Friends, as good as Family?

What do you think, are friends’ family? Do you consider your closet friends more like family than friends?

Well if like me you live 13,000 miles from your family then the answer is, Yes. Of course they are never going to replace your family, how could they? But they can and do fill the gap that exists when you have no immediate family to hand. This really hit home for us last week when we had to take Son No 1 in at 6.30 am for his operation. What would we do with our younger son? No problem, our good friend K, said she would take him the night before so we could just get up and go without having to sort him out. Then when the day didn’t go to plan and the operation was scheduled later than we anticipated, she stepped in again by taking him for another night, so Mr P could stay later, and be there when Son No 1 woke up from his surgery. The whole time we never had to worry that he wasn’t being looked after or that one of us had to rush back to collect him.

Of course I am not talking about fair weather friends or transitional friends, those friends that come in and out of your life at different stages like work colleagues or people in parenting groups. I am talking about your close friends, the ones that will always be there for you, the ones where you can agree to have different points of views, tell you that your arse does in fact look big in that, hold your hair back for you when being sick, the ones where you can feel comfortable enough to sit in your PJs all day eating cold take away from the night before, with. Those are the friends I am talking about.

Yes, your family are the ones that know you warts and all. They know all about your good and bad points, the teenage angst and crushes, crying when watching old Lassie movies! Whereas your closest friends know you as you are now, with none of that family baggage or resentment. They are less likely to judge you especially when it comes to raising children, hands up who hasn’t had an argument with their mother over something that you are apparently doing wrong? They tend to be more supportive of your decisions and actions as they have either been there done that, or going thru the same thing as you.

Our boys will not only grow up with their immediate family but also an extended family of uncles, aunties and cousins that may not be tied to them by blood but family they will be.

Silent Sunday

For more great photos for Silent Sunday pop yourself over to mocha beanie mummy

My Brave Little Solider......

My brave little man,


I am writing this why you are sleeping soundly next to me. I wanted to write this so when you are better, I will be able to read this to you so you know how brave you were today.

The only time you cried today was when you saw daddy crying and that was because he couldn't go with us into theatre. Silly daddy wasn't he? I knew you would be okay as you had Eeyore with you, and Eeyore always looks after you when you are scared. You were so brave that all the doctors and nurses said how brilliant you were and what a brave little man you had been. Even when you woke up and didn't like all the tubes and wires attached to you, you didn't complain you just gave us all a big smile. You even got a bravery certificate which you will be able to show all your friends.

I knew when we named you that we had chosen the right name, my little "fair warrior". You made us so proud today.

Love Mummy and Daddy xx

From Ear Infection to Ankylosis - Part Two

Last week saw us finally get the news that we have been waiting for since April.  We received the date from the hospital for Son No 1 surgery.  To be fair we were given a date in June for the operation but it clashed with our holiday so had to postpone it!  So the NHS weren’t really dragging their feet on this one.  The reason for the delay in getting a date was because they have to get 4 specialists in a room together at the same time, according to one of the surgeon’s “it’s like herding cats”.  Since I have never done this nor have any intention in doing this I will take his word for it.

The good news that came out of the consultation that we had back in April is that it is not as bad as they first thought.  They are now calling it “Pseudo Ankylosis” as the jaw joint is not totally fused so they think they will just be able to go and reshape the jaw joint to allow the jaw open to its full potential.  This of course sounds great to us but to Son No 1 who desperately tries to show me every day that he can open his mouth wider (which he can’t) it’s not. 

The general consensus within the medical team is that it is still the result of the horrific ear infection that he had when he was 19 months old.  If you are wondering how wide he can open his mouth, well they measured it at 5mm which in imperial terms is 0.1968 inches, so in my terms that’s fuck all.

So roll on the 12^th July when fingers crossed they will still have a bed for him and the specialists can work their magic and reshape my wee boys jaw. 

Will keep you posted…

“I don’t want that!” - Fussy Eating!

Being a relatively new full time mum one of the many things I am having trouble with is food. Or to be more accurate the refusal of eating anything that is given to Son No 1 to eat, be it homemade or brought.

While I was working it was all too simple. The nursery took care of all his meals so when I got him home all he needed would be a yogurt or piece of toast. I would get his day sheet; they would wax lyrical on what a fantastic eater he was and how often he asked for seconds. Well, I am not sure whether they got my little boy confused with another child or not but that little boy is certainly not the one I have at home. Over the last few months with him having started school things have continued to escalate.

Now, I admit I am no domestic goddess in the kitchen but I do think I can put together rather tasty meals for us all, with no complaints from the other two in the house. But with Son No 1, I have tried everything, eating together, bribery, M&S kids’ meals as he used to love these, cooking with him, letting him choose what to eat and nothing seems to work. Don’t get me wrong some days he will eat everything put in front of him but the next he won’t or I will cook a meal I know he has eaten before and he will refuse it. His best excuses are “don’t like the smell”, “sore tummy”, “it will make me sick” or “it’s not what I wanted or meant”. The worse days are the days he will just walk up to the table look at it and tell me he doesn’t like it and then walk away! There has been tears (both of us) shouting (both of us) and even door slamming (him).

My friends all tell me that this is normal and I have seen similar behaviour in some of their kids. Mr P thinks he is just a “snacker” and a “grazer” so he is happy for him to eat when he wants and more often than not will let him eat what he wants as well. This in turns makes me mad! Husbands, no idea!

So I am beginning to think I have the problem and not Son No 1. Perhaps I am expecting too much and that this is perfectly normal behaviour? Perhaps with his jaw problem I am getting too stressed that he is not eating enough and getting too skinny.

Perhaps I just need to chill out about it and find some coping strategies of my own to deal with it. Other than a big glass of wine.

Any advice welcomed....

From Ear Infection to Ankylosis?

Bear with me on this one as it’s a bit long.. Plus yucky photo alert!

So hands up if you know what Ankylosis is?   Anyone?  Well it’s not a dinosaur, that’s an Anklyosaurus, which if you are living with a future palaeontologist you would know about.  The medial definition for Ankylosis is the “fusion of a joint” so in other words the joint fuses due to the formation of calcium deposits around the ligaments.  So you may be asking yourself how come I know about this, and the simple reason is that Son No 1 was diagnosed with having this in his jaw last year.  It seems that the culprit in this happening was a very nasty ear infection that he had when he was 19 months old.

At the time I had never given much thought to ear infections and it was only when Son No 1 rolled over in his cot and all this crap oozed out of his ear(yes it was like something out of a horror film) that I realised his bad cold was something worse.  After what seemed like waiting for hours I managed to get an appointment to see the practice nurse.  Who confirmed that it was an ear infection (no shit Sherlock!) and sent me on my way with antibiotics.  When it became apparent over the next few days that these weren’t working I was told by the surgery to finish the course before bringing him back in.  Should I at this point have put my foot down and demanded to see a doctor?  Most probably, but being a first time mum I thought that they would know what they were talking about.

So back to the doctors we went and was told by the doctor, “pretty nasty ear infection, why hadn’t I cleaned his ear (no f**king shit, because he won’t let me touch it, because it hasn’t stopped oozing!!)  So after a rather heated discussion about why the first lot of drugs didn’t work I was told that 9/10 times that the antibiotics that I was given should of worked but in our case they didn’t.   At this stage I was about to lose it so he took a swab of the ear and gave me another prescription, which thankfully worked its stuff.  Looking back on it I think in total he would have had crap oozing from his ear and a temperature for the best part of 10 days. 

Over the following two years everything was fine but then I began to think (or was I imagining it?) to myself that he couldn’t open his mouth very wide.  I mentioned it a couple of times when taking him to the doctors.  The conversations generally went like this..  “is he eating and drinking okay” “ Yes” “ well he is speaking okay so it can’t be serious” “ Okay” “ He might be having you on”  “Okay, thanks”.  It wasn’t until I was weaning Son No 2 that I realised something was seriously wrong and it was getting worse.  So this time I stomped back to the doctors and demanded to see a paediatrician.

Amazingly we got an appointment pretty quickly and he agreed with me that something was wrong so he then referred us on to a maxillofacial doctor, who within 5 minutes of seeing Son No 1 and after a quick x-ray diagnosed Ankylosis of the jaw.  Quite common apparently in third world countries due to lack of medical attention so it’s very rare to see cases like this in the UK...  Lucky us!

So 6 months and 2 cat scans later we are off to the hospital today.  To hopefully find out how they are going to operate and how soon he can have the operation.  As we are at the stage where he can hardly fit a child toohbrush into his mouth and I have to cut his food up into small pieces so he can get it into his mouth.

Fingers crossed that the Health Service comes good.  I’ll let you know...

P.S. I added the photo against MR P wishes!.  In case anyone is wondering the ear was cleaned all the time what you are seeing is just a build one of the muck once it has dried.  My son wouldn't let me touch that side of his face so was unable to give it decent scrub..