It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. Then…

Being a parent at Christmas has it’s advantages, there is so much magic around the whole day – it’s a fantastic time of year. However, it DOES have it’s down-sides.

WHY? WHY WHY WHY WHY?

Last night, I fell victim to the dreaded ‘sharp toy in the foot’ injury. After Christmas, the risk of this sort of eye-watering and frankly infuriating accident increases by about 100%.

Most parents will know the score already; you sneak in to tuck the little one(s) in and kiss them goodnight and even though you managed to get over to them with no problem, somehow, when you turn to tip-toe out the room you stand on something tiny, razor-sharp and end up doing that silent scream number.

Like this...

This year, Santa brought the kids a lot of little collectable  toys that we told them to keep in good condition and – apart from the Matt Smith Dr Who figure whose head nearly ended up embedded in the soul of my foot, they’ve managed quite well so far.

Despite a full on (and pretty brutal) clear-out of all the old and broken toys in order to make way for a mountain of new toys, the kids room looks something like this.

NOT REALLY!!

When you have kids, for a period of about a week immediately following Christmas, all hell will break loose in your house. Unless you are super-organised, which I’m not, then it takes time to find space for all the new stuff. If you are trying to cram everything into one room, good luck. If you manage this quick enough then you might avoid hurting yourself, by standing or tripping over things, after dear old St Nick has visited your children.

Good luck trying to make sense of those instruction, folks...

Not to mention the sheer frustration in getting all those board games set up and explaining all the rules. It’s enough to harsh the melons of even the most patient parent.

So, right now, I’m off to set-up and explain ‘Guess Who’ to the kids. If you don’t hear from me again it’s possibly because I’m in a mental-health ward somewhere; curled in the fetal position, sucking my thumb and cursing the name of Santa Claus.

What are your least favourite moments in the aftermath of Christmas?

WISH ME LUCK!

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Broody.Out.Ma.Nut

This tactic didnt work, I had to take it all back to IKEA.

I saw a the loveliest wee baby boy while i was waiting on my friend getting her hair done aaargh!

Losing My Baby

This is an incident that happened when Andrew was around 9 months old. I had just started back at University and things were going fine. It was the week my first essay submissions were due and the boys had winter colds. …But events took a harrowing turn.

I’d spent most of that day at the Library. The weather outside was wet and miserable. I’d sat and read for a long time listening to the rain beat against a nearby window, seeing it get darker and darker out there from the corner of my eye. Finally, as the last of the daylight slid out of the sky, I borrowed some books and left for home.

I got on the 38 from the bus stop outside the library, then the 57 at Union Street. The city centre was very busy with people making their way home from work and it took a long time to get out of the busy traffic. It took a good half hour longer to get to my bus stop outside Andrew’s nursery.

When i got in the girl’s reported that Andrew wasn’t really himself, he hadn’t eaten (very very unlike him), he’d cried quite a bit (quite like him) and he had just had a wee bad day. When I picked him up I noticed immediately he looked ill. His eyes were glazed, he seemed quite limp and sad.

I put his hat and coat on, put him in the buggy and practically ran up the road. Now people who know me, all know i am not one to panic, especially when it comes to the boys being sick because they are at daycare and usually pick everything going.

But by the time i picked Laurence up at his daycare, Andrew looked worse. I picked him out the buggy and he was totally limp. His temperature was sky high and his eyes were rolling about in his head.

When I got home I phoned NHS 24, who said to take him to A&E immediately. We got staight in the car.

I sat in the back seat, with Andrew wrapped in a blanket and I held him in my arms. He drifted in and out of semi-consciousness and I couldn’t get any kind of response or reaction from him. Then he lost consciousness altogether.

I lost it. I was crying so much i could hardly speak. I thought the was going to die, I honestly thought my beautiful little boy was going to die in my arms in the back seat of the car. I held his little limp body and stroked his cheek. I thought about how, because I’d suffered such bad post-natal depression, I hadn’t bonded with him for months- I hadn’t loved him. But that had changed and now I loved him with every inch of my heart- and here I was…losing him.

Laurence stopped the car outside the A&E door and I ran into the hospital. The receptionist took one look at me, this red, mascara stained faced girl holding a limp baby boy, who couldn’t really string a sentence together and told me to go straight to the cubicles.

I clung to my son and walked up a long corridor until I came to a room where a bunch of A&E doctors were standing around talking, looking relaxed, probably enjoying a rare quiet moment in a Glasgow ward. I stood at the door until they had all noticed me, which seemed like ages but was probably just a second or two, they fell silent.

They just stood looking at me with a strange stricken look on their faces, looking pretty terrified. The scene must have been frightening. Here was a young mother, a complete emotional wreck, clutching a limp little baby in her arms. No wonder nobody rushed over immediately…they were probably too scared to because they thought the worst. I don’t blame them.

A young, really good-looking male doctor came over to me and took Andrew off me. I tried to explain what was wrong but it was so hard i was crying so much.

After some more attempts to rouse him, Andrew came round. He opened his eyes but he was very limp and hot. The doctor immediately gave him some medicine to bring down his temperature. It was dangerously high.

He decided Andrew had an infection of some sort which he couldn’t locate the source, and Andrew was rushed to Yorkhill.

By this point, the temperature had come down and he was a little more responsive. Yorkhill, gave him more medicine for his temperature and slowly he came round to normal.

Andrew had had a febrile convulsion which happens when the temperature of a child spikes too quickly. Now I realise it was probably because i put his hat and jacket on when I picked him up from daycare, but it’s a natural instinct for a mother to want to keep her sick child warm on a winter night.

We left the hospital at around 9 o’clock at night. My heart was in tatters. Next day Andrew was perfectly normal. Happy, busy etc.
Alanna xxxxxxxx

You Tak’ The High Road And I’ll Tak’ The Low Road And I’ll Be The Last One To Go To A Scottish Festival In Britain! : Entry For 22 June 2008

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This year i really wanted to go to Rockness. There were a few things that stopped me.

1) Money…for obvious reasons, mainly I had just moved house and I was skint
2) Babysitters

For some reason, people, namely my MUM and Laurence seem to think that it is selfish of me to want to go to a festival for one day and one night….apparently, i am SOOO selfish for wanting to do things while I am young. The fact that i might want to experience some stuff without having to wait until I am thirty means that i am not making my kids “my life”. Im sorry , i dont WANT to make my kids my life, yes they are a huge part of my life but they dont define me, I dont want to neglect my own life when for the sake of a day or night here and there which they wouldnt even MISS me for…probably wouldnt even know i was gone. I hate everycunt!

Entry For 20 June 2008

It started through necessity. When I moved out from Laurence’s I was the only person who would tidy, do the hoovering and all that jazz. I started to notice a little difference in my figure. Olé right? No, immediate relationship withdrawal kicked in and I began savaging whole packets of KitKats. Not eating properly is an understatement. I went from my usual evening meal + a takeaway+ chocolate and crisps and full fat Cola to basically nothing except a few kitkats. I gained weight. Actually, I gained around 4 pounds. What a nightmare, and clearly the last thing a newly single 22 year old needs right? I had a few repeat incidents of people offering me seats on busy public transport just to put a cherry ontop of my bottomed out self esteem.

Then, came the completely empty pockets. I’m not just talking not being able to get a new top here and there, I’m talking not being able to buy softner or bread or deoderent. Along with the departure of these items and similar from the reach of my budget went…the TAXI! Yes folks, no matter how poor I was I always scrimped a few extra quid to get me from my house to my mum’s and visa versa. It’s a good 30 minute walk at a brisk pace, but with two kids, or one in a buggy and one dawdling behind you its a good 50 minutes…a pain in the neck in other words.

Eventually, like all struggling parents I had to sacrifice something. I started walking and I was so surprised at how much I loved it. When I was on my own I made sure I worked hard at keeping up a pace and raising my heart rate and when I was with the boys I just made sure I enjoyed the walk. I started to see amazing results. I haven’t been so pleased with my figure in a good few years.

Giving up the taxis, the takeaways, the sky, the phoneline and broadband, the treats in the shopping budget, the EXTRA person in the budget….i thought I’d make some serious savings in my purse. WRONG! My parents have been there for me to the Nth degree but the person I have to give the most credit to is Laurence. He has been keeping me afloat on food, heat, lifts and AHEM…other things as well. It has been such a great time with him.

There is only one MAJOR problem with the arrangement….or maybe its a few major problems. These are CRISPS, SAUSAGE ROLLS, PIE and …the return of COLA!!! Right now, I am sitting infront of Laurence’s computer with my SECOND ( read it and weep folks) SECOND bag of crisps and Cola….feeling my waistline expand as we speak. Tomorrow, its back to my flat to live on brown toast and fruitshoots and walking everywhere.