Email me
2006-05-21 - 10.40pm previous entry next entry
Lovely boy :) New toy unit, and words!
Still here! 17 days till my due date, and we seem to be nesting in this household at a frantic pace these days, all three of us! I reached full term 4 days ago so now it's just a waiting game for my homebirth :)
It's Sunday evening, so the end of another productive weekend getting things ready for having another baby! Last weekend we got quite a lot done. I finally built the toy storage unit that I wanted to make for Arthur. I didn't like the things I saw online or in the shops - well, I liked PARTS of them but they didn't meet all our needs overall, so in the end I just drew what I thought would be ideal for Arthur's toy storage but with minimum size because we have a teeny house, and ended up ITCHING to build it! We finally got all the right bits of wood and screws and stuff that I figured we'd need, and I varnished the cut wood and then built it! Yay! I'm so pleased with how it turned out, even though it's kind of bigger than I meant it to be! But it holds all Arthur's toys really well in boxes that angle out (like I have seen in the shops and online) - which I wanted because then he can see all his toys and access them easily. There are three big boxes at the bottom for his huge amounts of wooden bricks, Duplo, and Mega Bloks. The next shelf up has five smaller boxes with Stickle Bricks, play food, balls of various sizes, and playdough cutters and tools in them. The next shelf is for boxes with lockable lids for all the art and crafts stuff I might want for him over the next year or so. There's enough space for paper, card, glue, scissors, glitter, playdough, paints, crafty bits, bubbles, you name it! I'm so pleased! Then the top shelf is open, and takes all of his books and a few videos that we just won at eBay. His jigsaws are in a craft box for now, but I'll move those eventually.
Anyway - yay! We had to move the living room furniture around again to get it in the best place for it to live, but it has worked out really well and we are happier with our living room layout than we've ever been I think! It feels like a living room at last, but with a play area under the stairs, sort of. And the BabyDan playpen thingy is working wonderfully around the stairs. It even looks like it is meant to be there, which we're pleased with! Best of all, the room feels so much bigger and more organised with the space, ready for the homebirth. Arthur still has various stand-up toys around the room and a big basket full of soft toys and stacking things, and stuff that Matthew will be interested in pretty quickly, but that all stands in the play area anyway so that's fine.
Okay, here are some photos of Arthur playing with the new toy unit and stairgate thingy, just so you can see what I am talking about! :)
He seems really pleased with his new toy storage thingy, and he was SO excited about the stairgate solution, I don't know why, hehe! While we were putting it up, he kept squealing with excitement and stamping up and down on the spot with high knees, and then running round and round it! Funny boy :)
I won a new pine dressing table on eBay (did I mention this last entry? I can't remember) to use as a new, SLIM (thus increasing the room size) computer desk, with lots of drawers for added storage solutions. It arrived yesterday and we are really pleased with it! We spent yesterday evening putting it together and now I am sitting at it to write this entry! The bedroom feels much bigger already and I've started putting things away in the drawers. Neil dismantled the HUGE computer desk we were using before, and put it in the loft. Our poor loft is groaning, but there's lots more to go in it yet!
I have done loads of sorting and putting away and stuff, and I have put 10 items on eBay too. I hope they sell - we could use the money! I have about fifty thousand things to sell on eBay, but I think it would drive me crazy to package and post more than 10 things at a time, if they all end up selling!
Yesterday I FINALLY made a rather basic wooden latch for the cupboard on the landing. It's been bugging me for years, the door not shutting. And even more so since Arthur has been around and mobile, as he gets things out of it and chucks them down the stairs all the time! So I'm thrilled that I finally got that done! The next thing on our list is to build shelves up the wall in the spare bedroom to hold all my nappy fabrics (I have seriously LOADS!), then dismantle the free-standing shelving unit that currently holds them, and put it in the groaning loft. That will free up floor space in the bedroom for a potential space to put a crib or travel cot if we end up not co-sleeping, or only co-sleeping part time or something. We still don't really know what our plan is with sleep for our little family, after Matthew is here. I think we'll end up just feeling our way and seeing what works. We are just soooo nervous of setting up another 18 months of exhaustion and desperate frustration over constant night wakings and sleep deprivation! Arthur still wakes at night a couple of times, though he can sleep through sometimes. I never go in, except during the evenings. When I go in during the evenings now, I breastfeed Arthur to sleep again, which I wasn't doing for a while. But it works and he's happiest that way, and it's easy. In the night, I don't go in, and he settles pretty quickly (most nights) with Neil just giving him a little pat and a cuddle.
I was right about Arthur's speech taking off! He says several new words every day, and is eager to pick new ones up and use them repeatedly. He learns them instantly, with the first time we tell him what something is called and have him say it back to us. He knows the name of that item from that moment on and says the word every time he finds that object after that. Most of the words he says aren't clear and "as we would say them" yet though. But they are definitely attempts at the correct pronounciation, and some of his words are unmistakable now, even to outsiders. I sat and made a list of all the words I could think of that he says now, and there were almost 50 of them!!!! Just in a couple of weeks! Wow. He seemed to just suddenly get interested and decide to start learning words and using them.
Here's a list of the words he says - I probably won't list any more after this though, because it will be too long and I'll forget which ones are new, etc! Anyway, here's Arthur's current vocabulary (I wrote his pronounciations in brackets, unless he says them as we do), at 18 months, 1.5 weeks old :)
Thank you (ankoo, or ang-yoo)
Home (ome)
Bubbles (bubboo)
Pasta (daf-da)
Flip flop (pip-pip)
Ear
Hair
Eye
Poo-poo
Boo!
Dirty (duh-dee)
Hanger - as in, clothes hanger (ang-ah)
Old - as in, yesterday's drink which we tell him is an "old drink" (ohh)
Peas (dee)
Cheese (dee, or deez)
Beans (dee)
Clock (uck)
Hammer (anna)
Nappy (nana)
Daddy (dada, or da-dee)
Bang! (gah!)
Snap! (dap!)
Egg
Coke - when I drink it, obviously! I wouldn't give Arthur Coke! (kuk!)
Drawer (rrw, or roar)
Raisins (uns)
Hippo (ip-ip)
Bra (bra or baa - one of Arthur's favourite words whilst breastfeeding!)
Ball (baw/ball)
Iron (ine)
Open (ohn)
Oven (uhn)
Shoe (oo, or soo)
Hoover (ooo - in disconcerted tone!)
Bib (bub)
Yay!
Wow (aow!)
Ow
Knee
Nippa - as in, nappy-nippa or snappi, a nappy fastener (ip-pee)
Apple (ah-ooh)
Bye (ai)
Hi (ai)
LaLa - one of the Teletubbies, urgh! (la-la)
Po - another Teletubby (Po)
Trousers (bow-bah)
Cupboard (ub-ub)
Jumper (dum-ah!)
And lastly, my favourite as he says it with such pride and enthusiasm, bless him!... Willy (ee-YEH!)
Today's new words were trousers, jumper, cupboard, and hammer, which he has used with great delight ALL day long! He also makes animal sounds for 15 animals that I can think of off the top of my head, and makes sounds for a few objects to communicate them to us instead of using the actual words. For car, he says "Brummm!" to tell us he sees or hears a car, and also says an odd version of "beep beep" - he pronounces it "mah-mah" for some reason! He says "eee-yooo!" for motorbike, sort of like the "nee-YOWWW!" sound that I make for them! If he sees a picture of a star he does the actions to twinkle twinkle little star and makes sing-song sounds, to tell us he sees a star. If he wants a cuddle he says "ahhhh", swiftly followed (or accompanied) by a big hug with his arms all around me and his little hands patting :) If he wants to watch his new Teletubbies video (his favourite thing EVER, it seems, urgh!), he says "uh-oh" (they say "eh-oh" a lot on the Teletubbies) and signs please! He asks for it 4-5 times a DAY at the moment! Obviously he doesn't get to watch it every time he wants to, and gets kind of annoyed about it when I say no, but there is no way he is watching Teletubbies videos all day long! He does LOVE it though, and smiles and smiles and sits really still the whole time he's watching it.
He only uses a few signs, because we have been so slack in teaching them to him. But he regularly uses "milk" (about fifty million times a day at the moment - he seems to be breastfeeding about half the time he's awake, or at least it feels that way to me!), "please", "medicine", "all gone" and "I hear...", and he blows kisses and waves :)
Ahhh I love him so much! He is just full of cuteness all the time :) Although, increasingly mischievous, which can be difficult now that I'm about as mobile and energetic as a large tree.
He is ever the helper, and does a lot of really helpful things spontaneously, which I keep finding him doing! I have no idea where he gets his love of organising and tidying from! I find him sorting the laundry out of the tumble dryer on his own these days, though he does prefer me to do it with him, and often leads me to the tumble dryer (or dishwasher, more frequently - that's his favourite activity in the world!) by the hand - very sweet! He is usually to be found sitting in front of the tumble dryer with little piles around him, which he is actually sorting into nappy wipes, nappies, and nappy inserts! And he now makes seperate piles for Mummy's clothes, Daddy's clothes, and Arthur's clothes!!! He amazes me! It's one of those weird things that makes my eyes fill up when he has gone to bed and is sleeping peacefully like a little baby, and then I go into the kitchen and see his "grown up boy" lopsided piles of laundry, carefully sorted into categories. I don't know why it makes my heart squeeze, it's just one of those things that does :) He's just so precious. I love seeing little things that are "his" around the house after he's down for the night.
The other day I had some things out for sorting and packing my hospital bag (in case I need a transfer during my homebirth, like last time), and I stopped doing that for a while and did something in the kitchen. And when I came back into the living room, Arthur had taken all the tiny newborn nappies out of the bag they were being stored in, and was sorting Matthew's nappies and folding them and making them into neat piles! It was so sweet, as he was so absorbed in his task. He didn't even look up when I took a few photos :)
He also puts things in the kitchen bin when he has finished with them. Like snack wrappers. I give him a cereal bar, he says thank you really sweetly, and today he climbed up on the sofa with his drink in one hand and the cereal bar in the other, and put a cushion on his lap to lay them on! He got nice and comfy and ate his snack there, and when he had finished the cereal bar, he picked up every crumb and ate them one by one, and then climbed down from the sofa, walked into the kitchen, and put the wrapper in the bin! He puts everything that is rubbish in the bin - somehow he knows what is and what isn't! He loves to tidy his toys away into boxes and to make the books tidy. He gets really cross and frustrated if he can't get the books in line properly or the right way up!
On Thursday, my friend Katie came round with her little boy, Joshua. He is nearly 2, and Katie is due to have her new baby girl the day (or two?) after I am due! So it's lovely to get together with her, as we have SO much in common and are at the exact same stage of pregnancy and family life. Joshua seems at the same stages with everything that Arthur is, though he's a few months older. He has more words that he can say though, and scares more easily at things, but otherwise they are very similar, so it's nice to have Katie and Josh round! Josh loved Arthur's toy unit and went straight over there to play. Arthur watched him from his shy-with-new-people position backed up against the stairgate. He goes there but just watches, he doesn't seem anxious or anything. He likes to just SEE what's what with new people before he gets stuck in. He watched Josh for about 5 or 10 minutes, and then moved onto stage 2 of the Arthur-and-new-people protocol, which involves choosing toy after toy after toy and offering them to the new person with much urgency! He chose lots of toys to share - he's such a sweetie :) After about 5 minutes of that, he got stuck in and played WITH Josh, the first time I've ever really seen him play WITH another child, rather than alongside. They played with Duplo and then Arthur showed Josh his garage and cars. He got rather enthusiastic to the point where he was actually completely in Joshua's way, playing with it so eagerly, hehe! The sweetest thing was, the things he was most eager to show Josh were the kitchen appliances! Obviously, since they're Arthur's favourite things ever! ;)
It was so sweet. He took Josh in the kitchen and I could hear him making his eager "showing" sounds, the ones he makes when he's pointing at something and desperate to communicate what it is to someone. Then I heard clicking sounds and peeped round the door to see them both in front of the washing machine, and Arthur showing Josh how to press the buttons and turn the dial, hehe! A bit later, they were both in front of the tumble dryer, Arthur again pressing buttons with much "explaining" vocal sounds and turning the dial. They even set it off on a 30-minute warm cycle with nothing in it! Joshua watched but looked either unimpressed or vaguely anxious! I wondered whether he's probably not allowed to touch the appliances at home - oops! It was just SO sweet to see Arthur so eager to show his friend how to work the kitchen appliances!
After that, Arthur tried to give Josh a big hug from behind, but he stopped suddenly when I asked him what he was doing - I wish I hadn't! He didn't even know I was watching so I must have startled him. He never wrestles people or anything so I know he could only have been hugging :) A few minutes later he was standing with Josh and they were looking at his books and Arthur leaned right in to kiss Joshua, but then Katie and I both exclaimed at how sweet it was, and he lost his nerve, bless him! I gave them both a digestive biscuit (yum!) and Josh didn't want his straight away. Arthur LOVES them and could eat as many as he's given! He wanted mine as soon as he'd finished his, but I said no more. A few minutes later he saw Josh's uneaten biscuit and picked it up all eager. I spotted him and told him, "That's Joshie's biscuit - can you give it to Joshie?" and he DID! Even though he would normally just want to eat it (and I could see he did want to), he heard what I said and walked right over to Josh, and handed him to biscuit! He's just such a friendly affectionate child. I am so lucky to be his mummy :)
What else have we been doing lately? We made a tiring trip into town for a few bits of shopping on Friday. I got Arthur fitted for a pair of summer sandals, for if we ever get any warm sunny weather! We went on a rainy day so there were no other people in there buying summer sandals! The shop assistant said we picked a good day for it, as they have been really busy fitting kids for summer shoes until the rain started a few days ago. Arthur got a pair of Startrite sandals in navy/beige, so that they'll go with pretty much everything that he owns that is summery. They fit him great - they're a size 4.5, although he does still fit a 4 in normal shoes, his feet haven't grown since his last fitting. The lady said they'll last him the whole summer, which is great. He looks so sweet in them, and I'm glad to have something he can wear with his shorts and stuff, when it's warm, instead of hot shoes and socks.
I am LOVING this rain!!! :) It feels like forever since we had some GOOD rain, the heavy kind that seems to last most of the day, on and off, and several days running. Boy do we need rain like this. I have really been noticing this year that it doesn't rain like it used to when I was little. Heavy pouring rain used to be such a normal thing to trudge through on the way to school, and these days it feels like an unusual thing to see - parents having to hurry their children to school, huddled under raincoats and umbrellas. It happens SO much less frequently than it used to. I have always loved the rain, and I especially like being out in it. I love being inside and cosy when it's raining heavily, and I adore the sound of rain on the roof and windows - the heavier the better! But most of all I like the fresh damp smell and the cool moisture in the air as I breathe the smell deeply. And I love the sound of it on my rainhood or umbrella as I walk along. I love the squish squish sound of my feet on wet pavements, and I just like the fresh feel against my skin as drops hit my face. I used to be one of those kids who was always trying to catch raindrops in her mouth :) BEST of all, I love silly walks in the rain, which I am apparently too grown-up to take anymore :( I love wearing no waterproofs or hoods or umbrellas, and just STANDING out in torrential rain and getting soaked! I love having rain drip off the ends of my hair, because I have gotten that wet, and I love the chill of soaked clothes against my skin, and the exhilaration of how crazy it is to be out in a rain storm! I miss doing that. The last time I did it I was still in my 20s though :)
I just LOVE the rain! :) If I wasn't so huge and ungainly then I would take Arthur out for more walks in the rain. I haven't taken him out walking much recently as I am just so tired out and it hurts my pelvis to walk much at all now. We go places in the car, like shopping and stuff, because we need to get things, but I have to walk REALLY slow and it's so tiring. My bump is grazing the steering wheel now so I don't know if I'll be able to drive right up to my due date. But anyway, I did take Arthur out for some rainy walks when we last had some rain, though it wasn't as heavy and persistant as this rain is. I just put his little raincoat on him and off we went! He didn't seem to mind it at all, and we just got changed and dry when we got home :) I hope he'll love the rain as much as I do! He certainly seems to hate the hot weather as much as I do, so maybe he will.
Neil took Arthur to the park again yesterday. He let him run and run over some bumpy grass which had lots of clumpy tufts here and there. He said he felt like Arthur would trip on those tufts but Arthur was straining to get away from holding Neil's hand, so he let him go. Neil said he managed well and seemed to enjoy his running. He stumbled a few times over tufts of grass but only fell once. I wish I had been there! The grass was so soft that he didn't hurt himself, but it sounded so sweet! Neil said he was far enough ahead of him so that it took him a few seconds to reach him when he fell, and Arthur tumbled face down into a big clump of grass! He just stayed perfectly still, bottom in the air and face in the grass, hehe! When Neil reached him, he stood Arthur upright and his face was all dewy from the grass, so he wiped him. He wasn't upset at all, but he looked bemused at having a wet face! As soon as his face was all dry, he looked at Neil and said, "Ome" hehehe! So Neil brought him home ;) Sweet boy.
Okay it's getting late already so I think I will finish here. I can't believe another weekend has disappeared already! Only two left now before my due date. I would REALLY like to have Matthew on that second weekend just before my due date - if I could pick a date it would be that weekend! I have a baby shower for me and three other girls at church who are having babies, on the Saturday, so I would love to attend my baby shower and then give birth later that day, hehe! Ah well, I can hope :)
Neil took a couple of photos today of Arthur snuggling with me to watch his Teletubbies video before bathtime this evening. He likes to snuggle with me on the sofa before bathtime and watch something soothing, like the CBeebies bedtime hour or, lately, his favourite video. It's not for long, and he likes to breastfeed for that whole time. I love it because it gives me a time-out in a way, with my feet up, where I'm not chasing him around. I'm usually tired out by that time of day, especially when Neil has been at work. Neil was upstairs running Arthur's bath and when he came down he took a photo of Arthur breastfeeding. I like it because it captures a sweet part of Arthur's routine that will undoubtedly disappear in too short a time and become a memory of something he did when he was very little, and also it is a rare photo of Arthur and me together with the obvious presence of a bumpy baby brother! I want more photos of us before Matthew is born, more breastfeeding ones and snuggle-time and stuff. It's a precious time with my one-and-only little boy which is all about to end for good in just a couple of weeks. I am looking forward to it, but I am sad to lose that only-child time with Arthur, so I want photo memories!
Anyway, here we are - urgh, the place is still such a mess, but oooh that Xerox box on the little table is my homebirth pack that the midwife brought last week, yay! Arthur is actually on the breast, even though it looks like an awkward angle, it's one of the easiest to nurse him in now. Then there's a photo of us a few minutes later, right after I had to stop feeding him for a moment (big Braxton Hicks contraction!) and was just watching him watch the telly and thinking how wonderful he is :)
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