Diary of a move: when life gets in the way

I think we've all woken up in Barbie's shoes after 6 too many cocktails.

I can't help but think that sometimes in life things happen in order to teach you important lessons about not being too lazy and disorganised and not to leave all the sorting through and throwing out until the day before you move. I believe this because this kind of thing happens to me quite a lot, and my personality type is aligned to just ignore it and carry on merrily surfing the internet without a care in the world. La, la, la-la, la!

Given that Hamish is still getting over his hernia operation, and I am utterly beyond tired keeping tabs on his movements like a Stasi agent with strong suspicions that he's up to no good; I was comfortable with the fact that I was pretty much incapable of doing much else. The dishes have pretty much sat in the sink since Monday night, though I have become more experimental in trying out non-dishwasher safe things in the dishwasher (who knew that Calpol measuring spoons melt in relatively hot water!?), while I have been dealing with the pretty much constant chants of "Mama! Mama!" (Hamish has decided to go German post-operatively it seems). So you can imagine the delight in my voice as I exclaimed "Oh. You. Are. Kidding!" at 1am when I heard a different voice whimpering "Mama! Mama!" from a different room. And ta-da! Orla had  a temperature.

Orla keeps in generally good health. A fact that always surprises me when I realise she hasn't missed a day of school through illness since she started. I like to pat myself on the back thinking that my general shoddy levels of household cleanliness have contributed towards a sterling immune system. Anyway, talk about hard work: it's been crap. I had to take Hamish back to see the surgeon at his clinic in the middle of nowhere yesterday and thankfully Stevie stayed home to look after Orla while I took him. I was really pleased that the operation seems to have gone very well, and Hamish was especially pleased to have the dressing removed and to get the news that he could now have a bath (albeit a camomile tea bath).

I am trying to be more organised about this move, and am taking the opportunity whenever I have it to sort through a cupboard, or clean a bookshelf or whatever while I supervise Hamish to make sure he's not abseiling or whatever in whatever room he happens to be in. So I decided to clean the world's most awkward corner bath before Hamish bathed in it - best not to allow the sediment that lingers under the bath toys that never get removed because they're too awkward to get to, to get into the wound. Anyway, given I had Stevie to take over child supervision, I went for it, and cleaned the giant tiled shelf behind the bath. It's like a metre deep and I can count the number of times I have properly scrubbed it on one finger.

Armed with my Cif with Bleach I scrubbed and scrubbed until everything was sparkling. It brought tears to my eyes to see it so clean, though I suspect that was the fumes from the bleach. Then I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed some more, before running Hamish's bath and boiling up a nice 4 bag litre of tea to pop into it. This is the second prescribed batch of camomile tea baths in our house in the past two weeks - seems to be far more popular here than in the UK. I imagine it is very soothing and gentle on the skin; ideal for after an operation. It was not camomile though that Hamish smelt of as I lifted him out of the bath, but the rather pungent perfume of bleach. God, I felt sick at the thought of it. Mind you, at least the wound was clean.... (arrgghh!!!!)

So terrible a mother I felt, that I did my utmost to make up for it, cooking favourite meals, letting Hamish play a little bit later than normal before bed, etc. Guilt makes me awfully productive. It does nothing for my prioritisation skills however. So instead of getting the dishes done, I stayed up late sewing sleeping bags for Barbie to go camping with. I knew Orla really wanted them and given how rotten she was feeling, I knew she'd be over the moon to discover them in the morning. Today has been a marginal improvement on yesterday, though Orla's temperature keeps going up every time the medicine times out, but we're getting there.

I'm still shattered, but what this has taught me is that things like illness could really put a spanner in the works if it had happened closer to the move, so I need to be organised and get things done early. The removal team manager phoned yesterday and told us that we have 50% more stuff than what we came here with. In my opinion that's utter nonsense, but nonetheless, I am now going through stuff ruthlessly. Or rather I would be if  I wasn't sitting here messing about on the internet....

Hamish recuperates

Shattered.
Hamish had his operation yesterday morning to fix his umbilical hernia, and it was more than a bit emotional for me. I didn't realise how helpless I'd feel watching him being put under the anaesthetic, and it was, well, horrible. For me at least. He was fine. Afterwards he was pretty fine too. He drank two cups of water and then we went home because they wouldn't let him drink any more.

Once home (and thankfully although I have sold the pram I haven't yet handed it over to it's new owner) we settled down to do some new Lego on my bed and he had a few sips of water. Turns out the nurses were right and these sips broke the camel's back. Vomit everywhere. Then because he disgusted himself by being sick, he vomited again and again until I magically said "It's ok! It's just water! Not sick!". And that was him.

So he is to be off school this week, and he'll be off the following week because that's half term, and then, we'll see. The list of things he's not allowed to do, and the list of things he has to be careful doing is very restrictive. It's going to be very hard.

It was hard enough yesterday when he was supposed to spend the day either lying in bed or on the sofa. It was in fact impossible. When he wasn't lying down and was up on his feet I was meant to be holding him just in case he keeled over from the after effects of the anaesthetic. Today he is a bit more mobile, but finding it hard to sit down or get down on the floor. I still can't let him out of my sight though as every time I do he either follows me, running (which is on the list of banned activities) or ends up doing something else which is also banned. This list includes: no jumping, no bouncing, no climbing, no swinging, sliding, or any other playground activities, no running, no cycling, no scooting, no trampolining, and no swimming. Add into that nothing which might cause a fall and you can see how a four week ban on all of these is going to be tiring to say the least. In normal life I can't turn my back without my two abseiling down the back of the sofa, or bouncing off the back of it and springboarding off the seat into the sea (the rug). If I head into the kitchen they'll be at my back scooting through to Orla's room to put on a 'show' on top of her bed. A show that involves a lot of serious high bouncing and splatting on to the floor below - all the better if you can impale yourself on some Playmobil as you land.

I am not looking forward to the next four weeks. I have the feeling that trailing around after Hamish making sure he doesn't land himself in hospital is going to be very tiring indeed. He on the other hand seems to be quite enjoying having me at his beck and call. *sigh*