Road trip

Sharon was on the road for the last week, which was hard work for all concerned. Marie came over to help out with the logistics of child pick-up and child minding so that I didn't have to take any time off work but there was a lot of clock-watching and tail-chasing. Sean and Finn's parents' night was on the Thursday. Sean is doing well, according to Mrs. Cameron, who showed examples of how his written work was progressing in style, format and content from the beginning of the term. She's happy that his maths is coming on too, especially the way he had grasped all aspects of symmetry, and that his times tables are improving. He doesn't get into trouble although he can get a bit distracted at running his "shop" with Lewis (where they've been trying to sell Harry Potter drawings amongst other things) instead of getting on with whatever he's supposed to be doing. She expects him to do something entrepreneurial when he grows up. There must be a bot of Gormley in him then - he's not all Wallace!

Mr. Peach said Finn is coming out of his shell a little and contributes during circle time and in class discussions. He seems to like it when he knows something and is recognised for knowing it. Mr. Peach said Finn seems to be the "go-to" man for some of the maths stuff, which Finn likes, and that he's very good at ICT, which is no surprise given his ability with a mouse from the age of three or earlier! His one area of concern is the one we struggle with too - trying to get Finn started on pieces of work that require him to do writing. Often he'll do the drawing bit first, which he's good at, and then run out of time to do the writing part. We feel he struggles to know what to write, despite being well able to form sentences and read very well. Whether it's spelling that's a problem or being a perfectionist and not wanting to get it wrong or be criticised; it's hard to say. But he seems to be doing well in class, popular without being overly friendly with everyone.

Stuart and Lesley collected the boys on Tuesday to take the middle two swimming. Finn has swum very well the last few weeks and even Rowan managed half a width without clinging on to the side and spending most of the time not listening and mucking about. I took Rowan to the Eye Pavilion on the Friday morning to have his eyes tested once more and to see Dr Mulvihill, the eye surgeon. Sure enough, his prescription has changed and they detected an astigmatism in his right eye, in addition to one in his squinty left eye. Dr Mulvihill has prescribed him with bifocals as he says the turn seems to be when Rowan is trying to focus on things close up and straight ahead and that bifocals can help with this. Gradually, over a few years, the aim would be to reduce the strength of the bifocal and so get the brain to better control the eye muscle. However, there is no time limit on surgery, so if the bifocals aren't doing the job it may be that we go for the surgical option. Often Rowan sneaks his glasses back on when he goes to bed as he complains that if he wakens up his eye is sore when he tries to look at his clock and he says he can see "two of things", often pointing to things that ought to be peripheral to his field of vision while his eye is pointing in another direction entirely. It's a bit concerning, but he does seem to see OK with his glasses on.

Back to school

The boys are finally back at school after what seems liks the longest festive break ever. Marie arrived last Saturday night, followed by Michael on Monday so the school transport logistics are sorted once more while Sharon's pediatry recovery continues. There was almost a setback on Saturday night as she was reading stories to the boys. Sean slipped and bumped the console unit in the bedroom which shifted into Sharon's foot, bending it upwards. I was alerted by a number of screams of pain, followed by tears from the boys who got a fright. Hopefully no lasting damage has been done. The bandage is due to come off next week.

Rowan's night-time wanderings have continued. His start back at school was delayed slightly as he had an appointement at the Eye Pavilion after an 18-month absence, to check on the bad squint he has suddenly developed in his left eye. Marie came with us. The squint isn't noticeable with his glasses on and the optometrist believes that the "decompensation" as she called it could have resulted from Rowan not wearing his glasses or looking over the top of them, two things he was guilty of earlier last year. Also, for someone with hyperopia (long-sightedness), at his age he has started using his eyes much more, especially with starting school. The eyes working harder can exacerbate conditions if the glasses are being worn properly. No patching (thankfully, as Rowan would have been a hard man to get to stick to that regime) and his levels of vision are decent in both eyes with his glasses on, but he's being referred to the consultant.

With his brothers back at school, Angus was highly talkative all day, barely pausing to breathe. He has been doing much hugging and kissing and was making "pizza" with the playdo. He's now 400g off the 20kg mark and is attacking his food with a renewed vigour after being "aff it" over Christmas. Rowan is only six pounds heavier than him. Rowan is heavier than his wiry frame might imply but Angus is just a hefty lump!

The garage door people came today and can't get the tension back on the rollers at all from the wires. They spent the best part of an hour trying to sort it. The door manufacturers pulled out of the UK five years ago, and there are no replacement parts to be had. So, replacing it could cost upwards of £800 depending on the style of door chosen. Not a good start to the year. At least Adrian has fixed the back door so we can access the garage.

The "twins" had a 67th birthday tea on Tuesday night. A traditional Irish favourite of baked ham, spuds, cabbage and other veg, and a cake with candles after. I think the boys were disappointed there were only seven candles on the cake! Sharon held a Directors' meeting in the house last night at which the new Sales Director for Pampered Chef UK, Nick Banyard, was present. So, it's been a busy start to the New Year!

Glasses and classes

On finally attending the Eye Pavilion on Monday after a number of postponments, Rowan has been diagnosed as being slightly long-sighted in one eye. He needs glasses. Hyperopia, as it is known, may be the reason Rowan is known as Mr. Bump in our house as he is forever walking into doors, stairposts, frames and anything else that you'd think would be easy to avoid. Mind you, he does have a wee turn-in to his left foot which leads to him tripping more often than he should when he's running.

So, a third glasses-wearer. Rowan has the ears for glasses but not the nose. I don't know how he'll get a pair that don't slip down. What do we feed Angus to make sure his eyes don't go the same way? He's moved on to beef casserole and now has a far-ranging repertoire of fish, meat, vegetables, fruit and dairy as well as mauling a variety of finger foods. It's a rare mealtime when he seems to be full up!

Rowan has started pre-school nursery in the afternoons, the third of our boys to "enter the system." He trotted in on Monday, smart in his red Pentland sweatshirt over his white polo-shirt, without a glance behind him. In fact, he was remonstrating with Sharon on his early pick-up for "interrupting story time." Yesterday he was "playing with the boy with the curly hair" but didn't know his name. Duncan is there too, but he doesn't know any of the other children. Knowing Rowan, it won't be long before he makes his mark!

Bat and bowl

Having to get up in the morning to the sound of screams is never the best way to start the day, I've found. At first it sounded like Sean had over-reacted to one of his bumps or bangs or Finn's unwelcome attentions but it became apparent that both were shouting in fear of their lives. I struggled to understand what they were saying but it sounded like something had flown past Sean on the landing. He thought it was a bird or a bat and that it had headed into the spare room.

With Sean and Finn grabbing each other for dear life by the bathroom door, I looked into the spare room. No sign of anything. Stepping in further, half-anticipating a frenzied attack from a savage wood pigeon, I noticed a small black, toad-like shape on the cream carpet over by the window.

Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I tried to focus on it as Sharon joined us. She confirmed that it was indeed a bat and requested a bowl to assist it in its departure from the house. Bravely she went into the room, closed the door and opened the windows to encourage the small frightened creature to vacate the premises. This it did without suddenly rising from the carpet, assuming a vampiresque form and falling upon Sharon's neck. Well, the sun was up and, given she is carrying our fourth child, Sharon's blood would not necessarily be the drink of choice for a discerning vampire.

Panic over, we went through the usual morning routine of getting the boys dressed, fed and off to school. We're curious as to how the bat got inside the house and I'll need to investigate the attic for evidence of a roost. Not that there is much we can do if there are bats in the building other than hope they don't re-enter the house and cause a stir like we had this morning. I remember a small bird getting into our bedroom when Lesley and I were young and that caused a fair bit of consternation as it flew round and round trying to get back out the window, so we'll excuse Finn and Sean for their screaming this morning.

Rowan had his eyes tested yesterday and appears to have a slight astigmatism in his left eye and is slightly long-sighted in that eye too. Nothing to bother about, however, so no glasses for the Roaster. Just as well, as he has no nose to support spectacles. Finn's glasses are forever sliding down his nose these days. Rowan is to go back in six months but he doesn't seem to have the problems that have bothered his brothers.

Return of the snow

Here are a few snippets of the mundane happenings that I sometimes forget to post.

Rowan is now out of his infant car seat and into a booster seat. It has been an increasingly hard job to get his buckle fastened over his winter attire so he has now graduated to a "big boy seat." Still no sign of him progressing to a potty or a bed yet. If anything he has been regressing on the nappy front, in complete denial that he has done a poo even when people in the library are slumping over the bookshelves in a dead faint with the smell. Like Finn before him, Oxgangs Library seems to have a laxative effect.

I received a citation for jury duty last week having recently wondered if I would ever be called again as it must be 15-20 years since I last attended (and was not picked). I didn't even make it past the front door this time. On phoning the information number I learned my number was in the range that didn't have to attend and that my citation was at an end. It makes you wonder how many people they need for trials each year.

Sean and Finn are back at swimming lessons with Sean now in possession of his yellow hat. They are at the same lesson, at 4.40 on a Monday, so Sharon has her hands full, although Rowan went to his pal Duncan's house today to ease the dressing room chaos. Finn was doing good backstroke using his arms and Sean did as good a front crawl as Sharon has seen him do, using his arms and doing underarm breathing.

Sean has been discharged from the Eye Pavilion. There is no noticeable improvement in his weak eye since the last appointment but at least the patches have improved the amblyopia and the weaker eye can be countered with glasses. He earned his bronze merit certificate at school and has moved on to Stage 12 in his reading: chapter books! He has been wading through plenty of library books too and is currently excited by a natural history book. Sean, Finn and I had a good chat about fossils before bed tonight.

The snow returned today. Finn and Zoe had a good time making big snowballs in the garden. Sean evidently had a great time with Lewis after school: he was soaked through when Sharon picked him up for swimming.

Sharon did a couple of big shows last week: one in the evening in Lochwinnoch then another the following morning in Balerno. Good to see her back on the circuit! Her team is still growing and she has great plans for 2009.

Getting dirty in Dalkeith

We had a fine time this afternoon down at Dalkeith Country Park. Team Wallace (that's Sharon's extended Pampered Chef team as opposed to a new name for our family in the wake of Team GB's success at the Olympics) met up for a picnic and for the collected children to have a good romp around the adventure playground. The sun even came out for once.

Rowan went down the big slide but Sean and Finn wasted no time in going down the really big slide. Rowan was the leader as we all followed him around the treetop walk and up and down steps. Sean had a good time on the flying fox then we all walked down to the stables courtyard for an ice-cream and a bit of chasing, with me doing the running around.

Once home I gathered a good number of plums with Finn's help then cut the grass. Altogether a more fruitful day than yesterday when Sharon and I both felt rotten. After Lesley and Stuart came for lunch, Sharon took the boys to a birthday party in Bonnyrigg while I took my old faithful Philips TV to the dump. 17 years old, it went phut! last week. Farewell, old pal. These new-fangled flat-screen LCD jobs won't last half that time, I'm sure.

Sean had good news last week. His latest eye test showed a marked improvement in his amblyopia to the extent that they said if his right eye had been that strong when he was first tested then they wouldn't have started him on the patches at all. That said, he's down to three hours a day, from six. It's a great relief that his right eye has improved as we feared he was borderline for being able to improve, having been detected so late. First chance we get, Rowan will be getting tested.

Marie and Michael have returned from living it up on a 40th wedding anniversary cruise around the Mediterranean. Mallorca, Monte Carlo, Rome, Sardinia and then a week in Mallorca to finish: I think they rather enjoyed it!

School holidays begin

The school holidays began with an end-of-term party back at Chez Wallace, with a few of Sean's pals, their siblings and mothers coming round for a runaround in the back garden and house.

Sharon took Sean and Finn (and Phoebe) to SwimEasy lessons for the first week of the holidays in an attempt to fast-track Finn towards greater confidence in the water. Despite him crying most of the way through the five lessons, it seems to have done the trick as he has really come on leaps and dives. From howling and leaving the pool to dry his face every time water went in his eyes last October in Spain, he is now happily wearing goggles and diving under the water and seems to be really enjoying playing in the pool.

Sean is still working hard at his swimming but needs to get over the hurdles of breathing to the side and using his arms before he can advance to his yellow cap. He can swim a fair distance face down just using his legs but he has to stop to breathe and can't really tread water for any length of time. Maybe Finn's advances will spur him on.

The boys enjoyed a trip to Active Kids Adventure Park up at Stanley near Perth, with Phoebe and Holly, her sister. It's a relatively new attraction and Sharon rated it ahead of East Links Farm Park. Sean felt (and was) sick on the way back which was the first of another round of bugs which seems to have affected all of us. Having missed his scheduled appointment atthe eye pavilion, Sean managed to get a cancellation just before we headed off to Cumbria. Not surprisingly, he has been given patches and has to wear one over his weak eye for six hours a day. The late diagnosis of the amblyopia is a concern: the opthamologist reckons that if the weak eye doesn't pick up by the age of six then it may never do so. So, it's Sean's turn to endure the one-eye treatment. At least he can settle into wearing the patch over the holidays rather than have to go to school straight off wearing it.

18 months old

One and a half already! The twinkly-eyed, dimpled demon that is Rowan Wallace celebrated this landmark by shouting a few of his new words - [s]pi-dah!, coat!, kick!, a-bo (apple) - and then negotiating the front steps without crawling down backwards. His mobility is great and he's keen to climb and get on things like cars and tractors. He was delighted to see a Little Tykes car and Wendy-house appear on the patio on Friday; second-hand purchases from one of Sean's school-friends. Finn and Sean have been warned that they are primarily for Rowan to play with. Sean already had half the roof off last night: "it was too dark" complained Finn.

With the sun beaming down yesterday we spent the Bank Holiday at East Links Farm Park. Us and a couple of hundred other families. I have reservations about the place. The animals and birds seem increasingly irrelevant to the playpark aspects of it all, and it isn't cheap. As Sharon said, us paying £8 each for the privilege of minding our own children (£7 each). But the boys had a blast. Tractors, trampolines, the train ride, the maze through the trees, the hay barn (we are still picking hay out of Sean and Finn's hair), climbing frames and milk-churn skittles - each of the lads found something to their liking. We demolished a huge picnic (took me about an hour to make it in the morning) and dozed on the way home, except for Rowan who had already had his nap.

Finn was hampered a little by a sore leg. He seemed to develop a problem behind his left knee last week after jumping on the trampoline, more likely after falling with Sean on top of him. It gave him bother for a day or two but then eased off but on Saturday he woke crying with pain once more. He had been bouncing on the trampoline that afternoon. Sharon took him to A&E on Sunday but they couldn't find anything amiss. You could tell Finn was hurting when his leg was being manipulated however. He's a wee trouper that lad, doesn't show pain like his whingey big brother, just gets on with it. Sean has a bad cough (passed on from Finn) and Rowan was wailing in the night after being right out of sorts a couple of nights last week. He may have had a bug. Disrupted sleep has been the order of the day (or night).

Sean is getting used to his glasses and we're getting used to him wearing them. His right-eye lens is +6.5 Dioptres, so he really does have a problem there. He says he is starting to see a bit better from that eye and isn't closing it to look at things quite so much. His other lens is only +0.75D.

Sharon's April onslaught has come to an end with her recording a record month of sales and finishing her points-gathering for the Monte Carlo trip on her highest total yet. Will it be enough to earn the suite in Monte Carlo? Time will tell. Edel is in Nice just now and visited Monte Carlo. She reported that it is "opulent". Shame we'll have to get the train along to France to be able to afford a pie and a pint.

Measuring up

For the record, Sean thought the people at the opticians were nice yesterday. He has picked out gold glasses, having been persuaded by Sharon that these were the nicest, rather than the red glasses he originally wanted. Sharon said he looked very bookish. They will be ready in a few days' time. It'll be strange seeing Sean, who we are so used to seeing without glasses, wearing spectacles. Finn, on the other hand, just suits his glasses so well. They are very much part of him. We'll have to get Rowan tested at a young enough age to be able to correct any defects. The problem with Sean's amblyopia is that it may have been detected too late for his weak eye to recover with remedial action.

We had a measuring morning today. Sean is 116cm and 22kg (75th centile), Finn is 106cm and 19kg (just above 91st centile) and Rowan is 83cm tall (about 75th centile too) and a heavy lump to carry anywhere (probably about 13kg). That's 3'9.5", 3'6", 2'8.5" for those who like their heights in old money. Still looks like Finn is going to be the biggest of the three (but don't tell Sean that). He was the heaviest baby after all.

Sharon's walking has hit a major problem - sore shins. Given that the Moonwalk is about 7 weeks away and the only real cure for shin splints is rest, she's not too pleased at this development and is hoping a visit to the pediatrist may recommend a change to her orthotics that will get her back pounding the streets once more.

I had my second cricket net last night. I seem to have maintained that smooth bowling action that has served me well for so many years and was enjoying a good smash with the bat too. Will this season prove to be as successful as last year? Keep up with progress at the Standard Life Cricket Club website.

Another spectacle

Sean finally had his eyes tested today and is to get glasses. At a rather fraught session in an opticians in Wester Hailes where the staff were rather curt with Rowan and Sean, it was decided he needed to wear glasses permanently to help his one weak eye. The other eye has excellent vision which is why we haven't picked up on any problem before now. At least with Finn it was evident that he had the squint, so the testing process highlighted his amblyopia, which was corrected by the wearing of patches, and his long-sightedness, which is why he wears glasses. It's a shame that Sean will now have to wear glasses too. It may take him longer to adjust, being older than Finn was (17 months - Rowan's age!) when he started wearing his. Hopefully he'll see the benefit. He's staying off school today as his vision is still blurry from the eye drops he received at the opticians.

Ah, the genetic markers you pass on to your children or have passed on to you. I had my asthma review yesterday at which my lung function was estimated to be about 15% down on what it should be for a man of my height (185cm, even that is a centimetre down on my peak: maybe the nurse was too small to see properly). Between that, a bout of gout last Thursday and the ongoing coeliac disease, you wonder what other surprises are hidden in your DNA.

I had the day off yesterday for the Spring Holiday (Sean has been bereft of occasions for which to write cards since my birthday so has resorted to writing "Happy Spring" cards) and so entered into the madness that is a Monday in the Wallace household. Sean went to play at Ross's house as they were off school; Finn went to Gym Nippers and I took Rowan for a swim. After some light shopping and a play in the Gracemount playpark it was time to make lunch then I had my nurse's appointment while Finn hogged the computer and Rowan slept. Sean and Finn then got haircuts (Finn looks especially cute and cheeky with his fringe) with Rowan in tow. Next, some gardening: I severely cut back the hedge at the front wall, incurring the wrath of Sharon, while the boys played in the garden. A quick tea then it was time for Sean's swimming lesson. Sharon had a show in the evening too. No wonder she looks a bit frazzled by the end of the first day of the week.

We had a lovely lunch at the Kirklands on Sunday afternoon, with Sean and Finn kicking a ball about the enclosed rear garden which was pleasantly warm compared to the north-east-wind strafed promenade to the front.