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.)

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.

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.

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

Stoopid parenting decisions.

Some months ago, in an attempt to gain another 1.5 hours sleep a night, I made a decision I’m now living to regret. After the boys had gone to bed for the night, I took our small and rather innocuous looking oil heater into their room and set it on low, assuming that Ryan was waking at the crack of dawn because he was cold. When I woke naturally at 6am, I immediately hailed my cunning plan a success. No small children in my bed! Huzzah! I went to check on them, only to find my little Ry huddled in the furthest corner of his bed, shaking with fear. He was terrified of the clicking noise the heater was making as it cooled down & warmed up again. I have no idea how long he’d been in that state but I hope with all my heart it wasn’t long.

Because I am extremely daft & refuse to learn from my errors, I repeated the whole fiasco the following night. Mistake number 2.

I appear to have ruined the child for life. He is convinced that the heater crept in of its own accord in the middle of night and switched itself on. I’ve tried to tell him that I moved it in there but he is adamant that I didn’t. According to him, the heater sleeps in the lounge room during the day and at night, if it hears a noise, it wakes up. Its lights come on and it wheels itself around the house. I can see why he’s petrified – I’m beginning to feel a little freaked out myself.

Anyway, the months have gone on – he’s still not sleeping in his room & the mattress on the floor next to my bed is starting to look like a permanent fixture. The heater was happily living in the lounge room and nobody was paying it any attention at all. Life was rosy (well, rosy-ish) yet suddenly Ryan has started noticing it again & the paranoia set in. This is where I make mistake number 3.

I told him I’d take the bloody thing up to the shed and that’d fix it once and for all. Except I got lazy. It was raining and I didn’t feel like padding up the boggy yard with it so I crammed in the back of my wardrobe. The kids rarely go in there so I thought I’d get away with it, at least temporarily. Little did I know the kids had earmarked that very spot for a new cubby house…

So now he thinks it’s crept down from the shed and is hiding in my cupboard. I should just start directing my weekly wage straight to his therapist, shouldn’t I?