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2008-07-28 - 12.15am previous entry next entry
First Week With Three Little Ones!!!
Phew!!! It�s Saturday � my whooole first week with Neil back at work is finished! HOW I have longed to write about it over the course of the week (at least 3 or 4 times, honestly!), but I simply haven�t had the chance. Two days (and nights!) running this week, I didn�t even open the laptop or the computer! Such an unnatural feeling, hehe! It was getting too late and I knew if I started then it would get later still (you know how I waffle!). Ahhh, Nathan has just woken up (boys at the park with Neil) so I�ll have to save this already! I�ll be back later though.
Okay, scratch the above � it�s now Sunday LATE evening, and I have to hurry up and post a FIFTY MILLION WORD ESSAY on last week and other bits, into oooh � 15 minutes? Now, how in the wiggly world am I going to do that?! Plus, Nathan is waking HOURLY at the moment for some reason. All the boys caught an awful cough/cold (mostly the cough was terrible, the colds were just so-so) and Neil did too, at the end of last week (before Neil started his new job). Neil, thankfully, had it mildly, but the boys have been quite poorly, especially Nathan. He was the last to catch it (and I�m seriously praising God that I did not catch it at all, despite thousands of productive coughs in my face, drool on my hands, and snot on my clothing over the past week or two!) so his is still lingering. He is also teething (still no teeth yet) like crazy. And his poor little voice is so broken and hoarse :( He seems to be going through the start of separation anxiety, which the other boys really didn�t have much of at all. Maybe it�s that he�s poorly? I don�t know. Anyway, he won�t be put down, or have me in another room for more than 2 seconds, and he wakes aplenty in the evening and at night. But, I love everything about him, even the clingy and the crying-ness, and the waking. Because there�s nobody in the WORLD that he wants more than little old me, and that just takes my breath away. It never gets old, people! It helps me a ton to think of that while I�m walking him in the dark for the fifth time that night. I just love him!
I am about to write about The First Week On My Own With Three Children Under Four (brace yourselves, haha!), but first, I meant to post photos of Nathey when he turned 6 months old. He�s now 6.5 months (literally, I blink and another half-month has zipped by!), so I don�t want these photos to get any more out of date! Here�s my precious baby boy (mostly just wearing a disposable nappy � a cute cloth nappy would have made these pictures better still, but oh well!)...
He is changing so much! Just this last week he suddenly has so much more hair. It�s so dark brown and his eyelashes and eyebrows look darker to me as well. I think he will end up with darker hair than Arthur, but perhaps only by a shade. His eyes remain blue � quite a dark blue too. I feel sure that dark blue eyes are likely to change colour eventually, but we�ll see. Matthew�s went to lighter blue very quickly, but didn�t change to grey until he was 17 months old. Neil has very dark brown hair and mid-blue eyes (which he insists on calling, �blue-green� � they�re NOT! ;) ), so Nathan could have exactly the same colouring as his daddy, which would be lovely!
Nathan has verrrry casually started some solid foods. We are doing the same thing we did with Matthew � Baby-Led Weaning. We don�t do purees in any form, or mashed/lumpy foods (unless we�re eating yoghurt or mashed potato, of course!) � he just eats table food like we do. Matthew did wonderfully on that, and we can�t imagine ever going back to purees and goop :)
I was going to wait till he was 7 months old, since I�m absolutely rigid about waiting till 6 months for their guts to fully mature, and he was a month early. But Jemma reminded me that his gut has been processing breastmilk for 6 months already, and is thus already 6 months �mature�. About a week after he turned 6 months, he had a bit of a gnaw on a stick of raw carrot � no teeth yet so no risk of chopping off tiny pieces:
He was sooooo eager to actually HAVE some of our food and chew on something! He has recently been really getting cross if he�s not sitting right up to the table when we eat a meal, and he has also been grabbing glasses of water out of my mouth by the rim of the cup (!), whipping biscuits out of my mouth at church, and grabbing at our plates like crazy! His eyes are practically on little sticks when he stares at the food on the table, and he looks so eager :)
Next he sucked on an apple (several actually, over a few days � he really seems to like them, though he really hasn�t EATEN any, just sucked juice):
And then had his first real ingested food � banana! This was the same way we did it with Matthew � he chewed on a couple of raw things first, for the flavour, though he couldn�t get any actual food in to swallow. Oh, and cucumber, he sucked some of that too :) The first real food, though, was banana. It got kind of slimy, and he was sitting on my lap, not ceremoniously in a shiny new highchair for the occasion (as it was still being used by Matthew, and decidedly grubby to boot!). He chewed a piece off the banana almost immediately, and looked surprised, posted it straight to the back of his mouth and then gagged slightly, did a �lemon juice� shudder, and voila, he had swallowed it! He paused for maybe 2 seconds looking like he wasn�t sure what just happened, and then lunged at the banana in his hands for another go! ;) So sweet!
Tonight he went to town on a green bean, sitting on my lap while we ate our Sunday Roast. He did bite off a tiny piece and swallow it, with the usual slight gagging and �lemon juice� shudders, but he is doing GREAT at learning to swallow! I�m quite surprised at how well he�s doing straight away. I expected waaaaay more hefty gagging, but I�m sure there�ll be plenty of that to come as he learns to control the food with his tongue and swallow it effectively. He seems to be really enjoying it anyway!
He also loves chewing his toes at the moment :)
And puzzle pieces...
And is just about the most scrumbly baby there ever was! I have more photos to prove my claim, but alas, no time today. I must get on and write about The Week! Thanks sooooo much for all the comments last entry, with such great attitudes to a controversial subject, even though everybody had different opinions! And for all the thoughts and ideas and advice (and links!) � thank you! Thanks also for the lovely notes throughout the week, saying you were thinking of me and hoping The Week was going well for us all! You guys are so lovely! :)
Well!
The Week went okay! Yay! Neil is getting on really well at his new job, praise God!! He likes the place he works, and the building is nice, and the FOOD is nice (always important, hehe!) � it has an on-site cafeteria. The people he works with are nice, and the office feels open and friendly and relaxing to work in. Dress code is more casual than he expected, but he likes to dress smartly for work anyway so he is just going to wear the suits/shirts but maybe not the ties. He is nervous about the fact that he is now in a managerial role, but I know he will be an EXCELLENT manager. He is just good at that kind of thing, he�s a great people person and a diligent worker. I love him! I�m so proud of him! He gets a car allowance because apparently he is supposed to have a car that �goes� with his title of manager � hmmm! Of course he�s excited like a little boy about it. *sigh*
The commute is about an hour in the car and the price of petrol is about the same as the cost of travelling to work by train, and it�s more convenient to go door to door in his own car, so that�s how he�s doing it right now. He is home about 6.30pm or so, and leaves about 7.30am.
That�s eleven hours for me with my three! I was plain old NERVOUS last Sunday evening, at the prospect! That�s so silly, they are just my children, and yet I felt like I was the one starting a new managerial job and wondering if I was going to be able to do the work effectively! ;) I have really been praying and praying and leaning on God like crazy for every tiny thing � energy, patience, gentleness, self-control, joy, confidence, encouragement, rest, health, parking spaces (!!), etc. I know that I NEED him and I love that I know that right now. It�s how it should be, how it needs to be, and I�m glad that I�m there. I hope I stay putting my trust in God for everything and leaning on him eleventy times a day. It�s a great place to be! :)
So last weekend I spent a couple of evenings making notes on what on earth to do in order to manage the days, and I ended up writing a sort of schedule for us to try to follow. It has worked better than I thought, although I went into it expecting it to flop to some degree (thus having no stress and feelings of failure when it does, as it�s likely to do � nothing�s perfect after all!) and knowing that I�d need to try it out and tweak it a bit to fit our family. I wrote it out in detail and taped it to the side of the fridge. I refer to it constantly throughout the day, as I�m such a disorganised person by nature! I need to keep track of what I�m meant to be doing, so that I stand a vague chance of building a habit out of it! I learnt that much from FlyLady :) The schedule is flexible, and Nathan�s naps and breastfeeding are basically on demand, so his stuff is not scheduled in. But if he has been awake for 90 minutes, I put him to bed. He can rarely go longer without being tired and cranky. But his nap lengths vary and are not predictable � usually he sleeps 30 minutes, but one nap in the day might be up to 90 minutes long. Sometimes I have to encourage him to go back to sleep (not easy!) and other times he spontaneously takes a longer nap, but not very often. And I breastfeed on demand. But usually when he wakes up from a nap and at bedtime. He�s waking right now, how ironic (or something!)! ;) Back in a few....
Back again � it�s getting so late! I need my sleep for tomorrow! But I know I won�t get chance to update in the week, if last week is anything to go by, so I MUST write about last week tonight! I will try to hurry up. *sigh*
Anyway, the schedule. So, I don�t follow everything on it every day, but I make every effort to, and then do NOT get frustrated with myself if I don�t manage it. I am sticking to it pretty well so far though. I made it based on a list that I wrote, of things that are important to me to include in the children�s day. There will be changes along the way as I think of more important things, and with homeschooling as it gets going more �officially� in a year or so. I wanted to make sure the kids get exposed to God a lot � I want them to experience and observe MY walk with God as much as possible. I am in the middle of reading, �Mission of Motherhood� by Sally Clarkson (excellent, excellent book!) and it is changing a lot in the way I see raising my children, and it�s SOOOO helpful! Anyway. I want the boys to see that reading the Bible is important to me, and that worship is important to me, and prayer, and talking about God too. I also wanted the boys to have outdoor time twice each day (morning and afternoon), and both structured play and free play time. I want them to watch less children�s TV. I want to read children�s classics to them. I want to keep a window for one-on-one quality time with Arthur, and do school with him as we have been doing, just a short time for informal learning, usually just a craft of his choosing actually. We�re working on the Kumon workbooks again and he�s doing the second learn-to-cut book and enjoying it lots.
Anyway, I will painstakingly (!) write out our daily schedule here so you can see what my days are like at the moment (this will also serve as a good record for myself in years to come when I can�t remember a THING about how I managed the early years!):
6.30am: Boys up with Neil (roughly � it�s usually anywhere from 6am to 6.45am)
7.00am: Alice up, wash and dress, and do hair. Nathan will probably wake now too.
7.15am: Neil gets ready for work and leaves at 7.30+
Dress boys.
Change Nathan�s nappy.
Eat breakfast (and do breakfast for boys if not already eaten)
Clean everyone�s teeth
Clear up after breakfast.
9.00am: Nathan to nap around this time � may take up to 30 mins to go to sleep. Once asleep:
Declutter for 15 minutes
Do a 5-minute Room Rescue
2-minute Hot Spot
Fold tumble-dried load
Start a wash load
Empty dishwasher
Boys to help as able with all the above, OR specific activity (tidy living room while I do the rest? Story tape?)
9.45 � 10ish: Nathan awake probably � resettle if needed, up if not
10.00am: Bible Time � Mummy reads her Bible on the sofa for 10 mins or so, boys� toddler Bible out, and Stoneleigh Bible Week Worship Video on, or worship CD. Sing and dance with boys to the music after reading Bible.
10.30am: Get ready to go out (gather stuff needed, change nappies, shoes on, etc.)
10.45am � 12 noon: OUTING � park, local walk, shopping, supermarket, errands, etc.)
BE BACK BY NOON! Be organised while out with this in mind.
12 noon: Change nappies if needed.
Nathan to bed straight away (asleep by 12.30 hopefully) while boys play cars downstairs or watch TV for a bit.
12.30pm: Make lunch (or serve from lunch made the night before, if I ever get that organised!) for boys and myself.
Boys to start chores � clearing table, scraping old food, and filling the dishwasher, then wiping the table � all under supervision with my help for now.
1.00pm: Nathan likely waking/stirring around now. Resettle if needed while boys play (or bring downstairs after breastfeeding him).
1.15pm: Matthew to bed (BY 1.30pm) while Nathan naps and Arthur does jigsaws/drawing or maybe watches Mist (favourite movie right now, about a sheepdog), OR if Nathan is up, Arthur watches him for me (he does this wonderfully even at his young age) and does jigsaws near where Nathan is playing.
1.30pm onwards: School and quality time with Arthur (Nathan playing nearby or napping).
2.30pm: Nathan to nap (if he was up at 1pm).
Matthew up from nap (before 3pm latest).
Nappy changes.
Time for Matthew to wake up gently (he�s ever so cranky and sensitive after his nap and takes ages to wake up properly) � story tape or soothing TV (Postman Pat works well!), possibly with me resettling Nathan somewhere during this time.
3.00pm: Structured Play at the kitchen table for Matthew and Arthur. This is a different activity each day of the week. This week we did:
Monday: Playdough
Tuesday: Painting
Wednesday: Baking (lemon fairy cakes!)
Thursday: Stickers and glueing
Friday: Chalks on black paper (although this can by any kind of drawing for this activity � I chose chalks and they loved it!).
3.30pm or later: Structured Play at the table ends when the boys are bored of it. It is followed immediately by Free Play out in the garden until dinner time. If it�s tipping with rain then I guess Free Play will be indoors, although I will be using their waterproofs wherever possible! ;) I do meal prep during this time whilst watching them, and attend to Nathan�s naps and feeds somewhere along the line too.
5.00pm: Family Meal (dinner) � no Neil though :(
Boys to do their mealtime chores and help clear up again.
6.00pm: Tidy up for Daddy (15 minutes on the timer)
Run bath.
6.15pm: Baths.
Brush teeth.
Dress for bed, night nappies, etc.
6.45pm: Downstairs tidy, kitchen clear/clean, dressed for bed, ready for sleep (especially Nathan, who might need to go to bed around now) � waiting for Daddy!)
6.45 � 7.00pm: Neil home � greet everyone (kisses, toss boys in air, the usual stuff, hehe!), and then straight upstairs for a quick shower and comfy clothes.
7.15pm: Daddy-led Bible Time/Family Devotional (5-10 minutes)
7.30pm: Nathan to bed � breastfeed, bedtime routine, etc.
Boys� bedtime routine � short story in bed, milky (that�s me), snuggle and lullabies (me again!), sleep!
8.00pm: Hopefully all asleep!
Phew! That�s the whole thing! So far I am not always getting all the housework done, but I know I can if I put my mind to it. Also the outings have not happened at ALL this week, but there are a few reasons for that. Our tandem pushchair broke and now it�s just me and 3 kids aged 3 and under, with only a single pushchair between them! A sling would not solve this dilemma, because: knackered/backache/too hot, and then I still have one child who isn�t secured. I need to train them better when we�re out and about. I don�t trust them not to run off at the moment. Another reason we�ve stayed home this week is the cough/cold thing. Nathan in particular has been poorly and needing his naps, and I�m not about to trot off with everyone for the sake of the schedule when he is like that. If we didn�t have the garden for the boys to go in, it would be different, but I�m so glad we do and it doesn�t matter so much about actually leaving the house to go somewhere. We only went out once this week and that was to the doctor on Friday to get everyone checked for ear infections, as Arthur had 2 days in a row of NAPS (he dropped those at age 2, remember?!) and woke up both times crying with earache. Also Nathan was clawing at his ear and crying. And we have a great history of being fine on Fridays and then needing out-of-hours doctors over the weekend. *sigh* So I pre-empted it and took the boys to the doctor on Friday! I was so proud of myself! I told them in the car what I expected of them, and that because we had no pushchair (not even the single in the car at that time) and we had to walk from the car to the surgery, I was going to put Nathan on my hip and carry the bag with the potty-and-related-paraphanalia (more on that later!) in one hand, and with the other hand I would hold Matthew�s hand. Arthur must hold Matthew�s other hand. Good boys would get a smartie when we got home. Boys who let go hands before we were in the building, or who ran away in the building, or who did not come when I asked or stop when I told them to, would not get a smartie when we got home ;)
The boys were SO WELL BEHAVED!!! I put the baby on my hip and held little Matthew�s hand, and Arthur held his, and we strolled along in a line, and people actually smiled fondly at us in the street!!! :) They sat beautifully in the waiting room (though we didn�t have to wait long) and then behaved well for the doctor. Matthew cried hysterically and clung to me when it was his turn � he is still traumatised from the conjunctivitis affair a few months back, poor love! Then they behaved well all the way back to the car, and I gushed endlessly about how proud I was of them, and they got their smarties when they got home :) We got smiles in the waiting room too! Nobody has an ear infection, but Arthur and Matthew have one ear each that is pink inside and probably hurts them. They have been so gunky with their colds. Matthew�s were fine, though he is just as gunky. Anyway, yay for no ear infections! They�ve been getting Calpol for earache since then, and hopefully it�s on the way out. Their coughs are much improved this weekend, so that�s encouraging.
We started potty training Arthur 9 days ago. He was fully potty trained, um, FIVE days ago! I kid you not! Now, we haven�t transitioned him to the big toilet yet, because it�s a lot easier right now to empty potties, and he can use those while I�m settling one of the little ones for a nap. The toilet is upstairs past two child gates, so it�s not convenient for him to get to. Plus, he�s a little nervous about it. Anyway. We now have 3 potties! We started potty training Matthew at the same time, and after a week we put him back in nappies. He will wee and poo on the potty, but like a fun game if we suggest it. He will wee and poo absolutely anywhere else as well, especially if he doesn�t want to go on the potty. He seems to have no awareness of starting to wee or poo, and eventually got a bit freaked out about sitting on the potty if we noticed he was starting to poo and tried to get him to sit there. So we backed riiiight off.
I can now safely say that I would HEARTILY recommend waiting and waiting and waiting before potty training a little boy. I know a lot of mothers are impatient and basically want to get their kids out of nappies. If you can manage not to be (!), it�s well worth the effort. When they are ready, they do not need ANY training at all. Within four days, Arthur would stop whatever he was doing to wee or poo on the potty. He could do that from being absolutely engrossed in a movie, or running and playing and squealing outside with his brother. He can wait until I grab the potty for him from upstairs if there happens to not be one around. He takes his own clothes off and puts them back on again (though putting them back on requires a reminder every time!). He puts underwear on in the morning and is still wearing it when we get him ready for bed at night � he never has accidents, even a damp patch. Many times I have come down from settling Nathan to sleep for a nap to find Arthur doing exactly what he was doing when I left him, maybe minus a pair of trousers, but there�s a wee-or-poo-filled potty that he has put up on the sideboard so that Matthew won�t mess with it while I�m gone!!! He�s amazing. After 6 or 7 days I stopped reminding him at all, or asking if he needed to sit on the potty, and he still went every time he needed to. He used the potty at the doctor�s in their toilet � simply told me he needed a wee and off we went. Yesterday Neil took the boys to the park for the morning and Arthur did a wee and a poo on the potty at the park! He gets smarties still, one for a wee and three for a poo, but we need to phase that out soon! At the start I told him that if he could do a WHOLE DAY with all his wees and poos in the potty and none on the floor or in his pants, he would get a new toy car. I figured that was a WAY off but the motivation couldn�t hurt. He got his first toy car that very day! And has had six since!
I�m so glad to have pulled back with Matthew�s potty training. It was adding way more stress to potty train him with Arthur, because he really did need TRAINING. I�m sure if I was feeling pushy I could have persevered and potty trained him, but it would likely have taken ages. Now that I have seen how easily Arthur has made the transition at 3 years and 8 months, I am really happy to wait till Matthew is AT LEAST 3 years and 3 months. I once read a large family blog where the mother recommended waiting till that exact age with boys. She said it was like a golden age for her! ;) Many other mamas with lots of potty training experience commented to agree, and I stored it away in my �ideas� folder in my head for future use. Now that I have experience of potty �training� a boy older than that age, I would definitely do the same again. Unless Matthew is begging for big boy pants or showing obvious signs of being very ready before then, I will wait at least another year or so before attempting to potty train him again. Sounds crazy, but I�m perfectly happy with it! :)
Ack, Nathan is waking AGAIN!
Well, I have nursed him again, but that was probably less than an hour since the last time!!?!?!! He seemed hungry though. It must be a growth spurt.
It�s so late. I must go to bed. I have so much more that I wanted to write about the week! :( Well, in summary, Monday went GREAT, and I was quite confident � it was the boost I needed to start me off. But Tuesday was reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally hard and I have no idea how I even survived the day! That�s the day that I looked back on and decided to stop potty training Matthew. Some of the stress revolved around following a trail of tiny fragments of poo with a cloth � and I do mean TINY fragments. *sigh* Matthew ran outside naked, pooed at the end of the garden, and then RAN back to the house, um, scattering debris in all directions as he ran. Yes, it was as much fun as it sounds. Also Nathan cried himself hoarse while this was going on, dinner did not happen till waaaay too late, I broke something or other that I can�t even remember now, and Matthew fell hard into a sticky-outey nobble on the highchair and nearly impaled his chest. Scary. Arthur needed an absurd amount of correcting and disciplining, Nathan cried on and on, I seemed to be endlessly running breathlessly up and down the stairs to the toilet with a sloshing potty in each hand to dump, rinse, disinfect, and return to the boys before they needed to use them again (!), and it being a nice warm day with everyone�s windows open, the neighbours were privy to the whole jolly affair. I only did not dissolve into much needed tears because I had no time to. My heels and the balls of my feet hurt like crazy at the end of that particular day. They do hurt a lot more in general now. I seem to be running such a lot of the time for some reason! And sweating and breathless and so on. I am unfit, but definitely not that unfit! I had a full blood count done recently (took my lumps to the doctor, who thinks they�re nothing worrisome but did a full blood count anyway to be sure) and it was fine and normal, so I guess my thyroid and all that is working well.
Did I mention that Neil had a full blood count done and he has a hypoactive thyroid?!?! And high cholesterol. He�s had high cholesterol before but never the hypothyroidism. We were perplexed by that � he has NO symptoms whatsoever, but his levels are apparently REALLY low. He phoned his mum to tell her, only to discover that she was diagnosed with the same thing 4 years ago. I think he will need to be on Thyroxine for life now. He has to have another blood test soon to confirm it, and they think that if it�s treated, his cholesterol should go down (the two are often linked).
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Wednesday was tiring but WAY better than Tuesday. And Thursday and Friday I was frazzled and exhausted by the time Neil got home, BUT I ran late a few days with the schedule this week, and it turns out that Neil was able to be home in time to help me bath the boys, so I haven�t yet had to do that on my own. Thankfully! Bathtime is not relaxing in this house!
Thursday did have one awesome part to it though � I managed to time the boys� naps so that ALL THREE were napping at 2.30pm at the same time!!! Yeah baby! I was so proud of myself at that moment, sat there in a comfy armchair, in a quiet house, IN THE DAYTIME, and all arranged by my own self! ;) I put Matthew down first, then exhausted-Nathan, who went to sleep fast. Then Arthur asked if he could have a rest (it�s the virus, it won�t last unfortunately!) and I put him on the sofa and he went right to sleep! They all slept for THIRTY MINUTES!!! Thirty minutes people!! It was bliss, and such accomplished bliss at that! ;) I couldn�t think what to do with myself during that time, so apart from sitting quietly in comfort in my own home in the middle of the day, I whipped out my camera to record the moment for prosperity:
Nathan has just stirred AGAIN (not 10 mins later) so I think I must go and see what sleep I can get for tomorrow. How I wish I could write my diary every day as things happen! I wanted so much to write every day this past week, but I was too exhausted every evening, which is the only chance I get. Two of those evenings I didn�t even touch the laptop/computer! Then Friday night I went to bed at 10.30pm!!!! That�s CRAZY early for me, but very sensible as a time to continue going to bed at! I have had a horrible headache almost the whole weekend, and nothing touched it � not painkillers and not a full-night�s sleep, etc. It vanished mysteriously this afternoon, much to my relief! I hope it stays away during the week because I can�t fathom being able to hold the fort whilst being ill. I went from eager to be pregnant again (last weekend) to perfectly petrified of such a prospect by Tuesday evening, hehe! I don�t know how on earth I could possibly manage right now, with what I�m doing, if I also have pregnancy exhaustion and morning sickness. I�m sure I will adapt even more as the weeks go by, to the new routine and demands on me physically, mentally and emotionally. I�m ENJOYING it! I love being a stay-at-home-mummy and would not (WILL not) ever be anything else. It�s my calling, my privilege and my joy. But dang, it�s hard work! And I only have three children! I�m still eager for many more babies yet as the Lord sees fit, but I will be happy enough if he decides to keep my womb closed for a couple more months I think!
Here are my three sweet little reasons for my daily grind! I love them more than life itself! They make me eager to face tomorrow with all their antics, noise, mess, bodily fluids, and need for discipline, hehe! I just love them soooooooo! :)
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