Recuperating

Its been 2 months since my hip replacement surgery and so far things are going well. Its great to be able to walk up the stairs normally,without having to hang onto the banister and pull yourself up.  Physio is pleased with my progress and have lots of rehab exercises to do everyday and its great to be out everyday for a walk, with no limp. Be a while before totally pain free as still healing and body adjusting to new improved posture, my knee caused the most issues but everything I have read this seems to be very common problem and time and physio should sort it all out. Oh and Max and crutches is interesting, he spent the first week being terrified of them, then decided that maybe they were good to pounce on, not helpful but luckily only lasted a couple of days, then he decided they were best ignored! The staff at the hospital were wonderful, can't fault them, made the 4 day stay easy to deal with, though was glad to come home. No allergic reactions to any meds, yay, though was rather sick and ended up on anti sickness tablets for the first week, after that I was taking just paracetamol, which I am ok with and by week 3 didn't need anything. I am amazed at how well my body has recovered from this surgery so far, fingers crossed it carries on doing so, the only downside was finding out last week my left hip doesn't look that good and they reckon 4 to 5 years and that will need replacing too. Though at the moment it is only giving the odd twinge, which isn't bad considering all the extra work its been having to do over the last couple of months.

Now hubby had the first two weeks to care for everyone, what he wasn't expecting to do was end up cake making and decorating with L. She overheard us chatting about some of the ideas I had for different project work, one was making a sarcophagus, now not the normal cardboard box ones I had seen but a cake one. That was it, Dad was not going to get any peace until this had happened, I would say at this point he looked rather shocked and really not sure what he had been talked into! Anyway of to the shops they went to find some cake decorating bits and home to bake an egg free cake. A few questions and then all I could here was lots of giggles and chatter from the kitchen, if I say both hubby and L was pleased with the finish cake, that is an understatement and I have discovered after 22 years of marriage my husband had a hidden talent!

Slowly working on L's jumper, its called Rosebud, the body is knitted in a round and the split for the armhole shaping and neck, its a lovely pattern to knit, using a pale blue cotton yarn.

Have spent a lot of the first two weeks recuperating and binge watching way too many box sets and reading lots, then decided to get out this little embroidery to work on, I usually do cross stitch but loving the fun of a variety of stitches, might have to do some more.

Oh and the highlight of November so far was L had another food challenge, this time the garden pea, she isn't impressed with taste of them but managed to eat her way through 80g of them during our morning stay at the hospital. She started of with 1 pea, then 4 peas, slowly building up the amount she had in each portion, it does mean that she needs to keep eating them at least twice a week. Otherwise research has shown that she is at risk of becoming allergic to them again, something about the body recognising the protein but not reacting to it in the right way.

August

Well its been a while since I have posted and we have been busy, another round of hospital appointments, I'm now on the waiting list for a hip replacement and alternating between a yay I will get my life back and oh no help!!! L has been back to see her allergy consultant and after the successful introduction to peanuts, feeding her peanut butter now feels normal, it took a couple of weeks to stop watching for a reaction I can tell you! Anyway skin prick tests look good for nuts, have had blood tests, if they come back negative we can go for a nut food challenge too, if she passes that, oh wow life will really change for her and us, well around food anyway. Editing to add I now have a surgery date the 12th September, only have 12 days notice,pre op on Monday, so will be a while before I blog again.

L and I are working our way through our planned summer reading, we bought a mixture of books for her birthday, so plenty to choose from. She is loving The Wombles, think we will be reading the rest of the series, she adores how they tidy up everyone's rubbish and reuses it. Giggled through the first of the Worst Witch Series, goes without saying she loved the next couple of secret seven. We've also read the first of the Harry Potter books, she's been desperate to add these to her bedtime story pile. I say bedtime but we read not only at bedtime  but throughout the day to, depending on what we are doing.

I am determined to work through the pile of books by my bed and those queued on my kindle before I have surgery. Ended up reading the Elly Griffiths books back to back, as there was a twist in the plot that meant I just had to read the next one straight away, can't wait for the next one in the series to come out next year. Also reading Sapiens, well worth a read, its well written and informative, without being too heavy, loving the comparisons to modern day tribes, the various theories on how myths,legend and religion started.

Max is doing well, has now been neutered and is enjoying exploring the garden, he has yet to attempt to leave the garden, much to the relief of his youngest owner. Will add that the kitten didn't listen to the vet when we picked him up after his op. Keep the lampshade collar on for at least 24 hours, by the time we made the short journey home in the car, he had got one paw through and stuck, unhooked paw but 15 minutes later he had it of. As to the bit where they said he would be very sleepy for the rest of the day, oh boy he was the complete opposite, he was hyper, finally crashed at midnight and woke at 5am still hyper, lunch time he finally slept and woke back to normal!

L is enjoying the sassafras zoology, we had chapter on a Canadian farm, had fun creating our own small world farm.

We then had friends come and visit and they had an amazing time creating different bases for all the animals to live in.

We have also spent time looking at ancient Sumer and the use of cuneiform and trying to make our own clay tablets, writing on paper is a lot easier!

Now along with the hip issue, I also managed to compress a nerve in my wrist, resulting in painful wrist and pins and needles/numbness in little finger and ring finger. Physio has helped but he wants me to rest, as in lay of the knitting for a while, to let everything settle down. So have been busy working through my fabric stash, made two geranium tops,one for L and one for a friend's granddaughter.

Fell in love with Nanoo bibiana skirt, L wants another one in a large pink gingham print I have.

Wisley

We finely made to Wisley, we had a lovely time, that lovely I want to go again. M had my camera and she had a lovely time taking photos, I was on crutches, easiest way for me to manage hip pain and walk, so M became our photographer for the day. I do love coming home and loading up the photos she has taken, as you really get to see what she likes. 

The fruit gardens are amazing, I do love a walkway with the fruit trees, trained over it in an arch, I dream of having a garden big enough to do something similar in, a girls got to have her dreams.

The girls loved the herb gardens, so many different varieties to look at and smell, that moment where you realise you never knew there were so many different varieties of mint and sage!

The glasses houses had an amazing array of cacti.

The stunning bird of paradise in flower.

Finished L's top, she is really pleased with it, the cotton yarn was so lovely to knit with, hoping it washes and wears well, as I've not used this brand of yarn before.

We have read the first part of Sassafras Zoology and have spent time reading and learning about lions and as our Atlas of Animal Adventures had a lovely two page spread on the wildebeest, in Kenya, we added them into our animal studies.  We've watched a variety of you tube videos on the wildebeest migration, lions and cheetahs and some lovely videos of the Oloip Maasi dancers, I've put all the links at the bottom of this post as there are a rather a lot! Art we've had the chalk pastels out to draw some lions, while listening to Putumayo Kids African Playground

We had looked at the beaded necklaces of the Pokot people and used paper plates to sort of recreate them.

Savanna sunset, using chalk pastels and then created the animals using stencils and black paint.

Max's new hobby is watching the washing machine, he sits there with his head going round and round as the machine spins, I am amazed he doesn't seem to get dizzy! When he's not watching the washing machine, he has discovered a lovely place in the sun to curl up in.

You have got to just love the kitten ability to just fall asleep where ever you are, even in mid play!

You Tube Links

 Wildebeest migration

 lions

Wild Kratts Hear the Big Cats Roar

Oloip Maasi Dancers  

  Maasi jumping dance 

Cheetah facts

Wild Kratts Meet Blur the Cheetah

Books Used

What on Earth? Life on the Grasslands

Usborne Discovery Big Cats

Destination Detectives Kenya a lovely book covering some of the places in Kenya, lots of photos

A Kite's Flight a kite's journey over Africa seeing some of the different landmarks

We All went on Safari

Animal Atlas

A World Full of Animal Stories used the story from Kenya

Sewing Again!

Max is turning out to be a bit of climber to say the least, he keeps trying to climb up the edge of the door, chairs and is regularly found to be doing kitten pull ups on the back of our wooden chairs, before precariously perching on the top of them! He has moments of being complete madness, chasing everything and anything and then crashing out. There are those moments when he crashes out, where you do a double take and like the new Mum with the baby you carefully watch to see if they are still breathing! Photo below is one of sleeping poses that made me wonder, wait and watch to see if he is still breathing, then wishing that I could be that relaxed :)

Think everyone is enjoying watching him play and the odd positions he ends up to sleep in, though could do without the pouncing on feet.

L and I read Oscar and The Cricket, a story all about pulling, pushing and moving, great way to introduce the idea of friction causing objects to slow, as well as the obvious movement. I do love the Oscar stories, they are a lovely way to introduce different science concepts, with plenty of scope to expand if required. So following on from the story, thought we would look at movement in a different way, this time marble painting, see how we can get the marble to move and can you get it to go in a circle, which we found rather tricky!

Now I have been looking at Sassafras Science, as you know L loves animals and stories and the first book in the series does both. But I have been trying to resist the temptation to buy more books, that was until I saw this post on Let Them Be Small, Sarah has done a nice video on how she uses it, which was too tempting. So now have the book, we have read and enjoyed the first chapter, I bought the colouring pages to go with it, so L colours as I read, really looking froward to how this could work. The story is about the adventures of Blaine and Tracey as they explore different habitats around the world and some of the animals you find there. I am hoping to bring in some geography and cultural studies of the countries we visit in the stories.

To go with the first chapter, as an intro to different habitats, animal kingdoms and food chains, we are reading our way through :-

Habitats and the Food Chain

What is the Animal Kingdom

Who Eats What

Now I finally have the sewing machine out again, haven't done any dressmaking since last year and I think that was back in the summer, probably due to GCSE studying and revising with M, sewing always takes more planning than picking up some knitting. We are making another Geranium Dress, I was planning on making the top for L but she has asked for the dress, just had enough fabric to make a dress. Not actually got round to sewing yet but fabric has been cut out, so heading in the right direction!

Finished sewing up the little bambino cardigan, the bambino wool is lovely, its an acrylic but feels more like a natural yarn, like a cotton or bamboo, really nice to knit with.

Went back to knitting some of L's top, just need to make the little sleeves, the stylecraft cotton yarn is great and she can't wait to wear it!

M has had 2 trial days at college trying out animal care, she is now enrolled, it is only one day week and can start now. The two trial days hubby was of so was able to take her, this week, we will have to drop her in town and for her to get the coach there and back, it makes for a very long day for her, leaving home at 7am and probably won't be home till 6pm due to were the college is situated. Hoping she manages the tiredness and travel, tiredness always makes her sensory processing worse, In her group we think there are only 8 and talking to staff and parents they are all on the autistic spectrum, M can't get over how quiet, calm and helpful the staff are compared to when she tried year 7 at secondary school which was a bit of a disaster to say the least! So this is big move for her and hoping she carries on loving it, least it has taken her mind somewhat of the looming GCSE maths exam, first one this Thursday!

After much decision making O has chosen which uni he wants to go to in September, he will be studying biological science, student finance forms have been filled in, now awaiting to see how much he will be awarded. Then it will be down to some budgeting and sorting out, it is an exciting time for him, least one thing, I know he is a capable cooking and can meal prep for a week, though not sure how much fridge space he will have in shared accommodation!

Now I didn't mention this the other week, for many reason, L had another food challenge booked, after the failing at first mouthful the other year on the soya one. Then developing more allergies after it, I've had very mixed feelings running up to this one to say the least. So Thursday saw us leaving home at 6.15am to be at Southampton hospital for 8am for a peanut challenge.....throughout the morning she kept doing the odd random hive or two and some itching but the nurses were sure this was just environmental reactions. Wish she hadn't done the odd hives, as I was dreading the 48 hours later when we had to try her again at home, so she started of with just a couple of peanuts to eat, she was fine, so 3 hours later she tried some peanut butter on celery, which she loved, she is now demanding more. Give me another couple of days of this and I might finally relax but it looks like L has one less allergy!