February Retrospective

59/365 – Walking With Dinosaurs

Just the one actually.  We bought this for the girl but she was never a fan of pulling things along behind her on bits of string.  Seems reasonable now I put it like that!

The boy, however, can’t get enough of it although he doesn’t half get frustrated when the string winds round the wheels.  So, most of the time then.

58/365 – Squirming

Is what both my children did today.  I took them to have their hair cut (first time for the boy and it is over a year since the girl has been done.  I asked the hairdresser lady to take a lot off the boy’s and just trim the girl’s but she seems to have done it the other way round and the boy’s doesn’t look much different but the girl’s does.  Oh well.  The girl’s will grow back and I’ll just have to be a bit firmer about the boy’s next time.

57/365 – Age Appropriate

Ok, I know my children are tall and not exactly wasting away but I don’t think they’re enormous for their ages.  I bought some new dresses for the girl.  I had to take them back and get bigger ones.  The girl turned 3 in December.  Apparently the dress she’s wearing will fit an 8 year old.   Yes really, an 8 year old – that’s not a typo, it’s what the label says.

56/365 – Little Things

You’d think that getting little raisins out of a little box with little fingers would be relatively easy.  Apparently not.

I stopped buying raisins in individual boxes a little while ago when I realised it was a complete con (I know, you’d think I’d have figured that out quite quickly but it took a while.  Mummy brains – what can I say) and now just put some raisins into a plastic pot for each of them.  We went to Bromley today and I got caught short – I forgot the nappy bag (der), drinks for them (double der) and snacks (don’t even go there on how stupid forgetting the snacks is when you’re going shopping). 

We went into Boots to get snacks and they didn’t have much that I deemed un-junky enough so I ended up buying a bag of these boxes of raisins.  The boy has never had them before and very enterprisingly tried to put the whole box in his mouth (unfortunately I was laughing too hard at that point to take a decent picture so this was taken after he’d watched the girl and decided to try a different tactic).  The girl took a while to get back into the swing of it as well – a lot of concentration went into extracting those raisins.

55/365 – A Little Higher

Apparently my children aren’t tall enough.  Any type of box, plastic or cardboard, that gets left lying around will invariably be used as a step-up by one or other of them.  It’s rare to see them both on the same box at the same time though.

54/365 – Ham

I promise, they weren’t hamming it up when I took this picture. They were just mucking around on the sofa (I think the boy was planning to jump on, and thus splat, the girl).

And the award for the best fake look of surprise goes to……  The Girl.

53/365 – Peaceful

Do you know how often this happens in this house?  Not very often!

52/365 – Protection

I decided it was time to take steps to protect the table from the boy.  Bring on the vinyl!

Bonus shot – he was actually playing peek-a-boo but it really made me laugh when I saw it properly on the laptop after download!  I imagine he’s thinking something along the lines of “Mother, what have you done?”.  Maybe he’d spotted the new tablecloth.

By the way, he’s completely fine today – no wheeziness at all.  Thank you to the fabulous Unfitbikerchick for informing me that one of my made up words was in fact a real one - yay (shame about the others though – I thought they were good words)!

51/365 – Smokin’

I’d like to start this post at the end so as not to scare anyone too much.  The boy is absolutely fine now, he just scared me silly!

A quick warning as well.  I mentioned yesterday that I had another long rambling post and this is it, so get yourself a cup of tea and put your feet up before you read this one.

After my lovely bath yesterday, I went to pick the children up from nursery.  I noticed that the boy was a bit wheezy but didn’t think much of it (now, if you think I’m being blase then get me to tell you the story of the time that the girl stopped breathing and you’ll see why a bit of wheezing didn’t really crop up on my motherly radar).  I took them both home and put them to bed.

I can’t remember what I did while they were asleep because when I got them up again everything switched to fast forward for the rest of the day.  The boy was wheezing heavily and grunting with each breath.  I phoned the doctors to see if they had a cancellation that afternoon and after being put on hold for 30 seconds was told to come straight down to the surgery.  That was warning enough for me - our doctors’ receptionists are (not so) lovingly known as the old dragons for very good reason in this house.  I phoned the husband to let him know we were going to the doctors and off we went.

When we got there the receptionists were really nice to me – that was when I got really scared!  We saw Dr P and after a cursory examination he got the boy on a portable nebuliser.  Now, I’ve never really had much dealing with asthma other than my sister having it (but I don’t think ever having an attack when I was around – although she was hardcore and had two different coloured inhalers, sorry, I digress) and a couple of friends with babies that have puffers.  However, when Dr P started bandying around words like “steroids” and “hospital” I did think that I was about to step onto a steep learning curve.

The nebuliser eased the boy’s breathing a bit but not a huge amount so after about 10 minutes we had another go.  Dr P also prescribed some prednisolone (the steroids) to dissolve in water to give to the boy so while we were nebulising again one of the receptionists went across to the chemist to pick it up for me.  I tell you – I’m seeing those lovely ladies in a whole new light at the moment!  This was at about 4.30 and after the second nebulising Dr P sent us home with the portable nebuliser and instruction to return at 6.30 for a check up.

Two things to mention at this point – (1) the salbutamol that is put in the nebuliser can make small children hyperactive – my, did the boy get his energy back quickly and (2) I had the girl with me as well and she was an absolute superstar – I hardly knew she was there she was so good.

When we went back at 6.30 Dr P was unimpressed with the boy’s progress.  We nebulised (by the way, I don’t know if that or nebulising are words but I can’t be bothered to google them – feel free) again in the surgery and once again he sent us home with the nebuliser, enough salbutamol to see us through the night should it be needed and instruction to return at 8.30 the next morning.

We did another nebulisation (see my point about new words above) before putting the children to bed.  The boy had a great night’s sleep.  I spent most of last night wide awake and waiting for the boy to start wheezing heavily enough for me to hear it through the monitor.  I think I was just dropping off when he woke up at 6.30 (now do you see why I’m rambling a little?!)

The boy and I schlepped back to the doctors this morning (after further nebulisering) and I was fully expecting to be sent home with nothing as the boy was only lightly wheezing.  Oh no.  Back home with the nebuliser to return to the dr’s at 3.30.  I think I’ve spent more time in the dr’s surgery over the last couple of days than I have over the last 2 years!  More nebulising at home and now we had the boy down to heavy breathing.  Still, at the 3.30 appointment we got sent home with the nebuliser again and this time some more prednisolone.  We gave him that and another misting with the nebuliser this evening and he sounded almost clear.  I’m hoping that by tomorrow he’ll be completely over it.  If not, I’ve got one last dose of prednisolone to give him and the ever-popular nebuliser.

I finally found a way of applying the nebuliser to the boy on my own.  Step 1 – put the television on.  Step 2 – strap the boy into his highchair.  Step 3 – nebulise away.  So, by Monday morning’s appointment (8.30 – the good Dr booked it in himself) the boy and I will be well practised and have to give the unwieldy, noisy machine back!

One last point – it’s the television making him look spaced out, not the drugs!