Christmas!

This was our first Christmas at home just us as a family. It was so nice not to have to travel and to be able to eat whenever dinner was ready. We had an hour long Sacrament meeting at church, and it was wonderful to see everyone there! I was impressed with the turn out- pretty much the same as a usual Sunday. It was great to start the day focusing on the Saviour.

It was also my first time making Christmas dinner alone! Although Dave did help a little when I was feeding Amelia. I was super organised and had everything ready to just be shoved in the oven or have water poured onto it at the appropriate moment, and had written a list of what needed putting in when and how many minutes to put on the timer next. I am extremely proud of myself, and especially my gammon.

D suggested it would be nice to have gammon for a change this year, as we would normally have turkey. I thought that was a great idea, but it was Christmas Eve Eve before I realised I had never done one before and had no idea how to dress it! Thanks to Google I found a delicious recipe sans mustard (D doesn't like mustard) and it turned out perfectly.

Ben decided he'd prefer fish fingers for his Christmas dinner, although he had a nibble on a yorkshire pudding too. Strange child. But we were just grateful that he was happy and low maintenance while we ate.

Amelia had a present while we ate, and she sat happily playing with it for most of the meal. She LOVES her Oball!

We decided to take it easy with the presents and just let Ben open them as and when he wanted to. This worked quite well and we actually opened the last few yesterday (27th). He is very obsessive and needs to be able to look at and take in what he's got before he tackles something else. It's kind of nice really because it means he enjoys each thing, rather than just tossing presents aside and going for the next one.

We tried a few times to get a nice family photo by the tree, or even just pictures of the children, but it didn't really work! This photo pretty much summarises the experience: Ben constantly moving outside the frame and making everyone else laugh! He's brilliant.

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas. Happy New Year!

Gok Wan and the perfect boots

As some of you may know, I have a bit of a thing for Gok Wan.

There he is. Lovely man. I don't fancy him or anything... or maybe I do... I don't know... but anyway, I like him a lot and I want him to be my best friend. I used to love watching Gok's Fashion Fix when we had a TV licence, much to D's disgust!

So imagine my delight when Gok popped up in my dream the other night.

In the dream, D had got tickets to see a Gok fashion show for my birthday. I had a cunning plan that I would dress shockingly badly, then Gok would see that I needed his help, kit me out like a model in free clothes, and we'd be friends forever. And being a dream, it all went according to my plan! I wore these hideous boots that I would never be seen dead in except in an attempt to lure Gok into eternal friendship, and when he saw me in the car park he came and took me by the hand to help me. We went into the studio and I got all my beautiful new clothes and was feeling like Cinderella, then... THE PERFECT BOOTS!

Haha, I have been saving up for beautiful boots for months, so my subconscious obviously knew how much I needed them! In the dream they were these gorgeous jazzberry suede stilettos, about knee high, oh my.

Something like this, but without the platform and, obviously, a boot. I would never buy something this impractical in real life, as it'd be a good 3 years before I could safely wear them without falling over a small child and possibly taking someone's eye out, but what are dreams for, hey?

Gok decided I looked so good he'd put me in the show, so I got to walk down the catwalk in my amazing, free, designer outfit, then the real models brought me flowers and a 3D jigsaw puzzle of London attractions! It was one of the best nights of my life!

I did buy my boots about a week ago, but they ended up being flats and chocolate brown. I do love them though :) And they were half outlet price (about a quarter normal price), so bonus!

Being the favourite

There is a quotation I've heard before that I just love. I don't even know who it's by, but it goes:

To the world, you may be just one person.

To to one person, you may be the world.

I just love that! I've always loved the quotation, but since having children it's meant so much more to me.

Because these little people, they come into our lives so helpless and dependent. And we love them so much and so instantly. We give to them until we feel we cannot possibly give another second or another thing, and then we somehow give a lot more!

And the most wonderful thing about that is that they love us absolutely!

When Benjamin was tiny and I was battling with post-natal depression, my Mum said to me, "You are the most important person in his life." and at the time it wasn't what I wanted to hear. I felt like I wanted to escape my responsibilities and be free. But gradually I realised that I wanted to be that person, I wanted to be his mummy, I wanted to be the most important person in his world. That's one of the reasons I decided not to go back to work, but to be a stay at home mum.

Wanting to take care of them; with Ben, it happened the first time he put his arms up to ask me to pick him up. With Amelia it was the first time I laid eyes on her.

I don't want someone else to be the most important person in their lives, I want them to come to me when they fall over and hurt themselves, and I want to be the one they look over to when they do something very clever. How could I possibly give that to someone else? Obviously some people have to, and some people choose to, but not me!

I have come to realise, even more now that I have two children and my attention is always split, that I don't have to be perfect. Neither of my kids are sitting there with a scorecard, rating my performance and loving me in proportion to that. They love me completely whatever I do: no matter what. As long as I am enough, that's enough.

D said once that I was 3 people's favourite- it was just an incidental comment but it meant a lot to me. Because I am! And because I know it won't always be that way, and that's okay, but for now it is glorious. Even in the middle of the night when it has to be me, and even when both kids are sad at the same time and for both of them it has to be me! It's exhausting, but it's wonderful.

Bath time!

My boy loves the bath!

Bath time is Benjamin's special time with Daddy. I got them these letters last year to play with in the bath. They stick to the walls and the tub, absolutely brilliant.

He loves having his toothbrush to chew, ahem, I mean brush and splashing like a loon. No matter how many times he has splashed, there is always a new and exciting way he can get water on the floor! It just cracks me up!

Jeggings

I have finally found someone who actually looks good in jeggings! Check it out:

You're gorgeous Amelia!

Washer woman

You know, you wouldn't think it would be so difficult to keep clean clothes in the cupboards. We have a washing machine which is also a dryer, and I am home all day every day. How could it be such a big deal??

Okay, so it's not really. Keeping on top of the laundry is one of the few things that I can handle, even with a brand new baby in the house. But it is hard work!

Now that there are 4 of us, and two of us tend to need more than one set of clothes some days (most days for the smallest!), I need to do a load pretty much every day, certainly every day I am home. Our washing machine is only 4kg so it's not a very big load, and with it also being the dryer that means I can't have clothes washing and drying at the same time.

I like to delude myself that someone is actually interested in this! But I feel like we have washing around the house all the time in one form or another. The laundry basket brought down to the kitchen waiting to load the machine, wet clothes in the machine waiting to be dried, dry clothes in the machine waiting to be taken out, clean clothes in the living room waiting to be folded, folded clothes in the bedroom waiting to be put away, and of course the delicates that can't go in the dryer and get hung on hangers in the bedroom for a couple of days. It just goes on and on! Occasionally I'll have a couple of days off and then I'm confronted with a mountain, which is even less appealing.

I think that's enough complaining.

Can you imagine having to do all of this by hand? Having to wash it all with your hands and wring it all out then have it hanging around to dry? (I hang mine when it's dry, but I can't stand it hanging round the house. There's literally nowhere we can put the airer that it's not blocking a used doorway, and we don't have an airing cupboard.) I can't even imagine what it must have been like before washing machines were a necessity.

I like to remind myself how lucky I am :) Now stop blabbering on woman and get some ironing out!

Fat bottomed girls

I am so impressed with myself, I went for a bike ride yesterday. There is literally only one time in the day I can get out on my bike. When both kids are in bed, if we haven't eaten yet I can go for a quick ride while dinner is cooking. This is the only time when I don't have children around AND I'm not too full AND it's not too close to bedtime.

I have been thinking about it for a while, but it just seemed so much to get organised, but even though I was only out for 15 minutes it was definitely worth it.

Here are some things I pondered during my cycle:

1) If you haven't ridden your bike in about a year, you need to pump up your tyres before you go, especially if there are speed bumps near your home. Before I was heavily pregnant with Ben I used to cycle to work every day, so I bought a pretty good bike for that, but it is no good at all if your tyres aren't plump. The brakes seem to have stayed very sharp though.

2) If it's November, wear a jacket and especially GLOVES!

3) If there is something you love doing, make time for it. After a rubbish day I was so happy because I was doing something for ME at last.

4) Everyone has 15 minutes to exercise. I have been deluding myself for the past 2 months that I don't have time, but I actually do. Of course it helps if you have an amazing husband who is willing to cook dinner for you. And exercising makes me feel better. I miss the feeling of knowing my muscles and being in tune with my body: it's important to me.

5) I absolutely cannot WAIT to be able to go out with Amelia in the bike seat! I used to cycle around a lot with Ben, but obviously when I was pregnant and now that I have two children at home I am not able to do that. When Ben is in school I hope to get into it again.

This was a while ago, Ben was about 10 months I think.

A big boy bed

Look at this gorgeous little man:

He's had a haircut since then and I miss his lovely curls. It is still quite long though.

Anyhow, Ben is 2 and a quarter today and growing so quickly! He is brilliant: so funny, charming, kind, loving, strong, clever and independent. How such a small person can have so much personality is beyond me. To me it is absolute evidence that we were people before we were born.

He has worked out in the past week that he can climb out of his cot: arghhhhhhhhh!

See, I have been using his cot as a playpen of sorts when I go for a shower in the morning. He is usually very happy to choose a couple of toys to take upstairs after breakfast and play with in his cot, and I get a few minutes to shower, get dressed, stick some washing on etc. It's usually about 20 mins before he starts asking to come out, which is great. Since Amelia arrived it has been trickier, since Benjamin's thinking is that whenever the baby falls asleep it is 'Mummy and Ben time', whereas I'm thinking the first time the baby falls asleep is 'Quick! Must get clean from the dried on milk/spit/yogurt/baby wee/general smelliness of the previous day and night' time. Not hugely compatible.

And that means that my little superstar is no longer particularly impressed about going into his cot. So he makes a loud fuss and usually wakes Amelia up which means that no one gets what they want. Sigh.

When it does work (i.e. when I've sneaked upstairs with Amelia and Ben hasn't followed me making a loud noise AND she's gone into her moses basket without waking up AND he's chosen to go up to his cot without making so much noise she is disturbed before I get his door shut AND she miraculously sleeps more than 5 minutes), he plays for about 3 minutes then climbs out! The first time I was stunned to see him walking nonchalantly into the bathroom and saying 'Hey'. The second time I laughed. The third time I was like, 'Ben, how on earth are you doing that??' so he showed me! I couldn't believe how easy it was for him!

And now, after 4 days of it and one falling-out (falling out of the cot, not falling out with each other), I'm feeling that there's not much point putting him in there any more.

Sooooooo...

... the big boy bed!

This has been set up in his room for months. Ebay bargain! I kept telling him about it before we set it up, I said he'd have a special blanket and a pillow like mummy and daddy, and that he'd be able to get in and out himself and he'd be a big boy like daddy. And I was all excited about getting special Toy Story bedding for him. Then he saw it, and he was like Nuh-uh. He went over to it once and patted Buzz, and he's not voluntarily been near it since. I think Amelia has been on it more than he has!

The first night I said he was going in his big boy bed, he sobbed until I asked if he wanted his cot, to which he shouted 'YEAH!', so I put him in his cot. For a while I would ask him each night where he was going to sleep, cot or bed, and he's always cried and pointed at his cot. I've tried to help him get the idea by sitting on it together to read stories, or having a cuddle on there together but he always cries and points at the rocking chair. I don't get it!!!

Obviously I get that he's always slept in his cot and that's comforting to him. I often see him putting his feet up on the bars when he's falling asleep, or touching the sides with his hands. He has always been a creature of habit and loves his routines, so maybe it's just too much of a change for him. I don't think it's down to Amelia's arrival because I started trying to put him in the bed before she was born, and I've never said to him that we want the cot for her.

I just thought he'd be really excited to sleep in his Woody and Buzz bed, and be able to get out and play in the mornings. Maybe that just hasn't clicked yet.

We'll have Amelia in our room for another 4 months at least, so we're okay as long as she'll fit in the moses basket. I have a lovely stand for the moses basket (another eBay bargain), and it fits beside our bed easily so I can just scoop her out without even leaving the realms of the duvet, so it's a good arrangement. I just know that as soon as we acquire another cot for her to move into, Ben's going to suddenly be ready to move to the bed!

The Prince of Egypt

This is possibly going to be a weird post lol.

One of Benjamin's new favourite films is The Prince of Egypt, which I got him for his birthday. It's taken him a little while to get into it, but he loves it now, especially the part at the beginning with the baby. It's funny actually, because the part he likes most is where Pharaoh's wife ignores her little toddler boy who is asking her to pick him up because she's so in love with the new baby she found floating in the river... interesting. I wonder how much he understands- I remember learning at uni that fairy tales are therapeutic because they help children, who cannot easily express or even understand their environment, subconsciously interpret their world.

Interesting, but not the point of this post!

The film is based on the book of Exodus: the story of Moses. Some of the plot is fictional, but I think it is very cleverly done and since we've been watching it every couple of days for a couple of weeks now, I've been over-analysing, like I do. Nothing like a cartoon to get you thinking about the scriptures in real terms :)

Just one of the things I've been thinking about....

Because he was afraid that the Israelites were getting too numerous and might rise against him, Pharaoh ordered that all male babies that were born to Israelite women should be thrown into the river. Oh. My. Goodness! I had read that so many times and thought, 'Well that's not very nice', but when I was sitting there with a baby in my arms and I saw them taking the boys and the women crying, it came to life to me. They actually took newborn sons from their mother, never to be seen again. And those poor women knew that their children would be killed, and there was nothing they could do about it. That is horrific! Just imagine someone walking into my home and picking up Benjamin and saying, 'Oh, you had a boy, sorry', and taking him. I cannot believe that someone would do that.

Also, imagine the guards that had to do it: listening to the women screaming, hearing the babies cry for their mothers, then watching them sink down into the river spluttering for life. Sorry to be so graphic, but it is horrendous! This actually happened.

I've thought before about how hard it would have been for the Israelites to leave their home and follow Moses, who they barely knew except as the son of a tyrant. But then add to that the fact that his adopted father committed such a atrocity and it becomes even more of a matter of faith.

Like I said, nothing like a cartoon to bring the scriptures to life!

Jumping ship (or not) and money money money.

This is the view from our living room window at the moment:

Which drives me crazy for two reasons:

1) For sale signs are hideous and attention grabbing, not a good combination and not conducive to relaxing when you are sitting near the window.

2) Neither of them are ours!

I am stunned every time I drive through our tiny estate and see how many of the properties are for sale. Serious, there are like 60 houses and there are at least 8 for sale or to let. And again, none of them are ours!

Now don't get me wrong here, I love my house. My house is, however, a two-bed starter home designed for a couple. We fit, but it's snug.

In some ways it is a brilliant house for kids: we have a nicely sized, simple garden; we have a good sized second bedroom for the kids; we are literally 30 seconds walk from a good park; and we have a parking space right beside our house; we have a bath and we have a downstairs loo for potty training.

In other ways it is a very inconvenient house for kids: there is no where in the house we can put a high chair where it isn't on carpet; the front door opens right onto the road (literally- not even onto the pavement and then the road- there is no pavement); the parking space is not wide enough to get a child out of each side! I have to get Amelia out and put her in the house, then park, then get Ben out. Not great when they are both very young; the kitchen is teeny and wherever I put Ben to help me cook he can reach the hob and pull the rings off lol; the schools nearby aren't great.

Anyway, I could go on, but I don't want to give a false impression of how lucky I am. We are very blessed to even own a house in this country, especially since I'm not working anymore. If I hadn't got a job straight out of uni we wouldn't even have been able to afford to buy a flat, let alone a brand new house in a cul-de-sac in Cheltenham Spa! And I do love this house.

It's just... oh... it would be so nice to have a kitchen/diner, to have a garage, to have our car parked somewhere where Ben could stand safely while I get Amelia out, to have an airing cupboard....

With the way things are in our economy and housing market it's going to be a few years before we can afford to move. We bought our house right at the peak of housing prices, so even though we have made a lot of extra payments on our mortgage we think we are still in negative equity. Sigh. I know that being on the housing ladder is good and it's all relative, but there is something so miserable about having to curb your expectations of how much you can spend on a house. We are also quite fortunate in that we bought the house on a shared ownership scheme, meaning that we only bought half of the house and rent the other half from the housing association. It's all worked out as 50% of the house rather than the specific figure of money that we paid, so really we have only lost half as much money on the house as we would have done if we'd bought the whole thing. When we come to sell, the housing association will get back 50% of the price, not the £65,000 that they paid (and likewise for us).

We've decided that we're not going to move until we can afford the house that we will stay in, raise the children to adulthood and grow old in. Ah, so romantic! We don't want to have to move again as we both feel it's such a waste of money. If we were to move now we'd probably have to move again when the kids are older and need their own space, so it does make perfect sense to wait.

So where am I going with this? I don't know really. It sometimes drives me crazy that we are trapped in a house that was never intended as a place we'd raise two children. I'd always, in the back of my mind, thought that we'd move when I was pregnant with our second child, before Ben went to school. It's ok. It puts us in a good position financially living here, and we have more than enough money even without me working at all. I think I just need to count my blessings more!

In a recent Relief Society meeting someone quoted, "Happiness is having £100 and spending £99; misery is having £100 and spending £101". I don't know who that was by, but I really liked it. I am so grateful that D is excellent with money and very wise in the way he deals with our finances. I am so lazy about this, but I know that I can trust him to keep us safe financially. We've fallen naturally into different roles: he is fab at dealing with the money that we HAVE to spend, and my strength lies in not spending any money that we DON'T have to spend!

But one day we will move, and it will be amazing! I'm sure we'll look back at this house with fondness. The place to which we welcomed our children, the four walls in which we learned to be parents and where Amelia was born. And I'm sure we'll smile about the steamy bathroom with no window and the cosy kitchen, just like we do about the tiny flat we lived in when we first got married, which was so small we couldn't even fit a wardrobe or a chest of drawers!

Birthday!

It was my 29th birthday this week! I've been feeling a little sorry for myself since D couldn't get the day off work and we couldn't even go out in the evening with Amelia being so tiny. Plus D wasn't feeling very well. I won't lie, it was a rough day, but I really appreciated everything that D did to make it special for me.

I go out to a breastfeeding peer support group (BAPS! Breastfeeding advice and peer support) on a Tuesday, so Ben, Amelia and I went there as usual. Amelia had screamed literally all morning from the moment D left to the moment we went out, so I decided to take Ben in the little pushchair and Amelia in the mei tei. She doesn't usually like being in any sling or carrier for long, but she was so exhausted from crying for 3 hours that she just fell asleep. Poor kid. It worked though, and I felt better carrying her than chucking her in the double buggy when she was upset.

As I've only been going for 4 weeks or so, there aren't many people at BAPS that I know well yet, so it was a bit weird being all 'it's my birthday!!!' inside but no one knowing. Two of the ladies from church were there, and I couldn't resist telling one of them! Then I immediately regretted it because it obviously sounded like I was trying to get attention (which I was). Oh well, she loves me, she won't judge :)

BAPS is brilliant because they have so many toys and lots of space for Ben to run around, which he doesn't get at home unless it's dry enough for the garden. They have a soft play area too, and indoor slides, a giant doll's house, beautiful wooden kitchen equipment, an indoor sandpit.... Basically we walk in the door and I don't see Ben until the end of the two hours. It makes him happy and I get to enjoy Amelia and also chat to some grown ups for couple of hours a week: everybody wins. I had a good experience this week too, I was chatting to a lady who's having trouble breastfeeding her week-old baby and I think I helped her. She gave up breastfeeding after a couple of days with her first child but really wants to try to overcome the difficulties and succeed this time. They have proper breastfeeding counsellors present, so I was just chatting to her while she got settled and waited for someone to be available. I'd really like to be a breastfeeding counsellor when Amelia gets older- I had such a hard experience with Ben that I know I could be very understanding of the emotional mess you can get into when breastfeeding isn't going well. I would love to be able to help other mums and babies.

Afterwards we came home and had lunch, then nap time. Now I'm not going to lie- this is often a horrendous part of the day. It is so hard to get enough time without my attention on Amelia to get Ben settled enough to go to sleep. Eventually we managed it and after a while Amelia had a sleep too, so I got about 20 mins overlap to rest myself. Then when Ben got up we had some time alone together, which is always a lovely part of the day. D got home and we put the kids to bed, also a good part of the day.

Then hooray! It actually started to feel like my birthday! We had a lovely Indian takeaway, then I opened my presents! D got me some really beautiful jewellery with Swarovski crystals and mother of pearl, I'll have to get some pictures. I've started reading the Skulduggery Pleasant books and D got me the second one of those, and an exciting new board game. I got Lindor from Ben and some Hotel Chocolat from Amelia too. I'm so spoiled!

Next D turned down the lights and came through with my sneaky surprise birthday cake: a key lime pie! My favourite :) He put candles in it, very craftily using ones we had already and putting '30-1' lol. As if I need reminding!

It was a weird birthday and hard work, but thanks D for being so lovely! The little touches meant so much. However, I still demand that you take a day off in lieu of my birthday and wait on me hand and foot ALL day :D

One of the greatest days of my life

Me and my girl.

Oh silly me. I thought I'd be all clever and add the photos first then write around them but I've just realised that I've put them back to front! And it took ages. Never mind, this will just be a backwards post :)

This is the story of Amelia's birth. And it starts about 3 weeks before her birthday!

Amelia 2 days old, look how much she's changed already!

This little lady decided it would be fun to set things going a few weeks early and cause some major discomfort to mummy. I don't know whether she was just anxious to start her life, or whether the three weeks of Braxton Hicks were Heavenly Father being merciful and starting labour very gently so that things would go quickly when the time came, but those were three of the most miserable weeks of my life! Every single evening, and sometimes during the day too, I'd have contractions about 5 mins apart, lasting about a minute each. They hurt! I just felt like I never had any time to myself because as soon as Ben was in bed, the 3 or 4 hours of contractions would start. Plus every night I was thinking, 'Is this it? Will I be holding her tomorrow??'. I'd get all excited, then lie down and try to rest, then wake up the next morning! So frustrating. I guess I was worried about labouring through the night like last time and being exhausted, and that worry was probably slowing things down.

Amelia the day after she was born.

So, about 5 days after my due date I went for an acupuncture treatment. It was maybe my third time having acupuncture. The doctor is a good friend of Dave and his mum. He was so understanding and after taking my pulse and checking a few things he explained what was happening.

"Think of giving birth as climbing over a wall. It's a tall wall and you're going to have to climb to get over, but you have gone so close to the wall your nose is touching it, you can't climb it from there. What you need to do is take a couple of steps back, then you will be able to get over."

He said that he could either give me a treatment that would induce labour, or he could give me a treatment that would make me relaxed and smooth things along when I went into labour naturally. I asked him to do the latter, as I believe it is not good to interfere with the whens and hows of birth. It was horrible! Needles in my ears, knees, backs of my hands, ankles, toes, the sides of my feet: urghhh! But when I left, I wasn't bothered any more. I knew she'd come when she was ready. That was the Friday, and the Braxton Hicks contractions didn't stop, but I didn't mind so much.

Amelia and Mummy about 2 hours after the birth.

I woke up on the Monday morning at 4am in labour and instantly knew that this was it! I called Mum and she started the journey down, D called his mum and put her on alert. D's mum's car broke down on the way and she had to be rescued by the RAC! So Ben ended up going to our back-up plan, a couple who live just across the park.

I decided to call the midwife at about 7am, as I was starting to feel like I'd like to get the journey to hospital over and done with. Unfortunately she was with another lady who was in labour in Gloucester hospital, so she said she'd get her colleague to call me back. Just to explain this, I was in a programme for low-risk pregnancies where all your antenatal care is given by the same midwife in your home, and you only see a doctor if something worrying happens. Since it's all low-risk mothers, many choose home-births or use the midwife-led birthing centre in Cheltenham. You also, in theory, have the same midwife for your labour assistance and even if you are in the hospital they just stay with you until the baby comes, like in a home birth. They like to help you do as much labouring as possible at home before you go to the hospital (if you're going). I was uncomfortable, but it wasn't bothering me much and I wasn't afraid. The contractions felt more like energy rushing through me than pain really.

When Gemma, the other midwife, called me back I had almost finished running a bath and was desperate to get in it! I had a couple of contractions while we were on the phone but because I was so calm I guess she thought she had plenty of time! I told her I would be giving birth that morning, but I wasn't worried and wanted to get in my bath. We agreed that I'd call her again after my bath.

When I got out I called Gemma straight away and we agreed she'd come over and assess how far along I was (I suspect, again, she was thinking I was too calm to be as close as I actually was). It took her about 45 mins to get to the house in the rush hour traffic and she arrived about 9am. She felt my tummy during contractions and got a little more serious! I asked her to examine me to see how dilated I was- I just wanted to know vaguely how much longer it would be. Up we went, while D was in the shower, and lo and behold I was 8CM! 10cm is usually about when you start needing to push, but it can be anything from 6/7cm, so obviously this was shocking (but good) news! Gemma said that she was happy to head to the hospital but we might like to think about staying home, since transition (screaming and pushing!) could start literally any second! It had taken her 45 mins to get to our house from the hospital. D got a bit of a shock when he got out of the shower!

I asked what he thought about staying home. We'd talked about it before but decided to go to the hospital once we saw how lovely, relaxed, calm and welcoming it is. Just like home, but with more space! That was my main reason for not planning a home birth; we just have so little space here and I thought I'd want a birthing pool. As it happened, I didn't have time to want one lol. My other reason for going to the hospital was I didn't feel very happy about all the mess of giving birth being in my house, but the midwives were pretty tidy actually. D said it was up to me, and I just remember thinking, 'I can't give birth to this baby in the car'. I hated the idea that the poor kid might begin her life like that, and all the stress of it. So we decided to stay home. Later Mum, who was downstairs with the midwife, said that Gemma told her if we didn't make the decision soon, we weren't going to have a choice!!! lol.

Ben was whisked away and I decided to settle upstairs in our bedroom. I was still bouncing on my exercise ball between contractions, then going down to a kneeling position and leaning my head on the end of the bed during contractions. This was really nice because every time I leaned forwards Mum and Gemma started massaging my back :) Nice. D installed himself on a bedside table at the other end of the bed: my poor squeamish boy. And the bed, taking up most of the space in the bedroom, was empty! Hilarious. I should probably have just stayed downstairs.

Things started moving very quickly. The gas and air arrived out of Gemma's car, but I didn't need it, I was fine and I wanted to be able to feel what was going on. When transition started I felt exactly what was happening. Another midwife arrived (standard procedure). My waters burst soon after with a big pop and the hard work started, but four big screaming pushes later out she came, all in one go, just before 10am. She nearly landed on the floor because it was so quick; I was still kneeling at the foot of the bed so I think gravity helped!

I am so triumphant that I did it all myself and with no pain relief. I don't think I actually needed a midwife to be honest. Other than checking everything was okay all they did was catch the baby (and Mum says she nearly didn't even do that!) and keep everything clean! I'm glad they were there but I would have been happy with just Mum there.

Afterwards Amelia and I curled up on the bed and had a few feeds and some rest. Ben came home and D settled him for his nap, then when he woke up it was time to meet his little sister.

He is so gentle with her, it's lovely. He sometimes gets a little frustrated because he obviously wants my attention for himself too, but generally he is absolutely brilliant with her. It's a miracle but, I can honestly say I already find life easier with the two of them than I did with just Ben. I know that sounds crazy, but it is true. Amelia completes our family like nothing and no one else could.

This was the actual moment Ben met Amelia.

I know everyone gets gushy about their kids, but I am astounded by how much love I felt for Amelia instantly. I adore Benjamin, but we had a rocky start and I didn't really start to bond with him until he was about 3 months old. It was hard to like him at first when I was battling with post-natal depression and in constant pain and misery. He changed everything about my life, and at the time I wasn't all that happy about it! I feel like I had to earn the love I have for him with sacrifice. What I mean is, every minute I spent awake with him in the night; or rocking him for hours and hours while he screamed ALL DAY; or feeding him constantly even though it hurt so much I was in tears: all those sacrifices bound him to my heart. All that hard work I poured into him made me love him fiercely because I was draining myself to fill him. It made him part of me. I don't know whether anyone but a mother can understand that.

With Amelia it was completely different: the moment I saw her I loved her deeply and needed to be near her. The first three or four days there was nothing I wanted more than just to hold her and look at her. The bond between us was instant and powerful. If she wasn't touching me I felt like a part of me was missing. It's amazing how different the two experiences have been. I'm so glad I had another child so I could know what this feels like. I'm enjoying life so much now.

Amelia is a real mummy's girl so far, it is so sweet. When I come into the room she always knows and turns to look at me when she hears my voice. I am so excited for the future, going to Young Women activities together and doing personal progress, and watching girlie films! It's fab having a girl. And I am glad that Benjamin has a little sister. He is going to be a wonderful brother. I loved having sisters but I was always a little jealous of my friends with big brothers, so I'm pleased that Amelia will have that experience. We're such a happy family :)

It's been a while

I'm back! I'm hoping to be a more diligent blogger from now on. I need to find a subject that I'm interested in I think, so that I feel more incentive to get on the computer and do my posts.

I've decided today to let Ben sleep as long as he wants to instead of waking him up after a 2 hour nap. He's been quite tired this morning and I'm interested to see how long he will stay asleep if I just leave him. So far it's been 2 hours and 42 mins! He has been getting up at 5.30 a lot of mornings though, and his normal wake-up time is 6, so his total sleep is not quite as impressive.

I haven't even blogged on here about Amelia! She is born! My little bundle of joy arrive on 12th September 2011, and she really is a joy! I will have to start a post specifically about her birth, because it was such an incredible experience for me. I will start that today!

Things are going well, she has started to get into a good sleeping pattern now during the day, and usually wakes up twice at night (which I define as around 8pm-6am) which is good. The first 3 weeks she was waking every hour and a half to two hours which was a killer. Now her stretches are more like 4 hours... mmmmm.... Things started to improve when I started putting her on her tummy to sleep. I know midwives tell you you must put them on their backs when they are tiny, but seriously, the night I first let her sleep on her tummy she fell asleep in her crib and slept a 7 hour stretch (8pm-3am!!!). She turns her head during the night and has been lifting her head since she was about 2 weeks, so I feel confident in her being able to handle it.

Yikes, 2 hours 50 mins, can I leave him longer than 3 hours?? Actually, I think I hear him... yep. Ok, bye!