Eye Eye

Last Friday Matthew poked me in the eye! Simple fact, he was having a tantrum near a busy road, I picked him up and then a fire engine wit hall sirens blaring raced past and in his excitement to show him his finger inserted itself into my eye. For a few moments I thought that I would be able to blink my way through it. Then I felt pain around my eye and knew that this wasn't going to be a case of a little bit of mascara running down my face. Luckily we were walking back with another family who helped me to manoeuvre the children. Just as we parted company my friend said;
'come on then, let's have a look.' And as I moved my hand away from my eye where it had been clamped as I stumbled along the pavement she said 'Oh my God!'
'What?' I said 'Has my make-up run.'
I fished around in my handbag and found my mirror and looked and shared her 'Oh my God' moment.
My eye was trying to close and swollen, once home and make-up removed I realised that my eye was spasming, it didn't want to open and in sympathy for its colleague my other eye was trying to close as well. I spent Friday evening feeling my way around the house that had seemed so familiar until I couldn't see, somehow pasta was served for dinner but by 630 scared and in pain I called Mr T home from work. By then it felt like there was a piece of glass wedged right in the middle of my eye and it refused to open. The night was an uncomfortable one.
Saturday morning was painfully bright and sunny and after a call to the out of hours doctor I found myself in accident and emergency. After three hours, painful eye drops and some orange dye later I discovered that my delightful little boy had scratched the cornea of my eye, luckily no patch was required although it would have been fun to pretend to be a pirate I guess! It took a few days before I could drive, read and so on and even now a week later I struggle at times and can honestly say I have never been so scared. I always think that if I escape a visit to the hospital over the holidays I have done well, sadly this time I have failed.
A busy week approaches as Heather has book week at school, lots of dressing up required. Still hoping for a better weekend as I start the preparations for Lucy's first birthday.

Lump in the throat

Sometimes I curse the kids, they disturb me when I'm trying to work, they fight with each other and they get up way too early but then I realise I asked for this. I chose to have them, warts and all so have to put up with all the disruption and paraphernalia that comes with them. There are times however, when I get to sit back and count my blessings. Monday evening was one of those times. Heather had come home from school, her homework was done and she was at the table, doing one of her favourite things drawing. I was getting on with the dinner when she appeared beside me, piece of paper thrust towards me. This is not unusual, she has been gradually filling my bedside table drawer with pictures of butterflies and people and cars for weeks, but this piece of paper was special.

She had drawn a lovely flower and hopscotch game but all by herself she had written;
for mummy youur m bste frenb youur byotful anb happe anb good love Heather. (for mummy you're my best friends, you're beautiful and happy and good. Love Heather.)
I was impressed that she had tried to write such big words without any help and welled up.

She has her first play date tonight, we have had friends over here but last year she missed out on a lot due to Lucy coming along in the March and me not being able to have lots of her friends over. This year we have made more of an effort and so today she is going to a friends straight from school. She is very excited, I am a little nervous, will I be able to find her friends house? will she eat her dinner? will she be polite? will she be OK without me or panic? Will she refuse to leave when she realises how much fun it is to play at other people's houses? I guess I'll find out later.

Lucy is now very mobile and caused her first breakage yesterday, I was cooking dinner and was momentarily distracted by the screams that accompany Heather and Matthew having a fight! In the time it took me to sort that out, Lucy who was in her walker had managed to grab the pestle and mortar and shatter it over the kitchen floor. One thing is for sure with these three working against me I'll never be rich, or bored!

Matthew and I are working hard together over half term, I am trying to keep him entertained and he is doing his best to outwit me! We had a lovely day on Monday and he relished the attention although yesterday he was tired and it showed as he was more interested in whinging and winding Lucy up than looking at his Peppa Pig magazine. Still we did manage a trip to the library and post office with no accidents, expensive purchases or losses of temper. I think the key to harmony with him is to keep him busy.

Half term take two

This week is the beginning of Matthews half term, Heather on the other hand is back at school! Typical, poor Heather was cooped up in a week filled with snow and rain, dragged to Tumble Tots to watch her siblings and not a lot happened. Now the weather is brighter and all the groups have joined the half term break, we still can't go anywhere for the whole day as traffic worry will set in and and I will be racing back to collect Heather.

I am determined to get back on track with the writing, I have spent quite a lot of time recently promoting the book and writing to people to try and get it stocked. I have managed to draft two short stories and sketched out the plot for my second, slightly more serious novel and now need to do the research to back it up.

Matthew has had other ideas of course, he has seemed to be determined to make sure that I get no work at all done by taking every opportunity to hurt one of his sisters. Friday was awful. Lucy who is now semi- mobile, (commando crawling, beginning to pull herself up) happened to pull on his trousers whilst he was colouring at the table, his response was to take the pencil he was using and drag it across her eyelid cutting it open. Lots of blood and calming an hysterical four year old down later and I was able to see that the cut was not too terrible and that Lucy would indeed be OK despite Heather's assurances that she needed to go to hospital!

Anyway harmony has since broken out, Mr T took the Heather and Matthew to build a snowman as we still had some at the end of the garden, I was rather miffed as I was in bed with a migraine, and all my attempts to get the kids to make a snowman had been spurned. I guess there are some things which are just better if Daddy does them!

I have also managed to find a gym with a crèche which means that I can get some exercise when Heather and Matthew are at school and start taking Lucy swimming during the day, just have to join now!

Strictly Wonderful

Sunday evening saw myself and Heather heading to the o2 arena to see Strictly Come Dancing. My little girl was so excited she could hardly stand still, a big problem in the thirty minute queues for the toilets. Still once we were in the arena having had some tasty fish and chips the countdown began.
I showed her where on my watch the hands needed to go and I was mightily relieved to see the warm up guy appear as he got her dancing and ready for the show to begin. As the lights dimmed and the signature music made the chairs vibrate her face was a picture, she clearly couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. As the judges took their places on the stage her voice became more high pitched as she said;
'It's Len Mummy, Mummy Bruno!'

Then the dancers were introduced and straight away she was rooting for Tom and Camilla. We did manage to munch our way through a family sized bag of smarties during the first half, and although it was past her bedtime and she was flagging a little, she still managed to join in with all the clapping,cheering and booing (for Craig!)
The show was brilliant, the dancing fantastic and the atmosphere electric, we were both a little sorry when it was time to go home. The evening was a treat for both of us, great quality time together and she was so well behaved throughout I was amazed.

The other treat we had yesterday was the return of Mr T, we managed to share a hug just before zooming off to the o2, and all the way there Heather kept saying
'It's a real treat to see Daddy before I go isn't it Mummy.'
It is a shame you can't bottle emotions as I would have loved to capture the joy and excitement of yesterday and keep it with me for harder times, at least I will always have the pictures of her little face lighting up like a sunshine in my memory.

Snow

So like many of us my garden is a blanket of snow and to be able to leave the house by way of the car I had to get digging! The children have been off school but after 20 minutes outside and one beheaded snowman they have refused to venture out again!
Mr T is away in San Francisco and has been since Saturday, he won't be back until next week so coping alone!
I have to say the snow is beautiful masking any eyesores and making everything even, the icing sugar look seems to do every building justice and yet as soon as we get the snow everything stops and we all wish it would go as quickly as it came.
Anyway I hope you have had more success in the snow than me. We built, rather I built (the neighbours children were out and so mine were naturally playing with them.)a snowman, we pushed in the carrot nose and we improvised the eye with lego pieces and dressed him in a hat and scarf. That was our first error, our second was siting him where the dogs could get to him as no sooner did they enter the garden then they grabbed the scarf and off came his head!
The children were not that upset, they found it quite funny to watch the antics of the dogs. So today I tried to persuade them we should build a new snowman in the fenced off area of the garden to avoid the dog problem and they refused! Bah humbug! Still back to school tomorrow!