Who’s Normal Anyway?

Bit of a proud mummy and also “arghh…” moment today. L’s spent half the day trying to pull up on things. He’s being trying to pull up on top of small boxes for a little while, but today he’s attempted the kitchen drawers and pulled one open to look through it, and then at bedtime he worked out how to pull up to standing against the settee. Must think about some cupboard locks and a stair gate for the top of the stairs, and work out what else he might now be able to get into.

While I was putting M to bed, we had a good laugh making shadow puppets on his bedroom wall. L was chasing after them and trying to grab them, he couldn’t make out what was going on LOL.

Yesterday morning M looked again on the Argos website to see if the lightsaber TV game he’s been after since before Christmas was back in stock yet, because his Christmas money was burning a hole in his pocket! I noticed it was in stock for home delivery now, so we searched a bit further for a shop with it in stock. Found it in a branch near where my mum lives, so I decided to drive down and get the game and go see my mum at the same time.

A and M stayed at home (thank goodness or M would’ve been pestering to come straight home to play the game all afternoon) to get boxes down out of the loft and restack the packed boxes in the garage. L is still full of cold, so I hoped he’d sleep on the way there and back as he finds it hard to drop off easily with a blocked nose.

It was a long drive, because L couldn’t settle and just wailed and scratched at his head for ages. I finally held his hand to stop him scratching and he dropped off to sleep, but then I had to get him out of the car to go into Argos, and then into my sister’s.

Found my mum looking quite a lot better and she and my sister haven’t come to blows yet living so closely together. Got my mum together to drive to her house and find paperwork and craft things and some other bits and pieces she needed but hadn’t been able to fetch. We also went via the cash machine so she could get some money out. There are so many seemingly small things that are just impossible to do with a broken leg and no one to transport you. My sister’s home care are supposed to be giving them extra help, but they can only offer to go do shopping, which is easier to do via internet shopping than sending someone with a list (except Sainsburys will only deliver to the doorstep and neither mum nor my sis has the energy to go up and down stairs repeatedly (my sis lives in a first floor flat) carrying shopping.

On the way back from my mum’s L fell asleep in the car so I dropped my mum off and just set off for home so L would stay asleep. A had made tea ready for when we got home - bonus!

After tea M tried his lightsaber game but it was a bit of a disapointment. It plugs into the TV and a sensor detects the position of the light saber, except that it didn’t - it just flashed across the screen whether we moved the lightsaber or not, so we couldn’t control the game. We all had a good try at it though.

This morning we had one more try with it before we were going to take it back. M decided to dress in dark clothes to contrast with the light saber and we also played with no artificial lights on, and today it is working much better and is controllable. So M is happy, though not impressed that I wouldn’t let him play all morning.

We’ve had a few more arguments about the need to do something other than watching TV or playing on the computer, but we have also done some maths, spelling, story of the armadillos (still catching up!) and listened to the Song Tree. Now we’ve just finished lunch and I ought to go and clean the bathroom. Oh joy.

We’re all full of cold except for M who I think got it out of the way before the rest of us got going. I’ve been going to bed with L when I put M to bed and just watching a bit of TV and dozing, so haven’t had blogging time in the evenings. L has been snuffling and sleeping on one arm or the other all night for the last few nights. He seems particularly snotty and miserable today, though has perked up a bit this evening and is now trying to help me type and head butting the computer (?!).

Mum came out of hospital on Tuesday and is staying at my sister’s so they can look after each other. They haven’t killed each other yet!

We’ve had a quietish week. We were out Wednesday to C and D’s birthday bowling party. M had a wonderful time and was impressed he did well at bowling for a change. Almost wish he hadn’t because I hate how he gets so competitive about things. He was getting a bit possessive about friendships when we went to play in the park afterwards. I wish he’d just be friendly with everyone.

Today we went to the last music group before we move, so that was a bit sad. We had a Chinese theme with Chinese music and crafts and some Chinese food - yum! L was OK for the first half of the session but then started getting tired and whingey but didn’t want to feed to sleep cos his nose was streaming abd he just cried more and more and I couldn’t do anything with him. So we left earlier than intended and came straight home, so M also missed his musical theatre class. M enjoyed being the front of the dragon at the group and also played and showed his friends his Star Wars annual. C and D had made him some fabulous spying top trumps cards, they must have taken forever to make. Thank you very much, he loves them!

A was supposed to be rescuing mountains this weekend but is so full of cold he cancelled, which is unusual for him. He spent most of today in bed I think.

Been too knackered to blog, but all’s quiet at the mo with M in bed, L asleep on my knee giving me a dead leg (LOL!) and A at work. Thanks everyone for your supportive comments - really appreciate them!

My mum had her op on Friday afternoon in the end. Then on Saturday it got more and more painful as her leg swelled up inside the cast, so late Saturday night they had to slit the cast to let the pressure off. I don’t think my mum is getting much rest in the hospital what with the pain, the other patients and the staff. We went to visit her again yesterday and sorted her out with more clothes and some snacks. I worry about her being so vulnerable in hospital - it’s everyone for themselves, there is no concept of “care” there. The staff are overstretched, the food situation sounds completely random and then my mum and her next-bed neighbour (at least they help each other) made a complaint about 2 night staff mistreating a couple of the elderly patients and so were ignored by them completely the next night.

All over the hospital they are advertising their wonderful “stay in touch” system of contacting family while you are in, with your own TV/phone/internet by your bed on a pay per day basis. It would be great if they’d actually installed it. So far its a few screens and alot of wires poking out of the ceiling. And in the meantime their isn’t even one of those wheely phones on a trolley they can take round the beds. Can you tell it’s frustrating trying to find out how she is? If I phone they just tell me, “she’s fine.” Today Mum was supposed to be having her cast redone and learning to use crutches.

We haven’t done much over the weekend other than going to see my Mum and sorting things out at her house. I was feeling awful with a bad cold (nothing anywhere close to Joyce’s scale of doing things, so can’t complain too much) and A took M out to Musical Theatre and dancing class. I think I’ve passed it on to L now because he’s got a cough and a dripping nose today.

Today A finished packing up our spare bedroom and taking apart the wardrobe in there. He’s worked really hard getting it all boxed up. Downstairs M and I started world war 3 over his attitude to being asked to do anything vaguely educational and the s word was used in anger. I had a hissy fit at A, who then did the serious father son talk thing. It went along the lines of us having to provide an education, what we think is appropriate for him now he is 7 and how there are some things we want him to just get on with in the mornings because mornings are busy and getting stuff done then leaves plenty of time to go out and do lots of other things in the afternoon. If he doesn’t want to then he can choose school instead, though we don’t want him to go to school. I’m sick of him dragging a few sums over an hour and whingeing. He can have as much imput as he likes over what he wants to learn about (other than maths and English) but for things he’s doing in the morning he needs to give us enough notice to sort things out for him. I want to have a kind of short but focussed (Charlotte Mason-like) time in the mornings that’s planned in advance for ease, with scope to do most things he fancies on a more spur-of-the-moment basis in the afternoons. No routine means nothing happens and it drives me completely nuts and M moans, so he’s not happy with no structure either.

After lunch A went for a run but before he went he told M he wanted him to get his Christmas thank you letters finished. It went down badly (”you said I can do what I want in the afternoons”) and after writing one letter (of 2 sentences) in about 5 mins before A went, M began a strop that must’ve lasted about 25 mins while A was out. Eventually he caved in and wrote the other 2 so they were done before Daddy got back. He can’t seem to see if he’d done that first off he’d have had another 30 mins game playing time.

Other than arguing, M’s been to his swimming lesson, we’ve had tea and M’s played on the computer and then it was bedtime.

On Wednesday evening my mum had a dizzy spell, fell awkwardly and has broken both bones in her calf, near the ankle. It’s complicated by her having lots of other health issues and hopefully they’ll investigate the peculiar dizzy turn she had as well as repairing her leg.

Yesterday morning I pulled myself together a bit and drove down to where she lives, dropped M off at his other grandparents (thankfully they live near my mum) and L and I went to collect my sister. My sister has ME and uses a wheelchair and she and my mum do loads of things together. My mum provides her transport, takes her shopping and things, so to have my mum in hospital and then in a cast for 8 weeks or more, not able to drive, is a huge problem, on top of how awful it is for my mum to have a broken leg.

We went to my mum’s and tried to work out what she might need in hospital and packed it, then tidied up a bit because my mum fell as she was cooking tea. We also collected my sister’s wheelchair and disabled parking disc. Tried to get some sense out of the hospital about how my mum was and when she might be going to surgery, but didn’t get far. My mum’s next door neighbour popped in and offered to help if she could, which was lovely of her.

After lunch we drove up to the hospital, battled for a parking space, then I took my sister in her chair with my mum’s bag on her knees and L in the sling and headed for the ward. Found my mum feeling fed up and in pain in a temporary cast to try and stabilise her leg until they could operate, though they hadn’t got it set with the bones right. Bit worried about how she was doing because they were short staffed and didn’t seem completely clued up about the implications of fasting all day for a diabetic who has had her full morning insulin! We stayed for a couple of hours and tried to cheer her up a bit and take a list of what else she needed brought in or done at home.

After that we went to Sainsburys, which was another interesting experience with shopping and L to carry and my sister to push. It’s hard to get my head round the logistics of things. But we got some things to keep her going til she can do an internet shop.

By this time L was getting quite fed up, but we had to quickly call in my mum’s to pick up other stuff we hadn’t thought of then I dropped my sister, chair, shopping and mum’s things off at my sister’s and tried to console a rapidly-getting-hysterical L. Had a lovely tea at the in laws’ (put paid to the last remnants of my diet cos I didn’t want to try and explain not eating Yorkshire puddings and some Chinese snacks she’d done) and L calmed down with some time to just crawl around and play. Then we drove home and went to bed.

I fell completely drained again this morning, think I must’ve been living on adrenaline yesterday. I couldn’t stop coughing all night but was trying not to disturb L at the same time. Wherever I lie he snuggles over till he’s lying against me again.

Oh, and then I found out my mum never did get to surgery yesterday so hopefully she’s going today. My mum’s neighbour is going to call at my sister’s and pick up things for my mum, then pop in and visit her this afternoon, because neither of us can make it today.

I’m trying to think of something positive to say. M had a happy afternoon with Grandma and Grandad I think. A had a busy evening packing up books in our spare bedroom to make room to dissassemble our wardrobe. L’s neck looks alot better. It looked alot like sunburn to start with. The steroid cream took that down quickly and it just looked very dry and dark. Today it’s peeling and looks OK underneath.

We’re not having a very productive week and the list of things I want to get done is getting ever longer! We had the removals assessor round today and the move is going to take a day longer than we were planning for, because we have so much stuff. So we need to rethink where we are staying as we move - won’t be able to use the £10 Travelodge room I’d booked, though I’m booking a different one for the next night. We need to pack our bookcases and a triple wardrobe that is full of craft things and allsorts, so that we have room to take the wardrobe apart. This weekend is the only one before we move when A is home to help. The week before we move we’re on holiday to Melrose and the week before that A is away all week on an MRT course.

M and I have colds and we’ve hardly done anything this week. I suppose there’s been some autonomous ed with M playing on the computer alot. We finally found the tutorial bit of SimIsle (game he got for Christmas) so he’s made alot of progress now on that. When he spends too much time on the computer he gets reallt ratty though. He’s also been finishing off his Astrosaurs book - it’s good now he can read more for himself. Though I need to teach him about how annoying it is having him read my emails over my shoulder!

I’m feeling like I’ve been run over and had a horrible night last night. I just couldn’t get warm and didn’t sleep well, then from about 2am L was crying and feeding and couldn’t get settled. About 5am I eventually realised the back of his neck was soaking so I changed his pyjama top and A got him off to sleep on his chest. This morning I could see a massive area on the back of L’s neck was red raw and weeping. No wonder he was upset and scratching so much.

We’ve been to the GP’s this afternoon and had half the pharmacy prescribed. We now have different moisturiser, bath oil, antibiotic cream, hydrocortisone (not happy about that but his skin is so raw I’m willing to use it) and anti-histamine I don’t think there’s been any improvement in his skin since I cut out dairy etc and I’m seriously fed up of cutting everything out, especially when I feel unwell. Might reintroduce one thing back every couple of days, just in case I suddenly react to something I’ve cut out.

Early night and watch Desperate Housewives in bed I think.

And now I can’t even blog this cos Blogsome is down until tomorrow morning. Grrr….

Carrying on from where I left off yesterday, A and M got back mid afternoon, had a quick cuppa and then went back out to MRT to help set up for A’s leaving do last night. We’re not going for another 6 weeks but it was a joint do with 3 other people so they clubbed together to hire a band and buy food and 2 barrels of beer and make it a bigger do.

A got back in time to make a tasty chilli and rice. Then it was time to drop M off at Beavers so we all went out and then I dropped in to MRT with L and A for 3/4 of an hour before going back to pick M up. After he was in bed and asleep I went to bed to feed L til he eventually dropped off and to read my new book. Thanks for the recommendation Jan, I hope that is the one you meant. It’s very interesting anyway, but I’ve still plenty to read. I seem to be along the right lines for the first stages of doing an elimination diet. He suggests for breastfeeding babies to begin by cutting just dairy out of mum’s diet for 2 weeks (which I did with no noticeable difference last November) and then to move on to eliminating everything you eat regularly and also wheat, eggs, peanuts. So I am kind of half doing that. I am cutting out milk again, wheat, eggs, soya, peanuts and fish. To cut out everything I eat regularly I’d need to include things like chicken, beef, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, onions, oranges, apples, oats, other nuts and probably lots of things I haven’t thought of. Add in all the related foods (like other citrus if cutting out oranges) and I’m not sure there is much left?! So I won’t be doing that if 2 weeks on this diet (if I make it that far) shows no improvement. Well, certainly not before we move anyway. The book had some other suggestions for things like house dust mites and if he’s reacting to the carpets, so will consider those too, but I don’t want to change anything else at the same time as diet.

In the middle of the night I woke up to A being ill, so found he had made it home but had had a few too many. So he’s been in bed all morning but got up an hour ago when he remembered he had a dyslexia lesson booked for early this afternoon. Then later on he has to go to work.

This morning we’ve been up a bit earlier because we had workmen coming to fix stuff in the bathroom. M has done some Neopets, Lego website, maths and we’ve read the story of Leyla and the Lamp. He got part way through narrating it back to me and we had to break off for me to go to the GP’s, so after lunch we need to finish that. Right now he’s Lego-ing in his bedroom.

We were supposed to be going to West Park today, but with everything else and the doctors we didn’t get out. Going to see the GP was a bit of a last minute decision, because L has come up with 2 lumps on the back of his neck. The GP thinks they’rejust enlarged lymph glands and related to the scaly skin on the nape of his neck.

I’ve made leek and mushroom soup for lunch today - bit of a change from the lentil soup I’ve had for lunch the last 2 days. I also made some flat bread with gluten free flour, but they are particularly stodgy, though improved by dunking in the soup. One I made with crushed coriander and cumin seeds on the top and the other I put walnuts and honey on - not tried that one yet. Oh, and I discovered porridge is much improved by a sprinkling of cinnamon as well as some sugar on the top.

Got a few minutes peace (I hope) while I eat my soup and rice/potato “bread” roll to blog - L seems temporarily engrossed in some toys and A and M are out dropping off some of our plants at the in laws. Ah, spoke too soon, here he comes crawling over the my chair now. Shall have to see how I get on juggling typing, eating and keeping L happy!

On Friday we had a day out of the house, going to visit my Grandma and dad for a couple of hours. We didn’t see them over Christmas so had a bit of a catch up and the whole “oh, hasn’t he grown, isn’t he coming on” thing. My Grandma had made us some lunch so we stayed for sandwiches, sausage rolls and some of her apple pie. She always makes apple pie when she has us over to eat anything - nice tradition. I don’t remember her telling me before but apparently she started making them when the house she moved into after the war had an orchard. So she reminisced and talked about distant relatives and what they’re doing now for a while. Way back I was researching our family tree, but haven’t done any for ages.

From there we went to A’s parents to drop off some tubs of plants (last twice we’ve moved the removers have said they won’t take garden plants so we’re moving them temporarily and will have to take them to the new house once we’ve time after we move in) and stopped for a cuppa.

Then mid-afternoon we drove to my mum’s and spent the rest of the afternoon with her and my sister, then had tea with them before coming back home.

In the night I woke up feeling sick and decided to speed the inevitable and get it over with. I don’t think it was anything I ate out, because everyone else ate the same food and they were all fine. Possibly I got the bug A’s dad came down with between Christmas and New Year, or possibly it’s the sickness thing that’s been going round for the last month, or possibly (but this is a bit way out) since I’d kind of decided to start my new diet on Saturday, my body was giving me a helping hand by clearing everything out and making me feel like not eating LOL. But it wasn’t very pleasant. Today’s the first day I’m feeling vaguely back to normal.

On Saturday I did very little, mainly watching TV and reading and trying to rest. A took M out to dancing class and took L with him too. A also started M off packing all his lego kits into stacking plastic storage boxes. On Sunday I felt a bit better and we went out to church in the morning, but that was about all I did. M’s been playing lots of Neopets. Food wise I managed OK without eating wheat, eggs, milk and soya, though there was nothing I really fancied eating. I had a bit of a craving for a glass of milk or a cappuccino, but that wasn’t going to happen.

Yesterday it was more Neopets for M and he also completed his Lego Drome Racing game, beating Sever, so he was chuffed about that. He did some maths and then we read The Gift of Fire in the Greek Myths book and M drew a picture of Prometheus having his liver plucked out by an eagle! I made some flapjack I can eat! In the afternoon A went to work and I took M to swimming but forgot the road was going to be closed and ended up doing a long detour so we were 10 mins late. Which was a bit of a shame given the lesson is only 30 mins long.

Today I feel more myself again. Haven’t got a whole lot done so far today though, so better go do something useful before A and M come back. L’s just had a “stealth poo” so need to start paying him a bit more attention. His signals are harder to spot now he’s on the go!

You’d hope alarm clock manufacturers would have a bit more consideration, wouldn’t you? I mean, what is the point of having an alarm clock that beeps for a solid 10 minutes? If you haven’t woken up in the first minute then you’re just not going to hear it. I can understand radio alarms needing to go for a while, as you gradually surface to music, but the bleeping ones just go through your head so much it’s surely not necessary?

Blooming neighbours! I was awake about 6.30am ish feeding and settling L back off to sleep. Just as he had dropped off, next doors’ alarm started going. It bleeped for a while, long enough for me to think “turn that *!£* alarm off!” and then presumably Mrs Next Door snoozed it.

So I was finally drifting off to sleep again when the beeping started up again. And went on and on and on. I ignored it for a bit then looked at the clock and it was 7.12. I thought “she’s bound to turn it off in a minute” and tried to ignore it and it carried on and on and on and on. By 7.18 I was considering finding a dressing gown and shoes and knocking on her door. She can’t possibly have slept through it, must just have snoozed it and then got up. But I thought getting out of bed might disturb L and then I’d be even worse off. Then I decided to just lie and wait to see how long the alarm would go for without turning itself off - surely there must be a limit set? So it finally stopped at 7.21am. Then it went back off again about 25 to 8 (though only for a few seconds - must have made her tea and had her first cigarette of the morning and come back upstairs?). So I gave up trying to go back to sleep and resigned myself to getting up.

Marvellous start to the day!

Just seen this on Jax’s blog, not sure anyone reads my blog who doesn’t read those on the Early Years HE ring first though!

There is a game known as ‘6 Degrees of Separation’ (from Kevin Bacon - no relation to the best of my knowledge). The way the game works is to try to connect 2 famous people via 6 associations. We have been watching the blogsphere for the last year or so and believe that nearly all blogging homeschoolers will hear about important news items, etc. within 3 days of the first mention in a HS blog.

This experiment will work as follows:

1- If this is the first blog in which you have seen this post and you would like to contribute to the experiment, copy the entire post and post it in your blog.

2- Modify the post to add a link to your blog which displays the appropriate degree you are from the original in the following list:

{original, first degree, second degree, third degree, fourth degree, fifth degree, sixth degree}

That way, visitors can directly see the chain of communication that ended with this post in your blog.

3- Leave a comment in the blog where you first viewed this post indicating that your blog is among the next degree.

4- If you are a homeschooler or are interested in/considering homeschooling and either do not have a blog, would prefer not to blog this or the sixth degree is already taken, you can still contribute to this experiment by leaving a comment in the blog where you first read it.

5- After 3 days report back how many people read, commented and blogged based on your post to the blog where you first read this. (They only report this blog would receive is from the degree below and this blog will report the total from below and comments here to the degree above.) To illustrate how this would work let’s suppose that in this imaginary example every blog has approximately the same number of readers and that each blog entry for each degree ends up with exactly the same number of comments.

Let’s say that each blog would receive 2 comments where the experiment was posted and 2 comments from non-bloggers. This would produce the following:

original: 2 + 2 = 4
first: ( 2 * 2 ) + 2 = 6
second: ( 2 * 4 ) + 2 = 10
third: ( 2 * 8 ) + 2 = 18
fourth: ( 2 * 16 ) + 2 = 34
fifth: ( 2 * 32 ) + 2 = 66
sixth: ( 2 * 64 ) + 2 = 130

That totals 268. If you change the number of experiment posts to 3, the result is ( 5 + 11 + 29 + 83 + 245 + 731 + 2189 = ) 3293. Consider what the number would be when we average about 60 readers a day. (Welcome to math 101) Let’s allow a week for the reporting to roll back through the earlier degrees.