The finished product.....

Natalie roaring like a tiger after her face was all made up, at her school fete, you can see the full video of the makeup going on:

Pretty Pink

So as you will know, if you read my blog post last weekend, Nat loves pink, she is most definitely a girly girl and loves all things girly and pinkie, so when we were looking at paint colours for the living room it was no surprise to me that she wanted some samples of pink paint, I did concede to buy one sample, on the grounds that her bedroom needs some TLC anyhow, especially now that she has a nice girly lampshade and bedside lamp, her walls need a coat of paint to match in as well as needing new curtains etc, looks like her whole room will get a makeover, with the help of our friends, Hanny & CJ, who have offered to help, see Hanny’s response to my blog post last week.

So this morning, after we had gone out for a good old cooked breakfast, Stevey is out with carers so there are just the 3 of us at home, we got back and Nat wanted to do some painting so, with my help and supervision, she painted her bedroom wall with the sample, not quite what she expected to be doing but she really enjoyed it, although it has to be said that she didn’t do a nice neat square as you normally do when doing a sample.

See attached photo, not a brilliant picture due to the way the light was shining in her room but it gives the idea, the colour is ‘Pretty Pink’ form a Dulux range.

Anyhow, as those of you who know me at all well will know, I have quite a ‘thing’ about paint and avoid it wherever possible, I especially hate getting it on my hands etc and supervising Nat doing the paint was probably worse than doing it myself! Made worse by the fact that everything within me wants to cry out and scream and run away but knowing that I cant because I don’t want my paint phobia to rub off on or impact her at all, this is only about the second time I have EVER been with Nat when she does painting and she really enjoyed it, I have to confess enjoyment is not a word I would use to describe how I felt about it but I survived and live to tell the tale.

Over the summer we have a lot of decorating to do, having left it all until after the electrics were done, the whole house needs some attention, joys mum has offered to help with some of it whilst we are away in the summer and Hanny & CJ have offered to help with Nat’s room but that will still leave a fair bit left to do, I guess it is as good a time as any for me to tackle my paint phobia but it will be tackling it head on and I am not sure that I can cope with it, we will have to wait and see.

Now her room is locked and out of bounds so that neither of the kids go in and get paint all over themselves, I guess we are going to have to be very careful about how we programme in decorating of her bedroom, indeed how we manage to get the whole house done will be ‘interesting’ with the complications that our unique family add to the equation.

A busy weekend

Saturday morning, in our house, started way too early, did you know its daylight at 5.30 this time of year? Well I have know that for some time but could have done without having confirmation of it this weekend!

So yes it could have been worse, if Steven had a seizures (or seizures) as bad as he did Saturday morning, if he had one that bad whilst we were away that would have been so much more difficult and stressful altogether.

Yes Steven had several Fits Saturday morning, the first, rather short one at 5.30, followed a few minutes later by another one, this went on for a total of 25 minutes, including having been administered Bucal midazolam after 5 minutes, so we had to call the ambulance 10 minutes into the seizure, he had just about stopped by them time they arrived.

So Joy went with him to A&E whilst I stayed back and got myself and Nat organised, it was the In-laws to the rescue again, I rang them and arranged to drop Nat round there, which I did about 8.30, about the same time as Steven had another fit in A&E, this one also went over the 5 minute mark so they ended up administering some medication to stop the fit.

Anyhow, after dropping Nat off I joined Joy & Steven at the hospital.

Because of the second fit and the second dose of medication he had to stay in for ‘observation’ so was sent, after a long delay, up to the children’s ward, they couldn’t take him straight away as they were allegedly short staffed!

Granted once we got onto the ward there were very few nurses on duty BUT it also has to be said there were also next to no patients there either! So we are a little puzzled why they had such a problems, especially as we are the ones who do most of the observing.

Anyhow, Steven did pick up during the morning and we got out just before 3pm, not before I enjoyed the delights of the restaurant a couple of times.

So we headed off home, I dropped Joy & Steven off then went and picked Nat up, she had a great time having been out with Grandma and Arnie and then at the kite festival with Grandma & Grandpa.

Anyhow, it was time to fulfil my commitment to her, the Friday evening I had promised to take her shopping for a new lampshade, the old one had gone with the light fitting over the re-wiring works, she had remembered this promise when I got her up in the morning and was a little upset about not being able to do that, although she was more upset and concerned about Steven it has to be said! So anyhow, I took her to Homebase and we bought a new lampshade and matching bedside lamp, Disney Princess set, along with the Disney princess picture that Hanny pants and CJ had bought her for her birthday we now have a theme going on in her room, just need to get some new curtains and bedding to match and paint the walls, they need a coat of paint anyhow, pink to fit in, pink is her favourite colour anyhow! In-fact I did look at sample colours for decorating the living rooms and Nat insisted that we pick up a sample of some pink paint! I guess she has her room in mind.

So having done this we were pretty shattered.

Sunday morning started normally enough, we got up and went to church, Nat spent quite a bit of the time with Richard & Ursula, her adopted grandparents!!! After the service we hung about a fair bit then went to head off home, only to find the car wouldn’t start!!! So we unloaded again back into the church, we had some church keys with us so at least we could stay there and lock up afterwards, it was way too hot for staying in the car for too long.

I call the RAC and was really impressed with the service, the guy was with us inside of half an hour from calling them, it took about half an hour to get the car going and then we were on our way, it was a problem with earthing on the engine apparently! Whatever that means.

So that was the weekend pretty well interrupted, Sunday afternoon was good though went out and had a good time with the kids. I have to say the kids have been really good this weekend.

OK so today was good, the kids packed off to school, we then meet a friend for lunch, this is a friend who we have got to know through Facebook, this is now the third person who we have meet in real life following initial contact only via Facebook! Any children reading this don't try it yourself, we only do so after very careful assessment of the risks and knowing the person on line for a fair bit before meeting them also we always meet in a public and neutral venue for first meeting, well almost true when I meet my good friend Graham he came to the office to pick me up! But hey I wouldn’t do that with everyone.

So we meet this lady today, I wont name her here I shall refer to her as Tilly, she is someone who I have got to know through a support group on Facebook, and is a fantastic young woman, she has overcome so much to be the person she is today and I admire her so much, she lives not too far from where we live so we arranged, myself and Joy, to meet up with her today, I think we shall be seeing more of each other in the future.

Tilly, you know who you really are, you’re a great friend and we both consider it a privilege to have you as our friend, hope everything works out for you and hope to see you again soon.

Anyhow, that’s enough from me for now, will write more some time soon.