We're off on holiday!! We're in Tampa, Florida for two weeks then New York for one week. In Tampa we will be helping out with the Second Life part of a Kids Connect program that will be running in the summer. We are training the teachers who will be running the program in how to use SL with the kids.
If you want to find out more about Louis' adventures in Americaland, go to Digitallouis' blog :-)
Carrying on from the previous post, I forgot to say Louis was at his first business meeting on Friday. I had done work with Scottish Screen in the past, training Primary and Secondary teachers how to use moving image in class. Some of the advice and materials for creating video was later put onto a website, but now they want to complete the other sections of the website.
I will be helping out with a couple of the other Lead Practitioners in writing pages for the Analyse and Explore sections. Analyse will look at activities you can do with pupils to study the sound, colour, camera angles etc of film clips. Explore will help pupils understand more about our moving image cultural heritage and hopefully help them enjoy films beyond the mainstream Hollywood.
Thankfully I am able to work up to 10 days on maternity leave. Saying that I don't know when my maternity leave started, if it even has started - my last payslip was still showing me as off ill rather than on maternity leave. Ho hum.
I took Louis to his first Science class today. Well I went and he slept and fed. He did have a look around briefly at the start of the class but I think the sight of me on roller skates and with bright red hair and a flowing cape confused him!
One of the projects i'm helping out with during my maternity leave is a Science class being taught at the High School of Global Citizenship (HSGC) in Brooklyn, New York. Sean and I have helped out with Global Kids projects before, and the timing of this is perfect for keeping me from going gaga at home!
Every day the class has Science from 8.30 - 9.15am EST (1.30 - 2.15pm GMT). Until summer they will be learning about the environment and sustainability issues etc within the virtual world of Second Life. For example they will learn about materials used in housing design by creating a house in SL.
Afterwards a few of the Global Kids people met to have a voice chat in SL. Louis and I then went to Asda, the best thing I could think of doing with the rest of the day, which helped me remember why I'd decided to help with the science class!
We've just had a great day out today. Chenoa and the Nerf family texted us and asked if we fancied meeting up for pizza...in 30 minutes! We didn't make it on time but there was a queue for tables anyway so it was fine. It was lovely to see them, and Dylan was looking really happy which was fab.
After lunch we headed up to Appleton Tower to catch a bit of this year's BarCamp Scotland. We heared a couple of talks then Ewan Spence did his end-of-conference entertainment - a talk about card games called Fluxx and One Thousand Blank White Cards.
At the end of BarCamp we sneaked into a particular union bar that shall remain unnamed. I say sneaked, because we were pretty sure they don't have a kids licence. I carried Louis in his 'cocoon' cot part of the pram (it looks like a wide lime-green sports bag, except you can see a baby's face peeking out the top). The security staff were only concerned that we had voucers to let us in and didn't see him.
We then sat in the corner of the Committee Room with Ewan and Vicki, with Louis in his cocoon on the floor. He slept peacefully while we played several games of Fluxx and had some food (major loss of brownie points for the union for a) not having the vegie platter b) putting the veggie spring rolls on the meal platter and c) not telling us there were also meat spring rolls. They gave us free nachios and veggie spring rolls but Vicki was understandably upset when she realised she'd eaten a meat spring roll)
Fluxx is a very cool card game that is now on my ebay list. The rules change as you play as well as the goal of the game (i.e. how you win). It made for a fun evening, well it was helped by the G and T (my first drink since giving birth!).
Just as we were finishing eating Louis started stiring and looking hungry so we decided to make our move. I could have tried to hid him as I fed, play the daft lassie if questioned, or just be kicked out but we didn't want to get BarCamp in trouble. Louis was pretty quiet all the way home too :-) He's wonderful!
We haven't been very good at keeping in touch with everyone about news.
Sproglet was born on Monday 14th January 2008 at 12.43am.
I had woken on Saturday morning to find my waters had broken (definately not as dramatic as in the movies, in fact we didn't even need to change the sheets let alone the mattress!). The hospital asked us to come in sometime to check that Sproglet was doing OK, but he was kicking about fine so we took our time. I went back to bed (we'd been up till 2am faffing on computers) then we drove to the hospital via the library so I could return my audio books!
We spent a long time waiting to be seen, which was fine but I was regretting not having lunch before we turned up. When we were seen I was put on a monitor to do a fifteen minute check and I was asked to press a button every time Sproglet moved about. Sean was amazed how much he actually moves about! The midwife disappeared to help someone else. 50 minutes later she hadn't come back and I decided I needed the loo so took all the monitoring equipment off. We were told to come back the next day to be monitored again unless contractions started.
At 10pm on Saturday night the contractions started, although not very strong (I was starting to think this labour thing would be a piece of cake if the contractions continued at that strength!). I stayed up for a while with Daliah who had been out partying that evening. We watched YouTube videos to pass the time. We started choosing the next video only from the list of suggestions of the last video, but we then moved onto YouTube greats like OK Go's "Here It Goes Again", which seemed apt every time a new contration started :-)
On Sunday we stayed home as long as we could, finally heading in after I threw up quite spectacularly three times (the FIRST time I have thrown up during the whole pregnancy). The contractions were starting to get too much for me to deal with at home and the thought of drugs were very tempting!
At the hospital a midwife check me out and declared that I was 4cm dialated, which was aparently unusual for first timers to wait so long before coming in. I'm not sure she wasn't just saying that to try and make me feel better though! She checked out room availability and found out there was a room with a birthing pool available, so I was moved upstairs to the laour ward.
I arrived at the hospital at half three. It was after 8pm before they would let me have gas and air. I started telling the midwife she was evil for not giving me drugs! By the time I came out of the birthing pool about 9pm I was 9cm dialated. The midwife expected Sproglet to turn up within the hour but it took till quarter to one in the morning. I spent that time screaming for drugs but to no avail!
We listened to music on my iPod during the labour. It wasn't a special playlist, just all the music on the player shuffled. At one point "Here It Goes Again" came just as a contraction started. It made both of us laugh :-)
The strangest thing that I didn't expect was to get blisters on my knees! I spent about three hours kneeling on the bed leaning on the upright back. I really didn't like the whole 'lie down and push' approach, and gravity was on Sproglet's side when I was kneeling.
After Sproglet appeared I was fairly out of it. Sean cut the cord and held him, but all my energy seemed to be needed just to turn around!
There was then problems as the placenta wouldn't come out and the cord had snapped. I ended up being wheeled to theatre to have a spinal injection (FINALLY they gave me drugs! Would have been nice earlier but given how long it took to inject me properly I probably wouldn't have been able to stay still for long enough). Theatre was actually really fun! There was a great banter with everyone there. It took over an hour for a procedure that should have taken far less than 30 minutes.
By the time I was wheeled back to the labour ward Sproglet was getting very hungry but Sean was coping really well. I finally got to hold Sproglet and see him properly!
Soon we were wheeled to the postnatal ward, where stayed until Wednesday evening. The staff were great, showing us ways to hold, feed and change Sproglet. Monday night was pretty rough, as Sproglet wouldn't sleep or settle. The next night was a lot better and Sproglet slept more and I figured out how to have him sleep next to me so we could both fall asleep safely after feeding.
We had to wait a while on Wednesday as suddenly everyone wanted to go home on the same day, but we eventually had completed all the checks and tests and paperwork. We then realised how shattered we both were so called my parents and asked my mum to drive us home (a bit cheaky seeing we were borrowing her car but she didn't seem to mind :-) Sproglet didn't stir once in his car seat on the journey home, even though it was very warm in the hospital and very cold outside.
We are now home, and gradually realising how to look after Sproglet. Yesterday Sean's parents kindly went and hunted out all the stuff we realised we needed on our first night home. We're getting visits from all the relatives, and after Sunday we'd love visits from friends.
Everyone keeps doing the "oh he looks like..." but I'm finding more and more that I look in the mirror and think I look like him rather the other way round. I think it's the grumpy half-asleep look :-)
Oh, and I know its taken us a while but Sean is an indecisive person and it is a particularly huge decision to make! Sproglet's name is... Louis Alexander Farrell.
I'm finding I'm not blogging as much recently and I think one of the reasons is because I'm twittering things that I used to blog.
If you would like to stay in touch over the next few weeks of excitement, then go to twitter.com and create an account. Then click on "Add Device" to set up your mobile phone. This lets you get text messages straight away instead of looking on the website, and lets you update what you are up to using a text message. You will be given a code to text to using your mobile.
Next to add friends. Go to twitter.com/digitalkatie and then on the button that says "Follow". Select whether you want notifications sent to you (otherwise it just appears on the website list of friends updates). Now do the same for Digitalsean and Sproglet.
Now you're all set to get those boring messages we send like "the midwife says we have 12 more hours of pushing to go" ;-)
Well the nine months has quickly sped past. When people ask when I'm due the answer has gone from "7th January 2008" to "three weeks time" to "Monday" and now the answer is "tomorrow". Several family members aren't happy about this, in particularly my father who was the first to lose the sweepstake!
Without meaning to we've seen a lot of friends recently, really more to do with the time of year than us rushing to make the most of our last days of freedom.
I spend an afternoon with my mother-in-law shopping and at the cinema.
Stuart and Sarah came round for a take-away curry and I questioned Sarah (an anaesthesiologist) about drugs and side-effects.
We met up with Julie (Sean's sister) and her fiancee Scott for a meal and a film (I Am Legend - very jumpy!).
The Physics pub crowd came round for Steve's birthday, had Chinese and sang loudly to SingStar on the PS2.
I went out to play with Stu, Chenoa, Dylan and Malina at the winter market, the train station and then for a meal (and our baby carrier got its first outing). They also came round last week before the Night Afore (and our bouncy baby chair got a trail run too!).
We had the whole family round for Chinese one night.
We spent new years eve at a friends house playing new Cranium and signing loudly to SingStar, then ate a grape for every chime of the bells at midnight (more difficult than it sounds, especially when trying not to laugh!).
We had a fantastic Mexican meal this week where we went in for just starters and came out several hours and courses later.
We met Andy and Sarah for a chinese buffet last night and realised that a) 100% of the female customers were pregnant and b) 57% of the customers were volunteers with the British Red Cross.
We're now sitting in Wannaburger before heading for a swim (well, a paddle and splash about in my case)
Tomorrow I am going to see the Doctor (and hopefully get prodded less than the other doctor did last week) then do boring things like go to the post office and pop to a couple of shops to see if I can swap newborn-sized clothes for sizes that will get used more. We have a lot of newborn - 3 months clothes and a fair amount of 3-6 months clothes now. All we need is a Sproglet to wear them! :-)
I will be blogging lots about the mobile project soon, honest. I have recently been reminded about what a great offer we got from Gaist / O2. We got the new TyTN II phones for around £150 and insurance and web monitoring/filtering for £36 a year.
My old vario ii phone got stolen on Saturday (almost nine months pregnant I'm a slow easy target for pickpockets, especially with the lousy pockets in maternity clothing!). My phone insurance costs £5.99, although it should have been the £7.99 rate for data devices. So far I have paid £96, and I will also need to pay a £30 excess charge. At the higher rate I should have paid the company £158.
I think in future I will give the insurance a miss and just put money aside into a "new phone" fund, especially as this is the only phone I have had stolen or lost in more than 10 years of having one.
Fortunately I have a spare PAYG sim and a school phone that I fixed over the weekend. For £2.50 I have five days unlimited internet use. Hopefully I should get my replacement sim and phone by then.
I haven't been blogging much recently, in fact I haven't been surfing or using the computer much either. I'm currently on sick leave with pain in my pelvis and hips. This means I'm sore when I stand up after sitting for a long time. I also have problems walking too much or too fast, and I can't find a comfortable position to sleep in most nights. Fun, huh!
Teaching very quickly became too difficult. I couldn't walk up and down the class quickly enough to help pupils who were stuck, and I was finding even the fifth year class tiring. I couldn't cope as well as normal with cover classes because I was tired and grumpy, and because it was more difficult to use proximity to reduce off-task behaviour.
This is my third week on sick leave, and I finally had my appointment with the physiotherapist yesterday. I now have exercises to do (nothing amazing, just holding my tummy in ten times for ten seconds and doing pelvic floor exercises). I also have a funky big white velcro belt now, which doesn't really help the pain in my pelvis but it's great for stopping my hip pain.
While I was at the New Royal Infirmary I visited the exhibition in the gallery there. I think it's called "Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds" and its work by the pupils at 'Forthill' High School. It was great to see such good work from pupils being shown and it really brightens up that part of the hospital.
I'm managing to keep myself busy though, slowly pottering round the flat. Poor Sean has to do huge amounts of paper recycling (three crates worth almost every weekend) as I'm avoiding lifting anything. I've also not been tempted by daytime TV (if I'm going to have pain after sitting watching telly then I'd rather do it with company while watching Heroes!).
I've also been doing some work to help out with the mobile phone project. I meet John and Annabelle once a week and they tell me their gripes, then I either fix the phones or coordinate with Gaist to solve the issues. It works well - I have the time to do this work and I can do it at my own speed.
I have contemplated whether a scooter might be the answer! I could quickly zip up and down without walking. Annabelle suggested roller skates (and drew a picture of me with a big tummy and wheels on my feet) but I think being almost nine months pregnant is probably not the best time to learn to skate! Alternatively does anyone have a segway they're not using that I could borrow for a few weeks ;-)
OK I need to think positive about today but it's hard.
I phoned up the school to finalise arrangements for the phones.
Bad point no. 1 - we can't get the arrangements done in time to have Gaist fly up so we'll need to postpone the unannounced parents meeting next week
Bad point no. 2 - my classroom has been burgled. The data projector and a couple of flatscreen monitors have gone.
Bad point no. 3 - the timetable has been altered for the rest of the term. I now have four cover periods a week instead of one.
I was in a foul mood until Kal twittered back to me saying "Maybe karmic burglars will cover some of your classes next week?", which made me smile :-)
I need to think positive, so here goes:
Good point no. 1 - maybe I'll get a replacement data projector with a hold/freeze function on it like the ones at Balti High School. This would mean being able to leave a list of instructions or questions being projected while I can play solitaire, or ummm, do something useful ;-)
Good point no. 2 - At least they haven't taken my PC - I haven't backed up for a long time and would have lost a LOT of work.
Good point no. 3 - They didn't manage to get into my cupboard and nick the webcams.
Good point no. 4 - Thankfully we didn't already have the mobile phones delivered waiting to distribute to the kids. We'll need to be really careful when they do turn up!
Good point no. 5 - I don't think I had anything valuable in my drawers. I 'm hoping they've looked at my binary clock and gone "what the f*** is that?" and left it! I don't count the printout of every single pupil password that was in my drawer as valuable
Good point no. 6 - If I'm feeling REALLY narky next week I can insist that pupil passwords are now all insecure and need reset, annoying EVERY SINGLE PUPIL IN THE SCHOOL! Mwah hah hah!!
Good point no. 7 - I'm on holiday this week and have exciting things to look forward to like visiting one day old Malina :-)
