Trying to get back on the horse!

Hello, hello! How is everyone? Do you even remember me? It’s been nearly two months, I can’t believe it! I’ve actually had a lot to blog about but somehow it hasn’t happened.

We had a lovely holiday- three weeks of not having to think about anything very much and enjoying spending lots of time with my family. It has really helped me make a lot of decisions about where I want life to take me in the next number of years, as some of you know. I’ll do a password protected post on that though! Password will be the same as last time but please don’t feel weird about asking me for it if you’ve forgotten it.

So, until I can come up with something more fascinating, here are a loose collection of tales from our travels. I keep getting grief from my family for not blogging about the kids because apparently it’s the only time they get to hear about silly stuff they’ve done!!

Ricky spent most of the holiday in the sea! Even though the air temperature wasn’t very high, the sea stayed comparatively warm through our whole break (the sea in Donegal could normally cause frostbite even in the middle of summer!) and it was great to see him really gaining confidence in the water. We bought him his first proper wetsuit and he LOVED it!

It’s fascinating to me how all the kids on the beach are now wearing full body wetsuits- you hardly see any kid in a normal swimsuit at all any more. When we were kids we hardly even bothered to put a swimming costume on- you’d absolutely never see a butt nekkid child on the beach these days. I think it must be a combinating of fashion, protecting children from the sun, and, sadly, loss of innocence!

Ricky has also developed a new interest- kind of a strange one too. When out on a walk at a local Friary, we passed a shrine to Mary. Ricky was fascinated by it and wanted to know what it was for. I explained the principles behind it, and he was very interested. There was a little bench in front of it, and before I knew it, he’d plonked himself down and started doing this!

Ricky tells me that he is meditating and that this is what they do in China. I was very surprised that, coming from our household which is not very religious, he grasped the concept of spirituality and prayer with incredible ease!

That walk came as a surprise to me, because I don’t believe I’ve ever done it before, and the views were so stunning that I feel compelled to post some pictures of them!

As for Robbie, he’s my little animal guru- he’s totally mad about animals of all kinds at the moment.

I think I blogged before about his obsession with horses, and that definitely continued during the break! We were able to send the kids out along the beach on ponies from the riding school across the road, and seriously, if we’d let Robbie stay on for as long as he wanted he’d probably still be sitting there now!

He had THE best time and I will definitely have to arrange some riding lessons for him I think. Ricky enjoyed it but not to the same extent. I was just showing Robbie the pics from the holiday and he couldn’t stop talking about going out on the pony, and how much fun he’d had!

We also took the kids to some sheepdog trials, which was actually much more fun than I’d been expecting. The sheepdogs were great, and it was very interesting to see them in action.

They were also showing sheep in a different part of the field. Now, I come from a background of showing ponies and horses, which is very civilised and elegant. Showing sheep involves a lot of men sweating profusely and swearing under their breath as they grapple with a sheep that desparately wants to get back to the herd and that definitely doesn’t want the judge to look at its teeth.

The variety of sheep was amazing and some of them were as big as a shetland pony, which surprised me! Some were pretty and soft, some were ugly as sin with wiry wool.

Robbie predictably thought it was absolutely brilliant- the child has no fear! He had fallen and hurt his head the previous evening, which is why he looks like he’s been duffed up!

The eventual Champion of the sheep was crowned, and I managed to make a total pillock of myself by missing the photo opportunity- then, when I was surreptitiously trying to take a pic, they realised and went through the whole palaver of getting all the trophies and rosettes out again. To be fair they did this with a very good grace, but I felt like an idiot! So, here, for posterity, is a picture of the king of the sheep. Father Ted fans out there will know why I find this vaguely amusing.

There’s loads more but I have rambled on for long enough! Hope everyone is well. I do want to blog more but time is really against me at the minute. I definitely need to get some stuff off my chest though and will do so later today, with luck!

Now the challenge will be to get caught up with everyone else! 😀

Tuesday randomness

I hate that my blog seems to have taken such a complete back seat at the moment! Some of you know that I suddenly find myself with extremely limited net access, which is the most spectacularly large pain in my arse…but that story is for another day.

I’ve had a lot of lovely emails recently from people who wanted to know how I am doing. I really appreciate these, thank you so much! J

I’m doing fine. I have been really trying hard not to think about the cancer at all, and now that I am feeling so much better, it’s been quite easy to do so! However, I got a letter telling me to come for some scans, and went for those yesterday. I felt very nervous about going. Every time I am forced to think about it all, I get that numb feeling in my arms and legs again…isn’t it funny how you can mostly feel fine, but blind terror apparently still lurks behind every corner!

If the tests show anything that looks dodgy, they’ll call me in very quickly. The next few days are going to be rather nerve wracking as I wait to see if the phone rings. They’ve said if all looks well, I’ll just see my consultant in September as planned.

In answer to a few recent questions- I still do not have “the all clear”, I am not in remission or anything like that. I still feel a bit in limbo as I wait to see if they can find any more of it. I’m not really sure how long you have to go with no evidence of disease before they will say you’re in the clear, I think it may be several years. In the meantime, I’m getting on with it! Time waits for no girl!

My business empire is, in the meantime, going really well! I’ve bought three bundles of clothes so far and all of them have sold for a good profit. I have my toe in the water! I have to say that this has been the steepest learning curve of my life- but a really good one. I’ve learned a lot in the past few weeks and continue to learn every day. It’s been a while since I felt challenged like this, and it’s very exciting! So far I have made almost £400 which is not bad for a week or so’s part time work! It will hopefully let me spoil the kids rotten when we go on holiday at the end of next week.

My pony Morning seems to be responding fairly well to the treatment they’ve given her for the sore muscles. We’ll have to wait a couple of days now that the treatment is finished to see how she does without painkillers. I am going down there tomorrow night to see how she’s coping.

Robbie has suddenly developed an obsession with the horses! Carly (my other mare) is retired but still fine for the kids to bounce around on, and she has recently displayed patience which normally results in Canonisation…Robbie will charge down the field yelling “Hello, Ladies!!” at the horses (which is what he hears me say to them) before insisting on riding Carly. She’s very big compared to him, but he’s totally fearless! He just sits on her back with me holding him by the back and leg, and she potters around the field eating grass while he yells “Hurry up, horsie!” at her- he is the cutest thing! When we’re away, I will definitely pay for him to have a ride at the riding school across the way from our holiday house. They have small ponies there which will be much more fun for him.

Ricky is also doing well. He’s now finished at nursery school and can’t wait to go into P1 this September. Leigh’s daughter, and Ricky’s great amigo, Sophie, is going to be in the same class as him, to both their great excitement! Ricky tells me that he will sit beside Sophie in class. He’s also planning on learning to drive as soon as he’s old enough so he can take her out!!! Is it any wonder that Leigh and I practically have our hats bought already!

Actually, Ricky’s daycare had to have a “word” with me, which those of you who are parents will know is never a good thing. Apparently, there was an incident involving Ricky, “Little Ricky”, and a bunch of six year old girls. I have now appraised Ricky of the fact that “Little Ricky” should remain in Knicker Land at all times unless for scheduled appearances…either way, two small girls practically threw themselves at him on his way out of the daycare last night, so clearly they haven’t been left mentally scarred by this incident. If anything, it seems to have increased his popularity! 😀

I am heading out for dinner with my great friends Heather and Jacinta tonight. I think this will let me blow off some much needed steam! The diet has taken something of a bashing this week. I don’t think I’ve gained any weight, but I’m just lucky about that! Still, I am about 15lbs down on where I was six weeks ago, which can’t be bad.

Oh, BTW there is a password protected post in the pipeline in the next few days. I will be using the same password as last time- if you need it, please don’t feel weird about asking!!! 😀

I had a lot of dreams last night about Donegal- we’re planning a holiday there for three weeks next month (YEE-HAAAAAA!!). You probably won’t remember THIS post, but I can’t wait to get to that beach, go in to the water and do exactly what I described in that post. You’ll think I’m insane, but one of the rocks has a smiley face on it- it’s clear as day- and every time I’m in the water there, I look at that rock and can’t help but smile too. That’s my main focus at the moment. Smile, and the world smiles with you. Stick your grumpy frown on, and that’s all you’re ever gonna get back!!

Life’s out of control

When my life gets busy, the blog is unfortunately the first thing that gets pushed aside. I’m hoping to be back on top of it soon!

Where to start? Well, my little guy Robbie turned two last Friday! We took a few days off work to try and get the house into some kind of order before his party on Saturday, but despite much cleaning and sorting, the place still looks like a bomb’s hit it. As soon as I don’t have vast daycare bills to pay every month, I am going to employ the services of a cleaner. This should have the desired effect of making me clean the house before he or she comes to clean. We really are the biggest pigs.

Anyhow, the weather sucked and Ian ended up cooking all the food on the barbeque in the garden whilst everyone crammed into our tiny house. Leigh’s daughter Sophie and my son Ricky disappeared to his room for an absolute AGE, but they are only four and the only evidence of any misdemeanour in there was the discovery of an empty family sized pack of dolly mixture later on. Apparently Ricky picked out all the pink and orange ones for Sophie. I can only assume that he ate all the rest of them himself.

It cheered up later on and the kids were able to play outside. My Dad had bought Robbie a swing set for his birthday, Ian’s Mum bought a sand pit which can double as a paddling pool, and we bought a slide. The garden is WELL kitted out now and the kids are ecstatic! It has the added bonus of not being inside our stuffed-to-bursting house too!

Robbie really enjoyed his party and I think he had a good birthday. I will post some pics soon but I’m in work and the pics are on Ian’s laptop. I’m only going to post pics of my own family here, but for anyone who’s interested and knows me, there’s lots more on facebook.

__________________________________

My weight has got to the stage where Something Had To Be Done. My neighbour Lynn and her sister Jean have been doing Slimming World’s plan for the past year and have lost eleven stone (that’s 154lb) between them in that time!!!

I felt a bit weird about signing up but I have clearly proved in the past that I can’t do this on my own. I can generally lose about 2-2 1/2 stone (28-35lb or so) working alone, but then I have this awful tendency to start thinking “hey, I don’t look as bad any more!” after which I put it all back on again.

SO- I went Thursday two weeks ago for my first meeting. And it’s going very well!

I had my first repeat weigh in on Thursday last and had already lost 6 1/2lb, but I have to confess that I cheated a bit. On my weigh in on the first night, I wore heavy trousers and left my shoes on. This time, I wore lightweight linen trousers and took my shoes off. Shoot me now. 😛

I make it a loss of 4 1/2 lb or so- but for ten day’s work, bearing in mind I went for dinner with Heather and Jacinta one of the nights and had Robbie’s party in between- I am still pleased with that and will keep going.

There’s an element of competition in it that is good for me too. Those of you who kn0w me in real life know that I have a competitive streak a mile wide. Each week everyone brings a healthy food item with them (I brought a pack of wild rice) and it all goes in a big bag. Whoever has lost the most weight that week gets the bag and all the goodies in it. It’s a good incentive!

So I have a massive amount of weight to lose, but feel good that I have made a proper start now, after months of procrastination. I’m not telling you my weight now, but maybe I will if (WHEN!! 😀 ) I ever get down to where I want to be. 🙂

_____________________________________

Leigh and I are completing the Race for Life  this weekend. So, here’s another shameless plug for sponsorship! You can sponsor me at THIS page securely. Thanks to everyone who has already done so- it’s a fabulous cause.

We haven’t been as good with the training as we planned, so it’s going to be more of a fast walk than a run for me and Leigh, I suspect! That bloody hill at Stormont kills us every time we walk up it- running is out of the question, well, maybe DOWN the hill but I can’t see me running up it. Leigh is a nurse, so she can resuscitate me if necessary. I hope. 😛

Looking forward to it anyway! 🙂

ANYHOW- I hope to be back in the blogoshpere properly now as the hecticness in work seems to be calming slightly. I guess it’s pretty bad to be putting my lack of blogging down to being busy in work- I really should be working now!! It’s a bank holiday here but my company is still in. Ian and the kids are away to the open farm, and I wish I was with them!!

Hope my Stateside friends are all enjoying their Memorial Day weekend! 🙂

That’s all for now- this was a long post! If you read it all, you get the prize! 😛

The beginning of a beautiful friendship?

My two sons are suddenly developing a real friendship, which I am very much enjoying watch.

Robbie is an amazing talker- he is a total chatterbox and his speech has become very clear, so that pretty much everyone he meets can understand what he’s saying. He won’t be 2 until the end of next month, so I am delighted with how well he’s doing.

He and Ricky have become co-conspirators to quite a scary level! There’s a definite element of hero worship on Robbie’s part, which Ricky is well aware of, and uses. However Robbie, with the increasing verbal skills he has, is now willing to stand up for himself more, which I think is actually having a positive effect on Ricky.

Ricky’s now learning that he can’t always have his own way- something he’s always been very adept at achieving. The way Ricky gets his own way all the time sometimes knocks the breath out of me. The level of persistence he can demonstrate is staggering, and not in an “I want, I want” way until Ian or I “break”- he’s much more subtle than that. You’ll suddenly find that he’s managed to get what he wanted by manipulating a loop-hole in your argument against…he finds a way by using his brain rather than by demanding things. You won’t even realise he’s done it until it’s too late! It can be shocking to witness, even though it amuses me too!

I think he’ll be a politician when he grows up- his personal charm and diplomacy are amazing and he has a knack for saying the right thing at the right time. Maybe he’s already learned the valuable lesson that flattery will get you everywhere! 😀

Robbie’s much more straightforward, in a sense, and gets his way by being charming and sunny. It amazes me how he can be having such a dramatic and influential effect on his older brother’s behaviour!

I hope they’ll always be able to bounce off each other like this and be such close friends. Good brothers and sisters are a valuable commodity. They’ll never have such powerful allies as each other.

Spring is springing!

I have a bit of a spring in my step. Part of it is the thought of getting away this weekend, part of it is probably seeing just a little bit of daylight once my working day is over. Even though it isn’t too warm yet, it still feels like spring is coming.

Like a lot of us bloggers at the moment, so it would seem, I haven’t really had much to report over the past few days. However, there are a few random things of no great consequence that I thought I could mention! 🙂

I’m going to go at lunchtime to buy some (gasp) hair dye, because I am oh-so-nearly ready to ditch the headscarf. However, the amount of grey I have now it’s growing back is pretty scandalous. It’s the kids that have done it- I notice that neither of my very-close-in-age brothers seems to have any grey at all, and neither of them have kids. They say mine have put them off for ever. 😛 Anyway, if it looks OK when I’ve fixed it a bit, you MIGHT get a pic of my new crop ‘do. We’ll see.

It will feel very, very good to be rid of the headscarf!

~~~~

We got a letter yesterday confirming that Ricky will be going to primary school at Lough View in September, where he currently attends nursery. We’ve been really pleased with the nursery unit there, he loves it and the staff are great. It’s good to have things somewhat finalised.

~~~~

Like I say, it’s kind of a slow news week with me! So, last of all, and in a shameless “I’m showing this to anyone who’s willing to look” kind of way, here are the wellies I bought the kids for our forthcoming holiday. They think they are SO cool, and insisted on wearing them in the house all of yesterday evening… 😀

Robbie’s fireman wellies-

Ricky’s crocodile wellies-

OK, that’s about it for now- what a worthless blog post! 😀

So, MAYBE if I dye my hair tonight, and MAYBE if it turns out OK, you MIGHT get a pic. 😛

A lovely treat

I have a new colleague called Chris at work, and he lives on a farm with lots of free range hens, sheep and horses.

A few days ago, he brought us all boxes of beautiful, freshly laid free range eggs! As you can see, he has lots of varieties of hen on his farm so the eggs come in lots of different shapes and sizes. The kids were fascinated by this- especially by the green egg. I don’t think they have seen one that colour before!

For their supper last night, I boiled a few of the eggs for them. They can’t cope with eggs in the shell just yet- I scoop them into a cup for them- but as you can see, they went down a treat, especially with Robbie!

Ricky huffed because I’d forgotten to let him smash the top off the egg before I put it in a cup for him. Sometimes I just can’t win.

Midweek randomness

I took yesterday off work because Ricky had to get his four year shots. I was dreading this for a variety of reasons- noone likes to think of something hurting their child no matter how much for the greater good it is! I wasn’t sure before we went whether to warn him about the fact he’d need injections, but as it happened, he asked me why we were going to the dr’s, as he wasn’t sick, and I kind of blurted it out.

He wasn’t a bit happy about it- “but Mummy, WHY will they need to put the needle in me? Why? WHY?!!” and, as always with Ricky, there was a bit of wailing and shrieking about it. I explained that it was only for a second and that it would hardly hurt, and that it was to protect him from getting sick.

The health visitor wouldn’t give him the MMR jab, because of my ongoing chemotherapy- apparently live vaccines can affect it? So, we will have the very special joy of a repeat visit in the summer so he can get that one then. He still got all the other bits and pieces he needed.

Ricky can be incredibly high maintenance, so I was expecting something of a meltdown when the health visitor gave him the injection, but actually he was perfectly fine and didn’t bat an eyelid. He was more concerned with the fact that I’d told him he could have his choice of pudding after dinner for being such a big brave boy- apparently bribery will get you everywhere with small boys! (He went for mint choc chip ice cream, in case you wanted to know! 😀 )

The health visitor did an assessment on Ricky. He’s perfectly in proportion- just very tall and sturdy, but she had no concerns about his weight which was great to hear- as a smaller child, he got to be a bit chubby. I insisted on getting a referral to a consultant about it, and we dealt with it, but it’s still a relief to hear it’s no longer an issue. Sometimes it’s easy to look at your kids with rose tinted glasses and not see things which are clear to other people!

She wasn’t happy with his speech. He still isn’t crystal clear at times- we discussed it with the teacher at his nursery school recently and she said it was all age appropriate and that she had no concerns, but the health visitor seems to disagree. I personally thought she was being a bit hard on him- she started talking about referrals to specialists. It’s mainly that when she asked him to tell her what various images were, one of them was a spoon, and he dropped the “s” when saying it. He hasn’t done this for ages!! Typical!

It made me wonder again about the rose tinted glasses though. I said I didn’t want a referral at the moment because I felt his speech wasn’t as bad as she was making out, and his normal teacher, who deals with him on a daily basis, says it’s fine and all age appropriate. But when I think about other kids I know Ricky’s age (Leigh’s daughter Sophie, for example) and how perfectly clear their speech is, I wonder if I am doing him a huge disservice here.

Emma C- if you are reading this, what are your thoughts? You work with kids Ricky’s age every day- should I get the referral? Please be brutally honest!

I don’t want to be one of those mothers who ignores potential problems with their child’s development on the grounds that their little darling is “as bright as a button”- but on the other hand, I don’t want to make a huge song and dance over this for Ricky’s sake if it’s something which will resolve itself quickly.

The health visitor was also giving me grief about the fact that Robbie still isn’t sleeping through the night most of the time. She wanted to know what I’d tried and I told her pretty much everything except for crying it out, which I’m not going to do. Health visitors here are (in my experience) very keen on letting them cry at night, and I could see her preparing “the speech”… 😀 I just try and head them off at the pass- it’s not worth a big row with them, so I just say I’m not interested in doing it and would rather have less sleep. They think I’m insane, I feel defensive, same old, same old! **rolls eyes** Everyone is entitled to their own opinion… 😀

So, kind of an unsatisfactory appointment in all. Hmm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robbie moved into the toddler room in daycare. He’s having a great time so far, but I get the impression that the girls who look after him in there don’t think he’s quite the little angel that the ladies in the baby room did.

Yesterday, Robbie, who is something of a “climber”, managed to climb onto a full-height sink unit in the corner of the toddler room, turn on both taps, and soak four other toddlers and three staff members before he could be caught and subdued…

Robbie remained bone dry during this assault. 😀

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My friend and all round Superwoman crisitunity has been giving me some tips on cooking with tofu, which have been really useful as I try and get to grips with a more meat free life. I’m cooking asian greens, shiitake mushrooms and noodles for dinner tonight, and have some tofu marinating in the fridge in a mixture of white wine, sesame oil, lime, soy sauce, garlic and ginger. If that can’t get some flavour into the stuff, I can’t think what will! I have marinated some chicken for Ian the same way, and hope I will not feel too envious when I dish up tonight.

Thanks to crisitunity for all the help- it will taste better for it, I know! 😉

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chest infection update- still there and making me sound very husky. I think callers to my work today think they accidentally dialled an 0845 number. Maybe I could try and set up something on the side, I could use the extra money… 😀

I really hope the thing is gone by next Tuesday when I am meant to get the last chemo session. Fingers crossed!

My hair is really, really growing back! I am so excited! I reckon another month or so, and I can leave the scarves off, weather permitting.

I think that’s about it for now! If you read it all, you get the prize!! 😀

Dundrum Castle, Co. Down

OK, so the light was seriously fading and Ricky seems to have lost the ability to pose for a photo without making a silly face but here are some pics from our trip to Dundrum Castle on Sunday afternoon. It’s a few miles from where we live, and dates back to around 1210- what an amazingly old place! It’s in the most stunning location, set up on a rocky outcrop looking over the sea and the Mourne Mountains, which are the largest mountains in Northern Ireland.

It was freezing here, the kids were a bit cold but we still had a fantastic time. Ricky and Robbie have recently discovered the inherent childhood joy of running down steep hills whilst yelling “ahahaahaaaaaaaaaa…”  so with it being such a steep site, they really enjoyed doing that a LOT…

I am such a poor photographer.

I love the shadow of the trees on the keep in this one-

Absolutely my favourite kind of tree, ha ha! I love those kind of gnarly ones!

Sunset over the Mournes- Slieve Donard is NI’s biggest mountain and is on the left, Slieve Commedagh is on the right.

Thanks for looking!

Hats!

I’m so fortunate to have been knitted and given lots of hats by my many friends in the States!

One of my friends, Niki, knitted me three hats, which have been amazingly versatile over the winter and which I have worn to death! She has an Etsy shop, so check it out if you have time. 🙂 I can certainly vouch for the quality of what she makes!

Robbie has taken THE most massive shine to one of the hats. Do you think it suits him? He puts it on himself (repeatedly) on a daily basis! 😀

For posterity…

Robbie needs his first haircut. Sigh.

It’s getting to be a mullet- business up front, party out back.

Problem is, he has the most cute curls at the back, and I am seriously struggling to make me and the curls part company. He’s ludicrously scrumptious, even allowing for parental bias!

So, for posterity, here is a (very bad) picture of the cute curls. May it remind me that early toddlerhood should be cherished and never wished away…

He’s also started singing an incredibly tuneful version of “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star”, even though he doesn’t know the words, he still makes all the right sounds.

I could eat him up with a spoon- actually I would probably not even bother with a spoon!