Dogs do not drink apple juice

Its been a busy day, you know when it gets to 4 pm and you fantasize about just getting the kids into bed, that was me after the school run today.

However while my back was turned Elliot decided it would be fun to add to mummy's burdens for the day.

He snuck into the fridge and got hold of the apple juice, sadly I only turned around in time to see him emptying the last drops of a full carton of juice into the dogs water bowl!

Now I am not an expert, but I am pretty sure that dogs like water not juice. To make it worse the bowl filled up very quickly and most of the juice was over the floor and mats. How many days is it exactly before he stops being a toddler and grows some sense?

Good news, bad news

So I have been a lazy little blogger of late, but bear with me while I try to get back on blogger track:

I thought I might spend a few days sharing my mummy highs and mummy lows with you, lets start with the bad news:

Imagine all 6 of us sitting and enjoying a nice picnic at a very civilised National Trust property, all is calm and quiet. Then the screaming begins, little Elliot has fallen off a toy trailer being pulled by his sister. He stands there in shock as a huge stream of blood is let loose from his nose in front of many picnicking families.

Well we shove a bottle in to calm him down so I can stem the flow and check the damage, then after about 5 seconds he is happy again and off to explore with bottle in mouth and now slowly bleeding nose. Considering its a good idea to stay calm to slow the blood flow I thought just letting him have a little space seemed like a good idea. Bad idea he promptly falls over his dad's legs splits his lip open and starts his nose again.

Then we have a screaming baby, a split teat ( so no bottle), and both a mouth and nose streaming blood. Why did no one ever tell me how much fun it is being a mum!

Now the good bit of the day:

This may sound like a little thing, but it made me smile. Ali had brought a punnet of cherries as they are one of my favourites. Obviously being expensive we rarely buy them and certainly never really give them to the kids. So it was lovely to see all of the kids descending on them like a pack of ravenous birds. The only stumbling block being trying to explain to them how to get the stone out of the middle. It always gives me pleasure to see them enjoying food, good, good ,good.

Seriously!!!!!!!!

So Elliot has the chicken pox at the moment, well let me tell you a story about Sunday.

We had headed down to the New Forest to get Aidan from his Cub camp and could not find anywhere at all to have lunch. It got to about half one and we finally a found a place that could just about squeeze us in.

Lovely place, I really enjoyed my liver and bacon, but about half way through the meal Elliot started to scream like some demented banshee (Just for reference this continued pretty much none stop until about 4pm the next day). Anyway we got Aidan and I quickly realised that Elliot wasn't using his right arm.

My immediate thought was, well I won't say what it was as it involves a very large proportion of swear words, no that's a lie it was all swear words. Well at about 8 months Elliot had pulled out his elbow, it hurt him like you would not believe but the Gp quickly popped it back in for him. Sadly I immediately knew that he had managed this feat yet again.

So off I headed to A and E, two hours after arrival ( and a dose of calpol for him) I decided that the screaming was now going beyond the level that any sane person could be expected to bear. So I headed to ask for more painkillers for him, luckily a lovely Nurse tried to pop his elbow back in, now imagine your hurting elbow being viciously twisted back into place with the full might of an adult behind the twisting, well Elliot's screams matched what you would imagine.

Sadly she couldn't hear the click and he was to tired to play ball, so the only option was to head home and wait to see if he started using it the next day. We get home I spend 3 hours working and a ridiculous amount of time sorting the kids stuff for the next day. Then after a night of no sleep he was clearly in pain still and not using his arm.

Then to add insult to injury I strip him off and find that the two dodgy spots had turned into a full blown case of chicken pox, now surely a pulled elbow and the chicken pox is not a fair combination for any kid to have to cope with.

Luckily we got to see the doc and through the day his arm improved, so it had indeed gone back in, phew, so I guess that at least was some good news.

Poxy poxy chicken pox

So I seem to have unintentionally infected half of the local toddler population with chicken pox, opps. Elliot came out in some very suspicious looking spots of Saturday and Sunday, and by Monday it was very clear that it was the dreaded ( or not so dreaded) pox.

Then I start hearing one by one from mums that come to my toddler group, and it quickly becomes apparent that lots of the little darlings also have the pox. I do have to admit to feeling a little guilty about this, but I am not sure you can feel guilty about something that you had completely no control over.

You have to admire the pox at least a little bit, they come in under the radar infect the kid and then make them a walking source to infect others, but cleverly give off no signs of their existence for the first 2 or 3 days when they are highly infectious, the cunning little pests.

Elliot's spots have come in a slightly strange way with just one at a time popping up about every 12 hours or so, he now has them dotted all over, but luckily still not too bad, but you have to feel sorry for the little man having a pox spot on the end of his willy and also on his tongue. He does look like a very unhealthy and slightly odd dot to dot project, actually it might be fun to take a biro and join all the spots.

I am a great fan of prevention, so a visit to the pharmacist and £15 later he has spent the last 4 days drugged up to the eyeballs. Its particularly fun smothering him in calamine lotion after his bath, the girls have a great thrill that I seem to be painting their brother white for some bizarre reason.

I know pox can be very serious, but I am very glad to be getting through the horrid episodes, no more pox for this house, whoop whoop. Aidan, Alex, Cat and Elliot have all now been poxed up and hopefully now have the immunity to fight of any future pox sneak attacks.

I know that about 10% of people get the pox again, sometimes many times, but I am hanging on to the blind optimism that all of mine now have super immunity and will never face the discomfort and annoyance that the pox brings with it.

So yes it sucks that Elliot is poorly, but thank you pox for getting all my kids infected and sorted at such an early age, in a few days we will say goodbye to the pox forever in our household, its not been hugely nice knowing you Mr Pox, but it certainly is nice to be seeing the back of you.

Why create toddlers and then give them a mind of their own?

Surely if you are going to include a stage in human development that includes being a toddler, then why oh why would you also give the psychotic toddlers minds of their own!

Typical toddler behaviour seems to include:

Eating anything that is small enough to fit into ones mouth or that is soft enough to take a chunk out of ( in Elliot's case this includes a red nose he managed to get his hands on).

Touching anything and everything possible, I can not even begin to list the number of things he has grabbed or got hold of that he either has the potential to break or that has the potential to hurt him.

Running with no regard to ones own ability to actually run or any common sense about the safety of running in whatever direction they are going. Elliot has only just started to walk, so why does he think he can now run.

Climbing on anything its possible to climb on, and then promptly falling off generally straight onto his head.

Escaping at every opportunity possible, this can be escaping from me, his pushchair, highchair or even the bath if the mood takes him.

Pinching, grabbing or pulling at any living thing that is unlucky enough to get within reach, at the moment Elliot's very favourite is pulling hair and seeing how long he can hang on and listen to the screaming from his sisters.

Now giving a small child these abilities with no common sense or sense of danger is stupid enough, but why compound the situation. Is this not bad enough, apparently no, he also needs his own mind, so we add to the above tantrums, screaming and getting very angry when he can't have what he wants, from going into the car seat, to refusing to let him play with knives, to trying to stop him destroying things, everything now is a running battle.

Its exhausting chasing a toddler all day long, so why add the screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth anger and despair that takes place when he can't get his own way.

self feeding toddler aka the slime monster

 

I am getting on a bit now, so bare with my very old cultural references. I swear that as soon as my lad feeds himself he immediately takes on a striking resemblance to the Blob from the 1980s horror movie remake.

Its like there is a human being in there somewhere, but its hard to identify it under the piles of slime, yoghurt and other food items that he has liberally applied to his skin, clothes and hair.

I thought pancake day was a low point when he decided to clean the plate ( covered in maple syrup and blueberries) with his face, hands and hair. Yes his hair, what on earth would possess someone to take a filthy sticky plate, to tip it upside down and to then rub it on their head, I do wonder if he is a little bit mental.

Its not a great photo, but if you are wondering, that is indeed maple syrup dripping down his forehead.

Anyway each day he ends the day with a little self feeding ( he does finger foods in the day, but I keep the spoon and mess attempt to the end of the day). I estimate that

about 70% of the yoghurt ends up on his body or clothes,
about 10% on the floor, chair and table,
about 5% is left on various spoons as he scoops it out chucks the spoon away and requests another spoon
about 5% is snuck into the dogs mouth while I am not looking,
about 10% remains in/ on the mutilated pot
and less than  0.000000001% makes its way into his mouth.

Oh well, this stage won't last forever, I am sure he will have slightly better skills and manners by the time he is about 18 or so.

Pre-requisites to being a parent - part 1

You would think that the only requirements to being a parent is to have the necessary bits, to use these for some fun, then baddabing 9 months later you are a mummy or a daddy.

However I think it should be way more complicated than that:

Requirement number 1 - A hatred of sleep.
not just a hatred of sleep, but some kind of super power that enables you to live on about 4 hours of sleep every year. In the last 10 years since becoming a mummy I must have had next to no whole nights of sleep. We get one kid sorted and then the next has some issue, ill health or general desire to wake me up in the middle of the night, and that's not even counting the sleepless nights due to pregnancy and all the gross and painful symptoms that come with it.

Requirement number 2 - A liking for cold, reheated or generally pre sucked food.
I love that my kids like their food, but could they not just leave my plate alone, or at least give me a few seconds to actually eat before screaming and requiring my attention.

Requirement number 3 - A desire to look (and smell) like a person who has never washed either themselves or their clothes.
Starting with baby sick, the progressing nicely to mashed ( but very colourful) food, and then on to paint or any type of messy play items. These items do not look good in your hair, on your skin or covering your clothes, and especially not down your back when you have no idea that it is there.

Requirement number 4 - A liking of constantly being judged or told what to do.

I think parenting is one of the only areas of life where the world and his wife feel that they have the right to tut at you or generally send completely unrequested advice your way. You have to have a pretty thick skin to be a parent.

Requirement number 5 - A wish to spend hours doing minor tasks, that prior to children took mere minutes.
Once upon a time it took 5 minutes to go to the shop, this now takes several hours, many bribes, lots of screaming, and the equivalent effort that it would take to climb Everest.