June- a Catch up on the year09.

In May, I took all the boys up to my parents in Cumbria again... while we were there we did lots of nature things.

This time I split the trip in two and we stopped off the night in Manchester, visiting my friends Bx and A for the night, setting off in the morning and reaching my parents by 11.30am! In time to go swimming at the local small swimming pool that afternoon!

Ds1 and 2 both managed to swim with armbands on and ds1 declared he wants to learn to swim without his armbands... but wants a teacher to teach him on his own.. so we are looking for some suitable lessons.

The ponds were full of fish, frogs and their spawn and tadpoles, and dragonfly larvae! The bigger boys were forever hunting for caterpillars, snails and spiders... they do love their minibeasts!

We visited the Aquarium at Maryport Marina... it full of wildlife that might be found around the Solway Firth. We visited The Gin Case-- where there's an art and craft Gallery, and more importantly (to the kids) there was icecream, a play area and animals! The 2 bigger boys were able to bottle feed 2 goat kids... which I think was the highlight of their trip there!

We also did a couple of trips to Rookies playcentre in Wigton, one time we met up with an online friend of mine and we talked babies and slings.

While we were up there, I went out on my own for an evening -- it was our 20year school reunion of the 5th year graduation of the year 1989 from Nelson Thomlinson Secondary School! I spent all evening talking to old friends and a lot of people I knew of but hadn't really talked to whilst at school! It was a fun night.. tho the turnout could have been much better.


I also met up with a couple of other school friends who didn't make it to the reunion.. I met with J, who has two daughters age 8 and 4 and had a lovely afternoon in the sun with her and her sister and mum. I also met up with M and his lovely wife H and their 4 week old baby daughter L--- so cute and so tiny... you forget how little babies are when they are first born!

Around this time (mid May) ds3 was learning how to crawl... well as of now, he's expert at it and ds4 is playing catch up and also getting quite good! (help!).

Ds2 is leaping over walls and climbing everything in sight including the ladders tied up against the house! So we are discouraging him by taking him inside each time he does this.. as if we make it more difficult for him, he will only see it as a challenge!

While we were at my parents ds1 asked my mum "Gran, where are your mum and dad?", well my grandparents have been dead a long time and when told this it hit him what death and dying really meant.. we had a long chat trying to explain and lots of cuddles and tears... he asked me "to stop having birthdays so i won't get old and die", and he also said that after 10 he doesn't want any more birthdays. Ds1 also said "but mum, if you die, I'll really really miss you" (which is lovely to know but also quite heartbreaking).

Ds1 also copied a picture of a (very simple) spider that I drew and labelled.. I'll scan his pictures in.



The journey down was long.. we stopped off 3 times and I was just about to give up and stay the night in a motel..however the motel was full.. so we had a Macdonalds and carried on... they all fell asleep and we got home safely and not too stressed.

We joined in the local home ed group meet and after ds1's initial strop we had a lovely time chatting to the kids and adults there... the babies were cuddled and looked after by a group of teenage girls and ds1 and 2 played with some other kids and also did some digging in the new vegetable patch.. we must go there again.

Ds1 constantly asks questions about animals and insects and birds, and interestingly enough about numbers "what's 1 and 1 and 1?" and "2 and 2 is 4 and 4 and 4 is 8!" He's a whizz on the pc and can navigate around and open up his links to his webpages or play games on the pc.. he likes watching daddy play games on his pc and does a running commentary.

Ds2's speech is coming on now... we can understand a lot more of what he's trying to say, and his balance, coordination and activeness is amazing!

Ds3 can now crawl and pull himself up, he makes random noises..... ahhhh, and razberries are his favourite sounds right now. If he's helped to standing and given two fingers to hold onto he can step out and walk.

Ds4 is sort of crawling... he moves his hands and one foot and the other knee, his vocal skills are more advanced than Ds3s and he can make bbb, brbrbr, ddd, and mmm sounds, he can also pull himself up on occasions. He's trying to keep his balance when stood up and keeps letting go of supporting fingers! Ds4 also loves the door bouncer and can bounce on both feet or lift them totally off the floor to try and swing!

In the past months I've also done a few babyshows selling and demoing some slings and a babywearingcatwalk demonstrating to the ABM conference how lovely all our slings are.

We are still managing getting around by slinging the twins and using a single buggy for ds2.. not sure for how long that will be possible for... I am hoping to avoid a double buggy forever! I sometimes use a FBS meitai and Connecta (see pic^^), sometimes a stretchy wrap on my front and the FBS or connecta on my back, very occasionally now I use a single wrap for both, and also occasionally I use a stretchy wrap on my front with a woven on my back.

We went to the supermarket the other day and Ds1 chose dinner.... Whole herring!

So we had a small biology lesson while I cleaned and prepared the herring..pointing out the finsbones, gills, and the heart and the guts of the fish. Neither of the big boys ate much fish... I think it was down to the numerous small bones there were still left in the fillet... next time I might get a different type of fish!

Ds1 also asked recently where ham came from... so I googled for some not too gory way to explain it to him... I found some diagrams that showed how a half a pig was cut up and a short video that was very informative.. tho he didn't watch all of it.. it was just enough to know what part it came from I think.

I was hoping by now that the babies would have settled into sleeping better at night... and certainly some nights are very good, however I'm still finding that they are having trouble getting to sleep (possibly due to the excitement of starting to move) or waking frequently in the night, this means that getting out and about to groups and to do things is very random and depends no how much sleep I've had the night before, I'm also reluctant to commit myself to taking them all out places more than twice a week.
I am able to manage more outings if I can leave 2 at home with daddy.. so I've managed to take the big boys out to the park or swimming a few times now that the babies are taking food, and I can also take the babies out.. leaving the bigger boys at home with daddy.

Ds3 is having trouble latching on at the moment too.. his teeth don't seem to be being covered by his tongue and as a result I'm quite sore and tender in the nipple department! I must research on how to solve this problem... Ds4 tho seems to have got better at latching on now he has teeth.


I think that covers most of what's happened the last few weeks... I'm sure I've probably forgotten something.


OOh and thinking sticky pregnancy vibes for my good friends Bx and A... who have had 2 embryos implanted 3 days ago... burrow in littlebits and grow strong! Good luck to you all.
xxx

Life is so chaotic i rarely find time to think about what we've done never mind write about it!

We've started swimming -- just me and ds1 and ds2 at a local surestart centre. The pool is a metre deep, so ds1 can reach the bottom-- he wore armbands for the first time and doggy paddled off. ds2 lounged in a rubber ring.

ds1 has started to play with blocks, making sqquares out of triangles, building towers, knocking themnn down by throwing toys and balls at them.

ds1 is also finding his way around various kids sites on the web and you tube.

ds2 is coming out with lots of new words everyday.

ds3 is working on crawling-- can move backwards bow.

ds4 is cutting a tooth.

Both babies started blw onto solid food this week and they turned 6 months.

All have had chicken pox starting with ds2 on ds1's 5th birthday. ds3 got it last on the 16th march... all are clear now.

2009 so far

Well the boyz and I took a trip upto Carlisle to see my Mum, Dad and Sister and her family.
I packed the car up and got all the kids in their carseats by 2pm ish on the 2nd Jan and set off up towards Stoke on the A50.

Just after joining the M6 Theo woke up and started to cry so I pulled into Knutsford Services and decided that cake and drinks were in order.

I put Zac on my back and Ryan on my front, Theo in the pushchair and Max walked beside us.

We spent an hour (ish) there, eating cake, drinking juice/coffee and feeding the babies, then we all used the toilet facilities -- Moto services- with child sized toilets, and changed the babies.

We did the rest of the trip with a mini stop at Lancaster to throw some jelly babies at the big kids -- the babies didn't wake so it was a calm trip, 6 hours in total.

Saturday 3rd of Jan- the weather up in Cumbria was frosty and had been for days so the flood in the field opposite my parent's house had frozen and we went out for a slide. Theo wasn't keen on the slippery ice so my Mum took him for a walk over the field while Max and his cousins and My sister slid about on the ice.

Tuesday 6th Jan- we all went swimming at the local mini pool. My Mum, sister, her two kids, myself and Max and Theo all went in. The babies slept/watched us from the side. My sisters two kids aged 7 and 3 were doing really well swimming around, Mum held Max and I held Theo. Max did really well imitating swimming motions being held by Mum and Theo was reaching out for the float that I was throwing away for him. We all had great fun and there were no tantrums AT ALL which is what really made it memorable.

My Dad has recently had a wind turbine installed in his garden- it's connected to the house electrics and when the wind blows it generates electricity. Unfortunately this November, December and first week of January have been the calmest in the last 2 years at least- so his energy production has been minimal. The middle of the second week of Jan, I think, the wind picked up and energy production started in earnest! By the end of the second week winds had picked up to Gale Force 7 and the electricity meter was running backwards and then as the system catches up with itself it remains the same and energy is sold back to the grid. Iwas supposed to be driving us all back on the Sunday but had a bad feeling about it as the winds were high (GF7 - 9) and so I postponed it til the Tuesday when the weather prediction was better.

Other things we did at my Parent's were:
Max played 10pin bowling and boxing on the Wii- we discovered that he was very very good at it!
We went to the Soft Play-- once M and T went with Gran alone and another time we all went.
We went shopping in Carlisle with Mum, and I got to go into town with just the babies and met up with 2 friends from School and had a good gossip and catch up-- it was as if we'd never been away (except instead of the fit lads we were talking about kids).

Oooh I also had a wonderful Back Massage at The Retreat, Kirkbride which totally relaxed me and is probably one of the longest moments that I've been away from ALL the kids since Z and R were born.

In the last 2 weeks of Jan we've not really done anything special, we've been to Stay and Play and Max has been to Playgroup. ooh except we've been in the local papers.

Leicester LLL has opened a breastfeeding support cafe once a week on weds 10am-12, and I was interviewed about the importance of having the right type of support when you are embarking on the journey of being a breastfeedingmother, I've put a copy of it on flickr- pic article The official opening of the cafe is this Wednesday and I'll be there with just the babies and some slings.

Subjects that Max has expressed an interest in are: How babies are made; How Volcanos are made. he's expressed an interest in writing numbers, and knows that 5 (fingers) and 5 (fingers) makes 10, that 4 and 4 is 8, and that 4 and 2 is 6. He knows how to write the letters a and o, to write his name max, and recognises most of the numbers 1-12. Today he showed an ability to jump rope with two people winding it!


Theo has expressed an interest in drawing, throwing, climbing and jumping, and caring for a baby (a doll ).

Zac and Ryan are both sitting quite well supported, and Ryan has decided that he needs to be on his feet and if supported will make steps. Zac also likes being on his feet and they are both enjoying being vocal and interesting in everything.

I will still attempt to remember to update this blog more often- as I'm struggling to remember details.

Happy New Year- 2009, Year of the busy Mum!

Wow 2009! Time goes so fast.

We are now a family of 6 +2!

Myself, Dh (Darling hubby), our 4 boys, Max, Theo, Zac and Ryan and visiting regularly Dh's two kids from earlier in his life... Ant (21) and Koren (14)

Max will be 5 in just under 7 weeks, Theo is 2yrs and 2.5months and Zac and Ryan are just over 3 months old.

This year will be truely the Year of the Busy Mum (namely me!).

Tomorrow Myself and the boys are driving up to Cumbria to stay with my Parents for 9days. This will be the first trip up there that I've done with the babies too. Dh is staying at home and hopefully will be finishing the miniextension where the fridgefreezer will go.

I'm a little apprehensive as to how our drive will go. I know that we can do the journey with 3 stops, but that was without the babies, we may have to stop overnight at a hotel. That would be 'interesting'!

I'm looking forward to this year for many reasons, seeing my kids grow, sharing my knowledge and experience of birth, breastfeeding, part-time ecing, babywearing of singles and twins. Loving the days when the chaos works, learning from the days when chaos could be better organised (gotta love organised chaos), home-educating Max, getting Theo out of nappies.

Max- into Ben 10, spiderman and computer games (preferably with Ben10 in them), he can count to 20, and count down from 10, read and write his name on paper AND computer, starting to tell the time, knows that milk makes yoghurt, cheese and butter, asking which creatures have bones or not, knows that a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, knows how babies are born (he watched Theo's birth), can use a camera, make things out of playdough, throw things, build things up and knock things down, and many more thing that will come to mind later, I'm sure.

Theo- likes throwing, banging, climbing, bouncing, cuddling, and giggling. Not a great talker but understands EVERYTHING. Has made up a few signs for himself, so am encouraging him to use more from books that we have. He's also starting to use the toilet, perhaps this is a continuation of the part time ecing (elimination communication) we did when he was a baby (before he started running)

Zac- a big smiler, so laid back, ticklish, giggles, likes kisses and cuddles.

Ryan- rolling onto his side, smiling, giggling, trying to sit up, like kisses, not so cuddly as Zac.

Things I hope to accomplish this year:

1. Keep adding to this Blog (in a more clear and concise way than this post!)
2. Arrange the house a little so things have a place to live that isn't a pile.
3. Go on holiday.
4. Have fun as a family.
5. Find a little time each week for Myself and Dh.
6. Start up our slingmeet group again.

I should be able to accomplish these things.