The kids are alright, right?

Lately I've had an endless amount of stress in regards to my two little ones. The three year old went to her Dads a few weeks back, and fell down the stairs because no one was watching her. My initial reaction was one of hyperactivity, panic and rage. I didn't know when they turned up with her to take her to the hospital if I should comfort her or kill her Dad. How could he let it happen? Why was no one with her?! After several long and worrying hours spent in the children's department of the hospital with my ex and his mother, we finally got the result back. She had fractured both bones in her wrist. Granted, she could of broken her neck, but I still was far from happy. She was alright with having a plaster cast on, apart from having to let the nurse touch it. She has this funny thing about people touching her or looking at her when she's hurt, I don't know why. After this we left, and I got a moment with my ex away from his mother, to ask him exactly why no one was with her when this happened. He told me he was at his Nan's house, and I just wanted to scream. Fair enough if he wants to help his Nan out now and then, but not when he's meant to be seeing his daughter! After all, he took me to court so he could have an order saying he was entitled to see her 3 days a week and alternate weekends, which in all honesty was heart wrenching for me as everyone had convinced me he was trying to pin me as the bad guy and take my daughter away. Really, he was lucky she was there, she saved him from a very thorough talking to from me, and I'm not a nice lady when I don't want to be. To make matters worse, when I took her to have her cast changed, I had assumed he and his mother were taking us along to the hospital. Wrong again. His mother was the only one there, and although she admits to not having reminded him, he shouldn't need to be! His daughter has a broken wrist, I would of thought he'd remember that. He obviously loves her a lot, but he's just not putting the effort in, and to be honest I just don't know what to do. Half of me says ditch him because he's useless, other half of me says he needs to stay because he's her Dad and she loves him. Gah.

My one year old is doing fine, aside from being extremely accident prone lately. Recently his arms are going under him and he's slamming his head down on the floor. He's also falling off the bed in the morning, and I'm just worried he's going to end up hurting himself seriously. Then again, babies will be babies. Other concern I have is how he's not yet walking, or even standing independently. He'll climb up to standing and hold on, but only on a few rare occasions when he's been really distracted has he stood up alone. He's 14 months old now, and I just find it all a little hard. But I hear stories of women with children who don't walk until they're 15 months old, so I guess there's time for him to shine yet!

The past few weeks or so

I've not written anything in a while because both children got sick, then I did. Basically my daughter got chickenpox, then as soon as she recovered my son caught it. After that my daughter got an ear infection, and I got tonsillitis. Ear infection has been made all better now but not without drama. Nights and nights of her getting up at least 3 times (the first night she got up well over 5 times) and me having to fight with her to get her to go back to sleep. I really don't know how to react when she behaves this way, I know she's only upset and angry because her ear is painful and irritating, but I feel angry and upset myself and I'm not sure where to turn. Do I give her the benefit of the doubt and wait for her to calm down? Or do I punish her and make her go to bed? She was screaming, screeching, kicking and punching, and in the end I just took to ignoring her. I sat next to her with my back turned, not looking at her until she stopped and calmed down. It took about 10 minutes for her to stop screaming and punching my arm, but eventually she did. She then turned to me and gave me a big hug and said sorry, which made it feel like I did the right thing. But did I really do the right thing? Or will she now think that I'm allowing her to get away with behaving that way as long as she says sorry? (Here is where your input is appreciated greatly!)

Going back to what I mentioned earlier; tonsillitis. For the first day or two I felt ridiculously weak. So much so that on the first day I only went to the loo once as it's all I could manage to do. My throat was so swollen I couldn't eat or drink much, and my head pulsed with an awful headache every time I moved it. Unfortunately I started feeling this way on Saturday, so I had to wait until Monday to be seen, not thinking I was severe enough to need the out of hours doctor. Once I went on Monday, the doctor looked down my throat and it was almost as if she was taken aback by what she saw. "Oooh you've got tonsillitis!" she exclaimed to me afterwards. I didn't know if it was a good thing she'd diagnosed it so easily. She then went on to tell me I needed a special kind of medicine and that antibiotics wouldn't do the job. After that she referred me for a blood test, to make sure I didn't have glandular fever. That really scared me, but not until I got home and researched it. Inflamed spleen? Ruptured spleen?! Surely if I had glandular fever I would get these things happening to me, and for me that's a very scary thought. Anyway, I've had my blood test now, but I have to wait until Monday to find out the result. I really really hate that about blood tests. It just reminds me of when I was pregnant and I had to wait a week to find out if I was anaemic, and no one told me I had to ring up to find out or even on what day the result would come in. Because of this I had severe anaemia and had to go to hospital as I was very faint and finding it extremely hard to breathe. In a way I'm kind of glad I don't pay for my healthcare, because if I did I'd be demanding refunds left, right and centre.

More recently I've been looking into courses to go on this September (hopefully!) and found a cooking course that I would just love to do. Only trouble is it's in Ealing, and I have no idea how to get there from here. I'm going to research into it further today actually. If you're reading this and you know any good ways to get to Ealing from Bracknell fast, then please let me know.

Aside from all that toff, I had a pleasant surprise today. I got treated like an adult just because I put a headband in my hair to hold it back. Could this headband be the key to me looking my age? If so, hoorah for the headband! I shall build it a little shrine and wear it day in day out! Hehe, only kidding of course, but it would be nice to look 20 instead of 16.

Perception and Gammon Steaks

Today was a pretty rubbish day, when I thought actually it was going to be okay for once. Firstly I had a bad nights sleep (which I have for the past few days) and that meant that getting up in the morning was hell. Then I got up, got the kids breakfast and sat down to rest for a bit. Suddenly I heard a knock on the door, at first I thought it was just door to door salesmen and ignored it, then they knocked again. I got the step stool and peered through the peep hole. It was the woman from the childrens centre, who arranges the young parents group! At this point I kicked myself and just thought "Monday, duh! Obviously she's coming over." I quickly put on my husbands coat to cover my dignity (not that I sleep naked, I don't sleep in my underwear though) and opened the door, ashamedly having to admit that I had forgotten and that no one was dressed. She was very nice about it really, and this put me back in a good state of mind. I agreed with her that she would come back to get us in 30 minutes, then whizzed around and got everyone dressed and ready. Stuart came home at the exact same point we were ready to go, which was handy as he could help with the carseat/getting little guy in the car. We got downstairs and got all loaded up and away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't think anything could go wrong from there. I was so wrong. Because it's half term week there were a lot of other parents there with their kids, which with my anxiety problems is amazingly scary. I went very closety and refused to speak for the most part, aside from talking to the kids about what they were doing. All seemed okay apart from me being unable to speak, crippled by my unfashionably extreme anxiety/shyness. Then it came to lunchtime, and God knows why, but they had decided to serve up stir fry noodles. Now my son is 9 months old, and all his food still needs to be mashed, plus they frown upon you bringing your own food. What possesed them to make such a stupid meal? I will never know. Needless to say it was impossible to mash, so I tried giving little guy the small chunks of fairly soft peppers in the noodles. I had little lady on the other side of him messing around and being silly, I turned for one second to sort her out (there was a baby behind her chair in a bouncer too) and little guy started choking. I freaked out completely, shoved my little finger in his mouth to try to sweep it out but it was in his throat, so I just thumped him pretty hard on the back which seemed to work. He wasn't pleased about it all, so I picked him up. He then thanked me by throwing up all over my coat, and into my pocket where my gloves, keys and phone were. Nice. Everyone was just sat at the table staring at me, it was the most embaressing thing ever. I turned away and crouched on the floor to try to mop myself and little guy up. I had no baby wipes, and no one offered me any, so I had to get it off with my already sick coated coat's sleeve. We then ran off into the other open room full of toys, and I thought that would make me feel better but it really didn't. I wanted to cry, how bad does it look when not only does my child choke and throw up on myself and him, but I have nothing to clean it up with. I felt like a real tramp, and the worst mother in the world. I hid in that room for half an hour until it was time to go home. Then we got home and I got rather upset, which always seems to upset Stuart. He told me not to "mope" and this made matters worse. We had an argument, and by this time I just felt lkike my whole existance was utterly pointless. I cheered up for a little while when Stuart went to get us some late lunch, then later had another outburst in the shop. I went down to pick up some gammon for dinner, I had been in the smaller shop beforehand and they hadn't given me a bag which annoyed me enough really. I went to pay for my steaks, and this inconciderate person was infront of me who wouldn't let me reach to get a divider. Then when I needed a bag she wouldn't move so I could get that either. This woman was stone dumb, I mean honestly. She even put her card into the chip and pin machine the wrong way around. Then when she had left, I paid for my things and was struggling to get the bag open to put my things inside it. The man who was serving me pushed the change and receipt into my hand and pushed my things over to one side. I speed packet them and exited with the rather loud remark "Well you certainly pay for the service!" What was I thinking? I phoned up Stuart immediately to tell him, and straight away in my head I went "What did I just do? I'm turning into a real asshole." My mood lowered back down again, and I felt like a total bitch. When I got home though all was fine, had dinner which was delicious (Gammon steak, with brocolli, carrots and rosemary roast potatoes, mmm!) and here I am. I dunno how I feel now, it's almost like I have a beast inside me that only comes out when I get upset or pissed off. Most of the time I just feel impartial, not happy but not sad either, or angry. I hope I discover what the source of all this bother is soon, or I'm gonna do something I regret.



On a lighter note; this made me giggle big time! ^-^

Toddlers first haircut

Today my two year old got her first ever salon haircut. She was totally hyped up when I talked to her in the morning about it; "Nana is taking you to the hairdressers to have a little trim, and you get to sit on a special chair, with a special gown and a biiiig mirror!" to which she replied "Oh wow!" But this changed when she came home from preschool later the same day, I guess maybe she thought it over in her overactive imagination, 'cause when she came home what she had before found exciting became quite the opposite. "I don't want to have my hair cut!" she told me, and I was completely suprised. She then kicked off and had a massive screaming fit over not wanting to go to the hairdressers. This resulted in a "time out" in mine and my husbands bedroom, which when my mother came in she was not pleased about. She told me that it was cruel to shut her in there and that I was being emotionally abusive towards her, and I absolutely flpped my lid! How dare she! What does she know? She wasn't there, and didn't see what happened. I calmed down though, but not before telling her to frick off. We got past that, and set off for the hairdressers. Toddler was less than excited, saying to Nana "I want to go to your house, I don't want to go to the hairdressers!" But when we got there she changed her tune again. I pointed out the big mirrors and special chairs I had mentioned before and she smiled, as her dreams of the wonderland of the hairdressers came true. Once she was on the chair she explained she didn't want her hair cut because she didn't want to "Lose her curleys" but we explained to her it'll still be curly when it's had a trim, infact it'd probably be more curly, and she seemed rather pleased to hear that! We got the haircut done with no tears or tantrums, and she was very grown up and stayed nice and still for the nice lady. I stood by her and held her hand, and got her to sing "Mr Knickerboker" when she had to look at different places so the hairdresser could do the different sections. All in all it was a very good day, where as I had expected it to be very difficult. We then went and got a treat for Toddler and Mummy (she had strawberry ice cream, and I had a latte and a chocolate cookie, yum!) and she was exstatic, and needless to say very worn out and ready for bed after dinner, heh.