I miss him

:(

Tony is away for work today and tomorrow. I hate it when he is gone. By the time I see him, it will have really been since Monday night as I wasn't awake properly at whatever time he said goodbye to me this morning. The house just seems so empty, but it is the bed that is the worst, without him. I know in the scheme of things it is only a couple of days and at least I have the kids. I don't know how people cope when they are separated for long periods of time.

He just sent me a phone camera picture of himself and rang to say goodnight. I wish he was here.

My sweetie

Rubbish picture, but I can't be bothered to get the camera back out.

She looks so angelic, eh. Let's just say I hope the terrible twos end when she turns three. She's still my gorgeous girl, she looks so much older than 2.

Little bear

This is Katie's best friend. She got her at Christmas as a decoration and fell in love with her. She sleeps with her and takes her everywhere. She's had her head broken off and both wings broken and has been fixed all except one wing. That doesn't matter, she still loves her :)

The foot :)

I fudged the last attempt. Try again.

The pictures aren't overly graphic, but there are some healing scars and a plaster with dried blood.

I'm delighted with the results =)

I saw it, I saw it

Tony took Jack to his appointment and then picked me up, so I could take him back to work and Jack back to school, as he was running low on time. I only glimpsed his foot in his splint looking over my shoulder and it looked good, but I didn't get a full inspection until I got him back to school. I am OVER THE MOON!!!!

Without the splint, his foot looks as close to straight as I had hoped. He is VERY, very sensitive and still looks a little swollen, he flinches even just sitting on the floor and it touching the carpet. His wounds look well healed, although there is still one plaster to remove which has some of dried blood under it. That has probably been there since the February op, yuck, and his skin is again very dry and irritated, but it looks awesome.

I didn't want to bother him, so I only checked out the angle of his foot in relation to his leg, I'll see if he lets me see how far up the foot has been brought to see if he now has a heel. I'll probably give him a couple of days to regain some sensation before I bath him.

I'll take some pictures later, it really is remarkable.

I'm such a sucker

So, Katie only goes to playgroup 2 mornings per week and last month they got a photographer in to take pictures of the kids. They gave me my sample today...how could I refuse that smile. She looks so old on it! I actually thought it would be more expensive than it was - £21 for everything. As I was walking home with it, I was thinking "please don't give me all of these pictures and then not be able to afford them" so I was pleasantly surprised. She looks so cute. I'll take a digi pic of it later.

I got one 8.75X7, two 7X5.5 and six 4.5x3.5. Odd sizes, but hey. Allegedly the individual prices add up to £47. Now, where am I going to put them all because I don't have enough people to give them to, lol.

No, it wasn't that simple

Whatever put Ben in a good mood the other day when going to sleep was a fluke. Back to screaming again, where he acts like it's the first time he's ever been put down to sleep. Silly boy.

Jack almost has his cast off

I wrote this elsewhere, but why reinvent the wheel. Copy & Paste ;-)

Jack has an appointment on Friday to see if his AFO - little plastic leg/ankle brace - fits correctly. I think that means when they take his cast off, it comes off for good! It's only been 3 months (obviously a new one with each op) .

His surgeon said he only needed his current one to maintain position until his brace was ready, so I can't see why they'd cast him again, especially as he doesn't see the surgeon again until June. Unless they've messed up on the measurements.

I'm really excited to see how it looks. I'm trying not to build my hopes up, but secretly I want to see it straight. That was the intention of the surgeries, but I was really disappointed when he had his first op 18 months ago as I expected it to be straight and it wasn't. This series was a lot more intensive. Tony doesn't want me to get my hopes up, but I have.

Love him though! Really bad day which started with Ben having an explosive nappy all over the couch this morning, poor guy hasn't been well since the weekend, Jack pulling his whole g-tube out 10 minutes before his school bus arrived - it is no fun sticking it back into an open hole in your child's stomach, yuck - and then Ben puking all over my new clothes and freshly washed carpet. Needless to say, a tearful phone call to him at work where I felt like I just wanted to run away and this wasn't even 9am yet... he sent me flowers this afternoon :).

I messed up when I confirmed his appointment for 11.30 as I forgot I needed to pick Katie up at playgroup at 12, so Tony is taking him and I hope he comes home with just his splint. Did I say I was excited?!!

Slow down child

My daughter has to be the most clumsy child I have ever known. She has never really hurt herself, but she is just so... clumsy. That sounds really mean to say, but it is true. She will trip over apparent thin air, shouldn't she be outgrowing this by now? She did hit her physical milestones very late, but her co-ordination could definitely see some improvement. Sigh.

We're also still waiting for an appointment to get her heart checked out. Seriously. A 2yr old with unexplained episodes of blue lips, who has a brother with a serious heart condition (albeit, due to his Down syndrome) and a father who had a heart attack in his early 30's is not considered a priority? Without checking back in my blog, it must be at least 4-6 weeks ago that I took her to the doctor. Haven't even received a letter to say she is on any kind of waiting list. Don't get me wrong, when the kids actually do get to see the doctors, I can't fault the service or care, but this bureaucracy in the meantime is so frustrating.

Could it be?

Could it really be that simple? Ben has always freaked out when going to bed. He is fine until you put him down and then starts screaming... and I mean, screaming! He's fine after a few minutes, but every time he acts like it is the first time he has been put to bed, I mean, we do this every single day little guy, it isn't a big surprise. Katie was never like that, you'd just put her down and she'd go to sleep or talk to herself and would wake up the same. He does have some toys in his cot, but for some reason as I put him down this morning, I handed him a rattle and he just lay down and held it out and looked at it. Quiet. I did the same this afternoon, rattle in his hand before his back hit the mattress, fine. Tonight, 2 rattles, lol, he lay, he looked, he didn't make a sound. I peeked in 10 minutes later and he was sound asleep and snoring.

I hope I don't jinx myself, but man if that is all it took?? Kids!! No matter how many children you have or how competent as a mother you feel, they'll surprise you every step of the way :)