Rest of Tuesday

Me and Princess Lollipop only stayed an hour or so longer at OUR shop before I had to leave to pick up Little Prince from school. He asked if his friend J could come over to play, I said that was fine if it was ok with J's Dad. However, J's Dad said J's big sister had been ill and he didn't want to risk passing that on to our house, so J wouldn't be able to come and play. Of course Little Prince was really upset by this and sulked all the way home.

When Drama Teen arrived home from college she looked dreadful, all pale and washed out. She said she felt sick and was going straight to bed, poor baby :-( When Mr Messy got home from OUR shop, he took Little Prince out in his hire car (some sort of impressive Audi thing!) and took him out for tea. Me and Princess Lollipop stayed home and I got her her tea and ready for bed. When Mr Messy and Little Prince got home it was almost Little Prince's bedtime so once he was ready I took him upstairs and tucked him up. Mr Messy was exhausted and had fallen asleep on the sofa, so I told him to take Princess Lollipop up to bed and go to sleep himself. Which meant I had the whole evening on my own! When I get the peace and quiet I moan about wanting I'm still not happy and miss everyone!! Be careful what you wish for and all that!!

Anyway I took the opportunity to get some tidying up done and then had my tea while watching Quantum Leap and then Medium on TV. I'm the only one who enjoys programmes like that so I only watch them on my own!

Oh and I nearly forgot, after I'd left OUR shop Mr Messy had two ladies come in, who were asking about shoot prices. One lady had recently had a shoot with a national chain of photographers, and she was amazed at how much more reasonably priced we are. After the three of them had an anti-other photography company bitch fest, the lady said she was going to cancel her order with them and book a shoot with us instead :-) Yeah go us :-)

Tuesday

Mr Messy is working from home today, so that the Car Body Shop can come and pick his car up, as arranged by the Insurance Company. He got up with Little Prince and got him ready for school, while me and Princess Lollipop snuck a few extra moments in bed. Eventually I did have to get up, as I needed to ring the Doctors at 8pm to get an appointment with our GP, if you don't ring up as soon as the Surgery opens its impossible to get to see him, he is so good that he is incredibly popular and very busy. I got Princess Lollipop into her bath, and then rang the Surgery, unfortunately I'd been misinformed last week, and our Doctor is working in our village's Surgery and not the one near to OUR shop! As our village's Surgery doesn't open till 8.30am I was told I had to ring back after then to get an appointment. At least it gave me time to sort out Princess Lollipop's bath and hair before I needed to ring back. After I'd smothered Princess Lollipop in Shea Butter, Mr Messy got her dressed while I got myself ready for the day. Once I was downstairs it was time to ring the Surgery again, I was given an appointment at 10.30am, which means OUR shop will be opened late, but our family is a priority, so it will just have to happen.

I pootled around the house tidying up the kitchen and getting other bits of jobs done (and ok I admit it, checking my social networking site!) before I went over to the Surgery. I had quite a long wait, even though I got there on time, our Doctor takes as much time as each patient needs so his Surgeries always run late! While I was waiting L came in. She was at school with LMS and Drama Teen and a good friend of Drama Teen's for quite a while, while she was at school. A few months ago, me and Mr Messy had helped her out and waited with her for the ambulance to arrive when she had a motorbike accident across the road from our house. At the Surgery L came over and made a point of thanking me for what we did for her that night! Anyone would have done the same thing, the poor girl was so scared and in so much pain, and even if she had been a stranger we would have done the same thing. We had a quick chat, and she told me that she was recovering well now, she was on crutches and limping (she badly injured her ankle in the accident) she explained that she'd had to have a skin graft onto her ankle, which then got infected, but it was all healing up now. She has rented a flat very close to our house, so I told her to make sure she keeps in touch and lets us know when her baby is born - wonder if she'll let me babysit :-) It was so lovely to see her and see that she is ok, I've been really worrying about her since it happened but didn't know how to get in touch to find out if she was ok.

When it was finally my turn I explained to our Doctor that I'd chased up his urgent re-referral to Little Prince's original Paediatrician and been told he couldn't see him again, and that Little Prince would have to wait around 8 months from now, for his follow up appointment with the CAHMS ADHD Unit. I said that the Paediatrician had recommended that Little Prince get referred to the other local hospital where he might be seen sooner, and that I'd contacted that hospital and they assured me that Little Prince would be seen at the new patient clinic early in the New Year. Our GP asked if this was what we wanted to do, and I said a resounding yes!! He dictated Little Prince's referral into his dictaphone there and then, and said it was to be considered urgent. He was very very apologetic that we had been left "ping ponging" (his words!) round the system for so long! He also said he wouldn't cancel Little Prince's original referral (the one that is going sooo slowly) until I had assured him I am happy with the new hospital and the treatment/timescales they offer. I love our Doctor :-)

I got back home, had a quick chat with Mr Messy about what had happened and the referral that was going to be made. We are now both hopeful that this coming December will be the last one where we have to try and manage Little Prince's escalating out of control behaviour on our own without support. We thought that last year too, fingers crossed its true this time!! Then I got Princess Lollipop ready to go and we drove down to OUR shop.

Compared to how dead it was yesterday in OUR shop, today has been quite busy already :-) We've had a couple (and the prospective Groom's sister and gorgeous little niece) come in to enquire about photographing their wedding between Christmas and New Year. Then a Mum from a recent shoot came in to pick up a disc of images to chose what pictures she wanted. She's a teacher and said she's not getting any marking done tonight, her and her Mum are going to sit down with a bottle of wine and go through the pictures to chose what they want. It was absolutely pouring it down, so she stayed to chat while it cleared up a little and she was raving about how great the photoshoot with Mr Messy was and what a great bargain for the price :-) She also said she thought our canvas/framing prices were very reasonable and she had just been very impressed with the whole service :-) That's what we like to hear :-)

I rang Mr Messy to let him know about the wedding enquiry and double check he had the date available, which luckily he does :-) He asked if I'd taken contact details for the couple, and I had to admit I hadn't! So when I saw, who I later found out was the Groom's sister/niece, visiting the playgroup at the Church over the road I made sure I kept an eye on the window to try and catch her when she came out. Princess Lollipop was fast asleep by this point, so when I saw the lady leaving the Church I dashed outside to chat with her. I explained that the Hire Company couldn't find our village and Mr Messy didn't know when he would be able to get to the shop (totally true!!) and asked if I could take the prospective bride and groom's name and phone number and get Mr Messy to ring them. She came in and gave me the details, unfortunately her little girl (only a month or so younger than Princess Lollipop) started to yell that she wanted to go in the car, and that woke Princess Lollipop up. It took a while to get her settled back down, and I had just laid her back in her sleeping bat when Mr Messy arrived - of course that was it, she had to see Daddy and they've now walked down to the bakery to get him a sandwich and cake for lunch.

Monday

It was really hard to get out of my nice snuggly warm bed this morning! Especially as I could here how wet it was again outside :-( Princess Lollipop slept through my alarm going off, so I got to get washed and dressed without her "help" :-) A rare privilege :-) Even Little Prince didn't wake up till I was almost ready, two late nights in a row must have tired out even him!! It was pretty uneventful getting the littlies ready and getting Little Prince to school. He panicked when we parked outside school and there wasn't anyone in the playground, I explained that everyone had been let in early due to the rain and he wasn't late, but he was still a bit jittery about it!

Me and Princess Lollipop drove over to OUR shop, we parked outside the Car Garage and waited for them to open, so that I could get my "bibber" fixed. We waited until almost 9.15am and there was still no sign of it opening up, so we had to go and park nearer to OUR shop and get it opened. We had a VERY quiet day, the only visitors we had were the Postman in the morning and our Accountant in the afternoon, he came to pick up his laptop that Mr Messy had been fixing. It was cold and boring in OUR shop today :-( When Princess Lollipop woke up following her nap I put her in the buggy and we walked back to the Car Garage to ask about fixing my "bibber." It only took him a few moments to fix and he only charged me the cost of the replacement battery :-) We then walked to the corner shop to get Princess Lollipop some fruit, she had been asking for "apbit" or "nana" all morning. When we got back to OUR shop she chose to have a nana, but took one bite and then spat it all down her front!! We only had half an hour or so before it was time to tidy up, lock up and go to school to pick Little Prince up.

It was pouring down when we got to school, so I parked up and me and Princess Lollipop stayed in the car and waited there for Little Prince. When he did appear, he came with his friend J, to ask if J could come over to play. I agreed and both boys ran off to tell J's Mum. Little Prince re-appeared minutes later, minus J! Apparently J had forgotten he had already arranged to play with a different friend, which of course left Little Prince alone and very grumpy!! He refused to tell me anything about what he had done at school today and grumbled all the way home.

When we got home I noticed all the bins outside our driveway gates had been moved AND that the driveway gates were partly open! I was really worried about what could have happened, so I told the littlies to wait in the car while I took everything inside! I checked all over the house and garden but there didn't seem to be a problem anywhere. I went to get the littlies out of the car, and picked up the post on the way - which is when I found out what had happened!! We had had our heating oil delivered (the delivery note was in with the post pile) so panic over :-)

Once the littlies had eaten a snack Little Prince seemed in a much better mood :-) He and Princess Lollipop played nicely and watched some TV for a while. However, he then decided to start running round and round in circles, and despite me asking him many times to stop he wouldn't! The trouble is it made me feel really sick and in the end I had to shout at him to stop it! I spent the next few hours feeling dreadful, and had to get Drama Teen to make the littlies something to eat for tea. She immediately disappeared back upstairs, but at least they have eaten and I didn't have to make it!

Little Prince is now playing Wii Sports baseball, so at least he is getting rid of some of his excess energy without making me feel worse!! It can be so hard in the dark Wintery nights to find ways to constructively and safely use up some of his energy. The Wii can be either a Godsend or a curse, depending on Little Prince's frustration levels!! Today its being helpful :-) Having said that, now I'm not so sure!! He's set up boxing, and given a set of controls to Princess Lollipop - and thinks its hilarious to be "hitting" his sister on screen!!

Sunday

Mr Messy and Drama Teen left early to go and do a Bump Shoot with Baby Sis and her Fiance in our old home town. So I was left here with the littlies again. Mr Messy had said we would only get in the way while he was trying to photograph :-( I know he's right, but I still wish we could have gone too :-(

The weather started off ok and then turned yukky and wet, so once again we stayed in the house. I think I'm starting to get cabin fever as it was driving me nuts by the time Mr Messy and Drama Teen returned!! I insisted that we go out for tea as I was NOT in the mood for cooking. However, I had a headlight bulb out in my car and my "bibber" had stopped working so I had to lock/unlock my car manually at the drivers door. Mr Messy didn't realise the car could be locked/unlocked using only the key (he thought it would set the alarm off doing it that way) and so he volunteered to stay home with Drama Teen and Princess Lollipop (her car seat was locked in my car) while I took Little Prince out to eat. When I explained that my car could be unlocked using just the key, he opened it, fixed the headlight and we all went out to eat :-)

The first place we tried seemed very short staffed, we saw lots of food sitting on the serving hatch for ages before a waiter/waitress served it. We also saw many tables with impatient looking diners!! When the greeter finally got round to letting us know that there would be at least a 10 minute wait to sit down, we decided to go somewhere else. The next place we tried was empty! As pointed out by Little Prince, loudly!! We were seated in moments and Little Prince even got to chose where we sat, which pleased him no end. He and Drama Teen sat together and coloured in the kids menu activity book. Princess Lollipop also wanted to colour, and she made a pretty good job of covering the page in "Dullers" :-)

Little Prince spent most of the time we were eating dashing back and forth to the toilets, I dread to think what he was up to!! Apart from a few incidents when he needed to be reminded to behave himself, the meal went pretty uneventfully and we all had a good time. When we had just about finished, Princess Lollipop demanded "Up out" of the highchair, Mr Messy took her and found she was drenched!! We must have forgotten to change her before coming out!! Poor soggy baby! Mr Messy took her straight out to the car, and put lots of tissues and cloths on her car seat before fastening her in. As soon as we got home I went to get her changed and cleaned up, Mr Messy went to find her a clean vest and babygrow, and Drama Teen took Little Prince to bed. Little Prince came down to give us all our night night kisses while I was still changing Princess Lollipop. Unfortunately he was there to witness her weeing all over the changing mat and herself!! He got hysterical giggles about this and will probably be talking about it for AGES!! Princess Lollipop was too sleepy to get her in the bath, so I just had to wash her as well as I could and get her in her babygrow, she was asleep moments later :-)

Saturday

Drama Teen had arranged not to go to work in OUR shop today so that she could spend the day with her Boyfriend, and they could sort themselves out after their argument about Bonfire Night. I begged her to look after the littlies for me until 10am so that I could get some sleep, and felt a lot better after that - thank you so much Drama Teen. She then spent the next two hours getting ready for Boyfriend's visit, while I looked after the littlies. The weather was still cold and rainy so we didn't go out anywhere and had a quiet "at home" day.

Mr Messy was at OUR shop on his own, and was expecting a couple to come and talk about their wedding photography. OUR shop's answer machine isn't working, so he missed the message saying they couldn't make it! But another couple called in to chat about their wedding instead lol. He got quite a number of enquiries for photoshoots, so that the photos could be used as Christmas presents :-) So he had quite a busy day :-)

Bonfire Night

As usual the Village Pub just across the road from our house had a Bonfire and put on a barbeque, and of course served drinks! Drama Teen was pretty upset as me and Mr Messy had said we weren't running her over to her Boyfriend's town to go to a Bonfire with him, as it would mean driving into the town in the rush hour, and by the time we got back to our Village there would be nowhere to park. And whichever one of us was doing the running round would only be in the house a few minutes before having to set back off to pick her up again. So she invited Boyfriend to come here, he refused saying the Village Bonfire was lame and boring. Drama Teen was hurt that he didn't want to come over and see her, even if he didn't think he'd enjoy the Bonfire that much. Poor baby :-(

Little Prince was higher than a kite with excitement about Bonfire Night! He was looking out of the window to see if the Bonfire had been lit every few minutes from the second he arrived home from school!! By the time it was lit and Mr Messy took him over he was way too hyped up and they came back within about 5 minutes, with Little Prince in a foul mood. He slammed around for a while until me and his Dad could stand it no longer and I got him ready for bed. He asked to cuddle up in my bed with me before going to sleep and while we lay there he wanted to talk about his birth family. He explained that he had been feeling very very sad about losing his birth family, and felt like crying a lot of the time. He even wanted to cry at school sometimes but was worried that his friends would laugh at him. Poor little man :-( He was also angry that it isn't fair that he had to leave his birth family, and that he has lost more things/people than anyone else he knows (apart from Princess Lollipop). I agreed that it wasn't fair, and that I wished I could make it better, but unfortunately I can't. But I can be there to hug him when he feels sad, and I'll always be there to talk to him about whatever he wants. Then we started to hear fireworks going off and he started squirming about and it was obvious there was no way he would get settled to sleep now!

I let him get dressed and took him back over to the Bonfire. It was cold and wet, but Little Prince didn't notice!! He stood behind a wall watching the Bonfire, and when he noticed some older children throwing things into the fire, he had to join in!! Thank goodness he was behind the wall or I'm sure he would have burnt himself!! I stood and chatted to N and her husband, she is the daughter of my friend who died just before Little Prince was placed with us. She couldn't believe how BIG he is now!! We chatted about the 4 month trip round the world she had been on recently and she told me that she had been living at her Dad's house, but was moving the next day to a new house further down South. She is a High School teacher and is loving her new job, she hated the previous two places she taught. It was lovely to see her and catch up with what she is doing. Her Mum used to talk about her (and her two brothers) all the time, and I've missed that connection with the family.

When it was obvious that the fireworks had finished I persuaded Little Prince to come back home. After I'd made sure he'd had a good wash, his hands were covered in mud from picking things up to throw on the Bonfire, I got him back ready for bed and got him snuggled up in his own bed. He didn't settle down very well, as fireworks kept going off sporadically for ages and disturbing him.

While me and Little Prince were out Mr Messy had taken Princess Lollipop to bed, and he must have fallen asleep with her. I watched some TV expecting him to reappear at any moment, but it got later and later and there was still no sign of him. I went to get ready for bed and found that between him and Princess Lollipop they had taken up all the room in our bed and her cot! I couldn't move Princess Lollipop without disturbing her, and Mr Messy was obviously exhausted so I didn't want to wake him and ask him to move either. I grabbed a blanket and went back downstairs to sleep on the sofa. Mr Messy woke up at some point in the wee hours, and came down to find out what was going on, so I got some sleep in my comfy bed. I was the exhausted one by the time morning came round!

A Phone Call I NEVER Want Repeating!!!

Mr Messy rang on Wednesday evening, I thought he was just going to say that he'd been caught up at the office and would be leaving late. However, his first words were "I've been in a little accident on the motorway" OMG OMG OMG!!! I couldn't believe what I was hearing and my heart was in my mouth! Luckily he immediately reassured me that he was alright and that he wasn't hurt and the car only had body work damage (its a bit mangled round one wheel arch). He'd been coming down the motorway sliproad and a lorry flashed him to go in front of him, however, due to the bad weather and poor visibility neither of them realised that there wasn't enough room. Mr Messy's car got caught on the lorry and they got stuck together!! The lorry had to reverse off Mr Messy's car, while Mr Messy pulled forward to get them unstuck! They took each other's details and the lorry driver said he'd never had an accident before and didn't really know what to do! Once they had enough details from each other they both went their separate ways, Mr Messy was able to drive home. Both Little Prince and Drama Teen were panicked about their Dad, and we were all very very relieved to see him when he arrived home safe and sound.

The next morning Mr Messy didn't go into work and sorted out the details with the insurance company in the morning. The car will be collected on Tuesday and taken to the insurance approved body shop to be fixed, and Mr Messy will be given a courtesy car while his is being fixed. He will work from home again on Tuesday, so that he can be in OUR shop and I can wait at home for the body shop man to arrive. Hopefully it won't take too long to fix.