Archive for November 2011
Six.
All of my children were born on a Friday and under a full moon
but not Noah and Ivy.
They were born on a Wednesday and the moon was not quite there.
They always liked to do things differently.
They made their grand entrance into this world in a hurry just before midnight on the last night of November, ten weeks shy of their due date..
Our midwife always said there was no way these kids wanted to be Christmas babies
or Valentines babies, for that matter
and today the pair are six.
Beautiful together
and as their own entities.
The boy is easy going, out going and personable.
He is the most ticklish boy I have ever met.
The little girl, intense, introverted and shy,
her eyes give away nothing and everything at once.
but together they fit.
They just do, somehow.
Six.
It only seems like yesterday that they were born.
Happy birthday babies.
Babies no more.
Gratitude.
I could start by telling you all of the bad things
that have happened over the last few days.
I could tell you about the hospital experience -
how we came for ultrasound at lunchtime on Friday
and came out of recovery two hours later.
How the lumps were actually abscesses and were making the girl sick.
I could tell you about how wrong things went afterwards,
with post op septic showers and late night panic- driving back to the ward
and all that followed with doctors and treatment and such.
I could write a whole post about nearly dying a slow death
when I found out that the paed was unavailable
and that the doctor on call was the very same
as the admission from hell (as it’s come to be known as in our house).
I could lament that the girl was way too sick for the Starlight Christmas party
and how all of the kids were really upset
because they were looking forward to it
and how we had all but given up hope of Ivy dancing in her ballet concert.
I could write about those things,
but I won’t.
Instead I’m going to to be thankful that Ivy was seen so quickly
by our kind surgeon
that,
even though her paed was not in town
he was vigilant and in contact constantly
and when things went wrong, he took charge
and that, in effect, took the on call doctor out of the picture.
I’m going to be grateful that we didn’t make the trip down to Sydney,
which very well may have ended in disaster.
Instead, we were at home (on gate pass) together.
We all enjoyed that time.
I’m going to tell you that I was really glad that when we had to represent
Ivy’s favourite nurse was on the next morning and sorted through everything
and dealt with my upset and anger without any judgement at all.
I’m thankful that the paed listened to me
and that he changed Ivy’s antibiotics so that she could then improve enough
to have gate leave for her ballet concert.
David and the kids went into action
and returned to the hospital with all of her costumes, shoes and hair pins.
Like a well oiled machine or a great team.
We strapped up her foot and her chest
and gave her pain relief.
The littlest ballerina danced her heart out
and even though she was a little tired and out of it,
and limping by the end
she did an amazing job
and made all of us very proud.
It’s only a small photo but it shows her absolute joy at being able to go -
there are more to come.
We are still in the hospital, hoping for discharge tomorrow.
I just wanted to choose gratitude today,
I wanted to choose it
because with gratitude,
all I have is enough.
The best laid plans of mice and men.
This week has not really gone to plan.
Does it ever, I hear you ask.
No, not often.
Don’t you think I hate writing that same statement over and over again?
I do.
I’m exhausted by the whole sick house thing.
I’ve lost lots of readers this week
probably because they are tired of it too.
I can’t blame them, really.
Six of the seven children and Dave have all been home this week, struck down with an awful lurgy
or maybe it is still the same lurgy from a fortnight ago,
cranked up a notch or two.
It has caused Noah to cough up so much mucous that I am left thinking his lungs must be flooded with the stuff
and made Immy pass out.
Twice.
Ask any nurse and they will tell you that one of the grossest bodily fluids to deal with is sputum
and we have had gallons of the stuff -
don’t worry, I took them all to a GP who gave me exactly what I wanted for them
without lifting a stethoscope.
I’m not sure how I feel about that but anyway – they are all, thankfully, on the mend
and I thought that Ivy was going to walk away unscathed.
Having just had her IVIG for the cycle, I was very hopeful.
She and I – the only ones well.
Oh the irony.
Alas, it was not to be.
The girl went down like a lead balloon yesterday in a most spectacular way.
Along with this is her inability to walk or place any weight on her left leg at all -
her left foot suddenly swelling and bruising
and the culmination of weeks of lumpy pockets of infection in her chest decided to come to a head at the same time.
The lumps are angry and obviously not happy at all,
having thrown out hot, red feelers of infection into her shoulder and up into her neck.
Go Ivy – at least it’s safe to say that the girl never does things by halves.
She has slept the last two days away, only waking for more medication to be syringed in.
This afternoon she sucked down an iceblock.
I like progress.
I’d like it too, if she would walk for me.
Tomorrow we are going to ultrasound and xray to see what her little body is going to throw our way.
I’m not sure what will happen.
We’ve pushed her up to a hefty dose of oral antibiotics and doubled her pred to cover her
but the paed is not prepared to make plans until he gets the results back.
I’d like to avoid surgery for Ivy, if I can but the alternative might be IV antibiotics in the hospital.
Neither appeal.
This weekend is supposed to be Ivy’s much awaited ballet concert
and a Starlight Christmas party
and next Wednesday is the pair’s actual birthday
and the 1st is the day of Ivy’s wish.
I should learn not to book things in until the last minute.
It seems the best laid plans are made to be disrupted in this house.
Here is one of my favourite photos of the girl at her dress rehearsal two weeks ago.
I want to share it because I love it and because, let’s face it – it may be the closest I get to her dancing this week.
The great fairy-princess-super-hero party extravaganza.
I’d spent a large part of the week asking the weather gods to be kind
and to give us good weather – no rain
and kind they were.
In fact they delivered us a really hot day, which was a bit more than what I’d asked for
but there was no rain.
The week leading up to the party had been full of preparation
but come Saturday it was all about the food
and by that night I could hardly move.
Remind me of this, the next time I tell you all I am planning a large birthday party, okay.
I must have been very out of practice.
I’d forgotten how much you hurt by the end of it all.
Anyway on Sunday morning we all got up early to decorate and do the final food preparation.
When I say we, I mean, our family plus some of the big kids’ friends who had kindly offered to be a part of my small party army.
The fairy grotto came together nicely.
The front part of the yard has lots of trees and is very shady – perfect for fairy hollows,
which we created by stringing up mossie nets
and laying down lots of blankets and pillows for the fairy princesses to relax in.
I made up fairy lemonade (lemon juice, sugar, water, frozen strawberries and lemon circles and ice)
and hulk juice (pineapple juice, fizzy lemonade, lime cordial, condensed milk, water and ice) for the super heroes.
They were both a big hit
but we also provided bottles of water and lots of ice for the kids because it was so hot.
We made up loads of fruit sticks (which the kids ignored).
Note to self: children won’t eat fruit at a party, unless they are Ivy.
We had a cupcake station
where the kids could come and decorate their own cupcake before eating it.
We’d cooked and frozen the cupcakes beforehand, so they were ready to go on the day.
The girls loved it.
The boys (aside from Noah the cake hound) needed alot of encouragement.
The boys spent most of their time in the super hero lair.
The bunnies didn’t seem to mind all the supermen and spideys climbing up and down as they captured the fairies and took them to the lair.
We only played two games.
Pass the parcel -
we had two separate packages, one for boys and one for girls.
We had way too much food.
Alot of the kids wouldn’t touch some of it when they found out it was gluten free,
which was a shame
but they all loved the mini pizza breads and the sausages on a stick (we didn’t tell them they were gluten free too, we just quietly told Ivy she could eat them).
The super hero biscuits and the fairy wands went down well.
One of the things I learnt while running the party was that I had to let go of alot of stuff.
I couldn’t do it all (and I knew it)
so I asked the kids if a couple of their friends would be willing to come along to help.
I had two manning the cupcakes
AJ and one of his mates were security on the jumpy castle
and one of the girls is so very talented with face painting, so she did all of that for me
and I had to hand my camera over sometimes too.
That was really hard but the teens all did a fabulous job of capturing some of the things I wouldn’t have been able to.
a fairy princess has been captured by the super heroes
We had lots of free play.
Some of the fairies went to relax in the fairy grotto,
others played with some of Ivy’s toys we had placed around
but most ran themselves ragged in the jumpy castle.
We had a treasure hunt (one for heroes and one for fairies)
and there were kids running all over the yard, following clues and working out where the treasure was.
I think that was my favourite part of the day.
I’d worked really hard on the clues
and the fairy princesses loved their glitter
and the super heroes loved their kryptonite.
After that came the insanity of gift opening.
Oh. My. Goodness!
Ivy and Noah were given so much stuff.
It was beyond amazing.
Note to self: next time remind the parents – just a small gift, if they are going that way.
In the end Ivy was almost lost in the packaging and the paper!
Noah was completely overwhelmed.
I talked to them later about donating some of their things to people who were not as lucky as they were
and they handed over some of their gifts.
I was proud of Noah too for giving Mal some of his new matchbox cars and some of his lego so they could play together.
It’s so hard for Mal to get his head around sometimes but because of Noah’s generosity, Mal coped very well.
After that came the cakes.
Please forgive my bad photography.
I was, by that stage absolutely exhausted and I couldn’t hold the camera straight to save my life.
Noah’s cake was a rainbow cake,
which was one of the things on my 40 before 40 list – to make one from scratch.
I was really proud of how it turned out.
Ivy’s was of course a princess castle, that she had come across when she was sick and surfing You Tube one day.
It wasn’t perfect but she thought it was great.
It was also made from scratch and totally gluten and lactose free.
I didn’t tell the girls though.
They all enjoyed it just the same.
We sang the happy birthday song twice – once for each child (very important when you are a twin that you are treated as an individual too)
and then, as has become tradition in our family, Ivy and Noah (and Gran) sang the thank you song back to their friends.
The twins’ (fairy) godmother made the two hour trip up and brought the most amazing homemade jelly cake.
It was to die for.
It was also gluten and lactose free.
We had school friends and family.
Friends who share a special bond with Ivy
and
A special family member who came all the way from Chicago and spent the day with us too.
Even though we had two themes at the one party, it worked.
We tended to keep the boys and girls separated for games
but they were all really well behaved and played so well together.
After that, it was all over.
The kids handed out the party bags, the fairy dough and super hero slime
and a balloon to their friends.
Ivy and Noah thoroughly enjoyed their day, despite the heat
and I think the other kids did too.
Noah said, it felt like Christmas and I think that sums it up nicely.
I hope it was a party they will remember for a long time.
The pair slept like logs that night
and just quietly, I did too.