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2006-02-19 - 6.22pm previous entry next entry
Thoughts about 30, skating, and pox! And photos :)
Thank you so much for the lovely comments about my home-sewn nappies!!! :) I honestly think anyone can do it though, I'm not really gifted or anything! I never sewed a THING before nappies. Well, I did sew some verrry basic stitching to make a pair of curtains for the kitchen, under heavy supervision from my Granny (as I was so rubbish at sewing!). I did have to do one or two sewing projects at school, but the first one (an apron that I still have in the kitchen drawer!) I got lots of help with, and the other one was a denim skirt which I completely failed to sew and got an F and several detentions over! ;) I was fairly amazed to discover that I could actually SEW when I put my mind to it - it is really as simple as following the pattern and a lot of practise. I get lots of practise because I love sewing so much now! Anyway thank you for the sweet comments :)
I feel like I have SO much to write! It's Sunday so maybe I'll get the chance to write it all in one go (in the day even - gasp!) as Arthur and Neil are napping together and then they are going out shopping this afternoon.
They are going "mystery shopping" :) It's my birthday the day after tomorrow but I have no idea what I want, so they are just going to scour the shops, hehe! I am really looking forward to my birthday. I think it will be a normal tiring day, and Neil will be at work, but oh well. The bit I'm looking forward to is that I'm going to be 30! It feels a really special milestone and my 20s have felt like they have lasted for EVER. I suddenly feel tired of being in my 20s and glad to see them go. I'm so excited about my 30s!!!!! It's going to be my "mummy" decade! I know I'll still be a mummy in my 40s and so on, but in my 40's my children will become teenagers. I am excited about the part that I have been waiting for ALLLLL my life where I am "mummy" to a little brood of babies/toddlers/primary school kiddies :) I am so excited!!! Getting to be 30 is sort of like my grand arrival in that stage, even though I already have one little toddly person in my 20s. I remember when I was turning 20, all I ever wanted to achieve by the end of my 20s was to be married and have had my first child, maybe even have number 2 on the way. And here I am! I am so blessed. I am exactly where I wanted to be, and excited about what the future holds. I don't have any regrets for my 20s, except the beginning was not pretty suffering from severe depression, and those 2 years housebound with M.E. SUCKED and blew. But oh well. I am so much stronger for the experience, and God has taught me so much through it all. So I can't regret anything.
I got married at 23 and had my first baby at 28. Baby number two was conceived when I was 29. We have everything we need. I think back on it all and can't believe how blessed I really am. I am so relieved that I feel a peaceful sense of completion over finishing my 20s and moving on to my 30s. I used to be so nervous that nobody would marry me and I wouldn't get to have children, and I'd enter my 30s all flipped out over when I'd manage to have a child, feeling like time was running out.
Yay, I'm going to be THIRTY!!! :D On the other hand, wow, I can't believe I'm actually 30 years old!!! I mean, I was 15 yesterday, so I don't know how 15 more years just disappeared like that!
Arthur has a cough. He's coughing now in his sleep, so much that I think it might wake him up before he's finished his nap. Hmmm. It's dry and infrequent, but it bothers him in his sleep and he coughs occasionally throughout the day. He is fine otherwise. No cold, no exposure to other children in the past week really. He seemed a little cranky a couple of days ago, and more tired than usual yesterday (he nearly dozed off in his highchair over lunch, which is unheard of for Arthur!). I am sort of keeping my eyes peeled for chicken pox. I read that it often starts with a dry cough or runny nose (he doesn't have a runny nose) and general crankiness, a few days before the spots start.
I think chicken pox must be on year 3 of the 3-yearly epidemic cycle here, because there seem to be an awful lot of children locally coming down with it (Jaya has it too, and she's quite local to us - maybe 30 minutes drive away). A mum from church phoned me a couple of weeks ago to tell me that a 2-year-old at church has come down with it, but Arthur had no contact with him during the incubation period. She said she has heard that chicken pox is actively going round this town at the moment, and a lot of kids are getting it right now.
I was pretty excited at the news, I have to say! I am really eager for Arthur to get chicken pox. It's mild enough in young children and once you have had it you have lifelong immunity, so it's well worth catching when you are little. If you catch it as an adult it is a very nasty illness. My brother and I had it during a similar local epidemic when I was 4 and he was exactly Arthur's age. It was straightforward and we carried on as normal while we had it - I mean, we didn't feel unwell, just LOOKED it, hehe! My mum says my brother had it worse than me but he coped okay. My only memories of it are seeing my brother sitting on the kitchen floor covered in calamine lotion and spots (!) and the fact that I got to go out and play with my friends from nursery school who were also at home with chicken pox! There were plenty of them at the time, so it seemed to me that I just saw my friends as normal, only we giggled a lot because we were all as spotty as each other! :)
Anyway. Arthur has been to playgroup (the one with 100 toddlers!) in the past 11-20 days (the incubation period) so we'll see. I REALLY don't want him to miss this round of chicken pox. He will do so well to get it over and done with before he gets a lot older. On the other hand, if he DOES miss it, at least there will be a later chance for both Arthur and Matthew to catch it at the same time and get it out of the way together. Anyway, yay for chicken pox (that sounds weird!)!!! :D
The other thing that seems to be going around is a yucky tummy bug, which has been freaking me right out for the past couple of weeks :( I just want to stay inside and hide when I hear that there's a tummy bug going round. I CERTAINLY don't want to go anywhere near a playgroup with 100 children! It seems very virulent - every family at church seems to have had it, and it was on the local radio recently because at one of the local primary schools, a third of the children were out on ONE single day with it! Yikes! Neil's mum and sister have had it up in Yorkshire, and my mum had it in France at the same time!!!! I felt absolutely trapped, like I was surrounded by sickness everywhere and there was no place safe to hide from it. I always feel like that when I hear of tummy bugs though, even if they aren't local to me. In the past I simply stayed in for as long as I felt like I needed to. Not the healthy response but oh well. Now I can't afford to do that, because it isn't fair to keep Arthur in because of my irrational fears and insecurities! He has to pick up bugs and stuff as he socialises and does normal things. Inevitably, Neil and I will catch them too. But I'm DREADING it, particularly with the tummy bugs. I have not been sick since I was 18, though I couldn't even begin to estimate the amount of time I have spent since then panicking that I might be. Urgh. I hate this fear. I wish I didn't have it. It's so controlling, and it totally doesn't go with having children. I am just desperate for April to get here. These things seem to fade away after March, so I will be glad to get the next month or so over with!
Arthur's night boot is going a bit crappily. So far he has worn it 2 nights and NOT worn it for 3 nights! The first night it left a nasty red mark on his foot, so we left it off the following night to let his foot recover. Then Neil had a "Poker night" after work (they play for chips, not money!) so I was putting Arthur to bed by myself and I can't get his boot on without help. It is really complicated with a million straps and you have to shove his heel really hard into the right place in order for the foot to be stretched properly. Of course he wriggles the whole time and tries to get his foot back out, and you need at least 6 hands to wrangle the straps into the right places whilst simultaneously holding his heel firmly in place! So, no can do without Neil. So that was 2 nights without the boot. Then he wore it the next night, but got a sore red mark again. I don't know what we're doing wrong, but I think we will leave out the "optional" strap next time we put it on. I think it's that strap that is giving him the mark. He sleeps so much worse with that boot on, ugh. Last night he woke 3 times just in the evening alone, and needed me to resettle him each time. Poor Arthur.
Arthur now says thank-you pretty much every time we give him something, and also when he wants a musical toy wound up or something, he will say thank you as he hands it to me when I offer to wind it up for him :) Sometimes it sounds like "ancka" now, instead of just "anck". He is also starting to try the word "bib" when he sees his bib, or when I say I'm going to put his bib on. So far it's just a very exaggerated "MmmBBuh!" (ie a strong letter 'b'). He hears EVERYTHING, even tiny sounds, and signs to me that he can hear something (hand cupped next to his ear) and calls out urgently until I acknowledge it! I have to acknowledge that a) he has heard something, b) what it is, and c) that Mummy can hear it too! He is very particular about the right response, hehe! This happens very frequently throughout the day, as he does it every time the boiler clicks on or there's water running, or if the toaster pops up, the washing machine door clicks to say it has released at the end of a wash cycle, or even if the fridge hums! If he hears a siren, shout, or bird outside he does it too. He is just absorbing everything around him at the moment, and wants to tell me about every tiny detail, which is so sweet.
He has learnt that when the boiler light goes on, if he goes and looks in the other room at the thermostat, there is usually a red light on that too. He knows that one seems to trigger the other, and rushes back and forth looking at them both until they go off again! He also seems to be learning that if I put the hot tap on in the kitchen, the boiler lights up. I came across Neil teaching him that last weekend, holding him up to the boiler in one arm and turning the hot tap on and off with the other hand, explaining to Arthur what was happening! Arthur was absolutely engrossed, it was so cute :)
We have to go out at least once each day at the moment, usually twice. Arthur has his midday nap, and either side of that, he seems to need to go out, otherwise he just climbs the walls and drives me crazy! In the morning we take a walk around the local (yucky) roads. I time it so that we are usually out for 30-40 minutes and when we get back it is Arthur's lunchtime straight away. Then he has his nap. After his nap there is now quite a big window in the afternoon for us to go out somewhere. We usually go to the supermarket or into town, but we can't go shopping EVERY day, so I need to think of more places to take him that don't exhaust me. I am getting tired much more quickly these days.
The morning walks are working really well. Arthur loves to walk. He is getting really good at walking on sloping driveways and things now, and he likes to walk over drains that make a clanking sound as you walk on them because they are uneven. He will walk back and forth over a clanky drain cover a MILLION times, and use up about 15 minutes of our whole walk time! The thing I like most about our walks is that we are not going anywhere in particular and I am in no hurry, so I can let him just take all the time he wants exploring the texture of a wall or stopping to stare at a car going by or a dog every 5 seconds (literally!). He just wants to take so much in, and it's nice that I can let him take the time to do that. Sometimes we don't actually get any further than the next road to ours, but it doesn't matter! I just watch the time and we turn back round and make our way home if it's gets late enough. Arthur loves our walks!
He loves the swings. They make him squeal and giggle, and when I slow it right down so that I can get him out, he rocks himself vigorously to show me he wants to continue swinging! He likes to swing for AGES. Yesterday Neil took him to a big playground with lots of toddler things, and he apparently loved the toddler see-saw!
He really likes football. Yeurgh! Yesterday Neil was watching the FA Cup and at one point you could really hear the billions of men in the stands singing their football chanty things, and Arthur suddenly started doing it too!! Aaaaaaargh, he's only ONE!!! ;) He really enjoys watching sports already though, it's weird! I didn't expect him to nearly so young as this. He spotted a football match being played when they were at the playground yesterday and stood there transfixed for ages!
He isn't that impressed by the winter olympics though. *I* am! I love the winter olympics! It always feels like it has been forever since the last one, much more so than the general olympics. I wish it was more frequent than every 4 years! I just like all the snow and ice and seeing stuff that's so different to the usual sports out there. I love the figure skating. It makes me wistful to skate again (and REALLY reminds me how crap I was, haha!). Since I got pregnant with Arthur I have barely thought about skating - it's weird to think that, since it dominated my life so much for ages. I used to have a skating diary here at diaryland even! I forget where I put that diary now.... When I had M.E. I used to DREAM of getting back to ice-skating, and then when I was healed I did go skating again. My legs were waaaaaay out of condition and I only went once. I don't know why I only went once. Anyway that was it! Skating and pregnancy don't mix, and let's face it, neither do skating and small babies/toddlers! I do so want to introduce Arthur and Matthew to ice-skating at an early age. I don't want to push them into having lessons or anything like that, I just want them to try it and hopefully enjoy it. I know I can teach them the basics if they are interested in skating better.
I have yet to find anything in my life that grips me with such passion (not including my relationship with God!) - an activity I mean. I used to wear my skates in my bedroom to do my homework (!!) and fall asleep every night practising turns and stuff in my head, imagining I was on the ice so that I could almost feel it. If I was stressed or being bullied at school, or even ill, stepping onto the ice and that first glide away from the edge would literally melt every bad or tense thought in my head. If I was unwell I would instantly feel better. Just the smell of the ice would lift my spirits and make me feel happy and excited, even if I caught a whiff of it from the outdoor vents walking past the rink. I should skate again, but I don't think I will get the chance now.
I did start properly again when Neil and I were first engaged, so not all THAT long ago. Neil got so attracted to it by my enthusiasm, and sometimes he came to watch me, and so he ended up getting lessons himself for a while! He could barely stand up on the ice before that, and we stopped going a few months later but he could go forwards and backwards by then, so it was well worth the lessons for him. He is way more confident on the ice now, which will be good for when we skate with our children on family outings! I had picked up where I left off but I didn't get much further than a sort of refresher course on what I had done years before, and then we stopped going. But it was so much fun! Watching the olympics, I just get such a rush of excitement for the way it FEELS, and I want to be out there skating again. I miss the jumping and the speed most of all. But being busy with little ones is definitely more of a rush for me right now, so I don't feel sad that I'm not able to go anymore, which is good! I really hope I'll be able to take my own little ones some day and see them enjoy it too. I hope they will, because it's soooooooo much fun if you don't hate it to bits! :)
Well, Arthur woke from his nap coughing again, and then he was all clingy and cuddly for a while so we stayed in bed for a bit. When we got up, he did a horrible poo, not his normal thing at all, but not diarrhoea or anything. Hmmm. He seems perfectly happy and energetic now though, so I can't figure it out. Neil has taken him shopping since he seems fine.
Matthew is kicking up a storm in there! :)
Ohhh I just remembered something I meant to write! I bought some triple chocolate soft cookies at the supermarket recently, dark chocolate cookies with big chunks of dark, milk and white chocolate (mmmmmmmmmmmm!!!). Arthur was extremely interested in them, but I didn't give him any until the last one. I gave him a tiiiny nibble of one little corner, and it didn't have any lumps of chocolate in it. Of course he loved it to pieces and proceeded to drive me half crazy begging for more! So I wrapped the half cookie up in its wrapper and distracted Arthur to another part of the room while I hid it in a cut-out piece of fabric for making a nappy! It was just meant to be there temporarily but of course I forgot about it. The fabric was high up on the back of the sofa, out of Arthur's reach (except not really, since he climbs on the sofas easily).
Anyway, later on I had to go for a wee, and I left him playing with bricks on the floor, apparently absorbed. About 15 seconds later I heard a crackle sound, but I didn't think anything of it, and then it went VERY quiet - too quiet, you know the type I mean?! When I came down about 60 seconds later (maxiumum!), this is what I found:
Little monkey! He must have immediately known that as soon as I went out of sight, he would have a good look for that cookie, and he even hid from me the fact that he must have known exactly where I put it! He couldn't have found it in 15 seconds otherwise! He must have got up the second I was upstairs, and climbed straight on the sofa to find it! He lost no time at all in unwrapping it and tucking into that cookie straight away! He had eaten a whole quarter of a cookie by the time I peed and flushed and came back down! Monkey boy :) I took the rest away and cleaned him up (he was pretty chocolatey). It was such a rich cookie that I wasn't sure if it would be too much for him, but he was happy and somewhat "buzzy" - what a surprise! - for the rest of the morning! He ate a great lunch so it didn't put him off, but I have no intention of letting him eat that much rich chocolatey cookie again any time soon! My little mischief maker! ;)
Here he is again a little later, on his chocolate high, hehehe!... See toothie number seven at the bottom there?! And the enormous pile of only about a quarter of my nappy-making fabrics dumped all over the sofa! Ahem.
Speaking of which, here he is relaxing on the sofa wearing another newly made Cuddlebuns - this one made of hearts soft stretchy knit print and all the rest is hemp, except for lime green microfleece on the inside, and lime green snaps :) Lurrrve making nappies!!
I only have one more picture to post - my brother and his Sarah came round today to see us. They haven't seen Arthur since his birthday party, so he has changed a lot since then! He was thrilled to have visitors and did lots of ear-to-ear grinning complete with hunched up shoulders at them! He even gave them cuddles! He showed them his "un" and his snack, and enjoyed having lots of attention. The bit he liked best was that Bennie (my brother) brought his big long umbrella as it has poured with rain today. Arthur has never seen an umbrella opened out, and Bennie opened and closed his umbrella for him. Arthur LOVED it!!! He stood under it and held the handle, making it swing like a pendulum. Then he wanted it closed and opened again. He just kept standing there and roaring with joy at how exciting it was!! He thought it was fab ("Ab!") and when Bennie told him it was an umbrella, he shook his head with a scornful expression and said, "Ab!" as if Bennie totally did not know the right word for it, hehe! Anyway, here they are with the "Ab!" :)
Okay, it's Arthur's bath time so I have to finish now. I'll update again soon! Oh but thank you so much for the messages again! And Sarah, thanks for the advice on raisins. I will try him on grapes more, but he loves raisins sooo much, I'm not sure how to limit them! He does have them for mealtimes as a dessert too. Grapes are a great idea though :) And Jemma, who is the other Arthur Cameron?! I'm intrigued!!
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