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2005-08-23 - 11.02pm previous entry next entry
Visit from my brother, and helpful Arthur!
I am so excited! For anybody who doesn't read/stopped reading my pregnancy journal, I just wanted to write here that we are officially trying to conceive again! My luteal phase is still way too short, but we ended up having three "oopsies" this cycle and I am now waiting to see if I get my period or not. I think I will, because like I say, my luteal phase isn't so good. But I started a supplement this cycle which is supposed to help with that, and I have some weird symptoms that are bugging the heck out of me right now. But anyway. The oopsies made us realise that we are both feeling ready to try for another baby, so if I get my period we will be going for it full steam ahead! That needed saying here, since it's super exciting and momentous news!! Woohoo! :) I will be updating over there regularly as we try to make Arthur a little brother or sister!
Also, I FINALLY wrote my very long-winded birth story, only 9 months late, hehe! It's reeeeally long, seriously, only read it if you have like 2 hours to spare! ;) There are new photos in it from the camcorder too (we left the camera at home when we transferred to hospital), which I only just figured out how to upload. Yay. Done the birth story at last!! ;)
Ohhhkay, what to report? I have been so caught up with thoughts of TTC and symptom-spotting and other non-useful daydreamy stuff (!), that I can't think what we've been up to since my last entry.
Oh yes! My brother and his fiancee, Sarah, came to visit! It was so lovely to see them. Arthur was ultra sociable and impressed them with all the new things he's doing since they saw him a month or so ago. They are a very doting Uncle and Aunt. I love to see them with Arthur because it's so clear how much they love him. I feel so blessed that I produced a little treasure for them to love. I don't know why. It's just a big feeling that I have :)
We took some photos while they were here. Neil got some nice ones of me and Arthur too, except I feel a bit pfthth about me in those photos. I felt tired and puffy and hungry and blah when they were here. I love this photo of Arthur walking across the room to me, with Sarah holding one of his hands till he reached me. I love it because you can actually see his blurry little foot as he's stepping away there!...
Here we are a minute later. Arthur was so intrigued by our visitors! He kept on turning round to stare at them and see what they were doing!
Here is a photo of me reading to Arthur. He is still sooooo into his books. We read like a dozen times a day! He still loves that Twinkle Twinkle book, but lately he really goes for a book that I first read him when he was 8 weeks old (and he even looked interested in it then!), called, "What do you say?" It's a lovely bright coloured book with animals in, and under each picture of an animal, you say, "What do you say to a (whatever animal)" and then make the appropriate noise. Arthur loves the pictures. He focuses on them so intently while I say the line, and then immediately looks up at my mouth to watch me make the noise. I make it two or three times, and then he smiles and looks back down at the book. When I have read the next line, he looks up at my mouth again to watch the next noise! It's so sweet! Here he is watching my mouth to see what noise I will make:
So the visit was lovely. My brother looks so much more grown up than he should. He has a sort of beardy thing which, incidentally, really suits him, and I told him this. Then I looked at him and realised how he looks like a man now. I know that's crazy - he's 26! But he seems to have looked sort of lanky and adolescent for the longest time, and suddenly I looked at him on Saturday and thought, "Oh my gosh, he's a man!!" Hehe! I told him he was looking manly and he just said, "Yes. I AM a man!" But I told him he couldn't possibly look manly, since he was still supposed to be nine years old! Why is it that big sisters can't seem to get over their little brothers not being "little" any more?! I never get used to the fact that he is grown up, even though *I* am! It just weirds me out.
On Saturday and Sunday nights, Arthur slept just awfully. He woke up both nights around midnight and just stayed awake. I nursed him till he gagged from too much milk, and then Neil rocked him, and this just went on and on and on for ages. We tried just laying with him in bed, but he was fidgetty and wouldn't be still for long without getting fussy and crying. Once or twice he dropped off when Neil was rocking him, but he woke easily when he was put down and was wide awake again. The first night he didn't go back to sleep till 3am. He was up for three hours. WE were up for three hours! The second night it was 2.30am or thereabouts. Plus his normal waking for a breastfeed at 4am and then up for the day at 6am. Urrrrrrrgh we were sooooo tired. We still are. After 2 hours on the second night, Neil said to me that he wondered if it might be his teeth that were bothering him. He said while he was rocking him that he was constantly biting his hands. So we gave him Calpol, and he was out like a light within 20 minutes, and content as anything. He definitely still has a LOT of teething symptoms during the day so it makes sense. He has a rash on his cheeks from teething drool at the moment, and he bites EVERYTHING he can get his mouth on. Mostly his hands though :( He does seem like his gums hurt a lot too. Poor Boo. I wonder if it's still those new teeth that came through last week, or if he's working on a new one. I can't see any new ones brewing though.
Today he bit the tumble dryer door so clumsily, over and over and over, just banging his mouth into it (crazy child!) that he made his gum bleed where his top middle teeth are. He just kept on butting it with an open mouth, and when I pulled him away I saw blood on the door!!! Yikes! I wiped his mouth with a cloth but it wasn't till later that I could see a little speck of red where the tooth meets the gum on one of his top middle teeth (the newest one). Surely that would have hurt him? He was whining when he did it, but he just kept doing it all the same. Also, he has made his bits bleed twice in the last few days by scrunching them! I am trying to keep his fingernails short, but he scrunches and pulls at his bits like you wouldn't believe - it looks soooo painful! And he won't stop for anything. It's really hard to distract him from doing it when I change his nappy. I wonder if he itches there, because he does have a tiny bit of a spotty rash like the one on his cheeks at the moment. Hmmm. Anyway, one time a few days ago when I finally got his hands out of the way to put his clean nappy on, there was blood on his bits! And today he did it again. I got worried about it getting infected, but so far so good. I just change him regularly and keep things clean. Silly boy! Surely that hurts him? Why would he persist if it hurts?!
Anyway. He is a sweetie :) I hope he sleeps better tonight. He did okay last night.
His hair is getting thicker and longer by the day, it seems! It STILL stands straight up on top! I think he is going to have wavy hair like me. Only maybe even more so. His hair looks straight at a glance, but the top curls back on itself at the ends, and now that the sides are growing longer, they often curl up when he is sweaty or after a bath. Even when they lie flat they can have a strong wave like an S shape against his head. At the back he still has a lil bald patch, but above that the hair grows in a swirl and is now starting to curl under slightly, like a mild version of having used one of those huge old-fashioned rollers to make the hair curl under instead of up and out from the head. I love his hair. It's so soft and beautiful. It always smells so wonderful. I love when he smells sweetly of whatever he has eaten that day, and then after his bath how he smells of baby, all sweet and fragrant. I love smelling rusk or mango or cottage pie on his hair! He is so edible anyway that it's like an added bonus to have him smelling like food, hehe!
We finally moved the mattress in our bedroom! Yay! It's going soooo slowly in there. We swapped the mattress with the triple wardrobe, so the bed is now in its permanent position - yay! Now we need to buy a single mattress and put it next to the kingsize one. Then our family bed will be complete! The room looks so much bigger with the furniture this way round too - a nice surprise!
Arthur was terribly "helpful" when we were moving things around. The second we had the doors off the wardrobe to move it, he was powering off towards it and pulling up on the side. He just goes crazy for pulling things out of things these days. Here he is reaching for the shoe box:
And being extremely pleased with himself after pulling it down onto the floor!
He's such a funny lil man, always busy getting into something or other! He's so fun to have around. The other day I was changing his nappy and his clothes in one go, and he was off in a second when I turned around to sort out a new nappy. After I got everything ready, I followed him into the kitchen, where I found him standing completely naked at the open tumble dryer, in an absolute frenzy of pulling the dry laundry out! It was so funny! He was almost waist deep in strewn laundry, and was trying to yank an enormous towel out with all his strength! I just love him so much. I got it on video because he was so intent on his "work" that he just kept going! But yeah, nakey boy, so you can't see it. You'll just have to take my word for it on the cuteness thing! :)
Today he figured out how to open the washing machine door - that clever little rascal! He looked soooo pleased with himself when he did it this afternoon! I heard it click open, and turned around to find Arthur standing at the machine with his hand on the door latch, the door 2 inches open, and his little face peeping back at me with shining eyes and a HUGE grin, as if he had just found treasure! Once I opened it up for him properly, he pulled out the entire wet white load! The dryer wasn't free yet so I didn't want it out of the machine and wet on the floor, but I didn't have the heart to stop him. He just loves pulling things out of things soooo much, and it's so cute to watch his enthusiasm and hear his little grunts of effort as he works away!
My little man. He's so precious. I love him more than anything in the world.
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