Aches and Pains

Meant to post yesterday but ended up in too much pain to get on the pc much in the afternoon/evening :0(

The weekend was ok. Roarke was working. Went to sit out in the garden to enjoy the weather, then quickly remembered why hot weather and pregnancy don't mix! After about 10 minutes it was unbearable!

Hot weather + 3 boys + garden + shorts = lots of cuts and bruises! Poor old William, underneath all the dirt, has barely a patch of skin left that doesn't have a cut on it! The boys have been happily playing outside, digging in the dirt, running around, building a huge tented house by dragging tarpaulin over the climbing frame... you name it, they've done it!

Having a runny nose, has meant that William has been wiping his face, with his black hands... and I think you can get the picture!

I read on someone's blog the other day, their comment that it was good to see their children "enjoying their childhood" and I thought that summed it up perfectly.

To my great pleasure, and encouragement, I found Samuel (on Saturday) in his brother's room on the computer at one point, where he had - independently - loaded up the BBC Science Clips site and was working his way through the primary section. I was very pleased; especially as he always maintains that science isn't "his thing". He came in afterwards and chatted to me about what he had been doing, and what he had learnt.

Apart from that, actually, Samuel has had a good few days of not really focusing on anything. Interestingly, you may recall that a while back we put the kids onto a new multi vitamin, following some research, and some training, that I'd had. We had thought we'd noticed a difference; but like with going gluten free, the change had been so gradual that we'd wondered if we'd imagined it. However, we ran out of the vitamin last week.

Within 3 days, we suddenly realised that Samuel's behaviour - and Joshua's as well in a less in-your-face way - had REALLY deteriorated. We've had at least one meltdown a day, all the old speech patterns coming back, all the old phrases ("I'm no good", "I'm always hurting people"), being totally intolerant. Joshua has been more manic, and less focused.

We've been stunned. We should get our next delivery within a day or so and we are REALLY keen to see if resuming the tablets seems to stop this again. Watch this space for more updates!

As for me, I had appalling lower back ache yesterday, which got so bad by the evening that I was actually in tears with it. I was then awoken at 1.30am with such a painful "braxton hicks" that for a split second I actually thought I was in labour. They continued, 40-50 minutes apart, until 6am this morning. They were painful enough that each one woke me.

I was dreading getting out of bed; figuring if they'd been that bad, it could only get worse on my feet, but thank God they didn't return. However, I've noticed the back ache started again around 6 this evening. Definately seem to be entering the stage where being on my feet for more than short periods of time sets off the irritable uterus problem (I'd been at church in the morning, and baking in the afternoon).

At least, unlike when I was pregnant with William, I don't have the school run - which at that time was actually the school walk as I wasn't driving. I walked 3 miles a day, twice a day, to take Samuel to playschool and Joshua to school, till the hospital gave me an ultimatum to be hospitalised, or stop the walking. Between friends and some very kind staff at the school, I was able to get the boys taken and collected whenever Roarke was not around to do it. Very glad that it isn't that way now.

This week is going to be tough. I'm afraid I'm very much living each day in the past, excruciatingly aware of what I was doing twelve months ago... I'm going to try my best to get through the week, keeping things going for the boys' sake (I haven't reminded them its the anniversary yet, though Joshua may remember when its my birthday on Wednesday), so I'm hoping for lots of outings: tomorrow is our indoor play area day, Wednesday we'll try to get out, Friday there is a park trip planned. On Saturday, the anniversary, we are going to go over to the Crematorium to the Memorial Gardens.

Sorry - don't mean to be a "downer", but that's the reality of HE, isn't it? We share, we live, laugh, cry, learn, and be together as a family, very much living in the "real world" unlike the unreal, divided, pretence that can come into a family where the children spend all day at school, without connecting to their parents lives (and vice versa). As this blog write up says, its not always about HE, but always about life...