Supermarkets!!

I ordered a new handheld mini Dyson vacuum cleaner on the internet over the weekend, to be delivered to my local supermarket. The confirmation said that I could collect my order after 4pm today. I even got a phone call from the store saying that my order had arrived and was ready for collection. So this evening after getting Little Prince settled in bed, checking that Drama Teen and Mr Messy were ok (they've been ill all day) me and LMS set off to the supermarket to collect my new vac. We arrived at the supermarket collection desk at 8.10pm - only to be told by the lady on the next desk that the collection desk closes at 8pm!!! On the dot obviously - there was no one anywhere to be seen!!! WHY couldn't the member of staff who took the trouble to ring me and let me know my order was ready, TELL ME what time the collection desk closed??? For the sake of TEN MINUTES I wasted a 40 minute round trip!!!! AAAAAAARGH!!! I've a good mind to stuff them and go and get it from Argos instead!!!!!

It Begins!

I spent the weekend veering between madly tidying and just being mad (crazy mad not grumpy mad)!! Because our Social Worker visited today to start redoing our homestudy, in preparation for changing countries. Her visit was scheduled for 3pm, so LMS and Mr Messy were dreading spending the day with the Manic Tidying Lady!! However, Mr Messy deftly escaped tidying duties by managing to catch Little Prince's chucking up bug at 5am this morning. And being a man he wasn't quiet and delicate about it, he bellowed and groaned at the toilet for ages waking up the whole house!!! Little Prince decided enough was enough (his bedroom is right next door to the bathoom) and went downstairs to play on the Wii, and I don't blame him!! After getting back to sleep for not very long, I had to wake everyone else up, and it became obvious that Drama Teen was also not a well bunny and would have to stay home from school. So poor LMS was left all alone to cope with an increasingly panicked and manic mother!! Then after a whole day of that, she had to collect Little Prince from school and try to keep him happy and amused in the dining room with the manic kittens rampaging around!! They were swiftly confined to their travel box lol.

Mr Messy manfully coped with our Social Worker's questions, despite being laid on the sofa under a bright pink fleecy blanket!! We managed to plough through loads of updating, I was amazed how much we had actually done in the two years since our last report was written!! Mr Messy excused himself to get some paracetemols and disappeared!!! I found out later that he had felt dizzy and gone for a lie down, and fallen fast asleep!!! I know he was ill, but that didn't stop me being extremely cross with him GRRRR!!! I didn't tell him that though, as he felt bad enough as it was. Me and our Social Worker carried on as much as we could, until we came to the parts she would have to interview us together on and so we had to stop. She then rearranged her Saturday visit to the afternoon, which complicates everything the girls are doing, but I'm sure we'll work it all out.

However, later in the evening I got an email from our Social Worker saying she'd had a rethink and wanted the meeting to be in the morning as originally arranged. Her email said "so that we could try to complete the assessment" WOWOWOWOW COMPLETE THE ASSESSMENT I really really hope that we can get the bulk of the work done this quickly!! I KNOW our Local Authority are going to be extremely slow at processing the next parts of our update, and booking us into Panel, so the quicker we can COMPLETE THE ASSESSMENT the better :-) I'm trying very hard to keep my feet on the ground and not get too excited, but its way to late for that!!! I'm already thinking we could possibly be at Panel in September!!!! Although I keep telling myself that anytime before Christmas would be fantastic, given our Local Authority's lack of speed!!!

Sicky Night and Sleepy Day

Little Prince was spectacularly sick last night and then had a couple more bouts of retching and feeling awful. We were both so tired that we spent most of this afternoon in bed. After restricting him to just clear fluids all morning, I allowed him a couple of dry crackers after he had woken up and he seems to be perking up :-) He is still quite lethargic and doesn't want to run round, and is content to just sit on the sofa and watch TV or play on the Wii, so I know he's not totally recovered. I'm hoping he is recovered enough to allow me and Mr Messy to carry on with our plans to go out for a meal and to the cinema with our friends K and I tonight though. LMS says she is willing to give it a try, and we will have our mobiles with us, so she can get us to come home quickly if needed. Unless he is sick again, I think we will chance it!

Preparations

I have just spent a good few hours getting all my research on adopting from Ethiopia printed out. I've also made a list of books we've already got (in addition to the veritable library we already had when we were preparing to adopt from China) and ordered quite a few more from Amazon. All this because our social worker finally starts coming to see us again on Monday!! Its only taken our Local Authority since last FEBRUARY to get this moving!! And I want to ensure that there are no more hold ups or delays, well as much as I can with our VERY VERY slow LA. Me and LMS have been sorting things out around the house so it looks tidier and neater. So I think we are all ready to go!! NOW I'm nervous!!!!

An Ewok for Kate!!!

LMS says "How on earth can you not know what an Ewok is? They are the cutest thing ever invented" But then again she is a Star Wars geek lol.
Anyway just for you Kate THIS is an Ewok :-)

It finally happened!

This morning as he was getting ready for school, Little Prince quite matter of factly told me I wasn't his "proper mum." I have to say that the only thing that surprised me was that he said this at such a young age, I had expected it more from a teenage tantrum than from a normal everyday conversation with a 5 year old. I'm not sure how well or badly I handled it, as I just matter of factly told him that "No I'm not your Tummy Mummy, but I am the Mummy who looks after you." I also explained that Mummies have two jobs i) to grow the baby in their tummy and ii) to look after the baby and help them grow up big and strong. And that some Mummies do both jobs for their children, and some Mummies aren't ready to do the second job and social workers and Courts find the children new Mummies who ARE ready. He seemed to accept this and happily carried on getting ready for school.

Any ideas on what else I could have said? I don't want to invalidate what he was obviously thinking and I'm not sure my answer doesn't try to do that! He has also been saying for the last couple of nights that he wishes he was 0 (ie a baby under one) so that he could come out of my tummy. Poor little lad is obviously processing a LOT of adoption related stuff right now.

Educational Psychologist Meeting

Me and Mr Messy met with the Education Psychologist and SENCO this morning. The Ed Psych had already observed Little Prince and made notes on what he had seen. We were there for about half an hour and covered a lot of ground, what issues we thought were most pressing, how we thought he could be better supported in school and his background history. We will receive a copy of the Ed Psych's report once it is ready. We mentioned that we are waiting for an appointment at the local hospital after being referred by our GP, and the Ed Psych knew the centre we could be referred onto from the hospital. We agreed that rather than overload Little Prince with too many assessments we will wait and see if he is referred to the centre, which will assess him. If he isn't referred onto there then the Ed Psych will come and assess Little Prince himself, he will be in contact again in Sept/Oct to decide which way we are progressing. He was very positive that we are supporting and helping Little Prince and that much can be done to address his issues in the future.

This afternoon we had a phone call from the local hospital to check if a week on Friday was a good day for Little Prince to attend. So things are moving forward on that front too :-)