Breath holding spells

Breath holding spells... sounds so innocent, so benign. Or so I used to think, until I had a child who had them.

The other day we went to the market to buy fruit. Emily was putting her head in Nina's lap so that Nina could pull her hair. As Nina got more and more into this game, it became more and more painful for Emily. Emily then decided that the game was over. But Nina ripped out another tuft of hair. So a screaming Emily (I discovered this from Jonty afterwards) pinched Nina's nose shut. Nina was indignant and let out a scream. Unfortunately in between the scream and the nose pinching, she could not draw a breath. I did not know any of this as I was sitting in the front seat of the car about to hop out and buy the fruit.

Nick decided he'd buy the fruit and I could sort out the kids. By the time I had got around to Nina's seat she was rigid. Then her body started jerking. I struggled to get her out of the car seat because she was so stiff. She was as white as a sheet. Once she was out, she lost consciousness. I was running through the fruit stalls shouting for Nick.

Eventually she did come round. The experts say that the loss of consciousness is only for about 15 seconds, but boy it felt a whole lot longer. It was extremely traumatic, we all thought she was going to die. Apparently it is not life-threatening and doesn’t cause brain damage, and there is nothing you can do about it. Its not intentional either so there really is nothing to do except prevent her from getting hurt which is almost impossible with Jonty and Emily around!!! Or should I say with Emily around?!

Thnking back, I realise that this was what happened when she was pulled over in the bath (by Emily again) and chipped her tooth, and its what happened when she had her vaccinations. So, I am getting a bit more blasé about it. Phew - this mothering stuff is not for the faint-hearted.

Vaccinations

All three cherubs needed vaccinations - actually Nina is horriblyoverdue for all of hers - so off we went to the local hospital to get it done. Now a lot of people tell me my kids are SO alike, in fact today Jonty and Emily were weraing matching Spiderman shirts and I got asked FIVE (5) times if they are twins. But my children are not alike. I'll elaborate:

Nina had her vaccination first. She screamed once, fainted, and had to be revived by the extremely shocked and terrified nursing staff. The nurses were even more shocked by the mother's callous attitude ... but its the third time she's done this to me, so I am getting used to it.

Emily went next. She went singing, skipping and jumping into the vaccination cubicle, sat like a little angel while they gave her the shots and skipped out again telling me how brave she was.

Jonty started screaming before the needle even came near him. He wriggled and squirmed so much, that the nurse had to take the needle out and REINJECT! So in the end he got about ten times more pain that he needed to get.

Emily wants to go back to the hospital tomorrow to get more "chiits" (the Thai word for vaccinations).

Alike? I THINK NOT!!!

The letter "e"

He's only four years old, but the powers that be at his school strongly recommended that Jonty be accelerated to a Preparatory Class for "big school" which starts in September. Problem was that it was just far far far too difficult for him and the fact that he was going to have a ten-word spelling test on Friday (with words like "behind" and "blue") kind of freaked me out - especially as he can't even write his letters properly yet! In fact, after his first day at school he prayed, very earnestly and with a great deal of passion, that God would help him write the letter "e"....

After two days, despite the protests of those power that be, we decided to move our 4 year old back to kindergarten where he belongs. The whole family breathed a collective sigh of relief.

When I collected Jonty from kindergarten yesterday the first thing my very proud little boy said was - "guess what mom, today I learned how to write an 'e' !" Thank you Jesus.