All Charlie and Lola stories start out with “I have this little sister, Lola.  She is small and very funny”.  Last night Flopsy picked up a Charlie and Lola book and ‘read’ out those two sentences then said “Mummy, I’m going to read this book to you, can you listen to me?”.  So I suggested that she came and sat next to me and we read it together.  I pointed to each word, she read the ones she knows already (’the’, ‘it’, ‘and’ etc. - she knows quite a few and the book she’d chosen happened to have quite a number of her known words in it, which was great for her confidence); asked me for the words she doesn’t yet know, repeating them after me; and ‘read’ out the sentences she knew off by heart from being read the story so many times before, but still by pointing at each word.  This is the first time she’s ever done this in this way…up until now her reading progression has mostly been by looking over my shoulder as I read my books, pointing out the words she recognises, and asking me what some other words say.  This led onto her asking me to read her whole sentences, and even paragraphs, word by word - even though the books were grown-up books with no pictures, she still loved to do this an awful lot.  She’s obviously moved on a stage in her reading and it’s so exciting and lovely to see, without any coercion from us at all. 

Mopsy’s forte, on the other hand, is art.  She’s spent the last month asking every adult around to draw pictures of Father Christmas and snowmen.  She watches very carefully how they do it.  Gradually she’s started to draw Father Christmasses and Snowmen of her own.  They wouldn’t be recognisable to anyone else, but she often says what she’s drawing as she’s doing it and it’s quite wonderful.  She does a big circle for the face, with little circles inside for the eyes, then zigzags all around for a beard.  I will try to take a photo of one to put on here soon.  I love, love, love watching them grow up.

Oh yes, forgot I had three children to blog about now…Cotton-tail is smiling at us, adores gazing at her big sisters while they dance around trying to entertain her, and has started to make those wonderful coo-ing noises when she’s calm and happy.  She’s amazingly strong and desperately tries to roll towards whoever or whatever is catching her attention.  I think she’s going to be a real, delightful pickle in the summer when she does get mobile - how on earth am I going to keep her safe?  Keeping Mopsy safe was hard enough, but I only had one toddler to tidy up after then!   

We celebrated yesterday with family and a lovely afternoon was had by all.  I spent the morning decorating a cake for her, which I’d made the day before.  As she is obsessed with Father Christmas (”Mishmush”, she calls him, and is absolutely delighted when she sees a picture of him and distraught if we dare to throw one away!  She’s even learnt to draw through her love of Mishmush, and spent all of last month refusing to speak to us unless we called her Mishmush, instead of her real name!), I had thought to make her a Father Christmas cake, but then we considered the fall-out that would ensue when we cut into him and, horrors, ate him!!!  So I decided to make her a Lola cake (from Charlie and Lola), who is another favourite, but not quite so dear to Mopsy’s heart as Father Christmas. 

Flopsy:  Mummy, what does one and one make?

Me: two

Flopsy: what does two and two make?

Me: four

Flopsy: what does four and four make?

Me: eight

Flopsy: what does eight and eight make?

Me: sixteen

Flopsy: sixteen?  ok, thanks.

Sorry it’s taken so long - this is the first time in ages I’ve had a chance to sit at the computer for an undisturbed length of time!

So, DH and I were discussing (with me in tears) whether or not to let the MW break my waters.  I was very concerned about a) the pain and b) the risk of the accelerated labour possibly causing Cotton-tail to get distressed.  I also felt instinctively that it wasn’t necessary - I’d had a very long start of labour with Mopsy but once she got going she only took 5 hours.  I’d spent most of the first niggling part feeling very disheartened and fed up and miserable in Mopsy’s labour but this time round I just felt a bit guilty that I was wasting everyone’s time.  My actual feelings about the labour were ‘let it happen…it’s fine…I don’t mind it taking ages…it will happen when it’s ready’.  So we went downstairs and told the MW our decision.  I said that, as it was so late at night, but not too late yet, I felt that it would be more productive to make the most of my rubbish contractions and for me to try to get some sleep, and for everyone else to do so too.  I suggested that, unless she thought it was dangerous not to break my waters, we wait until morning when we’ve all had some rest, then try to get things going again with maybe another sweep and some marching up and down stairs and then break my waters if nothing was changing by mid-morning.  She said that it was my call and she didn’t think it was dangerous at all to wait…she just had been concerned about my tiredness levels.  She sent the second midwife home but said that as she’d examined me and recorded that I was 5cm dilated and therefore officially in establised labour (although I clearly wasn’t, going by my contractions!), she couldn’t leave me unless I demanded that she did (as otherwise she’d be trespassing!).  So she bedded down on the sofa (we did make up the spare bed for her - we’re not that mean!  but she said she’d prefer the sofa), Mum slept in Rosie’s bed and DH and I cuddled up to Flopsy and Mopsy in our bed for our last night as a four-person family.

I did manage to get a bit of sleep over the next few hours, but mostly just relished lying in bed with my biggest babies feeling my contractions come and go gently.  They felt like shallow waves, just ebbing and flowing and I felt very calm and peaceful, just looking forward to the next day when I knew I would meet my baby.

I got up at 4am, having started to feel a little restless, and woke Mum to ask her to keep me company while I paced about downstairs.  We woke the MW and Mum made some tea and toast, although I couldn’t eat anything.  I’d been sipping Sprite all the time to keep my sugar levels up, as I’d done in both my other labours.  We kept the lights turned down low and I continued pacing and marching, but I still couldn’t stop analysing and talking about how things were going.  I suggested to the MW, when I realised the contractions still weren’t getting stronger or more regular, that I wake DH at 6am and break my waters then.  So that was the plan.  Things stayed the same as my self-imposed ’deadline’ approached, and I eventually went up to wake DH.  I managed to persuade myself to increase the deadline by saying that I couldn’t have my waters broken until the pool was hot enough and we’d have to wait for DH to add some hot water to it for that…and I’d have to let DH have some breakfast etc.  So I paced some more, continuing to chat inanely.

All this time I’d been taking homeopathic remedies to try to change things a bit, but they hadn’t really had much effect on the physical things, only on the emotional bits, so around 6.30/7ish I suggested to DH that he get the labour massage oil we’d bought and that he use it to massage my back during contractions as I felt they were hurting more and also the essential oils in the blend were ones that were said to increase contractions.  He got the oil and for the next few contractions I knelt leaning forwards over the ball doing my yoga breathing while he massaged my back.  I had noticed that I always had a strong contraction when I sat on the loo, so the MW thought it might be a good idea for her to drive to the birth unit and pick up their birthing stool for me to sit on during contractions - a bit more pleasant than the loo!  She left the house at about 7.30am joking that sod’s law would mean I’d probably have the baby while she was gone!  Fairly soon after she left, DH and I realised that the contractions really were becoming much stronger so I asked him to time them…low and behold they came very five minutes on the dot!  At long last!  I was having to really concentrate on breathing through the contractions, leaning over the ball and rocking back and forth while DH rubbed my back and bottom firmly with the massage oil. 

When the MW returned (it must have been about 8ish) we informed her of the regularity of the contractions and, despite the fact that they were getting no closer together, they were getting stronger each time.  At some point Mum came down with a very sleepy Mopsy who had just woken up and wanted a feed.  I fed her between contractions and she came off very reluctantly when the next one started, only cheering up when Mum suggested they go and watch a bit of CBeebies upstairs!  At some point I decided I wanted to get back into the pool so we did, but the MW decided not to bother calling the second MW this time.  Soon after I got in, we realised that the contractions had slowed from being every five minutes for the last hour to every seven minutes, again it was exactly seven minutes every single time.  I didn’t feel too disheartened this time though, as they were certainly hurting enough!  DH stayed out of the pool at first, sitting on a chair beside me and stroking my hair while I floated backwards and forwards trying to do my yoga breathing through each contraction. 

Suddenly I decided I’d had enough!  I wanted to get this baby out, but I was too scared of the pain to have my waters broken at home.  I told DH and the MW very clearly that I had made a decision, I wanted to get out of the pool, get dressed, drive to the hospital and have an epidural before having my waters broken.  I felt very calm about my decision and very determined that this was the best option.  I knew I had seven minutes between each contraction to do the things necessary to get me to the hospital and under complete pain relief.  Mum came downstairs to get drinks for the girls and, after the MW told her what I wanted, told her to ignore me - “she always says this!”, she said, and told me something along the lines of ”don’t be so ridiculous”!  Mum, DH and the MW were trying to be very encouraging saying “you can do this, Clare, you’ve done it before - you can have this baby at home - you can manage the pain”.  Well!  “I’m sorry”, I said, “I know I can do it, I just don’t bloody want too!  I’ve had enough, and I know how much more it’s going to hurt and I don’t want the pain anymore!”.  But would they listen???  No, they flipping wouldn’t!  Mum told me afterwards that the MW (who has years and years of experience) said that usually she ignores these transitional ramblings, but she was a bit concerned as I sounded so lucid and calm that I really meant it!  “I did really mean it!”, I told Mum.  No one believes me!  Oh well, lucky for me they didn’t really!  I think I’d been thinking to myself that, having birthed Mopsy with no pain relief at all, I ought to be doing it again like that, or going the whole hog and having an epidural.  For some reason I had it in my head that I’d be a failure if I had gas and air this time round.  The MW really encouraged me to just try the gas and air.  I had used it with Flopsy, but I’d started using it so early on, I don’t think I really believed that it worked - I had nothing to compare it with, really.  And then having not had it at all with Mopsy but having needed to stay lucid the whole time so that I didn’t push, meant that it was so, so painful having her and I was really, really dreading that pain again.  Eventually I asked the MW to go upstairs to get the girls to come down and play in the next room so I could be reminded why the hell I was doing this!  and at the same time I gave in and said I’d try the gas and air, not really believing that it would have any effect at all.

Boy was I wrong!  Woweeee!  The MW set up the gas and air and went upstairs to get the girls while I had the next contraction…it hurt like hell, but did I care???  Nope!  I couldn’t have cared less!  I was busy enjoying the floating around somewhere near the ceiling!  Hurrah for feeling totally high!  I was completely spaced out and *loving* it!  I remember slurring to DH that it felt totally lush and that I may faint but not to worry about me.  Then I remember thinking hazily “Hmmm…I really fancy floating under the water now, but DH might think I’ve fainted…how will I let him know I’m under the water out of choice?”.  I think I may actually have laughed a few times.  But the relaxation had another effect…it allowed my brain to switch off and my body and instincts to switch on.  Pretty much straight away my contractions changed suddenly from seven minutes apart to just a few second apart and being stronger than ever.  I remember Mopsy coming in and stroking my cheek while I moaned and mooed through a contraction.  I remember hearing the MW saying gently ”Mummy can’t talk right now”.  I remember seeing Flopsy wandering in and out a few times too.  Then I started to feel Cotton-tail moving down and I wasn’t spaced out enough to not recognise that feeling, that delicious feeling and knowledge that my baby would be with me soon.  I said to DH and the MW “baby’s coming now” and the MW dashed off to call the second MW.  When she got back from the phone I asked DH to get in the pool with me.  He had his head near mine and his hand stroking my hair.  Over the next 15 minutes I concentrated on mooing, getting high, mooing some more and tried to focus on the feeling of Cotton-tail moving closer and closer to the outside world.  The whole time I never once felt like I needed to push.  I remember hearing the MW asking DH what he could see - she must have given him a mirror I think as I was kneeling and leaning forwards so he couldn’t have seen anything unless he’d been underwater otherwise!  I remember hearing him saying he could see her head and I remember thinking “why are you telling me this? I can feel exactly where her head is!”, but of course I was mooing too loudly to actually say it out loud, and I realise now the MW was wanting DH to tell her what was going on, not me!   

Then I felt her head crowning - the waters still hadn’t broken, just like with Mopsy, and I spent each tiny gap between contractions wondering when I’d feel that huge pop as they burst. Eventually they went and I could feel that Cotton-tail’s head would be born with the next contraction.  Then, with a huge feeling of relief from me, her head was out.  I called Mum to bring the girls in quickly if they still wanted to watch her be born.  All through these agonising contractions that were taking over my whole body, but, thanks to the gas and air, not my mind!, DH was stroking my hair and keeping his face close to my ear telling me over and over how much he loved me and how well I was doing and how soon our baby would be with us.  It was the most wonderful, incredibly soothing thing he could have done and really, really encouraged me.  Then the next contraction started and I yelled a bit and then she was born!  The most complete and utter feeling of relief and exhaustion rushed through me and I rested my head on my arms while I tried to block out the MW who was saying “Clare!  Clare!”, trying to get my attention.  I said “I know!  I know the baby’s out” and felt “why are you telling me?  I can feel the baby’s out!  Now I just want to sleep!”.  But then DH tugged gently at my shoulder to turn me round, and the MW moved Cotton-tail up between my legs for me to take and all my tiredness fell away.  My baby was there, in my arms, beautiful and warm and pink and alive and wriggling and slippery and perfect.

It was 10.35am, 3 hours after my contractions got strong and regular, so if I’d had no VE, I’d have had a very quick first stage.  Eventually I remembered that it might be nice to know whether it was a boy or a girl so I moved her bottom half up for Flopsy to find out (she’d asked beforehand if she could be the one!) - she looked but didn’t tell us so we had to look too.  Although we’d had no feelings either way about what sex she would be, we were absolutely delighted and completely unsurprised to find out she was another daughter. 

Then I decided to get out so I could lie down and feed her - the physical exhaustion was beginning to return, although I didn’t feel tired in myself at all.  I was very wobbly and shaky as I tried to get out of the pool with Cotton-tail in my arms, DH behind me holding me up and Mum and the MW on either side of me - the second MW hadn’t made it in time!  Someone had laid a neat little path of inco-pads for me to walk over, which was lucky as I could feel that I was bleeding more than I remembered with the other two as I walked to the sofa.  I told the MW so and she decided to get the second MW (who was just arriving) to draw up some syntometrine for the third stage in case I was haemorrhaging.  “Stuff that!”  I thought to myself, and I tried to get Cotton-tail to feed asap as I knew that was a far better way to get the placenta out.  She wasn’t really interested yet though, so I asked Mum to bring Mopsy over to feed - hurrah for tandem nursing!  The placenta arrived pretty much as soon as Mopsy started feeding - the MW confirmed that the bleeding was within normal limits and I didn’t need the injection, and I looked down to see Mopsy holding Cotton-tail’s hand as she fed.  Flopsy brought over the necklace she’d been making while I was in labour - she wanted to show it to Cotton-tail - and together with DH we all welcomed our newest family member while the wonderful MW sat in the corner of the room writing her notes and just letting us be.  Eventually she asked me if we wanted to cut the cord yet, she took cord blood (to test, as I’m Rhesus negative) and then I think Mum cut the cord.  I can’t remember what happened when after that, lots of cuddling, breastfeeding and washing (of me, not Cotton-tail), I expect!  Now writing all that has made me want to have another one! 

I remember going through these feelings when I was still feeding Flopsy, and I’m going through them again now.  Breastfeeding Mopsy is irritating me a lot at the moment, both physically and emotionally.  I am so tired of hearing her going “yakyak” (her word for breastfeeding - don’t ask how she thought of it!) all day long (and even in her sleep!) and I would dearly love to be not breastfeeding her right now.  But do I want her to wean?  No, I don’t think I do, as she clearly still needs it.  It’s also the quickest way to help her through any meltdowns, hurts, bad dreams etc. etc.  I do love breastfeeding her when she’s sleeping - for some reason it’s not half so irritating physically, and it’s warm, dark and cosy and very, very special.  In the day time it’s a completely different story, though.  She gets very upset when I refuse, although occasionally she’s happy to have her feeds limited to just a few seconds.  I just need to let off steam about how maddening it is right now.  I just want to feed Cotton-tail, and I guess that’s my instincts kicking in - I need to protect my newborn!  I know I felt like this with Flopsy, and I also know that I got through it.  However, I continued to experience more and more episodes where I found breastfeeding her annoying, right up until she weaned - I thought of it in the end as the beginning of a two-way weaning process ie. we both started the nursing relationship together, and we both ended it together.  I guess, thinking about how nature works, if mothers adored breastfeeding the whole time, there would be little or no incentive for them to help their little ones to wean - it’s probably no coincidence that it commonly becomes irritating for mothers to breastfeed at approximately the same time as toddlers start to become ready to break away from that part of their babyhood.  Sometimes Mopsy gets over her distress at not being allowed to feed very quickly, at other times she really does get beside herself.  I could really do with devising a strategy to deal with this.  When I weaned Flopsy, I always fed her if she got beside herself with distress at not being allowed to feed, but it rarely happened so I assumed from this that she was probably emotionally able to deal with weaning.  Maybe the fact that Mopsy only sometimes gets this distressed suggests that she’s near that point herself…?  Maybe just that thought might keep me going…?  The situation’s not helped by the knowledge that having a new baby sister is going to make Mopsy’s need for breastfeeding much greater - she needs to know she’s still my baby - so I don’t want to actually wean her completely yet.  Tandem nursing can be a wonderful thing, but it can be the total opposite at times as well!  However, I guess if I weren’t still feeding Mopsy, she’d be doing other things that may make my life difficult - at least breastfeeding is a pretty easy thing to do, as long as I can get over the irritation of it!  Much easier than dealing with meltdowns or other challenging toddler behaviour like hitting/biting etc.!

Mopsy is acquiring numeracy skills in a completely different way to how Flopsy did it.  Flopsy has an excellent grasp of number, often doing very simple addition sums without realising it (of course, I have to stop myself leaping up and trying to get her to do more, and to understand the implications of what she’s just done LOL!), and can count to a hundred easily now.  She learnt all this firstly by learning 1-10 by rote (at 23 months old - the same age Mopsy is now) - simply through hearing us do it hundreds of times with an abacus style toy she had, and through rhymes etc.  Then she suddenly used this knowledge to count something (a couple of weeks later) - three straws, I think it was - and we knew she had acquired a concept of number.  Mopsy, on the other hand, is pretty pants at getting her numbers in the right order, and her counting usually goes ‘three four three four three’, occasionally with a ‘one’ or a ‘two’ shoved in there somewhere!  However, she only does her counting when she can see that there is more than one of something and has been doing this for quite some time now - she has acquired her concept of number before knowing the numbers themselves.  It’s totally fascinating, as I’m sure she’s learnt her numeracy skills in a far more natural way - Flopsy being our first baby, we spent a lot of time surreptitiously ‘teaching’ her these things, while Mopsy has just learnt from living and from being with her big sister all the time.  In the last week, Mopsy has been recognising and identifying when there is only one thing, and when there are two things.  She’s really learning and it’s a delight to watch - this is one of the reasons I’ve mentioned many times before, that we want to HE - we want to *see* the learning happening because it’s one of the most rewarding things about parenting, in my opinion

1) Moving house - never blogged about this, but when we moved house, my goodness did I surprise myself by how coercive I could actually be! 

2) Having babies - ok, every mother knows what ‘cabin fever’ is like, and knows the desperation to get out of the house after a few days of enforced staying at home.  So how exactly does one go about this when your oldest child digs her heels in and steadfastly refuses to go?  How do you control your temper when what you need to help you control it is to get OUTSIDE in the fresh air?  Talk about flipping Catch-22!  The other day I found myself staying in with Flopsy and Cotton-tail while Mum and Dad took Mopsy to the swings because, despite the fact that Flopsy loves the swings, she decided to be a little Madam and refuse to go for a wee first (we *always* have to traipse back with her ten minutes after arriving at the swings so she can go to the loo!).  So, following her example, I cut my own nose off to spite my face and said ‘fine, we won’t go to the swings at all then’.  How stupid of me!  I should have just forced her in the first place as I then spent the next fifteen minutes in uncontrollable tears, feeling absolutely furious with her and myself, to the extent that we had a blazing row and I ended up saying “I simply have got to get out, Flopsy, so if you won’t come with me I’ll leave you here alone” - cue desperate screaming from Flopsy, and desperate guilt from myself for even thinking about saying such a thing, let alone letting it come out of my mouth!  Of course, it did the trick - she rushed to get ready so she wouldn’t be left here alone (DISCLAIMER:  I would never, ever leave a child of mine alone in the house - this was an empty threat made in a desperately hormonal angry state!).  We then walked to the swings very happily, one minute down the road Flopsy says: “I’m happy now, Mummy”.  Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!  What do you do when, not only do you, as a stressed out mother, *need* to get out, but you *know* that your child will have a lovely time once they get there and that they’re only refusing because they’re being stubborn and once they’ve made a decision not to co-operate, they can’t possibly lose face by backing down???  TCS’ers…any ideas?  Anything at all to prevent us getting to this desperate state again, particularly when it’s about something so seemingly unimportant - just a bit of flipping fresh air!?  I really could do with some help with this issue, as Flopsy seems to have made a bit of a habit about refusing to get ready to go out, even to places she really wants to go to - I’m sure that how I’ve dealt with it has something to do with her behaviour, but how do I turn it around?  I *hate* forcing her to do things!