Happy Mother’s Day

Today is MD stateside.

The hus-creature is a little bummed out because the gift he ordered for me (last weekend, and paid for 2-day expedited shipping on) hasn’t arrived.

I would have been sad but look what I got:

This is #1 Son’s handiwork πŸ’•

And this was from TT. She asked Nanoo to help her and he kept his artwork in line with hers πŸ’—πŸ’—

So gift or no gift, I am blessed today.

We also had an invite to go see Libida, Faux, and 1st, 2nd and 3rd so off we toddled to New Hampshire.

Since we last visited, they have acquired:

  • A new tiny Westie puppy named Fearghas.
  • A new baby boy goat named Starlord
  • A new baby boy Alpaca named Cable – he already lives with Knit and Purl

So I got to play with two out of the three.


And oh my gosh Fearghas is just the cutest little bundle of floppy eared fluff ever


TT adored the animals. So much so that she spent the entire visit more or less outside and didn’t ask for her tablet once.

Sadly I wasn’t as lucky with #1 Son, as 1st and 2nd also play Minecraft on XBox so they spent much of the visit playing that together. But although his visit wasn’t screen free, he was playing with other children in his general age bracket. So I count that as a success.

We tried to pet a chicken. She wasn’t keen


And even now I’m not certain whether I mean TT or the chicken πŸ˜‚πŸ€£


She can chase chickens…

We showed her the ducks and their sprinkler. The ducks love the sprinkler πŸ’•

TT attempts to feed the ducks

Here is the wonderful bundle that is Fearghas:

He sat on my head πŸ’•

And I finally got to properly play and cuddle the wonderful mutt that is his big brother Connor:

He is a very smiley pupper but I didn’t manage to catch his grin.

#1 Son did go outside briefly when he spotted that the Faux-lets had a battery powered ride on tractor thing:

They even let him drive it which was really nice of them. TT had a little go too (it helped us get her in the car!)

We stayed long enough that it became mucking out and feeding time.

I got to bottle feed Starlord πŸ’•πŸ’•πŸ’•πŸ’•πŸ’•

Oh it was awesome and he’s just so cute – and very chatty bless him. Yes I am ecstatic over bottle feeding a goat!!!

We also had a little play on the Faux-let’s play set:

No baby, it’s a swing

Then as it was 17:00 we decided we should leave – it meant the kids would have a late bedtime but they had had so much fun it was more than worth it 😍

We had two abortive attempts at dinner – apparently eateries etc are only signposted before the relevant highway/interstate exit. After that? You’re on your own kids!

So we got almost all the way back to Melrose and stopped at Friendlys.


I love their ice cream sundaes


TT ate broccoli:

And #1 Son has double cheese sliders and a diy sundae:

TT was too exhausted to eat more than a few bites of her ice cream poor wee* thing.

So the small people’s are abed and the hus-creature and I rounded off the evening with the Beta Co-op of StarDew Valley. I love that game πŸ’•


* slight segue but the poor lass has “not my toilet” fear so we managed to persuade her to do wee wees at Aunty Libida’s after four hours and she held her poop until after put down for bedtime (20:30)

Many things

It’s been a busy few days.

TT is (whisper it) 100% reliable during the day on the toilet when it comes to doing a wee!

We have also had two days in a row where she has successfully done a poo in the correct place*

We have had no accidents all week thus far.

Night training is not happening, as we are attempting to wean her away from her middle of the night bottle and it’s just cruel to do both at the same time…


That and the one night we tried it she screamed bloody murder, fully woke up, and then actively refused to go back to sleep without said bottle – she won that round!


But she’s doing amazingly – especially when you consider she’s only 26 months old!!

Okay so she doesn’t now need the “cooling” pull ups we bought, or the plastic pants. Bugger. Ah well, we live and learn. And if we hadn’t have bought them, we would have needed them.

Sadly we had a bit of a backslide with #1 Son on the behaviour at school front today. He ran out not once, not twice but five time today, and even ran back into school at pick up time whilst the Mothership was talking to his teacher about the previous five occurrences.

I received an email from her this afternoon confirming that he had had an “emotional” day (stating that no-one would play with him and that he felt that no one loved him 😰) outlining her strategies for helping him tomorrow and giving us a framework to talk to him.


One of the problems is his refusal to accept that other children might just want to play games of their own choosing too – we are working on this…


He has had two more party invites though (one of which is ice skating – but thankfully with options for non skaters) which ought to help a little.

The other is a bouncing party – your guess is as good as ours on that – but that should at least be fun for him.

The lovely H brought up some presents for the kidlets today and he completed one of them

Momma and I are hoping that H will be able to join us on a small night on the town on Saturday.

His reading has come on in leaps and bounds. He actually asked to read with mom when he got home from school!!!!

He still hates writing, so I think that will have to be the next point of focus, but it’s amazing to see how well he is doing.

Mom met up with his teacher on Tuesday afternoon to discuss his progress and ensure that we (mostly her) are not confusing him compared to how they are teaching him in class.

It meant she got to meet his support team, and see his little cubby that they’ve built for him to (effectively) escape into when he gets overwhelmed.

Yes, it is literally a cupboard – it works for him.

He will also be having weekly sessions with his therapist every Tuesday at 07:15 – this means he won’t be too late into school, thus not impacting on his daddy’s work day too much.

As for me? I’m slowly getting back behind the wheel. I’m not great, but at least when I screw up I’m following through and have not (for example) crashed into a roundabout, nor ran a red light, nor turned into oncoming traffic without signalling.


Which are all things I did back in England prior to passing my U.K. licence


So I consider that I am doing okay. I need practice, and I need to pass my theory test (yet again) but I am studying and having gotten through half of the USA equivalent to the Highway Code today.

I’m now exhausted and have an incipient migraine πŸ˜‚πŸ€£

I also had my second post-op checkup yesterday.

My doctor is very pleased with my progress. I am to increase my doing of things, though not to lift anything heavier than a gallon until I’m the full six weeks post-surgery.

He does however want me to break up with dairy πŸ™€πŸ™€πŸ™€

(I mentioned I wanted to lose weight)

At the moment dairy and I are merely agreeing to see other people πŸ˜‚πŸ€£

I can cope with losing chocolate but not my cheese. And I’m trying to work out what I could put in my tea instead of cow’s milk.

But I’m going to try.

He next wants to see me in six months, and this appointment is already booked 😱

Mom and I also went up to knitting group yesterday and had much fun πŸ‘πŸ»


*With many apologies to the non-parents in my audience, this sort of thing is big news when you are a stay at home parent!

Angry mama bear is angry

I just had a call from the counselling centre where #1 Son is registered. His therapist quit. Effective immediately. With zero communication to clients.

I’m furious.

It explains so. much.

  • Why she cancelled last week’s appointment with less than two hour’s notice 😑🀬
  • Why she failed to reschedule it at all.
  • Why she never answered my email when I copied her in to one sent to his school guidance counsellor.
  • Why, despite promising me for over three weeks that she would do so, she has never followed up with the school.

I’m just speechless and furious.

I give major props to the counselling centre though. They stayed 100% professional. Although when I commented that “it made sense” a bit more came out when I read between the lines (see the above list).

They’ve gotten him in with a new therapist. Who specialises in kids with sensory and emotional issues, and is a music therapist.

I’m a bit anxious though, as it isn’t a proven to work with him technique. And he does have an issue with loud noise. But he needs to see someone, so we will give it a go.

It also throws a spanner in the works of the diagnosis procedure.

Argh.

In slightly lighter news, TT ate half an adult portion of yesterday’s vegetable lasagne – including picking out the courgettes and mushrooms to eat.

BREAKING NEWS:

Whilst writing this post, TT has done….

*drum roll please*

A wee wee on the toilet. Unprompted!!!

Much praise, dancing (though not by me) and chocolate have been administered.

I am tired now πŸ€£πŸ˜‚

It’s the little things

That make your heart sing.

We just had to rouse #1 Son for a toilet trip (if he doesn’t have a bedtime wee we will have an accident).

After telling daddy β€œno thank you” and trying to go back to sleep, we did the necessary.

I gave him a little cuddle, told him I loved him and the smile I got from him as daddy carried him back to bed just melted me.

I’m currently an emotional not-tent.

He also got another REACH sticker today which is two weeks in a row.

πŸ’—πŸ’—πŸ’—πŸ’—

International Girl’s Day

Is a thing.

While I understand the reason for it, the concept saddens me in a way, as it proves that as a race we still aren’t equal.

Which quite frankly boggles the mind.

How did TT celebrate this auspicious day?

By demanding β€œfish” whilst I was watching Skin Wars:

FISH

And by taking off her pull up and not doing a #2 in the potty 🀒🀒🀒🀒

Toddlers are gross.