Only 3 Sleeps To Go!!

Only 3 more sleeps!!!! Till we move that is! Things are getting pretty exciting! The bamboo floors are finished, the carpets are in. The only problem...the landscaping of the back yard. We have had a bit of rain over the last day or 2 and that has caused delays with the landscapers being able to dig, fill etc. They tried...boy did they try...and the result?? One VERY bogged dingo that took them almost 1/2 a day to get out of the mud. And now they can't get it out of our backyard because of the mud so we have a dingo in our backyard until they can do the job!! They are hoping to come back on Thursday and do the cut/fill then and lay the turf on Friday. Fingers crossed we get no more rain! Here are the carpets...





Mia has been a bit cranky the last few days. I suppose that is to be expected with all the stuff going on. Once we move I am sure things will be more settled. We have been walking around the lake a bit and boy does she love it! We get her bandage changed again on Thursday so I am hopeful it will look more "healed" this time.






Other than that it is just craziness with packing, packing and more packing!! That's all for now!!

Hospital Follow Up Visit

Yesterday I took Mia for her follow up appointment at the hospital Fracture Clinic. They had to remove her bandage and re-dress the wound. I don't know what I was expecting. Did I think that it would look normal when they took the bandage off?? Did I think that it would look like it had almost completely healed?? I don't know but what I didn't prepare myself for was what it actually looked like. It looked almost the same as it did the day it happened. It was strange - there didn't appear to be any stitches. The wound was still open. I think that they do that because they want it to heal naturally. I also wasn't prepared for the little bits of black skin on her finger. The surgeon told me that was dead skin. "Is that normal???" I asked. "Yes" he said. "The dead skin will act as a biological dressing and in theory it should aid in the healing of the skin behind it". So now we have to wait. We have to go for a visit to the Fracture Clinic once a week until they are satisfied it is healing well. I asked the nurse after the surgeon left if it looked "normal" compared to other similar injuries she had seen and she said definitely. It was yet another hard day because when I saw that it hadn't changed much from a week before all the feelings of guilt, inadequacy etc came flooding back. I had worked so hard all week to try and "deal with" those feelings with, if I do say so myself, a considerable amount of success. I felt like I had sort of regressed yesterday. I am feeling better today - but I am still worried. Still worried that it won't heal properly. Still worried that they will end up amputating the tip of her finger. Only time will tell. Mia was again a trooper when her dressing was changed. She only cried when the nurse had to take off the bit of dressing directly next to the wound. She is such a good girl. Here is the first bandage she had...


Now here is her new one...


On a happier note, Mia and I went for a lovely walk around the lake the other day. She just loves being outside! Check out the pics...











Mia has also been trying her hand at brushing her teeth. What a good girl!!



And here are just a few pics that I wanted to share of my gorgeous girl...

On a Happier Note...

I know that my last post was a bit sad, negative etc so I thought I would post today about something positive...our house!

Things are really starting to come good. The concreters came out to do the driveway, the patio slab and a little slab behind the watertank so we can push the watertank a bit closer to the house.





Howard, the fencing contractor came out to do the fence and the 2 gates. He was an absolute workhorse!! He did a fantastic job and now we have a fully fenced yard!!






Next we come to the flooring. David and his parents (and me too) have been working like crazy to lay the bamboo floors. We are making progress but there is still a lot to do. The family room is done, the retreat is done and the hall and front entry is done. What's left you ask? Well the activity room, the second hall, the dining room and the kitchen. That should keep us busy enough!!











All in all it is coming together. The carpets get laid on Monday and the soil and turf and mowing strip will be done within the next week. Then we are good to move in!!!

The Worst Day of My Life

I think by now most of you know what happened on 12th August. If you don't I will catch you up.

The day started like any other. It was a nice day other than the fact that the wind was blowing something fierce! Mia was her usual happy self and we were getting ready to go over to the new house to do some work. We left and arrived at the new house about 2pm. The concrete contractors were there doing the driveway and were within an hour or so of being finished. We were inside the house (David, David's parents, Mia and I) and we all went to to the garage door and David and I walked into the garage to talk to the concreters through the roller door. We left Mia with her grandparents in the doorway. A minute or so later I heard the garage door slam shut and immediately heard Mia screaming. I turned around and found David's mum opening the door and picking Mia up and all I saw was blood. I ran over to her and grabbed her out of her Grandmother's arms and that is when I saw her middle finger. It was 3/4 of the way severed between the 1st joint and the tip. She was screaming at the top of her lungs and all I can remember was turning to David and screaming at him that she has cut her finger off and to call the ambulance. I immediately got a handkerchief from David's dad and wrapped it around her finger. She kept screaming and writhing in pain and next thing I knew the head concreter ran over with a first aid kit that he got from his truck. He then proceeded to unwrap the handkerchief and replace it with gauze and he taped 2 of her fingers together. He was such a hero. His hands were shaking as he was doing it and he was pretty pale but he was so strong and I can't thank him enough. Mia kept cuddling into me and then writhing back in pain. By that point I was getting frustrated that the ambulance hadn't arrived.

EVENTUALLY, like 20 minutes later, the ambulance arrived. The first thing they said to me was "we can't do anything for her" - not what a distraught mother needs to hear!! They then told me that they could take me to the hospital or we could put her in our car. I said, no we will go in the ambulance. I asked them to give her some pain relief (they couldn't even look at her finger because she was screaming so much) so they gave her a shot of morphine. Within 5 minutes she was cuddled into my chest calm from the morphine. It took about 30-40 minutes to get to the hospital. They took us to the best children's hospital in the city because we thought she would need surgery and they would transfer her there anyway if we took her to any other hospital. The emergency department was great. They attended to her straight away and we got her xrays within about 20-30minutes and then it was found that not only had she severed her finger badly but she had also broken 2 bones in the tip of her finger. Next thing we knew the orthopedic surgeon had arrived and advised us that she would go in for emergency surgery a few hours later. We had to wait a few hours because Mia had had lunch a few hours before and she has to have an empty stomach for surgery. By that point Mia's finger had been properly wrapped and she was quite calm and happy and charming the socks off of everyone. Around 6:30pm they sent me upstairs to get Mia off to surgery. I met the surgeon, one of the nurses who was going to be in the operating theatre and I met the anesthetist. They were all really nice and Mia seemed to be really comfortable around them. Mia went in for surgery and I was left in the parent's waiting room until it was over.

David at that point was on his way home to pick up clothes etc that Mia and I would need as she was going to have to stay overnight. Thank goodness for Facebook on my mobile as I spent most of the wait while Mia was in surgery chatting with my mum back and forth. It is the only thing that kept me sane!! About an hour later the surgeon came back into the parent's lounge and told me the surgery was a success and that she should have no permanent damage. I then had to wait about 15 more minutes before I could go and see Mia in recovery. When I saw her she was cuddled up to one of the nurses with no shirt on because it turns out that she had a big vomit after she got out of surgery. Poor little thing! I got up in the bed with her and she cuddled into my chest and fell asleep.

That night was rough on both of us. I stayed in bed with her for a while but then got out to lay on my own bed next to hers. The problem was her iv alarm kept going off because when she moved in bed it wasn't registering properly so the nurses kept having to come in and that kept waking her up. Then just before midnight her iv fell out completely so 12:30am saw the arrival of a doctor to try and put another one in. They had had major problems earlier trying to get an iv in because her veins are so small. She was jabbed about 7 times before they found one and at 12:30am it took them another 3 attempts for them to get one to work. But my little girl is such a trooper - she fell asleep while they were jabbing her with needles!!!! I was right by her side stroking her hair and kissing her cheek and whispering in her ear how much I loved her and she fell fast asleep. Back to bed after that and she had a restless sleep while I had NO sleep at all. My heart and mind kept racing. We got to bring her home the next morning. We have to go back to the fracture clinic on the 19th for a follow-up appointment where they will remove the big bandage and hopefully just put one on her injured finger only. She was such a trooper at the hospital. All of the nurses and doctors fell absolutely in love with her. One of the doctors even said that she was the best toddler patient he had ever had because she was so well behaved! That's my girl!

No one can prepare you for something like this. When you become a parent all you want is for your child to be safe, secure and loved. It is the hardest thing in the world to see your child in pain and know that you can't do anything to take that pain away. I didn't cry. It was like I couldn't cry. It was like I had gone into some sort of headspace where I said to myself "Crystal, you need to be the strong one here. Mia needs you." I didn't cry till I was on the phone to my mum when I was waiting for Mia to get out of surgery. It is really hard not to place blame. It is really hard not to say to David's parents why weren't you watching her?? You were supposed to be watching her!! Not only is it human nature to want to blame someone but then the guilt sets in. It is horrible. It is crippling. I spent the entire night in the hospital replaying the scenario. Replaying the sounds. The sound of the door slamming; the sound of Mia screaming. Over and over and over in my mind those sounds just replayed. I was sick to my stomach but I couldn't vomit. I was mentally drained but I couldn't turn my mind off and try and rest. It was the worst day of my life. Even now, 3 days later I still feel guilt. I still feel anger. I still feel resentment. I still feel sadness. I still feel like a terrible mother. The feelings are not as strong now so I know that they too will pass. It is just so hard. I know that Mia will recover and she won't have any memory of it, but I will. I will carry it with me forever; the day that I couldn't protect my daughter. I know there will probably be more times when I wish I could have protected her more. But for now this is enough. This feels like enough to last a lifetime. Even now as tears fall from my eyes I know in my heart that I am a good mother. I know that accidents happen. I just need my mind to listen to my heart.

Thank you to everyone for their support through all of this. Especially all my WTE mommas. It has meant the world to me to have your support and all of the messages you have left have helped tremendously. I couldn't have made it through all of this without my family and friends. I love each and every one of you. xoxo

Official Homeowners

What an exciting day!! At 8am this morning we had our official house handover with our site supervisor. It went very smoothly and it was a great feeling when we were handed the keys. There is still a lot of work to do. I have the concrete contractors coming to prep the driveway and patio tomorrow and I also have the termite protection contractors coming tomorrow to organise the protection for the driveway and patio and then there is another contractor coming to fit the shower screens, wardrobe doors and mirrors. Once the shower screen, wardrobe doors and mirrors are done then everything but the flooring is finished inside the house. David started the flooring tonight with our friend Tristan and David's parents are driving here tomorrow to stay for a couple of nights and help David with the flooring tomorrow afternoon/evening and all day on Wednesday as it is a public holiday. Then they will be back at it on the weekend. If it goes smoothly they could be finished the bamboo by the weekend which would be best case scenario. Then I need to organise the carpet guys to come and lay the carpets. Then on Friday this week the fencing contractors will start putting up the fence and they will finish on Monday or Tuesday next week. Then all that is left is to get the soil trucked in and lay the turf in the yard. We are going to do the gardens after we move in. It is all so exciting but stressful as well!!

Life at the moment has been all about the house so I have nothing else to say!! I did do some editing on one of my photos of Mia. I loved the picture but there was an ugly garbage bin in the background and I wanted to try and get rid of it as well and correct the colours etc of the photo. Here is the before and after...not a bad effort!!

Photography

I love taking photos!! As if you didn't know that already though! My camera isn't working properly anymore thanks to my dear husband dropping it on the tiled floor and breaking some of the "internal" workings of the camera. As a result my photos come out with these black dots on them that I have to photoshop out. It is a real pain!! I will be getting a new camera - it is not worth fixing this one as the quote is coming in at at least $450-$500 and that is without them even opening it up to see exactly what is wrong. Anyways, this means I have had to photoshop my photos more than usual to get rid of the dots and since I have been doing that I have started to have a play with some other editing. I wasn't completely happy with the before photos below. But after a bit of playing I am much happier with the after product. It is amazing what you can do with photo editing. I used Photoshop Elements for these edits but I also use Corel and Lightroom to do bits and pieces.


Mia has been having a blast (as usual) at the park. She is just go go go and loves being outside.










Things are really getting exciting with our house. I picked up the final bank cheque this morning. I have to hand this over to the site supervisor at 8am Monday morning and in return he gives us our keys!!! This entire process has been going on for 2 years to get to this point so we have been waiting for this day for what feels like forever!! So excited!!!!!

Well time to go and watch some tv and do some knitting. I am working on the first sleeve for Mia's next sweater. I have finished the bottom part and my goal is to get it done by the end of August.