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2006-04-14 - 11.51pm previous entry next entry
Lonnnng update, part two!
Back to write part two! Although it's already 8pm and I need to eat yet and I'm tiiired again, so maybe it won't be a long entry this time!
Thanks Jemma for your message! I did wonder about Matthew's night wakings and how they would fit (or not!) with Arthur's. At the moment I think it wouldn't be all that great if they DID both wake at the same times, because I couldn't physically be in two places at once, it would be a nightmare! But then if they didn't wake at the same times, I would hardly get any sleep. Yeurgh. I am slightly dreading it, to be honest! But I hope Arthur will start to sleep through - the same old hope I've hung onto for 17 months now! ;) Not sure if anything will actually change, but hey ho. We'll just have to manage somehow.
What other things did I want to say last entry? I can't think of them suddenly! Oh, Arthur still isn't saying many words. He says "thank you" soooo beautifully though! He uses his winning smile with it, and makes the words so exaggeratedly clear, it's so sweet, and especially when you hear it in his little chipmunky voice :) It sounds like "ANK-yoooo!" He says thank you to us completely unprompted when we give him his drink, say, or something he asked us for. He also prompts US to say thank you to him when he hands us things, hehe! He loves to help me empty the dishwasher, and he hands each plate/spoon/saucepan to me in turn, saying, "ANK-yoooo!" as I take each one! I always say thank you whenever he hands me anything, especially things I've asked him for. I have a real pet-peeve about adults teaching little children to say "Ta" instead of thank you. It makes me want to pull my own skin off. I can't think why it bugs me THAT much, but it really really does! My mum always used to say how much she hated that, so maybe that's why I have such a thing about it too? She always said toddlers are perfectly capable of learning to say "thank you" as easily as "ta". Neil's mum says a very over-exaggerated "taaaah" every time Arthur gives her something, and it drives me CRAZY, but I don't say anything. Anyway, I love that Arthur has like 10 words in total, most of which only we can understand, and one of them is a nice clear "THANK YOU"!!! Ha.
I can't think what new words he's saying since I last wrote about it. Maybe he hasn't got any yet? Oh, he does say "eye" for both "hi" and "bye", with his hand raised in a wave :) It's both hi and bye but without the starting letter! He says "eye" to everything - the bath water as it goes down the plughole, the downstairs as we climb the stairs for a nap, anybody he is saying goodbye too. I think it's mostly his word for "bye" but he does also use it as a greeting. For Arthur, most of his new ways of communicating are in signs and sounds, and the fact that we are getting really fast at picking up his body language to know what he wants. We always say the words for things as he points at them - this is one of his favourite things to do actually. In particular he is really having a phase where he likes to read his books with me, and point to EVERY tiny detail on the page, and I MUST name them as he points, or else he gets annoyed about it! ;) He has a Noddy book which is getting slightly tiresome to read at the moment, as it has a picture of Noddy on every page, as well as about 10 bouncy balls with smiley faces on them. I can't even read him the story, he's so intent on pointing at the pictures and having me name them, and as soon as that's done, he turns the page! So I sit there as he points, saying, "Noddy.... And there's a ball!... Yes, another ball.... Ball.... Ball.... There's Noddy.... Ball.... another ball.... ball...." etc! And on the next page the same thing happens. Snore! But he loves it :)
I think he will get to talking when he is ready. There's such a huge variation in age when starting to talk, and it's all normal. I can't wait to hear his little voice piping out words all the time, but once it starts he'll be doing it forever more, and I'm in no hurry to rush him out of a baby stage :) I just know I'll love it when it happens. For now he is doing great. I think sometimes he gets a little frustrated about communicating with us, but he gestures such a lot and makes his own signs up, and we understand them very clearly most of the time, so he gets his message across! He is VERY clear when we have translated one of his signs or gestures correctly, so we always know when we have it right, and that helps us to fine-tune our understanding of his way of communicating.
My mum kept a journal with both my brother and me when we were babies/toddlers, just of our development and stuff, and I'm so glad she did. She loves to pull it out to check what we were doing at Arthur's age, and she reads it to me over the phone every month or so. I love to hear it, because it gives me some pointers of what to expect. Also, Bennie and I were so different in some of our developmental stages. I think we were a typical girl and boy! Mummy describes my play as very "emotive" (whatever she means by that!) and apparently nothing like Arthur's play as she has seen him. Bennie's play seems to have been exactly the same as Arthur's, at his age. He was into all the same things. Also we have all teethed in the same pattern! Arthur has definitely inherited my teething pattern, not Neil's. Bennie's speech was the same as Arthur's is - a handful of words at 16 months, some of them back-to-front and not too understandable to anyone but my parents. At 18 months I was talking in short sentences! My mum had written some examples of sentences I was saying at 18 months - "Here comes Matthew" (my best friend at the time!), "Here comes a car" and "More milk please"!! I can't IMAGINE Arthur talking like that just a month older than he is now! Because he's saying hardly anything and he's my measuring stick, 18 months seems to me sooooo young to be talking like that! It's amazing what a huge range there is amongst the norm. Anyway so I am reassured by my mum's journals too. I have read that boys often develop earlier than girls in the motor skills and later in speech and stuff. Arthur is definitely whizzing along on those motor skills, so I'm sure he'll get to speech when he's ready :)
He does make a lot of animal sounds now. I especially love his bee and snake! His bee is a bit lispy, but not so that it's just a hiss like a snake :) He understands just about everything we say. He uses his story books to ask me for things sometimes. There is a book that Sharon (an online friend!) got him called Peekaboo Farm, which he LOVES. On the page with a pig on it, there is a little detail of three apples on the floor. Oh! Apple is one of the new words he is trying. He says "aaah-ooo" very carefully, and sometimes "aaah-ooop". These apples, of course, get pointed to one by one, and I have to say apple for each one as he points :) Anyway, lately he has started getting that book, opening it to the page with the apples on it, pointing to an apple, and when I say, "Apple!", he immediately signs please! I ask him if he wants an apple to eat and he signs please again and goes to the kitchen! Sometimes he signs please when I say "apple" and then points to the kitchen! I love the little things he makes up to tell us things!
He is the most mischievous climbing monkey at the moment. He has a ton of places that he climbs that I absolutely can't babyproof to prevent him getting to them, and he KNOWS he's not allowed to climb there. But he makes a beeline for them the instant my back is turned or I am out of the room. He does NOT get the whole telling off thing. I always tell him to get down in a not-pleased voice when I find him there, and lift him down straight away. He LOVES to be caught doing something naughty, and laughs with glee! I can't figure out what to do about it at all, so it just continues. Hmmm. He can also reach the drawer where we store all the crayons and pens and stuff now - a drawer which I can't manage to fit a lock to as it's really tiny. He is getting too tall! He can reach most things, and even onto the kitchen surfaces and stuff. There aren't any surfaces in the house that he's too short to reach anymore, which is not good! Anyway, he loves drawing with his crayons so he is always trying to get them out of the drawer. I give him them if he wants to draw, but the problem is that he only draws for like 5 seconds and then he eats the crayons. He isn't put off by having yucky crayon in his mouth - the strange child! He just eats them, and I always tell him he mustn't eat them and put them away when I see him doing it. But it isn't changing anything there either.
Here he is this week, drawing a picture to make into a card for Nana, thanking her for all her help and sending her lots of love to get well soon :) She got it in the post yesterday and loves it. It's displayed where everyone can see it apparently! He even "signed" his name on the back! As I was writing his name with a pen, he came over and wanted to do it, so I gave him the pen and he drew carefully all over the little space where I was writing his name, and then gave the pen back to me! :) Anyway, here he is drawing Nana's picture. And, as always, eating the crayons, and making a face at the waxy taste of a mouthful of yellow crayon!...
Arthur's hair is growing craaazy fast. It's got so long again now that his curls have gone flat on top and people are starting to call him a girl again, urgh! I hate that, though it shouldn't really be a big deal to me! He is always dressed really boyishly, and yet people tell their children to "mind the little girl" when he is playing near them, etc. His hair is starting to look quite cute and girly around the sides though, and he IS such a pretty little boy, hehe :) I am taking him back to the hairdressers this week coming to have it cut again. I wanted to take him last week but we just didn't have time/energy.
Having a Braxton Hicks contraction. La la la. I really need to update my pregnancy diary. I don't think I'll get to that tonight though.
Arthur is wearing size 18-24 month trousers and jeans now, and dungarees. Except Next dungarees - they are so generous. But their trousers don't fit him any more in that size. He wears the next size up with the legs rolled up - sweet little short leggies :) He wears 12-18 month tops for most brands, though some are getting tight on him. I have no idea of his height or weight at the moment, and it feels like ages since I had those checked. I think I will wait it out until Matthew is born now, because then there will be loads of opportunities when Matthew is weighed to get Arthur checked as well. It won't be long now!
Arthur has definitely slimmed down such a lot since he started walking though. His nappies have gone back down a size to size large - in MotherEase wraps and fuzzi bunz, but he doesn't fit size 2 nappies. He wears size 3 Tots. I bought some second hand ones cheap at UKparents and dyed them in batches with some old greying terries that I inherited from someone at church. I took the old grey aplix off them and we use nappy nippas (snappis) instead. So now he has 2 bright red Tots, 1 bright green one, and two lovely sky blue ones :) And we have some nice terries the same colours, that I use for all sorts. He doesn't ever wear flat terries as nappies, but they are so useful for other things. Most of the nappies he wears are ones I have made though. He has an ever-increasing collection of Cuddlebuns that I am immensely proud of :) I really want to make him lots more of them, but I never seem to get time. I need to make some for Matthew in newborn size too.
We pretty much only use MotherEase airflow wraps now (the side-snapping ones). They are just the best wraps we have used, though I have only tried them on an older baby so I don't know how good they are on a tiny one in smaller sizes. They are soooo slim-fitting, so loose and easy on his legs and waist, and yet somehow don't leak at all, and are soft and cute :) Side snaps really suit his shape too. Tots Bots wraps don't really suit Arthur any more. He outgrew the size 3 wrap for night times a while ago, it just doesn't fit him in the rise any more, and that's the biggest wrap they do. Also they are aplix fastening and that's a big no-no for Arthur! He loves to undo aplix. He sometimes has a go with poppers but he isn't bothered about undoing those yet. The only other wraps he wears now are homemade ones - I made him 2 Cuddlewraps from windpro fleece, and I'm really proud of them because they are his softest, best-fitting, most leak-proof wraps! :) Also I made a MotherEase airflow replica with fleece binding which has never leaked and does great over his night nappy. It's so much fun!!! :D I can't wait to have my two boys in cloth at the same time! I don't care about the extra washing! I pretty much have to do a nappy wash per day and another general load (though I mix nappies and general stuff anyway - I pre-wash pooey nappies on their own though!). Two loads a day will be fine, although I think there may be more than that at first. I'm not sure. Laundry is my favourite chore :) I think it would be good to make a ton more nappies though, just so we don't HAVE to wash each day if I get too tied up with my little ones (which I'm sure will happen!).
I made this banana cake the other day. Arthur loves bananas but we only buy organic and they come in huge bunches that we sometimes don't get through before they get too ripe. So a few months ago I looked online for a good banana cake recipe, to use up over-ripe bananas. I found the one above and it's sooooooo yummy! I made an extra banana-y one the other day because we had four over-ripe bananas instead of two (as per the recipe), as Arthur has been poorly and not eating them. I just baked it 15 minutes longer and yummmm it's so nice! Arthur absolutely LOVES banana cake. It's full of sultanas too, and he really likes dried fruit. I love it when I home-cook something and he just asks for it all the time because he likes it so much :) He picks all the sultanas out and then eats the cake, and he gets soooo excited when I am cutting him a piece! He eats very well in general, and the only thing he seems to really turn his nose up at is egg, in any form. So I like that he gets egg in cake :) He won't even try it, just wrinkles his nose, and shakes his head while saying, "tha-tha-thaa" (his pronounciation of ugh-ugh-ugh!). He gives me a funny sort of slightly disgusted smile if I am eating egg, as though he thinks I am so silly for doing such a thing!
He eats lots of fruit and veg, and tends to pick it out of his meals to eat first. He always picks peas and sweetcorn out to eat, and he loves baked beans and pretty much all fruit. He likes exotic fruits as much as "ordinary" ones, and ALL dried fruit. He pretty much only drinks water, but he has milk on his cereal and yoghurt or fromage frais for pudding at one meal every day. Usually he has cheese somewhere in a day too, so I'm not worried that he hardly drinks any milk. We could offer it to him more in a sippy cup I suppose, but he doesn't tend to drink much of it. He does sometimes drink some of ours if we are having some. Neil and I drink milk a lot :) Arthur does like it, he just prefers water, which is fine with me. He also likes freshly squeezed orange juice, but not diluted, so I only give him little bits. When Matthew is born and my milk comes in again, Arthur will get TONS of mama milk until he chooses not to have it, so he certainly won't need cow's milk then :)
We are shopping for a car at the moment. Things have been happening constantly with our car since Neil crashed it on the M1 going up to his dad's funeral. It has been confirmed as written-off. Neil still has yellow bruising to his ribs from the crash but he doesn't seem to have any aches or pains or anything left over, which is such a blessing. It could have been so much worse. The insurance company said it was currently worth about �10,000 but the repairs would cost �10,500!!!! Yikes! So that makes it a write-off, and THANKFULLY our expensive insurance means that they will pay off the remaining finance that was outstanding on it (about half it's value), and then write us a cheque for the rest, with which we need to buy another car. We currently have a very small 3-door hire car that is being paid for by the insurance company for 2 weeks until the cheque comes through. It should come through a few days after Easter I think, so we need to buy a car like TOMORROW if we are going to avoid a gap where we have no car at all.
So we are shopping. Strangely, this crash has actually worked out to help us in the long run. We were really struggling to keep up the finance payments on the car and now we don't have any. We will buy a decent second-hand car that will suit our family needs with our two little ones, and we are REALLY hoping that we'll find a good car for little enough money so that we have some left over to start a savings account for the next car we'll need. My grandparents gave us that advice. They are just the BEST money savers I ever knew! They started out with no money and living with their parents till my daddy was 5, and just saved and saved, even tiny amounts when they had nothing much to put away. They were disciplined and sensible at all times with money, and the result has been that they have always had enough money saved for a new car by the time their old one dies, have been able to afford regular holidays overseas since their retirement, and could even finance a private hip replacement for Granny, when the wait on the NHS was too long for the pain she was in. All through being so sensible with saving and investing money. I really value their advice on money matters, but stupidly don't put it into practise enough. We plan to do it this time with starting saving for the next car when we buy this one. Or else using a little of it to pay off a bit more credit card stuff. Urgh. Neil gets a bonus in his pay cheque this month and we'll do something sensible with that too.
Tomorrow we are hoping to drive to a car place to test drive a Ford Mondeo that we HOPE is still available. We need a car at least that size really, for two little ones, and for the tandem pushchair to live in the boot and still give room for other stuff when we go places or get a load of food shopping or something. We considered estate cars but I am pretty sure I am waaaay too small a person to drive them successfully! They are just soooo long! But if we find one and I manage it okay at a test drive, we might buy one. The key thing is getting one NOW, so we need to find the best thing available that meets our needs and our budget, and buy it. Neil, of course, is in his element :) He loves buying a car. It bores me a lot, especially having to traipse out and test drive them, but it's important that we do. And then we'll have a car again and be able to put it all behind us and work on the next thing we need to get ready for Matthew!
Boy I'm so glad we're not moving house as well! I remember we thought we might be during the second half of my pregnancy. I had no idea how I would feel at the time, and I'm fine and healthy in my pregnancy - thank God - but oh my gosh I couldn't bear the thought of moving house at this time! A new car and rearranging the bedrooms is enough upheaval! I just want to get nesting and allow our family to transition from one little one to two, for a while at least. I know we'll need to move in the nearish future, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Okay it's reeeally late now (have eaten and watched Supernanny - love that programme!) and finished writing here, and now I so need to sleep. Arthur's 3rd molar isn't quite peeping through yet, but there are three almost-sharp-but-juuust-covered-by-gum bumps on his gum still. He has woken this evening so I think he may be a little wakeful with this big ole toothie pushing through tonight. I expect to see it in all its whiteness tomorrow :) The bottom molar on the other side (to complete the set of his first four molars!) is feeling close to the surface too, so I don't think it will be a long way behind. This tooth coming in now is his 11th. I can't believe he is only halfway through getting all his milk teeth! He has so many teeth when he smiles that it seems crazy to think that's only half of them!
Matthew is kicking my ribs in the most uncomfortable way, so I will take that as him telling me to get my butt in bed and rest, and post this entry now! I always feel like I have missed several things that I really wanted to write, which I probably have, but oh well. I should write more often, then I could catch up on little things easily and not have to remember 50 million of them in one go! Also I miss just writing to get things off my chest as they occur. I miss random waffle (though I somehow manage to include plenty of that in my entries anyway!). I need to catch up on my online places and diaries soon too. And emails. I'm sooooo behind on those. But my pregnancy diary will come next, as and when I get the chance! I will leave you with a photo of my lil Boo asleep in his car seat a few weeks ago (just found it on the camera). We had been to take Daddy his lunch at work, when he made himself some healthy lunch in the morning and forgot it when he went out to work. We made an outing of it, and I parked the car a long way from Neil's work, so Arthur and I had a good walk and stopped frequently to take a close look at interesting things on the way. He got to charm the receptionist and was so excited when Neil came out of the lift at the reception area to see us! Neil is so sweet with Arthur, and it's lovely to just stand back and watch Neil in his own "territory", being so proud of his little boy. He just loves on him and is just as soppy with him in front of his blokey colleagues as he is at home. He stops everyone he sees at his office to show Arthur to them, and carries him round to introduce him to people :) All the ladies loved Arthur and all the blokes seemed to find it hilarious to ask him if he was here for a job interview. Anyway so that was a nice outing for Arthur :) And Neil got his lunch! And Arthur was so pooped from the exciting morning that he only played with his Duplo in the back of the car for a little while before nodding off to sleep :) I took a photo when we got home, before I woke him and took him inside. I can never resist photo opportunities like that! It's funny, he looks so exactly like my dad when he's asleep in this photo! He just happens to be wearing the exact same expression that Daddy gets when he's sleeping:
Love my lil man :)
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