My arm is broke

As well as fitting in the school excursion and Katie's birthday party, we had time to go the doctor in Deloraine, the x-ray place in Launceston and then to the LGH emergency department to fit a cast on Hallie's arm.

You know how I was saying after her fall on Wednesday I would take her to the doctor to get it checked, well I did today and it was broken. I felt like such a bad mother. It had happened on Wednesday and I was like, "she'll be right, give it a day and she'll be using it again". Little did I know she had actually broken it. I had noticed she was not using it at all - a bit like Woody off Toy Story 2.

The hospital said it was a nice clean break just under the elbow and there was no displacement so no need to manipulate it back into position or anything like that. I started taking photos in the waiting room - you know the blog needs action shots but people were giving me funny looks so I stopped.

The doctor (who was quite cute - am I allowed to say that?) put some gauze on it then a half plaster cast and then a bandage. It starts just above the elbow and then works down to the fingers. She is not allowed to get it wet so tonight in the bath at Tammy's she sat there with it up in the air until Tammy thought of the bright idea of resting it on a towel on the edge of the bath.

In about ten days I have to take her back to the orthopaedic clinic and they will take the cast off and re x-ray it to see how it is healing and then reapply either a halfcast or full cast. Tell you what Hallie has a high pain threshold. Takes it all in her stride.

When Simon rang from Hobart, he couldn't believe we were at the hospital. He is now at Mt Field ready for two nights out in the open snow with just a sleeping bag and food of course. I wonder how he will go.

The miracle of the day was that I only had to wait in emergency for 15 minutes. My record is 4 hours. Hopefully I will never break that record.

Happy 6th birthday Katie-Lynne

Today was Katie-Lynne's 6th birthday and she had invited Sarra and Hallie to her "pink" party. She had some friends from school and church and they were all in pink and Tammy had painstakingly made all the food pink too. I wonder what Katie's favourite colour is. She got lots of presents and had a lovely pink pig for a birthday cake. What a lovely birthday treat.

Happy Birthday Katie

Enjoying a well-earned milo break at the end of a busy day.

School excursion

Today was the last day of early learning for the term. It is a program run by schools which caters for 0-5 years. It is not a play group and is quite structured. In third term just the pre-kindergarten aged children go to prepare them for kinder next year - which of course will be Miss Hallie. It goes from 9-11 am. They start with time on the mat with a story and song. Miss M talks about the letter of the day (sounds like Sesame Street) and they have a rotation of activites, some morning tea, more activities and then finish on the mat.

For our last day today we went to Brickendon animal farm at Longford. All week I have been marvelling at the wonderful weather... well today was absolutely miserable. It rained and rained but we all decided to go - rain, hail or shine.

While we waited for the bus, the kids decided to play with some lego to keep them entertained. They all could hardly contain their excitement.



The first most exciting part of the day was the bus trip. Hallie and Oliver had never been on a bus so they had a blast. We had a lovely time chatting to Bob the bus driver and looking out the window... at the rain.


Once we got there, our guide Louise showed us around the property and we got to help her feed the animals - all 20 of us. First we fed the turkeys and chooks and ducks. Well Oliver decided to chase the turkeys like he does the seagulls but they aren't as placid as seagulls. Everyone roared with laughter watching him chase them around. I remember doing the same on my Pop's farm at Staverton out near Sheffield but they use to chase us back.


Next we fed the baby calf and horses, followed by this monstrosity of a pig. I think her name was somoething tame like Fleur which did not seem to fit her personality or her physique. It needed to be something like Houdini.


We then moved onto the goats. This one goat would not stop head butting Oliver. He seemed to be attracted to Oliver and made a beeline straight for him. Luckily he didn't have horns. Oliver was not at all perturbed until he head butted him right in the face and then he had enough and let out this long wail. Oliver was so funny the whole day. He was so at ease with the animals and jumped in every single mud puddle along the way. Don't forget it was teeming with rain the whole time we went around the farm feeding the animals.

After we had some lunch, we had a play in the activity paddock. There was a circuit of fun things to do like find the eggs in the hay - they weren't real eggs, paint a doghouse, gumboot throwing activity - just farm-type things which all the kids loved.

Here is a shot of Jenni Rixon, our teacher aide - she was avoiding the camera all day - gotcha Jenni.







This is Hallie and Oliver's teacher Jo McNeill giving Oliver a push on the tyre swing, shaped into a horse - very clever.

Finally Louise brought out a one day old baby lamb and bottle-fed it in front of the kids. They all went quiet as she knelt down and fed him. It was so cute. I'm sure they all wanted to take him home. On the bus trip back home Oliver fell asleep. We were all wet through and exhausted but it was worth it to see all the kids have such a wonderful day.

Busy Bee Thursdays

Thursdays are always so busy and today was no exception. After we dropped Sarra off at school Lilly and Hallie had a play. Not too rough because Hallie is still not able to use her arm and so it is off to the doctor tomorrow. Lilly and Hallie play well together but when you throw Oliver into the mix there are a few tears - all from Oliver of course who is not liking the idea of sharing - get used to it buddy.

In the afternoon we spent a little bit of time cleaning up the bedroom. As you can see it was hard to find the floor at one stage. Once we picked Sarra up from school we went into town so I could do an RPM class at the gym before basketball. I always do a double on Thursdays by going to the gym before basketball so then I can have the day off on Friday and save the petrol money of coming in from Westbury. That's my justification anyway. I think Lilly liked the "big gym" - that's the girls' name for it.



Once that finished we only had 15 mins to drop Lilly off home, get McDonalds for tea and head off to basketball. Do I have to tell you the score - allright we lost 22 to 94. The other team thought they were so good - Sonya asked one girl to stop fouling her and she replied, "it's not called fouling its called being good". I muttered "thankgoodness the YMCA has new front doors otherwise your head would not fit out." Maybe I should give her the Tornadoes number. Honestly what a laugh. The best response is not to let it get to you because its not like we are at the Olympics or anything - why waste your energy on such negativity.

Anyway after basketball we had to dash off to Weegeena for an Enrichment activity where Kit Porter was teaching us her famous mudcake. To see how this heavenly cake is made click here. (It will take you to our Deloraine Relief Society blog.) I ended up getting home at 9.45pm. I left Sarra and Oliver with Jess as she is staying with us for a few days but I had Hallie snoring away in the backseat.

Lilly's sleepover

Hallie has been pestering me ever since her and Lilly went to Oma's if Lilly could come to our house for a sleepover. So yesterday we picked Lilly up after lunch and brought her back out to Westbury for what I hoped would be an enjoyable stay for her. When we got home Oliver was asleep in the car so it gave the girls a good opportunity to have a play without Oliver trying to interrupt. For the rest of the afternoon they played dress-ups and then we went to get Sarra from school.

At Sarra's school I let the kids have a play which was uneventful until Hallie fell off the play equipment on her arm. She cried for a bit but today she is still not able to use her arm much. We'll see what the doctor says but she can still squeeze my finger a bit and lit her arm up near her head, albeit very gingerly.



After tea and baths, I read a story and then Sarra read her homereader to Lilly and Oliver. Hallie slept with me so I could keep an eye on her. Beacause Hallie's body doesn't make the hormone cortisol, which protects us from the generalised effects of illness and injury, I had to keep an eye on her so her body did not go into shock.

I have this list of things I need to do when her body goes into shock and I know what the symptoms are I need to be on the lookout for. Hallie's condition is called congenital adrenal hyperplasia or CAH. Ooh aren't I clever - I have created a link (are you impressed Lisa - I am always ringing Lisa to ask her questions about how to do things on the blog) if you want to find out more about it. There are two types of CAH, salt-losers and non-salt losers. Hallie is a salt loser.I will explain more about this and how it affects Hallie's daily routine in another post.



So that left Lilly in Hallie's bed and Sarra in the top bunk in her bed. Lilly and Sarra chatted until about 8.00pm and then all was blissful quiet.