Thursday 30 August 2012

Toddler communication

It's so difficult to know just how much your toddler understands when their verbal communication skills are limited. Christopher still (at 23 months) has very few words. Mama, dada, star, gah (meaning yes, here, again, come with me) being the main ones.  And a sort of moan with head shake for "no".  He can understand a lot, as evidenced by his ability to follow instructions like "if you go and get the step from the bathroom and bring it here, you can climb up onto the bed".  It's when you get to situations where he needs to do something he doesn't like that it gets harder.  How much slack do you cut him?  Robert and I made some scones while he was asleep today. While I was cooking the boys dinner, Christopher saw them on the cooling racks, and wanted one.  So I told him he could have one if he ate all his pasta. Robert ate all his pasta, Christopher was refusing to eat his. I repeated that he could have a cake if he ate his pasta first, and he started eating it. Meanwhile Robert finished his pasta so I got him a scone. I was surprised that Christopher didn't throw a tantrum over Robert eating the scone, but pleasantly so.  But if he had, would I have felt bad about not giving him one?  I can't wait for his verbal communication to catch up with his understanding.  It feels long overdue, and it's getting frustrating for both of us!

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Wooohooo :)

Thank you so much for the congrats in the last post!  I'm so excited by this pregnancy!  I wondered if I would get a sudden attack of the cold feet but so far - not!  Yesterday I booked my appointment to book in with the midwife.  Which happens to be on the same day that Robert starts nursery.  I'll be a little under 9 weeks by then.  I'm really not confident on my dates at all.  As far as I'm concerned there is a 6 day window, which is quite large really!  It's still my same midwife who works in the community in my town, but she's away on holiday for that week so my booking in will be with someone else.

I took my last pregnancy test today... and got a 100% undeniable BFP.  My last one from the First Response was faint but there - on the 25th.

The one from 4 days ago: 


And the one from today:






Booking the midwife appointment has made it real to me now, I think I will get a scan around mid October.  Which will hopefully give me some proper dates.

Some thoughts through my head already:  I'd like to give home birth another go.  I don't know how much of a challenge that will be due to my gestational diabetes with Christopher.  Will I get re-tested - probably - if I am diagnosed again that will make getting a home birth more difficult.  I will have to think about my options, whether I can refuse the test, but keep an eye on my own blood sugar levels.  If my refusal to get a glucose test done will make the health service want to refuse me a home birth or anything like that.  Whether my last birth will go in my favour - that I only monitored myself during labour and levels were fine, and that had I gone to natural term with C, he would likely not have been as big as R, so birthing size wise shouldn't have been a problem.  Well, I've got a long time to think about all these things!

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Update

Well.... a few things to update....

1.  NEW BLOG DESIGN!!  I decided an autumn-y design was in order, so I made a new template using one of the scrapbooking kits from my Creative Team duties :)  Thanks to Feli for the gorgeous kit of course!

2.  We have our shed arriving tomorrow.  In bits, of course.  Somehow the two of us are going to have to try and assemble it.  I'm guessing this'll have to happen after the boys bedtime.  To have the men assemble it for us would have been an extra £150.  So thinking it's gonna be a lot of work....

3.  The funeral went well.  Luckily the service was short - the boys *just* managed to sit quietly and nicely the whole time.  With sweetie bribes.

4.  I'm finding a hard time thinking of stuff to fill this out before getting to...

5.  I'M PREGNANT!!!  I've kept it in for THREE days (from my first certain test).  How, I don't know!  I *think* I'm about 5 weeks at the moment.  But I could be as much as 5+2 or as little as 4+3.  So EDD around the end of April/beginning of May.


That's all I can think of!  Thanks for all your comments on the last entry, I loved reading them!

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Rare post

I find myself rarely posting now, I'm not sure why.  I am wondering if I post here for me to read or others.  If it's the latter, I feel a bit dejected because I don't get many comments.  If it's the former, I should really post more.  But it's almost like I a) don't have time b) don't know what to write.

Here goes for an update anyway.

1. Robert starts nursery (pre-K?) next month.  In fact he will be starting exactly one month from today.  His home visit is on the 6th.  He is so ready to have more structured activities set for him.

2. We are having a second holiday this year.  We're going away for a week inbetween Robert's home visit and when he starts nursery.  We're going to Devon (which isn't far from Cornwall where we went before) and staying in a log cabin for the week.

3.  It is Christopher's SECOND birthday next month!!  I can't believe it!  He's discovered the delights of muffling sounds by sticking his fingers in his ears, and always giggles when he does this. :)  He loves dinosaurs, and any sort of animal really, but I will be making him a dinosaur cake for his birthday!  When Robert was his age, he was already a big brother!  I can't quite imagine Christopher as a big brother yet, although hopefully he will soon be one.

4.  We're in the final countdown for this month's 2WW.  Tests are on order!

5.  I'm getting more and more confident with driving all the time.  Still have the occasional "whoops" like taking a bend too fast, etc, but on the whole it's getting better.

6.  Robert is going to his first funeral this Friday.  This will be Christopher's 3rd. (He went to two last year as he was still tiny enough to be no problem, and we left Robert with his grandparents for the day).  Jonathan's maternal grandmother died last week, after several years in a care home, with dementia.  Towards the end she didn't even recognise her own daughter anymore (my mother-in-law) which was obviously very upsetting :(

7.  We went to see my family last weekend, and the boys saw their last living great-grandparent, my mum's mum.  She really loved seeing them, and although she's in the stages of paranoid dementia, she still remembered (after prompting) who I was, and remembered Jonathan's name by herself, and even remembered details of our last visit to her at Christmas, which was good.  She's finally in a good care home, so that's a load off my mum's mind.

8.  We've got the concrete base for the shed built, we now have to order a shed, built and paint that, and then empty the garage so that work can be done converting it.

That's about it for now, maybe I'll get my blogging mojo back soon, feel free to leave a comment to inspire me! ;)

Thursday 2 August 2012

Goals

I wish I had a "before" shot with stuff piled under, but I don't (booo) instead though, here from beginning to end, are pictures of our under stairs area.  I'm so happy with them, it just makes the area look so much nicer!!










Getting the cupboards done and painted (although I think I would like to paint inside too at some point - me being Mrs Perfectionist and all) has helped me realise that I NEED goals for the house.  They really are helping keep me sane.  I need to be working towards something that I will benefit from, and the whole family too.

Now that's done, we are properly focussing on getting the garage converted.  We have put in planning application, and now we just have to wait on that.  We should receive it by no later than mid September.  So right now, our goal is to clear the corner of the garden to put a shed up there, so we can put the stuff that's currently in the garage, in the shed.  I have been working on cutting down bushes, and emptying the compost heap so far.  This Saturday the in-laws are coming round to help finish with the bushes and dig them up, and possibly start on laying the concrete foundation for the shed.  I am hoping to finish emptying the compost heap by Saturday.  It's hard work, and my arms are aching every day, but I feel good :)  Then once the garage has actually been converted, we will have to decorate it, perhaps buy some additional cupboards for the extended kitchen.  I am very much looking forward to it all :)

Here is the garden as of yesterday.  I've cleared a bit more compost since then.  I probably have between 3/4 and 2/3 left to go.