Lara - as independent as ever

One of the many benefits of Lucy & Sergei getting married on a Friday was the realisation that after we'd checked out of the hotel, taken some nice photographs in the grounds, got home, and had a nap, that it was still only Saturday teatime.
So we decided it was time to try out the children-friendly beer garden at our local pub. Whilst the climbing frames were a little "tired", shall we say, they did the job of entertaining Lara for half an hour. We'd noticed she was getting good at climbing at those very kiddy-friendly activity centres that we've taken her to a couple of times, but there everything is very well padded and a little tumble does her no harm. Here however, we were ready to be very close at hand in case of a wobble, but we need not have worried:

This is what we now consider to be her normal behaviour, she's very confident in most things she does, but is sensible enough to ask to hold our hand if there's something more tricky to negotiate, but in general she's extremely independent, which we're very happy about. This is why the change in her behaviour while she's been ill has been so concerning for us, she was very clingy, always wanting to be picked up and hugged, and only really happy to go to sleep on one of us, which is the first time she's been like that since she was tiny. We know it's only natural, that if you're ill you want to be cuddled, and of course we were more than happy to oblige, but it was such a difference from her normal self that that was as much a concern to us as her high temperature, lack of appetite, sore throat and bum issues.

Here are some of the photos from Saturday (in the grounds of the hotel and at the pub) and from Sunday, when we took the dog for a nice walk in the countryside:

Littlewick Green - famous at last...

.. but perhaps they wish they weren't, when you read this article from the Ashes pullout of Monday's Times newspaper.

Littlewick's fielding was described as "excorable", which I had to look up in a dictionary, but this has since been strongly refuted by the 2nd XI vice captain, who reckons the reporter wasn't watching the right game, and that the Green only dropped one catch... Imagine, not being able to trust the reports of a national newspaper reporter!!

A new toy

We've been hunting around for a sandpit for Lara for some time, and found one we liked on eBay. We went to collect it (in the pouring rain) from Camberley on Saturday afternoon, but luckily it brightened up enough on Sunday for Lara to start playing in it:


Urrghh, I just saw the length of the grass in the garden on those photos! I'm pleased to say I mowed it after taking the pictures!

Under the Weather

Phew, 10 days since the last update? Shocking! Sorry!! It's been a busy old time - Lara started going down with a bug last Thursday evening, she had a temperature of 38.4 and was sick. Olga wasn't much better suffering from a very sore throat, most likely they had the same thing, as it was clear by Friday afternoon that Lara had a sore throat too, from the pain-face she pulled whenever she coughed. So Olga and Lara stayed at home on Friday, and after trying NHS Direct (on hold for too long) Olga phoned the GP surgery, and was advised over the phone by a GP to carry on with administering nurofen to try and bring Lara's temperature down. However, by time I got home at 5pm there was no improvement, and we were getting more worried that Lara was showing too many swine flu symptoms to just ignore the possibility, so Olga phoned the surgery again at 5.55pm, and the GP agreed we should go straight there and she'd take a look at Lara, which reassured us as otherwise we were concerned about who we could call over the weekend if her condition worsened. NHS Direct previously have been very good, but at the moment they seem to be "swine-flu'd" out and we wanted someone to look at Lara first-hand. The GP agreed that Lara certainly was ill with something (although she wasn't specific about what it was) and prescribed a course of antibiotics.
Olga and I have taken it in turns to take Lara to the bed in the spare room when she got so wound up that she wouldn't go back to sleep without one of us being there to fall asleep on. This did lead to a nice moment for me on Sunday morning, when I was woken in the spare bed by a happy, smiling, not-feverous Lara poking me and saying "Bah-bah", which is as close as she's getting to Papa at the moment, although every once in a while there is a definite swing towards Papa.
Sunday was a long day for all of us, with plenty of jobs needing to be done at home whilst balancing giving Lara the attention she needed - and fitting in regular updates from the cricket in Cardiff!
Lara still wasn't well enough to go to nursery yesterday, so she came to work with us, but her temperature stayed pretty normal all day, and the contents of her nappies moved from molten basaltic lava (the quick flowing stuff in Hawaii) to the more gloopy, acidic lava (the one that kind of plops along - pun intended).
Lara still woke a couple of times last night, but she only needed water rather than nurofen, and I didn't need to take her to the spare bed to sleep. Then the final test - the contents of the potty - this morning was fine, and she had the green light to go back to nursery. So far I've not had a call to come and collect her, which is very good news.
We still don't know what "it" was, but obviously it wasn't swine flu, and we don't want to appear to be the kind of parents that rush into full panic mode at the first sneeze and demand to have two tonnes of tamiflu delivered, but Lara certainly was showing two or three of the symptoms, and we're glad we had her checked out by the GP on Friday.
That doesn't make it any easier to read the headline about the 6 year-old girl who died from swine flu 48 hours after being diagnosed with a sore throat though...