Over a month ago now we decided that we had to take the plunge and move Lucas into his big boy bed and new room. I was already feeling guilty that he was being moved into the smaller room as with twins on the way we will need his original room for them. Fortunately, we hadn't decorated his old room so we were able to make his new bedroom like a proper child's bedroom; all colourful and exciting. I promise I will get a post up about this while it still looks like a newly decorated room! We thought we might as well make the change to a big bed well before the babies arrived so he would be settled and happy with a new bedtime routine.
He seemed quite interested to see his new bed being put together and we chose a date when we would move him in. I was so convinced that he would be up as soon as we put him down, that he would be running up and down the landing or awake playing. We relocated his favourite books and teddies and did the whole bedtime routine in his new room. Come that night I felt terrible and I can't even explain why! I didn't want to leave him in the bed; he looked so little. He was actually really happy going into his bed but it took him a while to figure out where to lie and what to do with the duvet. It was his confused expression as we said night night and shut the door that got to me; I wanted to go back in and sit with him but I knew there is no way he'd sleep while I was in the room. We both stood outside his room looking at each other in silence but eventually decided to sit downstairs. We sat, not speaking, no television on, just waiting for any sign that he was up or had fallen out of bed but there nothing, not a peep. We couldn't believe it, I was itching to go up and check on him but I didn't want to disturb him. I checked before we went to bed and eagerly dashed into his room in the morning to get him up. He was quite happy and I felt so relieved.
That week we had a few disturbances early on in the evening. I went in one night and thought I'd just sit with him until he drifted off but instead he started chatting to me about the car stickers and bouncing on the bed. I realised that tactic wasn't going to work with Lucas so I told him it was time to sleep, kissed him goodnight again and left. To my utter surprise he stayed in bed and went to sleep. Some evenings we could hear him chattering but he always managed to get himself off to sleep. I still felt anxious at bedtime for at least two weeks and I would have loved for everything to stay the same but it can't, he is growing up and soon he will be a big brother. I am so proud of how well he has coped with the transition and now he has a lovely little space to call his own.
Two weeks ago today my little boy had his second birthday. We'd decided to keep it fairly low key this year and just had some family and friends visit on they day with some fun days out before and after. As we weren't giving him a big party we had a day out to Chester Zoo a few days before just the three of us. It was lovely to spend a day out together and Lucas loved looking at the animals (although he did spend most of his time climbing rocks and stroking the floor!) We went round all the favourites; elephants, penguins, bears, monkeys, lions but Lucas seemed to prefer the flamingos to everything else.
On his birthday we had a lazy morning in our pyjamas while he opened all his presents. This can take some time; everything he opens needs to be given the proper attention and be played with before we can move on. Grandma, Grandad and cousins visited for lunch and Nanny and some friends visited for tea. There was plenty of cake but we soon realised that Lucas hates people singing Happy Birthday; even the arrival of his Postman Pat birthday cake couldn't stop him being grumpy. Second lot of visitors we didn't sing and that seemed to be ok, hopefully he'll have grown out of it by next year!
That weekend we visited Great Nana and more family and had a picnic out at the woods and some ice cream down by the river. A perfect way to celebrate our boy turning two!
A quick Flashback Friday inspired by Dear Beautiful's lovely post, Being In The Memories. Far too often Mums are left out the photos, usually because they are the ones taking them or they aren't feeling quite confident enough to be captured on film. However, I've managed to hunt down a couple that are very special to me. I happen to think my Mum looks pretty great in this photo (she might disagree) and it is one of my favourites of the two of us. Not the best photos in the world; just happy Mummies and happy children.
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| My Mum and Me (8 months) 1985 Me and Lucas (8 months) 2012 |
I've been finding it very difficult to blog over the past couple of months because I had a huge part of my life that I wanted to share but that I wasn't quite ready to go public with. My head has been filled with so many pregnancy thoughts and I've been reading blogs about siblings and getting all teary eyed sat at the laptop and I haven't been able to share any of it! Everytime I have sat down to blog I've felt like I have nothing to say because I can't say what I wanted to.
Now I can chat about it to my hearts content! The first 12 weeks went fairly smoothly. Before we found out that we are expecting twins being pregnant this time round didn't seem as life-changing (that changed very quickly when we saw the scan!) Last time it was all I could think about and it consumed my thoughts. I would spend hours looking up baby things and researching and even looking up every little stage of my pregnancy. This time I was a bit more trusting in my body; my last pregnancy was pretty straight forward except I was so anxious and always thought the worst. This time I was feeling happier to let things take their natural course and I had absolutely no inclination that I was pregnant with twins.
I had the normal early pregnancy symptoms; I did feel drained, much more so than I remembered with Lucas but I put that down to running after a toddler all day when I was sat behind a desk first time round. Sometimes I would come home from work and have a nap or go straight for a bath whereas when I felt tired early on in this pregnancy I had to carry on. Although, there have been a few nights when I took myself off to bed straight after Lucas!
I was never actually sick when I was pregnant first time round and it was just the same this time but I was nauseous all day. Again this did seem slightly worse than I remembered it with Lucas and we had one incident when I cooked his tea and couldn't feed it to him because I felt so sick; butties on the couch it was! I generally felt a bit off colour from 6-11 weeks but nothing out of the ordinary.
I hadn't even put any extra weight on that might have given me a clue that there's two babies in there. I must admit I hadn't quite shifted my baby-belly from Lucas so I knew it wouldn't be as obvious early on but I actually lost a bit of weight in the early weeks. I was so fussy about what I would eat as so many things turned my stomach and I could only eat tiny portions. This really is the only thing that might have tipped me off as many woman who are pregnant with multiples find they get full quickly as there quite simply isn't as much room. Then again I know a lot of women who are pregnant with only one baby experience this too but I didn't with my first pregnancy. Even now I can't eat big portions and I have a cut off were I just cannot eat anymore as I feel so full; not like me at all.
I'm 14 weeks on Sunday and I have started wearing some maternity clothes (luckily me and my Sister-in-law have a shared stock!) because some of my clothes won't do up and they are also so comfy, especially when it is hot out. I am going to write a pregnancy diary but I won't start it until 16 weeks as hopefully I'll be a bit better informed by then about everything. There is still a lot I have yet to discover about the ups and downs of a twin pregnancy; I know I will now be monitored a lot more but I am going to take each week as it comes and enjoy as much as I can because I don't think I'll be doing this again!
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