February half term already!

This year is going by so fast already, we are at February half term,  so the kids have been at school 5 weeks since new year! scary!  we celebrated the little boys 3rd birthday last Saturday! with a trip to London to go and see some dinosaurs and under ground trains that he loves so much!

Birthday boy!

Eldest and her beloved stuffed dog Georgie

This is how apparently Chelle is spelled in Starbucks outside Enbankment station....   I'm going to pick a new name for myself for these places!!

It was a good day, we managed to have lunch somewhere in peace ( imagine that!) though the museums where very busy and we had to que to see the dinosaurs in the natural history museum for a good 40 minutes! which was not good for our eldest who was struggling even when topped up with paracetamol and ibuprofen.  As we were not running around London trying to show our friend around the tourist stuff we thought we would try and see if she could manage without us hiring a wheelchair... that was a huge mistake!! just because we put her through so much pain.

Went to the doctors as our latest pram broke due to sometimes needing her to go in so we could get home  and or to drs appointments when unable to walk and asked for a wheel chair referral. Right i know what most of you are probably thinking, like what the hell sometimes we see this child running around being "normal" but there are days when she just can't walk, she more or less gets down stairs and collapses on the couch. like this morning ( thank goodness its an inset day at school!) because her knee is red hot and sore. We can't do simple shopping trips! We can't have family days out without screaming pain. It's not just stuff she doesn't want to do its everything!  she ends up locking her knee and walking very very strangely.

  

As shown in the video which she didn't know was being filmed, is from over the Christmas break when we spent some time up north with family.  We had already had a 20/ 30 minute break because of pain there and she didn't want to go into the toy shop... a sure sign that all isn't right!! 

Since showing the physio that video she refused to do anything more to help our daughter as she didn't want to cause any more damage to her and tbh ever since we started physio her issues have been getting worse not better not sure if that is a coincidence or not! Finally got a referral to a rhumatologist! though i have been telling them since we moved that we needed one, it shouldn't be such a farce! That is what i feels like all the time, a farce, a fight to just get someone to listen and not think i'm a over reactive parent. It is so hard to stand and watch as you daughter  struggles to walk home from school and its not terribly far. We have no referral to wheel chair services and have to wait for the rhumatolgist appointment in March which isnt terribly far away thankfully ( and i'm dragging hubby to it for back up! ) 

We can only hope that like last year that we will get more answers and more support because it feels sometimes that we are floundering in all this mess! 

Hopefully we have family visiting this week and we can't wait! just wish we could see everyone else too!  but we can't always be the ones traveling up even if we are the ones that moved! Scary how much it costs to come up for a visit! £80 ish in fuel but prob less with the price of fuel atm( that is inclusive of both ways). You then have food at service station unless you take your own so both ways possible £20 each way, normally buy a magazine for the children to do in the car on the way up so thats at least £2 each. Then anything whilst we are up there, food days out O_O scary!!! Also i know our family can't keep paying that either so makes it one of the harder reasons for our move.  Because i do miss how close everyone was really compared to now! 

Not sure when our next trip up is, thought possibly at Easter but not sure! will have to discuss with hubby for best time and when he can have time off work and madam off school etc. so many factors, you don't think of these things when you move, we once said we would try and be up once a month  but that is just not fully feasable with how quick a visit goes and how long it takes to travel up. A weekend just doesn't seem long enough :( esp when you have several lots of family to see. ( as we couldn't go up and not see people!! Hopefully this year we will learn to cope  with the traveling and quick visits.  

Don't take for granted the family you see every week because you soon miss everything. Even if we didn't see everyone every week it was the opportunity too that is now missing.