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2007-05-05 - 1.29am previous entry next entry
Newsy update about the boys
Diaryland is being crap for non-gold members, but Nicola bought me 3 months gold membership for this diary and my pregnancy one! And Jemma bought me 3 months gold for my pregnancy diary too!! :) How totally lovely is that?!!! I am so excited! So here I am to make good use of my gifts :) I will try to update more often. I have soooooooo much to write about as always, so it would be good to get more updates done!
It's already after 1am (yikes!) so this MUST be short, but it's taken me ages to upload photos from the camera (112!!!) this evening so I haven't had chance to write till now.
I will fill in the gaps next entry, but there are a few main points that I didn't want to miss out this time:
* My brother's new baby is nearly here!!!! Sarah's due date was yesterday - can you believe it?!! It's crazy how fast the time has gone. They still have the envelope from the ultrasound with the sex of the baby written inside, but they NEVER OPENED IT!!! Talk about willpower! So it's a lovely surprise. I am soooo sure it's a girl though. They are having a homebirth and using cloth nappies, and I am ultra proud of my influence! It's their first baby and everything :) Bennie is so excited about all their cloth nappies. They are using Tots Bots, Motherease One-Size, and Kissaluvs. And ME Airflow wraps. They looked at ours in great detail and then searched the web (and asked The Nappy Lady) before making their purchases. I'm so excited for them! And meee! I am going to be an auntie again!
* On that subject, we found out a week or so ago that Neil's sister (the one who already has little Ella, who will be two on Matthew's first birthday) had a miscarriage around Easter. We didn't know she was pregnant as she hadn't told us yet, but I knew they were going to start trying at the end of last year. She was 11 weeks pregnant - I can't even imagine, urgh. It was not an ultrasound discovery - her husband was away on business in Hawaii and she was on her own in the house with Ella when she just started bleeding heavily. She had to call her in-laws to take Ella while she had a D&C at the hospital :( Poor Rosemary. I just can't imagine how awful that must be. She is okay now, physically, but not emotionally, according to Neil's mum. Neil phoned her but got the machine, and I tried to phone a couple of days ago and left a message also. I don't know what to say to her but I want her to know we are thinking of her and we love her. :(
* Matthew is changing so much! Soooo much that I know I'll miss stuff out when I try to write about it. I will have to check my last entry to see what he was "up to" last time I wrote, and then I know what things I have yet to update about!
* He says "dada" to Neil, both on request and when I mention Daddy to him. When Neil gets home from work, Matthew drops what he's holding or turns from what he's playing with, the INSTANT he hears the key in the front door, and looks so excited and happy! He starts saying, "Dada, dada!" in this soft little under-his-breath whisper, eyes locked on the front door. He LOVES his Daddy! He does not say Mama yet :( But one day he will! He said Nana one time when I was talking to Mummy on the phone and when he pulled up on me I told him that Nana was on the phone. Mummy was soooooooo chuffed to hear it! His babbling sounds so different these days, just over the last few weeks. All his babbling sounds like speech, complete with intonations and expressions and all sorts, but none of it is actual words! It's very sweet :)
* He took HIS FIRST STEP!!! I mean, only one step, but yay! A milestone! I don't think he'll be walking for a while yet though. He is purposely stopping short of the TV unit when he cruising along the sofa, just enough so that he has to shift his feet and lean out to reach and transfer his hands to the TV unit. I don't know why really, but I'm guessing he's trying to set up some practise for himself. He does try to set up things so that he "practises" having to get to someplace in a different way than usual, lately. He does a lot of standing without support next to something he was cruising along, like the sofa. He just lets go and stands.
He also does a lot of letting go and turning away from the sofa or other place he's cruising, and THEN sitting down to crawl away. I was sitting on the floor with my back against the sofa yesterday or the day before (can't remember which) and he cruised up to me, stopped short just far enough so that he couldn't quite reach my knees (which were drawn up to my chest), and turned his body out from the sofa towards them. Then he let go the sofa, took a careful (not tumbling) STEP towards my knees and in reaching them, he held on! Only a step, but we were all there to see it and it was so surprisingly controlled, like he had totally planned it (maybe he had?!)! Yay for Matthew!
* Still only 4 teeth, but he's been teething again for EVER (weeks and weeks, I kid you not), so I'm hoping some more will come for him soon. He's had to have Calpol and all sorts, and still no sign of teeth - BUT yesterday when I put Bonjela on his gums, his top lateral teeth (the ones either side of his top middle front teeth) have swollen gums over them, so hmmm... Arthur had 6 teeth by Matthew's age, and they were the top middle FOUR and the bottom middle two, so maybe Matthew is working on those top laterals? Hopefully they'll come through soon and he'll get a small break.
* Matthew is pretty good at his fine motor skills now. His pincer grip has been great for a couple of months now, and he plays in quite a lot of detail with toy cars and Duplo and building bricks. Two days ago, I was sitting on one side of the upturned laundry basket, with Matthew on the other side, and I was building little towers of bricks for him to knock down on the basket. I lay a few out on the basket for him to smash around, and to my AMAZEMENT, the boy picked a cube up, and placed it precaroiusly on top of another! He took SO much care over doing it, and his hand wavered back and forth over his target for a while before he was happy enough with his aim to let the brick go oh-so-carefully. And it stayed on top!!! I was busy squealling and clapping (as you do!) and blow me down if he didn't pick up another brick and SUCCESSFULLY stack it on top of the other two! Then the tower fell, as it was a little bit unbalanced with how he'd placed the top brick, but oh my GOSH, he's only 10 months old!!!!! I thought Arthur was marvellous when he was building towers of bricks at about 12 months! He was nearly 14 months when he built a tower of 8 bricks, which (forgive the egotistical tones) is pretty advanced for his age. I think it was only a few months ago when I received a babycentre email for my 2.something year-old that said, "Your child may now be able to stack a tower of 6 bricks!" ;) So I know it was pretty good going. But I am so impressed with Matthew building a tower of 3 bricks at 10 months! I think that's amazing.
/proud rant
* Oh no wait, I have more proud ranting (sorry!), because I was going to write a bit about Arthur too. He is doing great! He will be 30 months old in 4 days time. That makes him exactly 2�. I can not believe I have a 2� year old! And he is already half-way to another birthday! Whaa???!!
He is growing up so much. I mean, he's still a baby really, in many many ways - he's ONLY TWO. But he's growing up. He is changing shape. His legs and arms have had a growth spurt lately and he has also got taller suddenly too. He is slimming down a LOT. His nappies are now on the closest settings and some even overlap, which is unheard of for Arthur! He was never anywhere NEAR the closest setting on ANY nappy before! ;) He fits clothes that he had previously outgrown at the waist, and his age 2-3 jeans no longer need turning up at the ankle. He's as tall as his friends who are about to turn 3, taller than some.
Arthur's final two teeth are coming in - the first corner of each of his top 2-year-old molars are visible through the gum. He is teething fine. Sometimes he asks for Bonjela or Calpol for his teeth, but he doesn't seem bothered by them too much. He bites on things and drools, but he doesn't act in pain. It's about the first time in his life that he hasn't teethed AWFULLY, and about time too! I feel kind of sad that he's such a big grown-up boy now that he has no more baby teeth to get, but at the same time I am thrilled to see the back of teething for him at last! His bottom 6-year-old molars are RIGHT THERE beneath the gums, ready to go when it's time. His bottom gums at the back are white, raised and hard with those teeth underneath. His top ones haven't come down yet though.
* Arthur was due his 2nd MMR vaccine a while back but I can't find his red book and am in no hurry right now to get him done. Matthew is due his final meningitis and pneumococcal vaccines and he's months late for them but I never seem to get around to taking him. I must sort that out. Then he's done till his MMR (which I'll delay like Arthur's).
* Arthur can do so much on his feet, despite them being a tad wonky, poor love! He runs and jumps and spins around (constantly!), and he balances really well with them. He dances in so many different ways now. He can balance on one leg for a couple of seconds, either leg. He can jump on a springy surface (like a bed) completely rhythmically. My mum noticed it a few months ago - February, when we were all at my grandparents for my granny's birthday. She was holding his hand while he jumped on the bed upstairs (!!) and noticed he jumped in perfect time to maximise his bounce on the next jump! She was a PE teacher her whole career and said she was very impressed that he was doing that as his age.
Arthur taught himself to do a forward roll maybe 4 or 5 months ago. He practised on the sofa as it's easy to roll over on a soft surface, and then started doing it on the floor. He can do these perfectly controlled forward rolls! He looks like he is starting to do a head-stand, and then when he's balanced on his head, he suddenly brings his body over and controls a fast roll all the way down his spine! He flips into a sitting position and beams around the room at anyone who is watching! I'm quite amazed at him sometimes. Over the last month we've noticed him trying to do backward rolls on the sofa (from sitting on the arm with his back to the sofa seats), and now he can do them quite well. He teaches himself everything and is in a phase of TOTAL "do-it-allbyself!" about everything!! Which is quite wearing, but he's so determined and stubborn (wonder where he got that from?!). Apparantly he's ever so like me. When I was younger than him, I used to say crossly to people, "Aice do it!!" if they tried to help me do things! Arthur is JUST like that about evvvverything right now. It's his age too, I know.
I really want to enrol Arthur in some sort of toddler gym type class. I think he would LOVE it, given his enthusiam for anything active, and how well he takes to gym-like skills. I need to look into it.
* The boys had haircuts today! Arthur's hair was sooooo long that it was getting in his eyes and was right down his neck. It looked really untidy, but last weekend Neil took him to the hairdressers (well, the barbers where Neil gets his hair cut) and he refused to have it cut! He accepted the lollipop they bribed him with and sat in the chair licking it, but then refused the haircut again! ;) So they came home. THIS weekend, Mummy went with them, hehe! And if Mummy decides that the boy is getting a haircut, that's what we'll be leaving with! ;) So he refused, but we bribed him with Smarties. He raaarely gets sweets or chocolates, and I know he loves Smarties from when we treated him to some on his birthday, so we used them as a bribe. He ate half a tube (way more than I was happy about!) while his hair was cut.
They cut it sooooooooooo short!!!! I wasn't too pleased. I like little boys to have flopsy haircuts, personally. It keeps them cute and little for longer :) He'll have endless years of short grown-up cuts ahead of him, starting in just a couple of years, but for NOW he doesn't need to get those. It actually really suits him to have floppy little-boy haircuts, so I want to keep him in those. But they cut it so short. Thank goodness his hair grows like CRAZY and will no doubt be in his eyes again by some point in July! I swear, if he was a girl and I'd let his hair just grow and grooowww, it would be RIGHT down his back by now. He had THREE INCHES cut off today! Here he is with his super short cut. He looks too grown up to me! And I miss his curls! But the back is still trying to twist up into little curls, so I know they're still there really :)
Then, if that wasn't hard enough for a mother's heart-strings (!), my BABY boy had his first haircut! I think my voice must have carried a tone that said, "DO NOT mess with the overly emotional mother!" when I told the man NOT to take much off Matthew's hair. I just hovered around Matthew in the big chair, and kept saying, "Don't take much off! He's still my baby!" *sigh* Thankfully, Matthew's hair looks much the same, just a little tidier around the sides and back. It was getting long enough that it was starting to twist and curl a little at the back. I don't think he'll have curly hair like his brother, but he does seem to have a wave to his hair. When it gets long enough (like an inch down his neck, which it was before today!), the long bits twist round themselves - nothing like Arthur's curls, which curl upwards away from his head. Matthew's waves are like ringlet twists, or the start of something like that. His top hair is STILL springy and won't lie down! It's so cute :) Here's a photo of Matthew after his haircut this afternoon. It's not a good one, but it's the only photo I got where he wasn't blurred from moving about! He was looking up at the sky through the window :)
Neil got his hair cut too. Now I just wish *I* could get a hair cut! I never get time to go! My hair is crazy long and I'm starting to find it annoying. It's down to the bottom of my ribcage. I love my hair long, but it just feels toooooo long, and I want it cut. Preferably LOTS cut off, but I don't want it too short and I am not crazy on "styles". I just like my hair "growing out of my head" as I always like to say ;)
My brain is starting to fog over, so typing any more is going to be a bit pointless now. Also it's really late so high time I went to bed. I have a few more photos to post - all recent ones. There are so many more than aren't so recent as these, but I just wanted to get some photos up at last, so I resized only my favourites and I'll get to the rest another time (I hope!). Here they are:
Matthew being smiley at something a week ago:
Matthew riding on Daddy's shoulders at the park about a week ago - I have lots of photos of my 3 boys from this outing, but this was my absolute favourite and I only had time to resize a few tonight, so here it is:
He was SO THRILLED to be up on Neil's shoulders! He clung with his fists to Neil's hair and kept gasping and squealing. He looked SO TINY up there!! He rode on Daddy's shoulders for maybe 15 minutes! He loved every second of it and smiled a lot :) He is only a tiny light-weight beanie boy so he didn't hurt Daddy :) Isn't he just SUCH a cutie-pea-pickle-boo-bop?!
And the last ones are two (out of many that I'll hopefully post soon) of the boys together, when they were playing on the sofa again. Matthew sort of leaned on the sofa arm for a rest after a while, and Arthur just flopped down almost on top of him and alternately rested and cuddled his brother :) They are so sweet together, and still get on wonderfully. They love each other soooo obviously, and play together almost constantly when they're both up and awake at the same time. Arthur does a LOT of play by himself at the moment, imaginary play, cars, etc, but otherwise they play together all the time. I'm so happy when I watch them together! And increasingly feeling ready to add another little member to my happy band of boys (because, I can't imagine ever having a girl now!). But that's another story, and it belongs in another diary anyways, so I'll finish for now with the two photos of my sweetie boys. I'll update again asap!
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