It's been a while since I posted about the kids and the family.
Everything is so hectic at the moment we never seem to get a chance to sit down and relax. As I type this, whilst taking a couple of minutes away from building a new phone system - I can hear the kids banging about upstairs - just having got back from an hour out at Scout, a local Coffee shop that has loads of toys and a play area for the kids. I am glad they are getting out and about, but its sad and also very frustrating that whenever Buffy does get the kids wrapped up to go out and get out of the house, there is very often no one else there.....
They go to playgroup at a local Community Centre and have the place to themselves.
They go to Family place and use the family playroom there but most of the time it's just them.
I know it gets Buffy down - she wants the kids to be happy nd have fun, but also she needs to see other adult humans! But because of Covid and the long cold winter and the fact that a lot of other parents have their kids in full-time daycare or get free babysitting from the Grandparents 4511 days per week, they just aren't about. We really need to get this winter and Covid out of the way to get back to being satisfied. We aren't looking for joyous happiness, just the feeling of satisfaction to replace the depression and constant tiredness.
Winter may be coming to a close, but that doesn't mean the snow is going away anytime soon. All the
talk on the radio is about this being the 3rd most snow EVER in Winnipeg, being beaten by 1919 and 1955 only. If you want to know how much snow we have take a look at our front and back yards....
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| Six-foot high snowbanks and the snow on the lower roof is covering the windows above |
In summer it looks like this....(Minus the mouldy mattress, I have no idea why that's there!
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| a small pile of white shit |
Restrictions ARE being lifted in Manitoba soon and the winter is slowly drawing to a close, so hopefully - HOPEFULLY - real adults will begin to emerge once again. At least once winter is done, there will be parks to take the kids to and there are always people there!
The kids are doing amazing right now - Hannah is being very cautious about dogs and has told us on multiple occasions that she likes dogs, and wants a puppy dog, but doesn't want to be in a room or be left alone with ANY dogs right now. So we are taking it easy with her and when she is ready, we will see if she wants to be in eth same room as Cuddy - the softest dog in the world. But it's not only her, it's also Buffy and Me too. I don't trust ANY dog no around my kids now and at the moment I don't know if I ever will.
We are having ongoing counselling sessions to deal with what happened on that night and are far from ready to just forget about it.
There is the old saying about falling off a horse, that you should get straight back on. I DO agree with that. But if you were playing nicely with the horse and the horse suddenly turned into a monster and tried to bite your face off, scarring you for life and causing unknown future trauma to you and your family, I would shoot the horse and keep my kids away from every horse, pony, donkey and ass in existence!
So please, can I remind everyone over here in Canada- If you have a dog and we come to your house or Cabin with the kids - Please put the dogs somewhere out of the way while we visit. We will tell you when we are ready to be around dogs again. If you don't want to lock the dogs away, then that's your right and we won't complain, but we WILL turn around and go somewhere else. It's not a problem. We are planning on how we are going to try and help her along with this, but it will be at her pace as well as ours.
Anyway, it's been a busy few weeks. Our Mexican Holiday, which we hoped to take was cancelled because of Covid restrictions, but we did manage a couple of days away to Gimli, just an hour north of Winnipeg. We booked a fabulous lakeside (frozen lake this time of year) Airbnb, with 3 bedrooms - one with funky lights that Hannah loved, a treehouse with a cool ladder for Hannah to climb and a hot tub for us big kids to play in when the little kids were trying to sleep!
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| Hannahs Funky bedroom! |
I love all these photos so much I couldn't pick just one to post - Hannah and Buffy in the morning sunshine.
Hannah climbing the treehouse ladder - It was minus 23c
Coming back to the city was nice after a couple of days away - Peace, quiet (yeah really? With these two kids?) and back to what is our new normal - Trips to the hospital every couple of weeks, with Hannah for the foreseeable future, to check on her injury and start Occupational Therapy - That is basically looking at the injury, doing physio - massage, movement and stretching to try to get some sort of normal mouth shape and movement back and I suspect that a lot of the therapy is to help Hannah and us come to terms with what happened, get past it and get back to normal as much as we can. This includes how to deal with other kids (and adults) looking at and maybe treating Hannah differently. There are even camps for kids with 'Cranial Differences', which when you think about it is pretty cool.
It would be great for Hannah to find something good from all this, like meeting and making new friends! Hannah has already had one instance of kids looking at her funnily, although it was in a public setting. She decided that she would like to tell them what happened, but didn't know what to say - O.T. is also able to help with that - even doing school visits on behalf of the kids, to help them tell their story.
The places that Hammah normally goes to have been brilliant - especially at daycare. We have Hannah in a lovely little daycare run by our friend Kristina. Kristina has been brilliant all through Covid and continued to be great with Hannah. She reached out to us and asked to let the other parents know what had happened, so they could prepare their own kids. Because she did this prep, Hannah has had no issues at all at daycare and loves it as much as she ever did. We are so happy she has somewhere fun and safe to go to when we are working - even though it is just for 2 days a week. Hannah will no doubt miss it there when she starts nursery later this year, but we hope that Oliver can start when Hannah leaves. Ollie will love it!
Hannah also asked me a couple of nights ago to take a photo of where she was bitten. She was brushing her teeth at the time and wanted to see it up close. I took this photo...
Hannah looked and asked - 'So where did Loa bite me'. I am not sure what she meant by that - whether or not she ignored or couldn't see the injury. But she continued to smile as she is smiling in the photo. I had a little cry afterwards. I just wish it would all go away - But it will not. We will get through it though because this little crazypants is strong enough for us all.
I had my first attempt at massaging her injury today and to be honest, I teared up a little afterwards. The feeling of the scar was a surprise to me - it is hard and dense almost like feeling the end of your nose - that gristly meaty feeling. I tried to think exactly what massaging is trying to achieve and the closets I could think was this....
When Blutack gets old and isn't used in ages it goes hard. The way to soften it again is to pull it apart again and again manipulating and tearing the fibres, pushing them back together again and again until the blutack is soft and pliable. Well that's what we are doing, but it's going to take months and months of soft steady massage and stretching of Hannah's face and (remaining) lips. Her cheek and lip do not feel like what a 3-year-olds unblemished cheek feels like. It felt like the massage would be hurting and I can't imagine how much she must have been in pain in the last few weeks. Apparently, it will start to look worse before it looks better - the fibres of the scar build up to repair the injury and only after 3 or 4 months do they soften and dissipate a little. We are helping it along by carrying out 2 or 3 daily massages. But it will be summer at least before we see any real improvement. Then we have to wait till next year to see what we do next in terms of surgeries.
Anyway, how about Oliver I hear you ask?!
He is just awesome - He is running around now and he and Hannah are much more able to play together. His words are getting better every day and he is so close to real talking now. If you say 'Dinosaur' to him he 'rrooooaarss' back every time! He is full of energy and it takes all of our energy to keep an eye on him. He loves to throw himself off the sofa or likes to do flips and somersaults (under my guidance) just like Hannah does! He is a cheeky little scamp and he knows it - Giggling his little head off when he can get away with anything - Like yesterday, when he was supposed to be putting garbage in the bin, which he is really good at - But then he found the remains of the bolognese dinner in the bin and started to eat it, with his hands!
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| His new 'Olliegator' t-shirt |
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| Playing with Hanny |
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| Just taking a drink of milk - one sock on - in his doggy chair! |
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| Playing with Adam! |
One of Hannah's favourite things these last few weeks is the Chamois car wash. She loves watching the cars through the window, getting covered in rainbow soap and then getting sprayed clean. She likes it so much we built her own little car wash on eth coffee table at home!!
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