Friday, January 31, 2014

A tale of two hedgehogs

"Mummeeee, there's poo on the changing table!"

In a house that is as concerned with bowel movements as ours this is enough to send a chill down your spine.  What will I find when I get there?  Pootastrophes are less common these days but can be impressive and always result in more laundry.

So I climb the stairs in trepidation, open the door (which still creaks and has been annoying me for 4 years but for this story provides a suitable sound effect track!), and turn towards the changing table...

And this is what I see!


The poo in question is a small fluffy hedgehog who is part of a complex game involving billy the snake, a juggling ball and the Heisenberg hat!  (Readers please note W has not watched Breaking Bad but because I said he looked like Heisenberg in his hat he says it each time he puts it on!) 

The hedgehogs arrived two years ago at Halloween,  they were attracted to the hollowed out pumpkin and were waiting for the children one morning at Granny's when the had a sleepover.  They named them and Granny kindly sewed a name label for each one to avoid arguments.  W called his Poo as you know, M called hers Prickles and that tells you everything you need to know about how different two children from the same family can be! Needless to say both of them have quickly embraced the joy of being able to shout Poo!  and then blame it on the hedgehog, hours of fun for all.



Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The adventures of Mr Burp

When W was a baby and first diagnosed with Hirschsprungs Disease a common theme was 'let's try and avoid giving him a stoma'.  It seemed the worst thing that could happen was a stoma,  one year on in our adventures with Mr Burp and the stoma turns out to the best thing has happened to W. He is healthy and happy, hasn't been sick for MONTHS, has grown like a magic beanstalk and is very cheeky and naughty!  We have got used to the process and the equipment and like the predictability of the stoma and bag.  We are so relaxed that W has a tendency to show anyone his scars and mr burp bag and whip off a leaking bag in the swimming pool changing room without batting an eyelid. I love how relaxed and unselfish conscious he is.

As we wait for a date to have his stoma closed these are the things I should remember.  The things the stoma nurses don't always tell you!

If the bag is going to leak it will happen at 830am, 2.55pm when you have started the latest episode of breaking bad or at a play centre at the top of the twirly thing where you have to climb through the rollers. Or when you have just sat down in Costa with a friend and a cup of tea!

If he says it is leaking ignore him at your peril!  Even if you can't see anything it will break through very soon!

You will never want to smell peppermint again! (they did tell me that actually!)

Stoma paste sticks to anything and needs to be chiselled off!  Actually I might try using it for art projects :) 

You wouldn't believe how much a bag inflates during a swimming lesson, it must be the pressure, the poor thing looks like he has beriberi when he gets out of the pool.  Of course he doesn't notice!

It is easier to give a three year old extra crisps than a sodium supplement :) 

Two part bags meant I didn't have to stay up late just to empty.  More sleep is lovely, wish we'd had these at the start!

Tell people looking after W the obvious things, like roll the bottom of the bag up after emptying it!  

You need space to store all the stuff!  Best £69 we ever spent was our changing table, room for all this and a toddler watching an iPad on top.


I am apprehensive about the future and what will happen after Mr bump goes back inside, but I won't miss the piles of equipment and remembering the bag everywhere we go.



Thursday, January 23, 2014

Mystery photo time!

What is this?!

No nothing surgical!  Homemade beet root crisps, low carb and surprisingly tasty.

I think it might be time to look for a new teaching job, I also washed the dusters last week!

Katie x

Thursday, January 9, 2014

My month in numbers December


What a lovely month :) 

60 each of croissants, pain au chocolats and chocolat chauds served at the year 6 café to mark the end of our first term working together.  It was so nice to have such enthusiastic students and they all entered into the spirit of it with real gusto, when I arrived they had decorated the hall and put on the music from Allo Allo!  Everyone ordered in French and served their parents and guests in French as well, at the end of the afternoon they gave me a lovely thank you card they had made themselves and a chocolate Santa that the children and I ate while playing the gingerbread man game on New Year's Day!

46664 - Nelson Mandela's prison number, the press coverage reminded me how inspirational he was.  His imprisonment is one of the first things I can remember being interested in as an adult topic and it is amazing to think his struggle covered the whole of my life!  

8 postcards bought at the national portrait gallery on my grown up day out in London.  It was such a treat to have a chance to do something adult, I walked along the south bank at a reasonable pace, had a delicious lunch with my husband and saw lots of cool Elizabethan pictures.  It is so interestingly to see the faces to go with all the names from the books I have read.



3 beautiful carol concerts attended, a very Wildmoor Christmas was lovely and really special as it was the first time I have been able to go to a Christmas show since M started school.  Year 2 sang Stille Nacht in German perfectly and were the highlight of the show!  W had a great concert where they sang lots of songs with actions and then after 15 mins Hayley said 'that's the end!' And off we went clutching a chocolate coin, my favourite was Christmas pudding!  Then in the last week of term we went back to M's school for a French café, we had croissants and hot chocolate and then they sang vive le vent as part of French Christmas week, très impressionnant et je me suis bien amusée! 



12 bottles of rosé!  For our family Christmas party everyone had to do a 'turn' based on one of our holiday journals from the 80s.  We wrote 'on the first day in west France our family we did see' and performed it before lunch with extra loud singing by W who continues to sing it in the car every few days!  Reading the journal showed how different your memories can be!  One of our favourite stories about that holiday was when we went out in the dinghy not realising what the Atlantic waves were like and nearly took out an elderly French lady being swept back in to the beach at 100kms an hour!  We have been talking about it for years, doesn't get a mention! But the journals did remind me how much we did on those holidays and how lucky we were even if we didn't know it at the time, and all that French! 

One Christmas dinner cooked for 6 guests and all went according to plan thanks to Nigella!  We ended up having a really nice and chilled Christmas, we saw everyone who needed to be seen and had some fab family days at home and out and about.  

The communal count: 
How many Christmas movies is too many?  You can NEVER have too many Christmas movies, we discovered Arthur Christmas this year and Home Alone 4(!).  The highlight of our Christmas viewing was Wreck-it Ralph our new favourite film, we must have seen it a dozen times and W now goes around the house fixing things with his fix-it Felix hammer.

How many Christmas events did you attend?  2 Christmas carol concerts, two end of term French cafés, one lovely 'company do' lunch with my boss/husband! Two family parties with 'shows' and my favourite bit every year children's Christmas mass.

My month in numbers is the brilliant story telling idea of Julie Kirk at http:/notesonpaper.blogspot.uk.