Difficulties...

Thanks so much for all the helpful comments about Diaryland - I was sooooooooo pleased to see it back to normal today, phew! I bought Gold Membership for the shortest time I could and backed up my pregnancy diary straight away. What a relief! I've also started transferring diary entries to Blogger. I'll keep updating at Diaryland but will also probably copy those entries over as I write them, until I'm ready to open my pregnancy diary here, and then I'll switch everything over and stop writing there. It's going to take me AGES, but I'll plug away at it!

It's nearly 2am. Isn't that crazy/irresponsible/daft? I'm so tired out, and last night I couldn't sleep till after 3am, so I'm NUTTY for being up right now. But Neil and I had a very long and drawn-out "discussion" tonight, and it's kept us both up very late. It wasn't planned. We really don't communicate very well. It was one of those explosion things that starts with a slow leak, blows up big time, and then (thankfully) instead of just running away from the stuff littered everywhere, we stay to pick things up and see what each thing is in a better light than we've ever really seen it before. But that kind of clean-up takes a while, and it's exhausting.

I'm not feeling upset/despairing or anything, like sometimes I might after a bit upsetting discussion. We don't have "fights" really, but we do have rather heated discussions once in a while, when the stuff we don't communicate about blows up (which, obviously, it will). Neil isn't a communicator, and I have long since given up trying (read: nagging - not a good thing!) to get him to talk to me, so I know this is the way it goes, but I don't like it.

There is so much wrong, SOOOO much wrong, under our smiley happy family surface. More than I knew about a couple of hours ago. Neil waits till he's having all sorts of scary thoughts before he communicates that there's even any sort of problem, which I find super upsetting to discover, having had no (or very little) idea that anything was up. It drives me crazy that he won't talk with me about things, but he's always said that's just how he is. I KNOW it's so unhealthy! Especially in a marriage relationship. But anyway.

Nathan is waking, so I'll be back in a few.

We probably seem like a sweet little happy family with three sweet little boys and a baby on the way, about to start homeschooling, and managing great with things in general. I trust God, Neil is a lovely man, I'm not so bad myself (!), and he is always being giving towards me.

But - reality check (which I'm not too comfortable even writing about here, but here I am doing so anyway, hey ho): I'm so not a good wife. SO very not. I nag and I put down, and I'm just rubbish at putting my husband first. This past year I have really started to be aware of the MAJOR problem in that, and desiring to change, and praying about it. But I am pretty rubbish at actually doing anything about it as well, it seems.

I am not doing great with my little ones. Jemma is probably my only blog reader who has actually seen me in person in the last year or so, with my little ones, and she thinks I'm an oasis of calm around them, and very patient! This shows me how I must be pretty good at the surface stuff, and that is not a good thing either. I see what I WANT with bringing up my children. I desire to stay at home ALWAYS, never go to work but to stay and raise my little ones. I want to homeschool, and to train them up in the way they should go, to teach them to obey me, to teach them about Jesus and to love him and follow him. I want to enjoy them and provide them with happy, stimulated childhoods, and fond memories. And equip them well for adulthood in this world. At the same time I want to be more organised, and keep house better than I do - keep it clean and so on. And I'd LOVE to let loose on cooking and baking more! I really enjoy that, and have a real heart for becoming great at making nutritious healthy meals for my family BY MYSELF, without convenience foods.

Now, these are just things I really aspire to do, and many of them are basic needs that I must meet also. I have no desire to stop having children at any point, lol! I love that part too, and don't just want to finish having babies already and get on with raising them.

BUT - big flaw in the plan: I'm so bad at it :( Trust me, I am not having a pity party or looking for attention. I yell at my kids for a good portion of each DAY. I am too rough with them physically, some of the time. I feel utterly and completely OUT OF CONTROL with Arthur, and to a large degree, Matthew as well. Their behaviour is absolutely dreadful lately, it's getting worse and worse. I honestly despair most days of what on earth to do about it. I never say here. I don't want to hear any more comments about sending them to school/nursery, or ways I am not disciplining them right, or should be disciplining them instead. I feel like we've tried EVERYTHING with Arthur.

I simply want him to obey. If he obeyed me, I can't see any problems for us as a family. I know that sounds odd but I haven't got time or emotional strength to explain what I mean any more right now. Everything we're struggling with on a day-to-day basis, and everything we have anxiety about in the future, is a struggle or an anxiety entirely because of Arthur's behaviour and complete lack of obedience. So I figure, if I want him to obey, I should just REQUIRE him to obey and follow through to ensure that happens. NOT so easy, apparently. He is so very rude now, talking back and using horrible tones of voice and nasty faces, in response to even the suggestion of discipline. He doesn't do as he's asked, ever. Well, that's not true, occasionally he does, and it surprises me when he does so I know it's occasional!

His attitude is just shocking to me lately, and I know there's really not likely to be any other explanation other than poor parenting, in one way or another (or many ways!), and that's just upsetting and demoralising and difficult and confusing and depressing.

Matthew is quickly going "off the rails" because he's following Arthur. When the two of them play me up between them, I can't talk over their mocking and rudeness and laughter, because they maintain a constant noise of it so they tune me out while I'm sitting RIGHT in front of their faces on their level, saying their names over and over to get them to LISTEN TO ME, dangit! They won't listen to me. I don't know how to make them! I'm so ashamed to write that sentence, in fact, I'm surprised to find that I'm crying as a result of reading it back now. I feel so ASHAMED. What kind of mother can't make her 2 and 4-year-olds simply stop and listen to her no matter what she does or says?

And when they are mocking me like that and I've said their names louder and louder and louder like 8 times in a row, throwing in, "LISTEN to me!" here and there, and they still laugh and yell, "Poo-willy, blahhhhh!" and so on, I honestly start to reach a point where I am afraid I will hurt them with intent, because I feel so angry and helpless and gosh darnit they're supposed to do as their Mummy says! Why can't I get them to?! It happens DOZENS of times each and every day, and it's driving me crazy. If I send them to the corner or to the porch, or the sofa, or some sort of time-out, they run away from me and wedge themselves into corners that I can't get them out of (especially in my condition now), or they flop to the floor laughing and pull against me when I try to lead them by the hand. I can't manhandle them now, I'm too pregnant and they're getting too big.

Uhhhhoooww, I'm absolutely SOBBING, who knew?! I think I am just crying because I'm so sad and ashamed to admit this about MYSELF, and also I'm so sad to admit to anyone that my children aren't the sweeties they might have been thought of as. I love them so I don't WANT anyone to read this and think, "Urgh, what horrible kids!" It just makes me cry to think that. I've thought about writing about this issue for a good while and that's been a reason why I haven't. I don't want people to think my children are little horrors. They are behaving so horribly though, and I'm starting to feel dislike for them sometimes, though I love them so very much. We have good windows each day, and happy things go on. I am just totally not in control of the day or the children, and I don't know why or what to do about it.

I need to stop yelling at the kids, because that is a daft thing to do, and they will only be yelling because *I* yell in the first place. They won't go to time-outs and if they DO, they are there for a very very long time because they are so rude and horrible while they're there, and won't stay put. They bang on the doors or walls with whatever they can grab, or just their hands. It's so so easy to just totally lose my temper with them, and Neil finds this too. I lose my temper a lot now. I'm reading through the anger management book I bought, but so far I haven't found anything that will help me deal with strongly triggered anger THAT NEEDS DEALING WITH as it's being triggered, right there in the moment, over and over again. So far it's all about walking away and cooling off, and restraining your initial response. I can't figure out how I'm supposed to do that without walking away from my responsibility to be consistent and see that they are disciplined properly at the time they need it. It's when they're disciplined that they behave the worst, and I can't just walk away from that responsibility, so I can't get away to cool off. Even if I DID, I would have to come back to it again, and get right back into the anger-triggering situation that's continuing on.

I'm so very fed up with it all. I am praying about it such a lot, but I don't know what to do, and I feel the boys slipping out of my grip with each day that passes. It affects the whole day and delays everything that we do, causes noise and stress for a good part of the day in total, and I hate that Nathan is there watching it all and hearing so much shouting. He's a treasure - showing signs of tantrums and mischievous behaviour, but a complete treasure nonetheless! ;) I hate that he's exposed to this daily, hourly even. I don't really go out with the boys lately because it's easier and they're actually happy (I know you won't believe me having read this far!) enough at home. They have a few hours in the garden every day, we read, we do puzzles, we're cutting down on TV (though it's back up somewhat from my last post about it), Arthur has a reading and writing lesson every morning now (which I keep meaning to write about!), and Nathan's naps are regular and straight-forward for the most part. I get meals at regular times, and they help with the housework and enjoy it. We don't get as many crafts done as we would all like, but other than that they don't seem to want to go and do other things, or act bored nearly as much as they used to. I could certainly be doing a lot more with them if I was doing a better job. But I'm not doing a great job right now.

Anyway. Their behaviour makes me anxious about taking them anywhere, because they wil. not. obey me. On anything. Safety issues even. Why can't I MAKE them?!?! It's my responsibility!!! They're only 2 and 4!!! I should be able to just MAKE them obey me, surely?! I feel such a failure, and yet I can't think of how to fix it, which makes me feel even more of a failure - if I'm doing so badly at the job, at least I should know what I'm doing wrong and what to do about it, even if I can't seem to do it! Urgh. But I can't. I seem to spend hours trawling through forums on the internet, searching for HELP, ideas, new methods, instructions on the old methods, anything!

So. I am not doing well. I know I'm feeling upset so this is more exaggerated than it REALLY is, but I feel that I suck at being a mother - to anyone older than a toddler at least. I'm good at being a loving mummy to babies and toddlers! :) But that's not much use if I flop so miserably at parenting children after they grow out of toddlerhood! It does not bode well! I have four children heading for the stage that I'm flopping miserably at, at a rate of knots!!! Help!

I am also just not doing well as a wife. And I know that over all of this (and most importantly) I am God's child. My relationship with him is of the utmost importance. At least I am not shutting him out or walking far from him at this stage in my life, but MAN I could be doing better there too. And that doesn't leave much else in life that I feel I'm doing well at.

I feel a bit lost and utterly silly, and I don't know what to do about any of it, other than pray, and I HAVE been praying. I will pray more, but I don't know what will change or how. I know that shows lack of faith in God, but I'm just being honest.

PLEASE don't suggest any away-from-me activities for my boys. I really am 100% not interested in them being away from me for school, activities, or anything right now, and it doesn't matter the circumstances at home. I know the vast majority of my readers are not for homeschooling, and lots of them also think I SHOULD be doing something for the boys that isn't at home or with me or something. But I am 100% firm in my confidence that I am not supposed to be doing that. I feel God on that one very strongly, for me personally and for the boys personally, at this time. They are to stay close to me. I even feel that to do otherwise at this particular time would be a bad move, even though that will probably confuse or even annoy lots of my readers after the stuff I've just revealed here tonight. But I can't explain it any better just now. I'm just not open to any sort of activity that's not at home or with me if it's out of the house. And out of the house is getting difficult because of their behaviour, my increasing pregnantness, and don't get me started on how many people take virally infectious children to gatherings of children in full knowledge of passing said viruses onto the other children and their families!!! NOT something to go into this time, but it's a major major peeve for me and always has been. Thank goodness it's nearly the end of the worst germy season (and by the way, I do not keep my kids from socialising in general, I just draw the line at playgroups and even church creche this winter, because mothers are literally taking sick and infectious children there every ding dong week! I can't stand it! I would NEVER do that! Tsk!).

I feel pretty vulnerable after all that I've said here tonight, and not overly comfortable with anyone and everyone reading it really. But it's good to write it all out, and I don't really want to hide it away I suppose. There's also an off-chance that someone might be able to help me in some way because of putting it out there! You never know! ;) It feels pretty hopeless to me right now, but in reality I know there must be a way, and it must surely get better. I need to change, myself, though. Obviously. I'm a little nervous about comments I might get (you understand?), so I'm thinking if I get any unkind ones then I might moderate or disable or something new-fangled and Bloggerish (to me, anyway! I'm new to Blogger!), or simply delete so as to not feel upset any more than I do.

Well, I guess I will go to bed! It's so late. Urggghhh, 3am! I will so regret this in the morning. I prayed last night that God would help me somehow do okay for the children today on the little sleep I got, and he really did answer my prayers! Today I set myself a more minimal "list" than the usual Motivated Moms schedule of housework. I just wanted to get the dishwasher done, some laundry, clean SOMETHING (never mind what), make the beds, read to the boys, and do Arthur's school. And make sure they got out in the garden. I did all those things, and I know that I've missed all the vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom this week, but I'm just trying to ignore that and be happy with having checked off my modified list today. I'm going to have to get happy with that kind of thing anyway near the end of my pregnancy, so this is good practise!

Oh, I forgot to say - I bought "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelman, to do with Arthur. I've had my eye on it since before he was 2 years old! I found reference to it at a homeschooling blog years ago, and kept it in mind. I forgot about it till recently, and then did some research on it, read a LOT of reviews, and bought it! We started the day after it arrived in the post, after I did all the preparation (quite a bit!). It only takes 15 minutes per day, and we always go upstairs to the boys' room and do Arthur's lesson after I put Nathan down for his morning nap. We do a lesson every day, even at weekends. It only arrived last week, so today was Lesson 6. It starts as basic as it can possibly get, just learning sounds (not the alphabet). Today Arthur read "me"! In 2 days he starts reading 3-letter words. He is also learning to write whatever sounds we learn (4 letters so far, "m", "a", "e" and "s"), which is going okay. He has never held a pencil properly before really, for the purpose of writing, and he's got to learn that as well as forming the letters, but he's doing well. I feel relieved just to be DOING something, homeschooling-wise. Even though that's silly, because I know there's no actual need for him to have any sort of formal homeschooling yet - he's only 4! I wasn't going to do anything formal till 5 or 6. But I think he's ready to read, and I'm keen to teach him. It gives us some time together and another activity to persue. And honestly, I'm relieved to be able to say I'm DOING something with him, to all the family and friends who keep asking. *sigh* I don't want to push him, of course. But I hope he enjoys it and finds learning to read rewarding!

Okay, bedtime for SURE. It's raining outside, I've just realised. I think it's meant to rain for days now, after a week of no rain. I like the rain so that's okay by me, and my pansies will be happy too :) The boys will still go in the garden for as long as they'll put up with such an activity, lol! They just have raincoats and waterproof dungarees and wellies for this kind of weather. Even Nathey has his own little set!! He's so adorable in it, tottering along behind his big brothers with his wispy baby hair sticking out of the hood! I love him soooooo.

*sigh*

Diaryland....

Uh-ohhh.... I am a bit nervous that the inevitable has happened and Diaryland has suddenly disappeared out of existance. Yesterday I could access it fine. The day before I wrote an entry in my pregnancy diary there, even. But tonight (for the last few hours), my pregnancy diary is a broken link, and so is the main diaryland url and the members area, etc. They do sometimes have down times and server problems, but I have never had a broken link message before :(

I'm SO annoyed with myself because for the last two days I have had this itch to hurry and dump as much of my pregnancy diary posts into a Blogger blog (I started one a couple of months ago with the same name: alicesbaby.blogspot.com, but it's empty as yet) as I could. I kept feeling anxious that Diaryland could "go under" at any moment - though there was nothing to warrant that, just an anxiety about the fact that there aren't really many users online lately, and it seems quiet there. If it's gone then I have lost my pregnancy diary, which I have kept since we were first thinking about trying for our first baby, at the beginning of 2003. EVERYTHING is recorded there. The only reason I didn't transfer it here sooner, when I transferred THIS blog, is that I found it hard enough to copy and paste 269 diary entries (!!!) for this blog, and when I saw there were like 575 posts on my pregnancy diary I sort of went mentally weak at the knees and put it off! ;) Well, I should have just stuck to it and done the job, because it would have been so worth it. Now I have lost my diary and I feel so sad about it.

It isn't a total loss though, because I guess there's a chance that it's just some server problem?? Isn't there?!?! Please?! I'm thinking broken link is NOT a good sign, and I have no idea how to find out what's happened. Tsk. Also, I did once have gold membership that a couple of precious readers bought for me back when you didn't get priority to post to your diary if you weren't a gold member and the server was super busy (it sounds such a rubbish place, doesn't it!!) - thank goodness I did because being a gold member allowed me to back up my diary at that point in time (which you can't do unless you buy gold!! Soooo bad, now that I think about it! Tsk!). So, I have backed up my pregnancy diary in very basic text form on a HUGE document, up till 22 weeks pregnant with Nathan :(

This is GOOD, because I have saved all my diary entries from when we were trying for a baby at the beginning, and ALL of Arthur's pregnancy, his arrival and first 6 months, ALL of Matthew's pregnancy, his arrival and first 7 weeks, and the first half of Nathan's pregnancy. BUT, I'm so very very sad because I still have lost so much - the second whole half of my pregnancy with Nathan, the posts I made from the hospital whilst in labour and in the middle of the nights on the postnatal ward after his early arrival (so special to me), and his first few months. PLUS everything from this pregnancy in its entirety :( I'm so sad about that. I'm glad to have not lost it all but still so sad about what I have lost. I have lost all the photo references, though I have all the photos on the computer and laptop somewhere. And my belly galleries and ultrasound galleries are gone, and birth stories too - I don't think I have copies of my birth stories! Oh I'm so annoyed at Diaryland!!! Why don't places ever give notice that they're going under!!!! I sort of knew they wouldn't, which is why I got this blog and transferred my arthursmummy diary here. How I WISH I had just not been so lazy and got my precious pregnancy journal transferred too.

I hope I'm wrong and it's all back to normal tomorrow, but I can't help but think the broken link thing is evidence that it's gone for ever. It's so mean to pull the rug out from the users there like that - a little warning that things were coming to that would have been a basic courtesy! :( If it DOES come back, I will use my every waking (spare!) moment to move diary entries over to Blogger, starting with the most recent.

Urgh. :(

Pray for Stellan (also homey stuff and bump photos!)

Just a very quick post as it's so late and I need to go to bed! The days are full and busy as anything right now, but I'm getting into the swing of things better than I remember before. I have great energy levels right now, the best so far this pregnancy. I'm still following the Motivated Moms checklist every day - amazing for me to still be going at something after 5 or 6 weeks!! :) It's working for me, it really is! I'm noticing all sorts of changes in myself as a result of doing the Motivated Moms thing (mostly subtle ones) that I hadn't expected, but it's all good stuff so I'm really happy about it!

Our dishwasher broke at the weekend and I haven't even had a millisecond of complaining in my spirit even, which is UNHEARD OF for me. Instead I have been washing a lot of dishes by hand every day. Arthur is my drier! He is so proud and loves his job so much. Today I can't believe I actually had to check his attitude over whining about wanting to do the washing up for many hours in a row!! ;) We are going to get a replacement dishwasher but we just haven't had chance so far. Neil is pretty snowed under at work. The other day he stayed at work till 11pm and AGAIN with the cheerful spirit for me - I was so surprised by it. I think it's a combination of God answering my prayers, better energy levels, and the WONDERFUL influence of many blogs of some godly mothers-of-many that I've been soaking in now for a year or more. Reading posts at MOMYS is also influencing me a lot, and that's very helpful to my attitude of heart too! Anyway, it was fine the day Neil worked late. I made spaghetti bolognese (the boys will eat this!) and then bathed all three and put them to bed - the part Neil usually helps a lot with. It went okay, and I wasn't completely done in by the time they were all asleep! When Neil got home, his portion of dinner was ready in a pyrex dish with a lid on, and it took all of 3 minutes to make it piping hot and ready for him in the microwave. He was so tired. I feel so wonderful and happy and fulfilled when I have a day like that one! I am having plenty of not-so-good moments though, believe me! I'm still yelling at my kids when I should NOT ever be yelling at my kids! Urgh. Arthur and Matthew are still SO incredibly disobedient. I am so rubbish at keeping the discipline consistent enough so that it takes effect, which is daft/annoying/crazy of me. Today I have been more consistent. I lose my temper easily when they push the right buttons. And they do like those buttons in particular these days.

But, I'm doing the housework so much better than I ever have before, and the little ones are involved and enjoying it ever so much! It's Wednesday and so far this week the house is hoovered, the bathroom completely cleaned, the porch decluttered, the bedsheets changed, and the various daily things kept up with (more or less) - things like the kitchen floor kept swept and clean, the laundry always kept up with (seriously! Me! Can you believe it?!), the dishes done, meals planned, children read to and involved in housework. I am LOVING IT!! And hoping I won't just flop hideously once the 3rd trimester stuff kicks in, or when I have a new baby around again! I'm not sure how to pick it up again if I flop.

Anyway, this is supposed to be quick! I wanted to post mainly because I want to ask people to be praying for Stellan. He's a sweet baby boy who was expected to die in the womb with heart failure when his heart was beating crazy fast and couldn't be slowed down. But God healed him, and he was born perfectly healthy! Now he has suddenly gone back into the same tachycardia that he had in the womb, and he's really poorly. They can't slow his heart rate right now, and it's dangerous for his little body. Please be praying for him, if you haven't already seen this news at another blog you read, or if you don't already read MckMama's blog religiously (probably a bunch of you already do!)! Click on the button below with the picture of this beautiful baby boy, to go to his Mama's blog and read more:




I'm so incredibly thankful for my healthy children right now. Nathan has fussed and woken 4 times already this evening (can't figure out if it's wind or teeth, but he seems annoyed about being awake so at least he goes back to sleep for a bit quite easily), and I just feel so blessed to have him here, whining and complaining about normal run-of-the-mill healthy baby stuff! It makes me feel breathless to think of what MckMama is going through with Stellan. She also has 3 older children the same kind of ages as my three (well, packed in slightly closer together!). So incredibly overwhelming. I'm praying for them, and thinking of them a lot at the moment, having followed her since Stellan's diagnosis in the womb. Her faith in God inspires me so much.

Well, I MUST go to bed. Neil wants to leave earlier than usual for work in the morning because of the crazy amount of work he has to do tomorrow, so I should have been in bed a long while ago! Nathan's wakings stretched the evening out, and I made a Tesco delivery order for tomorrow morning, so that took a while.

Oh! I keep meaning to respond to various questions that have been asked of me lately, but always forget when I update! Melanie, I can't seem to leave a comment at your blog re. your question about Facebook. Can you email me? Kaitlyn, thanks for your questions left at my pregnancy diary about things I'm writing here - I do plan to answer them! I'll try not to forget! Now see, I've even gone and forgotten who else asked me things, when I meant to acknowledge everyone just quickly! :S Well, suffice to say I am not trying to ignore questions, and will answer them eventually!

Neil took a really lovely belly picture for my 24-week photo, and I posted it at Facebook and my pregnancy diary. I love it so much that I want to post it here too! There are two, pretty samey, but I can't choose which I like best. I love them because I wanted all my little ones in the photo with me (which I've never done before), and they came out nicer than I expected. I'm wearing my denim pinafore dress that I mentioned last time I updated here! :) I have won a few more dresses at eBay since then and some really nice feminine tops. I do have a hog load of maternity clothes in all sizes already, obviously, but I plan to downsize my collection and make my maternity wardrobe things that I love wearing and which will be flattering to me. I hope to be using these clothes for a good many years to come yet! :)

Shepherd's Pie Recipe, and home-related things

I am so loving food at the moment! My whole experience with food has completely changed since I first became pregnant. I used to never think it was all that great, but it's like my taste buds had never been fully awake till hormones hit them, haha!

I am also loving doing homely things at the moment. I always do love that, and have always aspired to it, but I am actually able to be "housewifey" pretty much every day at the moment! I am not restricted at all by any morning sickness or exhaustion. I'm tired a lot and find myself breathless very easily, but at nearly 24 weeks, I am at a GREAT stage of pregnancy!

Today while Neil took the boys for a run (walk, in Nathan's case - he hasn't learnt to run yet, though he's starting to try!) at the park, I went to Homebase and bought cheap bedding plants (pansies, as they were by far the cheapest) and a cheap trowel and pair of ladies' gardening gloves! Neil pulled all the huge weeds out of the "flower" border along the driveway yesterday, and we now have daffodils, ivy and a lavender bush in there that I planted 7 years ago, and lots of nice earthy space at last! I let a roast chicken and veggies cook while I knelt by the border and planted 70 tiny pansy plants around the daffodils and ivy. There's still more space to fill, but it looks to me like a couple of shrubs would do that best, so I'll get a couple of those during the week with the boys, I think. Anyway, I LOVED doing that. I looked out of the upstairs window as the sun was setting this evening, and just spent some time thanking God for what it meant to me to do that planting.

I am thankful because it's so nice to work with nature, with pretty flowers and plants and earth that God himself has created.

I am thankful because it's so wonderful to have the energy and health to go out there and do an activity like that. I haven't always had that luxury, and I'm grateful that I do now!

I am thankful because it was an activity that served my husband and children, and the home too. It was lovely to work at beautifying my home with my own hands, to be a pleasure for my family to see, and to be something that Neil didn't have to do himself at a later time. It really filled me with joy to do this, with those things in mind! :)

I am thankful because while I was sitting there, it occurred to me that I was planting MY border with flowers of my choice. To make MY home look nice. Mine. I honestly must still think of myself as a little girl playing house, because sometimes it newly occurs to me that I have really and truly grown up now, and have my OWN home, actually ours, we own it! And my own husband and children. I am so incredibly blessed and thankful that we have our own home. God has blessed us so much.

We are finally getting ourselves in gear to sell our home and move house. The Estate Agent came round yesterday to appraise the property. He advised us to DECLUTTER, haha! It's that obvious when you are in the house. Nothing much else matters, he said. Just for goodness' sakes, get rid of the clutter!! ;) I thought I could tackle the mountain of it myself, and I CAN but it will take me too long at the rate I'm going. The job is just humongous. Neil got a bonus last week that made him lost for words - God is so good to us!!!! We are putting it towards our house move, but a good portion of it will go towards getting the house ready to sell without having to worry about financing that, and also packing and moving. So, we are going to go back to the plan of hiring a professional declutterer, for a quick and complete declutter, ready for moving house. She will also teach me how to keep organised and decluttered, which is going to be valuable teaching for me!

Yesterday I ordered bunk beds for the boys! I have two months to get Nathan sleeping through the night enough (he wakes 4+ times STILL, at 14 months!) to move into the boys' bedroom. He sleeps in his cot next to my bed at the moment, and spends the last few hours of the night in bed with me. I want him to transition into the other room around 16 months old, because the new baby is due just before he turns 18 months and I want a little time for them all to adjust before another big change! So the older two boys will share a bunk bed, and Nathan will move into Matthew's cotbed (it's a toddler bed right now, but I think Nathan will be too young for a toddler bed. So we'll have to put it back into a cotbed for him, I think). Then Nathan's cot will be free for the new baby. I don't think we'll even bother putting it away for those couple of months, it might as well sit ready! ;)

We have no idea when we'll move house. It's not even on the market yet, but it will be soon, hopefully. Then we just wait and see what God will have in store for us. We have no anxiety about the timing or anything, because we know that God's timing is best, however it might look from where we're standing. If it gets to June and we have no buyer, we'll probably take it off the market while we have a baby and adjust after the postnatal bit, and then put it back on again. In some ways it would be nice to move house FAST (which I know God can totally arrange, despite the current times with selling houses!) and be done and dusted in a home that's much bigger, more outdoor space for the boys, and much nearer to Neil's work, BEFORE the new baby comes. But on the other hand, I am not exactly eager to get more and more pregnant and have to deal with packing, moving and resettling, along with alllll the stress and upheaval that goes with that at the same time! I also would prefer to stick with the midwife team I have in this area, and the hospital I am very familiar with, now that I'm this far into my pregnancy. But, I still haven't decided whether to have a homebirth or a hospital birth yet. I'm nervous that if I decide hospital birth, the new hospital won't be a great one. Or that I'll choose homebirth and not have a great midwife team that are as supportive as my current one. But it could be EVEN BETTER on both counts! So I shouldn't worry about it at all.

Having the baby and settling in with him BEFORE moving would be nice, but then I have no idea how I will be coping with life after the initial postnatal period. I have had mild postnatal depression with 2 of my 3 babies, and I had nothing but extreme elation after Nathan, hehe! But Neil was out of work and the pressure on me during the adjustment stage was NOTHING like it was the other two times. He will obviously be at work this time, and so I am a little apprehensive about how I will manage. It seems hormonal for me, or it did before anyway. As soon as my periods return, all is well again, like a light switch. I have to wait 5-6 months postpartum for that. ;) It would be great to move house after settling into having 4 children, but what if I am really struggling at that stage, and we really NEED to move then? I don't know how I would cope with moving house with postnatal depression, in fact I don't think I could. So that's the only nervy aspect for me. I need to turn the WHOLE thing over to God, and trust that he'll provide. He always does! I should do this more often, with more things in my life! Tsk.

We are incredibly blessed that we're seeing a LOT of homes available to buy in a 20-minute commuting radius of Neil's workplace. We don't necessarily want to move right on the doorstep in the city, though we could. We have the option to live somewhere a little more "villagey" and less polluted, and still only have Neil drive for 15 minutes to get to work. I just keep thinking about it and shaking my head in... not disbelief, as such - I totally BELIEVE that God is blessing us this much! I just can't get over it, that's all. We can afford to pick and choose in the area we're looking at. There is a lot of choice with the housing market as it is. We can look at buying a 4-bedroom house, or a 3-bedroom one with space for extending and converting. We plan to be picky about 3 things:

1) The back garden MUST be spacious. That's my #1 thing really, for the boys. Our current garden is so tiny. I want them to be able to run and run without hitting a fence every 20 feet, haha! That's what they currently do. I'm not even sure if our garden IS 20ft long, and it's definitely less than 20ft wide. We're aiming for a minimum of 60-80ft long for a back garden, to give the boys plenty of space to play and run.

2) The house must have 4 bedrooms, or 3, with the potential to extend to 4 or more at some point. We still plan for the boys to share, but we have no idea how many children we'll have over the time we're living there (hoping that this next home will be the one we raise our family in), and 4 bedrooms is our minimum really.

3) The living space downstairs must be GOOD. Or, there must be scope to extend or convert to make a large living area downstairs. We would convert any home that had an internal garage, and build on top of it if there wasn't already an upstairs extension there. We are looking for a large living room, and would also like a good sized kitchen for the boys to be able to help me in the kitchen, and a dining area would be good too. We would want to add on (if not already present) a playroom, preferably large so that we can section it for homeschooling, and a utility room for laundry purposes (and possibly clothes storage).

If the houses we're looking at don't have the above 3 things, we pretty much dismiss them. I'm just AMAZED that God has enabled us to go from no income for 9 months (less than a year ago, even!) and totally relying upon him to get by, to the luxury of having the choice to look at houses in the way I've just described! I can't get over it, seriously. I just feel amazed, and like I want to pinch myself to make sure it's really true. When Neil was out of work and we prayed together a LOT (I miss that!), we prayed specifically for our next home. A friend at church told us to pray for what we wanted, regarding a home, and watch and see God bless us faithfully! So we discussed what we really wanted in our next home, and then prayed specifically for those things. I wrote them in my prayer journal the day we prayed (1st May 2008):

1) At least 4 bedrooms
2) Spacious downstairs for the boys/homeschooling
3) Big garden for lots of energetic kids!
4) Space for Neil to be able to work from home if that's how God led him (not applicable now, I think)
5) Nice location to live

I just noticed #6 in my prayer journal - it says, "More children (more me though!)" hehe! I wasn't pregnant with this baby yet, so THANK YOU LORD!! :) I'm so excited to see God answer our prayers. We had no idea at the time that we'd ever manage to afford such things in a home, since we had no money, no income, and no idea of when that situation might change, and how much we might have when it did. Now we are not at the stage where we're sitting IN that God-given home yet, but we can now afford these things and are currently setting out to sell our home and buy a new one! So it's already amazing to me that God is answering our specific prayer, even though we haven't seen the end result yet. God is so wonderful! I love him so much! :)

Today was sunny and spring-like, one of the very first days like it this year! The breeze was lovely and the sun was warm. I just wanted to be outdoors! The boys played in the (tiny) garden during the morning, and then went to the park for a more spacious play time in the afternoon. It was so nice to have quiet time to be outdoors doing something useful when I was planting those pansies.

I wore a dress today! I dug through my maternity clothes, as my bump is getting ever so much bigger all of a sudden! I found a denim pinafore dress and wore it with a crinkly white top with half-length sleeves underneath. I never wear dresses, but I love doing so. I love looking and feeling more feminine. I LOVE my jeans and comfy tracksuit bottoms though :) But there's this FEELING that I get when I put on a dress. I feel pretty and feminine, and just a bit different somehow, in a way that I really really like. It makes me feel.... I can't put my finger on it. But it makes me feel such a swell of confidence in my appearance and also just in anything relating to femininity, like being a mummy (though I realise being good at that has nothing to do with what you're wearing!), or being attractive to my husband (though he finds me attractive anyway, thankfully!), and just being a WOMAN. (does anyone else get this same slight squeamishness that I'm feeling due to describing oneself as a WOMAN?! I feel so like a GIRL, and still haven't quite accepted the fact that I've grown up into a woman, so the term still makes me squirm a little! Or am I just a little unbalanced?!)

Anyway, back to the point. I wore a dress :) And felt wonderful! I wish I had more dresses to wear that look nice. I am not good at buying dresses. Either they just don't exist (ones that look nice on me, that is) or else I am not good at finding them! If I had more, I think I would wear them more than jeans even. Maybe. I have BOUGHT a ton of dresses, especially maternity dresses, mainly from eBay. But most of them have not looked good on me when I put them on, so they got sold again, or given away, or some are even still sitting and waiting for me to declutter them! This denim pinafore dress was an eBay purchase during my first pregnancy. I haven't been able to wear it every pregnancy because of the seasons being different, but I'm so happy to have 4 months to go and JUST coming into the ideal season for wearing this dress! I'm going to wear it a lot :) I used to wear dresses in the summer a lot more when I was in my teens, but that's because my mum had some lovely ones and would share them with me :) And also she bought me some dresses, so I had her expert eye to do the mainstay of the choosing. She could always buy me something that suited me well, and I don't seem to have that eye. Now she lives in France and we're never able to shop together any more :( I miss that.

I like to look girly! I think especially now that I have a houseful of boys! I particularly want to hold up the GIRLY side of the family, since I'm the only one doing so! ;)

Okay, this post could go on forever, and I'm rambling away! I really just meant to post a little about our situation with the house, and just some other bits and pieces. I also felt like posting a recipe (gasp!) here. I was looking over the meal plan for the week and shared a recipe on one of my due date forums, and then I really wanted to post it here too! Meal planning is going really smoothly at the moment, and I am getting into an easy routine with making the shopping list and ordering the shopping online. We've stopped doing ANY trips to the supermarket now, and at first we felt kind of guilty (for some reason!), but now I have no plans to go back to it for now. It's so incredibly wonderful to have the shopping delivered to the door, and really not that expensive. It's between £3.50 and £6, depending on the day and the time of delivery, to have shopping delivered from Tesco. I am careful to shop for our things in bulk if there are deals going, and I reckon with my frugal-ness in that department I have made up for the weekly delivery costs easily. I am never so good at being frugal IN the supermarket. I don't notice the deals so easily, and I have time to sit and hunt them down and think them through at home in front of the computer. It saves on fuel for us too :)

It's so convenient, and doesn't tax my energy or strength at all, leaving me much more able to use it for the benefit of the little ones for the rest of the day, PLUS we have all that time that we'd normally spend out getting the shopping, to do other things, and nobody melts down in a supermarket trolley. It's ideal as I get more pregnant. Also, they recycle our bags from the last delivery! I can't believe we didn't do it sooner. I've discovered that we need a delivery every 6 days. Pretty much exactly, every week. I fine-tuned it - we started out trying to stretch as long as we could before ordering again, but then we were out of stuff to the point that Neil would go to the supermarket at night to pick up a couple of things, maybe twice a week. And use petrol, and his time, and end up buying chocolate or cookies or something! ;)

So, every 6 days exactly is working perfectly. If we go to 7 days, we pretty much don't have milk for the last 24 hours, and usually a couple of things that the boys like for lunch too. We are usually just using up the last pint or two of our 16-pints-every-6-days (!!), when the next delivery arrives, which is perfect. We also run out of bread after that time (I buy as many as the freezer will hold, but we don't have an enormous freezer and it stores lots of other things). I really really REALLY want to start baking my own bread - I have had quite a strong pull towards doing that for a couple of months now, as though it's a hormonally-based thing! But I really would love to bake my own bread and not buy it any more. I just have beginners' nerves! And there are toooo many recipes out there - I have no idea which to choose to start with! I want wholemeal only, I think. A lot of the recipes I've found are American, and the only thing I remember about American bread is that it's soooooo sweet. I never ate it on our holidays there, because I really disliked it. I DID like the sourdough breads because they most resembled British bread, but they were still a bit more sour than I was used to. I don't know if homemade bread recipes are less sugary than the store-bought bread in the States, so I am unsure whether to try baking them. And I don't want to bake any US sourdough recipes because I am not actually crazy about sourdough! I just like British bread, not as sweet as US bread, but not sourdough either. I have recipe confusion!! I also don't have a breadmaker, and don't plan to get one either. I want to try hand-making bread, and see if it takes off. If it DOES and I am making bread regularly and think a breadmaker would be a great help, THEN maybe I will invest in one. I am really good at saying, "I am going to make ____ from now on!" and buying the appropriate tools, only to um, NOT stick to making ____ at all, and thus the tools sit taking up space and are a wasted purchase! So I don't want to make the same mistake again.

Okay, so the meal plan for this week (including the weekend just finishing):

Saturday: Sausages, mashed potatoes, baked beans, vegetables (mainly for me - I'm having a big thing for veg right now!)

Sunday: Roast chicken, roast potatoes, parsnips and sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots and peas.

Monday: Spaghetti bolognese (frozen from last week's batch)

Tuesday: Chicken pot pie (frozen from last week's leftover roast - I am going to use today's leftover chicken in sandwiches for lunch)

Wednesday: "My Pasta" (now starting to be called "Mummy's Pasta" :) And it was known as "Ali's Pasta" when I made it for my family before I was married and moved out of home) - pasta with a tomato/pesto/herb sauce and grated cheese on the top. I will probably serve fish fingers with this as it goes well and the boys like it.

Thursday: Shepherd's Pie (frozen from last week's batch)

Friday will be the next shopping delivery day so I will think about meals from Friday onwards later in the week.

I wanted to share my Shepherd's Pie recipe! It's based on a recipe in a book but I tweaked it a bit over the years. It's a layered Shepherd's Pie, and we love it! I've converted the measures into lbs and fluid oz as well. The book says it serves 4, but I always make a double portion and freeze one, so the recipe below is for the double portion.

Shepherd's Pie

1.2kg (2.5lbs) potatoes
1kg (2lbs) lamb mince (ground lamb)
1-2 tbsp tomato paste
fresh parsley, chopped (about a tbsp or so)
300mls (10fl oz) cold water
1 onion
4 leeks
4 carrots
1-2 tbsp flour
oil
cheddar cheese (or alternative)

Okay, so I peel and boil the potatoes for mashing, and then chop the onion and saute it for 5 mins. Then I add the lamb mince, breaking it up as it cooks (I brown it). I add the chopped parsley and the tomato paste, and then 300mls of water (the recipe says that should be half red wine but I don't use wine in the stuff the kids eat!). I stir it up, season it to taste, and sometimes throw in a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce if I feel like it. That simmers till most of the liquid is gone, about 15 mins.

While that's doing, I thinly slice the leeks and carrots and saute them in a little oil for 15 mins or so, till they're tender.

I mash the potatoes and set those aside. Then I coat the leeks and carrots in flour and toss them till it's absorbed. Those go at the bottom of the dish for baking. On top of that I put the meat layer, and then the potatoes on top of that. The whole lot gets a generous covering of grated cheddar cheese, and then it bakes for 45 mins at 180ish (Celsius - that would be 350 F or something like that).

It's so yummy! Wine makes it a little more rich and tasty, but I find it perfectly tasty as it is. We don't add salt to anything in our house really. Not cooking water for pasta or potatoes, or anything. I do add a pinch of salt where recipes call for it usually, like in gravy (but not stock). Where it says "season to taste", I don't use anything. I guess we enjoy quite a bland diet, but it seems super tasty to me, and my taste buds aren't blown away by anyone else's food, unless it's spicy. I really dislike spicy (plus I'm allergic to chilli and peppers). When my parents cook vegetables boiled in salted water, they taste WAY too salty, though :)

It's getting late now so I will stop and go to bed. I have so much that I want to write, and so many photos and video clips that I recently found time to upload. I feel so behind on sharing those! I will try to post some soon. Thanks for all the sweet comments on my last post!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's so much else to write about!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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









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

A recent (gasp!) photo of Matthew!



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

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



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

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



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



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



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



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

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



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

Some weird emotions...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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