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2007-01-21 - 8.42pm previous entry next entry
More mystery with Matthew, and some big changes...
Okay, brief (ish) update - Matthew's abcess is smaller, but only a little. I think it's getting better though. He still has horrendous nappy rash and I haven't been able to get calendula oil. So far we've switched to the Metanium nappy cream that the HV recommended when he had nappy rash last time, and it's a lot better if he manages to go a few hours without pooing with that cream on.
He's still pooing more than normal and I think it's still diarrhoea (though hard to tell with a breastfed baby), but at least I'm seeing "seeds" in there now - the normal breastfed poo type, so that's reassuring.
But. Today, a rash. What is that?! He had some small spots down in his nappy area this morning, but not in the groin as such, more low stomach area. And a few patches on his torso at the front. This afternoon he has a widespread faint rash all over his back, top to bottom and less so on his front, and also on his face. It's very faint and mild but it's definitely a rash. It's hard to see unless you're bathing him or under a good light. The spots are pinprick size and pinkish red, and they passed the glass test. Arthur has one similar spot on his tummy, and another on his chin, but they are just individual spots and a little larger than Matthew's all-over rash. We kept Matthew home from church and Arthur went with Neil in the end. I hope that wasn't irresponsible... He seems absolutely fine in himself and it was my turn on the rota to do creche, so Neil took him and did my shift (again!) while I stayed home to nurse Matthew and stuff.
I don't know what to make of the rash though. I think if it's still there in the morning I will take him to the doctor. She can assess his abcess then, too. He still doesn't seem himself and seems better on Calpol than not most of the time, so I know he's probably in discomfort or feeling achy. I googled and found myself looking at a lot of rubella (german measles) pages, but the photos of rubella rashes look generally worse than Matthew's. They are otherwise awfully similar, but lots worse - even the ones that say "mild rubella rash". So I don't know. Arthur has had part one of his two MMR jabs so he is allegedly 90-95% protected against it now. Hmmm.
Or maybe it's just a weirdo virus? It seems to be something that's dragging out a long time, and the rash is a new thing. Oh well. Maybe I'll get to take him to the doctor and get some answers tomorrow? If the rash is gone though, I don't know if I will take him...
Poor Neil went supermarket shopping on the way home from church, slung the bags in the boot (that's trunk, not an old shoe, hehe!) and drove home, only to find when he unpacked the shopping that a 4-pint carton of milk had somehow hit a part of the tandem pushchair in a certain place and a big HOLE had been bashed into it! Nearly THREE pints of whole milk is subsequently soaked through the boot of our car. And I do mean soaked. Through that carpet thingy, the pushchairs, the cosytoes, other stuff that's in the boot, and it has even wormed its way through the carpet thing and drained into the screwed-in plastic surface of the boot! Neil had to clear it all out and unscrew the boot of the car to try and get all the milk cleaned up. It soaked a loaf of bread too. He was feeling so tired and stressed that he said it almost brought him to tears to find that it had gone into the workings of the boot under the carpet, poor Neil! It's pretty much sorted now but the carpet section is slumped in the back garden needing a serious clean still.
Dum de dum...
I'm sure there is a lot of stuff I've been needing/waiting/wanting to write about, but my head is a sievy sieve these days and I just feel cheerfully dense like Dori in Finding Nemo :)
Um.
If you ask Arthur what time it is, he says, "Ten past seven! Neary time fa TEA!!!" hehe! I have no idea why!
Tonight I asked him what his favourite thing was today, and he said it was saying thank you to Jesus for mummy milk - he says this EVERY night even though we haven't done it yet! Tonight he said it so clearly - "Thank you Deezus for Mummy milk, Amen!" in such a shy voice :) He "reads" the Toddler's Bible to Noddy, pointing out things in the pictures. I love hearing him say with SUCH excitement - "Look Noddy! Deezus!" pointing to a cartoon picture of Jesus :)
After we prayed, I wanted to find out what he actually DID like best today:
Me: "Arthur, what did you like best today?"
Arthur: "Liked going out"
Me: "What did you like best about going out?"
Arthur: "Liked going turch"
Me: "Oh, you liked going to church?! What did you like best about going to church?"
Arthur: "Liked cu-cuk bibbit!" (chocolate biscuit!)
I have no idea if he had a chocolate biscuit at church (will ask Neil later) but he's so funny. He likes the little details in life :)
Ohhh my head is as empty as a pocket, empty as a pocket, empty as a pocket with nothing to lose... sha-na-naaa (sha-na-naaa) sha na na na na, she's got diamonds on the soles of her shoooes... Where's one of those smileys that has its eyes rolling around in its head all crazily, but still with a happy smile on?! That's me right now ;)
I think I'm ovulating again, but who knows. I am temping and everything this cycle, yay! I have had fertile signs for a good week now, but no ovulation yet. Maybe my body will give up and try again later.
I am having LOTS of thoughts lately about big changes in my life. I should write about it here but it's like a mountain to do so. It's like a mountain to THINK about. I need to change in LOTS of ways, and there is no time left for me to dither about not doing it. I need to be a better wife to my husband. I need to seriously get organised - something I have never succeeded at before - and learn to manage my children and my home. I need to do better for myself as well. There is so much that I need to seriously think about and change and do, and I haven't the first clue how to do it (so I'm putting lots of hours in researching at the moment), and even if I figure it out, I am not that confident of succeeding as I have a rubbish track record of these things.
I feel like I'm almost being dishonest here, where I'm always so open and nothing gets hidden, by keeping back what I'm thinking about and doing! I guess I will admit now that I have recently started another Diaryland diary - my first new start since this diary. But it's the ONLY one that I have had an urge to keep private. Some of the ideas I have for bringing up my children and the way I want to live my life will be a bit contraversial, I think. I mean, sure there will be people who think it's all great, but there will be just as many (probably more actually) who think the opposite and will get all annoyed about it and let me know. I am also a little unconfident in my own abilities and I don't actually know what I'm doing, so I think it would help me to feel it out as I go along without scrutiny, does that make sense? Maybe I explained it better the way I wrote it in that diary:
"I don't know if I'm going to share this diary yet. I have with all my others, and I have lots of readers. Sometimes I feel under scrutiny there, especially lately about the issues I'm facing with parenting and particularly discipline. It's a heated subject and there are very different views on it. I don't like getting critisized (ugh, for some reason, I can't spell that word tonight - will have to check it later!) for things like that. They are too close to the nerve and I'm already too emotionally sensitive and self-critical about it. So I don't know if I will ever share. I also want to feel things out with the new ideas I am finding, and see how they work. If I post them at arthursmummy, I might get confused with a ton of feedback about them before I even get started, say from other people's experiences of them. I know that might also be helpful, but I really think I need to feel this out on my own. Maybe when (if?) it's all going well and I'm well established with routines and things are REALLY changing, then I could share, so that others could see how I got there. I like open diaries because I like the lessons I learn to be available for other people to see, so that it might help them too if they need that sort of thing. I like people to learn from my mistakes."
There. So that is what I'm doing. There will be some parts of what I write there that I can just copy and paste here like that paragraph, because some bits will feel "okay" to post here, and I don't want to completely exclude the plans and thoughts I have about my life and the changes I want to make from this diary. This diary is my personal diary, about my life, so it all belongs here really. But I am starting to find the scrutiny (and particularly the critisism - why is it that I STILL can't spell that word?!) difficult. I am too sensitive to it at the moment and don't need the extra stress. Oh but I don't mean to imply that people reading here are mean criticising (sp?!!) people who just stress me out with their comments! That's NOT true. But sometimes it happens, and I guarantee it will happen way more if I were to post what I'm writing THERE in here. Some of my plans are rather "old-school", shall we say. If they work for our family, I will open up that diary and share everything, once I am confident in my abilities again and can handle criticism (?!!?!!). I hope that doesn't offend anyone.
I DO want to share my main thoughts for starting the new diary here though! Here's where I'm coming from:
"These first couple of weeks of the New Year in 2007, I have really sat and looked at my current situation. I feel like NOTHING is working like I want it to in my life, and that is a disheartening feeling. I have some of my "rev" back recently - I got my first period after Matthew's birth a week or two ago and I can REALLY feel the shift in my hormones. I feel like a cloud has lifted and I feel happy to the core again, and that enables me to have what it takes to make some serious changes. It's a New Year and that helps too, it motivates me some more.
I figured I have four major roles in my life.
1) I am a child of God.
2) I am a wife to my husband.
3) I am a mother to my two little boys.
4) I am.... me.
I have other more minor roles, like sister, daughter, friend, etc. Not to belittle those roles, but I really feel the four above roles are the BIG ones to focus on in life. Certainly for me, anyway.
Well so I did a sort of self-evaluation, and realised (with some horror) that I am not fulfilling ANY of those roles, nor am I remotely satisfied with what I'm doing in any of them. This NEEDS to change!
1) My relationship with God is pretty lukewarm these days. It has been for a while. I don't even know why. I haven't forgotten about God but let's just say that I really find it hard to feel passionate about him any more these days. I want that to change. I NEED that to change. God is my Everything, my Source, my Provider, my Rock and my Safe Refuge. If I don't have God I am nothing, and I fully acknowledge that. Plus I feel empty without the intimacy I used to share with him. Oh, please note that I'm a bit inconsistent with capitalizing when it comes to God. His name I will capitalize, and other words that refer to his name I suppose. But I have never really capitalized "him" and "his" like so many Christians do. I don't mean to disrespect my God. When I became a Christian, the Bible I started out reading was the New International Version, and in there they don't capitalize "him" and "his", etc, when referring to God. It made it seem such normal language to a brand new Christian like me, and so refreshing. I carried it into my own use of things, because I didn't want to be "overly religious" just for the sake of it, when I felt so personally intimate with God, and like the closest of friends with my Jesus. For some reason, capitalizing things more than just names gave me a feeling of making him less "reachable" to me. I don't know why really. But anyway, there you are. If you ever find this diary (once I tell people where to find it!) and you're a Christian and you disapprove of the non-capitalizing when I talk about God (except for his name of course, which I would NEVER disrespect by not capitalizing), then that is my explanation.
I became a Christian on October 15th 1995 at the age of 19, from a non-Christian (pretty much ANTI-Christian) family. I was searching. God wanted me! It's a kind of long story, longer than I have time for tonight, so maybe a link to an old diary entry that explains it will have to do (if I can find one and remember to come back here to link it, that is!). I have been going to the same small, charismatic, non-denominational church since I became a Christian. I met Neil there within a month or two of giving my heart to Jesus. He was a "returning" Christian, studying at the local university (though his actively Christian family lived miles away in North Yorkshire) and a student in his class also attended the little church we became part of. She knew he used to go to church once-upon-a-time, so she invited him to an Alpha course. She invited me too :) That's how God brought us together. We started going out on July 3rd 1996, and we got engaged 18 months later, in January 1998. We married on August 14th 1999 - seven years this past August!
Anyway, so church. I was baptised at the end of the Alpha course, and have grown in my wisdom of and love for God since then. My illness from 1999 to 2001 gave me the biggest opportunity of my LIFE to get close to God and learn to depend on him. I can't think why I have let all that go after SUCH an experience :(
2) The wife thing. I am not a great wife. I don't feel like going into it in this introductory entry, but I am not proud of the kind of wife I am. My husband is a WONDERFUL one. He does more than his fair share of everything - housework, childcare, and he takes my moods and frustrations on the chin. Hormones and stuff mean that we aren't really that intimate, and I know we need to be. I have never been that good at that side of things, since we've been married, and that is not good. I am guilty of being the "dripping tap" kind of wife a lot, and that makes me sad. My husband does NOT need that in a wife.
I need to become a better wife to my husband, a better support and someone who handles her other roles within our family so that his burden is LESS and he can just focus on his work and the side of family life that he should be able to just enjoy and relax with. I am SO willing to try. I just don't know how to fix it or be better. Resentments build up too easily, and I am not good and burning those, especially without being close to God. I need to fix it.
3) Motherhood is HARD WORK! But the most wonderful and rewarding work EVER invented, seriously. I just feel like I am not doing the best at it that I can, in fact far from it at times. Aside from the discipline issues with Arthur, I do not take the kids out much and the TV is on WAY too much - both things I never ever wanted for my children. We don't eat at the table because of the hideous state of the house and complete lack of organisation. Arthur is a seriously faddy eater and is STILL on baby-food jars - the 15 months+ toddler type, but even so, he's picky about which ones. He eats toast and sandwiches and yoghurt and some fruits. And peas. LOTS of peas! He drinks a lot of breastmilk still. But I have been able to be lazy about preparing meals for my children, and I need to fix that. Matthew is quickly proving to be quite a different kind of baby when it comes to food, and we are doing "baby-led weaning" with him, which means he gets handed chunks of food to eat rather than purees. He loves it. But I am too disorganised to increase his meals yet or give him the variety he needs. Isn't that AWFUL of me? I'm ashamed of it. I need better organisation for my children's sake.
My household isn't peaceful because either Arthur is running riot, or the TV is on, or Matthew is fussing if it's near bedtime and he's tired, or else I am raising my voice and snapping. I even snapped at Matthew the other day during a nappy change. This has GOT to stop. I can't bear the irritating tone of my nagging voice towards my children. I hate it. I want to make some changes so that I parent them effectively and peacefully, and have the household and THEM and myself under control.
4) Me. I am continually striving to feel "better" or "recharged" or "happier". Nothing fills that gap. I keep thinking that maybe I'm just toooo sleep-deprived, and if only I could have a day or two to just sleep then I'd feel all better, but I don't really. Or that it's just the state of the darn house, and if only it would get cleaned up, I could start afresh and maintain it, but I don't know if it's that one or not because we have NEVER managed to clean the house up and make it tidy. Neil is every bit as bad as I am with clutter, disorganisation and untidiness. It drives me crazy. WE drive me crazy. Ugh. It also may be that I am not letting God in close to my heart, and without Jesus I will always feel a "gap". I need to fix me. I can't be a great mother, wife, or homemaker if I don't first fix myself. I think about that verse where Jesus says, "First take out the log in your own eye and then go and take out the speck in your brother's eye". I need to fix me, and hurry up about it. But again, I'm not sure how exactly."
I am starting the HUGE process of working on home management. I have spent HOURS reading sites online, and have found the best people to learn from to be mothers who are effectively running LARGE families (6-14 children). Most of these women are Christians and many are more than willing to share their wisdom, so I am hoovering it up from various sites and following links galore to places that will help me too.
I know my ideas will make some of my readers' skin crawl because it is soooo unlike how they'd EVER want to be, but *I* want to be the old-fashioned housewife, with the old-fashioned Christian values. I want to serve my husband more than I do. I want to fall into my "roles" more, doing the things that I feel I should, for my husband, and "keeping house" effectively, and bringing up my children. I want to have baking days and cleaning days and laundry days. I feel lost without a form of discipline for my children that really works. No, I don't want to SMACK them, but suffice to say that a lot of the gentle parenting stuff I was all about when I came into parenting has started to lose face with me a bit. I am ALL about being gentle with my children, but the methods I was using were leading to more frustration and LESS gentleness in the long run. I DO want a bit more control than I have with them, and I want them to learn some things that perhaps aren't the done thing in this day and age. I will do everything for my children with LOVE and kindness. But I'm not going to write about it here, because people are going to upset me about my choices and I'm not even sure I'm making the right ones anyway. I need time to figure it out and implement it and see if it works, and while I do that, I need a place to journal about it to see where I'm going wrong and write ideas. I'm still just building ideas for now, but we have implemented a "new" method of discipline with Arthur in the last week or so which is working quite well at the moment. It may stay for the long-haul as I want to be consistent, but I don't want to persist in something that isn't right, so I'm trying to be open-minded.
Other ideas are to make a home management binder and get myself and my home on a pretty strict schedule, like the women who run large families and busy homes do. These are old-fashioned ideas in general, and involve children doing chores. Enough said here. My children are too young, but they WILL be learning when the time is right. I have learnt such a lot from these wise wise women. They are all so loving and close with their kids, many practise attachment parenting and breastfeed beyond the age of 2, and ALL their children seem happy, well-adjusted, and love being part of a large family. They almost all home-school their kids.
I LOVE what they do! It's just what *I* want for my family! But it's different here in England. Most of these families are in The States. I am also trying to be so careful about my tendency to do "fads" when I see things I like, and have a massive surge of excitement and effort towards achieving something that's tipped my interest, only for it to fade away within a matter of weeks. That has happened too many times for me to count, in my life, and I want to be so careful not to fall into that trap again. So I'm giving it time. I'm not making any huge decisions for a while, just taking things in and jotting down ideas, and talking them over with Neil. I'm scared it won't work, that I can't make ANYTHING work when it comes to life achievements or organisational skills. But I HAVE to make something work, even if we only have the two children we've got. I can't continue any longer living the way I do. I want to change, and I am going to find a way.
I hope.
So that's been my latest "thing", and has kept my thoughts from my usual normal stuff. I still have a crazy amount of reading and researching to do on stuff. I'm only glad I'm looking into all this while my children are still so young, before they'd really know about big changes in the household or to discipline and lifestyle, etc. I don't know. Maybe there won't even be anything to change? Maybe it's all hype and a "good idea" that won't happen and I'll go back to normal and just adjust the stuff I'm already doing to suit our lives better. It's entirely possible. I'm going to figure it out over at my safe place to do so, and I'll keep this diary posted on how I'm getting along.
So... oh darn, I think Neil has fallen asleep settling Arthur to bed. It's been so quiet in there for a long time. I had better go and wake him and think about dinner. I have photos to post, but not a one that is resized and ready to go, tsk. I need to get onto that asap. Will try to write again tomorrow if I can.
Thanks for the lovely messages after my last entry! :)
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