Another x-ray moment

Tom had rugby training on Thursday afternoon and came home nursing his arm unable to move the fingers on his right hand (of course it would be his right hand!).  I put him in a warm bath and watched as movement was restored - phew.  The next morning at about 11am I got a phone call from the school because they were worried about his hand as he wasn't able to move it and was complaining of it aching.  I'm not very good at going to the doctor.  Unless a limb is falling off, or a child is struggling for breath, or one of them is asking to go I tend to ride out any potential injury.  However, the school seemed to think there was a problem so I made an appointment and Tom was duly sent for an x-ray.  Apparently he's still young enough that his bones haven't fused together properly so there was no conclusive evidence in the x-ray and we simply bandaged up the hand and decided to wait and see what happened.  By Saturday afternoon the bandage was lost and he was riding around on his bike and climbing trees so I suspect his hand is absolutely fine.  

Tom and his new bike - it's enormous!

Tom has recently expressed an interest in riding his bike and has been taking it up to Tania Park for short bike rides.  We live in a very hilly area so you need to be fairly committed to ride around here.  We have never bought either of the children a new bike - we've survived on hand-me-downs and foraging at Kandos tip when we're up at the farm - we've got some real crackers doing that.  However, the bike he currently has is old, rusty, without gears and quite heavy so he's been doing well.  On Sunday Jules took him to the bike shop and bought him his first shiny brand new bike which hopefully should last him now until he's 18 as long as we can stop it from rusting which is not easy living this close to the sea.  Tom is so thrilled with it and they went for a long ride around Narrabeen Lakes where Jules struggled to keep up with the pace set by Tom.  I know it's very bad parenting buying such a large item randomly during the year rather than waiting for a birthday or Christmas but we have explained to Tom that this is to be considered a very early birthday present and he is so incredibly grateful.  

Whilst Tom and Jules were out and about I had Tess and Sarah at home with me.  They decided they wanted to build a ladder so we found some old wood off cuts, a saw, a hammer and some nails.  It was all very exciting and we did quite well with the sawing but unfortunately the nails got the better of us and kept bending as we tried to hammer them into the wood so we had to admit defeat - why couldn't they have tried this activity whilst Grandad was here!  Thankfully they then decided to make homemade lemonade which is much more suited to my skill set.  They picked some of the lemons from our little lemon tree and made some of the best lemonade that I have ever tasted.  There are currently brownies in the oven, also made by the girls, and the plan is to go to the local park and try to sell them.  A perfect activity for the school holidays!