Monday 27 August 2012

"I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore..."

What, where and when is this strange place?





When I was expecting our first bundle of boy, kitting out the 'nursery' was a very exciting experience and the room became a tranquil, calm place I used to sit in and dream about meeting my baby.

Then four years passed.

Now here is my 'baby' stripping the wallpaper from said nursery room as we decorate it for his younger brother who has already turned one.

How did this happen?


He already calls me 'Mum' more than he does 'Mummy'. I took him for his first trip to the cinema the other day and as he sat there taking it all completely in his stride I realised how ridiculously precious time is.
Soppy, I know and don't get me wrong he is still a clingy little boy who needs his Mummy to be there every step of the way but I am noticing some real changes.

Who knows how he is going to handle starting school next week.
 One thing is for sure, if any one will need peeling from the school gates all weepy and snotty...it will most likely be me.




Monday 13 August 2012

ATTENTION!!

Who knew that sibling rivalry started so early?

My eldest is four and my youngest turns one next week. 

The youngest already has his eye on everything that belongs to the toddler or that the toddler shows any interest in.


This is a tray. To look at it you might think it was an ordinary tray. 
Yet this tray has become the source of such sibling rivalry the world has not seen since the Miliband brothers were battling it out for leadership.

The baby has very quickly realised:
                tray = good things

The toddler has his supper on the tray. He often has his tea on the tray also. 
The baby wants the tray.
It gets nasty.
I am seriously praying the the shop still sells the tray so that when the baby is old enough he can have a tray of equal stature. Quite obviously none other will do.

It works both ways. 
Any day now I am expecting to see the toddler riding a unicycle blindfolded whilst juggling and speaking fluent Spanish. 
That might get him some attention.
He has reverted to babyish tactics of following me around the house wherever I go. He asks me how many minutes I will be when I go to the bathroom. There is no where to run.
He gets more than his fair share of attention but now the baby is starting to roll around and pull himself up my attention is stretched beyond all recognition.

I keep reminding myself that I will miss all of this once the toddler starts school in September.
The sad thing is, I probably will.

Thankfully it wont be long till the baby can say Mummy and does so at least one thousand times a day.








Monday 6 August 2012

Olympic Pride

Wow. 

What an Olympic games London 2012 is turning out to be for team GB.

It was evident from the number of people turning out for the torch relay, enduring all sorts of weather, that the whole nation was hoping that London 2012 was going to be something we could all be proud of. 

I have lost count of the number of times I have had tears in my eyes watching these amazing athletes achieve so much. 

I absolutely bawled my eyes out watching the torch relay programme that was on before the start of the games. Seeing some of the torch bearers that have overcome such hardship to hold that torch with such pride. Seeing the emotions of the parents and families of torch bearers was very touching.

The opening ceremony was absolutely amazing. Well done to Danny Boyle and all those involved with the organisation of such a gigantic task. 

What a way to show the world what Great Britain is made of. 
The music throughout the ceremony was absolutely amazing and I thought the Arctic Monkeys were superb. 

My favourite part of the show was definitely the short James Bond film featuring the Queen herself. What a good sport to be involved in something like that. The iconic figure that is Queen Elizabeth II saying "Good evening Mr Bond" to the lucious Daniel Craig was a surprising way of showing the world how great Great Britain is.


Since the opening ceremony, team GB have gone on to already win fourty medals including eighteen gold ones. 
The cycling has been absolutely amazing and team GB has dominated the events. 
I absolutely love watching the athletes that win the events look for and celebrate with their families. What an emotional moment. When Bradley Wiggins won the road race he was riding around so obviously looking for his wife and children to share the moment with. When he found them I had tears (again)!

The toddler has been watching some of the events with us when he is interested enough. He always cheers 'TEAM GB' and tells me they have won even when they haven't!

The impact of the Olympics on the toddler is already very evident. Today he was looking through one of his Disney encyclopedia books and found a page with a picture of the Olympic torch on it. He asked me to read it to him and was intrigued by the idea of the games being every four years. He worked out how old he'll be at the next games and asked if we could go! He hasn't grasped the concept that the games wont be in London every four years! Oh well, we'll just have to go to Rio I suppose. 














Saturday 4 August 2012

Heart Matters

On 4th July this year a decision was made to close the congenital heart centre at Glenfield hospital in Leicester. 


This means that children's heart surgery will no longer be carried out at Glenfield and also that the hospital would lose its ECMO unit.
The hospital has the largest ECMO unit in the country and has twenty years experience of using the unit to save the lives of children and adults. 


An expert has declared that survival rates will drop if the ECMO unit is moved away from Glenfield.


When our little one was only two weeks old he was moved from a neo-natal unit in Nottingham to the specialist centre at Glenfield. 
It was about a fifty minute journey for us, which doesn't sound much but when you are under such stress and have another child at home to think about the journeys are just horrendous. To have had to travel even further would have been such a strain on the family.

The expertise of the staff at Glenfield was evident from the very beginning. 


Our son had to have major heart surgery when he only weighed five pounds. Because of the surgeons, doctors and nurses at Glenfield our (not so) little man is thriving and you would have no idea he'd been through such trauma.


Glenfield hospital serves a population of about five million and conducts around two hundred and thirty operations a year on children and seventy on adults. 


An e-petition has been set up to save children's cardiac surgery at Glenfield hospital. 


If you have a moment please add your signature. The petition is HERE.


Thank you 

Thursday 2 August 2012

The Woman In Black

The blu ray version  of The Woman In Black was a birthday present from my lovely boys.
I was very interested in this film when it came out at the cinema being a fan of classic Wes Craven style 'he's behind you' horror.
Unfortunately, cinema visits are much less frequent than I would like at the moment because of two certain little people. Therefore, I was thrilled when I got this DVD.
It must be very difficult for Harry...I mean Daniel Radcliffe to prove that he can be anyone other than the spectacle wearing boy wizard popular throughout the world. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel sorry for the bloke, he hasn't done bad for himself.


I struggle with horror films (in my old age!) I used to love all things scary but I find a lot of the modern horrors far too twisted and gory to be entertaining. 
This film however, uses nothing more than creepy 'village of the damned' type stares and remarks from the locals, spooky middle of nowhere settings, dark rooms, strange noises and very spooky children's toys to make you jump out of your seat. 
On numerous occasions I found myself peeping from behind a pillow, always a sign of a good horror in my book! You know the scare is coming but it still makes your heart pound!


In a nutshell but without trying to ruin it for you, the film is about a young widower (Daniel Radcliffe) who has to travel to a small village to settle the accounts of a recently deceased client of the lawyers office he works for. He soon discovers that children of the village have been dying in strange circumstances. After seeing 'the woman in black' for himself he soon discovers who she is and why she is so vengeful.


As with most horrors some of the characters are a little far fetched with their creepiness and there is the usual  sense of 'you just wouldn't go in their would you?' 


Generally a very entertaining film and I would definitely recommend it as an easy to follow Friday night film. 


Just make sure all the children's toys are switched off before you go to bed that night otherwise you might get a bit of a fright!!