Jemsweb

First day back at university today. As is typical, biology was interesting but kind of waffly, and chemistry was a full-on barrage of incredibly complicated formulae which one’s brain struggled to comprehend. But having said that, I have got my results from Trimester 1 back and I can’t really complain. Say no more! Nice to be back on my scooter and the weather even cooperated with a perfect winter’s scooter-ridin’ day.

We took Archie back to have his dressing removed from his thumb today, and the good news is that it has all healed very well! He now just has to have a little bit of tape over it to give it stability, but he can have baths again and most importantly has his hand back. I think he was getting sick of being Stumpy.

I went to see Over the Hedge with the boys yesterday and thought it was excellent. That Steve Carell really is a comic genius.

As if poor A didn’t have enough to deal with, last night he had a ghastly tummy bug – heaps of vomiting, he went through 3 duvets, 2 blankets, 2 pillows, a mattress protector and 2 sheets. His last puke was at 1am and then we all slept in. He came and climbed into our bed and we were hit with a rather ripe smell… turned out his sleepsuit was bursting at the seams with diarrhea!! Yummy! So it was a morning bath for him, with one mummy washing and the other holding his bandaged arm out of the water. Then of course we realised that there was diarrhea all over his bandage, so it was back to the doctor for another re-bandaging.

Seems like maybe this family has a hex on it – can anyone lift the curse?

We have had a dramatic couple of days with young master Archie. Glyn was visiting from L.A., and about two hours before we were going to take him to the airport, I managed to crush Archie’s thumb in the bathroom door, on the hinge side. It was messy, the nail was cut right across at the base and lots of blood. So off we went to A&E – poor Arch screaming his head off of course. We got seen pretty fast – due to all the screaming I’m sure – and he was given some morphine which calmed him down A LOT. In fact I have never seen him so relaxed at the hospital! Turned out his thumbnail was pretty much severed at the base, and there was a deep laceration as well. So we were referred to Hutt Hospital to the Plastics unit. Arch had surgery yesterday to stitch up the laceration, and also they reattached the thumbnail just to act as a guide for the new nail that will grow. He came out with a huge bandage up past his elbow! He recovered well from the anesthetic and was a very brave little boy. We were very exhausted as we went home, picked up Harry (thanks Max, Sophie & Helen for your childminding help!) and went to put the boys to bed at 8pm or so. Imagine our shock when Jan was pulling off Archie’s sling to get his pyjamas on, and the WHOLE BANDAGE came right off his arm, and the thumbnail was sticking up in the air again. So it was a mad dash to drop off Harry at Helen’s again and go back to A&E! The doctors decided it was not worth the risk of another general anesthetic to reattach the thumbnail, so now it is quite likely his thumbnail might grow back a bit wonky. He is all securely bandaged now and coping well with being one-armed for a while.

Phew!