11/21/07

Woweeee! I’m back online!!! I bet y’all thought I’d disappeared for ever, hey?! No such luck……. To be honest I was having a hard trouble keeping up with noting people and was too stressed to write much last time I checked in. Then the laptop broke & we couldn’t afford a new one! Thank God for AOL and their free laptop offer……anyway, tons news so I’ll launch in & bullet it!

William

* ……is nearly 15 months old!!!

* He started walking just after he’d turned 13 months & now toddles everywhere! He can pull himself up to standing from a crawling position and can crouch down to pick stuff up! It’s so cute. From the moment he gets up to the moment he goes to bed he’s on the go constantly!

* He’s so funny right now-I’m loving this stage! He’s just got interested in TV and LOVES In the Night Garden on CBeebies!

* After 14 months I finally got him to nap in his cot!!! This was after 14 looooooong months of rocking him to sleep in his pram in the day. He got a really bad tummy bug and one day I just gave him a warm bottle of milk in the nursery, laid him down with his blanket in his cot and hey presto….he slept for 1.5 hours and I’ve done the same every day since! And no need for any horrible CIO which I point-blank refuse to do.That’s all he needs for the whole day but that’s fine-it’s a vast improvement on the 30 min catnaps he did before!

* Sadly he also developed a rather annoying habit of waking for milk in the night when he was ill. Hurumph. It’s a pain in the ass having to get up to feed him-feel like I’ve gone backwards!

* Not many words yet, but he understands LOADS. One of the cutest things is if I tell him to give Daddy a kiss, he goes and gives him a smacker! He knows the names of most of his toys although he can’t say them and understands it when I say stuff like, ‘William, shall we go upstairs?’-he goes to the stairs! My little clever clogs!

Me

* Gotta be blunt, the last few months have been the most stressful of my life I think. Mostly due to MONEY-quel surprise. We’ve literally been to the brink. Not being able to pay our rent + numerous bank charges + missed credit card payments = arguments, tears and in my case a 13lb weight loss (the only good side effect-my black trousers, once skintight, are now hanging off me).

I’ve felt so guilty as I’m the one who’s at home and despite being registered as a childminder, I didn’t get my first official work til October! I’m now looking after a 10 month old girl for 3 days a week, 7.30am til 6pm. I started looking afer her offically on 1st October. October was HORRENDOUS. She cried & cried & CRIED. On & off, most of the day. Every time I picked her up, William threw a tantrum because he was jealous-he even bit her hard a few times when I was feeding her! Several times I rang my mum in floods of tears when both babies were screaming, and I’m ashamed to say I even lost my temper a few times-not with the babies, but I threw a book across the room. Trust me-I have oodles of patience but looking after William & Rebecca is like having twins! And I’m being paid a CRAP £4 an hour for the pleasure…..so I’m also doing 8 hours of English tuition a week. No wonder I’m tired.

It’s getting better now though. And I musn’t lose sight of why I’m doing this. I just couldn’t put William in childcare-it’s just not for me.

* TTC wise, it’s been a disaster, quite frankly. In between William’s various illnesses (+sleepless nights), my extreme tiredness (+lack of sex drive), and ridiculous amount of stress, it’s no wonder it hasn’t happened yet. It’s weird, because I got pregnant with William immediately…….I guess that I just thought that would happen again, no matter what was going on. I’m hoping 2008 will be the year! Having said that, this month is the first month I’ve felt much less stressed. I dreamt last night that I was pregnant-and my stomach is v bloated (could be the biccies I scoffed?). I just have a feeling……..period’s due on Monday-I’m probably completely wrong; bet I get it but you never know…..

Right, I’m a Celebrity is on, gotta fly!!!!!!!!!!!

lots of love Clare xxxxxxxxxxxx