Who needs to type

I can just write my blog post in all the dust on here lol. It’s been almost a month since my last post sorry about that. Tomorrow I have plans to set aside some time to write a proper blog post and maybe even redecorate a little bit. But right now I have to run the boys are asleep and me and Mark are settling down to watch Bones.

Big project and quick catchup

Incase you are wondering where I have been, I am working on a huge project, I had a lot of free photo prints, so I decided to work on a brag book for Lukas about our 5 trips to Legoland this year. I started with finding all of my 5x7 templates. Then I moved onto choosing photos for each of them and writing all of the journaling to go with the photos. I saved all of the layouts in a folder called Brag Book and then started working my way through them adding the papers and embellishments. The goal is to have 100 pages in the end so I use up all of my free prints. I have 80 pages that are photos/journaling in templates and so far I have 20 I think that are completed fully. I have even roped Mark into helping me to get the pages done. Some of them only call for a paper or two, but some of them need a little more thought. As you can imagine it’s taking a lot of time, mostly because I need to search for everything I want to use. It’s times like this I really miss the organised system I had before the hard drive went wrong. I was nowhere near having everything tagged or relabelled but it was a lot better than the chaos I have now. I have been trying to apply the FLYlady principle to the scrapping too, 15 minutes at a time. I plan other pages while I am searching or step away from the desk and work on some tidying up in the bedroom. For the most part I am enjoying it, sometimes 15 minutes isn’t really long enough so I reset the timer and give myself another 15 minutes. I know it’s not really following the rules, but at least I am starting to get a better grasp of the time things take and a tiny baby step in starting to manage my time rather than wasting hours on end. It’s been really helpful for forums and blog reader as well, those are the main things I seem to waste a lot of time on. Me and Logan had our appointments on Monday (my post-natal and his 6-8 weeks check). The doctor we saw was really nice, he examined Logan thoroughly and said he couldn’t hear a heart murmur. We are just going to carry on watching him closely to make sure there isn’t a problem but he was very happy with him. I came home with a depression questionnaire to fill out and I have to make a double appointment and go back. Tuesday the lady from Peeps came to drop off some books for Logan and leave some information about groups in the local area. I don’t think I will end up going to the groups but it’s nice that she came around. Logan has great timing, just as she showed up at the door he threw up all over my bed. Somehow I managed to get the bed cleaned up and the baby changed in just a few minutes. Anyway I have more to say but Logan has just woken up and I have a lot of stuff to get done, before I finally get some sleep. I was awake all night last night with really bad earache. It’s been there for over a week now and keeps getting worse, on top of everything else it’s really starting to take it’s toll. Lukas has been off school ill all week and Logan seems to have a little cold, he’s got a runny nose but apart from that he’s fine. I never had him weighed this week but hopefully we will be able to go and do that on Tuesday. Really have to run now as Logan has decided he wants my immediate attention right this second and is starting to moan. I want to sort him out before it turns into a full blown screaming session. He doesn’t really do patience lol.

Logan didn’t get his injections

The doctor from the Vaccine Study came today, she had called me and asked if she could come earlier than originally planned I said fine. I rushed around and managed to get everything sorted before she arrived. After explaining all of the details about the study she asked if she could examine Logan while I signed the consent form. While she was examining him she came across a problem, she found that he has a heart murmur she called and spoke to someone more senior and they said she needs to speak to someone else. I need to go and get Logan checked by the GP and she will get back to me about whether this excludes Logan from participating or not. We already had an appointment made for Monday so we will just have to see what they say then. It could be nothing but that doesn’t stop me being scared and a tiny part of me wishing it was already Monday. Lukas has been home today he’s building Lego and Mark has gone to get takeaway for dinner, KFC for us and Macdonalds for Lukas and Logan is asleep on my lap. I am still sick and haven’t gotten much done today except for unpacking my order from Boots, more milk, nappies and wipes for Logan. Nan asked me why I was stockpiling it I didn’t have the heart to tell her that he will have drunk everything I ordered in about 3 weeks maybe sooner, told you he was a little piglet. Anyway Logan has just woken up so I better run.

So my twittering on Sunday

didn’t really go to plan something went wrong with my phone and it stored all of my twitters in my outbox and didn’t send them. But that’s ok because I can just take them off my phone and use them as notes for blogging instead, that’s all the twitters were going to be in the first place. I don’t really feel up to writing about the Legoland trip tonight though sorry. My new office chair came this morning, it’s nice to have one that’s not broken anymore. This one has a lower back and even though the actual seat is wider it feels more snug on my hips and bum because of the way the handles sit. It was a very reasonable price from staples online and i’m sure I will get used to it in a few days. Logan is having his first set of immunisations tomorrow and I am quite nervous about it. I think I mentioned he is having them done as part of a vaccination study so they are coming to the house to do them. I’m sure I have other stuff to talk about but my brain is mush tonight, I will try and pop back tomorrow but i’m not promising anything since I am not sure what Logan is going to be like after his injections.

It’s so good to have him home!

I had very good intentions of blogging yesterday but despite being up all night I never found the time lol. When I went to pick Lukas up from school, the two teachers came over to speak to me. They said he’d had a great time and really enjoyed himself but he did have a little accident on the last night so his sleeping bag needed washing. He chattered all the way home telling me what he had been doing and about various other things. When we got home I sorted all of his bag out and was surprised to see that his clothes weren’t that bad and he hadn’t even used his wellies. The only negative thing was that no-one had given him his allergy medicine or sent it home and he was covered in the nasty rash he gets from the grass. Didn’t seem to bother him much though. I was so glad to have him home I didn’t even get any photos of him, which is funny really since I thought he must be filthy from the colour of him, but he’s actually caught the sun quite a bit. He says he missed everyone and that even though he had a good time, he doesn’t want to go again and he’s glad to be home lol. Yesterday was Nan’s birthday and after picking Lukas up from school we all went out for a meal with Lisa, Gary, Conor and Ella and Lisa’s friend Heidi and her son Hayden. It was really nice to get out of the house for a while the food was lovely and we all had a great time chatting. Logan was really good and the other 4 spent most of their time playing in the outside play area. So all in all it was a nice day. Today has been a bit chaotic as Mark got called into work earlier than we expected. Lukas has spent most of the day watching television since he missed it while he was away lol. I haven’t really got much done apart from a few things for Nan and tomorrow we are off to Legoland and taking Ella with us. I really like the weekend it’s nice to have Lukas home and to not have to go anywhere or do anything. Right now Logan is asleep and I have a few things I want to get done before he wakes up again so I am going to love you and leave you. Hopefully I will be back on Monday to blog about our trip to Legoland, I am going to try and twitter while we are there to help myself keep track of everything we have done, much better than relying on my memory lol.

It’s been a busy day today

Me and Logan went to baby clinic so he could be weighed and then we took Nan to her hospital appointment. We did some shopping while we were there and bought Logan two new outfits. I wasn’t exactly thrilled when I went to pay for everything on my card and it was declined, no doubt that will be tonight’s argument between me and Mark. I had enough cash on me to pay for everything but it’s not the point, I am really getting fed up how much money he withdraws from my bank account without telling me. I don’t object to him withdrawing money it’s the not telling me part that drives me insane. Then when we got home I tried to stay busy. I was alright while we were out because it was just like Lukas being at school, I found the timer function on my phone and have been setting it for 15 minutes at a time and working on a few things. The first 15 minutes I worked on the rubbish and clutter on and around my desk, it’s the biggest hot spot in our room since everyone dumps everything on it no matter how many times I shout at them about it. I am always quite surprised by how much junk I take off it every time I clean it up. Then I spent 15 minutes doing computer stuff, deleting duplicate files and old scrapbooking stuff. I am trying to reorganise all the files but I need to make enough space first so I am working on purging a lot of the junk from my scrapbooking stash. Next I worked on the pile of clothes, folding them and sorting them into piles. The next task I attempted was putting things back into their proper places including the clothes. I was quite pleased because I managed to get all Lukas’s clothes put back in their drawers and even some of ours put away, but I really need to take everything out and restack all of them so more clothes can be put away. I have a pile of stuff for charity and a pile of stuff that I need to find hangers for but it does look better already in here. Then I had another 15 minutes of computer organising and managed a brief online chat with Amy before Logan woke up. He got fed and changed and we cuddled for a while, then I spent some time with Nan before we came upstairs. Logan was a bit miserable so I was giving him some gripe water when he decided to lunge forward on the syringe, which made me squirt it into the back of his throat, he gagged on it and promptly threw up lol. He wasn’t very happy that I had to put him down so I could clean it all up, luckily it’s only milk since I can’t do sick it makes me gag lol. After everything was cleaned up I got Logan undressed for bed and we had some more cuddles and he fell asleep in my arms before I put him in his swing. I think he has spent more time in the swing today than he has any other day since we bought it. He had his nap in it earlier (over an hour) and he sat in it for a while and now he’s sleeping in it as far as I am concerned that’s major progress lol. Speaking of progress he’s getting on great he was 8lb 12.5oz when they weighed him today and he’s all set for when they come to do his first vaccinations on Wednesday. Today was also the first time that he has cried it out, he was moaning to be picked up and I was in the middle of something so I left him to cry for a while. He got bored of crying and went back to sleep. Leaving him to cry it out is not really my style, but it might come in handy if he ever has another meltdown like he did on the bus, when we went to his hospital appointment. I have only seen Mark for a few minutes today since he went out to do washing and got back just as I was leaving. He will be home from work in a little while, tomorrow I am hoping he will be in all day, so we can get a few things done before Lukas comes home. I have really missed having the little guy around the whole house just seems so quiet without him and I don’t like it one little bit. I do hope he’s had a nice time though, missing him is a good thing really since it makes me appreciate how much I love having him in my life. Anyway I suppose I should get back to some more organising before Logan wakes up, but I will leave you with a picture of Lukas just before he left for school yesterday with all of his gear. Just excuse the red eyes since it is straight out of the camera, I haven’t got around to fixing it yet. You can click on it for a bigger view since I posted it in Windows Live Writer instead of how I do layouts.

Wonder what he’s doing now?

I know you are sat there wondering what on earth I am talking about don’t worry it will all become clear in a minute. I just need a few moments to gather my thoughts and type up some background so it makes a little more sense. The first day Lukas went back to school he came home with the usual pile of letters, what they are learning about this term, reminders about homework, permission letter for swimming, welcome back letter, welcome to year 3 letter etc. One of the letters mentioned a residential trip 3 days and 2 nights. When Lukas saw it he was adamant he didn’t want to go. They sent home a few other letters about the trip and then Friday morning the school rang and asked if he was going, we said no he doesn’t want to. They sent a kit list home anyway and between Friday and Monday he changed his mind backward and forward, one minute he wanted to go the next there was nothing he wanted less. We had tears, we had begging, we had pleading and even a few tantrums. Monday morning we received a phone call from the school saying Lukas had changed his mind and now wanted to go again. We dragged into school to discuss it with his teacher and ended up talking the LSA. They had only told Lukas all of the positives about the trip over and over again. He seemed to think the trip was going to be something like a stay in a hotel, which is so far from the truth it’s not funny. I know him and I also know that the trip is nothing like he thinks it is. I’ll be honest I didn’t want him to go, but I always make it a point to give him all the facts about everything and let him make his own decision. So I promised I would get everything ready and then let him decide what he wanted to do. Monday night he decided that he absolutely didn’t want to go. Tuesday morning between here and school something was said by Mark, don’t ask me what because I don’t know but Lukas apparently decided he wanted to go. So Mark not thinking straight as usual went ahead and signed the permission form and the medical form. Now as much as I love him, we have rules about him signing anything to do with the boys, because even though he lives with them and we have been over this hundreds of times he doesn’t know any of the important information about them. So a medical form he signs isn’t really worth the paper it’s written on since he knows nothing about medications or allergies or anything else that’s medically important. To say I was not happy was an understatement. I was left with under a day to find everything on the list and pack it all ready for the trip. To make things more fun he was working a different shift so I had to collect Lukas from school and organise everything for a trip I didn’t even want him to go on but that’s a story for another time. Last night after everything was packed Lukas changed his mind again and didn’t want to go. I was fine with that decision even after everything but Mark decided to do something really stupid and tell Lukas that he had no choice and he had to go now whether he wanted to or not. You can imagine the argument that caused can’t you. Anyway come this morning when we all got up and took Lukas to school, I was more than ready to bring him home with me if he didn’t want to get on the coach. Only because Mark decided it was more important, to sit watching TV and packing washing for his dad’s instead of helping me get the boys ready, we were late. Me and Mark argued the whole way to school and we never really got to ask him what he wanted. When we got there Lukas got rushed up to his classroom to be registered and I didn’t even get to kiss him goodbye. I made Mark stay with me so we could wave him off on the coach, only there was a slight delay so we ended up sitting in the cafe and having a drink. When the coach finally got there and they had everything loaded onto it the kids came out. I managed to see Lukas and he looked nervous and excited, terrified and happy all at the same time. We saw him on the coach and I blew him kisses. For the first time ever he was embarrassed by the attention and refused to look at me, I know he’s growing up but he’s still my baby and I kind of thought I had a little bit longer to be able to love him in public, well I don’t play fair so I got my secret weapon of his pushchair and made him wave to Lukas. Lukas couldn’t help but look at me, he also couldn’t help announcing to the whole coach that was his baby brother over there. He even gave me a big smile and blew me a kiss back and then he was off. Logan also managed to serve as a great way to not let Lukas see the tears in my eyes. I cried on the way home too, it’s just so hard to accept that my little baby is growing up so fast. This is the first time he has ever spent a night away from me, and it’s not even just one night. I am really going to miss him, I want him to have fun and enjoy himself, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that there is a part of me who hopes he has a good enough time to enjoy himself but not a good enough time that he would want to do it again anytime soon. I really don’t know what I would do with myself if I didn’t have Logan here to look after. Speaking of the little monkey, I really need to run now because he’s woken up and wants my undivided attention NOW lol. I also have to make some more bottles because someone is a very hungry little piglet today and they are nearly all gone!

Crossing off something is better than crossing off nothing

My to-do list is starting to look more like a novel than a manageable list of things to accomplish, and it’s easy to look at it feel overwhelmed and then do none of it, once you add into the equation that I am very sick at the moment it becomes easier and easier to see why nothing ever seems to get done. Mark has gone to do some shopping and the boys are amusing themselves (Lukas is playing Lego and Logan is asleep) so I decided to remove blogging from my list. The problem with blogging though is it becomes a to-do list in it’s own right. I tell myself that I have to blog about this or that and it needs to be in some logical order and then I get behind and I feel like I can never catch up. Then as I get more and more things on my list that are waiting to be blogged about nothing ends up actually being blogged. A while back I started a twitter account thinking that making short notes via that might help me when it came to making real blog posts but unfortunately I don’t seem to bother with that either. But I am going to start trying to change that. Yesterday I signed up for the FLYlady system again my logic is slightly insane though, she says that you should spend no more than 15 minutes doing things. I have always struggled with that because time kind of gets away from me. I thought that being this sick would mean I wouldn’t be physically able to spend more than 15 minutes doing something without a break and I would have to follow the rules. Hopefully by the time I am feeling better it will be on it’s way to becoming a habit. I also thought that it might be a smart idea to not only read her advice myself but to make Mark read it too. He doesn’t have a great attention span so spending no longer than 15 minutes on something might actually motivate him to start something in the first place lol. Anyway I better run I have some things I want to get done before Mark gets home, like spending 15 minutes organising some digital files and deleting some of the digital clutter on my hard drives.

Wow, can someone explain

why the more I apologise about being a bad blogger the worse of a blogger I seem to become? I guess blogging is one of those things I always mean to do but never find the time to actually get done, there are other things I would rather do, like um sleep lol. It’s also one of those things that seems to hard to get done while you are holding the baby and trying to type with one hand. It takes so much longer to type one handed that I just see how many other things I could have gotten done in the time it takes to write one blog post and decide not to bother. But the truth is I miss blogging, I miss having a record of the things we have done or the things Lukas has said. So I have decided that I need to try harder to find a way to blog, but not tonight lol. Tonight I need to take advantage of the fact that Logan is fast asleep, somewhere other than my arms and finish up some bits on the computer before heading to my bed, ideally before he wakes up and decides he needs to be held, changed or fed again.

This is becoming a bit of a routine

Lukas is amusing himself with some colouring sheets, Logan is sleeping beside me in his bed, Mark is at work and Nan is out, so I am sitting here getting some stuff sorted out on my computer now that I can actually see the entire top of my desk again lol. Since I have just made something to eat I am going to sit here and blog while I eat it, multitasking is fun lol. I now have 2 different to-do lists one is things that I need to do while Logan is asleep and the other is things I can do while I am holding him I find it amusing that a lot of the things are interchangeable between the lists depending on the day and how I am feeling. I suppose I really should write about Lukas’s birthday while I am here since if I leave it much longer I won’t remember any of it. On the Saturday before his birthday Mark went and picked up his birthday presents, we decided to get him some games for his DS and since they were on offer in Argos he ended up with 6 from us and 2 from Nan. She bought Wall-E and Ben 10 Alien Force and we picked up Bob The Builder Festival Fun, Postman Pat Special Delivery Service, Bolt and Herbie Rescue Rally, then he got Go Diego Go Dinosaur Rescue from Lisa. I’m a naughty mummy because when he saw them and asked if he could have one, I said yes, then we spent the whole day with him trading me one for another one. He ended up opening all of them and having a play during the day, I explained that if he had them now he wouldn’t have anything for his birthday and he was good with that, what can I say he is definitely my boy, patience is not a virtue we are blessed with both of us prefer instant gratification which I suppose is one of my biggest reasons for loving digi scrapping so much lol. We did tell him that was all we were getting him but then the day before his birthday we decided that we were going to replace his portable dvd player which hasn’t been working for a while with a new one. We reserved it and didn’t were able to reserve one to collect on his birthday, he knew nothing about it so it was going to be a complete surprise. On his birthday we got up and had some cuddles in my bed before he went and opened his cards and presents. Nan had wrapped up his games and he had a little bag from Lisa with his game and a few other bits in. He really enjoyed looking at all of his birthday cards especially the one Nan wrote out from his toy dogs lol. I think his favourite card was one Nan got him but that might have had something to do with the 7 pounds coins she had stuck inside it lol. Then he had his usual strawberry milkshake and sat and played with his new games while I had a bath and got ready for my hospital appointment. I decided that we needed to pay a quick visit to Cowley Centre first so I could buy him a birthday badge to wear. He got 2 badge in the end I think because we couldn’t decide on one. We did end up picking up a few other things while we were there including some more styluses for his DS, a new case for his DS and a little storage container for his DS games from the Game shop. He got a mug with Best 7 Year Old In The World on it and a little trophy and a new teddy bear. He also made me buy a new teddy bear for Logan and to be honest I can’t even remember what else we bought lol. Then he decided that he wanted an iced bun, why I have no idea since he doesn’t even like icing but since it was his birthday we walked all the way down to the bakery to buy him one. We also bought him one of his favourite sausage rolls and some stuff for me and Mark to eat. While we were in there I spotted an iced bun with cream in the centre that strangely looked very appealing to me, it’s strange because I can’t stand icing at all. I guess it’s another example of pregnancy making me weird because I sent Mark back for another one and Lukas decided that while he was going he had a request as well. He wanted a pack of rolls, I told him they would be dry and they wouldn’t have fillings and he said “good, I want them naked”. I couldn’t help but laugh at him but he seemed to enjoy sitting on the bench eating his naked rolls lol. We were running a little late by then and had to rush to catch the bus. We ended up getting stuck in the road works in the city centre but we were still only 5 minutes late for my appointment. When we got there we handed in my notes and settled down for a long wait. Lukas was happy to play his DS and play with his new teddy. They called me for the usual urine sample, blood pressure check etc. They needed to send the sample off again not really surprising since I hadn’t started taking the antibiotics for the infection we already knew I had. Then we went in for the scan my consultant wasn’t in that day so one of the other doctors did it. She was concerned that the baby still wasn’t growing and that there were reduced levels of amniotic fluid. Since the baby hadn’t been moving as much she wanted me to go and have a CTG test while she went to see about moving up the induction. It took a while for them to get the CTG started as Logan didn’t feel like cooperating and they struggled to find his heartbeat. While I laid on the bed having that done Lukas had a great time drawing and colouring he was being such a little angel. I couldn’t help but feel sad this was how he was spending his birthday but he honestly didn’t seem to care. In the middle of the CTG the doctor came and told us that she had arranged for the induction to be moved up a week to Thursday. When the CTG was finally done, we just had to wait for them to take some bloods and give us all of the induction information. We were starting to get a little worried we wouldn’t make it to the store to pick up his dvd player before they closed, it also meant we were not going to be able to pick up his birthday cake. So we decided that we would go all the way down to Botley road and get one there so we could pay a quick visit to Toys R Us at the same time and then go to McDonalds for a Happy Meal. Lukas had no clue where we were going so he was all excited. When we went in Argos I kept Lukas busy while Mark went and paid for the dvd player. Lukas wanted to see what was in the bag but we made him wait until we got to McDonalds. We sat at the table and sorted out all of the bags of shopping so they were easier to carry while Mark ordered the food. I had to send mine back because they added tomatoes to it but they were really nice about redoing it. Lukas really enjoyed it and said it had been a great birthday then we shared an ice cream before heading home. You already know about what happened on the bus on the way home so I think as far as Lukas’s birthday goes that’s everything. Once we got home he got undressed and watched a dvd on his new dvd player and then went to sleep. He says it was a great birthday and when I asked him why he thinks that he said “because you and daddy were there to celebrate with me” how sweet is that. Anyway this post has taken a lot longer to write than I expected it too because I have had to stop so many times. First I had to make Lukas dinner then Logan wanted feeding, then Logan wanted changing, then we went to the shop to get electric for Nan we followed that up with a trip to the park and since then I have pretty much just been trying to get stuff done in between Logan screaming to be held, Logan screaming to be fed, Logan screaming because I am changing him or Logan screaming for some other reason. Lukas is very chatty today as well, so Mark has just got in I am tired out, have a headache and I am bleeding pretty heavy again so I am off to bed. Tomorrow we are off to Bicester village on the train to look for school shoes for Lukas, to be perfectly honest its a practice run for Monday when we are off to Chessington. This is the first time we have really gone anywhere with Logan that requires some planning, like how much milk to pack and how easy it is on public transport with the carseat. Wish me luck I am sure we are going to need it!

I missed this

Lukas is downstairs playing and Logan is sleeping next to me, Nan is cooking something in the kitchen and Mark is at work. Since I am too stiff to do much of anything at the moment I am taking advantage of using the keyboard to loosen up my hands and fingers a little and getting some computer stuff done, while I listen to some music on Itunes. The first night Logan came home I insisted on his bed being at the bottom of ours, I slept the opposite end to where I normally sleep and spent a very uncomfortable night mostly watching him sleep and prodding him to make sure he was ok lol. Then I decided that being the usual end of the bed wouldn’t hurt him, he’s got a great pair of lungs on him there’s no doubt we would hear him cry if he needed anything, but we left his bed at the bottom of ours. The 3rd night he was home was when I was really feeling ill and Mark offered to get up with him so I could sleep, I took a couple of painkillers and managed to get a few hours sleep. Pretty much since then we have shared the night shift with him, either I stay awake to feed him the 1:30am feed and then Mark does his 3/3:30am feed and goes down and gets his 7/7:30am feed for me to feed him, or I go to bed and Mark does the 1:30am feed and I get up for the 3:30am one. Well the problems with him being at the bottom of our bed are that it meant we had to move my desk chair for it to fit in which made using the computer hard, getting stuff out of the cupboard impossible and gave us even less floor space then we had before. It also meant that every time Lukas climbed onto our bed he was using Logan’s bed for support which is not something I want him to do at all. Yesterday we decided to move Logan’s bed back to the space it was supposed to go in and put the chair back at the desk, it’s nice to be able to use the desk properly again, or it will be once I get it back to looking the way it’s supposed to look. Since I wasn’t using it a lot of things have made it into their temporary home and right now it’s a bit of a disaster zone. I suppose while I am here I may as well give you some quick updates on the boys. The health visitor came for her 2nd visit yesterday and weighed Logan, he’s gained 1lb in a week he was 4lb 15oz and now he’s 5lb 15oz. He’s drinking somewhere between 8-12 bottles a day so he’s keeping me plenty busy between feeding and changing him. Logan’s a great sleeper and only wake up for his feeds overnight and then goes straight back to sleep. He’s catching on fast that crying when you put him in the swing or carseat means someone comes running to see what’s wrong and more times than not picks him up to soothe him. He’s starting to pay more attention when you chat to him and he really seems to enjoy music especially his bear. Mark seems to really be enjoying him and as soon as he walks in from work he is eager to take him for a cuddle. Lukas loves having him home and is always asking to hold him when he’s not busy fussing over him or chatting to him. He’s getting excited about going back to school next week but only because he can’t wait to show Logan to his friends. He’s not all that thrilled about his new school uniform and he hasn’t even seen the tie he has to wear yet because we can’t pick up that or his school sweatshirt until September 1st. We went out the other day (Tuesday I think) for a walk with Logan, we ended up sitting in the park for a little while. It was nice and peaceful and Lukas had a great time playing while Logan couldn’t really have cared less where we were he opted for sleeping the whole time lol. On Sunday we gave Logan his first bath which he seemed to enjoy, well apart from the getting out part that made him scream! Anyway Logan has just woke up and I think my nappy changing skills are required again, I will try and pop back later and write that post about Lukas’s Birthday. Mark will be home in about 4 hours so hopefully while he’s cuddling Logan and watching rubbish with Lukas I can get that done.

Taking a break

from talking about Logan’s Birth and what followed today, because I have something else I want to talk about. Or I suppose it would be more accurate to say someone else I want to talk about. Yesterday was his birthday and if he had still been here there’s no doubt that the day would have been filled with all the usual stuff 5 year olds love, cake and presents and more than likely a trip to McDonalds for a happy meal. But he’s not here and while usually I make the effort to celebrate his birthday yesterday I just couldn’t do it. Partially because I was feeling too ill to do much of anything yesterday, but mostly because this one was the hardest birthday so far. I’ve been missing him a lot lately, thinking about what he would be doing now and asking myself a lot of questions that can’t ever be answered. Some days oh ok most days I miss Leo so much it hurts and as much as I love Logan, I feel as if there’s something missing between me and him. I haven’t got a clue what that something might be so I don’t know how to fix it. I guess it doesn’t help that Logan looks so much like Leo, sometimes it’s a certain expression or way he moves it’s kind of like looking at a ghost and for a split second I want to push him away in case he’s going to hurt me the same way that Leo did, usually I just end up holding him closer to me and letting the tears flow. It’s sort of become a bit of a tradition for us to light a candle and sing Happy Birthday to Leo, only yesterday we didn’t. There was a part of me that just felt like it was wrong to sing Happy Birthday to Leo while I was holding Logan, Lukas never mentioned it so I didn’t want to bring it up in front of him incase I upset him and Mark hasn’t ever really seemed all that interested in singing to Leo, last year me and Lukas did it by ourselves in the back garden. What I didn’t tell Mark was that I still felt the need to do it, so I locked myself in the bathroom for a while and just chatted to Leo and sung Happy Birthday to him, I didn’t light a candle because I didn’t feel the need to. I often talk to him when I am in the bathroom by myself maybe because that’s where it all happened, or maybe because it’s just the only room I can lock other people out of for a few moments peace and quiet. I also sat and chatted to Logan for a while about Leo, I’m determined that even though Logan will never get to have the pleasure of knowing Leo personally he will now all about him. Leo will never ever be forgotten about in this house, every birthday and anniversary from now until the day I die will be remembered in some way, shape or form. Usually I try and make a scrapbook page about him or for him on his birthday I didn’t do that this year either, in fact I haven’t scrapped a single layout this month and that makes me a little sad too. The scrapping helps with the depression and when I don’t scrap I seem to spend more time crying and expressing my emotions in ways that are a lot less productive. I’m hoping that improves once Lukas goes back to school and I can spend a little time each day scrapping while Mark holds Logan or he’s sleeping in his little bed. I hate to admit this but I do feel a little better that both Lukas and Leo’s birthday’s didn’t really get celebrated this year, it makes them a little more equal. We will do something really special for both of them as soon as I feel a little bit better, fingers crossed before the end of the month. We are hoping to be able to take Lukas to either Chessington or Legoland this weekend, but we don’t have any definite plans yet. On Sunday night we did have a little celebration for Lukas, we bought a cake and put candles on it and then sung Happy Unbirthday to him. He had a great time blowing out the candles and eating chocolate cake. It’s the little things that make him happy. That reminds me I still haven’t wrote about Lukas’s birthday on here, I will add it to my to-do list and get it done as soon as I am sat at the computer long enough to type it up. Anyway I better run now since Logan is sleeping and Lukas is busy watching cartoons now is the perfect time to catch up on a few things before Mark gets home from work.

Sorry for the delay

Fingers crossed we should get to exactly why there has been a delay with this post. When I last wrote I had gotten through Logan’s actual delivery and when we got to the hospital. You would be forgiven for thinking he’s a baby how much more can there really be to the story. But you would also be forgetting one thing, he’s one of my babies nothing is ever that simple where we are concerned lol. I am going to pick up where I left off and we will see how far I get. After they had finished stitching everything up they took Logan’s temperature and found it was a little on the low side. Even though he had been well wrapped up because he was small for dates it was a bit of a concern. The health care assistant who was looking after us was nice enough to go and find a little heat table thing for him to lay under while I went to have a shower and get cleaned up. She was also nice enough to sort out towels and some baby bath to wash with since Mark hadn’t thought to pack any. Logan got all stripped off and was in just his nappy, he looked adorable a bit like he was sunbathing. They showed me where the shower was and explained that I had to pee into a bedpan so they could measure the amount and make sure everything was working the way it should. No-one warned me exactly how much it was going to hurt! I don’t suppose still having such a severe urine infection helped much either lol. I’m sure you will get a little giggle out of the next bit, there was a stool in the shower and I was starting to feel a little shaky, since I was bleeding quite heavily I decided that it would be a good idea to sit on the stool on the sanitary towel. You may remember me saying before how quick my blood clots, well lets just say that isn’t exactly helpful when you have stitches. I turned on the shower and adjusted the temperature and then decided that the only way I was going to get cleaned up was to direct the shower at my stitches. Yes I do realise in hindsight that it was a stupid idea, and I am still very shocked I managed to resist the urge to shout or swear very loudly at my own stupidity. I don’t think it would have hurt so much if the water hadn’t decided that was a good time to suddenly get hotter. I really couldn’t tell you how I managed to finish showering and to dress myself and walk back to the room, I was shaking like crazy, feeling sick and starting to really feel dizzy. I was really glad to be able to get back on the bed to stop the room spinning a little. When I got back to the room Logan was done sunbathing and the health care assistant was busy redressing him so he could have his first food. She said the guidelines say it’s her responsibility to make sure he took 20-30mls of milk or a decent breastfeed because of his size. It was hard for me to sit and watch someone else feeding him his first feed, but I did understand why they had these rules. Since they couldn’t find any latex free teats she ended up feeding him with a syringe. He already had a great suck on him and was happily to suck on the syringe to get his milk out. I have to be honest and admit that the exact order things happened in from here is a bit of a blur (this is why I should have blogged this the day after). I know that he had some blood taken for his blood sugar to be checked and it was a little low but I can’t remember if that was before the doctors from SCBU came to check on him or after. I know they wanted to retest his blood sugar after he had been fed again and I know that the repeat test was within the usual limits. I remember that the SCBU doctor was called Claire and she checked him all over and took some blood and managed to convince us to give him vitamin K. I know that he had another feed via syringe and that another doctor came in and gave him the Vitamin K injection into his leg. We had a lot of cuddles and Mark called Nan a few times. It was kind of surreal to be sitting in delivery suite with a baby, we have never had that chance before. Eventually we were told we had to go up to level 5. I wasn’t too impressed that they made me sit in a wheelchair and be pushed upstairs. We were shown to our bed and they sorted out a cot for Logan. Then Mark went and phoned Nan again and told her which bay we were in, so she could come up with Lukas to see Logan. We were happy to just sit on the bed, take some photographs and wait for Nan to arrive and enjoy the time as a family. Then it was finally time for Lukas to meet Logan, he came in first followed by Nan,Lisa and Ella. I’ll admit that I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t just Nan and Lukas I was expecting Lisa to maybe drop them up and wait outside so Lukas would have a chance to really meet his baby brother. It seemed a little unfair that after waiting so long for him to arrive he had to share his first meeting and watch as Ella held him as well. He was fine about it though, but I suppose I can’t help being a little sad that absolutely nothing had gone as we thought it would. We went and sat in the day area and they all played pass the baby. Lisa took some photos on her camera of Lukas, Ella and Nan having cuddles. Then it was time for everyone to leave, Mark went with them because he had to pick up a few things from home for Logan. We were supposed to be staying in overnight on the ward and there were quite a few things we hadn’t packed in his bag. To be fair we were kind of expecting him to have gone straight to SCBU and although it was a nice surprise to have him with us we weren’t exactly prepared for it. After they left I spent a little time redressing Logan in some different clothes and I got to feed him his first bottle. I can’t remember exactly when they did it but Logan had his blood sugar tested again pre-feed and it was really low and then post-feed and it had gone up again. They came over and said that SCBU wanted him to go downstairs for some blood tests. At first she was just going to take him but I insisted on going as well. I was feeling a little worried especially since Mark wasn’t back. I thought he might panic if he came back and found me and Logan gone with no explanation but I didn't have any choice. Unfortunately I am going to have to leave it there for now, I will be back as soon as I get time.

Now for the gory bits

I left off last time just as Logan had been born in the back of the ambulance 2 minutes away from our house. I think I may have forgotten to mention the reason for the title of the previous post, the ambulance happened to be pulled up next to the postbox. I’m pretty sure Royal Mail would have refused to deliver our little bundle of joy though lol. Anyway after Logan was born and everyone was trying to get over the shock of his super quick delivery they were left with the problem of delivering the placenta. Almost straight after Logan was born the placenta started to be delivered, but apparently it didn’t appear to have all come out. The ambulance crew were hesitant as to whether they should try and deliver it or wait until we got to the hospital. They made a call to delivery suite for some advice and to say that the midwife they spoke to was unhelpful would be an understatement. They were told to call the community midwife and let her deal with it, they tried unsuccessfully to explain that wasn’t really an option since we were parked at the side of the road. They were then told to just leave it there, another option they were not really sure about since they were worried that the bumping from the ambulance could cause it to break apart the other option they were given before they had the phone slammed down on them was “just yank it out”. They decided to go with leaving it where it was, putting it in a sick bowl, covering it with a sheet and driving very slowly while hoping for the best. Logan was still perfectly content to lay on my chest and look around with one eye open. On the way to the hospital we had to answer all of the usual questions so they could fill out their forms, and chatting about various things. The ambulance lady who had delivered Logan was quite disappointed that he was a boy and we already had names picked out. She was kind of hoping we might want to name the baby after her since it was the first baby she had ever delivered. When we got to the hospital it had started to rain, they wrapped another blanket around me and Logan and started to wheel the bed down the ramp at the back of the ambulance. We almost had a slight accident because the bed wasn’t on the rails quite right and was very close to tipping over. There were people stood outside the entrance smoking as usual and they were all very interested to see them pushing us in with Logan. They wheeled the bed to delivery suite and a really nice health care assistant took him from me so he could be weighed and dressed. We ended up choosing a white vest, blue babygro and a little white cardigan for him from our bag and he already had on the little blue hat. While she was seeing to Logan a midwife came in to examine me. She was able to see that the placenta had come out in one piece, the reason it looked as though it hadn’t was because my blood clots really fast and had clotted around the placenta. She was able to remove it fully by separating the blood from the placenta. She did a lot of prodding and poking and said that I had a slight “graze” which she was unsure if it required stitching or not. She decided to clean everything up and then decide. They had a lot of fun trying to find sterile latex free gloves and then she poured something yellow onto a cloth to clean all the blood up. She was driving me slightly insane by continually asking if I wanted gas and air, I kept telling her no thank you and each time she just told me I was mad and then asked again. She decided that she was going to do some stitches and they had to go off and find all of the equipment that they needed for that. The whole time she was doing everything the student doctor from the ambulance had been in the room, getting an “anatomy lesson”. I felt really sorry for him because he looked like he was going to throw up everywhere. The next bit was quite amusing no-one could quite figure out how the stirrups worked on the bed, it took the midwife, Mark, the student doctor and the health care assistant to finally get them sorted. They raised the bed up and she inserted a tampon and then poured some lignocaine over it all before she started stitching. Obviously Lignocaine is another one of those drugs which doesn’t work on me because as she was stitching it all I could feel everything, let’s just say stitches hurt more than having the baby did lol. It’s a very odd kind off pain I think the only thing I can think of to compare it too is like a wasp sting, a very sharp pain followed by rapid swelling and a bruised feeling. The “slight graze” turned out to be a second degree tear and needed quite a few stitches, I am not entirely sure how many and I sort of lost track of the time but she seemed to take a really long time getting done. The poor student doctor was stood there watching it all and the ambulance crew came back in to drop off the papers and ended up staying to watch it all since they had never seen it done before. While she was stitching everything she found something that seemed to worry her and as soon as she was done stitching everything she went off to get a doctor to come and look at it. She came back with a male doctor who decided that it looked like a cyst of some kind to him, he left instructions that it was to be checked at my 6 week check and then left. It was only then that I was finally released from the stirrups and everyone left us alone for a little while. I am going to leave it there for tonight as I really need to get to bed, that’s pretty much all of Logan’s entrance to the world, but there’s still quite a bit more to his birth story that will have to wait for another day, hopefully it won’t take me a week to get back and write the next bit for you.

Special delivery service

Sorry we obviously have way too much Postman Pat on the television lol. But as I am sure you have guessed by the title, our little guy has finally made his arrival and he seemed determined to upstage both of his big brothers in terms of a dramatic entrance. But I suppose it would make a little more sense if I filled in a bit of the background first wouldn’t it. 2 weeks ago (that would be the 27th August) they decided to schedule an induction for 38 weeks (13th August), we had to go back again the next week on Lukas’s birthday (3rd August). I never bothered to write about the appointment because honestly I was a bit fed up after it especially since I was going to be spending Lukas’s birthday up there as well. On Lukas’s birthday we went back to the hospital and they decided to move the induction up a week to the 6th August because the baby was very small for dates. There’s a lot of other stuff to fill in between including Lukas’s birthday but that can all wait for another post. On Monday night we were getting the bus home and I got thrown backwards into the seat. I never caught my stomach yet the whole way home it was hurting across my stomach and into my back. I slept badly because it was hurting all night long, and when I got up it was still hurting. I think it was the combination of the usual pain and this new one that made sleep so hard. The new pain was more like a dull ache across the bottom of my stomach than anything worth bothering about, kind of like when you have a bruise you know it’s there but it’s not really too much to fuss over. The pain wasn’t really getting worse it was just always there being slightly annoying. I had a few pains that were different not really worse just slightly more sharp and decided to have a bath to see if it helped. After the bath we decided that it would be a good idea to go up to the hospital and get checked out. Nan was at Lisa’s looking after Conor and Ella because Lisa had a doctors appointment, so we packed the bag with stuff for Lukas to do and were intending on taking him with us. It was only then that the pain started to feel like something other than cramp. It still wasn’t anything like contractions it was just a sharper more persistent pain every so often no regularity. I told Mark that he should call Nan and see if she would be home soon so that Lukas could stay with her instead of coming with us. When he called her Lisa was still out at the doctors, we told her it was fine and we would wait for her to get back. We were intending on calling a taxi to go to the hospital to get checked out. After he called her the pain got worse and I did start having something like contractions the pain was lasting about 1 minute at a time every 15-20 minutes, my biggest issue was that I was feeling so hot. I was getting a little short tempered because I was feeling so flushed and was starting to sweat a lot. I had 2/3 of those and asked him to call Nan back and see how long she was going to be because the pain was getting worse. It was then we started considering that it might be a better idea to call an ambulance. It was about 10 minutes maybe 15 between Mark calling Nan for the second time and the pain going from that to constant. I told him that he had to call an ambulance and that if it came to it I would go on my own and he could stay with Lukas until Nan got back. Nan walked in as he was on the phone to the ambulance. By this point I was barely able to talk because of the pain, absolutely dripping with sweat and when Nan walked in I was leant over the freezer, she thinks it was because of the pain, I was actually trying to lay against the metal to cool down lol. Lisa walked in behind her with both the kids. Nan was fussing and Lisa said something about being glad it wasn’t her, I wasn’t exactly paying attention. Just as the ambulance arrived I lost a little bit of fluid, and managed to soak the pad and knickers I was wearing. I didn’t know until later that Lisa was walking over to try and rub my shoulder and be reassuring and she got splashed by it, I really don’t think I would have cared at the time but it made me giggle when she told me. I do think she should consider herself lucky that I had already had those previous leakages with water I told you about, if it had been like when they went with Lukas she would have had very wet clothes and probably had to throw her shoes away lol. The ambulance crew came in with a male student doctor, they were a little bit annoyed as they couldn’t understand why they hadn’t been called earlier no-one seemed to be able to grasp how quickly everything had happened. I had to take off the knickers and lay on the kitchen floor because they refused to transport us to the hospital if the baby was on the way, saying it wasn’t safe to have it while the ambulance was moving. When she checked she couldn’t see anything visible and they decided that they were willing to risk going to the hospital. I walked out to the ambulance, climbed up the 2 steps and got into the back with one of the crew, the student doctor was in the back too and Mark was in the front with the ambulance driver. I laid on the bed, they did up the seatbelts and we literally just pulled out of the street when I told her I needed to push. She shouted through for the driver to pull over and before she had even stopped fully he had come out in one push. The ambulance lady in the back seemed almost stunned she had barely even got out of the seat in time to catch him. Mark missed the whole thing which was a first for us, but it was all just over so quickly. The baby let out a piercing scream that was a lot louder than Leo had been and before I knew what was happening she had him in her hands and I got to catch my first glimpse of him. He was absolutely filthy all bloody and covered in white slime and vernix, but he was a great colour and was breathing fine all by himself. The ambulance driver had run around from the front and joined us with Mark just after he was born and they opened up a maternity pack and wrapped him up and handed him to me. My dress was covered in blood and god knows what else but the minute I laid my hands on him he stopped crying and just looked at me with this look of what the hell is going on here across his face. They asked Mark if he wanted to cut the cord which we haven’t ever had the chance to do before, they clamped it all and he cut it. This was all by the side of the road less than a minute away from our house. The pulled one of his little hats out of the bag for him to wear and he was perfectly content and happy laying on me wrapped up nice and warm. It was all so different from the other two. The student doctor went and got in the front with the driver and Mark was able to stay in the back with us. It was cute how the baby was looking at him with one eye half while the other was shut. He told me later that it bought tears to his eyes when he heard the baby cry. His birth story is far from over but I have stuff to do so I am just going to leave you with his birth announcement card.

Credits: Announced In Style by Royanna Lea Fritschmann. Fonts are Orator Std and Bickham Script Pro.

Enabling: You can pick up the announcement I used as a fully customisable layered template and papers set here at Divine Digital, I went for different font choices and unfortunately the gorgeous little guy is not included as he's all mine lol.

Sorry I never got around to posting

anymore layouts yesterday, I had a really bad day and ended up doing not much of anything really unless you count the two layouts I scrapped. Last night Lukas drove me slightly insane with not listening, I asked him to go to bed and he ignored me, he asked for a drink which I gave him and then started messing around with it. I kept telling him to make sure he put the lid back on his bottle of drink and he kept ignoring me. He ended up spilling his drink all over our bed, you would have thought he would have learnt to listen after that wouldn’t you. But nope, he left the lid off again and spilt it over his own bed. I was really annoyed at him because if he had just gone to bed when he was told neither one of the beds would have needed changing when Mark came in last night. Today I am working on organising and deleting files since I have finally managed to complete the scan on the external hard drive without the electricity going out, it overheating or the computer refusing to complete the scan. Mark is at work until 7:30pm tonight, he started at 11 and I haven’t seen much of Lukas today. Nan had Conor and Ella this morning so he vanished downstairs to play with them, and then when Lisa came to pick them up Conor ended up staying and last time I checked they were happily playing the Playstation 2 together. He knows where I am if he wants anything and he’s been fed so I am happy to just leave him to it as long as he is behaving himself and not being too loud. I am taking full advantage of him being down there to sit here and work without the TV being on. I can’t tell you how nice it is not to hear anything except the sound of my own typing for a while, I don’t really pay much attention to it being on but I really appreciate the break from listening to cartoons or sport since that’s what is usually on. The headache is no better than usual because of it but sometimes the silence just makes a very welcome change, especially since Mark will be home tonight and that means an evening filled with him and Lukas bickering, the TV about twice as loud as it when Mark isn’t here and knowing those two an obnoxiously loud game being played on the laptop (they usually go for either games filled with gunfire, games with stupid sound effects or games with music that plays constantly at full volume). Actually I just remembered that a Sims 2 addon/expansion pack can’t remember which arrived this morning so no doubt they will be wanting to try that out, so it will be annoying music instead of gunfire tonight. Anyway I suppose I better get back to that organizing since I definitely won’t get that done with Lukas and Mark around later. Hopefully I will be back later to post some more layouts.

I’m not feeling very chatty today

So I am just going to make a start on posting those layouts, I decided that it probably makes more sense to work from oldest to newest so this might take me a while. Apparently the last one I posted here was the Buzz Lightyear car and that was in May so I might still be here doing this next year lol. I think I am going to go with 5 per post for now, and do a post or two a day with the enabling if I can sit here long enough to do it. Luckily I am not really feeling up to scrapping at the moment so at east I am not adding more and more to the list to be posted lol. If your wondering the font is different in this one because I am posting directly onto the blog instead of using Live Writer like I have been doing lately. The ones in this post and probably the next 3 are from May, I scrapped a lot of layouts in May thanks to the Queen Of Scrap Contest at Scrap Matters. Some of them were probably for other challenges as well but I haven't listed them because I can't remember exactly what I scrapped each of them for.


Credits: Layered template (NSD 09 Template Challenge) by Monsu, Hustle and Bustle Addon, The Bright Side Addon, Love Bytes Addon and Just Married Addon all by Britt-ish Designs, Hawaiian Happy Hour Mega Kit contribution by GG Digital Designs, Pewter Alpha by Tracie Stroud, Boys and Their Toys by Melany Violette (Simply Clean Digi Scraps), Glitter Sprays by Micheline Martin, Date Bits 6 by Misty Cato and Jiffy Layers Volume 2 Grunge Overlays by Rina Kroes. Font is Tekton Pro.

Journalling reads: One of the things you were really excited about and looking forward to doing, on our family trip to Legoland was Driving School. First we had to line up so you could have your photograph taken with the special speed camera. Next Mummy and Daddy had to leave you to watch a video teaching you how to drive the cars, and all the rules. Then you got to drive the special lego cars around the track. Daddy was nice enough to take the photographs while I had a rest. You had a great time, even though you did drive down the wrong side of the road. All that was left to do was go and collect and pay for your official Legoland Driving License and holder.

Enabling: Hustle and Bustle Addon, The Bright Side Addon, Love Bytes Addon and Just Married Addon all by Britt-ish Designs available here, here, here and here, Hawaiian Happy Hour Mega Kit by Scrap Matters Design Team available here and Boys and Their Toys by Melany Violette (Simply Clean Digi Scraps) available hereYou can download the Tekton Pro font here. I can't seem to find a link for the template I used but it was for a NSD challenge at Scrap Matters, Glitter Sprays by Micheline Martin, Jiffy Layers Volume 2 Grunge Overlays by Rina Kroes and Date Bits 6 by Misty Cato are now retired.


Credits: Layered template (Tuesday Template, 5th May 09) by Kathleen (kv2av), Office Space: White Alpha and Tattered and Torn: Primaries Papers by Tracie Stroud, Build A Dream by Traci Reed and 2009 Circular Dates by Bethany Harty (Elegant Wordart). Fonts are Delly and Downcome.

Journalling reads: We saw a lot of fun things at Legoland, but nothing else was as cool as these Duplo tables in the queues. While we stood in line and waited, you got to have fun building with the bricks and we just had to call you over when it was our turn to get on the ride.

Enabling: Layered template (Tuesday Template, 5th May 09) by Kathleen (kv2av)can still be downloaded from this blog post, Office Space: White Alpha by Tracie Stroud available here, Build A Dream by Traci Reed available here and 2009 Circular Dates by Bethany Harty (Elegant Wordart)available here.Tattered and Torn: Primaries Papers by Tracie Stroud doesn't appear to be in her new store at Scrap Orchard so they may be retired. I can't find a link to download the Delly font but Downcome is available here.


Credits: Layered template (Pimp My Page Challenge 1) by Cindy Schneider and Hawaiian Happy Hour Mega Kit contributions by Heather Nay (Haynay Designs), Jill Van Djik (Juno Designs), Heather Benson (Dirty Feet Designs), Denise Beatty, Jennifer Barrette, GG Digital Designs, Tracie Stroud, Britt-ish Designs, Kimberly Shontz (Geeky Diva Designs) and Erica Zane. Photos from Amazon.com

Enabling: Hawaiian Happy Hour Mega Kit by Scrap Matters Design Team available here. The template was a previous freebie for a template challenge at Peppermint Creative.


Credits: Layered template (Long N Skinny, Template 3) by Aisyah Roslan (Sya's Blueprints), Date Stamps Volume 2 by Britt-ish Designs and Foooore by Traci Reed. Font is DJB Play Misty For Me by Darcy Baldwin.

Journalling reads: When we went to the Christmas School Fete you both wanted to try all the games that were available. The idea of this one was to hit the golf ball into the hole in 3 tries or less. Ella managed to get a hole in one on her first try and for her prize she chose a brightly coloured square plastic bead bracelet.

Enabling: Long N Skinny Templates by Aisyah Roslan (Sya's Blueprints) available here, Date Stamps Volume 2 by Britt-ish Designs available here, Foooore by Traci Reed available here and DJB Play Misty For Me by Darcy Baldwin available here.


Credits: Layered template (Inspired by Kris, Template 1 flipped horizontally) by Bree Clarkson, Bead-a-holic Purple Alpha, Tabby Dates and I'm A Dreamer Addon by Britt-ish Designs and Fizzy Grape Slushie by Lauren Grier and Zoe Pearn. Font is DJB Play Misty For Me by Darcy Baldwin.

Journalling reads: Our family day out at Legoland had left all of us feeling really tired and worn out. The first thing we did when we got on the train home, was let you take off your crocs so they weren’t pressing on the blisters they had made. You were really fed up and tearful and all you wanted to do was go to sleep. Since the train was empty I did something I never thought I would do, I got Daddy to come and sit next to me and I let you lay down across the seats. Then I took off my cardigan and used it as a blanket for you. We were sitting in a 4 person seat bay, until the very nice couple opposite offered us the 6 person seats they had been sitting in. We were very greatful for the extra space and you slept like a baby all the way back to Oxford. You were still half asleep and more than a little bit cross when I had to wake you up and put your shoes back on so we could get off the train and get on the bus.

Enabling: Bead-a-holic Purple Alpha, Tabby Dates and I'm A Dreamer Addon by Britt-ish Designs available here, here and here, Fizzy Grape Slushie by Lauren Grier and Zoe Pearn available here and DJB Play Misty For Me Font by Darcy Baldwin available here. Inspired by Kris Templates by Bree Clarkson are now retired.

Nothing much to say today

I wasn’t feeling very well this morning when I got up, and I ended up feeling worse and worse. Mark went out this morning to pick up a new Argos catalogue for Lukas, ever since he saw the television advert saying the new one was being released he has been anxiously waiting for today to arrive. I swear that kid can spend hours just looking through the pages in that book, within a week it looks like it’s been mauled by a dog or something. His favourite section is the toys and the computer games but he’s also more than happy to look at baby stuff or electrical items. I had to get up and sign for a parcel for Nan and then managed a few things on my to-do list before Mark got home. Then I made a start on organising some more files on the computer. When Mark got back Lukas was happy to stay downstairs looking through his catalogue while we got a little bit of tidying up done. I told Lukas he could play the computer if he wanted to and then I laid down on the bed with Mark for a quick cuddle before he went to work and fell asleep. Mark was nice enough to leave me sleeping when he went to work and I was able to get an hour or so after he left before Lukas woke me up. He had somehow managed to flip everything on my computer again, it takes me a few seconds to fix it now since he has done it so many times, but it still freaks him out every time he does it. Maybe he remembers my reaction the first time he did it and had no clue how to fix it lol. I haven’t really seen much of him today, I left him playing up here while I went downstairs with Nan for a while. I came up at 7:50pm sorted out his pyjamas and the DVD player to record and then left him watching Kung Fu Panda. I ended up watching Casualty with Nan and when his film finished he was more than content to sit watching cartoons while I checked my emails. Now I have to run because Mark has just come in from work with chips from the takeaway, and a battered sausage for me just in case I wanted it lol. Sometimes it’s the simplest little gestures that are the sweetest, and remind exactly why I love him so much. The plan for tomorrow is some sport in the morning and then to sort out Lukas’s bedroom and do some tidying up in here. I’m hoping I feel a bit better tomorrow so I can help out a little bit. Then there’s a WWE Pay Per View - Night Of Champions on tomorrow night to look forward, hopefully we will be able to stay awake and watch but if not we always dvd record it, then I have a hospital appointment on Monday afternoon. Gotta run the chips are getting cold and considering I wasn’t even hungry they smell really good lol.

Quick update

I promise I am not going to ramble on like I did earlier, I just thought I would pop in and say that I have finally finished that post from the other day, you have to scroll down a little bit to read it but it is all done. The next thing on my to-do list for the blog is to start uploading all of the layouts I haven’t shared here along with the credits and enabling, you can see them by clicking on the blinkie on the right and then going to the month’s album but although I do add credits to them I don’t add any links to the products I have used. It’s a big job but hopefully I can just do a few at a time until they are all done. I haven’t decided yet whether it would be more sensible to work backwards from the latest to the oldest or forwards from the oldest to the newest layouts. I’m falling asleep sitting here trying to type this hopefully when Mark comes home in 2 hours I will be able to have a bath and get an early night. Usually I don’t like to go to bed until Lukas is asleep but since he doesn’t have to be at school tomorrow I don’t care when he goes to sleep, so him and Mark can just bicker and argue with each other all night long if they feel like it while I sleep lol. I suppose I really should think about going and doing some dinner soon I did Lukas some toast a little while ago, so he might not be hungry yet but if I leave it much longer I will have to listen to her complaining about the dishes. Lukas will probably want pizza again so that’s just a plate I haven’t got a clue what I want except some sleep lol. I might just make a sandwich or cereal since it’s quick. 

I have a feeling today is going to be a long day

The weather is rubbish, we have already had a thunderstorm and some really heavy rain, right now it’s not raining but it’s really damp and cold everywhere. Nan is driving me mad moaning about how it’s July and it should be summertime. She’s driving me mad because when it was hot she was moaning just as much about that there is just no pleasing her. I am feeling pretty miserable since the weather is making me really stiff and sore on top of everything else. I’m also really shivering but I don’t want to put on any more clothes because I get too hot, I will be so glad when the baby is born and I just get to be one or the other again. I have a lot of things I am supposed to be doing but for now I have no motivation so I am taking advantage of the fact that Lukas is downstairs with Nan to just have some peace and quiet, catch up on my blog reader and do some other bits and pieces on the computer that are impossible to concentrate on with Lukas around. Mark’s working a different shift today so he has already gone to work and will be home about 7:30pm tonight. Yesterday he spent the majority of the day in Lukas’s room and while he may not have made a great deal of progress making it clean enough to satisfy her the bunk bed that I have always despised is finally in pieces in the garden waiting to be collected by the rubbish people. We are lucky that we are allowed any 3 large items at a time to be collected and disposed of free of charge, all we have to do is ring the council and arrange collection. The only problem is they are very vague when I phoned yesterday she said they might come and collect it today but it might be anywhere between 5-10 working days. It’s not my fault they are now going to have a very wet and soggy mattress and bed base to collect from the garden. The bed is one of the many things me and Mark have been bickering about lately. I want it gone so Lukas has more room to play in his room during the holidays, Mark thinks he should be made to sleep in his own room again. I don’t want him to feel pushed out by the baby coming, so I refuse to make him sleep in there. It’s one of those things we are never going to agree on because Mark is off the opinion that Lukas shouldn’t ever have been in here in the first place, but I think he has forgotten that for a long time Lukas slept in here with me in my bed because he wasn’t here. I have always hated to sleep on my own, I would be lying if I said I am not still a little scared of the dark so I understand why Lukas doesn’t want to sleep in his bedroom on his own. I can’t understand why it’s a big deal where he sleeps, I do get that we don’t really have room in here for all of our stuff and the stuff Lukas brings in but doesn’t put back. I guess I just think we should be working on making him put his toys back when he has finished with them instead of making him stay in his own room all the time. Mark is hardly ever here and I kind of like having Lukas around for company. The television being on cartoons all the time doesn’t even bother me. Mark seems to be of the opinion that the television and pretty much every other electrical item belongs to him. He thinks he should be able to watch what he wants all the time (usually sport), play the playstation whenever he wants, and play the laptop whenever he wants and when he doesn’t get his own way he throws a temper tantrum. He’s also never happy to settle for just one or the other, like he always wants the laptop and the sport at the same time, which annoys Lukas. He also seems to think if he wants to play the laptop and Lukas wants to play the laptop I should get off my desktop computer for Lukas to play that, but if I try and watch something on tv while he plays the laptop and Lukas has my computer he sulks or just plays his game so loud I can’t hear anything anyway eventually I get frustrated and turn it off. Mark will also cause rows about every little thing he is asked to do, even down to the simple things like putting his rubbish in the bin, or taking the washing downstairs. None of these things are new with Mark, but they have gotten a lot worse lately. I don’t just mean they are bothering me more because I feel ill, he’s done this every single time I have been pregnant, I talk to him and he ignores me, he doesn’t seem to want me to cuddle him or show him any affection and then he sulks and acts jealous because he’s not getting as much attention as Lukas. Usually it gets to a point like this, we fight he packs his bags and moves back to his mothers house. This is the first time he hasn’t had that option, when I told him a few weeks ago that I just couldn’t cope with it all anymore and I asked him to leave he said he had nowhere to go. I guess either he isn’t welcome at his dad’s with the new girlfriend and the lodger being there or maybe he just doesn’t feel like he is welcome. Obviously everything would be easier if we had our own place since we wouldn’t have Nan contributing to the arguments. I am not naive enough to think that moving out would solve all of our issues or that we would never fight it’s always been our nature to disagree. Hopefully once the baby is born we can pack our bags and go to Chessington for the weekend again, those few days away from it all seem to help enough. I guess I have rambled on enough for now, especially since Lukas is now back up here and I have to find something to amuse him for a little while, I kind of got sidetracked with this and haven’t done any of the things I was hoping to do while we was downstairs. Maybe I will be back later.

Apparently today I am feeling chatty

or maybe I just like looking at my pretty new blog lol. Seriously, there are just a lot of things I my mind that I feel like blogging about. You may be wondering why I haven’t really been mentioning the baby lately, well it’s really simple I am mad at him. I am mad that he seems to have no intention whatsoever of getting out. All of the so called “signs” of labour that I had with the other two mean nothing with this one, he’s determined to mock me with them and do everything in his own sweet time. Like the headache, before Lukas was born I had the worst headache I have ever felt the day before, it was like someone was literally crushing my head. With Leo I had that same headache only slightly worse thanks to the high blood pressure and other issues for a day or two beforehand. When I got this headache again I was actually relieved because I thought that he was finally going to make an appearance, I would even go as far as saying I was slightly excited when nothing happened that day I thought that was fine, after all it lasted for two days with Leo. When I got up the next day and the headache I thought couldn’t get any worse did I was still optimistic that it was all going to be ok because this headache only happens just before they are born. Did I mention that this was hmm over a month ago? Everyday when I have gotten up I have thought it can’t possibly get any worse yet every single day it does. Nothing I do changes it, or eases it even slightly. If it was just the headaches I would be frustrated and fed up but it’s not. There’s also been the 3 incidents of suspected broken waters. The first time we did a trip to the hospital, spent 15 hours there being prodded, poked and tested before coming home. The second time I refused to go to the hospital until it hurt (not that it doesn’t always hurt but you know what I mean). Sitting around a hospital for hours while Lukas is with Nan is not exactly my idea of fun. We sat around waiting for something “real” to start but it didn’t. We accepted that maybe we were just going to have leaking waters this time (sort of like with Leo, but I don’t have the energy to talk about that now) instead of them going in one huge gush. That second time I also refused to tell Nan because I didn’t want to listen to her nagging me to go to the hospital. I am getting to the 3rd time but I just need you to understand first that there are other things too. Like to pain across my stomach which has been getting worse each day, the vision problems which started as being hazy/blurry sometimes and is now almost constant, my stomach gets really tight and painful quite often but although the pain gets worse it’s doesn’t change in frequency, the seizures are getting more and more frequent and so are the dizzy spells that make the room spin, there’s the usual pregnancy stuff like peeing all the time, feeling sick etc and also the usual (for me anyway)just before they are born stuff like the actual throwing up and we’ll say dodgy stomach. Lately I spend all of my time either laying down or hobbling about like a little old woman, I can’t lean over, I can’t bend down hell I can’t even get in and out of the bath without help at the moment. I can’t remember the last time I slept for more than 10 minutes at a time and there is no such thing as comfortable anymore since sitting, standing, laying etc all come with their own complications and pain. I guess we kind of hoped that some of the issues would clear up once I finished the antibiotics the hospital prescribed for the urine infection, hoped some of the tiredness would go away once I started the double dose of iron and folic acid, but more than anything just hoped it would all go away because he had been born! He has taken to some weird position that manages to put him where it’s not only low and uncomfortable, but also in the middle of my chest and making it very difficult to breathe all at the same time. He’s either very long like Leo was or incredibly flexible, maybe he’s doing handstands in there I haven’t a clue. I just wish that he would please stop whatever it he’s doing so I could breathe easier or better yet just stop keeping me waiting and get out! By dates he’s 3 days overdue tomorrow, but by the hospital scans we still have another 3 weeks I think it is until they will induce me. Hopefully if he’s still there then they will also have a nice little padded cell ready because I will be truly out of my freaking mind by then. I guess the irony is though that all of that pales in comparison to everything else going on around here. Mark has apparently decided to run for the laziest man in the world award and not tell me, not to be left out Lukas has decided that every single thing he says needs to be whined he’s even giving Nan a run for her money on who can whinge, whine, complain and moan the most in the space of a day. I spend every waking hour trying to act as mediator between any two of them at a time, arguing with one or more of them or trying to resist the urge to burst into tears or walk away from the whole lot of them. I no longer have the patience to deal with people in general since I feel so ill, but more than anything else I do not have the energy to stand and listen to anymore of my family (Lukas, Mark and Nan) or any of there crap. I wish they would understand that’s it’s taking every ounce of strength I have to just be standing there listening to them, I don’t have the words or solutions to fix every one of their problems. They all need to just go away and bicker amongst themselves for a while. I am done with the sarcastic comments about the baby, no-one wants this kid to be born more than I do, yet they all seem to think I need to hear a million times a day about how frustrated they are that he hasn’t been born, or telling him to hurry up. I feel like telling them he’s obviously not interested in listening to you and neither am I, shut up but I don’t because it’s just not worth the argument. I am deeply depressed, very frustrated and fed up and honestly I don’t know how much more I can take. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t end up going to my midwife appointment today, I think I would have really struggled not to just burst into tears when I was talking to her. The last thing I would want is for her to see how fragile I am mentally at the moment, I know I am bizarre and I probably should let them see how much things are getting to me because then they might be able to help but I just can’t do it. I guess I am always worried that if they see I can’t cope or they see how close I am to complete mental breakdown they will start asking questions I don’t want to answer, there will be people visiting and watching that I don’t want around. Call me paranoid but I always worry they will see how much of a mess I am and start thinking that I shouldn’t be a mummy. I love Lukas and Fidget with all of my heart if I didn’t have them I would have given up a long time ago. I know that these people are there to help but maybe it’s stupid pride, me being too stubborn to admit I want or need the help or just plain fear but I don’t want their help, and I don’t want to talk to them. I happen to be one of these people who doesn’t like the health visitor coming to visit, I feel like she questions how I look after them and judges me. I also don’t like social workers of any description for the same reason but then considering the one occasion where I have had to deal with a social worker was when she was accusing me of hurting Lukas when Leo was admitted to hospital before he died, is it any wonder I am not exactly full of nice thoughts about them. I don’t like doctors much either or therapists or counsellors and I certainly don’t like anyone to do with the school since they spend all their time telling me what I can’t do with my own child. I always feel like telling them to sod of and mind their own business, I am doing the best I can and we may doggie paddle our way through life but Lukas is happy enough, he’s fed and clothed and cared for but more than anything else he is loved and adored. I may not be perfect mother material for various reasons but no-one could ever question my love and devotion to my kids. I am only really happy when I am left to my own devices and no-one questions me or interferes. In my perfect fantasy I would get to live in a little house in a big concrete field (remember me moaning about grass before, if that makes no sense), that takes too many hours and too much effort for anyone to ever come and visit. As long as I could get my shopping delivered I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone in real life and I would be perfectly content and happy. I would get to home school my kids and not have to worry about bullies or school uniforms or ever be told what to do. We could just spend every day enjoying being a family and having fun doing things together. It would never happen, and no doubt I would go stir crazy if I was stuck in a house with Mark all of the time but it’s a nice fantasy for tonight. Mark will be home in a minute and there is almost certainly going to be yet another argument about one thing or another so I may as well go and start being uncomfortable in the bed now.

So last night I decided that the blog needed a new look

I was getting bored of the old one and fed up with my search bar not working. At first I tried starting with a reinstall of the template to see if that would fix the problem but it didn’t, then I tried a different template that fixed it but I couldn’t concentrate enough to work out how to modify that so it wasn’t so blank and white. Then I decided that I would just change the colours for now and then work on the search function another time, only while I was doing that I came across a little gadget you can add to the sidebar that allows you to search the blog. For the first time ever I used the blog in a box exactly as it came with no additions (except for the text on the sidebar labels) or recolouring and it took a few minutes to have it all installed. I did something that I think was quite smart for me last time lol I copied all of the html for the stuff in the sidebar and saved them as individual word documents. After a bit of copying and pasting and some tiny changes to the credits because I used different stuff it was all finished. I spent some time fiddling around with the colours and things and I have to admit this is the most impressed I have been with my blog. That could be down to the fact that it took me about 30 minutes from start to finish rather than the usual few hours I spend fiddling with all the little bits lol. You may have also noticed that I have used the same font for the labels in the sidebar and for this post. I write my blog using Live Writer so I am playing with it, I haven’t decided if I will carry on doing this since I can’t really be bothered to go and change the old posts and I am a little bit odd about things not matching. Today hasn’t been a great day, we had to order a new fridge freezer because ours has sort of been on it’s last legs for a while, a part broke in the freezer and I never got around to fixing it. Ice formed on the broken part and the longer it was left the worse the problem got, if I had fixed it when it first happened it probably would have taken 30 minutes at the most but because it was left it sort of became more and more unfixable. We have managed with it the way it was for a while but Nan was getting worried that one day it would just give up and we would be left with no fridge so we ordered a new one. Originally she wanted a different one, when I placed the order I was tired and feeling really ill. While trying to order that, answer the phone and answer Lukas talking to me I accidently ordered the wrong one, and I will admit I told her a little fib and said they had to substitute it because the other one was unavailable. I didn’t want to have to listen to the lecture about it even though it was an accident. Long story short this one is bigger than the one she wanted and it doesn’t exactly fit in the space where the other one was. We do have the space available but the kitchen cupboard she had fitted when the kitchen was redone won’t move for some reason. Gary came last night and tried and then I had to listen to her having a meltdown over that. At first we thought it might be because it was too heavy full of stuff, so we tried to empty it out and move it and we are still not exactly having much luck moving it. He’s supposed to be coming back later to try and do it now that there is nothing in it. She has been in a foul mood for the last few days and that wasn’t exactly helped by them bringing the new fridge freezer at 7:10am this morning. The kitchen is a bit of a disaster area and she is driving me insane with her whinging and complaining about every little thing. I have just come back upstairs after listening to her ranting because Gary tried to be helpful by hoovering where the old fridge freezer was last night and he’s blocked up the hoover. I unblocked it all for her and she’s still ranting, so I just walked away I really don’t feel well enough to deal with her at the moment. I was supposed to have a midwife appointment today but had to cancel it because I just felt too ill to make the effort to get dressed and drag on the bus. Sounds like Lukas is getting nagged at so I better go and see what he’s done wrong this time, with the mood that she’s in he has probably breathed too loud or something lol.

Lots to catch up on

But I don’t feel very well tonight so I am just making a very quick list of the things that have happened since I blogged last and fingers crossed I will get back tomorrow to talk about them in more detail. In no particular order at the moment but they will be when I have done the real post tomorrow.

Hospital appointment: Doppler Clinic (6th July)

This was the follow up appointment from last week, they asked me to come back but never really said why I had to come back. It was only after they had done the scan that they told us it was because the previous one had been slightly higher than it should have been. They had a bit of trouble getting his heartbeat because he is so low down, right now they don’t have any plans for us to be seen in that clinic again. I wasn’t able to manage to do a urine sample for them so the bottle ended up coming home with us for Mark to take into work. I can’t really remember what else happened (see this is exactly why I should blog more often lol).

Hospital appointment: Anaesthetics clinic (7th July)

I never ended up keeping the appointment I was feeling really ill. Mark telephoned them and was able to make another appointment for next week at 12:30.

Lukas’s Sports Day (8th July)

I was still feeling too ill to go out, so I ended up missing it but Mark went with him. Unfortunately the batteries hadn’t had long enough to charge fully so I ended up with no photos at all. Mark did take some videos (which I haven’t got around to looking at yet) so we at least have some record of the day. I might be able to grab a few still shots from those to scrap. Mark said Lukas had a great time and luckily for them the rain held off so they were able to get all of their events done. I find it slightly ironic that they cancelled the first date because of the heat yet this replacement date was absolutely freezing Lukas ended up wearing his coat for nearly the whole time he was outside.

Hospital phoned (10th July)

Mark has been using my mobile phone since his got broken (the screen doesn’t work), so I am stuck with my old handset. The problem with that is that it doesn’t get great signal in the house. When it started ringing with an unknown number I couldn’t even answer it. I missed the first call, they rang back again I tried to answer it but couldn’t hear anything. I think it took 6 attempts all together before I was able to answer the call and that was because I went into the garden and sat on the trampoline. It ended up being the hospital saying I had a severe urine infection. They wanted me to go up to the hospital and collect a prescription for antibiotics, but Mark was at work. We were able to arrange for him to go first thing on Saturday morning. It took a while for them to grasp that I was allergic to the antibiotics they had prescribed. Not that it really ended up mattering because when Mark went up on the Saturday morning it was one mess up after another, where he had been told to go wasn’t open, where he was sent instead didn’t have it and he ended up coming home with a completely different prescription than what they had said they prescribed. If your wondering no they don’t seem to have helped with anything at all.

Lukas’s School Fete (11th July)

After Mark got home from picking up the prescription from the hospital and collecting the tablets from the chemist we headed out to the school fete. It was a lot of fun even if the weather was a bit crappy. We had to wait for a really heavy shower to pass before we could leave, and it rained a few times while we were there but nothing too major to ruin our fun. There are photos from that but not as many as I would have liked because of the weather. I haven’t gotten around to really looking at those yet either. I don’t really feel like writing a full recap of the day but Lukas’s favourite bits were playing some of the games, riding the pony, visiting the book fair, eating the BBQ food and having his face painted as Spiderman. He was a little bit disappointed that there were no animals this year and no cake decorating (the thing he had been looking forward to most). The whole fete seemed like it had been put together at the last minute this year, there wasn’t much of a turn out and we thought the previous ones were a lot better but it was still a lot of fun. I guess the weather put a lot of people off going and the fact that we never got a letter home about it until the day before didn’t really help either. One of the things they were doing this year that they haven’t done before was selling plants. As we were leaving we noticed the sunflowers had been reduced to clear them, Lukas wanted to buy one and the lady selling them offered us both of the ones she had left for 20p each (they had been £1 each when we first got there and had been reduced to 50p each). So we ended up with 2 sunflower plants. They don’t exactly look much like sunflowers they actually look a bit sad and droopy at the moment and we really need to go and buy some sticks for them. As we were leaving the school we saw Jade, Keisha, Daniel and Maiya on their way home from the park. It was quite nice to walk along with them and catch up a little. They were full of questions about the baby and really shocked that I hadn’t had him yet. Maiya has changed so much I hardly recognised her and Daniel was full of chatter about going to nursery now. I really miss seeing them but I was feeling so ill I didn’t really feel like chatting. By the time we got home I was feeling really ill and having a lot of new pain across my stomach. Mark ended up taking the day off work because we were worried something was happening with the baby. The pain was really bad for a few hours but unfortunately it ended up being nothing more than a false alarm. He changed his mind and decided that he preferred to stay put for a bit longer. I did manage to pack him a bag ready though for when he does make his appearance. I have been meaning to do it for a while. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit depressed that it had turned into nothing.

Hospital appointment: Pre-term labour clinic (13th July)

Today was supposed to be Lukas’s school picnic but he couldn’t go because I had a hospital appointment and there wasn’t anyone to pick him up from school. This is the clinic we usually go to where I see my consultant. We had the usual urine tests, swabs, blood pressure and questions before going for another scan. That’s when they spotted a slight problem, little man’s growth is trailing off a little. Up until now he has been measuring exactly to their dates (with a due date of the 27th August). Now he’s measuring small for them, by about 3 weeks. They said he was about a 31 week size now. No-one seemed sure if he had grown at all since the last growth scan 4 weeks ago so they want to keep an eye on that. The midwife who had done the scan seemed quite concerned about it and said that they would be wanting to see me weekly from now on, but it’s not really anything new to us since it’s what happened with Leo, the only difference is this one has stayed put longer than he did and he’s a bit bigger. From the size on the scan they are estimating him at about 3.5lb in weight, Leo was 2lb 120z. When we finally got to see the consultant we were more than slightly surprised that she doesn’t want to see us for 2 weeks, especially since she said my blood pressure is high and we already know that the swelling everywhere is a lot worse than it was with Leo. I can’t even get my wedding ring (which is 2 sizes too big anyway) onto my little finger, Mark’s wedding ring is 7 or 8 sizes bigger than mine and I can just about keep his on my finger. I have a pair of croc style shoes that I ordered a while back and was annoyed when they arrived and they were way too big. I could barely keep them on now I end up with perfect imprints of them if I wear them. It’s also quite depressing that at my booking appointment I was 22.2kg lighter than I am now. Usually I lose so much weight when I am pregnant that I end up either about the same as when I started or weighing less than I did to start with. The consultant wanted me to double the dose of Iron and Folic Acid I am on and carry on taking the low dose aspirin. She’s decided that if fidget hasn’t made an appearance by himself they will induce me at 38 weeks. That’s 4 weeks away from now and I am not exactly thrilled about the idea of having to feel this ill for that much longer. All I can do though is hope that he gets a move on soon and does something. I am starting to get worried about Lukas’s birthday which is 2 weeks Monday, the one good thing is that with this plan in place it means that he definitely won’t be born on Leo’s birthday which is 3 days before the due date the hospital gave us. I really don’t think I would have been able to handle that. I am so ready for this to all be over I have even resorted to begging and pleading with the baby to please hurry up, Lukas prefers to be more direct and frequently orders him to “get out fidget”, or “hurry up fidget”. I guess all of us are right at the end of our patience with him.

Nan’s hospital appointment: Follow up from the operation on her leg (14th July)

I don’t know if you remember that Nan went into hospital for some day surgery on her leg a while back. I would link you up to where I wrote about it but for some reason the search bar on my blog is missing again. According to the settings it should be showing but for some reason it isn’t and I can’t be bothered to fiddle around with all of that today sorry. Anyway getting back to the point, she had some surgery on her legs and they removed veins (I remember that much since I never went with her I am not entirely sure what else they did). She thought this was supposed to help with the circulation issues and pain she has in her legs. When she went for the follow up appointment they told her that they had done the procedure because she was at high risk for ulcers on her legs and this should help prevent that. It’s nothing to do with pain at all, so she was quite upset that no-one had explained it to her properly. She feels as if she went through a lot of pain and discomfort for nothing and to be honest she is more than a little depressed about it all. I can see why she is upset especially with the issues involving the after care she received, the doctor did apologise for those but they weren’t really anything to do with him. The original plan was to do the second leg at a later date but I don’t think she wants to do that anymore.

Hospital appointment: Anaesthetics clinic (14th July)

If your wondering we went to the hospital with Nan for her appointment and then sat around waiting for mine which was 3 hours later. It’s not exactly cheap to get a taxi to and from the hospital so it would have been really silly to pay that twice in one day. It also solved the other problem of Nan not wanting to go to her appointment by herself. We sat in the waiting room while she went and spoke to the doctor and we left her looking through a magazine with a coffee in the waiting area while I went for my appointment then got a taxi home together. Luckily we had nothing else that needed to be done that day and we didn’t mind doing some shopping at the hospital and then sitting around for a while. The  anaesthetist we saw was really nice, we sat and had a long chat about why I was referred to them, he asked lots of questions and gave us some leaflets about pain relief options. He seemed to be a bit surprised when he actually saw me, kept looking at the letter the doctor had sent him and then looking at me. I think from the way high BMI was stressed he was expecting me to be a lot bigger than I am weight wise. Quite a few things I said to him like how the 2 general anaesthetics I have had previously didn’t work and  how quick the other two had been born freaked him out a little. He seemed slightly concerned that no-one has ever really sorted out why I have the seizures or arranged for an epi-pen because of the latex allergy but there’s not really much he can do about either of those except note down his concerns over it in my notes. The appointment took a lot longer than we were expecting, he also had to leave a few times to answer his pager. I did think it was quite funny when he said it was lovely meeting you but I hope I don’t have to again. He meant it in a nice way that he hoped we didn’t run into any problems where he was needed but it kind of came out wrong.

Making treats for Lukas’s class (14th July)

Since I have been feeling so ill lately and I was fast running out of time we decided not to make special treats for Lukas’s class this year. I still wanted to send in some sweets for them for the end of the year and I wanted to make a little more effort than just sending in a bag of sweets for him to give out. I picked up some coloured food bags that came with stickers and spent the entire evening sat on the floor filling them, folding them and stacking them. We decided to go with a bag of Milky Way Magic Stars and 2 bags of Haribo in each one. Lukas was supposed to be helping me but changed his mind at the last minute. Let’s just say it must have been very amusing to watch me trying to get up after sitting still for so long lol. I was really stiff and sore which Lukas then decided to make worse by sticking stickers all over me, they had latex in the glue and I ended up having some bright red marks that looked like burns everywhere he had stuck them. Since he couldn’t remember the names of his teachers we decided to go with a box of chocolates to share for them all. Nan is even more mental than I am she insisted on buying 3 different boxes of chocolates (well actually we bought 6 boxes because they were on offer 2 boxes for £6, we just got 3 different varieties). She then emptied out the contents of the 3 boxes into a lovely silver gift box she lined with tissue and then tied the whole thing with ribbon. It worked out costing about £10 which sounds expensive but was a lot cheaper than buying boxes of chocolates and a card would have been for all of the people who help him at school, I wasn’t even sure how many teachers and support people he has at school. I just wrote out a blank card for them all saying thank you for all the help this year, I really appreciate it, love Lukas. It worked out quite well since his class party was the next day I knew all of the teachers would be there and I thought the kids might like taking there little treat bags home from the party. The only thing was I had to get up in the morning to take Lukas to school since I didn’t really trust Mark to get everything there in one piece or remember to bring the drawer I had used to store the sweets home at the end of the day. Then I went to pick Lukas up in the afternoon because it makes me happy to see all of the little ones coming out talking about Lukas giving them sweets. The only annoying thing was I forgot to take any photos of them before I sent them to school, I had meant to do it when I finished but because it was late and I hadn’t gotten around to bathing Lukas I decided to leave it until the morning and then forgot lol.

Lukas’s end of term party (15th July)

We only found out Lukas was having a party on the Wednesday, neither Mark nor Lukas seemed to know whether we were supposed to send food or drink in for it. I asked Mark to go to Tesco on the way home from work and buy some sausage rolls to send in. Last time Lukas had a party at school I sent sausage rolls and cocktail sausages and his teacher was extremely grateful especially since every other mummy had sent fairy cakes or chocolate biscuits lol. His teacher was really glad we had sent them in but also said it wasn’t necessary, she had thrown a party for them because she wanted to and had bought all the food and drink out of her own money. Apparently Lukas had a great time, he said the sausage rolls were a big hit lol, when he came out of his classroom he was busy munching on a doughnut and trying to carry all of his school stuff. The part that made me laugh was the LSA asking me if it was alright for Lukas to have a doughnut, I was laughing because he was already eating it and I can’t see the point in asking after you have given it to him. I am not one of these parents who is bothered about him eating anything he wants, he knows what he likes and what he doesn’t and to be honest he’s usually not a huge fan of much sweet stuff, but if I had minded it was a bit late asking me after he had eaten half of it wasn’t it lol. It’s not as if you were ever going to get that doughnut back once you had given it to him. I was slightly surprised he ate the doughnut since he doesn’t usually touch jam, he only likes ring doughnuts preferably with icing sugar not the granulated stuff it’s a texture thing he doesn’t like the feel of it on his hands. But I guess his weird rules for food are different when he’s at school because he sees his friends doing it and wants to do it too.

Decorating the bathroom (15th and 16th July)

They were finally supposed to be coming back to finish off the bathroom with the new paint and covering the wooden floor but things didn’t exactly go to plan. For a start Nan had to argue with them to even get them to agree to redecorate, they had completely wrecked the paint that was in there when they redid the tiles around the bath. There was plaster wiped everywhere and also since the new bathroom stuff isn’t as wide as the old stuff great big chunks of bare brown plaster showing everywhere. Then they would only agree to repaint the bathroom magnolia which Nan had a mental about, she did finally get them to agree on painting it blue with white gloss work. They also weren’t going to do the floor we had tiles down before now we have bare unsealed wood not exactly a great idea for a bathroom. When the guy turned up he said he didn’t have the flooring as it wasn’t in stock. He did offer to lay laminate flooring which is supposed to be really slippery, again not a great idea for a bathroom so we are stuck with the wooden floor for now, he’s supposed to be ordering the tiles or lino I can’t remember which and then coming back to lay it once it arrives. He only ended up doing one coat of blue paint on the walls and one coat of gloss on the door. For some reason he thought that it would be a good idea to gloss over the lock on the door, so we now have a very stuff bathroom door lock that I can’t lock lol. When Nan came up to look at it before he left she managed to stumble at the top of the stairs and put out her hand to stop herself falling right onto the wet gloss paint. I am not exactly thrilled about the mess he has left behind there are paint smears on the wooden floor as well as paint splashes in the new bath but Nan keeps going on about what a good job he has done. I think that just proves my point about how bad her eyes have gotten. The bathroom is chaotic since there have been no shelves or any of the other wooden stuff put back up, it’s getting slightly frustrating not having a toilet roll holder on the wall and having to bring all of the shampoo, bubble bath etc in and out every time we want to use it. So with the exception of the floor and making the bathroom more normal with the addition of all the bathroom stuff after we drill new holes for everything since they filled them when they painted the bathroom is finally done. The tiles aren’t straight, the floorboards underneath the bath haven’t been replaced, they sealed on the side of the bath so you can’t see they didn’t change the floorboards this also means that if it leaks there again they won’t be able to get to the pipes under the bath to fix it, the toilet frequently blocks and doesn’t exactly flush right all the time we also have a suspicion it leaks slightly sometimes, the hot tap on the sink rotates when you try and turn it on, the cold tap on the sink drips constantly, they took the shower out and haven’t replaced it so we now have to manage without one, they broke the towel rack when they took it down and never bothered to fill out an expenses form to replace that or anything else they damaged, they threw out the wooden toilet seat that we had put on, they took the shower curtain pole down and I don’t think it will go back up, they have bent the carpet gripper and lost the screws so we need a new one of those too, the paint can’t be wiped clean because of only having one coat of paint on the walls but at least they are gone now. It’s crazy isn’t it that it’s taken this long to have such a crappy job done, that only needed doing in the first place because of their incompetence. The first problem with the bathroom was that the flush wasn’t working properly, they came to fix it and made it worse. Then we had the second issue where Nan broke the part in the toilet while trying to flush it they bodged that up instead of replacing it. Then the toilet flooded into the downstairs bathroom and they said it was one thing that it turned out not to be, then they said it was something else before finally admitting that it was the waste pipe under the bath that had cracked, that they hadn’t repaired because they couldn’t get the side panel off the bath to fix it. Remember all the hassle we had with the downstairs toilet after it leaked? The arguments it caused because they wouldn’t come and redecorate and then Nan insisted on wallpaper in there and they did a real cock up of a job, well the bathroom needed to be ripped out because the damp had warped the floor. I just checked the leak in the bathroom was March last year, and you wonder why I am so frustrated lol.

Wear Pink To School (16th July)

Before I explain anything else about it you might want to look at these two newspaper articles here and here and a copy of the letter we got home from the school about this.

Most of you will have heard the sad news of the death of Jake Spicer - one of the bravest children I have ever met. When he was being treated for cancer he still came into school - even after terrible chemotherapy treatments - he even took part in the Christmas production. We feel honoured to have known such an inspirational and courageous human being. Our thoughts are with his friends and family. Jake's family have asked everyone going to the funeral - not all our school can go to church of course - but in his honour we are asking that every child and member of staff wears something pink. We are also collecting money to be given to the charity that Jake himself raised over £15000 for - one to help others of course! If you would like to make a contribution, please send it into school in an envelope marked Jake.

Before Lukas was born I used to work with that little boys mum, she was one of my bosses at work. I had left before he was diagnosed with cancer, but I remember when he was since he was local it was all over the papers and he went to the school where Lukas goes now. You may wonder why I thought this should be mentioned on my blog, well you need to understand one little thing, there is nothing Lukas hates more than the colour pink. I even bought him a pink T-shirt that I used to threaten to make him wear whenever he was naughty because I knew it was guaranteed to make him behave every single time. On our last trip to Chessington they had a T-shirt for his favourite ride, Bubbleworks on sale. I thought that since it was Bubbleworks he would overcome his hatred of the fact that it was bright pink. The morning he went to school he had the biggest meltdown I have ever seen. It started over the pink top because he didn’t want to wear it, he moved on to hysterical crying because he was scared that he was going to die too, he’s always been a little bit strange when it comes to people dying, it’s not really all that surprising after what happened with Leo that death would freak him out a little bit. But this wasn’t even anything I had ever seen from him before. Mark ended up having to drag him to school kicking, screaming and crying. It broke my heart to make him go there was a huge part of me who was tempted to just say let him stay home today but I knew that I couldn’t do that. I went with Mark to pick him up because I was worried about how he had been all day, he couldn’t stop talking about how the whole school had been outside in the playground to see the funeral procession go past. He was full of questions and a little confused by it all. He’s never seen a real coffin before, Leo’s was a teeny little white box and when he went to Yvonne’s funeral the coffin was under a covering, and at Lorraine and Mark’s Mum’s funerals everything was slightly different because they were being cremated. I also think since the school was talking about it he thought it was going to be a small coffin I don’t think he realised that Jake was 15. When we got home we thought he would be eager to take the pink T-shirt off but he surprised us by point blank refusing, I'm not entirely sure I understand his change of heart on it. I assume it’s because he saw everyone else at school wearing pink and wanted to be the same. I guess it’s just one of those things that is not hugely important but I wanted to get down to make sure I never forget about. I also thought you might like to see a photo of him in it lol. Here are two for you to see, they were both taken after he had been crying but before his meltdown.

Lukas’s last day of school (17th July)

I was supposed to be taking him for his last day of school, it’s a bit of a tradition we have. It means I get to see him all excited over breaking up and it also means I get to take the last day of school photos and make sure that his teacher gets her gift. This year I was feeling too ill to do any of those things, he went to school with his teachers gift but it didn’t have a card with it or a photo in the frame because I hadn’t gotten around to doing either. There were no last day of school photos and both me and Lukas were more than a little disappointed over it. He also took in some chocolate cakes for his friends since his birthday is over the school holidays. Even though I was still feeling really ill I made myself go and collect him from school since it’s the last chance to make sure everything that needs to come home from school does come home. He came out with a folder full of drawings, projects and other stuff he had done over the year, a whole box of cakes left over, dragging his book bag, PE Kit, coat and lunch bag. I have no idea if his teacher liked her little gift since knowing Mark and Lukas they never told her it was from him, I would be willing to bet money that they either handed it to her without saying anything or just put it on her desk. It was a little frame and a memo/picture holder saying number 1 teacher on it. I figured she wouldn’t be overwhelmed with teacher stuff just yet since this was her 1st year. Lukas was thrilled to be on summer holidays, I was a lot less thrilled to find out when he goes back to school next year he will have an entirely new school uniform. I have to buy him proper trousers (not exactly an easy task, he has been wearing tracksuit bottoms for the last year or two), button down shirts (he can’t do buttons because of the problems with his hands), proper shoes (no trainers allowed) and he has to have a school sweatshirt and tie that can’t be picked up until the 1st of September! I fail to see why they want to change the uniform and personally think it’s a stupid idea to make little kids wear ties to school. I am of the opinion that school uniform is a good thing as long as it’s flexible, I can’t see why it matters if he wears trainers, tracksuit bottoms and polo shirts to school or why I have to buy a school branded top that costs £12.50 and a tie that costs £4.50 (well you get the first one free when you buy the jumper but it’s not the point). Lukas has always had school jumpers, but a lot of kids in his class only ever wore the plain unbranded navy blue ones I don’t think it’s fair that their parents are having to buy clothes that are more expensive. His uniform is going to be expensive because of his size, and I have to get someone we know to alter the trousers length because it’s impossible to buy them big enough in the waist but also short enough in the leg. For now I am choosing to forget about the school uniform as I have enough other stuff to stress over for now. Once the baby is born then I will start stressing over finding and buying it all ready for September 2nd.