So big lesson for the Summer is, wait for it, should be obvious…. “watch the children carefully” Wow that is a shocker isn’t it. I mean who woulda thought you would actually have to watch the sprogs after you squirt them out!

Last night was spent in the emergency room. It was one of those “i thought you were watching her” incidents. We were out after dinner weeding in the yard. I am out back battling the wild rose from HELL (finally won, last year I gave up and left it’s roots in) and BQ was on the deck messing about. The kids were running in between. We hear “hey you can’t eat that” from ZQ and rush to find out that AQ is currently eating mushrooms. Now the patch she has found is growing in a decaying tree we have in the yard. There are 2 types that grow that look very similar and given that I am not a mushroom expert and one of them causes liver failure and death AND that I have NO IDEA how much she actually ate…. it was a call to the poison control center and when they couldn’t help us identify the mushroom it was off to the hospital. She had a very sore stomach and they intially wanted to stick a tube in her tum. But they decided to send a pic of the mushroom to the mushroom expert and decided it wasn’t the deadly one. PHEW! I cried all the way to the hosp and then all night long in relief. We did some blood work today just to be sure. I think most of her problem right now though is that her ear is the size of a golfball due to a reaction to a mosquito bite that happened right before the mushroom feast. To top it all off she got bit by a mosquito right next to her eye last Monday and her eye swelled up and I had to go to the Dr for that! She was put on antibiotic as it was so infected and we were told that if it doesn’t improve in 2 days it would be off to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics. ARGH! So after narrowly missing that one (I actually hadn’t realised it was infected, I only called the Dr to ask about dosage for medicince for her and he made me come in, boy do I feel like a bad Mum this week!) we end up at the hosp for mushrooms… sigh. Thankfully this will remind us to keep a closer eye on her in the yard as we do have a couple of very poisonous types of mushrooms that grow in our yard, the worst is the one that grows in the lawn which is really hard to spot and if she ate it I would probably not even know.

We have been working hard in the yard (well actually this year I have been doing all the work while the boys have been doing jumping tricks in the mud pile). I have the driveway lined with garden now and all last years plants are growing in and look fantastic. The butterfly garden is already attracting the butterflies. yay!

BQ is finally recovering from the big SNIP. My emmotions are too. Kind of glad that it is done and not a nagging thought in the back of my head anymore. Will be nice to not have to wonder if we had slipped up each month! lol

We had a bbq with the family we have been getting along really well with from the school. I never knew just how much NZ has in common with South Africa. (He is from South Africa, she is from Ireland) We had a lovely time and our kids all get along wonderfully. AQ had their 7yr old following her around taking orders and even holding her hand to help her on the stairs, aparantly very uncaracteristic behaviour for their boy who they say can’t stand. lol. She is such a charmer. Little scary!

Did I mention how brave AQ was when they took her blood. She took a deep breath and just let them do it. It was amazing. I expected quite a battle after having to be in the hospital last night.

There is a crow on my deck yelling at me right now. Silly bird.