Everything happens for a reason

The end of another rather messy week in our house.  William has been a bit under the weather for a few weeks and we went to Southampton on Wednesday to see our specialist nurse who has hopefully set him back on track.  We have lots of antibiotics to try and sort out his diversion colitis and a date for his next operation.  This is good news as we can get organised and start planning the grandparents rota!  One exciting thing is that William is the entire list for theatre that day!  Two surgeons all day is pretty big stuff for a small boy but hopeful takes him on to the next stage of his journey. Lets hope the antibiotics sort out the sickness as the washing machine is in constant use!

Things happen for a reason, although I was sorry not to be able to stay at St Mary's even the lovely people there wouldn't have put up with me taking the first week of term of and then another two weeks in the same half term.  My gap year was definitely for the best and I am getting lots of enjoyment and practice of target language teaching with year 6. Today we learnt numbers and played loto :) I am trying to make it fun for me and them, lets see how we get on!

Looking forward to a nice family weekend - we are meant to be going to legoland lets hope the rain holds off :) 

I am also hoping to get some time to catch up my learn something new everyday book and some scrapbooking!  

La rentrée!

Back to school this week and it feels strange not having lessons to plan or a tiny baby!  I am sure I will get used to it but the rhythm of the year seems out of kilter, not least because the sun is still shining!

William and I are off to Southampton next weds to try and do a poo!  Hopefully we will get him sorted and find out more about his next op, as second pull throughs are so unusual they want to use two consultant surgeons and need almost a full day in theatre. That will be hard to arrange and a very long day for us. But hopefully gets us closer to him starting school without a special need statement.

I am starting my little sessions with year 6 at Madeleine's school on Friday, I have to try and French fun and not ruin them for secondary school or use the material they will see next year when they get their metro 1 books!  Lots of flash cards and role play I think and I might even have to do some songs not my favourite thing!  It will be nice to keep working in the classroom though and even to remember what it is like to teach boys!

Bonne rentrée à tous!  Katie x

Mr Burp's holiday!

Mr Burp decided that he wanted in on the summer, at the start of August he just disappeared one night!  It turns out retraction is quite common but it did leave us with lots of leaks and very sore skin.  Our lovely stoma nurse sorted us out with lotion to heal W's skin and new convex bags to help encourage Mr Burp back out!  And a week later he popped back out! Since then we have struggled a bit with leaking bags and tummy ache, it turns out W needs a washout - loop stomas let a little bit down into the large intestine and overtime this builds up into miracle poos!  Unfortunately a Hirschsprung'sq bottom can't pass this so my boy has tummy ache.  We might have it take him to hospital to remove it if it makes him much worse or more likely will wait until his surgery.  We are waiting for a date for the repeat pull through which is hard to schedule as it takes a full day and needs two consultant surgeons.  How lucky are we that we have such a good hospital team and the NHS! 

Holidays holidays

We've been having a lovely time on holiday and have done so many amazing things on our staycation in Crowthorne.  We started the holidays with Madeleine's swimming lessons and I was so proud of her as she doesn't like doing new things and joined in really well.  

We've had lots of day trips and lots of lovely days in the garden in the sunshine, the children have played really nicely together and we have played lots of shops and cafés as well as gardening William style which involves digging up everything in the veg patch and filling the wheelbarrow with dirt that we spread all over the garden.

Madeleine and I talked about our favourite bit this morning and both agreed the best bit of our holidays was our visit to Helen in Dorset, lots of beach time, sandcastles, wave jumping and seaside fish and chips:) 

The big hit of the holiday has been horrible histories, at last a programme we all love!  Our favourite is the ruthless rulers song and we now all know the order of all the kings and queens since William, William, Henry, John !  Instead of the bible why didn't Michael Gove send all schools a box set of horrible histories and forget about changing the curriculum?!  

We are all ready for our last week and have lots of nice things planned to try and tick off as much as we can from our summer bucket list! 

A bientôt :) 

End of term treat!

What a lovely treat to start my gap year with a visit from our favourite Canadians!  Ria and Rhys were visiting the UK and came to see us for dinner.  We had a lovely evening, a yummy barbecue, lots of games with Uncle John and Priya's spicy chicken :) Then to top it off a virtual tour of The Chief and Churchill, Blomidon via face time.  You have to love technology, when Sean first crossed the Atlantic we used to exchange letters on paper with mix tapes in, now it is face time and virtual pints!

Ria bought lovely presents for the children, Madeleine who hasn't worn shorts since she was in Nova Scotia in 2009 has worn her new blue shorts every day since Friday!!  William LOVES his car and shark shorts too :) but the serious hit was the cherry berry foam hand wash!!

The holiday has to be good to top such a wonderful start! 

Je suis partie!

Thank you lovely St Mary's people for a fabulous last day, an easy room clearing job with girls I liked, delicious lunch and champagne :) a lovely speech from Evelyne and more presents.  It was a shame I had to rush off at the end to collect Madeleine but probably best as there was no time for tears.  I will really miss everyone, I haven't enjoyed a job so much for a long time and will definitely keep in touch for when I am ready to work again! 

Here is my first cup of tea in my gorgeous new mug as a lady of leisure!  I am officially a lady who lunches, loads the dishwasher, does laundry, food shopping, basic paediatric nursing, key stage 1 homework and is general fount of all knowledge when it comes to lost things!  It is all very exciting but today is a little bit sad having left my lovely colleagues and such a nice school.  

 First let's enjoy the holidays :) 

Victorian day!

My first gap year project was to produce a Victorian school child outfit for the 150th anniversary celebrations at Madeleine's school.  I am very pleased with her skirt and apron made from pillowcases!  The more observant reader will notice that the skirt is recycled from the Shrove Tuesday nun's outfits!

I did try and convince Madeleine and her friends that Victorian children didn't talk or run around but they didn't believe me :) 

William and I are off to the time capsule ceremony later :)