Email me
2008-04-09 - 2.30am previous entry next entry
Arthur's sayings, and lots of photos of the boys
Urrrghh, just spent TWO HOURS on an entry and then my internet connection cut out (we're having that trouble a lot lately, for some reason) JUST as I tried to post the entry! Thus, bye-bye entry :( It's so annoying because it was late when I started it, and now it's ridiculously late, BUT it was the type of entry where I wrote down some things for my memory's sake. So, I know I'm being idiotic to decide to redo the entry in the middle of the night, but phooey! I don't know when I'll next get chance to write those things down, and I feel sure I'll forget some of them in the mean time. So I'm DOING it! Now. Unless Nathan is wakeful (he's stirring a bit because he just woke and fed for a while - hopefully he's settling back down to sleep).
Thank you so much for the sweet comments on the little video of Arthur that I posted last entry! I'm super fond of that boy, so I really appreciated the comments - reading them really made me smile! Thank you! :)
Okay, so it's the second week of the month, which means all my little boys are about to turn another month old! Arthur will be 3 years and FIVE months old tomorrow, which is almost 3 and a HALF!!! Whaa?!?! Where did half a year go since his birthday?! I can't believe we're almost halfway to his fourth birthday already. Craziness.
Matthew will be 22 months old next week. It's only about 9 weeks until his second birthday!!! I just can't believe it. Nathan is 12 weeks old now, and turns 3 months old this weekend. My little niece, Thea, has her first birthday next month! Babies grow up soooooo fast.
I have a lot of photos to post again, but I also wanted to write down some things that Arthur has been saying, things that I want to keep preserved and not forget. So, just for me really, here are some of them!
Last week he was cutting out lots of pictures of ducks and geese and chickens, etc, from a big fact sheet poster that my Granny gave us (it was free in the paper). He loves cutting things out, and he learns about each one as he cuts them out. Anyway, out of the blue a couple of days later, I asked him how he thought ducks had babies. I know he knows about eggs and ducks laying them, but I just wanted to hear how he explained his view of the process. Anyway, when I asked, "Arthur, how do ducks have babies?", he answered, "Well, Mummy, why don't you whizz away and find out?!" hehe! He got that line from "Big Cook, Little Cook", I should think!
Also, Matthew is really getting into cheeky giggling and whispering with Arthur these days! It's so cute. They are so full of mischief together (slightly unnerving!). Matthew doesn't really "get" a lot of what Arthur whispers to him, but he LOVES copying Arthur. Whatever Arthur is doing, if his eyes are lit up, Matthew is interested and copies everything Arthur does! He especially likes to get involved with anything cheeky, energetic, noisy, or giggly!
A few days ago, Arthur and I made lemon cakes with real lemons, and iced them with lemon juice icing. We decorated the icing with bits of candied peel. It was lots of fun! He is getting much more into baking - he can stay focused on each thing longer (whereas he used to focus for like 0.6 seconds and then randomly grab things like broken egg shells, or something, and fling those in the mix too!). He is breaking eggs for me, mixing, measuring and counting, etc. We sometimes do baking for "school", which is still otherwise mostly crafts and things when we have time to do it.
Anyway, so we made these cakes. I told him that they could have a cake each for pudding, after dinner. So, as dinner came to an end, Nathan woke up and needed soothing. Neil went upstairs to start the bath running (our bath fills SLOWLY! We have to start it before the end of our family meal time in order for the boys to have their bedtime bath early enough!), and I went into the living room briefly to settle Nathan a bit. Matthew and Arthur sat at the table still (I think Matthew was just finishing up his dinner). Arthur STILL barely eats anything I cook (though he finally declares my spaghetti bolognese "yummy and mmm-mmm delicious!!" and eats it all up AND a second helping! So we have that every Monday now, yay!) so he wasn't doing much at the table. The cakes were on the kitchen counter, and Arthur strap on his booster seat broke a couple of weeks ago, so he can now get down of his own accord. I was rocking Nathan in my arms when I heard a sort of hissing sound from the kitchen. I got nearer to the door and heard the two of them whispering and scheming together, hehe! Their little heads were bent together in secrecy overy Matthew's highchair tray. Arthur was whispering, "Hee hee hee!" and Matthew was replying in a gleeful whisper, "Hee hee hee!" Then Arthur would whisper things I couldn't make out (except for the name, "Mummy" now and again - uh oh!) and Matthew would pause to listen to him and then whisper, "Yeh! Hee hee hee!" It was so cute and funny that I didn't interrupt them for a while, but finally I stood in the doorway and they both looked delighted that they'd been "caught" scheming about something! Arthur lost no time in telling all - "Mummy, the boys have made a naughty plan!! AND, the naughty plan is that Arthur gets down from the table and (hunches shoulders with EXTRA glee) gets a cake for the boys, while Mummy isn't looking!" Their eyes just shone with mischievous delight at this revelation! Hehe! Then Arthur added, "I checked with Mashew, and he agreed!" hehehe! I'm not sure how much (if any!) Matthew understood of this squeakily whispered plan, but he LOVED being part of the mischief with Arthur. He just beamed at me the whole time Arthur was telling this to me, eyes shining with monkeyness! Arthur often refers to himself and Matthew as "the boys" in conversation. Like, "The boys cer'nly (certainly!) were hungry!" when they rapidly polished off their sandwiches after a long walk at the park. Or, "You know, I think these boys are being a bit of a monkey!" hehe! Sometimes he does seem to talk of them as one unit. They are "a monkey" together. I find it sweet how he will say "these boys" referring to himself as one of them! :)
Here are a few photos of Matthew and Arthur playing "Boo!" with a bath towel a week or so ago. Matthew LOVES this game and could play it all day if he had a willing partner! Arthur was actually watching a DVD at the time, but he indulged Matthew very sweetly all the same!
Here are my little boys running around in some garden space at my grandparents' house. How I wish we had a garden with that much space for them! Oh well. One day! And we have a great park nearby so it's not so bad.
I often try to take photos of all three boys together, but you know how easy that is, right?! I figure that if I take millions and millions (!) of photos, I will surely get one or two decent ones at least?! My poor children, hehe! Actually they are often the ones to request that I take pictures of them together, which is helpful! Matthew asks by getting in position and then saying, "teeez!" (cheese!) and giving me a pointed look! I never set up the scene nicely or anything though. If I see two of them next to each other being relatively motionless, I frantically grab the third and put him in the shot, and start snapping away, hehe! Matthew thinks the job is done after 3 seconds, and immediately gets up again or moves away. It's so frustrating! It takes me like FOUR seconds at best to get the camera focused and press the button! So he's blurry in a lot of shots. Here are a few of our recent photo sessions!
Hmmm, that went well, didn't it?! ;) Here's another try:
Okay, time to end that session then! ;) I did persevere, but I ended up with a lot of pictures of a cream fleece blanket with the occasional head or limb at the edge. And a slightly confused-looking baby in the middle, hehe!
One morning, Matthew lay down on the sofa and said his oft-heard line, "Die dow, Ninny!" Since Ninny (that little nickname seems to be sticking a bit, but I am not intending to use it much if I can help it!) was not cross and crying, we lay him down with Matthew (staying close!) and took a photo. Arthur got upset that he wasn't in the picture, and since there was no room for the three of them to lie in a row (which he really likes!), Neil put him in the shot where there was "space"! :)
Sweet little boys! :)
Oh! I just remembered another thing that Arthur said recently. He was sitting resting against me on the armchair, and looking around the room. Then he said, "There are lots of boys here, aren't there?!" I said yes, and asked him if there were too many boys for him. He looked at me like I was nuts! And he said, "Nooo!" I asked him if he would like more little boys around the place, and he said, "Yes!" I asked if he would like some little girls as well, and he said, "Wellll, the little girls would have to live at the girls' house, and the boys would live here at the boys' house." hehe! I told him that ALL our babies will live in the same house, here, boys or girls, because we are all a family together. I said that God may yet give us more babies, and he said, "I hope God gives us lots of babies...." I told him I hoped so too! :)
Then a couple of days later, Arthur and I were browsing through the local property paper. He stopped at a picture of a huge house - actually it was a newly built building made to LOOK like a massive house, but it was 9 purpose-built flats. Anyway, Arthur pointed at it and said in a very serious, thoughtful tone, "I think we might need to buy that house." I asked him why, and he said, "Because God might give us lots of babies - " and then he broke off suddenly and glanced sharply at my tummy. He said (somewhat suspiciously, hehe!), "Are there lots of babies growing in your tummy right now?" And I told him that as far as I knew there were not any babies in my tummy yet! He resumed his sentence, "God might give us lots of babies, and I think we'll need to buy this big house, just in case...." :)
Here are a few photos of Arthur loving his baby brother. The feeling is mutual, as you can see! :)
Today, Arthur hurt his foot as he was running in the living room. He ran over a toy fire engine and grazed the side of his foot a little bit. It bled a couple of tiny spots, and that was all, but Arthur had a huge freak-out panic about it. He does seem to have anxious tendencies, and I soooo hope he isn't going to have issues with things like that. He did seem to make WAY more of it than he needed to though. He moaned for ages about how he couldn't walk! And he did a lot of forced shaking while I was consoling him. So, some of it isn't blind panic, just allowing himself to really "make the most" of the situation, if you know what I mean! But he was scared about the bleeding.
Tonight at bedtime, he got all upset about it again because he was convinced his foot was still bleeding. I assured him that it wasn't, and it turned out quite an educational experience (!) because I taught him about clotting and scabs, and how God made our bodies able to mend themselves when they get hurt (and isn't that amazing?!!!), etc. He continued to whimper about it a bit, so I suggested he come out of bed for a cuddle (I was sitting in front of Matthew's bed, as he needs preventing from getting out till he calms down for sleep, otherwise he gets out every 4.5 seconds and jumps all over the room emptying drawers, etc!). He came down for a cuddle and I asked if he would like to pray about his foot. He said yes, and then said urgently, "I wish Jesus was really here!" I told him that Jesus IS really here, even though we can't actually see him. He said, "But I can't see him, so he CAN'T really be here!" It's so hard to explain things like this to little ones! I'm not even sure if it's possible for him to grasp the concept yet. But I'll persevere all the same. I just told him again that Jesus is always here if we need him. Arthur did a big sigh and said, "I reeeeally NEED Jesus!"
I know it was just about wanting a quick fix for his little foot, and he really doesn't have any idea yet about the BIG need for Jesus in our lives, but OH how my heart soared hearing those words come from my own child's lips! How I hope and pray he'll continue to think and say and PRAY those words, in a bigger context, as the years go by, throughout his life. When all else is stripped away, that's all it boils down to for me, and I find myself with nothing I can pray except, "I really NEED you, Jesus!"
I am a bit anxious about the day when Arthur asks Jesus to heal him of something and he doesn't get healed. I don't know what to say to him when he asks me, "Why didn't he heal me?!" Because I don't know the answer, and I am afraid of handling it the wrong way and rocking the boat where his interest or faith in God is just beginning to emerge.
All I can tell him is that God IS real, and he DOES heal today. I am so thankful that I can be a living example of this to my kids, and I can tell them about how God healed me of M.E. quite miraculously. You don't get better overnight from M.E! I had been housebound with it for two years leading up to that evening when I was healed. And I've been healthy since. I feel slightly squeamish linking to such an old entry from my VERY old diary! It's been a long time since I acknowledged the existance of that diary here! It's so long ago. It's before I had children. It documented SUCH a very difficult time for me. Some of my readers here have followed me allll the way from back then, but most don't know about that diary. So I feel weirdly self-conscious about opening up that can of worms to people who didn't know about that part of my life! But anyway. It's amazing what God did! So I don't want to hide it away :) God DOES DOES DOES heal today. He IS real. I know him, like I know Neil or Arthur. He touched me and healed me. I don't pray to the air, I talk to someone I have a relationship with. I love my God!!
Okay, I'm sure there was something else I missed from my original post, but it's sooooooo late (I know, I'm daft), and I must go to bed. Nathan is sleeping pretty well tonight, but he's due to wake again soon, so I'll get myself into bed before that happens and be ready to nurse him when he wakes :) I have more photos and plenty of new ones on the camera too, but I'll get to those when I can. I'll be back soon!
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