Rosie woke up at 3am last night with leg cramp.  After a good leg massage and a pain killer she was fine, but the head scratching thing set me picking over her head like a momma monkey.  Lice.  Hate.them! It’s been 3 years since we’ve been plagued by the little buggers but Rosie’s heed was hoachin’ (Hoaching = covered by a mass of living things, infested).  I treated it then and there… and then spent 3 hours treating the other kids this afternoon (bugs present on heads or not) and striping beds etc.  Heidi’s head was clear but if they make it into her mass of hair I will spend the best part of every evening for the next month trying to get them out again.  I just don’t have the time or emotional wherewithal for that right now!!

Wednesday morning Len woke up with sever abdominal/side/back pain.  By lunch time, we decided it was possibly more than a dodgy curry, and we made a trip into A&E that was reminiscent of a trip I took with my father when I was a child between Bartlesville and Tulsa.  One that had Dad getting out of the car to vomit and roll around in field due to pain… before Len and I reached the ER, I had diagnosed kidney stones.  I was right.  You know, I am sure I missed a very lucrative career in medicine.

Between Wednesday last week and tonight, I have lost track of numerous trips back and forth to the hospital. He is still offically admitted to ward 7, but as long as the pain is manageble, they are letting him stay at home except for a daily check-up/ x-ray/blood test.  At the moment, he has a 7 x4 mm stone lodged in his ureters (A long, thin tube that connects the renal pelvis of the kidneys to the bladder.  Urine (and Lens stone) made by the kidneys travels through the ureters to the bladder.) and a ‘negligable’ sized stone in his kidney.

After tomorrow morning’s x-ray, they will decide if and when action will be take.  They will either be sticking a shunt up to widen the 3mm opening to let it pass from his ureters (use your imagination of how they get the shunt in!!) or they go in (use you imagination again) and fish it out with a coat hanger and a chewed piece of gum or (if it looks like it is on the move) they will try and let it pass on it’s own.  The ‘shunt’ option probably won’t be happening because he is due to be traveling back to Belgium with in the next 2 weeks and they don’t want him to fly with it in… We should know better by tomorrow.

His humour doesn’t seem to be comepletely lodged in his ureters along with the stone… but I am beginning to wonder if mine is stuck in there somewhere!

Meanwhile, I have a mini back-log on my desk of photo shoots that need processed… a nice little problem to have!  Heidi, Daniel and Rosie return to school on Thrusday and until then, I don’t see me getting anything done durning the day.  I slept tonight from 9pm until 2:45 am and am now working some sort of back shift (oh blessed quiet house!!) to meet a few studio deadlines.  I have 3.5 hours now before I need to get Len up to get him to the hospital.

Yeah, kidney stones suck.

As these next few posts are catch-up posts… Apart from the present kidney stones, the odd asthma attack caused by seasonal alergies (me), a chest infection and pulled muscle last month (Len) we are all in great health.  Rosie has lost 2 teeth now (for which she has recieved a shocking amount of money!!) - Hannah has morphed from a child into this beautiful bud of a young woman - growing at least 2 sizes in 3 months.  Heidi growing up scarily fast too and displaying some very mature and responsible traits over the last few days, seeing me stressed, she really stepped up to the plate to help me out.  And Daniel… well, still the sweetest boy ever.

I’ve let this blog slide far too long.  When it came time to feed the meter a month ago I thought I would just stop.  I was boring myself.  But, I miss it.  And, I miss you all too.  Thank you for all the emails, IMs and phone calls.  Please forgive my absence and bear (or bare, you choose!!) with me as I bring you up to speed over the next few posts.

For those of you keeping track at home, we moved back to Scotland last June and settled into our friends barn (lovingly renovated), kids started in a lovely little country school (32 kids in the whole school, 4 of which were mine) and by October last year we had negotiated to buy this property from our friends, rather than looking for/building something else in the area because, in a very hectic sort of way, we love it here…

“The Barn” renovation was originally intended (eventually) for our friend’s/landlord’s parents, when they got older and/if they wanted to move closer to their kids.. but they were much too opposed to the idea and for all concerned waived their ‘rights’ to the property and gave the go-ahead for the Bamberboos to buy.  We have been waiting for planning permission for an extension to be approved before the purchase can take place.

Meanwhile, within the last few months, our friend/landlord’s parent’s health has deteriorated drastically, and now, without the purchase secured, they have asked if they could go back to the original plan to put their parents here… The Northfield’s are now furiously house hunting… It seems, I must move again.  Understanding and sympathizing with all the reasons why our agreement had to change does not eliminate the stress this puts me under.  I only grudge the year we have lost thinking we were staying here.

I’m tenaciously determined that moving from this house will NOT mean a move for the kids from their school… their tears at the thought of doing so only reinforced my resolve on the matter… time will tell.  Small communities = small housing choices. *fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed*

So there you have it.  A blog post.

Next post: Kidney Stones Suck

Is it right for me to feel concerned that there were only 2 pair of my son’s undies in the 13 loads (yes, you read that right) of laundry I cycled through the machines today?

And… is it wrong that this fact amuses me more than it concerns me?

I am snuggled around my favorite mug.  It’s a delicately shaped white mug with a very frou frou detail design in a light shade of denim.  I’m not sure if it’s the honey sweetened rose tea or the actual mug that sooths me more. Tonight I’m trying to chase my petulant, spoiled feelings away.  We just had a glorious week of it’ll-burn-you-if-you’re-not-careful-sun.. unheard of really, for this time of year in Scotland.  Len was home all week and we spent the days digging in the garden, visiting garden centres, planting up seed trays full of cucumber, herbs, sweet peas and poppies and re potting tomato plants. Then in the evening we would light the burn-barrel full of twigs and cutting and sit around it drinking wine from the bottle.

The kids had Thursday through today off from school. Their time was split between running around the farm, building forts, playing with cousins and friends and having sleepovers.  Heidi turned 10 yesterday (where does the time go?) The celebration started last Sunday with a fried chicken lunch at Mammy (That’s ‘Mammy’s Famous Fried Chcken) and lasted until the 4 layer cake yesterday afternoon. Daniel got to go to Ireland to visit his cousins with Mammy and Calder and Rosie lost her first tooth today (again, where does the time go!!? Wasn’t she just cutting that tooth last week?).

...But, like a spoiled child who’s dipped her hand in the sweetie jar one too many times, “gosh darnit” *stamps foot* I want MORE!!

Len and I got up at ouch-o-clock this morning to get him to his flight on time and after the long (for Scotland) stretch of sun and warmth the rain is back - the cold is cutting through me to the bone. I’m on my own with the kids again for another 4 nights… Oh, and either hay fever has hit or I have a rotten cold *pout* I want more last-week,please!  Bedtime was harder than usual tonight after not having a bedtime for 5 nights and I know tomorrow morning’s going to be a rude awakening for the children as well as for me!

Yeah, give me more last week please…

Rosie’s tooth is perched on the tiny hand of the tooth-fairy statue on the kitchen table with her little hand written note place carefully next to the fairy.  It reads:

“my toothis on t hant can yu gIVE me munie in thu dish… my munie”

Ah yes!  The tea is working!

The photo shoot went great on Wednesday.  When I arrived I was told that it looked like there were only going to be around 30 children.  I kept a little ledger of their names as we went and when I got to 30 on my list I thought I must me be nearly done.  The nursery nurses did a quick head count and there were still THIRTY ONE to do!!

I spent 7 hours on my knees and rolling around on the floor making silly faces. I photographed 61 children from 10 weeks old to 5 years old, I stopped 3 times for 5 minutes each… and I loved every minute of it.  But I have to say, I’m too young to feel as old as I did the day after!

I only ran into 2 hitches for the shoot, both my fault… I should have taken my second memory card as I ran out of space (it is a very large card!) and I had to begin editing there and deleting shots and for some very bizarre reason one of the cables for my studio lights was missing from my bag so I was down one light.  I have shot with only one light before, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I did get a few unwanted shadows on my back drop.

I will spend today editing the shots and narrowing it down to one or 2 shots per child and hopefully getting them off to the printers for the proofs.  It looks like I got some really good portraits, except for the few children who were just too wigged out by the whole thing to even smile… and I had one mom in with three boys aged 5, 3 and a very new baby and I know I don’t have good shot of them.  The baby screamed and the five year old refused to let anyone (including brothers) touch him!!

In other news:

Daniel took on a ‘mountain’ of hardcore with a ride in toy car last night and… lost.  I heard him and the neighbour boy screaming (and thought they were having a rip-roaring fight) but then then I heard Rosie freaking out too… The amount of blood was dizzying and the wound on his head was about a quarter of an inch long… but when we (my neighbour Beth sorta took over, bless her!!) got it cleaned up we (and my other neighbour Amanda, who is a mid-wife and more use to stitching the other end of the other sex, but knew what she was talking about none-the-less) realised it wasn’t as deep as the blood would have led us to believe, so no stitches were required.

Daniel was extremely brave… Rosie was not.  At one point, Daniel had a cool compress up against the wound, and he was reaching out stroking Rosie and telling her it would be OK, but she sobbed on.  Two hours later when I was putting her in her bath, she shuddered, squeezed her eyes tight and with a voice full of emotion gasped “Oh! Moma… it keeps popping up into my head!!” The at dinner she cried again because she didn’t want to sit next to Daniel in case he turned his head and she saw it again because “it will give me bad dreams!!” I am keeping them both home from school today…

And *sigh* the chicken… expired.

When we moved back to Scotland last summer, I decided to pursue the idea of taking my photography a little further.  To this end I decided to take a few part time course at college.  I have now completed both An Introduction to Photography and Camera Techniques (and passed!!!) I met my lecturer for lunch last week and he is trying very hard to persuade me to take a full time course this autumn.  Considering Len is out of the country half of the time, it would be an hour commute to and from college and I am still in charge of the kids… I don’t know if it will be do-able.  But I really, really, really want to.  I guess time will tell.

Over the last few month, I have started doing a few commissioned portrait-shoots.  I have had about 6 paying clients and as many non-paying (a girl’s gotta practice!!).  My confidence is growing, but so is my knowledge that the more I learn the more I realise I still don’t know!

Tonight I am gathering up my gear, some props and all my courage for my first ‘major’ photo shoot tomorrow.  I will be taking the ‘school’ photos for a private nursery.  I am slightly nervous (as I always am) that the pictures won’t turn out, my lighting won’t be right, I will get the white balance wrong, the kids will not respond to me etc… but tonight I am more daunted by the sheer volume of children I need to photograph tomorrow.  I spoke to the manager of the nursery today and she said there are over 40 children (aged 0-5) on the list!!  Now, I am use to spending around an hour on each child so I am confident that I have the shot.  I normally end up with anywhere from 20 - 70 usable shots, but last time I checked there are not 40 hours in a day!!  I will be looking at spending only about 10 minutes on each child… but, because of the nature of the shoot, I only have to have one good shot of each child, right?

Hopefully, if I market this one right (and obviously do a good job) this shoot will get my name out there a little (that’s 40 more parents that know who I am!!) and it will help earn a little money to put towards the 2 things I feel I still really need (besides more education and talent) for my new business… Photoshop and a good website design!  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

...I sliced my finger on the food processor blade and bled into the dough I have been putting off making for the last 20+ years.

But let me back up a little.

Hannah has known for the last, oh I’d say 5-8 months that she has a personal talk due this week.  Near the beginning of the school year, her class was given personal project tasks along with requirements for each task and completion dates for those tasks.  The first 2 were reports which we she completed both times the night before and both times we she received full marks for and gold awards!  I was very proud of us her, but both times I told her I would never again sit up with her until 11pm the night before a personal task was due because of our her lack of planning.  Now, some would debate that, the fact that Hannah climbed the stairs to bed at 10:30 tonight with Elmer’s glue smudged all over her face and hands from the display we she was making is the fault of her unorganised mother… The mother should have ‘guided’ her more diligently, gently insisted she stick to a better time scale, encouraged her more enthusiastically, but I say, no.  The girl is her mother’s daughter and we both seem to work better under pressure and… we both had fun tonight (all 6 hours of it!!); her researching for her 5 min talk on ‘Visiting Italy’, me throwing ideas out there, her either knocking them back or remoulding them to suit her way of thinking, searching together for the right pictures on google, printing, gluing, me drilling her on public speaking techniques, her hashing and rehashing how she will word it… searching for ways to add humour to keep her audience’s attention, calling Dad in Belgium to ask him to ask his Italian co-worker how to pronounce things properly… yeah, we had fun.

So, Hannah decided her grand finale will be to say… “I hoped you enjoyed my talk today, and now I give you a little slice of Italy!!” Then as she uncovers the (wait for it!!!) HOME-MADE Pizza that we I will get up at 5:30am to bake tomorrow morning… she will say in Italian “would you like some pizza”!!

Which brings me back to the food processor… It was 11:05pm and I realised that to make pizza, I would have to make dough, to make dough, I would have to use yeast, to use yeast, I would have to overcome the inexplicable and irrational intimidation that particular ingredient has always had over me.  I have never used yeast or made anything that calls for it… until tonight.  I searched the world wide cookbook and found what claimed to be an easy pizza dough using a food processor and dry yeast… both items I had.  Apart from one nasty little nick in my finger, all seems to be going well.

As we speak, the dough (well the second batch of dough, due to the first batch being contaminated with my blood) is resting… every surface of my kitchen is covered in flour, sticky doughy amber-paw prints, wads of bloody paper towel, and approximately 4 times the number of bowls, spoons and measuring utensils need to make a little pizza crust.

My finger throbs… and the chicken lives.