MARY POPPINS?

We were very lucky to be paid a visit by Mary Poppins today! 
The story starts where the last blog left off and we were all very excited to have Marshall come home on Tuesday 14/12/10.  Not surprisingly Marshall was pretty unsettled Tuesday night and Wednesday and by Wednesday evening Rory and Emma were pretty exhausted so Nanny and Poppy came to the rescue.  Rory and Emma had an early evening snooze and we gave Marshall his 9pm bottle.  We tried sitting him up a bit more for that bottle and he scoffed it and promptly fell asleep in my arms.  This was the first decent sleep he had indulged in since coming home, and since Rory and Emma were also snoozing I decided not to disturb anyone and just nursed him until he started stirring about about 12.15am.  Royce put some wooden blocks under the head of the cradle to give it a bit of a slope and we kept our fingers crossed. 
Rory and Emma fed Marshall at about 12.30am (again more in a sitting than lying position), following which Marshall promptly fell asleep.  He was put in the cradle and slept until 5.30am.  Rory and Emma felt so much better and were a lot less stressed on Thursday.   The nurse called in on Thursday and was very happy with Marshall's progress - he has put on 70grams.
Marshall did pretty well last night until about 3.15am this morning when he woke Emma and Rory and gave them the gift of a very big poo-ey nappy!  By the time they changed him, cleaned him up, fed him and settled him down again they were pretty tired and by the time they got back to sleep it was only a very short time until Marshall's next feed.
This brings me to Mary Poppins. 
The HomeCare nurse arrived today to assist.  She got here at 9.30am, took a lunch break for an hour and stayed until 3pm.  During that time she tended to Marshall, cleaned his room, sorted all his clothes, did a load of washing, cleaned the kids lounge-room, peeled potatoes for tea and pretty much kept herself busy doing whatever needed doing while the kids slept and went to the doctors.  Rory and Emma decided she must be Mary Poppins and want to know if they can keep her!
Marshall is a bit unsettled again tonight so not sure how much rest the kids will have, but perhaps he will tire himself out and sleep really well when it counts!
Poor Royce is pretty unwell today with a nasty throat infection.  Took him to the doctors today and he has antibiotics and a throat gargle so I am hopiing for a quick improvement.
Stay tuned and as when time permits I will keep you updated.   I hope to get a few photos done before too much longer and will post them as soon as I can.
I had lunch with my former workmates at Transport Planning on Thursday and it was terrific to catch up with them.  I didn't get the chance to speak with all of them but I hope if any of them are reading this they will pass on to the others my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.