Accidents just happen don't they? I had a kick-myself-for being-stupid, bleary eyed, too-tired-to-be-in-the-kitchen-making-toast accident on Saturday morning which eventually ended up in a trip to A&E. My darling first aid trained husband dressed my deeply sliced finger marvellously whilst Theo stroked my back and told me how brave I was - I wasn't as I am incredibly squeamish and nearly vomited when I saw my own blood dribbling down my poor digit. At this point I must say that my eldest is incredibly calm and collected in a crisis which makes me wonder whether he might go into medicine one day. It was painful on Saturday but by Sunday night it was excruciating and this comes from someone who has naturally given birth without drugs twice. I couldn't sleep and could quite happilly have chopped my entire hand off 'Evil Dead 2' style in the early hours of Monday morning if nausea hadn't made getting up off the sofa so unappealing.
My husband decided to remove the steri-strips and bandage on Monday morning to check for infection, at which point I nearly fainted - it sounds wimpy I know but the pain was truly agonising. He took one look at my finger and whisked me off to get dressed. He really is my knight in shining armour and before I knew it the children were with their grandparents and I was sat in A&E.
It turns out that the discolouration and weird red line on my finger was most likely tetanus - like one of my friends said it was a pretty impressive infection because she'd never actually met anyone who'd had it before and neither had I. The doctor examined my comically enlarged finger, took a whiff when alerted by Paul to the faint odour (not a pleasant smell) and then quickly arranged a tetanus shot. A rather over zealous cleaning of the cut, more steri-strips and finally a course of anti-biotics followed. The NHS is, in my opinion, quite wonderful as indeed is modern medicine. By Monday night the unbearable pain had retreated as had the strange hue of my rather unhappy finger. It is awe inspiring to think of how scientific advances have enabled doctors to cure infections which would in all probability have killed you a few hundred years ago. The evidence of the success of medicine was actually visible on my hand and this is why I remain a firm advocate of modern medicine. Herbs, nicely bottled water and crystals probably have psychological benefits but I am as I am with religion - until I see actual, testable and repeatable evidence (rather than anecdotal) that something works or exists then I can't believe it.
Anyway, as you may have guessed all the finger led adventures seriously impacted on the children's home-education on Monday. They spent the day at their Grandparents house watching movies, playing in the garden and eating frightening amounts of refined sugar - they had a great time. Theo did question the validity of his Grandmas claim that Wurthers Origional sweets were good for you because they don't contain any nasty ingredients (ignoring the vast quantity of sugar of course) making me proud that he at least pondered his health before tucking in. When we got them back they were grumpy because the sugar high had worn off which meant that Monday was a write-off.
Today was much better. I had a good nights sleep on Monday night, the pain was better and the children had porridge giving them the steady unsweetened energy they needed to learn. Paul went to another hospital appointment this morning regarding his arm and came back sporting an exciting looking brace. The boys screamed 'awesome' at him when he returned because he looks like a robot. Unfortunatey he is back in the hospital next week to undergo an operation to fix the bones back together - we all think that he is very brave.
The boys made play dough from which Theo made a model of the Parthenon - I'm afraid that it collapsed before I had a chance to photograph it. Tristan made lots of pretend cakes which we used to do some simple sums.
We played shop for a while using the pretend money which we made a whole ago and the pre labelled packets and bottles. I really stretched Theo by making him work out the change from a fifty pound note but he managed fine so I will have to up my game next time.
Theo spent the day researching Ancient Greece and working on his Ancient Greek Lapbook (from Curclick). He is really enjoying this project so much so that he has started to re-write the tale of the Titans in his own words. He also read at every given opportunity. He has four books on the go at the moment which never fails to amaze me. At night time he is reading 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking (on his dad's recommendation), in the morning in bed he is reading the next Heroes of Olympus book by Rick Riordan, before lunch he is on a 'How to Train Your Dragon' book and in the late afternoon he is reading a book of Greek Mythology - talk about eclectic.
Tristan read some books about eggs with me today. We read 'Hens Pens' which is an Usborne phonics book and a variety of Humpty Dumpty stories. He drew patterns on egg pictures and also divided an egg into quarters for me. He cut the pieces out and we looked at writing fractions using the pieces to help.
As always we went out to the park yet our adventure was cut short by a down-pour so we nipped to the library instead where the children sat and read for a while.
It really has been an odd, bitty feeling week so far and I am a little lethargic from the upheaval preferring to remain planted on the sofa than deal with any of the household jobs which need doing this evening. Hopefully tomorrow we can get back in to our normal stride which I'm sure that we will especially since I have promised never to be left alone making toast again - well at least not first thing in the morning.
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