Email me
2007-03-10 - 1.40am previous entry next entry
Jove's Naming Ceremony, and other things!
Okay, back for part two (the first part is ranty, I have to warn you! Hence the need for a nice fresh Part Two!) of tonight's diary entry! I really could have arranged that sentence better, couldn't I? Oh well.
Soooo, as I was saying, I will start at the beginning of the EIGHT-day hiatus (!!) that has happened since my last diary entry, and try to post as much as possible before it's just getting stupidly late and I have to go and get some sleep. It's midnight already so that probably shouldn't be far from now...
I found a good way of getting some necessary "daytime" cooking done the week before last. Usually I cook anywhere from 4.30pm, depending on how long that night's meal will take to cook. But say if I want to make stock from last night's roast chicken, or a batch of vegetable stock for a soup I want to make this week (I'm going to try making Creamy Leek and Potato soup this week - my first serious soup!) - then I need to prepare the ingredients for that much earlier in the day, and let it simmer through the middle part of the day, or the afternoon. Then I can cool it and process it into containers and into the freezer before I have to change tack and make dinner, and it's not left to do after the boys are in bed for the night. BUT, little boys are up and about in the daytime, so it's hard to find a good time to do it. Last time I made stock, I hit on a way to do it! As soon as Matthew went down for his morning nap, I cleared the kitchen table and spread Arthur's activity mat on top of it. I sat at one end of the table with my chopping board and chopped an onion and stuff, and Arthur did some crafts! I froze some paint in an ice-cube tray a while ago, for a new thing for Arthur to do, so I got those out and he LOVED them! He loves cold things, which is good because otherwise he would have HATED that activity! They were way too cold to hold after a while, but he stuck at it and enjoyed it:
As soon as he'd finished doing that, we put his drippy paintings to dry and I got out the glue and some pictures and shiny foil and bits of pasta, etc, that I'd been saving up for him to do sticking with. These days, I scavenge every leaflet, magazine, item of junk mail, etc, etc, for pictures that Arthur might like (car insurance things are GREAT because this boy loves cars, and they are sure to have at least one picture of a car on their stuff!), and I cut them out. I actually really enjoy the scavenging part! :) I like sifting through stuff and I get a little buzz out of happening upon a tiny picture of something that I know will bring a smile to Arthur's face. And then I save them all up for a soothing moment of quiet, say when the boys are napping or in the evening for a few minutes. And then I sit in the quiet house and cut all the pictures out. Cutting carefully around shapes of things on paper is sooooo soothing. I don't know why. It's on the same level as sitting with a bunch of colouring pencils and a child's colouring book and filling in the shapes with their chunky black lines.... I love stuff like that! It's so comforting and soothing, just something from childhood that makes me feel at peace when I do it. So I like hunting for pictures for Arthur to use for sticking! :) Today at Tesco I rifled through the Free Papers stand outside and picked up several pretty irrelevant magazines. I'm going to have a lovely time cutting out pictures of planes and cars and baskets of fruit, etc, sometime soon! :) I also cut out pictures and patterns from spare scraps of nappy-making fabrics, as that gives him lots of different textured stuff to stick with.
Anyway. Arthur had never actually had the "control" over the glue before, as I'd helped him with it in the past (it's that white runny glue, not a glue stick or paste). This time I poured him a tiiiny amount into small cup, and gave him a glue spatula, and showed him how to use it and stick things on. I spread his bits out for sticking, and left him to it:
He had a lovely time! He stuck things to cover the whole piece of paper, and he was soooo pleased with his finished work! He couldn't WAIT to show Daddy when he got home from work. Yesterday I cut a piece of A4 card into two pieces, and Arthur stuck lots of pictures and fabric on one side. When it was dry, we turned it into a postcard! I drew a line down the other side to divide it into an address section and a note section, and then I asked Arthur what he would like to say if we wrote a postcard to Nana and Grandy. He said, "I don' know what-ta say Nana an Gwandy...", which, by the way, is his latest thing. When asked any question about anything, he pretty much says he doesn't know the answer. He'll say, "I don' know what-ta choose....", "I don' know how-ta fits it...", "I don' know the name...", "I don' know wits colour it is..." (definitely fibbing on this one, as he has known pretty much all the colours since he was about 20 months old!), "I don' know what-ta do...." or even, "I don' know how-ta say the words!" which is soooo heart-rending, because lately he has been trying to say LONG and complicated sentences and it's frustrating him so much when he can't make the words in the right order. He'll start over a couple of times and then just flop in discouraged frustration, whimpering sadly, "I don' know how-ta say the words!" He seems more disheartened about things lately, and goes into tantrums more easily. I think he must be reaching that age where it's very common for this kind of emotional development to be peaking. He can be VERY difficult right now, but along with it has come this vulnerable little thing who is just finding life a bit overwhelming at times, and he is SO wonderful at communicating about it with me. I think it is preventing a lot of tantrums, the fact that he's able to tell me so much about how he's feeling and what exactly is frustrating him. The worst may be yet to come, so it might not prevent things for long! We'll see! The vulnerable side of him is something I totally didn't expect to see at this stage, and it's melting my heart for him all the time. I find myself being extra tender and gentle with him lately, and giving him a lot of extra cuddles, and being very patient with him over things he's trying to express to me. I try not to OVER-help him with his words, because this eventually frustrates him as much as if he can't say what he wants to say, and it can trigger a "flash" tantrum if I'm not careful! I am learning! It's hard to find a balance with a 2-year-old in the throes of that stage of development. Poor little soul! It's a hard life!
Arthur was 28 months old yesterday. Two years and 4 months. It has just occurred to me that he's only TWO months away from being out of the "twenties", in terms of months, and into the "thirties"!! Yikes! Thirty months also makes him exactly two-and-a-half. Where is the time going?! And Matthew will be 9 months old next week. He is now way closer to his first birthday than to birth, and that just seems craaaaazy-impossible, somehow.
Does anyone know anything about the Love and Logic parenting series? I would really value your comments on it, if you do - whether it's good or not, whether it works or not.... I hadn't heard of it before this week, when one of my friends at a buddy group online mentioned it to me. I know I said last entry (or the one before) that we have CHOSEN to smack Arthur and are confident about having done so. But, you know parenting! And, more to the point, you know me! I never seem to be confident about a method for very long. I WISH I didn't have to smack Arthur, though I have now stopped being quite so narrow-minded as I was before, and will never judge anyone for smacking their child. If Love and Logic is a good method and it WORKS for us, then we'll gladly ditch the smacking and use that instead. I soooo don't want to be chopping and changing methods with Arthur all the time, but I do want to settle on the RIGHT one for him. We'll smack him and stick with it, but at the same time we would MUCH rather not. We're kind of mixing methods this week, which is very inconsistent of us. *sigh* He's having some time-out (having to sit on the sofa and not get down till we say so - which he hates at the moment, so it works) and smacking for when that doesn't work. Which isn't something to continue doing, as it's too mixed up and inconsistent. I want to know if Love and Logic is worthwhile enough for me to spend some non-existant money on the books that teach about it, BEFORE I make the purchase. If you have any knowledge of it, please let me know so I can make a decision about it! Thank you!! :) From what I can see so far, it looks like the MOST gentle and calm discipline method I have come across yet by far. I love that there doesn't seem to be any stern-ness or anything. Maybe I am missing stuff that I haven't been able to find out yet though? Anyway, all advice and opinions on that one gratefully received! :)
No noooo, this won't do!!! It's 1am and I'm WAFFLING!!! Aaargh! No time for waffling! On with the entry!
Arthur's latest monkey-ness:
Nappy cream AGAIN! He climbed up to reach the NEW pot that I bought, and retreated to a corner of the living room with it. He was soooo quiet (I was putting Matthew down for his nap) and as I came downstairs with that sense of trepidation, I could hear this squelchy-squelchy sound and these whispered, "Oooh!.... Haaa!.... Wowww!" sounds, as he worked his fingers and hands in the cream with great delight! Little monkey! He had plunged his hands RIGHT into that pot and cream had shot up his sleeves and I STILL can't get the stains out of his soft brown top :(
Here are a few photos of my increasingly BUSY little Mathie-man:
Finally able to have full access to the toy storage unit boxes! He rifles through them constantly, and tends to push the middle shelf ones until they crash onto the floor, spilling their contents, and then he can just play with them easily! He also stands on tiptoe where you see him in this photo, and holds on with both hands to the shelf above with all the closed boxes on it! He looks scarily STUCK when he's hanging on like that, as though he can't undo his action and he'll end up falling, but he never does. He likes to try new things and stretch to new places!
In this next photo, he was "talking" to me (pulled up on my leg to see me), and I had a nanosecond opportunity to snap a photo of something vaguely toothy! You can't see his second tooth in that photo but it's as tall as that first one now. He is about to cut his first top tooth as I type this - there was a fine white line sketched across his gum there this afternoon, so I think it's about to break through.
And here he is with a Mr. Men book :) He is becoming quite hard to photograph sometimes, just like Arthur, because he's in motion ALL the time, it seems! If he's down out of my arms, then he wants to be exploring constantly, and even when he's standing still because he has pulled up somewhere to "talk" or something, he bounces and bops and waves objects and thumps the sofa and so on! He's never still:
Sweet little sausagey-poo! :)
On Saturday (a week ago - already! Where has the week gone?!), we all went to Jove's Naming Ceremony!!! I hadn't seen Jemma and Jaya and Stu since Jemma was 10 weeks pregnant with Jove, so it was LOVELY to see them all again, and of course to meet Jove at last! We were late getting there as there was the usual disorganisation over getting all four of us out of the house at a set time (*sigh*) and then the car was being iffy, so I came back in the house to phone Jemma and tell her that we'd be there a bit late. Fortunately (for us!) things were running a bit late there too, so we would not miss anything. The boys both fell asleep on the way there - it was nap time for them so I'm glad they did. Matthew had to go without a proper afternoon nap as the party started at 2pm (we got there about 2.40pm) and that's about when Matthew normally goes down in his nice quiet cot for a 2-hour nap! He slept 30 mins in the car and we drove round and round and ROUND the streets near Jemma's house to let them sleep for the full 30 minutes and wake by themselves (both of our boys can never sleep past 30 minutes when out and about, and it's BAD news to wake them sooner than that!). Then we went in.
The house was full of people, and the first person I met was Jemma's MIL holding Jove. He looked gorgeous in his little white outfit! It felt like I had only seen him last week or something (!), rather than never having met him before, because of how well I "know" him through Jemma's diary! Isn't that funny?! But nice :) Then Jemma came to greet us and she held Matthew, who took a few wary looks back and forth between her and me, and then burst into tears and wailed and wailed inconsolably! He's soooooo different to Arthur. At Jaya's naming ceremony on her first birthday, Arthur was exactly the same age as Matthew was at Jove's (our kids are exactly the same age gap - well, a 4-day difference!), Arthur was this completely confident little chunk of a person! He was so happy for Jemma to take him, literally before we even got through the door when we arrived, and didn't even look for me while she held him. He even got interested in her hat, I seem to recall. In fact - here's Arthur at Jaya's Naming Ceremony, in August 2005:
I'd love to have a comparison photo of Matthew with Jemma, but (apart from the wailing!) I was a bit rubbish with my camera at this particular event - I think it's because I had two littlies to watch this time, and there were lots of people, and I just kept not thinking of my camera! I even left it in the car and only remembered it once the ceremony started! I went out to get it, but missed half the ceremony in the mean time, and when I got back, Arthur and Jaya were in the house with the toys (the ceremony was taking place out in the back garden) so I stayed there with them for a while, and since I had my camera with me, I took some photos. But they didn't come out too well. Arthur had his back to me all the time, looking at toys! And Jaya is as energetic and interested as Jemma always says in her diary, and never really kept still enough for me to photograph her properly! So here are the few blurry-ish photos that I took:
Jaya was eating something in this one!
He finally found the Thomas toys, quelle surprise! :) In the verrrry corner of the photo on the bottom right, you can just see the edge of Jaya's red dress as she disappeared out of the room, hehe! She was on the move all the time!
Arthur was unexpectedly reserved and quiet at the party, which surprised me really. I thought once he warmed up to the new place, he'd get stuck in with his normal energy levels, but he kept himself to himself a bit. He played with the toys inside, and also in Jaya's room upstairs for a while too. Neil and I took them upstairs so I could feed Matthew in peace at one point, and Jemma said Arthur could play in Jaya's room (which was gloriously full of toys!). He absolutely loved the tea set and the Peppa Pig stuff, as he loves Peppa Pig and watches it most weekday mornings when it's on. It made me think that we really don't have enough "girly" toys around the house for Arthur. We must get him a tea set - he would LOVE one! He so enjoyed playing with Jaya's, and Matthew had a good bang with a plastic spoon and a chomp on a plate as well!
The rest of the time, Arthur was outside in the back garden. After the ceremony, almost everyone was inside, as it was quite a cold day, although sunny for the most part. The food was inside too! Arthur wanted to ride the ride-on toys outside. He spent ages in the Coupe car thingy (MUST get one of those - that exact car has been on my to-buy list since he was about 10 months old, but lack of garden till a few months ago, etc....) He didn't shove himself around the place in it frantically, as I thought he might. He just carefully and SLOWLY went this way and that, going forward, reversing carefully, going forward, reversing carefully (etc!), and if I suggested coming inside or something, he'd say, "No, I just parking..." (hehe!), and if I asked again a moment later, he'd sound more impatient, saying, "No, I steew (still) parking!"
(By the way, this is NOT a reflection on my parking skills! ;) I am a marvellously quick parker and since Arthur sees my fab example, I can't fathom why he is determined to be so SLOW at it, hehe!)
He DID come out of the car for chocolate birthday cake, of course! It was YUMMY! I had a near-perfect opportunity to take a photo, as Jaya was sitting at the table outside, by herself, eating birthday cake. I brought Arthur's piece out and he walked up to the table and went to sit in the chair opposite Jaya. I thought, "Ah-HA! Photo opportunity!!" But as Arthur sat down, Jaya choked on a crumb of cake. She nodded when I asked her if she wanted a drink, so I went to get her some water. When I got back, fumbling for my camera (!), she took a sip of water, hopped down from the table, and disappeared! I did soooo want to take a photo of the two of them together! I did get this one of Arthur being annoyed that his drink wasn't close enough to grab, a few seconds after Jaya left!
After that, he went back in the car while another little boy (a fair bit older than Arthur) rode the tricycle and pretended to crash it into things! Arthur surprised me again by being a bit quiet and seeming unsettled by him, when he would usually respond like you see Jaya responding in these photos!
By the way, HOW gorgeous did Jaya look in her dress?! She had sparkly gold shoes on too! She looked like the hostess of the party, hehe! :)
That same little boy came over to Arthur a lot and tried to chat with him and get him to play games with him, it was very sweet. Arthur always looked a bit worried, and said funny little polite things about just parking the car for now, etc! He wouldn't vacate the car, and in the end the boy said to him, "I'll tell you what, you go on the tricycle, and I'll go in the car!" and he started to get off the tricycle. I wondered what Arthur would say or do to that, and when he saw the boy was coming over, he said to him, "No, you (meaning himself - he gets "me" and "you" mixed up a bit at the moment, regarding himself!) go in the car, YOU (pointing at the boy) go on the try-see-coh!" I liked how he was able to process what the boy suggested in just a couple of seconds, and turn the sentence around to the opposite suggestion, and then say it. I always think that language acquisition is just an AMAZING thing. Where does it come from?! It just seems so quick all of a sudden, that they go from saying their first word to full sentences and complex concepts within their own speech and responses to other people. Amazing.
I can't BELIEVE I did not even get one photo of the birthday boy himself!!! Jemma and I will have to get together again soon, and then I'll have a better chance for photos, and the little ones will have a better chance to play. And maybe Matthew will be more relaxed next time too! I think he was really overwhelmed with all the people. He's a really different baby to Arthur - much more sensitive and easily upset. He gets anxious about things easily, and shows clear signs of the normal separation anxiety that Arthur never went through. He had several more wailing panicky incidents over the course of the party, as people tried to engage him a little (everyone wanted to touch his hair!), but there was a moment where I was hovering at the buffet trying to select food and eat it with one hand, whilst holding Matthew in my other arm, and a very nice man came over and swept Matthew up with a cheery, "I'll hold him for you, while you eat!" I braced myself for the panicked crying, but none came! I ate what I wanted and chatted to people, and Matthew was totally easy-going in that man's arms! I even gave him some finger food (well, so did the man who was holding him - whose name escapes me now!), and he was just his normal self, quite relaxed! How funny! I don't know what it was about this man, but he obviously felt secure with him, which was nice.
We left the party at about 5pm, I think. It was still going strong, but Matthew was finally melting down, poor love! He just cried and cried. I had fed him so it wasn't that, but he hadn't had a proper nap and he's a boy who needs his sleep JUST SO, in order to function happily during the day! I think in hindsight, he was too hot as well, as we'd dressed him warmly enough but he was then in our arms all the time so he probably got too warm. And he's not a lots-of-people person, so I think it allll just got too much for him. He was fine in the car but a bit unhappy during the evening, and quite wakeful after he went to bed. He was teething too.
But it was so nice to go to the party and see Jemma and Stu and their sweet little ones again! I keep feeling like there was something else I had meant to write about from it, but I can't think of it now.
Oh my goodness, it's SO LATE!!!! I will have to stop here, and post more photos and other news in my next entry, which will hopefully be soon. Thanks Megan for missing me!! xxx
Don't let me forget to tell about Matthew's 8-month check which happened on Monday! He was weighed and measured and all that, and Arthur was too! I must write about that next time. And we went to CHURCH on Sunday - gasp! We haven't been in a while again, but I was on creche duty. And on Tuesday I met up with Katie and her little ones at a local playground that I did not even know existed!!!! It's a lovely one, within walking distance from here. Must write about that too. And a BILLION things that Arthur has been saying. And a ton more photos. And our car being a bit wonky at the moment. And I think that's all. But I'll catch up on those things soon! Oh and I've got another period (my 3rd postpartum one now). I need to make an entry in my pregnancy journal, rather than waffle about that stuff here! But I'll get to that another time too.
Sleeeeeeeeeeeep....
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