Houston, we have...

poop!!! OMG. It is the first time she has ever done that, thankfully in her potty. And she went all by herself. Yay.

Having said that, OMG indeed. Internally, I was like "disgusting, I'm going to have to clean this!", whilst acting delirious with her to praise and encourage her. I think if she gets more control we're going to have to move to the toilet, lol!

Motherhood :)

Tony's work

I hate when he needs to go away. He was in Manchester yesterday and Southampton today. Not only because it's more difficult to look after the kids by myself, but mostly because I miss him. I hate not waking up with him and knowing he's not just a few miles away at work. Hopefully there will be no delays - his flight gets in around 8.30 tonight and since he's entitled to dinner expenses, he's going to be bringing home Chinese takeaway. He has a hefty budget and is not afraid to use it :). Time to order those things we normally can't afford - crispy duck, here I come!

She's doing it!

It's 5.30pm and Katie hasn't had a nappy on since she got up this morning. No accidents! This is definitely new. It has been a combination of no underwear, but not naked, me telling her to pee twice and her doing it on her own twice. We even went to the supermarket for an hour with no underwear under her trousers - I was very nervous at that - and a 2 hour nap with just a waterproof mat under her! If she can keep this up, it will be fantastic. No doubt tomorrow will be back to normal :).

I don't have to go anywhere for the rest of the week, so I'm really going to work on it with her over the next few days. She starts playgroup next week on Monday and Friday mornings (I'm staying with her the first week), so it will be great if she can be half way trained by the week after. I've no idea if that is expecting too much, but I'll take any success we can get. I always hoped that once she decided to train, she would just do it.

Many cheers, singing, dancing and yes, chocolate, if she pees. Fingers crossed she'll want to do it tomorrow!

On another Katie note, I forgot to write this a few days ago. I can't even remember what I was telling her off for, probably her ignoring me, or telling me no, or destroying something, but it was hysterical at the time. I was kneeling down on her level and telling her to look at me and turned her face so she'd look me in the eye, then gave her the "when Mammy says x, you do x" spiel and she just yawned in my face. It must have been towards the end of the day so I just burst out laughing and Tony joined in, but I was supposed to be still telling her off, so was trying to compose myself to finish, but it only made it worse. Very funny. You had to be there ;-).

Strange experience

I had an odd experience today, not unpleasant, I just felt funny about it afterwards. Me, Katie and Ben have been going to a baby/toddler group for around 4 months now. Around half way through today's session, a mother I'd never seen before came in with her daughter, she seemed to know some of the other mothers. I was around 90% sure that the girl had Down syndrome. She was lovely. Since I wasn't 100%, I didn't say anything, but I couldn't stop looking at her. I was trying to recognise some of the more prominent features for "confirmation", eyes, nose, palmar crease, how the little pinky finger curves inwards... I know I was staring, I couldn't help myself. I also know some children have very subtle features, hence I didn't want to open my mouth if I was wrong! It was strange as I don't see many kids Jack's age and he is so far behind his peers even, I was really happy to watch her running and playing with the other kids, feeding her doll. Not because it was anything out of the ordinary for her, it was totally normal (whatever that is) child behaviour, but just for me and what DS means to Jack. I'm not making any sense whatsoever here. I think what I'm trying to say is it *seems* more of a disability to Jack due to his level of development, although I know he has other diagnoses (is that the plural??), so that has skewed how I see things. Before he was born I fully expected that he'd do all the things that any other child could do, just on his own time-scale. As he got older, it became more obvious that that was not the case and maybe there are some things he won't ever be able to do. Since he is all I know, it just seems strange to me that there was this little kid, I'd guess she was early 3 years, so far ahead of him that she seemed extraordinary, but she is the one who is "typical". I have no idea what I'm going on about or what I'm trying to say.

The fact is, she was a delight to watch. Truly. I did get a little bit pensive, wondering if I'd ever see Jack doing those things and questioning why he was hit with so much (cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, club foot, heart defect, tube feeding, blah blah blah). I was also very conscious that her mother was probably thinking "wth is your problem? Why are you looking at my kid like that?!". I couldn't strike up a conversation with her though. If I see her again, I definitely will, especially as I don't know anyone "in real life" to talk with.

Bens feet

Just a reminder to myself to post about Ben's foot progress and his new braces, don't think I've posted his new shoes yet. Laptop is on a go slow so will come back later.

Benji boy's new shoes. They're better than his other style, but it's still hard. The shape of his heel/foot means they need to be fastened tightly, but he's getting blisters again so I'm stuck. They really should have been corrected by now, I guess my kids don't follow the rulebook! Oh, and I'm not a doofus, the buckles do fasten on the inside of the foot. I checked 3 times, I thought the doc had put them on wrong, but weirdly, it is correct.

No wonder he's not crawling ;-). On a serious note, I'm starting to stress. I keep getting the "Your child at... x age" emails and that he should be standing and maybe cruising/pulling up by now and he can't :(. I know it doesn't matter in the scheme of things, Katie was slow on her milestones too, but I always get paranoid. He keeps going over on his ankles when we practice so it's not his fault.
Here are his feet. The pictures are very deceptive, they look "normal" in some shots, but the angle is difficult to show. In their resting position, they are kind of upside down, turned in to each other and under. Erm, ignore the glitter between his toes!


I couldn't resist showing this one.

Snow pics

Like I said, very lame, but we don't get it very often. Not like when I was a kid when you used to get proper deep snow. It just seems to be a fluttering when it happens these days.


And Jack's hair. Shorter than I wanted, but he fought me too much. Excuse the rash on his face, he always gets like this at winter no matter what I do. Him having his hand in his mouth 24/7 doesn't help!!! We've seriously had to splint his arm so he can't bend it to get his hand in, it's that bad. As ever, click on any pic to enlarge to see those beautiful blue eyes :)

Back to school

For Jack. He's been home for 2 weeks.

Thank you!!! For him and me.

I love the little guy so don't mean it to sound like I don't want him home, but his face lit up very brightly when he saw his school bus this morning. He loves school, which is great! He loves the routine of school, his friends and teachers and I think he enjoys the peace and quiet ;-).

Still learning

After 7 years (next month), I'm still learning about my husband. I just discovered that he does not dunk his biscuits (cookies) in his tea. How did I not realise that before? He takes sugar in his tea so says he doesn't dunk/eat the biscuit before he drinks as he then can't taste the sugar. I take no sugar so I can't tell any difference either way.

We drink LOTS of tea. I've never consciously thought about it before, but it baffles me that I hadn't noticed he never actually dunks, like I do.

Does this happen to anyone? Been with someone for a long time and just realised something? If so, share some of your findings with me!

Aren't children great!

Really, genuinely just great. This age is frustrating, but very amusing. I love seeing their thought processes and overhearing the things they say. I've had many chuckles over things they do, mainly Katie as she's the only one who can talk.

This was from today :

Katie - "Mammy, I need the toilet" (She has refused to potty train)
Me - "Really? That's great! Do you want to go to the potty or toilet?"
Katie - "The toilet. I need it".
Upstairs we go, nappy off, trainer seat on the loo, lift her up.
Me - "This is good, isn't it. You're such a big girl, you don't need silly baby nappies like Ben".
Sits. I wait.
Katie - "All finished, mammy".
Me - "You didn't do anything".
Katie - "Finished now. Tissue?"
Me - sigh. "Ok, here's some tissue. You tried hard".
Katie - "Chocolate???"
Me - "Um, no. You only get chocolate if you do something".
Looks at me, just looks at me with a begging face.
Me - "Tell you what, we'll get your big girl knickers. No more baby nappies, Katie can wear knickers like Mammy".
Katie - "No Mammy".
Me - "Mammy's got them here, you put them on, then next time you need the toilet, if you do anything you can have your chocolate".
Katie - "No Mammy. Don't want it, need a nappy".
Me - "Nahhhh, you're a big girl. Put the knickers on and you can have ONE chocolate button".
Katie "No Ma..." (half way through shaking her head, then converts it to nodding "...yes Mammy!"

I suck at this ;-).

To her credit, she did actually stay dry in them. I forgot she even had underwear on and we went out in the car to mam's and was still dry.

She just refuses to do it. She knows what to do, but won't and doesn't care about being wet or dirty. Tried underwear, tried training pants, tried naked. Have always praised her, never showed upset if there are accidents. Hopefully the fact she asked to go to the toilet is progress though and once she decides to train she'll do it very quickly.

The joys of two year olds :)

Snow day

It snowed today for the first time that I can remember since last year - a whole year ago, not just a few days ;-). Katie was very impressed with it. It doesn't lie here unfortunately, but it looked very pretty. It was nice being inside and being all cosy watching out of the window. I love the snow/rain - if I don't have to go out! I have a couple of pictures, but can't get my card reader to work at the moment so will try to post them later. Very unimpressive though, not like Tib's recent pictures.

Here's a first... how did I get to have 3 children the ages they are and have never bathed them all by myself before? Well, it happened today. Usually Tony sorts them out in the bath at bedtime, splashes them, washes them and I dry them off and get them dressed. We always do it together. Jack desperately needed his hair cut today so I did that this morning (he was VERY annoyed at me, he HATES the experience) and thought what the heck, I'll just bath them as he was covered in hair. Now I know why I do it with help, lol. Jack and Katie went in first, she's alright, but he still needs a bath seat as he'll just slip under, so I bathed them, then got Katie ready in the bathroom while Jack was still secure in his seat. He didn't want to get out and was mad at me again! They then played in his room and Ben went in. He loved it, though has recently discovered splashing! Between them all I was soaking. I have pics of Jack's new hair - what he has left of it, I'm afraid he ended up with it all buzzed since he was so upset. Again, I'll have to sort my memory card reader.