Blissful Normality

The Fox is just about back to 100%. All of his smiles and nuttiness have returned. It's also been terrific weather. Yesterday I took him to the park, and we had the best time just hanging out. He enjoyed roaming free, and I enjoyed knitting and eavesdropping. I took these photos on my iPhone, not too shabby:

Scary Times

We have had a scary 24 hours here at casa de fox. To cut a long story short, Foxy started doing his very laboured breathing again yesterday afternoon, so I took him to the doc, and we wound up spending the night in hospital. He is now absolutely fine, but they said one too many times that it doesn't mean he will develop full-blown asthma. So to my mind, they were telling me that these are asthma attacks. Great.

The best of it was the NHS care, bar one nurse. First, I was very impressed that once at the GP's surgery, they really took over. They organized for an ambulance to take us to the hospital, who knew we were coming, etc. (Not that it was an emergency, just that I did not have the car with me and they did not want Foxy out in the cold.) I kept thinking what a pain it would be if I was having to worry about stupid insurance forms and junk like that. The practice nurse at our local doc's office was particularly good. She was the one who really told me how it will be. Like, even if he gets much better now, you WILL be in hospital tonight, and I doubt it will be the last time in his childhood. That sounds harsh, but it was done really nicely. She also really impressed upon me that I need to let go of my reluctance to call for an ambulance when his breathing gets laboured at night. Her words really ring in my ears now: "How much room for error do you think you have?" Message received and understood. Anyway, everyone at the hospital was really good too, except for Nurse Ratchet at 2 am. She totally traumatized Foxy and I with the inhaler, and it took us a good hour to calm down and get back to sleep. All in all, I would say Foxy had about 7 hours, and I maybe had 3. It was too light, WAY too hot, I was on a tiny mattress on the floor, it was just hideous. For me, absolute torture. We napped lots today. I am almost recovered.

Right now, it is hard not to catastrophize. I am worried that he will be a wheezy sickly child, and I don't see how that is going to work with full time employment. I would be more worried about Foxy, but he has yet to be bothered by the attacks. He is, however, very bothered by the treatment. We now have a hideous inhaler that he is supposed to have several times a day over the next several days. I don't see the point given that he is now breathing absolutely fine. Nearest & Dearest to check that out with her pharmacy buds.

I am crossing my fingers with all my might that this is merely a bad patch, and that the winter won't be blighted....

Double Digits

I will quickly update that I caught Foxy's bug. It has been HORRID, but I am over the worst of it.

Meanwhile, Foxy turned 10 months old today! What a big boy. Foxy had plenty of cuddles, a few smiles, & deep thoughts this past weekend:

Grrrrr.....

Foxy is ill AGAIN. I am not amused. This is another messy one. On Friday evening, the vomit managed to get all over the boy, me, a chair, library book, floor, & blanket. At times like that, I think I would top myself if I were a single parent. My guess is that he will not be well enough for creche all of next week. Sigh.

New Settings

So, I went to dinner last night with one of my dearest friends. We have a routine of meeting up for dinner every couple of months. at Gatwick airport. Yes, it's odd. Very odd. But it's convenient for both of us to get to by train, what can we say?

Anyway, she mentioned that she had tried to leave a comment, but been unable to. Can you imagine?!? There might actually be some comments about my drivel if I made it easier. So I have. Now, anyone can comment without an account. And I also switched off the annoying word verification thing. Hopefully I won't get spam.

Quiet Week

This has been a very quiet week because Foxy is ill, and so I have been home with him, doing not a lot. On Monday they rang me from the creche to say that I needed to pick him up because they weren't happy about his breathing. It was indeed laboured -- he sounded like an asthmatic. In the end Nearest & Dearest insisted that we take him to hospital, and she was right. They diagnosed it as broncialitis (sp?), and gave him some meds through a nebulizer. That helped, and he is getting better & better each day. He has been in good spirits throughout, so it's been no hardship.

I have been getting REALLY into my knitting lately. I am making a pair of cushion covers, one set of which is done, and just needs sewing up:

I am nearly done with the first (boring) side of the second:

I'm looking forward to the front which is going to be the coral with purple spots. I hate sewing up, and don't think I ever really do it right. So, I found a class at loop on finishing techniques. It's at the end of November, so I figure I do not need to finish ANYTHING until then. Bliss. The class will also teach me how to (finally) make the button band to finish off the monster cardigan:

My other project that I am on the verge of starting is a tea cozy for the fun girls. They chose 'Tea Rose' from Tea Cosies; it is mostly green with white roses on the top. Here's the yarn:

SEVERAL years ago a friend sent me sock yarn and all the tools I would need to make them (thanks J!). I tried, I really did, but you can see that I did not get very far:

I just can't deal with all those tiny double-pointed needles. During my knitting podcast binge I have heard about a new technique, the magic loop. Somehow, it is possible to knit socks on one really long circular needle. I am so excited! I have a booklet on order to teach myself. This will be perfect for carrying around with me coz socks are such small projects.

Against my better judgement, I have joined two social networking sites. I am now on FaceBook, and I have also joined Ravelry. In case anyone reading this is also on Ravelry (a knitting community), my name there is purlhussy. For both networks, my picture is of two puppets in front of my face... I need more time to upload stuff onto both sites, but blogging is definitely my primary focus. I just love doing this, and I'm not sure why.