babyblog

H's refusal to let me out of his sight - I can't get anything done!

Will I ever figure out Photoshop?

Weekending

On Friday we went to check out the Caledon Ski Club, a private club 15 mins up the road from us. Awesome. 23 runs, beautiful surroundings, trees, nice people, very well kept, the perfect resort (were it not eleventy million bucks to join). Thankfully it's open to the public 2 days a week so we are able to use it occasionally.

Irresponsible parents that we are, we took Dylan out of school for the afternoon to go skiing. We also left Harry FOR THE FIRST TIME with a friend. It shouldn't have been a big deal to me, I know, but I had never left him before! My friend, a former Nanny, is the most competent person I could possibly have left him with and I had no worries on that front... it was just that he wasn't with me! For several hours! Scary!

I overcame my anxiety enough to enjoy the afternoon thoroughly. It was the first time I'd been skiing in 2 years (last year I was pregnant) and after a wobbly start I was swooshing down the slope like a pro. Dylan had a shaky start and then refused to try again. I thought we were headed for a disaster but he did agree to have a private lesson if it was possible (teacher = better than mum's terrible attempts to help him while staying upright herself). Checking into it we were able to get him a half hour with a teacher and he was happy to do it - hurrah!

G and I watched in amazement as after only a few minutes he was skiing down the entire slope, turning, snow-ploughing (Pizza Wedge!), and going on the chair lift.

After we went back to pick up H we went out to dinner. My friend had noticed H's hearing difficulties and I noticed too that in a loud environment (restaurant) he doesn't seem to do well at all distinguishing sounds. When I got home I was very fretful about the hearing issue and G & I agreed to take him to see a Pediatrician the next morning....... one of the good things about this country is that you can go to walk-in clinics any time you like, and our local one has a Pediatrician available to see children. I wanted to get some reassurance and a 2nd opinion about his hearing... our family doctor is not the greatest on that front.

She gave him a thorough checking over and said that he clearly does have fluid in his left ear which is almost certainly causing his hearing loss. She was encouraged by the fact he'd had a hearing test in hospital after he was born which had a positive result so it was something that has happened since then, and said it should clear up but that we need to keep a careful eye on it and take him back in 3-4 weeks to see if it's cleared up. If not, request a referral to an ENT specialist and that they may consider grommets. Also bring him in at the first sign of fever incase it's another ear infection. She said he may be prone to them given that his mother had them as a child. We ought to consider the Prevnar Vaccine (dubious) too. I left without really any new news, but I did feel far more reassured that this was a temporary condition and that he'd been looked at far more carefully.

Sat night we played my new CSI Board Game with friends which was alot of fun. We had a late night so I was completely shattered when it came to getting up for Dylans ski lesson on Sunday morning (as was he) but we went anyway and he did incredibly well after his private lesson on Friday... he was by far the best in his group and was much more confident. It's amazing what they can learn in 30 mins in a one-on-one situation compared to a group class run by amateurs. I think I'll take him to Caledon again next week.

Yesterday we went to the mall with some other friends and got some great childrens clothes in the sale. Also did some crazy driving video game which involved sitting in a life size car which moved around simulating actual spinning and much to G's disgust, reversed into him thus ruining his chances at winning. :-P

Horrendous Obsessive Paranoia

As a parent I've discovered what the helpless worry and terror is like when concerned about my children. It's just dreadful to contemplate anything that could possibly be wrong with them, ever.

Anyway, I think I touched on this once a while ago, but I'm obsessively concerned about Autism. There are 3 kids on this street alone who were diagnosed with it. With there being some concern that it could have environmental causes I've obviously been worried, and being me, not just worried but totally fucking freaked out and paranoid about it.

Dylan, obviously, and thankfully, is fine. Harry is too small to know yet, so VERY STUPIDLY I have been watching for signs of it (even though it is too soon) and looking for things that aren't there and obsessively reading about it on the internet (BAD INTERNET) and working myself up into a ridiculous panic about it. I had sort of kept a lid on it until the other night when I visited with my friend up the road who is pregnant with #3 and also PARANOID about this.

Although I'd kept a lid on it I had decided that Harry isn't looking at me enough -AVOIDING EYE CONTACT He also WASNT ALWAYS RESPONDING when I talked to him. This week I've been driving myself mad talking to him constantly, worrying when he hasn't looked at me 24 x 7 and generally freaking myself out in a huge way.

Today I noticed him pulling at his ear so I decided to go to the Doc and while I was there bite the bullet and voice my concerns even if he was going to tell me I was being stupid. Well he told me immediately that I was being silly, that Harry exhibits no signs of Autism, beaming smiles he was giving the DR and being generally very alert.

What he does have, though, it seems, is a hearing issue. He isn't hearing very well out of one ear, and less than he should out of the other. DR thinks it was caused by an ear infection and that it should clear up of it's own sometime in the next few months.

ENORMOUS RELIEF.

FOLLOWED BY MORE WORRY.

I was plagued with ear nose & throat worries as a kid and had hearing loss as a result (which fixed itself). Hopefully my little boy isn't going to go through that, or have any permanent damage to his hearing.

I have noticed since being home that if I raise my voice he responds FAR MORE than he does otherwise.

Ironically today, I'd enrolled him in a baby sign language class.

I am so VERY thankful, though, that I'm not going through what our oldest family friends are going through right now. We grew up with the Stobbs family. Their eldest son was born 10 mins before me in the same hospital, and Robert is the same age as my sister. We went on summer holidays with them and I call his parents 'Auntie' and 'Uncle'. They are going through absolute hell right now and I hope they find the strength to get through this somehow.

How 6 'Pasta Nests' can 'Serve 4' ?

Brothers

Last One!

Quizzical Cuteness

Another gratuitous cute baby + bro shot.

Feet

This week Harry has found his feet and become totally obsessed with holding them at every opportunity. Very cute. Here's one of each boy.

Dog Update

Ruby is home and well. The Vet removed the giant piece of metal from her mouth and she was back to her usual self 3 hours later! Poor thing! Now I have the task of getting her to eat antibiotics twice a day. That makes 3 of us in the house now taking them!

Ruby

I hate going to the Vet.

Every time I go to the vet I come away feeling less than adequate as a dog parent. Like the time I took Molly in the UK and got yelled at for her vaccinations being late. Or the other time I took Molly and was yelled at because she was overweight and had a heart problem and IT WAS ALL MY FAULT.

Today was, of course, no exception.

I noticed last night that Ruby had a noticeably red and inflamed-looking paw. I tried to touch it and she flinched so I decided to take her to get it checked out.

The vet had her up on the examination table & looked thoroughly at it, and determined that it was simply DIRTY.

Half relieved, half embarassed, I asked her to give Ruby the annual once-over checkup and shots while we were there. She started to look into Ruby's mouth and was immediately concerned.

In there, she discovered a nasty black piece of wire which was completely covering one molar and was lodged IN HER JAW and her gums / jaw had GROWN AROUND IT. In otherwords, it'd been there for ages. Like a giant staple or something. Horrendous. Her tooth was all black around it and it looked extremely nasty. The vet was clearly horrified, was Ruby off her food? Was she in pain? Errr no, and no, and had I not noticed this?? (small voice) err no, sorry.

Ruby is now having an operation to remove it and I'm waiting for a call to see if she's OK.

Harry - 6 months

Dear Little Man

Today you are 6 months old. Half a year! As I type we are experiencing a serious blizzard outside and it's something like minus 32 degrees. And you wanted to be born here, are you nuts!

This last month started well with your first Christmas, which although you were a little too small to appreciate it, you did unwrap one or two things and youve certainly enjoyed playing with the various toys Santa brought you since. Your favourite thing to do is bounce in the doorway in your `Jolly Jumper`.

Youve also been experimenting with foods and are eating well. I finally got you to agree to drink from a bottle and you are having the odd bit of formula which you are fine with. How much longer we keep breastfeeding I do not know but you are definitely thriving!

You are still not rolling although yesterday you did manage to get onto your side attempting to grab a rattle. You can sit virtually unaided for a few seconds, and you babble incessantly! On Christmas Eve you said MAMA but you havent repeated it since.

Sleep wise you are still A BIT OF A NIGHTMARE YOUNG MAN (I say that sternly but lovingly!). You had a brief spell of waking only once during the night, but we are now back to 4 or 5 times. 4 OR 5 TIMES !!! I wish I knew why. I keep saying its to do with teething as you are frantically gnawing on your fists but there is no sign of those little pearly whites as yet. You seem to like your brave new world (as your dad calls it) of the new big crib and have gone to sleep watching your aquarium twice now, which is nice. Last night, however, at 5am you decided to wake up and would not go back to sleep and your kind daddy brought you downstairs to your swing to allow your sleep deprived mummy a few extra hours!

You have unfortunately been mostly housebound this last month. I hate not being able to take you for a walk every day, but it`s simply too cold. And we have all also been afflicted with some kind of lurgy that has meant we haven`t been anywhere else much either. I worry you are not being stimulated enough by your surroundings when you`re stuck here day in day out only seeing us, but Daddy says I`m being silly. Let`s look forward to better weather though!

Infected.

My face feels like someone took a hammer to it and smashed my cheekbones. I have antibiotics but so far not really much better. I AM SO TIRED OF BEING ILL. I haven't left the bloody house in days!

H was grumbly and snotty today, and seems to be developing a fever. SIGH. Just what we need, for him to get sick too.

Tonight we moved his crib into our room. Thus far he's been sleeping in his beautiful bassinet which I'm extremely loathe to see go, but he's just too big for it now. There's only a centimeter or so grace between him and either end, and any time he moves he makes contact with the sides. I may be wrong but I suspect it has something to do with his frequent (VERY FREQUENT) wakings during the night so it was time to put him in the big crib proper. I'm not prepared to spend half the night traipsing the hallway though, so I had G move the thing into our room until he's sleeping more.

He was so cute when I put him in, instead of looking like a giant baby in a tiny bed, he now looks like a tiny baby in a giant bed :-) Also he has his Fisher Price Aquarium going which he seems to love. I put him down, semi awake (and half cheating because he'd had 1ml of Infant Advil for fever), and after only a tiny bit of grumbling he went to sleep. Alone! By himself! Upstairs!

The Reg

Check it out - another story in The Register about the katie.com thing. They contacted me yesterday, I guess they'd been keeping their eye on the lawyer woman & decided to write about her.

The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith

Ow :(

It's very depressing to not have anything to write about other than being ill, but things seem to go from bad to worse. I've now developed a really painful sinus infection which makes my face feel as though I have the worst toothache ever, it's agony and utterly miserable. Also had a case of the raging shivvers again last night. I have a Doc's appt. this afternoon and I guess I'm going to need some antibiotics. Oh and on top of all that my milk has practically dried up due to illness. Great.

D has antibiotics after his visit to the DR yesterday. In true style he was also prescribed some narcotic cough medicine (!, I'll not be giving him that!) but he does have a chest infection which needs clearing up. He's still not back to school, I'm going to send him tomorrow though I think as he seems alot better now. G was not prescribed anything as the DR said his [freak] cough is not an infection. He got more Narcotic medicine though (I avoid that stuff, I had a half teaspoon of it the other night and hallucinated for hours!)

Arghhh I hate being ill. After over a week of this it feels like we will never get better.

In sickness and in........... more sickness

We're all still struggling with this flu / cold / virus / whatever it's called. Yesterday I felt a little better, today worse again. Woke up at 6am drenched through with sweat and had to change my clothes it was that bad.... horrid. I'm still clinging on to hope that H won't catch it.

G and D have appointments with the DR this morning about their coughs. Both of them have hacking coughs which seem resistant to cough syrup. G kept me awake half the night coughing (when he coughs he is a freak and sounds like he is throwing up!) and I could hear D coughing down the hallway too. Hopefully the Doc will give them some antibiotics to clear it up (assuming that antibiotics will have some effect).

Ski Sunday

Despite our general lack of wellbeing, I took Dylan for his first Ski lesson today. I've enrolled him in a programme which does an hour every week on a Sunday morning for the next 9 weeks or so. This was his first experience on Ski's. He did remarkably well, despite the utter crapness of the teacher! There were something like 12 kids in the class and they split them rather unevenly between 2 teachers.

Dylan was in the smaller group which I thought was good to begin with, but then realised quickly that it wasn't good. The other group had the kids going on 2 ski's and doing short runs downhill within the first 30 mins. Dylans teacher spent half her time looking around, the other half looking at her watch, and occasionally asking the kids to do things which not paying any attention. It wasn't until 45 mins into the lesson that she had them on both skis.

Eventually I, and the other parents who were all hanging around, ended up helping our kids out and teaching them ourselves, which seems pointless given we paid for these classes. I'm going to call and see if I can switch him to the other group.

All that aside, he loved it and we had a great time going downhill with me chasing him to catch him!

The Broker - John Grisham

And the Oscar goes to...

Much as I love my darling husband, when he is ill he is a disaster.

Nobody, and I repeat NOBODY could possibly be as sick as he is. Nobody feels as bad as he does. And lest we forget how bad he feels, cue moans, groans, sighs and sniffs every 30 seconds.

Poor D is just getting through this bug (which I've now decided must be the FLU) and quietly lay on the sofa for a week, not wanting to make a fuss, not wanting to be disturbed, not wanting any extra attention, just feeling dreadful poor lamb.

I now have it, was up for most of last night and the night before with chills, sweats, pains in my sinus's, milk leaking out of my boobs at every opportunity and not forgetting the 4 or 5 times H decided that he needed feeding as I sat there trying to comfort him while shivvering uncontrollably with my nose streaming.

G slept soundly thanks to some Tyenlol Night Time Flu remedy - which of course I cannot take because a) I'm breastfeeding and b) Allergic, anyway.

Of course I don't also get to sleep all day. I have to look after the kids. He's too sick to work so he has to sleep all day. How come we mothers never get the chance to do that? This morning I requested an extra hour or two in bed and was met with incredulous disapproval because 'IM NOT WELL'. Join the club buster!!

Men - Gotta love 'em despite all their crapness.

G's attempts to win the Oscar for 'The Worlds Most Sick Person and don't you forget it'

Losing his tooth, it's a big deal you know

He's never going to have that same smile again. His features have changed irrevocably. It's quite sad, in a way. Of course he's happy about it, but I can't help but be wistful for that little milk tooth smile that was.

Being exhausted while everyone is sick, and having to find extra energy (what extra energy?) to look after them

How long it will take me to input all of my books into a database

Digital Fortress - Dan Brown

Teeth

While H continues to struggle with the appearance of his first tooth, D lost his first one today! He's so thrilled (despite being poorly) to have lost his first baby tooth and can't wait for the 'Tooth Fairy' to come tonight.

Sickage Update

G is now puking too

Angels & Demons - Dan Brown

House of the SICK

D is sick - he has a fever and has been throwing up for the last 24 hours.
I feel crap - I feel sick, have a cough, very tired
G is coming down with the same thing.
H is reasonable, although still hasn't completely shaken off this ever lasting cold and is coughing on & off.

The only one well is the DOG.

Weird

I just watched some old video footage of Dylan when he was a baby and the two boys could be twins.

Also, my voice sounds WEIRD AND ENGLISH which means it's now WEIRD AND CANADIANISH (I know my Canuck friends will disagree but you should compare!).

Dylan was watching with me and said "Mom, you sound different. Actually you know what....you sound like Auntie Sally"!

It's getting a bit ridiculous

H is waking up eleventy times during the night. He'll go to bed, no problem. Then around 1am he's been waking up every ONE AND A HALF HOURS throughout the night :( I'm exhausted, running on nervous energy alone I think.

Yesterday I bought those new bottle nipples to try and had some success, he drank a bottle of breastmilk at lunchtime and a bottle of formula (4 oz) at tea time. I also gave him some potato+carrot concotion at tea time and a top up breastfeed at bedtime to make sure he was REALLY REALLY FULL thinking it'd maybe, just maybe, help him sleep. Yeah right. Not even a bit better. Just endless waking all night, nibbling to feed, crying if I don't feed him, going back to sleep, pooing himself, farting non stop, etc etc etc.

I NEED TO SLEEP!!!

Welcome to Ontario

Dylan's new hair cut - he is a cute shorn lamb

People who, for some peculiar reason, will not turn a corner in a line-up until they can get their car completely round. YOURE HOLDING UP TRAFFIC PEOPLE.

The Other Woman - Joy Fielding

Can't stop thinking about

Nestle white chocolate.

Preferably in enormous quantities.

Goodbye Christmas, for another year

Got to take down the Christmas decorations today (12th night and all). If I only had the energy! Harry allowed me around 3 hours sleep last night and I'm totally exhausted.

I always hate how plain and drab the house feels after the tree and lights are gone.

Today I also have to return one of these LCD Monitors which has gone fuzzy.

And take a shower which I've so far managed to fail at.

Why do all these small tasks seem monumental when you're knackered?

Lost - Joy Fielding

Today I am mostly thinking about

Ice Cream
Pie
and a giant white hot chocolate with whipped cream on top

The fantasy in my head

I'm not dieting in any specific way. I want to cut out sugar, high fat foods, and reduce my portion sizes. Started today. So far I have obsessed in detail about

Cinnabons
Chocolate
Ice-Cream
Cinnabons
Digestive Biscuits
Cinnabons
Dylans Chocolate Advent Calendar (still has chocolate in)
Cinnabons

This does not bode well but does follow the usual pattern of when I begin a diet..... I cannot think about anything other than that which I'm depriving myself of!

When my hairdresser tells me I won't like a certain colour and should have the one she suggests. I believe her, then regret it.

Can I stop eating sugar for a couple of months?

Sleeping, at least I think I do, it's hard to remember

Deception Point - Dan Brown

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

Endlessly Ill

We've all had a nasty cold / virus for weeks now. Poor Harry is in the grip of yet another attack of the fevers and coughing / sniffles. I feel like crap. G can't breathe through his nose for snot. D's the only one in reasonable form right now. Dunno what is going on, whether it is the same bug or lots of different ones in succession but it's getting me down a little!

Last night was kind of ridiculous. I decided to try H in his own room for the first time. Put him to bed and he went to sleep without a problem. G & I were exhausted after New Year's late night so went to bed at the same time - 8pm. G fell asleep and I dosed off fairly quickly too, only to wake up 10 mins later with racing heart wondering what I'd heard on the baby monitor. Of course, nothing, but then I could not go back to sleep for listening for H and wanting to know if he was OK. Finally he woke at 10.30pm so I went to fetch him back into our room so that I could get some rest. Of course, he then didn't go back to sleep until 1 AM because he was feeling crappy and miserable. After trying everything we could, G finally took him downstairs to the swing and crashed on the sofa beside him. The rocking movement helped H with his tummy ache and sniffles and he dosed off too. I managed to dose off, finally. 4am, G brought him back upstairs to bed where he slept for another half an hour before waking and not wanting to go back to sleep again. Sigh. So I think I've had a total of about 5 hrs in the last 3 nights combined and I'm feeling very exhausted indeed to the point of dizziness and think it's about time i stopped rambling and went to bed seeing as its 11 and i am wasting valuable zzzz time.

Happy New Year

I've somehow managed to neglect the old blogster over the Christmas period so a belated Merry Christmas to all, and wishing you all the best for 2005.

2004 was, all in all, a pretty good year :-) My best yet in Canada.

Spent half of it pregnant and the other half delighting in being a family of 4. Made lots of lovely new friends.
Went home and saw the family.
Made up with my mother.
Missed my sisters wedding but gained a new 2nd cousin once removed (or whatever you call your cousins baby!).
UKChat prospered after a shaky start.
The whole katie.com book debacle went a token way towards being resolved.

All in all, not bad, not bad at all.

May 2005 be equally good if not better again!

New Years Resolutions:

Lose Weight (predictable but necessary)
Be a good parent and a good wife.
Be a good person.
Stop spunking money like it's going out of fashion.
Go to the UK again.
Stop with the Zoloft already.