Sick as a Dog!

Poor Kosmo hasn't had much of a weekend. Apart from the seizures, he's been really sick and off his food. I'm wondering if this is a sign of things to come, as he was pretty sick the last time he had an episode of seizures. He's been spending a long time laying in the garden. I think with his long coat, he's finding it hot in the house. However sometimes, he gets cold himself and is unable to ummon the strength to get back up and come in. On a couple of occasions I've had to go out and get him.

So Saturday Kosmo had 3 seizures and on Sunday he had 1, but things seemed to have settled down now (touch wood). Kosmo slept in his kennel in the basement last night, as it's nice and cool down there. I went to get him this morning and he seemed much better. He's still not interested in food, but he did manage to give a piece of ham a good lick, which at least shows he's beginning to get interested in food again. Hopefully by the time I come home tonight, he'll be back to himself.

Anyway this blog entry is totally for you Kosmo, We're thinking of you little buddy.

A New Episode Begins.

So the weekend is here. We put the babies to bed last night at gone 9pm, and them having a full feed, I thought I'd be able to have a mini sleep in (wake at 6am instead of 5am), however Kosmo had other ideas...

It starts off as a dream. About what I can never remember, but then I begin to wake a little and then in my sub concious I think Kosmo is having a scratch on the bed. Then somwthing triggers in my head and I realise he's having another seizure. Not that I should be surprised, he was about due for one, but it's always kind of a surprise when it actually hapens. It's strange because the pattern of late is for him to seizure first in the early hours of the morning. He had a a second mini seizure after I brought him down stairs, then the girls began to wake up. I thought it best to put him in with Sherri and then feed the girls, however during their feed is when he had his bigger seizure. It's almost like the small seizures are the calm tremors before the storm. The stronger seizure woke Sherri and we swapped places, I tendd to Kosmo and Sherri tended to the babies. Once the babies were fedd, I sent Sherri back to bed and put Kosmo in his kennel in the basement so he could get a proper rest. He's still groggy on his feet, but hopefully the worst has passed for this episode.

It takes the poor fella a while to get back to his old self. At the moment he can't make up his mind whether he wants to lie down inside, or walk around aimlessley or go outside and lie in the snow. My heart breaks for him, because his seizures obvioulsy take their toll on him, I just wish there was more we could do for him.

It's currently 10:30 and I'm waiting for Sherri to wake up so I can go back to bed and catch a few more Zzzzzs. It wouldn't suprise me if Kosmo took the opportunity to do the same.

It's a trying start to the weekend, but at least we were there for him, I hate to think of him having seizures on his own.

Little Lucy!

Yesterday was Lucy's appointment at CHEO(Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario), which is a bit like Great Ormond Street in London. Anyway Lucy has an appointment to check out her throat. Sherri noticed first that Lucy seemed a little hoarse when crying and also when she tried to speak (no I don't mean words, but baby talk). Anyway once the paediatrician found out that Lucy was intubated (had a breathing tube) when she was born, she arranged for our appointment yesterday. As far as Lucy's throat/larynx goes she was given a some stronger medication for her acid reflux (which is what seems to be causing her sore throat) and asked to come back in a couple of months.

However when the doctor checked Lucy's ears she noticed that on one side her ear canal was very narrow and on the other side she couldn't progress past a certain point, she said it look like it was blocked half way down. Now this is cause for concern, but the doctor told us that it could still open up when she gets bigger, but she wanted to make sure it wasn't having an adverse effect on her hearing.

When Lucy was born, she and Sarah did have a full hearing test in the hospital, which they both passed, so we know she can hear and in fact she does respond to our voices, so that's good. We'll know more afer her new hearing test on the 17th March. If worst comes to worst, they can do surgery when she is 2 or more, to open up her canal, it all depends on how she progresses from here on in.

So that was not the outcome we were expecting at the hospital yesterday, but we do have a bit of peace of mind with regards to her throat and hope that her next appointment doesn't give us any more surprises.

Anyway I just wanted to let everyone know that yesterday was also the girls first major outing and they were absolutely wonderful. They were both full of smiles and laughter and everyone that came into contact with them became enamoured in an instant. Pulblic consensus seems to be that Lucy looks like Sherri and Sarah looks like me (poor girl). I was so proud of the pair of them. Lucy only really cried when she was having her throat and ears checked and who could blame her.

We really do have wonderful children and slap me silly for not mentioning one of my other kiddies. She'll kill me for calling her that, but Mandi turned 18 on Wednesday. It's hard to believe sometimes how much she's changed in the last few years, she's quite the young woman now. Anyway happy belated birthday Mandi (no I didn't forget her actual birthday, just didn't blog it) and start planning for your retirement now LOL

Good Morrow And How The Devil Are You?

And so another week begins. As usual the weekend just flew by, but we seem to have settled into a routine, or near enough anyway. The weekends are now our chance to take turns in catching up sleep, but at least we are able to catch up on our sleep.

I don't know if I've mentioned before, but Sherri has caught the eBay bug, so it's not unusual for us to receive packages in the mail. However nothing is nicer than receiving packages from people you know, especially family. I knew my Aunt Elsie had bought some christening gowns for the babies, but wow, I didn't realise they were gonna be as nice as they are, not that I didn't think they were gonna be nice, but you know what I mean. They're ivory silk gowns with accompanying blankets and hats and Lucy and Sarah are just gonna look so cute when they wear them. We're hoping to have them christened some time in June or July, which should give the weather a chance to improve.

Talking of weather (mmm I wonder where this stereotype comes from, of the English always taking about the weather), it's currently snowing again and there's also quite a bit of wind, so I'm just glad I drive to work and don't have to worry about getting a bus. Now don't get me wrong, I love the snow, but our driveway still hasn't recovered from the ice we had recently, consequently there is about an inch thick layer of ice covering our driveway, which makes clearing the snow, almost impossible. Yeah I know what you're thinking, excuses, excuses, but anyone who's read this blog for a while, will know that I used to be a stickler for clearing the driveway, but now I decided it's better keeping the neighbours happy.

Anyway, I have to bolt down my cuppa tea and get ready for work. I think I can feel an extra large timmys coffee coming on :-)

Warning! Warning! Warning!

Just thought I'd let everyone know that I do know the original photo albums and the guestbook are not working. The reason for this is that I've moved our website from one provider to another. The photo albums and gustbook were created using a programming language called Python. The provider I have moved everything to, does not support Python, but fortunately they do support ASP.Net which means that I have to redevelop these parts of the website in this. I hope to have these parts of the website restored some time early next week.

Oops, Sorry Picasa!

OK, so maybe it wasn't the new version of Picasa that broke my templates. Upon further investigation it seems that somehow all my literals had been converted to web friendly format, i.e. > had been converted to > etc. Anyway everything is now sorted and a new album is online.

So yesterday was Valentines Day and it was great to put the babies to bed early, have dinner and an early night, although I managed to wake up at 4:30am with the babies, which is unusual for me, I normally don;t hear them till around 5:30am, so today is gonna be a long one. Anyway at least this morning has been productive and I sorted out the photo albums. There's plenty more pictures to go online, so I'll be doing that over the next few weeks.

Happy Valentines Day Baby!

I just wanted to wish my number one girl a Happy Valentines Day. Life has certainly been a rollercoaster, but to say we have been truly blessed, is an under statement. Our dream all along was to have babies to complete our family and this year is our first Valentines with them.

So anyway I wanted to just let you know how much I love you and declare it for the world to see. Life is good. Life with you is better.

All my Love

Colin
XOXOXOXOXOXO

Is There Anybody Out There?

Just to let you know, it's easy to post comments to any of these postings. Just click on the link under each posting showing the number of comments and then click on the Post Comment link that appears on the resulting page. You don't have to join Blogger to do this. Go on, feed back to any of the posts is greatly appreciated.

Arrrrgh Technology!

I finally settled on a way to create photo albums, which sort of worked the way I wanted. Anyway the software I chose is called Picasa.I was using version 1 and had created a template based on one supplied, that created an album with the same look and feel of our website. Anyway since I posted the last album, I've upgraded to version 2, whcih I have to say is great. Last night I went to create a new album and the template is now broken, so I have to go through the conversion again, hence why no new pictures yet. I shall endeavour to get something sorted over the weekend.

Lucy and Sarah are doing great. They've been sleeping upstairs for a while, so Sherri and me have fallen back to some kind of normality. We put them to bed at around 8pm and they sleep till about 3am. Now all we need to do is get them to sleep to about 6am and we're sorted. Mandi and Ally are off school today as techers have their PD day today, any excuse for a day off is what I call it.

Anyways, gotta dash, lots to do and not enough time to do it. By the way more snow yesterday, so winter is with us a while longer.

Monday S.U.C.K.S...

"Everyday is like the day before.
Everyday is as different as the day it follows."
Colin Meeks

So what does it all mean then... Absolutely nothing. It's just my way to fill the blank void that appears before me, with words to encourage me to write more words. Sometimes I can sounds like a real pretensious tosser, but oh well what can you do, but write more words.

This weekend flew by at a fare crack. I finally got around to putting shelves up in the babies room (Hey Chris aren;t you proud of me LOL). That was after I had to go out and buy some drill bits, to finish off the poorly finished shelves. I also had to buy a heavy duty knife, so I could cut up some carpet to put in our mudroom. Now for people in England (hey maybe this is a popular term in England, but I sure have never heard of it), a mudroom is a place usually where the closets to put your coats are and where you usually take off your boots.

I also managed to read some books and generally spend some quality time with my girls. Sometimes you don't have a chance to have a minute to your self. Sometimes you have the wife nagging at you, but when all is said and done, I have to admit, that I sometimes need a good hard kick up the backside, to get me to do things.

Monday is always a difficult day. It's hard to get back into the swing of things, especially when you are waking up in the early hours of the morning and stumbling over and hitting your shoulders on the corners of bed side tables, but ah well, you don't want to hear about that now do you?

Work is keeping me busy and this website is also managing to give me a few headaches, but more of that some other time. Time to wrap up and do some bits and pieces.

By the way, if anyone remembers Marble Madness, you just have to download Hamsterball. It's a blast.

I'm Not Superman!

It's very rare that I think of my own mortality. Fortunately, so far (touch wood), I've had no real need to. So when someone the same age as me, succumbs to a deadly disease, it not only gives food for thought, it also gives you a kick up the backside and makes you realise how many things you take for granted and just how wonderful life is.

Ivan Noble was a writer who worked for the BBC and for the last two years, documented his fight with cancer, which finally claimed his life on Monday 31st January 2005. Like me, he was 37 and had two small children. Writing an account of your own life is a very personal thing. It's all the more emotional when you are are documenting something that you know deep down is eventually going to kill you. It's even more saddening when you know you are leaving behind 2 small children who will never be able to say they knew you and who you will never see grow up.

In writing a personal account of ones life, you are in some way creating your own form of immortality. True the words that are written, are a shell of yourself, but you at least leave a sense of your being. Ivan Noble's personal account of his battle, is to be published as a book and it's something I definately want to pick up.

Although I never knew Ivan, through his words, he touch me and I hope thousands of others deeply. I just hope others read the account of his final two years and take something positive from it. My thoughts are with his family. I hope they feel the warmth from everyone around the world, that send their heartfelt condolenses.

Happy 1st Birthday!

Now who could I be referring to here now. Who do I know that's one today. Well if you haven't guessed it already it's this here blog. I started this a year ago to try to get me into some kind of writing regime and it pretty much worked. Now I have had the odd thing or two distract me, but on the whole I've probably made around 250 posts. Now I say around, as this here service from Blogger has my counter stuck on 194, so barring me having to go through and count all the entries, I'll just say 250 and give myself a nice pat on the back.

Anyway what better way to celebrate a birthday than with a nice picture. Lucy is on the left and Sarah on the right. They are sitting in their new Bumbo seats, which allow them to sit upright. We bought the seats on Ebay and save around $60 or more, Sherri would know the amount better than me, as she's the Ebay shopperin our family. It used to be me with my vintage computers, but since I got Sherri an italian charm bracelet for christmas, she's an Ebay junkie. Oh well it's only money, at least I know where she is at night.

Kosmo is managing to keep himself out of trouble, well that is apart from waking us up at 3am to have a stroll around the garden. Sherri figures it's since we wakeup at odd hours for the girls, he can get in on the act. It's not even like he has to use the amenities that the garden offers. I think it's because he's getting a little hot. His coat is getting quite long and in combination with use having to have the heating up a bit higher than usual, I think he likes the garden as some cool relief. Hopefully this weekend we'll take him for a grooming. I must make sure I put up a pictre of him at the moment, as he looks so bedraggled at the moment, but it's so cute.

Anyway I have to dash, got a few things to do before leaving for work and the babies will be waking soon. TTFN