Truth on Motherhood

I am surrounded by toys, dirty bottles, and the lounge cushions arranged into a tunnel. I am tired, un-showered, and cranky. Tinysaur was awake nearly all night (4th night in a row) and I am utterly exhausted. Utterly. Exhausted.

Tinysaur just having surrendered to the nasty enemy of sleep (according to her) I turned the TV on. And boy am I glad I did. Over here in Australia, Oprah's episode of the Truth on Motherhood was airing. Oh Wow. Today I felt so alone - my house looks like a bomb has hit it, I haven't washed my hair in 3 days, I haven't slept for longer than 4 hours in the last 4 nights, I let Tinysaur cry it out in the cot last night while I cried in my bed, and I haven't shaved my legs or even looked my best in months.

And now I don't feel so alone.

Because Tinysaur's lump hasn't gone down at all (we're 6 days into her second course of antibiotics) I have to go up to the hospital tomorrow and speak to a surgeon about surgically removing the lump which has now turned into a stone. Please pray for us - I want this all to be over soon, and I want my happy cheerful little baby girl back.

Update on Tinysaur

The lump is still in her chin - red hot and tender, but the swelling has gone down. I am thinking I might take her back to the doctor tomorrow just to get them to check it out, she has finished her course of antibiotics. It worries me, and while it doesn't overly bother her, if she knocks or bumps it she does seem to react a lot more than to other knocks and bumps.

And now - I'll bore you with updates of my little ratbag...

Temper Tantrums: yup, she is no longer giving things to me when I say "TA" and hold out my hand - she grabs onto it really tight and screams when I take it off her... Tricky times!

Powerpoints: my little sweetie has found out that if she flicks the powerpoint in the hall on and off her Mum will come barrelling around the corner to see what she's doing. I haven't found a way to stop her yet - it has a cover on it, but I am uncomfortable with her flicking it on and off. I tell her No and place her away from it and distract her with toys, but no results have come from that yet...

Dinnertime: Tinysaur is still a massive fan of cheese, although she doens't like custard or yoghurt much anymore. LOVES spinach and broccoli and beans (seems to really like green foods at the moment - when she was little she liked all the orange veges [pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot]). Really likes spag bol with macaroni instead of spaghetti - but the tomato sauce has stained most of her clothes orange... I have tried soaking them, but it doesn't bring out the colour very well.

Sleeptime: seems to be cutting back to 1 nap per day - doesn't really want milk unless she has just got up from a nap - prefers water to go to bed and with her food. Sleeping through the night pretty much every night (has the odd night out every now and then)

Christmas: after all my worries of her pulling the tree over on herself, she has not once pulled on a branch or even worried about the tinsel or chrismtas lights. (although she did eat tinsel initially) She does have a thing for baubles though... And she LOVED driving around looking at the christmas lights the other night - although our town sucks for christmas lights at the moment, there are hardly any around - there were TONS last year.

And that's us up til now!!

I'm back!

It is lovely to see you again. I have been absent the last month or so, because unfortunately we lost our little baby. Our little one stopped growing at about 6 weeks but we did not find out until about 8 weeks when I had some bleeding. I didn't then lose the baby until 9 weeks. It was a very rough time for us.

We had a lot of support from everyone imaginable and I am happy to say I am feeling ok. Olliesaur has really cheered me up through this horrible horrible time and he has been amazingly well behaved. Daddysaur and I are trying again now.

Olliesaur is doing very well and is just learning so so so much!! His new words since I last posted, are train, nappy, fish, Ivy, Ruby (booby!), bubbles, mummy and daddy. He previously only referred to us as mama and dada. He also knows the majority of his body parts now including bellybutton, bum-bum and tickly toes.

We are all ready for Christmas. Olliesaur is definitely more aware this year than in previous years. He has broken 5 baubles on our tree already and keeps trying to pull the tinsel down. He has not yet tried to touch the presents which is strange. I love it when the house is decorated!!

I promise to get back into the swing of blogging now!

Tinysaur sick again

My poor little Tinysaur seems to be sick so often - any Mum out there will know how hard it is when your bub's sick. I think the hardest part is that they can't tell you what they want, or where it hurts, or what makes them feel better.

Last Wednesday I picked Tinysaur up from her carer around lunchtime. She was rather grizzly (but then again, had been for the past week), and her left cheek was bright red. Presuming she was teething, I took her home, gave her Panadol and Bonjela and tried to soothe her. After struggling all afternoon to get her to have an afternoon nap, she finally fell asleep - hot, bothered and overtired at 10pm.

The next morning when she woke up she was NOT in a good mood - crying, clingy, grizzly - you name it!! I gave her some more Panadol, and decided to try to stay at home all day to give her time to relax. It was a good plan, until after her midday nap when I noticed the left side of her face was horribly swollen and had a hot lump in the middle of the swelling. I rang Daddysaur and he came home. We decided we would take her to the doctors that afternoon - so I rang up and booked the next available appointment at 4pm.

We waited agonisingly until 4pm - monitoring the lump, checking it's size. The doctor's surgery wasn't very busy so we went in with only a short wait in the waiting room. It seems my little Tinysaur has an infection in the glands in her neck - but the doctor was uncomfortable sending her home when the swelling was continuing and it could impede her breathing. So we got a Referral onto Accident and Emergency. So off we went.

Accident and Emergency were in peak-hour mode - shift changes, influx of half-dying people, etc but we were shown in to the triage nurse immediately. After taking down the details of the past few days, and checking out the lump she got a doctor in straight away. He wasn't concerned about the location of the lump, and suggested we go home with the Amoxycillin which he prescribed and wait it out.

That was nearly a week ago now. We've been back up to the hospital once since when I thought she was choking in her sleep, but they do not seem to be too concerned about it. The swelling has gone down substantially - but the hard hot lump is still there, despite the course of antibiotics Tinysaur is currently on. Tinysaur has also been on Panadol every day...

If the lump is still there tomorrow (exactly a week since it first arrived) I will re-book a consult with the doctor. The possibility is that the infected gunk won't come out by itself so it might need to be drained, or the first doctor we saw did say it could be some kind of genetic disease where the glands have problems. (?) I can't remember exactly what he called it, but because he was pretty sure it wasn't that he didn't touch to much on it.

Here's hoping it's gone by this week!

Tinysaur's Christmas Tree

Two days ago, my little angel helped me put up her first Christmas tree ever. How exciting it was!! Although she did want to grab all the branches off me, and chewed on half of the little decorations, we had a great time. After carefully arranging all the decorations (I usually just chuck them on every which where, but was DETERMINED to have it perfect this year..) I switched on the Christmas Lights and we both just stared.. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

That night, all Tinysaur wanted to do was to stare at the lights until she fell asleep... under the Christmas tree. I would have got a picture, but my camera batteries are flat. Kicking myself!

As for development, Tinysaur took a few steps by herself from me to Daddysaur this week - a

bit wobbly, but we continue practising. She is pulling herself up on all the furniture, running amuck, and has discovered a love for cheese. To the point where when she hears the fridge open, she quickly crawls around and sits down on the tiles in front of the door waiting for some cheese. I have to start rationing the cheese out...

And then - in just over a month we will be celebrating Tinysaur's first birthday! How time does fly!!

EDIT: I guess tinysaur must have swallowed some tinsel, cos when I changed her nappy this morning, there was tinsel in her poo.... Anyone else had experiences with children swallowing tinsel? from what I've googled today, it's not dangerous - just a potential choking hazard...