early symptoms?

This is just a rambly pondering "lets record this for interests sake" post. I am not expecting to be pregnant this month as we officially started trying on the cusp of when I should, going by traditional 14 days before period is due, have ovulated. I've had no other proper ovulation signs this time, at least not since we started trying. A few days before I had pinchy pains. Anyhow not expecting to be pregnant.

Yet, the last few days I've had typical early pregnancy signs. Tiredness, not to the extent that I feel zombie-ish, but to the extent that I doze off very easily if reclined. This morning I've had an increased amount of soreness while the boys are nursing. Generally only if they move around lots but still, my boobs being the shape and elasticity they are means they can generally put up with a lot.

Anyway, just going to wait and see, its a good week or more until my period is due so I'll be waiting for that!

A quick promotion post

I have a facebook page set up for my graphic images and have just released a set of Valentine's card templates to be personalised. I will be adding birthdays, mother's day, father's day, easter, christmas, and other selections over time! I would appreciate it if you were to "like" the page, and share amongst your facebook (or indeed, real life) friends :)

NicNak Designs on Facebook

A little late...

Well seeing as our Christmas photos have now been uploaded I thought I'd write a little Christmas post :) And thank you for the comments the other day, I felt the blog was due a change, and trying to get the weather to brighten up by putting a spring theme on it ;)

Having 3 lots of grandparents (the kids' not ours!) to fit in seeing, meant that we had four "christmasses" this year! We spent Christmas Eve at the in-laws, as they were going to Jonathan's sister for Christmas Day. We spent Christmas Day together as a family, and then on Boxing Day headed down to Kent to see my parents over a couple of days. We only have photos up til Christmas Day right now so I will have to just post those :)

Christmas 2011 had us feeling like it crept up on us yet again - and so stressed out was I that I didn't bother sending out any Christmas cards, but only gave some to family who we were seeing over Christmas. I made a selection of cards and they turned out rather well! I did use Christmas card templates, so they weren't entirely my own doing, but I would like to do my own this year!

The photo I used of the boys was an old one, because it was the nicest one of the two of them I had together. Christopher was probably about 8 months old here.


Christmas Eve was quite nice and relaxed. We let the boys play during the morning, while my mother-in-law was cooking a delicious Christmas dinner :) Robert enjoyed having his grandad read him a book on sea creatures. He loves the Octonauts which is a cbeebies cartoon about animals who live under the sea in a giant "octopod" helping out the sea creatures when they are in trouble, so he enjoys reading about different sea animals.



This lovely photo of the 3 generations, my two boys, their daddy, and his daddy! :)



Then came the lovely Christmas dinner. The boys loved it, and more surprisingly, they both loved the crackers, AND the party poppers!! I thought they'd be a little scared of the big bangs, but they were fine!



"What do I do with this Dad? This doesn't look like turkey!!"


Robert struggling to pull his cracker, so grandad did it ;)


After the very filling dinner, came presents time! Robert was SOO keen to get stuck in, I think he'd unwrapped most of his presents before Christopher had opened even one! They were such lucky boys over Christmas, and it was nice that they got their presents spread over 4 days. Here they are opening some of their presents from Grandma and Grandad.







We decided to head up to the village park after presents, and got some photos of the boys in their new matching jackets (these are the very first identical clothes the boys have, it's not a habit we are intending to continue, particularly, but it was cute seeing them both in the same clothes! And wow, Christopher just looks so tiny here! He is somewhere between the 9th and 25th centile for height and weight, whereas Robert is just above the 75th for weight and 91st for height! I tried to tell various people to get Robert age 4-5 (despite just having turned 3) and no-one did.... the age 3-4 DOES fit him with a bit of room, but age 4-5 would have been a bit better for growth! Where-as everyone bought Christopher age 12-18 month or 18-24 month... the jacket was 12-18 and still somewhat swamps him!! He has a bunch of 18-24 month stuff he got for his birthday which he might JUST be about to wear when he turns 2, unless he has a massive growth spurt between now and then! :) Anyway, photo! We had to get Christopher up in the middle of the room, make him clap (haha bless him) and then make Robert join in, to get this shot!



Just after this photo was taken, poor Christopher had a fall in the hallway, and cut his lip and a bit of his mouth too, where the gum joins the lip at the top, there was a cut which just kept on bleeding. I was surprised at how quickly he settled down, I did nurse him for a while afterwards because he seemed quite tired, and wondered if he would go to sleep but he didn't, so I quickly strapped him into my new(ish) meitai, and went to catch up with Jonathan, Robert and Betsy who had already started off.

Hugely cute photos of Christopher toddling around the park here, wearing a little beanie hat which was rather low down and almost covered his eyes hehe! You can see the little cut on his bottom lip here! (or it might have been dried blood I'm not sure!)




And then it was lifted up a bit and wasn't quite as cute! (But still pretty cute!)


After getting back, Robert (well, Jonathan, really) played with Robert's new meccano set, and Robert then played with the aeroplane Jonathan made ;) Christopher, who hadn't napped apart from in the car that morning on the way over, finally nursed to sleep, and we laid him out on the floor for his nap.




We had tea, then headed home after their bath. Once both boys were asleep we set about putting the presents under the tree. We are not "doing" the whole Father Christmas thing, that is, saying he brings the presents, and comes in the night while they are sleeping. We are not going to say he *doesn't* exist though, so if they choose to believe when they are older, they can, and we are going to try and do our utmost to make sure they treat other children's beliefs with respect. The challenge this year was building up excitement without "Father Christmas" and it was quite difficult. I am hoping that next year, Robert will remember more what Christmas is about (and yes, he does also have a Christmas book about the real meaning!) so will be excited by default! There are lots of Christmas traditions that it would be nice to include as years go on, and finding our own special lot of these is the amazing thing about being a family! Anyway, our tree, with presents all ready for the morning!



The big one at the back right was a dolls house for the boys!! When morning came, Robert came into our room, climbed up to nurse as usual, and then Jonathan said "yay! It's Christmas! Do you want gah-gee or do you want to go downstairs and open presents?!!" And for once, gah-gee wasn't the preferred option ;)

We only seem to have a picture of them playing with the dolls house, but they had sooo many presents, it's so hard finding room for them all!




We had just such a lovely lazy day with the boys, playing on the playstation (Robert loves the new Toy Story PS3 game!), playing with all their new toys with them, and Jonathan did a looooo-oooverly Christmas dinner (mark 2!). I am so thankful to have a husband who can, and is willing to, cook :) Although these days, there's not a lot into cooking a roast dinner, seeing as you can buy practically everything frozen and ready to just plonk into the oven at the right time ;) But the bits he did do from scratch were lovely! We were just all so stuffed, but it was lovely being together and just having a lovely lazy day!

I'm sure I'll update about the days spent with my family later once we have photos!

Developmental milestones and education

There's been no solid decision yet, regarding the education topic yet, but Jonathan really isn't keen at ALL, so I think we will probably be school-schooling I guess. :S But I think Robert will have a good headstart when he goes, I've been doing some activities with Robert to do with letters, but mainly, if I'm writing words down, simply sounding out the letters, and saying in passing "Oh, can you see a Rrrr, Robert?" and getting him to point out a letter shape. Small things like that. And we say things like "what sound does cat begin with? c-c-cat" and today, he just came out with, almost out of nowhere, "Mummy, sheep begins with 'Sh'!" I was gobsmacked! He's doing so well, and seems to enjoy looking at his letters, and remembering what a certain sound looks like written down. He's getting more and more confident in tracing over letters too, his pencil control is getting really good, although he still needs help in holding his pen, as he holds it often with the tip pointing up instead of down, so he's folding his hand over a LOT to try and get the nib on the paper.

Toilet training is going ok... he now tells us whenever he needs a poo, and will take himself off to the toilet (he sits on his toilet seat now to go, very very rarely on the potty anymore - and sometimes even insists on standing up like he sees Daddy doing - arghh!). He's pretty much poo- toilet trained, because last week he accidentally did a poo in his nappy, and he was very distressed about it. I've been taking a more casual approach to potty training now that he will do poos in the toilet, and that is to simply leave him unless he says he needs to go. I will occasionally prompt, but if he says no, I leave it. I know it's not necessarily a true indicator of whether he needs to go to the toilet or not, as once when he was in pants and trousers, I asked him if he needed to go, and he said no, then 2 minutes later he wet himself. But as he is in a nappy still 90% of the time, I'm not too fussed as the wee gets caught. I know one time will come a time when he will not want to wee in the nappy, or else when it gets to summer we'll just go no nappies at all and spend lots of time in the garden so it won't matter either way. I am quite relieved that things are progressing, albeit slowly!

Christopher is still not saying much at all. Although I believe he has now said "nah" meaning "no" (!!) and "yah" meaning "yes", as well as "dah" meaning "down". Late December, when we were at my dad's house, Christopher started climbing the stairs, and I said to him "Christopher, come back down!" He looked at me through the banister, and said "Nah!" and before hand any babbling he would do tended to be "dada", so this very strong "nah" could really have only meant one thing!! Cheeky monkey!!

He's beginning to show his interests and his personality more and more now, he loves animals, and building blocks of any kind. He LOVES music, and is always swaying or bopping along to music when it comes on, and likes to play instruments! He's beginning to show lovely caring attitudes, loving kissing people and his toys, and also showing a real helpful side, in that if he sees Robert doing something, putting things away mainly, Christopher will help. He quickly identifies what specifically is being put where, and will easily find just the duplo bricks to put in the duplo box, or just the toy dinosaurs to put in the pot. He came to help empty the washing machine when he toddled into the kitchen to find Robert had started to do this for me (I asked Robert, who occasionally obliges such requests! And other times says "it's ok mummy, you help yourself" haha!). The other day, I was making the boys' dinner, when I suddenly heard a CRASH, turned around to see Christopher at the kitchen gate, a broken glass in front of the gate on the kitchen floor, a mug in his other hand, and a rather shocked expression on his face! He'd evidently found the mug and the glass in the other room, and picked them both up to bring them in to me! Luckily, the glass being on the kitchen floor with a gate in between it and him, meant I could quickly nip the mug out of his other hand to stop it meeting the same fate as the glass, and start sweeping up the glass. Bless him, he was only trying to be helpful!

He is also still quite clingy, and has a bit of a temper on him, if I don't pick him up in one of his clingy moments. Or if I was holding him but had to put him down for any reason, he SCREAMS blue murder! He has also worked out how to turn on the TV!! I'm not sure actually that even ROBERT knows how to turn on the TV! And aside from me and Jonathan, his favourite person seems to be Jonathan's dad! It's actually quite sweet to see him cuddle Steve's legs and lift his arms to him the way he often does with me!

Anyway, that's about it that I can think of off the top of my head for recent news and stuff the boys are doing! Here's a couple of pics of the boys just before Christmas time :)

CD1

Well it didn't happen this month afterall but at least I came on exactly when I was expecting... AND Jonathan seems keen to have another baby (although I suspect its the "trying" he's looking forward to more lol.) Hmmm.. maybe an October baby this time? :)

CD28

More blood tinged CM today at CD28. CD27 had cramps. Woke up this morning very tired - but Christopher was up at 2 crying and took a few attempts to resettle him (trying to get night weaning sorted), and just when I thought I'd have to give up and give him the boob (trying to wait til 5am til he has more milk) he settled down. I really don't know if the tiredness (it felt rather extreme this morning) is just Christopher waking, or the other thing.

Jonathan seems to have come around on the whole "more than 2 kids" thing. But we are currently in discussions about schooling (or lack thereof - not saying there won't be education!!). I am leaning towards unschooling right now, what brought this about I'm not sure but part of me really really wants to do it! But the thing is I am having to talk a LOT about it with Jonathan, who has serious misgivings about various aspects of it. Some of which I don't have the answers to, so am having to research. He is really quite upset about the whole thing, and completely and utterly wants the kids to go to school. And part of me wants them to as well. But then I think what do I do once the kids are all grown up and in fulltime education? It would make sense to have at least a part time job, but what? Where? Part of me thinks it would be good though to do this. I am so conflicted, but luckily nothing needs to be decided for some time. Nursery places aren't allocated until March/April, and of course education doesn't become compulsory until 5.

This parenting business has so much to think about. It's amazing what people think though when you tell them you are considering not sending your kids to school. How anything that's not mainstream is gasped at, and you are treated like you are doing something awful to your kids. I told someone who seemed appauled at this that I was pleased she cared about my kids enough to show such concern, and that I would think about all she said when I discussed with J what was best for our children. Her response was "Robert is an amazing little boy and I want the best for him". But the thing is, your idea of the best isn't always the same as the parents', and it's our job to decide what is best, whatever that may be. Parenting is so emotive... I could probably come up with a dozen parenting topics off the cuff that causes debate.

Anyway... I am due on tomorrow at the earliest, although seeing as I've only had one full cycle so far, I could come on much later. Given the red CM I would guess it could be AF on her way. We shall see I guess! Haven't bothered testing today, I will test maybe on Monday or Tuesday if there's no sign of AF. Or perhaps leave it til Friday that way I can be sure that I am at least due for AF soon if not overdue. It's a long old wait.. even without properly TTC!

Update on tests

Well done more, and all have been very very negative. No more lines after a wait, or any immediate positives. I was really happy to see so many comments on my entry though! To answer Jemma, I sort of did to begin with, I felt quite tired (although it's hard to differentiate early pregnancy tiredness from toddler still waking in the night several times tiredness!), and I was weeing LOADS. Now though, not so much. I feel mildly crampy so I feel that I'm about to come on soon. I'm not going to think about it much anymore for a few days, and see what next week brings!

Erm..

I might have some news to share soon... stay tuned, I'll be back in a few days tops...

Taken some tests. The top one was taken yesterday morning (Weds 4th Jan) and it appeared negative at first, left it aside for a few hours as I'd forgotten about it (meant to look again in another 5-10 minutes) and that's what I saw. Can you see the second line too? I'm not sure if what I'm seeing is a proper line, or if it's an evap line because of the colour bleed. The test below looks fairly negative, and was taken this morning.



I think I am just going to have to wait til the 8th Jan which is the earliest I'm due on again. Thinking about doing a CBD but thinking there won't be a lot of point.

happy new year!

Happy new year everyone! Did everyone see in the new year well? I was asleep practically heh.

I was debating whether or not to write about this because I thought how fun would it be to be completely unexpected... but I do wonder if I am roughly regular yet... had a 29 day cycle last time... I am currently on cycle day 22. While not technically trying we have, to borrow a term from someone, had parsnips on cycle days 10, 11, 18 and 19. If I am due another 29 day cycle I am roughly 7 days dpo, and have had a red tinged cervical fluid today when I wiped.

People knowledgeable on such matters, when do you think I may have ovulated (had lots of twinges already in the last week, increased CM, right sided pains, in the last week) and what could the red tinged CM be?