Irreverence is Justified

I got a new car for the wife a couple of days ago, and as you have probably guessed from the title, it’s a Ford Focus 1.8 Tdci Titanium.

It’s rather nice. Much faster than her old Corsa, but then the engine is almost twice as powerful. Got it second hand, it’s a year old, and as such got it for half the price that we’d have had to pay for it brand new (£10.5K against £21.2K new; sweet). Strangely, it came with no user manual whatsoever. How odd to sell your car but you want to keep the manual? Weird.

It’s got a built in sat nav which is pretty nice, it has to be said. I’ve got a Garmin in my car, one of the type that you attach to your window, and I do like it, but the fact that this one is built in is really pretty sweet.

I believe you can get your phone to link up to the car via bluetooth. Tried to work out how to do it, but I have failed. I’ll need to get a manual, I reckon, to work it out. That said, I’ll try Googling around first, see if anyone has any tips on how to do it.

Another year gone. We won’t be staying up to see in the new year, we’ll be in bed well before midnight.

It’s been another year of highs and lows, much like 2005. This year saw my third daughter arrive safe and sound, rather than the chaos and disaster of when daughter #2 arrived 2 years ago. It also saw me diagnosed with another couple of health conditions, being MS and an ectopic heartbeat. I’ve been promoted at work again, after my boss left. There has been much sleep lost due to babies and health issues, but that’s acceptable in the whole scheme of things.

Here’s hoping 2007 was a good year for you, and 2008 is even better for us all.

Health has been pretty good of late. Been quite tired over the festive period, but I think that’s down to two things – not actually having to go to work, and having had a tiring year. I’ve not had an actual holiday since about February or thereabouts, as when I was off in April, that was because my 3rd daughter had just been born and wasn’t therefore particularly restful ;) And when I was off for 2 weeks in August, I was told right at the start that I really did have MS, and then at near the end of my holiday I was dragged back in to work because of an issue that hadn’t been dealt with well and they needed me in to sort it. So again, not restful.

I’ve had a number of lie-ins this past few days and am feeling better for it. The wife is working tomorrow and I have the 3 kids to look after for the whole day, and believe me, that worries me. I’m not the greatest with some of the inane tasks that they want to do, as my brain is the kind that wants to be doing 17 things at once, so when they want me to play some game that takes ages and involves doing nothing for ages, it’s not so good on my mood. It’s resolved by getting out and about which the kids are happy with, but knackers me out, mainly because the MS makes me get tired quicker than I used to. There’s no happy medium here, I’ve learned. Such is life.

I bought a cable to link up my new TV with the computer I moved in to the living room the other week. This cable simply allows sound to come out the TV rather than speakers. What a difference. This TV is just amazing. I may have mentioned this before. What I need to do next is to figure out what the hell the USB port is for. I’ve plugged a USB stick in which had stuff on it, but the TV didn’t like it. I think I need to read the instructions again.

My arm is sore today. Now, for anyone who’s generally healthy, you’ll likely come to some reasonable conclusion that, since it was sore since you woke up, you just slept on it funny. Or your wife punched you during the night when you said some other woman’s name in your sleep. Or something. But if you have MS, you probably start wondering whether it’s MS related.

Or at least, I do.

I spent a fair amount of today wondering whether it’s MS that’s making me think I have a sore arm. It’s actually right up on the shoulder, all over the muscle area. It’s not sore when I don’t move it, or move it when it’s hanging down. But when I try to lift it up in any way, man, that’s sore. Really like an aching, but a fucking sore ache, I can tell you.

It’s my left arm. My folks would think this is good news, as they’ve convinced themselves (and me until I was about 14 and figured it out myself) that I’m right handed, because the world’s made for right handed people, so I’m right handed, right? No, stop using your left hand. You’re right handed.

Hmm. I seem to have digressed there. Sorry.

As I tend to do most stuff with my left hand, this has caused me some problems today as I don’t tend to realise how much I do with each arm. I’m actually ambidextrous, you see. So for most of the day I’ve been doing stuff, getting pain, then switching to the other arm. I’m potentially an odd type of ambidextrous, you see, as I tend to do the same things with the same arm. Such as, let’s see, ride a skateboard. I do that left handed (footed) all the time. Or play the Wii. Or open doors, or unlock doors, or open cereal boxes, or use a knife and fork, or wear a watch. Or kick a ball if I want it to go in the right direction. I do other stuff right handed all the time, like write, or (he thinks for a while) throw a ball, or (I’m struggling here) kick a ball if I want it to go a long way, but I’m not bothered about the exact direction. I can do all that crap with either hand just as well, but I always tend to use a specific hand when doing any particular task.

Where was I? Rambling, I think.

So my arm is killing me today. Hopefully it won’t be in the morning.

And finally, I scored a new top score on the Wii at bowling today – 200. I would be happy, but my 7 year old daughter scored 201 in the same game. After 3 consecutive strikes, it told her she had a turkey. After 4 consecutive strikes, it just gave up making up names for them. Go figure.

It’s been a good day overall. A 07:15 start, which isn’t bad when you have young kids that are completely hyper about Santa coming along. Out kids don’t tend to be the type to rush through opening all their presents at once, and it took them about two and a half hours to get them opened up. Then it was off to church followed by picking up my family members who were coming to ours for Christmas dinner.

It all went pretty smoothly. Christmas dinner consisted of 5 adults, one of whom is vegetarian, plus 3 kids, one of whom is under a year old so not on to “real” food yet. After that was over, I went for a sit down on the settee and promptly feel asleep; I was exhausted, and really needed a rest. Felt much better for it though when I woke up after 5pm.

So it’s been a good day overall. The kids seemed pretty happy with their pressies. The eldest child’s “biggest” present was a baby doll. When we were at church, the minister asked 3 kids what they got that morning, and the items stated were:

• a digital camera
• a laptop
• a Nintendo Wii

Now, we’re not skint, but that puts things in perspective. A laptop for a kid? That’s going to be £400 and then some, no doubt. The doll cost us about £20. Maybe we need to up the budget; or maybe more expensive stuff will just happen as the kids get older. We’ll see.

Yesterday was one crap day. I was already pretty shattered from having been in London for 2 days on work, returning on Friday evening on one bumpy flight, and then I discovered upon my return that our washing machine had given up.

So, first things first, off to the shop to get one. I’d phoned up Comet who said they had none in my vicinity. So I went to Currys instead. They have a shop near me, but didn’t have it in stock. The Saturday girl, who clearly couldn’t give a monkeys either way, told me that a store 20 miles away had 3 in stock, so off I went.

When I got there, they confirmed that they had 3 in stock, and proceeded to look for them for half an our. Eventually, they gave up, admitting they had searched the storeroom and the shop floor but they simply were not there. They then found a store just down the road from where I had started out from had 2 in stock (why had the Saturday girl not sent me there instead?), so they phoned this other store to make sure they could find them. And they couldn’t.

So I went to Comet, despite having been told on the phone that the shop had none, to find that they did have one after all. So I bought it, stuck it in the back of my car (I have a large car), and took it home.

Once home, I had immense problems getting it plumbed in. First, I tried to turn the handle to turn off the cold water pipe which leads to the washing machine, and the handle broke off in my hand. I then tried to turn the water off at the stopcock, meaning that the water would have been off to the whole house, only to discover that some prick had plumbed a large waste pipe from the bathroom upstairs down through the kitchen in such a way that it prevented anyone from being able to turn the handle. Unbelievable. I therefore managed to get the water turned off where the handle had snapped off, with a pair of pliers.

I swapped over the cables, and just to make sure I knew which way to turn the handle (with the pliers), I stuck the pipe in an empty bucket and turned the water back on. All looking good. I then turned the handle back again to turn it off so that I could then stick the cable in the washing machine, and the water didn’t stop. So I tried to turn it the other way, then back again, then round and round… all to no avail. The water was filling up the bucket. Disaster. So I had to get the stopcock turned off one way or the other, and after losing some skin off my thumb, I managed it. I whacked the pipes back in and turned the water back on. All looking good.

So, with water everywhere, it was clean-up time. Then it was time to put the other pipes and electrical cable in for the new washing machine so that we could put a washing on, and it didn’t turn on. This is a washing machine with an LCD and you need to hit an electronic “on” button, but pressing “on” made no difference. The manual suggested trying the obvious things, like changing the fuse and making sure the electrical point actually worked, which I did, but it made no difference.

So I phoned the helpdesk of the washing machine maker (Hotpoint), and they said I had to phone Comet as there’s some special agreement in place. So I phoned Comet who said they’d send an engineer round. On Wednesday. It’s Saturday today, and there’s 5 of us in our family. That’s not good.

Then child #1 starts to throw up. I’m not kidding. She proceeded to be sick about a half dozen times, making even more mess of a variety of clothes and bedlinen. And we have no washing machine. Sweet.

Today, I was a complete wreck, because after all of yesterday’s physical exertions, I was absolutely exhausted. I got up @ 07:15 but was back in bed @ 08:20 and didn’t get up again until 13:30. I’ve also got a really bad cold at the moment; the same cold I’ve had for the past 3 weeks or so, but it’s back with a vengeance. Today has therefore been a write-off.

It is debateable about whether I’ll be going to work tomorrow. I could well do though if I get a decent night’s sleep tonight. I was in bed @ 21:20 last night and that means I was in bed for about 15 hours. And I’m still feeling shattered.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Child #1 was feeling better again today at lunchtime though, so that’s a relief.

It’s not been the best couple of nights for sleep. I’m totally shattered, and it’s not even 9pm yet. Child #3 hasn’t been sleeping too great lately, and the wife decided this morning that she was going to start solids. Apparently it went well, as it turns out, all eaten without much problems which is a hell of a lot better than can be said for giving her a bottle of milk, which just gets refused.

Here’s hoping for a better night’s kip tonight.

Child #2 had to go to a new nursery about 4 weeks ago when her old one had to close due to total incompetence from the people who ran it. Anyone who’s had a child who has had to change nursery, or go to a new one, around the age of 2 will know that such change isn’t easy. Clearly, your child hates the separation from you and potentially hates being at this new place, surrounded by new people, for so long.

Thankfully, on her 11th day yesterday, there were no tears at drop off point for the first time. This was a bit of a change from last Monday when she was so upset, she head butted me in the mouth, drawing blood. Indeed, on the way to nursery both yesterday and today, she was telling me that “I like playing at nursery, Daddy”. Quite a change.

What was even more comical was that, at bedtime tonight, she told me she wanted to go to nursery tomorrow. She doesn’t go on a Thursday. A bit of a relief to say the least!

Today we welcomed Jo Christina to the world. Thankfully, things didn’t go as fucking mental as when Rebecca came along; things were a lot more calm this time around.

Here’s a rough note of the past couple of days. Basically, yesterday everything was looking like it was returning to normal and the wife was going to get let out of hospital at the end of the day. However, by mid-afternoon, the consultant wanted to make sure that everything was definitely sorted and suggested she stay in another day, so that was what happened. We figured it wouldn’t hurt and I’d pick her up at lunchtime on Tuesday, being today.

This morning, the wife texted me to say that she’d had pains during the night again and when the consultant came in to see her this morning, she basically said the c-section was happening today. I duly got phoned to get my arse in there. Section booked for 12:00, and daughter delivered @ 12:42 with no complications. That’s 25 days premature, but she still came in @ 7lb 2oz with no apparent breathing problems. w00t!

I then spent the day flying around the place and phoning the entire world to let them know. I’m bloody shattered now. Off to bed, methinks.

So a day spent in the hospital, and it all might turn out to be a false alarm. They’ve admitted her as she is totally dehydrated and would have admitted her in that state whether or not she was up the duff.

The day was mostly spent sitting, waiting, wondering what the midwives, SHO and registrar were doing. They all wandered in after a while and said occasional mutterings, quite often totally the opposite of what the last one said, then pissed off again.

The wife was in some serious discomfort from what appeared to be contractions, but after being put on a drip of what I believe to be sodium lactate, her pains sort of got easier, then buggered off entirely. They’re keeping her in overnight. I came home.

I’m now knackered. This probably has something to do with a neighbour who last night overturned his work vehicle outside our house and I went out to attempt to prevent him trying to get it upright. I figured he was fairly likely to injure himself in the process. The police arrived fairly quickly and I can only assume they took him away. His vehicle was lifted shortly afterwards, which was nice. Mind you, there was a load of debris left on the road this morning. All my other neighbours missed it as they were at a housewarming that I had been to, but left early as I thought the wife was in labour. Honest; I’m not a total lightweight.

OK, I am, but that’s a good reason though.

Man, it’s a while since I posted. Life has been somewhat on hold for a bit, mind you, waiting for the inevitable to happen.

On a symptom front, I’ve managed to have 3 concurrent symptoms:

* dizziness and general unbalanced
* fuzzed up head / depression symptoms
* pins and needles in my hands

That lasted a few days. Then the last two kinda went away again, leaving me with, as always, me falling over a lot. Still, I can deal with that for now.

As for the other waiting game, it might be about to kick off. It’s not easy to tell, mind you, these things never are, but we might be getting on the phone to the consultant shortly to ask her advice.

Another day, another scan. C-Section booked for 10 April, so only 35 days left. The heat is now on. She farts, we’re in to get it out. Hold on to your pants.

OK, not quite as exciting for you as it is for us, but child #2 managed to do a piss in the potty yesterday, despite still being one year old. No doubt that’ll be the only time it happens for about, say, a year. But it was cute nonetheless.

Not taking a tablet since 1-Feb is still going well. Not nearly as tired as I used to be in the evenings, obviously. It’s 23:40 right now; unheard-of territory for the past 18 months.

Bought a new pram today, a double buggy job. £300 bucks. Ouch. Still, it’s needed to get 2 children around without resorting to a buggy board which I doubt Rebecca would be particularly interested in… yet.

The project is go for launch. You’ll not know what I mean, but things will become clearer later on.

So Rebecca came down with chickenpox on Monday, which we figured was just round the corner as it was all over her nursery a couple of weeks ago. She’s a right state, but at least we got through Scott’s wedding and our holiday before it hit her.

Back from holiday at Centerparcs in Sherwood Forest, Nottingham(shire?). We wanted to stay in the UK since Rebecca is only 1 so that it wouldn’t be too hot. And of course it then hit 37 degrees celcius. Unbelievable. Still, had a great time, I can only recommend it to any family with children of literally any ages who can’t be arsed going on one of those package holidays where the only things to do are get drunk, or sit on the beach, or both. We can’t be arsed with that type of holiday, so the Centerparcs one did us grand.

I suspect we’ll be going back.

First phrase from Rebecca came today. She’s said Daddy for a while now, but when leaving today she clearly said “Bye bye, Daddy”. Lovely.

Shame my day was pish; no lunch break while the rest of them buggered off to the pub. Arse.

I reckon that I should write some sort of biography about my life to this point, for purely psychological reasons, not because anyone else would find it remotely interesting. I can’t really recall much about my childhood, and the few bits I can recall are not exactly wonderous. The thing is, writing about it is one thing but I’m not sure I can actually be arsed sitting down to do it. It’s something I think about when walking the dog, but then when I get home there’s just other more interesting things to do.

A bit of a time might be a good way to start, though. Or maybe not; it certainly didn’t work when I attempted to quit smoking by cutting down a little at a time.

Lauren’s now able to ride her bike without stabalisers. However, some kid cycles right into her today while wearing a motorcycle helmet, cutting her beneath the eye in 2 places. Twat.