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I'm currently having serious trouble getting an IUD again and stumbled across this.

Emer and I woke about six and drifted back to sleep again, and then woke again about eight when Rob left. We played in bed for an hour, tickling and bouncing and counting toes and talking about breakfast ("A big bowl of elephants? Airplanes on toast?" "No, a raaaahhhhh!" "Giraffe?""No, a yion, raaahhhh!" "OH - LIONS for breakfast! yum!") and then I had m antibiotics and my painkillers and my coffee and we went to wake Linnea; Emer and I sat on Emer's bed and hid under a red blanket until Linnea was overcome by curiosity at the giggling.

I stripped Linnea's bed and stuck the bits in the washing machine, and gave them breakfast - muesli for Linnea and noodles for Emer, no idea why but there you go, she did try to eat them crunchy but opted for soaking them after all. The dishwasher is loaded and going. The children are washed around the edges.

It has been a peaceful, friendly morning. And now I'm going to spoil it all by saying something stupid like "Let's go out."

But we do need to buy them sandals - we have sandals a size too small and a size too large for both of them - so that might help. Both children like the wrong-size ones enough to insist that they fit :(

Back to the dentist, more antibiotics, I bet. I wonder how often "several times" is - that's how often this has to happen before they TAKE THE DAMN THING OUT.

Sleeping a lot, feel like someone hit me with a hammer, night sweats, massive thirst and fluid output - must be a virus.

Dreaming I had fleas and smoked just over ten cigarettes was odd.

I think I'm all better now, but may need more rest. The clue is that I am bored rigid with being in bed and have been doing minuscule amounts of housework until I felt dizzy.

I'm ill. Hopefully it will, haha, pass soon.

Every bout of stomach trouble makes me hate that damned obstetrician more.

Today I have mostly been feeling ill and really, really tired. Rob and I swapped out about 6 am and I went to sleep and he dealt with Emer, who is also ill and really, really tired. I am staving off a painful sinus infection, I think, and this close to succumbing and buying a Neti pot.

I want to book train tickets but don't trust myself not to be really stupid while this ill.

And both children need their feet remeasured. Again. Maybe tomorrow.

Today I found it almost impossible to get up, so was late to a GP appointment (the receptionist was snotty when she said "You're fifteen minutes late," so I said "Does the fact that she's always twenty minutes late mean I can still see her, then?" and the receptionist said "she's never late, patients make her late." Er. When I got to the GP she was *lovely* because she always, always is).

After that we went to see Alison and family; Linnea was adamant that they lived in a house with a red door, where there was clearly no-one home, but eventually I phoned and found that they lived next door in the house with the purple door, where there were loads of people home and they were all apparently pleased to see us. It was nice to see the place Linnea has spent so much time, at last. She clearly knew where everything was, which was kind of funny, and I had to be given a guided tour. It's very much my kind of house.

I left Linnea there with the huge double buggy while I brought Emer with me on the bus in the sling to the hospital (well, a sort of auxilliary hospital outbuilding thing, actually) to see - guess what - the psychologist I was referred to yeeeeeeears ago for my PTSD! Short version is she's lovely, she likes my sling, and it's going to be hard, miserable work and very useful indeed - I suspect it might even go quite quickly. Deal with the panic and anxiety first, and that alone should make my memory a bit better, so that'll be good.

Back to collect Linnea and hang around for hours watching one of the children playing Donkey Kong, an incomprehensible game. Then there was a bongo-drumming game I didn't understand. Then Rob came and collected us and we went home and ate and watched tv and put the children to bed and sorted the hall and now I think Rob is replacing the wet, pooey bedding on our bed (a waterproof changing mat is basically a wide, flat funnel when the designated grownup is sleepy) and soon I will go to sleep.

I have taken my last antibiotic and my chest sounds fairly ok. Not clear, but ok.

Approx 10 am, phone rings. Friend H with whom we have tentative plans assuming she's at home and not at work today. I say "You are at home - I'll call you back within an hour."
( Leaving the house )
( Catching the train )
We got off the train ok and I went to buy my ticket (our local station has a ticket office only open during rush hour at bank holiday weekends when there's an R in the month, or something). Linnea handed it to the man at the gate, who was delighted above and beyond the call of duty, and we went to get money. Then we went ot the cafe, where Linnea was overwhelmed by shyness and couldn't order her lunch, so I did it for her.

By now it was 12:55. We found a table and sat down with water and tea and waited for the nice lady to bring us our lunch. And in walked H with her daughter F.

The rest of the afternoon - at least, until 15:30 or so - was what you'd expect from two toddlers, two mums, one babe in arms, a cafe, and a bookshop. We bought one book because Linnea chose it by starting to take the stickers out of the back. I asserted myself at lunchtime and didn't allow F to lick Linnea's cutlery or plate, etc. H got to tell me her news in accelerated staccato format, which was, er, interesting, and nobody ended up dead. A success, therefore.

Then H went to a toyshop and Linnea and I headed home, with Baby Emer (Linnea argued the point, but I won). I put Emer in the hugabub and Linnea in the buggy, for a bit; I swapped them for a bit, but then Emer needed a feed, so I took her out and spent ten minutes arguing Linnea into the buggy. Eventually I was able to say "There's our bus, but we can't get on it because you're not in the buggy," and she got in. So I got on the bus holding Emer in one hand, with her latched on, and pushing the buggy with the other. I am not altogether sure how I paid the fare but I did. Then I managed to park the buggy and sit down and finished Emer's feed and put her in the hugabub and got us all off the bus and took her out again and fed her again while pushing the buggy and walking home.

When we reached the door Linnea refused to get out of the buggy. I can't remember how I dealt with that.

Then I changed Emer's nappy twice in quick succession, parked Linnea in front of the TV, put a chicken in the oven to roast, fed Emer, folded up the ring sling (I'd hung it to dry this morning), and eventually, after much faffing, got Emer in the sling. She threw up on it. Oh well; we washed it last night, we can wash it tonight.

The days are just packed.

While I was in hospital, I had to make sure to eat no dairy products and no soya. This is because I have an intolerance to these foods which manifests as a really upset stomach, and I'd just had gastroenteritis followed by abdominal surgery. Not upsetting my innards further seemed only sensible.

I was in recovery over the official lunch period, so I first encountered a problem when I went up to the ward and they said they'd bring me something to eat because I'd missed it. I explained; they said "Did you tell anyone?"

Yes, I told everyone before I arrived in to hospital. "No, did you tell anyone up here?"

No, I just got here. It's in my notes. "You'll have to see the dietician."

Fine.

Meanwhile, they found me some cream crackers and some bourbon creams and a cup of black tea. Luckily I remembered these problems from when I was in with Linnea when she stopped breathing at 11 weeks, and from when I was in for perineal repair when Linnea was 8 months, so we had already planned for my mother to bring me food later.

The dietician arrived with the week's menus. She and I looked at them. She didn't know what was in any of the dishes. She didn't think the kitchen could produce dairy-free versions of most things, either. So, based on what I had already eaten in the hospital canteen when I was in for antenatal appointments around lunchtime, I told her which dishes did and did not make me ill.

That's right, the patient who was out of post-op recovery less than two hours told the dietician which hospital meals did and did not contain dairy.

So based on that we chose a menu. She offered to have something special and light cooked for me that evening, since I had just had surgery and most of the women would eat something light the day of surgery. She asked me for suggestions. "Pasta in a tomato-based sauce?" I couldn't see how that could be difficult.

Rob and my mother brought me fruit, biscuits, and cereal bars. And a carton of rice milk.

That night I got a miniscule portion of overcooked pasta in some kind of goo. It strongly resembled the toddler ready-meals one can buy to microwave, in fact - the ones Linnea rejected from age 16 months on, which was fine since we mainly got them for travelling when she was 15 months.

Breakfast the following morning, a nice junior midwife spent ages trying to find out what was in the cereals. They arrive on the ward decanted into unlabelled boxes, you see, and she couldn't find anyone who knew where the boxes were to read the ingredients from. She also couldn't remember the list of thigns I told her to look for - whey, casein, soya, soy flour, skim milk powder, milk, butter, yoghurt, cream, cheese, etc. She settled for bran flakes in the end, ebcause they were 100% something or other. I had my own rice milk on them. At least it was food.

Lunch was either nasty dry fish without sauce (a block of fish, some potatoes, and some kind of veg) or salty pork ghoulish. Dinner was, er, the other one of those.

Next day I still couldn't get out of bed to eat, due to a killer headache, but the nurse or midwife or whoever it was didn't believe me, so I had to wait until Rob got there to get my breakfast. He brought me muesli from home. Fab. Lunch was a baked potato so vile that Linnea refused to eat it, even though she was thrilled by the idea of eating in hospital. Dinner was more dry, nasty fish, with potatoes and veg.

Reader, I had that same fish three times. For all I know it was vat-grown and as they hacked off a lump it grew back. It was served with horrible new potatoes (really, they did something to new potatoes to make them really unpleasant) and very very boiled veg.

I ate. I know that food is necessary to recover from having holes hacked in one. I ate everything that I could choke down. The only meals I didn't eat all of were the baked potato and the final lunch, which was yet more blasted fish and since I was going home in 30 minutes I decided to skip it in favour of eating almost anything else.

Next time I shall go in to hospital with a little recipe book, or possibly a camp stove.

Still, last time I was in hospital to have a baby the food was worse.

"Literally" still does not really mean "figuratively".

It worries me that teachers of children do not see the irony in the statement "I can't stand judgemental people," or, worse, "judging people is just wrong." (Tom Lehrer!)

It worries me more when teachers of English can't spell "discreet" or "discrete".

But not very much, because I have cake.

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A friend came and cleaned my house this week. The kitchen is clean. She also took me to the supermarket and I got a new mop to replace the one someone left in the garden for the snails. Now the kitchen floor can be clean again. And she was lovely, too, and played Scrabble with us on Thursday evening. We like Scrabble.

My old online Scrabble place now has a fee for what she used to give for free, in my home town. I need to find a new free place.

Emer appears to be just over a growth spurt. She's eating just as much as she was a few days ago but is sicking it all back up again. She's also comfort nursing less. And possibly sleeping more but I haven't been keeping track.

I do not have oversupply this time! Seriously, only about two people reading this know what a blessing that is. Maybe three. I do not appear to have oversupply. I have small painful lumps but nothing like the enormous welts last time. I only leak during letdown, instead of constantly. I'm not painfully engorged unless it's been a while since the last feed. She only chokes at the very beginning of a feed.

Calloo, callay!

Rob's back hurts again. And he's got a book out of the library called "Willing Slaves", ISBN 000716372X which looks interesting. It's about the culture of overwork.

I had another go at his overtime spreadsheet today. He's gained a day's leave since we last played with it. And he has more overtime coming on Wednesday.

The dining room carpet has to come up. I'm thinking cork tiles, the kind that snap into each other tongue and groove style, and have a tough vinyl coating. They'll be easy to lay ourselves, easy to sweep or wipe clean, cheaper than decent laminate flooring, and when we drop stuffon it it won't break. Also, there's cork tiling in mum's house on Aran and I'm fond of it.