In Memory

For my Grandma, who died on 27th December 2008.

For my Grandma, who was quiet, kind and patient. Who rarely, if ever that I recall, raised her voice or uttered a cross word.

Who was the most amazing cook. I know nearly everyone thinks this about their Grandparents but it's true. Every Saturday tea time for many many years. Delicious soups and stews with countless loaves of milk roll for dipping. Braising steak that I don't think I'll ever be able to emulate. Chocolate pudding and custard. Apple and rhubarb pie. Bakewell tart. Jam tarts. Flavours and smells that will forever evoke memories of safe, lazy Saturday evenings and full tummies, sitting in front of the fire playing knock-out whist and draughts and watching the football results come in.

Who always had a 'Grandma bag' ready for us to take home on a Saturday evening, full of treats and goodies for the week ahead.

Who knitted cardigans for us as babies and jumpers for us as children, especially the beloved dinosaur jumpers. Mine was stone coloured with a yellow long necked dinosaur. I remember it fondly and wish I still had it.
Who made perfect sized baby clothes for all my dolls.
Who was always reading and regularly picked up second hand books for me. The shelves in my bedroom were full of old copies of Famous Five, Secret Seven and Five Find-Outers books with 25p stickers on them.
Who sat in the sun room with us when it was raining and had 'raindrop races' down the windows.

I regret how little I have seen of all my Grandparents this year. It's sad to see them becoming people I don't know; people that they would not recognise as themselves.

After a difficult couple of years I very much hope she is at peace.

Threefold

Today is not a good day.

It's been a very slow week. I've had nothing to do at work and I've been feeling rather fed up for a variety of reasons that I don't have the energy to go in to.

Today though...

I fell asleep on the train sometime between the last 3 stops and woke up just as the train was pulling out of Belfast central. I ended up standing in Sydenham in the freezing cold and rain waiting for a train back to my stop. I was over an hour late for work. Thank God for flexi time. Though I resent having to work late tonight because of it.

Then Ryan text me about 45 minutes after I arrived saying 'Phone me now'.
Well that was enough to scare the crap out of me. What was wrong? Had something happened to one of the children? Was there a financial problem? What could be so urgent?

It turned out he woke up this morning (it's his day off) and had a large and unusual swelling/lump on his leg. He also feels very breathless and tired. I told him to ring the Drs as those are very weird symptoms that I feel ought to be checked out. They wont' see him til 4.20pm and now I've scared myself with thoughts of DVT and aneurysms. I want him to go to the hospital just in case.

And typically, in my state of stress, I have lots of work coming my way for the first time ALL week. I mean literally I've had nothing to do until now. Why? It's like a phenomenal cosmic joke. I don't even know how to do half of the stuff that is requested of me.

I'm feeling VERY on edge.

At least Ben is better...

Illness and sleep

Ben has been poorly for about a week now and I am thoroughly exhausted. With the exception of the post-birth fiasco we had with the hospital he has never been ill before. It's been quite unnerving actually.

It started last Tuesday. He was fine - and very chirpy in fact - before bed but he woke me up squirming and thrashing at about 1.30am. He had a raging temperature and after an hour of trying to get him to accept milk and cuddles as a means of getting back to sleep I had to get up with him. We spent the night pacing up and down the living room. I stuck a Friends dvd on and eventually we both dozed lightly on the sofa under a cellular blanket.
Wednesday and Thursday were much the same and I took both days off work. He wouldn't let me put him down and refused all food and liquid with the exception of Mummy milk (again, totally unheard of. He's normally a ravenous little monster when it comes to food). I went back to work on Friday as he seemed ok but he relapsed into fever again on Friday night and I spent another night pacing and sofa dozing.

His temperature has been back to normal since Sunday but he's got a hoarse little voice and a rotten throaty cough if that makes sense. He doesn't like to lie flat as often it leads to a little choking episode. My poor little sausage.

However I'm feeling a little under the weather myself now having had almost a week of very limited sleep and the cough/lost voice element that Benjamin has kindly passed on. Unfortunately last night was another where he didn't sleep until 3.30am. I was as patient as could be until about 2am when i snapped and hissed 'Stop it! For the love of God stop it!'. Which just made him cry of course.
I feel bad for taking my frustration out on him. He'd spent ages latching on and off and squirming and kicking me and headbutting me and I was tired and had to get up for work at 7am. Sometimes you just don't have the energy to shush and pat and offer constant milk and cuddles. Sometimes patience and understanding is beyond you. Sometimes you just want the easy way out.

We ended up downstairs again until he fell asleep. I put him into his own bed and we snuggled for a while until I retired back to my own. He must have been exhausted as he slept there without a murmur until just after 8.30am this morning. He didn't even wake with the riot that was J and J barging in there when they woke up and playing in his wardrobe!

He's on the mend anyway and hopefully we'll be back to getting a little more sleep soon. Poor J and J have been somewhat deprived of Mummy attention while I've been constantly nursing the little one so I need to make ammends there as well.

But right now I'm tired and I just want to sleep.

Arbitrary emotion

Occasionally my children will say something that seems innocuous buts hits me hard. I'm never sure why.

This evening Jack and Joseph were sitting with their Daddy watching Jurassic Park (age appropriate? Perhaps not but they don't appear overly sensitive to the more graphic scenes). I was out in the hall with Ben who was 'helping' me hang wet washing up on the clothes horse (another aside: soap nuts and lemon essential oil - yummy!).

Anyway at the end of the film there is a scene with a T-rex attacking some smaller dinosaurs. I overheard one of the boys - Joey I think - saying to Ryan:

'That's the baby dinosaur's Mummy'.

It made me feel heart-achingly sad for a moment. So much so that I'm thinking about it even now and was tempted to text my Mum to ask if I was insane. I think it is possibly the beautiful innocence of the statement. The total purity of the misunderstanding. I'm sad that they're going to lose that. I'm not sure if anyone knows what I mean. I'm not even sure if I do!

For the cute factor I also overheard them discussing dinosaur names (we are BIG into dinosaurs at the moment). Ryan asked 'what is this dinosaur (a triceratops) called?'.
The boys thought hard for a moment. Their answer?

'A rhino-saurus'.

They talk non-stop!

You goin' this way Mummy? You goin' this way? Up the big hill. Up the hill. And down. Weeeeeeee. Down the hill Mummy!

We's eating our tea. We's eating pasta. Mummy and Daddy and Joey Jack and baby Ben and Mummy and Joey and Jack. We's all eatin' tea. We gonna get a treat after tea? You's pretty Mummy. You is pretty. Gonna get a treat?

You makin' Daddy juice? You makin' Daddy juice now? Me gonna share that. Me gonna share your Daddy juice. Yes. Sharin' is good Daddy. Me and Jack is gonna share that now, ok? You goin' a give us some. Sharin' is nice. You share the Daddy juice, ok? Me's goin' a tell Jack. Ok?

Media Frenzies and Mob Justice

It's like passing a car accident and craning your head, desperately trying to get a better view. I don't know many - if any - people who haven't done it. I remember when I was about 10 years old witnessing a young man on a motorcycle being hit by a car. I slowed down as the event unfurled around me, watching in morbid fascination . The deathly white face of the driver, unmoving, clutching her steering wheel in shock. The intense stillness of the man's body. A brief moment, frozen in time. Incredibly loud.
I jumped on my bike and pedalled so quickly, eager to get to my friends and recount what I had seen. I lost control and crashed to the ground, grazing my hand and face. Maybe it was a rough kind of justice. I think the young man was alright in the end.

Why are people so keen to witness acts of devastation and cruelty? Why do they scream injustice at misdemeanors that have no bearing on their own lives? They are voyeurs of misery looking for a moral highground, for a reason to be outraged.

There have been several baby and child abuse cases in the news recently. Most of the children involved are dead. But none has attracted the media and therefore public's attention so much as the story of Baby P. A 17 month old little boy that died under the care of his Mother, Step-Father and the man who lived with them. The tot was subject to a series of terrible mistreatment that eventually ended up with his death. He and his family were known to social services and he was on the 'at risk' register.
It is a devastatingly upsetting story without a doubt. But the tabloid newspapers and the general public have leapt on it like a pack of rabid wolves, keen to draw every last drop of blood, every last hint at life and tear them to pieces. There are facebook groups screaming for the blood of the perpetrators of this horrible crime; screaming for the blood of the professionals who let this little boy slip through their grasp with terrible results. There are websites dedicated to unveiling the identities both of the little boy and of the Mother and Step-Father - all of whom have been granted anonymity by law. There are discussions on news websites with cruel, vengeful themes. How is this 'Justice for Baby P'?
Equally there are people claiming the story as their own personal tragedy. Weeping tears of grief for a little boy they never met. Leaving teddies and flowers and letters of tribute outside in the November rain. There's a sense of hysteria surrounding the whole sorry event that I find unnerving and a little grotesque.

Where was the rage against the man who snapped his daughter's spine? Or the people who failed to spot a Mother's mental illness before she murdered her two baby boys?
Are these people spitting hate and crowing justice to compound the fact that they are Good People because they don't beat or torture their children? And quite when being a social worker became akin to being the devil is beyond me.

Don't get me wrong, it is entirely beyond me how anybody could mistreat a child so. I look at my sons and feel incredibly protective. There is a physical sense of revulsion that comes with the idea of harming them in any way. I cannot comprehend how a Mother could do this to her baby. And I feel desperately sorry for what that helpless child had to live through. But I do not subscribe to this culture of blame and rage in the face of what has happened.
I don't think I ever will. I remember when Jamie Bulger was killed by Thompson and Venables. The shock that prevailed; that two little boys could commit such a terrible crime. But do I think it was right to cry for their blood to be spilled? For grown men with no personal attachment to Jamie to be attacking police vans carrying the accused; hounding them, shaking them - fuelled by the media, fraught by a sense of misplaced rage and a false idea of justice in their minds.

I'm not cynical and pessimistic all the time. I believe that there is plenty of good in the world but sometimes I find it is difficult to see. Everyone is so keen to point the finger of blame but in a society that is so keen to turn a blind eye and where acts of true altruism are rarely seen perhaps we are pulling the wool over our own eyes. Sometimes 'society' seems like a crumbling concept in this country.

Ordinary things

I've not had much to write about recently.

I got almost all my Christmas shopping done and I love getting all the parcels delivered. I'm delighted with the wooden dinosaurs I ordered for the boys. I ordered the whole set of them (six altogether) because I am utterly pathetic and couldn't bring myself to 'reject' any of them. They're fantastic though and I'm so pleased I got them.
All the books have arrived and my soap/bath salt making items too. Ben got something a little more extravagant as he's only getting a handful of presents - a tiger wheely bug. It's adorable and I hope he likes it. Just art and craft supplies to go and I'm done.

Laura had an interview for her midwifery course in Sheffield recently and rang me at 11pm a few nights ago (I was in bed!) to tell me she got an offer of a place. She seems very excited and I'm really pleased for her. I didn't think she'd have any issues though! Part of me would still like to do midwifery but I'm not sure I could work for the NHS. I hope she doesn't become too blindsighted by medical scaremongering.

Joseph has been a bit under the weather recently. He's got a rotten cough which is keeping him up at night and he's been quite wheezy too. I think he's probably going to end up being diagnosed with asthma and some point. Unfortuantely. I hoped I would avoid passing that on. Though I will take heart in the fact that if any of them do develop asthma at least I probably delayed the onset and, hopefully, the severity by breastfeeding.

I took him to the Drs on Monday and they prescribed a small course of anti-biotics. More worryingly they also detected a heart murmur. It's likely to be an innocent one but I'm taking him back for a check-up in 3 weeks time and he'll be referred for investigation if necessary. I'm fairly certain it will be nothing serious but I think it's best to be certain.
I find it difficult to trust the hospital after Ben's birth debacle but still...
I really must get around to writing his birth story at some point. It's been almost 13 months and I still haven't been able to bring myself to do it. I can't decide whether it will be cathartic or just unpleasant to write it all down. I'm excited and nervous to be more prepared and fight for the birth I want with another baby though.

I'm working at saving money and being a little more environmentally conscious. We've stuck with the bread making. It's becoming something of an addiction. Loaves, rolls, foccacia, baguettes, garlic bread... and it's much cheaper too.
I've ordered some soapnuts for doing the laundry - talking of which I wonder whether they should have arrived by now? I might have to follow up on that - and I'm planning on starting to make my own cleaning products after the stuff I have runs out. Apart from anything I think they must have changed the 'recipe' recently. Even though I use it sparingly it really hits the back of my throat and makes me cough.
I'm managing to keep to my shopping budget but I know I could cut it down more. I wish I'd done it from the start but I think I'll get some (cheap and basic if I can find them!) cloth nappies for Ben when I have some money available and I might see how the boys go without pull ups on at night. I think it's habit more than anything and they'll probably be fine. Their mattress is waterproof anyway so if I throw a towel down it won't be the end of the world. I'll see what they think about it.

The boys are all at home with Daddy today. I think he's planning on taking them out for a long, wintery walk. I hope they all have fun.
As for me, I'm glad it's almost the weekend. The house needs sprucing up and we're going to make salt dough Christmas tree decorations to give out to people. Possibly in lieu of cards but we might make some of those too.

Toddler Nursing

Is he a toddler or a baby? It's hard to say.

At 13 months old I still very much think of Benjamin as a baby. He still looks like a baby. He still snuggles up beside me in bed every night in the same way that he has done since the day he was born. He's been 'toddling' since he was 9 months but he was certainly still a baby then!

But he is starting to show a toddler side now too. He gets frustrated and can't express it adequately. He 'shouts' at me if I do the wrong thing or don't respond appropriately to a request. He follows simple instructions - and sometimes chooses not to with an adorable cheeky grin lighting his face and a mischievous glint in his eye. He follows his brothers around and tries to imitate everything they do. Jack in particular. I wish I'd had a camera at the ready a few mornings ago when I was preparing the breakfast. The two of them climbed up onto a chair in the kitchen to look out at the birds scavenging in the grass for seeds and breadcrumbs that had been thrown out there the day before. Jack had his hand protectively on Ben's back and he was chattering and pointing all the while.

But when it comes to breastfeeding? He's definitely a toddler. No longer can I sit and drink a cup of tea while he feeds. Or read a book. Or watch a dvd. He climbs. He kicks. He stands upside down. He tries to climb off and play while still reluctant to release his latch. Unfortunately for me, I'm not made out of elastic (though that part of my anatomy might be getting there!).
Sometimes it's cute. Lots of the time it's incredibly frustrating! On. Off. Down. Up. Down. Up. Up. Up some more. Ouch. Ouch. Let go! Ouch! Off. On.

It still melts me though when he pulls off and looks up at me with a big grin and some melodic chatter before burying his face back again.

Sunday

Ben had a very off night last night. He woke up at least hourly and seemed agitated. He was throwing himself around and crying and couldn't decide whether he wanted milk, didn't want milk, wanted cuddles, didn't want cuddles. He was clearly exhausted but something was stopping him from relaxing into a deep sleep.

Whatever the reason it was an exhausting night because of it. Fortunately Sunday is my lie-in morning so I got to catch up on some sleep. J and J were awake early and all three of them were a bit tired and grumpy.

With this in mind I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to brave the weeks shopping - alone - with all of them in tow. I've never done it before but it went suprisingly well after an initial battle over who would walk/ride in the trolley. I gave J and J a shopping list with 4 items each that they had to look out for. Ben went in the sling and 'helped' push the trolley but he fell asleep about half way around the shops. J and J both ended up walking around holding onto the trolley and fetching relevant items. A success all in all and I was really pleased with them.

We went round to Nanny's house for tea and they all got spoiled rotten as usual. Far more than I would like to be honest but I'm not really sure how to address it. They get treated like princes: waited on hand and foot and given junk food upon junk food as they demand it. My authority seems practically non-existent and I spend my time thinking 'These aren't my children - these are spoiled little brats!'.

It was after 9pm when we got home so the sproglets all went straight to bed. I sorted out some washing and got the boys clothes ready for tomorrow. Then I started baking bread in a fit of madness and it's now 11.30pm and I'm waiting for it to cool so I can go to bed...

Art Attack

Painting with fingers...

Painting with toes...

Autumnal trees...

The art wall...

Wrestling and Weddings

A slow morning. Breakfast. Lots of wrestling and rough and tumble with Daddy while I tried to make the house look semi-respectable. Housework is a constant battle. It was while I was at home and it is even more so now that I am working. I don't want to waste my time making my house sparkle but it demotivates me and drags me down when it is a complete and utter tip. I need some sort of half way mark. As a compromise it tends to look 'lived in' as opposed to pigsty. But just occasionally it gets to be the latter!

In the afternoon we went to look at a prospective wedding venue. Here:
http://www.clandeboyelodge.com

It was really quite nice. It's out towards Bangor so it will be about an hours drive from the ceremony. The room we would be having is being done up at the moment so it will be all new and lovely. The grounds are pleasant though not exactly what you'd call rambling and the woman who dealt with us seemed friendly and not dismissive like some of the places we've seen. Most importantly, Ryan likes it. So we're probably going to go with it and put a deposit down in the next couple of days. My only issue is that they have more than one wedding/event per day and there is another small wedding on the same day as ours. However I suppose I can deal with that, mainly because so many of the places I wanted to look at are already booked. I can't believe I'm running out of time and the wedding is a year and a half away! Still, I'm happy with the choice and glad to finally have it organised.

The heavy burden of parental guilt.

It's a very slow day at work today. I've completed my assigned work until Monday and nobody has anything for me to do and are too busy to teach me as they go along. It's fun being new.

I'm feeling decidedly fed up today. Last night was difficult. Ryan had a day off work so J and J were in their pyjamas having hot chocolate when I got home. We sat on the sofa and read some books and they told me about their day. When it came to bed time though they weren't having any of it. Not that they were hugely difficult but they were still talking away upstairs at 10.30pm!

Ben had just fallen asleep and I'd managed to unlatch him without waking him. I decided - foolishly in hindsight - that I'd try and put him in bed upstairs so I could eat my tea in relative peace. He woke the instant I put him down. J and J started to call to me from their bedroom as they'd seen me walking past so I went in to them.

I was tired, frustrated and my tea was getting cold downstairs. I snapped at Joseph and made him cry. I still feel guilty for it now. I apologised immediately and gave him a hug to reassure him, Jack too. He then compounded the guilt by asking me to sing him a song. Ben was crying and my tea was still getting cold downstairs so I explained that I couldn't. It probably wasn't particularly unreasonable of me and he didn't seem to mind too much but I still feel like a horrible Mummy for the whole incident.

Ben finally fell asleep sometime around 12.30am - sprawled out in the middle of our bed like a prince.

I feel sort of between a rock and a hard place at the moment. I put everything into my weekends with them but I still don't see my children enough. An hour in the mornings and 1-2 hours in the evenings. It's too little and I miss them terribly. More so now than I did when I first started the job.

Am I compromising what is best for my children by doing what is best for R and, probably for a variety of reasons, family life as a whole in the future? Is that more important than the here and now?
I don't think I'm ever going to resolve this but I certainly need to find a way of accepting it because it is with a heavy heart that I am doing this currently and that is a slippery slope to climb.

We also need to instigate a more solid routine to our week and foundation to our days. The little things, like making sure tomorrows clothes are laid out the night before, that the washing up is done. Organisation that ensure the humdrum of daily life doesnt encroach on my time with the sprogs. It's not in my nature but I think it might help bring a little more peace to all of us.

Fresh homemade bread.

Look what I came home from work to today!

The end of the world news

Becoming a Mum changed a lot of things about me. Superficial things. My hair is no longer poker straight. My stomach is no longer flat. I have a fine collection of stretch marks. I pour milk instead of peas into a pan of boiling water and then wonder what on earth I did it for.

It has changed me emotionally, too. I remember being younger and scoffing at my Mum and younger brother as they watched E.T and cried. Now I get emotional over the Father/Son scenes in A Goofy Movie and could weep buckets watching the Prince of Egypt.

Every day I read the news. I don't skim over the stories with fleeting interest any more, a cursory reaction of shock or sadness. I don't read these stories as just myself. I read them as a Mother.

A family of six all killed in a terrible road accident. A young boy shot as he walked home from football practice. Young people being murdered; murdering each other. I feel for the families of young soldiers, barely out of their teens, who have died in Iraq. I worry for the world my children are growing up in when I hear of the pain people willing inflict on those around them. I'm devastated by anything involving the harm or deaths of children.

It's one of many but this story is haunting me:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7690076.stm

I can't stop thinking about what a terribly sad, short life that little girl lived. My heart aches for her. Tortured and abused by her own family before finally having her little body snapped in two by her Father. I wonder how much the Mother knew. Did she care? Did she attempt to stop it?

Who will remember that little girl now?

Lazy like Sunday morning.

We had a very lazy day today. So lazy in fact that the boys were still in their pyjamas come tea time.

I had a lie in and did the food shopping. There have been some serious price hikes again. For example the yogurts I buy for the boys have gone from 48p to £1.19 in a matter of weeks! I was often to be found staring at a shelf, mouth agape and head shaking in disgust. All things considered I am impressed that the food bill for the week came to £70. It has strengthened my resolve to have a veg patch/pots in the garden though. And I'm highly considering making all my own bread from now on too. Shop bought bread is over priced, heavy on the yeast and has a ridiculously high salt content.

The boys did some drawing and had an afternoon nap as they were very grumpy by lunch time. Jack really enjoys drawing and I had a great time watching him. He drew a 'big fat banana' and a 'round green apple'. He very diligently drew a snail shell spiral that got out of control and took over the page. He also drew a puppy, with a big head, eyes and nose and a tiny body and some little legs. I thought it was pretty impressive for a 3 year old. Plus it's very cute!

And my achievement for the day was making my very first roast chicken dinner! It was yummy. The carcass and left over meat will be used to make a big chicken stew/soup for dinner tomorrow.

Autumn Walks

Today Ryan was working so he was out of the house before we all got up at 7.30am. We had a warming breakfast of porridge and jammy toast and then wrapped up ready to go out for the morning.

We climbed. And were very proud that we could do it without Mummy's help.



We went on the swings. Ben never tires of the swings. He sat in there giggling for a good 25 minutes.



We walked through the woods.





And stomped through the leaves.





We found some interesting holes. Apparently a mouse dug this one.



But this one was done by a puppy.



We found a 'yellow sunshine tree'.



And some interesting fungi.



Ben played with the trees.



We looked out over the lough and listened to the water. Then we ruined the ambience by throwing stones into the water to make big splashes!


Then we were a bit wet and muddy so we came home and got changed and snuggled up under our duvets to watch a film and wait for Daddy to get home.

The weekend doesn't last nearly long enough.

Communication.

I think it's partially because their speech development has been so slow but I often have difficulty getting the boys to respond appropriately to situations and TELL me what the problem is rather than instantly crying or whining.

In light of that I felt this was a small victory.

On the way home from Oxford Island today I gave the three of them raisins to snack on until we got home. A couple of minutes in Jack started a high-pitched incoherent howl.

'Jack, I can't understand you when you cry like that. Talk to me using words please.'

*wailing continues*

'I can't help unless I can understand what the problem is. I need you to talk to me.'

*wailing continues... then stops*

'I'm upset because I dropped my raisins and I can't reach.'
(although I can't lie, he didn't say it this eloquently!)

I was so pleased I stopped the car and picked up the raisins for him, even though we were only a mile and a half from home.

Hallowe'en!

The boys carved two scary pmpkins and made chunky pumpkin soup while I was at work. The soup was delicious and I forgot to take photos of the pumpkins.

I went to 'Fear and Pizza' with the guys from work for a couple of hours. On the way to the train station I got a firework thrown at me by a group of young boys from the estate across the road from work. Fortunately it missed me - it rebounded off the bridge and shot off towards the multistorey car park. Scared the life out of me though. How can there be so many completely oblivious people in the world?

Jack and Joseph dressed up as little devils. Ben was an adorable bat. They went to a party with their Nanny and probably had far too many sweets. I suppose you have to turn a blind eye occasionally though.

There she goes again.

Tradition though it may be to start long overdue blog posts with the earnest promise to try harder, be more dedicated to the cause - well I'm not going to do it. But you can read between the lines.

I've been a 'working Mum' for 2 months now and it has been busy. I'm enjoying the job to an extent. It's not where my natural talents lie. It's not where I thought I would be or what I would be doing. But all in all things could be a lot worse.
I feel a bit of a cheat calling myself a 'software developer' because I still have a lot of learning to do. Since joining my team I'm lucky if I know what people are talking about more than 20% of the time!

The boys have adjusted wonderfully and I'm so proud of them. Ben would probably be the one who took it hardest and he is still very clingy with me when I get home. He had his first birthday a couple of weekends ago. We decorated his bedroom with lots of lovely things from IKEA and it looks wonderful. A bit of a waste as he still co-sleeps but I've started putting him in bed for the first couple of hours of the night. He's normally back in with us by midnight though and I'm in no hurry to change it. I think he needs the extra comfort and attention.

Jack and Joseph are as entertaining as ever. I promised them a walk last weekend but it was such horrendous weather I had to put it off. Perhaps it will be bright enough this weekend. The temperature drop has been unreal. I know we're famous for unpredictable weather in this country but it's been quite a change - snow in October? I'm not sure I've ever seen that before.
Anyway on Saturday we made delicious oaty biscuits (which unfortunately caused serious upset with Jack when I would only let him eat one)and made trees out of toilet roll tubes and lots of messy paint. Funny little creatures that they are they actually really hate getting messy and were cleaning their hands every 5 minutes or so!
On Sunday we took them to see the Dinosaur exhibit at W5 in Belfast. Dinosaurs are a big favourite at the moment. Joseph was terrified of the T-rex (or sharp tooth!) but they seemed to enjoy themselves and I only felt a bit out of pocket for spending the £20!

Pay day tomorrow and I can't wait to get ordering some lovely Christmas presents. Aiming for cheap and cheerful this year so I'm making lavender bathsalts for our respective Mums and a black and white canvas print of that photo in the post below (which I LOVE). Can't wait to order the boys little wooden dinosaurs. Ben is getting a pull along frog and some rainbow stacking arches. I'm also getting them an easel and lots of new arty supplies. I also have plans to make salt dough Christmas tree decorations for everyone as a precursory treat. I'm really looking forward to it this year.

I also have some pre-new years resolutions. I've no excuses any more since I'm 2 months into this 'routine' so I need to be more organised and a little less lazy. Because it's so easy to be lazy and there's so much I want to do.
I need to start getting prepared for growing some yummy fruit and veg in the garden next year.
And remembering the fantastic dinosaur jumpers Grandma made for me and my siblings (and my Mum!) when I was a child, I want to learn to knit.

I'll have to update this with pictures when I get home. I'm still in work and really it's very naughty of me to be doing this...

Unprepared.

It's been a long time since I wrote here which was not my intention when I started it up. In reality the reason is I have been feeling quite down for the last few months. That leads to lethargy and then guilt. Guilt that I'm not doing all I should with the boys. Demotivation. Demotivation to do the house work which is exacerbated by the fact that the house is an absolute tip. Vicious circle. And shouting. Oh how I shout far too much in times like these.

The boys speech has come on so much in the last month. They're still behind for their age I think but I'm so proud of how well they're doing. They have a massive repertoire of words now and, by and large, can communicate most things very well. They're funny and engaging and difficult and wonderful., not to mention incredibly cute.

'Look Mummy, it's my horsie! His name is Donkey'.

They have such distinct personalities and watching them grow and learn new things every day is a constant source of joy and amazement. It's worth all the frustration that comes with having 3 year old twins (and believe me those times are plentiful too!).

Ben loves to copy them. One of their favourite games of the moment is Thundercats (Daddy's influence obviously! Though 80's cartoons are the best...) and they run around waving plastic kitchen utensils and crying 'Thundercats Hooooo!'. Ben chases around after them waving whatever item he can get his hands on and shouting 'oooooooooohhh! ' at the top of his little voice. He's been walking since he turned 9 months and now, at 10 months old, he is so steady and confident on his feet it's unreal. He walks - nay, runs! - everywhere now and crawling is practically obsolete. He can turn, bend over and pick things up and get form a sitting to standing position without needing something to pull up on. Recently he's begun climbing which is a nightmare. Onto the sofa, onto the kitchen table (!!) and out of his highchair. He's such a houdini. It's not safe to leave him anywhere. He's opinionated and demanding and I love him more than I can believe, especially in light of the roller coaster of emotions that was early pregnancy with him. I can't believe he'll be one in 2 months. He's growing up far too fast.

Which brings me to my rock/hard place. I got a job today. It's an excellent opportunity, even if it's nothing like the career I had in mind (and I certainly intend to go back to something like that later). It's a graduate trainee role for a software development company and I start on Monday! I'm so unprepared for this. I don't know whether I was more unprepared for getting the job or for not getting it. But here I am. And I'm dreading it. I have to leave my babies. I"m used to being with them 24/7 and suddenly I'll be missing for a huge chunk of the day. Ben is used to being breastfed on demand! My boobs are used to breastfeeding on demand! I'm sure we'll adjust to feeding when we're together but it's going to be a big shock to the system. For all of us! How am I going to create an acceptable work/family balance? I'm mainly doing it for Ryan. He gave up so much from the day I found out I was expecting the twins. He deserves the chance to achieve what he wants as well and he has worked so hard. Plus we really need the income. Don't get me wrong, a part of me is a little excited. Yes, ideally I would be at home with the boys, full time, until at least school age (which again, ideally I'd like to delay until they're about 7). Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe I'll even enjoy it. At the very least the boys are still going to be in their home environment with a person they know, like and trust. We'll see how it goes. But I'm feeling very weird about it.

I'm going to miss them like crazy. Chances I'll get through the day without crying at least once? Minimal.

I don't want to forget... (a memory bank post)

... the finger people. Jack and Joseph are developing imaginations and starting to role play more. A lot of this seems to involve cars at the moment. They have a variety of little toy cars but no little toy people so they use their fingers as the people. The fingers stomp up and down the tables, across the sofas. They climb into the car and go to the shops. They talk in adorably high pitched voices. It's very entertaining to watch.


... Ben's developing 'language'. I don't seem to have very vocal babies in spite of the fact that myself and my siblings were all very quick developers in this area. Ben is starting to repeat sounds more and more. This morning he was insistently blowing raspberries onto Ryan's knee while he drank his morning coffee. Ryan leaned over, pointed to himself and said 'Da Da'. Ben looked up with a big grin and said very deliberately 'Daaa ... Daaa'. Very cute. He has also imitated me sneezing today. Of course a lot of his communicating still consists of "drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" (that's him rolling his tongue by he way in case that isn't, er, obvious!). Strange child.

A nobel and many splendoured thing.

J and J had just had their morning snack. I nipped upstairs to the bathroom and returned to find Jack surreptitiously helping himself to 'biscuits' (in actual fact they were peppered oat cakes).

'Jack, you just had your snack. Those are Daddy's biscuits.'

Jack looks up at me a little sheepishly.

'Yes. Daddy's biccies. Me sharing Daddy's biccies.'

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All in all though today has been "one of those days". Most communicating (and I'm being very generous here) has been done through whining/crying and even the usually mild mannered Benjamin has been somewhat trying.
Joseph sat quietly and did a jigsaw puzzle all by himself. He was so proud; it was just adorable. It didn't last. He grazed his finger while I was otherwise engaged with washing the dishes and oh! the drama! oh, the pain!

"Mice finger Mummy," he wailed, holding his arm out desperately before me, "Mice finger is SORE".
Two hours later he is still treating it gingerly, wandering around folornly with it held out at an angle.

Well. All is quiet. As for me, I have a phone call to make.

PS: Yes, obviously 'mice' means 'mine'. It's an interesting mispronunciation of theirs, but then they have many.

It's only words...

The concept is probably a bit abstract for a just turned 3 year old - certainly my two anyway - though I don't doubt that the sense of sentiment is real.

Most children have probably said this innumerable times by now. Does it make it more poignant? Less? Who cares.
Tearing himself away from the all encompassing distraction of toy cars a little blonde head comes and leans against my knee. Big blue eyes gaze up at me, blazing sincerity.

"Me luff you, Mummy."

Sun and Soakings

Hot Hot Hot today. For this part of the world anyway. And proof once again, should any more actually be needed, that bbc.co.uk can simply NOT be trusted to give an accurate weather forecast for Northern Ireland. Apparently it's been raining for the last week. In fact it has been humid, sticky and positively sunny for much of the time.

Ryan was in work for 7am which meant he left the house just after 6am. I was woken shortly afterwards to the sound of throaty chuckles from Benjamin as he was entertained by Joseph playing 'peek-a-boo'. Adorable? Sure. At 6.15am on a Sunday? Not so much. Jack arrived shortly afterwards and, though I battled valiantly, it just isn't possible to doze when three small children are rampaging over your bed (and you!). My attempts thwarted we got up got up for breakfast. I think I need retraining as a morning person.

We pottered around for most of the morning and broke up the day with a walk down towards to industrial estate before lunch. I took the buggy as it makes J and J that bit more willing to stay close and Ben was happy enough riding along chewing his toes. At what age are bodies no longer fascinating? Ben can entertain himself with nothing but his extremeties for a good 20 minutes.

We went to Peatlands Park after picking Ryan up at 2.30pm. It's a natural bogland wth lots of nice walks and plants and things and - oh monumentous excitement for 3 year old boys - a narrow gauge railway line. Which unfortunately wasn't running today because the place was so damn busy! Apparently today was national bog day (who knew) and there were lots of events on - crafts, bouncy castles, bog snorkelling (?!) - none of which we had any intention of joining in with since we hadn't brought any money. We steered the boys off towards the quieter wooded walk areas. About 30 minutes in Jack decided he needed to answer a call of nature. Urgently. You know how it is to be three.

"Need wee wee." he announced in matter of fact tones and proceeded to pull down his pants and pee into the shrubbery. Never one to fight peer pressure Joseph followed suit within seconds! All this was much to the amusement of the people passing by. And Ryan. Of course. I think we need to discuss peeing in public some more...