Last week

Sometime life is so easy, I coast from one week to the next with no major dramas and nothing too exciting happening.  And then there are other weeks where all these strange things happen and those drama's seems to pop up all at once - this was like last week.

Monday started off as usual.  Off to work and mum came over to look after Ella.  I got a phone call at about 11am from mum while I was at work.  She never calls work so I knew that something was wrong.  She had been emptying a bin at home and when she stood up from bending over, she must have just twisted the wrong way and something twinged in her back.  She wasn't really concerned about herself, more so the fact that she may not have been able to pick Ella up if she woke up from her sleep.

I rushed home and found mum hobbling around.  She was still doing things around the house even though I specifically told her to just sit down and take it easy until I got home in case she had done something serious.  Lucky I did come home because she was not able to walk upstairs to Ella's bedroom and I most certainly wouldn't have wanted her to lift up our little whopper with a bad back.  That's probably what strained it in the first place!!  Little Ella is not slight.  At just 6.5 months she's already nearly 11 kilo's!

I made an appointment for mum to see the physiotherapist and luckily they could get her in.  It turns out she just had a muscle spasm and everything was ok but she needed to rest and not lift anything heavy.  I was so happy that she was ok.

Now I just had to worry about what would happen on the other two days that I was supposed to work that week.  I wasn't sure what we would do.  I was so busy at work and knew I wouldn't be able to take the two days off even though my work is usually pretty flexible.  Luckily Tim was able to arrange to work from home on wednesday and thursday which was a God send.

I'm not sure whether or not he got much work done on those two days.  I came home on wednesday night and found photo's in Photobooth on our Mac that he was playing around with.  I think it was pretty safe to say that he had more fun with Ella than he got work done.  It was nice for him to be able to spend that time with her though.  It must be hard for him because he leaves for work early in the morning and usually doesn't get home from the city until just before Ella goes to bed so really he doesn't get to interact with her a lot during the week.

Oh dear...

They visited Yosemite National Park...

And the Eiffel Tower!

I was tickled pink that he was there to help her learn how to clap for the first time.  A milestone that daddy got to experience first before Mamma which is usually the way things go because I am with her more often.  Daddy was chuffed.  Ella is equally as chuffed with her new skill and now spends at least half an hour before she goes to sleep in her cot clapping her hands.

When I went to work on wednesday I was told that just after I left on monday to go home a red belly black snake was found slithering around on the driveway.  I would have walked straight past it!  I am not scared of many things, but snakes definitely give me the creeps.  My skin is crawling as I am typing.

I work in a semi rural area, in a nice home office.  My boss lives on acreage so I am surrounded by rolling green paddocks, horses neighing in the background, peach orchards next door and the smell of gum trees everywhere.  Sure beats working in the city!  With all the rain we've had though over the last couple of weeks, the snakes are out in full force.

On thursday when I came in to the office I was told that the kittens had found a baby brown snake and had killed it.  More skin crawling!  Yikes!  Working in the city maybe doesn't seem so bad now!  I am on super high alert now and jump at every little thing I see on the ground.  It's not good!  And where there's a baby brown snake...there's gotta be a mama nearby too...  Anyway, no more talk of snakes, thank you.

A good friend of mine who I met through Mother's Group was having her 40th Birthday and had asked me to make her birthday cake for her party.  I was excited about it and although it is hard to fit in making cakes along with working I do love it.  It was not without its challenges though.  The wet weather meant that the fondant was extremely hard to work with so it wasn't the best job that I had ever done.  I am my own worst critic though.

I started to get a tooth ache on tuesday and knew it wasn't going to be good.  I am bad when it comes to the dentist.  I don't go regularly, even though I know I should.  I'm not sure what it is about the dentist.  I'm not scared, it's just something that I just don't like doing.  Maybe it has something to do with the cost?!

I reluctantly booked in to the dentist but could' get in until a week away.  I'll be right I told myself.  But on wednesday it was getting worse, thursday it was worse again and on friday it was unbearable.  This was the day that I was supposed to decorate the cake.  What was I going to do?

I felt physically ill and I was sure it had to do with my tooth.  My jaw was aching and I could feel a lump.  Definitely not a good sign.  I called a different dentist to see if they could get me in any sooner and before I knew it I was booked in for midday.  I couldn't believe how anxious I was about it.  I really didn't want to go.  I don't even think I felt that anxious when I went to the hospital to have Ella!

I sat in the dentist chair and embarrassingly told the lady that I hadn't been in almost two years.  She didn't pass any judgement on me, well, at least not to my face, who knows what she said to her coworkers after I left!  They took an X-ray and I saw her face as she looked at it.  I knew the news wasn't going to be good.  I had a major infection at the root of one of my back teeth and required a root canal.  Root Canal.  That was not what I wanted to hear.  I felt ill again.

So for the next hour I lay there as the dentist drilled, and filed and poked and prodded away at my tooth.  Surprisingly the procedure really didn't hurt at all.  Thank God for modern medicine!  But I was glad when it was over.  Until she told me that I had to come back again next week where they would reopen the tooth and do it all over again.  And that they may need to do it several more times...

I felt a lot better afterwards.  The lump on my jaw had gone down considerably and while I did still have a dull ache, it was nothing like the pain I was experiencing before the root canal.

I finished the cake when I got home and surprisingly it turned out pretty well.  The birthday girl was happy and that was the main thing.

My week finished on a high note though.  My mum had taken me to see Phantom of the Opera when I was 17 years old.  I loved it.  I don't go to the opera/theatre much but I do enjoy it when I go.  As a thank you to mum for everything she does for us I bought us tickets to see the follow on from Phantom, Love Never Dies.

It was amazing.  The singing was great of course, but what blew me away was the staging.  I couldn't believe how beautiful and elaborate it all was.  I honestly felt like I was not sitting in a theatre and that I had been transported to Coney Island where the story was set.  Amazing costumes, amazing staging and amazing company.  It was so nice to spend the day with just mum and I.  I can't thank her enough for everything that she does for us.

So that was my week in a nutshell.  My skin is still crawling and my wallet is empty, but thank God for mum!