Journal
Sign guestbook
Arthur's Mummy's Diary
Matthew's Belly Gallery
Nathan's Belly Gallery
Benjamin's Belly Gallery
My Fertility Friend Chart
2006-06-24 - 11.33pm��previous entry��next entry
10 days old - lots of photos, and hair excitement! :)
Thank you all so much for the your opinions on the photos! :) It helped me a bit but I still couldn't decide, so I took some more photos today and got some sweet ones of my boys together again! Yay! So I am pretty sure I will use one of those - probably the first one of the following six:
I have the sweetest boys!!! :D It's soooo easy to find opportunities to take photos like that, as Arthur LOVES to hold his brother. He asks for him a lot, and just smiles sooo big when he's holding him! He does also just look and look at Matthew with such a calm look on his face, but mostly he smiles a lot :) He still keeps giving him kisses, and peering into Matthew's face with his neck all craned round to get the perfect angle, trying to make him smile or laugh. We keep telling him that Matthew is too little to laugh yet, but I know it will feel like NO time at all before Arthur is making Matthew giggle all the time and we are walking around with one eye permanently glued to the camcorder! ;) I can't wait for moments like that, but I'm cherishing the stage we're at right now as well.
Matthew is 10 days old!! Today I dressed him in a tiny pair of denim dungarees, for the pure and simple reason that Arthur wore that outfit when HE was 10 days old as well :) Matthew also tried out his new Fisher Price Kick and Play chair today - we haven't put the toy bar on yet because he's still so little for that. I just put him down in it and made the chair bounce gently, and he went to sleep! So I took a photo :)
He slept in there for nearly 3 hours!!!! I got nervous after a while because I didn't know if it's safe for a tiny baby to sleep in for so long, and I had no idea he was going to sleep that long or I would have put him in his Moses basket instead. But it's good to know that he is relaxed by the bouncing. We haven't put the batteries in yet for the vibration function. Arthur helped Neil put the chair together. Neil came upstairs to get something and when he got back down, Arthur had climbed right in the chair! He was very pleased with himself too! Neil took pictures, of course! :)
Funny boy! He seems soooo big against Matthew, especially when I see him in photos like those! He is rather too big for the chair, obviously, and he exceeds the max weight by some lbs, but it was so sweet how excited he was by it and how he climbed in there to try it out in detail, hehe! He likes to bounce the chair for Matthew when he's in it, but we have to constantly remind him to bounce GENTLY, as he is a bit enthusiastic about it, shall we say?! He is just so eager to do things with Matthew or to help us with him, it's so lovely. He helped us bath Matthew today, in a tub on the playmat on the living room floor. He was SO excited, as he thought it was going to be water play (which is one of his favourite things at the moment), but then he was even MORE excited when we put Matthew IN the water, lol! Matthew hated it of course. He hates baths, nappy changes, and generally being naked, although he is starting to improve on the nakedness already. Arthur was the same way, and it just took some time for him to grow to like it. Now his favourite thing is having no nappy or clothes on, so I know Matthew will be the same :)
Matthew's skin is really dry and peely, like after a sunburn when your skin peels off, just the lightest top layer. It isn't sore at all, or unsightly, although it's noticably worse since his bath. We've been using olive oil on it like the midwife told us to, but honestly I don't think it's making any difference. Arthur's skin was dry and peely too, but we didn't really use anything on it and it righted itself quite quickly. I'm pretty sure by looking at it that Matthew's skin just needs to be left to its own devices and it'll sort itself out. He HATES having oil rubbed on his skin and it doesn't seem to do anything for him anyway.
I keep forgetting little bits and pieces that I meant to write in here. Things like, Matthew's head circumference at birth was 35cm. Arthur's was 34cm. But then Matthew's head didn't have much time to mould as he was born so quickly, whereas poor Arthur was wedged in the birth canal for nearly 2 hours! It's the only measurement of Matthew's that was BIGGER than Arthur's.
Matthew is outgrowing his newborn sleepsuits :( I can't believe we're putting them away again ALREADY! It feels like we only just put them away from when ARTHUR outgrew them, and suddenly we're doing it again already. His 0-3 month sleepsuits and vests are a little baggy on him, and too long in the leg, but he's wearing them most of the time because the newborn ones are just getting too tight, especially with a cloth nappy on.
Talking of cloth nappies, we are running seriously short of both nappies and wraps again! I'm not sure HOW, as I thought I prepared for that possibility after we ran short of newborn stuff with Arthur! But the main stock of nappies in newborn size is the size 0 Kissaluvs, and they don't seem to fit Matthew too well any more. The main thing is, Matthew soaks EVERYTHING with one pee. He is at least as much of a heavy wetter as Arthur was, and I thought HE was a serious pee-er! All his newborn nappies are not remotely absorbent enough, even the Kissaluvs. Well, the size 0 Tots are pretty good, but he only has two of those. And one of the size 0 Tots replicas I made is great, but not the others. So I am having to boost everything with lil tiny booster pads! But this makes the nappies more bulky, so the newborn wraps aren't fitting round them. He's into size small Bummis Super Whisper Wraps already, and they are only a little tiny bit too big.
Sooo I have ordered six size small Fuzzi Bunz. We have had SUCH great success with Fuzzis since starting Arthur in them, but we didn't get round to trying them till he was in a size medium, so we only have mediums, larges and extra larges. I ordered six different coloured Fuzzis in size small and 12 microfibre inserts. I figure that should be a good start! They were NOT cheap, but it's worth it if they fit him well. He won't pee through them if we can adjust the absorbency to suit him, and we are just having to change both nappy and wrap every couple of hours at the moment, which is leaving us with noooo nappies left all the time! I did get to sew 30 cloth wipes the other night so we are fine for those.
Matthew is waking up - he has spent the evening so far IN HIS COT BED - he is getting too big for the Moses basket already, and has slept great in there. It's the first evening we've put him to bed upstairs instead of downstairs with us for the evening, it felt weird! Yesterday evening was really hard. Matthew acted really colicky and seemed to be in pain with trapped wind or something the whole evening. Neil and I hated it because we could see he was hurting and we couldn't seem to do anything to make it better for him, the poor little love. He cried from about 8pm till 11pm :( We walked him, jiggled him, rocked him, swung him, cuddled him, bounced him in the bouncy chair, etc. I breastfed him, but it just seemed like I was putting more milk in on top of the wind and that didn't help. But he was at least calm on the breast, like it was soothing. Poor Matthew! He didn't burp much at all and he burps SUCH a lot normally after feeds, so we knew it had to be trapped wind. We gave him Infacol before one of the times I nursed him. He didn't mind that at all (Arthur HATED it when we gave it to him!) but it didn't seem to help. I know you're meant to give it a few days with continued doses to get the maximum benefit, but we haven't given him any since and he's a different baby this evening. Maybe it was something I ate? Or just a random windy evening? Anyway, I am so glad he is burping well this evening and doesn't seem in pain or unsettled! Phew!
At night, Matthew is mostly sleeping in bed with me. It's soooo much more comfortable for my back to nurse him lying down, and he goes to sleep so contentedly, and I can go off to sleep as well. It's so much easier to co-sleep, and there's so much less disruption to the night - except for the darn nappies that keep on getting soaked right through, wraps, sleepsuits and all, in 2 hours! Once we've changed him to the right sort of nappy for his needs, night times will be even less disturbed. Last night after his big painful evening he went to sleep around midnight, and then woke at 2.15am. I nursed him, changed him, burped him (no problems bringing up the wind this time), nursed him again in bed with me, and he was back off to sleep by about 3.15am. The next time he woke it was 7.15 :) That was nice! I even remember lots of dreams, so I know I got some good deep sleep, yay! :) And my sweet boy was all snuggly next to me when I woke in the morning, and you just can't beat that!
I am still a bit torn over what to do with the sleeping arrangements. I WANT to put him in his own sleeping space because he seems perfectly happy with that, and because I'm too nervous about setting up a situation like with Arthur, where co-sleeping is the only thing he'll tolerate (perfectly understandably!) but where he still sleeps in bits and pieces and needs me to nurse him back to sleep all night, and thus I get super duper sleep-deprived. For a year and a half. Which I just can't do again! I don't even know how I managed to get through it the first time! So that's another main reason for doing it differently.
BUT, I do so LOVE co-sleeping. I mean, I sleep much better in my own space, when I'm NOT co-sleeping, and I love my sleep so really it's better for me not to co-sleep. But there's nothing like closeness with your little ones at night, and never having them out of arms reach. I love that. Also, when I do have Matthew in the bed with me, it feels so lovely and natural and just RIGHT, I can't describe it any other way really. It just feels right to my gut. Last night I discovered two things whilst co-sleeping with Matthew. One, Matthew can roll from his back to his side!!! Strong boy! He can also hold his head up while lying on his tummy! Arthur took AGES to do that, like months or something! He just does a big stretchy squirm with a twist to the side and that gets him part-way to being on his side. Then he does it again and he's there! He does it in his sleep, and once on his side he CAN roll onto his tummy. He only does it in bed with me though.
The other thing is, Matthew moves himself across the bed towards me in his sleep! Last night I woke a few times during his 4-hour sleep block. He went to sleep on his back, but the first time I woke he was on his side facing me. The second time, he was a few inches nearer to me, still on his side. Then when I woke again, he was even closer! We usually sleep maybe a foot apart so that I can actually sleep! But he inched his way across to me over time, during his sleep. It was so sweet! Eventually I stayed awake a little while to see how he was doing it. He did the same thing as he was doing to get onto his side - a stretchy squirm thing in his sleep. He arched his back, pushing his tummy forward a couple of inches, then curled his head and legs forward into an almost fetal position, which brought the rest of his body forward those couple of inches in line with his tummy. He kept this up till he was literally pressed up against me, his little head resting on my breast and his legs on my tummy. My heart just completely melted to see this tiny newborn person squiggling his little self across a bed in his sleep, just to get close to me. THAT'S why I want to co-sleep! Well, other reasons too, but that's a big one. For Matthew, that was instinctive and done while he wasn't even conscious. It's so natural, that a baby could do that, that he would KNOW his mother was near and instinctively move himself close to her. He doesn't move at all in the cot-bed. Just arms up, arms down, that kind of thing. Plus I just LOVE being close to him, and hate being seperated from him by any distance at all, and especially by bars.
But anyway. It's 11pm now and he's sleeping peacefully in the cot-bed. I am going to take my shower, and then go to bed, and if he wakes I think I will take him in with me and nurse him. Or I don't know, I'll see how I feel at the time. I wish I was better at sleeping! I am too easily disturbed and seem to need my space to sleep well. Tsk. If only I wasn't like that, I could enjoy co-sleeping so much better. I enjoy it LOADS already, but if I could sleep better it would help me not be so nervous about doing it in the long run.
Oh I know what else I meant to say! I am so excited!!! Matthew's eyelashes and eyebrows have been really hard to see so far because newborn eyelashes just seem to be folded away inside their eyelids or something (!!) when they're first born, and take a couple of days to even come out. Their eyebrows are so faint and hardly-there that it takes a while before you can see them properly too. Matthew's eyelashes have become really noticable in the last few days, and I'm so happy that he has Neil's lovely long eyelashes, just like Arthur! I believe long eyelashes are dominant over short though. Neil's are SO long. Arthur's are so long too - people comment on them all the time. Arthur's are dark dark brown and just so beautiful. He has brown eyes and they really compliment his face. My eyelashes are short and stumpy! But oh well ;) I'm so glad my boys have their Daddy's long eyelashes!
Anyway, the thing I'm excited about is that I know his newborn hair may not necessarily be his actual permanent hair colour. Arthur's was the same dark colour, and his actual hair is still brown, though a shade or two lighter than his newborn hair. Arthur had quite a bit more hair as a newborn than Matthew does, which is saying something as Matthew has lots of hair! Arthur's used to stick up all over when it was freshly washed, and he had a little mohecan (or however you spell it) all the time! I guess that was a clue that he'd have curly hair. Matthew's is shorter and as far as I can tell, no curl to it. Though that doesn't really mean anything since it's just newborn hair.
ANYWAY! So I wanted to see Matthew's eyelashes and eyebrows to see what colour hair he might have. Now that his eyelashes are really visible, I am really excited because I am pretty sure he is going to have red hair!!! :) Neil and I always said we would be really surprised if we never produced a red-haired child, because we both have family members with red hair. Neil's brother has strawberry blond hair. I have a lot of red in my hair that shows up really clearly in the sunlight. Neil has auburn in his beard (which he never grows, so nobody really knows this about him but me!). So we both knew we had a good chance of having a child or two with red hair. I don't know why I am so excited about it, but I just am! :) It seems so unusual and different and just LOVELY!! I am excited by the amount of variety that is possible with our gene pool. We have fairly equal possibilities of having children with brown, blue, green or grey eyes - isn't that cool?! Arthur has brown (with a couple of patches of clear grey still), and Matthew, well, he is still too newborn-ish to tell for sure, but his eyes are a really clear blue at the moment. Arthur's were never blue even when he was born. They were always murky and dark. Matthew's eyes are going to be blue, I'm sure, and a really clear blue too. I like that we could have curly haired children or straight haired children, and various shades of brunette or red. I wouldn't expect any blond children, as we're both so dark, but Neil's mum and one of his sisters have blond hair, so who knows!
Anyway. I can't be 100% sure on Matthew's colouring. But his eyelashes look different in different lights. They look a light ginger colour in sunlight, very fair considering how dark-haired Neil and I are, and Arthur too. In other light they look a sort of mid-brown, but a reddish brown, like auburn, but not dark auburn. I don't think he will have very RED hair because his eyelashes would be very obviously red then, wouldn't they? And they don't look like that. I can hardly wait for his eyebrows to become more apparent so that I can see what colour they are!! So far, they are very fine and light but just about visible, and again they look fair and gingery in sunlight, and a soft reddish light-brown in normal light. I wonder what shade of red his hair will be! I feel so excited to find out! I know I'll have to wait AGES though, as Arthur's newborn hair didn't fall out till maybe 3 or 4 months and then his new hair didn't start to grow in till about 6 months old! That's ages!!! I am sooo eager to see Matthew's hair and know what colour it will be! They are going to look so different, my boys - one with dark curly hair and brown eyes, and the other with straight red hair and blue eyes! But maybe I'm wrong and he won't have red hair. I think he will though, or his eyelashes wouldn't look that way. Anyway, yay! I love red hair! :)
It's toooo weird, because early on in my pregnancy when I obviously didn't know if I was having a girl or a boy yet (and I even thought girl for some of that time!), I was just browsing through the boards at Fertility Friend, and saw a blinkie on someone's signature. For some reason I had to save it to my computer, because it just felt like I would need it someday. I liked it so much and didn't want to lose the blinkie and never find it again if I did end up wanting to use it. Anyway, it's this:
How uncanny is that?! I wish I could remember exactly how pregnant I was when I found it and saved it, but all I know is that it was early in my pregnancy. Too weird that it turned out that I WAS expecting a red-headed boy!! I think, anyway :) Yay!
Okay I should shower and go to bed. We might go to church tomorrow, or at least turn up at the end (for the barbeque, hehe!) just to make contact again since having the baby. I know everyone will want to meet Matthew. There are apparently a lot of men who want to "shake Neil's hand", lol! The news of him delivering his baby boy has really excited people. I am happy for him to have the praise because he really was WONDERFUL at the birth, but I also do feel slightly miffed because I'm sure nobody will want to shake MY hand for pushing another human being out of my body! Tsk! I mean, if Neil had a watermelon stuck up his arse and I caught it when it fell out, would people be clapping ME on the back, or Neil?!! ;) Neil, of course, but somehow it's just "what you do" if you're a woman. Hey ho. Women definitely have the harder role in the childbearing game, but I wouldn't swap it for anything. There are too many incredible joys and wonderful things to cherish. I love being pregnant so much, and even though it seemed unbearable just 10 days ago, I love the experience of giving birth. I already miss it and look forward to doing it again. My mum thinks I'm crazy, hehe! I remember while I was being stitched up after the birth, completely exhausted, the other midwife was wrapping up the old sheet and shower curtain that I'd delivered Matthew on. It was soaked with blood and amniotic fluid and meconium, and generally totally something you'd want to throw in the bin QUICKLY and not think of again! ;) She said to me, "Shall I throw this away?" And I said, "Oh no! Just put it to one side in a bin liner. I'm sure it will wash out, and then I can put it away for next time!" My mum still can't get over me saying that only about an hour after giving birth in loads of pain, lol! She can't believe I still want to do it again, and that I had the foresight even at that time to think of the next homebirth!! Hehe! It did wash out, by the way. We put it in the machine with a pre-wash and a Vanish tablet, and then washed it again with normal detergent, and voila - clean as a whistle! No stains or anything. And now it IS folded up ready to put away for the next homebirth! :)
Anyway, I digress (again!). So church tomorrow, maybe. We need to register Matthew's birth. We did that with Arthur when he was 8 days old. I just forgot about it this time! We'll try to make an appointment to go to the Registry Office and do that on Monday. It was my first trip out of the house since having Arthur when we registered his birth. I haven't been out yet either, so I guess I should sometime soon! I am much more comfy walking around now, but I tire very easily. The main thing is, I don't fit ANY of the clothes I bought ready for after the birth!! Well, I fit the tops, but none of the bottoms. Gah! My legs just got soooo enormous this time, I can't pull the trousers up over them that are TWO sizes bigger than my pre-pregnancy size. Yeurgh. So I am a bit stuck for things to wear out of the house! I am wearing maternity shorts in the house most of the time, but they are not exactly flattering to wear out around other people! Hmmm.
Anyway, it is getting later and later and I really MUST go! I'll update again when I can, no doubt with more photos :)
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25