Two Birthdays

Summer had two birthdays!

Sol's Birthday was on the 4th but its only taken till now to get her photos looked at! In light of at least two of our friends being on hliday we decided not to have a party as such for Sol. Instead I am going to have a bouncing castle for my birthday next week for Summer and the others to enjoy!

Her first cake - we had a little private birthday on the 3rd which was Sunday.


What is it?



OOOOOOOOH!






Sol got a toddler size climbing frame,


a little pink dollhouse,


and a Fairy outfit!


Sol was afraid of her second cake! The photo was taken just before she vanished!


This is what happened when we sang 'Happy Birthday' - oh and that is not me speaking!

Our holiday

We got out other holiday booked ... we have settled on the Algarve and are going late May 09. Here is where we are staying http://www.thomson.co.uk/holiday-reviews/show-reviews.html?txtparentid=4&txtparentidvalue=010946&pagenumber=1

WOOHOO

The good news today

Its not all bad ...

Still upset by Sol's appointment, but as usual my baby is oblivious and as charming as ever.

We have been looking for holidays next year. Too early you say? Well not considering there are six of us and we need a pretty big apartment when we travel, larger aprtments are like hens teeth so we need to book early to get the pick.

The funny thing is we haven't even been on this years holiday yet - and IT IS LOOMING, excitedly I have the cases out and stuff in the wash etc. Passports checked and the children are bouncing, LOL me too. We are off to Lanzarote for two weeks soon.

We are going away in September 09 for two weeks too and finally settled on Salou.. here is the place we will be staying next year - the deposit is paid ... http://www.thomascook.co.uk/destinations/spain/catalonia/costa-dorada/cap-salou/h10-mediterranean-village-aparthotel-sc/
Salou is where the theme parks are, so I know the children will have a great time.

We are also hoping to book a fortnight in May and are looking at Turkey, we have somewhere in mind but have not got it booked yet. We need to check the dates as Mag is still set on sitting an exam so we have to make sure he can still sit the exam and have time to revise.

eye updates

Today was Sol and Seb's appointment at the eye clinic. Seb is very long sighted and has astigmatism, he gets eye checks every three months. His is much the same for now so that is good news as we don't have to put any nasty atropine in his eyes this time around.

Sol is a different story - from birth we always noticed her eyes were 'different' to the others. She was cross eyed and she never saw us approaching her especially on the left. Sol would often get a fright if you came up to talk to her. She has nystagmus which is a shake of the eye ball, Sol's would rotate and shake and at 6 months was very noticeable. She was found to have no peripheral vision and that she too was severely long sighted, also with astigmatism. She also has strabismus which is predominantly in her left eye but it appears to switch over. With this in mind at 6 months they were worried about optic nerve damage and the neuro doctor did some tests. The results of these tests showed that she may have to have surgery and they prescribed her glasses and patches.



Her patches were fun (not), the first ones she had, the first day made her face swell up like a ball. Sol's skin blistered and burned and it took weeks for it to heal.



The second brand of patches did not react quite so quickly on her beautiful soft skin, ten minutes this time instead of an immediate reaction - again distress and damaged skin as the result.



Third brand of patches she has 'tolerated' until recently and now her skin is sore with them, though not at the minute dangerously allergic if you know what I mean.



The patches were for her good eye to try to strengthen her bad eye, bearing in mind her good eye is still not great. Cosmetically her eyes have straightened out and the last couple of years I have heard the words 'developmental', 'patience' being used by the doctor.



However the last appointment and now this one have brought not such good news. I was aware that Sol's nystagmus has returned, though not always obvious to the lay person but I can see it. Her vision with her glasses on is fairly good, but it seems the right eye has over worked and the left eye is now suppressed. Suppression with these conditions means the brain shuts down the signals tot he bad eye and once those signals stop there is not a lot can be done. Sol's test today involved testing her left eye, she could not identify any of the pictures held up in front of her even with her glasses on. With her right eye she was and quite happy pointing out the plain black line drawings on the test books. She was made to walk across the room with obstacles in it ... now you and I would look ahead and take the best clear route. Sol would walk until she came to an obstacle then weave round it.



So the upshot is they are worried again, she already has an appointment for the 24th of September to see the neurosurgeon and he will do more optic nerve tests and what ever the neuro guys do. I was also told that surgery will not correct her vision, and for cosmetic reasons only will she be offered an operation. That said she is beautiful and with her glasses on looks normal so I suspect the surgery wont be needed to improve her looks.

Sol

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.

I am having a bad week, and its not getting better.

Friday 25th July was our wedding anniversary. I went out to do some errands and bought a "me to you" cake for the family to enjoy. We weren't planning on going out anywhere that evening due to the fact we had no reliable baby sitter that night, but we had decided that we would just order in some food instead. On arriving back home I turned the car so I could reverse in our drive - its much easier to get out of our driveway if you reverse in. Usually when I arrive home my cat Tigger comes bounding over to see us, but this day I noticed she wasn't there. So I proceeded to reverse in checking for Tigger as I did, but somehow I managed to run her over. She came from the hedge maybe, I don't know?

Long story short I called the vet and took her right over, probably what saved her the fact she was there within about 15 minutes of the accident. The children were pretty shook up by it, Hollie she was in shock especially as that night she was talking like a washing machine on full spin.

As the weekend has wore Tigger's situation has changed, at the minute she has just undergone surgery to put a metal plate and 12 screws in her broken pelvis. The vet has called in the last couple hours explaining that one of her legs is numb and they are talking about amputation now. The bowel and bladder situation is not clear right now, but it was a case of doing the surgery because of the pain she was in. It still may be a case of all the surgery and she not make it - I feel rotten about the whole thing.


To add insult to injury I am feeling a bit "attacked" by a so called friend. It's been building and the last while she has been 'talking to me' about my children's behaviour which is supposedly in her eyes is not good. My same children whom I can take anywhere and have no issues what so ever about. Just seems that they always manage to be naughty when she is about, just my luck *rolling eyes*. This morning Toni was blowing a little trumpet thing, and I told her she could not take it in the car with us when we went out. Toni said "no" So after a count of three I had to take it from her and tell her off as she was disobeying me. My friend said "my child never says no", I saw red but smiled sweetly and tried to tell Toni off in such a way not to cause a scene. Another example - this afternoon same friend was sitting telling me how she isn't going to go to Lanzarote next year, Tenerife is a much better place to go ... *rolling eyes* just so happens that WE ARE going to Lanzarote in the very near future. She continues on how "no way am I putting MY son in the kids club, even if I had three or four kids I would NEVER do that", well she knows there is a kids club at the hotel where we are staying, she knows the children have been in these clubs before, and oh coincidentally I have four kids. I feel she is having digs at me, maybe she is jealous? Feels like she wants me to feel uncomfortable because I allow someone else to take my children for an hour!

The children are going to the local summer scheme this week, it is on for only a week for two hours a day - they love it, they belong to that same youth club and go to camp with the same people so why would they not go to the summer scheme. So the comment went as they were going to the scheme today and she was going home with her son, "Oh my son is not going to that scheme, no way would I send him there".

Every time we go out there are more comments about us "sitting at home all day", "Toni is a wall flower, she needs to get out". I don't justify myself or what I do but we DO NOT sit at home all day, we home educate our children we are not house bound.


GRRRRRR I am upset and angry about it. I consider myself to be a good mum to our four well balanced children. I have eased up the last week or so on this friendship I feel it may have run its course, I am going to wait and see what happens next visit then decide if it will continue.