what a week so far

Yes - I know i haven't blogged for a while but its been manic......as you would expect in this house.

But i need to vent some frustration and anger somehow.

Sue is away working in London this week, so I am acting as a single parent with 2 kids, how the hell do people do it.  Apart from being knackered, things were going smoothly up until and hour ago.  While i was taking a 2 min toilet break, Lucy decided to go upstairs and have a shave. 

Us blokes all know how much we bleed when we make a little nick, imagine the gush of an inch long slit, there is a nice trail all across the landing, down the stairs, through the hall way ending in a pool on the living room floor.....thank god for laminate flooring.  

After applying pressure for 20 minutes and it still not stopping, I rang the doctors. We only live around the corner luckily so a 1 minute car ride and we were there, they sterri-tripped it and all was ok. 

We get home and she cries and it starts all again, what do i do know, guess we are back off down the doctors.  Problem is she has just fallen asleep sitting upright on the sofa, and I really don't want to disturb her.

Oh my god what a day yesterday.

Well - where do I start - a nice trip to Papworth yesterday which is about 1 1/2 hours away from home, My dad took me as Suzanne needed to stay at home for Jack and Lucy, as Lucy needs to stay in her routine. Jack didn't want to go to school as he new something serious was up so we didn't presurise him in going, but scouts was different, we could never keep him away from that, even if there was only a few hours of earth time left.

So a simple check up at the hospital turned in to something you may read in my mate Marks blog. They were ready to take me in an hour early, great i thought, thats home an hour earlier as well.....oh no. There I am laying on the table surround by all these plasma screens, i think i counted 12 while trying to calm my nerves, and then i get the saying "just a scratch" while they inject my leg with a local before slicing in to my artery. They give it a few mins and then i FEEL the slice and i tell them "I FELT THAT" so they quickly fill me up with a bit more anesthetic, I then start to feel this shoving sensation in my leg nothing bad at all - so there i am thinking this is nothing at all and will be home with the the wife and kids in no time. Well thats all i can tell you about that, then next thing i know I am waking up with tubes and pipes in my arms and hands, a mask over my mouth and nose and feel like "CRAP" - apparently my heart didn't like this and as windows says "system is shutting down", I look down to my chest expecting something bad but no all looked ok so the 30 min job took a couple of hours - good job i went in early. I get back to the ward and the nurse comes over to me and says "ooh they are nasty burns" so I look down and i have a large rectangular burn on my chest and my left side where they had to shock me to kick start the system again - just my luck - but i will say all i can remember is a a split second of silent darkness, I can safley say FROM EXPERIENCE - there is no white light or anything like that to head towards, when its over its over.

So after all that they still send me home at 7.30pm that night lol bloody NHS.

So it is saturday today and Lucy if course is off school. Well she can see that I am not at my best so she just wants to love me, sit on me and smother me, it is not her fault but she just can't understand i have a slash in my leg and bruise like I have just taken up american football. SO good old nanny and grandad with the shop have taken her for the night again. It is now 11.40pm while im typing this the day after my heart stopped working and im on the John Smiths already just to calm my nerves, I have had to have Owl vision today looking out for where she is coming next.

Jack has been a complete hero today, he has even had it in his mind that he is in control of the laundry today, bless him - if there was a badge at scouts for mr considerate and helpfull he has earnt this 6 times over today.

Thursday night before yesterdays little drama, I went to a meeting at Lucys school, I am now the official scretary of the Friends of Hall School, this is a group of parents who get involved with fundrasing for the school and I am looking forward to getting really stuck in with this as they do such a fantastic job with all the children there, any parent that has a child there should do something for them.

As for tomorrow Lucy isn't coming home till the evening so it will be a day of rest and relaxation as it is still a bit tricky to walk and i ache in all sorts of funny places, the only plus side is I am not allowed to lift or run around for a while yet so at last i get to sit on my backside and do nothing for a while.

Good news for a change

Well everything is back to normal, well as normal as things get, I love the school routine, and luckily Lucy loves going to school, and on the plus side Jack is also back at school so he now has his time away from Lucy.

The sleep problem reared its head again the other night, we were all so tired, that the gate at the top of the stairs was left open, this meant (and i only found this out the following morning) that Lucy climbed over her gate during the night and came downstairs to play on her own while we were all still asleep. I found this out as there on the table when I cam down was a glue stick, a white board pen and a cut up Dora the Explorer comic. Luckily we have a gate on the Kitchen door as well otherwise she would have been frying eggs or something else that could have been a disaster of the highest level.

The good news is that we had a meeting children's services on Monday and the chap brought along a potential short term career for Lucy, everything seemed to go ok and it defiantly did as I received a telephone call today saying that is were happy with this lady then she was happy to progress to the next step. People don't realise how long this has taken to get in action and now the end is in sight I can see some well due afternoon naps coming in, but also some quality time with Jack as well, we will be able to take him out which is something we can't do at the moment, just a simple trip to the zoo is a nightmare so we just don't do it, but with Jack on his own we will be straight there.

The bad news is im going in to Papworth Hospital tomorrow for a bit of a tweak on the heart to try and sort it out, sort of a tune up i guess. The only problem apart from crapping myself about going is that Lucy always sits on my lap, "well whats the problem" I hear you say, well the problem is they are getting to my heart via the artery in my groin, so it will be no lap sitting for a couple of day.

Its been a few days

Well it has been a few days since my last blog, but when jack and lucy finally go to bed all i want to do is have a nice drink and go to sleep myself.

I was running out of ideas the other day and needed to find a way of making Lucy sleep so while Suzanne was at work Jack, Lucy and myself got in the car and drove the whole 3 mins to Mousehold Heath, why drive I hear you ask, well as far as Lucy is concerned that is a marathon, especially if we need to get back quick if she has a fit or just decides she won't walk any more.

So there we are in a heath miles accross, full of dry braken and trees, Lucy finds the only pond in the huge area and falls in up to her knees, somehow I managed to pull her out so quick that the water didn't get in her boots. But what also amazes me is we have this vast space yet she still manages to hang on to and bully Jack, the poor little sod just wants to run around like a nutter and let of steam but she wants to hang on to the back of his jumper and if he dosen't let her the she sits down on the floor and won't go any further.

Then we have the sleep problem that has occured over the last few days, Lucy has a gate on her bedroom door, firstly so she stays in her room once in bed for her own saftey and also as her bedroom is next to the bathroon upstairs and you can just imagine the disasters waiting there to happen, so far I have caught her having a shave, washing her hands with cilit bang, washing her dolls in the toilet and the list goes on. But!!!!! she has now both worked out how to open the gate and also climb over it, I dont want to make the gate double height as it is almost like putting her in a cage, luckily we have another gate at the top of the stairs she hasn't worked out yet, so we have had to put up with the fact that we are only allowed a light sleep till i can change the gate which means we are the walking dead at present.

Today (Sunday) we have all been out to lunch with the family for my grans 80 something birthday, let me paint a picture my gran, she is in a wheelchair, is blind and deaf and her teeth keep falling out, but Lucy loves her, for the simple reason in Lucys eyes she is a giant doll, as she has to be feed and someone has to hold her drink for her and basically do everything she needs, so Lucy is straight in there, helping out and forcing things down her throat, putting napkins around her neck, infact i looked over at one point today, and she was wallpapered in napkins all over her front, and Lucy was constantly planting kisses on her and shaking her hand so hard I was afraid her arm would come off.

And then back home we had a carvery lunch, in true Lucy style she had a plate of food to envy every adult in the room, as soon as we were in the door, she wanted more food and signed big egg which is an omlette, we had to fight her or 2 hours to delay more food going in, basically, recently as soon as she comes home from anywhere she wants a "big egg", she currently has at least 6 eggs per day, trying to get her to eat something else is a small miracle unless it goes into her "big egg", for example she has mushrooms and peppers in her "big egg" but she has also been know to have brussel sprouts in there as well as the latest phase cockles!!!!!

Well tomorrow we have to make a trip to specsavers as she has broken her new glasses after 2 weeks of having them and then in the afternoon her potential restbite career is coming to visit - so fingers crossed.

Trip in to Norwich

Suzanne was going to have her hair done today along with a friend in Norwich city center today. So I had the great idea of us all going along and making a fun trip out of it. Once we got lucy dressed (this finished at 10.00am) we all set off.

Everything went as smooth as clockwork, the only way this happened was for me too act the biggest fool in town, But hey - for all the strange looks i got it was worth it (you could see the expressions on peoples faces and they must have been thinking why has a prat like that been left in charge of 2 children) while the women were getting their hair done, i was dancing through the castle mall shopping centre like a man who had drunk 10 pints of Stella.

Then when they were finished it was easy as "auntie" Jodie, another of the kids surrogate aunties was there and it was a good game to hold her hand.

On the plus side we had a phone call today from the social services children's department and they are coming to visit on Monday with Lucy's possible restbite career. This has only take 3 years to get sorted out, don't you love local government and how they spend their money.

Lucy has had a hair cut tonight, most kids will just have it done and that's the end of it, this has been as big a treat as Christmas as far as she is concerned, at last its over and done with so she can stop signing hair cut every 20 seconds now. The only downside is she has to show everyone know, but the novelty will wear of by the end of the week, I hope.

Brace yourself for tomorrows blog - we are going to feed the ducks.

Friday is here

Well I haven't blogged much this week either due to having my hands full or completley knackered in the evening.

Lets start by saing it has been a long week and another week of school holidays left to go, thankfully Suzanne has taken the 2 weeks of work to muck in.

Many new things have been learn't this week;-

1) Don't take Lucy into book shops, she loves her books the only problem is she likes to rip ALL the pages out so as you can imagine our trip to Borders book store was a walking nightmare.

2) Dont let Lucy go to the loo on her own, we should have learn't from this before when she blocked the plug hole with toilet paper and left both taps on full blast, it wasn't until i went in to the kitchen and sicovered that the water had gone through the wall and under the oven. This time she plugged the sink up with a "Number 2".

3) Avoid self scanning checkouts in Tescos, she loves to scan things and make them go beep, problem is if you are not carefull you pay for everything twice, and if you don't let her help she does her famous, im sitting on the floor and not getting up trick. Oh and beware other shoppers if she is in control of the trolly, she will scream at you to move and if you dont she waves her arm and will ram you.

4) Did you know in Windows Vista you can turn the whole screen upside down. I didn't, so you can imgaine my frustration at standing on my head trying to work out how she did it.

5) You can live with very little sleep, yes you are grumpy as hell and everything annoys you, but that was what alcohol was invented for wasn't it.

Tomorrw Lucy is sleeping over at her grandparents house, which she loves and is spoilt with trips to feed the ducks etc, and Jack is on Scout camp, you would think we would be out painting the town very red wouldn't you - no we will be found fast asleep in the arm chairs at 7pm then stagger to bed when we wake up cold, and then sleep in all morning. We have a poor abused dog that has to wear lucys clothes, hats and glasses, and madly he will do what ever she wants him to do (infact as I type this she is holding his mouth tightly closed for some reason) if it wasn't for him needing a call of nature at about 6.30 in the morning I would stay in bed all day on sunday.

The only problem with lucy staying at her grandparents is that she will be dressed to go complete with coat, hat and scarf from about 8am, and god help the brave man who tells her she isn't going till 4.30pm.

A Shopping trip gone wrong - AGAIN!!!

Well as you may or may not know it is the school holidays at present. Lucy goes to a Special Needs School in Norwich, The Hall School, this is an excellent school and gets the children motivated and interested in learning, amng many other things, we are very lucky to get Lucy a place in this school after main stream school failed her.

The problem comes along at school holidays as Lucy has to be in a routine at all times otherwise her behaviour goes "off the wall", so you can imagine it is now the 5th day away from school. Her internal body clock has already told her, even before she had breakfast today that she normally goes horse riding with the school on tuesdays, well there is the first problem of the day.

She was up and about at about 6am this morning, waking the whole house, poor jack her 10 year old brother had no intentions of getting up at this hour and ended up sitting on our bed giving lucy cuddles to calm her down as she wanted nothing to do with Suzanne or myself.

So on to breakfast, a hearty fill of cheese omlettes, everything has to involve eggs with Lucy for all 3 meals in the day and sometimes 4 or 5 meals.

The playtime until lunch which basially consited of bullying her older brother by wanting to be with him all the time, which of course he wants to be no part of. So the morning consited of her running around the house wearing cut off leggings and pink wellies, at 100mph.

So it was decided to go and visit Lucys grandparents, as we hadn't been to see what the easter bunny had left there for Jack and Lucy yet. The trip there in the car was ok, as they only live 2 mins away - but we have to drive as it would take Lucy a good hour to walk there.

Everything was ok'ish there. She just decided to charge around the house at 100mph again, luckily for her she bounces off things well. Then we had the wise idea to go to Tescos to do some last min shopping for tonights dinner. Stupid idea.

Lucy can home in on anything Winne the Pooh or Dora related at 100 paces so we have to keep a look out ahead to divert the trolley at the last second. Once we eventually make our way through the checkout I head off with Jack to load the car to make things run smoother, or so i thought. We have loaded the car, got in started the engine to warm the car up and i look over towards the door, there is Lucy sitting on the floor outside the main door, with Sue standing behind her to shield her from the on-comming trollies. She had no intentions of getting up, people think we are telling stories when we mention her doing this, but once she is down she has it in her mind not to get up whatever. After 5 mins i turn of the engine and walk over, I then have too carry her over the shoulder so as not to get bitten the 3-4 mins walk back to the car, not a big thing i hear you say, but a man with a heart complaint who is having surgery in a few weeks time carrying 4 1/2 stone is a big feat.

Then the stubbon streak has set in - we get home and I have to carry her out of the car in to the house up the steps, then luckily for us she decides with her fake yawn for communication she needs to sleep, we then have mixed feelings, do we let her sleep or not - the short answer is we let her sleep , she must have needed it, the problem is we all do, it is now 9pm at night and she is showing no sign of going to bed so the 100mph chase continues.

Lets hope for a better day tomorrow.