He was literally crawling out of the chair and crying that he didn’t want a hair cut, until they mentioned ‘lollipop’ and suddenly hair cuts were the BEST THING EVER.
I thought at first he looked younger all shorn like that, but then he was stood above me yesterday on an armchair (‘I be careful!’) and I looked up and I could see what he was going to look like when he was seventeen. And it was good and scary all at once.

I’ll start with a summary, because this could be a long post.  Or I could just get really pissed off talking about it, and keep it short, and go do another load of laundry instead.  Anyway, basically, we are home from our trip and it went simultaneously a lot better and a lot worse than I had expected.  Does that mean it’s even?  Not sure.

Anyway, let’s start with the good stuff, because people say you should focus on the positive.  Right?  Callum was great.  Callum grew up a bit while we were gone, as he really sits up now very straight for long periods of time, he’s addicted to chewing on great chunks of bread (even if he often chokes on them), he’s been sleeping well, and I think he dropped his night time top-up dream feed.

Oliver had a really good time with both sets of grandparents, his (second) cousins and other family, like his Auntie Lizi.  As ever, keep him busy, and he’s a happy kid.  We were mostly able to do that.

We did a lot of shopping, and as every store in the UK seemed to be having a sale to woo in customers in their ‘credit crunch’, we got some really good deals, even with the exchange rate!  We all got a lot of clothes (in particular, I got a really gorgeous skirt from Monsoon).  I also got the boys of bunch of stuff with their printed on it, like stickers and trucks, and I got Callum a CD of nursery rhymes with his name in it (just can’t get their names in Canada).

For once, I was really spoiled on my birthday!  (Mark is normally pretty useless at that sort of stuff).  I was cooked eggs benedict for breakfast, after unwrapping an egg poaching pan (perhaps now I’ll be able to cook them properly).  I had already ordered myself a new Orla Kiely bag on Mark’s behalf, and it’s awesome.  The boys got me a gorgeous necklace (which I wore to the wedding, see picture later on).  And some Cadbury Fruit and Nut, which I could seriously live on, so luckily it tastes like crap here at home.  I also got some cash and a generous Marks & Spencers gift voucher (which we quickly spent in that sale).

The next day, Mark and I left the kids at his mum’s house for 28 hours (not that I was counting) and drove down to deepest Norfolk for a truly lovely (and posh) wedding.  It was one of his oldest friends, and he was in the wedding party.  We had a really good time and I banned talk of children (except in passing to the other guests who had also not been allowed to bring their kids, which we all agreed was wonderful).  We stayed at a nice little B&B that served a great breakfast.

And then, it all went downhill…

(I AM CURSED – I JUST WROTE THIS ALL OUT AND THEN LOST IT ALL – RAGE! RAGE!  I can’t even bear to type it properly again)

• The car broke down on the way back from the wedding.
• We didn’t get to see any of my family, including my recently-released-from-hospital grandmother, because instead of visiting them, we had to get towed to Mark’s dad’s house.
• After spending hours getting everyone and everything ready to go home on Wednesday the 23rd, we got to and through the airport in really good time, and then discovered a flight delay.
• We spent 5 hours waiting in the small terminal for more information about the flight, with (a) Callum who kept vomitting, for some reason – like full on vomiting and not just his normal spit up; and (b)  Oliver going completely stir crazy, not napping properly (where was he meant to sleep?!) and running out of diapers.  And both of them kept having stuff, you know, bust out of their diapers on their clothes.  I am not sure why the containment was ineffective.
• We were provided with food vouchers after probably everyone else, like us, had already bought lunch.
• The food vouchers could only be used for formula and not baby food because apparently babies are not meant to eat.
• Around 5:30pm (we got to the airport at 10am), we were finally notified that the flight was canceled and that we would be sent by coach to a hotel, and we’d be picked up at 6am for a 9am flight.
• There were no diapers in Olivers’ size on sale at the airport anywhere and we only had 2 left (and of course, he’d refused to use a toilet or a potty the entire trip).
• We collected our bags and somehow go to the hotel.  One of the bags’ handles broke.  It’s already hard enough to push 3 suitcases, 3 carry-on bags and 2 pushchairs.
• Extra tired Oliver + small room full of stuff to get in to trouble with + tired and frustrated parents = lots of yelling.  Good god, that was bad.
• Positives?  Thankfully Mark’s dad only lives a half hour from the airport and brought us some diapers for Oliver, and some toiletries we had left behind.  The hotel fed us and it was okay.
• I had to wash Callum’s bottles in the hotel room sink with shower gel.  This is not a good thing.
• On Wednesday when we went through customs, they made us sample the baby formula that was already opened in a bottle, and didn’t bother with the rest of the small cartons or food jars.  So after we got our vouchers, I stocked up on milk and food for Callum at the airport so I had enough for Thursday.  On Thursday when we went through customs, the guy made me open and sample EVERYTHING thus making some of the food and most of the milk completely useless as it was going to be off (and leaking) by the time I’d need it.  If I’d known they were going to do that, obviously I wouldn’t have wasted money on it.  I told him to throw it all out.  We had to buy it all again.
• The flight on Thursday actually took off around 10 or 10:30 am because it took the airport so long to process all of the passengers again, and we didn’t actually queue up to check-in until 6:30am – and we were on the first bus that got there.

And somehow, we are home and no one was killed and now we’ll get over our jet lag and do 10 loads of laundry and get back into old routines.  And next time we need to go (personally I’d prefer not to be in an airport for the rest of my life right now), we’ll get some money off our tickets.  But I’m not really sure they’ve adequately compensated us for our own experience.  Just slightly worse than, let’s say, a couple travelling on their own who just might have had to call work to say they weren’t going to be in as expected.

The last few days really, really sucked.  I think we need an additional voucher for Mark’s dad’s gas and mileage, marriage counselling, respite services to catch up on sleep, an effective toddler discipline course for parents, and more. Perhaps I will write to the airline.  Or send a video of all of us recreating the crying and screaming and yelling.

Leaving tonight for 2 weeks in England.  Which I can share with you as my very good friend is house sitting for us so there’s not really a security risk (also, we really don’t have a lot worth stealing).

Can’t really call it a vacation, as vacation for me means sitting with my feet up with a nice drink in my hand, with bonus interesting sight-seeing.  This trip involves wrangling a baby and toddler trapped on a bit of tin over the Atlantic for 2 x 7 hours, hanging out with 2 sets of in-laws, and freaking out about how everything is expensive (Canadian dollars to British pounds).

If I am lucky, we might see one of my former co-workers who is about to pop out her first baby, and perhaps a couple of members of my family.  I guess, luckily, we will get a little vacation near the end of the trip – a wedding, the day after my birthday, where the kids aren’t invited, and we’ve got a room booked in a bed and breakfast in deepest Norfolk.

But I think I will take a blogging vacation.  See you on the other side.  Or on twitter (probably).

In the next few days…

• I’m hopefully getting a decent hair cut. An actual hair cut as opposed to just having a mass of hair on my head which has really looked extra horrible lately.
• I’m going to a grade school reunion with people I haven’t seen in years.  We graduated together in 1991. I think I went to high school with all of them, or most of them anyway, but didn’t necessarily spend much time with them then – our high school was huge.  This is the Facebook effect – we never would be getting together if it wasn’t for the online social networking.
• I’m packing up everything a toddler and a baby could want for 2 weeks to take to England, as we leave on Tuesday, and perhaps there might be a corner left in one suitcase for a few items for their parents to take.
• I’m cleaning and organizing for our house sitters.  This involves de-stinkifying the boys’ bathroom, no small feat.
• I’m trying to remember every small last little thing I need to do before I go (…pay Mastercard…set up cable box to tape Hell’s Kitchen and Last Comic Standing…find passports…) – okay, I think I need to get off the computer and make a proper list.

Lately:

I know – matching shirts! I make me want to vomit too! (it was all a big set up so I could take photos to give to all our family, here and in the UK – and it involved a lot of bribing and tears)

There’s some kind of blogging law, somewhere, that says if you brag about your children, it will come back to bite you in the ass.  Even with the disclaimers I put around my post saying how wonderful Oliver was being lately, I didn’t expect yesterday.

Yesterday, which was meant to culminate in a joyous Canada Day party at his favourite park, with many of his favourite activities on feature, was one of those days that I really wanted to stab myself in the eye with a fork.  THE CRYING.  The crying, all day.  He couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us what was wrong.  He fought his nap for hours, despite almost falling asleep in his chair at lunch, finally calming down enough to give up when Mark hung out in his room with him.

We played outside in the morning, to make him happy, so he was covered in sunscreen and then covered himself in sand.  When we brought him in, he had a rash on his arms and legs and hands, so we gave him a bath and I administered some Benadryl.   It could have been a reaction to many things, and it seemed to get better.

So we finally made it to the Canada Day festivities around 4pm, and he managed to rub his sunscreen in his eyes again and again and again.  So he spent most of the first while there weeping, with horrible red eyes, and refusing to do anything.  I just wanted to take him home and put him to bed and declare the day a total disaster.

PLEASE STOP WHINING

Eventually his eyes were obviously less irritated, and Mark took charge of him for most of the afternoon, so I too was less irritated (because I REALLY wanted to throttle him yesterday), and he ended up having a really good time (particularly in the water, on the firetruck, dancing, eating a hot dog, and getting his face painted like Spiderman. Again.).

What’s with toddler dance moves?  Where does this come from?  Oliver dancing to Jully Black:

[googlevideo=http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=6628464849915184486&hl=en-CA]

We truly did not know what was wrong with him.  At some point in the afternoon, we gave him some ibuprofen, just in case there was something wrong and something did hurt somewhere in his body.  So either he succumbed to the medicine, or the joy of the festivities, and had a good time.  And then we came home, and he fell apart again.  And then went to bed, and all seemed to be well.  Except then there was about an hour of crying and screaming around 12:30 or 1am.  I didn’t go to him; I let Mark do it.  I just couldn’t deal with it.  I hadn’t even made it to sleep yet – unfortunately Callum had stirred and I was already trying to settle him back down (which normally involves putting him to sleep beside me because I am all about creating bad habits for the sake of MUMMY GETTING SOME SLEEP).

Mark woke him up as normal and took him to daycare.  Not surprisingly, I just got a call.  But it wasn’t what I expected – I sort of thought they would just be asking what the hell was wrong with him and maybe I should come get him so he could get some sleep.  Nope.  Come on, these are professionals people who know that when a kid acts like this, there’s a specific cause, unlike the useless mother who just kept losing it yesterday.

They think he has ‘hand, foot and mouth‘, which I have vaguely heard of but had to Google anyway.  All these symptoms he’s had that I thought were unrelated – bad diaper rash that has turned into sores, which I thought was from being in the same Pull-Up all day; a fever the other day with no apparent cause; a sore foot, which I thought was from too-small shoes; etc. – it all makes sense!  And wow, I am really looking forward to all of us getting that from him, if he has it.  He’s really into kissing and hugging lately.  WONDERFUL.

This negligent mother better go make him a doctor’s appointment now, and pick him up early.