About 6 weeks ago, my good friend Debbie gifted us some water kefir grains and a bottle of her own fermentation to see if we even liked it! We did, we ALL loved it and after a few hiccups initially things are brewing along smoothly! I …
Finishing a book, or even starting or reading a page of one is a rare luxury these days but one I DO enjoy, so I will plod on s l o w l y lol.
This is a book I really wanted to finish sooner, I never wanted to put it down at the end of the night when my eyelids got too heavy. It is a beautiful book dealing with one of the most grotesque abominations of human history; slavery.
Written in two parallel but decidedly unequal voices, The Invention of Wings introduces Sarah Grimke, from a wealthy, white, slave-owning family in Charleston SC and the slave she was given as a ‘gift’ on her tenth birthday, Hetty known as “Handful”.
I was naively unaware whilst I was reading, that although a work of fiction, The Invention of Wings is based on historical facts. The Grimke sisters Angelina and Sarah were hugely influential abolitionists and early feminist authors and Hetty was indeed a slave owned by the Grimke family.
One of Monk Kidd’s successes with this novel is surely the disparate nature of the two main characters and the dance between them as they both grow into strong, admirable women. Each of the main female voices is archetypical of her inherited place in the society of the day, but neither Sarah nor Handful is willing to settle into the life ordained for her by her birth.
This is a novel that doesn’t shy away from the horror of life lived as a slave but it also bows to the beauty of human relationships that can altogether save a tortured soul. I loved every page of The Invention of Wings and will be looking to read more by Sue Monk Kidd.
#need shopping today Selley’s Liquid Nails: to fix the stupid handle on Nixon’s Mocka Wooden Trolley that refuses to stay stuck Cheap nappies: Nixon poos like a champ now approx 7 times per day at least, expensive Huggies are now reserved for nights only …
Today I hung the washing out in the sunshine, listening to an Oprah and Deepak meditation on my phone {no, for real I was! check it here}. And then it hailed. I spent 10 minutes changing the baby’s diaper, blow drying his bum and gently applying …
“A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.”
nix: one of the worst days for sure. i’m just so glad the surgery and hospital stays are over baby, things aren’t too rosy on the other side just yet but they will get better x
ethan: you and your bestie entered a bowling competition {wtf?} and yeah, you got first and second. i’m pretty sure that there actually isn’t anything the two of you can’t do if you’re doing it together. that’s pretty awesome, it makes me so happy that you have found someone so rad to navigate being a young boy with x
linking with www.practisingsimplicity.com
Not do-it-in-the-bum-day. Get your mind out of the gutter. Ahh Sunday. You move me to Random Thoughts; I saw on the Encyclopaedia of Facebook that there is 21 days until Spring. Hot damn that is excellent news. It’s gotten cold again, I’ve got a cold …
Today is Thursday, which means we survived Wednesday night, the worst so far.
Nixon’s pull-through operation (so named because they surgically pull healthy intestine down and rejoin everything after removing the diseased segment) went well, although it took 6 hours rather than the 3-4 that was expected! Stressy. Bubba’s bowel was in worse shape than his surgeon had anticipated, creating more work in theatre.
So the past few days have been spent managing pain and administering a multitude of medicines orally, intravenously and through his epidural, also managing his ‘output’ levels though his catheter and nappies. He has been doing so well and managing like a champ. As his surgeon reminded us, he has been through major surgery that would render any adult an absolute puddle of jelly. His only outward scars are three laparoscopic incisions through which they worked on the top bowel segments, they then completed the remaining work through his bottom. Ow.
Lets be honest though, last night I lost the plot. Yesterday he was switched exclusively to oral morphine and tramadol to see if he would be able to manage without the epidural (and in turn the catheter). One of the two made Nix go mental. He was unable to sleep until 10.30pm after being awake the whole day. He got so frantic he wrapped his epidural cable around his neck before I was able to get it untangled. Then his catheter connector snapped and the nurse taped the end of the tube inside his nappy. 15 minutes later Nix took control and simply finished the job, ripping the balloon tipped catheter completely out!
#nonixonno!
So I cried and despaired and text Dave to say I didn’t know how much more I could take. I feel like a failure but I hadn’t realized how much of a mental respite nap times are; even more so when Nix and I are confined to a small hospital room.
We ended up co-sleeping for the first time ever as an older and wiser nurse suggested he may just calm down if we stay as close as possible. I had been trying this over the past two days by climbing into the crib but it was just too small to stay there for any period of time, so a full size bed was brought in and we got to sleep before 11pm. He was on 2 hourly observations but we managed to resettle each time and eventually slept through until Dave arrived at 7am.
The absolute best thing that has happened this week? Nixon had black beans in his vege mash for dinner last night and this morning, out came some black beans! This is seriously amazing. Never is his life has he had a bowel movement so quickly and with so little effort. I had so many doubts about this operation, I just thank god that we have seen positive results so quickly
Oh. And baby was discharged this afternoon! We are home to heal.
Thank you, thank you all so much for your lovely messages, heart emoticons {tee hee} and prayers. We appreciated it so much xx
secura: $32 bum cream – our baby has never had poo sit on his bum as his bowel movements have been controlled by suppositories or wash-outs for much of his short life. this stuff, prescribed at the hospital, is apparently the golden ticket to protecting his skin, which at 13 months old is prone to his first dose of nappy rash.
huawei mobile wifi from 2°: my lifesaver. you get 1 hours worth of free wifi per day at the hospital. 1 hour. this little black box was worth it’s weight in gold. $99 and a pocket sized modem that enabled dave to continue to work from nixie’s hospital room and let me remain at least somewhat connected to the outside world for the 5 days we spent ‘inside’ lol.
medical obs: oh how nix hates the routine obs, particularly the O2 sensor and getting his blood pressure checked every 2 hours. he can spot a nurse at 20 paces and gear up to beat her off so fast.
remove: there is this magical solution called remove that ‘removes’ sticky sticky adhesive tape with no residue or pain! a miracle on baby skin. man and medicine do some cool shit.
books: it’s taking me a long time to read a book at the moment, but i did read over these past few days and The Invention of Wings is a damn good book. so is any book about trucks, diggers and tractors which distracts nix from diaper changes, which are now alarmingly frequent. yay?
I have lusted after these necklaces for years and figured that Nixon’s first birthday was the perfect occasion to finally order one; a gorgeous hand stamped necklace celebrating the two pieces of my heart. I ordered the shortest length (16″) initial necklace with two charms …
