And then...

.... she puked all weekend!  Poor sausage!  So there was jolly good reason to be behaving so dreadfully.  Oh well.  All that, pus an intellectual growth spurt meaning many more sentences, able to go up and down stairs straight backed with no support and climbing in and out the camper on our inaugral trip last weekend.  He on the other hand has sprouted the corner of an incisor.  At 4 months!  I blame the father (Ian "grew" his at 3 months).  Today feeling awed and grateful for them.  Children are constant miracles.  

Please, please, please let this be a phase.

So much screaming today.... At least less headbanging but soooooo much screaming.  D is going through a real mummy mummy MUMMY phase, and now has the cold I just did. As well as getting over the one she just had. Soooooooo in about a month, goodness how many colds and schniffles between us, me with mastits, M with a growth spurt, and D just screeeeeaaaaaaming.  I managed to only shout once today, which for me was a huge achievement.  Not at all hard to see where she gets it from.  I so neeeeeed to model better behaviour. 

You know...

it wasn't just me who lost it, D wasn't so good either.  But after a while I felt kind of refreshed - I think I'd let go of my part in it, and seeing that all I could do at that time was feed Michael, well thats all I did.  Horrible for D, and tricky to be learning about sharing when you are in such a necessary egocentric phase, but well, that's just the way it was.  Somewhere along the line I learnt something useful about my stuff being my stuff, and D's being her's. Of course I am her mother, but sometimes I just can't make the good stuff happen.  Then it's important for me to learn new skills in supporting and deaing with stress.  Not justifying, just learning, travelling along with my beautifu little girl.

Felt for her this week though, the head banging came back, but then she has just had a bug so possible sinus infection, and had a poorly mummy who was glued to the sofa whincing with a big fat baby permanently attached. Going to get her checked  out at the gp to double make sure all is well, following an at home day today, with lots of mummy time she seems calmer.

As an aside, we al went to the Annual Nestle Demo on Saturday.  Mike Brady had to shout very loudly at one point over the loud cries of "wwwwwhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeee".  D was very happy to find someone to run round with, it was a little bizarre when the child with her picked up the small cardboard coffin and ran round with it as a hat, and of course D joined them underneath it. Thankfully the small black baby doll that D had managed to remove a leg from meaning it lost its pants had been reinstated by this point....

Later on

it turned into an exciting game involving guinea pig bedding and the rest of her tea set, which then involved mummy, hoover and washed tea set and replacement of bedding with dried beans to satisfy that pouring need.  Just as I was doing well at pretending to be a good parent, Michael really got into his stride with his growth spurt, Deborah started to feel really tired, left out and jealous, and I, dear reader, lost it.  Thankully Ian was here to become the calm parent and he held Deborah until she fell asleep.  I spent the rest of the day feeding Michael.  Wanted to bog to remind myself how it can all turn and turn back again on the eye of a needle.  There's something in there for me to remember...

My WONDERFUL Daughter

(reposted from FB because it deserves to be, you'll see)

"D has a habit of crumbling biscuits on the floor, she seems to really enjoy the sensation. Needless to say we don't enjoy the after effects... Had just done some vague hoovering in the living room as a friend is coming round, and D crumbled her oatcake. As I was rushing to the loo I asked if she could put the crumbs on her plate. I came downstairs to find an extremely industrious daughter picking the crumbs up, putting them in a plastic casserole dish, running into the kitchen, lifting the lid of the bin up and throwing the crumbs inside. Fine she was doing one crumb at a time, but it's blown me away!"

Mastitis (again)

aren't anti biotics wonderful?

Mastitis

Ick!

Oh this is good

Using this blog I can see the last time I was really shouty, and it's 2 weeks ago!  Which is definitely an improvement.  Of course, now I've blogged it I will be shouty for evermore, but feel for D and M that they had a 2 week break.

Must remember today...

.... because it may never happen again!  I had the children from 8.30 am to 2.30 pm completely on my own and all was fine.  We all actually rather enjoyed it.  True we got to this morning's group an hour late, but that actually suited D better so was a good discovery.

On a perhaps more interesting note, speaking to a friend yesterday on the phone, she asked how the children were, and I replied, "Oh great, they're getting on, they LOVE each other" she laughed and said "Oh that's just a phase".  It made me realise how contrived I've been (understandably but even so its there), and how worried and how, well you get the picture by now... Another important reminder to LET GO!

Speaking of letting go, came into the room this am to find Michael gagging on the oatcake his sister had tenderly inserted into that tempting baby mouth of his.  Much removal of oatcakes and joint binning followed.  Then return to find M about to fed a rice cake, more removal etc.  Not so much baby led weaning as toddler led - D obviously doesn't realise that we dont wean till 6 months now dear and is old school in her approach.  Mind you, Prof Gideon Lack suggests we are more prone to food allergies because we are not exposed to minute scraps of potential allergens in just this way, hence the rise of peanut allergies etc.  Look him up, interesting stuff.

I need to move the snack cupboard I think...