29/12/2012 – Hospital Drama

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2012, 365, boys, children, christmas, family, finland, holiday, hospital, photoaday, photography, postaday, son

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“Small Boy – Big Bed”

Dx woke up after everyone else and we knew he was awake from the cries coming from upstairs. his earache was better but his legs hurt and he had tried to get out of bed only to find he couldn’t put any weight on his feet.

We thought perhaps he had slept so deeply under the influence of the drugs that his legs had gone to sleep and just let him rest for the morning. At lunchtime he went to go for lunch and crumpled on the floor as he tried to stand. We put him to bed for a nap but he was just as bad afterwards so we set off to the out of hours Doctor.

We were warned of a 1.5 hour wait so I took the iPad for Dx and a book for me but he wasnt too under the weather to concentrate on the iPad and was just bored. He was in quite good spirits, quite chatty and laughing at my jokes but just couldn’t stand. After a couple of hours, the out of hours Dr saw him and was mystified and sent us to Accident and Emergency.

We saw a nurse after about an hour who dosed him up with Paracetemol and put some “magic cream” on his hands in case he needed any blood tests when he saw the consultant.

Another hour passed in the waiting room before we saw a consultant who had just heard all the details and was about to examine him when she was called away to an emergency. We were allowed to wait in the triage cubicle while waiting for the paged paeditrician to come and see him.

We played “Eye Spy” using the fantastic wall murals for inspiration.

We then saw a wonderful SHO who won Dx over and checked everything out while explaining to me what he was doing and how everything was looking good at each stage. His legs moved as they should, the nerves seemed ok, the joints weren’t swollen, everything looked good…until he asked Dx to try and walk. Then he could barely stand on tiptoe, his legs all bent out of shape and he was obviously in great pain. Time for a blood test 😦

Dx was so good about it (he and I looked at a dinosaur book while they took the blood from his hand and he didn’t even wince.

He even managed to find me a heart in the book  – how brave is he!!

He got a special plaster and they told us we would be staying the night to keep an eye on him.

I have done really well not to ever have any of the children stay in hospital before – I tried to sell it to Dx as being a special experience. He played on the iPad while we waited for Matt to come in with my overnight bits and some food for us both as we were STARVING!

7/12/2012 – Time to say goodbye…

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2012, 365, children, christmas, family, finland, holiday, home, landscape, lapland, photoaday, postaday, sunset

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“Winter Wonderland”

The rambling part…
Time to head home from our winter wonderland today. We debated whether to get the children up early to go tobogganing – but they weren’t massively enthusiastic on the other days and we decided they needed a little extra sleep more.

So instead I had a quick last sauna before we packed our cases, had breakfast and headed home.

twin room…

lounge with sofa bed…

our little kitchen (used only for wine and coffee!)…

Whenever we go into the hotel we need to use the card key to get into the building (Lx’s job) and then again on the door to our room (Dx’s job). They take these responsibilities seriously and love getting the green light to flash!

Home to a beautiful sunset, the motorway at rush hour..

and a meal at the carvery with two grandparents who were exhausted after 3 days of looking after the two boys! (This is Gx’s plate – not bad for a 9 year old who has chosen what to have by himself. And he ate it all!)

6/12/2012 – Part Two – Back at the hotel…

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2012, 365, childhood, children, christmas, family, finland, holiday, home, lapland, meal, party, photoaday, photography, postaday, santa

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“His cheeks ached from all the smiling”

The rambling part…
Dx slept all the way back in the coach, and all the way back getting carried by his Daddy. But as we took off his thermal suit he suddenly sprang to life having remembered that he hadn’t opened his present from Santa yes (he had asked him to wait till later). He found some energy from somewhere to open it before he and Lx fell asleep for another couple of hours!

(you can see from his expression how tired he still was!)

When they woke  up it was time to get ready for the “Gala Evening” (I just had to take a photo of Dx in his cute thermal “long johns” before he got ready!!)

The Gala dinner was held in a special r0om in the hotel – very dark and rustic looking with Christmas lights, specially decorated tables and a random number of crackers per table 🙂

We had brought some santa hats with us to wear – and the children had a great time joining in the games, doing some colouring and sneaking up to help themselves to sweets from the buffet!

Meanwhile the grown ups relaxed with a glass or two of fizz!

Dx even managed to find a couple more hearts for me to show he loves me – one was a pencil sharpener which came out of a cracker – the other was the little “diamond” on Lx’s dress (“Mummy I love you as much as all the trees in Lapland”)

6/12/2012 – Part One – Visiting the man himself!!!

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2012, 365, childhood, children, christmas, family, finland, holiday, home, husky, lapland, photoaday, photography, postaday, santa, skiing, sled, sleigh, sunset

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“Homeward Bound”

The rambling part…

so today was the big day. The day we got to meet Santa on his home turf and despite still being incredibly tired – we were all very excited!

The first event of the day…was husky sledding. I wasn’t sure how Dx would be as the huskies start off at quite a pace before settling into their stride – but he was fine (and was even secretly waggling his fingers which the helpers had told him makes the huskies run faster!!)

time then for a little tobogganing…!

and then we heard that we could go on a magical sleigh ride to visit Santa…

(Of course this was the point my new expensive camera decided to fog up – coming inside from the cold.  😦 Luckily we had a point-and-shoot as a back up…)

by this time the children were feeling the cold – so time for a quick defrost indoors with coffee and cookies..

When we could feel our faces and our fingers again – we went outside to try the skiing and the snowmobiling

Lx was so determined to go full speed at the snowmobiling (attached to a tree by a rope so that they could only circle it) that she took her mitten off to be able to squeeze the controls better. She regretted it at the end of the ride as her poor hand was frozen!

Remember I said they could only go in circles? Dx decided to go one better and decided to create his own paths within the gouged out circle from the hundreds of riders before him! Getting closer and closer to hitting the tree the helper quickly stopped him and put him back on track!

then we had some lunch before going on a reindeer ride…

which took us to an ice bar in an igloo…

where we were able to buy massively overpriced baileys and schnapps!

We watched a show with a couple of naughty elves – who then happily posed for some photos afterwards with our own naughty elves…!

time to head home and the sun was setting already at 2.30pm! Poor Dx fell asleep almost before we pulled away from Santa’s wonderland and slept as Matt carried him back to the hotel..

to be continued… 🙂

5/12/2012 – Dashing through the snow…

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2012, 365, childhood, children, christmas, cold, family, finland, holiday, home, ice, lapland, photoaday, photography, plane, postaday, santa, UK, winter

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“Beautiful when they are sleeping”

The rambling part…

The day began at 2.49am. I never knew days could begin then. I thought there was a bit of a black hole until 6am and then the day started – if it had to.

(Well it really began even earlier as neither Matt nor I trusted the two alarms and had been dozing fitfully since 1.00am – but at least we didn’t have to function in any way) We woke both the children who were surprisingly good about getting up so early (could the adventure they were setting off on have had anything to do with it?!)

Off to the airport for a big breakfast to keep us going till dinner in our hotel that night…

A 4 hour flight (pulled by 4 of Santa’s reindeer) with sleeping, snacking and gameboys interspersed with Dx saying “I’m waiting. I’m waiting. I’m waiting to get there…”

There were also a few games and Christmas songs to keep the children amused (not grumpy Dx but the other children!!) One was passing a toilet roll back through the plane from one end to the other without breaking it.

Eventually though – we were there and it was traditionally snowy enough to look just like they imagined – and  cold enough for us to be glad we packed extra jumpers and hats in the hand luggage (we landed in temperatures of minus 26)

Dx was a bit worried as at Gatwick he had been selected for a “random security check” and we told him it was because when he went through the metal detector (aka the “naughty/nice detector 😉 ) it wasn’t completely sure about him so they had to check! Having moaned all the way over on the flight he was afraid if there was another check in Lapland – he would fail and be sent home!!

In the airport some of Santa’s elves caused mayhem in baggage reclaim – pulling hats over people’s eyes, pretending to run off with luggage and climbing onto the luggage trolleys to give each other rides.

Eventually we set off to the coach for our transfer with a quick hello to our first reindeer and its Sami owner on the way.

The children were barely functioning by this point and it was pure excitement that stopped them falling asleep on the way.

We were kitted out with our thermal suits, boots, mittens and thick socks and then we quickly left our cases in our room and set off to the toboggan slope.

We managed to get there before the crowds and both children got their first go at tobogganing I am not sure Dx was too impressed but Lx enjoyed it. 30 minutes later you could barely get down the slope for the numbers of people walking up he middle and we headed back to our room for a nap while Matt enjoyed internet access in the hotel bar.

Early dinner (bread and jam for Lx – and a few chips! Dx was SO unimpressed with dinner I don’t think he ate anything) …

and back along the snowy streets to go early to bed…

PS one thing we had forgotten from when we were here before was the “magic” in the air. When you catch sight of the air in the streetlights, it catches on the glitter sparkling there – the children were very impressed that there is so much magic there you can actually SEE it!