Loss

Thankfully Blokey was on his rota day off today. I went to the GP's early on and then spoke to the vet on the phone about Piggle and what we needed to do. She rearranged her work to see us at the end of surgery and to ensure Piggle had a familiar face. It also gave us time to arrange for Blokeys parents to come over and care for the children. Owen wanted to go to the vets with us but I managed to talk him out of it...it wasn't in Piggy's best interest to have him there and when I explained why he understood.

She had a respectful, peaceful send off and got to say goodbye to many people. I held it together until she had gone, so did the vet (just). It was one of the hardest things I have had to do, we all wanted her to live forever. Sad that the thing that took her wasn't her advanced age but a degenerative desease similar to MS..thankfully she wasn't in pain. The children haven't known life without her ( she was 15 years old) and she was an amazing, loving soul. We are all utterly heart broken.

The following morning, there were many tears. I wasn't sure if the boys would have a delayed reaction to Piggles death, it's almost a relief to see them being able to grieve. We spend a lot of time talking things through. Piggles huge heart continues to teach them even now. There's is no point in trying to do anything for the time being except try to adjust, talk and keep busy playing. 

I tried to suggest making some cheese but the boys really weren't in the mood. They offered to do some maths. Sam is still unwell with a horrible cold and is coughing constantly. Owen is just starting with a sore throat and they both missed jujitsu last night too.

Owen makes a start whilst Sam is reluctantly showering. Both boys are not in the mood to get anything done at all. I can't say I blame them, I am feeling much the same myself. Owen refreshes his knowledge in Roman numerals and converting measurements.

Then he looked after his pet snail. 

Sam spent quite a long time on division of decimals. It was slow going but he got there in the end.

Owen has now finished the historical books I bought him and the new book my mum got for him last week. 

We watched the next instalment of Blue Planet 2 - Green Seas and were very taken with the Dragon sea 'horses'.

We also enjoyed catching up with Masterchef the professionals.

We are all so under par. Sam has a bug he cannot seem to shake off, we all feel so utterly miserable. As I have a hospital appointment our friends offer to have the children for the morning. They all have a great play together and getting out of the house cheers us all up for a little while.

The next day we do a bit of maths and cleaning round before going for a long walk. There is plenty of ice for the boys to poke and prod and Owen cheers up quite a lot. Sam enjoys bird spotting but the cold ( it is SO cold) makes his asthma bad, so we are only out for just under an hour.

Fearing the ice so the finches can access the water.

Enjoying the loud cracks and patterns forming. The children spent a good 20 mins exploring the ice by the farm.

Taking photos of the landscape and our shadows.

More stops to examine the icy puddles.

The week has been very mixed. Sam's ill health and  the loss of our much loved dog, have meant we spent a lot of time talking, resting , reading and in quiet contemplation on our own. The boys also played with friends and dozed on the sofa.

It's going to take time to adjust and adjustment exhausts the boys whilst they try to process a major change in their lives. 

Music week

My parents came over at the beginning of the week, so the boys helped me clean and tidy the house in the morning. Grandad played with the boys and Mum and I went out for a few hours.

As the boys decided they wanted a music themed week, we looked at treble and clef notes.

Then watched a TED talk.

Tried Staff Wars..which is fun but in typical style the boys expected to be able to play it without grasping the rules and there were a few frustrations initially. We also researched other interactive musical games and looked up films about musicians.

Owen wrote to a sound engineer to ask about equiptment and spent time watching instructions about sounds from this YouTuber. He really enjoyed it and said it was very interesting.

Sam has been up since 5am and has a terrible cold and hacking cough. I think he did well to come te anything today as he looks very rough. Whilst Owen was watching instructional talks, he and I made pain au chocolate..his fav.

Sam didn't eat much at lunch despite me making sausage and mash. So I doubt it's a good ide he gone to his jujitsu class later. When I mentioned this to him his little lip wobbled..he was so looking forward to showing off his new belt.

Owen and I tried to order some more Julie Edwards books via inter library loan, but sadly our service doesn't have any yet. We managed to get another two from Amazon and they will arrive tomorrow ..I expect he will have read both books in two days.

Despite feeling unwell Sam decided to go to Jujitsu...I suspect because he wanted to show his new belt off. However, this meant he had to use his inhaler and came home exhausted and teary. He did manage to sleep but woke up feeling worse. We cancelled our plans to go to laser quest with friends, much to the boys disappointment. Owen was really good and didn't give Sam a hard time over being unwell. 

We did a little math,  Sam struggled to organise his work. It's really hard because I would be happy (ish) to let him doze under a blanket whilst he's ill but he would be antsy with nothing to occupy his brain with ..also Owen would expect the day off too...so I just scale stuff down and make it low key. 

To keep with the music theme, we watch some mini documentaries:

Then off the back of this we searched out cartoons with 'classic' well known music...I enjoyed seeing some of them again and the children had some giggles.

Everyone shout 'kill ve wabbbit!' to Wagner ...😂.  Parenting win.

Sam didn't want to do music related activities today ( he's a bit tetchy) , so he binge watched White Rabbit, which is very similar to Myth Busters. He had been up since 5:15am. 

Owen came down after reading his new book and ate his breakfast keeping Sam and White Rabbit company. I had suggested Owen think of what he wanted to do with me but he drew a blank. I am hoping both boys will one day be able to come up with some concrete suggestions for their work because their PDA/ASD tends to make them reject things out of hand regularly.

Eventually, they settle on wanting to do maths......eeevvvventualllllllyyyyyyyyyyy.

Sam struggled with this yesterday ( subtracting decimals) but had it cracked today. 

Owen did order of operations so fast I couldn't keep up. He then went on to do some maths speed tests..but the speed element freaked him out a bit.

He then asked me to cut his hair and watched some more sound engineer lessons.

It's been a very tricky morning. Both lads gave me the run a round and I had to be very firm with them about a number of things. Sometimes nothing goes to plan and I felt a bit frazzled by the time our very late lunch time came round, so they were reminded of some ground rules.

We had some snow on Friday morning, which was a bit of a surprise and cut my run short.

Also Blokey and I were sad to notice our old dog was not picking up after taking a turn for the worst earlier in the week. Sometimes she would rally, but this time she wasn't. We gently let the boys know that we feared we would need to decide what was best for her soon.

 We spent a quiet weekend at home with her but it was becoming increasingly obvious that she was struggling more and more. I decided I would ring the Vet first thing in Monday. Sunday night she slept with me and Blokey in our bed, instead at by the side of it.

Blokey has a week off.

Another beautiful frosty start to the week. Sam had insisted he wanted to come jogging with me the night before but couldn't get out of his warm bed. I had a great walk/jog...despite being chased by a bull and some cows at one point!

I had been home an hour before Sam surfaced, he then decided to berate me for going without him!

The children worked on their maths. 

Sam still can't grasp that multiplying by 0 = 0 . I can remember having issue with this when I was that age too.

Owens work

They played with a friend for a while, then after lunch we took them to Laser Quest. We had a laugh at the new sign.

Sam was on the winning team again and Blokey very happy he beat us this time. Owen took defeat very badly though and was quite upset we hadn't won.

After doing chores we had a lengthy game of Scrabble.

It was tense when the scores were being added up.

The children played with friends then attended Ju-Jitsu class and are getting nervous regarding their grading at the weekend.

We had planned to go to the Children's Museum. We set off so that we arrived at the time their website said they were open. Sadly, the information was incorrect and the museum was unexpectedly closed till December. Blokey and I were really fed up, but the children suggested we go to Tutbury Castle, which was a little further up the road. We had a right giggle when that was closed too!

Thankfully a nearby nature reserve saved the day from being a complete wash out.

Even though it was muddy and wet, we enjoyed bird spotting and saw a Heron and many types of finches.

By this point we were needing lunch, so found a local inn.

We enjoyed a good meal, even though the waitress felt the need to ask many, many questions as to why the boys weren't at school! Blokey kept me entertained by being deliberately vague to her seemingly endless quizzing.

The following day we took the children to have a sleepover at my parents house. Just having a night to yourselves means relaxation and being able to finish conversations and just generally catch up with each other as husband and wife. We enjoyed a meal out together and a drink.

The following morning we took a long walk with the mobile pooch before heading out to collect the children.

My mother looked exhausted 🤔.

At the weekend the children took part in their grading. As usual Sam was very nervous before he went in.

Both boys passed and now have their half blue belts. Whilst they were doing their gradings Blokey and I went for lunch and a wander round the town. On collecting the children, we got them a late chippy lunch, which they demolished on the drive home.

Sunday was spent chilling out doing our own thing in the morning. I went for a long run..it was beautiful but freezing.

In the afternoon Blokey took the children to the cinema to see Justice League, they grabbed sarnies from Greggs on the way over. Both kids love the spicy Mexican rolls Greggs do.

The final donations are now in for the children's fun raiser and we are so happy that they managed to raise this much! Thanks to everyone who donated and encouraged the boys to do this.