Waiting for the doctor

It’s so annoying when you have to go to the doctor.  Load sick kids in the car.  Drive 5 minutes down the road.  Hope they don’t spew all over the leather interior of the shiny new-ish WRX. Wait 20 whole minutes the see the doctor of my choice. While waiting, read books supplied by the doctors office, that are probably filled with who knows what kind of germs, and have probably been in a million different children’s mouths. Oh, and read it out loud. With everyone else around me all silent. Sigh. Watch Hannah run wild around the waiting room, trying to open the door, rolling around on the floor, climbing on all the seats….

Once, she was in the seat next to me (for all of 2 seconds).  Daniel was sitting on the floor in front of me, no longer content to sit immobile on my lap. I was leaning forward, making sure he didn’t fall and hit his head on the tile floor.

“Mommy, your butt crack is hanging out!” Hannah shouted loudly, in the silent, full waiting room. I can’t help it, all my pants are too big for me. That’s what happens when you lose 19kgs after having a baby. Yeah, I pretty much wanted to crawl in a hole. Instead, I just said “shhhh, use your inside voice Hannah,” and totally ignored what she actually said.

No one likes going to the doctor. But in this country, we can. Easily. And not just easily, but for free.

Imagine not being able to afford seeing the doctor. Or not being able to actually go because the doctor is 5 hours away by rickshaw, dodgy boat, bus and incredibly crowded train.

I take the kids to the doctor when they have a cold. Nearly every time. I’m all worried like that. Better safe than sorry I think. The doctors always tell me that too. They never mind.

But in Bangladesh, 4,320 kids are dying every day from pneumonia.  Yeah, pneumonia. Something that is easily treated. They simply can’t afford to get to the doctor, can’t afford to pay the doctor, don’t know the signs of pneumonia, don’t want to travel all that way if it turns out to just be a common cold.

With support from Australians through the Vicks Breathe for Life Project, Save the Children aims to train an additional 1,600 health workers and village doctors who will provide accessible healthcare services to 135,000 children in Bangladesh. Save the Children will also reach 270,000 mothers and caregivers through the Vicks program, providing them with the skills to look out for the early warning signs of pneumonia.

As a mommy blogger, I was invited to the launch of the Breathe For Life Project. Yeah, little old (well, not that old) me. My first event as a blogger!  I got to meet Natalie Bassingthwaighte (who is incredibly lovely, down to earth, and approachable by the way). Got to molest a cardboard cut out of Rob the Dentist.  You know, from those Oral B ads where they can’t show his face because he’s a dentist? Yeah, that one. I got a goody bag full of stuff. I got to get away from the kids for a few hours and chat with a bunch of other lovely mommy bloggers. I got to learn how fibre is good for your health. I got a free dental check-up from Oral B. First time at a dentist in about 9 years. Yeah, horrible, I know.

Daniel did fine without me by the way. Apart from flipping out when The Jess tried to give him my milk from a sippy cup.  Apparently he didn’t think my milk should come from anything but my boobs.

How can you help? EASY! For every new ‘like’ on the Vicks Australia Facebook page, they will donate $1 (even if you are not Australian, ALL likes get the $1 donation). For every Vicks product purchased in Australia from 1 April, until the end of the year, 1 donation will be made to the Save the Children Bangladesh project. And who doesn’t use Vicks? I love the baby balsam, and LOVE LOVE LOVE the vaporizer. That thing has saved me much sleep when the kids have a cold. Last winter, Hannah would wake up about a million times over night if she had a cold, but with the vaporizer on, she’d wake twice. At most.

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Death of the Day nap

Oh. My. Gosh. The screaming.  The SCREAMING! I don’t handle screaming very well.  It kind of makes me feel a little crazy.  Like I want to curl up in a little ball and rock back and forth.  And cry.  A lot.  And I’m not a crier.  Or sometimes it makes me want to go out to the garage and give the punching bag a walloping while screaming my lungs out.  Not that I can.  My wrist still isn’t strong enough for that sort of thing. Instead, I take a deep breath, roll my eyes a little bit, scream inside my head but not out loud, and swallow my frustration/annoyance/anger/crazy. Whatever, I’m sure I’m not the only mom who feels this way.  In fact, I know I’m not.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that it was four a.m.  As in a.m. The morning. Daniel (7 months old) woke for the millionth time that night. ( In hindsight, it was probably teething.  Found his 3rd little toothy peg just today.  When he bit my finger.  Wild little baby).  Hannah (2.5 years old) used to sleep through all of Daniel’s night wakings.  They share a room by the way. But recently, she started waking. Every. Single. Time. Sigh.

I gave Daniel his 4am feed and took him back to their room to put him in bed. He was already asleep in my arms.  The booby seems to have that affect.  I carefully laid him in his cot (crib).

“MOMMY I WANT TO GET UP!!!” Hannah screamed. Sigh.

“WAAAAAAAAAA!!” Yeah, now Danny was up too.

“No Hannah, it’s the middle of the night, it’s time to sleep still.”

“I want to go out in the play room with you.”

“With me? I’m not going in the play room, I’m going back to bed. To sleep.”

“I WANT TO GET UP NOW WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!”

And that’s when I wanted to curl up and/or punch things and scream. But instead, I crawled in her bed with her and laid down.

“It’s time to sleep sweetie, it’s not time to get up yet.”  With me in there with her, she laid back down. And the screaming stopped. Not a moment too soon. Daniel was playing in his cot.  And then fussing.  And then he went to sleep.  Good boy.

Hannah, on the other hand, did not want to sleep.  She was talking to herself.  She was wiggling all over the place. She was constantly shoving her little hand in my face to make sure I was still there.  I tried to sleep.  I pushed myself as far away from her as I possibly could.  Which wasn’t far at all, since Hannah has a junior bed.  Smaller than a single bed, bigger than a cot. And by bigger, I mean longer.  Not wider.  Luckily I’m small. I could feel her every movement.  Whenever she turned her head, hair flung all over my face.

She laid there, moving about for ages. Finally, she went to sleep. And then of course, Daniel woke up.  It was 6am.  And Daniels noise woke Hannah up again. SIGH.

That is when I decided Hannah would no longer have a day nap.  She hasn’t really wanted to for a while anyway.

Now she has quiet time instead of nap time. She can’t do it in her room because she has started banging on the door whilst asking (ahem, yelling ) to come out. She can’t do it in Aaron and my room because she’d destroy all of our board games, play with my make up, lose all of my jewellery, and generally get into mischief. So, due to lack of other options, she’s on the couch with a sippy cup of milk, and Mickey Mouse on TV, while I attempt to get some chores done.

Did I mention that nap time was my sanity hour?  Yes people, my one hour during the day when I can pee all by myself, not have to take care of anyone else’s pee, not attempt to get someone to say please all the time, not have to put anyone in time out, and not have to answer a million “why? why?” questions.  Sure, I have to fold clothes and stuff, but I could fold the heck out of those clothes, whilst watching whatever  I wanted to on TV, and sip a piping hot cup of tea that I didn’t have to worry about small humans grabbing and getting subsequent burns from.

We’ve only been having quiet time for a couple of days now.  But it’s been pretty much going like this:

1. Hannah drinks her milk quietly on the couch whilst watching her chosen cartoon.

2. Finishes milk.

3. Gets off couch. “Mommy, what are you doing? Can I help?”

4. Gets toy stroller and runs it all around the apartment. Purposely hits walls and doors with it.

5. Poops in her underpants.  I attempt to get them off without losing any of the poop, or getting it all over her and/or me.

6. I fail.  Poop is all over bathroom floor.

7. “Hannah, STAND right there. Don’t move. I just need to get a wipe for your bottom.”

8. She doesn’t listen.  Sits on the lid of her potty.  Gets poo everywhere.

9. “Hannah, I told you not to move!”

10. sits on the bathroom floor.  Gets poo all over that too.

11. After getting cleaned up, she goes to her box full of instruments.  Yes, FULL of them.  Bongos, maracas, recorder, tamborine, some other weird ones that I have no idea what are even called.  All are noisy.  Starts making “music.”

12. Sigh. Yeah, quiet time.  Awesome. Can’t you tell?

How do you do quiet time for your toddler(s)?

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Guest post: Creepy Kids Toys

 When I was little, I had this Christmas carol book with a built in keyboard.  I loved it.  Until it decided to randomly play in the middle of the night. At first I thought maybe the books next to it were causing a bit of pressure on the keyboard.  So I took it off the shelf and opened it up.  It still played randomly.  Then I thought maybe the batteries were dying.  I know toys can do weird things when the batteries aren’t working properly.  So I took them out.  At least I think I did.  It still played.  And creeped me right out.  I took that creepy Christmas book to the garage and threw it in the bin.  And didn’t sleep well for weeks, sure that something was out to get me.

Ben (and daughter) from My Rad Dad

That is why I can totally relate to today’s guest post by Benjamin of My Rad Dad (Go on, go check out his blog…you know you want to).  Yes, today we will be getting a Dad’s perspective on things.  Namely, creepy kids toys.

Kids toys can be many things.  They can be fun, annoying, entertaining, hilarious, boring, expensive, pink, pink and they can also be pink (its another 3 daughter joke… I know, I know, not that funny).

But there are a few very entertaining toys (entertaining for odd reasons) that I love, and some toys totally creep me out.  Let me explain.

First we’ll start with the oddly entertaining toys.
These are the toys that spell.  Now why would these be so entertaining? Admit it, when you pick up a toy that has letters that you can push and they make the letter sound the first thing you try to do is spell cuss words.  I know, I do too.  There is something about it that makes it impossible for an adult to play with a spelling toy and not try it.  (At least after reading this you are going to try it.)

The thing is is that toy companies have caught on to this semi-mature behavior from adults and put the kabosh on some kids toy cussing.

My daughters have this caterpillar that has letters on the feet and when you press the feet down it makes the sound of the letter.  But when you try to spell bad words it giggles.

“S” “H” “I” “hee hee hee hee, that tickles.”

Even as I write this it makes me laugh.

Creepy Kids Toys

I am about 99% sure some kids toys are possessed.  Toys that make sounds are all the rage for kids.  Toys like puzzles that moo when you put the cow in the right spot, potty chairs that sing when your child goes pee pee and toys that sing and talk in Spanish so your child will know how to say uno dos tres.  Its these very toys that are so creepy.

The mooing puzzle (which also meows, barks, oinks and cockadoodledoos) is triggered by light.  When you put the piece in the right spot the censor gets dark and the animals sound magically comes out of the puzzle.  Now lets say your responsible little kid loses every single puzzle piece, but the puzzle board still sits in the toy shelf in the living room.  Each and every night for six months you get a random creepy animal sound when you turn out the lights.

The singing potty chair has a mind of its own.  It is supposed to be triggered by liquid hitting the censor (whisper this: ‘The liquid is pee’).  But instead it is triggered by pure chance and creepiness.  The potty chair will burst into song any time it so desires.

“Tinkle tinkle hooray for you.

You went potty, number two.

Now I’ll sing to let you know, each and every time you go.

I’ll also sing when no ones around.

Just to freak your family out.”

In between kids we had the potty chair in the attic and if the house was quiet enough you could hear that freaky little toilet belt out a pee ballad once every few weeks.  That little potty really freaked me out.

Lastly is the Spanish speaking toy.  This toy also bursts into random song and spoken word, its just in a different language.  This has gone off in the middle of the night and I literally thought there were little Mexican kids singing and playing in our living room at 2 am.

So there you have it.  Don’t say you were not warned about creepy kids toys, and informed about ways to make innocent toys hilarious.

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Dr. Hannah

Hannah: “Mommy, lay over there on the couch so I can be your doctor.”

Me: “What do you say?” When will she ever learn to say please without being asked??

Hannah: “PLLLLEEEEEEAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEE????”

I went over to the couch and laid down.

She got out her little, fine, big, doctors kit and came over to me.

Hannah: “You don’t feel good Mommy, I have to fix it.”

Me: “Oh, ok.” I felt fine, but you know, I took one for the team.

She took a white blanket and wrapped it around my arm.  The one that was in a cast only 2 weeks ago.

Hannah: “Your arm is sore Mommy, I’ll fix it for you.”

She took my temperature with her little pretend thermometer.  She gave me some pretend panadol.

And then she got out that funny little thing that doctors use to look in your ears. You know, the one with the cone shape on the end.

Hannah (while looking through the ear-thing at my ear): “Oh. There’s a panda in there.” She said, as if that was a perfectly normal ear disease.

I cracked up.  Yes, a panda. 

She looked in my other ear. “There’s a monkey in here.”

Me (laughing): “How did that get there?”

Hannah: “They scooted in there.” She walked her fingers up my arm, demonstrating as she said it.

Me: “How will we get them out?”

She went over to her doctors kit and grabbed these weird little scissor/tweezer type things.

Hannah: “I’ll use this.” She held it up for me to see.

Oh gosh, this quite possibly could hurt. A lot. Sometimes, she’s not so gentle. Toddlers often aren’t.

She leaned over, put the scissor/tweezer thing in my ear, and very gently pretended to pull out the monkey.

“Got it.” She told me.

Then she got the panda out.

Thank goodness for doctor Hannah.  I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life with a panda and a monkey in my ears.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

Where’s the car?

“Where are all those cars going, Mommy?”  Hannah (2.5 years old) asked me.

We were in the car on the way home from Junior Jivers (a play group) when a big truck pulling a trailer full of shiny new cars pulled up next to us at the lights.

“They’re probably going to a new car lot.” I told Hannah.

“The car store?”

“Yeah.”

“Our car’s not new.” Hannah told me.

“It was when we bought it. We used to have a different car, remember?”

“Yeah, a blue one.” She’s so smart, it was a blue one.  Contrary to what you Aussies might think.  Fine, the blue part is controversial.

“But we lost it.”

How could I not laugh? “No sweetie, we sold it.”

“No, we lost it.” She said matter-of-factly.

Um..ok.  I could see that this was going to be one of those never ending arguments where stubborn Hannah knows something to be true.  And nothing will persuade her otherwise.  Not even the truth.  Sigh.

So I changed the subject.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

Getting your baby to sleep

Sleep.  Now that’s something I dream about.  Something I can’t wait to get 8 whole straight hours of.  Something that without much of, I go a little crazy.  Not just me, but most moms.  We hear that familiar mom-I-need-you-right-now-or-I’m-surely-going-to-die scream at 3am.  Sigh. 3am. And for a lot of us, that’s not even the first wake up of the night. Sigh.

So here is a guest post by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99 @gmail.com.

Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night

I’m not going to lie to you. There is no quick-fix, catch-all method of getting your infant to sleep through the night. Babies sleep around the clock at varying periods, usually for collectively 16 hours a day. Sometimes they’ll sleep a few hours; sometimes only minutes. However, there are a few tips you can keep in mind so that your child may sleep more at night than otherwise.

Be Patient, Be More Patient

Again, I’m going to stress the importance of understanding that you can’t expect your baby to sleep through the night. Particularly for the first few weeks of their life, there is no typical sleeping pattern. Much of this has to do with their immature brain that has not developed enough to maintain prolonged sleep. Until about 6 weeks old, a baby will wake up many times during the night. The best thing you can do is to simply not get frustrated when they wake up; creating a hostile environment around sleep may lead to bigger sleeping disorders once older.

Vary Sleep Associations

Many parents will stick to one effective sleep association to get their baby to sleep. While this association is usually strong, restricting your child to just one association often results in a baby stubbornly expecting this association every night. So, for example, don’t rock your child to sleep every night; you should sing to him or her some nights, feed other nights, and take turns as to which parent puts the child to bed. Otherwise you will have a child who refuses to sleep unless that one association is met. The more associations you can provide, the better.

Set Consistent Nap Times

Try to lay down with your baby a couple times during the day and let them nap. Eventually your child may be able to just nap at those times on their own. This will get your baby used to a daily naptime routine, and babies with consistent nap routines are more likely to sleep for longer periods of time at night.

Bedtime Rituals

While I said to vary sleep associations earlier, it is also still a good idea to be consistent with bedtimes and bedtime rituals. The difference being that a bedtime routine is a series of events beforesleep while a sleep association occurs as your child falls asleep; it is usually pretty easy to control a bedtime routine, but you can’t always meet the same conditions for a sleep association, particularly when your child wakes up in the middle of the night. Sometimes warm baths can soothe a baby, but this is not always the case. Reading to your child before bed is always a good idea and an important routine to instill at a young age.

Feed Your Baby Mostly During the Day

Infants need to feed at close intervals. If you feed your baby at least every three hours during the day, they will be less hungry at night. Sure, they will still wake up in the middle of the night needing to feed, but try to give them a full feeding when upon their first night waking. You don’t want your baby to get into the habit of nibbling throughout the night.

Provide Ideal Sleep Conditions

In early months, most babies prefer sleeping in a tightly swaddled blanket while older toddlers tend to prefer looser sheets and covers. Make sure the bed isn’t too cold when laying them down. Obviously, keep the bedroom quiet and dark, although subtle soft sounds such as white noise, running water, or air conditioning can also lull a baby to sleep.

Ok, back to me now: If you have trouble getting your child to sleep, during the day or at night, there is help out there.  Tresillian has an amazing amount of information available on their website. You can chat to them live on Facebook. And, if you live in the Sydney area, you can get a referral from your doctor or baby health nurse to go there for a day stay.  There they will help you tame those sleep demons.  If it still doesn’t improve, they offer residential stays as well.

When Hannah was 7 months old, she wouldn’t sleep during the day for more than 5 minutes.  SIGH. Then she’d do that I’m-going-to-die scream until I went back in the room.  No amount of rocking, patting, lulling, shhhhing, etc. would get her back to sleep again.  I was going half crazy with all the screaming, and no infant-free time to myself.

I’m pretty sure every parent goes through that at some stage or another.  The whole sleep issue is a big one.  But what did I do?  I took her to Tresillian before I went stark raving mad.  I went there for an entire day.  After that, it took about 2 days of putting my new skills to work, and then she became a dream sleeper.  She still is.  Thank God for Tresillian.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

Getting Daddy back

Finally, Hannah is potty trained.  Ok fine, she’s pee potty trained.  Not so much poo potty trained.  Sigh.  Those still turn up in her undies.  I can clearly see a large protrusion hanging in her undies.  I can smell the offending object.

“Did you do a poo poo?”  I ask her.

“No, I didn’t do a poo poo.” She told me, clearly knowing that she did.

“Yes you did.  I can see that you did.”

She then reaches her little hand around to her bottom and goes in for a feel.

“NOOO!!! DON’T PUT YOUR HAND IN YOUR BUTT!!!” I yell to her.  Ugh. I don’t want to have to clean poo out from under fingernails.  Ick.

So yeah, still working on that.

Anyway…

A while ago, when she was still learning to pee on the potty, she was often wetting herself around the house.  And yes, it was kinda gross and I was constantly armed with carpet cleaner and a rag.  But she treated pull-ups like a nappy, so the only way forward was to stick her in underpants.  And let her wet herself to get a grasp on what it felt like.  It worked by the way.

Hannah was climbing all over Daddy.  Giggling and jumping and giggling some more.

Suddenly she stopped.  This slightly frightened/surprised/what-do-I-do look came across her face.

“SHE’S PEEING ON ME!!!!!!!” Aaron shouted.

She was standing over his leg, one of her legs on each side of Aaron’s.  Frozen in place like a little deer in headlights, pee rushing out of her, drenching Aaron’s leg.

And I could not stop laughing. I stood there just watching and laughing, and watching some more.  Yeah, yeah, I’m horrible. Whatever, it was hilarious!

“HAHAHAHAHA, I guess she got him back then!” one of my friends said when I told her about it.

Yeah, I guess she did. She definitely got him back for this. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Still makes me laugh.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

A wee in the forest

Last week, I had to clean the toilet with some random toilet cleaner I found in my cleaning bucket.  I’m not even sure where it came from.  Maybe I stole it from Grandma when we lived with her.  Oops.

I usually use Ajax.  You know, that gritty, powdery stuff in a cardboard can?  But the other day, Aaron put a shirt or something in the laundry sink and then when I ran the washing machine, the sink filled with water (the water from the washing machine goes into the laundry sink and down the drain via a little hose…) and the shirt got stuck in the drain.  No water could go down it.

I went in the laundry room to find a very wet floor.  There is a drain on the floor though, so a lot of it when down there. Then I opened the cupboard under the laundry sink to get my cleaning bucket full of supplies and found it filled to the brim with water.  How in the world did all the water get there??  I mean when the sink overflowed, it went onto the floor.  The bucket was under the sink, in the cupboard.  Whatever.  Weird.

Anyway, my Ajax container was soaking wet and all the cleaner inside turned into one giant clump.  Unusable. Sigh. Lucky I found the random toilet cleaner in there too.  In a plastic sealed container.  Not at all ruined by the flood.

I squeezed some in the toilet.

The smell of forest filled my nostrils.

Forest?  Seriously?

“Pine scented.” The container said.

Ok, I’m sorry, but who thought it would be a good idea for the bathroom to smell like trees?  I remember camping as a child and having to pop a squat behind a tree to relieve myself while  A) hoping I didn’t pee all over the pants that were around my ankles, B) trying not to fall over, and C) trying to make sure the steadily growing lake of urine did not decide to make a run for my shoes.

And then my butt cheek really hurt.  Something of giant proportions bit me.  On my butt.  While I was peeing in the woods.  Some sort of gigantic, mutated forest fly.  That’s what it looked like anyway.  Every time I sat down after that, the bite would itch.  I pretty much spent that whole camping trip scratching my butt.

So I’m sorry, but I do not want to think about squatting, peeing on myself, and getting my ass bitten every time I use the toilet.  No. Thanks.

Maybe they should make the cleaner smell like fresh fruit.  It smells good, plus fruit doesn’t bite you in the bum.

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Smoked Salmon and avocado rice paper rolls

Some days, it’s just too hot to put the oven on.  So for dinner, I made something that didn’t involve the oven, the stove top, or even the microwave.  And, they’re super delicious….

Smoked Salmon and Avocado Rice Paper Rolls

Ingredients:

-100g rice Vermicelli noodles

Rice paper roll wrappers

-Rice paper wrappers. The large ones, not the small ones (number depends on how full you fill them. When I make this I make 7 rolls)

-Smoked salmon (again, amount depends on how much you want to put in each roll. Some like a lot, some like a little)

-1 Avocado

-Sweet chilli or Poonsin sauce (available from the asian section of the grocery store) if you don’t like chilli

Sweet chilli sauce and poonsin sauce

Method:

1. Make noodles according to packet instructions (mine said to put noodles in a bowl, pour boiling water on them and wait 2 minutes. Drain them and rinse with cold water)

2. Wet a paper towel and spread it out on the bench (counter)  

3. Put 1 rice paper wrapper in a bowl of warm water until pliable.  About 20-30 seconds.  If it starts folding and sinking to the bottom, it’s been in too long.  It may take a couple of goes to get the right timing (it took me a while anyway, but now I can do it right every time)

4. Spread soaked rice paper wrapper on wet paper towel.

5. Put desired amount of noodles on to rice wrapper as indicated on the packet (in a line in the left third of the wrapper). If you put

Wrapper, rice noodles, sauce, salmon, then avocado

a lot of noodles on, you will have a larger roll, less noodles for a smaller, more compact roll.

6. Drizzle with chosen sauce. You could put the sauce on the side and dip the rolls in the sauce, but I find that a bit difficult. All the innards fall out of the roll every time I try to do it that way….

7. Put smoked salmon on top of sauce and noodles. Amount of salmon is up to you. I like mine to be just one layer, covering the top of the noodles and sauce.

8. Add some avocado on top of salmon. Amount is up to you. I use 2 slices in a line.

9. Wrap as per packet instructions (there will be step by step instructions with illustrations on the packet).

Repeat steps 3-9 for each roll. If not eating straight away, store rolls on a moistened paper towel (on a plate), with another moistened paper towel on top, cling wrap on top of the paper towel, and put it in the fridge. Eat within 24 hours.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

My manky arm

Finally, my arm has been freed.  6.5 weeks in a cast, and I was going a little crazy.  And it was starting to smell.  Every time my right hand was anywhere remotely near my face, a horrible smell wafted to my nose.  Ick.  I could only imagine what my arm looked like under that cast….

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The nurse/doctor/whatever she was, took the rather scary looking, but won’t actually hurt you cast cutting saw, and worked her magic.  Twice.  The first magic didn’t work so well.  Then she had to cut the other side too.  And then use scissors.  Silly cast wanted to take my arm hostage forever.

My arm and hand looked disgusting. There appeared to be caked-on dirt all over it.

They let me use the sink to scrub at my arm.  The brown wouldn’t come off.  Luckily the smell did.  Ick.

On closer examination, the brown was actually dry disgusting skin, still half clinging to my arm.  Ick.  It wouldn’t come off.  My arm looked like something from an f-grade horror movie.  And my wrist didn’t want to move.  I guess being immobile for 6.5 weeks does that to a person.

After inspecting my arm at home, I realised the hair on my arm was a man-ish black colour.  Not so pretty if you know what I mean.  Not only that, but the back of my hand seems to have decided that it wanted to grow some hair too.  Some man-ish black hair.

I suppose my other hand has a little bit of hair too, but it’s light coloured peach-fuzz type hair. And there isn’t very much of it.  It seems that being covered up made my arm hair thick, dark, and multiplying.

And then there’s the underside of my arm.  That pretty much looks like a giant clump of small volcanoes.  All of the hair (extra hair, remember, I got extra hair while in the cast…) that tried to grow couldn’t quite get out.  So now it’s all ingrown. Ick.

Looks like I’m going to resemble sasquatch for a little while.  Hopefully just a little while. Excess thick black hair is not the sort of battle scar I want….

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