Saturday 24 March 2012

Gardening and Flu

Last year I thought I was going to let the girls into the garden to see if the Easter bunny had been. Actually the garden was such a wreck that the bunny just left some things on the back step.

This year I remembered that the garden looks terrible after winter and if we were going to enjoy any good Spring weather then I needed to get on things quickly.
You think that the leaves just fall but no, somehow gardens get filthy - from cats.
Weeds and dead bushes need dealing with etc and it is spikey and pokey out there.


So this week in between G and T being home and P having flu I have spent some time moving, clearing and bagging up the rot and when P was awake we were able to pop out for some sun.


PROPER flu with high fever and LONG sleeps is no fun
Not even ginger bread can make you get up
T finished school this week
Eggs were given out on the last day of term


Chocolate along with some mixed messages came back from school at this point she believes that if she eats the big egg Jesus wont live again and she needs to wait until Easter or he will be dead forever.

Her second tooth came out stuck in some chopped apple and following these infections they've both had I am going to get their hearing tested.


Bit of fresh air before the sun disappears behind the chimney
She has got so big this year

We are to have a hose pipe ban I think soon so I have decided to spend no money on the garden and have just emptied pots I don't like and replanted nearly everything and cut back the tall stuff.


Apparently ballet is not as beautiful anymore - still to get the full story

So I am nervous I am not sure why but I have a lump in my throat that a cup of peppermint tea won't shift.
I will try gently burping it away.

Sometimes if I have a list of stuff to get through and there is a change of routine like the holidays then I panic a bit. I want to crawl in a hole and say NO!! I can't do it.

Whats that all about, I need slapping or hand holding.

P has conjunctivitis in the other eye.
I managed to get nail polish on one hand today.

WooHOO!!

CM

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Full of Snot

S'not fun being full of it


T is back are school but we are popping up at lunch times to check her temperature and fill her full of antihistamine if she needs it.

P is hot like a roast chicken but shivering like just out of the sea. The eye that she bashed is oozing yellow sticky stiff and the white of her eye is blood shot like a cricket ball.




G is fuzzy headed and has finally got his first adult fever
Welcome to the club

Despite my headache and his ills I think we are being really rather good parents looking after our poorly ones

Surely this will be the end of our sickness.
Its a dull tale for everyone concerned

But the you tube song by Brooke Fraser will have you skipping in all this new sunshine

CM

Monday 19 March 2012

Round Up in Pictures

Funny pics of P from last week




The weekend was busy enough


I left her with G
This rash goes from head to toe and gets much worse as the weekend goes on
This is the poorly bed close to me so I can keep an eye on whoever is not well

My first tart
I still cocked it up
Real home cooking
Sun bursting in

Herman the German friendship cake - It's been in the oven for 3 hours - won't cook - wrong tin perhaps.
Mothers Day Cards - is that a glitter chicken sans beak?
Came home late Sunday afternoon to a lovely surprise 2!! milk bottles 2!! bunches either side of the door

T still isn't in school although her temp is nearly where is should be but she looks bitten/burnt/sore and I'd rather that rash was on its way out before she puts her uniform on again.

I am desperate to catch up with the washing and gardening but that might have to wait because P has a temperature of 39.1 this evening and we will no doubt be putting on our nursing hats to look after her even though she is wandering round the place in pj's wellie boots carrying a soft kitten wearing a winter hat at gone 10pm

She is clearly crazy

Nite
CM

Friday 16 March 2012

Sick Child

Yesterday we had some time in the garden. T wanted us to relax on deck chairs but we have composite decking and it heats up in the sun so we sat on that and drank tea whilst the girls carved up the lawn.




Week before last T had an ear infection and had been dealing with a high temperature not to mention sleeping LOTS  but the Dr. (Dr. Penis) that we saw said keep her full of medicine and send her back to school.
She had then seen a lovely lady Dr. when she wasn't improving who gave her antibiotic cream for the ear and she seemed to pick up.
Then she went down hill and I picked her up from school this last Monday, after a weekend of low grade fever, where she just looked awful so I managed to get another appt. with the lovely lady Dr. at what is called a sit and wait clinic.

By the time we got in the Dr. said she was the sickest child she had seen.
So all that menu/good food planning for this week went right out the window.




We went to the hospital for bloods the following day to see what those white cells were up to and that lovely Dr. called back early in the eve to say that T didn't have Leukemia but was ever so slightly anemic and maybe that was caused by the fact that children don't usually tend to eat when they are ill and she probably had a flu.

Boy did she get a dressing down at the dinner table for not making an effort with her dull dinners

 

Note If you are under 12 you have to have your bloods done at the children's hospital which is a new building with a super duper glass lift that travels fast and as a treat for being excellent in the chair we went up and down more than once.

At the table I said to her
Do you remember that little girl who got into the lift with her mummy?
She had silver boots, a pink coat and a wooly hat she was about your age.
T nodded
Well, she is very poorly and her medicine makes all her hair fall out which is why she was wearing a hat pulled down over her ears. That little girl might not get better and today the doctor looked at your blood to see if you had the same bug in your body as that little girl. Very lucky for you, you don't.
But you do have a little something that isn't helped because you are being so picky about what you eat but you can fix it by making an effort here at the diner table.




At which point my vain 5 year old let go of her blonde locks picked up her fork and ate her pasta, sauce and all.

Today she is better but still fast asleep on the sofa and covered in her rash. I am hoping that she will be well enough for school on Monday.
She is taking it easy but I think G and I are fighting the bugs this week.

F1 starts this weekend
We don't have SKY, damn you Bernie Stoneless for selling out to the highest bidder

There are no more blue flowers in my garden

CM

Friday 9 March 2012

Food Coma

I've eaten too much and feel really much fuller than I have ever done.
I think I am learning a lesson as the shepherds pie I had for dinner doesn't seem to be moving despite being rather active with clearing the kitchen down after dinner.

I have dug out some pics of the girls not in a food coma but just too shattered to think about eating.




I think it is all about the food this week. I eat too much and T doesn't eat enough of anything good or bad. She is exhausted, pale and is loosing her shine because I don't think she is getting enough of what she needs.

I am so bored of what I am cooking I am surprised we eat anything.
Our meals need to be brighter and that is the plan for the weekend make dinners a delight.

First I have to find the enthusiasm

The first week I gave real meals to T, I remember thinking how will I keep this up for the next eighteen plus years, I think every mother before me must also have their ups and downs

We need an upper
I wish the sun would shine lots soon.

Have a great weekend
CM

Thursday 8 March 2012

TOAST house&home

The new house&home catalogue from TOAST arrived through the door yesterday and I don't mind telling you, seeing it lifted my spirits a bit.

It's spring summer, I prefer the winter one, more wool less linen but still I picked it up and a brief flash of no kids more income popped to mind.
I have kept a few winter catalogues as they sell wool felt living in front of a fire with a chipped mug of something whilst staying in a soot earth covered cabin better than anyone.

I found the nearest uninterrupted 10 minutes to make a cuppa and look to see what I can't afford.

Terrible pictures taken from my magical document but the badly lit images will make it feel a bit chilly




It used to be that you couldn't get a catalogue unless you bought something so there are people I know with hangers and peg bags which are the more reasonably priced items.
I own the dustpan and brush which cost more than one day tuition for T but it was a birthday present from G and I love it.
I also have bought bed linen in the sale which wears and washes better than anything else I ever bought.




I bought a pair of pj's, sale again but they are so fine I keep tearing them but I don't care.




The problem is that my life isn't straw and beautiful silk prints with antique tiles in the bathroom. I don't live somewhere balmy with palms and a pool and have really long legs.

It looks like this



I hope TOAST don't mind me sharing these images here, I hope that they understand that flicking through the pages can be like the effect of gas and air in labour, a truly wondrous thing.
Sometimes you just can't charge for that.

T is on her first after school play date today and my stomach is in knots that I am not picking her up!

CM

Sunday 4 March 2012

Skipping on a Sunday

It's nice and wet out there which for me is a perfect day to exercise
or to start a program of keep fit.
Less people around to see the wobbly bits wobble.


I stayed in bed a little later and listened to this song a few times it reminds me of camping.
Here is a video that is nice to look at, I have not watched it all the way through I only bought the tune on iTunes.




So I have watched the Punk Rope Skipping tutorials and G cut my rope to length and off I went.

There is a path in the garden 5 bricks wide this is my spot. I am sure worms came to the surface of the lawn to see what was going on.

It's not bad, I would like to say I skipped solidly for three minutes and it felt like a possible target to reach but it didn't help that after thirty jumps I either trod or tripped on the rope.

I'll try and be back at it tomorrow I would like to be out there before the girls get up but I am so shattered that it might not be possible but I could push myself into that mind set with an alarm clock.

The garden is beginning to grow and there is lots of sorting to do and that's always nice to think about.

I cut the roses right back in Autumn but I didn't KILL them!
I didn't think that these would make it through the winter
I've never been able to grow these well and they don't smell


After ward I made my way upstairs and decided to do the yoga sun salutations before a shower as a friend last night asked me if I was keeping it up and I had to admit that I'd been rather slack.

Then I failed monumentally and shoved a rogue choc mini roll in my mouth that was in the medicine box next to my bed just in case I needed to placate an ill child in the night.

But stiff as a board I did the salutations.

Then I ate an orange in the shower.

There is a wash in the machine and we are popping for air and I don't care that it is raining it will do us all good.

Have a great Sunday.
CM