The Rat, the Banshee and the Laundry...

So I've discovered we have RATS! Yes the very thought makes me need to find a steel brush and scrub a layer of skin off. I always thought that rats only lived in those squalid houses you saw on a current affair, where you can't walk without stepping on a discarded nappy or pizza box... And although I may not win house keeper of the year, I'm really not that bad!!

Anyway this is how the story goes.... I wake up at 3am the other night, and go skipping out into the kitchen, can't even remember why now. However I flick on the loungeroom light and see a flash of something scurry from the spare bedroom at the front of the house, towards the stairs... I stifle a ear splitting scream and high tail it straight into Phil, waking him up to insist he save me from the rabid beast that I assured him was the size of a dinner plate... Anyway long story short Phil finds said rat (not quite the size of a dinner plate, but I've always been good for a bit of a hyperbole) hiding on the stairs and chases it down and out the front door. So now I'm thinking that it's all good, surely just a one off, right?? Until my playgroup mothers assure me if there is one, there is many!!!! EWWWWWW! Thanks girls.... Now all I could envision is them gnawing on my children as they sleep... So I organised the pest control to come today at 11am and must have relaxed just a little too much with the thought of their being an end in sight... So I'm downstairs in the laundry, with Zaccy helping me out, and I've got all the clothes separated into the different baskets of light, darks etc... When I notice one of Phil's work shirts sitting up on top of my sewing table (no can't sew to save myself... So it's just a storage shelf at the moment)... And I grab it and am mid throw into the pile of dark clothes, which I know has the kids new Elmo hats and Harry's cute brand new undies... When I feel something move and squirm in my hand... Too horrified to do anything but scream EICKKKKK! And watch as the rat infested shirt hits my other clothes..... I then grab Zaccy and hustle him up the stairs where I dump him on the opposite side of the safety gate and then gallop back down the stairs to try and salvage the situation.... So now Zaccy is screaming at the top of his lungs, with all the windows open due to the unseasonably hot weather (note to self - buy neighbours ear plugs and bottle of wine to apologise! Or at least get liquored up so they can't hear him screaming) So I stare at the basket for a while, to the soothing background noise of screaming hysterical child, while rubbing my rat contaminated hand convulsively against my leg to try peel off the skin... So I figure I'm not touching the shirt again, I just need to get the whole basket out of the house and allow my unwanted guest to escape to somewhere, anywhere that doesn't involve me... I grab the edge of the basket with the intention of dragging it out of the open laundry door, when the rat obviously decides it doesn't want to go where I'm taking it and jumps out of the basket, in my panic I run SCREAMING (and I really do mean screaming... Like I'm being raped an murdered!) for the back door, when I notice that the god damn rat is following me.... Now I quickly skirt to the other side of the laundry and reverse direction (still screaming), in the hope that the little bugger just keeps on out the door, but it follows me!!! After 2 laps of the laundry of me doing my banshee impersonation, I think it got the idea that it wanted no where near this crazy woman, and took off for the great outdoors...... I then thundered up the stairs like the hounds of hell were chasing me, leaving the basket of clothes on the floor the door wide open and vowing not to return until I was supervised by a stronger soul then me... I then spent the next 20 minutes scrubbing my hands raw to try and get rid of the squirmy feeling of the little critter off of me... Although am still contemplating that amputation at the elbow may be necessary for me to ever feel clean again.... And await arrival of the police, who my neighbours surely informed that I was being butchered in my house after my little... episode?

Thankfully the pest control man and not the police (go figure, maybe they heard me hysterically explaining to the kids that an evil rat was downstairs and if they went down there it might eat them... Hmmm scarred for life??) arrived soon after and ensured me my laundry basket was rat free. Although I still refused to go down there until Phil was there to supervise that I didn't get eaten by another creepy crawly...

So the moral to this story... I really don't know apart from the fact that I DON"T LIKE RATS!! And will have to put them right up there with CLOWNS on a list of things that need to be eradicated from this planet...

Until next time when I have hopefully recovered from my little encounter....

Let's laser me a little piggy!

 

Well I finally had it done!!  Yes Lasik eye surgery, and I am extremely impressed. I CAN SEE!  IT'S A MIRACLE!!!

 

The surgery went really well, however I was very nervous about it.  Not about them sending me blind, as that is a very very slim outcome.  But more having to be awake while they chop into my eyeball...  EWWW! 

 

So the morning arrives and we get into the clinic where they will be doing the surgery and have all the last minutes checks to ensure that I was still a viable candidate, and fill out all the paperwork.  It's all a go, so I pay the money!  Boo hoo hoo hoo!  Now I am very very poor.  Well poorer than usual.   So Phil takes the kids off to keep them amused, they give me the valium that is to keep you calm during the procedure and I wait for my surgery appointment...  By the way LOVING the new channel GO, it is like my kind of TV heaven!  All the rubbish I like to watch...  Anyway, getting off track....  They call me up, and give me the sexiest white tissue paper looking gown to wear, one of those beautiful blue surgical caps to keep your hair back, and the matching blue booties to go over my shoes...  Man was I sexy!!  But obviously not quite sexy enough, they then paint the top part of my face in iodine!  Soooo then I looked like I was jaundiced...   They drop in some numbing eye drops, which according to the Ophthalmologist will make my eye feel weird.  Yes she said weird was the technical term...  Anyway by this stage the valium is setting in...  Making me feel like I was kind of drunk...  Not sure if this is the expected result, but obviously how it effects me, and like when I'm drunk I'm all chatty and giggly!  Yes I felt sorry for the Dr's as well.  They are just lucky I didn't start declaring my love and hugging them. 

 

So they take me in and lay me on the table where there is some huge contraption hanging over my head with lights so bright I swear they've got me staring directly at the sun.  But then I figure I want the Dr to be able to see when he slices the top of my eyeball off, so I don't complain.  They start with the right eye and using what felt like giant pieces of sticky tape tape back my eyelashes top and bottom, then I assume they inserted the little metal thingies that make you stop blinking as it felt like they shoved something metal under my eyelids.  They drop in some more numbing drops just for luck, and then poke around with some sticks to make sure that they are actually working.  Then the get to the cutting part... GULP!  The Dr tells me to watch the little red light then lowers what looks like a metal ring onto my eyeball and pushes down, HARD!  Now I wouldn't say it was ultra painful but it wasn't painless and it certainly wasn't comfortable, kind of like my eyeball was trying to pop, and the start of a migraine all in one.  He then tells me that the next part may sting a bit!  And I think, WHAT??  You mean it gets more painful?? (I might add on a scale of 1 to 10 where childbirth is a 10 it's probably about a 0.5 so don't feel too sympathetic)  Then there is a noise, now in my mind it was a SLURP, SLURP! as it cut into the gooey softness of my eye, however in hindsight I'm sure it was more of a mechanical clicking as he twisted the little blade thingos!  They than remove the metal ring and I'm staring at the little red light again, until he lifts the flap of the eye and the little red light turns into a red mist!!  So I'm assuming that if they lost that little flap of eye, the patient would be stuffed!   Then the laser started, the Dr's were talking among themselves about technical things like, 3 rounds, and then counting down from 20.  As the laser starts to buzz.  And I'm thinking this is all good, apart from the fact that it smelt like burning hair...  Now I'm lying there and trying to decide if it is just a bi-product from the laser or if it was actually my eyeball being cooked to a nice turkey brown.  But the the laser is finished the Dr flips my eye back over pokes it a couple of times with his little stick to get it sitting right and then uses what looks like the smallest squeegee on the planet to smooth it down.  Then they unhook my eyelids peel of the sticky tape stuff holding my eyelashes back, and it's wash, rinse, repeat....  All up the operation felt like it took about 3 mins, but I'm assuming it was more like 15, and I'm all de-iodinised and cleaned up and ready to go home, with my sexy eye guards so I can't knock the eye...   Once home Phil doped me up on sleeping pills, waking me every 3 hours to put in a plethora of eye drops to fight infection, inflammation and to keep them moist.  I was told to keep them closed for at least 4 hours, which was fairly easy as when opened they felt gritty, reminiscent of the feeling when an eyelash would get stuck under your contact.  When I woke up and 10pm they felt as good as new, although I still had to leave my sexy eye guards on, My post operative appointment was the next morning where they confirmed it was all good, and gave me strict instructions not to rub or knock my eyes for the next week, or wear eye makeup (not really a problem since it's a special day that I wear any), and to sleep with the eye guards for a week!  Anyway...  I get home and within 3 hours I've rubbed my eye as it was itchy!  Then spent the next 2 hours staring a mirror trying to work out if I've dislodged the healing eye flap!!  Thankfully I think it's all good.  However had never realised just how many times my kids poke, bump or grab at my eyes...  I'm contemplating wearing the eye guards 24/7 apart from the fact they make everything blurry, and I didn't just pay that much money to still see the world with furry edges!

 

So now I'm all good, with better than 20/20 vision, I'd definitely recommend it for everyone who is thinking about it.  It was sooo good donating my glasses, and thinking I will never need those little suckers again! Well hopefully...

 

So until the next adventure...

What big boys I have!

Well everyday I seem to be reminded of just how much my lil babies are growing up... They seem to grow at a rate of knots. And they can always surprise me. Like when Harry demanded he be carried upstairs as his "arms & legs are painted on!" or like tonight when he told Phil off for saying S. H. I. T. as it is an "adult word and very naughty, and we mustn't say it". Zaccy's latest trick although not quite as cultured makes me laugh just as much... He will hop on the potty and nearly turn blue trying to... shall we say "let off", when he finally manages it he declares "PIGGY!" and cackles to himself. It is the funniest thing ever...

So we took the boys to Sea World today, and they had an absolute blast. Harry went on the Flume Ride and apparently told Phil "that was amazing!" I tried to catch it on camera but he wouldn't repeat it for me. But I did get him talking about his how it was fun... I will have to put it up once I get Phil to shrink it down... (hint hint Phil... show my how to shrink the video files.)

Other than that Zaccy had his 12 month vaccination yesterday (yes I do realise he is nearly 16 months!) Thankfully all seems to have gone well with no adverse reactions (touch wood), but I did my usual fetal position in the corner where I whimpered, sobbed and prayed, while it was poor Zaccy getting the needle... I did however have company this time, it appears that sympathetic hysterics is genetic, and I had Harry sitting on my lap whimpering about "Poor Zaccy!"