#4 is doing great. There’s still lots of space to grow and everything is looking good. B got such a fright when my doc measured #4′s head. His (I’ve picked a gender) head is measuring at 9.4cm and is the size of a 38weekers. Tummy is measuring at 37weeks. Legs – well if you’re a long time reader or know us, you’ll know that all our babies have had short Lolly legs . This time is no different! Legs measure at 33weeks. Weight is currently estimated at 3.1kgs. So we are on track for another big baby I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m doing well. Blood pressure is looking good, weight gain is tracking well, I’m still comfortable and loving all the movement. I’m feeling very grateful that summer thus far, has been relatively cool. On the hot days I tend to swell up, which can be uncomfortable but its bearable.

I haven’t even begun to think about packing a bag or anything. After B’s big race in January, I’ll get around to that. although, I think I may just throw things into when I’m in labour. NOT!! I’ll pack after the race is done. I like to know that I’ve got everything I need for baby. I can wing it for my stuff
My biggest thing is making sure I have my shampoo and conditioner for afterwards.

So I’ve decided that in every situation I’m going to look for things to be thankful for. I’m sure I’ll be tested and that at times it will be hard, but hopefully God will help me to keep being thankful.

Like today, I was grumbling to myself about how I’m constantly doing laundry. I gave myself a swift kick on the behind and started looking for things to be thankful for instead.
- we have clothes that need washing
- which means we have money to buy clothes
- we have a washing machine to wash them
- I do lots of laundry because we have sprogs!

Suddenly, the laundry was no longer a chore and I started enjoying hanging it all up. I gave thanks to God for all of the above and felt much lighter and happier! All because I changed my attitude.

I’m thankful that God has opened my eyes to this. I pray that I will continue to look at my blessings and all I have to be thankful for, instead of moaning about petty things.

Jessie has always been a pretty good night-time sleeper. She struggled during the day and has never slept as much as other kids her age. But I’m ok with that, I don’t need as much sleep as the average person. (Ok, when I’m pregnant its slightly different) Kyla seems to be pretty similar to Jessie in the sleep habits, unless she’s teething. But Jack… Jack has always been different. He would nap well during the day as long as he was held. But nights have always been another story!

At the age of 1, he was still feeding anywhere from 8-14times a night. (yes, I became obsessed for a while and counted) he struggled to fall back to sleep. At 19months he stopped feeding. At this stage, he began to cling to B at night. He wanted sweet-nothing to do with me in the middle of the night and would scream for B. (he still does) So for the past 18months, B has had to put up with being punched, kicked, head-butted, pushed and man-handled at night. B and I have both suffered with this. See, I can handle lack of sleep, B struggles. He needs his sleep!

Things did improve after we had his tonsils and adenoids removed. Suddenly he was sleeping better. He went from waking 8+ times to waking 2 or 3 times. This was amazing for us! We were thrilled! But he still continued to need B at night. We tried a host of night-time tactics from discipline, to special sleep toys, nothing worked. All he wanted was his daddy.

We’ve been debating and preparing to put him in his own room for a few weeks now. Somehow we just haven’t gotten there. We went away over the weekend and we pushed 2 beds together for the older sprogs to sleep in. They both slept all night! Jack woke once, b went through and patted him and he went straight back to sleep! It was phenomenal.

We decided to try the same approach here at home. Its been going pretty well. B has had to sleep with him once, but on the whole he seems to be handling the transition pretty well So jessie and jack now share a room but are each in their own bed. They’re going to sleep a little later, as they play for a while before falling asleep. But isn’t that what sharing a room is about?

I don’t know what will happen from 1 night to the next. But we will keep on keeping on. As long as we all sleep, and are rested it doesn’t bother me who sleeps where.

Kyla is now in her own bed and she’s doing pretty well. She is highly possessive of it. Don’t even think about lying and cuddling somebody else on her bed! She will shout at you and tell you no, off (which in Kyla speak is “mo! Ooohhf”)

Our room feels rather empty without jack and his bed here. Luckily #4 is on the way. And we can sneak into their room anytime we want to for a little night-time snuggling

***update***
Exactly 3 years and 1month since the day Jack was born, he slept through for the first time . We know it won’t happen every night, but it does give us a beacon of hope

Most often they want to know the age-gaps between the kids and if we are completely mad. This is invariably followed by the finances question. I’m thinking of handing out a pamphlet to people with FAQ’s to read before they ask me things (not really, but its a rather amusing thought) Sometimes people give me the 3rd degree and want to know exactly how we plan on sending them to varsity, overseas, buy them cars, etc. When I tell them that we will sort things out when we get there, they sometimes get a little upset that we don’t have a “plan”. Apparently we’re supposed to have all this figured out already. Clearly I missed that memo!

My best is when they start talking “school” to Jessie. She’s quite quick to tell them, “We do homeschool!” Then the curious person just about falls backward. Its makes me giggle everytime! Then the questions come even thicker and faster. and don’t get me started on her telling people that Father Christmas is just a story and that we should only believe in God classic!

Where am I going with this? I figure that our life, our kids, the choices we are making. They’re all a great ministry tool. I need to and want to point everything back to God. None of this would be possible without Him, we wouldn’t be who we are if not for Him. And having people come up and talk to us, its the perfect time to praise Him and to share about Him. I just need to stop being so shy about it! I’m starting to get quite cross with myself. He is awesome! I need to trust Him and be bolder.

So here’s to pointing everything back to Him and to clinging to His truth and proclaiming it loud enough for all to hear.

Jessie responds: “a little baby called Jesus. He grew up and had disciples. He died on the cross to save us from our sins. One day He will come back to earth and take everyone who believes in Him to heaven.”

My little evangelist at 4 years old Definitely not what granny was expecting!

I always knew I wanted lots of children. Although, when I had Jess, I was so ridiculously in love with her, that for about 2 seconds I thought “if she’s all we have,
that’s ok”. About 4 seconds later we discovered we were 8 weeks pregnant with Jack . This was quite something, as Jessie was still fully breastfed and I’d been told “you can’t fall pregnant while exclusively breastfeeding” ummmm, apparently you can

I was initially very scared as Jessie was only 8months old. But I knew we’d be ok and that God had a plan. My pregnancy was easy and wonderful. I breastfed jessie throughout and waited for jack to arrive. (He went 11days overdue). Suddenly when I went into labour, I stressed about jess coping with having a sibling. I stressed about loving them both. I worried about not being able to love jack as much as jessie… Etc etc etc.

Then Jack was here and my heart exploded with love! As soon as he was placed in my arms, I knew that I loved him as much as I loved Jessie. In fact, I think I loved them both more because of Jack being born. I had so much more love to give! I think the fact that I was fed them both together really helped Jessie with the adjustment of having a sibling. She took it all in her stride.

We really don’t give kids enough credit. We forget just how adaptable they are. Within a few days they’re settled and used to a “new” way of life. Its us parents, mostly moms, who struggle.

We feel guilty for spending less time with #1. We feel guilty for cuddling #2 too much. We feel angry with ourselves when #1 displays jealousy. We feel sad for #1 that we are not as available as before. We feel guilty that we put #2 down more than we did #1. The list goes on and on for as long as there are moms who’ve added to their families

We do it to ourselves. We need to let go and not stress so much. Stressing makes having a newborn and learning to share your time, very hard on the whole family.
The truth is, its hard. Its hard because we’ve never done it before. Its by no means impossible!

Having #2 and more is an awesome blessing. Watching the bond and love grow between siblings is truly something to treasure. Seeing how they learn from each other, celebrate each other, play together and yes even fight… Is beautiful. They will learn more from each other than from any play group or friends.

Baby #4 is doing great! Everything looked beautiful. I’ve never seen such a beautiful view of a baby’s spine! We saw the whole spine from base to tip in 1 shot. It was amazing. The foetal assessment is always mind-blowing for me. The detail that one is able to see…its nothing short of phenomenal!

#4 was not too impressed with having a probe moved around on mommy’s belly. Everytime the probe moved, #4 would try and kick or punch the probe off. Baby is incredibly active! And very strong alll the movement made scanning a little difficult as obstet had to try and keep up with the measurements while baby kicked and squirmed, punched and kicked. Luckily the obstet’s machine could freeze the pic so we could measure.

We did have to turn away while she checked the boy/girl bits and pelvic area. Typically, those who don’t want to the know the gender, baby lies with legs WIDE open. For those who do want to know, babies seem to keep their legs shut! The surprize of “what” baby is at birth is awesome!

#4 is right on target with all his/her measurements. The resemblance to Kyla is quite remarkable. It was the same petite face we were looking at. Which means another ridiculously gorgeous baby!

I’m doing well. Weight gain is looking good, bloodpressure is good. I have had such a beautiful pregnancy so far. I’ve been more relaxed and more confident in my body’s ability. Its a very special feeling!

She was fine. On the Monday, she played and climbed and did everything like the tomboy she is. Not once did she mention her leg/foot being sore. That evening after dinner and a movie, she said her foot was a little sore and she limped to bed. She is a bed-time procrastinator so we thought nothing of it. She was fine during the night.

The next morning when she woke-up, she said that when she crawled across to my bed (we basically have a wall-to-wall to bed in our room) she had to drag her sore foot. I thought that it was a really strange comment to make. So I did what any good (read: tyrant) mother would do: I made her stand on it and try and walk. To say that it hurt her, is an understatement. She cried and cried and cried (she’s never been the crying type). I checked her foot/leg and she only had a small bump under her ankle. No bruising, no major swelling, nothing! We managed to settle her and after breakfast we elevated it with an ice-pack.

After a while she seemed better and started playing. She was scooting around her bum, and then got up and was limping around. Every 20 minutes or so, she would start screaming that it hurt, then she’s settle and be fine. After 3 hours of this, I decided to take her to granny at the hospital to see what she thought as I didn’t have a clue.

Turns out, neither did granny! Nor her friend in charge of trauma. Her friend convinced us that we were there, so might as well get checked out properly. The doctor wasn’t sure what was happening either. She was handling ok and was happy. Nothing appeared to be too out of the ordinary apart from the slight bump and her crying spells.

He asked for blood to be drawn to rule out an athritic infection. Jessie was so amazingly brave. She cried a tiny bit and was then fine. My poor heart broke! I hate seeing them in pain from something like that. Then we were off to X-rays. Luckily grandpa had come to sit with us and help out as granny had a meeting in Town. We headed back to trauma.

We then discovered that she had broken the bottom of her fibula into her growth plate! A common injury in young kids that can be caused by just about anything. The doc said it was a good thing we had taken her in, as the pain would’ve increased the longer we left it. A tiny moon boot was brought in and the orthopedic surgeon consulted. He wasn’t too happy with the moon boot idea, so up to his rooms we went.

There it was decided that she should rather be completely immobilized in a cast. The moon boot had too much room for error. Lots of velcro straps combined with 2 very inquisitive velcro-loving siblings does not make for a good healing combo. Besides, Jessie had the choice of a pink, blue or white cast! Pink always wins with her

The cast was put on and we were finally out of there. She was allowed to play, run and climb as normal, so we got her a special shoe to go over the cast. Its the most expensive shoe I’ve ever had! I’m seriously considering gold-plating it and using it as an ornament
However, even with the shoe, we had to get re-casted after 2 weeks. She had played so hard, her cast was soft and breaking!

Luckily, tomorrow is cast-off day. Otherwise we’d be going back for yet another cast! She is so excited for her cast to come off! She has handled it incredibly well, with only 1 meltdown that came last week. Other than that, thanks to a water-proof under-layer she has been able to shower with relatively little concern. We still wrapped her cast in plastic, just to be safe

Dr. Ashberg is an amazing peadiatric orthopod! He puts kids at ease instantly, and he seems to “get” them. Makes a huge difference to the kids, obviously. I’d recommend him to anyone, anyday!

This is our second broken bone for the year! Guess that’s what happens when you have kids who play really hard… Or maybe just when you have kids ?!

I’m eternally thankful that it wasn’t anything very serious and that God has kept her safe and made her such a trooper .

was fantastic! My only complaint is that we didn’t stay longer

Upon arrival, we were greeted by very friendly staff and cool, scented face-cloths. These were amazing! Especially considering our very interesting bus ride.  I’m sure they’re given to tourists to wipe the sweat from their brows that accumulated due to fear . We arrived late in the evening and were told to go straight to “The Show” restaurant for dinner. We were quite hungry and were very happy to be eating proper food.

After dinner, we went back to reception to check-in. While checking-in, we were served delicious smoothies. That smoothie ranks as one of the best I’ve ever had. The staff were so friendly! They even offered to have a cake baked for Jess as her birthday had been the day before. We signed our forms and were shown to our rooms. Our luggage was waiting for us at our rooms already. We never once identified our luggage to them. Its so nice having it all taken care of.

Our rooms were stunning. Granny was right next door to us. Our room had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and plenty of cupboard space! The main bathroom was HUGE! The decor was simple and beautiful.

We unpacked our clothes and tried to get the kids to bed. Jess fell asleep first, followed by Kyla. Jack fell asleep about an hour and a half later due to his sleep on the bus. B and I got to sleep at 12:30am Mauritian time. Meaning we had a 21 hour day with no sleep.

All the kids landed up in our bed that night. 5 of us in a king-sized bed was interesting to say the least. I think poor b landed up sticking a pillow on the side-board and resting his head there to escape the flailing sprog arms and legs. B and the sprogs slept until 9am. We knew everyone would be tired so I just let them sleep-in. By the time the sprogs got going, granny had already explored the resort and gone for an involuntary swim

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Tamassa was awesome! Truly, truly awesome! The staff knew the kids by name and were forever finding them flowers of different kinds and colours, the kids were taken on rides in the golf carts and if they were having a “off” eating night, the waitresses always magically produced fries to perk up little appetites
It was the BEST holiday we’ve ever had. Nothing was ever too much effort or inconvenience for the staff.

The food on offer was always yummy and
plentiful! Every evening was a different theme. With all the food matching the theme, obviously! We had chinese, mexican, haitian, italian … Can’t remember the rest. And the fish was always amazing! B and granny ate fish all the time! And they always raved about how delicious it was.

The resort is well looked after and beautiful. The pools are stunning and are sometimes cooler than the sea. On one particular day, Kyla stayed in the water for 2.5hours! It was so warm!

My only complaint is that we didn’t stay long enough we are already planning to go back next year. Hopefully its in God’s plan for us

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B raced in the Island Shamaal while we were there. His race reports can be read here, here, here, here and finally here

Luckily for us, people with children were being placed in the short queues for Mauritian passport holders. Our waiting time was around 5-10minutes. So much better than the 45 minutes we’d been warned about and that other adults were enduring. We were granted permission to enter and were off to do the health check. We had to fill in forms before we landed, about our health and had to hand these in at the health check-point. I don’t know how it works if you’re sick or feverish, but they definitely have a procedure for sick tourists.

In all our 6 hours of travelling, with a 5am wake-up, only Kyla had slept. The other 2 had been going all day and were still doing very well. We ran down the ramps and went off to find our luggage. We got our pile of bags and went to find our lift to the hotel.

We presented our vouchers at the counter and were directed to our bus. We were marveling at how warm and humid it was at 8pm. It was fantastic!
We sat and waited for ages on the bus. Eventually it was discovered that the driver had his numbers wrong and we were allowed to leave.

What followed was the most hair-raising, white-knuckled drive of my entire life! The road was pitch black and narrow, the headlights cast light for 5m ahead, so we could see nothing until it was right in front of us. There was a sharp drop on our left to the ocean, lots of pedestrians, lots of stray dogs and lots of speed! Our driver thought he was an F1 driver. We sped along overtaking pedestrians, cars and dogs at high speed and almost reckless abandon.

The brakes were squeaky and not used often. The only times I recall them being used was when we screeched up to a speedbump to slow down. We had chosen to sit right at the back of the bus and were, honestly, holding on with all our might at times and giggling nervously. Jack and Kyla both decided that the drive was worth missing, and promptly fell asleep. B and I were left to counter-balance a sleeping body each, while trying to stay on our bus seats. Was all rather entertaining.

Granny watched the clock in the bus, and ticked off every minute of our 45minute bus journey. It became very amusing as every few minutes she would pipe up ” 30minutes to go”, “25 minutes to go” until we arrived at the hotel gate.