August

This is probably going to end up a rambling meandering sort of post - but aren't they all?

We've had some success at house bidding, we have two house viewings for next week. We are second on one house (reasonable size house, HUGE garden: 50+m) and another one but we don't know what position we are (Large house, ok sized garden: 15m). I'm happy to be viewing them but trying not to get carried away. If we are second on both then we may not get either. So we shall see.

Kayne and Lani had a sleep over at grandma's house last night. It's very wierd to be able to go out alone and not have to worry about time and what they are doing. I really blitz the rooms. Threw away 2 bin bags of esentually junk; puzzles with bits missing, paper, broken bits of toys, junk that the kids want to keep. We removed the rug from the living room; we just started to put things in order so it's easier when we move. My next job is to box up our ornaments becuase there are tons of them and we need to get rid of the display cupboard.

I think its funny how i'm alot calmer and productive when things are cleaner. I often look at particular places in the flat and think "where do i start?!" and then don't bother - which is wrong but.

Sadly Chocolate Milk died, in his sleep on Monday night. He was 3 1/2 which is a good age for a rat. Kayne was a bit upset. Lani said "oh no, Comet (never called him Chocolate) missing!" after we took the cage down.

We have had some fun days with friends and Grandma. Zoo, tramplining, park ...lots of pretend play and mostly nice playing between them. Lani has been teething so has not been particually forgiving, and ends up like a bear with a sore head sometimes; which is understandable.

I have read masses of books in the past couple of months. Reading is an expensive habit.

She is growing up...

Lani has 2 or 3 new teeth.. i think it's 3 the way shes been with it. She is suddenly talking in 2 word sentances, she is making up signs because we aren't keeping up. She has something like 60 words, rough estimate. She is pretending to be a frog?!? She can't jump yet but she bends her knees, springs up whilst yelling ribbit! ribbit! She makes the little people kiss with sound effects mmmmwah! Is just growing at an astonising rate!!

A bit of everything

This is gonna be a tired ranty kind of post. I have the knotted feeling in my stomache and i have no idea why.

i think Lani is teething again. She's grumpy at best. The only taking one brand/flavour of medicene is annoying as i can't keep her pain free. She is waking early, then is overtied at nap time. Today she had 45mins instead of the normal 2-3 hours. I'm so worried she is going to drop her nap. There will be no hope for me when she does. I haven't figured her out yet. She gets so frustrated sometimes and i'm not used to it. Or aleast not like she does it. Kayne got frustrated but he had more verbal ability (at the same age) than she does, i could talk to him about it but with her she just screams, stamps her feet and cries.

It's strange that they are so different, some how i seem too think that he had better language than Lani at the same age but i'm not so sure. Maybe the difference is that she NEEDS that thing right now! she MUST look at that particular blade of grass even though we have seen a gazillion in the past 3 steps....maybe this is the intensity i read about in other children that i feel Kayne is lacking in the assigned title of 'giftedness'.
Maybe i am looking at her too closely in comparison to Kayne. So lets see what does she do that is different to Kayne, that is unqiuely Iolani....
~ Pretend play... She loves her bears! She has been feeding them, puts them in push chairs etc, since she was about 13 months. She makes tea for everyone at Grandma's with their tea-set.
~ Mimicary... she repeats words, sounds, and sentance sounds instantly. Diego: can you say larga, lani: lar -ga . Her signing is good too, she understands the concept of signs and so when i show her one she repeats it quickly (the latest one is 'again').
~ Birds... I have just this second realised that she is obsessed with birds. She gets so excited when she sees one. she stamps her feet and shakes herself, shouting birdy! and signing at the same time. Nature i suppose is her big joy.
~ Climb...She is very physically gregarious, she climbs everything, up slides, onto our bed, moves toy boxes so she can get things.

Kayne is his uniform on his first day.

I was really pleased to get kayne's reading age, i thought it would help. But it seems weird, the books at his reading level he won't touch. The school ones he gets are good so far, i've noticed that they are slowly getting more lines on a page. Hopefully then he will be more inclined to pick books that aren't 'learn your ABC's' or something similar.
We've had a wobbly school week, 'i don't like it', 'it's got too much playing' 'i don't like it when they call me a star', comments which threw me a bit until i found out that the boy he likes is away at the moment - so i'm hoping that it's all to do with that.

I think i need to reconnect with my children. It sounds weird but i think that when you get comfortable with how things swing you forget that they grow, change and become new people right infront of you and in such a small space of time. I think that i have been trying hard to look at whether i am parenting the way i want to. I have needed this time to adjust myself and my goals - now though i need to be involved and relax (not that i've been letting them run riot, just been very introspective).

Adorable

Anyway on with a new day...

Up to April already...

Been up and down since my last post. We've all been ill. Lani is teething badly, i think it's 2 molars and atleast 2 front teeth, she has 11 now i think. Only 8 days till Mark's operation. Only 7 days till baby Amelie is 1.

I've been looking at some courses on OU. I need to exercise my brain and i need to find some things to do with Lani when Kayne is at nursery. I'm hoping to find a music type class we can go to. I'm leaving the group i've been going to for nearly 4 years. I feel i've just moved on from it. They can't help me any more. I've learnt to deal with my depression as and when it comes. I think i am able to minimise the 'down-time' it causes me. I think accepting that I may never get rid of it means that it only wades in when it is a big thing. Sorting out school issues has help clear my mind. I know i need to find things outside of my children.



I've been reading a lot about giftedness for nearly a year now. I was shocked to read that things that i do are consider traits of giftedness. But on the other hand not really, i know that things i can see and the connections i make, other people don't or can't. I always thought that that was just the differences between people. Mark can do 20 simple sums (+, - /, x) in 16 seconds (Brain Training). The one that really got me is that i can manipulate 3D objects in my minds eye - i thought everyone could do this, i guess it explains why i was good at product design in school.



Anyway on to a few pictures as i haven't put any on for ages;

The world looks better this way

I love you big brother

Whenever Kayne is laying on the floor Lani will come and lay on him. She snuggles him, and they lay together, It's so beautiful. You can just about see on Kayne's face that he's isn't 100% happy about this arrangement. He isn't always completely happy with being held and never really has been - it has to be on his terms. But the expression is more likely that they are nearly the same weight and she is squashing him!

Proper Lego!

Not completely got the finger skill to fiddle with it properly but it's more fun than Duplo which he barely touches anymore. Only bad thing about this stuff is Lani likes to put it in her mouth so Kayne has to go out in the hallway to play with it.

Lani at 16 months!

School Placement

So we got Kaynes school placement back, we got Robert Sandilands which, whilst it wasn't our first choice, it is still a good placement. It makes a lot of things easier, it's only 2 minutes away and their nursery sessions are longer. They are big on personal wellbeing which is gonna be good for Kayne. I've hopefully got him a place in that nursery after Easter. Which means i have to tell Winchcombe that he is leaving - i hate doing things like this, for some reason i always feel like i've let someone down (though in reality i feel they have let Kayne down).

Lani has another tooth making our total 8.

Ditched it...

So we are now not using the cream the Dr. gave us, we switched back to Eumocream and her eczema went from really red and hot back to a bit red in a few hours.
She is teething and has got one of the first molars on the left side. So that brings us to 7 teeth.

New home - new happiness

Well we have been in our new flat for a month and a half. We have finally got Sky+ and Broadband. Which is great! It's a bit wierd being with out it for so long, you realise how much it becomes part of your life and how easy it makes your life.
I'm having to buy things to stimulate Kayne again, i'm thinking that Nursery is just on doing it for him anymore. I get the 'i don't want to go to school anymore' every morning which upsets me as i know it's because he is probably bored. I need him to go because i can't cope with him all day at the moment. He's been doing a book called 'Venn Perplexors' which he seems to be going through quicker than i thought he would. I said to dad about it and he raised his eyebrows - so i assume that has chalked up his opinion of Kaynes 'abilities'? I must find some more things for Kayne he has been able to do the 49 piece puzzles with a little help so i should start scouting now for the next stage!
Lani now has 5 teeth and is good at going to sleep finally, she has a bottle and then goes to sleep in the buggy and then later we move her to the travel cot in which she now sleeps. She also has naps now! most days. She had her MMR and didn't give them any more blood.

November

So here we are nearly another month on and i haven't been keeping this up. The main reason being is that we are at Marks parents and so it's harder to get on etc. Hoping that our christmas present is a new flat away from the noisy upstairs.

So Kayne is doing great, has become a bit more boy-ish, resists things he doesn't want to do. Has a new friend in nursery so it's now a breeze to get him in in the morning. His reading is coming on massively, He is reading different things now, not just books, things like shop signs, the sky information box. If he doesn't get it right he gives a good estimate. I have just bought him some encyclopiedia type books as he is asking questions like 'Where is space?'

Lani will be 11 months in 2 days time. She has seemingly grown up so much in the past week or so. She obviously understands so much. She also knows her own mind. She signs; Where, all gone, hat, clean, milk, clever girl, waves (hello and goodbye), and squeezes her hand in the air for 'press'. She says (in her own way) hiya, mum (mmummm), dad (dada), grandad (ga dad), ta (ta/da), kayne (brrrbrr), no (nuh), bear (bah). She's started doing some 'peg-puzzles'. She some times makes brumming noises when playing with cars. She also has really poor blood circulation, just like me. We have just had an awful week of teething, but still no more teeth.

On the 2nd of December we are going to Paulton's park to see Father Christmas in his winter wonderland, they will get a present and we can go on the rides. It should be good fun. It's just the getting there early that will be the hard bit.
Christmas is coming and we have shopping to do....For just about everyone. I have got a few books for Kayne, but thats just because its easy to buy a few things in one go, and i wanted to get him one about Space.
Got to get Bart a birthday and SinterKlaas pressie. Mum a birthday present, Lani a birthday present.

First day back

first day back to nursery today. Kayne went fine, was like we hadn't left.

Mark is on the 10;30 to 7 shift but it hasn't been as bad as i expected. I have been more organised and so it has been easy, well except that Lani is teething and so she hasn't been going to sleep very easily. Going back to nursery is also going to change the routines again! that we have just got sorted.

I've sorted my head out somewhat. Mark and i talked; Mark feels depressed which doesn't surprise me (secretly it didn't feel right that i felt that bad). He tells me nothing so as to make me feel better - but i know something is wrong and i feel worse because he isn't talking to me. it annoyed me somewhat as we are meant to be a partnership yet sometime i feel that we are together bacuase of Kayne and Lani. Sometimes i have not wanted to be here, i've been wondering if our relationship was over etc. Now i feel better about it all, we have started to talk in the evening and it's been better even in the 2 days that weve done it.
I went to mums the other night for 3 hours and did some scrapbooking. It felt good to do something i wanted to do that was productive. Bart has convinced me that i need to go and do something that makes me feel good, so inspired by something he said i'm going to go swimming on a Friday. What he said was: "like going to the gym for me. I don't always feel like going, but I know, when I'm done, when I'm standing in the shower, I feel my muscles and tiredness and think: 'hey, that was nice, I DID something' ". I'm trying to get Mark to go out and do something as i think that it will be important for him if he feels down.

OMG! i can't believe we've done it.

Mark and i built a rat cage! and we are now the owners of 3 boy rats!! I can't believe it, they are so scrummy and lovely.

So here they are, introducing;

Comet:
He is a 'Black Mismarked hooded Dumbo Rex'

Chocolate Milk:
He is a 'Black Mismarked Hooded'

Smoke:
Who is a hooded, but we are unsure of the proper name for his colour' EDIT: he is 'silver mink'

We have given them some free range time (when the pictures were taken), they are great. Comet squeaks when you pick him up but has no desire to bite you and he loves his food. Smoke is diddy and quite scared hides under your leg or up your trousers - he's the baby. And Milk, who is Kaynes, is lovely enjoys exploring but also likes to be stroked.

On the human front:
Kayne is still going crazy: he is memorizing all the theme tumes from the TV. Lani has another tooth. Lani has been in cloth nappies alot recently and we need to do a milk test on her soon- which i'm not looking forward to really. Not much else going on..

Kayne ill, Lani Spikey

Well over the past weekend Kayne was quite unwell, Another temperature spike/mini cold with Kayne as lethargic as possible and getting up to temperatures of 39.9, and considering his normal temperature on that thermometer is about 35.6 it was a bit scary, but 3 days of Calpol and Neurofen alternated got it down. Other than that he is fine now, he has a runny nose and a bit of a cough but thats it.

Lani got a tooth! On wednesday we went to Snelsmore Common with group and she was grizzling and then was crying and screaming. She had had medicene and Bongela and then a bit later Anbesol. All to no effect, i gave her a bottle and she calmed down and she was a little grizzly. I put her in the pram and we kept walking and she fell asleep. Later that afternoon when Mark had come home, we were readying them for bed, i had just finished sorting Kayne out and sat in the living room. Mark said you may wan tto feel in her mouth and she had a tooth. Somewhen between 3pm and 7 pm she had gained a tooth. It disappeared an hour later but is now there properly.

'a bright little boy'

Hmm i knew i was going to be bad at keeping this thing up, not to mention the fact that Mark has been hogging the pc every evening now that he has found free online multiplayer games.

Firstly Auntie Jan died on Monday evening.

i thought i was pregnant after waiting 6 weeks to come on - madness and a bit of panic.

Kayne has been at Winchcombe Nursery for a week and a half. He seems to have settled in very quickly. He keeps talking about a girl called Lucy. Every day so far they have said thats 'he's a very clever little boy' or 'bright little boy' and today the lady was telling me that he's nearly learnt all his phonics!! She even asked if i was doing them at home with him?! I said no as i didn't know them and she seemed visably shocked! She kinda of hinted (i think) that if he continues at teh rate he's going that he will be moved up. I also think she said that he's been doing simple addition, I said he's done some at home and that we were unsure as to whether he simple remembers things or understands the concept. e.g. does he just repeat '1+1=2' or does he know that if you have on brick and add another brick you have 2 bricks?School report in a few weeks, end of the term on the 20th. I'm excited by this school report, maybe i want confirmation of what i think he might be capable of, or maybe i will be shown that he isn't that different?

Lani is sitting! no wobbles not much intermediate stage, just bolt upright sitting, playing and self correcting. WE've had a week of intensive teething and no teeth. I felt a lump on her gum and then it was gone an hour later. I worked out that she drinks nearly 40z of milk in 12 hours! She's still not really bothered by food. I really want the BLW to work but so far she hasn't eaten (swallowed) anything; although today i'm sure a 1/3 of a sweet potato stick went missing - i guess i'll find out soon enough!). Got our cloth nappies :) they are quite easy really, but she needs some different wraps as the ME airflow are a bit gappy at the moment. I wore her to nursery every morning last week.

Lani sitting

Giggling Lani

Holiday and stuff

It's Kayne's 3rd birthday today.

We got off of our 5 day break at Butlins yesterday. It was great, Kayne had so much fun, we all did really. I learnt so much about him in the past 5 days that i am kicking myself that i hadn't noticed it before. He’s so funny, smart, sensitive, articulate, confident and determined. I would have never of noticed his confidence if it wasn’t for our holiday. We were in the ‘Skyline’ watching ‘Lemon’ do some juggling etc. then all the kids got to do some plate spinning. So Kayne and I got our plate, I’m spinning it and handing it too him, He was moving it around saying ‘Look a spaceship is getting you mummy’ and generally having fun. The Lemon said that they had to make up a trick and then he would pick some people to come up and show everyone. We span plates for another 10 minutes and then five kids went up one after the other. They got to walk onto the stage from the side, we cheered and then they showed their trick. So it came to the last person to be picked and the kids (Kayne included) were screaming ‘Me!’, Kayne said to me ‘he’s not listening to me’ and proceeded to strut off to the front of the group and up the stairs of the stage. Lemon was saying ‘oh so your going to show us one? What’s your name?’ Kayne ignores him and tries to get the plate spinning and so Red-Coat Chris helped him and he stood there with it spinning for a bit. Then he must have remembered that they came on from the side, so he walked over to the side of the stage. Then it turned a bit pantomime as on of the girl Red-Coats started running from one side of the stage to the other with Lemon going ‘oh no, I seem to have lost a small boy!’
It had Mark and I in hysterics. I would have never of thought that he could do something like that, but he was adamant that he would be going on next – they weren’t listening to him – so he did something about it.
We went swimming where Kayne tried drowning himself and Lani loved it. Kayne decided that he was going to do something and started to walk away from me and I didn’t get within arms reach quick enough and he slipped on the pool floor and his head went under. He didn’t have armbands on as I’ve tried him with them before and he refused to wear them so I ended up holding them the whole time. But I hope that we will go every Thursday evening and he will be wearing them. Lani adores water and I think it will be good to foster her love of it starting now and hopefully it will continue to rub on Kayne as it has done so far in the bath.

The choice I didn’t want to make is coming up, Lani is starting to consume milk at a terrifying rate of knots. We are talking 8oz every 3 hours and she is draining the bottle. She sleeps through the night and actually sleeps roughly 6-6, and has maybe an hour in the day. On holiday she drank an 8oz and 6oz bottle in one hour – that’s 14oz! and she drained both of them. There is 20 UK fl oz in a UK pint. I would make 9oz but you can’t mix it in the bottle!! I desperately want to do baby-led weaning but I’m not sure she’s gonna last to 6 months. Her teeth are nearly through i think. She also rolled front to back this afternoon in front of Leo and mum. She looked so pleased with herself.

Oli, my dearest Oli, buried his mum this week. I feel so sad for him. I just keep telling him that I’m here if he needs me. But I don’t feel its enough but there isn’t much I can do. I cried last Saturday about his mum and for him, it hurt that something like that had to happen. It just doesn’t make any sense. I know he’s resilient but I don’t like how he seems to brush things off. He never tells you the more serious thoughts in his head, or should I say tells me, he may tell his friends in Pompey but I’m not sure.

It's the middle of May

Lani had her dummy in as she's teething. Kayne looked at her and said 'oh no she's got her dummy in - now she can't talk!'

Lani has her blood draw tomorrow. I feel so evil for putting her through it. Her hands will be numb so it should be fine but it's still horrible. She's teething as well. There is a little pokey bit which is the bottom left canine when you look at her and also the top left front tooth feels like it's further down - you can feel it inside when you touch the bottom of the gum.
She's started drinking 8oz every 3-4 hours. She is waking up at 5am when it used to be 6:30 maybe it's just teeth as she doesn't have a bottle til 8/9am but i'm worried that she's going to start needing solids soon. I really want to do baby-led weaning but she needs to be closer to 6 months. Although she is able to sit up right and can bring things to her mouth and makes chewing actions so maybe she will be ready before 6 months.

Lani teething

Kayne constantly asks for food. I am wondering whether he is bored? Maybe he is just hungry but if he's busy he doesn't ask for food all the time. He is 3 in a week!

He may be nearly 3, but he's still my baby!

I want to get to a point where we do things together Kayne Lani and I. I find myself wishing Lani was 8 or 9 months, which is where i found Kayne was a lot easier to entertain and he was a lot happier as he could do the things he was trying to do. But on the other hand i don't want her to grow up. I feel all my time is wasted and we never accomplish anything day-to-day. I want them to find life exciting and fun, but i can barely get hour to hour, i want to home school desperately but i'm worried that sometimes i would just not be bothered. Well i would but that i wouldn't do something i could of because it was hassle. I am a bit depressed or maybe just melloncolly. Life isn't going how i want it too and i hate it all feeling like it's on hold. I feel awful for being forced into living in this flat and that there isn't much we can do about it.