Sore Boobie Bum
It's been a busy week here at Harman household. Thursday last week I had the day off so that I could take Sarah in for her surgery later that afternoon. Didn't really do heaps with the day otherwise, got out and did a bit of gardening and cleaning up around the place, kept the pool ticking along etc. Then it was time to take Sarah out for surgery. Always a bit of a scary time really. The scariest part of the ordeal though was Sarah taking off her wedding band. She'd already annoyed her finger by taking off the engagement ring, so when it came time to get the wedding band off it wouldn't budge. The nurse said oh don't worry if they really need to take it off during surgery they'll just cut it off. No one could relax until the thing was off, Sarah told me about the "string trick" that Ian K had helped her Mum with years ago. We googled that and asked for a bit of string to help take it off. Eventually the nurse came in to help some more. Sarah started to get it off, but then it kinda got stuck and her finger started to go a bit Purple. By this stage I had to leave because I was super stressed out and nervous! I did a few minutes of pacing but then heard a bit of laughter coming from Sarah's room, so I went back to find that the magical string trick had worked, the ring was off and the nurse was nearly on the floor herself having had a patient nearly need their finger cut off. I said to her "You must be used to stressful things" and she said something like "Not usually as stressful as that was!!". Soon after that they came to take Sarah away so it was time for me to say goodbye and leave.
I'd only gotten 200m down the road in the car when the first round of phonecalls "How is she doing" started up which was nice of people, as usual with Hospital you get there at 2pm but actually you're not headed into the surgery room until ~3 hours later, by which time people expect you're probably already in recovery!
I drove and picked everyone up from kindy, got them fed, watered and cleaned and put into bed. While I was cleaning up I got a call from the hospital to Sarah was now in recovery and I could come out to the hospital in the next 30-45 minutes to see her. Mary kindly came over to babysit the sleeping children while I went out to see Sarah. I got there and she was doing really well, awake and happy though quite groggy really and sleepy. She kept apologising for not being very "exciting" and I had to keep saying that's quite alright because you did just have a fairly major bit of surgery. I sat with her for about 30 minutes before heading out again so she could get some rest.
Friday morning I got the house all nice and tidy for her return, dropped the kids off at kindy and went to go and get her. She'd had a good night was ready to be picked up.
Saturday was Isla's Birthday, so I took the kiddies over there while Sarah stayed home to keep recovering. Had a lovely little birthday party for her, all the kids were really well behaved and had a great time. Theo spend a lot of time outside playing with a Soccer ball, Beth spent time with some of the other girls playing. Beth was super lucky when she won the pin the tail on the donkey competition that was being held. When the party I was over I took Theo back home to go to bed, while Mary very kindly looked after Beth for the afternoon.
It was swimming that afternoon, I had to wake Theo up to get ready for swimming and he wasn't a happy camper about it at all. We were almost late, especially because I had to buy him a poo container nappy thing. The weekend before there was a code brown oh I've just read I already wrote it in my diary. Anyway on Friday when I'd taken Beth to swimming Jill had pointed out that all children under 3 need to have a swim nappy and a poo catcher nappy. Theo did really well at swimming though, I was super proud of him. Jumped in lots, did all the things he was supposed to do. Good little man.
Sunday morning I took the kids up to the playground to let Sarah get a bit more rest, we walked around in the freezing wind. No one there were no other families there, just us. It like Winter all over again. After a bit of playing and running around we went to get a coffee, the headed home. That afternoon Mary came and took Beth again, after Theo's sleep I put him on the back of Sarah's bike and we rode over to "See the fains!!!". Sadly the fains weren't running, no idea why. Theo took the disappointment very well though, instead just being happy to go and play on the playground and the cruise Anderson Park doing a few laps on the back of the bike. Then we headed into New World to do a bit of shopping and after him nagging me to death I let him have a cupcake because well he did ask about 500 times and he had missed out on seeing the fains.
Otherwise it's been quite a quiet week really. Sarah is recovering very well, much better than I think either of us had anticipated. I thought for the first week she'd be totally laid up unable to move, but that's not the case at all. I have to keep reminding her just to take it easy and to not try to do too much at once. But only Monday did I take the kids to kindy and then pick them up again, I expected to do it every day this week. But Tuesday Mary very kindly helped out again by taking Beth to kindy and then looking after Theo all day, even though she does this with Theo every Tuesday.
Tuesday night Sarah went back to Kindy while I looked after the sleeping babies, to go to Beth's first Parent Teacher interview. I would have gone but there wasn't anyone to look after the kids easily, I'm sure we could have organised someone but Sarah always asks better questions than me anyway. But Beth is doing fine according to the teachers, very interested in reading and maths and science and all that sort of stuff. I mean remembering here we're talking about a 4yo. I seems silly to say they're interested in maths, but she is. We asked about a few aspects of her behaviour that we're not sure about but they said those are behaviours they've ever seen with her, so hopefully they're nothing to be too worried about. She can just be so caught up in the anticipation of something that she can't enjoy it. Everything she does at kindy though are things they're familiar with and do all the time, so there's probably not enough new situations there. Anyway, Beth's doing great that's the main thing, the teachers seemed very happy with her.
Today I reported another bug in grsecurity. After a bit of digging, they found and fixed it. That's about the 3rd or 4th time this year one of my dodgy old Linux boxes has had some random bug that most people don't experience, that is actually a kernel or grsec/PaX bug. I'm glad I still have access to the patches to help.
Have been riding to work heaps still, I thought this week I wouldn't get to do much because of Sarah's recovery but she's been taking the kids like I said. Heaps of roadworks at the moment so you've got to be extra careful because people get super impatient, even in little ol' Napier where it only takes 5 minutes to get anywhere. I'm amazed at how far/hard I can ride but yet once I've finished and get off I can recovery from huffing and puffing in a minute or two instead of 5-10 like it used to take. It's certainly making a difference, even if I'm not loosing heaps of weight. I'm not eating healthily enough to lose heaps of weight though, that's the problem there.
I think that's enough about the week that was. Sarah's doing great, everyone's happy. No one seems to have any major flus or coughs or colds or anything. I've jinxed it by saying that.
Tim
PS: I haven't even attempted another workout yet, even though I've totally cleaned out the garage now ready to go. It's always too early or I'm too tired. C'mon willpower, where are you?