World's Toughest Job

Has everyone seen this video? It is most definitely a must see.

I have to admit I cried watching it. It really is the world's toughest job and I have to admit I've been really struggling with it lately. I keep thinking, boy having two kids is HARD, but actually it's not that so much. Toddlers are really hard, I was struggling way before Judah arrived. Judah just increased the number of curve balls that Noah throws a day! 

This is the time when having other mum friends is really important. Ones that you can be honest about what you find hard and find you are completely normal! The thing is, the rest of the world doesn't seem to want to offer any support, even those who have kids. If I'm out and about I don't get encouraging looks, I get frowns and disapproving looks. Even at toddler groups from other parents. A woman even told Thomas off in the middle of Bluewater the other day. 

So I say, this video is great. It's really needed. Everyone should learn from it and change their attitudes. Encourage young parents, be kind and patient. At some point you have probably had, will have or were a little monster, give us a break!

Project 52 - 5/52

Yet again no photo of me this week! I promise I will do one next week. Once baby arrives there will be hundred of photos I'm sure! I have, however, just enrolled in an online photography course so look out for some improvements!

I love this photo of Noah and his pal Jack. We went to the farm with Jack and his Mum and they had the best time. Jack is five but the age difference just doesn't matter between the, they have the best time playing together. Jack would love to be a big brother, and I hope one day he realises that he's already being one to Noah. He is setting Noah the best example of how to be a good brother, he is protective and fun, he likes to show Noah new things but is willing to learn new things from Noah as well.

I can't wait to see Noah as a big brother. I think he will be really over protective at first and will not want to share. Then I also think he will really struggle with having to share me with baby. Expecting a lots of struggles in the weeks and months to come, but once they can play together I think it will be magical!

Toddler vs baby

The title of this post makes it sound like there is some kind of fight between my children. In a way it has been. If you are expecting a second child soon you may not want to read this post. Or maybe you should

Obviously we were expecting it to be hard having two children, that Noah would feel jealous and left out, that we would be tired and stressed. We were not prepared for the reality!

Now I know we are only four weeks in and we still have a lot to learn and there's time for adjustment, this is purely a post on how these four weeks have been.

Noah was really excited about the new baby before he arrived. We talked lots about what babies do and how he would have to learn to wait because sometimes I would have to look after the baby before I could play with him. There's nothing you can really do to prepare little ones though! The day Judah was born and Noah came home he was so excited, he couldn't wait to hold his new baby brother. He kept whispering to Judah, stroking him and saying "he's so little". It was completely adorable. Of course, being Noah, he still did everything at 100mph and we had to catch Judah a few times and Noah suddenly stood up when holding him, or was generally a bit rough. It wasn't malicious though it was just Noah being Noah. Naively, I thought this would be what we would have to deal with, that Noah would just be rough accidentally.

Pretty quickly though, Noah figured out this baby was not in his best interests! Noah has always wanted constant attention so it was inevitable that he would feel left out. Whilst Thomas was on paternity leave he did lots of fun things with Noah, taking him out the house for a few hours so he got one on one time, but it didn't seem to help much! The first few days, whoever was holding Judah got the cold shoulder from Noah, he would not respond to you at all if you were talking to him and holding Judah. Following on from that came the aggression. I guess I had expected it a bit as we have had to deal with that behaviour before but I didn't expect it to be so bad! It was constant biting, hitting, pushing, pinching, all day, to everyone including the baby! I say 'was' like it has stopped, it hasn't but I do feel like the fog is lifting a little! There was very little we could do to discipline Noah, he would just laugh or go to his bedroom quite contentedly and play. Nothing seemed like a punishment. As our tiredness and frustration has grown it has been so so difficult to deal with, and in all honesty Noah got quite a lot of smacks. I feel so ashamed and sad to say it but when you are that tired it's hard to stop the knee jerk reaction of hitting him back! We have done our best to put a stop to that though, how can we tell Noah that violence isn't acceptable when we do it straight back?!

What we didn't expect at all was just how heartbreaking the whole situation would be. We have both been in tears at the end of the day because we feel so awful for how it is affecting Noah. You could clearly see he felt angry, left out, rejected, sad and frustrated. As a parent, knowing you have caused your child to feel that way just breaks your heart in two. Sometimes I could see Noah wasn't in the friendliest of moods so would hold him at arms length when he was trying to get near me or Judah, I just didn't trust him not to bite one of us. Then he would say to me "don't push me away mummy" and I would just crumble. It was truly one of the hardest things I have to deal with.

The thing that made it so much worse has been permanently tired, we've really struggled to settle him at night and then he keeps waking up and coming in our room. As a result of this his impulse control has been completely switched off. Not just in relation to his aggressive behaviour, but it has made that so much worse. You can see when you tell him not to do something, he instantly does it, but the look on his face has been 'why did i do that'?!

The reason I say the fog is lifting is there have been a few occasions the last few days that Noah has gone to do something mean to Judah and has stopped himself. The first time I saw him move his hand with and toy phone in at Judah's head and stopped himself I nearly jumped for joy! He got lots of praise and was clearly pleased with himself. That's the big thing you see. Noah absolutely adores Judah, he gives him lots of cuddles and kisses, he's always asking if Judah can play with him. He snuggles up next to Judah and tells him he loves him. I know one day they will be the best of friends and my heart jumps for joy.

This is a highly emotional time, not helped by hormones and lack of sleep. The tears and smiles have both been a plenty. It's all 100% worth it though!
Bx

Project 52 - 9/52

Woah. It's crazy that another week has gone by already and now I have had two children for nearly two weeks! Judah is changing lots already, he looks less and less like Noah every day! He also looks bigger, which he is, 3 oz above his birth weight already!

Having Thomas home for paternity leave has been amazing, not just for coping with two little people, but because we've been out and done lots of nice things! This photo of Noah was taken in the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral. He has a real fascination with old churches and always asks to see the cathedral, so we finally took him. Not entirely sure it was worth £10 each to go in but he loved it! He ran around this patch of grass as an aeroplane for ages!

This photo is from Judah's first bath. We bought the bath seat so the boys could have baths together. Noah was really excited about it as he loves his baths, but we warned him Judah would probably not like his first one and cry a lot! As you can see he was not bothered in the slightest! In fact I would go as far as saying he is a water baby! He gets such a blissed out look on his face when he is in the bath! 

Bx

Project 52 - 8/52

Hooray! It's the big week! I finally have two little people to take pictures of. Judah Francis Green arrived last Tuesday (has it really been a week already?!). Trying to manage two children and get my camera out lots has been a challenge, so my photos are not necessarily the best moments of the week! Yesterday I actually sent Thomas back to the car so I could take some pictures at Canterbury Cathedral. I think I got some good shots of Noah for this week.

So here he is! His nose is just like Noah's but I think that's where the similarity ends. Everyone else thinks they are identical!

On Friday the sun came out! Having been indoors all week I just had to get out! We went down to the Coastal Park in Folkestone. Noah and Thomas always have to go the 'adventure route'! Noah always folds the brim of his wooly hat down, hence the funny peaked look!

I shall write soon about how exactly Judah arrived and all about life with two so far!

Bx

Toddler Sleep Problems

Getting a toddler to sleep. Such fun! This picture is the from the first night of when we began to resolve our problems!

Here's what happened tonight. We had a bath, mostly stress free, although he loves to splash me at the moment so the bathroom ends up SOAKED! He did not want to get in his jammies (the sign he wasn't going down easy). Then it was story time, he was not listening at all just pottered around the room whilst I read. After the first story he brought me a different one, sat on my lap and listened really nicely cuddled up to me and rubbed his eyes trying not to fall asleep. Here I'm like, 'wahoo he's going to sleep easy tonight'. So wrong!

I then put him in bed and he sort of stayed put. Now normally I will sit and read my book whilst he falls off to sleep but I had forgotten to bring it in. I could see he wasn't going off quickly so I asked him to stay put whilst I went and got it. Stay put he did not! He got out of bed shut the door behind me and got back in bed. That seemed like quite clear message so I left him to it. About five minutes later I could hear a lot of crashing around. I went up to tell him to get into bed but he refused to stay put so I left him again. Within five minutes he was crying my name. I went up again and stayed outside the room, I told him I would come and sit with him if he got in bed and refused to come in until he got into bed. Once he was in, I sat down and read my book, he was asleep very quickly and I stayed reading for ages because it was a good bit!

Now it may not sound like it but that felt like a success! I didn't need to stress, I could tell when things were going to work and what he would listen to.

Why is bedtime such a chore?!

It started when we got back from Antigua. Before that it was story, in the cot, leave the room, never go back! Whilst we were away we were either in the room or he fell asleep in the buggy. There was no routine at all. When we got back bedtime became hell!

After 10 days of fighting he told us quite clearly that the cot was the problem. So right there and then we took the sides off and turned it into his big boy bed! The first few nights were fine but after that it became a fight again. We couldn't get him to stay in bed and it was just more fight than we could handle. After much reading online we decided to put a stair gate across his door so we could just leave him to sort himself out.

Now it's a juggle each night figuring what kind of mood he is in. He does go to sleep easier if we sit in with him whilst he drifts off, but some nights we can just tell it will be easier to leave him to it. I actually love sitting in with him. Watching that kid fall asleep is one of my all time favourite things to do, but also how can I complain about getting to read every night! In the last week whilst Thomas has been studying hard I've been on bedtime duty and read half a book!

Does anyone else have any bed time nightmares? Fears of moving from a cot to a bed? Would love to hear your stories.

Bx

On having a poorly child

Snuggled up in the sofa bed - now to be called the sick den -  watching a disney movie

Noah has been really poorly for the last few days. Right now he is upstairs having a nice long nap which is the first time since Thursday. If only he had decided to sleep a bit later and I would have been able to sleep as well, none of us have been able to sleep whilst he's been ill!

It started on Thursday, I had no idea what was wrong with him, he just whined. All day. I took his temp in the afternoon because I couldn't figure out what else it could be and didn't want to take him to his swimming lesson if he was sick! The temp was fine though, so we went ahead with swimming. That evening though his temp went right up and has been floating around 38.5 - 39 degrees ever since. It did shoot up above 40 at one point which totally freaked me out (read about febrile seizures over on Melissa's blog), but he had fallen asleep under a duvet! He's had a rash on and off on his chest but this morning it came up all over his face and his eyes were all puffy. I decided it was time to visit the doctors, I knew that there wouldn't really be anything they could do but some reassurance is nice! Sure enough it is just a virus, a nasty one though, so no antibiotics unless the rash becomes pustules that start weeping (please no!). We did get some cream for his rash which will hopefully keep him more comfortable. I also got the reassurance I needed that we are doing everything right, keeping him in just a nappy, alternating between calpol and nurofen to keep his temperature in check (it hasn't actually brought it down much but at least it doesn't get any higher) and making sure he drinks lots.

The biggest shock to me has been I CAN'T DEAL WITH IT! I have become an overprotective worry mum! I'm usually so calm in a crisis, if anything happens to me I just get on with it and stay fairly level headed. Not when it's my baby apparently! I just want to take it away from him and feel sick myself! I need to hold him all the time when he's at his worst. Even if Thomas is holding him instead of me my hands are itching to take him and clutch him to me! I would give anything to make him better now.

Bx

Ahhhh bliss!

I am writing this post in an empty house! I have a coffee, some biscuits and I'm listening to my friend Sarah talk about her wonderful business Archie's Boutique on Croydon radio.

Today is my first Wednesday morning with Noah at nursery. I have nearly cleaned the whole house, just the bathrooms to do after elevenses. I kept finding myself at the bottom of the stairs listI was halfway through the housework when I realised that not only will I have this precious time to do the housework, but also the house wont get in such a mess as two whole day a week there will be no one in the house! I can't stress how pleased I am we put Noah in nursery! Of course we haven't paid anything yet, so I may feel different when we are really scraping the barrel to get by!

Here's Noah posing for the obligatory 'first day at nursery' shot

I wonder how long I will go on enjoying it. Noah was really good on his first day, but he does have a tendency to be pretty rough with other kids. I may just come to find it completely embarrassing picking him up each week and hearing all the naughty things he has done!

Baking (or not) with a toddler

I am beginning to search for structured activities I can do with Noah. He is such a busy bee and I want to try and get him to sit down and calm down so we can spend some time learning and playing together.
Today we tried an alphabet puzzle, he copied every noise I made of the letters, but his interest in the actual puzzle was none and he soon wandered off. I tried some flash cards, the have colours and number but I was just trying to get him to tell me what the pictures were of. Some I knew he knew for definite but his response was just "no" to everything!
So after he walked into the lounge and asked for the telly to go on AGAIN, I decided to crack out the big guns; "Noah we are going to bake something!".
I had a very simple cookie mix I got for christmas, so I thought it would be fine! We donned our aprons and he seemed pretty keen!

He liked mixing things and I thought he would like using the rolling pin as he likes doing it with playdough, but no, he lost interest about then.

So I pretty much made the biscuits myself, he cut one out I think, but that was under duress! The end result was good though and he did enjoy them!

Snack time

Noah and I are completely obsessed with popcorn at the moment! We have it as a snack most days it's just us!
Sweet toppings usually involve cinnamon, my favourite being melted better with dark brown sugar and cinnamon.
Savoury has been more varied.
Today's was scrummy; lemon olive oil, raspberry balsamic vinegar, oregano and Parmesan.
So tasty and so few calories as well. It is better fresh but intend to make a big batch on a Tuesday and just flavour it as we eat it over the next few day! Noah will quite happily eat it plain, he gets super excited when I say I'm getting it!

Bx