Lovely rainy day!

Today it rained and rained and rained. We have had a lot of rain lately. We're in the south of England, but in the north there has been some dangerous flooding with all the rain, and still it continues. Some days there is sunshine with the showers, and it's windy and cold with it too, but the rain is pretty consistent.

I am so thankful for rain. Today I watched it fall from the window and had one of those moments of surreal clarity. How amazing it suddenly seemed, to see water falling out of the sky and making big pools and streams on the ground! Like I had never really seen it before. I was just in awe that God sends water down to earth from the sky, and that the plants and living things grow and thrive because of it.

I thought about parts of western Africa which are right now experiencing severe drought. A charity letter that came the other week said that most children aged under six in those parts have NEVER seen rain falling before. That just stopped me right in my tracks. I just think, how can we - how DARE we?! - moan and complain about a little rain? I mean, Cumbria has reason to be upset about the rain and there has been loss of life in the floods, but I mean more in terms of general daily British whining and complaining about rainy weather. In light of the African crisis, it just sickens me to hear people complaining! I mean, really, it's nothing but a minor inconvenience or mood-depressant, surely? Not actually a big deal! We are BLESSED beyond measure - we need water to survive, and we literally have it falling out of the sky in our country! The landscape in parts of west Africa is scattered with dead animal carcasses. Nothing will grow, and no livestock can survive, so no food is available for people or animals, and everyone is starving. All for lack of RAIN.

Today, I rejoice in the rich and luxurious blessing of heavy rainfall, and I pray that God will release it over Africa again. Without intending to, Benjamin and I slept in so ridiculously late this morning that Neil got the boys ready for church without waking us, and went to church without us. When we got up, we enjoyed a quiet house, and some beautiful worship music. I flung open the windows, even with the chilly air, to bask in the beauty of the rain, with Benjamin in my arms. After watching it for a while, I realised that I really wanted to photograph it. The things that I feel really passionate about photographing are elements of nature, and babies and children. I have always loved photographing a pile of leaves, or a sunset (endless endless badly-turned-out photos of these from my teens and 20s, haha!), or a tree in its autumn colours. Today, the idea of trying to capture just RAIN gave me such a buzz! I took some photos, and then Benjamin went for a nap. Once he was asleep I was able to play with my camera a little more. I still know very little about taking photographs with my new(ish!) camera, but I certainly enjoyed trying various things to get the images I wanted. I didn't get quite what I wanted for all the different things I saw (maybe this should be at my photography blog?!), but I had fun! :)

Rainy morning



Benjamin watching the rain from my arms



Beautiful raindrops on my open window





The sun comes out!





And the rain continues...



How good are God's gifts to us, and how beautiful His creation is!





I love the rain! :)

Lots of photos, haircuts, and Benjamin's back!

Nathan LOVES to be a "big boy" and do school like his big brother! I caught him with a pencil and Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons, looking soooo pleased with himself! ;) These photos are actually a month old now, and I meant to upload them at the time, but you know how it goes...




Funny boy! :) The walls in our living room are a disaster. There are heavy crayon marks ALL OVER them, ugh. I tried the Magic Eraser and it did work, but it crumbled quickly and the two packs that I bought only took off one area of crayon (and there are many). The boys don't get the crayons without strict supervision any more, but somehow occasionally one crayon has been dropped under the table just behind the table leg, or rolled under the bookshelf, or whatever, and eventually someone finds it while I'm cooking dinner or settling a little one down for a nap! It drives me crazy that they draw on the walls (and by "they" I do mean Matthew! Mostly.) despite endless endless discipline over it. Anyway, so you'll see plenty of crayon-covered walls! I have tried various cleaning methods, and last week I put bicarbonate of soda on a scouring pad and it WORKED!!! I mean, I only gave a quick scrub to see what would happen, and it hasn't come right off but it's way better than the other methods I tried. When I get time, I think I can get a lot of it off with that. I actually wanted a nice natural cleaning method so that I can hand the stuff to the children to clean their own messes off the walls!!

Here is another photo from about a month ago (before the haircuts, when they were in desperate need of some!), of the boys playing. They usually are not allowed to play with the school-related stuff, but I let them use the chairs to make a bus and they all got their favourite cuddly toys to go for a ride! :)



Here are a couple of photos from last week, of my scrummy little baby-pie. I let him have some "air-time" without anything on, on the fleece blanket the other day. He loves that! I took loooads of photos, but the internet being the way it is, I don't want to post them :( I mean, I DO, but I don't, you know? So I cropped the first one enough, I think, and the second one is at a better angle than the others, to mostly get his face and shoulders. He's such a sweet little pie! :) The first one looks like an odd photo to take/post, but I am including it here because I think it really shows how much Benjamin and Arthur look alike. Their facial features are very similar, and Benjamin always reminds me of Arthur as a baby.




Benjamin is ever so interested in watching us eat these days. He watches food to our mouths with bugging eyes, and is very alert looking at the food on our plates if he gets to see them. Those who've read me for many babies will know that they can be as eager as they like, but I won't give solids till the day they turn 6 months! ;) Then I hand them a half-peeled banana! :) We do baby-led weaning and skip purees altogether, since Matthew. Matthew and Nathan did great going straight to table food and were much much better eaters than Arthur (they're super picky these days though *sigh*). So that's what we'll do for Benjamin, again. I love baby-led weaning sooooo much that I would never go back to purees for anything!

The other evening the boys had a quick meal of baked beans and cheese on toast. They love this meal and it's quick and easy for me if it has all being going wrong leading up to dinner time! On those occasions, Neil and I usually get a fish and chips takeaway, or pizza if we're feeling extravagant! Or a casserole that I've made and frozen but which the boys won't eat. Anyway, Benjamin was fussing and fretting and generally not feeling happy, while the boys ate, so I thought I would put him up where the action was, since I was right there to supervise:





He LOVED watching them eat! He watched each boy in turn, staring at their plates very seriously, and then looked around happily! I know he can't wait to be crawling amongst them, playing cars with them, jumping about crazily to music while they do (he already kicks his legs and punches his arms and SCREECHES with excitement as he watches them when they dance like this!), and sitting round the table to eat with them. You can now see it in Benjamin pretty much every moment that he's awake and around the boys - he's BUGGING to join in! He's very interested in their toys too.

I love that last photo of Matthew talking to Benjamin - the sweet looks on their faces :) Matthew is very tender with Benjamin and has been right from the start. They all are, actually. But Matthew has a much more calm and gentle nature, and takes time over communicating with his baby brother, and Benjamin really warms to that. He loves his brothers!

The other day the boys had just finished lunch and Benjamin was rolling and kicking on the living room floor. I got Matthew down and then Nathan, and when I came in, Matthew was lying on the floor with Benjamin. He had got The Very Hungry Caterpillar and was "reading" it to Benjamin! I thought that was so sweet! :) He likes to spend time with him, and tries to make him happy a lot. They all do (I know already said that, but it's true!). So, I took photos :)

First thing I saw when I came in from the kitchen:



Taking it in with interest as Matthew points out the different things the caterpillar ate:




"Not a bad story, Mummy!"



[Nathan approaches...]



Looking significantly LESS impressed with the arrival of Nathan who takes over the Hungry Caterpillar story! ;)



"I can't take TWO stories at once!!" *thunk*



"Waaahhh! Get me out of here!"



Hehe! ;)

I have sooo many photos as I am really behind, and I like to have them here for my own records. I do look back eventually, over the years, especially when I have another baby the same age, or when it's someone's birthday and I want to remember how they were when they were littler. So it's sad when I look and realise that I never posted stuff here from a whole section of their baby/childhood. I will try to keep up! But I take so many photos. I have still only edited and uploaded about half of Arthur's birthday photos, and I want to do an entry about that asap, but I didn't want to get more behind on the other stuff while I got around to the birthday post!

Ooh I cut the boys' hair!!! By myself! Saving us soooo much money and huge faff of going to the children's hairdressers in Chelsea! I did Arthur's a few weeks ago, following tips online (eek!) and using children's paper scissors, hahaha! But it worked. I didn't plan to (yet), but he begged me one day because his hair was in his eyes and he couldn't stand it any longer! Poor boy! Then I did Nathan's a week later, which was way more tricky because he did not want me to touch his hair, let alone comb, wet, or cut it! His didn't turn out as even/well because of the aforementioned issues, but it's out of his eyes and less straggly in general. The weeks went by and still I had not cut Matthew's whose hair was longer than the other boys' from the start. His hair doesn't suit him in the same basic short cut as well as the other two boys, and I didn't know what I wanted for his hair (and certainly not how to do it myself!). But on Saturday it was clearly getting ridiculous (!!) - his hair was below his eyes and he was forever sweeping it aside, and the back came to his SHOULDERS!!! Before I cut his, I invested in a pair of hairdressing scissors and a book on how to do the basic cuts, from Amazon. Once they arrived, I cut his hair! MYSELF!! Yikes! ;) I put him in a high booster seat on a dining room chair in front of the TV. I put a shower curtain (from my homebirth supplies!) under the chair over the carpet, and got Matthew to choose a DVD (Brum). Then I put the DVD on and started his hair. I wet it as I combed it through, and just worked away. I was quite nervous, and actually I felt so physically exhausted by the end (it took almost an HOUR that first time) that I felt sick and shaky for a while! But I'm really happy with the results. I think I would still change one or two little things next time, but for now, it looks okay (Neil says it looks really good!), and it's out of his eyes and he looks like a boy again, haha! ;) He wouldn't let me take photos of him, but I snuck a couple anyway while he was playing with trains the other evening. Here's the "before" photo - see how crazy it had become?!



And here is the front/side and the back afterwards. I feel confident that we can ditch the hairdressers on a permanent basis now, and I will cut all my children's hair for the forseeable future! Yay! We will save so much money. Seriously. I'm really pleased to be learning this skill for my family!






Okay, it's getting really late, so I have to go. Oh but if you didn't see my Facebook update today, Benjamin's osteopath appointment was today in Central London. I was a crazy (craaazy) woman again, and drove Benjamin and myself there (Neil took a day's holiday to stay at home with the other boys - Nathan is still poorly with a cough, although his fever is finally down I think - he has one new tooth for his troubles, so far!). This time I had just passed Buckingham Palace and headed into the Hyde Park Corner underpass when I started to smell burning... Hmmm! It got stronger and stronger, and there was a queue getting out of the underpass. I realised it was MY car in the queue and started to panic! I prayed and prayed and PRAYED till I was able to pull into a back road off Picadilly Circus. There I lifted the bonnet and it STANK inside, so I pulled out the mobile phone and called Neil at home. He talked me through checking the oil (which was EMPTY - nada! Just a tiny teeny smidge on the tip of the dipstick! Yikes!!), and then I poured a whole container of oil from the back of our car into the engine tank, and it still only just came above the minimum line! Benjamin was soooo good. He had slept for about an hour up to that point, and woke while I was trying to sort out the oil. He cried a lot before I could get to him. I breastfed him in the back of the car, and then we set off again. I was TWO HOURS LATE for the appointment!!!! There was some really bad traffic between Picadilly and Shaftsbury Avenue which hadn't been there last time, but at least I didn't get lost at all this time. The osteopath people were very understanding, and just moved me to a later appt, which I made it to in time.

When we arrived I found that Benjamin had done a super-human poo, but they wanted to start his treatment first anyway. He had a 15 minute treatment which he was very relaxed and happy through, and the osteopath could not quite understand why he had improved so very much in such a short space of time! :) Remember last entry, when I said that Terry Virgo had prayed for his back to be healed on Sunday?! :) I didn't tell her about it because I wanted her to tell me in a completely unbiased way how he was doing. She fetched her supervisor and the supervisor checked Benjamin and was amazed as well. She said there had been "dramatic improvement" and he was doing great! :) She said that he should still have a couple more treatments so that he doesn't "tend back" in that direction again. Even his plagiocephaly (asymmetrical head) has improved more than they expected in just 2 weeks. He did get upset when she tried to press into the bonier parts of his neck, but maybe he just didn't want somebody pressing into his neck bones?! Anyway so YAY!!! I'm so excited, and thankful! But not surprised. I already know about God being awesome! :)

So, Benjamin had pooed right through all his clothes, and I changed him at the clinic before we came home. I'm glad I always take multiple changes of clothes with me! On the way home, the burning smell was still there but waaaay milder, and it got better as time went on. Benjamin needed a breastfeed before we set off, so I nursed him in the car - with all the feeds, stops, oil changes, and the appointment itself, it really filled the day! I ended up being out with Benjamin from 9.30am to 3.15pm!! We almost ran out of petrol on the way home. The tank was below the line and I was praying and praying again to find a petrol station. There seem to be NONE in London at all! I had to wait till we were almost home on the outskirts of London to find a petrol station. I also did not have the opportunity for lunch so I was tired out and wobbly when we finally got home! But, worth it for the bean-boy's sweet little body to be okay! We have another appointment in 2 weeks. You know I'm going to do Crazy Woman in Central London: Part 3 and drive again, don't you?! ;)

Sitting baby, extra leg (!), and poorly Nathan

Look what Benjamin did today!!



He was sitting for a few seconds during the week if propped (hehe!), which we only happened to try because he's sitting SO well supported, and seems eager and excited when he is sat up. He does sit in the Bumbo but not very often because he seems to look kind of bored in there in general, and just SITS. He seems to like the potential "options" (or something!) of looking around and moving himself, and acts a bit confined in the Bumbo. After a while he just gets upset and wants to be picked up. His sweet little eyes bug out in curiosity when he's sitting on the floor (supported by my hands) and he starts to move his legs and arms like he is interested in things he sees and wants to get to them or touch them. He doesn't do that in the Bumbo. I was sitting with him in my lap this morning and he was reaching with little trembly arms for the big bright coloured car transporter! He is really starting to take an interest in the boys' toys these days.

I brought it over, but it didn't balance too well on my lap with him, and he got frustrated. So I sat him on the floor and put the car transporter in front of him, and he sat so sturdily (well, as sturdily as wobbly little beginners get!) that I took my hands off his back, and he stayed for almost 10 seconds! He was holding and patting the car transporter, and he was so excited that he was sort of quivering and gasping, bless his heart! Arthur has always been like that too, but Matthew and Nathan not so much, so it's sweet to see another little one with a mannerism that we last saw in Arthur :)



My hand was never far away, as he did over-balance quite often!




Love this last one - I call it "Freefall" haha! ;)



He seemed to absolutely love sitting and actually handling toys in an upright position - my big boy! I really didn't expect it because he's only 4 months old - not even 4.5 months yet. Arthur was sitting at 5 months like Benjamin is now, and Matthew at 5.5 months for the first time, I think. Nathan surprised me by sitting unaided for the first time as late as 7 months, which I didn't expect because he was already crawling at 6 months. Sooo, Benjamin is my earliest baby to sit unaided! I will give him tons of practice as long as he's happy with it, because I think it will help his back. He is about to start treatment with a children's osteopath in London for his back and head. A month or two ago I started to notice that his forehead bulged out a bit on one side. It sounds daft now, but at the time I couldn't understand it and so just presumed it to maybe be part of his birthmark there. Anyway, a while later I happened to be looking down on his head from like a bird's eye view, and noticed that his whole head was oblique in shape. His forehead did bulge forward on one side, and at the back on that same side, it was flatter than the other side.

I googled and found that he simply has "flat head" (what a nice label!). He always nursed in bed on the same side, and I felt bad because my ignorance about it "did" that to him :( I immediately stopped nursing him in that position, and switched us up to the other end of the bed, because the websites advised that repositioning was a good solution, and it should gradually resolve. Well, I think there was a tiny bit of improvement, and it was never a very bad case in the first place, but it really hasn't gone away. His head is still oblique, and he is getting to the age where it should have resolved by now, and his skull plates will start to fuse soon. So I took him for a free assessment in London, and when they were examining him, they noticed that he prefers turning to one side rather than the other (he has no stiffness or tension problems though), and they even felt in his mouth and checked his palate, and found that he has a sort of twist right through him, from the skull bones down the spine to his pelvis. His head isn't just asymmetrical in a forward/back manner, but in an up/down manner as well, which I can't see by looking at him, but that's what they noted from his hard palate - one side is higher than the other.

I just feel blessed that he's SUCH a happy, cheerful, easy going baby! They were surprised too, and said that many babies would present as ongoingly colicky with that kind of issue. I do see that he's uncomfortable sometimes, but he doesn't complain much. If he's lying on his back, he kind of arches it to one side and makes unhappy straining noises sometimes. He sleeps fine on his back either in my bed or his Amby Hammock.

So, they gave him a treatment right away, starting at his pelvis, with the intention of working upwards. He did not like them touching his neck at that stage, which they weren't surprised about, apparently. The thing is, it's in LONDON, and right in the centre as well. A paaaaiiiin to get to with a baby! I drove last time - I know I'm crazy! ;) It's SO central London that I had to drive past Buckingham Palace! I took a wrong turn shortly after that (was fine up till that point) and if you take a wrong turn in central London it's nearly impossible to get back on track, because the roads just keeping turning and winding at great speed with all the traffic and you can't stop to even glance at a map for a second! You can't pull over either. I drove down a bus lane by mistake and I reeeally hope I don't end up getting in trouble for that. Once I found myself going round and round Trafalgar Square with other drivers beeping and honking at me for being in the wrong lane, etc, I was a bit worried, but thankfully there was a red light for long enough for me to see how to get out of that part! Anyway, I was SUPER late, but I phoned the place twice en route to let them know and they were really understanding and saw us immediately when we did arrive.

The next appointment is this Tuesday. Last Sunday at church Terry Virgo was preaching and he prayed for healing at the end of the service. I waited AGES with Benjamin in my arms, and he laid hands on him (as did I!) and prayed for his little back to be healed. Benjamin does not seem to have any trouble this week turning. He doesn't favour one side over the other and has since started rolling from back to tummy in both directions as soon as I put him on the floor. He has rolled tummy to back once or twice too, but he generally doesn't seem to know how to do it!

Oh and my right leg? Always an inch shorter than the left one (so said the osteopath I saw a few years ago for a while)? Grew that extra inch as Terry held it and prayed over it on Sunday. No, I am not kidding! ;) Dozens of people were watching and I had my eyes closed (I was sitting down) but I could hear people gasping and someone said, "Hallelujah!" hehe! ;) I did feel a very strange sensation in my thigh that is very hard to describe, but the nearest I can think of is blowing up one of those long thin modelling balloons, the way the length stretches like that. It lasted maybe just a second or two and then went away. The lower back pain I have a lot is a LOT better suddenly, and I felt a bit odd at first like I had a raised heel on my shoe on that side. Later that day I also started to have a stitch-like pain just under my ribs on that side, and it was really persistant. It was only in the evening when Neil suggested it might be to do with my leg being a bit longer, that I wondered if maybe it was just the rest of my body isn't used to that extra height in my posture on one side, and I guess there's a knock on effect as my body gets used to it - maybe?? Anyway, that's gone now :)

So, I forgot what I was talking about, but basically:

1) God is awesome! And REAL! :)

2) Benjamin has some appointments (supposed to be weekly!) that I'm not looking forward to, but hopefully God is healing/has healed his back.

3) My teeny tiny baby is starting to sit and roll already!

4) It's reeeally late so I must now go to bed! BUT I have to update again asap because it was Arthur's birthday on the 9th (so long ago now already, tsk! Naughty me!) and he is FIVE!!!! Thank you to those who remembered and wished him Happy Birthday, and also at Facebook. I MUST try to blog instead of "Facebooking", because I update there daily now and it has sort of become like a micro blog thingy, and this place is getting neglected as a result! Also, Facebook does not keep my stuff forever - in fact, not for very long at ALL actually, so it's just lost in the end, and I wish I had written about it here. I'm finding that already on things I want to look back at to see what I wrote about something, and I can't find it. It's not here, so it's lost forever in the sands of time!!

Nathan is poorly right now. He is tired and off his food a bit, and under the weather. He started with a cough a few days ago and it's become pretty bad last night and today. This evening he started a fever (low at the mo). Last time this happened was August, and I had no idea what was wrong with him, except that he had a higher fever than this (exactly the same cough though) - up to 101. At first people agreed with me that he was teething (he had just had his first molar peep through in the few days before), but when the temperature got higher they said not. He also was off his food and over the days seemed to me to act nauseated, and on the last day of the fever he had diarrhoea. Then he perked up but had 2 nosebleeds which worried me and I took him to the doctor. She said it was just likely a virus, but I am really not happy with that diagnosis because we had not been out of the HOUSE for at least 10 days. Seriously. The boys had gone to the park with Neil, but literally just to an open field to run and run and run - no playground equipment or other people. And Nathan hadn't done that for the best part of a week before he got poorly, even. So, I didn't buy the whole virus idea. The other thing was, at the end of his fever and stuff, lo and behold, ALL THREE of his other molars came through his gums at the same time, the poor little fellow! So, I totally put it down to that, even though MANY would argue that teething can not cause such extreme symptoms.

So, here we are again. He has had a cough for a few days, and now starts with the fever, which I have to admit I was expecting, given that the cough seemed awfully familiar and I wondered if it was another bout of multiple teething coming up and thus we'd see the same set of symptoms emerging. So far his fever is lower than last time, but it was a few days of fever last time so we'll see how it goes tomorrow. He has been eating okay-ish, but tonight once he had a fever he would not even look at food. Tonight and last night he is whimpering in his sleep and wakes very frequently to cough and be comforted. He is tired all day and needs bed an hour after waking from a nap. But otherwise he is happy and interested in toys. He mostly just wants to sit on the sofa and watch Thomas the Tank Engine right now, and we're letting him. He looks so tired and unwell in his face, poor little love.

I looked in his mouth yesterday to see what is going on with his teeth. He is quite behind with teeth, as he only got his first tooth just before his first birthday. He has all four of his first molars, and the middle four at the top. His first top canine came through recently and is now almost all the way in. The top canine on the other side has a little point poking through, which has been there about a week. Now, at the bottom he just has his two molars, and the middle two "first baby teeth". The ones that go either side of those "first teeth" haven't arrived yet!! I don't know why! They're usually around the 8 month mark, on average! Anyway, so those have yet to come, and the canines next to them haven't come yet. When I looked in his mouth, the whole of the bottom gum where those two big gaps are looked red, and I see a grey outline of a tooth pushing against the gum on one side next to his two middle teeth, so he is definitely about to cut some teeth, along with the top canine he's getting, but I wonder if he's going to pretty much get all of those missing teeth at once? Maybe that could account for the severe teething symptoms like last time when he got all his molars at once? I don't know. He hasn't had any trouble just cutting a single tooth at a time.

Anyway, so I tried to find the stuff I wrote (and everyone's comments) at Facebook from the time Nathan was poorly and cut his molars in August, but Facebook hasn't kept a record of it :( So that's a good reminder to STOP "blogging" at Facebook (which was never intentional, it's just so easy to do!) and start to put this stuff in my blog again, even if it's short entries here and there! Tsk.

That's why I am posting (it was supposed to be briefly, hahaha!) about Benjamin sitting - although I did also post that at Facebook earlier! ;) And about Nathan being poorly, so that I will have that to read back for reassurance if it happens again and I've forgotten what to expect.

I MUST write about Arthur's birthday! I have photos! Only half of them are edited and ready to upload, but I'll try to finish those. The poor boy never gets his birthday blogged about these last few years, because I just don't get around to it even though I MEAN to, and then Christmas happens and it's all too far in the past, etc. I don't want to do that this year!!! I will be back soon to blog about his birthday, and totally plan to do My Husband Rocks! Friday again too. Because he does :)

My Husband Rocks! - Sleep!

I almost forgot it's Friday, and therefore time for me to write about my sweet hubby! :)



Neil is very giving as a husband. One way that he blesses me is by getting up with the boys every single day - they wake between 6am and 6.30am. I am really really not a morning person, and for ohhh... five years (ish) I have been waking at night multiple times with a baby or toddler to nurse them. So for years now, Neil has been getting up with the boys (however many we have!) and letting me sleep until he has to get ready and go to work at 7.15. It's not a lot longer, but even a little bit more sleep makes a big difference to me! He can't sleep till 7.15 if we switch because he'll be late for work that way, so it works for both of us, I guess.

At the weekends for a long time now, Neil lets me lie in later in the morning with the baby. Benjamin doesn't wake up as early as everyone else, usually. On the occasions that he does, Neil even takes Benjamin downstairs and lets me go back to bed as well!! He's a wonder man. I'm so exhausted a lot of the time - just healthy exhausted, and I am not about to complain about it after having had M.E! - and the extra sleep at the weekends is just luxuriously wonderful.

When does Neil get extra sleep? Sometimes he goes to bed early (I'm not so good at that! I'm a night owl, whereas he's more of a morning person), but otherwise he really doesn't get any. He doesn't do any of the night wakings with the baby since "the baby" was Arthur, though. Once we had a toddler AND a baby, we decided to divide and conquer as far as nights went. I would always deal with any baby-related wakings (since I have the milk!) and he would deal with all older-boy(s)-related wakings. He still gets disturbed by them sometimes, but they mostly sleep through, and it's usually only Nathan who wakes now and then. It works for us well, though we don't see each other much at night!

Neil is just so incredibly generous to me in this area. I feel so blessed to have a husband like him! :)

Benjamin's nap today...

Benjamin naps in his Amby Hammock, which I now love completely (I used to be dubious about it when it didn't do much for my 3-week-old baby!). It's easy to rock him back to sleep when he stirs (it works! For the most part anyway) and it looks so cosy and comfy. It's great for helping me to lengthen his day naps (he's a half-hour boy which Arthur was, and I'm DETERMINED to help him do good solid blocks of sleep! So far today he's having 2-3 HOUR blocks, woohoo! But I'm rocking the Amby a couple of times at least over those 2-3 hours).

Today I peeped in at him napping in there and he was fast asleep sucking his thumb! I think all the boys (except maybe Arthur, I can't remember now) sucked their thumbs briefly in the first few months. I remember I always thought I had a thumb-sucker but then it only ended up being a couple of occasions and they never did it again. So we'll see! :) Anyway, with that in mind, I ran for the camera and took way too many photos, haha! The light wasn't good so they're grainy, but the cuteness still stands! ;) An hour or so later I peeped in again and he was still sucking his thumb, well, mostly just holding it loosely in his mouth. While I was in the room he stirred and eventually woke up, and I just kept on snapping to presevere the memory of my sweet little baby boy waking up from a nap at 3 months old. So, here are the photos I took, so that you can see them too. :)

Snoozing when I first found him sucking his thumb:



Back again an hour later, still looking precious! :)




Awake suddenly, and rather confused-looking! ;)



Little thumb out, to look around a bit and figure out what planet he's on...



Big stretch! (this isn't a smile yet, it's part of his "stretch" expression!)



"Okay, I hear Mummy's voice, but that huge black thing hanging over my bed does not look like Mummy..."



"Ahh, THERE'S Mummy!" (He sees me! Do I not have the best job in the whole world?!!)



Smiling at the camera once he has figured out I'm there too! :)



Grainy, blurry, self-photo, blah blah blah, BUT - memory captured! Which is what I wanted :) Seconds after I scooooped his sweet little self up and showed him "us" in the mirror (we always do this right before and right after naps, and chat and smile at each other for a bit then):



LOVE my precious little baby boy! He's the squidgiest, loveliest little treasure I ever did meet (this year! ;) )!

My Husband Rocks! :D

I KNOW!!!! Another post!! :D

It has been a long time since I've been reading blogs (well, mostly blog - Daja's) where every Friday I tune into that blogger's "My Husband Rocks!" Friday. I used to skip reading those posts. I don't even know why! And then I started skimming them. Then eventually READING them (hehe!), and now I smile every time I see a "My Husband Rocks" post pop up on my Blogger reading list :) I don't really know why I wasn't instantly eager to hop on board. I guess I have needed a lot of work from God this past year or so. The last few times that Daja has done "My Husband Rocks!" Friday posts, I have felt so enthusiastic about starting to write similar things about Neil, and then finally today I thought, "That's it! I'm joining in!!" :) And so here I am with my very first "My Husband Rocks!" Friday post! And I'm so excited!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday was started by Katy Lin. The button below (and I'm adding one to my sidebar, woohoo!) is a link to the post where she writes about why she started it. I really want to start focusing on the great aspects of my lovely husband on a regular basis (for the whole wide web to see!) because I want to train my mind to think of him positively and gratefully as much as possible, and I think this will be a really helpful tool. The more I focus on the positives, the less I will be dwelling on the negatives. And part of my role in my marriage is to respect and uplift my husband, not just within our relationship but for others to see as well. This is a big step for me in doing this, and I'm so happy about that! :)



One of my favourite things about Neil is that he is a WONDERFUL father. He gets discouraged and thinks that he's not such a great father at times, as I'm sure all fathers do, but he really and truly is a lovely father to our little boys.

He coos and gurgles with our babies for ages at a time, just holding conversations with them. I love watching this! It melts my heart a little :)

He tickles and wrestles with our toddlers until they are shiny-eyed, squealing with joy, and breathless.

He takes time for them, and plays on the floor with them, building car parks and Duplo and train tracks. He takes the three older boys out for long walks on the weekends.

He's so affectionate with a cuddly or clingy little one, or somebody who is sleepy or who has just woken up from a long nap. Our little boys get lots of kisses and cuddles from Daddy, and that is such a precious thing!

He will spend hours (sometimes literally!) at a time walking or rocking a fussing baby, or a poorly toddler. He will let sick children sleep on his front on the sofa. He won't flinch or try to get out of the way if a child on his front starts vomiting. He sometimes sleeps scrunched up on the edge of a mattress because a little boy who has had a nightmare wanted to sleep next to Daddy, and he always lets them. He's so loving and kind to the boys.

Nobody is a perfect parent, and everybody has their moments where they did not act loving or kind. I am not trying to paint Neil as perfect! ;) But he is a wonderful father to our little boys, and I am full of thankfulness to God for blessing me with such a man! My husband rocks! He is a fantastic father! :)

Comparing my four boys at 3 months old

Sweet little Benjamin is now 3 months old (nearly 3 and a half months already!) so it's time for the comparison photo! Long-term readers might remember the one. When Arthur was 2 and a half months old, I took a photo of him wearing a white sleepsuit with little green stars on it, lying on a homemade changing mat cover. When Matthew was just over 3 months old, I took a photo of him wearing the same outfit on the same changing mat cover, just to compare the two boys. They are SO different! It was amazing to see how very different they were as babies, comparing those photos! So, when Nathan reached that age, I did the same thing with him. I would have taken Benjamin's comparison photo a bit earlier than this, except that I have been searching for the changing mat cover for a week or so. I can't find it! :( I know it's in the house somewhere, or perhaps it never made it out of the loft this time round? Anyway, I can't find it, and I don't want him to get any bigger or older before I take the photo. The sleepsuit is what counts more than anything else, so I went ahead and took the photos today :) I used a towel for Benjamin to lie on that had a similar background colour, so it would look vaguely the same.

So here we go again! Starting with Arthur, and in chronological order, here are my baby boys at 3 months of age, give or take a week or two! :)

Arthur:



Matthew:



Nathan:



Benjamin:



Am I not just hugely INCREDIBLY blessed, to have four (FOUR!) sons?!?! I just think God is amazing. He's so gracious to bless me this way. I sometimes stop and just don't know how to fathom it. It's so wonderful!

So what do you think of Benjamin now, against his brothers? I still feel that he looks much more like Arthur than the other two boys do, and he's looked that way from birth. He has some of Nathan to him, but other than that not too much resemblence. Somehow he is yet ANOTHER completely different combination! No peas in pods for me, I guess! ;) I think he looks most like Arthur, but he's completely his own little unique person too, in looks.

I have a squillion more photos from today (mostly of Benjamin, and many from the same little session that I took the above photo at), but it's already late and I will post those another time. It's SO much easier to post these little bite-sized posts, than my usual epic long-winded things! ;) Sometimes I love to just waffle out all my thoughts, and other times I need to catch up on a TON of newsy stuff all at once, but it's so nice to be able to be BRIEF and to-the-point!! So rare for me, haha! It means I update more often that way, and I'm happy to be doing that. I'll update again soon, I hope. I'm going to finish preparing Arthur's maths lesson for tomorrow, and then go to bed. Night night! :)

Aaaargh!

Just sent the following email to Neil at work:

Dear Mr. (Surname),

Your children have played tug of war with your home telephone until the cord snapped, therefore you cannot contact your wife for the remainder of the day. She has tried to set up the new telephone but has discovered that it requires seven hours of pre-charging before it can be used.

Your wife has subsequently locked the children in the car and retired to bed with a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine.*

She may check her email later in case you wish to contact her.

Yours Sincerely,

Mrs. A. Frazzle

* this statement is sadly completely untrue.

Dinosaur fossil and homeschooling update!

It's way too late, but I do not want to leave the last entry up as the latest one for too long! Jemma contacted me the day after I wrote it, and (very graciously, I might add! We differ in our beliefs and she's 110% gracious and non-judgemental of me and mine) pointed out that the authenticity of the dinosaur/human fossil I showed in my last entry has been refuted, and she gave me a link to an article (essay! It's long!) that explains this in a lot of detail. I'm really grateful to Jemma for pointing this out to me so quickly. You can read the article here.

I have to admit I'm kind of disappointed! I believe the whole Bible is absolute truth - I made a decision to believe that when I chose to put my trust in God, which is why I get excited if evidence comes up to support that, naturally. But the thing I feel the MOST is just angry and sad that there are Christians out there who lie and manipulate. Jemma wondered if they weren't necessarily setting out to manipulate and deceive deliberately, but even so, it's just so saddening to me. How on earth can that be okay with them, if they truly have their hearts set on God?!?! How does that glorify God, or please Him at all? Never mind if they thought it would be to "help" God's cause - it DOESN'T!!! Manipulating or fabricating the truth is just NOT right with God, and ultimately will do the opposite of glorifying God, and a Christian should be all about glorifying and pleasing God. It just makes me so angry and sad all at the same time.

Neil and I stumbled across the original article on the fossil about 10 minutes before I posted here about it, and had never heard about it before. I guess that's a lesson learnt for me - next time I will not so innocently believe that just because someone is a Christian they are telling the truth, ugh. I'll look into it further BEFORE being so excited that I blurt it out here first! ;)

Emma asked me a few questions which I haven't got much time to answer but I'll give it a quick go! :)

I think I probably seem less open-minded and questioning as a Christian than I used to because I am becoming more settled and comfortable with what I believe. I am also settling into a deeper relationship with God than I have had before. A LOT is changing within me over this past year or so. Every now and then Neil and I talk about it, because I'm so aware of things CHANGING for me, in my heart and mind mostly. I guess that sounds vague, but to quickly grab a few examples - my view of motherhood has been changing, and I am so much more comfortable where I am in my role. I do not desperately clutch for "me time" any more, which used to be something I needed so very often, and I probably used to write about that a fair bit in my diary too. No longer. I don't feel the need for "me time" any more, specifically because God is showing me His heart for my role as a mother, and changing MY heart about it. I am less selfish than I once was, in my heart attitudes (don't get me wrong though, I still have a LONG way to go!). Also in terms of respecting and submitting to my husband. I have a LONG way to go there too! ;) It feels inside like I have been "tough" clay for so long, and now I feel that clay softening. It feels better. Sort of like a muscle that's tired of being taut all the time, and has that comfy zingy feel of a used muscle that's relaxing. I know that's a weird analogy. But my mindsets on life that gave me so much stress, they are softening and changing, purely due to God opening my eyes to some stuff, and enabling me to embrace it.

Most of all my absolute trust and confidence in God is deepening, deepening, deepening, like a pebble that has plopped into reeeeally deep water and it's still sinking down and down. It's so very freeing and comfortable to TRUST God, and not hold stuff back. I didn't even know about areas that I was holding back from him until the last year or two. I have really had a lot of big stuff revealed to me by God over the last year or so, and giving it over to God has transformed my heart and mind, and softened and deepened and matured my walk with God. I don't mean to talk myself up, just to explain how it feels to me when I think back over it and try to put it into words. There are still plenty of areas of my life that I am having trouble giving over to God completely, and so I remain pretty wretched actually! ;) But anyway, that's what I mean - things have really been changing, and I have been putting my trust in God more and more, and feeling so much happier and stronger, and more settled and comfortable in myself and in my beliefs and values. More confident too. It's all good stuff! :) So I can see why to long-term readers I might appear to be more "set in my ways" and not questioning stuff so much. It's the HUGE amount of questioning that I've been doing that is gradually leading me to the answers I sought, and I am beginning to settle into my beliefs and feel confident in them more than I used to. I don't think that's a bad thing :)

Also the big thing about dinosaurs for me is just that I believe the Bible when it said that God created everything at the start. So, not dinosaurs first and then millions of years later, humans. Or anything like that (never mind the whole humans evolving thing, which I also don't believe because I trust in what the Bible says that God created humans right at the beginning). So if evidence ever came up to prove that humans and dinosaurs really did live at the same time, then yes, I WOULD be very excited about that! ;) There are other bits of evidence that do exist, but I'm not going to blog about those till I've checked them out a bit more - learned my lesson! ;)

Emma's last question was about what my grandparents think about us homeschooling, because I was really not looking forward to telling them about it a while back, since they seemed pretty opposed to it. They are teachers and have both had long careers. Grandoug was a headmaster for a long time and then a university lecturer even when I was a teenager. The WHOLE family is full of teachers actually! All my grandparents (except Grandaddy who was a doctor), my auntie (I only have one!), and both my parents. Daddy taught music at a primary school for some years. My mum was a P.E. teacher at secondary school level, for her whole career, between having children. So to NOT do the school thing is totally alien to any of them, lol! None of my family are Christians so they don't get the "God" part of it either. Which doesn't help my cause! ;)

Thankfully it went okay after all. I reached a stage where I felt suddenly confident in my ability to pull it off (homeschooling, that is!) and that made it much easier to tell them. I had answers to all their questions and felt at ease saying them which probably helped their confidence about it too. They hadn't listened to me before when I'd told them I was already teaching Arthur to read (earlier in the year), so now to tell them he's reading and he's progressing well and enjoying the daily lessons that we do, seemed to surprise and impress them. I told them we had a maths curriculum coming in the post and I explained the other subjects we'd be studying, and what the littler boys would be doing. I told them what time of day we'd devote to school time. Granny seemed pretty upbeat and interested when I talked it through with her, which was a relief! :)

My parents are very supportive of our homeschooling, actually! :) I had a nightmare time at school some of the time (well, most of it really) and they had stress over it too, therefore. Nothing seemed well suited to me and they were constantly trying to make it better, or fit my needs, or try to express this to my teachers, etc. I think that is why they are happy for me to teach my own children because then I (nor my children, for that matter) will ever have to deal with that kind of situation. Their learning is individually tailored to them, and there couldn't be a teacher with a greater interest in getting it exactly right for them than me. So I think that's why they are very supportive.

My brother is very interested in what we're doing, asks a lot of questions, and wants me to keep him posted about it all the time. I wonder if he may be questioning the idea with Sarah for their children in the future? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, and I haven't actually asked them directly, so I don't know. But he's supportive and interested. Did I say here yet that they're expecting a baby?!?! I can't believe I haven't yet - aaargh! They have sweet little Thea, who is 2 and a half. And a new baby is due in February, almost exactly when Nathan was due! How exciting!!!! :D

Neil's family seem somewhat skeptical, but ask interested questions about homeschooling. They're polite about it, at least! :) Neil's mum was quite dubious at first, but then a family moved over from the States and joined her church and they homeschool, and suddenly getting to know them means that she's understanding the benefits of homeschooling and is now very supportive of us doing it (yay!). Neil's brother was always very neutral about it to us, but when he came over last and he was talking to Arthur about something, he said afterwards that he was so impressed with what Arthur knew about things beyond his years, and that he had been unsure about homeschooling, but talking to Arthur made him change his mind! He's excited for us now! :)

So all in all, we're blessed to have a pretty supportive family when it comes to homeschooling! :)

Arthur is still loving school, and it's an absolute joy for me! I am falling more in love with it each week! I have to prepare school every evening but Friday and Saturday evenings, and sometimes that takes up a good chunk of my evening, but I LOVE doing it! :) Arthur is on Lesson 45 out of 100 in his reading lessons, and his most recent learnings have been question marks, quotation marks, and recognising sentences. He reads the words mostly without sounding them out first now, although I do still have to stop him and get him to sound out any words that he guesses in order to read faster! ;) He hates to slow down! To give an example of what he's doing at the moment in his lessons - today's reading for Arthur was this:

"he has no feet. he has no nose. he has no teeth. he is not a cow. and he is not a cat. is he a rat? no. he is not a rat." (it was a worm!)

He does word reading and sounds practise (and sometimes word rhyming) before getting to the short story at the end of the lesson. He hasn't done all the different sounds yet, nor capital letters. Punctuation is a new thing that was introduced maybe 5 or 6 lessons ago. He is loving it!

We've only done 10 lessons of his maths curriculum so far, so it's still early days, but he is really enjoying it. I am too! Examples of what he's doing so far are numbers 1-10 (seeing them in groups of 5 plus something - so 8 is 5 and 3, and 10 is 5 and 5), entering numbers on the abacus without having to count them out (number recognition), quadrilaterals, triangles, parallel and perpendicular lines and planes (!!), and writing tally marks. I LOVE LOVE LOVE his maths curriculum - Right Start Mathematics - it's wonderful! So hands on, and full of games and activities and songs and gluing and drawing and so on. I LOVE it. I also love the method. It's nothing like the method taught in schools in this country, as it's based on Asian teaching methods (specifically Japanese I think). It makes SO MUCH SENSE!! Next lesson, one of the new things he'll do is working with geoboards to make geometric shapes with rubber bands. I love it! :)

Bible study is going well with the boys too. Matthew doesn't appear to take much in and doesn't have much of an attention span either, but that's okay. He sticks around and sometimes draws next to me while I read it. Arthur seems to be REALLY taking it in, asking questions, and understanding all that I'm reading him (going by the answers he gives to the questions I ask him). I'm using the book 'Leading Little Ones to God' and I soooo highly recommend it! It's a bit old fashioned, but there's nothing wrong with that. We don't know the hymns to sing but I substitute them with songs we do know that fit the lesson's theme, or if I don't have a good substitute then I sing the words of the suggested hymn to a tune that fits the words! :)

Aaaah it's getting so late and I've ended up posting a HUGE entry after all! I must must must go to bed! There's more to write about what we're doing at school, but I'll have to write about it another time. I'll leave you with a sweet funny thing that I overheard today - I already posted it at Facebook for those of you who know me there, but I loved it so much that I want to post it here too, for prosperity! :)

Arthur wanted me to draw him a digger to colour in. He begged me for an HOUR and finally I had a moment and drew him one. He spent an hour colouring it in, and he did it sooo neatly! I haven't seen him colour like that before. He didn't go outside the lines once, and there were no gaps in the colouring. He was ever so pleased with his work. After a while, Matthew came to sit at the school table next to him and leaned on his elbows watching Arthur colour. When he saw how well Arthur was doing, he gasped in amazement and said, "Arthur, you're a GENENUS!" which he has been saying quite a bit lately (genius, that is!) to people when they do something like find the last jigsaw piece! Anyway, Arthur continued colouring and didn't look up, but he said casually, "Thanks Math. Well, it's just that I've been practising for years and years...." by way of explanation! ;) Hahaha! Funny little boys! :)

Okay, bed! But I'll be back again soon! :)

Dinosaurs Walked With Humans!!

Awesomeness!!!!! :)



Read the whole article here. The above fossil is NOT a fake. How exciting a find is this?!?! :D