Thursday, July 30, 2009

lazy afternoon photo shoot...





Martin makes me laugh...

Martin didn't know that you could "snap" a Snapdragon until about 4 weeks ago. He was amazed when I showed him what happens when you squeeze the "cheeks" of the flower and he plays with them every time he seems some now.

He flails his arms around like a maniac when he starts to run.

He bought Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii with some of his birthday money, even though we don't own a Wii. The game is living at the Mundays' house because they DO have a Wii, and he will play it when we go over there to visit.

I love my husband.

Dylan update:

He has had a nap in the afternoon for the last 2 days, and it is making a huge difference--day AND night. He is still waking up early, but he's not waking up in the middle of the night. I have to spend about an hour during the day to try to get him in to bed, and sometimes it hardly seems worth it. But having my happy boy back instead of a whining and clinging little monster makes that hour seem like nothing!

I think he is just going through a phase where he's terrified that we're going to leave him. He kind of panics at night as well, which he hasn't done for nearly 18 months now. He hates to have his bedroom door shut and we kind of have to hover near the door until he falls asleep. It's a pain, and I'm hoping he stops needing that soon.

Edith is good, of course. She started having baby rice a few days ago, and absolutely loves the stuff. Dylan wouldn't have it, but Edith can't get enough! She is sleeping more during the day now that she's having it, though it hasn't translated to night time sleeping yet. She also sat up on her own for about 30 seconds on Manday. I am looking forward to her sitting up, but sitting means that she'll be crawling soon, and then she won't be my tiny little baby any more. That really makes me sad. This is going way too fast!

I've decided that my recent mood has more to do with my post-pregnancy hormone crash than anything else. After all, my hair has started falling out. That's a pretty good indication that the hormone levels are changing pretty dramatically. So I just need to ride this out and try to stay happy. I'll give it a few weeks to sort itself out, and if I can't shake it then I will go see my doctor. I promised myself that I would not let myself suffer from depression this time because I don't want to be unhappy with my beautiful Edith.

I should have some good pictures to post after the weekend. Martin is playing in the People of Barton vs. Barton Police football match. He's playing for the police though, since they were short of players. He's looking forward to it, and if the weather's nice we will be having a picnic in the park and then going to the Maize Maze at Thornton Abbey with Christine. England is so beautiful this time of year!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Just thinking...

I've had a tough two weeks. Dylan isn't sleeping well, Edith is still waking up for night feeds and is going through a growth spurt so I am feeding her a lot during the day as well. The house seems impossible to keep clean and if I'm not wiping dirty bottoms I'm attempting to keep the house tidy. I feel overworked and VASTLY underpaid and underappreciated. I have honestly wanted out of this whole housewife gig. But I was thinking yesterday...

Yes, I always have my hands full. My hands are full of cleaning supplies, wipes, diapers, dirty laundry, pots and pans. But because my hands are full, my arms are full as well. And my arms are full because I have my beautiful family to hold.

Does this make my day-to-day life any easier? Not really. I still have all those jobs to do. I still have an increasingly difficult toddler and a hungry and demanding baby (who has started biting and STILL won't take a bottle). But I will try to remember why I am doing all these things. I am doing them because I love my husband and my chiildren, and I want them to be happy. And the key to my own happiness is not getting what I want, but wanting what I've got.

So here's hoping that this week is an improvement!

Saturday, July 25, 2009

My amazing boys...

Last night, after getting both of our kids put down for bed, Martin walked in to the living room and said the sexiest thing in the whole world...

"I remembered this trick from 'Super Nanny'..."

Dylan seems to have gotten over the worst of the teething pain and isn't nearly as difficult to deal with. He's still throwing paddies, but hasn't had any childrens' ibuprofen for over 24 hours now and is still bearable. And he's been sleeping SLIGHTLY later. Today he was up at 5:50 and Martin and I slept in shifts so we could each get a bit of extra shut eye.

One thing that seems to be helping his behavior and moods is the decrease in television watching. I decided that if he wasn't going to behave well and sleep a decent amount, he wasn't going to get to watch cartoons. This started as a punishment for him not napping any more, which was totally mean of me but had such great results that I hardly feel bad about it at all. He still asks for "Icky Ouse," but he is playing with his toys, asking to go outside and for walks, and just generally behaving better.

Dylan is also developing an insatiable curiosity about what Martin and I are doing--especially in the kitchen. The phrase we hear most often is "see please." It drives me crazy, but I'm glad he's interested all the same.

For all that, Edith is still the good one!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

This endless week...

Dylan has chosen to quit taking naps and start waking up at 5 am at a very bad time--when he's getting his 2 year molars. This has been a very long week so far!

He's also been referred to the surgical consult team for his little "man bits" problem. They don't do the surgery in Scunthorpe so we will have to go to Sheffield for the procedure. The pediatrician says it's very minor surgery with very little pain as a result, and I'm glad we're going to get it sorted here and now.

So yeah, we're pretty much keeping Dylan on a drip of childrens' ibuprofen and trying to get him to sleep any way we can. I hadn't realized how much I have come to depend on my daily child free time. Rumor has it that the government is piloting a funding scheme for pre-school for 2 year olds. I may be able to get Dylan in to 15 or so hours a week for free. That would be so great!

Edith continues to be a joy, getting prettier with each passing day and just generally being a happy and delightful baby. Her only flaw, still, is that she still refuses to take a bottle. But she is so good natured and chilled out! She loves to listen to the sound of her own voice and is really coming into her own in that regard. She is still quite big, but is incredibly long. She has chubby little legs and the tiniest ankles in the whole world.

We have had a good day today at least. We went in to Scunthorpe for Dylan's hospital appointment, did a little bit of shopping, grabbed some lunch, and then drove back to Barton. We took a walk at the Humber Bridge viewing area, which is lovely right now. On the footpath down to the ponds there are a load of plum trees--totally uncultivated and growing in the hedge. We picked a bunch of plums and I am planning to make some plum jam. Then Martin and Dylan played on the playground equipment while I fed Edith. Then it was home and getting dinner on. It's cooking now.

The weather was perfect today--just right for an English summer. Our kids were (reasonably) well behaved and beautiful(as always). So even though Dylan is giving us fits, at least we've had one good day!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

More sleepless nights...

Today finds me up at the crack of dawn once more. Edith and Martin are sleeping peacefully upstairs and Dylan and I are watching cartoons. He's been up since 5 am. I don't know how he can function on the amount of sleep he's been getting. He cried himself to sleep on his bedroom floor yesterday and got about a half hour of sleep. Then I took him to the Ulceby church fete and the Mundays' house and he ran around like a madman for 4 hours. He got to bed late and his sleep was disturbed when we came home. And he STILL woke up early. What else can I do?

I honestly think that I'm going to have to start going to bed at 9 pm. How lame is that?

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's going to be a very long day. Sundays are really rubbish for me anyway, with the 4 1/2 hour ordeal of church (it takes us 30 minutes to get there and get home, plus chatter time after the meetings) and all of the rest of stuff that's involved in getting us there and home. Sunday throws off nap schedules, and if it's a home game it also involves the mess of keeping the kids entertained at a baseball game.

Today we will be leaving church early because Martin is going to work. He's put in a long week this week!

I've had quite a few days this week when I wanted to pack this whole motherhood/housewife thing in, ship the kids off to daycare, get a job, and not bother with cooking and cleaning and wiping dirty bottoms all day long. Honestly, most of the time I love being a wife and mother now. But the nights have been too short and the days have been so long. I've had no time to myself, and I really NEED that time. I am tired.

In other news, I've found the house that I want when we move home. It's in Heber, so is close to Park City but not as expensive as buying a house there. It's in our price range, and is one of the older homes. The inside is beautiful, though it is classed as a "fixer." It needs a little bit of work, but nothing like what we've had to do here. The outside needs a coat of paint and some serious landscaping. But it's a quirky house with 4 bedrooms and fun little historical features. Downsides include the fact that there is no garage and it's on a busy street, but it is on a corner lot and has a chain link fence all around it so it is safe for kids even if the fence is ugly.

Finding this house has really spurred me on in my desire to get this house sold. When I got the pictures that I requested from the realtor I immediately got all fired up to get the finishing touches jobs done here. I spent that evening scraping more wallpaper, and I will do the same again tonight.

You know when you see a house and you can just picture yourself living there? That's how I feel about this one!

I'm going to take this early morning opportunity to get some work done on my church calling. I hesitate to do it because my brain is really fuzzy this time of day, but I might as well be productive. I'm going to be awake for a lot of hours today and might as well get a lot done during them. On the bright side, I don't have a baby latched on to me feeding right now so at least both of my hands are free!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Sleepless nights were supposed to be over...

Edith has always been a great night time sleeper. Dylan has been a great night time sleeper for well over a year now. But last night was a rough one. Let's just put it this way--I got a cumulative total of around 4 hours of sleep. Martin got about 6. And it wasn't the newborn who did it to us!

Today Dylan is having no television and is spending as much time as possible outside. I debated whether to let him have a nap or not, but my own exhaustion won out. I will need to sleep when the kids godown for a nap. He simply MUST have a good night's sleep tonight.

It's almost impossible for me to function on less than 7 hours of sleep, even if it doesn't come all at once. This should be a great day as Martin is working all day and has a church meeting in Scunthorpe tonight!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Hooray for the NHS, again!

Because we are currenly "low income" (well, pretty much in poverty to be honest), we qualify for free dental care from the NHS. The dentists are pretty hard to get and we had been on a waiting list for about a year. We finally got registered, and we went today.

True, they aren't doing a "de-scale and polish" on us. Apparently, we don't really need it. But I have a tooth that's chipped just below a filling and am getting it fixed for free. F - R - E - E - free!!! Well, I have to pay the bridge toll since the dentist is across the Humber in Hessle, but £5.40 is a small price to pay for having good teeth.

Dylan was pretty good at the dentist. He was OK with opening his mouth for the dentist to look inside, but he wouldn't let him put that little mirror thing in his mouth. He got a giant Spiderman sticker for being so good though. I just don't want him to have a bad dental experience and end up afraid of going to the dentist for the rest of his life.

Even Edith was seen, though she doesn't have any teeth yet. The dentist confirmed my suspicion that she is about to get a few teeth. I signed her up because I didn't know when the next opportunity to get her in would be.

I don't know how we'll manage when we move back to the U.S. and have to pay for all of this. But I'm still excited to go!

Monday, July 13, 2009



Lewis came over this afternoon and helped Martin do some tiling in the bathroom. They worked really hard and got quite a bit of it done.



Unfortunately, they didn't finish it. That meant that Dylan couldn't get his bath tonight. And it meant that Edith got hers here...




Everybody needs a picture of themselves having a bath in the kitchen sink!

Pictures...



Dylan and Nathan (Munday) enjoyed some cartoons this evening. Nathan with his thumb in his mouth, and Dylan had just pulled his finger out of his nose. Little boys--how charming!



Caitlin is completely obsessed with Edith and begs me to let her hold the baby every time she sees us. She's so good with her!



Martin and Dylan enjoy an icecream cone on Barton bike night. Well, Martin enjoyed his icecream. Dylan just likes the cone. He bit the bottom off his cone and left the icecream alone. Little weirdo!



Martin and I both really liked this vintage bike, made in Barton at the Hopper factory at the turn of the century.

Edith has a bath with daddy...




Aren't we cool?






We all really liked the 3D glasses from Ice Age. Dylan kept saying we looked "cool," and I had to laugh. 10 years from now we will be wishing he still thought that!

Thursday, July 09, 2009

A first...

Today we took both kids to an afternoon showing of "Ice Age III." It was our first time taking both of them to the cinema, and Dylan's first trip since he started crawling. We were unsure how it would go, but it turned out to be really fun. Edith was easy, of course. I just sat and held her, and fed her when she started getting fussy. Dylan sat next to Martin and ate popcorn, completely entranced for about and hour and 15 minutes of the 1 1/2 hour movie. He got a little bit bored and restless at the very end, but he was a champion. He even kept his 3D glasses on for a little while!

When he was a baby he was easy to take places, and then he went through an awkward phase when he was an absolute nightmare to take anywhere. Luckily, it coincided with my third trimester of pregnancy and the early weeks with Edith. Now, as he gets a bit older, he seems to have settled down a bit. He's getting fun to take out again.

I really do love my babies. I've had a rough couple of days where I've been seriously hating staying at home. I've felt a lot like the hired help, just following Martin and Dylan around and picking up after them. My days have been a succession of dirty diapers, cooking, and cleaning. But tonight, when I put Edith down for the night, I watched her curl her toes around the bar of her cradle. My heart melted a little bit.

Hopefully I am snapping out of this funk I've been in.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Happy Independence Day...

It WAS a happy Independence Day, as well. Busy, but completely delightful!

Martin worked all morning--he got home at 3 pm, which was actually an hour before I expected him. He came home and caught me red-handed--literally--painting a giant American flag on our back wall. It's only done with kids' poster paints, so it should wash off, but I had a great time doing it!

By the time he got home, the kids and I had gone grocery shopping, cleaned the house, tidied the back garden, showed the house to prospective buyers, and prepared most of the food for Martin's BBQ. I was absolutely exhausted.

People started showing up at about 5:15, and we ended up with 15 people in total. I did country style BBQ pork ribs and burgers, and our guests brought their own sausages. I made mom's pasta salad (with orzo insteadof fusilli, which was really nice) and Christine contributed her delicious bean salad. The Davies (our Aussie friends) brought a green salad and a bit of coleslaw. We ended up with just enough food for everyone, with a tiny bit of salad and a few sausages left over.

We had Martin's family, the Davie family, and Howard and Jen here. The mix of people was just right--everyone got along famously and there was no awkwardness at all. The Davie kids played with Dylan, so he had a marvellous time. Edith was either held by her aunt Cathy or nanna or sleeping. Martin opened his birthday presents (a successs, thank goodness), and we ate the delicious desserts we had made the night before. I made a New York style baked cheesecake (gorgeous) and Martin made a summer fruit pudding (to die for) from my home made brioche and the fruit we had picked on Friday night.

Once everyone was gone and Dylan was tucked up in bed, I sat and fed Edith while Martin and his mum did the dishes and tidied away the condiments in the back garden. Then, with Edith stuffed full of breastmilk, Martin and I took off for Scunthorpe to go watch Transformers. It was our first time out alone together since Edith was born, and we really enjoyed it.

The day was hard work--no lie. I fell in to bed at around 1 am and could have slept all day on Sunday. But Martin had a great birthday. It was worth all the effort I put in to it to see him enjoying his party and know that I helped him to have a wonderful time.

I'm glad this only happens once a year!

The day was so full that I never even had a chance to miss home.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Martin's birthday party / July 4th BBQ





My beautiful children...





A walk up to Baysgarth Park...


Dylan succumbs to sleep on a hot afternoon walk


Edith joins him


Martin enjoys his favorite beverage


The Phil & Ted's pushchair has been converted--no more baby carrier!


Edith and mama have a quick cuddle

And we all enjoy a quick trip up to the park. We had a lovely time basking in the shade and cooling off a little bit in this heat wave!

Does my son look like me?