Here's a couple of Sophie today (sorry Marg, didnt catch Emma today!) - one with an armband worn as a hat - she just loved this game - and the other smiling at herself on the camera screen.

Excuse the dinner on her face still - chocolate lollies go everywhere, dont they?! You can see a couple of her spots on her armpit too - poor thing cried every time I picked her up for a week, but you just cant avoid some of them can you?

My brother phoned tonight to alert me that our mum has just moved on in her dementia. Partly because of her depression, she has become afraid to go out, which has its uses. But earlier this week, she went out into the garden and then wandered through her gate onto the bit Allotment field behind, where they rent a plot. It's something she's done for the last 30 years. But this time, she forgot where the gate was and couldnt get back, so she wandered around this enormous field full of everyones vegetable gardens and found her way out of the security gate and into the road. Fortunately she then seems to have recognised where she was and walked home. Dad had been out and arrived home to no sign of her and was just about to launch a search party. Worrying.

Then tonight I logged on to find an email from a genealogy friend to tell me her husband, who has been ill with dementia, died last Wednesday. Its hard to know what to say - in some ways its a big relief for her, and in others the worst loss after 50ish years married. But I hope my mum wont suffer too much longer either.

My inlaws finally went home tonight. The house is so quiet, LOL! Hopefully I will cope ok tomorrow, with the school run etc. Sophie is booked in for a couple of extra hours at the childminders, so I can rest then. Got to book Emma's party, before the end of term (16th) so I can get the invites out. Thats the problem with Em having a birthday the first week of term!

Thanks for all the best wishes of health - Im finally beginning to get there, though I dont have much energy in reserve, and I have to be very careful what I eat or my tummy gets upset again (I suppose after almost a week on water, it was always going to be a shock going back onto food again. But I love my food....!). Sophie's spots have all crusted over and she has begun to sparkle again. SO nice to see her laughing and playing again. She's done little but feed, and has been very clingy. Now from tomorrow we move into the 10 days since Sophie started being infectious, so attention will move to Al & Em in case they get spots.... Happily no-one seems to have gotten my illness, although MIL got something similar a month ago (so unless I incubated it for a whole month I cant blame her, though it was comforting to know someone else had the same vague symptoms). Sophie's spots stayed mostly on her back and under her nappy. Some of them will definitely scar, but at least her face was almost clear. She liked having calamine cream on, enjoyed ibuprofen and paracetamol, but hated piriton and medised (antihistamines) with a vengence unfortunately.

Anyway, better move on, DH is keen to get online and we only just got our internet connection back after 3 days.

Just a quick update while I still have some energy left today. The last few days have been horrible. My illness suddenly got worse on Tuesday morning with me being sick at 5am & 7am. DH did the school run & nappies & went into work late. My temperature was all over the place. By mid afternoon I was begging him to come home as I couldnt cope; couldnt be bothered to drink and couldnt face a nappy. He got stuck in traffic! Fortunately by then my wonderful inlaws had offered to come and hold the fort & they arrived at 930pm. For the next few days there was lots of shivering and sweating for me, lots of tears and spots from Sophie, lots of baths and very little sleep. Oh, and water only for me until Thursday night. I had fewer shivery spells and didnt throw up on Thursday, and yesterday I almost began to take an interest in life again. I decided not to feel guilty about it, but my main reaction to Sophie was "feed or go away, I cant cope with you", which isnt fair at the best of times, and definitely not when a toddler has Chicken Pox! Yesterday Sophie went on a milk feeding spree and didnt leave my lap except for new nappies until 2pm. She also stopped asking for drinks of water and cows milk, so I wonder if my milk dropped off, or tasted "Ill" or just too boring without the normal food tastes? I was still too weak to walk anywhere, and a bit dizzy, and I've lived in a fast-changing set of pyjamas since Monday night. Maybe today I'll try clothes! Right now, DH is working on the summerhouse, Sophie is trying to climb her shape-sorter to get nearer to me, Emma is tired (uhoh) and playing on the CBeebies website, MIL is washing up/hanging out the washing and FIL is out doing the weekly shop for us. Oh, and just to make life more fun, we had to cancel our credit cards coz somebody online has been using the details for stuff we dont buy (so the bank spotted it quickly) - only 3.5 years since the last time. The less pleasant side of the www! Better go & pay DD2 some attention. Back sometime. Nearly asleep. Forgive spellings!

Well, I feel a little better today, though I was shivering violently at 1am after the ibuprofen ran out. But on her first nappy change today I found 7 spots on Sophie's back and a similar number inside her nappy. Here we go! Now we have a 3 week wait to see if Emma and Alan catch it too. Well, there's never a good time to catch it, is there... Thankfully so far she's not trying to scratch and is in a pleasant mood. And I'm still trying to squirt milk in her one pink eye - the other one has cleared up after last nights milk. She is not impressed!

Wish me luck!

At last, I got my foto friday with photos on! Copy, cut & paste - eh what's going on?

I've been poorly all weekend. I felt all PMTish on Friday, with a sore tummy, but it seemed unlikely to be that ;-). Although my tummy's been slightly upset, it's not really that either. It got worse during the evening. I couldnt get comfy Friday night and only got snatches of sleep all night. As a result I woke up on Saturday and quickly got a migraine as tiredness is one of my triggers. But the tummy ache seemed to have gone away. I wore a gell-patch all afternoon and another one all evening (never tried before but I can now recommend them now). Sophie wouldnt settle and so I went to bed at 9pm.

By 5.40am I'd had enough sleep, but I felt reasonable. But by breakfast time I felt rough again in the tummy dept. I was well enough again by 10 to go to church, where one of my friends said she'd had a non-descript tummy ache last week. Sophie was miserable in creche. Numbers are low as 3 weeks ago one little boy came down with chicken pox. Now, several of the kids there have it, so I'm watching Soph like a hawk!

I skipped one meal yesterday and two today - boy am I hungry! Sophie fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept about 150minutes. I got her out and offered her a late lunch, but she turned down most of it. So we went out in the garden, where Em was assisting daddy with the summerhouse project. I started to feel very sore tummied and cold (it was gales here today, but it seemed odd as I dont normally feel the cold, whereas Al, who does, was fine in a T-shirt). I came indoors and sat on the sofa, and I started to shake with "cold"  - actually I was burning up. Al came in and got me 2 paracetamol and I went to bed. Em said she had a tummy ache too - not sure whether she's just copying me, I hope so!

Alan gave Em just dry toast for tea, at her request, and Sophie ate well. He's still fine. I fed Sophie to sleep (and she got fed up with me poking her in the eye with my nipples as she has a slightly sticky/pink eye which I dont want to get any worse) and then I took some ibuprofen. It took about 1 hour for the paracetamol to stop the shivering, and in that time I realised that the tips of my fingers and toes felt all pins & needly - odd. Thanks to the painkillers, I'm faily ok right now, but nervous about tonight & tomorrow. What a weird illness!

Here are a couple of recent pictures.

Above is some writing Em did at school, all about having a go at basket ball and scoring on the last go (managed it!). She is so brave just going for it, and seems to be learning fast. I'm so proud of her!

Here is Sophie helping me mop the floors last week! I have a microfibre cover for my broom which can be used damp, so it was perfectly safe to let her help me - no chemicals, no bucket - hurray!

When Sophie saw this stepladder she raced straight to the top of it and sat down - just like she does on Emma's slide. I'm very relieved to say she didnt proceed to slide off it but I did wonder!

Thanks to Arna, here is my belated Foto Friday copied and pasted into my Blog. Hope they get the bug sorted soon! Here are the progress photos of the summerhouse going up last weekend and then Alan & Emma putting up the guttering today. It's a bit windswept still (doors & windows are still waiting in the garage) especially with todays gale!

Emma had her friend J over after school. Emma has announced before now that she will be marrying J when they are grown up. It remains to be seen whether they both still think this is a good idea in a decade or so! Anyway, J is the opposite of Emma when it comes to food, and as a result of this, and genetics, and 11 months difference in their ages, he is much smaller than Emma. So I had to laugh today when he was picking his way through the food I had put on his plate. Emma leaned across and whispered in his ear. Then she turned and told me "I've just made a deal with J: if he finishes his sweetcorn so he grows up fit and healthy, I will marry him when I'm old enough"! Now there's an offer! Sweetcorn, anyone?

Here are some photos of Sophie looking cute last weekend, and a pic of Al working on the summerhouse project last weekend (he and FIL got the floorboards down today - hurray! So now I have a deck!).

I'm afraid I couldnt decide which red dress pic I liked best, so I'm posting both!

Above she is watching herself in the viewing screen on the camera. Below she is pushing the wheel-barrow while DH is working on the summerhouse base. Something looks like it has "gone" as her hands are open (which is her sign for gone).

Yesterday Emma had two birthday parties to attend - lucky girl! She had two hours off in between the first, at a soft play area; and the second, a disco at a church hall. Today she is pretty tired! She took Sophie right up into the large part of the soft play, which has a sign saying "5-13 year olds" on it. It isnt policed by the staff though, and I decided that I would not rescue her unless she was actually in danger or distressed, which she wasnt. Emma and her friend were with her every step of the way, including down the large slide which has 4 adjacent runways - I saw Soph coming down every which way - tummy, head first, back, sitting - having a great time, and with a 5 year old on either side holding her hand! Oh well - having a brave big sister necessitates little sisters to become brave quickly! And mums to try not to pannic too, IMO!

Today I decided to get out of my comfort zone and start inviting people back for Sunday lunch again. Being constantly tired, and having a rather untidy house (I havent fully regained control since I was ill a month or two back) it's easy to be insular, but I decided I needed to start inviting a few safe people around again. So today we had probably the safest of all, in Sophie's lovely gentle childminder and her son, who is exactly 12 months younger than Emma. The weather has been lovely today, so we spent most of the afternoon in the garden, and just ate in the house. J is a keen gardener too, so it was fun showing her my garden, and her son just loved playing hide & seek with Em and Alan, as his garden at home is about the size of a postage stamp! It was lovely to share my garden with two such lovely guests. They seemed to enjoy the food too, though of course I wasnt 100% happy with how it turned out, but that's my perfectionism trying to bubble to the surface!

Alan gave them a lift home after tea and then filled up with diesel for me on the way back (my fuel light has been on for several days, but I managed to cycle almost everywhere at the end of last week). For the first time it cost over £60 to fill the car up, with diesel being £1.30/litre here now (that's over £5 a gallon)! When I started driving it was just 45p/litre, which is now a distant memory! Am I old or is it just VERY expensive now?! Oh well, back onto my bike even more!