It's been a little over 12 months since Penguin spread her wings and moved to the big city.
When she first went I worried like crazy and cried almost every day, I missed her so much. She was not in a great place emotionally either so I worried about that too.
As the months went by, and she got closer to her 18th birthday I was able to see that she was doing a little better and really she was almost an adult so I worried a little less.
And when I hemorrhaged after giving birth to Grub and almost died, it took me a long time to recover, and with lack of sleep and this whole Rascal Rumps thing I had other things that I worried about. I still missed her and I still worried about her but it wasn't ALL I thought about anymore.
I still cried now and then but it wasn't every day.
Today (and yesterday) I am feeling the effects of being away from my baby girl for so long. I am missing her desperately and I know she is going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment so I wish I could be there for her in the flesh.
I love you my Penguin, I miss you and I wish I could make it better.
I hope you read this!
Love Mum
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Special Saturday - Christmas Gift Ideas
This week they decided it would be a good idea to share our Christmas gift ideas for people with special needs!
Well I for one am looking forward to reading everyone else's posts because I'm stumped!
Bear used to be easy to shop for...TRAINS were the only thing he wanted, and then he expanded his horizons and enjoyed diggers and trucks.
Trouble is that Bear wrecks stuff...frequently! So we very quickly stopped buying him cheaper trains/diggers/trucks and always bought him good ones that are pretty much Bear proof.
Now Bear is nearly 12 years old and there are a fair few Christmases and birthdays in nearly 12 years. And since most of his trains/trucks/diggers are Bear proof, most of them are still here. There are only so many trains/trucks/diggers that one child can have!!!
The next problem is Age Appropriateness. Now I don't really get on the boat that says that my child should play with things that are age appropriate just because it's socially acceptable...he is who he is and we love him that way. But it does break my heart to see him not fit in with his peers...honestly I tear up at EVERY school assembly and at the Christmas Concert I'm a sniveling mess. So it is nice if, when other kids his age come over, he has something to play with that will interest them too.
The third problem is extended family...Every blinking time I come up with the ideal present for Bear, my jolly mother goes and buys it for him instead. Earlier this year the Geek bought himself a remote control helicopter (actually he's bought several throughout the year as he and Bear are a little bit inclined to crash them) and Bear loves them. He loves to watch them fly and once they get to the point where all they will do is spin around on the floor he loves to have a go himself. Perfect Christmas present! And it's age appropriate! So what is my Mum getting him?
Okay so that's not all that bad, it's awesome that she wants to get him something that he loves that is age appropriate too...and if I'm honest, he probably wouldn't complain about getting TWO remote control helicopters for Christmas this year, but I do want our present to be just a little bit special too.
We've got all the other kids a bike for Christmas but Bear will not ride a bike. The last time we got all the other kids a bike for Christmas we decided that we had to get Bear one too. When he was in kindy he would ride the little trikes there but he was well and truly too big for one of those so we thought we would try and get a bigger trike. There is a place in Perth that modifies bikes for the disabled, they are a little bit on the expensive side but we were able to get some funding to help pay for it. This thing was FANTASTIC! The Geek reckoned he wanted one for himself. We were ALL really excited about it...All except for Bear. It's still sitting outside and it's taken a fair beating over the years but Bear has never ridden it. (He did take great pleasure in pushing the other kids around on it though so it wasn't a total flop)
Suffice it to say we will NOT be buying Bear a bike this year.
So I said I was stumped, and I am, for his main present! But having 6 kids I have to be at least a little bit organized by November. So what have I got?
Actually aside from a few stocking fillers the only thing we have bought him so far is a couple of DVD's. One of which I know he will love because he has borrowed it from my Mum dozens of times, the other? Well he will probably have to watch it 3 or 4 times before it becomes a favorite!
We are also planning to buy him a new CD player because his is on it's last legs and life without music at bed time is...well quite frankly I don't even want to go there!!!
But what will be that fantastic gift that is going to light up that gorgeous face in a huge grin?
Well...I have 50 more days to think about it!
This post is part of the Special Saturday campaign for raising awareness of special needs!
Well I for one am looking forward to reading everyone else's posts because I'm stumped!
Bear used to be easy to shop for...TRAINS were the only thing he wanted, and then he expanded his horizons and enjoyed diggers and trucks.
Trouble is that Bear wrecks stuff...frequently! So we very quickly stopped buying him cheaper trains/diggers/trucks and always bought him good ones that are pretty much Bear proof.
Now Bear is nearly 12 years old and there are a fair few Christmases and birthdays in nearly 12 years. And since most of his trains/trucks/diggers are Bear proof, most of them are still here. There are only so many trains/trucks/diggers that one child can have!!!
The next problem is Age Appropriateness. Now I don't really get on the boat that says that my child should play with things that are age appropriate just because it's socially acceptable...he is who he is and we love him that way. But it does break my heart to see him not fit in with his peers...honestly I tear up at EVERY school assembly and at the Christmas Concert I'm a sniveling mess. So it is nice if, when other kids his age come over, he has something to play with that will interest them too.
The third problem is extended family...Every blinking time I come up with the ideal present for Bear, my jolly mother goes and buys it for him instead. Earlier this year the Geek bought himself a remote control helicopter (actually he's bought several throughout the year as he and Bear are a little bit inclined to crash them) and Bear loves them. He loves to watch them fly and once they get to the point where all they will do is spin around on the floor he loves to have a go himself. Perfect Christmas present! And it's age appropriate! So what is my Mum getting him?
Okay so that's not all that bad, it's awesome that she wants to get him something that he loves that is age appropriate too...and if I'm honest, he probably wouldn't complain about getting TWO remote control helicopters for Christmas this year, but I do want our present to be just a little bit special too.
We've got all the other kids a bike for Christmas but Bear will not ride a bike. The last time we got all the other kids a bike for Christmas we decided that we had to get Bear one too. When he was in kindy he would ride the little trikes there but he was well and truly too big for one of those so we thought we would try and get a bigger trike. There is a place in Perth that modifies bikes for the disabled, they are a little bit on the expensive side but we were able to get some funding to help pay for it. This thing was FANTASTIC! The Geek reckoned he wanted one for himself. We were ALL really excited about it...All except for Bear. It's still sitting outside and it's taken a fair beating over the years but Bear has never ridden it. (He did take great pleasure in pushing the other kids around on it though so it wasn't a total flop)
Suffice it to say we will NOT be buying Bear a bike this year.
So I said I was stumped, and I am, for his main present! But having 6 kids I have to be at least a little bit organized by November. So what have I got?
Actually aside from a few stocking fillers the only thing we have bought him so far is a couple of DVD's. One of which I know he will love because he has borrowed it from my Mum dozens of times, the other? Well he will probably have to watch it 3 or 4 times before it becomes a favorite!
We are also planning to buy him a new CD player because his is on it's last legs and life without music at bed time is...well quite frankly I don't even want to go there!!!
But what will be that fantastic gift that is going to light up that gorgeous face in a huge grin?
Well...I have 50 more days to think about it!
This post is part of the Special Saturday campaign for raising awareness of special needs!
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Monkey's Birthday!
Today was Monkey's birthday.
Now I would love to go into great depths about all that happened today, it was quite a day...but that really had nothing to do with Monkey's birthday, in fact the birthday part was quite unremarkable!
Oh there were presents and cake and all the usual stuff, he had a wonderful day and he is soooo glad to finally be 5 so that he can go on the waterslide at the Albany pool, but it was really nothing worth writing home about.
So instead I will tell you about the day he was born.
No I won't tell you about the day he was born...Oh I started, in fact I wrote quite a bit and even went to the trouble of finding a pic of the freaky amnio hook that was waiting in my table in the hospital when I got there.
Oh what the heck, I might as well use the pic anyway since I found it :D
But as I was writing it I thought, I'm putting down all these little details that are really going to be boring to any one else.
So I'm just going to say that I'm really glad that I took the time to remember all the little details today, they are ALL really special to me and I'm really thankful to have shared the last 5 years of my life with my (not so little anymore) Monkey :D
Now I would love to go into great depths about all that happened today, it was quite a day...but that really had nothing to do with Monkey's birthday, in fact the birthday part was quite unremarkable!
Oh there were presents and cake and all the usual stuff, he had a wonderful day and he is soooo glad to finally be 5 so that he can go on the waterslide at the Albany pool, but it was really nothing worth writing home about.
No I won't tell you about the day he was born...Oh I started, in fact I wrote quite a bit and even went to the trouble of finding a pic of the freaky amnio hook that was waiting in my table in the hospital when I got there.
Oh what the heck, I might as well use the pic anyway since I found it :D
But as I was writing it I thought, I'm putting down all these little details that are really going to be boring to any one else.
So I'm just going to say that I'm really glad that I took the time to remember all the little details today, they are ALL really special to me and I'm really thankful to have shared the last 5 years of my life with my (not so little anymore) Monkey :D
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
The Meltdown!
As I mentioned in The Launch, the Bear had a meltdown yesterday. Bear has meltdowns quite frequently actually...
Okay I need to start again...I got that far before Monkey decided to do his thing with the croup last night so it is now the following day...so Bear had a meltdown on Sunday. Bear has meltdowns quite frequently actually but this one was a doozy.
Actually I didn't start this post to write about the Sunday meltdown I really started it because while he was having it I was thinking about the nature of his meltdowns...that's right I was actually thinking with this kid screaming his absolute nog off in the background!
And this is what I was thinking...
I remember having a conversation with my father in law years ago where he asked me what had set Bear off this time and I said that I thought it had been building up for a while and that he just had to get it out of his system. I said that sometimes you can just see it coming and you can do things to delay it and maybe even make it not as intense but it's not going to go away till it's over and done with!
And I still think that's true to a certain extent, although I perhaps understand a little bit more about why that is now. As I said in What Is Your Child's Special Needs Bears head (I think anyway) is constantly full of noise and routine helps to quiet that noise a bit...I'm not talking about literally but figuratively there is a lot of noise.
So if we stick to our routines why then does it build up to the point where he has to explode?
Because when push comes to shove...WE LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD! We can keep his routines up every day but there is NO way that we can make EVERY SINGLE detail the same EVERY SINGLE day. The small details change every day and even if we were inclined to do so we couldn't humanly keep them all the same, especially not in such a large family. So there is a build up.
And then of course there are the times when there is a fundamental change in his routine...like not going to Gym on Tuesday afternoon during the school term, or sending Belana (the dog) back to live with my cousin because we couldn't keep her in the yard here. Those ones almost always result in meltdown...Sometimes at the time of the change but often the following day or a couple of days later when his head just can't get itself back into whack!
I honestly believe that when Bear is having a meltdown, he's not in control of what he's doing...at least not totally. I don't think he's doing it for attention or to get something that he wants, he is doing it because he just needs to get it out....I'm sure we've all felt that way at some point in our lives!
Of course we always try and get him to calm down. And after all these years we still ask him if he wants any number of things...even though it generally doesn't work until the meltdown has run it's course. "Bear would you like some noodles?", "what would you like to watch?", "shall we make a chocolate cake?" the list goes on!
And every time I ask the question I know in myself that HE JUST DOESN'T KNOW...and yet I ask anyway. At some point the meltdown will have run it's course and he will accept one of the things I have offered and will calm down (and then often remember each of the things I have offered him and go through them one by one and take me up on it)
Obviously that's not all I do to try and calm him down. I go and give him a cuddle in his room, I rub his back, I talk gently to him...sometimes I even yell at him because I've had it too. There are lots of things that I try EVERY time, even though I know that they didn't work last time or the time before.
One day I will find a better way but until then I can't bear to see my child in such distress, it breaks my heart to know that he is just not coping with his world...and that I can't fix it :(
I have rambled a lot in this post...I know it and I'm too tired to be sorry, too tired to go hunting for pictures and too tired to even proofread it...maybe I can go back and do so tomorrow...
Maybe not :D
Okay I need to start again...I got that far before Monkey decided to do his thing with the croup last night so it is now the following day...so Bear had a meltdown on Sunday. Bear has meltdowns quite frequently actually but this one was a doozy.
Actually I didn't start this post to write about the Sunday meltdown I really started it because while he was having it I was thinking about the nature of his meltdowns...that's right I was actually thinking with this kid screaming his absolute nog off in the background!
And this is what I was thinking...
I remember having a conversation with my father in law years ago where he asked me what had set Bear off this time and I said that I thought it had been building up for a while and that he just had to get it out of his system. I said that sometimes you can just see it coming and you can do things to delay it and maybe even make it not as intense but it's not going to go away till it's over and done with!
And I still think that's true to a certain extent, although I perhaps understand a little bit more about why that is now. As I said in What Is Your Child's Special Needs Bears head (I think anyway) is constantly full of noise and routine helps to quiet that noise a bit...I'm not talking about literally but figuratively there is a lot of noise.
So if we stick to our routines why then does it build up to the point where he has to explode?
Because when push comes to shove...WE LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD! We can keep his routines up every day but there is NO way that we can make EVERY SINGLE detail the same EVERY SINGLE day. The small details change every day and even if we were inclined to do so we couldn't humanly keep them all the same, especially not in such a large family. So there is a build up.
And then of course there are the times when there is a fundamental change in his routine...like not going to Gym on Tuesday afternoon during the school term, or sending Belana (the dog) back to live with my cousin because we couldn't keep her in the yard here. Those ones almost always result in meltdown...Sometimes at the time of the change but often the following day or a couple of days later when his head just can't get itself back into whack!
I honestly believe that when Bear is having a meltdown, he's not in control of what he's doing...at least not totally. I don't think he's doing it for attention or to get something that he wants, he is doing it because he just needs to get it out....I'm sure we've all felt that way at some point in our lives!
Of course we always try and get him to calm down. And after all these years we still ask him if he wants any number of things...even though it generally doesn't work until the meltdown has run it's course. "Bear would you like some noodles?", "what would you like to watch?", "shall we make a chocolate cake?" the list goes on!
And every time I ask the question I know in myself that HE JUST DOESN'T KNOW...and yet I ask anyway. At some point the meltdown will have run it's course and he will accept one of the things I have offered and will calm down (and then often remember each of the things I have offered him and go through them one by one and take me up on it)
Obviously that's not all I do to try and calm him down. I go and give him a cuddle in his room, I rub his back, I talk gently to him...sometimes I even yell at him because I've had it too. There are lots of things that I try EVERY time, even though I know that they didn't work last time or the time before.
One day I will find a better way but until then I can't bear to see my child in such distress, it breaks my heart to know that he is just not coping with his world...and that I can't fix it :(
I have rambled a lot in this post...I know it and I'm too tired to be sorry, too tired to go hunting for pictures and too tired to even proofread it...maybe I can go back and do so tomorrow...
Maybe not :D
The Ambulance Ride!
Last night, a little before 10pm, Monkey started coughing.
When he gets sick he often gets a bit of a croupy cough but it's been a billion times better and far less often since he had his tonsils out 18 months ago.
So when he started coughing last night I wasn't too surprised that it sounded croupy...just a little surprised that he'd started coughing since he hadn't had so much as a sniffle throughout the day.
After a minute or so I started getting a little concerned as it was starting to sound like he was struggling to breathe so I asked the Geek to go and check on him since I still had Grub passed out on my lap.
The Geek fairly quickly hauled him out of bed and into the bathroom to get some steam happening...standard procedure in our house when dealing with a croupy cough and by the time they got there I could hear that he was REALLY struggling.
So I dumped poor Grub into the bed...thankfully he didn't wake up...and went in and arked the shower up. We decided that that wasn't going to be enough so I went digging for the nebulizer. I found it fairly quickly as I had a pretty good idea of where it was, and I even managed to find a bowl for it but for the life of me I couldn't find the mask..it's been some years since we used it. Then I dug out the ventolin nebules...18 months out of date
Okay so that wasn't going to work! Plan B? Umm...Do we need to call an ambulance?...I asked the Geek...Yeah maybe! If we are going to call an ambulance do we need to do it NOW???
YEP!
Okay this is not the actual ambulance that we got...I didn't have the presence of mind to take an actual picture of it at the time!
We decided that the Geek would go to the hospital with him as it would be easier than me taking Grub along as well but that really upset Monkey and of course that did NOT help his breathing. So we changed the plan and quickly stuffed some nappies and a change of clothes for bub into the nappy bag and I piled in with the baby.
When we got there we had to wait for the doctor, I was told that usually at that time of night there wasn't a line up but we picked a bad night and there were several people in front of us. However the nurses talked to him and he told them to give him a pulmicort neb which helped immensely. Coming from out of town though we had to stay in overnight.
We were moved to the ward and once Monkey was settled I was given a chair to sleep in with Grub...I didn't see much sleep happening but we settled down for the night and I eventually dozed off. The next time the nurse came in (a different nurse) she had a bit of a panic because she thought Grub was going to wriggle himself off me and land on his head on the floor so she put me in the empty bed in the room...PRAISE THE LORD. That would have been about 2am! I didn't look at the clock but that's when Monkey was due for his obs.
So I managed to get a few hours sleep but because Grub always gets up at around 5am, my body automatically woke up then even though he was still asleep.
It's now 9pm and I am feeling 7 shades of knackered but I am thankful.
I'm thankful that I have a fairly good knowledge of what to do when my babies get sick.
I'm thankful for the fact that we are members of St Johns Ambulance so I don't have a ruddy great bill on it's way.
I'm thankful that we live in a country where they even have ambulance services...and a town where the ambulance is quick and reliable (big thanks to Trevor for holding down the fort at our local subcentre)
I'm thankful for a public hospital system that, for all everyone complains about it, we have always gotten in fast when we actually NEED to.
And I'm thankful that Bear coped really well with the Geek being the one to do the breakfast routine this morning...just gotta hope that one doesn't turn around and bite me in the bum :D
When he gets sick he often gets a bit of a croupy cough but it's been a billion times better and far less often since he had his tonsils out 18 months ago.
So when he started coughing last night I wasn't too surprised that it sounded croupy...just a little surprised that he'd started coughing since he hadn't had so much as a sniffle throughout the day.
After a minute or so I started getting a little concerned as it was starting to sound like he was struggling to breathe so I asked the Geek to go and check on him since I still had Grub passed out on my lap.
The Geek fairly quickly hauled him out of bed and into the bathroom to get some steam happening...standard procedure in our house when dealing with a croupy cough and by the time they got there I could hear that he was REALLY struggling.
So I dumped poor Grub into the bed...thankfully he didn't wake up...and went in and arked the shower up. We decided that that wasn't going to be enough so I went digging for the nebulizer. I found it fairly quickly as I had a pretty good idea of where it was, and I even managed to find a bowl for it but for the life of me I couldn't find the mask..it's been some years since we used it. Then I dug out the ventolin nebules...18 months out of date
Okay so that wasn't going to work! Plan B? Umm...Do we need to call an ambulance?...I asked the Geek...Yeah maybe! If we are going to call an ambulance do we need to do it NOW???
YEP!
Okay this is not the actual ambulance that we got...I didn't have the presence of mind to take an actual picture of it at the time!
We decided that the Geek would go to the hospital with him as it would be easier than me taking Grub along as well but that really upset Monkey and of course that did NOT help his breathing. So we changed the plan and quickly stuffed some nappies and a change of clothes for bub into the nappy bag and I piled in with the baby.
When we got there we had to wait for the doctor, I was told that usually at that time of night there wasn't a line up but we picked a bad night and there were several people in front of us. However the nurses talked to him and he told them to give him a pulmicort neb which helped immensely. Coming from out of town though we had to stay in overnight.
We were moved to the ward and once Monkey was settled I was given a chair to sleep in with Grub...I didn't see much sleep happening but we settled down for the night and I eventually dozed off. The next time the nurse came in (a different nurse) she had a bit of a panic because she thought Grub was going to wriggle himself off me and land on his head on the floor so she put me in the empty bed in the room...PRAISE THE LORD. That would have been about 2am! I didn't look at the clock but that's when Monkey was due for his obs.
So I managed to get a few hours sleep but because Grub always gets up at around 5am, my body automatically woke up then even though he was still asleep.
It's now 9pm and I am feeling 7 shades of knackered but I am thankful.
I'm thankful that I have a fairly good knowledge of what to do when my babies get sick.
I'm thankful for the fact that we are members of St Johns Ambulance so I don't have a ruddy great bill on it's way.
I'm thankful that we live in a country where they even have ambulance services...and a town where the ambulance is quick and reliable (big thanks to Trevor for holding down the fort at our local subcentre)
I'm thankful for a public hospital system that, for all everyone complains about it, we have always gotten in fast when we actually NEED to.
And I'm thankful that Bear coped really well with the Geek being the one to do the breakfast routine this morning...just gotta hope that one doesn't turn around and bite me in the bum :D
Sunday, 30 October 2011
The Launch!
Having pretty much completed the website before our big day yesterday, and also having kept up with entries to our giveaway in a separate spreadsheet I started the day in a pretty relaxed state...After all, my day from hell had turned out pretty good hadn't it?
Our router had died on Friday...good timing I know! But the Geek had managed to get the local computer guy to meet us after the Show so we could buy another one and we had the wireless "dongle" from the shop which we had been using in the mean time so I wasn't really worried.
After snuggling with the kids for a bit and then making a cup of tea I settled in on my lap top to spam a few facebook walls and just let people know that they only had about 4 hours left to get their entries in and maybe rustle up a few more likers.
All good...until about 5 min after I sat down my internet dropped out. I couldn't work out what the problem was and with the Geek still in bed there wasn't much I could do about it do I went and hung the nappies and did a few other bits and pieces. When I came back in again my internet was working so I settled back in again. This time it lasted maybe half an hour, but it was moving REALLY slow so I still got almost nothing done.
*Sigh* Had to wait till the Geek got up so he could sort it out! As it happens, the Geek was up by 7am (fairly early for him on a Sunday) and got straight onto the job. It turns out that we didn't need a new router after all but instead our ISP had dropped off. Being with a smaller ISP...well do you think they were open at 7 oclock on a Sunday morning??? And to make matters worse our dongle was not only being slow but was also spending most of the time not getting a signal.
Anyway...in the mean time Bear gets up and he is like...well like a bear...with a sore head!
We are talking big...big, big, big meltdown!
He still wants to go to Gym so I think that is still the trigger but it certainly wouldn't have helped that we were out all day yesterday...or that it was a long weekend, they usually throw him too!
Meltdown pretty much went full on all morning, except for a slight reprieve when my mum arrived with chocolate biscuits.
So the Geek was madly chasing amnet around (once they opened) with this kid screaming his absolute nog off in the background!
In between all of this going on we also discovered that there were some entries into our giveaway that were awaiting moderation...so I hadn't put them on my spreadsheet! So now I had to go through all 176 entries and make sure they were all there and in the right order and that none had doubled up! All before we drew the prizes at 10am! WITH no internet!!! Grrrr
I was starting to panic now...my relaxed day had completely gone out the window!
Fortunately after 2 or 3 phone calls and much time on hold the Geek got the internet working again so we were able to do the give aways, only about 45 minutes late...with a kid screaming his absolute nog off in the background.
And because we hadn't had enough go wrong today, when we were adjusting the inventory after our sales at the show yesterday we discovered that there were a couple of the totals that were out and that the Geek had added 1 extra of each of those items to the website so now he had to go through the whole list and check the totals!
At least we now had internet!
I left him to it and after trying everything that I could think of to calm Bear down...because by now he had been screaming for over nearly 4 hours...I eventually got him to settle a bit by moving the trampoline away from the clothes line and letting him loose on it with the hose...
What can I say, he's an odd kid!!!
He has had minor crankies over the course of the afternoon but that was at least the end of the really big one.
The Geek, awesome man that he is, got everything sorted just in the nick of time and we launched our website at 12 noon WST today...as planned.
And what's more, it works...we've had orders!!!
And now all of the younger members of the zoo train are in bed (aside from Grub who is passed out on my lap ATM) and we are enjoying a well earned cup of decaf and some gorgeous dark chocolate and I'm sitting here thinking "Was it really all that bad?"
Damn straight it was!!!
Our router had died on Friday...good timing I know! But the Geek had managed to get the local computer guy to meet us after the Show so we could buy another one and we had the wireless "dongle" from the shop which we had been using in the mean time so I wasn't really worried.
After snuggling with the kids for a bit and then making a cup of tea I settled in on my lap top to spam a few facebook walls and just let people know that they only had about 4 hours left to get their entries in and maybe rustle up a few more likers.
All good...until about 5 min after I sat down my internet dropped out. I couldn't work out what the problem was and with the Geek still in bed there wasn't much I could do about it do I went and hung the nappies and did a few other bits and pieces. When I came back in again my internet was working so I settled back in again. This time it lasted maybe half an hour, but it was moving REALLY slow so I still got almost nothing done.
*Sigh* Had to wait till the Geek got up so he could sort it out! As it happens, the Geek was up by 7am (fairly early for him on a Sunday) and got straight onto the job. It turns out that we didn't need a new router after all but instead our ISP had dropped off. Being with a smaller ISP...well do you think they were open at 7 oclock on a Sunday morning??? And to make matters worse our dongle was not only being slow but was also spending most of the time not getting a signal.
Anyway...in the mean time Bear gets up and he is like...well like a bear...with a sore head!
We are talking big...big, big, big meltdown!
He still wants to go to Gym so I think that is still the trigger but it certainly wouldn't have helped that we were out all day yesterday...or that it was a long weekend, they usually throw him too!
Meltdown pretty much went full on all morning, except for a slight reprieve when my mum arrived with chocolate biscuits.
So the Geek was madly chasing amnet around (once they opened) with this kid screaming his absolute nog off in the background!
In between all of this going on we also discovered that there were some entries into our giveaway that were awaiting moderation...so I hadn't put them on my spreadsheet! So now I had to go through all 176 entries and make sure they were all there and in the right order and that none had doubled up! All before we drew the prizes at 10am! WITH no internet!!! Grrrr
I was starting to panic now...my relaxed day had completely gone out the window!
Fortunately after 2 or 3 phone calls and much time on hold the Geek got the internet working again so we were able to do the give aways, only about 45 minutes late...with a kid screaming his absolute nog off in the background.
And because we hadn't had enough go wrong today, when we were adjusting the inventory after our sales at the show yesterday we discovered that there were a couple of the totals that were out and that the Geek had added 1 extra of each of those items to the website so now he had to go through the whole list and check the totals!
At least we now had internet!
I left him to it and after trying everything that I could think of to calm Bear down...because by now he had been screaming for over nearly 4 hours...I eventually got him to settle a bit by moving the trampoline away from the clothes line and letting him loose on it with the hose...
What can I say, he's an odd kid!!!
He has had minor crankies over the course of the afternoon but that was at least the end of the really big one.
The Geek, awesome man that he is, got everything sorted just in the nick of time and we launched our website at 12 noon WST today...as planned.
And what's more, it works...we've had orders!!!
And now all of the younger members of the zoo train are in bed (aside from Grub who is passed out on my lap ATM) and we are enjoying a well earned cup of decaf and some gorgeous dark chocolate and I'm sitting here thinking "Was it really all that bad?"
Damn straight it was!!!
The Show!
Yesterday we took the shop to the Katanning Show.
I was expecting to have a hellish kind of day. I was expecting baby to have had it by lunch time and I wasn't really sure that we would have a huge amount of interest...after all at the Tambellup Show we ended up packing up early because of the lack of interest in the afternoon....Only yesterday we knew we weren't allowed to pack up until 6.30pm and since we had to leave at 7am to get set up in time that was a HUGE day for a 10 month old baby.
So we braced ourselves for our hellish day and set off in the morning. We were running about 15 min later than planned as Bear had gotten up shortly before we left and I thought that the inlaws would have a much more manageable day if I got most of the morning routine out of the way before we left but we still managed to get ourselves there and set up with 10 min to spare.
The morning was a bit slow. That was to be expected but we were in the pavilion with the entertainment so once that started up more people started coming in.
As we have found at our market stalls before Grandmothers are awesome. Many of them believe cloth is the way to go and think it's fantastic that we are doing something to bring cloth use back. They often take a magnet and some info and head off to convert their daughters/daughters in law...and even if they don't it's always encouraging to hear praise for your work.
Our first sale of the day was to a grandmother who wanted to take a little bit more than info and after that there were a few lulls but over all we were kept quite busy until close to 5pm. We didn't make a lot of sales really (one doesn't go to the local show to impulse buy nappies) but we gave away most of our itti bitti product guides and a tonne of magnets.
Grub helped out too by managing the cash tin!
One of the most encouraging things that was said to us all day was from a grandmother who said that she had looked for us at the last markets (which we missed for the Tambellup show) and another grandmother said that she had come in because she knew we were going to be there.
There were also HEAPS of comments on our business name! Hopefully we will soon be a household name :D
Grub coped incredibly well...incredibly well! I was so proud of him! God is good is all I can say because Grub didn't really get cranky at all until it was time to go home. When we put him in the car he really stacked it!
By around 5 pm I was starting to feel the effects of the long day...probably because I slowed down for a few minutes...and the last hour and a half dragged a bit again but all in all it was a fantastic day.
At least somebody had the presence of mind to park us right across the way from a lovely older couple who were sugar roasting peanuts and almonds, so while we may have gone home with a slightly lighter cargo I'm pretty sure I, myself, went home weighing about 3 tonne more...they were delicious!!!
I was expecting to have a hellish kind of day. I was expecting baby to have had it by lunch time and I wasn't really sure that we would have a huge amount of interest...after all at the Tambellup Show we ended up packing up early because of the lack of interest in the afternoon....Only yesterday we knew we weren't allowed to pack up until 6.30pm and since we had to leave at 7am to get set up in time that was a HUGE day for a 10 month old baby.
So we braced ourselves for our hellish day and set off in the morning. We were running about 15 min later than planned as Bear had gotten up shortly before we left and I thought that the inlaws would have a much more manageable day if I got most of the morning routine out of the way before we left but we still managed to get ourselves there and set up with 10 min to spare.
The morning was a bit slow. That was to be expected but we were in the pavilion with the entertainment so once that started up more people started coming in.
As we have found at our market stalls before Grandmothers are awesome. Many of them believe cloth is the way to go and think it's fantastic that we are doing something to bring cloth use back. They often take a magnet and some info and head off to convert their daughters/daughters in law...and even if they don't it's always encouraging to hear praise for your work.
Our first sale of the day was to a grandmother who wanted to take a little bit more than info and after that there were a few lulls but over all we were kept quite busy until close to 5pm. We didn't make a lot of sales really (one doesn't go to the local show to impulse buy nappies) but we gave away most of our itti bitti product guides and a tonne of magnets.
Grub helped out too by managing the cash tin!
One of the most encouraging things that was said to us all day was from a grandmother who said that she had looked for us at the last markets (which we missed for the Tambellup show) and another grandmother said that she had come in because she knew we were going to be there.
There were also HEAPS of comments on our business name! Hopefully we will soon be a household name :D
Grub coped incredibly well...incredibly well! I was so proud of him! God is good is all I can say because Grub didn't really get cranky at all until it was time to go home. When we put him in the car he really stacked it!
By around 5 pm I was starting to feel the effects of the long day...probably because I slowed down for a few minutes...and the last hour and a half dragged a bit again but all in all it was a fantastic day.
At least somebody had the presence of mind to park us right across the way from a lovely older couple who were sugar roasting peanuts and almonds, so while we may have gone home with a slightly lighter cargo I'm pretty sure I, myself, went home weighing about 3 tonne more...they were delicious!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)