Half Term fun

Still eating fingers, but with cool hair!

Steam Train Ride

Painting art for the newly decorated bedrooms!

Playing Cbeebies and 'Disneyjuniordotcodotuk' - according to Emily


Playing in the Garden - it was a little cold

Fun in the sun at Trentham

All smiles

What a great week we have had.

Life...

... flies by too fast. Four weeks of term have passed by, Joel is enjoying his new nursery school and Emily is adjusting to life in Year One. We have had a busy time trying to adjust as a family of five. At times life is just one big mess, yesterday as I took the washing out of the machine, a tissue had been put in, ( in MY pocket), I said in despair, " I want a new life!" it was the tissue that broke the mummy's back! It is currently tricky to do things that were once simple, like go to the park. It is hard to push two children on the swings whilst trying to feed a 3 month old. It is hard to make tea whilst playing trains, making Hama beads and protecting a 3 month old on a play gym from raining beads or bashing trains! It is exhausting getting three children out of the car to do the school run, on a rainy Wednesday morning, with two carrying umbrellas, a blanket draped over a car seat and a mummy with a hood!

Emily has started ballet at a local ballet school so that trek across town is so much smaller, she enjoys dancing with her classmates. She is enjoying learning to read and is looking forward to swimming lessons starting up again on Friday. She currently has a conker collection of 16 and it grows daily.

On the up side, it is fab to go to Dunham Massey and have hot chocolate and cupcakes from our flask ( we are saving to repair our front door!) whilst struggling to fit on a picnic rug as there are so many of us! It is great that our breakfast table is now a squash with Seth in his clip on chair. It is fun to play family football with Jamie and Seth in goal. It is reassuring to hear Emily and Joel singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle' in the back of the car trying to comfort their hungry brother on the way back from school.

Jamie is well, school is busy with open evenings and twilights and other joys that I am not missing! His work load is pretty heavy and it isn't helped by rushing home to help with tea and bedtime. Work starts again at 7.15 pm when we pray for quiet from upstairs.

Seth is well, his lip and wound improves daily. We massage it 4 times a day despite his shouting! He is a noisy chap who had to sit at the back of church today as he was interacting too much with Diego's sermon.
Well, I think that is enough insight into our lives, we are well, happy and adjusting. Not long till half term and a rest from the school run.

What a week!

This week Seth has been to Manchester Childrens Hospital to have his corrective surgery. It went well, he is now at home recovering, in fact we are all recovering from it!

He is drugged to keep any pain away and seems to be doing well. He no longer has his wide smile but is perfecting his new smile.

Thank you for your love and prayers, we have been acutely aware of the care we have been shown. Now on with the rest of our lives with Seth repaired and ready for the next chapter.

Time Flies

Well, it has been a while so a quick catch up is probably needed.

Emily has had her first school report. It was great, she is doing well and seems to have embraced learning. She is not so good at following other children's rules or listening to their opinions. I wonder where that comes from? She has been a social butterfly with lots of parties and play dates, it can be tricky balancing family life with her calendar.
She has had her fifth birthday, she got a new bike, hopefully the stabilisers will go over the summer.
Note, her friend's horror as Emily was ;spitting' out the candles!
Joel is great. He is attempting to be toilet trained with some success but not amazing! He found it hard to understand why Seth was getting presents for arriving in the world and Emily was getting them for her birthday, but what about him? Life has hard lessons! We have been to the open evening for his Nursery school, it will be weird to see him in uniform! He has his next cardiology appointment on August 4th. He meets his new cardiologist as our other has moved to another hospital. We hope he cooperates as he like 'Dr Bani'. Joel enjoying a game at Emily's party!
Seth is four weeks old and doing well, or better than he was. He has been in hospital with a urine infection but is picking up. He is on antibiotics until they do some tests to rule out any problems with his digestion system. He doesn't like it as it tastes of aniseed, but he has no choice. We met his plastic surgeon on Thursday; he was very reassuring that his cleft is on the minor side and should repair well. His surgery is scheduled for September 14th, his 3 month birthday, so we have only 2 more months of his 'special lip'. He is sleeping well at night, on the whole, only 2 feeds, but he can be grizzly in the evenings. We are using infacol which seems to settle him and reduce the times of crying.
Jamie is well, he is on the countdown.... only 5 more school days to go. Emily is on the count down only 10 more days to go!

I am on the count down... only 11 more moths to go before back to work!

On another note it is 9.30pm and Jamie has Emily at the out of hours dr as she has been complaining of a sore ear! Hope they will be home soon with an Emily who is not in pain.

He's here

Seth Norman David McCulloch arrived 1 hour and 3 minutes late on Tuesday 14th June. He is doing well, his cleft is not as severe as they had predicted from the scans and antenatal appointments. His palate appears intact; we have our consultant and surgeon's appointment on July 14th when we will have more information. He is feeding well and growing well. We are well supported by Jenny our Cleft team nurse. She visits every few days and asks as well as answers questions.

Emily and Joel adore him and don't like leaving him to go to school, or our childminder. They are kind and positive to him and we seem to be settling into some sort of rhythm as a family of five.Jamie goes back to work on Tuesday, we will see how that goes as I do the school run on my own with Joel, Emily and Seth in tow! I may be in my pyjamas, but as long as Emily is dressed we will be ok!

Emily had sports day this week; her team came second and her house won. Her daddy also came 3rd in the parents egg and spoon race.... it was nice to be able to go as a family.

Joel is well, he is still as obsessed with football as ever. He had 36 footballs and balls prior to Seth arriving. He now has 38! The more the merrier as he lines them up in the garden in front of his football net!

It was my birthday yesterday. I really got spoilt. I love my new yummy mummy bag, thanks to my parents and parents in law. I also got a wonderful necklace, from Jamie, with the children's names stamped on individual tags! I love it! We are well, life is good, Seth is great, Joel is fab and Emily is perfect! Long may it last.

It's been a while

The royal wedding was fun, Emily had a not the royal wedding party at school. We made cup cakes to share!We also went to Lyme Park for a picnic and walk. We had a great time! Do you like the new statues in the garden?

Joel has been busy improving on his football skills, we now have a broken light fitting in the lounge and other bumps and scrapes in the house. We are hoping for some dry weather so he can have target practise in the garden!

I am on maternity leave now! I made it to the end and am now 38 weeks pregnant and counting down. We brought the moses basket and a few toys down tonight for Emily and Joel to play with. They were amazed when we got the photograph albums out showing them sleeping in the basket, or sitting in the same baby bath or chewing the same toy! They are excited but I think a bit confused about the whole thing. They know a brother is coming but when Mummy and Daddy say soon, but he still isn't here! I suppose life from a child's view is very odd! I am swollen and have higher blood pressure than usual, I am being checked every 3 days, and they say baby may arrive early because of it! Jamie is on holiday this week as is Emily... so maybe this will be the week.

Jamie is taking the kids into Manchester tomorrow for the victory parade. They are excited, I don't fancy standing around with swollen ankles being squashed by lots of people.

Well, the bag is packed and the camera is charged, the children's bags are packed and we are as ready as we can be... maybe tonight is the night!

Easter Holidays

... are nearly over! we have had a great time. The weather has been pretty great so we have spent most of our time outside. We have been for 2 nights to Llandudno and spent lots of time on the beach, parks, national trust properties etc. It was a great visit.

We have also been to Stockley Farm to feed the baby lambs as well as hold the chicks. It was amazing to see my rough and tumble boy cradling a new born chick, talking to it as if it was his best friend. We have decorated the kitchen, tidied the garden and othe small DIY projects that have been on the backburner.

Joel has given up his dummies this holiday. We have been warning him that it has been coming - for at least a month, and I am relieved to say that they are gone and without a fuss. He traded them for a red clima cool tshirt and a first size football. He takes his football to bed at night and puts it to sleep in a shoe box! He and I have had conjunctivitis, it is good to share but I would prefer him to keep his bugs to himself.

Emily has enjoyed girly days with grandmum, friends round to visit for tea, Easter Egg Hunt at church, birthday parties with school friends as well as bossing everyone around in the garden!

Jamie and I have been to the the Children's Hospital to meet some of the team who will be caring for baby. It felt a bit like pulling a scab because for the past 5 weeks it has been about my health and has felt like a normal pregnancy. This changed last week, when were shown, "this is where you will meet Mr. Whitby, this is where baby will meet the dental hygienist, the orthodontist, the speech and language lady, the psychologist!" We are so appreciative of the support... but yet again are bombarded with information without holding him in our arms. I suppose we are waiting to meet him so he can show us the extent of his clefts.

It is only 7 weeks until our due date. We wait impatiently but all the good weather has allowed us to wash clothes and bedding. This little one has a full compliment of clothing right up to 2+ years! We are as ready as we can be, we have been taught how to feed him using the different types of bottles should he need it, I have a stack of things to throw into a bag, Emily and Joel are ready to squabble over him and we are trying to sort out contingency plans to care for them when I am in hospital.

I am busy writing school reports, updating school policies and other work related things before I start maternity leave on May 24th. It is less than 15 school days away so I need to get a move on!

Well, I was supposed to be rewriting the school PSHE and citizenship policy - something I will do tomorrow night! SATs are in 2 weeks time so life will be pretty busy for the next few weeks. Jamie is busy with revision classes and parent's evenings and Joel and Emily are just great!

The wonders of technology

This week we met our baby! It was really quite amazing. we had 4D scans to see the extent of the cleft as well as an opportunity to see beyond his cleft and remember that we have another son arriving in 12 ish weeks! It is very weird for us, to know the gender of our baby but also to be able to see him and to notice that the parts of his nose that seem unaffected... looks remarkably similar to Emily and Joel! We think he is really cute! This week is a busy week with a midwife appointment, a consultant appointment as well as dentist appointments for the whole family. - You have got to love the NHS!

So, we are well, I am ballooning and blooming, feeling much better, although work is exhausting. Joel is excited that the garden is drying out after a long, wet winter so he can get out to play football. (I am pleased about this too as we have broken light shades, vases, cups and other fragile things in the lounge and kitchen!) Emily is going to the theatre to see our neighbour in Beauty and the Beast as well as her Ballet performance this Sunday... and Jamie is busy practising to play music with his friend Charles in a Tamil band!

Only 3 weeks til the Easter break, so that means 8 weeks of work left before Maternity leave... but there are bank holidays in there and I only work 3 days so you can do some maths... it is not long to go!

Thanks for love, prayers and kindness... we appreciate all that is said and unsaid.

Half Term

Well, the long awaited break has been and is nearly gone, it has been great. We have been very busy, I feel that I have made up for January of which I spent most of it in bed with flu and other viruses. We have been to North Wales, Eureka and Chester Zoo! Now we are back to our zoos on Monday! Enjoy the pictures.

Tuesday has come and gone

.... and we have more information. We hoped that this scans at St Mary's would confirm what the sonographers thought last Thursday. That Baby's palette is intact, as is his nose.

Sadly, that is not the case. He has a unilateral (one gap) cleft lip and palette. It is average in size and it does goes the full way up to his nostril and his nose is affected. His palette is damaged so feeding will be that little more complicated but the consultant is confident that all can be fixed with a minimum of two surgeries.

We are disappointed that it is as severe as it is, we had hoped that it would be only his lip, but now we really do have to consider speech difficulties, eating challenges and other hurdles too.

We are also very, very aware of the kindness of others, the pain and sadness that this brings. On the other hand we so many are excited to meet him and give cuddles. So form a queue... and be patient as June feels very far away.

Something to make you smile.

I picked Emily up form our childminder after our hospital appointment.
JA: we saw the baby dr today
E: Did he make my brother better?
JA: No, but when he is born.
E: What did he say?
JA: Well, your brother has a hole in his lip, but he also has a hole in his nose and mouth.
E: Mummy, there are holes everywhere! He is a holey baby!
JA: (Laughing) yes he really is!
E: But mummy, my baby brother is holey and Joel is holey, why am I not holey?
JA: I don't know Emily, we are glad you are not holey!

We are smiling, although we are hurting; we are laughing although we are weeping; we are praying and know that God is supporting us through people, friends and family and in silence too.

Round two

Well, the facial scans...

Where do I start? I suppose by saying that Jamie and I are hurting. Our little wriggly one, our much longed for and awaited one, our son... is going to be more unique than we thought. We eventually, after much walking up stairs, drinking sugary juice, jumping up and down... saw his face. He was still coy and at times pressed against my placenta but we have conclusive evidence that he has a cleft in his lip. A gap where both halves of his face have not fused together. We do not know how large, or how deep, we do not know if it affects his nose or palette.

We need more evidence so it is back to the children's hospital for round two of high level specialist scans.

What we do know is that we have been entrusted to look after this little boy..that he arrives into a world were vanity and the seeking of perfection is important. But he also arrives into a world where he is loved and celebrated. Where his choices are like any other; they just come after a bumpy journey for the first year or so.

We are anxious, we await these tests and hope that he cooperates and does not have his hands over his face. We go to Leeds for 4D scans at Easter to have high resolution images to see if that can guide his consultant prior to his birth. If not... we just wait for him to arrive in June, and then he will show us his face and we can work out what we and you and the NHS can do to help him.

We don't pretend that this is easy to handle. We already have Joel, his heart is still repairing, he is not at the end of his journey. Emily is an outgoing, busy 4 year old and into the mix we welcome a boy who needs a lot of immediate care. We would not have chosen this, but we have been chosen to be his parents and we look forward to meeting him.

So... we wait and pray. We pray for peace of mind. Peace of heart and soul. We pray for sleep in the long and sometimes short night. We pray for those who make decisions on our behalf, on our son's behalf. We pray for the staff who will care for him and help him. We pray for our families and friends as they hurt with us, journey with us, laugh and weep alongside us. We pray for Emily and Joel as we try to prepare them for a new brother. We pray that this little one will enter the world knowing that God made him and gave him to us to care for him.

We are grateful for all who have sent messages or called or just smiled. Hopefully we will have more information on Tuesday.

Phew!

This week we had high level, specialist cardio scan on baby. We knew that there was a 25% chance that this one would be like Joel or more complicated but when it is a statistic is feels far away. When it involves the little one so longed for, so wriggly in my stomach.. well it feels different.
We have had good care throughout this pregnancy with tests etc and this week was no different. Our 20 week anomaly scan took an hour... a very long hour! But all seems well apart from the fact that the baby was too shy to show his/her face so we are back for facial scans on Thursday.
Back to the cardio scan... we had to wait for ages as the families before us were complicated like us! But.......... after much looking, measuring, photographing, hmming and haaaaaing... baby does not have any holes similar to Joel. There may be small holes like any other baby but they will get sorted like any other baby at birth. What a relief! We are thankful and grateful.

Other news:

Joel is no longer in a cot, but a big boy bed complete with a gate on his door to keep him in.
Emily is now learning to swim on her back complete with arms... something I wish I was confident with.
It is only 2 weeks until half term!

Joel's first book reading

Enjoy

Flu and cookies

Well, I have been sick since before Christmas, I then picked up and felt better. I went back to school on the first day back and had to be brought home as I had a near fainting episode at my whiteboard. I got flu! Which one they don't know, but what I know is that nearly 2 weeks later I still don't feel 100% but I am better than I was and I have 32 children waiting for me back in class.

Today we had a pyjama day. It was a good way to recover as we were all tired and weary of routines, illnesses and life. It was so unusual for us that Emily didn't know what one was but she really enjoyed being in her nightie at tea time! So note in the pictures they are wearing their pjs despite it being 3.30 in the afternoon!
Yesterday we met up with the McCulloch clan from across the country to celebrate Christmas. It usually happens before Christmas but the snow stopped that this year. We have this great tradition of one family buys for another with a set budget. This year we received a great gift, we always do! Kids baking sets, a grown up apron as well as cookie jar and a gingerbread decorating book. So we tried out a few of them today. It was a little messy but so much fun and tasty too ! Joel has been back to the hospital last week for measuring and tests. His height has jumped massively and he is now 95cm! This means he is above the 91 percentile, something the dietitian thought would never happen. His weight has improved too (75 percentile) and he is no longer on infatrini! The milk he has been on since he was 2 weeks old has now left our home, not bad considering he is 2 and 5 months... and at 98p per 100ml we are no longer a drain on our doctors surgery prescription costs! (not that they ever questioned!) Joel continues to enjoy dressing up, he will use whatever her can find... including his underpants!

He did make me smile when I could hear, "yucky, yucky," coming from the bathroom when Joel was having his bath. I went to ask what was yucky only to be told... "my bottom, Mummy!".

A parcel arrived from Canada last week and in it were some homemade biscuits, which looked and tasted great. Thank you Soren, Kate and Sophie for sharing your cookies with us!

Well, I have successfully distracted myself with this for 30 mins so it is back to planning for tomorrow. Here's hoping I can get through the day without feeling faint or weak and that my class can forgive me for being off for 2 weeks and leaving them with a supply teacher!