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2005-05-18 - 11.20pm previous entry next entry
France! And things.
We�re back from France! I feel like I need to write a separate entry for all the different things I�m feeling and wanting to write about. There are too many for one entry. Plus it would be waaaay too long. Maybe I will do that? Maybe I should just write the longest ever entry and provide a table of contents to help anyone who is reading it?!! Okay, I guess this was the introduction. Here�s a summary of the entry-to-come (presuming I ever get time to write it all!):
Contents
1. Response to guestbook messages
2. Stuff about France
3. Photos of aforementioned trip to France!
4. Sleep and other Arthur-related stuff
5. Thoughts on how I suck at motherhood lately (nooo don�t roll your eyes like that � read why before you go to stand up for me)
6. Thoughts and feelings on some totally non-Arthur stuff that has been on my mind for a while now
7. Bits of usual flotsam that normally end up in my entries
8. �Conclusion� or �Oops I�ve run out of time, back soon!�
9. Closing photo of my gorgeous boy from today :)
Okay. There you have it. That�s what I need to write about, and I feel like being long-winded in all those chapters. So there. Be warned! ;) But I am writing this in Word because Arthur is napping and is sure to wake lonnng before I finish it all, and in any case, it�s going to take me hours to write all this stuff. Hours. Ah but he�s awake right now as it happens. So I will START (!!) this entry another time. Later, I hope.
I�m back, but it�s 9.40pm and Neil is going to bed. I should too, but I really wanted to write here for a while. Otherwise there will just be toooo much in my head and it might explode. Plus there is just so much to write about � if I don�t write it soon, more stuff will happen in the meantime and I�ll just NEVER catch up! The problem is that I want to write about all the things on my list at once, and not just write about the first couple of points tonight and make another entry about the rest another time. I feel like writing about ALL of it tonight. But I don�t have time or energy. Tsk.
Urgh, the first point � guestbook messages. Thank you to the people who left supportive messages and well wishes for our trip to France. Alamelu, thanks for tip about not responding when I get provoked by guestbook messages. I do see your point. But I can�t not respond if people offend me. It just doesn�t sit right. Also if they need educating about something then I want to educate them. It bugs me to have them sitting there all ignorant and irritating in my guestbook, heh ;) Poppy, what odd ideas you have! Um, there is NO way that not shovelling solid foods into my 6-month-and-1-week-old�s mouth right NOW will risk restricting his social and emotional development. Also, when to wean my baby is definitely something a mother CAN know best about. I would have to be feeding him only GREEN food in order to make him have a better chance at avoiding teenage acne to be wacky enough to risk him like you suggest. Honestly. And that�s the end of that. And, �my� Poppy, I knew it wasn�t you! But thank you for confirming it! xxx
Woohoo, part one over with! :) Part two � France!!! We had a nice time. The journey on Saturday was uneventful � phew!! We got up at 5.30am and got to the airport nice and early. Arthur had the BEST time on the buses that took us from the car park to the terminal. He just loves bus trips!! He stands on my lap facing ahead down the bus and gasps and makes loud �Ooooh!� noises with excitement! It�s so cute. People look, of course. He tried to get lots of different people�s attention too, which was interesting. He looks straight at the person he�s trying to attract, and after a while if they haven�t returned his gaze, he says (pointedly), �Oooh!� to them! Then he pauses, still staring bug-eyed at them waiting for a response. Then when there�s nothing (can you believe they still haven�t responded to such a cutie?!), he tries, �Uuuuh!� Nowt. He throws a few gasps of anticipation their way, but nothing. Poor Boo. He is learning that not everyone is interested in smiling at him, like he wants to smile at them. If they would only look up at him, he instantly beams at them with his whole face and eyes and everything. If they smile back, they get bigger beams and a few happy bounces. It seems so sad that he wants so much to give people such lovely parts of himself and they knock him back like that! When he gives up, he always looks at them with a kind of sad face before looking away at something else, almost as though he doesn�t understand. I always want to gently throttle the offending person and point out that I have a cutie boy who is trying to get their attention, and would they please mind giving him some so that he can bless their day with a smile! Tsk. Protective mama :)
Anyway, Arthur loved the trip. He was as good as gold the whole time. As soon as the plane started rolling down the runway, I whipped a breast out (!) and Arthur nursed readily, lying across my lap. He was overdue for a nap and he had been so excited and stimulated all round the airport, so he was asleep before we were even up in the air! I guess the noise of the engines helped too. He slept till the bump of landing in France woke him up! I�m so glad, because it totally does away with worrying about his ears popping or hurting him. If he doesn�t even know we�ve been up and come down then he�s okay. Which is great! Plus he gets an hour of sleep, since that�s how long the flight is. I think it must be the noise that helps him rest. Weirdly. But you know, white noise and all that. Then my daddy was there to pick us up and Arthur nodded off for maybe 20 minutes in the car on the way back to the house. Of course everyone was so pleased to see him when we arrived! It was so nice to be there. Soooo nice.
Arthur has loved being with family! He had a great time, and seems to have learnt a lot about communicating and interacting while we�ve been there. I think it must be from watching lots of different people talking and interacting, especially at meal times. He sat in a travel highchair bolted to the end of the long table in the kitchen, absolutely transfixed by what was happening before him! He watched us eat and talk and laugh and play with him, and it was almost too much to take in sometimes! He just sat for ages with his eyes bugging out and his jaw dropped, his expression unchanging, just agog at the fascination of the Family Meal! Here he is in his chair watching us:
A lot of the time he played with his beads or a toy in front of him, or chewed on the strap from the harness that held him in the seat, and sometimes he talked at us using many cute expressions and multi-syllable words at varying volumes! But mostly he just sat, motionless, like the photo above shows him! People were mostly more interested in Arthur than in eating too :) He is just irresistible! He seemed to enjoy all the attention. One of the cutest things was that the place we put his highchair meant that he was at the head of the long table, which seemed very fitting for the centre of attention that he was! Here we all are (except me, taking the photo) at breakfast on Monday morning, with Arthur heading the family, hehe! That�s my dad and his parents (the diamond wedding anniversary pair!), my brother and his lovely girlie, my mummy, and Neil. And Arthur, of course!
I like that photo :) You see what I mean about him being the centre of attention?! Everyone is looking at him instead of their food!!
Arthur got lots of cuddles and was held by lots of different family members, which he enjoyed. He liked to look round now and then to see that I was still there though :) Everyone was saying how heavy he is! Nobody could hold him for long, because he made their arms ache. I need to get him weighed again, because Neil and I feel AGAIN like he has suddenly become heavier over the course of just a few days, which is surely craaazy?!! I think I will take him to the drop-in baby clinic on Friday and get him weighed. I think he must be over 20lbs now. If he could sit well for long periods without support then he would now be able to sit forward facing in his car seat � I phoned them a while back and they said he would have to satisfy both criteria (sitting and weighing 9kg) to sit facing forwards safely. He isn�t there on the sitting yet. It is SO hard to get him in the car seat facing rearwards. He is so heavy and doesn�t support himself well so it�s hard to lift him in over the side of the seat. My back hurts when I twist to do it, so I�ll be glad when he�s safe to face forwards.
Anyway, Arthur enjoyed his time in France! Here he is with his daddy, chewing his bug toy. We took soooo many toys this time! We did end up using most of them though. He is such a busy boy with his toys :)
Poor Arthur did have a bad bout of teething while we were there though. The worst one I have known him to have so far :( He has been teething again for a week or two, but it was getting worse the day or so before we went to France. The evenings were the worst, and he got very red and puffy in his face. The powder didn�t seem to work, and we gave him Calpol one evening when it was really bad, but I don�t know how much that worked either. He woke soon after settling down for the evening, and I knew things were different because he started really crying straight away as soon as he woke, which isn�t like him at all. He rarely cries about anything really, and certainly not immediately on waking. He kept his eyes closed the whole time, and cried real tears and sobbed, and when he was sobbing he moved his bottom jaw up and down and wailed, �Oh-woah-woah-woaaah!� over and over, the poor little love. So we knew his gums must be hurting him terribly. He also wouldn�t take Neil holding him, even though Neil is often the one to rock him to sleep at night, so he is used to that. He cried so hard that he started to cough and gasp with the sobbing, until I took him and then he was quiet except for the sobs. Poor poor baby. Last time he was teething badly he would only have me, so it must have been another bad bout for him. I nursed him a lot when he was like that, and that was the only thing that would console him enough for him to sleep again. His poor gums felt odd-shaped and hot like fire when I was nursing him. It breaks my heart to hear him cry like that. I just want to supernaturally make everything instantly better when I hear him, but I can�t. I can only do what I can do, and sometimes that�s enough and other times it�s painfully not so. I wish I could make it so that he never has to hurt. Ever. It�s too hard to see him hurting.
We were fully expecting to see a tooth the next morning, but nope! I even felt his gums as son as we woke, but they are still blunt and toothless! He seems a lot better now, although he is still biting hard on everything and drooling like crazy, and he sometimes seems to have teething pain so we give him some powder. But no tooth. My mummy looked in her record book from when I was a baby, and it says my first tooth came through when I was 6 and a half months old. So maybe not quite yet, for Arthur? Soon though, I hope. Surely soon?! I hate that he might have to go through another painful episode like this last one to get it, which is why I was hoping this time would do it. But oh well. It won�t be much longer, I�m sure.
Arthur slept much better while we were in France. I am trying to figure out why! He slept in his travel cot for daytime naps and during the evening while we all ate dinner, and he slept with us at night. We didn�t have enough space in the double bed (we�re used to a kingsize at home) so we overflowed onto the airbed on the floor next to the bed. For the travel cot naps, Arthur was in a big room by the piano, with all the curtains closed. It was far enough away from the kitchen so that he wouldn�t be woken by lots of mealtime chatter and laughter, and clashing of pans, etc, but close enough so that we would hear him as soon as he stirred or cried, and go to him straight away to nurse or settle him. He probably had more noise around him than he is used to at home, for those naps. But he slept well. He slept all evening without waking until we woke him to take him up to bed, except that time when he was teething badly. That�s three or four hours without a break. At night he had a bad night with the teething, but otherwise he slept great! He went to sleep well, so long as we hadn�t kept him awake too long whilst getting ready for bed when we brought him up from the travel cot. He couldn�t have slept in the bedroom during the evening because the house is enormous and it would have been way out of earshot. Waaay out. And the walls are too thick for a baby monitor to work. Anyway, he basically woke once between midnight-ish and 7 or 8am!!! He would wake around 4ish, and nurse, and be back to sleep quickly and easily. It was great! A couple of nights I must have had 6 or 7 hours sleep in total! Maybe even a tiny bit more!! Weirdly, that seemed to leave me more tired than ever. But oh well. I wish I knew what the difference was. We were still co-sleeping. Nothing else had changed. The only things I could think of were that he had more stimulation in the day with all the people and new things to see, and that the bedroom was pitch black dark because there are French shutters on the windows and the velux window has a blackout blind on it. This meant that the bedroom stayed dark till we opened the shutters or the blind in the morning. I thought we would have trouble with seeing to feed Arthur in the night, but that�s where I discovered what a pro he has become (and me too I suppose!) at night nursing! I undo my bra and move in his general direction, and a little mouth finds me and is latched on and sucking before I even settle down properly on my side! He is super fast at latching these days :) He doesn�t even open his eyes.
Anyway. I think the darkness helped a lot. He does wake ultra early at home now that it gets light so early, and it�s hard to get him back to sleep after that. I have bought some curtains from eBay and I�m working on taking them up at the moment. They are lined and much thicker than our current bedroom curtains. But those still won�t work like the bedroom in France. It needs to be TOTALLY dark, I think. We need to buy some blackout stuff. And stop having a lamp on downstairs to throw some light up the stairs in case we need to see in the night. We don�t. Except to change his nappy, but I *think* I have found the solution at last! One of my homemade terry/fleece stuffable nappies, stuffed with three MoE microfibre inserts (not hemp after all), and a large hemp prefold sandwiched between the nappy and a toddler sized Stacinator So-Simple or Motherease Airflow wrap! He went 8 hours with no sign of a leak the other night! Yay! We are going to test it out on a full 12-hour night tomorrow. Here�s hoping.
You know, I think I am going to skip points 5, 6 and 7, and go straight to point 8: �Oops, I�ve run out of time!�!! I have things I need to get off my chest, but those are probably best left for a separate entry anyway. I don�t want to leave it too long because some of them are driving me crazy. And on my mind a lot. And stuff. I need to write about them. But point 5 � crappy mummyness � urgh. I just feel like I�m not doing a good job today. Arthur fell backwards when sitting (he sits so well!) and I didn�t catch him in time so his head hit the floor :( Carpeted, though. He had no redness or bump, but I know the shock of a jolt like that must have upset him a lot. He cried and cried and sobbed and sobbed. My poor baby. I feel bad about that. I should have had him surrounded by appropriate support, like his ring (which incidentally he doesn�t really like) or cushions or that big maternity pillow. Poor boy. Bad mummy. And also. I just feel again like other mummies are getting it sorted while I�m floundering about still. Arthur napped so so so badly today. Just 20 minutes here and 30 minutes there. He spent THE WHOLE DAY rubbing his eyes and whining, which is so unlike him. He needed a lovely long nap or two. He depends on me to help him. I didn�t provide it. I just didn�t know what I was doing. And I was too tired to help him. Crappy mummy.
I went to bed last night after we got home from France, at 6.50pm!!! I was so tired out that I felt sick and weak. I don�t think I ever went to bed that early since I was little myself! Arthur was particularly wakeful last night, and I was nursing him on and off a lot. He did have some stretches of sleep, but also some clusters of stirring and fussing a LOT. I worked out that I stayed in bed over 12 hours over that night! But I felt so exhausted during the morning that I felt yucky and dizzy, and didn�t have the strength to hold Arthur as much as I wanted to, and I wasn�t able to go out and get food supplies because I just felt so knackered. Urgh. Why does MORE sleep make me feel like I have had the worst night of sleep EVER?!! Crazy.
But this is why I MUST go to bed now!! It�s 11.15pm. I�m so dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. And at the moment not doing so wonderfully at this mummyness thing. I hope tomorrow will be better. I need to get food shopping. And take a book back to Gordon and Katie. And pick up a package from the post office. And um. I�ll be back again soon.
Oh but here is His Cuteness today, wearing such a sweet expression! He was on the sofa with Monkey and his latest favourite, the little red doggie. He likes to hold him delicately with his fingers, and fiddle with his laundry tab :) He came with one of his new summer-weight grobags which arrived just before we left for France. Yay for Grobags :) He can't kick them off and he looks gorgeous in them! Anyway, photo. I'll write again soon.
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