Born to be wild......

Get your motor running, head out on the highway.......

At Christmas Harry & Ben got their first set of wheels. They are both sit on cars plus the seat also splits into a V shape and Harry & Ben can stand in the V, hold onto the handlebars/steering wheel and hopefully use them as walkers. We are trying to encourage them to walk now and hopefully these two walkers will help them do this. At the end of the day, they will walk when they feel like it, but there is no harm in giving them gentle encouragement.

Sleep.......

'Sleep those little slices of death, how I loath them'
- Edgar Alan Poe, born in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809, died Oct. 7, 1849


Edgar Alan Poe might have been one of the founding fathers of the Detective and psychological thriller genres, but when it came to subject of sleep to be perfectly blunt he was an arse!

There are some things worth pointing out here:

1) He hated sleep and pushed himself the whole time, burning the candle at both ends, gambling and drinking. He lived for 40 years - what does that tell you !

2) Although married he never had any children, so never had the experience of wanting desperately to sleep but being denied it by a crying baby. So he might not have liked sleep but he never had to endure forced sleep deprivation. If he had I bet his opinion would have changed.

3) In a brief obituary the Baltimore Clipper reported that Poe had died of "congestion of the brain." - Well if he had slept more like everyone else, he would have enjoyed REM sleep and his brain would have had the opportunity to clear out the rubbish it didn't need that it had accumulated during the day. (Ok this one is stretching it a bit granted - Post mortems in the late 1800's weren't very scientific, 'congestion of the brain' !!! LOL)

As you can guess, Carol & I have not had much sleep this week. Both of our little chaps have got colds and their little noses, which are normally very cute, are now 'icky' with rivers of snot. Not very cute at all. So they are not sleeping well because they are all bunged up one minute and running like mad the next. Harry woke up at 3.30am on Saturday and in the end I had to sit with him in the lounge until 5.30am when Ben woke up and Carol came down stairs. I then went back to bed for a few hours.

Will we ever have another nights undisturbed sleep ?

- Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Todays picture is of Ben. We had to put a child seat in front of the sofa and cabinate in the lounge to prevent Harry & Ben getting into the corner and eating the newspapers and magazines in our rack that sits there.

Unfortunately Ben has developed a cunning way around this. He crawls up to the back of the chair and then climbs over the top and falls/slides down into the chair seat on his tummy and then crawls out of the bottom of the chair into the corner to get at the magazines etc.

Ben caught in the act:

The Terror of the Tellytubbies !

Ben is all better now, he has finished his course of Amoxicillin and appears to have made a full recovery. No more bulgy bits.

I now have a new problem to deal with.......

Harry & Ben have discovered the Teletubbies ! - I switched over to CBeebies just after they had breakfast, hoping to find something to keep them quiet and to keep them sitting still until their food had gone down, before I let them out to play.

Unfortunately the Teletubbies were on and it was like magic, they loved them. So now I have to suffer the brain melting rubbish that is the Teletubbies every morning. Still they like it.

The other problem is that Harry & Ben want to get as close to the TV as possible, which it not a good thing for several reasons. They try and grab the Video player, DVD player, the pile of electrical wires round the back of the TV and the hot radiator which is in that corner as well. Also it can't be good for their eyes to be that close to the TV (or is that an old wives tale ?)

So in order to combat this I had to create 'THE BOX' (queue drum roll). This is a long wooden frame construction with a blanket fixed round it. This blocks off the corner where the TV is and keeps them at a safe distance. But as it turns out it has also helped them 'cruise' they stand up next to the toy box (which is on the fire place keeping them out of the fire etc) and then they walk round holding onto the toy box until they get to the wooden box I made. They then hold on to this and walk along until they get to the play pen and plastic Fisher Price crawl arch play centre thingy. Here they get down and crawl back to the toy box and start all over again.

Here is a photo of Harry & Ben getting goggled eyed during the Teletubbies:
(You can see the toy box on the left of the shot, the box I made with the dark blue blanket over it and the Fisher Price crawl arch & play pen on the right)

Battle of the bulges

It's been a rough week. Little Ben was poorly last week, had bad diarrhoae last Thursday. This cleared up by Friday afternoon but Ben still wasn't 100%. He wasn't sleeping well and Thursday, Friday nights we had to seperate Ben & Harry, because Ben kept waking up and waking Harry. They are in adjacent cots so it is difficult when one is not well.

Monday came and Ben was really not happy. He had a right crying/screaming fit Monday lunch time and in the end I had to call for help from Carols parents as I really needed a break. Whilst Nanny was cuddling Ben I noticed that his neck behind his right ear was badly swollen, so we got an appointment with the Doctor and took him down there for 4pm. After waiting 40 minutes past our appointment time, we eventually got to see the Doctor, who for legal reasons I won't name. He was utterly useless and after giving Ben a brief once over said' Well I have never seen anything like that before, I don't think it is anything to worry about. If it gets any worse in the next few days come back and see me.'

When we got home and got Ben ready for his bath we noticed that he had a second bulge around his right arm pit.

So we took him down to Winchester A&E - praise the lord it was totally empty !!! and we were seen straight away. Ben was refered to the childrens ward in the same hospital and we went straight there.

The Doctors had a good look at him, decided to admit him over night. They prepped both his hands with a numbing gel ready for a IV line.

I went home got an overnight bag for Ben and Carol and came back in time to find Ben screaming his head off. Due to the number of injections he had when he was in the neonatal ward the vains in the back of his hands are useless now for putting a line in. So the Doctor had tried with both hands without any joy. She then tried his foot which is when I came back into the room. I had to pin Ben down on the bed whilst she tried to get the vain on his right foot. Ben screamed the place down and it was all very distressing. There is nothing worse in the world then seeing your baby in pain.

Eventually the Doctor got the line in and Ben then had some very strong antibiotics. Carol stayed in overnight and the next day I went back to hospital to join them. Early in the morning Ben went for a sonagram and they checked out the bulges. That specialist was happy that there was nothing worse than an infection in the glands in his neck and armpit.

Next came the Ear Nose and Throat Doctor, who examined him around midday. He thought it was just an infection as well, but wanted to check with his consultant.

Four hours later after much chasing, the ENT Doc and his consultant returned and the consultant agreed, just an infection. (Well that was worth the wait !!!)

It was decided to keep Ben on the antibiotics for the next 7 days and we were allowed home. We have to go back each day now for the next week (or less depending on how quick he recovers) for his med's. This should take approx 30 mins to administer and then we can go back home again.

So he has his foot all bandaged up to ensure that the drip line stays in. He is much better this morning, laughing and playing and the bulge is a lot less swollen.

Here is little Ben, taken last night when we had just got home from hospital. He was exhausted, with little sleep and feeling very sorry for himself.



Harry is fine I am glad to say. He still doesn't have any teeth yet. But he is trying to grow them. Here is a photo of him the other day, his little cheeks are bright red - a sure sign that his teeth are on their way.

New Shoes

We're back !
Got the ISP thing sorted out, a new connection. So back to the blogging :-)

Things here are progressing well. Ben now says Mama which Carol is thrilled about. Harry has developed a fascination with things, really intently examining things he finds. This included several minutes snuggled on my chest whilst he stared intently at my face then started playing with my eyebrows. He was really sweat, very gently pulling my eyebrow hairs and touching them, all very interesting !

We took Harry & Ben out the other day to buy them shoes with money my Mum kindly gave us for them.

It was all very tiring and the boys flaked out on the way home.

Shame the photo is a bit blurred but never mind, it is still pretty cute.