Day 2

No pictures as I forgot to charge up my phone. What a shame. There would have been some good ones. Honor had a whale of a time on a day out with the Brownies. They went on a train to Canterbury and visited Build-a-bear, Pizza Hut and Canterbury Cathedral. She came home tired but not stroppy which was unusual.

So that left me with the other 2 children and no car. My Mum came over and took us to the local museum. Henry was brilliant. He went round with the curator and chatted with her about the exhibits. She let him try on a World War 2 helmet and type something on a very old typewriter. As we had recently watched the Christopher Eccleston series of Dr Who, he typed 'Are you my Mummy?' which is what a young child in a WW2 episode did after he had been turned into a creature with a gas mask face! Then we were shown a room where they had old style telephones and a switchboard. Hope really liked holding the phone and pretending to talk to her Nana. Unfortunately, when it came to putting the phone back, she didn't take it too well and had one of her hyperventilation attacks. The curator was busy chatting to my Mum and Henry about gunpowder while I stood in the middle of the room holding Hope upside down, blowing hard into her face! No-one batted an eyelid. Then she found her voice and screamed until we got her home and put her to bed for her afternoon nap. Phew!

Tomorrow, we are going to a science fair. I must remember to take my phone.

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.....