Sickness

The last two weeks have been a horror for us all, with gastroenteritis and a flu knocking the kids and me all about. I spent several nights running between Zoe and George dealing with their various outputs. Urgh. This is certainly the time that tests all of your parenting skills. Being terribly sick myself hasn't helped, but I also haven't been able to stop and wallow (much as I want to!).

All this illness has meant that I could not visit baby Thomas, the new baby of Litsa and Donald (Ewan's brother), for several days after he was born 3 weeks premature on 16 October at Murwillumbah Hospital, after poor Litsa spent several days in labour.

Being up all night every night has given me plenty of time to think about an offer to participate in a cashless gambling forum in Toronto in December. This just seems an opportunity too valuable to miss, and I hope it will give me some impetus to move my PhD studies forward (at some stage!). Once I had decided to go, I agonised for weeks about whether to take some or all of the family with me, but they will all stay here. Ewan will take time off, and Dad/Pa will come up from the Central Coast with his parter, Julie (a nurse and ex-midwife) to help care for the kids. So now my mission is to pump and freeze as much breast milk as possible.

I'll try to post some pictures of our now 9 weeks old baby boy in the next few days.