Jan 16, 2013

Lyra's First Encounter With Illness

Little Lyra continues to do all the things that she is supposed to do, beaming merrily while she does many of them. "Mim," she opines, some mysterious request for what is most probably milk. And, if that is not understood, of course there is the Four Fold Way of Outrageous Demand that ends in desperation and strained eardrums on the behalf of her subservient parents.

All has not however been plain sailing. For the last couple of weeks, she has been beset by a vicious, racking cough, productive from time to time with a thick mucus. As often as not, it will trigger a bout of vomiting the projectile range of which would from time to time challenge even the most committed of teenage hedonists.

She was sitting in her Electronic Rocking Chair of Immediate Quiessence the other day after a bit of a feed when she had a bit of a turn, coughing then producing a fountain of chunder that left her with a pool in her mouth to deal with, which could have ended badly.

As so, parents on alert, in the still watches of the night we fret that an unfortunate accident will occur and we wake at the slightest sound, anxiously turning her onto her side or front for fear of a choking catastrophe. Lyra sleeps through it all, remarkably. We do not.

We took her to the doctor the other day, more as a derriere-covering exercise than anything, and she agreed with us that it's just a cold, but a sticky one and it's unfortunate that mini-immune systems can't shift sickness more quickly.

So, c'est la vie, but we're looking forward to this being over and getting back to a decent night's sleep.

Eloise's Holidays

I Will Follow Eloise has been on school holidays, and there have been rendezvouses with various of her little friends.

We have had days out to the beach, trips to the Railway Museum, Boxing Day meals, sleep-overs, both home and away.

The new tablet is a source of amusement and angst as extended sessions of Angry Birds, Where's My Water and Subway Surfers have caused her priorities sometimes to be called into question.

But all that notwithstanding, in general she's had a pretty good time in the hot weather with lots of swimming and a general reprieve from dog walking which for the last week or so has been occurring early in the morning to avoid the heat.

Heatwave

Albert River So, no doubt you'll have been reading all over the news about bushfires and record temperatures in sunny Australia.

And indeed, over the New Year period and into January, it's been pretty damn hot.

We were invited by one of Nicole's chums down to a farm down near Beaudesert for a day of camping/relaxation and had a lovely time messing about on the Albert River in some inflatables.

We rode a couple of cascades, modest little waterfalls between swimming holes, which was immensely enjoyable until of course we went that one step too far and tried to go over that last waterfall that had a dog-leg in it, and that all ended in fear and tears, but no harm done!

Matilda came down with us and made friends with the other dogs that were there - Nicole's friend Lis was camping with her extended family, and in true Aussie style this meant a canvas city, twenty people and several dogs. Matilda had a pretty good time nosing around, sniffing dogs' bottoms, and paddling around with us,

In fact, for reasons which remain murky, she point-blank refused to get into the car at the end of the day for the journey home.