Wenlock and Mandeville

Charley has a fever. Not sure what's causing it, he's not trying to pull either ear off, and isn't refusing food. So not an ENT infection. He slept a lot of last night lying on my tummy, skin to skin, hot and sticky. I thought he might have tummy ache but I'm not convinced it's that either. At least he's not been sick from the fever (yet). Steve wonders if his teeth might be on the move again. He's certainly chewing things like mad at the moment.

I honestly don't remember Ben teething! I don't remember seeing teeth budding, I don't even remember the excitement at seeing teeth finally appear at 13 months old. I must have been excited. But I don't remember. That makes me a little sad.

This morning Steve went to the doctors to check out a mole on his hand (I think if there was anything to be concerned about I'd have been told) but it took so long that I was beginning to wonder if they'd had to do emergency surgery to remove his hand or something. Turns out the system had failed to register his arrival, and after telling him to go to the upstairs waiting room had simply forgotten about him. So then he had to deal with the receptionist AND the doctor (eventually) asking him (yet again) why he was still registered there. There's apparently a note on the system, which nobody reads, to explain this so that he doesn't have to go through it with the same people time and again, yet he gets asked every single time. Anyway now he no longer works across the carpark from the surgery he's going to register somewhere closer to home. Almost three hours later he arrived home (via the shops) starving having had no breakfast before going out! Poor man.

Meanwhile I'd been drinking coffee and eating welshcakes with Kathryn, while a hot and cranky Charley had milky cuddles with me and little baby Olive had milky cuddles with Kathryn and Ben showed Kathryn all his toys that he was playing with.

While we'd been waiting for her to come round I'd set out a remarkably successful invitation to play with glassbeads and shells and various containers, and Ben had played for ages! He took Wenlock and Mandeville sailing in an egg carton, picking up passengers (shells). It was pretty cool to watch.

So Kathryn and I managed to chat about stuff in between Ben showing us this or that, and (I think) had a productive morning! It was a bit of an idea of how daytime bible study groups for mums might be though: hugely disjointed, and full of child-interjections. So we have thought around it and come up with plans, which she is going to look into. Exciting!

After lunch Charley needed a sleep having not had a proper sleep in the morning due to crankiness. And then he wouldn't let me go. Eventually we got up and I wrapped him up but there was just too much noise for him to fall asleep. I should have gone out, in hindsight. Wonderful thing, hindsight. And I never learn.

Steve took Ben out to the park so that Charley could have a peaceful rest and I heard the tales of their expedition when they got back! They'd had to shelter under a tree because it had started raining unexpectedly. When they got to the park Ben climbed up his usual big climbing frame to go down the big slide - which the rain had made superfast! He SHOT down the slide which was super exciting and exhilarating - and then shot a meter and a half off the end of the slide and landed on his tailbone! Poor boy didn't know whether to laugh from the excitement of the superfast slide, or cry from the pain! He didn't want to go on it again, until some bigger boys had been on it and dried it off with their sliding down. Then it wasn't so fast again. Then they went on the bouncy jeep and went into bear country looking for bears - and a bear came and knocked on the car windows!

Of course this meant Ben's imagination had gone into hyperdrive and he wouldn't sit at the table because there was a bear in the garden trying to get in through the window....

Tuesday evening we were supposed to sit down together to get Steve's new website finished - but Charley well and truly put paid to that idea. He was not a happy baby. Burning with a fever, got some medicine down him, settled in the wrap with me singing to him, then woke up suddenly and was promptly sick all over me and himself and the wrap. Sigh. He did not settle easily. Looked thoroughly fed up. Spent the night burning up, lying on my chest, nursing. I did not get much sleep - I don't think anyone did. :(