The Bionic Woman...

The Bionic Woman

Meet my mum. Aka the Bionic Woman.

For a long while she's not been blessed with the best of health (she has Lupus), but she’s always carried on regardless. In her day she was a very accomplished sportswoman – with plenty of trophies to prove it, and I think that’s given her the competitive edge and determination to fight against the odds. And since the summer the odds have been against her – with a number of weeks spent in hospital. She’s battled various serious infections, the most recent being pneumonia a couple of weeks ago. At 85, and with her historical health complications, this is no mean feat but last week she had a heart attack and broke her arm to top it off. The break was bad (both radius and ulna), requiring pins and plates to be fitted to put it back together again. But given the state of her heart she couldn’t have a general anaesthetic so she underwent surgery for 4 hours – pins and plates fitted – with just a local. She truly is the bionic woman.

Mum and Dad - Badminton champions

Whatever happens in the next few weeks and months who knows. But what I’ve really appreciated over my recent visits is her gratitude. She’s grateful to everyone – all the staff for their help, to my Dad, my brother and myself for our support, to our families for allowing us to provide that support, and to anyone who helps in any small way. It’s really lovely and is a constant reminder to me that I also have very many things to be grateful for. An important thing to remember.

New best friend...

Daddy: What's your favourite animal?
Niomi: Cows.
Daddy: Why's that?
Niomi: Cos....(dramatic pause). They're my best friends.

Niomi has a new best friend. She’s called Cow. She met her at nursery and she came home with her in her bag one day. Poor Cow didn’t get much choice. She was forced to come home. But since that day, Niomi and Cow have become inseparable. Cow goes everywhere with her; Cow talks for her and Cow talks to her; and Cow helps her do things she doesn’t want to do. Generally though as Cow only says ‘moo’, it makes for some slightly interpretive conversation. And not only that, Cow particularly likes other cows to talk too. It now appears that any cows, real or otherwise, or indeed us humans as well, will still be expected to respond to Niomi’s fluent 'moo-ese'. 

Whilst all this is very cute, none of it exactly helps make mealtimes shorter (Cow now needs to feed and encourage her to eat); or language development progress at any great rate (you don’t get much phonetic growth from ‘moo’); or transitional activities any simpler (Elephant is still around, so it's now two toys to lug about, and two toys to be in danger of losing).

Ho hum…the price you pay for a new best friend.

Niomi and NBF

NBF's Big Sister

Finally. Niomi's fruit tree getting planted - she got pears

I like birthdays...

I like a good birthday, and am regularly trying to squeeze an extra few in for myself during the year. The girls have grown wise to my tactics however, and are becoming a little more date savvy and aware that technically you can only have one birthday a year. Still when Emily read me a story the other day I was more than delighted to know I had another birthday. Her reading is coming on apace – it’s incredible the speed at which young children learn. Their grey matter is just so malleable that the neural pathways connect in record time. If you tried to learn to read as an adult it would take you so much longer in comparison.

Birthday 6 year old

Not birthday 3.5 year old (but growing up fast)

One excited unicorn pre-sleepover

Unicorn cake

Videoclip: Reading

On the subject of birthdays Emily has just turned 6. This was ‘celebrated’ in some style with her first slumber party involving another 6 friends. It was all their first sleepovers and inevitably chaos ensued, but I think everyone had a good time. The next day felt somewhat like New Years Day after a mammoth party the night before - except without the party bit. The girls didn't sleep (which also meant we didn't) till approaching midnight - and were up again just after 7am. Which when you consider Emily normally has closer to 12 hours sleep - it didn't make for a pretty day after the night before. Still, nothing like a good old birthday party.

And we’ve also been celebrating the pumpkin. With a harvest this year of 5 pumpkins we’ve had somewhat an overkill on our gourd delights. I decided to avoid having to carve them all for Halloween and went to cook one of the larger ones. I discovered a quarter was enough to make lasagne for 12; and another quarter made soup for 8. The remaining half is now in the freezer, and with another 4 to go it is quite likely we’ll discover you can have too much of a ‘gourd’ thing (boom boom). Pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin lasagne, pumpkin tagine - the list of delights goes on. And talking of good things, we’ve just had a few days of clear, sunny skies and frosty mornings – a chance to escape out to Loch Ardinning and to the Colzium for some fresh air and fine scenery before winter finally bites.

Halloween moon

 Scary daughter

 Scary face

Scary cat

 The lovely ladies

 Following big sister

 An unusual shot of the 4 of us

She'll be comin' down the mountain

Still adventuring

 Autumn fun 1

 Autumn fun 2

Autumn fun 3