a submissive's musings: June 2011

Father and son

All weekend i was in a bit of a funk, much as i was for the whole of the past week to be honest. Nothing in particular has happened to make me that way, besides the usual William seizures and ignorant comments from the general public. i couldn't even be bothered to write a 'Happy Fathers Day' post on here yesterday, though i did make sure to help Sir celebrate His special day and enjoy it with the kidlets.

Sir is a great Dad to all 3 of our children and makes sure to give them equal amounts of his time and attention, whilst still catering for their individual needs and differences. He is the type of Dad who will spend hours making a treehouse in the garden or teaching a little one how to ride a bike. He is the type of Dad who will stand in the rain every weekend to support his children in their local football matches and will take the afternoon off work to cheer for his kids at the school Sports Day. He is the type of Dad who kisses boo-boos away and lulls the kidlets to sleep with his bedtime stories. He is the type of Dad who always takes the time to tuck each and every child into bed and kisses them goodnight, no matter how tired he may be himself. He is the type of Dad who encourages the kids to join in with cooking the dinner or washing the car or doing the gardening and makes it so much fun that they don't even realise they are learning valuable life skills. He is the type of Dad who leads by example and never lets his temper get the better of him, never uses bad words in front of the children and always treats people with kindness and respect. He is the type of Dad who gives praise when it is due, encouragement when it is needed, chastisement when it is deserved and cuddles and kisses frequently and generously. He is exactly the type of Dad i would want for my children and i am so proud to have Him as my husband.

Happy Fathers Day Sir and thank you for all your support with the children. i couldn't do it without You!

In other news, Finn has achieved a major milestone today. He can now walk independently without holding onto the furniture or a person! i've known for a while now that he was close to achieving this, but am still super proud of my lil peanut for perfecting this skill, especially as he is only 10 months old! Finn is also very pleased with himself, and there was plenty of "glah" ing as he walked across the lounge carpet from each piece of furniture into my arms. Of course he had to repeat the performance for Poppy when she got back from nursery and for Sir when He came in from work and he kept walking over to William and beaming at him as if to say "Look at me!". Finn sometimes gets a thoughtful look on his face when he does something which William can't do, such as playing with toys, cruising or crawling (and now walking), saying words, etc. It's almost as if he's wondering why his brother isn't doing the same as him. And he's always encouraging William to try to copy him, in his own little way, by taking toys over to him and holding them out for William to take (and then when he doesn't he'll leave them next to William or on top of him!), babbling away to William frequently and pausing for a response just as he does when he has 'chats' with me, crawling or cruising or walking round the room, then calling "Woo woo!" to try to entice William to follow him. In a way it's very sweet but in another way it's a bit sad. But i try not to dwell on that part.

Well done Finn for your fantastic achievement, Mummy is so proud of you! xxx

Quite a few other bloggers have been posting about rules recently, most of them saying that they don't have lists of rules as slaves, that they're glad that they don't and that they regard such rules as petty and unrealistic and more associated with 'wanabee' fantasists than those truly living the lifestyle. i'm not sure if they really meant to say all that, but that's how i've interpreted what's been said. And the bit that's hit me hardest is the fact that the list of rules they're all being most critical about, the '128 basic slave rules' which can be widely found on the internet, is what my rules are based on. Sir read through that document, among others, took bits of it, adapted it and added to it and produced my first set of rules for when i was initially collared by Him (though i then had 70 rules, not 128). Since then my rules have been updated, due to our changing circumstances and as things happened which meant Sir needed to personalise them even further to our needs. But i can't get away from the fact that the type of rules i had, and still have, are precisely the type of rules which have come in for so much criticism of late on other blogs.

Before i go any further, i'm going to give you a link to the 128 Basic Slave Rules which i'm talking about: here and also to my rules (the first set i was given): here, so you can compare them. Yes there's differences and yes my rules are obviously personalised to me (and in my opinion some of the more silly or unrealistic rules have been omitted from the version my Sir devised, such as '#3. i worship my Master', '#61. my Master will decide what my sexual orientation shall be' or '#89. i will not wear a pad or tampon when i am on my period without His permission'.) But for some reason all this talk of unrealistic rules has left me feeling very vulnerable. i'm not questioning the solidity of mine and Sir's relationship, neither am i questioning the reality of our roles, i'm not even questioning how useful the rules have been for me or whether i really needed them, because i know that i did and i wouldn't have become the slave i am without them. Even today when it's not possible for me to follow all the rules i used to, due to commitments with the children, i still need to have a set of rules in order to feel like His slave and to know what is expected of me. Yes i have internalised His expectations by now, so i could survive without the physical written down rules, but if He took them away tomorrow i would still automatically abide by them because i know that's how He wishes me to behave.

i guess i'm just surprised that a fundamental element of our M/s relationship, one i rely on and need and value so much is so laughed at and frowned upon and derided by some others that up until now i have looked up to and respected. It doesn't give me a very good feeling inside to know this or to read the comments from others about how it's usually 'newbie', deluded, fantasist, game-playing, rose-tinted people who think these types of rules are a good idea and that once people enter into a proper real-life M/s relationship they soon realise that these types of rules are neither practical nor valuable. Especially now that i'm already feeling fragile and wondering what the future of our relationship will be due to the difficulties of looking after 3 young children, one of whom has complex special needs, i guess it doesn't do much to reassure me and it makes me question myself even more :(

That's it for now.

Is it good news or bad?

When i woke up this morning and went through to collect the twins for their first feed of the day (both of them still nurse at about 6am every morning, which is a lovely relaxed way to start each day together), i could hear a bit of a commotion coming from their room. i hurried in there to see what was happening and the first thing i saw was Finn standing up in his cot to look over into William's (nothing unusual there, it's how i usually find him when he's woken up), making his "Glah!" noise over and over again. Now, Finn's "Glah!" seems to be a word made up by him for the sole purpose of drawing attention to particularly spectacular messes or naughty things he manages to do. He says it with great pride, almost as if he's meaning "Look what i've done!" and he's always very surprised that i don't seem to share in his pride about those situations. So i quickly turned my attention to William, who was the focus of Finn's "Glah"ing and was greeted by the sight of him laying in his cot covered in poo.

It seems that dear little William had discovered the sensory joys of his own poo in the night and proceeded to empty his nappy of its contents by smearing it over himself, his bedding and his cot. Which Finn found a very impressive feat, hence all the "Glah"ing to congratulate William. (i actually found myself telling Finn "don't encourage him!", which looking back on it seems a funny thing to say to a 10 month old baby, but made sense to me at the time). After i'd got William and his cot cleaned up and his bedding in the wash and new bedding put on and both boys were happily nursing as i snuggled back in bed, i pondered some more on this incident and realised it can be viewed in 2 ways:

- good news! William has found a sensory experience that he enjoys (and so far there aren't that many of them) and not only has he discovered it for himself but he has also opened his hands up independently and kept them that way for quite some time in order to better spread this substance around and feel it properly.

- bad news! William has discovered the sensory joys of his own poo and made an awful mess with it and is likely to keep trying to get his hands into his nappy to spread it around everytime from now on.

Obviously i don't want to waste this opportunity to encourage William to explore with his hands (and flat hands at that!), but i'd rather not have him playing with his poo and i don't want Finn to pick up on the habit either, so i've come up with a plan:
1. get some clay today and mix it with water to make the exact same texture as his poo was and then provide William with plenty of opportunities to explore this substance instead.
2. make sure he can't access his nappy anymore by changing the way i dress him (he was wearing a baby-gro type thing last night which allowed him to put his hands inside the leg holes straight into the sides of his nappy), so that his legs are always covered.

You know what? Reading back this post it strikes me how calm i was about the whole thing really and how you have to be a mummy of a child with special needs to be able to see the positive side of them smearing with poo!

Another Finn post

Finn seems to grow and learn new skills absolutely every day and it's only a matter of time before he takes his first steps now. With William, i am so proud of each and every little step he takes in his development, but it's easier to keep track of his progress as it's so slow and gradual. With Finn it seems like he literally changes every hour of every day and even keeping track of which words he can say or which skills he's accomplished is an ongoing task and i feel like he's growing up too fast. That's not to say that i'm not proud of him, because i am immensly so, but i just wish he could be a little baby for longer.

Anyway, with that said i wanted to write another post on Finn's development so i can have it on record where he's at right now. i posted a while back that he was crawling (which he can do very fast now!) and cruising round the furniture and he's perfected those skills to be able to move very fast when he wants to. He's also walking pushing his wagon with the long handle and will let go of the furniture and stand for several seconds on his own before grabbing hold again (or falling onto his bottom, but that doesn't deter him) so i feel sure he'll be taking his first independent steps soon, which feels way too early considering he's not even 10 months old yet.

Finn has turned into a mini whirlwind, wreaking destruction and havoc through the house, as his latest game is 'let's pull everything out and heap it in a great big pile on the floor'. To find where Finn is at any given time all you have to do is follow these piles (of books from the bookcase, DVDs from the shelf, laundry from the basket, shopping from the bags yet to be unpacked, toys from the twins' boxes, stationery from the mug i keep on the table in the lounge, pot pourri from an ornament, all the furniture and dolls from Poppy's doll house.....) and then round the corner you'll bump into Finn in the process of pulling the CDs from the rack and he'll hear you coming and say "Fiiiiiiii!" (in exactly the tone of voice i use when telling him off) and then turn and give you the cheekiest grin ever, so it's impossible to be cross with him. He also says "no no" now to tell himself not to do something, then do it anyway, "Mum", "Dada", "Woo woo" (William) and "Poop" (Poppy!) to call us all by name correctly, "Fiiiiiii" his own name, but only when he's done something naughty, "ooooo-va" (hoover) he loves hoovers, "ca" (car) for any moving vehicle - cars, trucks, trains, even planes, another favourite of his, "ook" (look) whilst pointing to something he wants or likes, "baba" for bottle, bath or ball, they all sound the same at the moment and once or twice he's said "hi!". Finn's speech development is a little different to how Poppy's was as he babbles long strings of sounds, more and more of which are becoming understandable to me, rather than saying single intelligible words as Poppy did. i don't know whether it's the twin thing, where twins are known to babble in their own private language, because Finn definitely babbles more to William and looks at him for a reply. He's also signing some words, but doesn't seem to be picking up any new signs now that he's speaking (or now that we're understanding some of his speech) and he now only uses his signs if he doesn't have a spoken word for something yet, which again is different to Poppy who used signs as well as speech for quite some time.

Finn's personality is definitely coming out more now and though he is still a laid back, patient, tolerant and cheerful little peanut, his mischevious and cheeky side is coming out more and more. He just wants to be into everything, exploring and making a mess, not in a naughty way but in a boisterous, excitable, can't wait to see what happens here way. And when he creates an especially big mess or manages to reach something new or discovers a new way of creating havoc, he'll sit back and survey the chaos he's created and utter a sound which he never makes at any other time: "Glah!", which seems to mean "look what i've done". He honestly is so proud of himself at these times that it's hard to be cross with him. We have thought about moving every single item out of reach, so there's no longer any books/DVDs/CDs/etc where he can get them, but to be honest i don't want to live in a house like that, we've baby-proofed it to the extent there's nothing dangerous he can get hold of and i'd rather he got this tendency out of his system now than carried on when he's a toddler. So we'll just live in a whirlwind for rhe present time, gently rebuking Finn for all his messes but inwardly feeling pleased at the progress which means he's able to get himself to these places and use his hands to pull out things, grateful for his curiosity which makes him want to explore and in awe of his amazing language skills which help him to express himself everyday. If William can learn even a fraction of those skills i'll be happy.