Fireman and Princess

Third Pregnancy Fears - Theo

I haven't had a very good week. I'd been feeling fine about things when I woke up recently - around the time that I entered my third trimester - with a knot in my stomach that hasn't yet eased. I felt a weight of worries on my shoulders and realised that I hadn't felt fully relaxed and happy and looking forward to the future since I was 8 weeks pregnant.

I am feeling similar anxieties to when I was pregnant the second time - this time it is mainly concentrated on my feelings towards Theo. I have been through it with Freyja and come out unscathed the other side. I am secure in my knowledge that our relationship will survive the arrival of another little person intact. Theo, however, is my baby and I feel very, very concerned about him not being my baby anymore and how this may change us. I would say we have quite an intense relationship and I feel very close to him and know that he does to me - Adrian and I often say that given the choice Theo would crawl back inside me!

I don't have any fears about the baby replacing him in my affection as I know that I can love more than one child intensely, but I do have fears about how our relationship will change when he is no longer my youngest.

I also feel a little sadness about how he will have to cope with the change. With Freyja, she had Adrian to turn to. Theo of course will have that too, but it won't be exclusive, as it was for Freyja. I think that this may be the origin of all those insecurities middle children supposedly have. Who do they belong to now?

Overall, in my list of pros and cons about having a third, this was actually one of the areas that just slipped into being a pro, a little one at least. I don't like how easily we sometimes fall into the 'Freyja with Adrian and Theo with me' scenario. Our children shouldn't belong more to one than the other, I want our relationships to be equal. We have tried very hard over the last few months to address this, making sure that we alternate stories at bedtime rather than Adrian always reading to Freyja and me to Theo. With three I imagine that the dynamics just need to keep changing.

But I can still see how with the third child arriving, Theo could feel a little lost for a while. I am very aware of this but as a middle child myself who has no recollection of feeling missplaced by the arrival of my sister - and I was 5 and half and can remember her being born - I know that it doesn't have to be that way. I'm just trying to get my head around how I stop it from happening as much as possible. I've read that a 3 year gap is ideal in terms of reducing sibling rivalry as the 3 year old feels far enough away from being a baby themselves to not feel so much jealousy towards the new sibling. But newborn babies do take up a lot of time and attention and my big fear is Theo feeling betrayed in some way by the attention I must give to his new sibling.

I really thought that having been through it once with Theo's arrival, the whole changing relationships side of things wouldn't be a concern for me with this pregnancy. It changes for the better after all. But I feel very similar feelings.

Maybe it's my hormones. I'm blaming them for pretty much everything this time round!

Hello Sickness..

Of course what usually happens is this house is that at the beginning of any holiday or half term one of my kids gets sick. Normally it's just some sort of cold or cough, nothing too bad.

But today we have cut short our stay at Theo's end of term party because I could feel him getting a temperature, he wouldn't eat anything, not even cake, crisps or the sweets he was given after getting his haircut this morning. And he just wanted me to carry him. He is now tucked up on the sofa watch The Princess and The Frog with Freyja. Not quite what I had planned for first day of the holiday.

Apparently there has been a nasty virus involving stomach upsets and a fever going round the playgroup so I guess that is what he has.

Hello Summer Holidays

First day of the school holidays today. I know many parents dread the school holiday, but with Freyja only just finishing her first year I am still at the stage where I look forward to them. Still having a preschool child, and a baby on the way, means I haven't yet made that transition to full-on school parent. I enjoy the extra time I get with my kids and I like not having to get out in the morning if we don't want to.

I'm sure this will wear off - probably sometime around having three children to entertain during the holiday and being on maternity leave so missing those 2 days at work which break up the week...

I'm lucky that my parents usually take the kids away for some of the time and that Adrian's parents come to us to help out when I'm working. In fact so far I've felt that I haven't seen enough of my children during the holidays, rather than too much of them.

But now we have 6 whole weeks ahead. I feel a sense of excitment just like I used to get as a child at the beginning of the holiday. I asked Freyja how she felt and she said she was sad that she wouldn't be going to school and sad she was no longer in Reception.

But this morning when she came into my room to ask if she there was time for her to 'have a little play', I reminded her that she was now on holiday and could play for as long as she wanted. A big smile spread across her face.

28 Week Bump No 3

Oh God, I'm huge.


I have had a weirdly growing and shrinking bump this pregnancy but in the last few days the baby has had a sudden growth spurt.

Compared to 28 weeks with Theo, I am massive. And I've still got 3 months to go.

Planking

My husband is an idiot.

I love Bread & Jam

My mum ordered a few clothes for the kids from John Lewis recently, and among all the lovely items was this gorgeous dress from I love Bread and Jam.


I'd never heard of Bread and Jam before but I had a look and their website and they do the sweetest, simple dresses in loads of different gorgeous prints (for lots of different types of girls - whether they prefer flowers or skulls) which you can select from the swatches shown on the page.

The Gallery - Travel

For this week's gallery, here is Freyja 1t 15 months, looking very cosmopolitan in Venice.


She certainly looks a much more relaxed and confident traveller than her mother ever does!

First School Report

Feeling very proud today of Freyja's excellent first school report. Some highlights: she is 'extremely sensible', has a 'caring attitude and is sensitive to others', is an 'excellent role model to her peers', a 'keen learner', she can 'focus for a considerable amount of time', has 'very good general knowledge about life', she 'responds extremely well in music lessons' and is 'eager to become involved with experiences that are new to her'.

I am thrilled. There is nothing at all that is negative, and I am particularly pleased that while it says she prefers to play alone or in a small group (which she always has done) she is obviously still getting really involved and taking an active part in school life.

Well done, my poppet. I am very, very proud of you.

Sports Day

All ready for her first sports day. Just hoping that the rain holds off...


Update: Well the heavens opened and I received a text to say it was cancelled. Let's just that that Freyja was very upset. Boo.

Third Pregnancy Fears

If I had to sum up my pregnancy so far in one word, that word would be 'anxious'.

I really wanted to enjoy what will be my last pregnancy. I was even quite looking forward to being pregnant again. But since 8 weeks, when the dreaded morning sickness struck, I have felt not quite right about things. I feel generally short tempered and grumpy and I am worried about a million and one things connected to being pregnant, giving birth and having another baby.

I do have days when I feel on top of things and ready to face the world as a mother three. But I also have days where I am trapped inside my mind wondering and worrying.

Unlike my other two pregnanices, I am willing this one to end. I really want to meet my new baby, to know that he/she is okay, and I really want to move on with my life as family of five.

The Gallery - Grandparents

For this week's Gallery, I am remembering my grandparents.

None of my grandparents - my Nain and my Taid on my mum's side or my Ama and my Afi on my dad's side - are still alive. They didn't meet any of my children, three of them had passed away before I had children, or was even married and the 4th, my Ama, moved back to Iceland for the last few years of her life.

I didn't know my dad's parents very well. They moved to England from Iceland just a few months before my dad, the 4th of 6 children, was born. We would visit them every few years in London in the summer and my Afi was an extroverted character, a retired music teacher who always wanted to get us singing and playing piano when we visited, which I remember was excruciating to me - though he usually succeeded.

I was closest to my Nain and my Taid, on my mum's side, and although we didn't see them regularly on account of us living abroad, we would spend the whole of every summer with them in Wales. My mum was an only child so we were their only grandchildren.

I remember sweets from the corner shop, going to the Co-op with my Nain, chicken kievs from Iceland for dinner, sliced cucumbers marinated in vinegar, going to Chapel to get in my Taid's good books, My Little Ponies in the Argos catalogue, choc-ices from the big freezer in the garage, going on the bus with Nain to Wrexham, tomatoes with sugar on from Taid's greenhouse, fruit picking and making pies and scones, visiting the cemetry (I loved doing that), cheese pies from Gerrards bakery, children's TV (so much better than in Dubai), lemon cordial, pork pies heated in the microwave, 'warm bread' (not toast) for breakfast, sitting in front of the gas fire to dry our hair after bathtime.

My grandparents lived in a 2 bedroom bungalow. When we were little, they would put a bunk bed in their room and my brother and I would sleep in with them, both before my sister arrived and when she was baby. Then, to accommodate their three growing grandchildren, the attic was partially cleared out and three fold out beds put up there. We would climb up the step ladder every night to sleep in a pitch black, window-less, baking hot attic, filled with boxes and suitcases and dusty old coats. Over the years it became more and more homely, our space in their bungalow - but it never had any windows, or more than a bare bulb and pull down step ladder. And that is where we slept whenever the whole family visited, right up until my Nain passed away, 10 years or so after my Taid, when I was in my early twenties. It makes me laugh to think about it now, but it seemed perfectly normal to us all at the time!

I would love my Nain to have met my children. But she had been gone not far off 10 years when they arrived. So what I want now is for my children to have the same happy relationship with their grandparents, on both sides, as I had with my Nain and Taid. I'm lucky that although we don't live close to any of them, my children do spend time with and have close loving relationships with all of their grandparents.

The photo that I want to put up, of me and my Taid in his greenhouse, taken well before digital cameras, is on the wall in my parents house. So instead here is a photo of my dad with Theo, taken in France in the summer of 2009.

Swan Lake

On Saturday it was Freyja's first ever ballet show. She was a swan. I was a little bit heartbroken during the performance because we were seated right at the back (some of those parents must seriously have queued for an hour to get good seats. We went for a coffee. We will know for next time) and when she came on, she was also right at the back and on the opposite side to us so I could hardly see her. Obviously I did not tell her this.

She did however twice come round to the front of the stage and when she left she paused to look for us and gave a little wave. Adrian took a video - it's a bit bright on account on the very shiny tinsel curtain at the back of the stage, but it's still quite good.

Freyja is the second child to come on, but then through most of the performance she is at the very back on the far left and you can't see her. She comes twice round to the front and also, when they are twirling round and doing their swan arms, you get a good view of her on the far left. And she is the little one who gets ushered off at the end after giving a wave, having just spotted her daddy standing at the back.



Now, I know that every mother thinks their daughter is the best and the most beautiful. But I honestly do think that Freyja was one of the most graceful swans there...

Dragons and Fairies at the Blythe Hill Festival

The Blythe Hill Festival this year was, I think, the best one yet. I did, however, as in previous years spend most of my time there queuing up for the face painting.

The Question

I have had The Question! The 'how did the baby get into your tummy question'!

Unfortunately it came out of nowhere, no warning, no preliminary baby talk, and I wasn't alone. My sister was there, which would have been fine except she snorted at hearing 'The Question' and then I felt really at the spot. So I just said that daddy helps to put the baby inside and we would talk about it at another time. Luckily she was fine with this.

Then at bathtime I brought it up again. I explained that there was an egg inside which grows into the baby. This was intriguing to Freyja - how did the egg get in there? I said that the egg is already in there, that all girls have them, but they are not ready to grow into babies until a you become a grown-up. She is fascinated. She has been asking about the eggs all morning over breakfast until I got a bit worried about what she might come out with at school and had to tell her that making babies is actually quite a private thing.

Anyway, back to bathtime. I then told her that daddy has a seed and when the egg and the seed are put together, it starts to grow into a baby. Amazing stuff! She of course wanted to know how the seed gets in. I didn't elaborate too much - I know people have different views on this but to me age 5 is too young for graphic details. My description did involve two people loving each other very much...anyway, she seems happy with the information she has so far.