CBeebies Bedtime hour – My Big Shouting Day

We like to sit down as a family and watch the Bedtime story on CBeebies and last night it was My Big Shouting Day by Rebecca Patterson

This is not being written as a review, it is solely here as it really felt like what a lot of our life is like at the moment. I thought about writing the post last night after a bad day with Tim.
We currently have a lot of shouting days in this house, not helped by having a 4 year old and a 2 year old who is on steroids which affect his moods.

As I sat and listened to Ben Bailey Smith reading the story last night I just felt that the story was a little close to home for us at the moment. Unfortunately I sat there thinking,

but with Tim’s moods we get this day after day after day after … (well you get the idea)

But I am soo glad that I didn’t rush to write this last night as it seems the boys were also listening to the story, and today they decided to have a

happy day

Tim had his up and down moments, but by comparison to some days it has really been an up day. That alongside Sam deciding to help hang washing, change his bed etc has made it one of the best days we have had in a while.

#EarlybirdChallenge – Time for feet!

I was asked a few weeks back if I fancied taking on the #EarlybirdChallenge being run by Free Office Finder so here it is.

I have children so early is the norm in this house and for some reason when Nana and Grandad visit Sam thinks even earlier is better, then there was the change of hour this weekend,
so I was dreading how early he would be up on Sunday morning and was suddenly regretting deciding to start my #EarlybirdChallenge the day the clocks changed.

But by some miracle he wasn’t up until 6.30, so I had chance to get up, showered and dressed before either of the boys were around.

I will never expect to be able to be up much before the boys, but just by being able to take the time to sort myself and not attempting to dress all of us at the same time means I can give more time to them when they are awake.

So when I say Time for Feet here is what I mean

By having the time to give to the boys without having to rush them to get up and out I have been able to give them the time to do (or in Tim’s case try to do) their own socks, often we have already had an argument just about getting dressed, and I have ended up having to put their socks on just to save time, but by me being that bit more relaxed by already being sorted myself it generally made the whole morning go that bit better

It might not seem much but it is all part of the learning curve for them and it is soo nice not to have to rush them

I would like to thank Free Office Finder for setting me the challenge

So now I challenge you to join the #EarlybirdChallenge get up early and see what you now have time for!

Letter From Santa – Review

Hopefully Sam and Tim will be just as excited as I was when they receive their letters from Santa that we have been lucky enough to be asked to review.

Normally the envelopes arrive sealed through the post, but I was sent these as a sample so that I could have a look for the review before giving them out to the boys to rip open in their excitement.

There is a choice of 4 different letters, which means that if you are arranging for a letter to be sent to more than one child in the same house they can each be personal.

For Sam I chose letter 3

and for Tim letter 2

In all their letters there are various bits that can be personalised, including names, name of friends, ages, presents and even a personal ‘P.S’ at the end.

All letters also come with ‘festive extras’ to help keep the children occupied in the exciting run up to Christmas.

We also received a ‘Nice Child List’ certificate, which they are sending out free with all orders at the moment.

So far I am very impressed with what we have received, but I guess we will just have to wait for the day that the boys are given them to open, fingerscrossed they like them just as much as me!

This post is a review of 2 personalised letters from Lapland Mailroom, I was supplied with a sample of the product to trial. All opinions are my own.

3 Visits to the GP already this week!

It seems to be never ending at times.

So far this week I have been to the GP 3 (yes 3) times

Tim became unwell on Saturday night, generally unsettled and then a temperature appeared. All day Sunday he still had a temperature being over 39 all day, generally cuddly and a bit lethargic, so we kept him dosed up and gave cuddles where required.

Sunday night still with Temperature he was awake by 10pm and I ended up in bed with him through until 5am.

I popped into him Monday morning and he felt much cooler, so I decided that sleep was probably the best plan and when he woke up at around 10am he was much better, he got up, had breakfast and played quite happily.

Then the afternoon arrived and when I changed him it was obvious that the temperature had affected his kidneys again from the colour of his urine, so I phoned his consultant in Leicester Royal Infirmary for advice, they said as long as he seemed fine in himself then he didn’t need examining, but it would be useful to confirm what was in his urine.

VISIT 1
So after long ‘discussions’ with a receptionist at our surgery I took a urine sample in. Later in the afternoon/evening (the boys were already in their pyjamas, so around 6.30) I receive a call from a Doctor, asking lots of questions and concerned about there being blood in his urine. After a chat between 3 doctors it was decided that they wanted to see him in the morning.

VISIT 2
This morning we went to the appointment that the doctor had arranged last night, this seemed pretty much a waste of time to me as other than taking his temperature he wasn’t examined at all. I had taken another urine sample as requested, it was confirmed that there was still blood in it, as well as protein, but no white blood cells as would be expected with a infection. So we were just advised to keep an eye on him and bring him back if he got any worse. They are sending of the sample to see if there is any infection present.

VISIT
When I went to collect Sammy from nursery Tim’s keyworker popped in to say they had used his inhaler, (which is only used every few months) I was there a while as Sam has french and before I left I was ‘visited’ again by Tim’s keyworker to say they really weren’t happy with how he was breathing. So next thing you know we are of to GP again, we went straight from nursery to the surgery and the doctor kindly saw us before surgery got going. He seemed fine, nothing to be heard on his chest, so no signs of infection. His breathing had settled, but this could well be because the inhaler was finally taking effect.

So once again we are just told to keep an eye on him and see how things develop.

Ozeri Bathroom scales review

The other week I was asked if I would be interested in reviewing Ozeri digital Bathroom scales

Each time Tim has been in hospital recently he was on and off the scales on a daily basis as they like to use it as a way to keep an eye on what his kidneys are doing, (and as the batteries had given up on our scales a while ago and I had never had chance to replace them) I jumped at the chance.

As usual it was difficult to get a look in once the boys saw a box to open, and things didn’t improve from there not letting me near them for most of the day.

But now onto me actually managing to find a few minutes to look at them

The design is really lovely a glass foot plate with a dial that lights up really brightly. I think it is great that it has both the dial and the LCD screen making it easy to read without the need to bend or squint.

I will leave you to guess who ways what, and it’s not always just the one person stood on them!

We have had scales in the past that you have to step on to turn them on, then step on a second time to get your actual reading, I love the fact that with these you step straight on and the first reading it shows is your actual reading. They are also one of the few scales (other than professional) that actually seem to calibrate themselves.

They come with an alarm feature that you can set to remind you to weigh at the same time each day, this isn’t a feature that I am currently using, but I can see how it would be very useful to people who want to make sure they keep a close eye on their weight.

My one negative about them would be that they don’t show my weight in stones, they do both pounds and kilograms, but I am still old fashioned when it comes to weight, although something I am getting more used to as the hospital keep weighing Tim in kilograms.

This post is a review of Ozeri Rev Digital Bathroom Scale with Electro-Mechanical Weight Dial (White), I was supplied with a sample of the product to trial. All opinions are my own.

Busy week cooking

As we have a new oven and a birthday coming up we have had a busy week testing out cake recipes.

Cakes – dairy, egg, soya free – 1

These were from the original recipe I found on the CMPA website, it made quite a small cake, but the boys finished it of in no time.

Cakes – dairy, egg, soya free – 2

I found the first cake a little plain so tried it again with some added vanilla essence, personally I think it was better, but each to their own. I also doubled the quantities and made little cakes rather than a big one.

Cakes – dairy, egg, soya free – 3

This is still based on the same recipe, but some of the flour was replaced with coco powder, as I wanted a bigger cake I used 3times the amount of everything, I don’t think I would do that again as it was really difficult to get the liquid to mix in. It still tasted good, just difficult to mix.

As we have been without a proper kitchen for so long it was lovely to be able to spend some time cooking with the boys, and they loved it.

There are also lots of other recipes available on the CMPA website, can’t wait to try out some more soon

Latest on Tim

I know it’s been a while since I updated on Tim, I think this is probably because there hasn’t really been a huge amount to say.

Since his initial 3 week stay, we have been back to the Children’s Admission Unit more times than I care to count, just to get him checked out and ended up being kept in another few times, once with possible breathing issues and the latest was with sickness and diarrhoea.

Each time it quite obviously hits his kidneys as you can see his urine output change in colour and quantity.

We were starting to get concerned that things just weren’t changing as the protein in his urine was still at over 600, but suddenly there was a breakthrough, when he went in with diarrhoea his protein levels went to over 800, but then only a week later it had gone down to 165 which although it is still much higher than it should be shows that things are finally moving in the right direction, and will hopefully keep going that way.

Last week after much fighting we had an appointment at Glenfield hospital to have a full heart check, as many people who have kidney problems also have heart issues and he has high blood pressure we felt it was important to get it checked. Once again they were very impressed at how he handled everything, one asked whether he had been in hospital much as he was so good, really not something you want to be able to say about your child that they are that experienced at hospital ‘routines’
He had the usual height, weight, blood pressure done he also had ultrasound and ECG.

His blood pressure is still high, his systolic was 130 when it should be around 90, but other than that his heart is looking ok, however as he has such high blood pressure still they were surprised they hadn’t seen him before, although they don’t need to be investigating why he has high blood pressure (we know it is his kidneys causing it) they want to keep an eye on it to make sure that it isn’t doing any further damage to his heart, so we will be back there in 6months.