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2007-02-09 - 12.19am previous entry next entry
Snow again, cookies, standing, and food!
Well, it's after midnight, and I'm just starting a diary entry. *sigh* I know, I'm crazy. But oh well. I have some photos that I reeeally wanted to post yesterday, and some Arthur-sayings too, but I didn't have time yesterday. I actually went to bed BEFORE midnight yesterday!!! Gasp! I was just too tired and for once I didn't have this burning urge for some extra "me" time, so I went to bed :)
I wanted to post some photos of Arthur in the snow we got yesterday. Tonight I was all ready to post them right after we put the boys to bed but then Neil and I went and had a huge argument, ugh. About "me" time, no less. Neil is just about THE most understanding husband, but I still don't think he'll ever understand my need for "me" time. He SAYS he does (and thinks he does, more the frustration), but he doesn't, or else he wouldn't say stuff like he does when we argue about it. We rarely really argue or say hurtful things, but Neil got angry and said something really this evening that really really hurt my feelings and then he calmed down and wanted to talk more rationally. I was just a "squish" of raw jangly feelings and couldn't answer any of his calm rational questions. I hate that. I am just the jangly instant-stomach-ulcer type of person (!) and if I get upset then I feel like my emotions are physically burning a hole in my torso somewhere. A really big hole, and it's all I can focus on once it really hots up. It always burns in my chest and stomach and makes me nauseous when I am trying not to cry and compose myself. Which I DO try to do, because I am just crap at crying in front of anyone, even my own husband. I mean, I DO cry in front of Neil, but I just hate to let my guard down like that. I like to retreat into a dark hole to cry, which is all I wanted to do, but... seeing the argument through, and questions and answers, etc.... After I squash all those feelings down I just feel number than numb and all my answers are a flat, "I don't know..." or "What does it matter anyway?" and so on.
Anyway. We resolved some issues and Neil was calm and nice allll the rest of the "discussion", but the hurtful thing is still stinging for me. He went to bed, probably thinking, "Well, that was well resolved then!" I should probably forgive him right here and now for hurting me and pray about it, and then it's done and finished, but I DON'T WANT TO. I want him to know he's hurt me. I don't want to be childish and be all funny around him tomorrow. But I just don't feel like being the grown-up about it and letting it go. He hurt my feelings! What he said was wrong too, and I want him to acknowledge that and at least apologise. Ugh.
Pffthth. I did NOT mean to write about that.
So. We got snow overnight again, the night before last! Yay! Even more than last time, well, not a lot more but it's pretty unusual for us to even GET snow worth playing in, so it's exciting! It's kind of sad that Matthew doesn't even have a concept of snow, because he's always napping when Arthur and I go out in it! It's all gone today, and I have no idea if we'll see any more this year even. I hope so, because Arthur LOVES it! He was so excited to see snow outside - we let him come downstairs and climb up to the window to see it for himself instead of telling him it was there, and he gasped out, "Snooooowwww!!" when he saw it!
After Matthew was down for his morning nap, I bundled him up (and me!) and we went out in the back garden this time - there was a better covering on the lawn than there had been the last time. We left the kitchen door open with the monitor just inside to hear if Matthew woke, but he slept over 2 hours and we had all the time we wanted, which was lovely :) It did take me the best part of an hour to get us ready to go out though! Arthur wore his normal clothes, a thick winter coat with a hood, mittens, a hat, and a fantastic pair of waterproof dungarees (bought at eBay!) over the whole lot! And his Thomas the Tank welly boots :) I figured that way he could do ANYTHING he wanted without getting wet or cold and having to come in early because of it.
It was still snowing when we went out, and Arthur just stomped around the lawn making "footpints":
After that he rode on his wet-and-snow-filled car (LOVE those dungarees!!) for a bit:
And then I asked him what he wanted to do next, and he said, "I liiiike.... biwd a snowman!!" :) I'm SO sad, since the last snowman (only a week or so ago!) he has improved his pronounciation and it's now "snowman" instead of "fnowman", which I loved soooo much! :( His 's' sounds are getting better, but he still mispronounes a lot of things with 's' sounds. I love them mispronounced!
This time we had more snow, so our snowman was a bit bigger! I think I had WAY more fun than Arthur, building that snowman, hehe! It made me feel like a little girl again! Arthur fetched me bits of snow from around the snowman. We went inside and got a leftover scrap of my nappy-making fleece fabric for a scarf, and then put an odd little shape from a shape sorter (!) on his head for a hat, and we found some good stones for his nose and eyes. And a couple of weird looking twigs for arms! And then he was finished!
Arthur was really pleased with him. The snowman is the only surviving snow out there today (though he has lost a lot of weight overnight - not to mention an eye and his nose!) so Arthur has been watching him from the window all day today, saying, "Wooooowww, look at snowman!" When Matthew woke from his nap this morning, I brought him down all sleepy and bleary-eyed and sat him on the floor. Arthur RAN up to him and sat next to him, and he was so earnestly talking to him about the snowman outside. He said to Matthew, "Mashew, snowman mewting, snowman MEWTING!" and then when Matthew made no response (!), he looked at me and explained, "I telling Mashew all about it!" Funny boy :)
After that, I showed Arthur how to make snowballs and we chucked some at the fence to make a nice "boomph" thudding noise and see the snow explode as it hit the fence. Arthur LOVED that and it made him giggle and giggle. I couldn't throw snowballs AND take a photo of that lovely moment, but here he is still laughing about it a minute or so after we finished - he was even hopping from one foot to the other with glee in this photo! :)
After that I asked Arthur what else he would like to do in the snow, since we would have to go in pretty soon. He looked thoughtful and then said, "I don' know what do!" so, thinking that it would be a good idea to burn off as much of his energy as possible, I suggested a running game on the lawn. It was mostly packed snow and clumps of grass after we'd been trudging all over it and gathering snow, but it was soft and he was WELL bundled, so if we ran and fell then it would be okay. First we just played running up and down the garden as fast as we could (well, me pretending to go as fast as I could and letting him beat me!), and then we played follow-my-leader. I ran in circles and so did Arthur, giggling all the way. I ran criss-crossing all over the garden randomly, and Arthur followed, giggling almost too much to run. He fell over lots, and got really snowy but he just found that more hilarious and was too well wrapped to hurt himself. After that I was puffed out and my lungs were burning with the cold air. I felt like a child again, running about in the snow! The feeling of my nose prickling and my breath heaving and my pulse thundering in my ears was like an old familiar friend, if a little uncomfortable! I don't suppose I've done that much since I was little, and there's a certain way that it feels to run in the SNOW, rather than running in any other conditions.
While I stood and gasped and waited to catch my breath, Arthur threw himself on his front on the snowy lawn and declared, "Ah-yah swimming!" and proceeded to do this sort of breast-stroke/army crawl thing over the entire length of the garden! When he'd finished, he ran back to the end of the garden, flopped on his tummy and did it again! He had so much fun!
After that we came inside and then Matthew woke up. We stayed toasty warm under all our wraps, and Arthur wasn't even DAMP anywhere, let alone wet from all his frolicking! Yay for those fab dungarees! :)
The day before the snow, we made sugar cookies!!! I got curious about them over Christmas, reading American blogs and diaries and seeing EVERYBODY making sugar cookies as a traditional Christmas thing. I don't know them over here, but they sounded nice and I wanted to make cookies with Arthur that would be good for using cutters and keeping their shape. He has a TON of lovely cutters in his playdough collection, so I thought we could wash and use those. I found this recipe online, and used it because it had the conversions from cups (which we don't have here).
We cleaned the kitchen table and sat there to do the cookies. I had made the dough earlier and it had been chilling in the fridge. It's nice when Arthur helps me mix up things to bake, but I knew he'd enjoy the actual cutting and he would get frustrated about waiting for the dough to chill once we'd made it. Also I didn't want too long a project, as we had to fit it in when Matthew was napping, with time to be all cleared away before he woke again. I had to supervise so much with the flour and the huge rolling pin and so on, that I didn't get to take any photos of the actual cutting of the cookies :( But he enjoyed it until the dough started to warm up and then he kept grimacing and saying, "Sticky, don' like!" and other such things!
Arthur helped me wash up at the sink afterwards - he almost enjoyed this part better than cutting out the cookies! Please try to ignore the hideous state of the kitchen, ugh. Also, look at his hair! I have to get it cut, when he's having a day where his curls sort of drop out a bit, it looks kind of long on him, hehe!
Here he is helping me put the trays in the (cold, don't worry!) oven:
After all that, he didn't like the cookies! He's soooo particular about what he'll eat. He liked the shapes, and he especially likes choosing which cookie I should eat (which is a FUN activity for me, and I encourage it, haha!), but he just does his disgusted back-of-the-throat sound and shakes his head, and says, "Don' like cookie" and that's that. Oh well! Consequently I am eating myself silly on sugar cookies. They are really delicious, and soooo more-ish! But then you get super thirsty and you never want to look at another cookie again, until the effect wears off a few hours later. *sigh* It will be a good thing when they are all gone, but I DO like them! We didn't even ice them like they are supposed to be done, but I think I'll do that next time I make them. Yum!
A few things that Arthur has been saying over the last couple of days:
* "I having twubble! Mummy hatta help!" - shouted through from the living room while I was in the kitchen! His line of cars was falling apart and he couldn't fix it by himself :)
* He has some jigsaw books of Mummy and Baby Animals. He was holding the mummy elephant this morning and looking round the room seeming perplexed. I went into the kitchen for a minute, leaving Arthur as he was and Matthew sitting on the floor near Arthur, and then I heard, "Mashew, ha' seen tiny effunt eh-where?" I thought that was soooooo sweet! He is always trying to involve Matthew in conversation or activities, and I thought how sweet it was that he was asking Matthew such a grown up question as if he might even pipe up and say, "Oh yes, Arthur! I saw it behind the shape sorter only yesterday!" hehe!
* Today I napped with Arthur while Matthew napped in his cot - yay! I got about 40 minutes sleep, which was lovely! When we woke and went downstairs, I felt like snacking on something, so I went into the kitchen and opened the "snack cupboard", and then paused in front of it, saying to nobody in particular, "What shall Mummy have for a snack?" As if by magic, this small person appeared at my side, saying, "Mummy sood have summa Daddy's cuh-cuck!" - pointing up at Daddy's mint chocs in the corner of the cupboard, the cheeky monkey! :) He knows that if I have a snack, he gets to share it! We did NOT have summa Daddy's cuh-cuck! ;)
* He's getting more defiant and letting us know JUST how he feels when disciplined over things! The other day he was put on the sofa and not allowed to get down for a bit, to "think about what he'd done" - something to Matthew, I think it was. He was so cross about it! He kept on saying, "I don' WANTA think, I wan' get down!" and scowling at us crossly! We ignored him but it was hard to keep a straight face at times! ;)
* Describing his family: "Mashew only liddoo.... Ah-yah big boy.... Daddy HUGE! (giggling).... Mummy huge too!" Hehe!
* This evening while Matthew and Daddy were in the bath, Arthur was playing with his trains and cars on the living room floor, and suddenly he heard Matthew squeal and splash upstairs. He stopped playing and sat up with his finger to his hear, saying, "Listen!... What's that sound?!.... Sound like Mashew in tha bath wi' Daddy!"
His sentences are getting more complex all the time and I love to hear him coming out with new things and cleverer ways of saying things! One of the things I love best is the way he chats to himself as he plays by himself. He is great at playing alone, though he prefers to choose when he does that, rather than me directing him and him thinking it's a marvellous idea! When he does play on his own, he generally plays with toy cars or his Thomas trains. He sometimes builds towers out of Duplo or wooden bricks, and he often gets books down from the shelf and "reads" them, or his jigsaw books - he loves those. He prefers running cars around the furniture and floor, and his toy garage. He usually combines cars and Thomas trains in the same gameplay. Often there is a cwass (crash) or a race and usually someone has to come "a ressoo!" (to the rescue), only to get embroiled in the "tebbul cwass" themselves - as Arthur has picked up from me: "Oh no! What dizarser!!"
This evening while Matthew had his bath, I grabbed a pen and paper and tried to keep up with what Arthur was saying while he played with his trains and cars. I only had 2 minutes till I had to get Matthew and dress him for bed (while Neil then bathed Arthur), so I didn't get much of it, but here's what I wrote - the dots represent pauses of only a couple of seconds each time:
(Pushing lorry on the floor) "Lorry gotta go home... neal (nearly) tea time a Lorry!.... (Turning to James).... "Dames! Don't go that way, come that way!.... (grabbing James and Bertie the bus, one in each hand)....Are you ready?... GO!.... (looking over at Bill - the train).... Beew! Come baaaack!.... (spotting a tiny piece of spaghetti from tea on the floor)... What's that? I sink summa Daddy's.... TEA! (Looking around again)Where'd Bertie go?.... (seeing Matthew's teether toy near Bertie on the floor)...I got the toy - I missed one (means it had been "missed", ie not noticed before now)... Gotta tidy 'gain, in there.... (puts the teether in Matthew's toy box on the toy unit)... Oh!... (finger to ear again)... Oh, I think Mashew inna bath wiz Daddy... I sink so!.... (back to trains, holding one in each hand on the carpet)... Are you ready?... GO!... Here Thomas!"
I LOVE to have the time to sit watching him, and listen to him play :) He's such a busy bee, and he NEVER stops talking. He chops and changes in his chatter and his play every few seconds, and it's hard to keep up. I guess his mind just flits from this to that, and he just follows the flow. That's a nice way to be :)
Okay, just a few more things! Matthew is standing all the time, and MIGHTY pleased with himself - if I didn't know better, I'd say he even poses for photos now, he seems that pleased and proud about his standing, hehe! Here are three such photos - two from yesterday and one from bedtime this evening:
We need to drop the mattress again on his cot, as I think he isn't quite safe now that he can stand in the cot. He has only pulled to standing in there since yesterday, but he LOVES to do it now he knows he can! He rattles the bars like nothing else and squeals and skwawks with excitement. He's such a sweetie pie!
Today he has been having a go at letting go while he's standing, but I don't know WHY, because he's toooo little for that yet! I'm sure he can't manage it, since his leggies have only just started standing with support. The sweet thing is that he seems very confident that if he just lets go the sofa whilst beaming delightedly at me, then surely he'll stay standing - why not?! So when he thuds down onto his bottom a millisecond later, his face falls and he looks utterly confused, bless him! He looks like he can't understand why that didn't work ;)
For the past week I have been doing really well (pats own back) at making my family a meal for when Neil gets home from work. The boys are eating later than usual (about 6.30pm) and thus getting to bed later - especially on bath nights, which we have just tried out once or twice this week. They are usually in bed for about 8pm with the new routine, but tonight was a long tantrummy meal ("I don't LIKE it! Don't want it, want cwacker instead!") followed by a bath, and Matthew wasn't asleep till 8.40pm, and Arthur not till 9pm. Ugh, WAY too late. So I need to fine-tune things.
But I'm so pleased and proud that I'm even MANAGING to do the housewife thing a bit. I am making all the meals from scratch - no jars or bought stocks, etc. So I'm crying over onions, squishing garlic in a press, chopping veg, stirring in tomato puree, making milk/flour-based sauces, etc. It's LOVELY!!! I feel great cooking real meals for my little family and putting them on the table for Neil to get home from work. I run late most days so far and I need to fix that, but otherwise it's going great. Along with this, we're doing a thing with Arthur where he gets the same food that we eat, but he doesn't have to eat it. If he doesn't eat it, there is nothing else and he goes hungry. We always have a dessert with every meal, and my family cookbook says that you should never withhold dessert from a child who hasn't eaten the first course, as it will only teach them that there are good foods and ones to avoid. If you make dessert nutritious, it's another way of getting nourishment into them, sweetness or not, it doesn't matter really.
We also try to have bread on the side (which we don't really want to have ourselves) because Arthur will eat bread and that means he eats SOMETHING whilst feeling like he's partaking in the family meal, since we've all got bread to eat with our meal.
We have had beef stew; sausages, mash and beans; macaroni cheese; chicken casserole; fish and home-made oven chips; and today I made spaghetti bolognese. Arthur has eaten NONE of any of it. Neil thinks he's losing weight. He DOES look a tiny bit thinner in the face to me today, but he isn't losing weight as far as the scales go (with clothes and nappy this morning, he was 31lbs, perfectly healthy!). And if we persevere, he WILL start to eat. Apparently. We tried this once before but we didn't really have the heart to persevere. This time it's much easier because we're eating a family meal and he has to eat what we eat. He does eat peas if there are peas (but not if mixed in with the sauce or stew), sweetcorn (same applies), bread (no butter), baked beans, and he'll eat banana or apple or yoghurt or fromage frais for pudding, if that's what we're having. We had banana and vanilla ice-cream tonight and he liked that a lot! I want to start making proper puddings when I am better in the swing of things, like puddings and custard (pies, sticky pudds, etc), rice pudding, and other things yummy! I don't think Arthur will eat them, but he'll come round eventually.
Matthew, on the other hand, absolutely loves everything I put in front of him! He immediately shoves a handful of it into his mouth, whatever it is. He eats any texture, any flavour, any sized morsel. I LOVE love love that we did baby-led weaning with Matthew. I can't imagine I was so anxious about it before, and that I never did it with Arthur! It's the easiest thing on the PLANET to do, and it just seems so natural. Pureeing foods seems a crazy notion to me now. I don't think I'll ever do it again, since I will definitely be doing this method with any other children I have. It is MESSY though! ;)
Here's Matthew trying out macaroni cheese for the first time (first food with actual cows milk in the sauce - no problems, hooray!):
And today, his first try of spaghetti bolognese - ohhhh the mess! Thank goodness it was bath night, and he could go straight from the highchair to the bath, hehe!
He always ends up sitting on the most revolting mound of squished food, as he drops it down his sides! Yeurgh! He also likes to stockpile in his bib :) But he EATS quite a bit of it, judging by his poos. Arthur is quite perturbed, watching me change Matthew's nappy after he has pooed, saying, "Mashew dunna poo!... Got PEAS!.... Got peas inna poo." He seems a bit worried about why his favourite food is in Matthew's pooey nappy, hehe! I have had to start explaining what poo is (what a delightful subject!) and WHY there are peas in Matthew's poo! Mmmm!
On that lovely note, I think I will leave it there for tonight. It's 2am probably, but thank GOODNESS it's weekend and I get a lie-in in the morning :) Yay for Neil letting me lie in. I have forgotten all about my hurt feelings, writing this entry, so it's been worth staying up this late :) I'll finish with a photo of my little boys, taken yesterday (see Matthew in that (albeit small for its size) 12-18 month sleepsuit?!?!?!!) - one of the many moments in the day when Arthur sits down next to Matthew and gives him a cuddle or a kiss. He LOVES his brother! :)
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