January Round Up

I need to take stock!

I have spent a fair amount of time sick in the last 12 months. There's been ups and downs, a few hospital trips and a lot of soul searching. I have neglected my friends, online and real life. I've not gone to my groups or meetings, avoided social situations too. It's been tough. I have been trying to get better I think I am almost there now, I think. Physically I still have a few issues, like but I'm feeling a lot better emotionally.

Since my last post on my blog there's heaps that's happened, oh and I forgot to mention we have a holiday abroad a few months ago too. I need to share photos, it was pretty good, I guess better late than never.

We had a heap of work done on our house too. My house is 100 years old and constructed with solid walls. Of course nice as that is the walls were cold and attracted condensation. This lead to dampness which was not fun to live with. We had the whole house dry walled! This is like an extra wall and cavity added to take away the cold walls. I have to say its made an amazing difference already, we turned the thermostat down too and I am looking forward to lower fuel bills. We swapped the kids bedrooms around while we had the rooms empty, I think we've made better use of the rooms.

Another big thing that happened is that Sol was ill. She was admitted to hospital with bleeding from her bowels. She had three weeks of being under the weather and suffering from tummy bug symptoms. Her diagnosis - camplyobacter! Where she got it from we have no idea, all we know she was sick and lucky for us we didn't catch it so I could stay with her.

Christmas was okay, we'll actually it was painfully ordinary and boring. The kids all got bicycles so they had a lot of fun, other than that nothing happened.

Okay I shall catch up with everything else when I can.  

What Is It About Birthdays?

What is it about birthdays lately? We don't seem to have the luck that we need to have a complete birthday without some sort of incident. Last night other half was taking Mag to his club and the car went 'pop'.  Out of the exhaust billowed thick black smoke and after a few minutes it settled down.  This morning was a different matter, other half left early to go to his secret handshake meeting and I could hear him kangaroo jumping the car down the road.  After a few minutes the car was fine, or so it seemed.  I  had planned on taking the children out for the day, after all it was Mag's birthday and I at least wanted to do something a little different for him.  However, I waited for the call from other half ... it never came.  I had a feeling there was something wrong with the turbo on the car so I eventually tracked him down to explain.  He said that the car was fine, but unconvinced I held on at home for him.  Next thing I knew I got a call explaining he was kangaroo jumping down the road again with black smoke pouring out the back.

Fast forward a couple of hours and the car was at the garage up on the ramp getting checked out. I met other at the repair shop there so he could get home if the car had to stay.  Just as I suspected it was to do with the turbo, lucky for us the pipe had just popped off and was easy enough to fix.  The guy didn't even charge us which was a huge relief as we just didn't have spare cash for an unexpected car bill.

We didn't get our day out to the city in the end but we did go to a local shopping area to do some birthday shopping.  Mag, birthday boy, got a tee shirt, some game cards, a book, and he ordered a pair of boots which should be in his possession on Monday.  He is very happy as he also received a gaming wheel and a stand for his favoured game Gran Turismo.  He is as happy as a pig in muck today.

Where have I been?

Where have I been? I know, I know, it has been forever since I last updated the blog. I have ran out of excuses, there are none! I was just dead lazy and I got even lazier when I thought of all the other times I apologised at being lazy and reading other blogs where people do the same thing.

I wont apologise, I am here ... I am posting again, for now. Just accept that if I refrain from posting I am either being lazy or I am super busy, or having a crisis in my life, or out socialising far too many hours, or having a baby (probably not but maybe the rabbits are having babies again), or feeding the dog ..wait I don't have a dog. Oh, I don't know, maybe it is raining!

Babies ....

Well you will never guess what happened in our house. We had two rabbits, and we were told they were boy rabbits. I guess that's where this whole thing was flawed, anyhow ....

We got another rabbit and he too was a male! Or so we thought, in our defence rabbits are difficult to sex. So we put the three rabbits in together and they lived happily ever after, at least they did for a few weeks.

On the 19th of July we discovered 5 baby rabbits in the top level of the hutch! We were shocked to say the least, it seemed that Zebedee had given birth. We very quickly researched how to sex the rabbits and split off the offending male. The next day the other female Dougal (gotta love the name) gave birth to three more rabbits so we ended up with eight babies in total.

This is one of the babies at one day old.

Here are the babies at three weeks old, it is amazing how quickly those little things have grown.

Fun and games!

Deja Vu

Do you ever get the feeling of deja vu? Well I did today ....

Long story short, I had popped out to Homebase to get some paint and wallpaper while leaving Roy at home. Roy was busy stripping in the bedroom while the children were occupied playing in their bedrooms. We got some great bargains at Homebase, but you know those bargains paled into insignificance when we received a phone call on the way home that something bad had happened at home.

We arrived back to this sight to find the trampoline which was at the bottom of the back garden was wedged against the back of the house.

This is the view from inside, you can see how far the trampoline travelled in the wind. It was up against the wall at the bottom of the garden and it knocked over the slide in the process of coming up the garden.


This is the back of our house, it has been an add on and we use it as a TV room. Note the picnic table has lost a leaf and the climbing frame is now up at the back of the house too.

The main frame of the trampoline is more bent than it was before.

The safety net is totally destroyed.

When we went out to the trampoline is was rocking precariously. We decided to unhook the mat rather than risk lifting or rolling the trampoline in the wind again. It took us at least an hour to unhitch every spring and remove the mesh so we could 'un-wedge' the trampoline.

This is all very dramatic, but don't be thinking that we were foolish and unwarned ... DISASTER

this is not the first time this has happened. Since the last trampoline incident we had the trampoline secured down, obviously not secure enough!

Nuff Said

I suppose this ought to be a chat post, as I usually just post photographs on my blog.

The last two weeks have the usual blend of 'skooling' and every day life. Seb had his Boys Brigade parents night, he bagged himself a badge and made us proud as usual. Seb has tried so very hard at his BB, he is the smallest there.

Last week Mag went off kayaking in the Mourne Mountains with his Boys Brigade friends, they had a great weekend. I believe that they made water rockets with plastic bottles and a wooden launcher as well as hitting the amusements in Newcastle. He came home tired and happy.

Sol was at the zoo on yesterday with her Rainbows troop, she enjoyed seeing all the animals again. I had considered taking all of the children for the day and then perhaps taking summer to the gate when the rainbows were meeting but when I learned there would be 1400 there I decided to give it a miss. I let other hald take Sol up, and of course the other children wanted to go with him too. I spent four happy hours on my own, doing laundry, washing floors, and other jobs. As for other half and the kids they went and got fish and chips (without me).

Also yesterday Mag played chess at the UK Chess Challenge Mega Finals held in Belfast. He won first place for his age group so that makes him the the title of best player of his age group in Northern Ireland. He has to travel to England now to compete against the regional winners their ... then who knows what is next for him. Please wish him luck if you see him, he really needs the support. We have already booked his flight tickets, him and other half will go and make a weekend of it. We got return flights for the two of them to Liverpool for £83 from RyanAir ... not bad EH? So while the 'men' are off playing chess I get to spend a quiet weekend at home with my three babies.

This week has been a week of revision and that's how it will continue for the next month. Mag's final module for his Maths GCSE is split over two days in June. the first part on the 7th, and then on the 11th, I have no doubts in his ability to pass the exam with grades as good as he got for his other modules.

Oh and we decorated Toni's bedroom last week, what a marathon lightening fast job that was! We got it painted in the weekend and a carpet laid, all done in time for her new robes to fitted. I was feeling very pleased with how much we had achieved then came down to a bump remembering how long it is taking us to decorate the dining room.

And the final bit of news, and anyone who knows us is going to laugh their socks off. while my friends and neighbours are into caravaning and camping ..... drum role ..... other half bought a boat. NUFF SAID!

Exams, Freefall, Bump & A Birdhouse. How can they all be in the same blog post?

Well a week has gone by and every single day I had planned on writing a few lines to update everyone. So here it is all those few lines condensed into one post.

Monday the 1st of March was pretty much a study day for Mag. The nerves were increasing and I could see that he was starting to worry about the exams the following day. There came a point where I had to tell him to put his books away, enough was enough. I have no doubts at all in Mag's ability but seeing him get anxious like this makes me wonder how children cope with doing ten exams all at once. Well I guess they do, as I did it myself when I was a teenager, but looking at it from a parents perspective is a different issue.

Tuesday, exam day! I took Mag to the school where he was sitting his exams for doors opening and was greeted by the exam officer who showed him where he would be sitting both his exams that day. The morning exam started at 9:30 and he seemed pretty relaxed about it all. Mag was home for lunch then back in again for the next exam at 1:30, after that I had an informative chat with the exam officer to discuss what is next. It was an interesting day to say the least, its been almost three years since Mag had been at a school and I guess it would have been strange for him.

Wednesday was a 'down' day! I had to laugh because what I call a down day is when you do nothing of major importance; rest, watch TV, just hanging out around the house. I posted on Face book that this is what we were doing and everyone sent HUGS. I didn't have the heart to say that I didn't need the hugs, just thanked everyone instead.

Thursday morning I met up with a couple of home educating friends and their children at Indiana Land in Dundonald. Between us we had ten children and the whole place to ourselves which was good. Unfortunately for Mag he is too big to play there but he did get a couple of sneaky goes on the free fall slide. As for the girls, there was three seven year olds lined up along the top of the free fall with the colly wobbles was an amusing site. The mums all stood at the bottom shouting encouragement and each one stepping to the edge then jumping back. I am not sure if I would have done the free fall slide, but they all did it in the end.
At lunch time I had arranged to go have lunch with my friend Lorraine, which we did and had a great afternoon. I didn't want to leave to come home and I think the two of us could have chatted very easily for another couple of hours.



Friday was our day at the science museum, W5. We needed to get out the house again, we have spend a lot of time studying and doing 'school' that this last while so it was well deserved. The day was good except the fact Seb ran into some perspex in the afternoon and ended up going to the children's hospital. He was okay in the end, but left with a nasty bump on his head.



Oh and I almost forgot ... Ashley made a bird box, what do you think?

WHAT A BALLS UP

WAAAAAA 7:10 this morning my alarm clock went off! Oh no sorry, it wasn't my alarm clock it was Ellis and he was extremely upset.

I got up to investigate, Seb was telling me he had a ball in his ear. A little silver ball from a stupid plastic party bag maze game, how on earth? I asked him if he put the ball there and he swore to me he didn't and it had just rolled in. I couldn't see how that could happen, but duly had a look in his ear in the light. I was unable to see anything, so I reassured him and went back to bed for another hour.

I quizzed him more when I got up, he was adamant that he didn't deliberately put the silver ball in his ear. He demonstrated how he put his head over to one side on his pillow so the ball would roll out. He explained that he was trying to do the maze without looking at it, he wanted to get the ball into the centre, the back came off the game and the ball just rolled into his ear.

At lunch time conversation came back round to this metal ball. I remembered the doctors torch Mag had got from when he was in hospital in January ..... hmm. Well I shone it in his ear and for a very brief moment I 'thought' I saw something and then it was gone. I tried again to see the ball but no luck.

This bugged me, I searched Seb's bed and his room for this little ball, worryingly I couldn't find it anywhere. In the end I made the decision to take him to our minor injuries unit (its sort of like an A&E but for less urgent cases). Still sceptical I got the nurse to have a look in Seb's ear .... well lo and behold there it was! The nurse even let me have a good look in too which was so cool.

A tiny steel balbearing was nestled under seb's grommet (vent) and it wasn't going anywhere. They tried lubricant in there, plus used a rather noisy suction machine too. All of these efforts just made Seb's ear more sore and distressed him further. Further examination revealed that the balbearing had not even budged a millimetre.

So they are arranging for him to see the ENT consultant in the next couple days, I have to ring on Monday morning to find out when. Seb actually has an appointment at the end of August scheduled to get his grommets checked, but they say he cant wait that long as his ear would get infected. So its looking he might need an anaesthetic to get this ball out, I would suspect his grommet will come out too but who knows! I will update on Monday when we get word on what is to happen.

Oh this is not the first time Seb has had a foreign body - here's another time PEGGED.

Another time involved sweetcorn in his nostril which he sniffed up, I had to use a booger sucker to retrieve it.

DEVIL RABBIT

Dougal was out all night it seems. I mean OUT loose in the garden with the driveway gates open onto a road and foxes roaming about.

Roy swears both rabbits were in the hutch last night when he fed them so there is only one other explanation ........

Dougal is a devil rabbit he must have opened his hutch, got out, then bolted his hutch again so that Zebedee couldn't escape. After THE GREAT ESCAPE he merrily had a feast on my nasturtium window boxes which were on the ground.

One Door closes ...

One door closes and another opens ...

This is not the case for Seb, my poor little boy who has a sore head now thanks to a well known supermarket's front doors. The supermarket is on Main Street, Bangor, otherwise known as ASDA!

I will start by saying I have no issues with ASDA and I am very happy with the way in which this was taken care of.

We went into the town yesterday morning, mainly with a bank errand - needed money, had to pay money in to the bank accounts. The funny thing is you cant live without money in the bank to buy food and pay the mortgage! Anyway I also needed to get some of Roy's natural alternative cholesterol tablets, those are the ones with plant esterols in instead prescribed statins which give him some undesirable symptoms along with helping his cholesterol levels.

Anyway enough of the rambling, we needed to get a birthday present for on of the neighbours children so decided to pop into ASDA to see if they had anything nice. As we were about to walk in the door we were approached by a charity box shaker man and I felt obligated to stop and go rummaging in my pockets for change. As I did Seb skipped on towards the doors, they are the automatic doors that open and close when they 'know' you are there. A lady went on ahead of Seb and triggered the doors, he stopped as he went through and turned to see if I was behind him - as he did the doors closed on his head. Once they hit him they bounced back open but the damage was already done. Within seconds a nasty looking red bump appeared and Seb was very upset. I marched straight over to the customer services desk to complain. They brought the store manager down who took all our details and arranged to look at the security camera footage. Don't get me wrong here, this was not about getting somebody into trouble, Seb will live but the worry would be that it could happen again with more serious injury to another child. They took photographs of Seb's head and then took us up to view the footage from the camera. Initially the camera guy said Seb walked into the doors, but on watching the footage you can see this was not the case. Turns out when he stopped in the middle the sensor did not detect he was there, it skimmed just over the top of his head so the doors automatically started closing. The footage showed him turning around and the door closing against his head, them him bouncing back in fright as the doors opened again.

The manager is reporting this to their head office and they have also called the door service engineers out to look at how this could happen. I suspect I will hear from them soon of their findings. Meanwhile Seb has an egg on his head.

Ghosts and Teeth

I knew there was something I had forgotten!

Typical I scratch my head trying to remember the last weeks events to put together a blog post and I forget the thing that affected me a lot!

We have a ghost called Maureen in our house. Well one night last week we were awakened during the night to the sound of voices. Roy jumped out of bed wearing not much more than a smile to investigate ... he discovered the television and sky box had somehow managed to switch itself on. We have had the sky box for a year and a half and the TV for a year and not once did they switch them selves on. It was a frightening night for us from initial thoughts of us being burgled to bewilderment as to how such a thing could happen.

Oh and I went to the dentist today - no fillings for today!

Day out to W5 - PART 1

I am saying part 1 as the most of the day went great for us, but we did have an incident this morning.

We headed off fairly early this morning to go to W5 at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast. W5 is a science museum for kids, and the children all love it so much we usually just spend the day there.

We parked up in the main car park as usual. You have to cross a main road to get into the complex, fortunately there are two pedestrian crossings with lights. I lined the children up at the crossing that takes you to the main entrance. When it was time to cross I saw a car speeding toward us. Thankfully I had my wits about me and I just 'knew' that the car was not going to stop so I pulled the children back. It was a scary moment for us all. The driver did not stop the car despite my attempt at flagging him down!

We were quite shaken by the incident and went into the main complex to report this to security staff. They in turn called the police and luckily for us the Roads Service lorry behind the car called in too. Long story short the police contacted the police stations local to the complex and viewed the CCTV, they also viewed the complex's CCTV and were able to track this car's journey through the town. They were also able to see us on the crossing and that we had done nothing wrong. Although we did not get a number plate the car had a distinctive paint job, and we got a good description of the driver inside, because of the paint job and the other things we noted that were inside the car's window they are hopeful.
The police and staff were absolutely great with us, they took statements and nothing was too much trouble for them. I apologised at using police resources but they reassured me that I did the right thing in reporting this to the security staff.

They said they are hoping to get this guy though it could take a few weeks if he was to be prosecuted, and we will just wait and see what happens now.

Its not all bad + a little cat update

You read in the previous blog post about our wedding anniversary being a disaster ... well trying to salvage what was left of the weekend we decided to attempt to do something with the children on Sunday. Hollie had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon so we thought it might be nice to take advantage of the trip out the house and go somewhere for those two hours. But men being slow and 11 year old boys being obtuse we didn't all get ready in time. I dropped Toni off and picked her up myself - BAH. I felt it was all a bit to easy for other half and Mag, there was no way they were getting off that lightly. So I decided for them and TOLD them they were going up the coast for a drive. The intention was to go see a particular cruise ship which was docked in Belfast, but we never did get that far. We spotted the ship sailing down the loch so saw no point in going any further. We stopped at Crawfordsburn Country Park instead, its lovely there with woods, walks, and beach! We weren't prepared for the beach but it did not stop the children from having fun. We returned five hours later, very dirty and very tired.





The CAT situation! Tigger the cat got run over by ME!

Well since Friday poor Tigger has been through a lot including rebuilding surgery on her hips - I saw those x-rays and they were astonishing. The vet called this morning and asked when I wanted Tigger back! I was quite taken aback as I wasn't expecting her so quick and said "erm tomorrow as my husband is away till then". After giving it some thought I decided to get her today and called to make the necessary arrangements. They explained how she will have to be caged for the next 5 - 8 weeks etc. The vet has told me that anytime I feel I cant cope with the physio or cleaning her to call him and he will take her back into the clinic for a few days. I am hoping we can manage this at home, its going to be tough her hind end is paralysed for now.

The old cage we had behind the garage was overgrown with nettles, it's actually a rabbit run but we used it when we nursed one of our other cats from being run over too. It took Mag and I almost an hour in the rain to clear the nettles, empty it then get it scrubbed and hosed down. After all the effort I wasn't really happy with it so decided not to use it. Its old, and despite drying it out with the dehumidifier, and it did very well in a short space of time, it was just not so nice a cage anymore. It was going to have to be lifted up each time to tend to Tigger so I made the decision to buy a proper cage.

Anyways - off to the vet once the kids had come out of summer scheme at 4 o'clock... went through the phsyio we have to do on Tigger three times a day, the meds, the check up visit next week, stitches out the following etc than the bill - only £770. And to top it all Tigger might still lose her leg, though I hope not for both her sake and the bank balance. I picked up the cage on the way home, with the food too it came to £73.

Not to go on about the money too much, I just wanted to share something funny that happened when I told Roy how much it all cost. Other half is away just now, and he always leaves me a couple of signed 'emergency' cheques, and until now I have never used them. Other half called this evening to chat and I was telling him about getting a cage for the cat and how I used the cheques, he was panicking worrying about how much the cage was ... I said "its not the CAAAGE you need to worry about", "why? why?" ... he was flabbergasted. Its a lot of money, and I am saying this in a light hearted yet serious way - I just thought it was funny to hear him worrying about the cost of the cage at that stage unaware what the vet's fee was.

Its hard to put a price on a pet's life, but I wonder if the vet had told us up front how much it was all going to cost how we would have reacted. We love our animals, don't get me wrong but we would have had to think and talk through what treatment the cat was going to have or not have. I reckon we still would have gone ahead with the treatment but maybe would have pushed for the op first, and none of this waiting and x-rays and things ... it took 2 1/2 days for the decision to operate and those 2 1/2 days were filled with general anaesthesia, x-rays, medication, out of ours nursing etc.

One thing is for sure our new bionic cat will never stray onto the drive way again.

This is Tigger in her new cage



And her 'after' photo ... the operation looks like she has had her tail cut off the stitched back on. URGHH not for the faint hearted.

Thursday 10th July

It was a busy time the last few days.
Last Thursday found me 'popping' out to get some new dinner plates. I mean every day dinner plates not the sort you put out for guests, the sort the kids can drop and you wont cry too much. I actually liked the cheap earthenware ones in a catalogue shop so I ended up getting two sets.
Here they are ...


Whilst we were in the shopping centre Toni noticed a girl getting her ears pierced in the jewellery shop, she stood and watched with a mixture of envy and curiosity as the girl cuddled a bear during the procedure. The last few months she has been asking what pierced ears felt like, asking about different ear rings you can get. One of her little friends had her ears done too which added to the curiosity. So we had a few minutes and went in to look at the set up. The girl in the shop was lovely, Grace explained everything to Toni and made her feel at ease. We went for a walk round the other shops to talk and ponder over the fact it was fairly simple to get her ears done, Toni decided to go for it. Back in the jewellery shop, she found her self perched on the chair clutching that same teddy bear and me filling out consent forms. GULP. Then she backed out, and that was fine by me.

That evening at home the conversations about the ears came up again, so a brave Toni with new found confidence wanted to go back tot he shop. With a promise that it wont be a wasted journey we went off to get her ears done. Another girl was in same the chair when we arrived and she too managed to survive the procedure, Toni was reassured by this. Meanwhile the mum to the girl just stood with tears in her eyes and her hands clasped tightly over her mouth. Smiling, not knowing what lay ahead I reassured her.
Toni being brave hopped on up and gave the bear a big hug, Grace and another lady pierced both ears at the same time so there was no backing out for her. For a few moments I was thinking "Oh my God, my little girl, I let them put holes in her ears!" Now I realise it was Toni's choice to get her ears pierced and that I am not such a bad mum after all. We chose a little gold stud with a fuchsia colour stone, small and dainty.
You can just about see them in this photo...

Families

I am not talking about my immediate family i.e. husband and four children but other (so called) family members here.

I had the wind taken from my sails last week - I found some nasty things written about me on an Internet blog. There is an old saying that goes something like "you can think it, but you cant say it", oh I don't know the saying but you get the gist. Well this was written, and it shocked me at the desperate measures some people would go to to try damage my family, and my reputation of being a good mother and wife. Well it didn't work - sure I was hurt, and to be perfectly honest I was devastated that such things could be said about me.

That person wont win, never, ever - I will always be better than she. I guess I don't have to live with her, and that I am thankful of. Those writings which I discovered led to a family dispute which ended up in me questioning the last 37 years of my life. With both my natural parents dead now - the people I thought loved me, I have discovered don't - turns out everything was a charade. Past 30 odd years of believing gone because people took sides, rather than facing up to a few days of disharmony and discussions.

My children are devastated. I broke the news to my eldest this week he knew something was wrong so we decided not to lie to him, and my second eldest came to realise things were not right either. Tears shed, young fragile spirits broken and sadly they got their first taste of real hurt - I ache for them.

I faked it

My sun tan that is. I hate how that stuff smells so I always put in on an hour before I shower, that way I get the tan without the icky coconut smell. I love coconut but this stuff stinks. Sitting here smelling icky I thought I had better give you a quick update...

We had another busy week last week. The highlight if it had to have been a visit to a friend from our home education group. That's how I met her, but I think now we have become good friends which is nice. Anyways - she is pregnant, very pregnant with baby due in a couple months its pretty obvious. On arrival, Seb after doing his obligatory toilet inspection, decided to tell my friend that she was fat. Quite bold about it, and thank goodness she is pregnant otherwise I might have just had to turn and leave there and then LOL. The visit went well, although it was late when we left and I think everyone was exhausted. We had hot dogs on the way home and the kids fell into bed tired and happy.

The following day, or maybe day after Seb was thinking about my "fat friend" (sorry no offence meant D.), this was obviously playing on his mind. He went into playgroup and told everyone that I was having baby! They asked him "are you sure?", and yes he was so sure about that. My friend who runs the playgroup was explaining how I wasn't pregnant to Ellis as she knows I would have told her, but he kept on insisting. So it looks I am having a baby too - LOL I wish I had that excuse for my stomach.

The weekend brought another further incident regarding our windows *sigh* one of those weeks, we discovered one of the 8ft double glazed windows in the TV room had broken, huge cracks running all over it. Total loss as to how it happened, so now we need to get that seen to. KERCHING KERCHING I can see this will cost a few pounds.

The window escapades over we had three parties to go to, come Sunday night the kids had so many e-numbers and junk food they were high as kites ... at least they had fun, and a week of detoxing is underway.

26th April 2008

Here she is Miss T - tooth no2 gone! Another 18 dramas to go. Less said the better .

I want to write more on my week but the children are fighting over balloons right now *sigh*, I am going to pop them.

A peg too close! 13th April 2008

Look at this!


This yellow peg which is from one of those picture maker toys. This peg ended up side aways up my Seb's nose. Funny - yeah right! I put him for time out, he was being stupid and the sad thing is I cannot even remember now why he was in time out. Time out is our porch, some people have a naughty step but us - the porch! Its got a glass door where you can keep an eye on 'them' when they are in time out! YEAH RIGHT! There is a 8 foot tall plant in there too - Arthur, he looks after the children when they have been naughty. If the kids mess about in time out Arthur tends to fall over so they daren't move an inch. Well - after a moment or two in the porch my 4 year old started yelling, I called him him and saw he had a bloody nose. Wondered what he was up to, I was also half way through doing Sol's nappy change so I made him stand still and be quiet while I finished up. I managed to get a few sobs about a toy up his nose, and sure enough I looked and there it was. He kept sniffing but thankfully it was wedged side aways so could not go up any further. I yelled for No1 son to go looking in my little pen basket for a pair of tweezers - I just put them there a couple days ago .... thank goodness. and we got Seb up on the kitchen stool and performed the surgery.

Crying afterwards he was complaining about me sticking tweezers up his nose - ungrateful boy! His nose bled off and on all day, the peg cut him while it was coming back down but there wasn't much I could do about that.

A VISIT FROM THE TOOTH FAIRY

We had a visit from the tooth fairy this week. And what a drama one wobbly tooth can cause too, my dd took several days out from real life to walk around with her hands clamped tightly over her mouth so her tooth would not fall out. She was terrified, and boy did she let us know. no sleep, no eating - she would not do anything.

So in the end the bad mommy that I am got my friend to hold her hands and I pulled the tooth out. After the initial shock she was the proudest girl in the world.


Strangest thing is that her replacement tooth is now growing in the gap, but her other new front tooth is actually growing behind her other milk teeth. I am sure they will straighten up, but it still is odd.

17th March 08 - DISASTER STRIKES

Our fishtank broke! Well cracked, leaked ... luckily I noticed it fairly quickly and luckily we had a spare tank in the garage, and luckily husband was there on hand! It was late Sunday evening where I popped into out TV room to lock the interior doors as our heating had gone off. The interior doors divide the house and when they are open its cooler as the back of the house is not sheltered from the weather. I noticed the water level had dropped in the tank and realised something wasn't right. Looked down the back and it was trickling down through all the electrical stuff for the tank, and making a real mess of the floor. The water had also penetrated the cupboards under the tank and several books were ruined.
So we spent our Sunday evening negotiating a 4 foot long tank into the house, adding gravel and rescuing fish and water from the old tank.
They all survived despite their ordeal.