30s looked to me what seems like only yesterday. How strange that it's me now. I like it. I really do LIKE it. It feels like a warm and comfortable pair of slippers, like I'm comfy and settled, being in my 30s. I guess it's because I pretty much looked forward to my 30s all my life, with the whole parenting thing that it was sure to bring. And here I am! Anyway, another year into this lovely decade, yay!

Neil has taken the day off work tomorrow (at my request!) and I'm getting a lie-in (ahhhh!), and I'm wondering about the possibility of going out for an hour or so on my own in the afternoon. I know most people on their birthdays might want to spend time with their loved ones, and I am ALL about that, it's something I've always wanted to do MOST on my birthdays. But this year I am still coming down from having 2 children under 2 and feeling somewhat frazzled and demanded of! So a blissful scenario for me would be some time alone, just peace and quiet, but OUT of the house. Just something so different from what I usually get to do. I LOVE my boys (all three of them!) but I do miss my own space sometimes. So far this has been a really difficult week with the boys, and I'm distracted with excitement over the luxurious possibility of walking out of my home tomorrow on my own, just to casually stroll and spend some time in peace and quiet, just taking in my surroundings and breathing deeply and being able to hear my own thoughts, etc. I know it will be a time that I end up spending close to God as well, which would be lovely.

I can't decide whether to go shopping or for a walk somewhere naturey. I'm thinking the walk would be better for my soul. Shopping would be great, but I always end up not knowing what to buy (plus the no-money situation) and missing the boys, and then buy them something (and not me!) and come home again! I connect with God INSTANTLY when I walk in a nature setting. It has always been my most natural connection with God, through nature. Through worship follows a close second, but I don't have to make any effort at all when I'm walking and walking on my own with trees and grass, or even junk yards or whatever, so long as it's space outdoors and I'm alone. So I think I'll do that. I DO feel guilty that Arthur loves to go to the park and I never take him. Neil does, while I have my lie-ins at the weekend. He would love to come with me tomorrow if I go, but I want to be on my own. That's the only thing that hurts my heart about going. I feel horribly guilty about that. I love Arthur so much.

HARD week this week, and it's only Tuesday night! I have lost my temper a lot and found it hard to manage things, which is NOT good. Arthur has been difficult, but only in the usual ways. The difference is that Matthew seems to be.... joining in, for want of a better description! He is developing quite a monkey personality already, even at 8 months (ohhhh gosh!) and has recently started purposely doing things that make life difficult, with a glint in his eye as he looks to see my reaction while he's doing it. If I get frustrated or exasperated, he giggles and does it even more. They don't play off each other to wind me up YET, but have this sinking feeling that it's gonna happen, and not too far from now either! How on earth I'll manage that, I don't know.

Matthew is a menace at nappy change time. He twists his body so that I can't wipe him, or put a new nappy on him, and clutches himself when he's caked in poo. He isn't just cooing innocently and doing those normal baby flings with his arms and hands, he's making a very concerted effort to get his hands to his crotch BEFORE my hands get to his, within the shortest time after his nappy comes off (ie. 0.45 seconds - he is FAST!) - he will even swat and clutch at my hands to try and stop me catching him before he achieves his goal! And then when he DOES get his hands past mine and in the poo, he gets such a monkey grin on his face, with a look in his eye that is definitely saying, "Ha-ha, I got you! That was fun!" *sigh* I am NOT finding it fun! He's just as bad when I try to change Arthur's nappy. He can be over the other side of the room with his back to us, playing with some Duplo, and I'm as quiet as I can be when I am starting to change Arthur, but he has this radar and drops the Duplo, turns round and POWER CRAWLS (60 miles per hour) towards us. I need 8 more arms when he arrives, because he seems just determined to clamber over me and actually sit on Arthur's dirty nappy, or something, as I'm trying to remove it! I use my arms and legs (all at once sometimes!) to try and prevent him, but he uses SO much effort. It's horribly irritating when I am cleaning up Arthur's poo and he's climbing all over me - I have NO hands free, a baby who wants at the poo, and a toddler who will quite happy get poo everywhere too if I don't watch him!

I sometimes pick him up and put him over the other side of the room, but honestly, this boy is so fast at crawling now that he's pretty much back next to Arthur by the time I am! He reaches frantically for Arthur legs and clutches at him, or his hair. Arthur has taken to shouting anxiously, "Oh NO, Mashew coming!!!" and holding his hair down (hehe!) when he sees Matthew start to crawl over during his nappy changes! Matthew has also found a way of figuring out if the item he's interested in is something I do not want him to play with. Maybe it's a monkey baby's sixth sense or something?! Even objects he hasn't seen before. He sees a tissue, for example, which has found its way to the floor on the other side of the room to where we both are. As he sees me clap eyes on it, he gets this determined expression and does his 60mph power crawl towards it. If I break into a RUN (I am not kidding), I can beat him to it, but even then I will likely have to prise the shreds of it out of his little clenched fist, because he'll make a good grab for it anyway and is getting pretty accurate at grabbing and picking things up quickly.

This last week, he has been pulling up on the sofa or other places, and seeing something that's been left there that he shouldn't ideally have. Let's say it's a tissue box again, or something like that. Straight away, he will put his hand on the box, and then turn his face to find me. When he sees me, he waits till I meet his gaze and then changes his expression (mischievous eyes and slight smile) to one which says, "Ho ho, see me actually TOUCHING this box!" and his eyes are full of communication. His expressions are so descriptive that I can almost translate them into words and sentences sometimes. He asks me with his eyes a question that is a combination of, "Mummy, can I play with this?" and "Mummy, I'm about to play with this, and I know you don't want me to! Whatcha gonna do about it?!" I can't figure out which it is. I think it's the first one, but it is too cheeky a look for a simple innocent question!

Anyway, the main point is, the boy KNOWS what he's doing suddenly, and he is doing what he can to be a monkey boy. Already! It worries me a bit because Arthur was not anything like this monkeyish when he was 8 months old, and look at him now! I dread to think what Matthew will be like at two! When the two of them are being somewhat difficult, I am find it hard to manage things again.

Today, Matthew pooed on the carpet again. Urgh. I took his nappy off and he flipped and crawled away, as usual. Before I could get to him, there was this awful sound, and, yes, poo everywhere on my carpet. And the little boy's legs. Of course, startled by the sound, he turned from his crawling position to see what had made it (bless!) and sat down in his poo. Instinctively I lifted him off the floor under his arms, but from the angle I was at, I could only just hold him above the floor like that, and he used that opportunity to stomp stomp STOMP in his poo-poo with his bare feet. The afternoon was not a pretty one. It was about the last straw for me, for various other reasons, and I am not proud of how snappy and horrid I was with the boys while I tried to clean it up and keep them away from what I was doing. I made a barrier of toys (oh for the space to put up a playpen - who'd have thought I'd ever yearn for a playpen, hehe!) across the living room that Matthew couldn't climb over (big toys like the toy garage and stuff), and they played behind that for a while. Arthur could climb over, but WOE BETIDE anyone who crossed Mummy's path at that time, so he stayed back after he got snapped at enough. Urgh.

I scrubbed that carpet with disinfectant and a stiff brush for literally thirty minutes straight, only pausing to blot it with an entire kitchen roll and re-soak it again, and I still can't quite get the yellow stain (and accompanying bleurghy smell) out of the carpet. Finally I gave up. It was 3pm, I had not had lunch yet, the boys were WAY late for their naps, and Matthew was only dressed in a nappy, and Arthur needed changing too before naptime.

I took Matthew up to bed, nursed him and put him down. He crawled excitedly all over the cot so I left him to it and came back down to get Arthur changed. When I got down, Arthur had found a bowl with about an inch of yucky pooey water (how on EARTH I could have been so stupid as to leave that within his reach, I do NOT know. Thank goodness I had put the mainstay of the stuff up out of his reach!) and was "cleaning" the kitchen table and floor with it. He was soaked with it too. I stripped him down and washed him, and then changed him for bed, while Matthew cried and cried upstairs. He was crying so much by the time Arthur was ready, that I told Arthur I would just pop up and re-settle Matthew for a couple of minutes and then I'd be back to take him up for his nap.

I went up, picked Matthew up and was rocking him and shushing to calm him down, when there was this thud-thud outside the bedroom door and ARTHUR ran in! Another moment of immense STUPIDITY - I had obviously forgotten to close the stair gate. I can't think what was the matter with me today. *sigh* I reacted with shock, and Arthur turned and took off again for the stairs (open stair gate!!!). I ran after him with Matthew in my arms, shouting "STOP RIGHT NOW!!!" (what our neighbours must think of me/us today, I do not know) and he did, thankfully. I shut the stair gate and squatted down next to him to tell him he must never run near the stairs, and he took off running back to the bedroom. When I caught him up, he was jumping on my bed (next to Matthew's cot) and squealing with glee. I just thought, "Right, that's IT!" and plonked Matthew on the bed next to him, grabbed Arthur and swung him to the floor, and then turned to pick Matthew up again, to find that he was already in mid-flight to the floor, where he landed heavily on his face and his body flipped back over himself, bending his neck in a way that scared me to DEATH. I swear he could have broken his neck. He screamed and cried instantly and I was so scared and desperate to grab him up off the floor that I just grasped his clothing on his front and hauled him up by it onto the bed!

Oh it was awful :( I ended up yelling at Arthur to GO AND LIE DOWN ON YOUR BED and then just holding Matthew close and rocking him and trying to calm him a bit before I pulled him away to look at his face and see how badly hurt he was. He was crying too hard at first. When Arthur ran back just as Matthew was calming down, I sent him away again and shut the door on him :( At that moment, there were just TOO MANY kids to deal with, even though there were only two. I needed to focus on Matthew. He was clutching at his nose as he cried, as though it was hurting him, but he had a big red mark on his forehead. I think he did hit his nose too, but there was no blood or major swelling. After that I lay down with him in the bed and breastfed him, and he eventually calmed down enough to nurse to sleep. Arthur tried the door a couple of times and then started banging his head on things and crying and crying and CRYING. I feel awful that I ignored him out there, but I couldn't have done anything for him unless I left Matthew, and he needed me at that moment. It was a good 10 minutes of head banging and crying though, which was so awful for him (and me!).

I really feel that Arthur needs to be disciplined better. He doesn't mind me, and he SHOULD, especially over safety issues, and no should mean NO, and that's that. But every event this afternoon was actually my own doing (how awful) so I can't blame him for it all. He got yelled at more than enough, and I'm ashamed to say that I was rougher with both of them than I should have been at times. Urgh.

Once Matthew was asleep, I went through to Arthur (who was lying on his bed, just like I'd asked him to - the good boy!). He was crying and upset and when I came in, he reached for me and I lay down next to him. He said to me, "Mummy say sorry be gwumpy with Ah-yah!" ;) And so I did say sorry about that. I WAS sorry for that. And then he said, "Mummy say sorry go upstairs with Mashew!" So I started to talk to him about how it made him feel. I figured he was trying to tell me about how cross and upset he felt about the whole thing. I asked him if he felt sad, and he said yes, and I asked him if he felt disappointed, and he said yes. He told me, "Need milk for it!" which is his latest saying over a hurt or being upset about something, hehe! So I nursed him to sleep for his very late nap.

I have been using big words to describe feelings with him for quite some months, and I'm so happy that it's paying off, because he will now tell me very clearly how he's feeling about things. My mum says it's great that I've given him a tool to express his feelings to me, and I hadn't thought of it like that before, but I see it's a great thing now. I'm glad to have helped him with that. If he can't have any more milk, he will look miserable and say, "Aooowwwww!" and then sit up straight again and say to me in a small voice, "I sad!" So I ask him, "Are you sad that you can't have any more milk?" and he says yes. Then there's a pause and he'll say, "I disappointed!" (he pronounces it very clearly) and then add, "It's shame...." ;)

So that was today. I phoned Neil at work and he was very reassuring (lovely Neil!) and then I finally had some toast and marmite for lunch at 4pm. I was soooooooo hungry! Matthew woke before I had finished (after only 30 minutes sleep) and cried so I ran up there, but he'd already woken Arthur, and when they're both awake, I can't possibly get them both back to sleep. Knowing Arthur might run in again, I took Arthur downstairs, set him up with Shrek 2 (a new favourite for Arthur recently) and with Matthew hysterical upstairs, I had to leave Arthur crying downstairs. He was crying for me and for milk. He hates to be woken early and is always clingy and whiney when he wakes from a late nap :( I got Matthew back to sleep but Arthur cried a lot while I did it. Then I came down and nursed Arthur on the sofa for a while.

When Matthew got up, I tried to phone my mum to talk to her about my day. It was just one of those days. I needed to talk to my mummy about it, even just briefly while I played with the boys. But Matthew climbed everywhere and messed with the toys Arthur was playing with, and Arthur pushed him (something he never does) and so I had to stop to field that, and Matthew would NOT stay on his side of me (I was the human barrier between the boys while I tried to talk to Mummy!). In the end, Arthur was screaming at the top of his lungs for Mummy to PUT PHONE DOWWWWWWWWN HELP AH-YAH BUILD TWAIN TWAAAAACK!! And I do mean horrible tantrumy screaming. Ugh. By the time Neil came in the door I was about ready to chuck the pair of them out of the window and bang it shut behind them, and then I saw Neil was all pale and he told me he had one of his headaches (where he needs to go to bed straight away). I cried. I know it sounds selfish in light of his poor headache, but I couldn't help it.

Anyway! It turned out okay. The boys went to bed. Neil took painkillers which made a lot of difference, and he was able to help me put them to bed. He went to bed right after, and I ate pasta with sauce and cheese, watching some TV, and then came up to write my diary.

I am SO glad to have a birthday tomorrow so that I can hopefully have a day that completely contrasts this one!

But the weirdest thing is, I seem to love Arthur and Matthew all the more intensely for all the difficulties of the day - I can't fathom that, but there it is. I feel fidgetty with them sleeping in their beds, and keep wanting opportunities to rub my face against Matthew's soft fluffy little head, or kiss Arthur's little round cheeks as he sleeps. I just love them so so so so so much, I can't even describe it. I still feel COLD about Matthew's fall today. He had another one this morning when Neil was watching them - he fell sideways against the TV unit and hit his temple on the cabinet handle (sharp-cornered)! He has such a nasty raised bruise there, and he cried so much, poor lovey. His little forehead is so bruised! There are little bruises of all colours and stages here and there, from all his falls that he keeps having now that he's standing so much of the time and starting to try cruising.

Arthur fell HORRIBLY yesterday. He was running towards the TV unit and tripped on the Fisher Price record player. It was about the length of his body-height from the unit, and he fell down flat, so fast that he didn't even get his arms out to protect his fall. His forehead caught the shelf on the TV unit, and he has the most awful raised line from the edge of it just above one eyebrow, longer than his eyebrow too. It was so swollen at the time. Thank goodness it didn't break the skin though. He cried and cried and his lips went purple, and I grabbed a cold pack from the fridge and breastfed him while he rested his poor eyebrow against it (which was also against my breast, brrr!). That's the only way I can get him to keep a cold compress (we use foil pouch drinks!) against an injury for more than 2 seconds - to have him breastfeed whilst using his position at the breast to lean him against the cold compress. He eventually breastfed for 10 minutes like that, so I was glad about it. I kept him up for 30 minutes (he had been due a nap) to observe him, and he was fine. I kept asking him if his head hurt, or if his tummy felt okay, or if things looked funny, and he cheerfully answered, "No, I alwight!.... Head not hurt.... Tummy alwight (patting it).... Things not look funny!" Today he has a nasty purply-red line there but it's not swollen so that's a relief. I hope the cold pack did a lot of good.

Matthew seems okay tonight. He is sleeping fine and his forehead looks a lot better already. I stubbed my little toe on the highchair when I went downstairs after nursing Arthur tonight, and my nail is going black. It hurt SO much!

What a day!

And now it's 1am and I do NOT want to be knackered on my birthday (which it sort of is already - yay, Happy Birthday to Me!!), but this entry has been a bit gloomy and dramatic and I didn't want to end on that note! Plus I still have a lot of Arthur's sayings to write, and now that I've left it this long, some of them are already out of date :( I knew that would happen, tsk! I should have written them at the time, like I wanted to! Oh well.

Arthur's speech is coming on so fast. He often talks so clearly and in such complete sentences now, that I sometimes feel like I'm talking to an older child, well, you know not OLDER, but like a 4-year-old or something. He doesn't talk like a 4-year-old yet, but you know what I mean? He understands too many language concepts to count, and uses them well in context. He uses all sorts of tenses, like, "I should have", "I have been", "I will be", "I am going", "I was thinking", "I might go", and others. He commentates on his every activity throughout the day. He NEVER stops talking! He talks to me, to Matthew, to Neil, to himself (quite a lot), to toys, to thin air even! He seems more fluent lately, in his random comments, as though he doesn't have to stop and think how he'll phrase something any more, or try it and then have another go when it doesn't quite come out right the first time. It's just little things that demonstrate it, like at the table a few nights ago, he was eating his fromage frais and twirling the pot around with his spoon in it, and he said, "I spinning it around!" as he did it. He used to have to focus on the action and then try to comment on it when he wasn't so intent on what he was physically doing. Or he'd have to stop to TELL me what he was doing, instead of just casually commenting on it while he did it. Now it seems effortless, like he has the words right there at the tip of his tongue to use.

I will write out as many as I can of the huge list of his latest phrases that I have been jotting down! The latest ones are downstairs so I'll have to add those another time. I just don't want to miss writing them here. The bits of paper will get lost or thrown away, and my memory won't hold up to the task, so I need to write them here if I'm going to preserve their cuteness! :)

* He's pretty clear about things he wants to do now. If he wants to open the tumble dryer, he'll tell me, "I wanta open tha tummle dryer!"

* He has this cute thing where he muses thoughtfully about the past, as though he's suddenly a wise old man with a lifetime of experience, haha! Last week, he saw an advert on the TV for Little Red Tractor, which he loves (anything vehicular, of course!), and he got this distant look in his eyes and tapped his chin thoughtfully, saying, "I wonder when Lilloh Red Tractor on? I never seen it aaaages!" Funny boy! Later on he did the same thing when I asked him if he'd seen the dustpan for the dustpan-and-brush in the kitchen. He went all thoughtful and said, "Hmmm, I never seen it aaaages!", hehe!

* He has since improved this type of sentence. The other day I asked Arthur if he'd seen the facecloth I'd put near him to use, and he said, clear as day, "No, I haven't!", which was one of those "older child" moments for me, because it was absolutely adult in the way he pronounced it and in his intonation. His tone was very concerned, like he wanted to help me find it (which he did!).

* He has developed a real love for the Dr. Seuss books - yay! I loved those when I was little, and I even still have my battered copy of Green Eggs and Ham! Arthur got a box set of 6 Dr. Seuss books for his birthday, one of which is Green Eggs and Ham. I read them to him every day (not ALL of them, goodness! My voice would be hoarse all the time - they really take it out of you in the voice dept, don't they?!) because he brings them to me and asks me to read them. He giggles at the silly words and sounds. Last week he was sitting at the table with us, rejecting yet ANOTHER family meal, and he said crossly:

"I don' want 'weetcorn,
I don' want peas,
I don' want cawwots
I don' want mince meat,
I don' want ANYWHERE!"

* He also reads the Dr. Seuss books to himself, which is the sweetest thing! He sits with his legs all stuck out in front of him, big book open in his hands in front of him, saying, "I am Sam!.... I don' like geen eggs HAM!" with such funny little rise-and-fall tones in his voice, as though he's been ultra serious about trying to read it properly like when I read it to him!

* He is giving various examples of "parenty" talk to us, which is very amusing! Neil overloaded his fork with pasta the other night at our family meal, and as he lifted it to his mouth, Arthur spoke up sternly, "That's TOO MUCH, Daddy!" :)

* Another example: I dove in to nibble on his neck the other day, and Arthur straightened up and gave me a very serious look, and said, "No, thank you!" in a very well-to-do tone, hehe!

* Gross example: We were all in the car the weekend before last, on the way to my grandparents' house, as it was Granny's birthday, and Neil's nose was running as he was driving the car. I said something like, "Urgh, wipe your nose!" and looked around for a tissue, and Neil - the revolting man! - wiped it on his sleeve!!!! Immediately this little voice piped up from the back in an absolutely perfectly appropriate tone for what it was saying: "Oh NEIL! Tha's disdusting!" We laughed so much that I was literally crying!

* The other day Arthur was trying to build a tower of bricks in a certain way and it wouldn't work! He suddenly said, "I fed up!" So I asked him, "What's made you fed up?" and he answered, "I fed up tower not working!"

* He has started getting picky about how he looks lately. I expected this earlier (age-wise) but he has seemed pretty easy-going about stuff till now. I put him in a plain white long-sleeved top with blue jeans one day last week. He looked so sweet! He never wears white tops though, as he only has this one and I had forgotten about it in a drawer for ages. When I put it on him, he strutted about the room with a huge beaming smile and his chest puffed out, saying, "Ah-yah look GORDUS in white!" hehehe! Then, as he strutted around, he passed a mirror, and accidentally caught sight of himself in it. Suddenly he stopped dead and stared at his reflection, and his expression changed to this dramatic combination of horror and disappointment, hehe! He just stood there shaking his head in disbelief, and then finally found the words to say to me, "Don' like white! Take white top OFF!" Hehe, funny boy!

* Also he did NOT like his hair being all flat after taking his hat off when he came home from a walk one day a week or so ago. He did the same horrified frowning thing in the mirror and shook his head with his hands on his hair! Neil combed it with a neat side-parting (something he never wears) and he ran back to the mirror, only to be totally aghast at what he saw, with much horrified shaking of the head, etc! I fluffed his hair up so that it flopped forward like normal and curled up a little at the sides, and he beamed at his reflection and puffed out his chest, nodding at me happily! He's such a sausage! I suppose he likes to look like Arthur and that means looking like he always looks, not with any new hairstyles or colours!

* Oh but he DID approve of a new pair of jeans and a reeeally soft corduroy shirt that came in the post (eBay - 99p (!!!!) plus postage, "Next" brand as well!!) the other day. He hasn't had shirts before as such, and he was super thrilled to be wearing one, "Just like Daddy does!". Here's a rather blurry (ever-moving child) photo of him being delighted with it just after I finished getting him dressed in it:

He had a haircut the other day! It was long overdue. I have a couple of photos of him wearing another new item of clothing after his haircut, a pair of Next denim dungarees (£1.24 at eBay!!!!!) which I'm REALLY pleased with, but I haven't uploaded them yet. Neil took him to a different hairdresser this time. The lady at the one he'd been going to since his first haircut did a rubbish job, but it has to be said that he didn't keep very still while it was being done! So this time we decided not to take him back there. Neil drove him to the BARBER'S shop where he gets his own hair cut, near where he works! How grown up for our little man! Arthur sat in a grown-up chair, and had his hair sprayed with water (bit disconcerted at first, apparently!) and then cut, and blow-dried (again, bit worried, but reassured by Daddy!). His hair looks so lovely. It's just a trim, so the same style, but a nice length on him, and it's the nicest cut he's had yet. He will definitely be going back to the same place again! Probably in about a month, at the rate his hair is growing!

Talking of hair growing, Matthew's hair is really filling in! It still refuses to lie down on top, but it's getting long enough (a couple of inches standing up on top now!) so that the weight of it is juuust beginning to lean it over a bit. It's so thick, even though it's just downy and fine. These boys of mine have hair that any little girl would be desperate to have! I know I would have loved thick, fast-growing hair! You watch, I will have a girl next who will be bald till she's 2, haha! Matthew has started to play with his hair a bit, on top. He strokes and gently pulls at some of the soft sticky-uppy hair on top, when he's sleepy in his cot - how cute! :) *I* would love to stroke and gently pull on his lovely tufty soft top-hair as *I* fall asleep, if I'm honest! It's the softest substance EVER.

Okay there's more, but at least I've done the mainstay of Arthur's talking stuff! There's more from the last couple of days, downstairs, but I'll write those bits another time.

Here are a couple of sets of a few photos to catch up a bit! Both were initiated by Arthur, hugging his baby brother and calling out, "Mummy, take a picture!" :)

From a week ago:

From a few days ago:

Matthew's eyes are gradually starting to "grey" a little, which doesn't surprise me too much. I think they still tend to leave people with the impression that he has blue eyes, as they're still clear and light in colour, but they are definitely more of a blue-grey at the moment. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they went completely grey, and I'm thinking they might well get a hazel ring in the middle too. He has the verrry beginnings of a slightly yellowy centre, so I reckon that's what they'll do. Mine are exactly like that, clear grey with hazel in the middle. Mine started out blue as anything and my mum says the gradually "greyed up". The hazel ring didn't appear for ages - she says she didn't even know I had one!

Okay, more soon. Thanks for the lovely messages again! Will try to update soon, as I still have more to write and I want to write about my birthday while it's still fresh in my mind too. Arthur knows it's Mummy's birthday tomorrow and has already asked, "Ah-yah share Mummy's birthday?" hehe! He wants to "boh out candles" on a birthday cake! He helped to do that on the cake I made Granny for her birthday the other weekend - oh I forgot to write about that! It was such a lovely day! My parents came over from France and my brother and his 28-weeks-pregnant (how exciting!!!) Sarah were there too! Granny was 81 but she was in hospital on her 80th so we did a big celebration this year instead. Well, SMALL-big, we're only a tiny family, and we like our birthday-dos to be family only :) It was lovely!

We had roast lamb (ohhh yummmmmm!) and all the trimmings and Matthew chewed and sucked and ate of everything offered to him, including blackberry and apple pie with custard afterwards! Arthur ate peas and sweetcorn, and plenty of them! He wouldn't eat anything else, but he ate birthday cake and some yoghurt. He DID sit at the table and behave beautifully for the entire meal though :)

Photos of my mummy holding Arthur up to blow the candles out on Granny's cake - who was much more interested in watching Arthur blow her candles out than actually blowing them herself! :)

The cake was a bit of a rough impression of a patchwork quilt using very limited food colourings (!) and not that much forethought, unfortunately! Granny sews quilts as a hobby. Arthur "got at" the finished cake just before we left to go to G&G's and broke some of the decorations off the side, which I tried to repair, and all-in-all I think it looked pretty awful! But Granny was thrilled, and that's what counts :)

Here are the little ones just enjoying some SPACE for once, poor loves! Our home is so tiny and cluttered!

There's a lovely family photo of all of us that Sarah took with her camera set up somewhere, and if she gets time to send me it, I'll post it here. I don't think we've managed a SINGLE family photo with both Neil AND me and both the boys in it yet! Tsk! Must try and fix that!

Okay, definitely going now! Night night :)