As one recovers, the other falters

Emsy woke up bright and sparky today, which was great, but Isabel came slumping into the bedroom this morning with a very runny nose. Hopefully she'll follow her sister's example and it'll just be a 24 hour bug. Despite the nose, and general whingy-ness, we still decided to take her trick or treating because she'd have been just gutted not to have gone.

We dressed the two of them up in their Hallowe'en outfits and went over to a neighbour's house - the kids played a few games and then all went out trick or treating in a big group (eleven of them, must have been a bit of a shock as people opened their doors!). She had a great time and got a lovely haul of sweets, and I haven't even snaffled any of them yet. I'm enjoying the remains of the bucket that we bought though, since we only had two groups call at the house so there's plenty left! A US colleague of mine once said that his sons go out on Hallowe'en with pillow cases and have to come home to empty them half way through since the pillow cases are full. How scary is that?!

Sickness and disease....

Oh dear. Emsy woke up this morning with a bright red face, and has felt hot all day, even though it's not registered on the thermometer. I think it's just a feverish cold since her nose streamed all day, and she could barely keep her eyes open. When she was awake, all she wanted to do was sit on me and gaze into the middle distance. However, she takes after her mother and still managed to eat quite well, so she can't be that ill!

We therefore had an 'at home' day today to mark the end of half term - made a birthday card, did some colouring, and even got creative in the kitchen. Isabel watched I Can Cook on CBeebies in the morning and decided she wanted to make Chocolate and Mandarin Pudding - I'm never one to turn down pudding, so we bought some mandarins and she made quite a nice little chocolatey/orangey trifle thing. Yummy! Might try some more of their recipes another day - I like the idea of her making my dinner for a change.

Having popped Emily down for the night at 7pm, Isabel then had a bubble bath and, during the bath, began to sniff. Looks like she's got the bug too. So, having dosed one up with antibiotics and Calpol and the other with Medised, I'm now settling down with a cup of tea and some Daim bar cake. That counts as an exciting evening round these parts.

It was a day....

....during which my mind and my body seemed to become somehow disconnected. Everything I touched turned to poo - for example:

1. I knocked a hot iron off the ironing board and onto the carpet, where it immediately melted said carpet and tried to glue itself on. I managed to separate the two and cleaned the iron up, but there's a lovely iron-shaped crunchy section in the middle of our living room floor now.
2. I tipped Emily's bottle of antibiotics over at lunchtime and managed to splash noxious-smelling virulent yellow liquid over my trousers (new trousers at that!), t-shirt and cardigan. Wouldn't have been so bad had I not been in IKEA, and was therefore forced to walk around the whole shop looking like some kind of scummy bag lady. Washed all clothes as soon as I got home and I think the stain's come out, thank goodness.
   
3. Bugger - writing that last point has just made me realise I forgot to give Emily her antibiotics before she went to bed. Bugger.
4. To top the day off, Emily did a big poo in the bath, causing Isabel to scream and leap out, and meaning that I then had to extract a soggy pooey baby and clean the bath before either of them could get back in.

I quite fancy a hot drink but I don't dare, I'd probably pour it in my lap. On the plus side, Isabel came out with a classic line after I'd dropped the iron, and ranted and raved a bit. She said "Mummy, be sanguine" - which is what I'd told her to be when something doesn't go her way but it's not in her power to fix it. These phrases always come back and bite you on the arse one day. But she was right, and I felt better. Still got a crunchy carpet though, and a baby with only two out of three doses of antibiotics. Damn it.

I may need to eat my words

About 10 days ago I took Emily to the doctor's to try to get some insight as to why she's just a pipsqueak - 12lb 8.5oz at six months is pretty small, and at one point she fell off the bottom of the growth curve. I'd booked an appointment with the GP who is meant to be the baby specialist at the practice, but wasn't terribly impressed with him. He barely looked at her, and simply said that we needed to do a urine test since she might have a urine infection.

I went away scoffing at this patently ridiculous suggestion, since she had no symptoms to suggest that this might be the case, and cursing that I had to sit there trying to catch wee in a pot. But catch it I did, and today the results came back. Guess what? She's got a urine infection. Shows what I know then.

Having done some Googling I'm still a bit confused. The doctor said that a urine infection in a baby was quite rare and that there may be an anatomical reason for it (oh great....just drop that bombshell and leave me to wait for Monday's appointment for more details). But the internet seems to suggest it's reasonably common in young children and that, if not dealt with, could be serious e.g. by causing kidney problems, possibly even permanent ones if left for a long time.

So, all in all I'm glad I took her in - she's now on antibiotics so it should all clear up. Hopefully once it's gone her appetite and her weight will improve - that'd be nice! On the downside, I may need to do another urine test with her to make sure it's cleared up, oh hooray.

Sleep

Emily's been sleeeping through for a couple of weeks now, and I thought that this would mean I'd be able to reclaim my ability to sleep like a log for a good eight hours at a stretch. Not so, unfortunately. Problems which have been interfering with my sleep have been many and various, including:

1. Over-sensitivity to any slight noise coming through the baby monitor. She occasionally does a little mini screech and then goes straight back to sleep, leaving me poised for flight for at least half an hour.
2. Falling deeply asleep on the couch and then going to bed and not being able to get back to sleep for ages.
3. Eldest child waking me up because she has a sore bottom (no kidding, this kept her up for nearly two hours until we sat her in a warm bath. At 2am. Sheesh.) or has had a nightmare.
4. Waking up early in preparation for being woken, which is just ridiculous. My alarm's been set for 6.50am but I've been up before it every day for a week. I daren't not set it though!

Having the clocks change today didn't help - Emsy woke up at 5am, so I left her chattering hoping she'd fall back to sleep, which she did at about 5.30am. But I didn't. By about 6.15am I gave it up as a bad lot and decided to turn my light on to read my book - and she woke up again after I'd read a page and a half. She's clearly hard-wired to my actions! So, off to bed now to try to get a good few hours in, wish me luck!

Walk to school week - pah

It's Walk To School week at Isabel's school this week, and as far as I'm concerned it is a complete waste of time. In fact, it's a pain in the bum. Since the school she attends is in a small village, most of the kids come from a fair distance away - we live about 1.5 miles away, but some kids live up to five miles away from the school. Walk to School week is therefore a misnomer - it's actually "Park in the pub car park and walk to school from there" week. We have walked all the way in the past (well, I've walked and Isabel has scooted) but she's knackered when she arrives and, since I'm now trying to give two small people and myself some breakfast before we leave, trying to get out of the house by 8.10am would be well nigh impossible.

But, I appreciate the sentiment of giving them some exercise, and therefore we always park in the pub car park and walk from there whether it's walk to school week or not. However, now everyone's trying to park there and we couldn't get a space on Monday, which really got my goat. I ended up parking almost on top of a big pile of kindling (well, it's a 4x4, I figure it can handle this kind of thing). All Walk to School week has done is to make everyone park a few hundred yards further down the road, moving what is not really a great deal of congestion into another location. And getting in my way!

Ooh, rant over, that's better....!

My stubborn-ness knows no bounds

I've just finished reading a book which I've been struggling through for months. At least two months, and that's unusual for me since I'm normally a pretty fast reader. However, this book was 900+ pages, and I didn't really enjoy it. And reading 900+ pages of a book you're not enjoying takes some time.

For the record the book was Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. Many people have apparently loved it, if the reviews on the weRead FB application and on Amazon are anything to go by. And a few, like me, have hated it. I didn't enjoy it for several reasons - for one, a wince-inducing writing style with ridiculous descriptions. How's this for sheer annoying-ness: "She walked into Leopold's at the usual time, and when she stopped a table near me to talk with friends, I tried once more to find the words for the foliant blaze of her green eyes. I thought of leaves and opals and the warm shallows of island seas. But the living emerald in Karla's eyes , made luminous by the sunflowers of gold light that surrounded the pupils, was softer, far softer". Give me strength...

The other thing was made it a struggle was that I just hated the lead character. It's meant to be a sort of fictionalised autobiography, and I couldn't drum up any real empathy for a smack addict who escaped from prison, abandoned his daughter and family, and lived an essentially selfish existence for years on end. I did enjoy the bits of the book in which he suffered, but I don't think that was the point. And I'm not just being a prude because he was a criminal. I loved Papillon, for example, which was also about a prison break. The problem with Shantaram was that the lead character is essentially unlikeable - kind of Paulo Coelho meets the mafia. I don't like Paulo Coelho either, before you ask.

Perhaps it would have been more bearable with a decent editor. That would have got rid of the worst of the flowery prose and perhaps reduced its length by a good third. It felt like every little detail of the story was laid out, and a lot of that was just unnecessary. Every character, whether minor or major, was described in great depth, which made it very difficult to work out who was important and who wasn't.

So, why did I bother to finish it? Two reasons really: it was the book suggested by someone in a book group I've recently joined so I needed to finish it for the next meeting in November. Plus, I hate to give up on a book. I've only ever given up on one book and that was Vanity Fair - a bookmark still is in my copy, about half way through, so perhaps I can claim I've just paused, even though that was about 20 years ago. Next - a new Stephen King which I got for my birthday and still haven't managed to start. In fact, I'm off to bed and to start it now, in an effort to wash the taste of Shantaram out of my mouth!