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2008-03-21 - 11.17pm previous entry next entry
Pukiness and photos (not of the pukiness, hehe!)
Hmmm.
Arthur was sick again at bedtime tonight - weird. I am not sure what to make of it! Neil and I can't figure it out, and I phoned my mum but she can't think what's going on either. He's FINE otherwise. The only other time he has been sick at bedtime was 2 nights ago, so it can't be a bug (apart from the fact that we can track back seven days or more without any opportunity for him to have picked up a viral bug) as he's fine in between and the two incidents were 48 hours apart.
The only thing in common is the fact that it was exactly the same timing - after a bedtime breastfeed, while I was singing lullabies. He generally takes a lot of milk and does get too full. I don't know why he wouldn't self-regulate though, you know?
Again I did not panic - go me! :) Arthur did, however :( Poor boy. He really is scared of being sick. He fought it for ages and just sat there grey and panicky with hastily grabbed towels from the boys' bathtime in front of him on the bed. Nathan was crying and crying, and had been for a while as we were both busy dealing with Arthur, so I went out to settle him (leaving Arthur with Neil) and that's when he was sick.
Things making me nervous:
* Neil said it was projectile
* He didn't feel better afterwards. He stayed grey and panicky and said he still felt sick - for ages actually, best part of half an hour or so. We even expected him to be sick again so we stayed there at the ready, but eventually he settled down.
I'm not sure what to expect, since he still felt sick afterwards. That usually means he'll be sick again sometime, but WHY would he be? What could it be? Having said that, 3 hours have passed and he's still sleeping peacefully, like the last time this happened. He was fine and dandy last time, not a peep all night and then acting and eating normally from the moment he woke in the morning. But that time he was fine after he threw up.
I'm hoping Neil's opinion on the projectile factor is just him not knowing what REAL projectile vomiting is like!
The common factor is the breastmilk, which seems odd to me. I will say though, I do have ridiculously huge quantities of milk at the moment. But, enough to make a 3-year-old vomit after having fed his brothers with it too?!?! That sounds just... like I'm boasting, haha! Just crazy. There isn't a way to know how much Arthur is getting in that short bedtime breastfeed. The boys only nurse for about 3 minutes really, maybe 5 minutes at the absolute most. Some days just a couple of minutes maybe. As soon as they're latched on, I pray and then sing a song, and that's it, I make them stop. Arthur is by far the most efficient of my boys at getting the milk though. The side that Matthew had at bedtime is always fuller than the side Arthur had, and they were nursing for exactly the same amount of time.
Tonight, I nursed Nathan for a full side before I went up to put the boys to bed (Neil was bathing them while I breastfed Nathan). At bedtime, I offered Arthur the side that Nathan had nursed from, and Matthew had the other side. Neil told me he estimated that Arthur had had maybe HALF A PINT of breastmilk, after cleaning everything up after he threw up! That's crazy much after nursing the baby there first!
Although, now I'm wondering.... all the milk Arthur got would have been hindmilk, and plenty of it. Right now, my milk is geared towards Nathan's needs, and breastmilk for a 2-month-old is pretty near a peak for fat and calorie content. The fat content will gradually decrease as Nathan gets older. My milk will probably be VERY rich and creamy right now, especially the hindmilk. Soooo, maybe it's too rich for Arthur in that quantity - his body is certainly not used to it, and it's not geared for his needs.
Is that a crazy theory? My mum wondered it, and Neil said in hindsight that he had wondered about that too, but didn't want to mention it in case I took offense! ;) But I wonder why Matthew isn't affected? My mum said that maybe it's because he doesn't take as much from me in that one sitting. Also, he's younger. And his tummy has always been far stronger than Arthur's - Arthur has such a sensitive stomach and is so picky about strong flavours. He once threw up at the table when I forgot to put sugar in the topping for the apple crumble! He only put a bit of the crumble in his mouth, and reacted waaaay over-the-top and then threw up! So, maybe. It seems a bit far-fetched to me, but I can't think of another explanation. I truly hope it isn't something infectious, but I can't think how it could be.
Neil thinks I should cut down the amount of milk Arthur gets - that I should ration him, sort of. He nurses twice a day (including the bedtime feed) and EVERY day I have to turn him down several times, asking for milky. He has a fairly good-sized nursing session in the middle of the day when Matthew has gone for his nap. I nurse Matthew to sleep and then come downstairs and offer the same side that Matthew had, to Arthur. He will curl up with me and watch part of a Pixar movie or something, and breastfeed for a while - longer than bedtime. Once or twice he has said he had too much milky after he has finished a day time session, but not like he does at bedtime.
I feel reluctant to partially wean him as I always wanted him to self-wean and he definitely doesn't seem to be ready for that. I NEVER thought I would have wean (or part-wean) because I had too much/too rich milk for my 3-year-old! Craziness. I know my milk will get less like this (and less in volume hopefully) as the months go by, but I don't know how long it will be before it's okay for Arthur again.
If it even IS the breastmilk that's the problem. Aaargh! I just don't know what to make of it!
Anyway. Change of subject! Thank you Shelley and Siobhan for your comments last entry! :) I'm glad I am not as daft as I feel with the mushy nicknames! ;)
I have sooooo many photos to post that I'm really behind on, so here goes. Some of them are from last month even. I will just post as many as I can before Nathan wakes up to nurse (due any time really as he's been 3.5 hours since the start of his last feed now!).
I have to mention that the entire house is an absolute PIT at the moment, mess-wise - urgh! It's rather visible in some of the photos. *sigh* But oh well. Tis a season. I have plans! I have been so frustrated with this cold knocking me down harder than I expected and taking ages to clear up. It has meant that I haven't had energy to do anything with the mess for two weeks - I have just had to sit around looking at the state of it all and picking up the odd few things that cannot even be noticed by 30 minutes later! Tsk. But it will soon change! :)
Here are a couple of pictures of the boys in their new playpen (thank you Melanie! *hugs*), which is actually now rectangular shaped so that it doesn't take up so much room. It's GREAT for a time-out, a safe zone for Nathan in his bouncy chair for a few minutes, a way to seperate Arthur and Matthew if the need arises, and also to give them their own space for playing cars or something on their own. If Matthew won't stop leaping on Arthur to play rough-and-tumble when Arthur DOES NOT want to play, and something is about to boil over in the kitchen, it's also a good place to plonk poor Matthew for a few minutes (he does not like this!) to keep the situation in the living room from becoming worse than a boiled-over pot in the kitchen! They LOVE the playpen. It's a shame we really don't have the space for it. It has reduced the living room space to like a postage stamp (or so it seems!) and that's our only room to live in during the day. Which is crazy with two small energetic boys! We go out for long periods for them to run and play at the park, etc, but lately we've been stuck inside because we've been poorly so it has been difficult! We are hoping to get somebody to store our armchair soon, so that will make more space for the playpen and give a bigger room space again.
Anyway, these pics are from last month - we were getting things ready for them to go up to bed, and suddenly noticed they were sitting in the playpen and had pulled lots of books down from their bookshelf, and were reading soooo sweetly and quietly! :)
Here's Arthur making a sort of den out of the playpen, to play with his cars where Matthew can't interfere!
Here are a few pictures of my sweet little boys playing cars together - something they do many times EVERY day. They both are obsessed with playing with toy cars. They play on their own, individually, more often than not. But they also sometimes play together, or side-by-side with the cars. They really enjoy each others' company with this game - though Arthur can't stand it when Matthew messes up a carefully arranged line of cars! Matthew just loves driving them around the floor and arranging them (not so much into lines though). Arthur plays "supermarket car parks" and "traffic jam" and so on. They can play with cars for ages, and they're in their own little worlds while they do. I love watching them!
Arthur making a "car picture" with Neil. He asks to do this EVERY DAY! Seriously! It's something we do sometimes for school - school is pretty much mainly crafts and cooking and other fun things. He is learning about things as we do these things. I sometimes do a more focused activity based on a letter of the alphabet, say, and the other day we made a fun number chart with all sorts of different things to stick on it. We made a tractor picture a few days ago with a dried beans-and-lentils road! That was great fun :) It's on the wall at the moment. I must take some pictures of what we're doing from time to time. Anyway, Arthur's favourite thing is to use his own scissors to cut out pictures from his car magazines, and then glue them all onto a piece of paper. That boy knows all the different makes of car just by looking at them! I have no clue about this kind of thing! Neil has been teaching him ;)
Neil got his ancient keyboard down from the loft recently, for something to do with the boys. They LOVE the keyboard! Arthur especially loves putting the tacky demo music on and pretending he's playing it, hehe. Matthew, for some reason, keeps pushing the volume up and then he is terrified of the sound that suddenly deafens him and cries. But then when we turn it down and he recovers, he goes right back and puts the volume up again for another scare! Funny boy :)
Both the boys have been really tired at the end of their colds - we have been exhausted and feeling weak too, so it must be part of the virus. One lunchtime Matthew was eating his lunch in the highchair and he fell asleep whilst chewing! Bless! At least he'd had the mainstay of his lunch - they have Nutella sandwiches after their main ones and before yoghurt/fruit, and that's what he was eating when he dozed off! Neil said he was slumped with his eyes closed, food in hand, but with his mouth still juuuust about chewing, hehe! He took two photos :)
He went straight up to bed from the highchair, and didn't wake when his face was wiped or when he was carried up to bed! Sweet little chocolatey boy :)
I got money for my birthday from everyone who normally gives me something! They said to spend it on stuff I wanted to get, instead of putting it into the bottomless pit of nothingness that is our bank account right now. So I did, and I'm so excited about my birthday presents in a childlike way, really!
I bought:
* Pink stripey PJ bottoms from eBay! I love pyjamas!
* A pair of luxury Marks and Spencers pyjamas! :)
* Chris Tomlin's CD, "Arriving" - we sing a lot of those songs at church, and I just LOVE his music.
* A FLYLADY ORDER!!! I'm so excited! I have ordered her feather dusters, the ultimate timer, a rubber scrubba (!), and a water bottle, which will help me drink my water. I can't WAIT till it arrives!
* THREE new nursing bras! Again, soooooooo excited! They are all Elle Macpherson Maternelles, as those are the most comfortable bras I have ever worn, and they fit me well. They are a tad too tight when my milk is plentiful like from when it comes in after having a baby till maybe 4 months postpartum, or so. But they are GREAT! They are pretty expensive though. I have three lavender-coloured ones - one was bought new before Arthur was born, and the other second hand from eBay a few months later. I treated myself to another new one when I was pregnant with Nathan - it was much cheaper than usual though, as it was from eBay. One of the older ones has broken now, which Arthur has adopted as his "snuggly" (bless him!). I went to order one, and Googled to find the cheapest option. I found Zodee and they cannot be beaten for value, seriously! The bras come from Australia so I have to wait a bit to get them. But the deal was sooooo good for three bras that I couldn't resist. I am getting two pink and one green bra! I love a touch of colour to my underwear, haha! :)
* Also I bought five books from Amazon:
- "Raising Boys"
- "The Mom Walk" (under recommendation from Sarah)
- "The Mission of Motherhood" by the same author.
- "Christmas Jars because I have wanted to read it for some time. I read it the morning it arrived and it was a sweet, inspiring read. I am excited about reading! I love to read, but just haven't done so properly for AGES.
- "Let Me Be a Woman" by Elisabeth Elliot, an author also recommended to me by Sarah. I am desperate for books to inspire and uplift me as I do my "job" of mothering. I also NEED stuff that will point me to Jesus while I do it. I absolutely have to lean on God for everything. That is how I will absolutely definitely manage to cope with six children if we have them! Only in God's strength. So I need to start drawing on it as I keep having children!
I also bought a couple of bags of Cadbury's Mini Eggs from the supermarket :) And two pairs of FLUFFY pink socks from Tesco! I love them! I have a huuuuge weakness for socks (and pyjamas!). They were �1.50!!!! Here are my birthday feet :)
And they come in very handy for doing things like this!
I am so thrilled with allll my lovely birthday presents! I love to buy my own presents, hehe! I get exactly what I want, and I can get excited about things arriving once I've ordered them :)
And lastly, here is a photo of my sweet little Nathan - it's one I have already posted in my pregnancy diary, but I don't want to post a ton of photos here and NONE of them have Nathan in them! Plus, I love this photo! :)
I have a good many photos on the camera again, of all three of the boys (not all in one photo though, sadly!), so I will hopefully have more to post soon! Sorry there were sooooo many in one entry this time - hope it didn't take an age to load for anyone!
I absolutely must go now! Nathan has woken and nursed and gone back to sleep. I actually typed a little of this entry with my big toes while I nursed him, hahaha! The laptop was on the floor out of reach and I was sooooo longing to continue this entry, so out of sheer desperation (!) I used my toes to type, hehe! They ache now. Nathan went over 4 hours from his last feed, sleeping almost 3 hours in one block!!!!! He is still sleeping right next to me on the sofa, on a little made up "bed" of flannelette sheets, while I sit here and type this. His feet are touching my leg. I love him so!
I need to finish a Tesco online order (hopefully be delivered tomorrow, though it's a bit late now!) as we're pretty much out of food and a few other things. Then I will scoop up my tiny and go to bed :)
I am SO-oh-oh blessed. Did I mention that recently? Well, I am. God is so good to me. I have three sons! My heart aches and my brain boggles at the realisation! God is sooo good to me.
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