Head banging

Grace and Daniel have both ended up with split foreheads this year - not at the same time, as if that makes it any better.
Daniel fell first. We were in the park on Jan 2nd and I was talking to a girl I knew about how he makes my heart go cross ways when I see him on the slide. He was climbing the steps for the slide as I spoke and managed to tumble off the bottom step and hit his head on the corner of the step. I'm not sure whether he or I was more hysterical. We went to the car and I cleaned the blood from the half inch long wound to see how bad it was. I rang Elayne to say I was on my way (where else would you go except to your sister, in a crisis???) Anyway the bleeding stopped fairly rapidly. He didn't lose consciousness or seem drowsy so I didn't take him to the hospital. I should have, but I was in shock. He was fine, thank God and only has a small scar to show for his troubles. We are rubbing bio oil on it to make it fade as much as possible.

Grace fell on April 7th at creche. She was running, slipped and banged her hear off the corner of a door. One of the minders rang me and said she had a small accident and they were taking her to a doctor in the same complex as the creche. I could hear her screaming in the backround. I shouted to my boss that I had to leave and then raced out the door. I don't know how I obeyed the rules of the road. When I got to the doctors Grace was outside with the lady from creche. the doctor said Grace's wound was too deep for him to stitch so I took her to St John's hospital. She ended up getting an inch long gash in her forehead glued and then held with paper stitches. She was frighted but very brave. She's getting the bio oil treatment now too, so hopefully it will work as well for her as it did for Daniel. Thank God this is the worst accident that either of them has had, and hopefully this will be the worst that happens to them. I don't think my heart could take it.

Florida March 2011

We went to Florida on March 17th. You have never seen two more excited kids. We held off on telling them until the end of January, and we only told them then because Mike couldn't wait any longer. He then spent the next few weeks showing them clips of Disney and Shamoo at Sea world. He also taught Daniel to bob his up and down like Shamoo does. Seriously cute.


We flew from Dublin with Geraldine, Neilus, Neil & Mags. David, Rebecca, Eve and Fiona met us in Orlando airport. It was our first time meeting the beautiful Princess Fiona, who was born the previous October. We rented a fabulous five bed roomed house in Kissimmee, just one mile away from Disney. It had its own pool and all the kids spent many happy hours there. A little lizard used to sleep beside the pool. Daniel would send ages watching him. Both he and Grace loved getting to spend time with Eve and Fiona. Daniel calls Fiona "Fuowna"


We went to Disney World on Monday 21st. When we went in Grace saw Snow White - who's her favorite, and said "oh Mommy, she's a real girl living in a real place." That set the rest of the day up nicely. Mike did have to tell me though that I couldn't keep crying everytime the kids expressed delight over something or I would dehydrate myself. I couldn't help welling up though. Anyway, he's the sucker who insisted they needed matching (expensive) Mickey and Minnie hats. Grace & Daniel had their picture taken with Daisy Duck and then we headed down to Cinderella's castle to see all the MickeyMouse clubhouse gang perform. We saw Mickey's orchestra in 3 D. It was so funny watching Grace trying to bat the flying instruments away. We went on loads of rides like the carousel the tea cups. We danced in the parade with the Toy story guys much to Daniels delight. It really was a fabulous day.


We also went to Sea World. The gardens there are beautiful. So many flowers. I think this was Mike's favorite day, as he loved seeing the whales and dolphins close up. After all the kids previous excitement about seeing Shamoo they weren't really bothered by it. They did love the huge climbing frames and sand boxes.

The other park we went to was Busche Gardens. This was my favorite. I liked everything about it, from the animals, to the gardens, to the rides, to the you get the picture. There were stilt walkers dressed as plants and insects. One pretended to bite Grace's head off, which she thought was so funny. We went around the park on a train. Grace and Daniel got to see Big Bird. Grace got her picture taken but Daniel wouldn't go near him. There was a couple of areas where the kids could splash around which they also loved, but apparently the best bit was when they got to stand in the splash area for one of the adult rides and get soaked as the people whizzed by. It really was a brilliant holiday. We will have to win the lotto before we can go again though :-)