Team Newman / Ferme

We went to another physio appointment today to get some professional advice on Daniel’s development. Unfortunately, Dan cried pretty much the whole time so the physio didn’t get to do much of an assessment. However, based on the information we provided she’s keen for him to get more specialist exercises to help him. This means that in a few weeks we’ll start a weekly physio session at the hospital with a student physio. I’m really glad that she’s offered a more regular arrangement, because I find it very difficult to focus a lot on Daniel here at home as every time I do Lachlan bulldozes in to join the fun!x

To summarise her comments though, at the moment he’s very keen to stand a lot of the time and he loves to bounce, especially in front of the mirror. Apparently that’s not good for him though, so we have to stop him doing that and start trying to get him to kneel a lot more and to do more side-sitting. If he gets more comfortable on his knees and side-sitting then he’ll be able to move from sitting to lying and from kneeling to standing. After that, mobility might not be too far away. Finger’s crossed.

As for me, I’m also still seeing the physio once a week for my wrist. It’s slowly getting better, but still gets quite sore at times. Like last night when I jarred it at 4:00am trying to get Dan to calm down. No such luck of course – he spent the rest of the night in our bed.

Oh, and Dan is definitely teething. He’s got at least three molars coming through! The other night, he was so upset at bedtime that he vomited up his dinner – all over me again – and refused to sleep in his bed. He went to sleep in my lap, but woke again when we put him to bed. He then spent the entire night in our bed, while I spent half the night sleeping on their floor!

It’s funny – the two things I was really paranoid about when we were thinking of having kids was the loss of sleep and vomiting. I’ve had a hard year.

After several nights of little sleep and so much frustration, it seems we’ve buggered up. We thought Dan had suddenly developed a sleeping problem and we were tearing our hair out trying to figure out why and what the solution was. Now we’ve discovered another tooth coming through. I was so positive that he wasn’t due to teeth again for ages that we didn’t even bother to look. The silly boy may be well below average in his physical development, but he’s well above average in the teething stakes!

He’s getting stronger and stronger too, but we’re still not expecting him to get mobile any time soon. He does manage to move around a little on his play-mat, but he does it through rolling and wriggling and only lifts his head if he absolutely has to. He has started wriggling around while sitting too, so we wouldn’t be surprised if he turned into a bum-shuffler.

Lachlan is going forward in leaps and bounds and has been spotted standing unaided for a number of seconds. He won’t do it when we want him to, but if he’s playing he might forget to hold on for a while. He’s also started pushing around a walker and is a bit unsteady, but we’re not worried about him hurting himself. He’s actually become quite a confident faller, and hardly ever hits his head.

At the moment, we’re eagerly awaiting our first words though we wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been making meaningful sounds for a little while. We have noticed that the mum-mum-mums seem to occur more often when I’m around and the da-da-das more often when Richard is there. The other day we were blowing bubbles for them and it seemed the ba-ba-bas came out an awful lot. Almost too much for it to be a coincidence. Daniel has developed a very cute habit of saying ‘mum’ quite distinctly and precisely when he’s eating some yummy food – like yoghurt or custard. It’s certainly a sign of approval, but I’m not sure it would qualify as a real word.

Their favourite toys at the moment are definitely books. While they still love to be told a story, right now they both want to be in control of the book and will sit for ages by themselves just turning through the pages. Lachlan has become quite adept at flicking paper pages (as opposed to board books with cardboard pages) with his thumb.

Over the last few days we’ve really suffered the best and the worst of it. The boys’ sleeping deteriorated late last week, and we found we were spending hours trying to get them to sleep, and then we’d be up for hours overnight trying to get them to go back to sleep. It was a nightmare. I’m not sure it’s over either, but thankfully, last night they slept through and Richard and I only had to settle them twice – Lachlan at 5:15am (dummy replacement) and then Daniel at 5:45am (cold hands). We then had to wake them at 7, which is the longest sleep in I’ve had for a year!

However, there have been a couple of absolutely wonderful moments during that time. One morning (I can’t remember which) Dan woke before Lachlan and Richard brought him into bed with us. I grabbed him to give him a cuddle and he rolled towards me, grabbed my face and buried his head in my neck. He just snuggled in there for about 15 – 20 minutes with the occasional sweet babble to let me know he was okay. It’s the first really long cuddle that he’s given me – at least when he’s not sick.

Then the next day, after a particularly difficult night, they were both awake at 5:45am. Richard brought them both into our bed and I ended up holding Lachlan. Usually when they come into our bed it’s play time, but they were both so tired they just passed out. I ended up with Lachlan sleeping on his tummy over my shoulder, with his arm thrown over my chest for about an hour and a half. Then when we decided we had to wake him at about 7:30, he refused to wake up. I have never seen him so tired. Richard ended up tickling him and he just giggled in his sleep. It was lovely.

Hopefully the good sleep last night is a sign of things to come. I think I’ve said before that Lachlan seems to be sleeping a lot better now that we no longer wrap him and Daniel seems to be the bigger problem these days. Richard and I have both suspected that he’s been getting uncomfortable (and hot) in the wrap and that’s why he’s been waking up at night. Well, the other day, I decided to try putting Dan in a sleeping bag instead of wrapping him, and it seems to have worked. He can still put himself to sleep (sometimes) and he doesn’t wake up too often worrying about his hands. I think we’ve chosen a better time to start with Daniel too, because he’s not rolling too much and isn’t standing up. Unlike Lachlan. However, we now have to solve the problem of him pulling his nose prongs out and leaving the cable wrapped around his neck.

I’m really stumped. I just don’t know what’s going on. Daniel seems to have forgotton how to sleep and it’s driving me insane. Sometimes he’s fine, but for the last week or so he’s woken up at 1, 2 or 3 in the morning and then it’s taken hours to get him to go back to sleep. This morning I’ve been up since 3 and he’s only just gone back to sleep. It’s 6am, and I’m just about to leave for work. I don’t know how I’m going to function, but I only work 3 days a week, so I can’t afford to take time off.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded some more pickies and videos. Here’s a sample…

It’s official. The results are in. Dan has a big head. Yep, that’s the information that we got from the MRI. Was it worth it? I guess. At least we know that he doesn’t have any other abnormalities. The registrar I spoke to said it was just something that is going to have to be monitored in the long term, which we already knew.

But there’s more. I have a disease! I have de Quervain’s Disease, though it sounds more dramatic than it really is. Basically I have had a sore wrist for a few months and I finally got round to seeing a physio about it, and the problem has a name. Apparently, it has been associated with new mothers, which doesn’t surprise me. Here’s a wikipedia link… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeQuervain’s_syndrome.

I can’t believe it. Daniel’s internal clock must be completely out of whack – maybe because he fasted for about 10 hours on Wednesday. Anyway, this time we were quicker on our feet, and managed to catch the poo in the potty, rather than the bath. So I guess that’s another first – and he’s ahead of Lachlan on potty training now!

Another first. Daniel dropped a huge turd in the bath last night. Blurgh.