Nate and Sarah left on Monday and the house felt very empty as a result. With Sarah having such beautiful hair and Tess convinced that she could be a hairdresser "once she gets married" (Sarah that is!) I was inspired to take Tess to get her hair cut at a new salon near where we live. It was the first time that Tess has had her hair washed by a hairdresser and I think she quite enjoyed it. The hairdresser actually blow dried Tess' hair and it looked beautiful for about 10 minutes - I thought it interesting to compare with a picture of Tess looking more Tess-like at the farm a few days later!
On Thursday I picked Tom up from kindy and he was in quite a bad way with his breathing. I took him home and immediately gave him his puffer. During the night his condition deteriorated quite rapidly even with the Ventolin so at 4.30 am Jules and I decided that he needed to go to hospital. I was a bit wiser this time and took him straight to Mona Vale which is further away but has a paediatric ward. He wasn't quite so severe this time so there was less of a rush whilst we were at the hospital. He was put on a nebuliser for the first lot of steroids but after that we went back to using his puffer. We are incredibly lucky that we have such good friends living close by - Lisa and Emma both sprung into action and made sure Tess arrived at school on time with a suitable morning tea and not feeling too abandoned by her mother. Time went very slowly at the hospital and both Tom and I were desperate to leave especially as we were due to pick Tess up from school at 12.30 so that we could head up to the farm early. To cut a very long story short I saw a specialist at 11.30 who said he wanted to keep Tom in hospital for observation. By this time Tom was climbing up the walls and his breathing was not great but it was under control. I said we were going away for the weekend and the specialist said the decision was mine but he thought we should stay in hospital. Some people may consider me irresponsible but I spent some time talking to the nurses and the other doctor in charge of A&E and I decided to leave. It is beginning to look like Tom is definitely asthmatic and so we are going to come across this situation more frequently and we need to learn to manage it. I quizzed the nurses and doctor quite heavily about how much drugs I could give Tom, how frequently, when was the right time to come into hospital etc so I do feel better equipped for the next attack.
After breaking out of hospital (for the second time in 2 months!) we dashed home (Jules had picked Tess up by this time), threw some things in the car and headed up to the farm. It is always such a relief to arrive there - Craig and Lisa had the fire going, the wine/beer chilled and we had a lovely evening. Julia and Michael arrived at 9.30 and the boys got stuck into the Guinness - I had to retire given the lack of sleep from the night before.
We spent Saturday feeding the cows, walking around the farm, playing on the quad bikes, putting steering wheels up in the cubby house, eating too much at lunchtime - you get the picture! Michael had suggested that we do a spit roast for dinner on Saturday night. Lisa and Julia had vetoed a suckling pig as they couldn't cope with his head turning round all afternoon so we ended up with a rolled pork shoulder and a leg of lamb. The boys fabricated a complicated structure for the spit to rest on and we were away! To cut another very long story short the pork was beautiful with some great crackling but we all gave the lamb the thumbs down due to it's smoky flavour which none of us appreciated. Sadly, we were all in bed by 9.30 given the first child had woken up at 4.45 on Saturday morning and it had all gone downhill from there!
Sunday was another glorious day - cool but crisp and warming up quite nicely by mid morning. The children were beside themselves when two semi-trailers of hay arrived for the farm. Jules and Craig got stuck in with the unloading and we're expecting some very sore muscles tomorrow! It was another fantastic weekend at the farm - thank you Craig and Lisa!
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