She wakes in the morning with a smile on her face. She’ll laugh and giggle to herself all day. She always has a smile for everyone and unless she’s completely beat will almost never cry never mind scream the house down. She eats whatever we give her and loves her brothers and sister.

We’re heading for a big fall. We already know the middle two are going to be a handful when they hit their teenage years but we just know that there’s no way our luck can continue all through Greer’s childhood. She’s going to be one evil teenager!

Lunchtime came around and off I went to the pet shop to buy a new filter for the fish tank. Literally 20 seconds after I left my desk to start the long walk down the office to the main stair well one of my colleagues shouted after me whilst holding the phone. It was a bit unusual as normally if it’s work related they’d take a message and if it’s Vonnie she’d just ring my mobile phone. I started walking back when she said that it was my wife and my daughter had been in an accident. I remember starting to run but not actually running. I picked up the phone and found my wife almost in tears on the other end trying to explain that Erica had fell in a coffee shop and had hurt her head. An ambulance had been called, there was blood everywhere and could I get money from my mum, she works in the same office, and get a taxi straight to Accident and Emergency at the Southern General where I would meet up with them.

I remember someone asking if everything was OK but I have no idea if I answered them as I’d turned around to my boss and basically said that Erica had really hurt herself and that I was getting a taxi to A&E, I had no idea how serious it was but that it sounded bad and that I’d let him know what was going on as soon as I did but that I wouldn’t be back in today. I ran across to the local hospital to use their cash machine and was standing waiting on the taxi when Vonnie phoned with an update. Apparently the bleeding had stopped but the ambulance still hadn’t appeared and just in case I passed by the shopping centre they were in before it did turn up I was to call as I was passing. It turned out we went nowhere near there however.

The taxi turned up only for the driver to not have a clue where A&E was at the Southern General, it’s quite a big hospital and I got lost in it’s grounds when Nairn was being induced so I couldn’t blame him, but we headed off down through the town rather than along the motorway. Eventually the ambulance turned up and they patched her up and started taking her to Yorkhill which is the sick kids hospital in Glasgow so another phone call later I had redirected the taxi and actually turned up before the ambulance arrived. That’s not bad going. I still didn’t really know how bad Erica was at that point so I actually thought the change of destination was something the ambulance crew decided upon because of her condition rather than it’s what they do as standard when its a young child within the catchment area. Running into A&E and heading straight for the reception desk not knowing where your child is isn’t something I want to repeat any time soon. Especially when they had no knowledge of her and it was only after some searching by the desk clerk that we found out that she was still in the ambulance on her way. If they treat young children with head wounds as a priority, which they do apparently, how did I manage to travel from East Kilbride after waiting on a taxi, take a few wrong turns as we tried to get off the Clydeside Expressway and up to the hospital and still get there 10 minutes before the vehicle that even without it’s blues and two’s going other cars make way for. I ended up standing outside the receiving doors waiting for any and every ambulance coming in just in case it was them. At one point i started to convince myself that I’d picked Vonnie up wrong and that they were actually going to the Southern General but that soon passed.

Pretty soon after all this doubt their ambulance drew up and I got a nod from the driver with a thumb pointed in the back so I knew this was the right one. The rear doors opened and Erica’s face lit up when she seen me. Just beforehand they had been having trouble keeping her awake but when Vonnie started trying to get a photo to send to me Erica started shouting ‘CHEESE’ and smiling.

Once we got her inside I finally got the full story about what had happened as the triage nurse went through the story. Erica had been jumping on a chair as kids do all the time but this time she tripped and fell towards the table. She had put her hands out to stop herself but she missed and her forehead took the full force of the impact on the corner of the table. My sister-in-law, Stephanie, picked her up and noone thought anything of it other than it might be a bad bruise the next day. Then Vonnie seen the dent in her forehead and realised she could see bone. Then it started filling with blood and wouldn’t stop. Vonnie panicked as any mother would and a bystander phoned an ambulance for them all the while Stephanie was trying to stop Vonnie from seeing just how bad it was. Once the ambulance turned up she helped take the kids to her mothers and as she left the coffee shop a waiter at a neighbouring restaurant asked her if she needed any first aid help or a bandage. She hadn’t realised that one side of her tee-shirt was drenched in Erica’s blood.

Anyway back at the hospital Erica had started to perk up a little and the doctor we seen went through the options with us for repairing the wound. We could have the temporary paper stitches the paramedic had put on redone, we could have it glued shut or we could have traditional staple/stiches put in. In actual fact the doctor was reluctant to do anything as the paramedic had done such a good job, he didn;t like using glue on faces and to redo the stiches in anyway would probably just cause more harm and stress to Erica. He went through the points to be aware of with head injuries in young kids and sent us on our way safe in the knowledge that if Erica was to regress and get worse all we have to do is get her straight back down there and they’d see her straight away.

It was on the taxi to go get the other kids that she fell asleep but since she woke up she’s been the life and soul of the party. She went to bed early though and I’m just about to go check on her to make sure she’s doing OK. It does mean we are having to put Nairn into nursery for the next few days to help her wound heal up and that she probably won’t be going to Beth’s birthday party now but it’s a small price to pay for something that could have been a lot worse.

Vonnie’s take on today can be found here.

Yesterday we spent our morning at the church in Carmunnock at christening of my wife’s friends child. We sat through the first hymn and the ceremony before I took the kids across the road to the ‘creche’ so that the rest of the service could go by without to many interruptions. The kids loved it but as we had left in such a hurry we had left everyone’s jackets and toys sitting on the pew which meant Vonnie was going to have some trouble lifting it all out whilst holding onto Greer as well. With this in mind I brought Nairn and Erica back over to the church a little early so that we would be on hand to carry everything but when we got there we found Vonnie feeding Greer whilst talking to the photographer outside.

We got talking about camera equipment and how amazing the Canon 5D mkII was with it’s ability to shoot video as well as stills. It was just about now that Nairn had a twinkle in his eye and decided that no he wasn’t going to listen when I told him he couldn’t run around the back of the church into the graveyard. With the service still going on I was reluctant to shout after him but he turned with a cheeky smile and promptly started climbing up the gravestones and onto the crypts. He’s three years old and apart from goodies killing baddies in some of his older brothers games that’s about all he knows about death. He didn’t understand why I was getting angry at his attempts to scale the largest gravestone in the cemetery.

The look of horror on Vonnie’s face when I told her what he was doing was only beaten by the sheer joy in Nairn’s smile and the laughter on the photographers face.

I’ve had my eye on a few of this years LEGO City boxed sets but at the price they were wanting for them I think I’ll be saving my pennies for a little longer. Anyway one of the great things about LEGO stores is they have a few bins of minifig pieces and you can design your own minifig and accessorise it and buy it for £1.25. Nairn rummaged through the bins and came up with a dungaree wearing skeletal janitor. Quite random but he liked it.

With my own rummagings I came up with Dr McNinja but unfortunately I couldn’t find any black trousers anywhere in any of the three bins of parts.

Erica on the other hand took me by surprise. You have to remember she is only just two years old. After her initial choices of knights helmets on spacefig bodies holding a loud hailer she threw them all back into the bins and started anew. First she picked up a grey woman’s hair piece followed by a female face. After putting them together she then started digging through the bins with what I can only describe as a look of deep intent on her face. Pretty soon she pulled out a handyman’s body and few minutes later she had some nice colour coordinated grey trousers. She then had a problem. Erica couldn’t find any accessory for her minifig that wasn’t a sword but eventually she found a wrench.

I don’t know which bit to be more impressed with. Is it the fact that she’s two years old and already showing signs that she knows that boys are no better than girls and can do whatever she wants with her life? Or is it that she sort of has some sort of fashion sense going on even if it did include a pair of dungarees. A feminist fashion designer before she’s three. A little hard to believe isn’t it…

This past weekend we were at a wedding in London where, apart from the bride and groom, we had never met a single person.Our kids went into the crèche during the ceremony and at the dinner and reception afterwards we basically let them run riot around the place. When you’ve got one or two you can keep on top of them but once you hit that magical number of three they learn that in order to get to do what they want they just scatter in random directions. By the time you as the adult and authority figure work out which ne to go after they are all long gone.

Anyway I barely seen our kids for most of the night what with them spending a lot of time at the craft table or on the dance floor. But when they were not doing that they were doing what all young kids do and that’s just run wild. Findlay managed to fashion together a DIY fishing rod and was managing to get the end in the Thames from the decking of the boathouse we were in. At one point he came round the tables looking for something to use as bait.

Nairn just turned into a thief. As the boathouse wasn’t really designed to have a couple of hundred people stamping their feet during the speeches everyone was given a squeaky rubber duck instead and so after our dinner was finished he went around every table lifting the ducks people had left behind. We had over 20 of them at one point.

I think it was Erica that managed to let them get away with it. She was running interference by being as cute as she could be on the dancefloor or talking to anyone and everyone. As soon as Nairn had all the ducks back at our table though her true colours came to the fore and pretty soon they were having a heated discussion over who could have the largest mound of rubber ducks.

It wasn’t until the end of the night however as everyone started to leave that we started getting comments on our kids. I couldn’t believe it. Apparently our children are a credit to us and were simply wonderful. Erica had a few huge goth blokes wrapped around her finger and Nairn was getting on well with the ladies. Someone even commented on how they had never seen a bunch of kids get on so well together and not end up falling out with anyone by the end of the night. Everyone else’s kids were fantastic so maybe mine actually lived up to the hype?

Then I remembered that our eldest had possibly been exposed to Swine Flu over the last week so I possibly stupidly checked the BBC’s Swine Flu FAQ and after running through the symptoms we were struggling to find any that the kids didn’t have to one degree or another. So Vonnie rang up NHS24 to check to see if we were correct. This was not kicking the arse off 11pm. The operator/nurse ticked off the same boxes we had and then informed us that a doctor would be round within the next couple of hours to check them out. This is where we started to panic a little. The usual procedure is to go along to the out of hours clinic at the local hospital and be checked out but with it possibly being swine flu the obviously couldn’t let us do that. It just took as a little off guard.

Army.mil @ Flickr

After another phone call from NHS24 asking for more details and then letting us know that it could be 4am before a doctor turned up we decided to bring the kids downstairs and take it in shifts staying up waiting for our medical help. Just before 1am my wife took a call that was the doctor basically saying he was 5 minutes away but not to be worried that when he turned up at our door with face mask, gloves and gown on. Erica took it in her stride but Nairn had been asleep through all of this and so was scared witless when he woke up to find this strange man with a mask leaning over him trying to prod him.

So anyway to cut a long story short they don’t have swine flu but they do have a virus so we’re taking a few extra days to make sure they are fine before heading off on our camping trip at some point at the beginning of next week. I managed about three hours sleep last night thanks to Greer waking up at 5am so today has been fun…

Today I recieved a phonecall at work from Vonnie because Nairn wanted me to do something for them. They had lifted every single duvet in the house into the livingroom and put them on the floor in front of the TV. The demand was for popcorn as they decided they were having a duvet day and wanted to watch some films. Even Greer was playing along with this and being good for a change.

Duvet Day

With today being the start of the Glasgow Fair holidays I finished work at lunchtime and headed home via the supermarket to pick up the aforementioned popcorn. I got home and everyone was doing great. I think Vonnie must have secretly feeding them sweeties when I wasn’t looking. They were that good in fact I fell asleep on the couch with my laptop on my knee and Greer in my arms.

They then surpassed themselves by bringing two boxes of LEGO down from their rooms and playing nicely with it all. I’ve never seen them like this! Not one of them fought over the special bits and they helped each other build whatever it was they actually built. I can never usually tell what they make unless it’s a car or a plane.

What I was amazed at though was the fact that some of the LEGO they were playing with was mine from when I was a kid. That stuff is almost 30 years old and apart from it being slightly discoloured you wouldn’t have a clue it’s had such a long life.

It’s been a few days now since Greer arrived, I think it’s 11 or 12 now if you want to get all exact on me, and I haven’t mentioned it here at all. It’s not though not wanting to rather through lack of time and energy despite having two weeks paternity leave.

So on to business. We’d purposely told friends and work colleagues that we were heading into the hospital on the Monday to go through the inducing process but we actually went in on the Friday morning instead. We knew we were going to be there a while and with previous births we’d been deluged with well wishers looking for updates so we thought we’d skip that part and hopefully give them a wee surprise at the start of the weekend. It didn’t quite work out that way.

At noon on the Sunday my wife was to be examined and most likely sent home for a break period before coming back in later in the week to restart the process. As luck would have it that’s when her waters decided to go. Over the next 7-8 hours I witnessed my wife go nuts on the gas and air again which is always fun, this time it was to do with Winnie the Pooh living in a birdhouse, and being threatened with my testicles being removed via my throat.

At 19:35 on May 17th Greer Valery Charlotte Sandlan was born weighing in at 7lb 11oz.

Unfortunately the timing of the delivery meant that the kids couldn’t see there mum that night, and hadn’t all weekend, and despite being outside in the carpark from 19.30 were not allowed in for 5 minutes to meet their new sister. The shifts changed round about that time and despite the sister in charge of the ward during they day saying it shouldn’t be a problem for them to come in outwith visiting hours for a short time the new sister stuck to the rules. Anyway it also meant my lift back to East Kilbride was leaving early so I only got to spend about half an hour with Greer before I had to go home and leave both of them to rest overnight.

So what can I say about Greer. She’s been a delightful so far. She’s piling on the weight which after our troubles with Erica is a worry we’re glad to do without and did I mention she’s sleeping very well? The only trouble is she doesn’t like sleeping in her crib so we’re co-sleeping an awful lot just now which really messes with our sleep. I can’t sleep if any of the kids are in our bed never mind a little newborn.

For those that want to know where the names came from. Greer is the name that Vonnie picked early on that eventually grew on me, Charlotte was my choice of name and Valery was from St Valery sur Somme which is where we spent our summer holidays last year and decided to try for another child. All in all they are pretty tame considering how we came up with the other kids names.

First up we have:

Bob – That would be myself. A self confessed geek that never actually gets the time to be a geek anymore. When I’m not looking after the kids, cooking dinner, gardening or tidying up you’ll find me writing for various blogs all over the net on subjects ranging from myself to self-sufficiency. I also have a fancy for Dungeons and Dragons and write about that whilst occasionally getting articles published over at Wired magazines Geekdad blog.

Vonnie – That would be my wife. Where as I swan in at the end of the day and warmly embrace the kids and think everything is great in the world she gets to stay at home and look after the children whilst pretending they aren’t actually auditioning for the lead in The Exorcist. Simply put she’s far stronger than I am and god help me if she ever sees me for the charlatan that I am and leaves me. I don’t even know how many sugars go in my tea!

Findlay - He would be my step-son. I say step-son because technically that’s what he is but in reality he’s actually my son that just happens to spend the weekends at his other dads place. Currently going through his mid-life crisis

Nairn – The youngest son. The first child I’ve seen go from bump to birth and beyond. He’s a cheeky wee bugger and huge for his age. Even when he started at nursery as the youngest in his room he was head and shoulders above everyone.

Erica – Eldest daughter and until very recently the youngest child. The nursery recently commented that she was ‘slightly boisterous’ for a girl. What do you expect for a girl with two older brothers? Loves her clothes and jewelry but will always be the first to throw a punch. Maybe the nursery are right… Considering the problems she had with her weight during her first year she’s doing great!

Greer – The youngest daughter. Only a few weeks old and already has us twisted round her little finger. After the scares we had with Erica I’m glad to say Greer is showing that it wasn’t Mummy’s milk that was at fault and is bang on track for her targets.