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2005-04-26 - 8.40pm previous entry next entry
Stuff. Missing my parents and family portrait
Hello!
Oooh how weird it is to be writing in a different diary to my Arthur one! Well, this will be an "Arthur" one too, because how could I help but write loads about my cutie-boy?! But also it's just for me to dump my brain, etc (!!), and that is something I haven't done in a loooong time at diaryland. Not properly anyway. I hope that won't put people off reading, if you guys thought you were coming to read all about Arthur all the time? I hope not, but if so, then oh well. I guess it's mostly for me that I vent my thoughts. People can read me if they like, but I still hate to think I'm boring people, heh.
I guess today is not a great start, since I am feeling kind of down tonight. My parents have been visiting for a long weekend and I had been looking forward to seeing them for ages! And now they have gone home, this evening. I feel blue :( I think I do really well with getting on with the idea that they live in another country now, when I have always been so close to them and they have always lived like, in the same house as me (!!) or else since I've been married they have lived in the same town. Then off they went to France, just like that! I used to think I could never leave home. I didn't go to university because I couldn't bear to leave my parents. Not that I ever would admit to that at the time, because how uncool would that be?! Hehe! One time I tried TEMPORARILY moving three roads away into a flat with a friend (who wanted a flatmate for a mere 3 weeks!). I was soooo miserable just on the first night that I came home after that. It used to worry me though. In my teens if I went on even a week's summer camp I would be a huge laughing stock because I'd be crying all the time from homesickness. Blah.
After I turned 20 I started to wonder how I would ever leave home, and I knew my parents were getting curious about the same thing - not particularly planning to let me live with them forever! I got engaged, but worried and worried about leaving my parents all the same. Even with Neil being so lovely. I did start to pray about it though, and I got people at church to pray with me about it too. God is so good. When we got married, we had an offer on a flat, but it fell through while we were on our honeymoon - I distinctly remember the weird feeling of making stressy businessy phone calls to boring English estate agents (no offence if you are one!) at odd times of the day (time difference!) from beautiful summery stress-free parts of California! Weird. But yeah, no home when we got back from honeymoon. So we stayed with my parents for 3 months after we got married, till we bought a different flat and it was finally ready to move into.
Urgh, I don't really want to relive this at the moment, do I? Oh well. Anyway so yeah, in the end we moved, it was hugely stressy, but that was only because I got M.E. within oooh 4 weeks of our honeymoon, and went rapidly downhill health-wise. But I could not get over how easy it seemed to be living with Neil and not my parents. I know God made that possible for me. I don't know how, but he did. When they said they were moving to France, I started praying right then, because even though it was going to take them a couple of years to renovate their house and leave England, I knew it could take me that long to deal with it and be ready for them to leave.
God did the same thing for me that he did before. When they left it was okay. But I miss them sooooo. It's always worse after I've just spent time with them. Especially now Arthur is here. Somehow seeing them with him makes my heart ache and when they go I tell Arthur that they won't be back again tomorrow like for the last few days. He smiles so much when he sees them, now that he is familiar with them again. But it aches my heart to know that he doesn't realise they won't be back again for a while. I wish they lived down the road again, like my own grandparents when I was little. I am really close to them and I know it's because we saw them so frequently when I was little. They were always on hand to babysit or take me to the park to feed the ducks, or look after me when my mummy went into hospital to have my brother. I was so hoping Arthur would have that kind of relationship with my parents, but I guess it would be hard to manage that with them living so far away. Frequent visits, even as frequent as we can make them, won't be enough. It can't be the same.
BUT, we are going to see them in a few weeks, because May 12th is my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary!!! They wanted to hold a small family gathering at my parents' place in France, so it will be just them, my brother and his Sarah, and my parents, me, Neil and Arthur. I like that :) That is all the family I have. Except my mum has a sister, who has a husband and a son. That is it. Everyone has been an only-child for 3 generations! Until me and my brother.
I plan to seriously mess that pattern up! ;)
Sooo that's not so bad, because we will see them in a few weeks, for another long weekend. But still. I miss them the moment they are gone - even while they are still waving at me from the car in my own street. I just miss them and I feel sad tonight.
I went shopping with them today. Mummy pushed Arthur in the 3-wheeler while I tried on some clothes - first time in ages! I bought two sort of floaty shirt-type things. They fit my bust. Hoorah. I had to buy a ton of t-shirts a couple of months ago just to have clothes that fit my bust. Before that it was still maternity clothes, but that started to get silly, since my bump was all gone! And now t-shirts are getting old. I want to feel more feminine, so that means shopping. I am wearing one of the tops now. But it isn't making me feel happier yet.
I tried on a ton of shoes too, but I didn't find any that fit me properly. Pfthth. I have this pair of brown Vans that I bought in a factory outlets store in California in 1997! They are all I wear. Seriously. I started wearing them in 1997, and I wore them like every day since. And I'm STILL wearing them every day. Now, 1) those are some GOOD quality shoes! but 2) something has got to change there! They are looking tatty. But they are just soooo comfy, and so familiar that it's like they are part of my foot. My feet miss them if I wear a different shoe, so my other shoes (such as they are) are being neglected.
This is boring, isn't it?
Blah blah blah. Do I have anything of interest in my life apart from Arthur?!! I am beginning to wonder!!
Arthur is just so wonderful :) I love him so much. He was smiling so big at every single lady in the queue at the checkout when I was buying my tops today! Mummy stood with him at the checkouts while I stood in line. Every lady who paid and walked past him got a beaming smile! And they all smiled back - he's such a cutie! Finally, one lady stopped and told him that he's such a flirt, hehehe! He is a charmer with the way he eyes people and smiles at them though, so it's kind of true ;)
In 12 days Arthur will be six months old, and hopefully I will do the diary changeover on that same day. I am planning to make my last diary entry in the pregnancy journal, complete with milestone photos, particularly since he'll be starting solids that day - yay!! I thought it would be nicest to have the solids photos in that diary as a closing thingumy. It's weird, but because 6 months is such a milestone age for so many reasons (solids, for us; half-a-year-old, etc), I am feeling mixed emotions about it approaching. I am excited about what comes after Arthur's first six months of life, like all the new things he's going to learn and do, and how much he's going to grow and develop and change. But I feel sad that it's the end of his "little" babyness. He will no longer be exclusively breastfed. He will be on the verge of sitting, crawling, standing, etc. Another six months will see huge changes, and we'll truly leave those precious first six months behind. It requires a different kind of parenting also. Discipline will start somewhere along the line (though obviously not yet!), and tantrums, different parenting activities to suit a baby who is becoming a toddler, and who eats food with us, etc. Thinking about having another baby. It feels kind of scary, the whole package. But I know every day is a step-by-step journey, and it's not going to all hit me at once! So it's not really scary.
If you've read my pregnancy journal (which I am guessing everyone has, since that's how you know about this one!), then you will already have seen the family portrait I'm about to post, but I wanted to add it in this diary as a starting point, because as this diary begins, this is my little family. There will be more family portraits to come, so I wanted to put the first one here as a starting point. So here it is:
And that is all I think. It's 8.30pm and Arthur is asleep, and I guess I need to update my pregnancy diary to write stuff about Arthur (because there's always stuff to write about Arthur!), but I am not in a cheerful enough mood. I hope I won't always use this diary to spout thoughts when I am not feeling cheerful!! I am usually happy so I shouldn't think so. I think I will go downstairs and see my Neils. Neils is what I call him. Don't know why, it just is. It's an affectionate thing between me and him. And my parents sometimes call him that too :) It's so nice that he is close to them. I really like that. I hope they are having a good ferry crossing tonight. I miss them :(
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