Email me
2006-03-11 - 11.44pm previous entry next entry
Much better :) And 16 months old!!
Just wanted to update (supposedly briefly, as it's nearly midnight!) to get a cheerful entry up instead of the last one, and also to say thank you SO MUCH to you lovely people for the uplifting and reassuring notes and messages! And prayers. I reeeally appreciate prayers :)
I had no idea so many others completely identified with the way I felt when I wrote the last entry, and I'm so grateful that you took the time to let me know it! :) It really helped me. Time helped as well, because I felt less raw about it by the evening, and even less so the next day. It was just a baaad day, and although I was slightly nervous about the next day being just as bad, it really wasn't. It was so much better. I had a better night's sleep. I just FELT more together that day, and Arthur seemed in a mood to cooperate instead of the way he was being the day before! So it was way better, and that helped me feel better about it all too :) So, phew! I don't feel like I am a horrible mummy any more.
It is weekend and I love the weekend! It means I can lie in because Neil does stuff with Arthur during the morning, and it means a BATH - how GROSS is it that I only get to take one single bath every week?! Uggggh. I hate that. I feel like the most revolting person ever, but yeah, Saturday is the only day I get a chance to bath. I have been washing my hair at the kitchen sink (also very gross of me) during the week while Arthur plays with saucepans on the floor, but my bump is getting too big to bend over the sink now. Neil and I keep talking about how we can arrange for me to get the chance for more baths, hehe! It sounds so ridiculous! But I barely get to sit on my butt, let alone relax or take a bath, in the day time when Arthur is awake. He naps too inconsistently for me to bath while he takes a nap. Evenings are so precious and short, and I tried an evening bath twice before, but both times I woke Arthur and then he was inconsolable with Neil while I hauled myself out of the bath and dried as quickly as I could. So hmmm. I even tried bathing in the DARK during the evening, in case it was the bathroom light or fan that woke Arthur, but he woke anyway. He is just kind of wakeful. It's potluck as to whether he will wake during the evening or not, and how much. He needs me to resettle him every time at the moment, but we need to help him change that before Matthew arrives.
Anyway. At the weekend I get time for a bath. But it's definitely not good enough! Especially if I can't wash my hair at the sink anymore. I can't take Arthur into the bathroom with me because it is tiny and he is drawn like a magnet to the toilet, which I don't want him ANYWHERE near! And throws toilet paper in the bath. The whole roll. Unravelled carefully first. Also I can't take him into the bath with me. I can't wash myself with a (very) squirmy boy to handle, and I don't trust my balance getting out with him now. I am thinking I will have to have a quick bath when Neil gets home from work, but that is when Arthur has HIS bath and then goes to bed, so it might put Arthur's bedtime off. Hmmm. So frustrating!
I can't believe I just wrote about this. I am so ashamed of my poor hygiene! Why on earth would I just broadcast it to the world?! Urgh. By the way, I DO wash and deoderize on weekdays!
Anyway, but yay, I am cleeeean right now! :) Don't you just love that freshly-bathed feeling, in clean pyjamas with clean hair and clean bedsheets to climb in between at bedtime?! Heavenly.
Also I just LOVE my lil boy. I always do, but you know sometimes you just get a surge of the feeling, and it just overwhelms you? I have had that a lot today. I love his laugh, and his funny serious expressions, and his little voice as he tries out words (he still isn't trying many yet!), and I love his little staggery run and his purposeful walk. I love the way he smiles with his whole face and his eyes sparkle when I sing action songs with him. I love how soft and springy his hair is, and how WONDERFUL it smells all the time. I love how soft and squidgy his cheeks are, and how I have to stop myself from kissing them sometimes because once I start, I honestly can't stop. He gets fed up with it if I go on long enough, or else I am kissing his cheeks while he's asleep and I have to make myself stop so that I don't wake him up. I love soooooooooo much about him, and about being his mummy. I think if I decided to write each and every thing, I would never stop writing. He's the most wonderful little being I ever knew!
Today we all went to Homebase to pick up some wall plugs to refit the stair gate that came away from the wall a few weeks ago. It was a great chance to let Arthur run around in a large space and see lots of people. He had a GREAT time, hehe! He got soooo many fond looks from people as he toddled around the place with the most enormous smile on his face! He always looks so happy as he walks along. He is such a happy child, and I'm so thrilled about that. He smiles ALL the time. People even ask me if he does, and I have to say yes! He just seems so thrilled with life and all the new things he sees and does. He loves to be around people.
We got wall plugs and came home, and Neil fixed the stair gate, so Arthur had a rather hyper time after tea having a completely free rein upstairs for the first time since before his last plaster cast! We all played pounce-and-tickle on our big floorbed :) I love family moments like that. We should have more of them. Arthur squealed and giggled and rolled and crawled and dodged and got hiccups :)
The other day I went to the loo and when I came down, I found Arthur sitting on the sofa (he had been playing with toys on the floor before) with the box of teething powders, which he must have got by climbing up to the bookshelves and taking them down from a place we thought was "out of reach"! He had already chewed the cardboard box into tiny pieces, which were scattered around him all over the sofa, and was working on his first sachet of teething powder! When he saw me on the stairs, he didn't stop, or look guilty or anything. He just gave me the most enormous smile and signed medicine frantically over and over for 30 seconds without stopping! Hehe! Funny boy :) I love when he can communicate with us, even if he is being a monkey in the process! He seems so pleased to communicate.
He doesn't say much still. He babbles and "chats" CONSTANTLY, he is hardly ever quiet. He talks to himself in a shouting voice in the mirror (quite funny to watch!) and talks to the toy doggie in woofs :) He cheerfully attempts all sorts of words and sounds that we make, but isn't ever consistent at saying them the next time we do. He did have a pretty successful go at "ladle" the other day though. He likes to play with the plastic ladle and stirs imaginary stuff in the saucepans with it. If I say, "Ohhh you've got a LADLE!", he will cheerfully sing out, "Day-lay!" and wave it at me before continuing his stirring game :) Mummy says that my brother started out with quite a few words that seemed back-to-front at first. He pronounced my name, "Ashil", which is how I was known for a few years when he was very little!
Arthur says the starting sounds for a few words now, but they don't resemble the words yet. I know he is attempting them, but only because I am around each time and can hear that it's the same sound consistently, every time he refers to the item. "Bib" is just "B", for example, and duck is often "D". He makes such cute little animal sounds, and also sounds for some household items and other things like sirens, steam irons hissing, etc. The other day he had a musical toy playing, and I was absent-mindedly lah-ing along to it. He started to mimic me singing la-la-la to the tune, and now he really loves lah-ing to that toy! I LOVE when he does it, because he is just so cute at it! He lahs so sweetly, and his voice is so tiny and chipmunky, and he is so exaggerated with his tongue, which sticks right out and curls up onto his lip each time he lahs! :) So cute!
Arthur is 16 months old!!! Where is the time going?! I can't believe how big he's getting or how much he is changing from just a few months ago. He pretty much never walks any more, at a normal pace anyway. He seems to go everywhere at a race-walk! He does a funny little stumbly staggery run if he is in a particular hurry, but sometimes that results in a tumble. If he is REALLY eager to get somewhere, like into the kitchen the instant he hears the dishwasher being opened (he is obsessed with that thing!), he does the funny little stumbly run with his head down and his elbows pumping up behind him, almost as high as his head, hehehe! He is so funny :) He walks WAY more steadily outside than he did a month ago. He doesn't really take any falls now, even though he sometimes walks with his head literally turned 180 degrees behind him! He just stares and stares at whatever catches his interest, and can't tear his eyes off things, but still keeps walking all the same. Of course he veers off course and nearly walks into walls and all sorts! I do a lot of steering at times like this, and seem to say, "Watch where you're going Arthur!" a lot now! But he doesn't fall nearly as much. His footing is way more steady in outdoor shoes and boots now. Anyway, he never keeps still, indoors or outdoors. Unless he is sitting down playing with something he's really interested in, it's almost impossible to get a photo of him these days that isn't in motion in some way!...
We went to Playgroup on Wednesday but it wasn't the best time we've had there really. Arthur was tired out before we even got there, and we only went for the last 45 minutes anyway. He wanted to paint as soon as we were there, and even sat on a tiny chair near the painting table, staring wistfully, but every seat was taken at the time. He lost interest after a while and when I brought him back to it later, when I saw it was free, he didn't want to paint any more. We have lost his first painting! I don't know where it is! When I went to bed, it was on the fridge door. The next morning, nada. Just gone! Neil had been up with Arthur an hour or so by then, but he said he didn't move it and didn't see it lying around. It was waaaaay too high for Arthur to reach, although he could have grabbed at it if Neil was carrying him past the fridge. Anyway it's totally gone. I am so sad! I hope we find it, but we have looked everywhere. I guess Arthur must have found it on the floor somehow and has done something with it. I really hope it turns up. I'm just glad I scanned it!
Anyway, we had to come home from Playgroup before the singing time finished at the end, as Arthur was just getting cranky and miserable and tired. Very unlike Arthur, but he was at the end of a yucky cold, which has allllmost gone now (and I didn't catch it, yay!) and seemed to get extra tired by it as he was getting better. He had a 3 hour nap one day this week!!! Wow.
I am ultra nervous about Playgroup (and other social things) again, as I overheard some mums talking about the horrible stomach bug their kids had had during the week. One was saying her child only got better yesterday! Yikes! Don't people know that vomiting and diarrhoea bugs are still contagious up to 3 days after all symptoms have stopped?!?!??! It drives me crazy. Of course the instant their kids seem better, they take them back to mix with other children. No wonder these bugs spread like they do. Urgh. And Jaya and her daddy have had a HORRIBLE sounding tummy bug so it makes me nervous that these things are "about". I spent 2 days all anxious wondering if Arthur or I would come down with anything pukey after Playgroup, and finally relaxed today - 3 days afterwards and still feeling healthy! :) I hate being fearful about this. Roll on non-germy season!
Ohhhh I forgot to say before - Arthur and I went to visit Cameron's mum last week! I phoned her because I hadn't spoken to her since the end of last summer, and that was the last time we saw her too. We didn't get to see Nathan (Cam's youngest brother) that time either, because he was napping, so the last time I saw him was when Arthur was a newborn and Nathan was 14 months old! Anyway we had a lovely chat on the phone and she was delighted for us that we are expecting another baby boy! She invited us for an early lunch on Thursday, and so we went! I think it was FINALLY the first time that I felt happy pulling up in front of their house and going in, since before Cam died. I mean, going there didn't fill me with longing for him or that weird jangly "something's not right" sadness that he is missing. Maybe enough time has passed now that it feels normal that he is gone. That seems a sad realisation, but I suppose it is inevitable.
It was a happy time though, and I really enjoyed taking Arthur there. He was charming and confident and Cam's mum was really taken by him :) She couldn't believe how big he was (he's as tall as her little boy who was 2 last October!!) and how much he has changed - obviously, since he was only weeks old when she saw him last! Nathan is gorgeous. He reminds me of Michael (Cam's other brother) more than Cameron, which perhaps made it easier for me to not focus on Cam while we were there.
We had lunch (I took Arthur's there with me) and Arthur sat up to the table in Nathan's tray-less high chair! He LOVED that. I loved it too. Arthur's own highchair has a tray that won't remove, and we are seriously contemplating replacing it with a better one that has a removable tray and can go up to a table when the little one is big enough. He seemed soooo much more involved in our meal, and for the first time EVER, he fed himself his whole meal with his spoon, absolutely perfectly, without spilling anything! Cam's mum told me that can be quite normal when you take your little one out to eat with friends, and that he might not necessarily do it at home! He hasn't fed himself quite as well at home since, but he is feeding himself quite consistently now with his little toddler spoon. He is very accurate at getting all the food into his mouth, and doesn't slop any down his front. I always feel amazed when I watch him feed himself so well. It's like, I can't believe he is doing that! He was only just starting solids YESTERDAY, or something! It's crazy how fast it goes.
There are photos of Cameron all over their house. I love that. There's one of me and him from my wedding day on their mantlepiece :) It's getting much easier to talk casually about him with his mum now. She always did just talk comfortably with others about him. Maybe she felt less comfortable underneath? I always did, but I tried to do the casual chat about him all the same. Now it's not such an effort to do. He has been gone.... well, as long as Nathan is old. Nathan was born the day before Cameron's funeral. It feels like MUCH longer, but then soooo much has happened to me since then!
Arthur put all the shapes through Nathan's shape sorter and his mum was amazed! I think he must be ahead for that, but when people say so, I just say that different children seem to develop different things at different rates. I AM pretty proud of him for being so good at that kind of thing early :) But I don't want to be all arsey about it (sorry, that's such a crass word, but I can't think of a better one right now!) though, and it's TRUE that he's just working on some things early and not so much on other things. Alex (a few weeks older than Arthur) is saying EVER so many words, the clever girl! And Arthur hardly says any. So it evens out. They can all do ALL these things the same in a year or so anyway, so it doesn't really matter what order it's in for now. But he IS good at dextrous things at the moment.
He is currently working on building bridges with bricks, and building Duplo into multi-coloured towers - no longer same-coloured towers like he was doing a week ago. He specifically makes stripey towers out of the same two colours, say blue and green. One green brick, one blue, one green, one blue. He is really trying new things out. He can put the tumble dryer on for a specific programme - not that he knows which one he's choosing of course! The other day I found it anti-creasing an empty load after an "extra dry" cycle, hehe!!
He loves to help with any household chore. He sweeps the kitchen floor with his little broom, vigorously and with a very serious expression! He sweeps so hard that he nearly loses his balance sometimes, hehe! He prefers the real dustpan and brush to his own toy one, unfortunately! He puts any piece of rubbish he finds - even a single crumb or tiny piece of thread - into the bin. If I give him a wet cloth wipe, he loves to clean his snack table (a small low table at perfect height for Arthur in the living room, that we put his snack on mid-morning and mid-afternoon), or even the carpet! He blew his own nose this week!!! I was on the phone and he was blowing his nose gently with his chin out in my direction - an action that means, "Mummy, my nose is all snotty and it needs blowing please!" But I couldn't stop right then and do it, so after a few seconds he just walked over to the box of tissues, pulled one out, put it to his nose and blew gently! He pulled it away to examine it, to see if he had achieved anything (he hadn't), and then proceeded to wipe his nose carefully back and forth from side to side! He got plenty off that way, and then I was able to help him finish it off :) I was so proud of him!!! I made sure to praise him LOADS over it!
Neil has a new bike, which he is starting to use to cycle to work. But it felt too long for him, and sure enough when he checked the measurements he found that the bike shop had sent him the wrong size! So he had to dismantle it ready for them to collect it and leave a replacement that IS the right size. He took it apart on the doorstep as soon as he got home from work the other day. Arthur was absolutely ecstatic to be allowed to watch and even HOLD part of the bike while his daddy took it off the main frame! He just loves helping Daddy with DIY-ish things :)
Arthur's main fun thing to do is still playing with saucepans (and ovenware - some rather breakable, though sturdy!) on the kitchen floor. He empties out the WHOLE cupboard of this stuff and will play happily for up to an hour (!!), stacking and sorting the pans and bowls, and stirring them with spoons and stuff. I am amazed that they keep him so busy for so long, but he loves them:
My parents are on their way to England! Yay! I am so excited! They are only coming for a few days, and I don't know if we'll see them much, but I know I'll get to see them at least once, and I can't WAIT!!!! My lovely Granny had a hip replacement on Wednesday (her third - not that she has 3 hips (!!), but one replacement has already been replaced, if you see what I mean!) and they are coming to help Grandoug prepare the house for her return from hospital, and to bring her home, if all is well, next Wednesday. Her surgery went really well and she seems to be recovering well too, so I am relieved and thankful. She isn't in pain, but she is having a hard time with the physiotherapy which has already started. I know my parents will be visiting her a lot and spending time with Grandoug while he's on his own, as that's the whole reason for their visit. BUT, Mummy is coming on Monday for sure, to spend most of the day with me and Arthur!!!!!!!!! I am so excited!! I can't wait for Monday! I love my mummy sooooooo. I can't wait for her to see Arthur again. I know he will have changed so much, and she will love him soooo much and he will enjoy her company loads. I just can't wait :)
Okay, I've done it again, and it's stupidly late, so I am going to bed! Oh, I almost forgot - I updated my breastfeeding milestone blinkie to 16 months!! :) And I added a few more blinkies that I found that I love (so sorry!) - the tired mama one is GREAT, hehe! And I thought I should make reference to Matthew in my blinkies at this diary now too! So there they are :) Now to bed! But I will update again soon, and thank you again for the loving support you guys give me here :) xxx
Recent entries.....
Moving time... - 2009-01-04
Christmas Eve! - 2008-12-24
Long-overdue update, a few Nathey pics and a video clip :) - 2008-12-01
Lots of news! - 2008-11-03
Nathan at 8 months... - 2008-10-12