These are my days

Days mixed with soccer games and puppy dogs,

 Zoo visits with migraines,

Amazing cloud formations and Autumn leaves,

Hospital visits and baking,

Of quiet times and contemplation in open spaces,

These are my days, my mothering days,

I still wouldn't swap them for anything else . . . .

. . . except maybe for a job at the zoo!!

A photo a day: Week 20

May 13

Home made love from my boys for Mothers Day.

May 14

 A hot chocolate in the back room sun with a magazine just to catch my breath for a few minutes.

May 15

Chicken pie for lunch after yoga.

May 16

 Another mail box on my way to work.

May 17

A check up at the hospital, an xray to make sure the bones are in place and a bit of reinforcement with some fiber glass bandaging over top of the plaster cast.  So far so good.  Another xray and check up again this Thursday.

May 18

There was a teachers strike at school for the morning so I decided to keep them home for the day.  Toby is earning some Nintendo time.

May 19

Ethan's soccer game was a good one, another close game they won 2 : 1.  Only one game to see today as Sam is out of action and Donald took Toby to his game at the same time as Ethan's.

A photo a day: Week 19

Three main events occurred in this week, baking, hospital and mothering.  I think it pretty much sums up our week.  We did lots of baking, went to the hospital a few times and celebrated mothers day a few times.

May 6

Sam had been wanting to bake these cookies since the holidays but we ran out of time.  So he finally got to bake the butterscotch pecan cookies.  They were sticky but very good.

May 7

Baking an apple cinnamon cake for afternoon tea.

May 8

Feeling a little sore and sorry for himself after an afternoon at the hospital after breaking his arm riding his bike home from school.

May 9

A day in hospital to realign the bones in Sam's arm.  He spent a few hours recovering while watching Dr Who dvd's.  I'm really proud of Sam and how he has been so brave, funny and calm about the whole arm breaking, realigning ordeal.

May 10

Baking for the Mothers Day morning tea, cup cakes to be iced, apple cinnamon cup cakes and brownies.  Ethan's class were to provide the goodies for the morning tea.

May 11

Mothers day morning tea at the boys Primary school.  I still managed to have morning tea with all three of my boys.  Sam was still home recovering and was able to join us at school.  I'm really lucky that my boys will actually sit and hang out with me, most of the children eat with their mum's and then run off and play with their friends.  I love my boys.

May 12

Saturday, soccer day.  Ethan and the team mascot, Miss Amelia.

Post Op

We've been watching M*A*S*H a lot lately of an evening.  So we've been telling Sam what it was like when you go in for an operation.  Bombs going off everywhere, Dr's jumping up on the patient and thumping their chests to get their hearts to start pumping again, Dr's cracking jokes left, right and centre.  Donald was explaining to Sam that two big, burly men were going to come in and grab hold of his arm.  One was going to pull in one direction and the other was going to pull in the opposite direction on the count of 3 . . . . but . . . they would count to 2 and then pull, to take you unawares.

Well none of the above happened.  It was pretty quiet and boring waiting.  We arrived at Royal North Shore hospital at 6.30am to meet with the Orthopaedic consult.  By 8am we were walking up to the children's ward and Sam was given a bed.  He got to lay down and watch movies for a while until it was time to be wheeled down to theatre.

This time Donald got kitted up in the fancy pants, shoes and hat to accompany Sam into the operating theatre to get his bone straightened out.  I was with Sam the first time he had surgery on his thumb so it was only fair that Donald had a turn.

Fortunately Sam was only out for about an hour as they were able to manipulate the bone back into place and he didn't need to have surgery and place the bone with pins or a plate.  Here he is in recovery, he was rather chatty and full of all sorts of information.

The Royal North Shore hospital have a school program for children who are in hospital.  Even if you are in for a short stay teachers come around and offer activities or movies to watch to get their mind off their troubles.  Sam chose to watch a Dr Who dvd.

I sat and crocheted a new bag for my mum.

Donald snoozed while we waited for Sam to recover and have his obs taken.

They released Sam around 3.30pm and we have to go back to the fracture clinic next Thursday to make sure the bone is still set correctly.  Fingers crossed all heals well.

Sam will need to have his cast on for at least 6 weeks and seeing as he had such a rough night with itchiness under the cast, it looks like it might be a loooooong 6 weeks.

A break in the day

Today was to be a calm quiet day for me.  Get the boys off to school, go for a long walk with Amelia and then off to my yoga class.  The last few weeks have been rather busy and since soccer started there doesn't seem to be much time for relaxing on the weekends.  However I do have my Tuesdays to look forward to.  I even stopped at the bakery on the way home for some bread and a chicken pie.  Mmm they make the best chicken pies.  So it was a pie on the front porch after yoga, this was going to be my photo for the day.

This afternoon I got a phone call at 2.45pm and it was Sam.  It was very strange to get a phone call from him.  It was his early finishing day from school and he was riding home on his bike.  So he called me up to tell me he had an accident just up the road from school.  I was assuming he'd grazed his knee and was bleeding a bit and the fact that he called meant that he was still alive and conscious, thank goodness!!  So I grabbed some face washers and an ice pack and whizzed down to find him, thinking whether he'd had an accident with a car or just fell off the bike, my mind was racing, but I was very calm.

When I arrived Sam was on the footpath and a girl from his class, who had stopped to help him and loaned him her phone, was with him.  I loaded him into the car and then had a look at him.  A bloody lip, a sore knee, a strangely swollen arm and he was very quiet and in pain, which said to me that I had better get him to a hospital.  I drove past Ethan and Toby's school and grabbed one of our neighbours to bring Toby and Ethan up to the car from school.  Meanwhile I drove home with Sam, ran inside, phoned Donald and found an old sarong to make a sling with an ice pack, gave Amelia a bone, and we headed back down to the school for Ethan and Toby then it was off to the local hospital.

My suspicions were confirmed with an xray, the distal radius on his left arm was broken.  My poor boy.  Donald had arrived at the hospital by the time we came out from xray and Ethan and Toby were reading and eating snacks that I had foraged from home.  So after a few hours at the emergency room, after xrays and seeing the doctor, they put a temporary half cast on his arm as we needed to see the Orthopaedic doctor at Royal North Shore hospital.

So we are home tonight but first thing tomorrow we are off to North Shore as Sam may need to have his break repositioned and then set properly.  It may involve surgery and general anaesthetic so it may be a long day.  Any thoughts or prayers for Sam are most welcome.

This is my new photo of the day.

She's Apples

In the school holidays I was looking forward to taking the boys up to the Blue Mountains for the day so we went up the day before Ethan's birthday.  My favourite part of the Blue Mountains is along Bells Line of Road through Bilpin and Mt Tomah Botanical gardens.  I took my mum and sister there for a day out but we didn't have time to visit the botanical gardens as we had to be back in time for school pick up.

This time with the boys we had the whole day to ourselves.  The weather that week was pretty wet, however when we started going up the Mountains the sky stayed pretty dry for us and we even had some sunshine after our first stop at the Kurrajong lookout.

We stopped for apples, Royal Gala and Pink Lady at the Bilpin Fruit bowl, as well as an apple pie.  There are so many varieties of apples but those are my two favourites.  The apples are so fresh they were picked that morning, they have no stickers on them and they are sweet, crunchy and delicious.  On our way home I ended up stopping there again for another bag of Royal Gala's.  I had plans for making apple rhubarb pie.

Autumn leaves on my windscreen after parking under a tree.

We stopped at the Apple Bar for a lunch of wood fired pizza's and hot chocolates.  They truly are the best tasting pizza's.  Maybe it was the fresh air, sitting out on the verandah and maybe it was the Autumn leaves and woodsmoke but it was a lovely lunch.  The boys brought their books along to fill in time while we waited for our pizza's to cook and they were most well behaved and good company.

Once our bellies were full we were ready for a walk through the Mt Tomah Botanical gardens.  If you've never been there I heartily recommend a visit with the kids.  The gardens are beautiful, and there are many walks around into different sections and types of gardens, forests etc.  There are magnificent views from many aspects of the gardens too!

There was lots of running and jumping through the gardens, especially by Toby.  They all jumped off rocks, balconies, seats and ran down hills.  It was a beautiful afternoon for a bit of freedom.

My camera battery ran out, silly me forgot to charge it up the night before.  So I ended up taking a few photo's with Instagram on my iPod.