jane_somebody, posts by tag: frodo-lad - LiveJournal

A real land-mark day - prince_eldarion, aged seven-and-a-third, has just played his first D&D session :-)

Inspired by kargicq's starting his children off role-playing, skordh dug out our old D&D rulebook. El spotted it and was interested enough that he has been reading it for the past few nights for his bedtime reading! So after school today, Skordh helped him generate a character, plus an NPC friend, and then ran a little encounter for him. Unexpectedly, when coming across some hobgoblins robbing the village, El chose to talk to them rather than wade in and fight, and succesfully negotiated with them! Not at all the path I would have thought he would take :-) #proudmummy

In other news, to mark World Book Day, yesterday the children were asked to bring their 'favourite book' to school (admittedly 'favourite' is something that fluctuates over time.) El chose to take in Diana Wynne Jones' Power of Three, an excellent choice and one that I know his godmother will approve :-) frodo_lad (four-and-a-half), rather to the consternation of his Reception-class teacher, brought in The Hobbit to show her. "It has hardly any pictures at all," he remarked proudly :-) (No, he isn't reading it himself yet, we are reading it to him. He does have to go to the Year 2 book-boxes to get his reading-practice books, though, so it might not be too long before he is! El *is* reading The Hobbit to himself, when he isn't reading D&D rulebooks. His reading book of choice at school at the moment is the encyclopaedia. "We aren't really supposed to read it," he confided to me. "we're supposed to choose a book from the box, but [my teacher] lets me, as a special treat!")

Overheard today in the Somebody household:

frodo_lad: "Mummy, I am a baby mantelpiece."

Me, thinking back to the episode of 'Deadly 60' prince_eldarion was watching before school: "Do you mean a baby praying mantis?"

:D

Good grief, how did it get to June already! I've been wanting to post a fro-update for ages; I've been drafting one in dribs and drabs over the last few weeks, as so much has happened since my last update that he was working towards proper crawling. I still don't have the time to write that post up properly yet, but I have to just record this evening's development:

frodo_lad is walking!!!

Over the last week and a bit he has taken the odd step here and there, then last night he did three in a row before falling down. This morning he managed about half-a-dozen steps but then didn't repeat it, until this evening when he did it again, and again, and again, keeping on falling down but then manfully (babyfully?) hauling himself back to his feet and making his way up and down the upstairs corridor while we all clapped and cheered and El danced around encouragingly ;-)

As he first crawled around the same age El did, I had thought Fro might walk at the same sort of age; El was just a couple of days short of 14 months. Clearly I hadn't allowed for the difference having a big brother you are desperate to emulate makes - Fro is just 10 months and 3 weeks old!

Just over a fortnight between updates this time, which I think is the best I've managed for quite some time. Of course, I've still been planning/writing this post for more than a week... In fact, I've been wanting to update ever since posting my last post, as that very evening frodo_lad started to make new progress with forward mobility, inching his way along with his first bit of 'commando crawling'. ( Collapse )

Fro's increasing mobility also prompted us on Wednesday to lower the base of his cot so the mattress is at the lowest setting. We were planning to do this anyway, but the task was given urgency by the incident the day before when I popped him in the cot while going to clean my teeth, and returned to find him semi-kneeling, holding onto the top rail, while peering over the edge to the floor below, and trying to pull himself further up. Eep. ( Collapse )

Other things: ( Collapse )

As for me? ( Collapse )

And finally, I want to briefly note what we have been doing over the last fortnight. ( Collapse )

( Collapse )

And now I'm going to hope that my poor sad clingy cold-ridden baby will be able to nap for long enough to let me have a quick shut-eye too before fetching El from nursery...

I had intended to make a post nearly three weeks ago when frodo_lad turned 4 months. I intended to make one a week before that when prince_eldarion had his third birthday. But I have just not had the time or energy (physical and emotional) to manage to write anything down. I am also horribly behind again with reading and commenting on my friends' LJs, sorry :-(

One thing that is definitely not helping is that upon reaching 4 months, Fro seems to decided that sleeping through is for wimps, and he'd rather wake up every two hours like a newborn. While still continuing with his pattern of cluster-feeding hourly through the evening till gone midnight. I don't know whether this is because he is not feeding so well during the day, either because he is teething and it hurts him, or because life has got so interesting now that he keeps getting distracted from feeding and turning his head away for fear of missing something exciting, or for some other reason entirely.

Also, we are all on about our third consecutive cold. For the last two nights poor Fro coughed himself awake (and me, of course) about every hour. Skordh has decamped to the spare room, but hasn't escaped being disturbed as he has to deal with El when he wakes, which is at least once most nights, and last night he woke up at 5.00 and didn't get back to sleep till gone 7.00, in which time he also needed a complete change of pyjamas and bedclothes (he still wears a nappy but it leaked.)

When I made my last post I was feeling rather more hopeful on the depression front, but soon after that things started to go downhill again. The promised counselling did turn up, but is very much 'just counselling', rather than anything psychotherapy or psychiatry based; I found this rather disheartening as I had perhaps pinned a bit too much hope on that being a route for progress. I don't mean this as an academic-snob sort of disparagement, just that it really isn't what I'd been led to believe during the initial assessment appointment, and the counsellor herself agrees that the approach she can offer isn't really suited for me, and that anyway the 6 weeks provided isn't long enough to get very far with what I need; she says I should be looked at some kind of talking therapy as a longer-term proposition. My doctor is referring me back to the Mental Health team to see if they can get me on the waiting list for CBT or something, though with the usual proviso that there will be a long waiting list due to MH provision in this area being, frankly, pants. So in the meantime we should probably look into the feasibility of doing something privately, though I feel I'm letting the family down further by causing additional expense at precisely the wrong time, given the whole new-extra-person thing.

I would still like to write about what's been happening over the last few weeks at some point, not because I think anyone else would be interested, but to have as a record for myself, to remind me that we have actually been doing quite a lot of stuff. Whether I will be able to succeed in this ambition is doubtful, though, realistically.

One thing I will note down here though, as it happened just this evening - after weeks of easily turning onto his side but getting no further, Fro made heroic efforts and managed to roll all the way from his back to his front. After a bit more struggle, he also freed the rogue arm which was trapped under him, that had been the main obstacle all along, and started to lift his head and upper chest clear before nose-diving back down (fortuitously he decided to perform these exploits on the bed next to me, so he had a nice soft landing!)

ETA next morning: Of course now he wants to do it ALL THE TIME, and then gets stuck and distressed, so can't be left for a second. Gah.

ETA 2: One of the things I was feeling sad about was thinking we wouldn't be welcome at the Taru banquet this year, but I am now led to believe this may just be our fault for not being on or reading the relevant mailing list. If so, must sort this out.

frodo_lad is two months old today. He's getting good at holding his head up, makes various cooing and gurgling noises, and in the last couple of days has been holding one fist in the air and staring at it intently, so maybe he's beginning to work out that those things that flail around in front of his eyes actually belong to him ;-) He's also just had his first set of immunisations, not the regular ones, but part of a trial being run by the Oxford Vaccine Group that we have volunteered to take part in.

Of course, given that my last Frodo update was at 4 weeks, this two-month mark underlines the fact that I haven't posted to LJ in over a month. I had meant to make a "we're back" post after the Taru holiday, but was too busy unpacking and generally being busy and tired until it was too late to be much point! I do want to make a note of the various things we did on the holiday and since, but I haven't got the time right now. And on the note of "no time", I'm afraid I haven't been able to keep up to date with my flist since being away from internet access on the holiday either, so I'm sure I've missed some things. I've skimmed where I could, bookmarked various posts to read later, and made some fairly random comments, but it's a bit hit and miss!

The main thing about me at the moment is that the post-natal depression, now officially considered to be such, hasn't improved at all, so I have reluctantly agreed to go back on sertraline (reluctantly not because I don't agree with medication for depression, but because after having been on sertraline for 7 years before finally succeeding in coming off 18 months ago, and getting through all the pregnancy medication-free, I had hoped not to need it again.) Also, what I had forgotten was just how nasty the side-effects are on starting on it, though hopefully the worst of these will wear off after about a week or so. In the meantime, my parents are here once again to help me with the boys, but I did do two weeks on my own during the time Skordh was at work, so I guess I know I *can* look after two children, even if the looking after is a bit patchy in places and housework non-existent!

frodo_lad is a fortnight old today. He seems to be thriving, although he has developed the same flaky skin at wrists and ankles that prince_eldarion had when he was born, and somewhat dry skin in general, so now we are oiling him with extra virgin olive oil ;-) He also has gungy eyes, but these are apparently probably due to blocked tear ducts rather than an infection, so we are cleaning out with sterile water and massaging inner corner of eye in hopes of preventing infection developing. We were discharged by the midwife on Monday, and the Health Visitor will be coming on Thursday - this is the nice HV we know from her following both El and me since we moved here, so I don't expect her to be anything but supportive.

On the less good side, I am still suffering from the baby blues, which kicked in around day 3 so I'd've hoped to have shaken them off by now :-( Obviously with my history of depression we're keeping a bit of an eye on this, but it's too early days to worry about PND specifically yet. I'm feeling a bit as I did towards the end of the pregnancy (before I just got completely frustrated and fed-up of being overdue again); a sense that time is rushing away from me, these moments never to be recaptured, muddled in with a conviction that somehow I'm Doing It Wrong and can't go back and fix it. It is true about time going so quickly, of course, even if there are hours of night-feeding that seem to crawl by; already Fro has changed physically and personality-wise. For his first few days he used to startle at every sound or jolt, and I called him my little Startlement, but by now he has got much more used to being out in this noisy bright world. And he has stretched out from his curled-up-legs newborn position, so he does now look like an older baby - and it is clear that he is quite 'tall' like his brother as well.

I'm not feeling great physically either. ( Collapse )

Still, we have done some nice and useful things over the last week. ( Collapse )

And then, on the way back from there, we dropped into the local first school and registered El for the pre-school - over a year in advance, admittedly, ( Collapse )

Other useful things followed from registering the birth; Fro has been registered with the doctor, child benefit form posted, and also his passport application has been completed and sent off. ( Collapse )

We have also had some more visitors, notably on Saturday wellinghall and Creatrix, ( Collapse )

El has in fact continued to be a marvellous big brother ;-) ( Collapse )

Phew, long update. I am still half-way through writing up my birth post, so prod me about that if it doesn't appear soon. I am more or less keeping up with reading LJ, as that only requires one free hand, but sorry I'm not commenting as much as I'd like.

Thanks for all the many lovely comments on the birth announcement post Skordh made while I was still in hospital with Frodo-lad, and also thank you very much to everyone who sent me birthday wishes ;-) I have to say it seemed quite surreal thinking about celebrating my own birthday after being so focused on having a baby for so long! I didn't really expect Frodo-lad's birthday to end up being so close to mine, though I'm glad he did at least come before it in the end!

We took the opportunity to make our first outing as a family, to go to church. Despite having had an 'interesting' night, with Frodo awake and feeding continually from 2.00 to 5.30 in the morning, we actually managed to make it up, out of the house, and there just on time - largely thanks to the extra help from my parents, who have been staying with us this past week. It was perhaps a slightly over-ambitious thing to do in the circumstances, but I was very glad to be able to go to church on my birthday, especially as it turned out to be the monthly communion service. And so many people were excited to see us, and the vicar made a point of welcoming the '4-day old baby' specially at the start of the service, and he was prayed for by name during the intercessions as well. Then after the notices people with birthdays or other celebrations get to go up to the front and be made a fuss of, so Skordh wheeled me and Fro up to the front (I'm still using the wheelchair for the time being) and the congregation sang 'Happy Birthday' to Fro and me, and we were given little token presents, so Fro now has a little ichthus pin on a card with a nice verse to add to his memento box :-) I am also amused in a pleased sort of way that Fro had his first public breastfeed in church during communion, in fact while I was taking communion myself, though it did mean he missed out on a blessing, since I suppose the vicar was a little nervous of putting his hand on the head of a baby who was actually suckling at the time ;-)

After church Skordh's parents arrived, just for an overnight stay, but keen to see their new grandson, and we all had a pleasant lunch before my parents headed off home after their week here. Also Skordh's aunt called in for a couple of hours during the afternoon (though I was napping for most of that time) and she brought me a pretty plant for my birthday, which I will doubtless manage to kill off quickly. The day before Phina and Pel had come over too, and we had a little early-birthday-cum-welcome-baby tea party, with cake ;-) (The leftovers from this furnished Sunday luncheon.) From midday tomorrow we will be on our own, so it will be interesting to see how well (or not!) we cope...

I'm now hoping an entire evening of constant feeding (cluster feeding) will settle Fro enough to let us get a little bit of sleep, although it has to be said there is no sign of this working so far...

I still intend to go back and write up a birth story and afterwards post, though I'm not sure when I'll get round to it, but I think this will do as an update for now, and even if Fro doesn't settle after this feed, I'll call it night-time anyway, turn the computer off, and switch to our (still a bit of a work in progress) lying-down feeds. See you in the morning...

Frodo-lad is currently on his third bout of hiccups today...

Let's see, at the end of my last proper update I mentioned that there were other things I'd meant to write about; however I can't now remember what they were ;-( So I'll just get on with giving an update of what's happened since then.

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

The other thing we really need to do is decide on a name for this poor baby! El has already told the helpers at his nursery, and some nurses at hospital, that his baby brother is called Frodo-lad, oops. We have tried to explain that's just a temporary name and he will need a proper name once he comes out; I think this has gone in, as he recently told someone else that baby "is called Frodo-lad for now." Still, actually coming up with a proper name would be a good idea...

( Collapse ) Well, 37 weeks today, which means baby is now classed as full-term, and not much longer to go no matter how I feel about it!

Well, I guess I succeeded in my aim of updating more quickly that I did the last time, though I am quite surprised by just how long a post this has become! I'll see if I can manage shorter but more frequent updates over the next couple of weeks...