Trying to Restart Blogging (again!!)

Its been MONTHS since I even opened my blog, but I hadn't realised I'd not blogged since March!!! There's no point trying to recap all that's happened, mostly because I can't remember lol

So here's the synopsis!!

Mr Messy is carrying on working hard to grow his photography business. He is making progress, although a lot more slowly than we'd like! He's teamed up with the owner of a children's designer clothes boutique, to joint market their businesses. He accompanies her to various country shows at the weekends and they have just been running a joint promotional competition. Their next challenge is to find a date when all four of the competition judges can get together and look at the entries!! We've also taken out a lease on a property, to open our first shop/gallery :-) Mr Messy doesn't do any studio shoots, so it won't be a studio, but it will be a "physical presence" for the business and raise our profile locally :-) He's also been speaking to the owners of a defunct local art gallery and if we can pick up on the framing work that they did, then that will cover the running costs of the gallery :-) Its all very exciting :-)

LMS coped really well when her American Boyfriend returned to the States after his 6 months allowed stay here was up. She is a lot stronger than I realised, and me and Mr Messy are so proud of the way she coped and handled everything :-) We aren't that pleased that she has once again deferred her last year of University! This time she is visiting her boyfriend in the States for 6 months, and says she will complete her last year of study next year. There are many private reasons that me and Mr Messy are uneasy about LMS's decision to live in the States with her boyfriend for 6 months, but she is an adult and has to make her own decisions and run her own life. We only ever wish her the best and hope she is as happy as she deserves to be.

Drama Teen has shockingly left school!! I don't know how that happened as she can't be old enough already!!! She got some great results in her GCSE's and we are so proud of her :-) Hoping she can repeat the greatness in her A levels. She registered for college today, and was quite (well very) nervous. A lot of the other new students had their parents with them while they registered, but as it would have meant taking Little Prince and Princess Lollipop with us too, Drama Teen said she would manage on her own. The college letter said the registration would take a couple of hours, so I took the little two to the town centre, where Little Prince visited a computer game shop to spend his voucher. We disagreed over which game to choose and came out empty handed, and he was in a foul mood for the rest of the day!

Little Prince has been getting more and more challenging. His behaviour has been getting harder and harder to deal with, I was hopeful that his appointment to be formally assessed for ADHD would help us and him. However, after the initial assessment we received a letter from the hospital saying that although Little Prince met the criteria for further assessment, he would not be seen for "some considerable time"!! After a few more weeks of almost intolerable behaviour from Little Prince I asked for help from our GP, he is looking to see if we can be seen somewhere privately to get the assessment done, and then return to the NHS for treatment. The Summer hols have been particularly hard for Little Prince, he has been scared of moving into the juniors when school re-opens, he hasn't coped with the lack of routine and once LMS came to the decision to go to America for 6 months he has been extremely upset about that too. He has done crazy things like cut himself with Mr Messy's razor to get attention (he only admitted what he'd done when I noticed the razor had been moved and asked him about it), he sprayed weed killer all over the chest freezer, he threw a screaming tantrum when we went out for a goodbye meal for LMS, and he is constantly in a violent rage (which isn't like him at all). The saddest thing is that he can't sit still long enough to have a hug with me, which used to calm him down so well :-( Its like I can't reach my little boy and it really worries me :-( I've made an appointment to see the GP again on Friday to see if he's made any progress finding somewhere to refer Little Prince. I've also contacted his original hospital paediatrician to see if he can take Little Prince back on and formally diagnose and treat him. Little Prince cries and cries that he is sorry and he doesn't know why he is so angry all the time, and I have to get him the help he so desperately needs.

Princess Lollipop has been growing like a weed :-) She is now quite definitely an opinionated toddler, who is always in a good mood, except when she doesn't get her own way and then she can throw spectacular tantrums!! She is still a little diva princess - loving her pretty dresses and shoes :-) She is also developing more speech every day and learning new words so fast, she's going to be such a bossy little chatterbox lol. Her latest love is her new "ledoo" (Duplo Lego!) that we bought when we visited Legoland. She will grab hold of people's hands and drag them over to the ledoo box, plonk herself down and pat the floor beside her imperiously saying "ledoo" over and over until you give in. She has also discovered the TV, and demands either "Mick-me" (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse), "MOM" (Phineas and Ferb) or "Pat pat" (Little Einsteins) whenever anyone goes near the TV remote lol. And she has us all so wrapped round her chubby little fingers that we almost always give in :-) The Princess's sleep is still a HUGE challenge! She was doing really well after starting on asthma inhalers, but then had a medication review (not by our usual GP) and was taken off them. Within a day she was waking up 3 or 4 times in the night! After a few weeks of this hell, we went to see our usual GP and he said it was ok to restart her on the inhalers. Then Princess Lollipop got a tummy bug and was off her food for almost a week and she hasn't slept through the night since :-( Me and Mr Messy aren't comfortable with any sort of "cry it out" method of sleep training, and are to exhausted to keep trying to get her back to sleep in her own room for hours each night. So for the past few weeks she's been sleeping in our bed, and for someone so small she doesn't half take up a LOT of room!! Me and Mr Messy lie on our sides clinging to the edge of the mattress, while Princess Lollipop luxuriates in the rest of the bed lol. She has been sleeping more soundly, but as we need sleep too, we are moving her cot into our room. Initially we are going to set it up like a co-sleeping bedside cot and see how she copes with that. Once she settle with that we'll move her away from next to our bed, but still in our room and hopefully one day she will eventually sleep in her own room! Its obvious from how distressed she is when she wakes up that she isn't ready to sleep in her own room yet and needs the comfort of being near to Mummy and Daddy, so hopefully this compromise will let us all get some more sleep!

And how am I doing?? Well I visited the GP a month or so ago and he prescribed some antidepressants and I'm doing a lot better. I don't think I'm totally back to being myself yet, but I'm on my way :-) I'd love to lose all the weight that I've put on, but I don't think I'm ready to tackle a diet yet, I need to succeed at more things first, to give me the confidence that I can succeed at dieting! I'm slowly trying to reclaim the house from under all the accumulated clutter that appeared before I started taking the tablets and that is encouraging. I'm also psyching myself up for a HUGE challenge - I'll be the one working in the new shop (with Princess Lollipop as my beautiful assistant!!). I'm scared stiff, but keep taking deep breaths and telling myself I can do it! Its so daunting though, I haven't worked properly since before LMS was born, and she was 21 this year!!! My "Gokettes" (LMS and Drama Teen) took me shopping and I've now got a "work wardrobe"!! Fingers crossed it gives me the confidence to get through the first few nerve wracking weeks!!

I'm going to try and post a little each night, so that LMS can keep up with what we are all up to, and also so that I have something to look back on, especially when I'm writing Little Prince's annual letterbox contact letters, or Princess Lollipop's annual post placement report.