Email me
2006-01-07 - 11.54pm previous entry next entry
New Year in France, photos,etc :)
Okay I'm back to write part two of the update! And it's only the next day after the last entry (gasp!)!! Part two is about our visit to France over New Year to see my parents. Then I'll write part three (maybe tomorrow though) about everything since, Arthur stuff and general things. Then I'll be all up to date!! Yay!
So we had a LOVELY visit to see my parents in France! I always love seeing them of course, so I always enjoy the visits we make. We don't get to go often enough :(
The journey was 100% easier than the long drive to see Neil's parents in the same country as us! I think it's because it's more suitable for a little one - it is broken down into "bitesize" pieces which makes it possible for Arthur to tolerate it. It still involves a 90 minute car journey to Stanstead Airport, which Arthur was not impressed about, but it was at least over after 90 minutes. He did fine for the first half hour or so. Poor Arthur. He is just THE most active and energetic little boy. Being cooped up anywhere for any length of time just doesn't go with all that energy and enthusiasm for being on the go all the time. He hates it. He is SO good and isn't the type to throw a fit about something (yet!) but he just can't deal with the restriction after a long time, which is perfectly reasonable of him. I feel the same way!
Anyway, so 90 minutes or so to the airport, then we park, then board a big bus that takes us to the terminal. The bus ride is 15 minutes and full of people to charm :) So Arthur loves that. He loved it last time too, and he was only 6 months old then! Then we do the boring stuff that adds up to quite a lot of time and standing in endless queues - checking in, going through security, finding our gate and walking the 50 thousand miles to it with Arthur in the pushchair. But he loves all that because he has NEVER seen so many people or such a large open space before in his LIFE! So he is enthralled by the whole airport terminal bit. The flight is one hour. It's more restricted in our seat than Arthur will now tolerate too well, but at least it's only an hour, and he manages well. He gets antsy by the end of the flight but by then he was WELL due for his nap. We had a kind gentleman next to us who loved Arthur and entertained him in French for a while, which Arthur seemed to absolutely love! Then we get off the plane (more interesting people) and meet Daddy who drives us to their house (about 50 minutes). Arthur is always so knackered by this stage that he sleeps the whole journey back to the house. So it's perfect for him really. A much easier journey.
We did have terrible weather forecast for the morning of our journey out. We watched every forecast on TV that we could find the day before, as they were forecasting fog, ice, heavy snow and strong winds from 5am to noon (we were leaving the house at 6am (urrrrrrgh!) and boarding a plane at 10am. So hmmm, that was not in a good window! We didn't know if the flight would be cancelled or if the roads would be safe enough to travel on. There were severe weather warnings and the news people were just basically telling everyone to stay home from work even, and only drive if you had to. Yikes!
But after scrutinizing the satellite forecast for ages, we figured that the weather front of heavy snow would hit London from the west at maybe 6-7am - right when we were driving. So we decided to go round the M25 (the London orbital motorway - we live in the south and needed to get to the airport in the north) to the east, and hope for the best. It worked! We had some fog, but we didn't get snow till we were rounding the bend onto the northern part and driving west. By the time we got to the airport it was snowing very heavily and settling even on the motorways, and we skidded and nearly hit a parked car at the airport car park! But we made it. Phew! Thank you Lord. We prayed a lot before we set out that morning.
It was soooooooooooooooo cold that it hurt though. Miraculously (thank you Lord AGAIN!), our flight was not really delayed, except that once we boarded it they had to de-ice the wings (!!) so that took a little while and then we were off. The flight was fine. I was so relieved to touch down in France that I felt like crying. But I often feel that way. Something deep in me isn't too crazy about flying, even though I also enjoy it. I am always glad to get where I'm going! I nearly always feel tearful when we touch down. But part of it is knowing that I am THAT close to seeing my parents again :)
Anyway, we had such a nice time! I wrote about anything pregnancy-related over the holidays in my pregnancy journal (link over there) so I'll miss those out here, but needless to say, my parents are so excited about the new baby and we spent a lot of time chatting about names and stuff and it was just so nice :)
Arthur slept okay. They have such a big house (it's two houses - the old farmhouse and what used to be a stone barn, both renovated and then built together with a joining part to make one big L-shaped house) that he couldn't sleep the evenings in our bedroom, as it was in the part of the house that was furthest away from the kitchen and library/computer room where we tended to spend the evenings together. The big room under our bedroom is the "piece a chemine" (sp? and where are all the accents on my keyboard?!) or "the room with the fireplace". The fireplace is so big it almost fills a whole wall!!! The big piano is in there also. It's a lovely room. We used to sit in front of the fire during the evenings before Arthur came along, and we did last winter when he was 3 months old, but it's different now. He LOVED the fire. Loved it to bits! I am noticing that Arthur loves anything and everything new. He just EMBRACES life at the moment. He doesn't ever even look hesitant when he encounters new things, let alone unsure or scared. I love that about him. The only thing in life that terrifies him is the hoover :(
Anyway, he loves the fire. He wanted to go right up to it but we said no and told him it was hot, and he said, "Haaahh" (his word for hot) and didn't ever go closer than a metre or two from the fire. He was such a good boy about it. The fire spat and popped a lot on the logs that were just brought in from the log pile, and every time it made a loud crack or pop, Arthur laughed and laughed! He loves sudden loud noises, they have always made him giggle! Funny boy :)
But. I think I have figured out another source of my streaming allergies whenever we stay with my parents. Part one took more than a year to figure out, and I finally found out it was feathers - we slept under feather duvets and on feather pillows there. So Mummy got a hollowfibre duvet and pillows for us and I haven't had issues nearly as bad since :) But then I started to get them again, and it gets worse every time we go. FINALLY this time I realised it's the fire :( It seems to be accumulative as I get worse every day/night. Nights are far worse, and eventually I can hardly sleep at all, I sneeze and sting and stream all night long, and if I get any sleep it is because I am pinching my nose and propping my fist in place so that it holds my nose tight all night long! I wake with a numb/blood-engorged nose, hehe! But it is no fun. After I wondered about it being the fire (my symptoms seemed better if we spent a significant number of hours in a row in the part of the house without the fire in it), Mummy didn't light the fire that evening and I had a WAY better night. And no fire the following night, and I had next to no allergy symptoms whatsoever. Which is weird. I know it's the smoke from the fire, but why? What part of it? It's all natural isn't it? I can't figure why I would be so allergic to wood smoke when I don't have any known tree allergies. But anyway. It was sad because a big roaring open fire is so nice and cosy on cold winter nights, and I felt bad that I was stopping those from happening. My parents love their fires! But I felt sooooooooooo much better for it.
So - getting back to the point! - Arthur slept the evening in the little bedroom over the kitchen, so that we were near to him. We bought a baby monitor (for the first time ever, at 13 months old!) specifically for this trip, so that we did not miss his first stirrings. We like to be there for him as soon as he calls us, not wait till he's screaming before we go, "Oh, Arthur's awake!" He is used to that, and it's horrible for him if we suddenly don't go when he first wakes and calls us. So the monitors worked GREAT. He slept very well most evenings and didn't wake at all. When we went to bed, we carried him through the house to our bedroom and then I nursed him and we all fell asleep (bar allergies). The last night, he stayed almost asleep against my shoulder when I carried him through, and by the time I got ready to nurse him on our bed, he was asleep again! He slept through the night pretty much, twice, stirring now and then and requiring a few pats on his little back from me to send him back off again.
Then he got a cold :( His second ever cold, which is pretty good going really. He has had one cold before at 7 months old (I think it was then?) and that was nasty and lasted a long time with much puking and coughing, etc. So when I saw him sneezing and having a runny nose, I thought uh-oh, because I remembered how bad it was last time. But he did fine. He was pretty snotty for a day and very sneezy, and then the next day he sweated like CRAZY during his naps, and seemed less snotty that night. He seemed FINE the next day! Wow! But that was the day we came home to London and since then it seems to have picked back up. I can only presume it's to do with the pollution here. I know colds go super fast in Wales for example - I had a STINKER of a cold out there once, and it was gone 3 days later! When I marvelled about this to the family I was staying with, they asked how long a cold took to clear up in London and I said 1-2 weeks (nearer two usually) and they were aghast. They never heard of anything like it! So the clean air out in France was probably fixing his cold quickly, and then just before it popped its clogs, we brought him back to super pollution to give it a second chance. *sigh* Poor Arthur.
Anyway, so he did okay with his cold in France. He was VERY wakeful the first night with it, and stirred literally every 5-10 minutes (I am not even kidding - I watched the glow-in-the-dark clock) unable to breathe and needing some serious de-snotting. He couldn't breathe to nurse, and sometimes it was really hard for him to get back to sleep. Thankfully we always pack the baby nose-sucker thing (sounds scary, hehe!) and Calpol and various baby remedies, etc. when we go away, so we were able to de-snot him a bit. We put a little Vick on his chest and back but nothing changed till I hit on the idea of SLATHERING my own chest with it and then nursing him or snuggling him tummy to tummy with my chest bare. He literally went from propeller engine to silence in 30 seconds next to my heavily ponging chest! So then it was much better, but it was 5am by then and I had not had any sleep yet. Then I couldn't get comfy in a pregnant way for another hour and a half, so yeah I was super tired that day. But at least that was the worst night. After that I wore Vick a lot!
He ate great! He really loves his food. It amazes me when I think back to the days when he still wouldn't take solids of any sort at 8 months, and I was worried he would be super picky for LIFE and it would be an endless struggle with a fussy eater! He just wasn't ready, and I'm SO glad I didn't push him and just continued nursing him till he WAS ready. He just loves his food now! He wants way more than he's allowed, like foods that we're not ready to share with him yet. My mummy made mince pies with some FAB homemade mincemeat, but it contained some alcohol so it was a no-no for Arthur. Did that stop him getting any? Noooo. He got pastry and the tiiiniest square mm of flavour from the mincemeat, and he LOVED it!
He has a pretty big appetite now too. He eats a whole banana for a mid-afternoon snack and often a couple of rice cakes with it. It never stops him being so hungry for tea an hour or two later that he opens his mouth wiiiide like a baby bird (as my parents described it!) for his food! The hungrier he is, the wider he opens his mouth :) He is such a cutie pie. We took the jars of organic stage 3 food that he is used to having for lunch, and made him various meals for tea like we do at home. The thing is, he likes sandwiches and toast at home, but he really didn't like the French bread, and that is all there is out there! I guess he didn't like the texture - it's very crusty after all. But he did like mashed potatoes with stuff and pasta meals :) He didn't eat what we were eating usually, as his mealtimes really don't coincide with ours, and this boy is not a boy who likes his schedules messed with! He eats at 7.30am (everyone asleep at that time!), 11.30am (toooo early for lunch!) and 4.30pm. He has his bath at 6-something and is in bed nursing between 7 and 8 usually. Sometimes by 7pm. We kept everything running smoothly for him in France and he seemed almost grateful for that, so I'm glad we made the effort. He bathed in the big corner bath there, but he doesn't seem to like other people's baths! He cried in the one at Neil's parents' house (mind you, so would I, it is not exactly the picture of hygiene! Yeurgh.), and seemed anxious about the shower attachment in France. He likes HIS bath :) I can see he is already becoming a creature of habit! ;)
Arthur is so like my daddy. He is also so like Neil's dad. I love that. I love seeing all our parents rolled into one precious little boy. He has my mum's eyes - shape and colour. My dad's curly hair, concentrating expression (my dad makes EXACTLY the same one when he is writing music or playing the piano, it's uncanny!), larger than average head and shorter than average legs!! He has Neil's dad's mouth exactly, which is also Neil's mouth - and when we were at his parents' house over Christmas I saw a very faded photo of Neil on the sideboard where he must have been about 2 years old. He was with his brother and baby sister and he was grinning enormously with Arthur's EXACT grin! Even Neil was surprised at how similar it was when I pointed it out. He said how strange it was to see his son's smile on his own face :) I love the way he worded that. Arthur also has a lot of Neil's dad's expressions and mannerisms. He has a general "look" of Neil's dad to his face, and I would say he looks most like him at a glance. I think he is going to have Neil's mum's nose. Neil has it, and it is characterised by a bony angle that Neil hates, but which doesn't even appear till around age 10. But I think he has that nose a-coming.
Anyway. He took a huge liking to my parents, especially Grandy (my daddy)! He beamed with delight the instant Grandy came into the room, or downstairs for breakfast! Nana often got a curious expression or shy smile or sometimes even a frown!! He loved her too, and they had lots of fun together playing games and learning new things. But he just had this thing for Grandy. He would often giggle just to get Grandy's attention, when he was busy cooking or something! He does that a lot, to just about anybody, even strangers! He knows his giggle is the cutest thing and nobody can resist him when he does it ;)
He did love helping Nana with the laundry though - some things never change!
Arthur perfected his long-distance walking while we were in France - FINALLY he had the opportunity to just walk and walk and walk and walk and not stop, because there was just soooooo much space. It's a lonnng walk from one end of the house to the other, and Arthur loved doing it over and over. There are two steps up where the two houses join, and we either walked him up them or he crawled up them. The floors are all stone tile (heated though!) and the stairs and steps are polished wood. I was so sure he would have a million nasty accidents on those hard surfaces, but he only had a couple. One time when he was crawling up those two steps, his knee slipped on the polished surface and his face fell into the edge of the next step (owch!). He had a blood blister on his lip for a week, but it's all but gone now. I felt so bad for him! He cried but he was such a trooper, he recovered so quickly with a cuddle from Mummy :)
He also had quite a nasty fall on the stone floor one time, which was heartbreaking because he was going round from person to person at bedtime saying night night to them one by one with such a sweet smile on his face, and he lost his balance and fell sideways, and hit the side of his head on the hard floor :( Poor poor baby. I never heard him cry so much over a fall before. It took AGES for him to calm down, even in my arms, and he was very quiet for a while after that. I got all worried as he had hit his temple area and it was swelling up pretty good. I googled "toddler head injury" and finally found a site (can't remember which now) that told me he was unlikely to have hurt himself badly, and that if it was bedtime, I should keep him up for a short while to observe his behaviour, and then put him to bed as usual, waking him every 3-6 hours throughout the night, depending on the severity of the blow. So that's what we did. I was so relieved to find that site! After his crying and quietness, he perked up very quickly and did a lot of walking and giggling and was his normal self. So I put him to bed after maybe an hour, and that happened to be the night that he woke constantly with his cold, so we didn't have to worry about waking him to see if he was able to be roused or not. He still has a bruise there now, and it was quite nasty so we gave him Calpol once or twice over the first 24 hours or so after he did it. Which also coincided with his cold so I didn't mind dosing him up a little in case he felt crappy and achy.
He did have one other fall but thankfully he hit his head on the thick carpet rug thing (there's one in each room) instead of the tiles, so he was fine.
Soooo he did loads of walking. By the end of the stay he was walking SO fast if he wanted to get somewhere with great enthusiasm, or quickly! He sometimes tried a little run and stumbled or fell to his hands and knees. He is so keen to move move move all the time! He absolutely never once stayed still the whole time we were there, unless he was in bath, bed or his highchair! Oh, well sometimes he did sit still to play with a toy that he was interested in. We took his favourites, and he got Christmas presents from Nana and Grandy. He got more wooden bricks (how he LOVES those!), a couple of pull-and-go toys, some bath toys, a baby book in French which he loves, a very cute little outfit for age two, which I swear he will fit nicely in the next couple of months (!!), and DUPLO!!! Yay! Duplo was on our list of "must haves" for Arthur :) He loves it already, and is trying to stick it together and stuff. He likes to pull it apart if we have built stuff. Which of course, we do! I love Lego and Duplo! :) I have so much Lego in the loft from when me and my brother were little for Arthur and Sprout to play with when they are a bit older (well, a lot older in Sprout's case!). We had a LOT of Lego. Why do they call it Legos in America? The plural of Lego is Lego. Hmnph.
We went out in the garden and Arthur just loved walking outside in his shoes. I need to make lots of opportunities for him to do this now we're back. He is pretty steady on his feet, shoes or no shoes, wherever we go now. He can literally walk MILES (in toddler terms!) without stopping or seeming to get tired at all, and now stoops to pick something up easily and then straightens up again and carries on walking, and he stops and changes direction all the time, and walks in funny little circles or figure eights too! He liked to push all the chairs neatly in under the table while we were in France - he would go all around the table pushing all the chairs in till they touched the table edge! Funny boy - he does like to be neat and tidy about everything!
He enjoyed playing peekaboo behind the huge floor-length curtains all around the house - a game he seemed to spontaneously start himself one time when I was walking around the house with him. He loved flinging the curtain aside and "startling" me sooo much, hehe! One time when he flung the curtain aside and giggled with glee, he unexpectedly got snapped by the camera, haha! So here is the photo:
Here he is with his daddy. I just like this photo. Neil is so wonderful with him ALL the time. He is just the best father I could possibly have imagined finding for my children. He is so involved and does SO much practical stuff - more than me sometimes, I feel embarrassed to admit! He is amazing. And Arthur is so close to him and they have such a great bond. I love how Arthur smiles so hugely when they rub noses, or spontaneously gives his daddy a kiss, or when Neil swings him up, kisses his cheek and tells him, "I love you, my little boy" That is just the loveliest thing to my ears. Well, one of them! There are so many lovely things to my ears now that Arthur is part of our lives.
But I digress again! Here's the photo of them in front of the fire, which you can't see, taken one chilly late afternoon - yes, that stripe outside the window is the horizon over the vineyards. How GORGEOUS it was to be in so much open space after the yucky clutter of London!
BUT, the boy loves his Mummy too! :) This is just about one of my favourite photos so far, taken in my parents' garden. Arthur was so happy and relaxed, and I love how you can tell that from his expression. I love his enormous multitude of expressions!
And talking of photos in the garden, here are some more, of Arthur being highly excited about being outside walking with his big boy shoes on, with his Daddy:
He just wanted to walk and walk and walk and walk - I was amazed that he wasn't even that interested in all the gravel stones under his feet! All he wanted to do was WALK! After a while I took over from Neil:
And then ended up picking him up to give ME a break, hehe! He was laughing at something here.
See my lil Sprouty bump?!!! Yay, I have a little bump, I'm so proouuud and thrilled!! And I have too much hair. I need need need a lot of hair cut off, but I'm chicken, and also I have no idea WHAT I want done with it. So it's still there.
And. I suddenly can't remember what else I meant to write in this entry. Maybe that means I have written it all? I don't know. Well, we had a lovely time with my parents and they had a lovely time with us, and I was sort of sad to leave, but also glad to get back to normal life again. I always love it when the whole Christmas/New Year period is OVER. It gets old pretty fast and I long for normality again!
Our journey home was uneventful and much better weather. Arthur was so tired on the plane and in the end I nursed him sitting up on my lap for the last 15 minutes of the flight, which settled him well. He went to sleep for a while on the way home, and we had to stop at a service place for me to eat, as I had stupidly mis-timed lunch and not done as Neil had, and bought food to eat on the plane. I ate an enormous portion of fish and chips and peas out of a cardboard box in the car! Mmmmm.... Then Arthur woke and we had to go back into the service place and use the baby station to microwave his jar of spaghetti bolognese, as he was RAVENOUS! The poor thing had just had snacks on the flight, even though it was lunch time for him during that time, as we hadn't got a meal for him that we could serve him on the journey. We took him sandwiches on the journeys to and from Neil's parents, but he wouldn't have the French bread, so that ruled sandwiches out for the journey home. He had a lot of apple rice cakes and a banana and raisins and stuff. He loves raisins like they are sweeties! He is always so upset when we take them away after he's had enough to worry our minds about the next day's nappies! ;) Anyway then he fell asleep in the car so he was even later for his meal. So we had to stop.
And that is that! We didn't stay up to see the New Year in, as my family isn't huge on bothering to do that. We don't party or sing Old Man's Groin or whatever it is (!!), we always just spend the evening together and look forward to the next year together, and usually toast the New Year over our evening meal. But then we basically want to go to sleep like normal! So we do, and therefore aren't usually up when midnight rolls around. That's fine though, because the next morning we're bright and cheery, completely non-hungover, and wishing each other Happy New Year. I wouldn't have it any other way :) We never really think back over the year though, I have noticed. We just look forward to the next one. I always THINK back over it when I lie in bed on the last night of the year, and end up thanking God for about fifty billion things that he has blessed me with that year. There are always SO many, no matter how many things have felt hard or upsetting somehow. I like to think about things that way. It means that I go to sleep in the last few minutes or hours of the old year zinging with joy at all the wonderful things God has blessed me with that year, and having spent my last waking moments of the year talking with him about them. And also zinging with EXCITEMENT over all the things that God is going to bless me with in the coming year! I know there will be some real hardships, for sure. I know it's going to be downright HARD with two little ones under two, when the new baby comes. I think sometimes I am going to really struggle with life. And we surely plan to move house, maybe completely relocate. So that will be really hard. But man oh man, it's going to be a thrilling and exciting year! What fantastic changes, however terrifying they might be, and however many difficult challenges they throw in our path! I am going to have a baby this year. My heart is going to grow AGAIN! I am breathless with awe at the very idea of having any MORE room to love my children, but I know it is sure to happen when the baby is born. And I can't WAIT!!! I have a whole freshly clean year to spend with my sweet little Arthur, watching him grow and change and become a big brother. I feel like I am growing up all the time, faster and more effectively than I ever did in my life before. And in a GOOD way. In ways that I always felt I needed to grow up but could never seem to muster up the something-or-other to do it. So I'm excited about that too.
Yay for 2005, it was a great, scary, exciting, thrilling, challenging, exhausting, refining year. I loved it. It made me a parent, not just like 2004 did (there are now TWO calendar years between Arthur's birth and now!!!! How crazy is that?!) with Arthur's birth and first few weeks, but the real daily grind of being an active parent, the way the first year moulds you to be. So I heart 2005. But I think I heart 2006 better :) I get to do it all again, and STILL continue my parenting road with the precious little love that I already have. And who knows what else God has in store for me?! I'm excited. Scared, sometimes. But mostly excited :)
Happy New Year everyone!! I will write another entry asap with the third installment - a normal one with Arthur stuff (which I have covered a lot of here actually) and Neil's job situation and my usual flotsam, oh, and more photos of course! I have taken a few since we got home so I'll post those next entry. Here is the last one I wanted to post from France - just me and Arthur again, but I just love it because he was giggling and being sooo "Arthur", rattling my bottle of prenatal vitamins!
I am noticing that I nearly always have my face bent towards him in photos. I guess that is how I am really. I just can't get enough of Arthur. I want to be looking at him all the time, seeing his expressions, watching him learn and experience new things. I never want to miss a SECOND, or an expression-change, or anything. Sometimes I only see Arthur when I have my eyes open. I just love him so much. He is all I want to look at sometimes.
One thing for this year that I would like to change, is to have that kind of passion back for Jesus. I used to have it, I used to love him THAT much that I never took my eyes off him. Now I don't, and I miss it. I NEED it. So I pray for that to change this year. I really need God's help to do it, because I am so rubbish at fixing my eyes on him when I have gotten sluggish at it for a while. I want to love Jesus MORE than I love Arthur. That sounds like a crazy statement, given how Arthur is my own child and to love him more than anything is just how it should be. But nobody is more worthy of my love than Jesus. I want the world to know it. And I want to start living it out again this year.
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