If Music Be The Way To Get Your Child To Eat, Play On...

Apparently 1 in 4 Irish primary school children is overweight or obese. As I look around my son's school, I don't see that reflected in the kids in the playground. There are really very few kids who seem to be to be overweight, maybe 1 or 2 per class. And no one I would describe as obese, although I know the technical medical definition for this is actually surprisingly lower than most people might think. So there must be some schools where about half or even two thirds of kids are overweight. 

We definitely do not have a childhood obesity crisis in our house - more of a 'pleeeeeeeaaaaase eeeeeeeaaaat' crisis.  When it comes to one of the boys anyway...  An example: this evening, Matthew asked for seconds after he quickly demolished a bowl of pasta bolognese. After the two bowls, he devoured a big yoghurt and skipped off merrily to play in the garden. Meanwhile, Adam was languishing on the other side of the table, listlessly poking at individual pieces of pasta. Eventually, he consented to eat 6 spoonfuls of his meal and didn't want a yoghurt or anything else for dessert.

The battle to get Adam to eat has been dragging on now for far too long and has been very very frustrating. I had really hoped he would have snapped out of it by now. 

Matthew was a terrible eater for a long time and I tied myself in knots getting enough food into him.  I learned the hard way that you really can't make a child eat what their stomach tells them they don't want. One evening I really lost it and nagged the food into him. The result was not pretty - he promptly threw up. Nice. When he was about 3 and a half, he just started eating and has barely stopped since.

I was much more relaxed about Adam's poor eating as I assumed he too would snap out of it and I didn't want a repeat of the vomit scenario. So we got to 3 and a half and Andrew and I watched him expecting the 'ta da' moment as he happily started eating. Then we passed 4, still no voluntary eating, unless you count crisps. He is now almost 5 and that 'ta da' moment is still but a hope...

Plenty of people have told me to relax and that he looks fine and that he will eat when he decides to.  However, in Adam's case, we don't really have the option to wait and see when he decides he has an appetite. As he has growth hormone deficiency, it is extra important that he eats in order to allow his medication to do its job. This was made evident when we were at a recent growth check up.  These take place every three months.  He had grown, but much less than any previous visits. And he had lost weight. The doctor was concerned enough to order blood tests to rule out any other causes, but I knew it was just that he doesn't want to eat, doesn't seem to enjoy food at all, doesn't even want desserts and seems to be incredibly active and healthy with very very little food. Except for his growth, which is clearly impeded by his lack of eating.

So, here began a series of all kinds of ploys and incentives to get the child to EAT. Adam is a very very strong willed, quirky and determined individual, who is not easy to persuade to do something he doesn't want to do. Of course, with parental authority, we could have just insisted rigourously that he eat every meal, but I also want him to learn to enjoy food and to know what is a good diet. The trick was to maintain healthy eating and resist the temptation to pump him full of saturated fats, thereby upping his weight, yes, but making him a good candidate to become a statistic in later life. So, three square meals, healthy snacks - here we go:

Reward charts, threats, bribes, setting the oven timer as a deadline...  All fairly exhausting, and all had some success, except for the oven timer. This led to him eating nothing for the first 19 minutes, ramming it all in in a panic in the last 60 seconds, and then, yes, more vomit. 

Then, unexpectedly, the best incentive yet...  We have been playing all kinds of tunes from Spotify, mostly in the kitchen and mostly very very loudly. One morning I chose a song I like, which the boys were getting sick of. Adam was dawdling over his bowl of yoghurt, which was part of his breakfast. He asked to choose his own song. Without really thinking, I said he could choose a song, once he had finished his yoghurt.  Well, I never saw him eat so quickly and so well!  Then he skipped over to the the iPad and chose his song and had a good little dance around the kitchen.  

This was repeated for several meals and has had a great impact!  Meanwhile, the hard work has paid off, as his last growth check up showed that his weight was up and his growth rate back on track. It is great to have found a way to tap into his enthusiasm for something completely different, music,  in order to try to get him to eat. I am not using this with every meal for fear of music fatigue and although I know it will have a limited shelf life, and we will have to come up with a new and creative way to motivate him to finish his meals, for now, it is making for a happier, and fairly noisy Keene kitchen.

Fundraising For Book Worms

Fundraising for charity can be tricky!  Not a week goes by, but there is a knock at our door and a gaggle of kids clustered behind one child who is asking for sponsorship for a walk or a readathon or similar. I make a point of asking them what the money is for and they often answer with the event, the walk or the run or whatever, or the name of the school or club they are linked to. 'No,' I say, 'is the money going to a charity? Which one?' Cue baffled kids looking at the bit of paper they have for me to sign. We usually get there!

One friend I have recently made has taken to fundraising with a zeal that has really impressed me. I met Caroline in Dublin, during the time that her daughter Seren was in the ICU in Crumlin Children's Hospital in Dublin. Seren was born with a very complex heart condition, which meant that she had already undergone several complex surgeries, despite being a few weeks old. Sadly, one of those surgeries proved too much for her body to handle, and she passed away in January, when she was just over 12 weeks old.

Since then, Caroline has set up the Seren Joan Memorial Fund (https://www.facebook.com/groups/SerenJoanBoylan/) and has connected with a huge amount of people to look for ways to raise money in Seren's memory, all of which goes to Crumlin Children's Hopsital. She recently took part in the mini marathon in Dublin, along with about 90 other women, which raised over 10 grand! TEN GRAND! Wow! Other events that have come on board have been: coffee mornings, a weight loss challenge, a golf tournament and a tropical party night. 
I had been mulling over the idea of holding a book swap for ages and Caroline inspired me to make it happen and to use it to raise money for Seren's fund. It was a great night and so far we have raised over 300 Euro.  Not exactly matching the 10 thousand from the marathon, but, as they say, every little helps!   Holding a Book Swap is really very straightforward, so here's a quick How To Guide in ten steps:

1. The Books. Have your house painted. The inside that is. This will make you take all your books off the bookshelves in order to move them and, once you have stopped sneezing from all the dust, be ruthless in sorting through them. The key questions: 'Am I likely to ever read this again?' 'Has anything from this book stayed with me?' If the answer is no, put the book aside. Accumulate a nice pile of discarded books and wonder what to do with them.

2.   The Place. Have a friend who likes reading, with a nice house, with room to hold an event. Preferably with rooms that open out into each other. She will also need a decent sized dining room table and a separate smaller table for children's books. (Garden furniture optional for the children's books.) Be nice to this friend and talk her into holding the Book Swap. 

3. The Date. Pick a date. Preferably a weekend evening so people can stay late-ish. You will find that people will browse through the books 3 or 4 times, picking up a few each time, so you want it to be a social occasion where they hang out and relax and keep wandering back to the books with a glass of wine in their hand and crisps nearby. You don't want them to pop in for 5 minutes and leave with only 2 novels and a recipe book. The aim is to have to help them carry their books to the car, as they have so many to take home.

4.  The Invitation. Get the word out!  Be very clear in your communication on a few key points: Bring books. On the night the books will cost money, set price of: whatever. (We opted for 2 Euro per book.) This is fundraising for this specific charity: whichever. 
You can learn from our mistake on this one - we didn't ask folks to RSVP and have been uncertain all week about who would come and therefore unsure of numbers. This has been tricky in terms of catering and planning. It worked out very well in the end, but was stressful in the lead up! As the main point is fundraising - ask folks to bring their book worm friends with them. The invitations need to be welcoming to all, as opposed to excluding people you didn't happen to get an invitation to.
I also sent out a big text, inviting a bunch of other local friends I knew I might not see in time to chat to.
People who can't come can still give you their old books and they can also donate if they want to!  But they need to know about both opportunities...  Texting, Facebook and chats at the school gate is the way to go here.  After the night, I texted loads of people who had expressed an interest but not been able to come. I let them know how much we raised and thanked them for their support and offered them the chance to still give.  I got a lot more donations that way, which was terrific. People really are incredibly generous.

5.  The Catering. You can either go for dessert and coffee, or wine and nibbles.  We kind of went for both and it worked well!  We probably over-catered in the end as there was a lot left. We included a line on the invitation, asking anyone who was willing to bake to send me a text. About 2 people did.  So I just ended up asking a few people if they could bake or buy some crisps and nuts to bring. Next time, I would just do that and not bother waiting to hear back from people.

6. The Set Up. Having co-run 2 of these, it works best if the books and the food are near-ish to each other so people can nibble treats and keep sidling up to the books. It's also a good idea to have a seating area with crisps etc a bit separate as people gradually drift away from the books and start chatting. Kitchen - food. Dining Table - books. Living Room - chat. The open planned house as mentioned earlier is great for this as it keeps people moving around easily and interacting with all parts of the evening.

7. The Money. Best to be discreet on this one, but not so discreet that people forget to donate! We put a tupperware tub in the middle of the table of books and there was money in it from the start to indicate what its purpose was.  People were generally overly generous and gave more than their haul's worth. But I certainly wasn't checking what was put in relative to the books people left with. 

8. The Night Itself. Get to your nice friend's house early to help set up. NB: this does not mean taking all the good books and concealing them for yourself! In fact, as the host(ess) you need to assume you will not really get to the books until much later as you will be busy getting coffee and unloading other people's books on the table. So accept that you will perhaps miss out on some of the books you liked the look of, try to see who got them so you can borrow them another time, and put the kettle on.
Apart from separating children's and adults books, there is no real need to group the books. We did try to put all books by the same author together a bit, or multiple copies of the same book. But by the time 2 or 3 people have looked through the books and passed titles to each other, they will be muddled. And people will be arriving with new books all the time. As long as it's a 4 sided table and there is space to stand and pick up books, people will be able to see them all. 
One important thing: it's handy if your nice friend has a nice husband who makes a mellow and appealing playlist for the night; this sets a lovely tone and atmosphere for the night.
If you are a keen reader, it's a brilliant night. You get to recommend books and chat about them and get other people excited about books you have enjoyed. With cake. 

9. The Follow Up. It's really important to let folks know how much money you raised.  I plan to post a few pictures too, including one of the money being given to Caroline. We used Facebook and Text to thank people and let them know what we raised.

10. The Leftover Books. You need to have a plan beforehand, as you will be left with books at the end of the evening, as really NO ONE wants a book on Wine Tasting or a schooldays copy of As You Like It. We were lucky; our church fete was on the next day, so a load of books went into my car for that. Another friend had a charity collection of books at work later in the week, so she took a box. The rest, we parcelled into a few bags and on Monday we plan to go round all the local charity shops and donate to each of them. 

A few final tips: 
Have empty bags or boxes to hand for people to bring their books home. 
Next time I would consider the possibility of adding DVDs to the list, setting their price slightly higher than the books, I imagine. But don't accept videos, as many charity shops won't accept them any more and you will be stuck with them. 
I would not recommend adding clothes to the mix - this is really a very different kind of evening.  You don't have to try books or dvds on, and you can go home happy without feeling that you are too fat to read that book you really liked...  No mirrors needed either, to see if you would suit that book with the nice cover. 
I think it would be an awful lot of work to try to hold this on your own. It has worked really well for me, organising with one other friend each time. You can each play to your strengths and share out the logisitical bits and pieces.

Overall, I recommend it as a very fun way to raise a bit of money, especially if you are a keen reader. Don't expect to raise thousands, but expect to have a great time. I love the way that even getting rid of the leftover books benefits charities, it's such a simple event with great results like this. I came home with 5 new books and 4 new Mr Men books for the boys - a great haul!

 There is an alternative to all of this of course:  I could have opted not to have my house painted, given the money that would have cost me to charity, thereby circumventing all of the above. But I wouldn't have any new books...

Fat, Sick and Hungry for Change

I recently watched 2 documentaries/films on Netflix: Hungry for Change and the brilliantly titled Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. They are both about health, food and weight and I found them absolutely fascinating.

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is about an Australian guy called Joe Cross who suffered for years with an illness that resulted in him taking very strong steroids every day. At the start of the film, he is 41, overweight, unfit and unhealthy.  Having tried all kinds of conventional and alternative healing options, he decides that he needs to let his body heal itself.  But first he must change how he eats, give his body 60 days to cleanse itself and then see to what extent he can come off his medication and if his illness will be manageable without pills and potions.

It's worth saying at this point that he does all this under the supervision of a doctor. So he is pronounced fit to eat no food for 60 days and instead simply drink juice.  Juice which he prepares himself with a fancy juicer and boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables, including a massive amount of kale. He spends this 60 days in America, in New York and then travelling around, with the juicer in his boot, hooked up to a portable battery.  He is a very gregarious character and chats to all kinds of people about having only juice, about why he is doing this and about their health.  This gives rise to some jaw-dropping conversations, with people who are unbelievably honest about their health and their weight and their intention to effectively keep eating badly even though they know it will shorten their life spans. He talks to people everywhere, more or less accosting them, but in a very friendly way, and at one point meets a huge guy in a truck stop in Arizona, who has the same medical condition.  Much of this chat and interaction takes place in fast food joints or restaurants and you can't help but feel sorry for Joe, surrounded by big American portions of ribs, chips, burgers and cake, while he sips on his juice. 

However, he is changing before your eyes as the days are counted off.  So, the 60 days finishes, he has lost massive amounts of weight and heads back home, having come off all his medication and still in good health. At this point, I realised there was about half the film left to go, and I couldn't work out how they were going to fill the rest of it! Then something unexpected happened and it was just amazing...  I won't give it away!  I highly recommend this movie - it is well made, thought provoking and funny in places.

And it made me think about the idea of cleansing and juicing and then afterwards restricting your diet to mostly micro nutrient foods - effectively turning the food pyramid upside down. Extreme? Yes, absolutely. Fascinating nonetheless, and it stayed with me.
Then Netflix, as it does, decided I like films about fat people and food and suggested Hungry for Change.  This turned out to be a documentary about the food industry - the diet food industry in particular - and how deceptive and damaging it is.  There was a huge range of experts, who by and large spoke very well within their individual expertise. The myth of 'light' or  'fat free' foods was well and truly exploded as they went through the ingredients of some of these foods and their effects. Diet Coke in particular - you will never touch it again if you watch this... There were some fascinating stories from a few people who had lost startling amounts of weight and gone on to help others in this area. There were 2 women who were living with cancer long after they were expected to die, and whose complete change of diet, they believed, was largely responsible for their ongoing health despite their prognosis. Joe Cross popped up as well with his story! 

It could have been very formulaic; with talking heads spouting facts and theories, but the passion of all the speakers really shone through and I found it very interesting. Some of it was a bit 'Californian' for me, with a strong emphasis on loving yourself. While I may agree with the sentiment, it was a bit overdone onscreen.
However, I came away once again thinking about the importance of what we put in our bodies and with some very thought provoking statements ringing in my head. 
All the experts agreed that 'diets' as we know them, do not work and there is some crazy statistic about how many people regain all the weight they lose and more through diets that restrict access to certain foods, like the Adkins Diet. I am sure almost everyone reading this can attest to the craving for that one particular food that comes over you like a fever, when you are following a plan which includes a list of 'forbidden' foods... 

So how's this for common sense?  Instead of cutting things out, one expert suggested adding things in: healthy things. Increasing your fruit and vegetable intake and gradually crowding out the bad foods. This is in fact remarkably like what Slimming World gets you to do, which I am still following. You are meant to have 1/3 of your food be a portion of fruit or vegetables, every time you eat. It has the effect of boosting your healthy food intake, but it also automatically restricts the amount of 'bad stuff 'you eat, as you have to match it by a third each time. Gradually, your habits change, if you strictly follow this rule.

They all commented on the need to read labels. And there was huge enthusiasm for juicing, and for cleansing.  There was a strong suggestion that if you planned to change your eating habits, you should have a juice cleanse for a week or 2 and then gradually add foods back in.  It was interesting that, although weight loss was mentioned, the bigger benefits were related to health and also to beauty; nails, hair and skin will be hugely improved by this apparently.

So there we are. Should I dig out my juicer and go for it? It is tempting to try to have juice only for a couple of weeks.  By all accounts, the first few days are tough, but then you feel great and have loads of energy. I must say, I am really considering doing this, perhaps in a month or so.  

But mainly, what I am left with is a change in my thinking about food. It is so hard not to continually associate changing your eating with weight; at least it is for me as this is something that I have been engaging with for years, in particular the last 3 years. This leads to so many conflicting thoughts: 'Who am I doing this for? I should be able to eat what I want! Maybe I'll just be fat and learn to be happy with that... Why do I feel the need to conform to a societal norm or a stereotypical understanding of beauty? There is too much pressure to be thin from skinny celebs! Why should I care what others think? I wish I was thinner! My clothes don't fit... Oh crap, I have a party in 3 weeks and nothing to wear...'  Please tell me I am not alone in this spiral of useless thoughts!

But if you switch it to health as the issue, the perspective changes and the goal becomes bigger and more important. In this context, I am motivated to continue to follow the Slimming World plan, but for different reasons from now on. Yes, of course I still want to fit into that dress I looked nice in 3 summers ago...  But I also want to be healthy, energetic and here for a long time yet! And it would be interesting to investigate further how diet, not 'a diet', but diet, could perhaps improve or even shut down the colitis which I have.
The 2 films described are highly recommended. They are both on Netflix, but it may have been the American version thereof that I was watching.  Try these links for more info too: http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com and http://viooz.co/movies/4394-hungry-for-change-2012.html. If you google the film titles, you should find that you can see trailers at the very least.

Would love to know what others think of these films! Too extreme? Or perhaps Food for Thought?

Care Scare

Adam starts his last fortnight at his playschool tomorrow. He will have been there for 3 years! That is hard to believe... He was almost 2 when he first went to Janet's and I remember the first day I left him there and how he cried every time I dropped him for the first 2 weeks. And I remember the reassuring texts from Janet telling me had was fine about 5 minutes later. He has been looked after so well there and I am so grateful for the confidence I was able to have that he was happy, safe and enjoying himself every day. Janet is a unique childcare provider in that she runs a playschool for 3 hours every morning, but also offers childcare for working parentsfor the remainder of the day, as needed.

A couple of weeks ago the number one news story in Ireland was the poor care of children in creches. A TV show had a researcher pose as an employee in three different creches and secretly film what some of the other employees got up to. It should be said at the outset that there was by no means wholescale physical abuse or neglect.  However, the footage there was was definitely disturbing enough to send a chill through every working parent in the country... kids being yelled at, left in highchairs for hours, expected to nap on flimsy mats in fully lit rooms, carers on their phones while responsible for a roomful of kids...  As you would expect, this set light to a national debate on the issue of childcare. Is it better to have your kids looked after in their own home? Who keeps an eye on the private childminders anyway? Is it healthier for children to be with other kids in a creche environment? How much training do creche employees need? Why do Irish parents pay so much more than their European counterparts for daycare?

The juggling of parenting, work and family time is hard enough without adding the extra layer of stress and worry many parents would have experienced in the aftermath of the programme.  Some parents I heard on the radio said they had decided to leave their kids in the creches concerned as they felt these were isolated incidents and the staff members concerned were no longer there. Others moved their kids immediately and there was much talk of creches that allowed parents to access secure weblinks to check on their kids periodically. One of the facilities featured is up the road from our house; when I had my haircut the day after the show aired, the only topic in the hairdressers was the creche and how horrified people had been by the programme.

It is all such a head wrecker!  When I got my previous job, childcare was the one big issue to resolve. It was a scary thing. At the time we had 2 pre-schoolers and I was going to be in the office 3 days a week. We decided to keep the boys together - so not in a creche where they would be in separate aged rooms. We thought a childminder was the best option so I put a notice up advertising our need for someone in a few local shops.

I got 3 responses:
The first lady was down the road in the next village and we went to meet her. She had a son who was between my 2 in age and a daughter who was ten. The house was clean and tidy and she was very friendly. However... I very quickly had some concerns and my Mummy Sensor started tingling.
1. No books in the playroom, just a big tv. Not good.
2. She said she didn't smoke, but I came across cigarette butts in the bathroom. Really very very bad.
3. Her son was quite rowdy and she had limited success in curbing his behaviour.
There were a couple of other things and all in all they added up to a feeling that I wasn't sure this was the right lady to look after my boys...

The next call I got was from a woman who arranged to meet me for coffee and a chat. I waited and waited and waited and she never turned up!  I left a few messages and never heard from her again!  That was hardly the best way to make me convinced that she was the right person to leave in my home with my kids... reliable? punctual? um, no.

I talked to a friend about this and we realised it was the same woman she had interviewed previously when she was looking for a childminder.  My friend had discovered that this woman was the daughter of a notorious gangland tough guy in Dublin. Instead of feeling annoyed she hadn't turned up, I began to feel relieved...

But I was getting a bit scared at this stage...! How can you be sure anyone will be a good carer for your kids on the basis of meeting them and having a chat? Were the two people I had met so far as good as it got?

And then Janet rang me - I went to see her and the first thing I saw when I walked in was a big box of books, including a children's Bible. The place was light, airy and totally child friendly. She was so gentle and professional and one of the first things she told me was that she, her husband and both her her parents who visited frequently had been garda-vetted.

That was in August 2010 and now we have 10 more drop offs and pick ups at Janet's left to go... I know that she offers exceptional care and I am so grateful for her.

Anyone can start childminding - I mind 2 kids on a Thursday afternoon in a private arrangement with some friends. It has been fantastic and I have seen it from the other side, although it has only been for a few hours per week as opposed to a full time job. There have been many calls for more regulation in this whole area, for childminders as well as creches as the debate has rumbled on since the tv show. I can see that this is necessary and will help assuage parental fears and concerns. It remains a very difficult issue though and each family has to find the best solution to suit their needs and their individual kids.

For us, Adam's last fortnight is a bit of a milestone and from September onwards we will have 2 schoolboys!  Astonishing!

Blogging Break

Someone said to me on Friday that they enjoyed my blog and when was I going to write again?  Quite shocked to realise my last entry was in November.... how did that happen? As in, how did 7 months zoom by without me realising? 

One of the reasons is that I started up a mini company / initiative / thing called IT Confidence.  My Dad got an iPhone and I was helping him make the most of it, when he suggested that was something I could help others with, and potentially charge for. And not just iPhones, but laptops, iPads, kindles, all manner of devices.  

It made sense, so I decided to go ahead and have had quite a few clients since then.  They have had me install and teach Skype, or look at using RTE Player, help them be secure on Facebook, or just be more confident in using their technology.  It has been very enjoyable for the most part and I hope it will grow.

It is almost exactly a year since I finished up my old job as an Admin/PA.  Although I really enjoyed the work, I can honestly say that I really haven't missed the job at all.  The relief of not having to be an employee and a mother and a house wife all in the same day! The difference in being able to plan out my own week without having to jump through childcare hoops as meetings occurred outside my normal working hours! 

An article I read at the weekend was commenting that this generation of young women knows too much about being a working Mum.  Previous generations of women were breaking new ground and went for it, discovering the issues along the way. Then the whole concept of 'having it all' began to be thrashed out, written about and debated. The writer of this piece quoted recent films like What To Expect When Your Expecting and Friends With Kids, both of which I happen to have seen recently.  She reckons that the whole issue is so over discussed, over analysed and over filmed that women her age are now often convinced that they can't have it all and in many cases delay having kids or decide not to instead of attempting to juggle career and kids, as the myth that they can be a successful career woman and a good mother has been thoroughly debunked.

Well, the title 'career woman' was not exactly applicable to me; nor did I want it to be. That doesn't mean I didn't want to work outside the home. But there are so many factors to consider: childcare, school holidays, sick kids, husband travelling with his work... the list goes on and on.
Despite racking my brains as I finished work, there didn't seem to be an obvious next job for me, in which I could be at the school gates at the right time, without breaking the speed limit on the N11 every day. One in which I could have some responsibility, but not too much, so that I could just leave work at work and be with the kids 100% when at home. And one in which I could design my own schedule and be in charge of my own time. The reason there wasn't an obvious next job should be apparent... 

Until my Dad said what he did - what a genius!  It ticked all the boxes and I have enjoyed the challenge of teaching people to make the most of their technology.  It has been incredibly varied and interesting; different devices, different abilities, just different people! I can honestly say that I never expected to start my own 'company'.  I use the speech marks, as it seems kind of small to give it that title.  But it is officially registered with the correct authorities as such, so I guess it truly is.

It's a great solution for a Mum of young kids - I feel like I am able to contribute a bit to the finances of Keene Inc and I am also able to exercise my brain with something other than cleaning or the kids.  But, this is all on my own schedule, and that's the key for working Mums, combining everything is tricky.  Media stories like the recent scare over the quality of care in Ireland's creches really don't help, as they only add to the stress and guilt of the whole scenario.

I am not expecting IT confidence to make me a millionaire...  although I think Andrew is hoping to retire soon on that basis. It is just great to have something that can fit into family life without fuss or drama and I don't take for granted what a rare and amazing opportunity this is.

IT Confidence is therefore to blame a bit for the lack of blogging!  But I will make an effort to be a better blogger from now on...