On the mend or round the bend - not sure!

It always amazes me how quickly children recover from sickness. At 8am this morning my heart was breaking for my girls, they could barely move and their little bodies ached from vomiting so much.

Now my head aches from the demands and my legs ache from running to and from the kitchen to make them food. I can't fill them. They are driving me mad. We are definitely going out tomorrow.

I am trying to hold them back and remind them that they are still recovering and if they do too much they will crash tomorrow.

Our first camping experience ....

....was definitely memorable, my son managed to throw up about 12 times in 12 hours. The 12 hours starting at 5pm in a local RSL and ending at 5am the next morning. The only consolation is that it wasn't at home on my carpet.

Other than that, we loved it. It was only for one night, but that's ok.

He is feeling much better now and will be attending school again tomorrow.

It's been a while

I have been reading blogs while I have been away and keeping up with things, I have just not been writing, as a result of my laser eye surgery, for me, reading the computer screen has been difficult. I am totally fine with distance now and close reading, but the computer screen gives me a few problems. Nothing major, I can see it, it just comes in and out of focus - oh I can't describe it, because I can see, it just is not perfect yet so is frustrating and also makes my eyes tired.

Anyway, I am glad I had surgery and I am sure my vision will continue to improve. Will write more about it in another post.

What else has been going on

This is the last day of the school holidays, we just had a lazy 2 weeks. It was nice not having to rush all over the place, even fun activities can be stressful when trying to get 3 kids out the door on time.

Were going to do a one night camping trip last weekend but the thunder storms put us off.

My dad and his wife have booked their flights and arrive on 4 January, we are so excited, I haven't seen my dad for 7 years and my girls have never met him.

Girls have started Little Athletics and are loving it - thankfully

Miss T turned 5 - and I think each card included a double dose of attitude - she is hard work at the moment - eats everything but doesn't like anything, argues constantly, temper tantrums have started again, I think if I told her Santa was coming today, she would argue that she didn't want him to. Hate is also her favourite word at the moment. Please tell me the attitude will go away soon - very soon.

The girls are screaming and fighting as I type. Gotta go.........

Sluggish

I can't shake the sluggishness. We had a tough week last week but working through that, I am eating well (no honestly), sleeping well, but my head just feels so foggy. Maybe I have a bit of what the kids had, I am hoping a I can run it off at the gym this morning.

We had my son's 9th birthday party at a Lazer Tag place on Sunday he had a great time. My daughter also loved it and is asking when she can go back.

My son did get sick but not in the way the girls did. His dad took him to watch the Warriors on Saturday night and fed him fizzy, chips, hot chocolate and then he threw up. He has always struggled with nasty food and excitement. Most Christmas Eve's since he knew what was coming he got sick. Last year was the first time he didn't, he saved it for his birthday.

Got a physio appointment today, I am sure the good news will continue there. Later in the week I have my initial consultation for laser eye surgery.

Stressful week but ....

This week has been pretty stressful but as I am trying to focus on the positives, I am not going to post about it, except to say as one child got better the next got sick, but at least I only have one sick at a time. - Is that a positive?

Every day gaining a better understanding of how my mind works and am working through how to change things, bit by bit.

Jon had his birthday on Thursday, (yet again surrounded by sick children, but no hospitalisations this year - another positive).

Our son is 9 on Monday and we are having a party for him on Sunday, the girls should be all well by then. Please think happy thoughts for us that he doesn't get sick.

My dad has managed to get the whole of January off work so is looking to visit us. I haven't seen him in 7 years. I am very excited about it. He will meet my daughters for the first time.

Feeling strong

Well it is almost the last day of the school holidays, my son goes back on Tuesday, and we survived with very little wreckage. We kept busy, and I hid in the gym a bit while my kids were in creche, but that's ok.

I don't normally post about my training because lately it is very ho hum, what with my shoulder problems and my knee problems, I have found my training to be more rehab than anything else and very boring, but yesterday I felt really strong. I was able to increase (with the approval of my physio) most weights, increase my running to 10 mins!!?? and increase the speed and resistance on the bike. I also introduced new weights that I have not been able to do for about 2 years.

Overall I felt stronger and happier and really enjoyed it, I can see that things are improving but also mindful that I need to go very slowly.

I think it also helped that I saw the Jamie Oliver program and Wednesday. I think I realised that despite my injuries, I am a lot healthier and stronger than those people on that program and that I should be grateful for that.

Just this week, I have been focusing myself on not what foods can't I have, but what foods can I have that make me strong and healthy and happy so this program was a timely reminder of the reasons I try to make the right choices, it is not all about being thin and never has been.

As a trainer and a mum, I know what and how, I just now need to master the doing.

Image above from http://www.flickr.com/photos/kasandra16/

Feeling better?

My sick daughter jumped out of bed this morning feeling so much better than she did when she went to bed. The problem now 5 hours later is that she is starting to crash, she is exhausted, and probably has a headache but she refuses to accept that she is still sick. Just because the vomiting has subsided, she thinks she is up to running around a playground or going on a trip to the supermarket (why anyone would want to go to the supermarket is beyond me but there you go).

I have tried to convince her that she needs to go to bed for a rest and maybe she will be well enough to go to a playground later for a few minutes. Needless to say she is in her bed crying, I feel evil, but I have no doubt she will cry herself to sleep and feel better afterwards. I just hope she is not feeling neglected and bears scars for life due to her mother dumping her in bed, even if it is for her own good. Oh the wills of 2 year olds. Tell me it gets better.............Please???

You learn something new every day

How many things must a 2 year old learn every day?

This chilly morning I was hanging out washing and my 2 year old was with me. She said, "I have smoke coming out of my mouth."

Something that is so normal for us is a huge experience for her.

The other day my 7 (almost 8) year old son had his head in the freezer looking for his breath.

Warm sunshine and shoulder

I sat outside and read a book in the warm sun today. It is the first time I have sat down and read a book during the day for ages. I can tick off - do something nice for me today. It was so nice to relax. Not that I have done too much today. The girls had a swimming lesson at 9am this morning. I have moved the lesson to this slot permanently. It seems much easier than rushing after the gym and physio on a Tuesday. After swimming a quick trip to a couple of shops and then home.

The girls have not slept this afternoon, but they did rest in their rooms for about an hour. You can't have it all can you!!

My shoulder has taken a (brief, I hope) turn for the worse. My physio thinks that due to the length of time I have had the problem, it could take a very long time to get better. He also said that it will be a lot of trial and error and some of the things we try will result in a bit of pain. He said the only other option was to lose functionality of the shoulder, he even mentioned 'frozen shoulder' Debstar, I remember your comments, that is not an option so I will have to persevere with the trial and error and occasional pain. This week due to the pain he has prescribed rest and minimal functional movements, just to keep the joint free and moving and pec stretches.

Just had a nice long chat to a friend on the phone, always good for the emotional state - but now in the absence of the cleaning fairy it is back to the kitchen for this Cinderella.

School holidays

The first day of the school holidays was not quite a success. It started off OK. I went to the doctor to discuss the results of my MRI. The good news is that there is no major damage in there. I have tendinosis of the supraspinatus and various swellings and inflammations connected with that. So it is off again to the physio and any other practitioner that may be able to help. (Thank you for the suggestions)

I then took the kids to the playground for morning tea and a play, then back home for lunch and try and get the girls down for a sleep. Failed with one so we played soccer out the back.

Our back yard is tiered but down either side it is a full on slope and my eldest daughter decided to ride down this on her bike - with her training wheels, needless to say we are very lucky we didn't need to go to hospital. She did need her arm bandaging but only to fix the tears not the arm.

This is where I should have realised that things were going to take a turn for the worse, my youngest daughter slept for almost 4 hours this is so unlike her, but I just put it down to tiredness. How dumb am I?

When she got up she was so clingy and whiney and whingey etc etc. She refused dinner (nothing new there but that is another story) and a little later threw up and again, gave her panadol and she threw it up immediately. Then refused any more medicine and the harder I tried the more defiant she got.

To top all this I was on my own (Jon is in Melbourne, but don't worry he had a blow by blow account of the whole thing) trying to bathe 3 children one still vomiting, another trying to mother her to the point that I was yelling at her to leave her alone and thankfully my son being as helpful as he could. I do not know how single parents manage?

I was only up twice in the night, it could have been so much worse.

This morning I called the gym and cancelled the creche, I am not one of those mothers who can take their kids in all sick and snotty and expect someone else to deal with them, nor do I like the idea of passing the sickness to all the other children (although we probably got it from there in the first place). Nor do I think I could stop yawning enough to breathe properly and would probably end up with a stitch.

I am hoping for a vomit free day today.

World Vision - Aids

I, like many other Australians (or I should say other people in Australia, because I am not really Australian) sponsor a child in Africa, Mozambique actually, through World Vision. I decided to do this after realising how lucky I am to have such a rich life. I have 3 (usually) healthy children and I have food and water every day.

Even though I have made this committment, I still need to be reminded now and again of how difficult life is for these children. Today I got an email inviting me to an exhibition called "One Life Experience" where you’ll get to ‘live’ life through the eyes of a child in Africa.

From here I linked to the website and found the following...... I find it very hard to comprehend how 5,500 people in Africa are dying from Aids every day. http://www.worldvision.com.au/

HIV and AIDS

HIV and AIDS have created the biggest crisis the world has ever seen. It is killing more people than any war or famine in history. Every 11 seconds, someone dies of AIDS. That’s 2.9 million deaths a year. This death toll includes a lot of children, who are often infected during pregnancy or through breast-feeding. Millions of parents have died, leaving a whole generation of young orphans forced to take care of themselves and their younger siblings. Although the toll is worst in Africa, where 5,500 people die of AIDS every day, the pandemic is right on our doorstep. The World Health Organization has predicted that by 2015, there could be one million cases of HIV infection in Papua New Guinea.

Sports Rage

Ok so I only got to 1.20pm before I looked at my watch every 50 seconds or so to see if it was time to collect them, but today, well..... I got up to noise, loud music, loud children, mess (which to me is like noise) so today I could easily leave them until at least 2pm. Now I do like loud noise and lively upbeat music - just not when everything else is in chaos.

A visit to my podiatrist this morning did not put me in a much better frame of mind. He said that my body was not even nearly balanced. He thinks the shoulder injury is causing so much disruption to my body that it needs some serious stretching (my body that is) and a priority to fix my shoulder. Which I knew I guess. What I didn't like was the way he just sat there shaking head saying, "I just don't know where to start." It made me feel so good - not. It is a good job I know him quite well now.

Then, I went to watch my son play soccer again, his team were playing so well, and enjoying themselves especially as they were winning 13-0 until the ref (who also happened to be the coach of the other team) starting disallowing their goals, because they were offside. Now in a grown up game I would agree but, they are under 8's and there is no offside rule, and most of our kids have no idea what it means, all they knew was that for some reason 3 or more of their goals were disallowed, but didn't understand why. You could see the confusion on their faces. After the 3rd or 4th occasion our manager reminded the ref that there is no offside in under 8's. He said he was aware of that but as his team was more than 10-0 down he wanted to give them a break.

We all sympathised with his team but now he had totally confused ours. Anyway my husband Jon who is the coach, told his team not to score anymore goals but to concentrate on their passing skills. I don't know if this helped the other team or just humiliated them, but we couldn't let our kids be disappointed because of good goals being disallowed.

I hate sports rage and parents getting involved but today understood how it could happen. It think every child and parent left the game disappointed albeit for different reasons.

No children today

I have a day today where all my children are at school, preschool, or occasional care, unfortunately though my day is filled with appointments and jobs, that are easier without children.

I may get to eat a lunch in peace. That is definitely something to look forward to, even if it is a packed lunch.

Having got all excited about having a child free day, I know by 2pm I will be missing them like crazy.

Oh dear it's started already, my son just came back from the bus stop saying the bus went early and he missed it. I am sat here writing, not yet dressed and faced with the prospect of getting him to school. Luckily a neighbour was just driving by and collected him for me. What a star. Maybe the day will be ok after all.