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Mum’s test for diabetes was not one of her most pleasant experiences. For one thing she was really worried about Alistair, she couldn’t be with him as he was upstairs lording it up in Special Baby Care (boy he really was something special!) in addition she said she felt like she had two mounds of setting concrete on her chest (you ladies who have fed their own babies will know how she felt I’m told)

Then the nurses said they would take some of her blood; I told you the medical profession are obsessed with taking blood; then she wasn’t allowed anything to eat or drink but water for 24 hours, then then they took more blood, then she had to drink this horrible thick VERY sweet sticky glucose drink (she hated that she said) then, you guessed it, they took more blood to see if she had absorbed the glucose correctly into her system.

So all this happened, and then surprise surprise, she wasn’t diabetic, Alistair was just an enormous baby ,he’s not exactly small to this day!

Anyway after about a day and a half Al was allowed back with the OSO as he could now breathe without a great big tube down his gullet. I reckon he just wanted some attention, again, something he still angles after.

As an aside, you remember I told you that Dad had met one of his mates visiting his very little grandson in the Special baby Care Unit? Well he (the little baby and Al the big baby) grew up to later play in the same rugby team together which I always thought was rather sweet (even though, I think, rugby is very much an over rated game)

So Mum was eventually allowed to take Ally home, so Mum and Dad ended up with three boys at home, me aged three and a quarter, Roger two and a half and Alistair a little (correction; big) baby. Quite a lot to deal with, so in a way my DMD was almost forgotten, because at that time, it didn’t really affect me that much and anyway, home life at that time was chaotic to say the least! Actually I don’t know why I said ‘at that time’ because, you will come to realise, chaos was the norm in our house!

The midwife used to come and visit every day for about a week I guess to weigh the hulk called Alistair to make sure he was growing ok! Mum used to keep the hoover out with a duster draped over the handle to make it look like she was just about to do some housework. She never did, what a joke!

Mum was still off work at this time on maternity leave, but she knew she would have to go back to work soonish on a job share basis. Help would therefore be needed in looking after the three of us for the days that Mum was working. In the end they decided to employ a nanny who would live in with us. They felt this was this best way of doing it as it was cheaper than using a child minder and they both felt it was a lot better because we would all be able to stay at home and looked after there and not have to be carted off to someone else every morning the OSO was working. So that was what was done, and Jenny came to live with us (she went back to her own home at weekends) at it all worked out really well, she fitted in great and even learnt how to cope with the OSO which was a major achievement in itself! She became part of the mad, mad family and stayed with us right up to the time that Alistair started school.

But, back to chaotic home (as ever, I digress). Al was born in the May and Mum decided to go back to work (lecturing at the local college) in June. Yes, this was a little early, but she had a cunning plan! By the end of June most of the students had finished so the lecturers were just in doing admin and such like until they too finished in July. This meant that the college crèche (a new innovation) was empty as there were non of the student’s babies in there! Anyway it meant Mum could take Ally into work with her and put him in the crèche and when he needed a feed from her (which was very often as he was very greedy) the crèche staff called her and she went down to feed him! Most of you will have realised the reason why she went to all that trouble was so they her pay started again and she was only in work for a couple of weeks before she broke up for the 6 week holidays. I told you it was a cunning plan!!

When the holidays came Mum and Dad decided we all needed a break so off we all went to a relative’s lovely cottage in Wales.