Saturday 9 June 2012

Rude Awakening

It has been a bloody crappy day and it's only 9am. I awoke to find Kaya leaking wee out of his nappy all over me and my bed. Then Onur woke up and joined in the fun by telling me he'd wet the bed. By the time I'd cleaned everything up, Kaya had got up on the kitchen table and thrown the salt shaker on the floor, smashing it and sending salt everywhere. It would be fair to say I haven't had a good morning!!

I have no idea where this wetting the bed is coming from again. I think I'm going to take him to the doctor on Monday just to check it's nothing medical. Berat's family have a history of bedwetting, so if it's just something like that I'll know just to put pull ups on him at night and protect the mattress, but I have to rule out medical stuff first. A few people have said to get him tested for diabetes, just in case. I'm telling you, being a parent gives you sleepless nights, whether your children are sleeping or not. And currently, Kaya is not. Because of the stupid weather being so bright (I'm not saying it's summer, because this is clearly some kind of alternative autumn we're having) he's going to bed later and later, most nights around 10pm. He just point blank refuses, screams if I try to leave him in his bed, throws things around... This leaves me no time to unwind and I think I'm going slightly mad as I was catching up on the jubilee concert last night and Lenny Henry said "Stevie Wonder" and I welled up. I watched Stevie's set alternating dancing with floods of tears, and sobbed my way through the rest of the concert!
I will say that I do think it was quite a good concert on the whole, with a few exceptions, and I don't care how sad it makes me, it made me proud to be British. I know a lot of people are against the royal family, but I'm certainly not one of them, in fact I'm very fond of them!

Apart from that things are really rather good, hubby and I are great as usual, he used his birthday money to buy a laptop yesterday so he's excited about that bless him.
Just feel really stressed and tired today because of the morning events and they've already managed to wreck the place in the short space of time I've been writing, and just once every now and then it would be so nice if someone said "Hey, I'll take the kids and you sort out the house, or just have a bit of time to yourself". Seriously, when I have daughters in law I will always be there to help them because I know what it's like. And then you get the people who say "Well I had three and my house was always spotless" - well done you! I prefer to spend time interacting with the kids, and tidy up when (if??) they go to sleep. I think my kids are a testament to this as Kaya is already forming sentences at the age of 19 months and Onur's teachers think he is already as clever as a year 1 child!

So yes, my house may not be spotless, but my children are going to be rocket scientists who will be rich and hire their old mum a maid :)

Oh, just one more thing. I had a really productive couple of days with the breastfeeding team. I really, really love volunteering. Helping just one mum to get the hang of breastfeeding means I've helped a baby get off to the best start in life, and really, how cool is that??
The head of department said again how pleased she was with me and said that she'd gladly take on board my ideas for the Yummy Mummy support group, in fact she was even happy for me to lead the group!

Anyway, I really must go now, unfortunately Kaya needs another nappy change, I still haven't had breakfast and I promised Onur we'd practice drawing letters!

Thursday 17 May 2012

Deep Heat

My husband tried to kill me the other day. It's true! I've had this pain near my shoulder blade which is like a pulled muscle or trapped nerve, so I got asked him to put some of that Deep Heat muscle rub on it. This was a big mistake. :)
He put LOADS on, all over my back, but at first I didn't feel it, I just lay there and thought, ooh, that's a nice warm feeling. Soon, the nice warm feeling turned into holy fire on my back and my heartbeat started playing like a drum in my ears. I felt sick and sat up. I asked him how much he'd put on and he said he'd covered my back! All of a sudden I came up in a rash down both arms so we quickly rushed to the shower and scrubbed it all off. Once I'd got out and dry it was a bit better, although of course because I'd been so hot, dropping to a normal temperature seemed freezing to me and I had to have three blankets!

All better now though!

In other news, I've just been extremely busy helping to plan for the local NCT Nearly New Sale on Saturday, and as I've been in charge of the raffle I've been busy trying to get prizes! Wonder if there will be any bargains to grab on Saturday? Someone said they got a Trunki for a fiver - I'd love one (well two really!) of those for the boys.

Onur's at school, Kaya is being amused by Mr Tumble and I've just been catching up with emails etc. The most exciting thing that's happening is that my friends Nicole and Brendan are visiting this weekend!! I cannot wait. I wish they could bring their Dungeons and Dragons with them and finally teach me :)

OK, Kaya's naptime so I have to go!


Monday 7 May 2012

Bank Holiday BBQ

I don't know if I've ever mentioned before, but our main desktop PC is hooked up to our TV in the lounge. Convenient as this is for downloading and watching films, it's not very conducive to writing a blog or even emails, if I'm honest. So I was looking around my house for somewhere I could create a little nook, and by jove I've found it. The fridge was originally in this little nook in the kitchen, but by moving it out of the nook and just next to it, and by Berat helpfully cutting our old computer desk down to the right size, I now have a little office nook! It's by no means finished - I want a shelf up high and I think I might paper the wall I'm facing, but it's a start and I'm very happy about it!

The other project we currently have on the go is a chair we found outside in the street, which someone had dumped. It's solid wood and very sturdy but has no cushions. We both fell in love at first sight and we're going to sand it, paint it (possibly white) and then make new cushions for it!

We had the family over for a BBQ today, it was lovely. I love to feed people and make them happy! My cousins taught me to play card games too, one of which was Cheat (Bullshit), which surprisingly I was no good at! We had a really fun day though, it was fab.

My poor little Onur is in the wars, though you wouldn't think it to look at him, he's such an amazing boy (I know, I'm biased) he hardly complains and he's just the best son anyone could ask for! He has a UTI plus an eye infection, so he's on both oral and topical antibiotics  and drops for his eyes. He also has a cold and a cough! I knew something was up when he went from being completely potty trained and having no accidents, to wetting himself three times a day and at night too. He's still having little accidents (in fact whilst writing this I've had to go and change him and all his bedsheets!) but I'm sure the antibiotics will kick in by tomorrow.

Kaya is, well, he's just Kaya. He's such a lovable monkey! He also has a cough and a cold, but does that slow him down? HELL no :)
He woke me up this morning calling for me -

Kaya: Mum mum!
Me: What?
Kaya: Lublub! (This is how he says the Turkish babytalk name for a willy!)
Me: What's wrong with bulluk (the actual word!)?
Kaya: Wet.

I love that he's able to explain himself so well at 18 months; he learns so much from Onur. He really wants to go to school with him, it's so cute. He take a little bag when we walk Onur to school, because Onur has his book bag, and when we get to the school he points into Onur's classroom :)

I really am very lucky at how quickly and easily Onur has settled into Nursery School! He  absolutely loves it and his teachers are always full of praise for him :)

Right, so I'm off to bed. I'm currently reading The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory, as I love all this historical fiction, especially about the Tudors. In fact I've recently found out that underneath the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall, is an INTACT ORIGINAL Henry VIII wine cellar that used to be in Whitehall Palace. I'm determined to see it one day, but I think they only accept group bookings.

Night all!

Wednesday 11 April 2012

I can't wait...

...for Onur to start nursery next week! I know I was a little nervous about it before, but seriously, I think I am more than ready for it now. From the moment he gets up in the morning he just goes ON AND ON AND ON and I love him but really it's hard for me to function at 7am let alone converse with an eccentric three year old. Then of course there's the madness, oh yes, he's mad, all of us in the family are, but for the past half an hour he's been 'fixing' me, which involves punching my arm (I'm hammering, mummy) pulling my hair (I'm tweaking, mummy!) and poking fingers into me (I'm turning, mummy) and then I just couldn't take it anymore and shouted "STOP!". Whereas this might have scared a normal child, my boy just laughed hysterically and then carried on.

I wonder what they'll make of him at nursery...! :)

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Busy and Sleepless

Well it's been a busy few days, but that's the way I like it! On Thursday night, I caught up with a couple of my school friends, Anna and Mel, who I haven't seen for 15 years! It was fantastic fun, like we'd just been apart for the weekend rather than half our lives! We just picked up where we left off, there was no awkwardness and I definitely learned a lot about what has been going on in the years between - perhaps a little too much! Ha ha!
But I had great fun, and I can't wait to do it again soon.

Apart from that, just been busy with the boys, as always. Cant'e remember if I've mentioned it before but a couple of friends of mine started a new group at our local Surestart centre called Little Acorns, for children 0-5 and their parents. Anyway, they've not only got a great woman in to talk to us about potty training, tantrums etc, but also once a month, the Surestart centre gets creche workers in who look after the kiddywinks while the mums go into a different room for tea, biscuits and what we call a 'parents forum'. It's basically just to share our worries, get advice and be an adult for an hour or so, whilst knowing the kids are safe and learning and having fun. This week we were talking about sibling rivalry, something which I've been lucky enough to only have a mild case of with the boys, as I think Onur doesn't really remember a time when Kaya wasn't here! Of course they do the usual sibling fighting, but I think because Kaya is almost 18 months now and reciprocates, Onur won't usually start. Indeed, it's Kaya instigating it most of the time, terror that he is!
Anyhow, the boys had so much fun this week with the creche workers, painting and playing with water outside because it was a lovely day, and it really was nice to just have a tiny break from them and be me for a while instead of being mummy :) They're also trying to organise some trips for the kids, fire station, farm etc. which will be brilliant if it happens!

Kaya's been a bit poorly this week though, took him to the doctors this morning and they gave him ventolin and a baby inhaler thing, to help open up his airways. He also prescribed amoxicilliin despite telling me there was no infection present! So I haven't given it to him, because what is the point! At least the inhaler SEEMS to be working - they went to bed at 7 and it's now half past 8 and he's still sound asleep...fingers crossed! Onur had the same thing when he was a similar age, actually a bit older as we were in this house so that means Kaya was born so Onur was at least 21 months. In fact I think he was about 2. But anyway. The inhaler helped him too and after that he slept right through so fingers crossed I have the same result this time!

Again, I can't remember whether I already wrote about this, but I didn't get the NHS job. To say I was gutted is an understatement as you guys know I put my heart and soul into the volunteering, and I just felt like the timing was right too, what with Onur starting school next month. But no, not meant to be, and the weirdest thing was that the reason given was that I'd failed the literacy and numeracy test. Yes, I was shocked too! OK my maths isn't wonderful, but it was pretty straightforward really, so I'm shocked at myself. I KNOW it wasn't the literacy because, hello, this is ME, Mrs Pedantic Spelling and Grammar Police :) But apparently the pass/fail margins are ridiculously tight so...
It got me and hubby talking about other jobs, and after seeing something advertised at the school Onur is going to (albeit three days too late - *facepalm*) for a school receptionist, I had a lightbulb moment and thought about how working in a school, either as a teaching assistant or in an admin position, would be really  good because I could work it around the boys really easily and be home when they are more or less. So I've started looking into that.

Wow, I have written much more than I expected to! Now I need to save this and go and do a quick tidy up, as my aunt is coming tomorrow morning to look after the boys so I can go to ongoing training and as Onur says to me, she "doesn't like mess!"

Friday 9 March 2012

One Of Those Days...

Where do I start? The bowl of the food processor we bought two weeks ago fell off the counter and cracked, the door of the tumble dryer fell off, the kids were insane and the house was a wreck. I've managed to bump my toe into the wall not once, but twice and have now developed an attractive limp and Kaya babbled on and on and on ("Baba. Apple. Broom broom. Broom broom broom broom apple baba etc etc!") for 45 minutes before going to sleep.

At least now they're both in bed, Berat's coming home early tonight and there are tea and biscuits!

The week didn't start wonderfully to be honest, as I found out on Tuesday that despite being shortlisted and called to do a numeracy/literacy test and a presentation to the panel for the NHS job, I didn't get called for an interview. Although I did feel better about this on Wednesday when I went into the office and everyone was really nice about it and said that the process had changed a lot since changing NHS trusts and not to take anything personally.

We went over to Sev and Arif's last night, our friends from Cyprus who moved here a few months before us, and we had a really nice night, as always. Her son is 4, so he gets on really well with the boys, and they play nicely most of the time! We took the opportunity to sit down and play a game of Okey (Rummy) for the first time in ages, it was a lot of fun.

Berat's new obsession is beating me at Monopoly, and I am an extremely bad loser. I blame my family for always letting me win when I was growing up!

And that's basically it for this week. I've been going to a really good group at the Surestart centre on a Monday, called Little Acorns. The boys love it and it's good for them to play with other children. They also have a woman come in and do talks and answer questions, this week it was tantrums which, at the moment, I am lucky enough not to have too many problems with! But the talks are really helpful. They also give the kids healthy snacks like fruit and cheese, and being a Surestart centre it's all free!

Right, off to find something to watch on TV, and perhaps hop to the kitchen to find some painkillers...

Back In The Habit

It's so hard when you've not been writing for a while. Some of you know I had a blog somewhere else on the web for almost 10 years. I met some of my best friends there, and I have some wonderful memories of that site, but the sad thing is, it's changed. A lot of the people have changed. I mean, yes, people change, but I suppose where some have moved on in their careers, some have moved on and started families, perhaps our common ground shifted? Who knows. All I know is that when I read the blog posts on that site, I find myself rolling my eyes sometimes; something I would never have done before. Even when I post, I don't feel the same reaction from people I once did. A large part of me thinks that the problem is that I ended a friendship almost two years ago now, and we unfortunately had a lot of mutual friends. A lot of them got caught in the crossfire. Although I am sad that I lost some friendships, I am glad that it sorted the real friends from the fake ones, if you see what I mean. It also made me more wary of people to be honest, and I suppose in a way I lost some respect for some people, who would say one thing but their actions would never reflect what they had said, and you had to wonder whether it had just been said for your benefit, to make you feel better!

Anyhow. I suppose I needed to get that off my chest in order to start afresh here, which I hope to do! I also want to update my cookery blog, which is like, two years old now as I'm pretty sure I started it when I was pregnant with Kaya!!


Monday 30 January 2012

Cor Blimey

I can't believe I've been away so long; I really must get into the habit of writing here.
Perhaps I'll write an entry about the boys later to get myself started.