Letters edition.

Dear girls,

An empty laundry basket is an accomplishment to be enjoyed, not a challenge to overcome.


Dear cats,

A full laundry basket is neither a bed nor a personal grooming station.


Dear carer/TA/nurse/whoever,

When you finish suctioning my daughter, flush the tubing through before switching the pump off. Then, before you do anything else, remove the used catheter and replace with a fresh one. Suction catheters are not Yankeurs and are not reused.

Failure to clean the hosing and replace the catheter means that next time I need to suction, I first have to clean ancient and foul smelling gunk from the tubing and grab a clean catheter. Not something I want to be doing when there's an airway needing to be cleared.

Oh, and those clean catheters? They work much better when they haven't been folded three times and shoved in a corner. That's why I post them down the back of her chair.


Dear germs,

I know you like this tube of year. But I'm busy. Could you please back off do both girls can get back to school? I really need some thinking space before the end of term.


Dear Christmas tree,

Please stay upright. You'll have a much better view of life in our house. I promise we will get those decorations out and pretty you up tomorrow.


Dear self,

Learn to reverse the bus in the dark. Yes it's bigger, yes the back windows are tinted. You still need to be able to leave the house. Without chewing up the lawn or the neighbours' cars. And no, asking the neighbours to trim their hedge and reposition the concrete post isn't reasonable.


Dear life,

Please slow down just a little.

Yours, etc.

Tia

Blogging Matters

I've had to put the comment verification thingy back up; I was getting over 100 spam mails a day and they were multiplying rapidly.

Spam is weird stuff. A lot was simply long lists of links. But one was a lengthy piece about the unwisdom of blogging about my grandmother, another believed my commentators were "brain dead" and a third told me repeatedly my spelling was rubbish and my photos lacked "pop". All with a handy link to a variety of different and generally inappropriate websites.

I wonder why the spammers are so sure I and my readers would be interested in products designed to augment certain appetites or increase the size of various bits of anatomy? And I also wonder why insulting the blogger is seen as a sensible marketing tool?

Tia

Wahey for the Wahooligan!

Six years ago, I collected a small and somewhat fragile baby from hospital, and took him home for a while. I love having babies for Christmas; there's an excellent precedent.

I remember celebrating one week without a hospital admission; it took longer than you'd think. I remember his first admission for RSV, his first seizure, his first joy at a particularly nice crinkly flappy fluffy toy.

And I remember extolling his virtues to a friend of mine, trying to push this baby and this friend together.

Three years ago, we welcomed the Wahooligan back into our lives for a little while. And that same friend and her family stepped in to help out for a while when we went on a previously booked holiday, and when tLP had hip surgery.

And my friend fell in love with the Wahooligan, and I think the feeling was mutual, and so they stayed together.

And lots of things happened, and life got complicated, and that's not my story to tell.

But today I stood in court and watched a Judge pronounce them Mother and Son. A new name for the Wahooligan, and a long long time coming.

In that courtroom were all the people the Wahooligan had ever lived with, along with the social workers who had done their part in making it all happen. And one small boy, staring at his Mummy and calling for a toy.

There's been a lot of loss, a lot of sadness, and a fair amount of serious medical whatsittery. There's also been a lot of continuity, for the Wahooligan's former carers were also tLP's former carers, and for a little while former siblings played together as friends as adults caught up and remembered.

And today a new name, a new relationship, a new family created. And from now, I very much hope, the start of a long and happy ending.

So Wahey for the Wahooligan, and may he be singing on for a long time to come!

Tia

Do you remember?

Perhaps not every good conversation begins with "do you remember when...?" But I know it makes for a good evening the conversations can spin back through the years. We did so much growing up in our twenties, and I love it when Friend and I can catch up.

tLP (still hot but otherwise well) loves it too. Much silliness ensues until bedtime, and then more adult silliness mixes with more sober thoughts; the perfect recipe for a really good evening.

Friend has a new cat; I am so pleased. The perfect cat for an indoor life, and, outstandingly, multiple family offers of help with said cat should Friend ever need to come here in a hurry. Friend is my girls' UnGodly Mother; unwilling to make spiritual promises on their behalf she is nevertheless their replacement parent should anything happen to me. It's great that her extended family recognise this, despite most of them never having met us.

And so we plan for potential future child free weekends. And definite child-filled days. We sit and chat and stroke cats and the Rosé flows, and suddenly it is midnight. And we have crossed continents and learnt not to poke leopards with sticks, and rebuilt the world and despaired over Jerusalem, laughed over our mutual lack of geographical skills and admired the cats, eaten vast quantities of little nibbly nothings,and barely scratched the surface of the catching up which can only really be done in person.

A new job, a shared house, a bunch of strangers thrown together. It could have been disastrous, and I think it probably was in some ways. But out of such things and a love of curry are friendships born. She knew me pre-children; I knew her pre-nursing, and now it doesn't matter if it's been six months or six days since we last spoke; we will always catch up or fast forward over the gap.

Friend is a friend who doesn't read this blog, although she does know about it. So I can sing her praises without embarrassing her. And they are worth singing. But I'm also really rather tired, so I'll shelve the songs for now and sleep in the happy knowledge that our sofa bed has an occupant again and that we have all day tomorrow to continue our conversation, teach Friend how to make scones, and embarrass tLP by being happy grown ups together.

Tia

Congratulations?

"Mummy, mummy, what's my temperature?"

"YES!!!! I am the champion and actually the winner of the being poorly!!!"

Tia

Sunday

Advent Sunday, one of my favourite days of the year. Marking the official preparation for Christmas. And we weren't at church.

The Little Princess woke up a little poorly, with a temperature of 40.9c (105.6F for my stateside friends). Miss Mog woke up snotty but happy - again, combined, they make one properly poorly child. But separately they only have half an illness each. Mog doesn't seem to be poorly at all, just snotty. This we like.

TLP on the other hand was doing what she does best when she is poorly; becoming very affectionate and wanting lots of cuddles and snuggles and kisses. Temp came down beautifully mid morning and stayed normal until around 3, after which it climbed back up to 39. And now she's lying in bed uttering gibberish about having undone things again. But seems to be otherwise fine. Why do they always get iller at bedtime?

Tia

Snot City

Miss Mog was a little tired yesterday. Not poorly, just more absent than normal. She slept nicely last night, but woke up with a cold this morning.

Snotty but happy; more than I was, having had too recent a reminder of how serious colds can be for our guys.

And then she stopped being snotty and started being hugely unhappy instead. Sorted the uncomfortableness out, and the snot started up again. Steps taken to reduce the snot, and back came the seizures and spasms. Joy.

Now she's in bed, but despite shedloads of meds is fighting sleep with her heart suggesting she might in fact be running a marathon, not merely lying in bed with a machine doing the breathing in bit for her.

Meanwhile, tLP woke up snot free but with a blocked catheter for the second morning in a row. A more southerly snot maybe? And with a giant frog in her throat which has sent her gradually more creaky as the day has gone on. Is it wrong to wonder how she'd be if she lost her voice completely?

Not feeling at all unwell, just drinking pints in an attempt to drown the frog.

Put both girls together and there's a poorly child between them. But neither of them really qualifies as ill individually. Meanwhile I'm tired - and I can't work out if that's poorly child or just juggling frogs and snot whilst also attempting to be vaguely useful at a Guide sleepover.

Joys of the big blue bus (yes, she's back; no, they couldn't find the problem) - parking at church easy enough but getting out of an unexpectedly full car park necessitated interrupting a concert to ask another driver to move. Oops.

Now sleep needs to happen, but first both girls need to settle. Mog is protesting, and tLP is traumatised. Both cats chose tonight to hide in her bedroom. Benjamin jumped on her face 2 minutes after I'd turned out the lights; Grolly was more patient and waited eight minutes after I'd evicted Ben. Neatly ensuring one small girl was even more wound up than she had been after a late night and much chocolate with the Guides.

Now I must find a toy or two for parade service tomorrow; I'm thinking bubble mixture and secondhand playdough probably won't quite hit the mark.

Tia