Whew. Survived the birthday party, which went fairly well, with a minimum of tempers (mostly my kids, but that's often the case as guests are usually well behaved away from home). Also survived Olivia falling off the stool in the kitchen and biting practically through her tongue on both sides (from a distance, it's not too bad an injury, but at the moment the child is gushing blood from the mouth, well, it's a different story, isn't it!). Luckily, we decided we did not need a trip to casualty, which would have been a truly lovely way to round off the evening. Poor thing. Poor Mummy. But on the whole, it's been a good day, though tiring - I may go to bed very soon! We did get to see the fireworks from the back garden though - the local Bonfire Night celebrations seem to range across a wide variety of weekends, rather than the ones closest to Guy Fawkes night (which would be either next weekend or the one after, logically, as Guy Fawkes day is the 5th). Too tired to go in person, and frankly, it's very cold, but as it's just down the road, we can see it from upstairs or the back garden...

Not that much to say at the moment, just trying to get back into the habbit of blogging frequently, even if there's not much to say. We had a nice weekend; Sarah and I went to the Polka Theatre (children's theatre in Wimbledon) on Saturday and saw a piece that was quite experimental, including some trapeze work/rope climbing and lots of other fun stuff. The audience sort of sat in the middle of the stage space & the actors did everything around them. The kids loved it. As did the grownups. :) Geoff and I usually argue over who gets to go to the Polka with the kids - I won this time as it clashed with the rugby (World Cup, England v South Africa). And it was his birthday as well, so he was very pleased that England won. Now if only they can beat the All Blacks...

Still not crawling, just the weird swimming thing. When he's left alone long enough to do anything, that is. His main problem is far too much help from sisters...

Coming up to a busy time here - a couple of birthdays very soon - Geoff's on Saturday, then Olivia's is the 24th. Obviously, hers will require a bit more planning & effort, but I do have to wrap Geoff's presents. And I'll probably have a lot of help doing it, which means it will take much longer than otherwise. Hmm, I sense a theme here!

Well, almost crawling. Today he was doing this sort of weird swimming on land kind of motion. It was a forward movement (instead of rolling, which is his usual favourite) similar to crawling, but much more tortured and slow.

Did I mention (for those of you who might not know) that my brother got married yesterday? Unfortunately, we couldn't be there, as it was in San Diego, but well, there it is. Assuming nothing went wrong, he's a married man now, and is no doubt off in Hawaii where it's nice and sunny and warm, celebrating. Or relaxing. Or both. So congrats to him!

Anyone looking for the official word on my sanity (or lack thereof)? We're having a birthday party for Olivia with 22 children invited (inlcuding my own). Most of them 3 and 4 year olds! I've had one person not able to come so far, out of 5 responses, so actually, if I continue with those percentages, it will be fine. It's going to be a fancy dress (i.e. costume) party, and only an hour and half long, so actually, I think it will be fine. Just enough time to eat something and play some games, and then everyone can go home. Sarah and Thalia are going to be my "helpers". Actually, they will be quite useful for stuff like running the music for the games and helping with the food, and they'll really enjoy being helpers.

OK, so for those of you following the saga of the boy and his kidney, some good news I thought I should share. We have finally finished having all the various tests he had to have, the latest being a DMSA, which is a nuclear scan (they inject him with something radioactive which moves to his kidneys, then take pictures to see how much function each has), which he had on Tuesday. Finally. Follow up on Wednesday with the consultant, and the verdict is that the dud kidney, although small and badly formed is, at present, contributing 25 per cent of overall kidney function (which is great; with 2 proper kidneys, each contributes 50 per cent, so 25 per cent is not at all bad - the paediatric surgeon we saw antenatally said they wouldn't even consider removing one (usually) unless there was less than 5 per cent function.) And as he does not have reflux, the infection risk is very low, which means that a)they see no need to do anything at present and b)he can stop taking the antibiotics he's been on since birth, which is nice.

The only concern is that the dud kidney may not grow, or not grow much, in which event, it would obviously, over time, contribute less and less to the overall kidney function. So they'll check on it periodically (an ultrasound in a year's time is the next step) and see what's happening, and go from there. So that's all sorted, and though I wasn't worried, per se, it's certainly nice to be able to shelve it all for a while. And to know that I don't even have to contemplate the idea of surgery on my baby :)