Diary of a very happy mammy of 3 miracles

[Shamrock.]

Sunday 29th March 2020

P is 7 Years 3 Weeks Old
R is 6 Years 2 Days Old
J is 20.5 Months Old

One week on from my last post and there are now 668,261 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed worldwide and 31,017 deaths worldwide. In the Republic of Ireland there are now 2,415 cases diagnosed and 36 people have died from it  These figures are huge jump from a week  ago Thankfully myself, DH, P, R and J are still fine.

Since midnight on Friday night (27th March) the country is on lockdown. As per instruction from our taoiseach Leo Varadcar we are not supposed to leave our house except when absolutely necessary for example to buy food or medicines. All non essential shops/businesses are now closed. We are allowed to go for a walk/jog once a day for exercise but are supposed to stay within 2km of home and stay at least 2 meters away from anyone we meet. We cannot go to anyone else's home and all gatherings outside of the immediate family that you live with are banned. The lockdown is supposed to be until 12th April but could continue longer if deemed necessary by the health experts 

My office is now closed and so is DHs but we will both have to work from home.

We had a nice family day for Rs 6th birthday on Friday. We made rice crispie buns together and R blew out the candles on the Toy Story cake I got him. I had ordered some toys he wanted online but they weren't delivered in time for his birthday so I had to get him something from Tesco just for the day.

[FertilityFriends]

[Shamrock.]

Saturday 4th April 2020

P is 7 Years 4 Weeks Old
R is 6 Years 8 Days Old
J is 20.5 Months Old

6 days on and there are now 1,188,159 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed and 64,060 deaths worldwide. In the Republic of Ireland there are now 4,604 cases diagnosed and 137 deaths from it  Thankfully we are all still fine healthwise.

The first week of lockdown has gone ok. Both myself and DH were working from home all week whilst minding P, R and J at the same time so that was a bit challenging. We asked our childminder T not to come in to mind the kids so that we could follow the social distancing rules properly.  We still paid her in full for the week.

We quickly fell into a routine that suited us. Myself and DH took turns working a few hours at a time at a little desk we set up in our bedroom. I worked in the mornings whilst DH got breakfasts, dressed everyone and played with them etc then every day at around midday I stopped working and brought J for a walk in his buggy whilst P and  R watched tv or their ipads and DH started working in the bedroom. When J was down for his afternoon nap I did schoolwork with P and R and if I was finished that before J woke up from his nap I tried to do more work. My boss kept ringing me and emailing me things to do as if I had time to do them..grrrrr  I got peed off the first day trying to juggle it all but then I decided that there is only so much work/schoolwork I can do in the circumstances and I relaxed about it. I can only do what I can do!

Today was a big milestone for R. He started cycling a bicycle without stabilizers! Myself and DH were out for a walk with P, R and J and P had brought her bike with her. We stopped at a small empty creche carpark and I asked P if R could have a go on her bike as I wanted to try to start teaching him how to balance so R got up on Ps bike and started peddling while I was holding the back of his top to help him balance. After a few minutes I let go of his top and R just took off cycling on his own  We couldn't believe he got it so quickly. He hasn't gotten the hang of stopping and starting properly yet which is making him very frustrated but he will get that in time.

On Friday we got a report from the children's hospital about Js sleep study without CPAP he did on 19th February and it looks like really good news! It says his mean oxigen levels were 98% overnight and his heart rate was good. It also says there is no evidence of significant residual sleep apnea anymore!!  I tried phoning the respiratory nurse to check if it means that he doesn't need the CPAP anymore, I didn't get to speak to her but I think that is what they will say. J hasn't worn the CPAP since the beginning of December because he has a meltdown everytime he sees the mask so it would be a big relief for us to know that he definitely doesn't need it.

[Shamrock.]

Monday 13th April 2020 - Easter Monday

P is 7 Years 1 Month Old
R is 6 Years 2 Weeks Old
J will be  21 Months Old in 3 Days Time

There are now 1,857,115 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed and 114,332 deaths worldwide. In the Republic of Ireland there are now 9,655 cases diagnosed and 334 deaths from it 

Myself, DH, P, R and J are all still fine but I know several different families affected by it. A friend of mine from work lost her mother to it  Her mother was in a local nursing home and contracted it there and died during the week   DHs sister's mother in law is very ill in hospital with it. She has an underlying heart condition so it's a very worrying time for her family. I have met her several times at DHs sister's house....She's a lovely woman    DHs friend's uncle died from it in the UK and his aunt is very ill in hospital with it.

My 85 year old mum is fine thank God but I cannot visit her anymore so I have to settle for phoning her every day instead. Just before the lockdown we all went to visit her and we spoke to her through her sitting room window as we didn't want the kids to be too near her. With all her underlying health conditions and  her age she would be a gonner if she got the virus 

R is flying it now on his bicycle. He is now able to start and stop by himself. The only problem is that a lot of the time he doesn't listen when we call to him to stop on his bicycle when we are out for our daily family jaunt so it's dangerous. The other day he cycled across a road when he went ahead of us even though we were shouting at him to stop thankfully there weren't any cars passing on the road at the time 

J is flying it with his speech. He can now put two or even three words together into little mini 'sentences' like "Daddy shoe" or "Mammy bag" when he sees DHs shoes or my handbag. Yesterday he said "Daddy over there" when pointing at DH across a street  He uses the word "Mine" a lot and loves using the word "Shoo!" to shoo away the cat or to shoo away something he doesn't want to do. I know he learned that word from Peppa Pig which he absolutely loves to watch now. I bring him for a 5km walk in the buggy most days and he loves seeing all the dogs we pass when people are out walking them. He keeps shouting "Doggy" at the top of his voice which always gets a smile from the owners 

I meant to mention here before that I'm pretty sure I've hit full menopause    I haven't had any AF at all for almost 5 months  i know from a note on my calendar that my last AF was 22nd November. I've read that when you don't have AF for 12 months then you are officially in menopause so there is a bit of time to go before it's official. I have night sweats pretty often, I've put on weight and I get down in the dumps fairly often....all of which could be menopasual symptoms. If these were normal times I would make an appointment to speak to my gp about it and ask about the pros and cons of HRT but in the current serious health crisis going on it seems too trivial.

When  I get down in the dumps I am able to pull myself back up from it in a day or two so it's not depression.
I weighed myself yesterday and I was horrified ...I'm more than a stone over the weight I want to be. I know it's from eating crap and not exercising enough so I need to work on that 

[Shamrock.]

Saturday 9th May 2020

P is 7 Years 2 Months Old
R is 6 Years 1.5 Months Old
J is 21.5 Months Old

It’s a couple of weeks since I posted and there are now 4,016,021 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed and 276,269 deaths worldwide. In the Republic of Ireland there are now 22,541 cases diagnosed and 1,429 deaths from it  Thankfully everyone in my little family is fine 

Ireland is still in lockdown but the government has announced a ‘road-map’ with dates of when they will start to re-open different businesses and society in general. The dates in the road-map are dependent on the number of cases not spiraling too much. Since 5th May we are allowed to go up to 5km from home for exercise...before that it was only 2km. Social distancing in everything you do is the new norm, as is hand sanitizing everywhere. The schools will not re-open until September. P and R have gotten used to being at home but they still miss their school friends and going out to school as both of them loved it. J is loving having P and R at home with him all the time and is thriving developmentally from his constant interactions with them.

DHs sister’s mother in law who I mentioned in my last post passed away last week  I spoke to my friend on the phone yesterday whose mum also died from Covid-19 and she is heartbroken. She was very very close to her mum and she is devastated that she wasn’t allowed to visit her in the weeks before she died and her mum was on her own without any of her family around her when she passed away 

I was saying in my last post that I haven’t had AF for 5 months...I’ve had a tiny bit of spotting in the last few days so I kept wondering if it was going to turn into full AF but it didn’t.

I have felt absolutely fine emotionally the last few weeks and not down in the dumps at all. I think it's because I have an exciting new project to focus on....myself and DH have decided to move to the countryside! We are (hopefully) going to sell our house and build a 4 bedroomed house on DHs family's farm! We had been planning on having an extension built on our current house and eventually moving to the countryside in maybe 10 or 15 years time but since the lockdown started we have been doing a lot of talking about houses and have decided to go for it now! We will have to knuckle down and put as much as possible into our savings for the foreseeable future and we will end up a bigger monthly mortgage than we have now but it will be worth it for a better way of life.. We are used to saving from self funding all our IVF cycles and I am good with money when I have to be so I think we can do it 

It's very exciting....myself  and DH have spent every evening for the last few weeks looking at house plans online and we have found an architect whose house designs we really like. I spoke to him on the phone the other day and he is going to come out to look at our proposed site when the Covid 19 restrictions ease after 18th May. We are very very lucky to be gifted a site to build on by DHs parents. There is a good bit of land attached to the family farm so we have a choice of sites. The field we have chosen for our preferred site is very idillic as it is right beside a very scenic canal which is designated a natural heritage area and which is popular locally for fishing, walking and jogging. I have an idea to have a private pedestrian gateway leading from the bottom of our garden out onto the canal towpath so that DH can literally go fishing from the end of our garden! Hopefully we will get planning permission from the county council for the house and the gateway. Our first step will be to get plans drawn up after the architect looks at the site  It is so nice to have something positive to focus on and daydream about away from Covid 19 worries.

Yesterday was a big milestone for R...his first baby tooth fell out and the tooth fairy came to him for the first time ever last night. She left him 3 chocolate coins under his pillow. R is very kind-hearted so he gave P and J a chocolate coin each and only kept one for himself 

[Shamrock.]

Friday 12th June 2020

P is 7 Years 3 Months Old
R is 6 Years 2.5 Months Old
J will be 23 Months Old in 4 days time

It's just over a month since I posted

It was my 48th birthday on Tuesday... Arghhh how did I get to 48 years old so quickly  It was our 10th wedding anniversary on Wednesday...that 10 years went by in a flash  We got married in Sicily the day after my 38th birthday...Originally our wedding date was set for the day of my birthday but for some reason the church couldn't take us that day so we had to change it by one day. DH and I celebrated our wedding anniversary by having our lunch together in the local park while T minded the kids. DH very romantically bought my sandwich for me  That hour alone together to chat was great. We are still very much in love even though we don't have as much time just for each other as we would like. I'm looking forward to the next 10, 20, 30 plus years with Mr Shamrock 

For my birthday both P and R made me birthday cards and DH bought 2 mugs for them to give me one each  For his present DH got my ipad fixed for me coz the screen was broken on it 

We have made good progress with our plans to escape to the countryside. The architect whose house designs we like came to view our site with us on 21st May. He sent us a schedule of his fees afterwards and they were quiet a bit higher than another architect I had spoken to so we spent a few days mulling it over and in the end we decided to go with the architect we like rather than base our decision purely on cost. It means though we really have to knuckle down even more now with building up our savings 

The architect has since drawn up site layout plans and put together other documentation and he submitted them to the county council on Monday 8th June for a pre-planning review for us. It will probably take the council at least 3 weeks to come back to say whether or not they agree in principle to where we want to build the house. Fingers crossed we get the green light. If we do the architect will then start drawing our house plans 

[Shamrock.]

Saturday 27th June 2020

P is 7 Years 3.5 Months Old
R is 6 Years 3 Months Old
J is 23.5 Months Old

Myself and DH are really peed off. Our lovely childminder T has told us that she is leaving us to go back to fulltime education  She is going to go to college in September to do nursing studies. She has been with us for 4 years and P, R and J love her. We haven't told them yet. I know they will be devastated. She has been looking after them 4 days a week most of P and Rs lives and all of Js We will wait until we have a new childminder sorted before we say anything to them. I know people say children adapt well to change but they will be losing someone who has been such a big part of their lives and like part of our family so I know it will have a big effect on them   J is very clingy and is only comfortable being with me, DH or T so I am especially dreading the thoughts of having to try to settle him with someone new. We are going to advertise for someone next week. Arghhh the thoughts of trying to find someone suitable 

J is doing great. He is now in size 5 nappies and in 2-3 year old clothes. I have loads of clothes for him that used to be Rs so I have only had to buy him a few new things..just vests and pjs  Whenever I put something on him I remember R wearing it, it’s nice to have those memories. but sad too when the realisation hits of how quickly they grow up.

We had a lovely family day out on Thursday. It was really warm and sunny so myself and DH both took a day off work and we brought P and R out for the day while T minded J for us. We packed a picnic and went to a lake just over an hours drive from home. It was a part of the lake we hadn’t been to before (TMG). It was a very nice place, a small sandy beach with shallow water near the shore and life-guards on duty so very safe for kids paddling and people swimming, there were plenty of picnic tables, an ice cream van and a forest to explore. There was also a part with fishing jetties that P and R loved. We were there for about 6 hours. It was so nice to be able to spend some one on one time with P and R as myself and DH were able to take turns doing things with them individually during the day without having to look after J at the same time.

[Shamrock.]

Saturday 18th July 2020

P is 7 Years 4.5 Months Old
R is 6 Years 3.5 Months Old
J is 2 Years 2 Days Old

It was Js birthday on Thursday. How is he 2 years old already!

We had a lovely little simple birthday celebration for him. I bought a caterpillar cake, sweets and baloons and the evening of his birthday we put him in his highchair right outside our front door and all of the little kids in the neighbourhood came to sing happy birthday to him with P and R  J was delighted and kept saying 'cake' and 'look boon' (baloon). I counted 16 kids outside the door when I was giving them each a slice of the birthday cake and some sweets 

J is doing great. It's hard to believe what a rocky start he had as a tiny baby when you see how full of life he is now. He is all go! He literally doesn't stop going for a second all day. He has our house wrecked but it's all good  He is very very cute looking with chocolate brown eyes and sallow skin. Since the lockdown DH has been cutting his hair with a trimmers and the tight cut really suits him. He is going to be a real heart throb when he's a teenager  He is also very clever. He has a full vocabulary of words and knows exactly what you are saying and can ask in his own way for anything he wants 

He loves playing outside, loves playing with a ball, loves going on scooters, loves the trampoline, loves the swing and the slide, loves playing with sand, loves playing in the treehouse, loves playing with blocks When he wants me to play with him he says 'mammy hand' and takes my hand and brings me to whatever it is he wants me to play with him...so cute  He is mad about his Mammy 

There are only 2 things he will watch on tv...'Peppa Pig' and 'Little Baby Bum' we have them on Netflix in the kitchen so when he not outside playing he watches the same episodes over and over. He is learning loads from 'Little Baby Bum' ..for example he already knows a lot of different shapes and will call out the name of a shape when he sees it before they say what it is on the program. He knows circle, square, triangle, heart, star and diamond! He also know the names of loads of different animals and different kinds of fruit 
He has a great memory ...he knows what is going to come on next in Baby Bum before he sees it. He knows different animal sounds. I say to him what does the cow say and he says " Cow Mooo' he knows cow, dog, cat, duck and pig sounds so far 

Good news regarding the childminder situation. Through a lot of discussion and negotiations we have convinced T to defer her college course and stay with us for another year. We have given her a payrise which will stretch us financially especially now that we are saving for our house build but it's worth it not to disrupt and upset the kids. We had advertised for a new childminder and had met with one woman and spoken to a few others but nobody we spoke to suited at all so we decided to try to do whatever we could to keep T working for us. In another year things should hopefully be easier as P and R will both be in school until 3pm each day and J will be in preschool so if we have our new house mortgage approval by then I will apply to work mornings only and we won't need a childminder anymore.

Things are slowly progressing on our house building dream. The County Council have given the go ahead for us to build on our site but have said we need to have a flood risk assessment done by an engineer because of the close proximity of the site to the canal. Our architect is scheduled to come out to the site next Wednesday 22nd July to do a laser survey of the site levels and some measurements then he will start drawing up the house plans  It's very exciting. I have been doing a lot of research online and have been putting together a brief for the architect which says what we want in the house plans e.g. 4 bedrooms, open plan kitchen/dining/living area, walk in pantry, laundry room etc etc.

We are going on holidays next week. We are doing a 'staycation' this year coz we had to defer our planned holiday to Lanzarote until next May because of Covid-19 restrictions. We have a house rented by the lake we usually go to. It's on the other side of the lake, a place we haven't been to yet. Looking forward to getting away from work and having quality time with P, R, J and DH

[Shamrock.]

Sunday 27th Sept 2020

P is 7 Years 6 Months Old
R is 6 Years 6 Months Old today
J is 2 Years 2.5 Months Old

It's over 2 months since I last posted here and plenty going on in our family life in that time. Will try a very quick brief synopsis while I have 5 minutes to myself. DH has given me a lie-in and a tea and toast breakfast in bed this morning 

Since I last posted we had our staycation week long holiday in Ireland. Had a good time but weather wasn't great. Hopefully we will be able to go abroad next year. You can't beat a foreign holiday for the guaranteed good weather!

P and R thankfully went back to school the last week of August. They are both benefitting greatly from being back in the routine, back learning properly and back with their school friends. The school has put stringent Covid controls in place so hopefully they will be as safe as they can be.

Have to go J having a meltdown downstairs! Will try to finish next time I get a minute

[Shamrock.]

Sunday 18th October 2020

P is 7 Years 7 Months Old
R is 6 Years 6.5 Months Old
J is 2 Years 3 Months Old

It has taken me 3 weeks to get back here to post. Js meltdown didn't last 3 weeks but he certainly has had plenty of them in that time. J is full on into the 'terrible twos' at the moment where one minute he is laughing and playing happily and the next minute he is having a full on throw himself to the floor screaming meltdown because he didn't get something exactly how he wanted it    I  don't remember P or R having meltdowns like J does. He is extremely bossy and wants things in a very exact way and if he doesn't get exactly what he wants, the way he wants it then he goes mad  I know it's a phase that will pass....hopefully soon 

P is gone on a sleepover to her friend Ms house since yesterday lunchtime.  Her friend M is 7 yrs old too and she lives literally over the fence from our back garden. P and M are inseparable since Ms family moved in last November. M is a lovely polite,  quiet and happy girl and she is a good influence on P so we are delighted they have each other.  Her mum and dad are very nice too so it's all good. When M first became friends with P either myself or DH would walk P around to Ms house which is about 5 mins walk by road or Ms dad would walk her around to us for playdates but after a few weeks we just started letting them climb over the back fence that seperates our two gardens so they can pop in and out to see each other whenever they want. P has been on a couple of sleepovers to Ms house and she is happy to go because she knows she can come home anytime she wants. We probably won't see her until this evening but we will hear her playing happily in Ms garden. We obviously trust Ms parents and P is always happy when she comes home from a sleepover albeit very tired from staying up chatting to M half the night 

P is getting on great in school since she went back the end of August. Her reading is brilliant as is her writing, maths and Irish. She got 'writer of the week' in her class last week for having very good writing. She was delighted with herself because she got a homework pass so she didn't have to do homework for one night.
Every Friday they have a maths and spelling test in Ps class. They get 16 spellings the teacher calls out and they have to write down the word she calls out and 13 maths questions which at the moment are addition only. Since they started doing them 5 weeks ago P has gotten every single question right. I have to sign her test notebook so I can see how she is doing and every single week she gets 16/16 spellings right and 13/13 maths right!  To say I'm proud of her is an understatement  She was back in ballet in September but Ireland is in Level 3 Covid restrictions since 2 weeks ago and her ballet class couldn't go ahead in person so her ballet teacher had the class via Zoom and DH set up his laptop for P in her bedroom so that she could join the class virtually. It's not ideal but at least she can still do some ballet which she loves.

R is getting on well in school too. During the school closure from March to end of August due to the Covid lockdown R had regressed a lot socially and academically. He is the kind of child who really needs to have the routine and structure of school to be able to learn and progress socially. His writing in particular had gotten really bad but thankfully now that he has settled back into learning from his teacher he is progressing well again. Socially the Covid lockdown seemed to have a really negative effect on R. He seemed to have regressed back to being babyish. I think maybe because he is naturally shy but thankfully he seems to be starting to get back on track now again. Covid lockdowns can have a big effect on a child depending on the child's personality so I am really hoping that the schools will stay open for the rest of the year even though it is looking likely that we are headed towards another total lockdown because Covid infection rates are spiralling R is really good at Irish and maths and his reading and writing is improving so fingers crossed it stays that way. I requested a phone call from his teacher last week because I am worried about him  having friends to play with at school and his teacher said he was very withdrawn and shy when he first came back to school but he has improved a lot. She has promised to keep an eye on him in the school yard for me.

[Shamrock.]

Saturday 7th November 2020

P is 7 Years 8 Months Old
R is 6 Years 7.5 Months Old
J is 2 Years 3.5 Months Old

Just a quick update from me. I’m having a lie in and DH just gave me breakfast in bed but I promised to get up soon to bring J for a walk in the buggy to give DH a break. J is awake since 6.30am! 

J has been overnight in hospital twice since September with breathing difficulties and he has had to be tested for Covid-19 both times which was negative both times. He has been diagnosed with asthma and is now on the beige preventer inhaler twice a day to hopefully prevent another asthmatic episode. He was admitted into the paediatric unit of our local hospital on 11th September and again on 22nd October. In October he had to be given oxygen and he was on a nebuliser every 2 hours  The consultant thinks his asthma is genetic as nobody smokes in our house and we don’t have pets inside or carpets etc etc

On Tues this week I was back in the paediatric unit at the hospital with J for a peanut challenge. He was diagnosed as being allergic to peanuts over a year ago as he had two bad skin reactions to peanut butter back then. Since then we have been really careful about what he eats and we carry epi-pens for him everywhere he goes. Anyhow, at the peanut challenge he was given measured amounts of peanut butter five times which increased in the amount each time and an allergy specialist nurse stayed with us all the time to observe his reaction. Thankfully he didn’t react so they say he seems to have grown out of his peanut allergy which is a huge relief. He was also diagnosed as being allergic to egg and milk over a year ago and I am working my way up the egg and milk allergy ladders with him to hopefully desensitise him to them. It will be great when he is finally able to eat everything P and R eats.

J is doing great despite all the medical issues. He can now speak in little adorable 3 or 4 word sentences and is still the cutest little thing on two legs 

Have to go... both DH and J getting very impatient waiting for me to get up