Team Newman / Ferme

I knew there were more things to write yesterday, but I was too tired and couldn’t think properly. Another first that I wanted to mention was that Lachlan has started instigating bath time. Last night, at six o’clock (bath time), Richard and I were looking at something on the computer when Lachlan gave this almighty scream. We thought he’d done himself some serious damage so we jumped to our feet to respond, only to find him sitting comfortably in the hallway. As soon as he saw he had our attention, he turned and raced off to the bathroom. It’s ironic really, considering how little time he actually wants to spend in the bath!

Dan still absolutely loves stories and music. In the last couple of days I’ve noticed that he’s anticipating the songs. For example, when we sing “Row, row, row the boat…” we hold hands and pretend to row a boat. Then in the second verse when we sing “if you see a crocodile, don’t forget to scream” we raise his hands above his head and pretend to scream. Recently, he has started raising his hands above his head on his own, when we get close to the screaming part of the song. It’s so cute. He’s also fanatical about books and stories, and is very insistant about turning the pages and so forth. We’ve also noticed him comparing the pictures in the book with the picture on the cover and we think he’s noticed that sometimes they’re the same.

That’ll do.

We had a few firsts today, which I want to make a note of.

Lachlan had his first haircut – well, it was a trim really. I just cut his fringe while he was watching TV in his highchair after dinner. I thought he’d be totally distracted, but he wriggled quite a bit, otherwise I might have done more. Still, it looks like I didn’t botch it up.

Also, Lachlan started learning to feed himself tonight. Previously, we’ve been giving them finger food one piece at a time, but tonight I was rushed, so I just dumped a heap of diced veges on their trays and let them at it. Lachlan just wolfed it down, but Dan didn’t touch his. I then tried to feed them some spaghetti bolognese, but they weren’t having it. However, Lachlan was happy enough to feed himself either with his hands or the spoon (if Richard put the food on the spoon).

I think Dan made a little joke last night too, which was very cute. I was playing with him in the hospital and he was still quite cheery at the time. I was carrying him round when he made a funny little noise. I looked at him and he looked quite serious for a second, and then he started chuckling to himself. I wonder what he actually said…

Dan had his MRI yesterday – we haven’t got the results yet, but I thought I’d write about the experience.

The hospital experience actually started off well, when we found out that we had been second on the procedure list, but had been bumped to first because the other person hadn’t fasted properly. This was extremely good news, because the first procedure was at 1pm and Dan had been fasting since 7am. Also the waiting room had no facilities for babies to nap, so if we had been lower on the list, I would have spent hours with one tired, hungry and very irritable baby. He was pretty grumpy as it was. There was a catch however. We were told that we’d have to stay overnight, as the anaesthetist thought it would be best to monitor Dan for 24 hours after the general because of his apnoeas. (Luckily, our paediatrician had warned us this might happen, so I had packed for an overnight stay.)

Thankfully, they were running on time and we were taken to the MRI room at 1. I was able to hold Dan and sing to him while he was given the gas for the general anaesthetic, but he still cried quite a bit as he was going under – and I cried a little bit after I’d left him. He’s such a sweet little boy and he doesn’t deserve all this stuff. I was then left to my own devices for the hour that the MRI was going to take, so I had some lunch and went to wait on the ward. After two hours I was starting to get worried, but then he turned up, happy as Larry and was barely interested in me at all. All he wanted to do was roll around in the rattly metal cot they supplied at the hospital. This was where things started to get a bit more difficult, though we’ve come to expect difficulties now, so it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.

Because Dan had been fasting since 7am, I thought he might be hungry or thirsty, so I wanted to give him some milk. I had taken a couple of 200ml bottles of milk with me, so I asked if I could give him that. They thought that he shouldn’t have too much to begin with because he might throw it up, so they would organise a smaller amount of milk for him. Naturally, they couldn’t get the right formula and he didn’t like the one they brought. It wasn’t until 4:30 that they offered to chase up the proper milk, but with dinner scheduled for 5pm, I asked them to organise some baby food (solids) instead. Thankfully, the nurse was thoughtful enough to ask what he’d eat, so we were able to get some pureed food for him. (Last time they didn’t ask before they served him minced meat which he choked on and threw up.) He ate really well and was quite bright most of the time. After dinner, he started to get quite tired, so I started organising his bath. He still had a canula in his hand, so I asked the nurse if we could remove it before the bath. At first she said that they’d rather wait until he’d had something to drink, but when I said he wasn’t going to get a drink until after his bath, she agreed to remove it. The poor boy bled quite a bit and was quite upset about it. It must have really hurt and by that time he was totally sick of being poked and prodded by the staff. They just had to come near and he would dissolve into a fit of sobbing. Sometime around this time, another nurse came along to organise his milk, and I told her not to bother because it would be easier to use the bottles I had brought.

I put Dan straight to bed after his bath and bottle, because he was so exhausted. Unfortunately, the room was still really light because it was only 6:30pm, and it was really noisy because the other people in the room left their TV on constantly – even when they weren’t there. (That was really annoying.) It was also extremely hot, and I had packed his winter jammies which were far too warm. Anyway, the battle to get Daniel to sleep began. I read to him. I sang to him. I rocked him. I cuddled him. I unwrapped him. I rewrapped him. I left him alone. I patted him.  I even cursed at him. I covered his cot with a blanket to block out the light. I put an extra sheet underneath him to give him a barrier over the plastic mattress. And it wasn’t until three hours later, after they’d finally turned the lights out and the TV off that he finally started to settle down and go to sleep. It was such a nightmare and I don’t think I’ve ever been so exhausted. Having said that, I still had to eat and then get to sleep on a single, fold out bed under a really bright night-light. Again, experience is a blessing and I had prepared for this and bought my dinner at lunch time, and packed an eye mask and ear plugs. Still I was awoken frequently by the toddler in the other bed who cried off and on; the nurses who came in to examine Daniel; and by Daniel himself who has an obsession with shaking his head. He shook his head from about 4am onwards, and had the cot rattling the whole time.

The stay ended on a good note in that Dan had no problems overnight and we didn’t have to wait to see the doctor before being discharged. We were home by 8am.

I think we’re at a bit of a cross roads at the moment, and Richard and I can’t decide (or agree?) on whether we should be treating the boys like they’re babies or toddlers. I recently picked up a book (for free!) called Toddler Taming, which gives ideas for handling children between 12 months and 3 years old. It seems like a good book and the ideas seem good, but personally I don’t think the boys are advanced enough to respond to the techniques just yet. Richard, however, is keen to get the upper hand early before they develop too many bad habits which lead to bad behaviour. So who’s right? I don’t know. I can certainly see both sides and maybe I’m too much of a softie. I guess we’ll just have to figure it out. To tell the truth, I’m a little bit worried that Richard is going to be in for a big shock. If he’s worried about their behaviour now, I’m not sure how he’s going to react when the big trouble starts.

Yesterday we had two appointments at the hospital. Firstly, we saw the speech therapist for a follow up appointment to see if Daniel’s lumpy food consumption had improved. Well, it had. The doctor was very impressed with his progress and said that we could start giving him bigger lumps and also allow him to feed himself entire biscuits/cruskitts instead of breaking them into smaller pieces. We will just have to monitor him (and Lachlan) closely to ensure that they don’t overstuff their mouths or bite off more than they can chew. In a few weeks we can also start giving him small pieces of meat to eat. I’m quite excited by this outcome, but I’m also a bit nervous as to how he’s going to handle the next step. Hopefully, there’ll be more steps forwards than back from now on. Anyway, the doctor was so impressed that she doesn’t think she needs to see him again unless another problem arises.

The second appointment we had was with our new paediatrician. This meeting was a bit more chaotic because the boys were quite tired by this point and were getting very restless. Consequently, it was difficult to have a meaningful conversation with the doctor. However, we did manage to go through most of Daniel’s history and the problems that we’re focussing on at the moment. Specifically, we’re most worried about his physical development because he’s falling so far behind Lachlan. However, if I understood the doctor correctly, the gross motor skills (crawling, walking etc) are a pretty useless indicator for developmental problems and the fact that he is behind doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than he’s got a big head and weak body. Fine motor skills (hand control) and speech development are a little better at giving an indication and we’re not worried about his development in this area because he’s pretty much on a par with Lachlan. The doctor actually rated him at about 9 months for gross motor skills and at 10-12 months for the fine motor skills and speech development. (His age is about 11 months corrected.) So, basically, the doctor told us to keep our worrying to a minimum and that there are no signs that there are any developmental problems, though that doesn’t necessarily rule them out for either Daniel or Lachlan.

The Snot Family! Yes, we’re all sick at the moment and there’s copious amounts of snot involved. I started getting sick last Monday, then Richard picked it up and now both boys are snotty too. I’ve almost completely recovered, but Richard is still getting worse. He’s now on antibiotics. Hopefully, the boys will follow my example and get better quickly. At the moment, they’re snotty but they’re still eating, drinking and sleeping quite well, so there’s no need to worry about emergency departments just yet.

On a brighter note, Lachlan had his first shower last night. He’s getting really impatient with the bath recently and although he gets excited before the event, he pretty much doesn’t want to spend any time in it when the chance comes. So the last few times he’s left the bath quickly, I’ve put the shower on to see if that interested him. He’s been curious before, but last night he actually crawled in an sat himself underneath the water stream for ages. (Water restrictions be damned!) He was very cute sitting there like a little Buddha, hands upheld yoga style while the water washed over him.

As for the other stuff, Lachlan is still a pain in the arse to get to sleep, though he’s sleeping better once he’s there, and Daniel is still not crawling though his desire to seem to be increasing. We’re starting to suspect that Lachlan will be walking before Dan learns to crawl. He’s so passionate about climbing up on anything that he’ll even try to stand using overturned, and very unstable toys.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure to come home to this… It was truly delightful.

I’ve also uploaded some more photos to my album. You can see them here.

Oh, and I think I’ve found the problem with Lachlan’s settling. …Me. Apparently he slept like a king yesterday while I was away, but today he’s being a real handful and has hardly slept at all.

Hmmm… It’s been quite a while since I wrote anything, so I’ll write this just to say something.

Since I last posted, things have continued along pretty much unchanged. Daniel is still coping okay with finger foods, though I still haven’t found much time to cook him veges. Does that make me a bad mother? He has had a couple of vomies, but one I think was due to being overfed, rather than a swallowing issue. Sometimes it’s really hard to know how much he’s had to eat, and he’s started refusing to eat his mains even though he manages to find room for dessert. As a result, we kind of push him a bit on the mains when we should probably just let him go.

Similarly, we’re still having trouble with the unwrapped Lachlan. At the start we were still pinning his arms down to get him to go to sleep, but he very quickly started refusing that and wriggling out of the wrap as soon as he could. So we stopped doing that and started just leaving him to settle himself. This worked okay for a while, but the last few days have just been a nightmare. He refuses to lie down in his bed and cries and cries when you leave him alone to settle himself. Then when you go back into the room to help him, he starts laughing and thinks that it’s playtime. This behaviour then spirals further and further out of control as he becomes more and more overtired. Today his face is completely covered in scratches that he inflicted on himself when we were trying to ‘leave him to settle himself’ yesterday. In the end, Richard or I have had to cuddle him to sleep, or physically hold him down on the bed until he stops struggling. It doesn’t make me feel good about myself to have to do this, but I’m really hoping that he’ll learn to relax when it’s time to sleep.

Anyway, we’ve got a few more events coming up over the next couple of weeks, so I’ll have more posts to add soon.