Lightening Online

There are 7 more sleeps until school goes back!

Yes, I’m counting.

Mostly because Trailer Boy keeps asking when will it be a school day. Because he can’t wait to start school.

But also because my children are kind of driving me crazy!!!

And I think we’re all ready for school to go back.

And it makes me sad to think that a part of me is longing to “get rid of” my children, even if it is only for a for hours a day (the day certainly goes quickly enough!).

I’m the kind of mum who cries when her kids leave the nest to go to school.

But I’m also aware that there is no way I could ever homeschool my children.

I take my hat off to anyone who can.

I’m just not one of those people.

I hope wanting my kids to go back to school doesn’t make me a bad mum.

Cos I don’t wanna be a bad mum.

P.S. Yes, I counted right. School goes back on a Tuesday here. Someone seems to think we all need a day off to celebrate Australia’s “Australia-ness” or something like that (Monday is a public holiday for Australia Day).

It’s been a busy week here in the Lightening household. Our youngest started his school visits this week. The first week they go twice but only stay until recess time so there’s been lots of to-ing and fro-ing to town.

I have to admit that it’s been a rather emotional time for me. All of my life I’ve wanted to be a stay at home mum and I feel very blessed that I have had the opportunity to fulfill that dream. Having the youngest start school has really hit me. I’m not ready to be “child-less” just yet. I don’t have a career to look forward to returning to. I don’t have great aspirations for what I’m going to do with all my “free time”.

Of course, my children will still need me. There’ll be sick days and school closure days. Not to mention school holidays. And Farmboy keeps reminding me that in actual fact, the school day isn’t really all that long and they’ll be coming home again before I know it.

I had a doctor’s appointment on Monday while Trailer Boy was at school for his first visit and sitting in the waiting room, struck up a conversation with an older mother.

“I had no trouble with sending mine off to school”, she said to me. “Wait until they leave home, that’s much harder”, she told me.

My heart broke a little.

Leave home? I don’t even want to think about that.

It’s so true isn’t it that the moment a child is born, they begin the process of “leaving the nest”.

It starts off with them being a separate being from your body. Then they wean from needing you for every feed. Before you know it they are mobile and don’t rely on you so much for getting around. *sigh*

I guess it’s all about the circle of life, isn’t it?

Not that that makes it any easier.

So, I’m about to make the move from “mother of preschoolers” to “mother of school age children”.

No idea what the future holds but like most things in life, I guess I’ll adapt and move on. What other choice is there?

PS: I was going to include a photograph of Trailer Boy in his school clothes but I’m too lazy to edit out the school name that’s all over the uniform so you’ll just have to put up with a picture-less post this time. He did look rather cute though and was so excited about starting school. When they go happily, it does make the transition so much easier. My heart broke for the mother whose child was kicking and screaming and not wanting to stay at school.

Nurses deal with this stuff every day. To them it’s just routine. But what about for the parents who have never had a child go into surgery? Routine? I don’t think so.

The sights and sounds around me are so unfamiliar as we begin our small procession to the operating theatre. The nurses are discussing their night life while I follow silently being. Hoping that my baby will know I’m there even though he can’t see or hear me.

It strikes me as ironic that we have to wheel his bed past the kitchen. All these patients that have been fasting for hours, passing by the sounds and smells of the hospital kitchen as they head off to theatre. Maybe food is the last thing on their mind? But that chicken sure does smell good.

More questions. Questions asked over and over. It feels like a test. Will I get the answers right? I’m on automatic pilot so I’m not even sure what the answers are. But somehow I manage to know and say yes and no in what I hope are all the right places.

Are you going into theatre with him? I must have nodded because they’re handing me blue things and a white gown. The nurse kindly helps me into the slippers and the gown but hands me the hat.

“Is that alright?” I ask the nearby nurse. She laughs. “You’re not supposed to look good in them”, she says to me. “Good?” my mind tries to process through the fog. I don’t think I was worried about looking good. I’ve never done this before. What if I put the hat on wrong and cause a problem in the theatre? Who wants to find out their own stray hair killed their child? There’s no mirror, I can’t see if my hair is all covered. I say nothing in response to her. What can I say? Does she realise that none of this is a joke?

He is shivering uncontrollably. The nurse brings a heated blanket to put over him. He makes a comment that I should do this for him at home when he’s cold. The warm blanket seems to help ease the shivering.

The doctor looks strangely familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. Is that even possible? I’m not really sure what she’s saying but I follow her and my baby past the green line that prohibits non authorised people.

The theatre doesn’t really look like those on TV. It’s smaller. And crowded. I can’t get far enough in the door to allow the automatic doors to close. I’m scared to move for fear of being in the wrong place.

My baby might be 10 but he looks so little as they transfer him onto the operating table. Why won’t they let me near him? I want to ask them where I can go but my mouth is so dry that words seem impossible.

He doesn’t want a needle. His biggest fear right now is pain. My biggest fear goes far beyond the pain. But I don’t let him see that.

The doctor sends me around the other side of the table. That’s better. Now I can touch him. He can see me. And his little eyes are pleading with me not to make him go through this.

I can’t cry. I have to be strong. I can’t let him see how I really feel. Everything is happening so fast. The doctors are talking. I can’t take it all in. They try to put a mask over his face. He doesn’t like it. Says he can’t breathe.

The anaesthetist has a quiet and soothing voice as he asks me questions about Lleyton’s involvement in football. He’s trying to distract him. Get him to relax. My heart almost stops as I watch the colour drain from his face, leaving him pale and almost lifeless. His eyes begin to flutter shut and my heart cries out, “please don’t let his last words be ‘I don’t want a needle’”. Horror stories of people not coming out of an anaesthetic rush through my mind. I try to push them away, focusing on what my child needs right now.

Before I know it, a nurse has ushered me from the room. Just before I go, the doctor tells me that they’ll still need to give him a needle. I remember nodding. At least I think I did. Back over the green line, the nurse takes my protective garments and pushes a button inside the lift.

“Do you remember where to go?” she asks me. I have no idea, glad that she’s at least pushed a button so I’ll make it to the right floor. She begins to give me instructions but I can’t take them in. “I’ll ask someone if I get lost”, I manage to utter. She steps back and the doors close. When they open, I see and smell the kitchen. A familiar mix of sound and smells. I know I’ve been here before.

As I walk, nothing looks familiar. I keep walking and spot a section of the hospital undergoing renovations. Thank God for renovations. I remember seeing them when we were first taken to Lleyton’s room. My heart silently pleads, “please still be there”. As we left, I told Farmboy to go and get himself something to eat. Now, I desperately hope he hasn’t.

He’s still there and the tears come in a rush. Was it really only 6 hours earlier that we were thinking our trip was likely to be a waste? The signs were all there that the problem was resolving itself and we fully expected the specialist to tell us our child was fine. Instead, she’s saying surgery and most likely he’ll lose an important part of his anatomy.

Those 6 hours had been surreal. Lleyton wanted to put off the surgery until another day. I had to stay strong and positive for him. Now I can finally let the tears come. None of this seems real or fair.

Farmboy holds me as I sob, relieved that I can finally let go and not try to hold it all together.

It’ll be okay. It HAS to be.

We pray and we talk. Before long, the doctor is there with good news. Everything is still alive and functional. The relief is immense.

I want to go to him but they tell me to wait. That they’ll bring him back as soon as he wakes.

What they didn’t count on was his shivering. He has to stay in recovery until it stops. It takes a number of warmed blankets to get it under control.

He sees me as his bed is wheeled back into his room. The tears well up in his eyes. “It hurts”, he tells me. It’s obvious he’s been trying to be strong but all he wants is mum.

I find out later that he was asking for me but they told him he had to get warm first. When he woke up there was a grey thing on his finger. The first thing he did was pull it off. The nurse immediately put it back and told him he had to leave it on. His poor mind was confused. They weren’t supposed to operate on his finger.

Should I have followed my instinct and gone to him? Would they have even let me in? What are simply moments to them felt like a lifetime to us while we waited. A lifetime to him when all he wanted was his mum. A child should have their mum in moments like these.

He wasn’t supposed to stay in overnight. A simple “day surgery” operation. At 9pm the nurse decides that perhaps they’ll keep him in overnight. He isn’t interested in eating and is quite tense. The pain seems greater than expected but perhaps that’s his own level of coping. It’s always hard to tell in these circumstances.

They bring me a fold up bed but I hardly sleep. It’s comfortable enough but the sounds of the hospital and the awareness of my child in the same room perhaps needing me make sleep hard to come. I lie there in tears, trying to work out how we’re going to get through the 6 hour drive home. Who do I turn to for help? Our GP is new - I don’t know if I can call and talk to him. If our old GP was still here, that’s what I would have done. The specialist has said we’re fine to go home. There’s nothing more she can do.

I try a pharmacy along our way. The assistant plies me with questions about his surgery. Queries why I don’t think the pain relief I’m buying will be enough. Does she have any idea how far we have to travel? How uncomfortable he is? How hard it is to put your child through the trip because really, there isn’t another option? I’ve had very little sleep, been through a heap of stress and just want some help. Why is help so hard to find?

It is good to be home. Much more comfortable to be in our own beds and Lleyton is well on the road to recovery. Given the sensitive nature of the problem and how public this blog is (Lleyton and his mates sometimes read it at school), I need to be careful how much information I put here. I have blogged about this with more detail on another of my blogs. I can’t link to it here (or it defeats the purpose) but if you’re familiar with my other blogs, you should be able to find it.

I slept until 2pm yesterday and spent the rest of the day pretty much brain-dead. Today I’m still tired and just taking it easy in the hope my body will recover as quickly as possible. It hasn’t really come at the easiest of times in terms of my coping, given I’m trying to withdraw from AD meds. However, I seem to be coping okay, other than the extreme tiredness.

I sometimes joke about the children of blogging mother’s needing some kind of support group to recover from the trauma of growing up in a “public” domain.

But in all seriousness, I’m kind of worried about those in the Big Brother House who have children.

Like Terence. What is the go there? How would you like to be one of his teenage son’s watching dad bare all (for those not in Australia - he has been shown on TV showering naked), make suggestive moves on a pole AND run around with his bathers (? I think that’s what they were supposed to be) shoved so far up his crack that they really didn’t cover ANYTHING.

Or Rhianna. Perhaps her child (I think it’s a daughter but I’m not sure now) is too young to watch Big Brother. Let’s hope so. With the whole world watching her on screen romance unfold (including night-time shots where she sleeps next to the bloke in question).

It was bad enough for me as a preacher’s kid, dealing with stories being told from the pulpit (which my parents eventually figured out was a BAD idea).

But national television???

I don’t want to trivialise child abuse in any way but I can’t help but feel like this kind of public behaviour could indeed be construed as abusive in a way. Or at the very least give a very poor example of acceptable behaviour!!!

What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Am I over thinking this? Would you, as a parent, subject yourself to national scrutiny by going on a show like Big Brother? And if you did, is there a line here where this becomes no longer “innocent fun” but rather “inappropriate parenting behaviour”?

As always, I had a lovely Mother’s Day yesterday. The day started with a hot cup of tea in bed (Farmboy must have read my blog about HATING breakfast in bed) and my children coming in carrying pillowcases.

It was such a crack up. You see, we have this tradition in our home called “mum’s crazy wrapping” where I wrap at least 1 birthday present (usually the biggest one) in either a pillowcase, tablecloth or doona cover (if it’s REALLY big like Singstar Princesses dolls house was). I wanted to cut back on our paper wastage but was concerned that it would detract from the fun and mystery of presents. Then one day it occured to me that the whole “paper wrapping” was a tradition and perhaps we could change that tradition without having less fun.

So it was really special to have them all bring me a present in their pillow-case. It made me realise that we’ve succeeded in starting our own fun tradition that is kind to the environment. And honestly, sticking your hand inside a pillowcase to subtract a present is actually MORE fun that unwrapping paper!!!!

The rest of the day flew by. We went to church. Bought take away lunch on the way home. Then I slept in the afternoon, exhausted by the busy weekend we’d had up until then. Woke up just in time for a delicious tea of bbq’s steak and vegetables cooked by Farmboy.

I wanted to share with you some of the lovely things I was given yesterday. We are blessed with some wonderfully creative teachers in our children’s school and preschool.

This was the card and chocolates Trailer Boy brought home from Kindy (Preschool). What was amazing is that the chocolates made it all the way home without being eaten. The first thing he told me when I picked him up from the bus was that he had chocolates for me to share with him! Apparently I was a LOT luckier than some other mother’s - whose chocolates were missing by the time the card got to them.

This is the card Singstar Princess made me at school. Isn’t it beautiful?

And they made this at school as well. It’s a fridge magnet.

And this beautiful colouring as well!!!

Leighton’s class have been doing some work on Recycling. They even visited a Recycling Centre while they were away on camp. So it was quite fitting that they recycled some paper to make a homemade paper card (I remember making paper when I was in Grade 5 too!!!). But what is even more special about this card is that it has a seed impregnated into the paper. So when I’m finished with the card, I bury it in the garden and it grows!!!! How neat is that???

I have a paper making kit I bought on our honeymoon. I must get it out and make some paper with the kids. Maybe we could make some Christmas gifts with seeds like this one.

While on camp they also went to an Aboriginal Art Centre and he made me this. Have I mentioned how FANTASTIC his teacher is this year??? We feel very blessed that he has her.

Farmboy did a bit of last minute shopping during the week. So each child had something in their pillowcase other than what they’d made at school/kindy. He wasn’t taking any chances on a repeat of the Valentine’s Day “where’s the caramel ones” fiasco. Can you believe that I haven’t cracked this OPEN yet??? How restrained is that????

A packet of my favourite biscuits which Farmboy has assured me he will cook for me (and he will - he’s always been kind handy with a packet mix - although his “cook from scratch” skills have developed quite nicely since my breakdown too!!!).

There are always tears when Subway doesn’t have white choc chip and macadamia nut biscuits left. (Okay, maybe not tears but I do feel sad ). I LOVE white choc chip and macadamia cookies!!!!

I actually don’t mind practical gifts but Farmboy was really quite clever with this one. These are a couple of knives to go in our NEW CARAVAN (when it arrives). I LOVE Wiltshire knives and these will be so practical for our trip away. And also keep fingers safe as they’ll need to be kept in the same drawer as our other utensils.

So I had a lovely day and felt very blessed and loved!!!! I hope all the Mother’s out there also had a wonderful day.

When you’re pregnant with your first child, the most difficult thing you think you have coming in your future is giving birth. At least that’s what I thought. As things turned out, the birth was the EASY bit.

In case you’re feeling a tad jealous about the fact that my labor was so short. Let me fill you in a bit on what happened after Leighton arrived in the world. I spent less than an hour in the delivery room before he was born but around 3 hours after. It took over an hour for the placenta to deliver and then quite some time for them to stitch me up (even though I only needed 6 stitches). Then when I went back to my room for a shower, I fainted in the shower. Thankfully my DH was there to catch me as there wasn’t a nurse in sight.

Leighton was extremely sleepy for several days after he was born and was very difficult to feed. He had jaundice as well. I cried non-stop for most of the time I was in hospital. I couldn’t sleep. The midwife was a total bully. At times they wouldn’t even allow my DH to come and visit me. I would be crying in my room because he hadn’t come back and he would be waiting in the waiting room because the midwife would tell him I was sleeping (even though I wasn’t).

Let’s just say it wasn’t the easiest beginning to motherhood that one could have. What made it even harder was that the midwife on duty most of the time I was in hospital treated me like an incompetent idiot and really knocked my confidence.

I was sure if we could just go home I would get some sleep (in my own bed with DH by my side) and Leighton would settle down and stop screaming his head off all day.

I. WAS. RIGHT.

But sadly I didn’t have the confidence to push my own opinion and so I stayed in hospital several days longer than I wanted to. My DH and I even cornered the doctor on his way out of the hospital one day to ask if there was a medical reason I needed to be in hospital. He couldn’t see any reason why but being a young and inexperienced doctor, he wasn’t prepared to make waves.

The minute we walked into the back door of our home, Leighton settled down. No longer a screaming wreck, he became a happy and contented baby.

Unfortunately we had another little drama a few days later when I got very sick from retained placenta. I really thought I was going to die I felt that bad. Thankfully the breastfeeding stimulated my body to pass the rest of the tissue but I guess with such a slow start, it didn’t pass it before infection set in.

This was followed by another bout of screaming from Leighton as he reacted badly to the antibiotics I was put on to clear up the infection.

It all sounds like a terrible start doesn’t it? But I was so in LOVE with my baby and in LOVE with being a mother that for the most part, it wasn’t too bad.

One particular incident that occured a few days after I got home from the hospital stands out in my mind as a pivotal moment in my life as a mother.

My own mum was staying with me for my first week home from hospital. In those days Farmboy was working ridiculous hours for his dad and there was very little flexibility in the expectations put upon him.

Leighton was sleeping in his pram in the dining room that joined onto our lounge. All of a sudden the most awful feeling came over me and for some reason I happened to say outloud “oh, I feel so awful all of a sudden”.

My mum went straight to the pram to find Leighton silently choking on some mucus.

I learnt a very valuable lesson that day. To listen to what my instincts were saying. I’m not saying I’m a perfect mother. That I don’t make mistakes. But learning to “listen to my heart” has been the most valuable lesson that I’ve learnt in my decade as a mother.