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2008-08-31 - 12.38am previous entry next entry
Rambly update on finances, moving, and difficulties with boys...
Thanks so much for the sweet compliments on my photos last entry! :)
It's after midnight and I have no idea why I have opened this little box instead of where my cursor WAS heading, which was dowwwwn to the bottom left there, to shut down the laptop and go to bed. *sigh* I have no willpower! ;) It IS Saturday night, so I guess it's not as bad as if it were a week night (that is a lame excuse!).
I haven't really prepared my head to write a diary entry, so I feel like I have nothing to say!
Is it bad bad bad that I have spent the last hour googling names and searching through baby name websites? No, I'm not pregnant! But it's so much fun to think about it! :)
I think Nathan is waking up... he wakes such a lot these days. Yep, I'll be back in a bit.
Back again! He wakes at least twice in the evening alone lately! And then another 2-3 times between midnight and when he gets up (which is somewhere between 6 and 7am). When I think of it like that, I realise he is NOT a good sleeper! But, I think I have been so conditioned by Arthur that anything better than hourly wakings till age 1 seems perfectly manageable! ;) It seems amazing to me when I look at it written out like that, that I really am not having a problem at all with Nathan's night/evening wakings. I just get up, breastfeed him, put him back to bed, and get on with what I was doing. He's quick to resettle and barely wakes up (unless not attended to or breastfed!). I still LOVE breastfeeding him as much as he wants to, even in the night. He always starts the night in his cot, and always finishes the night next to me in my bed. He sleeps where Neil should, hehe! I realise this is no laughing matter, but we are quite relaxed about it at the moment, so I guess it's okay! And apparently not prevented from, um, conceiving other babies! My mum (who is not too hot on the large family/close age gaps thing) thinks it would be a risky move to have Neil move back into the marital bed, haha! He still sleeps in the boys' room. We meant to change that after we'd all adjusted to Nathan's arrival and night times had settled down more, but we just haven't got round to it. Plus, nights haven't settled much with Nathan yet! After he turns one, if he's still waking and nursing a ton at night, I will take it in hand a lot more, but not till then. I'm happy to nurse on demand at night for now :)
The older boys are currently a complete NIGHTMARE at bed time. I do not understand why, but it's really hard and rather demoralising at the moment. I WISH we had a third bedroom so that they could have separate rooms. We actually WANT them to share a room, for companionship (they want this too), and for all sorts of other reasons. But they are so dang NAUGHTY at bedtime. Even if you don't believe in the word "naughty" - this is an exception to what you believe! ;) We are trying all manner of different approaches (whilst also trying to hang onto some sort of consistency) and they are not responding to any discipline at bedtime, which is baffling. We can't leave them alone in there because they will trash the room. And (shamefully), it's not in a fit state for them to be left in it - some things aren't exactly safe, like towering piles of clothes that won't fit in drawers (do NOT want those all over the room), my sewing machine (locked) which has nowhere else to go, their bedtime drink which is guaranteed to be sloshed all over the beds if we are not keeping a sharp eye on them (they need access to it because they are always thirsty till they fall asleep), etc.
Bed time uses up half the evening at the moment, seriously. They muck us about for over an hour sometimes, and it's so infuriating and stressful. They get later nights than they should get, as a result (they are TIRED by 7pm, but rarely sleep till at least 8.30 - past NINE THIRTY some nights this week - due to the way they're behaving at bedtime right now). They make so much NOISE, and wind each other up. It's not "aw, how cute that they are just so excited to share a room and love playing and having fun!" No no. It's sheer determination to undermine absolutely everything we ask them to do, disobey as much as possible, and while they're at it (esp. Arthur), make as much noise as humanly possible with all body parts, and laugh and scream manically (manicly?) till a brother joins in. Also make sure beds are jumped upon till an accident occurs, and ensure that vocal sounds are at a sufficient volume to DROWN OUT parents SHOUTS for kids to calm down, get into bed, and stop that noise! Not forgetting, make as many rude noises as possible. Again, not "aw, boys will be boys with the farting noises and all that..." No no. Farting noises are definitely in the repertoire, but so is yelling, "WILLY FART BOTTOM WEE POO WILLY WILLY WILLYYYYY!!!" without the need to stop for A Very Long Time. They will also respond to things we say to them, or questions we ask them in a really rude and disrespectful way - either with noises and laughter, or with increased whatever-we've-asked-them-not-to-do, or even, "No! (laughter) Ner-ner-ne-ner-ner!!!" This is actually a pretty common response from Arthur. He is hard work at the moment, and I can't understand why.
Matthew is suddenly talking in 3-5 word sentences, and can communicate anything he wants to. He has a surprisingly large vocabulary from nowhere, although it was probably already "there" in his head, but he can only just now verbalise it. But he's now copying Arthur much more in NOT good ways. *sigh*
We've been praying about it a LOT lately. Bed time in particular, and Arthur's needs in particular, in case it's all stemming from needs that we are not meeting. I feel so discouraged and inadequate when I think that I'm simply failing to meet his needs and it could be resulting in SUCH behaviour. I feel like I'm getting nowhere with him. He can be pretty badly behaved in the day too. He has these crazy episodes where he just runs about like he's completely out of control - screaming and laughing in such a manic way it's almost scary. I can hear that it's forced and he's doing it on purpose, but it's hard to tell whether he's able to control himself or not. I have discovered a couple of times that he IS able, but it is seriously hard to figure out. He thrashes about, bangs on the doors/walls, makes as many crazy/rude noises as he possibly can just continuously, and ignores us completely as we tell him to stop the noise or to come here, etc. He won't be talked to calmly or rationally.
It drives me CRAZY! Seriously! I am having the hardest time keeping my cool when he does this. Again, this is another instance where he does not respond to any sort of discipline, it seems. I do not know what to do about it! Or why on earth he's doing it. I'm wondering if he's bored or not stimulated enough. Or if he's not getting enough energy burn-off time/space? Or if he's got pent up anger or frustration? All of the above make me feel like I'm failing him. I have not told anyone about it (it has been going on for a few months, but it's just awful at the moment) because I just feel like everybody is waiting for an example so they can tell me he should be in school or mixing with other children, and then he will be "a different child" and sooo much happier/better off, etc. I don't want to be letting him down by the fact that he is not at nursery school, mixing with other kids left, right, and centre. But I honestly feel like God has CALLED me to homeschool him - all of them, but so far very much focused on Arthur. And so I can't just throw up my hands and send him off to fix the problem. I don't know if it even would fix the problem, since I have no idea what it's about. Also, I don't personally WANT my kids out of my care for any part of any day. I cherish being 100% responsible for their entire upbringing! I don't want anybody else caring for them while I'm not there, and for me that includes schooling. I am still trying to keep an open mind, but there is no denying that it is definitely something God is calling me to do.
We will be moving to Hampshire soonish - Neil's new job is going well, and it definitely seems to be a job that he'll be sticking with for many years. They pay him well, they're pleased with his work, and he looks set to get a pay rise next year for sure. If we move to the town where he works, he'll be able to get home from work within 15-20 minutes (how wonderful!) and the place is lovely! We have discovered (through Meg's advice - thank you Meg!) that there is a wonderful family of community churches. We have checked them out online and found that they are EXACTLY what we're looking for. They are everything our current church is like, but slightly bigger, slightly more community focused, and VERY mission-focused, which we love. They are friendly, informal, charismatic, full of students and young families (like our current church). They also seem to have more evidence of large families and international adoptions - two things very close to our hearts for our own family, which is so exciting and encouraging! They run parenting courses! :) We would not have to travel far to go to church no matter which part of town we live in, because they have several churches in the same family group, dotted around the town :) I'm so excited about the church situation!
They also run a Christian school, which is currently only for children of members of their churches - parents all have to take part in teaching and be actively involved in the school. Again, we've read a lot about it and it sounds excellent. They take children from year 3 (7-8 year olds) to the end of school (age 16). I can't remember if they have a 6th form beyond that. Anyway, so I'm open to the possibility of home-schooling the boys till age 7/8 and then maybe enrolling them in this school. We'll see! We know these are the churches we want to be involved in, so we would definitely have that as an option.
We have also discovered that with Neil's new wage, the fact that we're leaving an area where houses cost a LOT, and the fact that the new area is less expensive, we can afford a nice place to live! We are currently thinking about whether to buy a 3 or 4 bedroom home with a good sized garden, and extend it at a later date to provide an extra bedroom and a larger downstairs (garage conversion to a playroom probably), OR whether to buy a 5 bedroom home with smaller rooms and a less wonderful-sized garden, with no spare funds for extending later. As you can see, we are mightily blessed by God to be able to just walk in and buy a detached home of that size! We have Neil's sister in the area to tell us which parts of town are nice and which are not, so that is a great help!
We don't plan to actively sell/buy for another couple of months, but then we'll really get going on it. I hope we can sell okay.... The market is not good for selling right now, but it's great for buying! The first place we bought took over a YEAR to sell, on the market the whole time, ugh.
August has been a really hard month for us, financially. I haven't had time to write about it, and since Neil has a job now, it might seem that the financial troubles were joyfully behind us! Not so. He was out of work for 9 months, and as you know we had literally nothing by the end of it, and were relying on my parents for money for food and to bale us out on a couple of mortgage payments. The money for the sale of the end of our garden STILL hasn't arrived, because there were delays with surveyors and so on, but it's allegedly actually going to hit our bank account some time next week!!! Wheee!
Anyway. So Neil started work on July 20th. He didn't qualify for a pay cheque in July because he started after the cut-off date. So we have had to wait through July and allllll the way through August for his first pay cheque. It's substantial, praise the Lord, and it's HERE as of yesterday!!! But oh it has been so hard these past few weeks. We ran out of money for food, and also Neil had to take a day off work one day because the car did not have enough petrol to get him to work, and we didn't have enough money to pay for petrol, or even public transport to get him there. That was a strange situation - he needs to go to work to earn money, but he can't get to work because he doesn't have enough money to get there! He really did not want to tell work about the money situation (I can't think why not, but anyway), and happened to have a migraine the day before which ended up with him leaving work a bit early. He still had it the next day when we had no money for petrol, and so that was the reason he gave for not going to work. He ended up having to go to bed and was quite poorly so I think he would have had to stay home regardless of the petrol in the car.
My parents came to the rescue again! They have been so wonderful! But we would have had to beg somebody for money, even if they could not have helped us, because we had to feed our kids (and ourselves) and Neil couldn't take 10 days off work till he was paid enough to buy petrol, could he?! My parents arranged for us to be able to pick up some cash at a local bank, which turned out to be a huge palava with me dragging 3 little kids to the bank, where the staff were most put out that I could just walk in and say I was here to just collect some cash without even having an account! They seemed quite affronted! ;) It was sorted in the end, and the boys were so well behaved, and yay we were able to buy food and put petrol in the car. Phew!
So now that Neil is getting paid regularly (monthly) and the garden money is soon to arrive, we will be able to tackle a few things that are a bit desperate right now. For a month or so we have only had one working tap in the bathroom! The hot tap on the sink works - yay! But not the cold tap (it broke off in Neil's hand a few months ago). And last month the bath taps stopped working. We had a sudden drop in water pressure in general and we are covered for free inspection on anything to do with our boiler, so we had someone come round and check it. The water pressure resolved, but the bath taps have corroded away to nothingness inside, and won't produce a drop of water. So we've had to bale baths for the boys with a cup, which is no fun! We have a shower though, but they won't have anything to do with it - they get really scared of it for some reason. Anyway we really need new taps! And a new carpet in the living room - ours STINKS because too many babies have POOED on it over several years and it was impossible to fully get it out. Ughhhh. It's hideous. I can't bear that my little ones play on it all day, and that tiny Nathan has his sweet face so close to the toxic stink all the time. I'm sure it's great for his immune system, but the smell is so bad close to the floor that it literally makes my eyes water! So the carpet has to go.
Our windows on the front of the house are so weather beaten and damaged that the glass panes are EXPOSED at the edges! Every time we close the window (which is hard to do since the wood is cracked and swollen) I am so afraid that the glass will simply FALL OUT and smash on the ground below, and then we'll have no window, no security, no barrier to the wind and rain, etc, till we get it replaced! So we are getting new windows, as cheaply as possible. It seems crazy to spend money getting things done on the house when we're going to be selling it soon, but some of this stuff will put off buyers. In the mean time, it needs fixing before it all falls apart on us! We have already budgetted to allocate some of the garden money to the house repairs. We also need a new extractor fan in the bathroom. I think buyers would be put off by the HUGE GAPING HOLE in the ceiling, and the fact that it's against building regulations not to have one. *sigh* That hole has been there almost as long as Nathan has!
Talking of whom.... can he really be waking again?! Okay, I have waffled long enough anyway, and it's late. I'll leave you with a photo of my little boys all ready to do PAINTING in their painting "aprons". We use Daddy's old T-shirts for painting, and I clip them behind their necks to keep the sleeves up and make the neckholes the right size for them. They looked like cheeky little angels, hehe! They are hard work at the moment, and we have some things that need ironing out, so to speak, but I love them SO MUCH, and I'm really enjoying them. I love being their mummy, and having the privilege of staying home all the time with them!
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