Dr Lunn's diagnoses

Well it turns out I am not that bad as an amateur Doc. Thursday morning came round and Harry just wasn't right, I had problems administering his steroids and antibiotics, a few minutes after I had given him his meds he threw up big time. So there was Harry sat in his little chair with a lake of sick floating round his waist crying his head off. Ben was stood next to his chair, rocking it violently creating a tsunami of puke to roll back and forth. Ben was screaming in sympathy as well. Ben still has a cold and a tickly cough and this isn't helping his mood any.

So Harry definately needed to be seen by the real Docs again. I called Carol & then her parents. Nanny & Grandpa came round to baby sit Ben, whilst Carol & I took Harry down to Winchester A&E to sort his breathing out as it had become a lot more ragged.

The Doctor in A&E put Harry on a nebulizer as he wasn't oxygenating properly and gave him some more steriods (as he had puked the first lot up that morning). Then kept him there for a couple of hours to montor him and make sure the treatment had worked and then they were happy he was discharged. Whilst in A&E I had to keep the nebulizer near his mouth and he fought like made, he didn't like it at all and I had to really struggle with him to keep him still and make sure he got the full effect of the mask. It was very distressing, I hate having to do stuff like this in hospital, having to pin our little boy down and use quite a lot of force to keep him still. I feel so cruel when he is obviously so upset. But you have to keep focused and remember that whilst he may be distressed this treatment is actually making him better. Still you feel like a big meanie doing it.

Last night wasn't too bad the boys slept pretty well all things considered and we all feel better this morning. Harry & Ben do look more themselves this morning and hopefully they are both on the mend now.

Doctor in the house

Dr Lunn can see you now......

Harry has croup again ! - I took him down to the Doctors this morning and we agreed that the best course of action is for me to treat him at home.

So..... I now have to administer steriods and antibiotics to little Harry several times a day until he is better.

It has been quite a demanding day, Harry is feeling very sorry for himself and is very clingy which makes it impossible to do much with him hanging off me the whole time. Ben keeps wanting in with the cuddle action and keeps climbing on me as well, so I have spent most of the day sat on the floor covered in babies.

I doubt I will get the chance to write much over the next few days until Harry is better. So keep visiting this blog site and hopefully there will be an update at the weekend.

Cheers Si.

How Much !!!!

Boy have we had a busy week!

Thursday:
Saw Dr Struthers, this is Harry & Bens paediatrician for their scheduled check up and progress monitoring. I am glad to say he was very happy with both of them and we will see him again in 6 months. Dr Struthers is an excellent Doctor, we all like him very much and he sure does know his stuff. He is one of those Doctors who just instills in you a sense of trust and you feel very confident in his abilities.

Friday:
Saw Mrs Watts, Ben & Harrys eye specialist, again a lovely women and very skilled in her job. She checked both the boys eyes and they were great, so good in fact that they have been discharged now and there do not need to go back and see her. Mrs Watts is very good at her job and made the headlines when Bristol Zoo contacted her for help with a Gorilla they had that was suffering from cataracts. Mrs Watts treated the Gorilla, cured her and subsequently was given a whole new lease on life, so much so that she recently gave birth (the gorilla, not Mrs Watts)
Here is the BBC news article, typically Mrs Watts isn't mentioned, I imagine that is at her request as she wouldn't want a fuss, she is very down to earth. Here is the news
So I felt confident that she was more then qualified to look after our two little monkeys :-)

Saturday:
Went to the Clarks department within our local Mothercare to get the boys feet measured, sure enough they had both grown a whole shoe size in 8 weeks and they needed new shoes. So we bought them new shoes and they are very cute. Whilst in Mothercare we thought we better check out the car seats. Harry & Ben are in small baby rear facing car seats and they are too big for them now. So we ended up buying two Britax car seats. Then the fun began, the lady serving us was very good, she had put the car seat in my car to make sure if fitted correctly. Then took it out again (it was their display seat) and we had to order two seats as they had none in stock. This is were the title of this blog entry comes from, HOW MUCH ! - any way it had to be done, you can't get away with skimping on baby safety. So she spoke with the manager and we worked out the best way to get the most discount off the cost of the two seats. With out Tamba discount card, a mothercare store card and current money off offer on the seats we ended up saving about £40, plus as we ordered them off their website whilst in store, we also got more discount stuff and bonus points and money off vouchers, so it ended up not being too bad. The seats should be delivered sometime this week. Then I have to go through the science of fitting them in my car, (oh yes, on top of the two rubber seat protectors we also bought so that the baby car seats don't ruin my car seats. This trip to Mothercare/Clarks took 2 and a half hours !!!. The boys flaked out on the way home and here is a picture of the boys fast asleep with their new shoes on:



Sunday:
Mothers Day !
The boys and I bought Mummy a copy of DVD's for her special day and once we were all wake, fed, dressed etc, we went over to Carol's brother Robert's house. All of Carols family came round and we had a lovely day, three generations of Mothers in one room !
Robert did us proud and had cooked a lovely salmon and prepared a very nice cold buffet to go with it. We had a great day.

At 5pm we took the boys back home, got them fed and ready for bed, at 6.30pm they had their bedtime milk and were both fast asleep by 7.15pm.

At 9.30pm my friend Claire arrived, she has a business seminar today (Monday) and tomorrow at her companies HQ about 50 minutes down the road from here. She didn't want to drive all the way from Birmingham to get to her seminar first thing on Monday morning, so we were more then happy for her to come down on Sunday night and stay with us, so she could drive the short journey to her meeting. Her company are paying for her to have a hotel room at the seminar hotel Monday night and she goes back home on Tuesday.

So Sunday night Claire and I sat up talking for ages catching up with all our gossip (as we don't see each other much, approx once or twice a year). Claire had me in stitches telling me about all the questions her daughter had after having her womens reproduction lesson at school. As funny as they were, I am sure Claire would not wish me to repeat the details of the conversation she had with her daughter.

I am laughing now as it will be a few years yet before I have to tell the boys about the facts of life, I am sure they will also have some great questions for me as well !!!.

It is 10am on Monday now, Carol and Claire left to go to their respective jobs at about 7.50am this morning, the boys are asleep and I am sat here in the quiet house. It is very weird having been surrounded with family and friends all weekend, and now sitting here in silence, it is like I am the last person on earth ! Spooky...

More soon, bye :-)

Cold Spell

Sorry still no new photos. The boys and I are all a little under the weather at present. I just feel slightly grotty, Harry is slightly throaty and Ben is just very snotty. For the past week we have had 4.30am alarm calls thanks to either Harry or Ben, so we are all tired and feeling generally run down.

Promise to have more photos for you soon.

Golden Shower

Thursday is baby weigh day every week at the local health centre. You go along as often as you want. We normally leave it 3 weeks between weighing the boys.

Today Carol's Mum unfortunately couldn't help me take the boys down to the clinic as she had pulled her back. But Grandpa kindly offered to help, so the two of us took the boys down to the clinic.

Harry & Ben hadn't had much sleep as the postman had woken them up putting mail through the letter box, so they were grumpy before we had even started.

Harry was up first to be weighed and I stripped him down and place his naked little 'bod' on the scales. Harry was not impressed and decided to express his displeasure by peeing on me, luckily I had his nappy close by and managed to cover him within a fraction of a second of 'flow'. Harry weighed in at 20lb 3oz !

Ben was next and staying true to type as a twin he too decided to pee, unfortunately I did not have a nappy close enough to reach in time and had to resort to placing my hand over his privates to deflect his pee away from the notice board nearby and other targets. This resolved the first problem, unfortunately this swift action caused the second problem, that being the diverted pee changed its cause passed me wrist and up the inside of my sweatshirt top. Ben weighed in at 19lb 1oz. He must have a faster metabolism as he as the same amount of food as Harry, so in theory he should weigh the same.

Neither Harry nor Ben pee when you take their nappies off, normally they are very good and just don't do that. But today they obviously decided that it was a fun thing to do to get their own back on Daddy for dragging them out in the cold to be weighed.

Needless to say, there aren't any photos for this entry!

Surprise !

Last Wednesday was my Mum's birthday. My sister Anita had organized a really great day for Mum. Anita started out by telling her that she was going out for lunch, then she went round to Mum's house early and put the radio on with the excuse that she wanted to hear a new competition they were running. As it turned out, Anita had written into Radio Northampton for their 'Bouquet of the Day' slot, where they pick someones birthday and ring them up, have chat and then send them a bouguet of flowers. So there was Mum getting ready to go out for lunch, when her name is read out on the radio, as the phone rings and there is the local DJ chatting with my Mum 'on air'. About half an hour later I turn up on the doorstep with Harry & Ben and ring her phone telling her to come and let us in. Unfortunately Carol had to work, so I drove up to Northampton with Harry & Ben on my own. This was quite a task as it took some serious planning and I haven't been this far with the boys on my own, as it turns out it went very smoothly. Harry & Ben slept the whole way there and back :-)

So Mum was surprised alright. Anita wasn't taking her to lunch, she had brought all that she needed with her to make us all a lovely roast chicken dinner.

So we spent the day at Mum's having fun with Harry & Ben and a relaxing time, (apart from repeated rescues of Mum's pot plants that they boys kept trying to eat)

I forgot my camera ! - Luckily Anita had hers and she took some photos, here they are:

Rock 'N' Roll

Quick post today as I can already hear the boys starting to wake up.

This photo was taken a few days ago, Ben has discovered that if he twists side ways and holds onto his chair and moves his body back and forth he can rock himself in his chair

Twingo a go go

Today was the last of the Twingos meetings. A very big 'thank you' to Lynne our local midwife who gave up a lot of her time every two weeks for us twin parents to meet and have a good conversation etc. It has been great and something to look forward to. Unfortunately the local health centre needs the room for something else and as attendance has been dropping it was decided to wind the twins club up.

However, Katie one of the Mums from the group is thinking about starting up an NCT meeting for us to all go to. I have told her that if she does then I will help her run it.

Katie did think about starting a Tamba group, but there is quite a bit of start up expense and insurance costs etc. Where as an NCT meeting would be covered by the NCT insurance and therefore cheaper to run. So watch this space.....

Here is a photo from our last Twingos meeting taken by Lynne:



Harry did wake up and play for the last half hour, he was so sleepy not even the chaos of all the twins woke him. Why can't he sleep that soundly during the night ????