June 18, 2008

I know, I know - I said I'd blog again soon, but life has been SO hectic this last week or so, we've hardly paused for breath!

Well, we're here now... so first and foremost, Happy Birthday Dad! It's Charlie's Grandpa's birthday today so we whizzed over to see him earlier to deliver his pressies and cake! Charlie was chuffed to bits to see him, and very much enjoyed 'helping' with the present-opening!

So - what have we been up to lately? Well - like I said in the last post, we took a trip up to Birmingham to visit the Sealife Centre (yes, Charlie's still very keen on sharks and the like) and we also went to a theme park up there as well. Fortunately, we ended up with a day of sunshine in a week of rain, so we had a lovely time.

We've decided Charlie's a bit of a speed-freak - he loves all the rollercoasters and fast spinning rides. (I don't mind the rollercoasters, but the ones that go round and round... bleagh. They bring back too many memories of morning sickness for my liking!)

Charlie's been really busy at playschool too - they had the paddling pools out the other day, when we had a brief flash of what summer weather should be like. He had his wetsuit to keep him a bit warmer, and in spite of my warning them that he might not stick it out in the cold water for too long... according to the teacher he outlasted all the other kids in the pool!

We had his big induction session at 'big school' last week, which was another proud moment. We sat in the school hall and the teachers read out the list of names of who would be in which class - most of the kids wandered into the classroom with their mums and dads, but as soon as Charlie heard his name he was off like a shot, before I could even find my handbag! He spent an hour in the classroom with his new teacher, while we chatted with the other parents, and spent far too much money on the last bits of his uniform. He'll be starting on September 2, by the way. His first week he'll just do mornings, and then the second week it'll be afternoons... and then full-time!

After the meeting, we spent some time with his teacher and gave her some information about his heart, and what it means in his day-to-day life. She didn't seem too horrified by the massive folder we gave her, and inspired a lot of confidence in us that all will be well. We were also reassured to hear that she has had a child in her class previously who was on warfarin, so that shouldn't be too much of an issue after Charlie's Fontan.

I picked up the proofs for Charlie's latest playschool photos today, and they're lovely - but I can't believe how grown-up he looks on them. It's crazy thinking that the next 'official' photo we have of him, he'll be in his uniform! I'll post the latest pics once I receive the prints.
We have a busy month or two ahead of us - or rather Charlie does! It's the 'Teddy Bear's Picnic' on Friday - which is the biggest fundraiser of the year for playschool. I'm running the 'Goodie Bag and Treasure Hunt' stall, so Nanny and Grandpa are coming over to look after Charlie and help him spend all his money on the stalls! He's really looking forward to the whole event, but I think he's pretty pleased that his mum is running a stall, and he's already told me that he wants to come to my stall first! He's even more excited that Nanny and Grandpa will be collecting him from playschool - they've come with me to pick him up before, but never without me, so he thinks he's the bees knees!

Then he has a TRIPLE birthday party over the weekend, and another party (just one birthday child for that one though!) the weekend after. Then over the coming weeks he's got his playschool outing to the farm park, a further playschool treat to the woods for a picnic, then a 'special' morning at playschool where he and his mates get to show off for the parents and be presented with their 'special books' documenting all their achievements while at playschool, PLUS a Pirate Party to mark his last ever day at playschool! Not to mention all the play dates at friends' houses and a week in Spain coming up before too long!

I can't remember if I mentioned we're off to sunny Spain? We spent some of the vouchers that Pete won from work on the holiday, and have got a really lovely hotel in a fairly quiet town. We're also not too far from the biggest theme park in Spain, so I have a sneaking suspicion that Charlie will be going on a few more rollercoasters! We've also promised that he can go on a few of the water rides, because it was too cold when we went to the park in Birmingham to let him get wet on the log flume. Having said that though, I did check the long-range weather forecast to see what it's doing in Spain at the moment, and there was rather a log of fog about! Am hoping it's just a short-term glitch in the warm weather and that it'll be nice and hot by the time we get out there!

We still haven't had the results from Charlie's last holter monitor, but we're assuming that nothing too catastrophic is going on inside his chest, because we'd probably have heard by now if there was a major problem.

Anyway, I can't think of much more news at the moment - I'll try to post a bit more often so I don't forget stuff - and also so you're not checking in and finding no updates!

Thanks so much for visiting Charlie's News - he still takes great delight in looking at the flags and the maps to show where people have visited from! We're fast heading towards 5,000 visitors, and in recent weeks we've had new visitors from Malaysia, India and Israel! Feel free to leave Charlie a message if you'd like to - he loves to hear from his friends!

Am attaching a few recent pics.