Valentine's day and the end of the chocolate ban

Time has once again slipped by without a post. What can I say? Three children under 6 is BUSY. I also try to abide by the rule of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, where he says to the groundhog, "don't drive angry!" though in this case it's don't blog grumpy, as being hungry tends to make me a little snappish.

I love this movie more than is a normal amount.

So, quick roundup. We've had a fairly uneventful month, although after a week of sleeping through Henry got another cough and it was all over, sad trombone. However, it has now passed again and fingers crossed, he's back on track. 

Speaking of illness, I have got a raging case of tonsillitis. It began a few days ago with a tickly throat and continued with a trip to the walk in clinic on friday night (the big V!) where I was told "Oh yes, that is a lot of pus." Why thank you  grumpy nurse, that's exactly what I wanted to hear about the inside of my throat. Gross. This was then emphasised by the pharmacist who when checking my antibiotics said "so take 2 four times a day.... is it a bad infection?" Clearly that is a large dose of penicillin, for which I am very grateful. Don't worry, there is no picture. This is not that kind of blog.

Last weekend my Dad was up to visit now that he's home from New Zealand which was lovely, I've missed both him and my mum while they've been gone. She's still out there, sunning it up! Dad was kind enough to take the big two boys out on Saturday afternoon so that Rich and I could have a bit of a rest and then we had a delicious chinese takeaway for dinner, naughty but oh so good. So good in fact that Rich and I had it again for dinner when I got back from the doctor on friday... oops. While he was up he took this picture for us, which is I think the first one of the five of us together.

Even though it was taken before I could get my Sunday morning make up on, I still love it.

Valentine's day was a bit drab what with the illness, but it was still nice. I made this for Rich...

Which now I look at it kind of seems like an order, or slightly obnoxious. "Hey, You love me!" At least we all know now who wears the pants... The words in the back are the lyrics to All I ask of You from Phantom of the Opera, which was sung at our wedding. I totally stole the idea from seeing something similar online, but changed the scrabble tiles for keyboard letters, because we've never played scrabble ever, and also because we had an old broken netbook. He loved it, and got me my favourite chocolates now that the ban has been lifted. which segues us nicely into the diet.

So, I've lost 12lbs in about 4 weeks. I cheated once as my sister Sam sent some homemade chocolates over for a belated Christmas gift and they weren't going to last. I'm pretty pleased with myself, that's a decent chunk of weight and I'm almost to the first stone off. All the right places are shrinking, and I feel a lot better about myself already. My end goal is to be able to fit into my wedding dress by our 9th anniversary, which is July 23rd, so I've got plenty of time. In between I've got little goals to get to, the first one being 12st 7lbs, which I beat just over a week ago. The next one is one stone off, which will be 12st 4, only 2 lbs away. I'm not happy with the numbers, but I've decided I'm not ashamed to write them down. They're only numbers, and they don't define me. My body has done amazing things (insert cheesy music here) and grown 3 humans. It has acceptable wear and tear. But just because I'm not ashamed doesn't mean I can't improve.

As for the month of no chocolates and sweets, I thought it would be harder. I'm really glad I did it as it made me realise how I was eating a bit of chocolate here or a few of the kids treats there. I've not felt the need to gorge on it now I can have it. My dad brought me back two large bars of Cadbury's Blackforest Chocolate, which is quite possibly the most delicious flavour ever, with little biscuity and cherry flavoured jelly bits. I ate more than I should have, but not as much as I would have before. It was however still too much for my digestive system since I had my gall bladder out, which it reminded me of with some wicked stomach cramps. Therefore, I still have chocolate lurking about the house and hopefully it'll last me a fair while longer. So, success for now!

Last of all, I'll just mention the amazing family trip out yesterday where I dosed myself up and we all went indoor surfing with extended family. I was however doing the surfing and don't have the pictures back yet so I shall do a proper post on that another time. 

For now, despite the tonsils that are trying to kill me, life is good.

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

Ugh.

Ill. It's so much fun. We've had a full week now of family illness. It started on Friday afternoon when  I was hit with a migraine. I laid on the couch with cushions on my head and begged the boys to play quietly, and Rich hurried home as soon as he could and sent me to bed. All fine, except a few hours later, I woke up to the sound of Rich throwing up. That night was spent pleasantly, with both of us in and out of the bathroom. Like I said, fun.

The next day we were ok, if totally exhausted. Then Saturday night rolled around, I got what he'd had, and I had the added bonus of an already exhausted starting point. At least he got some rest though. Sunday, we skipped church out of exhaustion and not wanting to spread it about. I spent the day on the couch making the sounds of the dying (I'm not good when I'm sick, I tend to go a bit pathetic. I was however proud of myself this time, I managed to be sick without bursting into tears and needing support at the head-in-toilet position.) and Ethan started saying he didn't feel good either.

He got it next, though luckily it was quite mild for him. He stayed off school on Monday and was much better. I took a couple more days to feel up to scratch again, what with the whole growing another person thing.

Sam, the lucky little monkey, has avoided it altogether, but now has a stinking cold, along with me and Ethan. Do you know what's especially great about being pregnant with a cold? NOTHING. There is nothing you can take. Paracetamol is the limit. I am fed up, I have been ill for a week now with various germs and ailments. I have decided to self medicate with old episodes of Friends and this:

I think it's a good choice :)

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

Poor Neglected Blog!

I'm sorry. I've abandoned you, cold and alone in the vastness of the internet. It's not that I don't love you little blog. It's not you, it's me. No really. To be perfectly honest there's not been much of interest to write about, I've been feeling rubbish with the baby on board, and this week I've had a wicked cold/cough/blocked sinuses combo, which under normal circumstances I'd just take something for it and carry on. Unfortunately there's almost nothing you can take in pregnancy.

I am incredibly blessed however, to have a brilliant husband, and good timing meant that yesterday when I was feeling really terrible, was a Thursday, which meant he was working at home. Rich always does the school run on a Thursday, so I was spared that, and he also sent me to bed for an hour and a half in the afternoon after I was dozing on the couch and started talking in my sleep! The boys were brilliantly behaved for him too, as usually he has to work upstairs away from us, or we go out, as it's just too much noise otherwise. I'm also incredibly happy and grateful to be pregnant, even when I feel so awful.


I really don't have a lot of news at the moment, hence the neglect ;) So I'll just leave you with a picture of my lovely boys on Christmas Eve, the gorgeous little sausages.

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

Morning Sickness

It's not fun.

I was extremely lucky with Ethan and Sam and didn't get sick at all. I have not been lucky this time. Well, I have escaped actually throwing up, so I guess I've been quite lucky, but oh my goodness, I feel so awful. I am managing to eat, but it's not enjoyable! at a guess I think I'm about 7 weeks, but I've got a scan on November the first to find out. I finally managed to track down all my sisters and tell them, which was nice, lots of excited squeals! We've also told both of our parents, but not Ethan and Sam yet. I can't wait to tell Ethan, I think he'll be very happy, especially as he's been asking recently when I'm going to have a baby!

You know what doesn't go well together? Morning sickness and a cough. Every time I cough I start to heave :( I cannot wait for this part to pass, not long I hope! Just a quick entry, I had to get it down somewhere!

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

An eventful few days, or, my sons, aka Casper, and my niece, aka the heart-stopper.

Warning - this post contains talk of vomit, and the close call of a child. But don't worry, she was fine, and completely unharmed - no gore.

"MUMMY! My tummy hurts!" followed by wracking sobs.

It's about the worst thing to be heard as you're drifting off to sleep at 11:45 on a Sunday night. It's only pipped to the post by being woken by the sound of a quietly sobbing child, who then proceeds to throw up everywhere before you get them to the bathroom. I only narrowly avoided that this time as Ethan had forewarned me of feeling sick, the sob-and-puke is his go to sick move.

Hand on heart, I'd rather be ill myself for 24 hours than have a late night sick child. Nothing can prepare you for the panic of a child about to vomit on the top bunk. Do you attempt to grab them and run to the bathroom? (this was tonight's choice, but has had little success in the past) or do you let them (continue to) throw up where they are, and hope to contain it to one area? This prevents The Trail, buy goes against the nature of preventing a giant mountain of laundry.

Poor Whitey White Bear. He has now been initiated into the Fraternity of Daz.

He looks so melancholy, poor chap. Side note, we've had Megamind on several times recently, and I can no longer say the word melancholy (at about 1:05) properly.

So by Monday lunchtime all was sorted. Ethan was tired, quiet and still the colour of Casper, but not throwing up anymore. 

Tuesday dawned with everyone bright and happy, and we went off to visit Amy, Hayley and Austin for the last day of the holidays. After lunch we decided to go to the pond across the road where there's a small field to run on. When we got there a tractor was cutting the grass, going around the edges in ever decreasing circles. Sam almost burst with excitement at seeing a tractor, and so the children played in the middle and the plan in my head was to simply move to the cut part after the tractor did another lap, where we would then have enough room. 

Hayley had a different plan. She began running to the bottom of the field, so Amy and I shouted to her to come back. She paused, turned, saw us calling her back, and carried on. At this point, the tractor turned back towards the bottom, and we got a bit worried. When Hayley still didn't return to us, Amy started to get upset (hint, this is an understatement.) and her shouts got more panicked, but she was holding Austin and didn't know what to do, so I started running. Here was our mistake - you see, Amy runs. Most mornings. I do not run. ever. I'm going to guess there was about 200m between Hayley and me, and let's face it, I'm not going to be outrunning any tractors. However, I could hear Amy starting to sob in her shouts and so I just went for it. 

It was genuinely the most terrifying moment ever, I don't know if the tractor driver saw what was going on and if he did whether he understood. Perhaps from his perspective he could see Hayley, and where he would be driving and knew it would be fine, but we definitely could NOT see that. The tractor passed and it looked like it was within a foot or 2, though when I got to Hayley I saw that he'd swerved and missed a large patch of grass, so I'm guessing now that he saw and calculated, and wasn't even particularly concerned he might hit her, as he knew he wouldn't.

Hayley laughed. We did not. But the important thing was that she was fine, and I'm pretty sure after Amy's dressing down she's learnt her lesson. I felt like I was going to collapse and die on the spot. While walking back up to the house, I could see my foot prints in the long grass, and they were very far apart, I was really pushing it! For the rest of the day, my legs felt like jelly. Driving home was interesting! 

So, Tuesday early evening, we get home. I order pizza as a last summer holidays huzzah, and while we're waiting for it to be delivered, Sam throws up everywhere. Ill child at night/Casper part 2. Only it's worse in three ways. Firstly, because Sam refuses to throw up if he can help it, so it ends up being some kind of horrific choke-fest with each episode. Secondly, we were literally almost out the door to pick Rich up from the station. Thirdly Rich got it too this time, a few hours after Sam. I was using hand sanitiser like it was going out of business, and fingers crossed am so far unscathed. Sam managed to turn it around really quickly, and by 7am was fine again. Rich, not so much.

This morning Ethan started reception at school, but more about that later, as this has become a bit epic and the car seat still needs cleaning. Oh yes, that happened. I'm exhausted.

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!