When I first started getting cross easily, I put it down to exhaustion from not sleeping.  Then I wondered why I wasn’t sleeping and thought that maybe the rage and the insomnia were both being caused by the same thing.  Gill suggested that it might still be exhaustion.  Now Mum had suggested a thought as to why I’m not sleeping and I now think that the anger is caused by tiredness.  Not sure how I’m going to get sleeping though if this is the reason:

A few weeks ago Dh spent the night have horrific dreams - really upsetting.  Each time he woke, he said, he saw a figure in the doorway…not a sinister figure.  Eventually Dh woke me up to tell me about his dreams, in an attempt to take his mind off them.  I did as I automatically do every single time I wake and put my hand onto Cotton-tail’s tummy to see if she is breathing.  She wasn’t.  I screamed and grabbed Cotton-tail and gave her a shake.  She opened her eyes and grinned at me.  Dh and I spent the next hour crying, then playing with Cotton-tail, then helping her get back to sleep.  Dh had no more nightmares and the ‘figure’ had gone.  Was the figure Cotton-tail’s guardian angel?  I believe so.  I believe he was keeping Dh tossing and turning in his sleep to disturb Cotton-tail and keep her breathing. 

However, it does appear to be since that night that I haven’t been able to sleep, having only had a handful of nights when I can.  The nights I can sleep are getting slowly more frequent.  If that’s the reason, I guess I just have to be patient and wait until peaceful sleep returns to me as my subconcious gets more confident that Cotton-tail is safe.

The natural learning processes of babies and children is of endless fascination to me.  Observing it makes me more and more keen on autonomous education and I feel very certain that we will continue our parenting philosophy of being led by our off-spring forever

Cotton-tail is currently learning how to eat solid foods.  As regular readers of this blog will know, we unintentionally did ‘baby-led weaning’ with Flopsy (she refused anything off a spoon except yoghurt) and, having learnt more about it, did it on purpose with Mopsy.  Cotton-tail is now 6.5 months and has been joining us at the table in her tripp trapp high-chair (no tray) for a few weeks (of course she’s been with us at mealtimes since she was born, but usually sleeping in someone’s arms or wriggling on someone’s lap).  She is learning to eat in this way:

1. Learning how to pick up food, and, more specifically, learning how to pick up different types of food.  She loves it that cucumber slides around and feels cold but that potato mashes up in her hand

2. Then she has learnt how to get it into her mouth.  Her hand control has developed enough for her to make sure she picks the food up in such a way that there is enough food ‘visible’ to get some into her mouth.  She is also starting to learn how to put food from one hand into another to make it more accessible.

3. Next she is learning how to bite pieces off what she’s got in her hand - a very pleasing experience, particuarly when every food does different things: Brocolli kind of breaks up into tiny little pieces which feel very interesting in her mouth; pasta feels slippery

4. Her current plan is to master the art of moving food around in her mouth with her tongue.  Lots of gagging involved in this phase; and spitting food out onto the table, but she’s getting there.

5. The next thing she has to learn is how to mash the food up so it’s easy to swallow.  We’re beginning to see less food on the floor after mealtimes so I’m guessing she’s doing this a little already.  Her poos have yet to change, though, so she’s obviously not doing it very much!

The theory suggests that all this falls into place at about the same time her gut is ready to digest it all effectively and safely, when it’s less permeable to allergens and bacteria.  I don’t need to worry about her lacking in nutrients due to the lack of solid food intake because she’s still breastfed on demand.  If she’s anything like her sisters, by the time she gets to 8 or 9 months she’ll be eating food like her Daddy (albeit a bit messier!).

 Mopsy is currently learning how to settle herself in the night.  Flopsy is the only one of our babies to experience any sleep-training and that only consisted of a grand total of two minutes controlled crying and a week’s worth of patting/rocking to sleep at 5 months old in the misguided belief that it was bad for her to learn to fall asleep at the breast.  When we stopped all that nonsense, life got much easier and, miraculously, Flopsy has been falling asleep without breastfeeding for at least 18 months and sleeping right through the night most nights; only needing a loo visit and a cuddle to settle if she does wake. 

Mopsy is doing exactly what Flopsy did.  Breastfeeding no longer gets her to sleep. It does switch her mind off and start the process, but the action of suckling now keeps her from falling fast asleep most of the time.  So we feed, and then she rolls over and falls asleep herself while I cuddle her (when evenings work out well, that’s what happens - I won’t go into that whole thing now, though!).  Most of the time when she wakes in the night (two or three times), she now rolls over mumbling a half-hearted request for a breastfeed (yak yak, she calls it) but falls asleep before I get to feed her. 

The next step will be settling before she even asks for milk.  However we’ve upset the process a bit now by decorating their room for them and pushing the two single beds together.  They now both want to sleep in there, which is lovely for them.  And it’s very pleasing to me to note that when Mopsy does wake, she doesn’t cry for me - she’s not scared of not sleeping next to me - she just calls ‘Mummy’ and me or DH go and get her and bring her back into our bed where she settles very quickly.  It does mean that she’s woken up more than she would if she were stirring next to me so she does need feeding to get back to sleep. 

When Flopsy did this, it was the start of the weaning process…maybe I’ll start thinking about weaning Mopsy but I don’t really feel like I want to like I did when Flopsy was this age.  Mopsy is much happier than Flopsy was to have feeds that last a few seconds (more a cursory checking in with me, than an actual need to feed); and she doesn’t ask as much as Flopsy did.  We’ll just see how it goes for now.

Flopsy is currently having a ‘learning to read’ phase.  She’s had lots of these during her life so far.  The early ones were things like a desire to learn her letters; or wanting to sit with me with a book and tell me her own version of the story; or asking me to point out the words in whatever book I’m reading and tell her what they say.  At the moment she’s bringing books to us and asking us to read the words with her.  Her favourite book ever is one she discovered a couple of years ago at the back of a bookcase.  It’s called Daily Light and is a collection of Bible readings - one for every day of the year.  Now no one could describe us as devoted Christians, but I’ve been brought up a Christian and my Grandparents would love it if we went to church regularly and read the Bible.  They gave me this book when I was 15.  It’s small - about 8cm wide; 13cm tall and 2cm thick and Flopsy has fallen in love with it.  It has proper thin pages like a Bible has, which I think appeals to her.  We’ve never read to her from it, so she has no idea what it says (I think!), but she loves it - ‘reads’ it when we’re reading our books in the evening etc.  At the moment she often brings it to me asking me what the words say - she doesn’t want me to read it to her, but wants me to point to the words and if she knows them she reads them and if she doesn’t, I do. 

She’s also very keen on reading one of the bedtime stories they choose every night and that’s really enjoyable.  We have a collection of Puddle Lane books - mostly bought from car boot sales to satisify my nostalgia! - and she is also really enjoying reading those with me.  I read the adult’s side of the page; then she reads the child’s side; then she gets bored and wants me to read it all. 

These reading bouts take place randomly during the day and very frequently happen at 10pm when we’re reading in bed before going to sleep.  Another reason to be glad she won’t be going to school - she can learn to read in her own time and whenever and whatever she likes

PS.  All three girls are also learning heaps of other things all the time, of course, but these things seem to be what they’re focussing on at the moment. 

This afternoon we all witnessed the next stage of Cotton-tail’s development, she hauled herself along towards play money (highly appropriate toy for a 5 month old). She achieved her goal to a rapturous applause from myself (dh - yes I am having a go with modern technology and sat at the computer!!),  mummy and her 2 older sisters who thought it was the best thing ever.

Yesterday we…

 Cuddled,

  did some ballet,

 drew pictures, watched tv (no photo of that as it didn’t make a very interesting photo ;-)),

 pretended to go to sleep with Teddy,  planted out the lettuce seedlings,

 sowed more lettuce seeds,

  marvelled at how much the tomato seedlings and sunflower seedlings have grown,

 laughed at Flopsy and Mopsy bouncing a ball,

 did puzzles with Grandma during an impromptu visit from her and Grandad,

  grinned at Mummy,

  made flowers (inspired by something on Teletubbies),

 and experimented very briefly with coloured cellophane.

Also did a lot of dressing up and reading stories, which we forgot to take pictures of!

One of the things I’m looking forward to most about owning our own house is the garden.  Up until now in our rented houses, I’ve half-heartedly planted up pots and hanging baskets but I’ve never felt much motivation to do anything else, despite being very keen to grow our own vegetables and maybe some berries.  It’s just too frustrating knowing that any work I do in the garden will not benefit us in the long-term as we may not be staying there for more than one summer.  Now it looks like we might be able to stay here for as long as we want, we are excitedly making plans for the garden (and the house…but of course house plans are relatively expensive so they’ll have to wait!).

 Over the summer we are planning to clear away the bushes beside the play house.  There’s a silver birch where the bushes start to get taller, so we’ll only clear as far as there.  Then we’re going to move the playhouse and, in the Autumn, dig that whole regtangle over with some rotted manure from a friend with a farm ready to grow some vegetables in next year.

 This weekend, we’re going to cut down the left hand side of this buddleia (can you see that branch growing diagonally?  It’s that one we’ll cut off).  We’re then going to move the hexagonal wooden ’sand pit’ thing into that space, which gets a lot of sun from noon onwards, fill it with compost from Mum and Dad’s ancient compost bin and plant a load of herbs I bought yesterday.

Yesterday the girls sowed their sunflower seeds that Flopsy won when playing pass-the-parcel at her friend’s birthday party:

  And I planted sweet peas:

And Cotton-tail lazed about on her mat:

Just to round off the photos post, here’s Mopsy before her bicycle accident on Saturday:  

and a great action shot of them both in the paddling pool:

Well I am pleased to report that both Flopsy and Mopsy are proving extremely capable of self-regulating their tv-time.  They have gone from watching it nearly constantly for a couple of days, to watching a video, then coming down to play, then watching another video and so on, to watching it only when life is boring ie. not much going on during the day.  They haven’t made it downstairs yet (10.40am), but then Flopsy only woke up an hour ago and Mopsy only woke up half an hour ago!  They’re watching Postman Pat or something, but they had such a fun time outside in the paddling pool yesterday that I’m anticipating another day in the sunshine when the garden warms up a bit.  I’ve made them some ice-lollies for later, so they’ll enjoy those. 

A very kind friend of Mum’s has handed down two girls’ bikes with stabilisers to Flopsy and Mopsy so yesterday we went to buy them helmets.  Thank goodness I was so insistent that they don’t even have a little go on them until they had helmets - Mopsy was only on her bike for about five minutes before she rode down a little slope and came off it.  She’s bruised her cheek, cut herself somewhere in her mouth as it was bleeding, bruised her knee and grazed her knuckles.  It’s all very superficial, but if she hadn’t had her helmet on she would have hit her head very hard and we would have had a trip to A&E!  It’s the one time I hate being a Mum when you watch one of your babies hurt themselves potentially very badly and you’re powerless to stop it .  Still, thank goodness for breastfeeding!  It calmed her very quickly and, of course, stopped the bleeding in the mouth nearly instantly so we could see there was no tooth damage or anything.  Flopsy’s too scared to get on the bike at all because it wobbles, being a proper bike with stabilisers - true to form it’s Mopsy who just goes for it and Flopsy who holds back!

I’ve been thinking about this total autonomy malarky and I have these positive things our family have noticed over the last week:  For Cotton-tail, Flopsy and Mopsy watching tv means more time for her with me - something Mopsy didn’t get as a baby; I’m less stressed for a few reasons; partly because I’m working with the girls instead of against them; partly because the ‘electronic babysitter’ allows me to keep the house in a nicer state and gives me a break from entertaining them which then means I’m in a better state of mind for some better quality ‘entertaining’ when they’re not watching tv; of course me being less stressed means that all three get a better Mummy; the girls are both learning lots of songs and dances as most of the videos they choose to watch are things like Fun Song Factory and they both join in so it’s certainly not a passive activity all the time; the tv also informs their imaginative play and they often come out with ‘evidence’ of learning that they must have got from the tv; I’m having to do less washing as they’re wearing fewer clothes (I’m trying to get less hung-up on getting them to do things just because it’s socially conventional!) - in fact…message for Mum - don’t worry about getting them any more summer clothes for the moment…I’m anticipating much near-nakedness this summer and therefore clothing quota will not need to be so high as in winter!; also, we’re getting more lie-ins as the girls are staying up until they fall asleep where they stand, or ask to be taken to bed, which is usually quite late, so they’re sleeping late in the mornings - always a good thing in my eyes

House: Well we didn’t get the co-op mortgage but only because of guarantor problems.  We’ve since engaged the services of a mortgage broker who came to gather information on Thursday and rang me on Friday to say that he’ll definitely be able to get us a mortgage on our income without a gurantor and we’re just waiting for Tuesday or Wednesday next week for a letter with a choice of mortgages.  So it looks like we will be able to buy the house for definite.  I’m a bit nervous of the next step though…making an offer…and finding a conveyancer…it all seems much too grown up for me!

We’ve been having a very good, if very long and boring day today.  The girls have been upstairs watching tv, then coming down to play/argue/eat, then going back up again all day so far.  I’ve been tidying, doing laundry and surfing the net looking for free crochet patterns for a cardigan for Flopsy.  Today we have:

Played with the farmyard.

   Played at being ’supermum’ - Flopsy has a baby in the buggy, one in the sling and one in the rucksack on her back! 

Laughed as we noticed that Cotton-tail had fallen asleep while having a nappy-free kick on her play mat.

Snuggled up and made Mummy remember that we really are very adorable.

We went to a soft play centre and had lunch there, then in the afternoon we made flubber.  Needless to say, Mopsy particularly adored it and played with it for at least twenty minutes - no mean feat for a two year old!  She played with it again in the evening.  I’m wondering how long it lasts for…anyone know?

This is a flower that Flopsy coloured in yesterday.  She was so proud of it - it’s the first time she’s managed colouring in truly within the lines.  She wanted to show it to Nana, Grandpa, Grandma, Grandad, Va and Great-dad (her Great-grandparents) so I said we’d put it on here for them to see (please leave comments!). 

Cotton-tail is now so strong and wriggly that we can’t leave her on a high surface as she wriggles and kicks enough to push herself back and spin herself around.  She’s very fun to have around.

I’m going to be working as the BFC at one of our new local BF Peer Support groups and I’m so excited about it! Yes, I’m getting paid for it, which is wonderful, but the funding is not secure after March so I may not get paid for long but I don’t care - I just want to be working officially as a BFC and I can’t wait. I’m starting officially on the 27th, but am filling in for the BfN Trainee Supporter who’s been attending up until now tomorrow, and next week we’ll both be going for a sort of ‘hand-over’.

I’ve been working on the NCT Breastfeeding Helpline a lot, which I’m really enjoying. We’re allowed to do up to 30 hours a month and I started out doing 2 hours in the evenings, but listening for 2 hours is hard work, so I’ve changed it to doing 1 hour most evenings and the odd hour in the morning when DH is off work and it’s going really well.

We’re changing our lives a bit at the moment - trying to get the girls to have a ‘bedtime’ is getting more and more stressful, so we’ve decided to give up. We have enjoyed our period of having evenings to ourselves, but it’s really not worth the battle we’re having to endure at the moment in order to get an hour in front of the tv (as that’s all we have the energy for by that point!). We’re going to just play, play, play with the girls all evening until we all go to bed together…maybe they’ll decide they want a ‘bedtime’ again in the future, but for now, we’re going to enjoy our family and put our ‘time to ourselves’ to one side for a bit.

Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail continue to be a delightful trio of sisters - we are very much enjoying being the parents of three and are finding it a whole lot easier than when Mopsy was born. We seem to be lucky enough to be in the group of parents who can report that the impact of the third child is much, much less than the impact of the second.