Co-Sleeping

While Mr Messy was out meeting his competition judging committee this morning, me and Little Prince dismantled and rebuilt Princess Lollipop's cot in our room. Little Prince was very patient and listened to all the instructions very nicely and was a great help, I was very proud of him. Drama Teen was supposed to have been part of the judging committee, but decided to have a lie in instead - typical teenager! So she looked after Princess Lollipop, while me and Little Prince engineered the cot. When we got down they were both playing on Mario Kart Wii - Princess Lollipop with a steering wheel with a wii-mote (with no batteries in) fixed in (she knows it needs the wii-mote and won't "play" without one).

Mr Messy and the committee were supposed to shortlist three boys and three girls for the final test photoshoot, but the standard of entries were so high they have only narrowed it down to over a dozen each of boys and girls! They will meet again one evening in the week to have another try at narrowing it down again.

At the moment Drama Teen and Little Prince are having a competition to see who can get most points on a four race Grand Prix. Little Prince doesn't handle being beaten very well at all and is getting very frustrated and stroppy about the fact that he is coming last. He was doing so well before and is now back to being angry and raging, it doesn't take much at all to send him over the edge!

Tonight we'll see if me and Mr Messy can get some more sleep with Princess Lollipop in her cot beside our bed, instead of taking over our bed - for the smallest person in the bed she takes up the most room!! When we rebuilt the cot we left off one of the sides (after checking it was stable without installing the side!) and fixed the mattress so it is the same height as our bed. Hopefully this will make it easier to comfort Princess Lollipop during her nightly wakings, and let me and Mr Messy sleep more comfortably. Wish us luck this is the last of a long list of things we have tried to help us all get more sleep!!

Criminal Minds

Its my new obsession :-) I know its weird, but I find it relaxing to watch a murder or two before bed lol. And it doesn't hurt that Derek Morgan (played by Shemar Moore) is drop dead gorgeous :-) And yes Mr Messy does know about this, he watches the programme with me :-)

Making Progress

The decorator collected the shop keys and started work on prepping the place for decorating next week. I've only peeped through the windows (forgot to take the spare keys with me!) so I can't really tell what's been done!

Mr Messy went for a meeting with a local business woman, who runs lifestyle coaching sessions and makeover workshops. They are about to launch a joint venture, a package of makeover then boudoir photoshoot. They both seem to be very enthusiastic about this new venture.

I also saw our GP about Little Prince. Our GP is very helpful and supportive and knows how difficult dealing with Little Prince is! He immediately agreed to re-refer Little Prince to the original hospital Paediatrician as an urgent case, he is even having the referral letter faxed through to save time. The GP suggested that the Paed could put Little Prince on a trial of medication while we wait for the appointment for the CAHMS assessment. I've got everything crossed that this appointment comes through quickly and we get the help we and Little Prince so desperately need.

Mr Messy fitted Princess Lollipop's new car seat (a high backed booster seat, with a five point harness) and she LOVES it. I think she feels very grown up in it :-) She spent the whole drive to the GP's surgery saying "Deat" (seat) in a very smug voice :-)

Frustrating and not very productive day!

Mr Messy got in touch early this morning from work, and asked if I could find out what is happening with his order of new lights for the gallery. He placed the order over the weekend, and the lights were "in stock" on the website, which also assured us that most orders are despatched the next working day - we still haven't heard anything about our order!! I rang the company and was passed around various different people and departments, before they decided they would ring me back. They rang back later and said that they had had such an influx of orders over the Bank Holiday weekend that they were unfortunately out of stock of the lights we'd ordered and wouldn't be able to despatch them until next week. I told them that our electrician was booked in for Saturday and we needed them for then, or would have to cancel the order. They said they would check all their showrooms for stock and get back to me. Three hours later I finally spoke to them again, only to be told that they couldn't get hold of any of the lights and would have to refund our money. Luckily there Mr Messy had already seen some almost identical lights in Screwfix, which he ordered and have already been despatched - next time we will stick with a company we know and trust, rather than one we've never used before!!

I've also been trying (unsuccessfully so far!) to find a way of getting Little Prince assessed for ADHD (which me, our GP and his Paediatrician are 99.9% sure he has) as soon as we can. I left a message early this week for his Paediatrician asking if he could see Little Prince again, and his secretary rang me today. She isn't sure if Little Prince is still a patient of the Paed, or if he was discharged when the Paed referred him to the hospital CAHMS service! She is going to check his records and get back to me next week. I explained that I'm seeing our GP about our concerns tomorrow and she recommended that the GP re-refer him just in case Little Prince has already been discharged. She gave me the number of a Local Council run support service, who unfortunately can't help us as we live in a different Local Authority to the hospital and this service!! She also said that the Paed doesn't see patients privately, and doesn't know any local service that would, so we are no closer to getting Little Prince assessed! Sooooo frustrating!!!

One piece of good news is that we got a letter from our own Local Authority this morning letting us know that they will be formally assessing Little Prince's educational needs, to see if he qualifies for a Statement (which will mandate how many hours one to one support the school have to provide him). I know this is needed, but I'm still a little sad that its come to this. And also that the Local Authority have so readily agreed to assess him, they are apparently very strict with their criteria of who will be assessed, so Little Prince's needs must be pretty high on their scale. Mixed feelings.

Other good news is that the decorator will start the prep work on the shop tomorrow, and is even coming to our house to pick up the shop keys - love that helpful local touch :-) He's going to be finishing off the interior and exterior painting on Monday and Tuesday, and I'll be posting update photos to my social networking site for those that actually know me! He has said its no problem to come back once we've had the joiner come and do some boxing in we need doing, to paint the "boxing in" bits, I just asked him to leave me some of the paint and I'd do it myself, so that's good too :-) The next job will be to organise the new laminate flooring and the shop front signage, its all coming together a lot quicker than we thought it could and well under budget so far too :-)

Little Prince's tricks for today:-
He sneaked the furniture polish outside and cleaned the windows, his Dad's old 4x4 and used it as perfume!
Had a big meltdown when told he couldn't take ALL his money to the local shop when Drama Teen and her boyfriend offered to take him there.
Had a big meltdown because he didn't want Daddy to take him to bed.
To be honest today has been quite a good day for Little Prince, with much less raging and crazy behaviour than usual. He did sleep all night (could it have been the Calpol!?) so that probably helped. Fingers crossed he continues to improve!

Quick Recap of the Summer Hols

Me and LMS took Little Prince and Princess Lollipop to Legoland. After finding the driving home after a full day at the park so hard last time, we booked two nights in the hotel (same lovely one as last time) and that was so much easier. The 3 1/2 hour drive did take almost 6 hours though (both ways!!) as either Little Prince needed a "comfort stop" or Princess Lollipop got to upset at being stuck in the car seat and we had to stop to comfort her. We had a fantastic time at Legoland and I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone with kids under 12 ish. It turns out that Princess Lollipop LOVES rollercoasters (well the little mini kiddie ones) she grinned and shouted "whee" all the way round :-) Little Prince loved all the rides, the opportunity to build with unlimited Lego bricks and was also fascinated by the display of icons from around the world all made of Lego. One of his favourite things was when he got to get in a giant inflatable ball and propel himself around a small pool with other kids in giant balls!! He jumped and threw himself around like a lunatic (all pretty normal behaviour for him when he's not in a giant ball!!) and didn't get hurt at all - wish I could get one for the garden lol.

Me and Mr Messy took the little two to a local play farm, and they both had a great time there. The weather was lovely so they got to play on all the outdoor play equipment, including huge trampolines that they both loved. Princess Lollipop loved seeing all the animals even if she did decide they were all "pids" (pigs!).

Me and LMS took the little two to a different play farm to meet up with a friend who also has a daughter from Ethiopia. Little Prince and friend's older daughter didn't play together as well as they did last year, but still seemed to have fun together. We tried to get a photo of Princess Lollipop and friend's Ethiopian daughter and it was IMPOSSIBLE!! After nearly 20 minutes of trying we didn't get one with both of them looking at the camera, and most of them were of the girl's backs!!! It seemed almost as though they had planned and co-ordinated the photo resistance lol

We've also visited the local National Trust-like property a few times, they have a huge playground, large wooded grounds and a duck pond, so there is plenty to do and it allows Little Prince to run off a lot of steam. Princess Lollipop also loves the chance to run around, especially if she finds a stick to wave about like big brother does!!

Drama Teen spent a lot of the holidays slowly re-decorating her bedroom. It has gone from being a fairly cluttered, girlie lilac room, to a much more sophisticated teenage room with three white walls and one feature wall in bright red. It is a lot less cluttered, as we've removed one bookcase and her large TV stand. Unfortunately the new decor hasn't inspired her to keep it any tidier!! I've also spent a lot of time ferrying her back and forth to see her boyfriend and various other friends, I need to get one of those "Mum's Taxi" stickers for my car!! Drama Teen also attended the CLAPA Summer Camp, this time as a Young Leader rather than as a regular participant! As usual she really enjoyed herself and I think the extra responsibilites were good for her :-) She also visited our original hometown with her boyfriend for the Gay Pride Celebrations there. They stayed with Baby Sis for the weekend and although they missed the parade, they did get to see some of the acts (a drag queen take off of Girls Aloud!), go to the cinema a couple of times and get their faces painted with rainbows lol.

And talking of Baby Sis and Little Sis for that matter - both of them announced they are expecting babies within a month of each other :-) Baby Sis has had the scan where they can tell the sex of the baby and is having a girl, who will be spoilt rotten by her doting Daddy :-) Little Sis wants the baby's sex to be a surprise, so we'll have to wait and see if this one is a little brother or sister for her older four! You are so brave having FIVE kids, its not something I could ever handle, four is definitely ENOUGH for me :-)

Me and Mr Messy celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary, although for some reason Mr Messy seemed to think it was our 23rd!! Mr Messy was out on a charity photo shoot at the local golf course all day. We were both invited to the evening meal afterwards, and LMS did a fantastic job of babysitting the little two - who were both being quite a handful!!

We also started getting our new shop ready for its grand opening in October (on Mr Messy's birthday lol - well at least it saves me throwing him a party!!). LMS has been a Godsend with getting things organised, and I wish she was still here as its so hard getting things done with Little Prince and Princess Lollipop's "assistance"!! She helped organise the electrician (who started work today), the decorator (who is booked in for next week), the signwriter (who submitted revised designs today) and before all that negotiated with our new landlord all the details of us leasing the shop. She is a total star, and I miss her help and company so much. The electrician is coming back on Saturday to finish off the last bits. The decorator wants to start work a few days earlier than we planned, so I'm not sure if we'll have time to get the joiner in to box in the consumer unit and the storage heater! I'll have to see if the decorator will leave us some of the paint so we can finish it off ourselves if we don't manage to get the joiner in! Our new landlord is also a total star, he is totally flexible about what we do to the shop, he has offered us an ornate plaster fireplace for a total bargain price (Mr Messy was discussing what he planned to do to the interior with him and mentioned putting one in), he has refused to take a deposit (saying new businesses need the money more than he does!) and he is arranging for us to see a sample of the laminate flooring he uses in his other properties and if we like it we can have it at about a 1/3 of the price we were going to have to pay from the shop, and to top it all off he'll arrange for his floor fitter to come round and fit the flooring for less than £100!!!! Bargain!!! We can't believe how lucky we are to be dealing with a landlord who is so so helpful and supportive :-) Especially as this was the second property we had looked at, and Mr Messy was gutted to just miss the first one he had his eye on - this one is turning out to be so much better :-)

I'm sure we got up to more than that, but I can't remember any more lol. Hopefully back to regular blogging tomorrow, fingers crossed I can keep it up properly!!

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.

First Shoes

On Wednesday (24th Feb) I was bored!! My computer had lost its connection to the internet, and with my limited techie skills, I couldn't fix it! And even with Sky there is never anything on the TV I want to watch during the day. So I took Princess Lollipop to the local Clark's Outlet Shop, to be measured for her first pair of real shoes. I wanted her to have her first pair of shoes for her Adoption Hearing, which was potentially on Friday 5th March, days away! Princess Lollipop couldn't believe that I was letting her out of her buggy while we were in a shop, she kept walking a few steps then turning round and grinning at me, when I smiled and nodded at her she would toddle a few more steps before repeating the process lol. I had thought that going during the day would make the process of getting measured and chosing her new shoes quicker than it usually is in the Summer Hols when everyone seems to be getting new school shoes! I was wrong!! There was only one lady working in the children's department - restocking shelves, measuring feet and checking the fit of the shoes. So it took quite a while to get Princess Lollipop's feet measured - she measured at 4F. The rushed lady didn't give me any advice on what to look for and went off to serve another customer.

It was rather difficult to choose shoes from the shelves as Princess Lollipop had got very used to being out of her buggy and wanted to explore! I managed to choose three or four pairs in the right size, and in styles I liked and one pair that I loved. Eventually the rushed lady came back and looked over the selection, she said that a few of them (including my favourites!) were "cruising shoes" with designs that work for a child who needs to hold on to stand/walk and still spends time crawling. She spoke as though I should know this - I pointed out that she hadn't given me any guidance on styles and I had no idea there was such a thing as "cruising shoes!!" She ignored this and asked which of the shoes I preferred - she grumbled again that they were "cruising shoes" and didn't give as much support as the "real shoes." But I preferred this style and feel that Princess Lollipop's soft little feet don't need to be put into stiff, hard black patent styles just yet, and insisted that she see if they fit properly. Luckily they did :-) And Princess Lollipop LOVED them :-)

On the way out of the Outlet Centre we visited Little Prince's least favourite shop - Next, to see if they had anything suitable for him to wear for Princess Lollipop's upcoming Adoption Hearing. I found some lovely black, moleskin trousers, greatly reduced and snapped them up.

When we got home I tried to remove Princess Lollipop's new shoes, as I think its much better for children (and adults) to have bare/stocking feet indoors. BIG mistake!!! She threw a HUGE, screaming, back arching tantrum!! It wasn't worth the aggravation, so I let her keep them on lol. She's a proper shoes loving girl already :-)

When Little Prince returned home from school I got him to try on his new smart trousers "They're a bit squeazy" was the verdict! They were also quite a bit too short, oh well! They had the next size in the shop when I'd looked, so I'll return them tomorrow and hope they still have the bigger ones! Being an Outlet Shop they sell out quickly!