Duvet Days

Olga decided on Monday that Lara could try sleeping under her duvet rather in her sleeping bag, as she's done since she's been sleeping in her cot, so quite a big day. We found that we had to check on Lara a couple more times than before in the evening, before Lara got off to a deep sleep, because if she woke she could get up and walk about in her cot. However, once she fell into a deep sleep, that was it for the first two nights, she slept through until nearly 7am on Tuesday and Wednesday. Last night she wasn't quite so good, waking twice in the night, but each time she only needed a few minutes of soothing before going back to sleep. All in all it's gone better than I thought it would. Famous Last Words!

Jackson is coming on fine, he seems to be walking almost normally on his poorly leg. He'll be seeing the vet tomorrow to have his dressing changed, so we'll get a professional opinion then. He'll get spoilt rotten over the weekend, as Lucy is coming over to look after him and Mishka while Olga, Lara & I attend a friend's wedding in Rugby.

A holiday booked well in advance - a miracle

Normally when I book our UK breaks, they're last minute things, like our cottage in Wales in March, booked on eBay. However, we liked The Lodge that we stayed at in Devon last November so much that I've booked us a 4-night break there in December. We'll be there for Lara's 2nd birthday, which removes the pressure of thinking if we should make any special effort for it. We'll make an extra-special fuss of her on the 10th, but we don't think a party will be necessary, she won't know it's her birthday, after all.
Just for a trip down memory lane, I had a look at the photos and videos from our trip there last year, it's amazing how far Lara's come in 10 months. Here they are..

Jackson update

Here's the little fella, he's fine. We have to take him back to the vets once a week for the next three weeks to get his bandage changed, but he should make a full recovery (phew!).
It's a lovely day here so I think we're off to drag Lara around a few garden centres...

The World's Worst Sadist

Confession time... I've broken Jackson.

Well, his leg, anyway. Whilst trying to look after all three kids on Wednesday after work in the back garden, Jackson got in the way when I tried kicking a toy in Mishka's direction. In my defense, I had one hand on Lara, trying to keep her upright on our lethally-steep garden, Mishka was barking madly, and Jackson was, well, being Jackson. This meant running around like his tail was on fire (it wasn't), and trying to be a part of everything. Anyway, his timing was impeccable, and he got between my foot and the toy I was about to roll in Mishka's direction. The toy didn't move but poor Jacko went rolling two or three metres down the garden. I could tell from his yelps that he'd been hurt, although after the first 5 or 6 seconds he just sat there, tail still wagging, panting a lot, but no longer crying.
I picked Lara up, which set her off screaming as she likes to walk down the garden, holding my hand, and dashed into the house. This gave Olga a mild heart attack, thinking there was something wrong with Lara, but once she got over that, she took over nursing the poor lad. A quick call to our vets got us an appointment in 20 minutes time. Jackson by this time seemed calm, there wasn't any crying, and he was wagging his tail and happy to lick our hands and faces just like he normally does. This was reassuring, as if there was a big problem with his leg, I doubt he'd be behaving like that.  As the damage had been caused by rolling down the garden, rather than being kicked by me (it wasn't a kick, he'd simply sat on my foot at the very second I tried to roll the toy down the garden) I thought it might have been a dislocated hip, which had popped out then back in again.
Anyway, we all went off to the vets, Jackson was giving a pain-killing injection, the vet wasn't desperately concerned, and wanted Jackson to have 24 hours of rest in his pen, and let's see how he was the next day.
He still wasn't putting any weight on it yesterday, so there was clearly something more wrong that just bruising or muscle trouble, and we took him back to the vets yesterday after work. The senior vet had a look at him and felt there was something wrong with his leg just around his ankle joint, and that he should have an xray. Here's the poor man last night, we had him couped up so he wasn't tempted to go and play with Mishka, but also so he was close to us:

Then this morning he was positively running around in his outside pen:

So, Jackson had some more painkillers last night, and went in for his xray this morning. We had a call less than an hour later to say that he had a non-displaced fracture of his tibia just above his ankle joint. The fact that it's not displaced is a relief, and it means he'll just be bandaged up for three weeks.

You couldn't believe how bad I felt, from the second I heard him yelping, and all day yesterday. As I say in the title, I'd be a rubbish sadist, I couldn't imagine getting pleasure from inflicting pain on someone, even a dog! I feel better now, knowing that he'll be fine, and that right now he's probably being fussed over by all the staff at the vet's practise. 

Two positives have come out of it - we got him insured just in the nick of time a week ago, and the insurance will cover the costs minus the excess, and we got Lara weighed on the scales that the vets use for weighing the animals! 11.75kg.....

I'll post regular updates on his progress. The way he's been wagging his tail, he'll be back in there soon for a tail-replacement.

Lara's Nursery - the Next Stage

Today was a big day for Lara, she has been promoted from a Penguin to a Dolphin. This just means that after a year spent in the "baby" room at nursery, she moved up to the next level. The nursery make these moves every six months, depending on the development of the child, and six months ago Lara wasn't quite ready to move up, so she's had to wait until today. The nursery have been very good at getting Lara ready for it, she's been spending more and more time in the Dolphins room over the past few weeks, and her best friends from Penguins - James (her boyfriend) and Chloe (her best girly mate - they were comparing what they were wearing when they met up this morning!) - are there already, so she'll settle in without any problems. The staff said she didn't stop smiling all day, and has already played with every toy in the room. She was trying on a necklace when we arrived to pick her up, no doubt getting ready for a night out with Chloe.
The other significant nursery news is that Lara will attend full-time now, five days a week. Lots of reasons really, but Lara seems to really enjoy it there, so whilst we'd like to keep it at four days, it's not the end of the world to have her there all week. We'll look for something in Marlow during the day that we could take her to for an hour or so, perhaps swimming, then she won't feel that we've abandoned her completely!

Foodwise, she's getting more insistent that she feeds herself, with the kind of mess that's clear to see from this photo that Olga took recently when she had bolognese for tea. This is the least-evil looking photo of four that were taken!!

She's still sleeping very well, although she persists in this strange, unconcious habit of waking briefly between 5.15 and 6am, crying for two or three seconds (just long enough to wake me up) then going back to sleep. I say 5.15 to 6, but 3 days out of 5 it will almost certainly be 5 minutes either side of 5.45am, it's the wierdest thing! This morning it was 5.27, then she went back to sleep until 6.30, and I thought that was it, so much so that my feet hit the bedroom floor and I opened both eyes, but before I could get up, she drifted back off to sleep until the more usual wake up time of 7.20something. She has this nice way of getting us up by asking for one of us rather than screaming her head off. We'll hear a soft, plaintive "Maaaammaaa" or "Baabbaaa". She's not quite mastered a "pah" sound yet, so I'm still Baba rather than Papa.

We've found a colony of frogs in the garden, and every day when we get home from nursery, we take Lara out to see them, and in today's case, talk to them...:



There is a small frog sitting on the tree trunk, Lara could certainly see if, even if it doesn't show up on the video too well!