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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Who wants to join my rollercoaster?

This past week has been just that: a roller coaster! Highs and lows, stomach churning moments, heart in your mouth moments, exhilaration.

It all started on Friday. Mr Foodie had been invited to a stag night in town. So it was a girl's night in for Marie, Noelie and myself. We had it all planned out. We were going to have a party. In our house, a party consists of snacks and a drink (Coke for Marie and a nice glass of wine for myself). While I was getting Noelie to bed, Marie carefully laid out the snacks on the table. We then proceeded to watch 3 episodes of Glee. I have to admit we are all Gleeks in this house. We usually watch the episode and record it before allowing Marie to watch it (just in case!). With the sun shining and busy weekends, she was 3 episodes behind. So we decided to catch up. We spent the evening singing, dancing, laughing and cuddling on the sofa. Then, we went to bed and watched the end of Night at the Museum, cuddled up in bed together. The perfect evening in with my girls (although Noelie was asleep!)

Saturday was another busy day, involving a trip to Ikea to check out some furniture for our new house (we're moving in on the 1st of July! Yeah!). I am extremely proud to say that I managed to go to Ikea and not buy anything at all. Nothing, Nada, Zilch, Rien. Not a thing. Not even a tiny little gadget for next to nothing. It took a superhuman effort on my part. I just figured that there is no point adding to the long list of things we need to move. I will take a trip down once we are settled. There are plenty of drawers and presses to fill in our new kitchen!

Sunday was decision time. Marie was going to her father's and he was to inform me of his decision on the new access proposal I had drawn up. He wasn't there when I dropped her off in the morning. So we had to wait until pick up time. The day was spent trying to figure out anything he could object to or request. And how far we would be prepared to go to see the proposal accepted. I was quite nervous. Although he could not do anything to prevent us from moving, he could potentially put a big spanner in the works by not agreeing. So what did he say, I hear you shout. Well he agreed to it! His only problem was with a small detail that we had anticipated and had figured out an alternative for. A wave of relief washed over me and Mr Foodie. Isn't it funny how people surprise you sometimes? We were expecting him and his family to be quite awkward, difficult to deal with and expected them to probably try and bargain more access than I offered. After months of animosity and 'fighting', it looks like things are starting to settle down and we might be able to communicate and agree on some things. We will never forget what they put us through, we will never be friends with them. But we can do amicable and reasonable.

It turns out the most difficult person to deal with, when it comes to the move, is somebody we thought was our friend which we made a point to go and visit over the week end too. The whole time of the visit was spent ignoring the elephant in the room. Nothing was said about the move but it was there, like a wedge. Maybe it's just me reading into something that's not there but Mr Foodie felt it too. The subject was just completely avoided. It was quite disappointing but, at the end of the day, like a lot of you kindly commented last week, it's her loss not ours.

Monday was to say the least unusual. We woke up early enough and let the cat out as we do every morning. She came back 5 minutes later, triple her size. We tried to find a vet but, being a bank holiday Monday, the only option was the Veterinary clinic on the other side of town. So off we went, kids and kittens in tow to the clinic. The vet had never seen anything like this before. It turns out that somehow, without any sign of trauma, air is getting under her skin. Trust us to find the only inflatable cat in town! She stayed in the clinic for the day and they managed to deflate her a bit (not a very clinical term and one that nobody seems to be able to say without holding their laugh). We picked her up and her kittens in the evening. And went home. At which point, Noelie started to develop a fever. We gave her Nurofen and she settled for the night. She woke up a few times during the night and got up on Tuesday morning with a fever again.

We had to take the cat to the vet again in the afternoon as she had re inflated. Noelie was getting increasingly difficult. She ate a lot less than usual, was irritable and her fever came back. So off we went to the hospital to get her checked out, thinking it might be another kidney infection. Thankfully, her sample came back clear and it seems to be only some kind of viral infection. Let's just say that we were all exhausted yesterday having come home at about 1am from the hospital. Noelie was not the best yesterday again. Her temperature was going up and down. She was not hungry, which is quite unusual for her since she would eat anything anytime of the day (a firm favourite seems to be the fallen Cheerios from under the table! What? Do you think I had the time or energy to hoover this week end?). And she managed to get sick in my top of all places. Not on herself, not on my top but down my top. Bras are great at catching sick falling down your top. Forget about crumbs, sick is the way to go. Mr Foodie, who was in another room at the time, did not understand why I was shouting that I needed a shower at 4pm!

After that, she settled and later on managed to eat some toast and drink her bottle and even go back to her usual self. She slept great and woke up with a very mild temperature this morning. She had breakfast and it stayed down, she went for a nice long nap and managed to eat some soup and another bit of toast and it's still there in her tummy. Her temperature hasn't returned. Hopefully, it will not come back. She is fast asleep as I type this but I have to wake her up to go and pick up her sister from school. And the cat is still inflated...

Such was the roller coaster of my life these past few days, anybody care to join me?

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