Thankful for eczema

I was thinking this morning of the long list of chores I had to do this morning before lunch (make a pan of soup, clean the bathrooms, put away lots of laundry and nappies, wash lots more dirty clothes & nappies, as well as all the constant picking up of toys, clearing up of dishes, looking after children) and realised I had quite a lot to get done. Then I saw that Benjamin had worn a hole through the mitten of his "eczema pyjamas", and since he's put a *large* hole in the knee of his other pair, I felt it was time for me to make some new pyjamas for him. It's been on my to-do list for a while, since he is getting rather too big for the ones I made last summer, but I've just been letting him get a bit more wear out of them! ;-) Anyway, no, I didn't manage to make the pyjamas today (as I'd hoped to) - I didn't even get the pieces cut out this afternoon, as I was sure I'd have enough time for - just never seems to be enough hours in the day for everything I want to get done! Hopefully next week. Many times I've felt that it's rather a bit much all the extra things that have to be done because of Benjamin's eczema - and in the more severe periods, felt it wasn't fair, when so many people out there have perfectly healthy children, that I have to deal with all this. But it seems everytime I think this way, I'm soon confronted with someone who's going through something far more severe with their children. Last year it was someone I knew of online who lost their baby only hours after it was born - and then I realised that I am SO ungrateful to ever complain about anything I have to do for my living children! They would do anything to have their child back. And then this morning I learn of someone who's 2 year old child is in her last hours of life, dying of cancer. And when I see what others are going through with their precious children, I then feel *thankful* for eczema - so thankful that this is the worst my children have had to suffer. And I realise that we never know what trial we will meet with in life next, so should always be thankful to God for the blessings he gives us, knowing that He does all things well.

So, it looks like my blog is off to a rather neglected start this year. Only one post a month, though I think this month might not be so bad, as after all, Benjamin will be 3 next week, so I'm sure there will be a post with pics from his birthday! It's hard to believe he's already this old - and Clement will be 11 months the same day - only 1 month away from his first birthday. They grow up so quickly!

Already a computer geek, this Clement is! He will go to great lengths to get to computers - and he has removed several keys, several times, from my laptop! Pity these things aren't more child-proof!

Not the best of photos (as taken in a mirror) but shows a smiling Clement riding on mummy's back in a mei tai.

Benjamin is concentrating on making a star with some "hama" beads. Abigail got these from her Aunty Leah in November and when Benjamin tried making something with them before, it was a bit of a disaster! He would attempt to place a half dozen or so on the board and then he'd get frustrated and dump them all off - or worse still, insert one in his nose! :-O But a few weeks ago I got them out for A & B and was amazed at how much Benjamin has changed/matured over the past few months. He actually stayed with the project for nearly an hour(!), and filled the whole board (must be 150 or so tiny beads!), with me only helping with the last 6 or so that were in the middle/difficult for him to put on. So I was very pleased to see improvement with his patience and perseverence! :-)

Abigail making a star too! She *loves* all craft activities and would do something all day long if you let her. She ends up using drawing as her creative outlet the rest of the day - drawing many pictures a day, always with complicated stories to go along with what it was she was drew. And she's quite good at things too! I think yesterday it was monkeys on swings, sometimes it's snow monsters(!), etc.

Abigail and one of her toy kittens. Wearing a dress that was intended for my shop, but my seam ripper slipped on me when I was cutting the final button hole :'( and whilst I "glued" the rip back together and it's barely visible, it wasn't good enough quality to sell. So I gave it to Abigail to play in.

Benjamin sat on this bush for ages after Peter pruned it last month! At first he got stuck up there but then he worked out how to get up and down it. Doesn't look very comfortable to me! lol

I already posted this on my Facebook page, so anyone who is a "friend" of me there will be bored to see this picture again, but I love it! :-) Clement had lots of fun emptying his daddy's paper shredder!

Big sister and little brother - funny face he's making!

And big brother and little brother - what big boys I now have! :-)

We got another big dump of snow on the 24th of February. As you can see, Abigail was very pleased! I was just glad I'd had an outing on the train with the children to Inverness the day before in the beautiful sunshine, as we had inches of snow for the next week or so!

Benjamin enjoying the snow too!

Big flakes still falling

Always eating!

All 3 of them have soooo much fun with this toy parking garage!

Tuesday this week, Clement sitting outside in the sunshine - once most of the snow had melted. His first time to sit on his own outside. He loved every minute of it - and enjoyed popping a few stones in his mouth too. Wonder what is so tasty about dirty stones? Benjamin tried to eat them for a couple of years.

Brothers together

This dress above is a new style that I've made for older girls. A few people had suggested if I might make something for older girls, so I've had a go with this particular one. Size 7, so for somewhere around 6-8 years, I'd say. Any opinions about the style, etc would be much appreciated! Don't know if it looks the sort of thing that girls that age would wear or not, so any feedback would be great! It does take rather longer to make than the small dresses I've been doing (which are easily made in an hour). So I'm not sure I'll be making very many of these (as the other pattern is suited to a busy mum who can fit in an hour in the afternoon etc), but depending on interest, I might try to keep a few of this style in stock.

Well, I'm sure I had other things to say, but time has run away on me, so I must end this post and go to bed.

PS from Peter to say that Clement is starting to stand up without holding onto anything and talking (yes, lots of words!). I had planned to write about his speech but barely managed to get this finished. So will have to wait for another post.

Seems I've forgotten to blog for a while...

Only just realised that January passed with only 1 post from me, and I thought it was a quiet month! Guess I was just doing a lot of sewing - must have made about 12+ outfits/dresses, so I guess that explains where at least some of my time was going! With all the snow and bitterly cold weather, it's not so exciting to venture outdoors much!

Can't think of anything too exciting to report just now - just been doing the usual stuff mostly. Last Tuesday we had our monthly homeschool/Christian education get-together in Inverness. There were quite a lot of folk there again, as well as more new faces, so that was encouraging.

As for Benjamin's eczema, things continue to be encouraging in general, though we can have some rather difficult times with his hands. :-( But I think everything continues to point to enviromental factors, though I'm trying to be more careful about giving him an egg-free diet, as so far that seems to be the only food item that it appears to cause noticable flareups after eating. Now that his feet/behind knees are so much better, for the first time in 18 months, Benjamin is able to just wear trousers - without any cotton tights under them, for over 2 weeks now! :-) For some people, this might not sound like much - but it's a major step forward. The poor little boy has been wearing tights *every* day, *all* day long since he was 18 months (including in hot summer months), and he would scratch his legs/feet till they bled everytime they were off. So it's wonderful that he can dress like an ordinary child during the day. That's not to say I don't have to keep an eye on him - I do - but things have improved enough that he can be upstairs playing a lot of the time without getting up to any trouble in this regard. This also means there's hope for potty training, since he can survive in less secure clothes (yay!) which he's been making progress with, though not there yet by any means. The only downside has been, running around the house in less clothes leaves his legs exposed, and he's ending up with patches of eczema on his legs where it has never been before! It's not severe, and I try to get trousers back on him when this happens. But this indicates a clear connection with enviromental factors and his eczema. But what these are, I don't know! We've got laminate floors (well, apart from the stairs) and I try to hoover frequently to keep the dust down. And we don't use any harmful chemicals/cleaners around the house. But perhaps it's the beds/bedding he likes to play on! He's daily ending up on the bunkbed, on our bed, on Abigail's bed - hiding under duvets/pillows etc. And whilst I carefully regulate his bedding in his bedroom so it can be frequently washed at 60 degrees, I'm not so careful about our beds (esp with big/thick duvets which don't wash easily). So perhaps it's all down to dust/dustmites. But how to get him to understand that playing under duvets is dangerous, I don't know!

Here's the said Benjamin, pleased with his new fleece jacket! A charity shop bargain find of mine - brand new with tags, Hanna Anderson brand, for only 3 pounds! :-D

Clement loves his cloth nappies too - they even make great toys, or so he thinks!

And climbing in the drawer of the train table is fun too - he did it all by himself!

Anyone want to volunteer to clean this baby??! Clement is our messiest baby so far - food everywhere, often requiring multiple changes of clothes a day! He hates bibs and will do everything possible to remove one, not eating anything till it's gone!

Abigail and Benjamin with the flower necklaces they made, from a kit that Aunty Leah sent to Abigail for her birthday!

Enjoying his food again - he's *got* to have lots of big people food (fed to himself, all by himself!) to keep him happy! Sitting in his lovely Ikea high chair - another charity shop find of mine! ;-)

My fat little boy, showing off his new Bumgenius Flip nappy!

First haircut, at 9 months! Or at least a trim - afraid the back of his hair could have done with being shorter, but I found it hard enough to cut what I did (oops! lol) He was brilliant while I was doing it though - sitting so perfectly still.

My boys in their matching trouser sets that I made for them! I love Painting Red Rhinos fabrics, and was very excited to get this "London" one with red buses - Benjamin was very excited too!

Abigail! (her brothers spoiled the photo with odd faces/eyes closed, but I thought it was a nice one of her!)

My dear family - Peter, Abigail, Benjamin, and Clement!

Showing off another nappy! :-) GreenKids Minkytimes, in blue/brown retro dots (I love these nappies for Clement, esp as his skin doesn't tolerate very many kinds).

Visiting daddy's office/room of books! :-)

Abigail in a dress I made for her last week. Having done so much sewing for my online shop (and sold 5 dresses so far!) I thought it was time I did a bit of sewing for my own children, so they'd not feel left out!

Birds in the back garden

A happy Clement - still only 2 teeth! :-)

And to bed I shall go!

Already 2010??!

I guess it's time I was blogging again! I've got another large batch of photos from the past couple of weeks. The first two were taken in the last week of 09 and then the rest are this year. I still can't get used to it being 2010 - I seem to continue typing/writing 2009!


A cheeky looking Clement digging in a kitchen drawer! Seems there's hardly anything he can't get his hands on; and more often than not, everything goes in his mouth next. But he *can* be amazingly gentle with books. Peter was watching him the other night with a large 250+ page large format paperback book and he was fingering through the pages for about 20 minutes(!!) without tearing or eating any of the pages - amazing!

Clement and his mummy - nice and cosy on her back! He was feeling a bit grumpy with teething and was tired (yet refusing to go to sleep!) so I popped him on my back while I did a few things around the house. He really enjoyed it (even if his face isn't showing it there), though I didn't exactly enjoy him trying to extract my hair!

Before sunrise on New Year's Day (if there was a sunrise! LOL) - we had LOTS of snow fall that morning and through the rest of the day. Basically, we're nearly 4 weeks into having more than enough white stuff on the ground. It started melting yesterday morning (meaning when the water re-freezes, the ground is super dangerous with ice!), but it is rather nice to see the white going away again. But who knows how long it will take for the pavements to be clear - they're still rather piled with snow, just not the 6+ inches we've had for most of the 4 weeks, or the 10 inches we had for a good while either.

Benjamin with his bowl of breakfast - waiting for some milk!

Abigail and her baby brother (seems Abigail didn't get her hair sorted that morning!)

10 inches of snow, measured on New Year's Day - not a drift, but piled up on top the garden waste recycling bin, seen in photo below

Yes, snow!

Cruising along the furniture - and keeping warm with lovely wool trousers! They're just fantastic for keeping little legs warm on the cold floors.

1st of January again, Benjamin in the snow

And Abigail, when mummy finally came outside to "play" in the snow with them (the first and only time I've been out there to try and enjoy the snow! I've mainly been hiding inside for the past month!)

"hmmm, I wonder which book I should pick first?"

"If only I could fit inside!" ... and he actually near enough threw a tantrum a few minutes later, being super frustrated that he couldn't climb inside!

He's invented a new way to use a baby walker and ....

actually gets places too! :-)

My 3 adorable children (all eating something, of course)! And they grow up so quickly (probably from all the eating they do! lol)! Benjamin is only 2 months away from his 3rd birthday, and Clement will already be 1 in just under 3 months.

So, wonder if there's anything else I should be saying? oh yeah, Clement gave us a bit of grief with a tiny speck in his eye! I first saw it on Tuesday last week, couldn't remove it at all (or move it) and it was a bit red, so we took him to the GP the next day. He tried but Clement wouldn't let him really. So we had antibiotic drops for his eyes and were told to come back in 2 days. So we were back on Friday and he tried again but Clem just refused to cooperate. So the GP phoned the hospital's eye dept for advice and they told us to come, so we got an appointment for Monday. Of course, that meant a trip to Inverness (80 miles round trip). The consultant (as well as our GP) was concerned that he'd require an anesthetic so they'd be able to remove the speck. But thankfully the consultant was almost as backward to the idea as I was, so he said he'd try to do it without, and wrap Clement tightly in a blanket while I held him. He told me to be prepared for C to do lots of shouting and screaming, but I thought that was better than having him "put under". However, Clement was totally amazing - he didn't let out so much as a peep, and was very still indeed! The consultant did make "donald duck" quacking noises to make Clement look at him, but in a very short space of time, using tiny forceps, he had the speck out! He showed it to me under the microscope (a big huge, table sized one!) and he thought it looked like paper. Never knew (presumably) chewed paper could cause so much trouble! So I'm having to make sure Clement doesn't add any more paper to his diet! ;-)

As for Benjamin, last week his eczema got very severe on his hands (same day Clement got he speck in his eye), following Benjamin having a major scratch of them while at church 2 days previous, when he had blood dripping down one hand! :-( Thankfully the GP was able to look at his hands at the same time we first took Clement to see him about the eye problem. The doctor thought it looked almost like it could have been impetigo! Certainly, the infection was nasty and B just couldn't stop scratching them, no matter what. So he prescribed some Fucidic Acid Lipid Cream which did an amazing job at clearing his hands. We'd previously (several months back) had Fucidic Acid along with hydrocortisone, which I felt always had a drying affect on his skin (not something you want with eczema!) and the GP agreed with me and though the Lipid cream would help to moisturise the skin. It had a different kind of steroid in it too, but I can't remember what it was. Anyway, by Monday this week his hands were lovely and as of tonight (Thursday) they're still very clear. I know the calm periods always go again and it comes back bad, but it's soooo nice to see his skin so free of eczema just now! I'll always remember what Benjamin told me last month when he had a previous few days of good skin. I was just "being slightly silly" one night at bedtime by telling him that his eczema had gone away and was hiding from him and was telling him how happy I was that it wasn't so bad. And Benjamin's reply was "That's what God does!" At first I was puzzled and wondered how that tied in to what I was saying - and then I realised, he was saying it was God who made his eczema better! Afterall, he always prays that God would help him to get better and help him to not scratch. How precious that he was seeing this as an answer to prayer!

And, Abigail who is always so perfectly healthy, developed some patches of dreaded eczema behind her knees! :-( She'd talked about her legs hurting a couple of times over the past few weeks, but always had tights/clothes over her legs, so I assumed she just meant muscle/growing pains. But I then discovered sore and almost bleeding areas behind her knees, and felt awful that I'd not noticed it sooner! But amazingly, a few applications of the manuka honey cream made it all heal up! So I was very pleased/relieved about that.

And as for me, I've been busy sewing - especially now that I've got a lovely Pfaff overlocker! I've decided to open an online shop on various wahm (work at home mum)/handmade good websites. I started on Folksy last week but then found something called DaWanda, which is laid out very nicely and easy to use. So I've got a shop there, which you can see here: http://en.dawanda.com/shop/rachelsews There are some other online places I hope to list on as well, so this is just a start. I'm making little girl's dresses (pinafore/jumpers) and managed to have my first sale last night for 3 dresses, which was encouraging! :) So I must keep sewing and stock the shop a bit more - got lots of lovely fabrics ready for turning into dresses! But I've also got lots of fabrics for making clothes for my own children, which I must not forget. I bought over 30 metres(!!) of fabrics last week - lovely Painting Red Rhinos ones! And since these are no longer produced, I think they're too special to use for the dresses I'm selling - these will be for my darling children! Benjamin is excited and has been going around the house with these lovely fabrics, so I better get him some clothes made before the fabrics get spoiled! LOL And he'll be needing bigger "mitten pyjamas" soon too, so I was very pleased to get cute & fun knit fabrics too.

Right, it's after midnight, and I'll be getting up fairly early in the morning - so I must go to bed. We've finally got Abigail's wall up in her room today, which she's soooo excited about! And the joiner is coming back tomorrow to finish it up and also start on flooring the attic, etc. So need to be up and about early in the morning!

One last photo:

Typical boy - loves things with wheels! He found pushchairs with wheels! :)