30 weeks, 3 days

Here's a quick rundown of events that happened just over 3 weeks ago. I wrote it on my iPhone while bored in hospital so excuse the short sentences, errors and lack of detail. It was just a way to pass the time more than anything but it is nice to have a record.

~~

It's funny how things can change so quickly. Wednesday last week I was visiting my OB and we were both feeling really positive about how well I was holding up, even discussing what we'd do when I hit 38 weeks. Exactly 1 week later I find myself stuck in a hospital bed. I should have known at that point i'd jinxed myself.

Thursday I woke up with a fever and really sore pelvis. Not achy as such but loose and uncomfortable. I managed to go about the day without too many dramas but noticed by late in the evening I had started to feel very irregular crampy type pains. They continued throughout the night, getting progressively stronger however I'd decided to employ my trademark head in the sand approach & refused to actually time them. By 3.30am my fever had returned with a vengence; I was incredibly cold and shivery and coupled with the pains, I could barely move. I think I'd decided at that point that I'd be making a hospital trip at some point on Friday but I was holding on to the grim hope that things would be looking better by morning. Alas not. At 6am I decided I needed a hot shower which helped slightly and I headed to the lounge chair in the hopes of catching some sleep in between contractions. Between 6am & 8am the pains were coming every 5 minutes but still at this point, I couldn't bring myself to move.

Eventually I decided we couldn't put it off any longer and I vaguely considered packing a hospital bag before eventually deciding that it wouldn't be required. You really would have thought I'd have learnt by now...

My OB was waiting for me and once it was confirmed that I was definitely in labour, there was much discussion about what to actually do with me. Clearly they weren't equipped to deal with a 30 weeker so a transfer to Brisbane was on the cards but on the other hand nobody wanted to deal with a birth on the side of the road. The fetal fibronectin test came back negative and my first VE of the day showed I was starting to dilate and tear through my cervical stitch, but not enough at that point to make any rash moves. Steriods & Nefidipene were given and I was sent a bed on the ward while we waited to hear back from either the RBWH or Mater in Brisbane to see what action they wanted to take, but in the meantime I had to be closely monitored to make sure the situation didn't change too rapidly. I'd barely hobbled up on the bed in my room when I subjected to another frigging VE, which showed I'd hit 3cm and the stitch had to come out. So back to the birth suite I went where my OB decided that she'd remove the stitch and deliver asap to prevent a roadside delivery. Everyone donned their serious faces and made themselves busy while T & I quietly freaked out about how the day was turning out. Before much else could happen, the amubulance arrived and I was loaded on, accompanied by a midwife and very stressed looking paediatrician who made me promise emphatically that I wouldn't deliver en route.

We made it to the Mater with no dramatic events although my contractions were still 2.5 minutes apart for the whole journey. On arrival I was poked and prodded some more, hooked back up to the CTG machine and given more Nifedipine and basically just monitored for the next 4 hours. The contractions by this stage had slowed down quite a bit so I was allowed to move up to the ward and await the arrival of my next dreaded steriod injection at midnight.

By morning I was feeling pretty good. I'd had barely any contractions overnight and I was allowed to have my cannula removed and all medications ceased. Such a wonderful feeling. I was told however to make myself comfortable for a long stay as they weren't quite sure when they'd let me go home and it was likely I'd be kept in until 34 weeks when I could finally transfer back to my local hopsital, if I hadn't already delivered. We were even sent to do a tour of the NICU in preparation. I was crushed - I just wanted out.

~~

Clearly though, I am no longer in hospital and am back at home gestating away. I was discharged 6 days later when it was becoming obvious that nothing interesting was happening and am allowed to deliver at my local hospital. I've made it through Christmas (thank God, I was dreading the thought of a Christmas baby) and am now 33.5 weeks. Ryan was born at 33.2 so I've offically nailed my goal. Happy, happy days.

Baby Love

Ryan communicates with the baby by getting me to open my mouth and yelling down my throat.

"My name is Ryan, baby! You can come out now!"

*Chirp chirp*

Excuse me a minute while I clear away the crickets and I'll be right with you...

Right. That's better. So, how are you both? lol Surprisingly, all is well in my world. I guess I should start at the top and break it down in to small bits so I don't miss anything.

Me
26w 1 day today and all still looking good. I'm eagerly awaiting the magical 28 week mark when I think I will finally exhale properly for the first time in 6.5 months. Of course I'd rather see 35+ but beggars can't be choosers now, can they? Still haven't exactly worked out where this child will be sleeping when it makes an appearance or what we will call it so may need to pull my head out of the sand about all that shortly.

Matthew
Only 5 & a bit weeks left of Grade 1. Eek. This time last year I was positively giddy with the anticipation of him leaving his vague, idiotic Prep teacher behind - this year, I am tinged with sadness. He has had the most wonderful teacher this year. She has been firm & consistant, yet kind and empathetic at the same time. She shows a genuine interest in all her students and never fails to reward them for a job well done. Matthew has flourished under her care and enjoyed school so much more this year. He also has a wonderful class of friends as well. Last year he teamed up with a couple of boys who completely managed to erode the small amount of self confidence he did have about himself but thankfully with the help of some lovely friends this year, he seems much happier in himself.

I'm scared of what Grade 2 has in store for him. I hope it is another positive year.

Ryan
Ryan continues to challenge and exhaust me yet I fall more in love with him everyday. He's lucky he has that award winning smile - I'm convinced it's some sort of inbuilt survival mechanism. Lately he's shown a keen interest in learning to write so we've run with that but lucky for him that school is just a few short months away. He claims to want to play rugby next year, which surprises me as he's never expressed any interest to participate in anything that his brother wasn't already doing. We'll see how it goes - if nothing else, the local union club will be grateful for our donation of registration fees I guess.

My lovely husband
T is working hard picking up the slack for his unemployed wife, for which will be forever grateful. He seems genuinely happy at the end of his working day now, which is a relief after being plagued with a string of bosses over the last few years who failed to notice & appreciate his hard work. I've put the pressure on him a bit to do as much travelling as he can during November so that I can be certain he will be nearby in case of any early arrivals so I suspect I've only added to his pre-christmas stress. I do love you, dearest - thank you. xx

I'm not sure if it's the pregnancy hormones but at a time when usually we are just gearing up for the Christmas chaos, this year I'm beginning to feel the pressure easing already and am looking forward to it all as I hope we can just slow down and enjoy doing nothing over the break. I plan to spend as much time as I can with my little family of 4 - just *being*, instead of *doing* for a change. Life is about to get far more hectic & busy in 2010 and I need to remind myself to try to slow down and live in the now.

2010

It occured to me today that my baby will start school in just 4 short months. We received an information pack from the school the other day and will be told who his teacher will be in early December. I'm not ready.

He seems so much younger than Matthew. Matthew was 5.5 years old when he started - Ryan will only be 4y 10months. Plus he's little. The size 6 shirts swim on him, which makes him look even more adorable. I am predicting tears on the first day, from both of us, which didn't happen on his brother's first day. Matthew spent most of his toddler & pre-school years in daycare whereas Ryan has had far more one-on-on time with me at home. I've recently discovered that his best friend from daycare will be going to the same school as him so we've tried to arrange that the boys will be placed in the same class, although there are no guarantees.

And for our part at home here, we are going to help with the transition to big school by very helpfully having another baby. We've carefully planned it so that it is due to arrive in the first few weeks of the school year - perhaps if we are really lucky we could aim for the first day. Wouldn't that be nice?

We broke the news to the boys the other day - Matthew immediately stated he hoped for a boy (twins if possible) so that they could finally play TMNT without having to imagine the extra two participants. Ryan was fairly unfazed about the whole situation, probably because he has no idea what he is in for. The only thing that seemed to really ruffle him was Matthew explaining exactly how the baby was likely to find it's way out into the real world - Ryan immediately saw how ludicrous that situation would be (and rightly so, I say) and assumed that we were taking the piss. He hates being the butt of the joke (pardon the pun).

So there you go. The first few months of 2010 are likely to be busy and exciting times here at The Shack. Fingers crossed both events go smoothly...

(P.S - I have been sporadically blogging about this pregnancy but just not posting. Feel free to read all related posts here.)

Halfway

Meet *blast of trumpets please*... Fergus III:


Once again, I'm a little late in writing this post. We had our 20 week scan done just over a week ago and since then I've been terribly busy with school holidays, eating cake and cleaning the house from all the mother fucking dust storms that keep appearing. It's been lots of fun.

Anyway, the scan went surprisingly well. For whatever reason I was pretty nervous about it all. I guess because up to this point everything has progressed without any major hiccups and as we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. I'm pleased to report that the sonographer didn't even slip up with a mention of the gender so we are still blissfully unaware of the sex.

I'm still predicting boy, for the simple reason that I just can't imagine myself the mother of a girl. It seems so surreal. On the other hand, this pregnancy has been completely different to Matthew & Ryan's - I was definitely sicker in the first few weeks, my cravings have changed (I haven't once wondered just what raspberry cordial and milk would taste like this time around...) and orange juice just isn't doing it for me at all - so perhaps it could be a girl. Anyway, I care not. Healthy & full term would suit me just fine.

Sadly the photo above is the best the sonographer could do. It had it's face pressed firmly up against the placenta and wasn't moving for love or money. Makes it look kind of evil. My placenta is also anterior so that would explain why I didn't feel movements until nearly 19 weeks - the good news is that it is up nice & high so at this stage still on track for another VBAC.

Next stop - 24 weeks.

Sweet relief

16.1 - and we still have a heartbeat, together with a very active little fetus (or is that foetus? I never know...) So our first major milestone of 15 weeks has been reached. My lovely OB has set me a new goal of 20 weeks and she appears to be rather amused by my pessimistic attitude to booking appointments too far in advance. She asked me today if I booked in at the hospital, to which I could only snort in reply. Hell, I haven't even booked my morphology scan in yet.

A stitch in time

Corny, hey? But true all the same. It was just in time - my cervix was about 1cm dilated when my OB put the stitch in, so I guess that explains the nasty pains I was having leading up to it.

Looking back now, the whole procedure went quite well although at the time, I felt emotionally and physically fucked. Normally I tolerate general anaesthethics quite well and love nothing better than a good hospital stay. What's not to love? The endless uninterrupted TV viewing, peace and quite to complete a crossword, food delivered to your bed (I'm a product of 5 years at boarding school. I actually like the taste of bland, mass produced institutional food - it's comforting) and every so often someone comes around and shoots me full of morphine.

This time however, there was no morphine to take the edge off. Only panadol, which is not quite the same. And I felt shakey and unsettled, fidgety and very anxious. I seriously considered discharging myself as I had a strong urge to be at home, in the comfort of my own bed surrounded by my own possessions. My cannula was badly sited and becoming quite painful and it took a great deal of self control not to remove the bloody thing myself. Eventually, I managed to convince myself that I needed to be there so my OB could do another scan the next morning to make sure we still had a heartbeat and I did manage to get a decent nights rest, which surprised me a great deal.

It's been 4 days since the stitch was inserted and only now can I say that I'm feeling far more human than I was and much less fragile. I can feel the stitch, it's not uncomfortable or painful in anyway but I definitely am aware that it is in. If I stand up too quickly, or sneeze/cough, I can feel a gentle tug so my mind is never far away from it.

I'm still second guessing every little twinge or niggle that I feel and am terrified that miscarriage is imminent but I think I'm slowly learning to relax a little bit and take one day at a time. I've not had anymore cramping or acheyness, which is very reassuring. Long may it continue. 15.1 weeks today. Yay me.

Scared

Lots of women in second (& subsequent) pregnancies tend to forget how far along they are as they are busy dealing with exisiting children and the demands of everyday life. I am not one of them. I know exactly how far I am (14w 2d today, thank you very much.) and how much further I have to go.

I am rapidly approaching the dreaded 15 week mark - the point where we lost our last baby and I'm scared. I have been terribly anxious about this date and for a while there thought all was going so well. That we might just actually make it. That was until dead on 14 weeks, I started having a nasty heavy (and if I want to be completely honest) possibly achey feeling low down in my pelvis. Thankfully though, I've not had any other signs of impending miscarriage - no bleeding, no contractions, no discharge.

I am booked for a cervical stitch tomorrow. I just pray I can hang on long enough to see that through or at very least be well and truly under a general anaesthetic before it all goes pearshaped. I couldn't bear to relive the nightmare of a 2nd trimester miscarriage again.

I got nutthin'

I've tried, I really have but I just can't find anything interesting to blog about.

Weekends lately around here have consisted solely of shed building and catering lunches for the extra 6 or so helpers we've had, which doesn't exactly leave a lot of time for fun.

Sunday was actually the first time we've left the house as a family in months. Matthew heard from his PE teacher at school that the Brisbane Roar were having a Fun Day, so we trundled off to that since the weather has been so lovely. It was a really lovely day and thankfully the crowds weren't too out of control.

So there you go, exciting stuff huh?

You gotta see the baby...

12 weeks, 6 days. Proof that there actually something in there and I'm not vomiting my life away for no reason at all. How lovely.

School holidays - Day two and I already want to kill myself.

We've been patching Matthew's left eye, on his Opthalmologists instructions. It's not going well. He can't see a fucking thing out of his right eye with his left one patched and so far, I have not been able to come up with one single activity he can actually see enough do to while away the hours.



My heart is breaking for him. And please - don't post telling me the good Lord above wouldn't give me more than I can handle, because sometimes he just fucking well does.

...cast off!

Waiting patiently to be called...

One final photo of his cast for prosperity.

The saga is finally over. Last Tuesday Matthew went back in to hospital to have the wires removed from his elbow and his cast removed for good. It was a really long day. His surgeon had called to tell us he wouldn't be taken to surgery until at least 12pm but of course the hospital still wanted us there by 7am for admission. Luckily Matthew was allowed to have breakfast at 6am - he didn't end up going to theatre until nearly 1.30pm. The poor little bloke was starving. He's normally pretty patient and tolerant of inconveniences like that but it really was starting to take its toll on both of us.

The surgery went well. He was only under for about 40 minutes but it took a long time once we was back on the ward to wake up and get moving. We didn't end up getting home until well after 7pm that night. It was a long day and one I think he is glad is now behind him. He can move his arm well now and there isn't any pain but he still can't straighten it right out. His surgeon says he will do so in his own time. For now, he is pleased to be back riding his bike but has assured me tree climbing is off the agenda. Good man...

"Ugly" fabric

A few weeks ago Helen had a giveaway to rid her stash of some fabrics she didn't like anymore - I believe she went so far as to call them ugly. Of course, I couldn't go past the opportunity to fill my sewing cupboard with more fabric I'll probably never use, I entered- and won. Yay!

Helen's lovely package arrived today and amazingly enough, I actually found some stuff that would complement some of my exisiting stash quite nicely. (I'm not actually sure what that says about stash but anyway...). Thanks again Helen (and Ryan thanks you for the Freddo. It didn't last long!). You've boosted my quota of girly patterns too. I don't have many of them enter the house with two boys. :)

Opthalmologist # 4 & Rhuematologist

Matthew had his review on Tuesday with both his Opthalmologist and his Rheumatologist.

Rheumatologist

Brilliant results. Matty currently isn’t showing signs of swelling, warmth or pain in any joints at all. He’s got a good range of movement in all his joints although the muscles on the back of his thigh (hamstring, I think – Dr Jenn will be sure to correct me if I’m wrong…) are still a bit tight but hopefully the stretching he does at TKD will help. Or he could just be like his parents and not particularly flexible. Even in my most active & sporty days, I don’t ever recall not be able to touch my toes as being a problem.

Anyway, this news thrilled me. It will be the first winter since 2005 that he has been pain free. Amazing stuff and long may it continue.

Follow up – 6 months (15 December)

Opthalmologist

Left eye -6/6 (perfect), cataract stable Right eye - 6/12 good, but not great.

This is so frustrating. No matter what we do, we just can’t seem to get fantastic vision from his right eye. I don’t actually ever notice that he has a vision problem – when he is using both eyes he compensates remarkably well and there isn’t much he can’t see, but when his right eye is isolated, it is obvious that there is a problem.

There is now no reason he shouldn’t be getting better vision from that eye and Dr D thinks perhaps his left eye is over compensating, which means his right eye is becoming slack. Sooo, back to patching the left eye over the school holidays to force the right back in to action. Matthew is not a happy camper. He hates this game immensely and I completely understand why.

It’s going to be a miserable couple of weeks. :(

Follow up- 6 weeks (28 July).

Cast on...

and back to school tomorrow!

Broken wing

My poor boy has broken his arm. He fell out of a tree he was climbing at school on Monday morning. He did a spectacular job of it - the red circle on xray below shows the bit that is broken. It should be over in the space where the blue arrow is pointing.


Thankfully I was just at home when the school called me. I got there quickly and asked them to call the ambulance for him. There was no way in the world I'd have been able to move him, he was in too much pain. He was so brave - I can only imagine how much it would have hurt and how scared he would have been but he did nothing more than a bit of a cry when the pain got too bad.

The ambulance took him straight to the hospital while I raced Ryan home to stay with Tom's parents (who incidently deserve a medal for all the times they have come to our rescue lately). When I got to the hospital, Matthew was still holding it all together. I thought going by himself in the ambulance may have freaked him out a bit but he was fine. After they did the x-ray they warmed me that he would be taken to surgery to have it repaired. I was thrilled to hear that the orthapeadic surgeon was they same surgeon who did FIL's hip replacement last October - he is a great doctor and a lovely bloke to boot. Matthew had actually met him in the past so that helped a lot to ease the fear.

Matty finally made it to surgery at about 4.30pm. He is now sporting a couple of pins in his elbow to hold it all together and will need another anaesthetic in a few weeks time to remove the pins once his arm has healed. For now, he is wearing a blackslab and will have his proper fibreglass cast put on next Monday. I think he's looking forward to the kids at school being able to sign it.

Here he is in the emergency room, looking fairly unhappy. Note the unnatural point of his elbow. Ugh.

Sleeping peacefully after surgery.

He hasn't been in too much pain since he has been home. He was very tired and worn out the first day but is now just going about things with surprising ease.

Kids are amazing - and you in particular young man, are the bravest of them all. xx

Flooding

Yesterday was a bit scary. We had such heavy rain on Tuesday night that by 8am on Wednesday morning the water was already lapping at the side of the road on the roads near our house.

By lunchtime, it hadn't let up and I was starting to get pretty worried about whether or not I would make it home that night. Ryan's daycare centre is in a bit of a pocket - the suburb has the Brisbane River on one side and only one major road in (with one other minor, flood prone road). I rang his daycare centre about 3.00pm who told me that the major road had been cut. I left work about 3.30pm in a complete flap, worried about how the hell I'd ever get to my son and hoping that the rumour I'd heard about letting 4wd's through would be true.



Traffic was at a stand still most of the way - it took me 45 minutes to move roughly 300metres. At one point I had Tom's sister driving up the Ipswich Motorway, Tom's parents coming from Toowoomba & me heading through the western suburbs to see which one of us would make it to the kids first.

This photo shows the point the road was cut off. I'm not sure what time it was taken but thankfully by the time I got there most of the water had dispersed and 4wd's were being let through - although it was starting to rain quite heavily again and I'm sure wouldn't have taken long to flood again.

We ended up getting home shortly before 7pm. A trip that normally takes me 40 minutes stretched out to over 3 hours.

Luckily The Shack withstood the weather and we had no dramas with damage whatsoever. The backyard is pretty well submerged though and will no doubt take a few days to drain away.

Hi there, remember me?

Wow, you know you've been neglecting your blog when even your husband starts making sarcastic comments. Sorry for the delay, friends and neighbours (yeah, all three of you...lol) - I'll try to make more of an effort.

So, first things first - Matthew's follow up Opthalmologist appointment.

Finally, we got some good news. The long month of removing and inserting his lens paid off - the fluid was right down. Unfortunately we didn't get an accurate measure of his vision in that eye as his lens wasn't in but from what we could tell, it seemed to be much better than in previous visits. Fingers crossed anyway. Medications will stay the same (unfortunately) for another 5 weeks, just to make sure that the fluid has settled.

Follow-up appointment 16 June.

~~~

Next to Ryan. On Friday Ry had his visit to hospital to have his teeth dramas sorted. I made the trek in alone as Tom had to get Matthew off to school. The day went as well as it ever can when you have to watch your child have a general anaesthetic. Surely that has to be up there as one of lifes most distressing events. Tom had the task of being with Matthew when he had his surgery, so this was all new to me and it's not an experience I wish to repeat anytime in the near future. About 30 minutes in to his procedure, the dentist called me from theatre to tell me that he'd done x-rays of Ryan's front damaged tooth and found a small dark spot that could either be:

a). a possible infection starting; or
b). just general damage to the nerve which means he may lose his tooth earlier than normal.

The choice I had to make was whether to extract the tooth while he was under a GA to eliminate any future problems or leave it alone and take the chance that the spot may not be an infection. Given that I'm not exactly reknown for my decision-making abilities at the best of times, I wasn't sure which way to go. I had to quickly ring Tom to see what he thought and after much deliberation, we decided against the extraction. Ryan's dentist did make it clear he was happy to go either way but I've been beating myself up about it since. Should we have removed it just to be on the safe side & avoid having to have another GA? I don't know. If I had longer to think about it I may have chosen to extract but I can't be certain. Argh, this parenting gig is tough sometimes - I felt like someone had asked me if they could lop off one of his legs.

Anyway... Have some photos. Here he is in recovery munching on sandwiches, ice cream, jelly & lemonade. He thought the lemonade part was just fantastic. Cute.

So anyway, as if the day wasn't harrowing enough for his poor parents, the good Lord above decided to throw in a dose of croup as well, just for shits and giggles no doubt. Now, this house hasn't been without a fresh bottle of Redipred since 2003 yet somehow he managed to pick a night where I was needing to get a new script filled. He was quite bad too, I guess being intubated didn't help at all and for a while there I thought we would be heading back to the hospital. We managed to get through the worst of it by sitting in the bathroom with the shower running and then pulling the humidifier out of retirement but it was quite hairy for a while there. I'm well armed for tonight - I have more drugs than you can poke sticks at.

Opthalmologist appt #3

I've missed an appointment somewhere. Just to recap, after not so great news in January Matthew had a follow up appointment in February, which was a bit of a non-event. The fluid in his eye was down a little bit so we were keep meds the same, to be reviewed in April, which leads me to today's appointment.

Left eye -6/6 (perfect), cataract stable
Right eye - 6/36 Not good, that's only the second line of the eye chart. A scan showed there is still fluid on his retina.

Meds: Dr D wants to trial a stronger topical steriod for his right eye for the next four weeks. All his other medication will stay the same. The new drop will have to go in 4 times a day and his contact lens will have to be removed each time. Oh, he's just going to love that news...

Medication:
Flucon - ceased
Prednefrin Forte - 4x per day, right eye
Homatropine - One drop every 2nd day both eyes
Redipred - 1ml every 2nd day
Methotrexate - 10mg per week
Naprosyn - 250mg per day
Folate - 50mg per day

Follow up 4 weeks (12 May 2009)

Making progress

Look what my clever husband built me. Isn't he handy?

Much better than the old fence, I think. Not as likely to kill someone in a strong wind...

Not only that, he went above and beyond the call of duty by building me a gate down the side of the house which increases the size of our backyard by another 3x10-ish metres. Happy boys and dogs (well, they would be if it would stop raining long enough for them to get out there and use it).

Now we just need to find someone willing to put in a swimming pool so we can steal their excess dirt to fill up the ditch that runs along the fence. With that done, we should gain another metre of our land back.

Prematurity,the gift that keeps on giving

A few weeks ago, Ryan elegantly lept off the lounge chair and managed to land squarely on his front right top tooth - a skillful maneuvere if I do say so myself. We've watched it over the last couple of weeks change from bright white to a nice off white before it decided to settle on a fetching shade of grey. I'd also noticed that one of his back teeth had something resembling what my untrained eye thought to be a hole. Obviously a trip to the dentist was in order.

The general dentist we see caught sight of his front tooth and decided that we'd need to add a Peadiatric Dentist to our ever expanding list of specialists. Fantastic. The PD took one look in Ryan's mouth and quickly ran in to another room to order that BMW he's had his on eye on for a while (well, not really but I'm sure he did it as soon as we'd left...) The official diagnosis is yes, it is a hole - Ry apparently has a weak spot on his molars, most likely caused by his prematurity.

So now I need to make an appointment for him to have a general anaesthetic to have his cavity filled, his 3 other molars "sealed" to prevent them developing holes and possibly, depending on how much worse his front tooth is in 6 weeks time, root canal on his damaged front tooth.

I hope the tooth fairy reimburses us substantially when the time comes because God knows our health insurance isn't being all that generous.

And another year passes...

The smallest boy turned 4 on Saturday and we celebrated in true Ryan style - no fuss & very matter of factly.

(His official cake was a rocket but I'm too scared post a picture of it in case it features as this months disaster on CakeWrecks)

I suppose I should take a moment to reflect on what life has been like since he made his dramatic arrival. In a word, he is cheeky. He has the most amazing sense of humour and loves nothing more than a bloody good joke (preferably practical). He is quick to anger but thankfully, quick to recover although he is reknown for moodswings that until now I'd only seen in hormonal 14 year old girls. He is currently living vicariously through Matthew at school and soaking up information like a walking sponge - it is seriously amazing how much he has learnt just by observing, even when he isn't obviously paying attention. He is extremely quick-witted and has a comeback for every occasion, just has to have the last word. He's rough & wriggly, dirty & sweaty and loud & impatient. He's also cuddly & sweet and loves his family fiercely. He compliments Matthew perfectly and I hope they will be great friends for many years to come.

Matthew's questions

1. What is something mum always says to you?
Matt: I'm nice
Ry: not going to say it.

2. What makes mum happy?
Matt: Me doing the right thing
Ry: I'm not going to say it.

3. What makes mum sad?
Matt: When I am doing the wrong thing
Ry: I said, I'm not going to say it! {insert massive just-woken-up tantrum here}

4. How does your mum make you laugh?
By tickling me

5. What was your mum like as a child?
I can't really answer that one because I don't know it.

6. How old is your mum?
31

7. How tall is your mum?
10 metres

8. What is her favourite thing to do?
going to Dreamworld

9. What does your mum do when you're not around?
play games with Ryan

10. If your mum becomes famous, what will it be for?
Singing (WTF?? Bless him anyway)

11. What is your mum really good at?
Washing

12. What is your mum not very good at?
Playing computers

13. What does your mum do for her job?
Ummmm, I don't know what you do.

14. What is your mum's favourite food?
Lasagne

15. What makes you proud of your mum?
Getting me a good toy on my birthday (nice try, buddy)

16. If your mum were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Mr Tickle

17. What do you and your mum do together?
Have a little chat on the way home from school

18. How are you and your mum the same?
We both like eating passionfruit

19. How are you and your mum different?
I'm smaller & she's bigger.

20. How do you know your mum loves you?
By hugging me

22. Where is your mum's favourite place to go?
The zoo

If only it was always that easy

Isn't it funny the way things just sort themselves out? Only yesterday I was whinging to various people about how there were just no jobs out there. This morning, I found one online that was right up my alley. I literally spent 5 minutes applying for it while I was waiting for the boys to finish packing their bags this morning and by 10.30am, I was offered the job. I was still not out of my pajamas. Hey, I'm nothing if not productive... ;p I'm going down tomorrow to work out what hours suit best; he has offered me school hours with the ability to come and go as I please, so long as the work is done. Can't beat that, right?

Chatting to Ryan

In the car on the way home from daycare this afternoon:-

Me: How was kindy today?
Ryan: Not good. Jack just hit me on the back.
Me, with my best sympathetic tone: Ohhhh. That's not nice. It's not nice to hit your friends, is it? Do you ever hit anyone?
Ryan: No!
Me: But sometimes you hit Matthew when you are angry with him, don't you?
Ryan: {silence}... I don't want to talk about Matthew.

Statistic

Sorry, I've been rather well... absent from here lately, haven't I? You probably think it's because I've been off going glamorous things like holidaying or re-tiling the roof but in reality I've just been sitting around drinking a lot a coffee. I've thought about posting a lot but couldn't bring myself to actually do it.

Things have been rather stressful here at The Shack lately. Matthew has been unwell, Ryan attempted some DIY dental work when he launched off a lounge chair and I was made redundant at work with less than 4 days notice.

I've never had trouble finding work in the past but then again, the world wasn't in economic crisis when I was doing so either. There are a couple of jobs out there that I intend to apply for but sadly, I suspect that the many other Queenslanders that have been laid off this month will have the same idea.

Thank god for little boys...

...that disobey their mothers and deliberately rat around in places they have been told to stay out of.

If it wasn't for Ryan up-ending the box of old birthday cards that I was going to throw out, I would never have found Matthew's birthday money ($80 worth, if you please!) that I had hidden. I'd been looking for that money for 18 months...

Grade One

First day of Grade One was a big success. He apparently made lots of new friends, helped the new boy find the toilets, learnt sight words, made an Australian flag (he's dictacting here, by the way..) and counted to 108.

They also drew pictures of their family. Please do note my fetching orange skirt:

The first line apparently says "My little brother is small". Ryan is not amused.

17 hours...

before my holiday ends and I'm back at work. Dear God 4 weeks goes quickly when you are having fun. T has also been off all this time so we've actually managed to spend the time with the kids productively, rather than just bludging around the house. I can probably count on one hand the days we had at home - mostly we were out & about having fun. We kids were probably bundled in to bed in the clothes they spent the day in a few too many times but that's what holidays are all about, right? We did a day trip to Somerset, the beach (both north & south coasts), Montville & Maleny, had a round of mini golf, spent time playing games in The Parlour & learning to balance spinning plates in The Circus to name just a few.

Out to dinner with the lads.

Gadding about the city

An inpromptu stop at Kilcoy for lunch after Ryan decided car sickness was back in Vogue.

In Montville, smelling very much like vomit.

Golden Beach, Caloundra

K-9 Flyers Frisbee dogs

Appointment #1 - Opthalmologist

I had hoped that 2009 would be a year of fantastic news, instead we've been dealt a blow first up. Results of his latest eye exam are:

Left eye– 6/6 (perfect vision!)
Right eye – 6/24 (dismal)

This result from his right eye really floored me. I was keen to see how well he was going after his last appointment as he'd gone very well with his lens these last few weeks. He has worn it almost non-stop and it seemed so settled. I wasn't quite expecting 6/6 vision but I had hoped for pretty close. 6/24 is barely the third top line on the eye chart.

Dr D was also stumped and after examining him thoroughly, discovered Matthew is retaining fluid at the back of his eye. Again. This isn't the first time - almost 12 months ago he experienced the same problem after we dropped his steriod dose and he recovered quickly once the steriods were increased. The problem this time is that his dosage hasn't changed since that last increase. She has now doubled his dose of Redipred and we now cross our fingers and hope. If this intensive burst of oral steriods doesn't work, he will need steriod injections in his eye.

Meds- Drops unchanged. Naprosyn unchanged. Redipred - 2ml for one week, 1.5ml for one week, 1ml for one week.
Follow up – 3 weeks.

He rides

Teaching Matthew to ride a bike was one of the hardest, most frustrating & nerve wracking experiences of my life. There were days when that bloody bike threatened to tear the very fabric of our family to pieces and we all came home in foul moods, grumpy from the heat, frustration & skinned knees. But today we watched him ride around the path at the river and down the slope (that only yesterday afternoon had him in a panic) and discovered that it was also one of the most gratifying and rewarding experiences as well. Definitely a proud parent moment.

Well done, Boy. xx