A Mother's Ramblings

When we got Mario, Daddy was so enthralled with him that he said offhandedly that I should have got a sibling to go with Mario. We joked that we could get a whole litter of kittens and call them various Mario character names. Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Bowser, Rosalina, Yoshi... the listing of various characters went on, but as the litter of kittens was all spoken for we put the plans to one side. Until the lady sent me a text to let me know that the other litter of kittens were ready to go to good homes and would I like one? To cut a long story short, this is our newest baby. Princess Peach. Or rather just Peach. Peach is already showing her brother/cousin (Mario and her have the same Dad and their Mums are sisters) that she might be little but she isn't standing for any funny business and that she'll tell Mum (Me) on him if needs be. She is just as adorable as Mario and the children are loving having two little kittens trail them around the house. Now

Today is Big Boy's birthday. He's six years old, and I'm guessing that you may have seen one of his birthday gifts on my Instagram feed over the last couple of weeks. This is Mario and I hope you'll agree, that he is rather cute! Of course BB has a few other birthday gifts, that he'll be opening as soon as he wakes up (which won't be long now) but I think that he might remember this cute little bundle of fluff a little longer than he'll remember the books and toys he got for his sixth birthday. If he doesn't, I certainly will as this tiny little kitten seems to think I'm his Mum! Happy Birthday Big Boy, may Mario be your friend and companion for many years to come.

Last week I had wanted to celebrate my birthday in a bit of style. Normally we do something fun, have a picnic or eat a meal of my favourite foods, but with this being the first birthday that Daddy wasn't here early enough to eat with the family I decided that we would go out the following night to a local restaurant. I invited my Mum, after all it was her birthday the day before mine AND she did give birth to me and the five of us had a pleasant meal (review coming up) before taking her back home. When we purchased our new car back at Christmas, one of the things that we noticed was that it beeped to tell us the fuel was low at a really odd time. The fuel gage is one of those clever sorts that can work out how many miles you can do before refuelling and the odd time it beeped? Just short of 100 miles. On the trip home from the restaurant, the car beeped to tell us we needed to refuel, so after we dropped my Mum off we headed off to the petrol station. Daddy decided that we

Top Ender is learning about Ancient Egyptians at School at the moment. This is a topic that I clearly remember learning about and so I am thrilled to be able to pass little titbits on to Top Ender about various bits and pieces that I remember. One of her homework assignments was to create an Egyptian meal at home, for the family. We eat a few Egyptian inspired dishes already, but after some research on the Internet Top Ender decided that she wanted to make Stuffed Peppers. I had my stuffed pepper with Salad, and I have to say it was one of the most delicious meals I have EVER had. It was so lovely, that we had it again as a family a few days later, and sort of surprisingly the children also loved it. This will be a regular Meatless Monday Meal I think. Ingredients 300g Rice Olive Oil 1 Onion chopped finely 1 tbsp Tomato Paste 500g Passata 4 Peppers Onion Slices (enough to cover the bottom of a pan) 500ml Vegetable Stock Method In a Saucepan gently sauté the onio

Big Boy has had two best friends since the start of the School year, and today was a really horrid day for him as both of them changed schools. Yup. Both of them. On the same day. Now I don't think that the parents of the boys were intentionally stitching me up, even though one of my friends did suggest today that I'm part of some Truman Show type TV Show (I'm not delusional, she suggested it not me!) and this would make a great plot twist, but with both boys leaving on the same day it has left me with a rather terrible problem. Big Boy is devastated and I don't know how best to comfort him. I can tell him that he will make new best friends, but the truth is everyone else is paired up already and the other boys that he is friends with just aren't the same as the two friends he has lost today. I can tell him that he'll be okay, but the truth is that he'll feel this hurt for a long time. I can tell him that it's okay as we have both boys add

Every so often, when we change the ratios of insulin to food or the amount of insulin Big Boy is given per hour (and it varies over the day and night too) via his pump, we are asked to test that the amount of insulin Big Boy is given is the right amount. We do this so we can make sure that we're mimicking what a "normal" person's pancreas will do and because I'm pretty sure that the Diabetic Care Team at the Hospital like to mess with us and our sleep patterns. The way this testing is done, is by giving Big Boy a 0g carb meal. That way for his meal he doesn't need to have any "extra" insulin to cover the food and so we can see if the basal rates are right. Too much insulin and Big Boy will have a hypo (low blood sugar, where we have to give him sugar) not enough and he'll be hyper (a high blood sugar, where we have to give him some insulin) just right and he'll have perfect numbers between 4 and 8 mmol. The problem is of course, that in ord