Year 3 - March

March 2007

Emma's Entry

Evan enjoys a picnic at Beale Park

Now that Spring has finally settled we've started compiling a list of places that we'd like to take Evan to this year. We're hoping to do something with Evan every weekend so that he doesn't get bored, whether it's going to see family and friends, visiting a local attraction like the indoor play area or going out of our way to visit something completely new. I'm looking forward to Marwell Zoo as it's been so long since I've been to a Zoo and I'm looking forward to seeing the Giraffes and Elephants (Hopefully they'll have some!).

The first place we visited this year was Beale Park. We went with some friends who have a son near Evan's age hoping that they'd play together. He was older than Evan and he was influencing Evan's choices very early on. Everything that this little boy did, Evan wanted to do - even launching sticks and stones into the ponds, which mummy frowned upon! The best attraction at Beale Park was probably the steam train that you can ride on, though Caroline will probably disagree as this made her sneeze a lot because she didn't like the smell. They had lots of wildlife for us to see, but not the sorts of animals that you'll see at a Zoo, we saw lots of birds, owls and farm animals. There were other animals but I spent most of my time chasing Evan around as all he wanted to do was run off. There was a Giant play area with a sand pit and lots of play houses and ride on toys to play with. I spent ages at this area especially pushing Evan really high on the swing - he loved it. It was a really long day but Evan seemed to enjoy himself, and that's the plan.

Evan experiences the fun of playing in long grass

Evan spent two weekends with his Grandma this month because Caroline and I had made plans to go Ice-Skating one weekend with some friends and we also had her work's Christmas Party in Bristol. One of the weekends tied in nicely as it was my mum's birthday, so we were all able to spend some time with her and then Evan stayed a little longer. I'd been planning for a few months to do a Photo Book of Evan as one of her presents. It came out really nice, though some of the pages had the pictures and text a little too close to the edge, something I'll be wary of next time I design one. It contained a selection of images, ones my mum had already seen and a load of new ones. I was worried it would just be repeating pictures she'd already seen and had copies of, but she seemed to really like it.

We had another visit to A+E this month. I was at work when I got the phone call that every mother dreads. Evan fell into a door frame at nursery splitting open his lip and it was quite deep. Debbie was very calm on the phone saying that it may need some stitches and that I should come to see him as soon as possible. I wasn't sure what to expect and I thought he'd be back at nursery in the afternoon. How wrong I was :). As soon as I saw him, I started crying, the cut went down into his chin and it was still bleeding when I got there. I just picked him up and drove him to A+E as quickly as I could. I phoned Caroline on my "hands free" and I struggled to get any coherent words out. I told her not to worry and that I'd call her later, I'm so glad she ignored my advice because I needed her there really. When the Doctor's took a look at his face they said he needed proper stitches as the stick on butterfly ones would fall off and he'd be left with a larger scar. I didn't understand at first what they were saying when they were discussing the possibility of him having to wait until the next day for the stitches. Then they explained that to do stitches on a child as young as Evan, he'd need to have a general anaesthetic. I was horrified and speechless.

As you can see Evan's lip is recovering well - still a cutie!

We had to wait until the afternoon because he'd eaten some food at 9am before he could go to the Operating Room. Caroline went in with him because I didn't want to witness them putting him to sleep. He cuddled her and they applied the anaesthetic that way; she said he just groaned and then fell asleep. The procedure didn't take too long, but he had to spend a while in the recovery room. He was very grumpy and upset when Caroline went to collect him and he cried a lot for the next 90 minutes. We finally managed to get him to drink and eat and then we were allowed to take him home. We monitored him closely for the next 48 hours because the anaesthetic stays in your body for that amount of time. I know this won't be the last time, but I certainly didn't expect this to happen when he was only 2. He still remembers the event and talks about falling over and hurting his lip. He had dissolvable stitches because if he hadn't, he would have had another general anaesthetic to remove the stitches.

We witnessed another milestone this month. I'd just bathed Evan and I was trying to put a little talc on him afterwards. He thought this was a really funny game, so I spent the next 10 minutes chasing a naked baby around tickling him and dabbing talc on him. We were finally exhausted and Evan said "Poo mummy". I said "Ok, lets quickly put a nappy on then" but he said "No mummy, potty". I was really surprised as he hadn't wanted to use the potty at all lately so I watched him pull it out, though he faced it away from me. I just sat and waited for him to finish. When he stood up, we both peered in and he'd done his first wee! I gave him a great big kiss and a cuddle and we clapped lots. I doubt this will be a regular event, but it's a start.

Emma