Today was one of those days that leaves you feeling drained. It was especially hard to photograph for this project because I barely moved away from the couch and I felt a bit like a milk machine. It was a day of soothing a hurting Forrest who cried the most he's ever cried and at the same time trying to block hits and bites from a sad and angry Nixie. We also said our final goodbyes to our car, DeeDee.

 Forrest has a little rhythm now, he wakes up around 23:00, just before 1am and again at 4 for a feed. He's sounding very rattly and wheezy in his chest when he breathes, its really awful to hear. You woke up around 4:30 and wanted boob but I said no because I needed to sleep since I had a driving lesson at 7:30 plus Forrest was asleep on my chest but you didn't like my answer and got a bit angry and refused to let me sleep anyways.

You, daddy & Forrest eventually went downstairs while I got dressed and ready. I hurried as fast as I could because I could hear Forrest wanting more milk and getting more and more upset, I find it so hard when he cries and I'm unable to immediately go to him,  I begin to feel my heart race,  my body temperature goes up and I become so frazzled. When I was finally able to nurse him I had to also pump some milk so that you and daddy would be able to feed him while I was away. I had about 45min to spare before my driving lesson and we all went upstairs and played in your room. Forrest was more unsettled than usual and had a lot of pain in his belly, wheezy chest and was so sad and kept wanting to nurse in short sessions. He would only stay happy for a short periods but just as I needed to leave he inevitably wanted to nurse again but I wasn't able to since I had only 2 minutes until my lesson but it did mean that I was able to see you feed him for just a second before rushing out the door which made me so happy. 

It's so different this time around, you never took a bottle.  We had tried just so that we'd be prepared in case of an emergency but you just flat out refused it!  We also probably waited too long before even trying as I didn't like the idea at all,  for some strange reason it felt like such a betrayal, I didn't want you to have some weird plastic thing in your mouth,  it all just felt wrong to me but this time around I don't have any of those feelings, maybe partially because Forrest doesn't mind it at all and also because its nice knowing that if I need to go somewhere that there wont be an issue feeding him. With you that was never even a possibility.

It felt so good to be driving again after a few months break and I had a great lesson, I had been worried that I would have forgotten everything but I hadn't and it actually felt more natural than it did before! I am just a bit annoyed I wasn't able to get my license before Forrest's arrival due to the tests not being available when I needed them but it just wasn't meant to be. When I got back home Forrest was asleep on daddy's chest and you gave me the biggest hug.  

Then I nursed you both.  And it made you so happy.  I've been having a bit of a hard time nursing you both as of late (in the beginning I loved it) & if I'm going to be really honest I've been struggling a bit with nursing you. I've been going through a bit of a nursing aversion and it's really difficult to deal with. It has absolutely nothing to do with you and I don't get it all the time but when I do I get such horrible feelings and it makes my skin crawl. It breaks my heart, because I want to enjoy these moments with you so badly but luckily I still have lots of times where it's a good experience. It helps me to have some boundaries for example not during the night and I just read that magnesium can help so I will start taking that to see if it makes a difference. I've just been feeling a bit touched out. 

After our tandem nursing session Forrest was just about asleep when all of a sudden he started to have a giant cry,  in pain with stomach cramps,  I tried everything,  for 30 min he cried I couldn't soothe him,  I started to get really stressed and could feel the tears coming on, there's nothing worse when you feel unable to soothe your baby, my heart was breaking for his tears but then daddy came and took him and within 6 seconds he was calm and this just made me cry even more,  I felt so useless!  But then you came and gave me the biggest body cuddle and that made me feel so much better! 

This past Monday our car,  Deedee officially died. After a few breakdowns fairly close to each other we knew she was nearing her end but even though we were expecting it we didn't expect it so soon!  This last time it broke down, daddy was on his way home from work and luckily he made it to Halfords parking lot where he could just leave it. But we still needed to empty it out and get our car seats so that was what we did after lunch. We all went on a little walk to say one final goodbye to our Deedee.

When we got home that's when things between us kept going wrong. You kept doing things that you knew I wouldn’t like and things that would make me tell you to stop just so you could get sad about it and get angry with me.

For the past few days you've been going through some intense emotions, you have been expressing so much anger and pure rage & it’s been really difficult to deal with especially when you're hitting,  scratching or trying to bite us but we are determined to not react in a negative way to you because you are obviously hurting and going through a really tough time, we don't want to use punishments because we want you to feel loved unconditionally & I believe that the root of this is because you are feeling disconnected from us in some way and to use punishments would just create an even more disconnect. I hate to admit this but we tried punishments once last summer and we didn't like it, it felt wrong to us on all levels and vowed to never do it again. You've actually started to tell us why you are angry and some of the reasons are because you feel Forrest is getting all of the attention and you find his crying really stressful. At the moment when you don't get what you want your go to reaction is to physically lash out at us but the biggest trigger at the moment seems to be my boob's. Never in my life have my boob's been the source of so much happiness and so much sadness. Today whenever you saw Forrest nursing you wanted to as well and during one of our sessions while I was burping him you came and tried to have some,  I gently told you no that it wasn't the right time and that Forrest wasn't finished and this made you so angry that you instantly scratched me. I felt so bad denying you because I could see that it made you feel rejected which is the last feeling I ever want you to feel but it wasn't the right time. 

Later on I really upset you again by wanting a photo of just me and Forrest, I didn't even think anything about it,  which in hindsight I realised was really crappy of me and I was so sorry I made you feel not included, your reaction again was to hit and scratch me but this time you were able to express how you felt left out.  I felt like such a horrible mother. 

In the afternoon you and daddy were drawing skeletons and spines and you said you were drawing a spine doing a poo but that it was a love poo.  This led to us getting to have some better time together, you really wanted to learn about our skeleton again so we had a lot of fun creating a life size model of your skeleton and then cutting out the bones to your body from these printouts I had.  You had lots of fun doing this but we were still a bit distracted by a very upset Forrest, his cries were so painful to hear,  daddy was trying to soothe him because he really wanted you and I to have some time together without Forrest attached to me but it took him a long time to calm down, it wasn't until I told daddy to put him in the wrap that he felt better and fell asleep. 

When we finished you wanted to dance to your song by veruca salt, volcano girl and this time we showed you the video and it was your very first time seeing a music video & were really taking it in, it was really sweet. Afterwards you really got into watching videos of horses giving birth,  you've recently reached the stage where you are constantly asking questions and watching horses give birth created so many for you: do they also have a cord like humans?  Do they get help with getting the baby out?  Why is the baby in a special bag?  What is it called?  Why is there so much water?  Your questions were endless and you are asking questions about everything and anything all day long. 

We had pancakes for dinner because we missed pancake day earlier in the week because I was too tired to make them and because I learned (a few weeks previously) that trying to make pancakes with an unsettled baby is next to impossible and that if we want pancakes it needs to be a weekend thing or at least on a day when daddy is home too.  He made them for us tonight while I tried to soothe Forrest,  he was in such a bad place again and just wouldn't stop crying,  he looked in so much pain. Me and daddy took turns eating so that one of us could be with Forrest, nothing was helping him.  Eventually we gave him gripe water when he wanted to nurse and he finally fell asleep. 

Then you and daddy had a bath and I came up to say hi once I could put Forrest down.  After bath you came downstairs for more boob and a cuddle, I was exhausted by this point but it felt nice to have these moments with you after a really tough day.  You got a bit giddy and wanted to draw a baby skeleton before you headed back upstairs with daddy to go to bed. Bedtime didn't go so smoothly, you weren't very happy and had some more anger to let out but least tomorrow is a new day.