Rowan Tree and Red Thread

We're in Fitzgerald Park for lunch at the museum café before Rowan burns off energy at the playground. I haven't been here in ages, it seems, the recent weekends being more exercises in thinking up indoor diversions for the kids while avoiding the rain.

Today, however, is dry and very much February. Rowan is off school this coming week and her birthday falls neatly in the middle on Wednesday. I hope the weather holds good and we will go for picnic in Fota wildlife park as part of the celebrations.

The big party has to wait until Sunday, when we're having a birthday party for Rowan at Monkey Maze, one of the several soft-play centres in and around Cork. I forsee lots of sugar-high kids and three-storey slides. I've laid in a supply of paracetamol and ear plugs for the parents.

Rowan will be five years old on Wednesday. It seems like an age and just a beginning at the same time.

Oscar is walking. Unsteady, wobbly, prone to falling on his arse walking,
but walking nonetheless.

Coupled with his recent stair-climbing exploits expect A&E/ER liveblogging
soon, probably from a parent injured trying to rescue the intrepid Oscar
from one of his excursions into the unknown.

Winding down now after the Christmas celebrations and wondering how we'll get everything back in the car and down to Cork tomorrow.

It's been a primarily family Christmas with time spent mostly with my mother, brother and sister in law.

We also saw Angela and Fintan, friends of ours expecting their first child for December 29th. I was really glad to see them, as we've not been up to Dublin since they announced their news, and we were keen to catch up before the big day. They were looking great and in grand form, I'm glad to say. Best of luck to them for a hitch-free delivery just a few days overdue ('cos of free insurance cover for the year the child is born in; daft system).

There's a lot of it about. My brother and his wife are expecting too, friends from work has just had their first child, a cousin in London is a proud daddy now and a schoolmate of Rowan's is waiting for a new baby brother or sister on the 29th too. Far too much baby sniffing going on, obviously.

Our two shouldn't be expected any siblings however, especially if they keep up the odd hours and nocturnal wakings. Excellent contraceptive, utter fatigue.

Anyway, despite the decidedly procreative turn this post has taken, I'm happy to report a fun family Christmas. Now all we have to do is pack, drive to Cork and in a couple of days do it all over again with Sam's parents.

We're on the road again, making good time for Dublin, our destination for a few days family time over Christmas with my mother, brother and sister in law.

My wife organised our bug out this morning and managed admirably to squeeze four people and a mountain of stuff into our little car.

So I hope you all have a good holiday and best wishes to everyone for 2008. Maybe I'll get my aircar this year.

Oscar hasn't been sleeping well these last few nights. He's got a rotten cold and is badly stuffed up and is finding lying down to sleep difficult. So Sam and I are panda-eyed with lack of sleep from multiple interruptions during the night with a restless, snot-bedeviled baby.

At one point last night I headed downstairs to offer Sam a rest and switch over of minders. She was watching an old episode of ST:TNG as Oscar cruised about, wakeful and relatively cheerful. Sam said she was okay and I went back to bed.

In bed, however, I didn't get back to sleep straightaway. As I lay there an odd noise on the stairs caught my attention. I hear the banging sound of stair gate at the bottom of the stairs. Oscar likes to bang this gate, and we usually leave it pushed shut past the catch so it has enough range of movement to bang between catch and step.

Sleepy-headed me didn't join the dots immediately. A few moments later I heard footsteps on the stairs and foggily I thought it was Sam coming to bed. The television was still on however and the steps were very slow - step, pause, step, pause, step.

Click!

I dashed out of bed and found Oscar halfway up the stairs, methodically climbing up by means of the bannisters.

It's all go at our house sometimes.

I'm waiting in the car outside Rowan's school. At 1.30 I'll collect her and return to work for the hand off to Sam, who is currently holding a consultation hour in college for her students.

I'm listening to a mix of David Sylvian on the iPod and the gentle snores of boychild in the car-seat behind me. They combine surprisingly well.

Back at work I've fiddly stuff to do with a user who wants Blackberry service but doesn't want a Blackberry. He's got a shiny new Nokia e90 that's much nicer, it seems. More of a pain to get working too. Sigh.

Christmas hols are coming. Just keep focused on that.

Today the whole family are off to Rowan's school's winter fair. I'm under instructions not to spend all my cash buying back the lovely marzipan treats my wife made for the fair.

Bah.

It's a wet morning, but miraculously I'm walking to work in a break in the rain. Lucky I thought. But no.

Some SUV-driving bastard squeezing by traffic on an inside lane just threw gutter water over me. Cnut.

Damn it all. For the last couple of days I've had pains down my right side (no diodes though). It started off with a sharp pain in my heel whenever I put weight on the foot, but it's since moved around to include a pain in my hip, my right wrist and in my upper arm. It's all very reminiscent of pains I suffered before from a pinched nerve or somesuch in my back, brought on by some postural problem. Given that I've spent a lot of time in the wee small hours over the last couple of weeks trying to get one small person back to sleep by carrying him about and bouncing him in my arms I suspect that I've buggered me back carrying Oscar about.

Shit. I so could do without this.

Good news: my wife, Sam, has had her gallbladder removed successfully and is recovering nicely in South Infirmary. She should be home tomorrow.

Bad news: The ESB, the State-owned electricity supplier for the country, has blown another fuse and plunged a large portion of the city (or least the important bit: where I live) into stygian darkness.

This power cut business is becoming a habit. Usually it's a pain in the arse because I'm restarting servers and services at work. Tonight it's a double pain in the arse because my wife's in hospital and I've two kids to get off to bed. In the dark.

Fucking ESB muppets.

I'm back in bed after a brief attempt at facing the day. I seem to have
contracted some infection that's left me shivering and achy and unable to
string much of a sentence together.

Sammywol has taken the kids to the park there to rendezvous with
grandparents while I slink back to bed to see if I can sleep this off.

Bah.

A lazy(ish) Sunday. I managed to finish something for Alarums & Excursions
for yesterday's deadline, and rewarded myself with re-watching an episode of
Bones with a murder victim who was boiled and had all her bones removed. Why
did I re-watch it again?

Anyway, Sunday has been slow paced, with the most strenuous moment coming
when I had to fit two flat-pack shelves into the back of our Punto. It's not
a large car but that staple of Irish farming, baler twine, came to my rescue
as I tied down the hatchback boot door. Rowan, who was with me worried that
people would laugh at our car. It's a Punto, love. They're already laughing.


Shelves safely delivered home, we're now in the park enjoying the closing
light of the weekend.

Work tomorrow but I'm ignoring that for the moment.

Out in Fitzgerald Park today. Parking the car we all commented on the
ice-cream van near the gate. I bought ice cream for the three of us (Oscar
can get his second-hand).

As we sat on a park bench devouring our ninety-nines, Rowan turned to me and
said, "you are the best ice cream man, dada."

You heard it here first.

The usual role-playing session was cancelled this week as we were only just
back from Dublin and correctly guessed we would be too tired for the game
night on Thursday.

Instead we had alaimacerc over on Friday and Marie joined us for a while over
video Skype. We chatted for a while and got a virtual tour of Marie's new
living room, complete with introduction to her new cat, a rescue case called
Scampi.

Marie declined to play this week due to vertigo problems, but we have
succeeded in playing Ra via video cam and Skype. The technological assist
seems to break Marie's chokehold on victory however. Last week she came
third in the game of Ra, whereas face to face I can't remember the last time
she didn't win outright.

So she bowed out and we settled to a game of Carcassonne - Hunters &
Gatherers. I enjoy this game. It's got much of the tile laying fun of the
original Carcassonne, but I like the meadows scoring better than the farmers
in the original, and overall the theme appeals to me more.

Also I won, which don't recall ever managing with the original Carcassonne.

Final score was 120 to me, 108 to Sam and 101 to alaimacerc.

We're off to Dublin for the Easter break. The college I work for generously
gives us a week off for Easter (the students have a month's break), so we're
going to visit family and friends in Dublin.

It's a lovely start to the day, crisp and spring-bright sunlight, with only
wisps of cloud and contrails to break the wash of blue sky.

Holliers!

This morning Rowan picked out my shirt for me. She often does this, rushing
to the wardrobe from her bed when I go to her in the morning and choosing
from the various shirts she finds there.

On this occasion she took longer than usual and made a thorough examination
of several shirts before deciding on one blue one I haven't worn in ages. I
promptly put it on - the house was cold at 6.35am - and did up the buttons.

Rowan looked me up and down with an appraising eye and pronounced it good,
obviously pleased with her sartorial selection.

"You look smart, Dada!"

I wonder what she thought I looked like on all the previous mornings? Maybe
it's best not to know.

Rowan & I are home again. She doing better but seems to be running a fever
too so there's a likelihood of an infection (probably urinary tract)
coincident with the concussion. Neurologically she seems to be fine though
and that's a big relief.

She's sleeping on the couch now beside Sam and I'm just heading to bed now
for a nap. I don't think any of us had a good night's sleep last night.

Thanks everyone for the good wishes and positive thoughts.

Only this time it's my daughter Rowan who is the patient.

She fell earlier today and banged her head good & proper on the ground. She
seemed fine then but a few hours later she vomited a couple of times and
we're all in A&E now waiting for a doctor to examine her[1].

It's my wife's turn next when offspring #2 arrives in March. Let's hope she
doesn't get jealous of husband and daughter hogging the medical limelight
and try to get into hospital early with a crisis of her own.

[1] We took her first to a late night GP service in Cork where the doctor
examined her and sent her home. One incident of vomiting wasn't too worrying
he said. Later Rowan vomited again and now we're in the A&E.

I am home at last. I was discharged from the hospital around lunchtime; my
wife picked me up and got me home. She then had to do a consultation hour in
college and pick Rowan up from the crèche, so the proper family reunion was
delayed until they got back around 15.30.

It's a small family, just the three of us, but we can still manage a damn
big hug when when the need arises.

It's *good* to be home with my family.

Well I've had better nights. I had some difficulty getting to sleep last
night and was rather thrown by a fit of crying that seemed to come on me
from nowhere just after midnight. I don't really know if it was
post-operative stress getting the better of me, my natural feelings of
frustration and helplessness bubbling up or, as the doctor on call
suggested, possibly some post-op effect on my thyroid. She had just come
from an endrocrine rotation, I think, so perhaps her diagnosis was coloured
by her recent training. Whatever the cause, it was disturbing to be so out
of control emotionally, and to be confronted with the possibility that my
emotional state could be physically affected so.

I did sleep in the end with the aid of a sleeping tablet. This morning the
team have been round again and it looks like another day of observation. The
doctor took blood last night and my calcium levels are being monitored as
before. As best I understand it I have to wait until my body makes up its
mind and starts working with the new parathyroid hormone levels.

It's frustrating that ultimately it's up to me to fix myself but it's at a
level I have no control over.

Earlier today the consultant came round and told me I'd be going home today.
Unfortunately my calcium levels are still a bit low and I've had more
tingling sensations in my hands and arms. The supplement they gave my
earlier doesn't seem to have taken effect yet but a couple of quick tests
show that the problem is not too pronounced. I suspect that my body is just
taking longer to adjust to the new situation than I'd like but there's a
possibility that I'm not producing enough PTH now the enlarged gland is
removed, or that there's some other problem metabolising calcium.

I suspect I'm going to be stuck here another night though, unless my calcium
levels stabilise soon. Shite.

I'm still in hospital, but doing pretty well. My parents-in-law have just
dropped by with a care package from home (Sam and Rowan can't come into the
hospital because of the winter vomiting bug clamp-down). Included was a new
picture drawn by Rowan. It shows three figures, one smiling, curly-haired
blond, one round-tummied, long-haired, and one bearded chap, bald in the
middle. I am ludricrously touched by this.

I'm back. More or less anyway. I was first in the schedule this morning and
was carted down to theatre just after 8am and went in about 8.45. Don't
remember anything from after they started me on oxygen prior to the
anaesthetic.

When I came round they watched me for a while in recovery (I guess; I'm not
very clear on that part) then brought me back to the ward. I've been in the
observation area by the nurses' station there since around 11.00

Unfortunately I haven't seen anyone from the surgical team yet, so I've no
idea on how the surgery went. There certainly a hole in my neck, so
something was done. I'm still pretty wiped out, but really at this stage I
wish I could talk to someone about the surgery itself and how it went.

However, I've just been given a cup of tea. That makes things much better.

And of course when I paused in writing this on my Blackberry to drink my tea
the team were in and told me that despite the inconclusive scans prior to
the surgery, they found a clearly enlarged right inferior parathyroid gland,
which they removed and saw an immediate 70% drop in the parathyroid hormone
levels. I'm to stay in overnight and they'll check the PTH levels and
calcium levels again then.

Which is to say all's going well. Phew.

Rowan was swashbuckling on the stairs with a sword made from one of those
long balloon animal balloons. Sam had fashioned the sword. All those years
in the circus must have paid off.

Rowan stabbed through the bannisters. "I stab my pink sword in the witch's
hole!"

Luckily we got Sam oxygen before brain damage set in.

My daughter just turned to me and said

"I'll be back in two snaps of a fish's eye."

Huh?

This morning we put up the Christmas tre in our living room. I should say
that my wife and daughter put up the tree. I think I added a total of two
decorations. I did plug in the lights and use my amazing height powers to
put a star right the top of the tree.

It looks pretty damn good. My daughter, Rowan, is delighted with the
build-up to Christmas, particularly the lights and decorations on the main
shopping street and the Christmas tree advent calendar she's got that has
something nice to eat behind each day. Every morning now she heads straight
for the calendar and opens the next drawer.

While I didn't contribute much to the ritual of the Christmas tree
decorating, I did get all mechanical this morning on the car's ass. To be
precise, I changed a blown bulb in the right brake light. Total cost €1.50
and about 25 minutes of swearing at machine tightened hexagonal nuts.

I don't often do anything remotely mechanical with the car and related
repairs so I was pleased with myself and ate the last chocolate chip cookie
from the batch I made recently. Now I have another thing to do: make more
cookies!

It's a quiet Sunday and we're all at home watching the weather cycle from
sunshine to blustery through downpour and back to sunshine again. Each time
we've mentioned heading out of the house the skies darken and the peppering
of rain rings on the roof.

So I made chocolate chip cookies. It seemed like the proper response in the
circumstances.

*munch*

This morning I came out of the house to find the car running. It was unlocked, the keys were in the ignition and the engine was running. It must have been running for a while as it read nearly empty. I don't if it was filled it up yesterday or not. If not there was about a quarter tank.

sammywol is certain that she locked it yesterday when we got in from work about 5.30. Did she drop the keys and someone else open the car? If so why start the engine? Did someone drive it away and put it back? I'm disturbed.

I wouldn't swear to it but I think the engine was off yesterday when we went into the house.

While walking along writing this on my Blackberry I've managed to step in a puddle. I now have a wet sock. I hope the day improves from here.

My darling daughter has chosen to watch "The Wonder Pets" and I am fairly
sure my brain has stopped working as a direct consequence.

"The Wonder Pets" seems to be a show of the adventures of three pet animals,
a duck, a hamster and a terrapin. Horrifyingly, they sing opera as they help
save the day.

My mind, she is broken.

Happy birthday to Ursula Le Guin. She's given me some of the greatest
reading pleasure over the last 30 odd years. I hope someone closer to her
has baked her a really nice cake.

"I love you more than ice cream, Dada."

That's worth a hundred early mornings.

It's been a quiet weekend at home with my family and I've taken the
opportunity to do a little baking. I've done a bog standard white loaf so we
had something for lunchtime sandwiches, and which may end up in lunches for
me at work during the week, and I tried a Welsh honey cake (tisen fel? Can't
remember the name in the book). This was a success, if perhaps a little dry
- though could be because I left it out to cool and promptly went to bed, so
it was out all night - and that was remedied by a bit of butter on't. For
this honey cake was more a tea cake sort of thing and benefitted from a
little something spread on top.

However even better than the eating was the scent of the cake cooking. All
through the house the smell of baking mixed with warm honey. I spent some
time just standing in the kitchen inhaling as it baked.

Yum!

Walking into work this morning I decided to take a new route along the
riverside walk created by UCC and the city corporation. I like it. It's
quiet and feels miles from the morning bustle in the rest of the city.

Near the end of the walk, as I apporached the river bridge to cross to the
south bank I met two pheasants pecking about in the brush along the verge of
the footpath. The boy-pheasant got rather excited and dashed about in an
attempt to get away or to distract me, I'm not sure which. The girl-pheasant
looked like she had seen it all before and more or less ignored me. She was
probably just with the young guy in a rebound relationship, if such things
happen in the pheasant community. She could obviously do better and it will
never last.

Or am I projecting?

Rowan is sitting with us at lunch in a cafe in her favourite park.

'Can I have some of your apple pie, mama?'

'Of course, love'

Rowan, through the sounds of munching, says 'Another happy ending!'

Today I'm starting the morning at 7.20, or wehatever it is, and for the
first time in recent memory Rowan is still asleep. I haven't been woken at
6.00 or 6.15 by a voice from the next room and I'm at a bit of a loss to do
anything except drink my tea and wonder if she's feeling quite herself.

We're out visiting my mother who is herself visiting a friend who lives in
Fountainstown, a small seaside community near Crosshaven, south of Cork
city.

Despite the rainy start to the day it's now a mild, sunshine-filled
afternoon by the sea. We're in the garden with a splendid view across the
bay, watching Rowan expore the flower beds, and thinking about lunch.

Not bad, eh?

We're on the road back to Cork after a few days in Dublin seeing family and friends. In all, I'd say we had a good trip. We met up with several friends, ate well and Rowan got to bounce for Ireland.

She also introduced herself to Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) as the little girl who really liked one of his early albums. He was suitably charmed to find out that Rowan sang along to "When the Lights Go Out All Over Europe" in the car. Hannon has a daughter of a similar age to Rowan, who is called Willow. There must have been a tree-meme going through expectant parents a few years back.

Nearly home now. We're entering Rathcormac, a small town near Cork that must warrant a couple of pixels in Google Maps, which is not far from the lovely Lee and the city of Cork.

And then to bed.

While visiting my mother we have happened to coincide with a street party
organised by local families for residents. The centerpiece of this party is
a bouncy castle, which has captivated and commanded my daughter's attention
practically to the exclusion of everything else (though drawing on the road
with chalks has made a showing late in the day).

By now, however, the many, many children are losing steam and balance, and
the collisions on the bouncy castle are becoming more frequent. I think it's
time to wind down but I suspect this is one of those times when we lack a
workable exit strategy.

Oh well. At least she should sleep well tonight.

It's time for another of our irregular car trips up to Dublin to visit
family and friends. My mother, brother and sister-in-law all live in Dublin,
as do many of my oldest friends from my college days. E-mail, Skype and the
rest serve their purpose but sometimes you have hit the road and do the
rounds in person.

To my daughter's great delight and anticipation, our trip coincides with a
street party this weekend that will be held on the street where my mother
lives. At this party there will be a BOUNCY CASTLE. Rowan's joys were
unconfined. I only hope that it lives up to its promise.

So now we're on the road out of Cork heading for Fermoy, this first sizable
town on the Cork-Dublin road. Fermoy is famous (in my mind at least) for its
bottleneck and the endlessly delayed by-pass. I also recall the story of an
unfortunate lad from Fermoy who was the subject of a long and disgraceful
campaign of gay-bashing, so I'm afraid the town doesn't rate highly on my
list of the urban jewels of our republic.

After Fermoy there's Mitchelstown, famed for its cheese and, at last, its
brand-new by-pass. This will be our first encounter with this new wonder of
roads technology and I wait with bated breath to experience this marvel.

By-passes are a popular subject of conversation for the driving classes.
Cork and Dublin are separated by 261km according to my road map, but the
journey routinely takes 4 hours, in no small part due to the quality of the
roads and the number of towns that have to be passed through[1]. This means
that every working by-pass is welcomed by drivers, if hated by the merchants
of the newly by-passed towns, who can longer rely on a regular passing
trade.

We also like to talk[2] about house prices.



[1] The traffic doesn't help either, to be honest.

[2] I say talk. I mean complain.

We're in the car listening to Peter Gabriel sing the Magnetic Fields' 'The
Book of Love'. He gets to the bits about the book being full of
"instructions for dancing".

Rowan pipes up.

"I don't need instructions for dancing. I'm clever!"

Indeed you are, love.