Ticketty Wooooooo!

Ticketty

Meet Ticketty (sister of Boo!). She is one of our chicks that hatched last year after being incubated for the last 3 days as the hen got red mite and left the nest. She is by far the friendliest of our hens and likes to think of herself as a dog/cat/parrot - she follows us around and regularly jumps up on us!

On Thursday last week I spotted she wasn't roosting with the others, next morning when she didn't appear I went looking for her and found her sat in the nest box. Sure enough, it's now Sunday and she is still there!

She is very small, a cross between a Pekin Bantam (Pete) and a Belgium Booted Bantam (Pete's Hen)

Pete's Hen



Pete

Tonight I decided that I should just have a quick look and see how many eggs Ticketty was sitting on. I got quite a shock! She had 3 eggs from one of my large hens (they keep escaping into the garden and laying in the little house), 3 from Dolly (a Buff Sussex hen that hatched along with the Ticketty in September last year) which are smaller than average as she is not fully grown yet, and 6 little bantam eggs!!! So my tiny little hen who is no bigger than my foot was trying to keep warm far too many eggs.
I have candled the eggs and removed 2 of the large hen eggs as I can see nothing in there and my large hens are all old girls with slim chance of laying viable eggs. I can only see signs of life in the one remaining large egg and one of the bantam eggs but I have left all the others under her and will keep checking every couple of days to see what develops.

There is one massive benefit to it being Ticketty sitting on them - she is so incredibly tame that she will let me pick her up (she's not impressed but she isn't fighting it) so I can follow closely what develops.......


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Easter - massively mixed memories

I have stumbled upon The Gallery via the blog of Mummy Barrow(www.mummybarrow.com) and thought I might have a go at joining in, mostly as a way of getting some of my hundreds of photographs out on view.

The theme this week is Easter. When I first thought about what to post my immediate reaction was this ....

.... a photo of Fluffball, our newest edition to the flock of hens living in our back garden. Fluffball hatched a little bit before Easter but she's just so cute, and such a classic sign of Easter, that it had to be her really!

But then I got thinking about Easter in the last few years and realised that Easter is a time of massively mixed memories for this family. 

Easter 2007 was celebrated by the birth of my second child, Joe. He was due on Easter Monday but held off until the following Friday....the 13th! He is a true Friday 13th baby, causing terror wherever he goes!



Easter 2008 & 2009 must have passed without incident as I don't remember anything drastic happening!

Easter 2010 was truly awful and will be forever remembered as the start of our worst 18 months ever. It started out okay, we celebrated Joe's birthday with an Easter Egg hunt for friends of both the boys, and a few family called in too. Granny was there and as usual had helped with the planning and preparation. During the party she said she wasn't feeling too good and went home early.
This was Tuesday and on Sunday we had to call an ambulance to take her in to hospital, she had deteriorated so badly. Turned out she had developed pneumonia, and having she'd seen the doctor on Thursday and been sent home with stomach bug advice and rehydration sachets she had got much worse while we were all confident she would start to get better. We learnt a valuable lesson that week - don't ignore your instincts just because a doctor should know best.
Unfortunately Easter did not stop there for us. Joe fell ill, you can read the entire horrible story here.
http://kirkby-catterwell.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/new-month-new-doctor-or-update-on-joe.html
He had developed pneumonia too, but the delays we suffered led to serious complications and it taking a lot more drugs and time than it really needed to.

After one week at our local hospital we had to prepare for transfer by ambulance, on oxygen and attached to lots of beeping machines, to Addenbrookes in Cambridge.

On going home day, one month after Joe first fell ill. Joe made good friends with Leigh, the playleader at West Suffolk Hospital and still talks fondly of her. This photo makes me cry because I can see just how poorly my little boy had become.

Easter 2011 was spent preparing for Joe's visit to Papworth for the next stage of tests. I don't even remember doing Easter Eggs, that's how much of a blur that year is! I do know that we postponed Joe's birthday party and he finally got to have a party with his friends sometime in May! Later that year he finally had the operation to remove his tonsils and adenoids and since starting school in September he has really turned a corner.

That brings us to Easter 2012 and at last we could enjoy the holiday! Good Friday started with Andy's mum winding me up to the point of wanting to slap her, but once she'd left we decided to have an afternoon out and enjoy ourselves. We ended up at Walton-on-the-Naze and much fun was had by all!

Digging and Football!

Here's hoping that Easter 2012 is the start of many memories of fun and good times for us at Easter from now on!

Duty to the Queen

At St George's Day Parade & Service every year one Group is chosen to perform a short play based on a theme. This year the theme is "Duty to the Queen" and we are the lucky ones chosen!
I'm just an assistant but had an email from the leader saying she has no idea and she's relying on me for this one. GULP!

It's one of those parts of the Scout Promise that we ask the children to say, without giving them any real sense of what it means. Truth is, I'm not entirely sure myself.

The Scout association explain it like this:
"to do my duty to God and to the Queen"
Duties are those tasks which you have to do. You should try to do those thing you know need doing before someone else tells you to do them. Your duty to the Queen, includes showing respect for her and what she stands for as the head of your country. This includes obeying the laws of your country (and any other country which you visit).

Now I need to find a way to translate that into a sketch that can be understood by children from 6 up to 16, and that the adults will find interesting too.

Erm.....

BOYS

I have 2 boys. Whilst I have (obviously) always known they were very different to girls I hadn't realised that they were not only a different gender but seemingly an entirely different species.

My boys are a nightmare at the moment and so are the boy chickens so either it's a male thing or I'm just really bad at child and chicken rearing! In the last month we have had fights, arguments and injuries from both the cockerels and the children. Matthew is currently banned from playing football at break or lunch at school as I cannot trust him not to be the cause of arguments and agro. Joe is just being a pain in the rear end.

Every time we spend time with their dad (aged 32), or my brothers (aged 21&22) and they behave on a par with my boys I am reminded that at the ages of 4 and 8 I still have many, many years of this ahead! I went away at the weekend to stay with a friend of mine and went out to a party with her. I visited a flat lived in by only men, a bachelor pad I suppose. While it wasn't as boyish as I would expect from an entirely male abode, you wouldn't find girls putting mirror tiles up in the shape of a space invader now would you?! I merely wondered why they were in such a strange pattern with so many gaps until the design was pointed out to me!

I've always said I would be happy whether I have more children or not. I have my 2 and that is (more than!) enough for me, but having only just reached 30 and not settled down yet I realise that my future may well take me to a place where more children come along. From an entirely selfish and somewhat lazy point of view I have always said I would rather have boys if I had any more children. I have all the 'boy' things and I know how they work. I'm not a particularly girly-girl and I'd struggle with things like plaiting hair (I rarely even brush mine...) and activities other than football. I'm coming to realise that regardless of my laziness, bringing a girl into my world full of boys would also be very unfair on her. I'm sure they'd dote on her but it wouldn't stop them farting in her face at every opportunity!

So yes, I love my boys even with all their male-ness, but it would be nice to have a break from the world of BOY just once in a while!

Life is a Rollercoaster

and I am not a fan of rollercoasters!
but then, I'm not a fan of lifts, being a passenger in a car, stairs with gaps in them, and many other things yet still I find a way to get on with it and cope with them regardless.

I'd like a more ordered, 'normal' life but wouldn't we all? For now I'll settle for just getting on with the ups and downs of my personal rollercoaster and if it means I have to stop and scream every so often then that's just what I'll do!

Little things can make the biggest difference

Earlier this week I hit burnout point. I didn't say anything to anyone because, well, I never do. On Tuesday I slept. All day. I woke up at 15:31 and have to be at the bus stop for the boys by 15:40. Close call! A very lovely mum at school did notice and has made me promise I will learn to say no a bit more often, which I have done. I could have been at school all day yesterday but instead I came home for the morning. It's a start.

I spent the last 2 weeks in school or doing things for school most of the time. The only exception was the one day I went to my training course. I enjoy volunteering, I like to feel I'm doing something, but I often don't realise I'm doing too much until it's too late.
I've not been eating properly, due to lack of money and opportunity (I can't cook when I'm tired - I burn myself or the house!).
I've been forgetting to take my narcolepsy meds, I have to take them after food and if I don't get breakfast I can't take them til lunch. At lunch I forget. At dinner I'm asleep.
The boys have been playing up at bedtimes, and I've been getting wound up. They've been playing up in the mornings and I've been getting stressed.

In short, it's been a hard few weeks.

But yesterday we turned a corner of sorts.

My ever lovely dad did some shopping for me. This meant not only could I have dinner last night but I have breakfast and lunch for today, dinner for tonight.
Matthew did all his homework without too much nagging.
The boys played up at bedtime but I decided to ignore them after the first 10 times I shouted.
This morning I woke the boys up instead of letting them sleep. It was 07:30 still, but that was early enough to achieve the thing that makes the biggest difference to my day....
THE BOYS WERE READY IN TIME TO WALK DOWN AND CATCH THE BUS TO SCHOOL!!!!!!
Walking to the bus means 2 things, we all get a relaxed, stress-free send off to school with a bit of exercise thrown in, and I get home again by 08:30 with the rest of the day ahead!

So far this morning I have fed the chickens, hung the football kit on the airer, put more washing in, got lunch ready for my course today, got swimming kit and football kit ready and by the door, looked up where I have to deliver a form to tonight, and even eaten breakfast while blogging!

In less than an hour I have achieved more than I have achieved most days in the last few weeks.

Sometimes little things really can make the biggest difference.....

The disadvantage of coming second and being a child of the digital age.

Joe's class are learning about different religious celebrations.
A few weeks ago they talked about Diwali and made Rangoli Patterns with chalks and pastels which Joe loved.
This week they are talking about Baptism. Reverend Ruth came in to talk to them yesterday and today they were taking a walk to the Church to see for themselves all the things she had described. In the meantime a letter came home asking if we had any photos of the children's Baptisms please would we send them in. Joe also asked if he had been given anything at his and I said yes, he had been given the candle like everybody else.
So last night after they went to bed I started to search. I found his candle and a few other things I thought he would find interesting, his outfit and some of his gifts.
I found the very large box of photos I have (somehow I never quite got around to putting them all into albums even though I know I should) and started to look for photos of his Baptism. Several hours later I realised that there are a surprisingly low number of photos of Joe. In fact, other than a joint school photo where Joe is crying when he was 2, I don't think there were any.

This got me thinking about why.
I know everybody says you make far more fuss of your first baby but I don't think even that can explain the void of photographs.

I have always been entirely open about my feelings surrounding Joe's birth. Although I have always loved him dearly I did struggle at first to bond with him, we were in a bad situation and it was a while before I could feel happy about it. Maybe that was why I didn't have my camera permanently attached to my hand as with Matthew?

Joe wasn't the prettiest of babies either. In fact I remember being told off for saying he looked like all babies do, small and wrinkly and not very attractive! Matthew was born needing 3-6 month clothing so missed the small, wrinkly stage and skipped straight to very cute stage. Or so I thought! Joe had to have tiny baby clothes (how a baby weighing 8lb 7.5oz can need tiny baby clothes is beyond me, but he did) and was very scrunched up. Did his perceived lack of cuteness mean I avoided taking pictures?

I already had one child, and within 3 months I had a full-time job. So life carried on. There was no time to gaze in awe at my little bundle, no time to stand and stare, taking note of every movement, every facial expression. I remember taking Matthew to those photo sittings you get vouchers for at least every 2 months, I have lots of photos to prove it, but not Joe. Did normal life take away the opportunity to document his childhood?

The photos of Matthew all stop, right around the time Joe was born. I have a few of him holding his new baby brother, some of me with Matthew while I was pregnant, but none from more than 6 weeks after Joe's birth. Why would that happen?

And then it hits me. These hundreds of photos I have in front of me of Matthew, they are all accompanied by negatives. They were all printed by photo processing companies, given back to me in neat little wallets to be put away. I can't remember exactly when I got my first digital camera, and my first phone that could take photos, but I would place a bet on it being sometime around Joe's birth.

I look on the computer, and on the memory sticks that I have transferred images to over the years. There are hundreds of photos of Joe. His entire birth is documented in photos. His first year, pictures of him as I fed him, wrapped up warm in his car seat, being held by various friends and family, it's all there. As he grows up there are more, and he overtakes Matthew with how many there are of him. I think Matthew became a little camera shy, he never stayed still for long and, well frankly he just wasn't as cute when he grew up!

You could spend hours looking through all the photographs on the computer, many hundreds more than I have in print form. Being second child may have meant he missed out on being dragged out for professional photographers (I think I remember trying it a few times and he just slept, or screamed, so I stopped bothering) but I don't suppose he would see that as a bad thing! It was not, as I first feared, being second child that lead to a lack of prints in albums. It was the digital age and the ability to take as many photos as you like without it costing anything to view them. I am relieved, but also a little sad that he doesn't have albums to flick through with his history there to see.

One day I will have to sit down and arrange for prints of the best ones and make up an album. Probably the same 'one day' I finally get around to putting all the prints out of that big box into albums too.........