Another trip to London

Hello!

What a busy week it's been so far.

On Monday, Henry had his long awaited appointment at The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Kings Cross, London with a specialist doctor to discuss the apparent problems with the nerves in Henry's hand following his accident. The doctor thinks his hand will improve with plenty of physio and probably won't need to have another operation. So that is good news.

We decided to travel up by car because the train is outrageously expensive but the journey up there during rush hour was pretty bad and we only just made the appointment on the dot. We were straight in and straight out again and as Henry has found all this 'arm palava' a bit of a nuisance, and he is very fascinated by London, we promised that we'd take him to The Museum of Natural History.
Having recently visited The Doctor Who Experience, we decided to go back to the same car park by the Kensington Olympia which cost us £15 and take a taxi (costing an average of £9) to the museum which was not too far away. Entrance to the museum was free.
The dinosaur exhibit was, in Henry's words, awesome!

Here is Henry face to face with a King Cobra!


The three of us really enjoyed this part of the trip and it was great to be able to talk to Henry by himself about what we were looking at. Usually, we do stuff all together but Honor and Henry tend to behave like loonies when they are together (Hubby has now dubbed them Berk and Hair after the notorious duo Burke and Hare) and it's often difficult to have sensible conversations with them. And I commented to Hubby about how, if we homeschooled, I'd come to places like this all the time. But then I remembered that I'm the mother of three very crazy kids and there were a couple of times when we had to prevent Henry from launching himself over the balcony of the blue whale exhibit and so I'll let some other teacher worry about that for a while!

On another note (sorry Hubby!) just thought I'd mention that I really like the latest single Paradise by Coldplay. I'm sorry - but I do!

Today I am joining in with Faith and Family's Small Successes. (See sidebar for link).

This week I went to the doctors. I tend to neglect this responsibility for various reasons, except when it comes to the children, of course. So while I was there I achieved 3 things:

1.) I saw the doctor about a long standing back problem that I have been trying to ignore and hoped would get better by itself.

2.) I made an appointment to have a cervical smear test. It's been 5 years since my last one and we are advised to have this done every 3 years.

3.) I made an appointment for Hope to have her MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination.

I suspect I'm not the only Mummy who neglects herself in this way. I hope I am. It can be very difficult finding the time to do these check-ups for oneself and I seem to always prioritise them last, after everyone else has been looked after. But it won't help anyone if I become too unfit to look after them... so it is done now. Hooray!

An outdoor playroom

I recently bought another gazebo for the garden. It was meant just for special occasions. We put it up for the 'little house' party. Then I wanted to keep it up for my birthday. It is so lovely and practical I'm reluctant to take it down. Today I rearranged it a bit to make a little outdoor playroom. Hope loves the garden. 'Garden' is one of the few words she can say clearly. Her sign language is getting good though. She asked for a biscuit today using the sign and although she calls all flowers 'daisy', she uses the flower sign.

So I flicked through these 'little books' ...

while she and Henry played with a bowl of water!

Henry is here because he was sent home from school because he was sick. He was sick a couple of times and then slept for a couple of hours on the sofa. After that he seemed back to his old self. The dinner is nearly ready now. I have some gammon cooking in the slow cooker to have with new potatoes and salad. Henry is whining about being hungry. He seems ok, but my mother always applied a 24 hour rule whenever we were sick... nil by mouth (except for water). So, not sure whether to feed him - oh! what to do? what to do?

I thought I knew what I was doing!

The past ten days has been especially challenging to our role as parents and there is no doubt that I take these, more negative aspects more to heart than Hubby. Not that he isn't affected. But he has other things going on to balance out all this stuff. He has a successful career. It is at times like this that being a full time Mum can really make you feel inadequate.

I very recently reported that Hope was rushed to hospital as a result of not breathing. The doctors, at the time, seemed to believe that this was a breath-holding incident and likely to recurr. Well, they were right. And alarmingly frequently. She hasn't gone unconscious, probably because we blew in her face as recommended. But she has turned blue again, a couple of times, and it is very hard not to panic!

Something else that has happened - and I was going to keep this private, but it may be useful to anyone else reading this - is that on the very day that I arrived home from hospital, tired and oh, whatever.... there was a letter waiting for me from the NHS. Previously they had been into Henry's school and had weighed and measured all the children, then plotted their precious data on their precious charts! The letter was sent to inform me that Henry was nearly off the scale, indicating that he may be overweight/obese!!!! (Hmmmmm. I was just a little bit upset by this).

Then, today, the health visitor came to do Hope's one year check. She also plotted her charts and came up with... well, poor Hope is barely on the chart. She is starved, the poor thing. Maybe Henry has been nicking all her food???? So she has arranged to come back in a month to check her weight again. Meanwhile, I have to feed her as much Weetabix as possible. The confusing part of this is that the HV admitted she was in perfect proportion regarding her length and weight. So I'm not sure why she needs to be fatter. (And I'm certain that Henry's extra weight comes from his massive brain!)

Anyway. It's all food for thought (groan!). Ironically (or maybe not -it's all a conspiracy, innit?), I was watching 'Jo Frost - Extreme Parenting' last week. (She is the Supernanny.) Her programme focussed on obesity in children because, apparently the rates of childhood obesity have soared. She demonstrated how much a portion of ice-cream was acceptable for these young kids. She showed us that one small tablespoon was all they could have. Now. How should one interpret this information. Who on earth has a bowl of ice-cream with just one small tablespoon in it? Is this really common sense? If the kid was having it every day then, well, maybe. I'm being totally honest here. Ice-cream in our house is not a regular occurance and is often a bit like Jo Frost says but on the side of some fruit pudding. But if it was going to be just a bowl of ice-cream, there'd be more than just one small tablespoon. Or else I'd say 'what's the point?'

I have written a letter to the health team that classed Henry as overweight and invited them to come and take a proper look at him and give proper feedback. After all, I could be kidding myself. This new initiative to combat childhood obesity may have the right goal in mind but I'm not at all convinced that they are going about it the right way. They sent me a leaflet advising me to walk to school and watch less tv. (We already walk to school, play outdoors, only watch Little House...).

I suspect, that these charts/info that's on telly needs to be taken with a pinch of salt and a dose of common sense and that medical professionals could be confident enough to tell it like it is... to those who really need it.

999 Emergency.

Well. Our mellow Sunday afternoon came to a dramatic end yesterday when later on, as I was hearing Henry read, little Hope became fussy and wanted some attention. After a quick cuddle, I sat her back down on the floor. She started to cry, And as the cry built up bigger and bigger, she stopped breathing, toppled over and turned blue. It was a terrifying ordeal. I screamed for Hubby and by the time I handed her over to him, she was unconscious and not breathing at all. Actually, we feared the worst. But as I was on the phone to the emergency services, Hubby had been massaging her back and chest and she started to breathe again. In fact she recovered very well, very quickly.

The ambulance arrived quickly, too and we were taken to the hospital. At the time, I thought she was choking on something but as we went over the details with the medics, they eventually concluded that she may have stopped breathing as a result of crying. This is more common in 3 year olds but not unheard of with babies. (Hyperventilation syndrome). Anyway, baby and I stayed the night in hospital which she seemed to really enjoy! The medics gave her a thorough checking over including an ECG and we finally got home late this afternoon. We are all exhausted. And Hubby and I are pretty upset at the moment. But our little baby seems fine now and the docs have told us not to worry.....

Standing on her own two feet.

Just thought I'd post these two photos of Hope who is now pulling herself up to standing.

The poor little mite has sticky eyes at the moment so I'll probaby have to take her to the docs tomorrow for some drops.

My cold still has a good grip. I can hardly breathe.

Flu buster!

I have a cold. Today I made my flu busting hot n sour soup. I usually make my own stock from the carcass of a roast chicken. Yesterday we had chicken wings for tea so afterwards, I put all the bones in the slow cooker with a couple of chopped onions, chopped ginger, chopped garlic (a couple of cloves) and a few sticks of chopped celery. I then cover with water, throw in a few bayleaves and add about a teaspoonful of paprika and turmeric. As some of the chicken wings were left uneaten, I removed the meat and put aside in the fridge.

About 24 hours later I have the stock. In this bowl I have just added some of the chicken meat and some frozen sweetcorn and baby carrots. The kids eat this version. (I whizz up the baby's portion.)

And then for us, I add some chilli, fish sauce, chicken meat (or prawns if there's no meat left), kaffir lime leaves and at the end a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

I've just had mine. It's certainly cleared the nasal passages for the time being.

My other secret weapon in the war against the winter bugs is Medised. It's meant for children but I find a few teaspoons of this helps me get a more decent nights' sleep.

I sometimes do Nigel Slater's version too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/thaiinspirednoodleso_92377.shtml

Yum.

Taking things slow.

It has been a slow start to the year so far and this morning is no different. Although it hasn't snowed for a while, there's still tonnes of the stuff outside and although the family seems to be on the mend, progress is slow. Hubby took Honor to school this morning but Henry doesn't seem ready to go back yet. The baby's fever has subsided but she now seems to have a dry, irritating cough which kept the two of us up most of the night, again. Hubby, too, was awake coughing. Then this morning I had an upset tummy. So apart from shuffling to and from the washing machine now and again, I've not done much else except read some lovely, colourful blogs and get inspired to grow things, make things etc. A few years ago I got Hubby to buy me a sewing machine. I learned to hand sew when I was young but could never get the hang of a sewing machine. My Mum used to let me use hers and I remember making a skirt suit when I was 13 and wearing it to school on non-uniform day! It attracted a lot of attention - everyone else wore jeans! But it's the bobbin bit I just can't seem to work out. Anyway, my sewing machine soon ended up in the loft but I've asked Hubby to get it down again and we'll try and have another go at working it out.
I'm also dreaming about all the things I want to grow in the garden this year and can't wait to get sowing seeds - a much easier kind of sowing, hee, hee! It'd be nice to have a wander around the garden centre and perhaps get some seeds and stuff ready, but I don't think I want to drive in these conditions just yet. I'm so tired and drained of energy. I'll just flop about here and try not to let the housework build up too much. I have a joint of brisket to put in the slow cooker for later.

Sick, sick, sick of snow!

I haven't had much time for blogging the last few days. The snow has been steadily piling up outside and while (as I see occasionally from pictures on facebook) everyone else is outside having fun on sledges, making huge snowmen, building igloos or making perilous trips to Tescos, we've been stuck indoors for days with a nasty flu-like infection. Hubby has been very ill and will have to go to the doctors tomorrow. Henry is quite poorly and the baby has been very ill too. We rang Candoc late last night just for some advice on keeping the fever down. I wanted to know if we could alternate between Calpol and Neurofen. I got a bit confused with the info on the internet. So, a nurse on the helpdesk said we could do that and told me to give her a warm bath and then lay her naked on a towel to air dry. She also told me to reduce the layers of clothing and blankets. This advice surprised me as it's so cold and I've been having chills and sweats too but have been wanting to wrap myself up in loads of layers and duvets. But anyway, I did as I was told and although I still had to attend to her a few times in the night, she slept a bit more than the previous night and didn't seem so hot. Her temperature today has still been high though she seems happier under the effects of the medicines. She has, especially yesterday, been extremely clingy and I've really had to just hold her and let her nurse all the time. I watched 3 episodes of LOST (season 5 which we had to get on dvd cos we don't have sky) yesterday afternoon while she dozed and nursed on me.

Here is a scene from the bottom of our garden. The kids really want to go out and play but can't incase they get something worse and Hubby is so disappointed - he loves snow. So tempers in the house are getting frayed and we're all feeling pretty low. I can really appreciate what it is like in the Big Brother House!!! We've spent this afternoon watching loads of Little House episodes.

Just to finish off..

While on holiday we watched the film Miss Potter and thoroughly enjoyed it. Even Henry 'cos it had Obi wan Kenobi in it! (That's Ewan McGregor as Mr Warne). The kids had hot chocolate with squirty cream, marshmallows and white chocolate mice and jelly worms on the side. As we already have a bedtime routine that is centered around a story and 'the bedtime tray' we decided to make Friday night Beatrix Potter night, with one of her stories and these yummy drinks. So here is Honor-May with hers, waiting for the story of Jemima Puddleduck.