Monday, October 26, 2009

He Crawls!

Yes he does, he does! But in a very random way, not at all like his big sister. When D set about crawling, it was later in age, and very, very specific. As soon as she could that was it, but until she could, she wouldn't. M is much more of the try, try and try again school. Today it almost seems that although he can crawl, he doesn't realise yet that he can so he is still frustrated about getting places. Almost at the same time as he is getting there.

Michael is 9 months in 2 days time. In 2 days time he will have been living outside longer than living inside of me. Remember this from last time, that truely momentous sense of the baby really becoming part of the world as a separating (from me) entity.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Dentists appt

Deborah had her first dentist appt today. She was great! Despite being clearly nervous, clutching onto her big plastic spider, she sat in the wooshy chair and had a ride. She let the dentist examine her teeth with his mirror which were pronounced all fine. The dentist was brilliant with her, and took it at Deborah pace. We watched daddy have his dental examination first, which was fascinating, with a special light, wooshy chair, the works.

Ian has a job, and starts in a weeks time. I am trying not to crap myself at the thought of being single mummy during the day. It's not being alone with my children that's the problem, it's them being alone with my temper that is.... A friend has helpfully said "We are never asked for more than we can give" or some such but well, we'll see. I just HAVE to be ok which may help. On the other hand, although Ian is earning less, with our new improved shopping habit's (ie cheap all the way) we should cover the drop in income. Plus it's terribly impressive he found a new job so quickly - technically he is still employed by his previous company and is working out his notice period.

Deborah was fabulous at football this afternoon, she is really starting to concentrate and understand what to do. She loved it and was quite worn out afterwards. We are moving to Saturday as I wouldn't be able to be as hands on as she needs as obviously I need to sit with Michael. He had a great time today too, shooting speedily backwards over the polished floor. So close to crawling now. One of his favourite games is kneeling by the side of the bath and bobbing hsi head up and down to say boo. I must try and photograph it sometime the pure undiluted love in his eyes and the joy is amazing. Despite me, my babies love me!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

The Voice

More of that in a bit, but first, aren't my kids great? Yesterday Deborah was wandering around Tiny Talk giving toys to other children, running up to babies who couldn't get their own and providing them with balls (she is obsessed with them - footballs, not babies). The Most Impressive Thing was seeing on seeing that a friend of hers was upset because her mum was asking for please and thank yous and the friend was not in the mood for such things, Deborah picked up the crisp said friend wanted and (drum roll) Gave It To Her. Of course we still have hitting, headbanging, howling, squeaking, and kicking to name but a few, but hey my little girl has a big heart and is not afraid to show it . I think D just does have BIG emotions, like us all. As we are not in the habit of making her to Pink to Think, then well she does and out it all comes! Michael is huge and cute and happy and sleeping better since we all sleep in the same bed. I have been trying to co-sleep with him in a separate room to Ian, so that Ian can sleep, but it seems that man snores act as a great lullaby. Of course I've jinxed it :)

Me, well it seems ok. I'm tuning to something I am calling "The Voice" and for this, one should imagine an enormous yet terribly small repellant , grimy yellow creature with lots of snot. It exhausts me and causes stress and is generally foul. My mum often speaks in "The Voice", but although I have definitely inherited it from her, I can claim complete ownership to have kept it going on my own. Basically it undermines every single thing I do, is neurotic an over complicated and believes in shouting and worse at my beautiful children. So it's there in my head and that's ok, many people have and maintain this kind of heritage. It's going to be a trick of letting be and letting go and keeping feet firmly on the floor and bum firmly on the cushion. Just going on, on beyond the shore (or whatever it says at the end of the Prjnaparamia - but really just keeping going is the point here.) Gee, who knew there so many Buddhist buzz words? This blog has been enormously helpful in this tuning process, whereas it's tortuous and achingly dull to read, it seems to help. Maybe in writing there is more of an element of listening than I am aware of. Anyway, whatever it is, thank you and Gassho.

Lots of people have this voice, think Ian has one too atm . We are arguing a little more and it seems to be coming from a place of drift. Not necessarily from each other, I sincerely hope not, just that with redundancy, toddler moods and baby induced sleep deprivation there is a lot of drift. Useful practice though, I am too concerned with correction here and need more letting be, go etc (repeat as above). This stuff is corrosive to all concerned.

Finally the great school debate - or What the Bl***y H*** do we do? A new report out says that structured learning before 6 is counter productive, this links in with what we personally already thought. Any Answers today focussed on that one question for half an hour and there was only one dissenting voice. Who would have thought it? Mums spending time with their children in a relaxed manner, allowing the children to leave at their own pace is a good and desirable thing... I am not confident in my ability to home educate, plus I think that atm, both children would benefit from being in a supportive, sympathetic environment removed from us but when they are old enough. My own fears about my lack of social ability are here, I would struggle to keep in contact with "enough people" - maybe I need to examine this one a little more? How much is enough, with The Voice, even a million would be consumed by the pessimism *laughs* How much to provide for D and M too? I am off to a LLL meeting on Tues where some other mums are planning on home educating so I will quiz them, plus their children are roughly the same age as mine which could also be useful.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

A good day

Last night I lay down for a wee while after the children were asleep and kind of didn't wake up again properly. So no post yesterday. Today we all went to see Ian's parents and his brother and sister-in-law (parents staying with brother). Slight car unhappiness for D, but placated by the application of many crunchy corn snacks.

D and M basked in grand parental adoration, and I enjoyed being able to share the babies, having someone else cook the lunch and not looking around thinking "I need to tidy that". Only drawback was that I had to try and think of non-child based conversation. Ian's brother and sister-in-law run an incredibly successful business, have an incredibly swanky house and are very lovely people. I do feel a little over-awed, but I really should value my role as a mother more. I never entertained the thought of actually making money apart from enough to live on as being anything I wanted to do, so it's needless to feel over-awed by those who quite clearly do like making money and enjoy money, and their jobs very, very much. The grand parents are brilliant conversationlists though and kept us all going. Turns out bro and SIL are doing some sort of contract for a famous sportsman's brother so nana was able to keep the convo going on that whilst I gobbled roast potatoes.

Blah, blah very vague. it's hard to remember that one is unraveling one's own little corner of the universe in one's own way sometimes and that that is all anyone can do. By unraveling I'm talking about letting go. I'm reading Bill Brysons "History of Everything" atm and it's literally blowing my mind a little bit. So much of it seems to link in with Dharma, even the whole energy is matter thing. Tonight, Bill was talking about how atoms last for 10 x teeny 35 (can't do mathmatical notation) ie an incredibly long time and how all of us will contain a billion atoms from historical persons like Shakespeare or indeed anyone/thing from the past. Amazing - even more evidence (if any were needed) of interdependence.

Friday, October 02, 2009

Counting

Not, "1,2,3,5,8,9,10" like D, but using thi blog to record how often I shout. I'm amazed at the impact of writing down "I shouted at my puking baby" - it's hit home. So although this is giving in to my perfectionist tendencies, I am finding recording this stuff useful. Need to find a way for 2 tired parents to communicate without snapping now...

Think D is getting bored with tiny talk so considering changing our standard Friday am fare. There is a local group which might be good. Ian is reading the Science of Parenting which notes that children that attend pre school before the age of 5 are better developed cognitively but less well developed emotionally. As he points out, they can catch up on the cognitive stuff. D's speech is def less well developed than other children her age, as is her ability to sit and listen but she also shows compassion. Hmmm, think we may become even more freaky, deaky lentil knitting parents.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Woohoo

We *drum roll* Had A Good Day. ok so even if Momo is up every 30 mins tonight or whatever, the day was good and must be recorded. Especially as I have been such a droopy draws drama queen of late. Anyway, no shouting, 2 tantrums from D which were reasonably quickly resolved, masses of feeding from M but only to be expected what with tummy bug, working on toof number 5 and wanting to crawl so badly it hurts! D played beautifully with her blocks today with Momo and me handing out, sharing, chatting about shapes/colours and so on. Ian had a meeting in Maidenhead so we had mummy and babies time this morning and it was just lovely. Reading with D, D being able to share her bf's with Michael so much more which is hugely, hugely HUGELY impressive, just a lovely time. Lunch and then pj shopping for D - 2 pink pairs and 2 football pairs for our budding *insert name of leading womens football player because I can't which is a damn shame*. Then hot chili chocolate in a Deborah friendly cafe. Bliss.

Suspect period is coming hence huge amount of food consumed. Either that or the simply enormous amount of BF I am doing atm. D is getting very good at sharing, but part of that is sometimes feeding as often which as M often feeds every hour or 30 mins during the day means a lot of milk production. Ah well, keeps my svelte figure in trim (hollow laughter).

Good and bad are rubbish words to be using, way too primary school but currently stuck for equivalents. Then again, may be more over thinking. Hmm.