Pirate party!

Better day

A better day today.  It still involved a whole variety of toddler emotions and baby needs, but most were handled with some grace and calm by myself.  Hooray.

Pic is of C at a party yesterday.

Blues

Having a bad day today.
Nights (and weeks/months/years) of disturbed sleep and not enough sleep are getting to me.  Despair at how I am still feeding C back to sleep about half the time and how she is still waking numerous times almost every night.
Struggling with guilt that I am falling apart a bit as Adriano also needs some time off as he is exhausted and has a bad cold.  Grateful that right now he is putting me first even so.
Feeling very tearful and self-doubting.  Lack of sleep is a powerful thing.

On the bright side it is beautiful weather and C is now crawling forwards.

We had a great holiday last week which I might post more about soon.

Pic of G on the way to a party this afternoon.

Mothering Sunday

This Sunday I will be thinking especially about women who want children and are not able to have them. It's a hard hard day for some. I sometimes feel guilty for crossing over from one 'camp' to the other and believe me when I say there's not a day goes by that I don't feel intense gratitude that I was able to become a mother. I don't believe that having a family is the only way to truly experience life but I do know that it's horrible to feel that you don't have that choice available to you.

I want to include men who would like to be fathers too.  I just thought of women first because of Mothers' Day. 

 

 

Spring?

It took a long time to warm up today but it sure was sunny.  Maybe I have a touch of SAD because sunny days usually perk me right up and I find myself full of gratitude.

C learnt to clap today which was delightful.  She beams so widely as she demonstrates it, clearly as proud as punch. 

G had another little friend round to play today.  Lessons in sharing were consolidated...somewhat...

Hoping for a better night than last night, and a later morning than this morning's 5am start.  Thank god for Adriano who gave me an extra hour even though he was knackered too.  It made the difference to my state of mind today for sure (along with the sunshine).

G has recently got really into a new CBeebies show: Tree Fu Tom.  I love that she's into it even though it seems to be aimed at slightly older boys. I love seeing her try to copy the actions.  I love seeing her grin when I make any reference to the show.  I love watching her face as she views it.  She's in love, basically.

Friends

Since I first moved to London from Brighton 11 or so years ago (cripes) I only really made friends through work for a long time.  I found a really good friend in my Aussie mate K through work, then later became closer to L from work too.  The rest were utterly lovely but destined to remain firmly in the pigeonhole of work colleagues. 
Then 8 years later I became a mum.  I was lucky enough to bond well with my NCT group (and fortunate to be able to afford it in the first place), and our group of 5 still meet as regularly as we can - but with 10 children between us this is getting less and less often as the new chaos of Life gets in the way.
But recently I have made perhaps the first true friend in all those years, C.  She is a mum at G's preschool and our friendship developed organically over a few months.  All of a sudden we are (I feel) really close and I could say anything to her.  I have made absolutely LOADS of acquaintances through being a friendly type carting a child or two around the place daily in the last 3 years.  Locally I can go to the library and see maybe five families I know.  It's lovely.  But C is that rare thing, a person who I would definitely have gelled with whether we had children or not. 
I feel so lucky and so boosted. 

Shuffling bunny-stealer alert

Still no chicken pox spots.  Holding my breath and praying (as only an atheist can) that we'll be spot-free until the end of our holiday next week.

Hilarious moment near bedtime tonight.  You had to be there but I'm putting it here to jog my memory in the future.  G was just dry from the bath and started to put on her pull-up but got distracted when it was only as far as her ankles. She decided to steal Plush Bunny from C's cot and run off to her own bedroom - except she could only shuffle because of the pull-up round her ankles.  She didn't think I had seen her so when I called her name she jumped about a foot in the air and screamed with delighted terror and shuffled even faster.  So bloody funny, I couldn't stop laughing. 

support

My absolutely wonderful AuntieG came to visit me (and G and C) today.  I always feel boosted by her company.  We can say absolutely anything to each other.  She will challenge me and I will never mind.  She almost always brings food (often homemade) and showers me with compliments which always feel totally genuine.

Everyone should have an AuntieG in their life. 

Oh cr@p C has woken up.

Westfield, Shepherd's Bush

I visited Westfield today to meet up with some friends. 
It was total bliss being without the girls, although I missed them dreadfully.
A much-needed catch up with two old school friends was had over brunch, and included such topics as speech therapy, nannies, childminders, schools, church, Jesus, God, eggs, gravadlax and how to pronounce it, weaning, hernias, tummies, jobs, and kitchens.
After I left them I wandered around the maze of shops.  It was totally overwhelming and an hour in I fled.  Too many shops, rich people, kids crying, overpriced everything. 
Beautiful blue sky today though, and I sat on top of the bus on the way home just because I didn't have a pushchair with me.
When I got home I hugged and squeezed my two little girls and didn't feel nearly as tired as I should on 5 fitful hours sleep (again).
Feeling it now though.

Nits and chicken pox and toilet training

Tonight I checked G's hair in the bath (stealthily; she won't let me near it if she thinks a hairwash is approaching) and decided it was nit-free. Baby C and Adriano both have much shorter hair so not worried about them.
So why is my head sooooo itchy now?  Looking in the mirror I don't think there's any eggs or creepy crawlies in my hair, but just thinking about the possibility has me a-scratching.

Chicken pox is going round G's preschool.  Well, that's what my melodramatic brain has concluded.  Obviously, G will catch it just in time to ruin our longed-for holiday to...Butlin's.... in a couple of weeks.  Actually only one boy has had it and he's back now so maybe we've escaped.  I really hope so.  I don't mind the girls catching it but don't want it to coincide with our holiday, that's just cruel when we need it so much.

Toilet training G is going very well.  We've been at it on and off since the New Year and I really stepped up the pace about two weeks ago (the week of her birthday - bowed to pressure and didn't want her to be in nappies for her 3rd birthday).   For a while we had weeing in the toilet but blind panic and insistence on a pull-up when pootime™ came along.  Then G had the idea herself of sitting on the potty (which I had tried to sidestep but never mind) for pooing.  So that is pretty much how it is now which is fine when we're at home but I'll be blowed if I'm going to carry a potty out with us everywhere we go, just in case, as well as all the other cr@p we 'need' to bring.  So outings had me a little nervous for a while.
But last weekend we all walked to Twickenham in the pouring rain and ended up in a very lovely but verrrry quiet independent bookshop.  It has a great little children's section and a cafe too.  No music.  It made you want to whisper as if transported to an old-school library.

You know those kids' books with buttons to press at appropriate points in the story, which always make quite LOUD noises and annoy the parents after the first couple of readings?  Well imagine one of those in this situation with 10 buttons.  All of them varying types of farts.  Yup, farts.

G found this book and delighted in it.  First Daddy had to read it a couple of times.  Then Mummy volunteered to take over, thinking in her wisdom that she could distract G part way through.  WRONG!
But then a bizarre thing happened.
I decided G should visit the cafe toilet as we were about to leave, and she dutifully and happily did a wee.  Then the holy grail of our personal toilet training goals, a poo in the toilet!  With no fuss!
It is really quite strange how happy and elated I found myself feeling. And then of course I wondered wryly if the book had inspired her.