A SENSE Of NORMALITY

It's the end of school holidays for us. It has been lovely not waiting on Oscar to wake up to then have to rush around getting organised to get out the door..even though we are usually an hour or so late! Oscar's wee body is lapping up the sleep ins and I can honestly say his sleeps over the last couple of weeks have been the best he's ever had! His body still has eczema on the previous areas and we are having trouble shifting this but he is mostly comfortable and happy. It will be interesting to see how he gets on back at school with the temptation of other children's food. I found pretzels in the bottom of Oscar's school bag when I was cleaning it out last week. He admitted that he found them on the field and he had eaten some of them.  We will give it a few weeks into the term and see what's happening before deciding if we need some outside help with this situation or not. Oscar is recovering from his second tummy bug within a few weeks. Hopefully no more for him! I am dreading winter bugs especially with Oscar on immune suppressants.  We have reduced Oscar's dose this week. This is our second attempt so fingers crossed he doesn't get too itchy. If he doesn't this is a huge step to becoming drug free. Fingers crossed!

Harry is doing well. His feet are slightly better but he can easily change that within seconds! We noticed some new stains on our carpet a few days ago and couldn't figure out what they were from as I was certain they hadn't been there the day before. On closer inspection it's blood! Harrys obviously rubbed his legs on the carpet and bled slightly. This probably happened while changing his nappy. It's not bright red so I'm assuming it's mostly ooze..Yuk.
Harry slept for five hours in a row last night. I think this is a world record for him.  He's still restless and itchy throughout the night but comparing a few months ago to now his sleep is certainly better.
Harry's new scratch me not sleeves only lasted a few weeks and now have holes in them. I guess they are not designed to withstand the constant rubbing and scratching from TSW.

The last two weeks have been our first school holidays being able to get out of the house spending time together as a family having fun and going on adventures. We even managed two trips to Queenstown without no itchy attacks. The boys also went on a big walk up to Rob Roy Glacier..two hours up and an hour and a half back down! Andrew had Harry in the backpack and Charlie on his shoulders some of the way and Oscar walked the whole way. We had a great time and unbelievably there were no meltdowns. I'm so excited for our future holidays with healthier children. I can't put into words how lovely it has been being able to manage time outside the house without itching, blood, screaming and discomfort for Oscar and Harry.
Both of them have come such a long way!