I'm baaaack (again)

Life over the last year has been pretty fraught, but isn't it always? I feel like I just lurch from one crisis to the next. Not that these crises are always terrible, or necessarily negative at all, just times when life requires more than I thought I had to give.

There are tough times for a whole bunch of people - a dear friend had a rather serious breast cancer scare and another close friend's preschooler had open heart surgery and yet another one of my closest people has a horrible infection that is proving very difficult to treat. There are others having dramas in their personal relationships and tough times with their kids. I don't think I dwell on this stuff too much, but I'm conscious of all of it all the time, sending my love and good thoughts out to these people I love that are having difficult times.

I have also been the recipient of lots of love and good thoughts - as many people know Sanjay and I are in the process of divorcing. I'm not going to go into detail here and now, except to say it's been a long time coming, it hasn't been an easy decision for us to make and that our focus now is on the kids and making sure that we do what we have to do without too much negative impact on them.

This week I'm back at uni, which is great (structure to my weeks! learning is fun! closer to graduating!), but increases the stress level (assignments! classes, readings and self doubt!) and I received a challenge to write a bit more so I will be procrastiblogging a bit over the next few weeks. I want to write about nursing and bullying on prac, and how it relates to feminism and the performance of gender identity. I'm doing a mental health subject, one on the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, I had a crappy time on my last placement and I have just finished Clementine Ford's 'Fight Like A Girl' so it's all swishing together in my head in some pretty interesting ways.

More travel!

The whole family was SO excited! Thailand then Singapore! Seeing Clare! Then Tim and Jen in Singapore! Elephants! Legoland! Singapore zoo! We found a someone to house-sit, got packed up and went to the airport for our 9:40pm flight. We started the check in process only to find that the kids couldn't travel on their passports because they only had five-and-a-half months validity. Apparently they would have just flown us all straight home once we got to immigration in Thailand. Now it's one thing to have a 9 hour flight, 4 hour layover in the early hours of the morning in the KL budget terminal then another couple of hours on a plane before reaching one's holiday destination, it's a completely different kettle of fish to be sent back after that kind of ordeal. We called the passport office, we pleaded with the airline, we looked at Asher's face as his big eyes flilled with unshed tears. We then caught a taxi home. The passport office was monumentally unhelpful, telling me that the quickest they could guarantee a passport was a week away (her: "we can have it done quickly at extra charge, which will take you two days from the interview but the soonest I can book you an interview is Friday, so you will have the passports on Tuesday" me: "WHAT?!?")

After we accepted that we were not going to get on the flight (and I stopped arguing tearfully with the passport office at 8pm) our luck changed. The kind lady at the airport post office stayed open to take passport photos, and we got the passport forms, the kind Air Aisia supervisor told us we could change the flight to the next night for free, our house-sitter is the director at Kiran's preschool and she and I sat up til midnight filling in forms and using black humour to take the sting out of the situation. We didn't really tell anyone (except to let Aunty Clare know at the other end) because we were so unsure of what was going to happen next, and to be perfectly honest I was mortally embarrassed that I hadn't seen that one coming and organised around it. The next morning a lovely, lovely woman at the passport office took pity on us and we had the kids passports within five or so hours. We picked up the passports with luggage in tow and caught the train to the airport. The kind supervisor booked us in (no queue) and gave us express passes so there was/will be less queueing at every airport. Even the hotel was very accommodating and changeged our booking without charge.

So after what felt like two and a half days in transit we arrived in Chiang Mai and we are having a fabulous time. More to come about our great visit to Baanchang Elephant Park later....

When too much drama isn't enough.....

My poor baby lost one of his front teeth today! He went scooting with Sanj after our morning trip to the local cafe and Sanjay was at him to scoot rather than walk with the scooter. He was apparently going down a fairly gentle hill and braking really well when he took a tumble. His tooth came out, cleanly, there is a big gruesome gash on the inside of his top lip, a small graze on his forehead and the top lip is swollen, bruised and very slightly grazed. Sanjay called me straight away, before there was any clear idea of the damage (well, he'd picked up the surprisingly clean tooth from the pavement so he had *some* idea) and I was really glad that they were still with my family - my mother went into 'nurse mode' and calmed both Sanjay and I down considerably when she worked out that there was little likelihood of permanent damage. I'm really really glad the kid was wearing his helmet (or, as Asher calls it, his 'helment')

The bleeding had stopped by the time they got home (they were less than 10 minutes walk away). We gave him Panadol and got him to rinse his mouth with salty water a fair bit. This afternoon we called a family friend who happens to be a paediatric dentist. Apparently we did the right things - don't put baby teeth back in because it doesn't help, it can cause damage and there is a risk of infection. Check the gum for debris and if the tooth has been pushed up at all look for signs of broken bone in the top jaw (a line or ridge in the gum or something 'wrong' with the kids smile). Don't brush the area with toothpaste while it's tender just wipe the surrounding teeth with a cotton bud dipped in salty water. Then all you need to do is wait til the kid grows his or her adult teeth which happens, on average, at six-and-a-half. Meanwhile you have to look at you little one and their gappy face every single day and think about what you could have done to avoid the accident. At this stage poor Sanjay is beating himself up bigtime ('I knew he didn't sleep well last night and when he's tired he gets clumsy') and I am wondering if we should see a dentist before we go to Singapore (not sure why, just feels like we should get an official 'all clear').

It never rains but it pours, so the saying goes, and I've had enough of illness and injury around my kids!

The Emergency Department

The Emergency Department
Originally uploaded by karmakeda

This proves I'm a bad blogger - I had a whole week in hospital with The Little Kiran without updating here.

The short version is that I went to the GP because baby K wasn't breathing right and was coughing and seemed unwell. Since he's so little I took him to the doctor who said she thought it was probably bronchiolitis and that we should go to the emergency department because the baby probably needed oxygen and monitoring. We went, spent almost 24 hours there (check the photo - thiswas my chair in the ED. It unfolds to a squeeky, narrow, vinyl covered 'bed') and then we were admitted to the childrens ward.

Kiran was still in respiratory distress and needing a bit of oxygen and then, on Friday the swab results came back and it turned out that he had pertussis (whooping cough). The coughing fits started to get more outrageous as they entered the paroxysmal stage - he had an apnea after a coughing fit on Friday night, and another one on Saturday night. By Sunday he was kind of flat and waxy and I was pretty unhappy about his condition but there was no apnea. Monday night there was another apnea, and this time there was not much of a coughing fit beforehand and I kinda lost my cool about the whole situation. So of course, being a baby, he started to pick up on Tuesday and by Thursday he was a different baby and able to come home without me freaking out.

So I was cooped up in a hospital room with Kiran for over 8 days, leaving once a day for half an hour to head downstairs to get a coffee. My birthday was on the Friday and my family brought Pizzas. Sanjay spent his time looking after Asher, bringing food and clothing for me and trying to fit some work in around the edges. Our families were awsome and helped out wherever they could.

I might fill in some details later, but there was one funny moment: I was sitting in the ED breastfeeding and a nurse came over and was talking to me. After about half a minute she realised I was feeding and apologised profusely and closed the curtains. Um, lady, thanks but you were talking to me for half a minute before you realised, so I'm not being that indiscreet and I'm not fussed. Also, don't close the curtains because the nurses desk is my source of amusement here. It made me chuckle.

I processed my experience by taking photos and there are pics up on Flickr. Happily we are home now and getting healthier by the day. Kiran is a lovely baby, 7 weeks old tomorrow. He smiles and chuckles and gazes at me. He loves being carried in the Ergo and grizzles in the evening just like any other baby. We are so happy to be home, safe and healthy!

My Life in Point Form

So much going on and so little coherence here. I'm blaming the nasty cold Asher brought home from childcare for me, but really it's been going on a bit longer than that. In point form, but no particular order:

• My brother and his girlfriend moved to Singapore. Email contact has been sporadic (phone contact even more minimal) but from what I gather things are good so far. I'm looking forward to hearing more detail soon (hint hint! Tim, get yourself together and email me!)

• My dear friend E had her baby. A short labour, little girl, a month early and only 80g lighter than Asher was at birth. Mum and bub are doing fine, although the little one is taking a while to learn to suck.

• I'm feeling lot's of movement from my little passenger - s/he is even kicking strongly enough for Sanj to feel occasionally, which is nice. I'm starting to get all broody and nesty, which is kinda funny, because it still feels pretty early for that to kick in (21 weeks). The other day I was asking Sanj to help tidy and organise something-or-other and he was sighing and reluctant. I suddenl;y turned into a shrew with a "D'you think the last 20 weeks have gone quickly?" - err, yes - "well the next 20 are going to go AT THE SAME SPEED! SO WE HAVE TO START ORGANISING THINGS!" at which point we both dissolved into laughter. I know all we really need is a box of newborn nappies and to wash a few newborn outfits - nothing that can't be dealt with in the few days I'm in hospital - but the nesty feeling, it's overwhelming.

• I'm having a freak-out about having a newborn and a toddler/preschooler with no drivers license in winter. At the moment the wonderful Karen drives Asher and I around (or we catch public transport) but that'll be impossible with two. I'm having driving lessons, but I won't have my license by the time this baby arrives.

• Asher is being a delight. Today he went to sleep with his arm over my neck, holding my hand, all snuggled up. I've decided that 2.5 is an age of contrasts, because two weeks ago he was making me more angry than I've ever felt toward him, just with normal, defiant, toddler behaviour. His language is just lovely (when he's not whining) and he's funny and kind - I love the way he strokes my belly so softly and talks to the baby. He absolutely freaked me out when he fell off the bed, from standing, onto his back today though. I have a sneaking suspicioun he had a very very slight concussion or black out - after I'd scooped him up onto the bed he went a bit grey and his eyes rolled back in his head, but he started crying when I screamed out all panicked for Sanjay to come NOW! (Sanj slowly sauntered in, assuming there had been a potty accident). We watched him VERY closely for two hours and he's fine, but this was the closest I've come to taking him up to the local ER.

...and that's the short list. I promise to write a post that isn't in point form within the next week.

Wax, or The Scary Near-Drowning Incident

This is an incredibly tangential approach to the Unplug Your Kids Projects theme of the week - wax. I'm using the theme as a springboard for 'fessing up about something truly horrible that happened to us the other day in the hope of reminding everyone about the dangers of drowning! (and we were very Unplugged at the time, considering we were on the beach).

Last week at the beach Asher and his friends were getting water in their buckets and coming up and tipping it on the sand, and Asher kept going into the water a bit further in each time. He is usually pretty safe and I was up the top of the beach watching, knowing I really should take my sneakers off, roll up my jeans and head down to the edge of the water. I knew I needed to be close to him to remind him not to go deeper than his knees and to fish him out if he fell over but I really didn't want to get all sandy and wet. While I was working myself up to removing shoes I was standing watching Asher, and my friend were sitting on the warm sand suggesting that he would be fine and I just sit down. As I was watching though, he did go under, he was quite deep and he couldn't keep his head above the water. I RAN down there and waded right in and fished him out, scooping him up under his belly to help the water out of his lungs. He coughed and gurgled a bit and was a bit shaken, so I stood him on the edge of the sand and asked him to cough the water up and spit it out. I was shaking but being as outwardly calm as I could manage so as not to freak Asher out any further. Once we went up the beach he was quite content to sit on the sand playing while I chastised myself and then peeled most of my clothes off (thankfully the aforementioned friends were able to clothe me - M gave me her towel to wear around my waist and K took her singlet off for me).

I'm normally so hyper-vigilant about burns*, water and cars (being the things that are statistically most likely to do harm to my kid) and I feel so bad about it but I've certainly learned my lesson (lots of rescue remedy yesterday afternoon helped!). Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death in 0-4 age bracket in Australia, and I am SO glad I was watching him so carefully.

Now, what does this have to do with wax? I did tell you it was a tenuous connection didn't I? Well, after the event I sat down and decided to make a plan to ensure that nothing like this happened again. I started off by thinking about why I didn't just go down to the edge of the water and the excuses I came up with were pretty pathetic. I realised that if I had been wearing a skirt and thongs (flip-flops for the North Americans!) I wouldn't have hesitated. Why wasn't I wearing a skirt? I hadn't shaved my legs! (and I don't have many skirts). So I made a plan to get my legs waxed and shop for a few more skirts or dresses. The leg-wax part of the plan went ahead and the skirt buying part is still to come.


* my father is a paediatric surgeon and burns specialist and I've grown up with a lot of very scary stories about burns and scalds. I can't help having a high level of anxiety!

Time for a change....

Well, it's happened. Sanjay, along with about 30 of his colleagues, were made redundant late last week. It's a bit of a surprise but really couldn't have happened at a better time - I am working, our mortgage is manageable, I'm not pregnant* and Sanj has been talking about making a change sooner rather than later. Anyway, I've been thinking and I think that basically the pros and cons go like this:

• Pros: A severance package (!), it forces the change that he's been talking about and a 'career management' package from Hudson.
• Cons: Holy fuck, we have a kid and a mortgage and only one poorly-paying, part-time job between us.

So, on balance things should be fine, right? Please send any well-paying, Sydney-based wine education jobs with great companies this way...


*I'm not pregnant and I don't want to be. Don't get any ideas.

New photos

 
It used to be so easy to get photos of Asher, but at the moment he usually wants to play with the camera as soon as he sees it. That's why most photos I take of him at the moment are of him doing something - eating, playing with someone etc. Anyhow, it's not that I don't want to capture his extreme cuteness, just that it's a bit difficult to do it without a tantrum.

Speaking of tantrums, the other thing I do for tantrum avoidance is make sure he spends some time each day running around. I find that with a run around in the morning he sleeps better (we get 1.5 - 3 hours of nap time most days. He usually gets put in his cot awake, but sometimes he'll fall asleep in the buggy or the carseat and I'll transfer him. I'm going to DIE when he gives up his daytime sleep) and he is calmer in the afternoon. Usually we accomplish the run-around at the park, although with all the wet weather we've been having lately it's a bit more difficult. This morning we went up to St Thomas Rest Park playground (our usual hangout) and as Asher was climbing the steps on the play equipment he slipped on the wet metal and hit the ground. I didn't see it happen (embarrasingly I was just telling a friend that it was a bit wet for the park and she shouldn't bother coming along) but I saw him land on his side. It was pretty scary - he's fallen from adult chest or shoulder height - but fortunately he didn't hit anything on the way down and doesn't seem to be hurt at all. I was pretty freaked out, and after that and then having to brush a spider off him (it was in a curled leaf, but I HATE spiders) we left the park for the safety of a cafe and a large cup of coffee for me and a banana milkshake for him.

The worst part of parenting?

Nope, although the sleep deprivation was bad when Asher was still a baby it wasn't the worst bit for us. The lack of spontaneity in our lives now doesn't bother me at all and although we rarely go out to nice restaurants not having the money or opportunity isn't a real problem for us. Before Asher arrived I thought the gross bits of parenting would be just awful but I now just laugh when I realise I'm wiping snot off a little nose with my own clothing and even today's cheerful game of peek-a-boo around the toilet door whilst stuck on the loo with diarrhoea wasn't that bad. For me, the worst bits of parenting are the relentlessness and the not knowing whether you are doing the right thing.

The relentlessness is realising that this demanding 24x7 job is never going to end. Even when you aren't 'on duty' you are on call in case of emergency and even when your kids are adults you will still worry about them. I'm getting more and more used to this part, but it really hits home occasionally. Especially when people tell me they are going to be off work for a month, holidaying on an island for a week and then driving down the coast for a few weeks, stopping where and when they feel like it (er, have a great honeymoon Niki and Ryan!)

The not knowing is different. At this stage I'm not sure I'm ever going to come to grips with it. Apart from the physical evidence of Asher growing, learning and obviously thriving there are times, many of them, when I'm just so conflicted about what I should be doing. I remember my own parents always seeming to know exactly what was and wasn't allowed (and why), what the right thing to do in any circumstance was and also why (when that reason was 'because I said so' I still believed them). I now realise that a lot of it was bluff - it must have been!

The part of our lives that I'm most unsure about centres around food and eating. Sanjay, not normally one for stern pronouncements, stated that our child would not be a fussy eater. He started saying this well before I got pregnant with Asher and continued to proclaim it until about the time Asher started wanting to make his own choices around food, sometime before he was a year old. It turns out we have somewhat of a fussy eater, even considering the normally capricious nature of toddlers. Now, the unsure-ness plays into all this when I try to work out what I *should* be doing about it. Will he get scurvy if he has absolutely no fruit or vegetables besides sultanas for a month? Is the protein in cheese, yoghurt, Weetbix, butter and bread enough? Will he turn into a spoilt brat if I keep offering him things each dinnertime until he deigns to eat something? Will the impulse to give him a good shake be too strong if he screams like I'm forcing him to eat dishwasher powder when I put some in front of him for dinner that was a favourite yesterday? Should I let him go to bed with no dinner if he doesn't eat the first two or three things I put in front of him? Even if we gave in and decided he could live happily on nothing but Weetbix for breakfast, vegemite sandwiches for lunch and brie for dinner would he survive? Why is something that he can't get enough of one day imperiously rejected with no hope of him even tasting it the next? It's driving me crazy and I don't really know what to do about it.

At the moment he does eat Weetbix with milk and yoghurt for breakfast. He nibbles on vegemite sandwiches, sultanas and sometimes some crackers or a biscuit from about 10am until midday. He might have a cracker when he wakes up from his sleep but then from 3pm until dinnertime I don't let him have anything so he has some chance of being hungry for dinner (between 5pm and 6pm). For dinner, which is the problem meal, I usually offer him leftovers from our meal the night before or something from the freezer that he has liked in the past. Occasionally I am able to get a few kernels of sweetcorn into him and he'll often eat something involving rice (a month ago it was risotto, now that is considered poison and he'll eat dhal and rice). He generally won't eat finger food for dinner (er, unless it's toast) and anything green, such as a speck of parsley, will be either spat out if it's not rejected outright. We can't eat with him (we don't want to and it doesn't fit in with Sanjay getting home from work) and I do everything I can think of to make meals pleasant and stress free. I suspect that he'll continue to be healthy (perhaps he extracts nutrients from the air?) but the real problem is that it's driving me absolutely batshit crazy. I'm going to get my ever-patient and enthusiastic mother to feed Asher when we head up to Crowdy Head for Christmas. Until then I'll just try to rustle up some inner reserves of peace and zen-like calm in the face of the dinner-time tantrums - and getting a gin and tonic for me will have to be just part of getting Asher's meal ready.

Asher got his first proper injury yesterday! He slipped in the bath (I *knew* there was a reason we try to keep him seated in the bath) and got a rather large bump on his forehead. I was in the shower at the time, getting ready to go out for a drink with some of the Baby Club mothers and when I peered out to see if everything was ok I saw Asher in Sanjay's arms with a giant red bump growing on his head. Sanjay and I freaked out slightly, wondering if we had let our child get a head injury but after a bit of fretting, plenty of Rescue Remedy for all of us and the reassurance of mum who dropped in on her way home from work Asher was declared fine and I still got to go out.


But that slightly scary milestone isn't what today's post is actually about. What I wanted to post about was the sudden realisation I've had over why parents get so anxious about what, and how much, their babies eat.

I always secretly thought that parents who worry about that kind of thing, when their babies or toddlers are obviously thriving, were being a bit ridiculous. I've always believed that as long as parents provide a variety of nutritious food kids will eat when they are hungry, and if they aren't eating they are obviously not that hungry. But now, on days like yesterday, when Asher only picks at his dinner and eats nothing but air for lunch two days running, I get all nervous that he's not eating enough. This morning I spent his nap time preparing food that I thought would be particularly appealing and when lunchtime came (we were at the park with a friend) he wolfed down almost everything I offered and then proceeded to follow his little friend M around, taking his bread and picking up dropped banana and corn cakes.

So next time he throws all his usual favourite foods on the ground in disgust and complains loudly about being confined to his highchair I need to remember that he knows best in these situations. Next time someone tells me that they think he's "skinny" and "doesn't eat much" I have to not only tell them that he eats when he's hungry, but tell myself the same thing, over and over until I believe it.

Adventure!

It hasn't been particularly busy or strangely quiet around here (the two most common excuses for not posting) but I seem to have a chest infection and haven't been in the zone to write, which is a shame, because for the first time in ages I actually have something to write about that isn't really related to Asher.

I keep trying to write a nice linear story of what happened, but it's not working, so I'll start from the end. I finally got back into the house, from where I was stuck on the verandah, by asking a bloke who was doing some work in the garden to buzz my neighbour and then come up, into my home and remove the 'locking stick' that had locked me out and all it cost my was a cup of coffee and some chocolate biscuits. The gardener thought, for a split second, when he walked in and saw the door open a little, that something really weird was going on, but then I pointed to the stick and he worked it out. It wasn't a crazy lady trying to lure him into her home for nefarious purposes, it was a silly bird who had managed to close the sliding door behind her with the locking stick propped up so that the door was 'self-locking' when it closed.

Asher slep through the whole ordeal but woke up shortly afterwards and I didn't need to try breaking the laundry window, spidermaning* to my kitchen window or attempt climbing down from my second story verandah. Happy ending.


* is that the correct form of the verb 'to spiderman'???