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2007-02-02 - 11.58pm previous entry next entry
Photos and boy news and stuff
Soooo late once AGAIN, but I spent ages this evening sorting out photos and a video clip for writing an entry tonight, and I'm determined to get it written now I've spent the time on it! :) I'll have to try to be brief. Ooh, a pig just flew past my window! ;)
Today has felt quite hard to manage. I got my period yesterday, giving me a HUGE four-day luteal phase (that is, only 4 days from ovulating before the first day of my next period), ugh. No wonder the hormones swung crazily from rose-tinted to nails-on-blackboards! I always forget how crappy periods are when I haven't had any for ages due to being pregnant. I have just felt rubbish today. I had yet another bad night with waking boys, and Matthew wouldn't go back to sleep between 3 and 4am, which is when my cramps were just toooo painful to stand up properly, even after painkillers. Urrrgh. Today I just feel wobbly-jointed and exhausted, and incredibly hormonal. I mean, not good hormonal. I have been so horrible to my poor children today. I just can't seem to help losing my temper at the slightest thing, and I'm honestly not a lose-my-temper type of person in general. But then, in between scary mad moments, I've been completely calm and normal and nice and happy. What is up with that? When something flips my lid, I am actually a bit scared because I try to control my temper and I just feel like I do not have control over myself at all. I have been rougher with the boys than I should be, and shouted at them more than once. I hate that. Hate it. I feel so awful. I hate that I can't seem to pull it together.
I think I have only ever felt this kind of hormonal intensity twice before, and both of those times were when I started my period after a chemical pregnancy. The first of those was the time I smashed the printer for not hurrying up and working as I wanted it to! I am NOT proud of that, and it was EXTREMELY out of character for me, but I mention it as an example of how extreme my moods seem to be at the moment. Ugh. The good thing was on those occasions, it only lasted the first couple of days of my period and then things seemed to settle. Lots of my pregnancy buddies who have got their periods back have said that their first or second postpartum period was just TERRIBLE, hormonally. I can't remember this from last time, but then I did not get a 4-day luteal phase like this last time either! Anyway, I hope it passes FAST and I feel normal again in no time. I don't like the way I feel at ALL right now. I got weepy over this morning's episode of Thomas the Tank Engine when I watched it with Arthur!!! Thomas went ahead of the runaway trucks to warn somebody that they were headed for the new station that was nearly finished, and the points were diverted and the trucks didn't hit the new station. I nearly bawled when the Fat Controller told him what a Useful Engine he was! My eyes filled up and I got all chokey-throaty. *sigh*
Anyway. Of course my children have not escaped that inbuilt "thing" that is common to most kids, where they have this sixth sense for when would be the WORST time for Mummy to deal with things, and they just DO stuff to make the day harder to handle. Matthew has refused all his naps/bedtime. I just left him in the cot. He was knackered until the second I put him down in his cot, and it was so frustrating. He would just flip over and giggle at me, and then crawl around the cot till he banged his head and cried. I left him till he cried and then went back and picked him up, and put him down again for sleep. Then I left again, because he flipped over onto all fours and giggled at me. On the third try, he went to sleep. He also did three very "I'm eating new food!" poos (mucho mess) and the INSTANT his nappy was open so that I could attempt to wipe him, he clenched his legs together and flipped sideways off the changing mat onto the carpet, whilst simultaneously clutching his crotch with both hands. Let me remind you of the horribleness and widespread-ness of today's "I'm eating new food!" poos, and the fact that I hadn't even had a nanosecond to wipe any of it off him before he did all that. Each and every one of the three times he pooed. Ugh. I am seeing the funny side now, but let me tell you I could have screamed earlier! Or worse. The MOST difficult part of it was that he only did it because he knew it was a monkey thing to do - ie. with a huge and inreasingly-familiar "I'm being a monkey, hahaha!" grin on his face, in the full knowledge that I would NOT be happy about it! I had to pin him down with my legs (!!) to change his nappy EVERY time today. Otherwise I have no idea how on earth I would have got the darn things on him. I did NOT want to clean poo off the carpet so I couldn't give up and leave him nappy-less.
He just woke so I've now fed my snuggly gorgeous little Boo and he's asleep again in his cot. But now it's later than ever. Must hurry up!
So, a challenging day. Not forgetting, of course, Arthur's "Monkey Incident of the Day" - here's what this tired and emotionally frazzled mama found when she finally came downstairs from getting an exasperating giggly/flippy baby to sleep:
Yeah, it's rice. The entire not-quite-full tub of "American Easy-Cook Rice - Contains Approx. 100 Servings!" Mmm-hmm. It doesn't even look as bad in the photos as it really was, because only half the room is in the shot, and the flash and the colour of the floor seem to make it less visible in places. When I came downstairs, Arthur met me at the stairgate beaming and excitedly saying, "Oh WOW! Show Mummy!" and pointing to the kitchen, hardly able to keep his feet still with the anticipation. Just the "Oh wow!" was enough to tell me that I would not like what I was about to see! But he did also have a sparkle in his eye that told me he KNEW I would not like it, but he was excited all the same. Cheeky monkey! I just didn't know what to say when I saw it. I think I just said, "Oh NO! Oh noooo Arthur.... Ohhhh no!" because I couldn't think what to say or do or think or ANYTHING at that very moment. The whole floor was wall-to-wall rice, and he'd obviously been having a good old slide, kick and fling in it, because there were all sorts of rice snowdrifts up against the furniture and huge skid marks where he'd slid along or flung it about.
He didn't seem put off by my reaction. He just lay down on his front on the kitchen floor and waved his arms and legs wildly, effectively making "rice" angels, much like he might in a good snowfall. *sigh* Of course this sent the rice under all the appliances with tiiny cracks between them and the floor, with force.
I had no idea what to do, and I just felt completely defeated for a moment, so I phoned Neil at work and he said I should let Arthur have fun in the rice for a bit. It would not change much about the situation, and it would keep him busy for a while. So I did.
He played for a long while and then I can't remember what else happened for a bit, but then before I knew it Matthew was awake again, earlier than I'd expected, and I had to start to clean up once Matthew was going to be downstairs. I made Arthur help me sweep it all up, which he found LOTS of fun:
Matthew kept driving me crazy trying to climb over every barrier I put in the way of the rice - he was SO eager to get hold of the stuff, and he is so quick once he gets something in his hand now. He is like lightning at getting the object to his mouth, as he's had to learn to do it FAST before I get there to whip it off him! So in the end I had to put him in the living room and shut the kitchen door. I figured if he got upset then I'd have to think again, but he seemed fine for ages. Arthur kept wanting to check on him and see if he was okay, and they spent a cute few minutes greeting each other through the mottled glass in the door!
It did NOT stay fun. Arthur kept messing up the piles I swept and flinging rice about, and Matthew got upset out in the other room, so I put Matthew in his highchair without his tray on, to watch me (which he loved!), and strapped Arthur into his booster seat at the kitchen table, where he had a huge sobbing screaming tantrum about being confined there. Urgh. BUT, that was the most I had felt able to cope all day, for some reason. I just worked away at sweeping the floor and getting every grain of rice that I could find off the floor, and I cheerfully ignored the huge tantrum, and somehow I felt in control for that moment and it made me feel such a sense of relief compared to the out-of-control emotional way I'd felt before. I don't know why.
Anyway. Monkey boy, AGAIN!
Matthew has banged his head at least 10 times today, poor little love! His latest thing is pulling to kneeling upright at anything. He is practising it constantly, and crawling to things with the purpose of pulling up on them. This evening he pulled up to kneeling at the sofa, where Arthur was eating a snack, and such was his eagerness for a bit of that snack, he raised his right foot and alllmost put it on the floor next to his left knee, but it faltered there for a moment and then he put his knee back down instead. All this pulling up and trying to reeeach for things once he's up on his knees is leading to a lot of overbalancing or just losing his grip on whatever he had pulled up on, and so DOWN he crashes, usually pretty hard. It's worst when he falls onto hard toys :( I knew it would happen though. It's just a part of learning to be mobile, but I hate it for him. I hate seeing him fall and get hurt, and I instinctively want to protect him, but he will learn so fast if I let him try without bubble-wrapping him. I have been trying to rush to sweep the floor around him clear of toys every time I see him pull up somewhere though! Then at least he'd just go BONK on the carpet instead of toys that could hurt when he lands. But he has still had some nasty falls today.
Arthur dropped a toy next to Matthew today as he was walking past him in the living room. It almost hit him, and as Arthur stooped to pick the toy up again, I heard him say in such a sweet little cheerful sing-song voice, "Oh! Sorry my dlah-ling!" hehehe! What a funny little boy ;)
Here is Matthew's first attempt to pull up to kneeling a few days ago, in the kitchen (he wanted to watch the washing go round in the machine):
Here he is yesterday evening just before bedtime:
He LOVES that Ball Blast toy!!! It's the biggest motivator for him to pull up like that, as he loves to push the button and bop to the music - he gets so excited sometimes! Here he is earlier today:
And this evening just before bedtime:
He is crawling ALL OVER, and can crawl pretty fast when he wants to get to something urgently. He is also getting pretty good at combining crawling and climbing to get over things on all-fours. He just gets this look of determination in his eyes and goes for it. Nothing will deter him so usually I have to pick him up and move him away from the place he's trying to get to (that he's not supposed to reach!) in the end! Here's a sweet picture of my tiniest boy crawling towards me today:
His hair does have lots of blond in it but it's definitely brown. In the light it has this halo-ish look with the blond hair being all lit up from certain angles, and he'll always be fairer than Arthur, but he still has brown hair all the same. It's growing in so fast now! It lies flat all over except on top - just like Arthur's! Except that Arthur's used to grow up and curve backwards and Matthew's grows up and forwards. I'm still hoping he'll have some of the vaguely curly gene that I've tried to pass on, hehe! His standy-up hair gives me some hope on that one :)
I made a short video clip this evening of Matthew doing a few of his latest new things all in the same minute, so I thought that would be a good one to post here. He does his pulling up to kneeling at the Ball Blast, and a bit of crawling, and going from crawling to sitting and vice-versa. He fell about 10 seconds after the end of this clip and banged his head on the floor :( He looks so tired in this clip - look at the bags under his eyes! He didn't have his usual length afternoon nap, and it was pretty much bedtime at the time of this video clip. But anyway, here he is being all mobile, as he suddenly is these days!
I am beginning to get somewhere on meals for the family, I think (I hope!). We have had two homemade family meals in the last week (our first EVER one since having kids (!!) being Christmas Day) with all four of us sitting at the table. We are hoping to do this regularly, and obviously it's what I've wanted to do EVERY night once I have children, since way back in my own childhood. So that's my aim. It means managing the children and the house, and cooking a meal which I should serve up pretty much as Neil walks through the door from work, so that we can all sit down to dinner as a family, in time for the boys to then have their bedtime routine and a decent bedtime. We tried it twice on non-bath nights (the boys have baths every other night) and it was a success - if rather fraught and not organised as well as it should have been! - but we don't know yet how we'll manage it on bath night AND get the kids in bed at a decent hour. I'm sure it's doable though. I just need to get better at the whole process with practise. So for now, we're doing non-bath nights till I feel more in the swing of it.
The first night, we had sausages, mash and baked beans! Arthur ate the beans but made a huge fuss about the rest and wouldn't try it. Matthew loved it:
The next meal we shared was a beef stew that I made with no salt or ready-made stock, and yet with plenty of flavour, yay! It had beef, parsnips, carrots, tomatoes, swede, potatoes, and peas. And onions. And water :) Arthur made a HUGE fuss and lots of disgusted noises and much-o distressed crying, and wouldn't try it. He did try a pea but acted like it bit his tongue because it was covered in the stew sauce. *sigh* Matthew LOVED my stew! :)
Matthew has now tried both wheat and dairy. I was more nervous about dairy because he was not able to tolerate my breastmilk when I had been drinking milk. I had to cut it out of my diet completely (including ice-cream and yoghurt, but not cheese for some reason) for his first 4 months. I tried it again after 17 weeks, since that's when the first little stage of gut maturity comes. It's MUCH more mature at 6 months, so I was expecting that I might need to wait till he was 6 months old, and then hopefully he'd be okay with me drinking milk again. At 4 months exactly, I tried ice-cream (ohhhh bliss!!!) and I wasn't sure if he was a bit fussier than usual, but definitely not as bad as he had been before. After another couple of weeks I tried it again, and I didn't really notice any reaction so I continued :) Then I put milk on some cereal one morning and he was fine so I haven't looked back! Yay! But I have been nervous about his reaction to eating dairy products himself. I had planned to wait till he was maybe 8 months or so. Then one day a week or so ago, I allowed Arthur to eat his fromage frais in the living room after lunch, and after a moment of silence while I was washing my hands, I heard, "What think, Mashew?... You like, Mashew?" - yikes! So I rushed in to find Arthur sitting down with Matthew and spoon-feeding him his fromage frais! Matthew was obviously enjoying it so much and it was all so cute that I just relaxed and let it be, and started taking photos :)
He absolutely LOVED the fromage frais! He actually cried when it was finished! I figured I'd have to find out if he was bothered by dairy sometime, so it was just a waiting game from then. Happily, he didn't react at all, and the next day he had some more fromage frais! He has since had a little butter on his toast instead of it just dry, and also a big lump of cheddar cheese to try. He broke off a big piece of it with his gums and had a good old gag on it for a moment before swallowing it down! No trouble after the cheese so I think I can safely cross dairy off the worry list! Yay, I am so relieved! Of course there is still actual milk to come, and he can't try that till 12 months anyway. I can serve him food that has milk used for cooking in it now, but I haven't tried him on that, so we'll see.
Anyway, he LOVES both wheat and dairy products. Eggs are my next anxiety to get past! I think I would say that Matthew's favourite food is emerging as wholemeal bread or toast (well, that and fromage frais, of course!). He'll drop ANYTHING to take a piece of toast and eat it, and he really does EAT it up. It's the food his the most frantic about when he sees us eating it, too. I pretty much give him both wheat and dairy every day. It makes things a lot easier now that I know he's okay, as those food groups add a lot of variety to meals and stuff.
Here he is this lunchtime, eating his beloved fromage frais:
And another with Arthur in it, who had already finished his fromage frais and was busy pretending his spoon was the spoon on Big Cook, Little Cook, when Little Cook sits on it and flies away! He was saying, "Spoon like Bid Cook Liddoo Cook! Shhhhhh!" (meaning, whoooshhhh!):
My parents came to visit for the afternoon yesterday which was LOVELY!!! And guess what?! They went shopping in town before coming to us and phoned us from the car to ask if we would like a dishwasher for Christmas!!!!! They were going to bring us money for Christmas, as they hadn't got around to it over the Christmas season (we always get money, it's hard for them to buy and ship gifts from France), but they heard that our dishwasher and broken and so they offered to buy us one as a Christmas present!! What lovely parents I have! :) We had wondered about getting someone in to try and fix it, but it might have cost a lot and they might have done like the guy who came to see our washing machine said, and told us that to repair it would cost almost as much as to replace it. And then have to pay for the call-out as well. So we said YES PLEASE!! And by the time they arrived that afternoon, they had paid for a dishwasher and arranged for delivery on Friday (TOMORROW!!!) and for the old one to be taken away! Yay!!! I have such lovely lovely parents :) It's such a weight off for Neil and I at the moment, to receive such a lovely gift. We both feel a little bit worn down lately and things seem to be going wrong or breaking all at once, which tends to happen from time to time. So this was a wonderful thing to receive at this time, and we're soooo grateful! :) Thank you, too, to God, who knew allll about it, I'm sure! ;) I love God! He looks after us so wonderfully.
Here is a last photo (it's really WAY too late again) of my lovely Daddy with his smallest grandson, the one he watched being born!
Matthew took to him INSTANTLY, just as Arthur did. He was a bit wary of Nana for a while, and kept giving her expressionless stares, and then looking at me as if to say, "What's she doing here?!" hehe! Fortunately, she wasn't offended, and he warmed up eventually. Arthur was completely excited and thrilled to see both Nana and Grandy of course! He remembers and knows them well now, and he was sad to see them go. He didn't want to go up for his nap until Nana took his hands and squatted down to his level, and talked very gently to him about how she would still be here when he woke up, and that he needed his sleep so that they could enjoy doing all the fun things they were going to do after he woke up. He listened in silence and then turned and walked to the stairgate, saying, "See y'later, Nana!" :)
Okay, MUST go to bed. It is TWO in the morning. Ugh. I will sooooo regret this tomorrow. But I'm glad to have caught up a bit here! :)
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