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2006-09-02 - 10.50pm previous entry next entry
Waffly_stuff
Thank you for the comments after my last entry!!! I was SO excited to see comments in my new comments box! :)
As always I'll start by saying that I don't have any time to write, blah blah blah - I really don't, but somehow I always end up writing for HOURS anyway! It's already 10.50pm so I'd be reeeeally daft if I did that tonight. I guess I have photos somewhere, but I don't think there are any new ones uploaded from the camera yet. I just ate dinner and Neil is watching a DVD that he likes (and I don't) and I was just scaring myself googling "pain between shoulder blades", so I figured I should stop doing that and maybe luxuriate in an actual WAFFLY diary entry - the kind where you just let your brain flow through your fingers as they type, without anything prepared in advance. I LOVE writing like that! It's why I even STARTED writing diaries. But lately I'm always playing catch-up with news and photos about my sweetie-boys. Which is so much fun and something I prefer to do anyway, but I do still miss letting my thoughts run out onto the keyboard.
I have some weird pain at the moment which has been bothering me for a few days. I am pretty sure it's just indigestion, but something about it is nagging at the back of my mind and worrying me, so I got to googling (never a very good idea!). I have a horrid dragging ache under my ribcage and just feel really bloated and indigestiony. But lately I have had a pretty bad pain in between my shoulder blades, and it doesn't feel muscular. Something kept on nagging in my mind from my nursing studies, about referred pain, but from WHAT? So I googled, and found that I could be having a heart attack and should be calling my doctor RIGHT AWAY! Yikes! But then again, I strolled around the supermarket only a couple of hours ago and didn't fall over, and I am pretty healthy and still young, so I'm pretty sure it's not that. Then, it could be gallbladder trouble or an ulcer. Urgh, I really shouldn't google! It's probably just indigestion and some weirdo shoulder thing, being all coincidental with each other. I think I will go to see my doctor on Monday anyway. The indigestion is bothering me, and the shoulder blade pain much more so, and I have been having bad headaches that last a few days at a time recently too, so it would probably be a good idea to run those things past her. Now that I have little ones, I feel so much more anxious about my wellbeing. I go straight to "Ohhh, I hope it's nothing that will require medication that will mean I have to stop breastfeeding my little ones!", and then a split second later I'm right at, "Oh my gosh, I hope I don't DIE! I mustn't die, I mustn't die, please God don't let me die! My baby boys need their mummy!"
Am I crazy? I just seem so easily thrown into panic about something happening to me so that I can't be there for my boys. I HAVE to be there for my boys. They need me. It breaks my heart to even think for a second of them losing me. I find myself praying many nights in bed that God will not take me or Neil from them while they're growing up. Everything in me wants to protect them from anything that could be an emotional struggle while they are children. Or EVER, really, but especially while they're growing up. My sweet boys. I love them so much.
I also find that I am frequently anxious (especially at night, again) about losing one or both of them. I can't FATHOM how anyone could have children and one day lose one of them, and not just totally die from the pain of it. This is the first time that I have ever realised that the intense maternal love I felt for Cameron was not the same as the love I feel for my own children. Even when Arthur was a baby, I felt that I loved Cameron just as much as Arthur (which was really saying something!), so I guessed I must have loved him as my own, like I had thought all along. The bottom fell out of my world for a long while after he died, but I still survived and I'm still here and happy and seeing life normally, etc. I am beginning to feel like I love Matthew and Arthur even MORE intensely than I loved Cameron. But maybe the memory of how intensely I loved Cam while he was still around is fading, that's all? Or maybe my capacity to love grew since Cam was alive, and now I can love more, so I DO - more than I ever loved Cam? Anyway, the long and short of it is that I feel like I could not live if Matthew or Arthur died. I mean, physically, not emotionally. Like as if you removed my windpipe so that I could no longer breathe, that kind of thing.
Yesterday I was standing in the porch and I had a random moment of achiness, of just MISSING Cameron. I don't get those so often now, and they always make me wonder why when I get them. It has only just occurred to me that it's now September, the month that he died 3 years ago. So that's probably why then. It's so weird how something in me just picks up on the subtle vibe of the time of year, even when the weather isn't the same as it was that September or anything. I can't imagine him if he were still alive any more - he would be 14. An adolescent. Since he was never meant to be more than a child, it makes it impossible to imagine. And I don't think I even want to. I am starting to forget things about him, the way he looked and his mannerisms and things. That's scary when that kind of thing happens. He used to feel like part of my very being, body and soul, and now I am forgetting exactly what he LOOKED like. I don't like that feeling.
Urgh. I didn't plan to write like this!
Anyway, my precious boys. I get anxious about losing them lately. I don't know if that's just normal or if I'm getting a bit over-the-top about it, hmmm. Matthew sleeps on his tummy from bedtime until his first waking, and sometimes we remember to turn him onto his back during the evening, but it we forget then he'll wake when we turn him at our bedtime. So sometimes I want to just let him sleep and I leave him on his tummy. I feel absolutely WEIGHED DOWN with guilt over that, and fear that he won't ever wake up as a result. I should just turn him and be done with it, but he sleeps so peacefully and well if I leave him to sleep till he wakes naturally, and he ALWAYS wakes when I turn him at bedtime. Sometimes I lie in my bed next to his cotbed and just can't sleep until he wakes anyway. I try not to worry and to relax and go to sleep but I just can't. Other times lately I have been laying my hands on him as he sleeps and praying that God will protect him and keep him breathing and safe and alive, and just try to give my anxiety over it to God. Last night I did that and he slept from 8pm to 4.30am - his longest stretch yet!!! But all on his tummy. I still feel anxious about that.
I feel like.... my boys are my LIFE. I don't know if that's how it SHOULD be. I know God should be Lord of my life way more than I let him be. He should be the most important thing in my whole life. And somewhere under the clutter, he is, really he is. I love my God. I have been neglecting my relationship with him terribly these last couple of years, but I LOVE him so. I feel like my life is like a house - Jesus is my foundation, and my family are my walls. Neil, my husband, is my roof over my head. I NEED all those parts and would struggle terribly without them, I wouldn't be complete. But the house is empty without my children. My children FILL the house. If I lost them I would just be empty, empty, empty. I get scared about that happening. I really don't like how anxious I am in life. I should give it all to God more, but I struggle with that soooo much.
This is such an anxious entry! I think I will waffle about something else. Hmmm.... I can't think of anything else! That's crazy! It's 11.20pm, I should go to bed. Oh, I know! I must have a billion little things to share that Arthur did or said lately! Those always fill me with joy and will be a GREAT way to finish this rather morbid entry!
Arthur's rate of picking up new words is increasing every day. I think he must be saying about 10 new words every day at the moment, roughly. He is combining two words together a lot more just in the last 48 hours too. Mostly his name and another word, to tell me he wants something or he's doing something, etc.
Did I tell you that he has REALLY taken to Monkey (his favourite stuffed toy) lately? He has never really had an attachment as such, to any toy or blanket. His comfort thing has always been the breast instead. But lately he is mimicking everything I am doing with Matthew, with Monkey! It's the sweetest thing! It started a couple of weeks ago when he wanted soooo badly to help me "bup" Matthew but he was patting a bit too hard and Matthew was squirming so I told him he couldn't help me right at that moment. He got frustrated and then suddenly fetched Monkey and said, "Bup!" with great delight, and started patting Monkey soooo carefully on the back, just exactly as I was doing it to Matthew! Since then, his caring duties towards Monkey have expanded and become more detailed. He puts Monkey on the changing mat and says, "Taynge!" (change) and then leans riiight over him so that his nose is hovering above Monkey's tummy. He sniffs for a moment, wafting his face back and forth over Monkey, and then straightens up and declares, "Poo-poo!" Then he needs wipes to clean Monkey, and I help him with the velcro fastenings on one of the Very Baby fitted nappies that I made for Matthew in the teeny tiny newborn size. It is now Monkey's nappy, officially! It's a little bit big on Monkey but it definitely fits him. I also gave Arthur a tiny baby popper vest with Winnie the Pooh on it, which NONE of my babies are ever going to fit in unless they come early! It fits Monkey generously :) After Monkey is changed, Arthur puts him in the bouncy chair and takes GREAT pains over clipping him into the harness, which is quite difficult for his little fingers, but he works and works at it until Monkey is clipped in. Then he stands by the chair with his foot on the side of the seat and his hand on the back, "rocking" the bouncy chair with his foot! He sees me rock the chair with Matthew in it, with my foot all the time, so he tries really hard to mimic me doing that. It's impossible for him to do it the way I do though, because he's too little, so he has to stand and almost fall into the chair as he tries to rock it standing on one leg! After he has rocked for a few seconds, he suddenly whispers, "Oh!" and then puts his finger on his nose and says, "Ssss!" - soooo cute! I LOVE how he puts his finger on his nose instead of his lips to "shh" me because Monkey is asleep! It's exactly what I do if Matthew is cranky and tired but he won't go to sleep - I rock him in the chair and when he is dozing off, I say to Arthur, "Oh! Matthew's asleep!" and then I put my finger to my lips and say, "Shhh..." and then I tell Arthur that Mummy is going to take Matthew upstairs and put him in his cot because he's asleep. I guess I do it exactly the same way every time, though I don't mean to be so precise! Anyway, it's so sweet to see Arthur trying so hard to do exactly as he sees me doing with Matthew. Right after Monkey is "asleep" in the bouncy chair, he takes him out and goes to the stairgate with him, gesturing to me that he wants to take Monkey upstairs. If I take him up, he is so excited as he climbs the stairs! He says "Ssss!" several times on the way up, reminding me that Monkey is still asleep. He runs straight to Matthew's cotbed and pops Monkey in, and then looks at me and whispers, "Ohhh....Ssss!" with his finger on his nose :) My cute lil boy!
I do this thing with Matthew that makes him smile reeeeally big. I take both his tiny hands in mine, and I say, "Buh... buh... buh... buh... BOOGIEEEE!" With the first "buh", I pat both his hands on his tummy, and then a big higher with each "buh" sound until they're at his shoulders and then I wiggly-shake his whole body at the shoulders with his arms as I say, "BOOGIEEEE!" I don't know where it came from - I just started doing it one day :) Anyway, the other day Arthur was playing happily with his toys and chatting away to himself, and suddenly I heard, "Bap... bap... BOOBIEEE!" hehehe! I looked and he was bopping Monkeys hands with his own, up Monkey's tummy as he said "Bap... bap..." He was too busy grinning at the word "BOOBIEEE!" to remember to shake Monkey's body! It was sooooooo sweet, seriously. He has done that quite a few times since, and he has also done it with a teddy bear he found in his basket today too :)
I keep thinking how sweet he is being with Monkey, but right after a particularly tender loving moment, he is still a bit prone to squashing Monkey as hard as he can into his potty and then sitting down hard on him! Or positioning Monkey JUST SO on the carpet, getting on his car and DRIVING OVER poor Monkey for kicks!!! I am a little confused by his mixed messages, hehe! But he's a sweetie :)
Okay Arthur just woke calling "Mumma! Muuuummaaa!" so I went in and he was asleep on his front with his legs all curled up under him. I lay my hand on his back and covered him up with his duvet, and he didn't stir, so I guess he was dreaming. I sat with him a while in case he was going to stir again and want me, and then I bent down and kissed his sweet face and left him to sleep. I can NOT get over how blessed I am to be a mummy, and more especially, mummy to TWO such sweet and precious little boys!!! I drove to the supermarket this evening for a rare luxurious trip to do something on my own, after I had put the little ones to bed with Neil. I missed them the INSTANT I pulled off the driveway and every road further away I drove, my heart tugged more for them. But I drove beaming from ear to ear with joy over how lucky I feel, how blessed I am, and how excited I am to finally be a real life MUMMY!!! I keep thinking back to my teens when life felt so boring and empty and like I was just having to pass time WAITING to get to the bit where I got to have children. It's all I wanted. Sometimes it felt like it would NEVER happen, but here I am, and I'm so proud! So proud of what I've achieved - two little boys, grown inside my body and pushed out by moi, nursed at my breasts and held in my arms, and *I* am MUMMY, the person they most love and want to be around in their whole lives so far! I can't imagine anything more wonderful, except to be Mummy like this to even more children! :) So proud of what I've accomplished just today, or last week, or last month: two children under two and managing life with some sense of normality and a cheerful heart! So proud of my boys themselves, of the sweet little people that they are, of how cute and smart and funny and gentle and handsome they are, and of how much joy they bring to so many other people's lives as well as my own. And sooooooooooooooooooooo thankful to God for bringing it all about. I just feel BOWLED OVER with how blessed I am and how much I love my baby boys. I am getting more and more magic moments these days, where I just feel so happy with my situation that I wish I could freeze time for a moment and capture it forever. It's still hard work and I still lose my temper sometimes or don't know how I'll ever get through the day, but I am having soooo many more occasions where I LOVE LOVE LOVE where I'm at and I look at my kids and think, "Can it GET any better than this?!" Then I just want to POP because I know the answer is, "Yes, it can, just you wait and see!"
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