Diabetes Update!

Am chuckling now.

I changed my diabetes medication a month ago, partly because I was having to increase the dosage again and partly because we want to start trying for another baby soon. The gliclazide I was on has not been tested on pregnant women, although my consultant thinks it's completely safe for conception and pregnancy. So I was put onto glibenclamide, which I've been on in the past, and to be honest it didn't work very well then either. But it's approved for pregnancy and I would rather not have to go onto insulin because as wonderful as it is (and during my last pregnancy, on insulin, I had my best HbA1c results EVER) I really hate needles so to be able to stay on tablets would be rather nice.

The glibenclamide however hasn't been bringing my blood sugars down particularly, it's not as effective as the gliclazide was (to begin with, anyway), and it really kind of relies on you eating little and often, and being quite careful what you eat (low GI foods are almost necessary, on glibenclamide, it would seem). So I'm not eating as much as I should be, I'm always hungry, or getting hungry sooner, and I think as a result of that I'm more tired than usual and unless I simply blame the time of year (which is possible) I think that my immune system is a bit down because I'm tired all the time because I'm not eating properly. So I'm getting more colds than usual again.

Anyway. The hospital only gives you enough medication for a month. You're supposed to go and see your GP and update them about your new treatment, and get a proper repeat prescription sorted out, etc etc. But I forgot, being me, so over the weekend I ran out of glibenclamide. Whoops. Luckily I had gliclazide left in the cupboard so I started taking that again. And my blood sugar level went down! It's back up again this morning but the Lurgy attacked me overnight and I feel rubbish and my sugars are always high when I'm poorly. And all I want to eat is chocolate chip brioche, and extremely sweet (and very big) cookies. And drink tea, and not get dressed.

So I phoned and left a rather garbled and all-over-the-place message on the diabetes centre helpline last night, and have just had a phonecall back from my consultant, to say yes, if you are happy to not be on approved medication, but if it's keeping your sugars down, go for it! (She is convinced that these drugs are safe during pregnancy.) And how was swimming, are you still enjoying it?!

We see each other all over the place, at NCT sales, at the beach, at swimming, we bump into each other (not literally) when we're out cycling...  but at swimming the parents now have to sit outside the pool room, the rules have changed.... so we spoke for 30 seconds about medication, and a couple of minutes about swimming! Am chuckling :)

And then I had to phone back because I'd forgotten to ask a rather important question about what do I do in a couple of months' time when I expect the blood sugars will be starting to creep back up again. To which the answer was, phone us back when they do, we'll probably give you a different drug for a few weeks to reset you, and then you can go back onto gliclazide!

I love our diabetes centre. They are a bunch of Good Eggs.

Toddler Communication

Ben signs "B" for "Ben"

We started going to baby signing classes with Ben when he was maybe 9 or 10 months old or so. Partly out of curiosity, partly because it was a good way to meet other mums in the area (we'd just moved, and I needed to socialise!), and partly because I was desperate to get out of the Project that was our house. Baby signing is often based on Makaton, which is a sign language based on BSL but created specifically for children with learning difficulties. I love Makaton - I think all kids should be taught it, not just children with learning difficulties!

Ben decided, after the last class of the 2nd term, after I'd decided not to sign up for a 3rd term, to start signing. At last. So I signed up for a 3rd term and Ben finally started interacting, responding to the teacher, using the signs that he'd apparently built up an arsenal of. He might have spent the other two terms pretty much sat on my knee sucking on boobie (got quite wearing to be honest) but he was apparently just soaking it all in. He was 15 months old. Within 6 weeks he was also starting to talk as well, more than just your average "mummy" "daddy" etc. Learning new words every day, copying speech sounds, trying to get it right.

He now has a massive number of signs and words.

I tell you this story because tonight Ben and Steve were reading the Monkey Puzzle book together. Ben is getting good at reading with daddy, he tells him "oh no!" at the beginning when little monkey has lost his mummy, he signs for all the animals that we know the signs for, and says the names of the other ones.

But "snake" is a problem. He says "Ssssssss" and kind of does the sign for snake. So Steve helped him, showed him how to do it properly. Ben was really pleased, but as soon as Steve's hand let go of his, his own fingers slowly sprung back into a normal hand shape and Ben looked at his hand and said, "Oh no!" and then his face crumpled - he was really really upset that he couldn't do the sign, that his hand didn't do what it was supposed to do. He was also really really tired, it has to be said. Steve said, "Do you want to go to bed?" "Yeah." And Ben climbed down off Daddy's knee, and crumpled onto his bed, crying, devastated.

How cute is that, to get so upset about not being able to do a sign quite right?

Splashzone

I had the worst headache I've had for nearly 2 years yesterday and today. At least, it felt that way. So we had a cbeebies day, while I mustered up the energy to clear the mountain of junk off the kitchen table in order to do the painting with Ben that I have been promising him for weeks and weeks.

We've not done any proper painting together since June, I think. I have way too many photographs on iPhoto to trawl through them to find out exactly when it was. The big picture in yesterday's blog is dated 18th April, and I don't think we've done too much since then.

Anyway.

So it's been a while since we did any painting. Possibly around 5 months or so, not including a very supervised effort at my parents' house over the summer.

The only way I could get Ben to look at the camera was to ask him to show me his tongue.

Oh my word but the splashzone required for a nearly-two-year-old is quite considerably bigger than the splashzone required for an 18 month old. Not to mention the splatzone, for errant paint splats from over-excited manic waving of paintbrushes, and the occasional flung brush.

It took me half an hour to clean up afterwards.

The hands though - they were the easy part! Ben loves washing his hands, we got the worst off in a bowl of water, and then went upstairs so he could stand on his little step in front of the basin to wash them properly with soap. Am very pleased and proud - we went on our playdate afterwards with no trace of paint anywhere on his body.







Except for a very small purple splotch on his cheek.




And orange and green splodges on the seat of his pants. Whoops.

The Tree

Back in May, I realised a new potential for the cardboard walls that were springing up in our house. (These walls were to stop Ben from bashing at the exposed brickwork and thus creating more dust and detritus than was absolutely necessary. They were only temporary, but will be temporary for a little while longer I suspect. Anyway...) They made the perfect canvas for practising on.

My mission is to paint a tree on one of the walls in Ben's room, once it's ready. So I have to practise.

Here's the first attempt, from May.

 

Bit of a practise attempt, really. Ben enjoyed adding handprints. It's since been obscured by a filing cabinet, still taped up from moving house, which belongs in the office. Which we don't have, as it's still Steve's workshop / toolroom.

While Ben had his nap today I felt inspired to try Attempt Number Two.

 

Am pleased with my improvement since last time, although there is still quite some way to go before I dare paint straight onto his bedroom wall... I might cut this tree out actually, and trim the parts that I'm not happy with, maybe I might end up with an outline to trace that I am happy with.

Naughty Gran ... and Getting Soggy

An envelope dropped through the door at lunchtime, addressed to Benjamin Entwistle. Ben was rather excited! He loves going to collect the post from the doormat, and he brings it to me, "oast, oast!"

The front of the bubble envelope gave nothing away. Except for the fact that it was a bubble envelope, which should have set alarm bells off immediately.

The back, however, bore the legend: "from Naughty Gran!"


Ben begged for a "ed beecul", so he had a red beetle, and then wanted a "boo beecul" which I said he could have after he had a sleep. So he went to sleep. Early.

The worst thing about early naps is that it makes the afternoon SO LOOOOOOONG so when Ben woke up eventually I had to send him outside to water the plants. I filled a bucket up, found his little watering can, and left him to it, knowing pretty much what would happen.

I didn't expect quite the scale of waterloggedness that followed. Ben came in soaked from head to toe. Completely. I have no idea how he managed, why he bothered, but at least my gooseberry bush was also watered. As well as half the patio. He seemed happy enough, and took me outside to show me how he'd got so drenched, and then proceeded to paint the shed wall with water.





















Thank goodness for sunshine is all I can say! He came inside and asked for wet clothes to be taken off, and as I went outside to hang them up on the line he followed me out - clad only in his nappy - and seemed perfectly happy. The only thing that stopped him getting in his car was that it was, oddly, quite wet.










Bathtime ensued and he spent nearly an hour in the bath too. I'm surprised he's not gone all wrinkled like a prune.


















Somehow, we have managed to pass the time this afternoon in a very soggy manner, and he has loved every minute pretty much. Apart from when I pinned him down to cut his toenails - but nobody enjoys that, do they.

Shopping

Shopping with Ben is not usually an ordeal. Usually I do the above - stick him in the basket of a shopping trolley, and trundle him around the supermarket. He looks after the groceries, and at the end he helps unload the trolley onto the conveyor belt.

Usually.

Today he didn't want to sit in the trolley. We only had a shallow trolley, and so by aisle 3 and countless times being told to sit down or we'd go and get a proper trolley, we went and got a proper trolley, with a child seat. And by the time we'd reached aisle 3 again, he'd strapped himself in! Cue stress-free grocery shop. Excellent.

Round One: Win.


Next it was off to Boots. They have really tiny trolleys in our Boots store, but at least they have a child seat.

By the time we'd reached the checkout (having had a minor panic when I couldn't find Ben's size in nappies in the brand I prefer (Nature Babycare, if you're interested, which we use for overnighters) only to discover they had been hidden sneakily behind a pack of the next size up) I discovered Ben had again strapped himself in.

Obviously something is sinking in, all the times we go through the "let's put your seatbelt on" rigmarole.

Round Two: Win.


Then, we had to call in at Halfords. Only one thing left on the shopping list, antifreeze/coolant.

Halfords, however, have moved stuff round in the store so that RIGHT AT THE ENTRANCE there is a whole AISLE full of big electronic toy cars, big enough for - yes, a 2 year old to sit in and play in and drive, pretty much. You have to go all the way through the store, and round and round, to find the coolant. (Of course, I suspect if I was a man, I'd know exactly where to find the stuff...) And then you have to go back past all the fantastic toy cars and scooters to get to the checkout. Ben was in tears.

Round Three: Lose.


I promised him that we'd play in the garden and do some digging when we got home and that cheered him up.

I am glad that my son is so easily pleased: digging in the garden over a £200 toy car.

Dooliebops

Made dooliebops at tots this morning.

Thought I'd share the process, so you can create your own daft dooliebop if you want!

For One Daft Doolie you will need...

















a smallish, empty, clean yoghurt pot
a couple of squares of coloured tissue paper
double sided tape
ribbon or string
a pipe cleaner
a couple of colourful feathers
a polystyrene ball
a blob of playdough
bobble eyes or stickers for the face
glue, sequins, bits and bobs

Put the blob of playdough in the bottom of the yoghurt pot.

Use double sided tape to help with the next bit - you are going to give the doolie a skirt. I found that the tissue paper would not stay put around the bottom of the yoghurt pot even with ribbon or string, so used bits of tape to keep it in place.








Finish by tying a piece of ribbon around the bottom of the pot. We used labels like this, so we could write each child's name on.










Next! The neck. Fold a piece of pipecleaner in half, hold a feather with it, and twist round and round and round and round until you have a twisted up pipecleaner with mad bits of feather sticking out at all angles.









Keep going until it's much tighter than this :)












Make a hole in the poly ball first, I used a wooden skewer. (If you're doing this in a group make all the holes before you go, don't let kids do it themselves!)

Stick the folded end of the pipecleaner into the poly ball, put a spot of glue on the end first if you want.

Create a face on the ball using stickers or bobble eyes or just pens, you can add hair with wool and glue, arms with another pipecleaner, whatever.



Stick the sharp end of the pipecleaner twist into the playdough.

Cut another feather into 3 bits and stick them into the playdough as well, just because.

Put glue around the edge of the yoghurt pot and stick anything you can find onto it. Lentils, stars, sequins, bits of felt, pasta, rice......




Et voila, one dooliebop!

Handprints

Around about this time last year, Ben did some handprints onto a paper plate at nursery. They were the first successful handprints he'd done, I was so happy when I was presented with them! I couldn't believe he'd been painting, let alone had acquiesced to having his hands covered in paint.

We've since enjoyed a beautifully happy relationship with paint. We've not done any at home for quite some time, I keep saying we will, but the table keeps getting buried under junk and it takes quite a bit of effort to find a big enough patch of table to paint on, plus you also have to take into account the space required as a splash zone for errant paint splats and crazed waving (and occasional throwing or dropping) of brushes.

Today I sent Ben and his daddy into nursery with the request that Ben do some more handprints for me - and he has done, with great aplomb, and has included such fabulous additions as glitter and other random sparkly bits! I was amazed! The girls said he loved making it :)

We will have to do some more painting soon. The painting in the background is from April, I can't believe it was such a long time ago that we did that painting. I think that's how long it's been since we've done any real painting. Must rectify that.

I like the sound of their mornings actually. They have half-hour activities that are roughly planned, so there is indoor playing, messy time, snacks, garden, lunch... it's all broken down so they have an idea what to do next. I do like that idea. I might try it. I doubt if I'll ever stick to any kind of routine as such, but to have a list of things to do up my sleeve ready for the next bit of boredom - and as an added bonus it will keep me off the computer. And therefore keep Ben away from cbeebies!



I went to work this morning. Got all the wages sorted out, fixed some bugs, talked about design work that I can do at home, and then talked about Ben and my home/work life. I feel like I live opposite to most people. Usually you go to work during the week, and at the weekends you get to do other stuff, spend time with family and friends, relax. But me, I get to spend 28 out of 31 days of the month with Ben! The mornings I have "off" i.e. when Ben is in nursery, I have so much stuff to do that it's not really counted as "weekend". But the morning that I go into Steyning to do the wages, it's like a breath of fresh air. I use a totally different part of my brain. I have to think analytically. I have to answer impossible questions from my boss, how can we do this, that, how can we make this better, can you do it? (My latest challenge is to investigate databases. I have never been able to get the hang of databases properly. It is actually a challenge I am relishing - even if I'm up against it in terms of time, as usual, I have until mid-December to come up with a usable database.... Nothing like a deadline and a bit of pressure. Eeek!) I get to have sausage and onion on a cheesy roll for breakfast, with a cup of hot chocolate. Followed by cups of tea made by someone else. Who tells me off if I don't drink them! I get to have 3 hours uninterrupted (well, uninterrupted by a small boy) work at a computer. I love it. And because I only do it once a month, it's something I really look forward to and enjoy. And I'm bloody good at it too.

Picnic

I am trying hard as I write to not grump, complain, grumble, whinge or rant, but I'm finding it really hard. I think I'm just tired, and maybe coming down with something. But, I will concentrate on the positives.

Today really has been lovely. It's just not been what I expected, or planned, but we have spent the day as a family which I think we really needed to do.

But.

I said I wouldn't complain.

So.

Steve went out for an early morning bike ride, as he has started to do on Saturdays. It takes him a couple of hours, and the theory is, he then has the rest of the day to spend with me and Ben rather than going out during the day. He come home and announced that it was such a glorious day that we should go out to Cissbury, simply because it was beautiful, and because it would be a shame to waste such glorious weather. And we did. By the time we'd finished breakfasting, sorting out bags, made sandwiches, been to the shop for salad for sandwiches, made hot chocolate, made drinks, re-packed bags, changed nappies, got dressed, etcetera ad infinitum, it was very late morning. We arrived at Cissbury and I was hungry again. We had a little walk around the ring, and sat down to have our picnic. Such beautiful sunshine, glorious views. We watched the sea, the planes, the birds, the helicopters, butterflies, beetles, ladybirds; Ben ate chocolate and crisps and totally ignored his sandwiches, ran around, had shoulder rides, swung between us, sang as he rode on daddy's shoulders; and when we got back to the car we had cups of hot chocolate which Ben declared were yummy.

He fell asleep on the way home, totally zonked, and has slept the rest of the afternoon. Which meant we totally missed out on the Family Fun Day that the church across the road put on this afternoon, which I was actually looking forward to going to, but to be honest the way I've felt today I'm actually a bit relieved that Ben decided that the second half of his nap was going to be on our bed, with me, firmly attached, and so I dozed and dozed and eventually woke up starving.

We've had naughty pizza for tea. Steve ordered it, after working some more on Ben's room. We did a bit of undercoating of picture rails - they actually look ok now, I was a bit hesitant about them when they went up, full of screw holes and joins, but they are looking good. Steve's been wiring in the sockets too, although they won't work until the rest of the upstairs sockets are wired in and the board downstairs is installed. It's a long hard slog, this house renovation lark. I hope it doesn't take this long to do any of the other rooms in the house. Ben's room has taken well over 6 months so far, and that doesn't include building and plastering the wall in the first place.

Lots of cooking to do tomorrow. I've realised another useful reason to do big batches of food - a friend of ours has had THE most awful morning sickness for the past 2 months and we were able to provide a meal for her family from the food we had in the freezer :) I like this batch cooking thing. It's quite useful :)

Flower

What a day.

Started off badly, I lost count of the times Ben was sick last night, but thankfully with regular top-ups of calpol he's only been sick once today and that was first thing. Hoping for a sick-free night tonight, must keep the calpol top-ups going...

But it got better. Ben decided that today, a hoover attachment and the stairgate would be the perfect accompaniment to his singing!

I decided that we'd go into Steyning for our Friday shop, and we'd see Daddy and give him his sandwiches and pick up some paint - Steve cycles to work on Fridays, so he can't cart stuff around that easily! But by the time I'd got everything ready, changed a nappy, packed bags (with spare clothes, spare nappies, lots of wipes, a huge roll of kitchen paper, bags, snacks, made sandwiches, drinks, remembered crisps, coats...) he'd decided that he was wiped after being up so much last night and fell asleep on me. And had a longer sleep than normal, so I ended up having to wake him up and tell him that we were going to have a picnic with daddy - much excitement ensued and we made it out of the door with no tears at all.

I saw these in the carpark at work, was quite excited to see so many 'shrooms!!

The afternoon was going to be spent digging with Ben, but on the way home he started asking to go the peacock, so off to the playpark we went. And played on most things, and enjoyed ourselves even if I did get rather cold because the things Ben wanted to play on were in the shade of the trees and I didn't have a jacket... But we did get to do some digging eventually.



I bought bedding plants.

I think I am succumbing to middle-aged-ness, early. Never in a million years did I imagine I would ever buy, let alone get round to planting, bedding plants.

But I have. ! (I'll be pestering Steve to let me have a shed before you know it...)

And spring bulbs too! I am quite amazed at myself. Ben didn't help. He stomped on some of the plants, I think he was fed up that I was enjoying myself and he was not doing very much except get hungry again.

Eventually I pulled a stool up and he spent a looooooong time standing on the stool, pressing the doorbell, and turning the hall light on and off, and giving a (very repetitive) running commentary on this.

But now it is nearly time to do all the washing up and go to bed. Bulbs planted, bedding plants (dianthus) planted, potatoes fed and watered (am really quite excited about them), other shrubs watered - I have had a "me" evening. Steve came home and looked after Ben for which I am very very grateful. It has been quite a while since I have been able to do some (fairly) uninterrupted gardening :)

This photo isn't what I was actually after, but I did like it. And it's cold outside and I want a cup of tea, and I don't really want to spend half an hour setting up the tripod (which is really what is needed) to get the shot that was in my head. I am satisfied.

And tired. :)