The never ending trying to get her to sleep routine

It's ever on going, just when you think you have an nicely established nap time and bedtime, it changes, or the nap disappears, or  she's yawning and rubbing her eyes but two hours later she's still awake and bouncing in the crib.....

It's challenging.

It doesn't help that we're teething long haul style. The canines are taking their own sweet time to come through so we have lots of spiking mild fevers and general crankiness. But apart from the first week of this bout of teething once she's asleep she's asleep.

In the meantime, we went to the Zoo, where babykins got to go play with the very docile goats in the petting area. She loved it so much it was hard to get her to leave. The zoo also proved she has FMS.

FMS - Fear of Missing Something

This does mean -
If anyone is visiting you can forget the nap, unless she's down before they get here.
ditto for bedtime
If going out around nap time, you can hope she'll fall asleep in the car.......but don't expect it every time.

I know she's curious and she loves visitors, she loves exploring things and discovering new things. She talks a mile a minute, but it's difficult so hear the words sometimes, and other times she'll astound you.....Hi Uncle Richard....clear as a bell. We've been practising Animal sounds, If you ask her she'll tell you the noise they make including by name for Mitzi and Angus, and fish go beep beep beep apparently.

All fun on the never ending Adventures of Babykins.......

ack

I'm so bad at this blogging thing, i never remember to come here and post the important stuff, i really should set aside a day each week to blog and update the world on the adventures of babykins.

Well we reached the 18 month mark with very little trouble, for babykins, she's had a few growth spurts and is now in the 90th percentile for her height and the 50th for weight, so long and skinny, she's turning into a mini me, i was tall and skinny until i hit about 15 and everyone else grew up and overtook me....lol

apart from that, we've just started the potty training, we're climbing everything, feeding ourself except when we're tired, talking up a storm, though she's fast like her daddy so sometimes it's beyond recognition, we're doing the actions to the songs we like....it goes on.

Christmas saw her first trip on an airplane, 7 hours and over the ocean, her first use of her passport (the guy at the other end was all ooo first time, must make sure the stamp is nice and clear then) meeting her cousins and auntie for the first time, and her great grandad. She had a busy busy time.

April was a little crazy because Xero ended up in hospital with cellulitis for a week and had surgery, many weeks of packing and dressing the wound followed and then in the last week he managed to fall and give himself a nasty sprained ankle. Babykins thought the crutches were awesome......

May has so far seen a visit from nanny, which babykins has been loving, she adores her nanny and she's also had a visit from grandma and Pop, whose new house will be ready next month and they'll be nice and close, so Babykins will get nice grandparents time.

the wee small hours

2.26 to be exact right now.

I went to bed at 11, and was finally getting to that falling asleep part when someone else woke up......

so guess who's been up ever since


Babykins has

we finally gave up on the getting back to sleep when she managed to wake daddy as well, so now we're downstairs and she's happily watching the goodnight show while i try to stay awake.

This has unfortunately become a rather regular occurance, second time in three nights, i think she missed the memo that you're supposed to sleep when it's dark outside. it doesn't help that she has another top tooth coming in and that today was the second dose of her flu jab, but she's all dosed up on baby tylenol and bonjela and still doesn't want to sleep. I really don't get the pattern either, it's not like she went down at 6 which we noticed a while ago if she went to bed really early you can guarentee a middle of the night session. She went to bed around 8 her normal time and for some reason decided after 4 hours that it was time to get up.

You'd think that the fact that she's walking and has pretty good balance, is trying to climb everything she possibly can and is into everything would wear her out more but that doesn't seem to be the case.we're lucky if a nap lasts more than 45 mins and theres only ever one these days (not three like her cousin) She's constantly on the move and doing everything so why is she not sleeping the sleep of the tired from a day of fun baby.

and now the cat is trying to claim my lap

til the next middle of the night adventure

It's all go

It is.

Here in the Babykins Household, everything is constantly changing. Our nap pattern has changed, we want to be on our feet all the time, we've left bottles behind and are now firmly using our sippy cups, we're talking lots and lots and theres this stubborn little look appearing when you say....no.

For Babykins, it's a never ending adventure of discovery. For mummy and daddy it feels like never ending exhaustion.

She loves music. The one thing guarenteed to grab her attention is any kind of music on the TV. She adores the Wiggles, and her very favourite song (yes she has a favourite already) is Rock-a-bye your Bear. In her quest to be ever on her feet, we're falling over a lot. Most of the time she'll just get right back up like nothing happened but ocassionally we need cuddles and sometimes for a big bump we need you tube and the ready video's of the Wiggles to calm the frustration.

She's also loving going to the tot lot and playing in the swing, I've always loved the swing so it's nice to see that she loves it too. She likes the slides as well as long as someones holding her, she's facinated by things that are going on and has to see everything when we're out. She's now a big girl who can sit in a highchair when we go out for meals and have some bits of finger food while we're eating. She loves sitting in the shopping trolley when we go to get things, and right now she has a thing about straws...she likes to play with straws while we're walking around. It's quite funny.

She also knows what she likes. She picked out her new pair of Pj's and held them while we shopped.

The best thing lately.......she's giving kisses on a more regular basis and she likes to cuddle when she's watching TV sometimes...

I love those cuddles.

One of those weekends......

so we knew I was having problems with the gall bladder after a trip to ER during one of my late night attacks at the begining of the month. I had these pains for at least half of the pregnancy, sometimes a week would pass without any othertimes 3 out of 4 nights I'd be up wincing with pain - put down by my OB as everything is getting squished up and protesting don't worry about it. the last attack had been just after babykins had been born while everything was still shifting back and then nothing......

til the week before July 4th when I had a late night attack that lasted hours and nothing worked, not the painkillers or anything else.....next time it happens said I we'll book an appointment and see the doc.....

3am on the morning of the 5th found Xero rousing babykins from her sleep to put her in the car and drive me to someone, none of the local emergency walk in places were open so off to the ER we went. A few hours and some morphine later the bloods came back indicating gall bladder and a small scan confirmed it. Saw our Docs office that afternoon and booked in to see a surgeon the following monday. That weekend was sore but the pain meds they'd perscribed were keeping things at bay enough for me to keep going. Saw the Surgeon who wanted a proper scan done just to document things since they couldn't get any details from the ER but since he was 99.9% sure he also went ahead and got us to schedule the removal of said gall bladder. Had the scan Wednesday and was very very achy afterwards, pain continued at achy but manageable until friday lunchtime when it got excruciating.....a bout of vomiting later and we were back in the car on our way to ER, So much pain I know I nearly passed out a few times. Bloods, meds, another Scan, said I'd developed Pancreatitis as well and they wanted me admitted, got transfered tothe hospital our surgeon works out of since he was already on the case and after quite some chasing up the on call doc actually perscribed more than one dose of painkillers to last through the night. IV hooked back up and Xero took babykins home, she'd been an absolute trooper and his Aunts arrived to stay the night with me because he didn't want to leave me on my own.

Saturday started with a visit from my surgeon......who explained what was going on, but couldn't figure out why the ER had told him one thing and me another (that there was a visible gallstone in my pancreas - the scans they sent over didn't show this) so we had xrays and an MRI to take a closer look, the Gastro-enterologists nurse practicioner came that evening and talked to me about what they didn't find and the possibility of them scoping me and was very nice. Next morning my Doc was back to explain that although nothing obvious showed in the MRI my blood levels were still all over the shop and he suspected that there might be something in there they couldn't see so they had decided to scope to make sure. Sunday was fairly quiet, I'd spiked a fever the night before and the pain had been lessening since then - did i pass a stone perhaps...we'll never know, but they did let me have a liquid diet for the day and Jello has never tasted so good.

Monday I got scoped, luckily they knock you out completely because I'm not sure I could cope with a tube down while still awake. I wasn't out long, they found nothing there, so the all clear was given for the already Scheduled surgery on tuesday. Tuesday I had surgery, Laproscopically done so I have 4 fairly tiny scars on my belly, surgery went well they tell me, i was out quicker than estimated and back to my room to continue recovery in just a few hours. I did feel sick after so had some meds for that which meant I had to eat and not be nauseous for a few hours before they'd let me go home. We finally got home at nearly half 8 last night to a very tired babykins who was still very stressed by all the crazy goings on. Grandma had driven down from Ohio on saturday so she could take care of babykins and she's been a real help in keeping her in a routine and in her familiar place with her toys and everything and bringing her to the hospital to see me as well. I know it's been hard on poor babykins to suddenly not have the one person who is always here, there.

So today has been challenging, I can't lift or carry or even pick babykins up because she's too heavy with just having had the surgery. the scars are in places that if she gets fussy with her feed she can really hurt me with a well place elbow or knee, she's been quite happy to have me home I know that but i feel like theres not much i can do with her, even though i know i need to recover and heal up myself.

On a positive note My Dad has finally been given the all clear to fly and is coming out with mum on Friday to take over babykins wrangling and sick cattiekins nursing from grandma. We're excited about this because although he's talked to Babykins on the phone and over the Skype video, they have yet to meet in person. I know he's been itching to get here for cuddles and to meet his youngest granddaughter properly.

Now i really should go take some meds and then go to bed once they kick in......

goodnight blog

time flys......

.....and remembering to blog is something thats not ingrained into my system yet, that and the last few months have been a whirlwind of events and stuff.

We had babykins baptism, she wore the replica of L's grandmothers robe and it was a hot May sunday. There were lots of family there to see it along with her godparents, her Aunt Kristen, Uncle Richard and our dear friend Anne. My great Aunt flew up from Florida to spend a few days with us for it, and my uncle and cousin flew down from Canada to do the same. It was a really nice ceremony, she behaved so well during the whole thing, smiling and gurgling.....no tears until afterwards when she was starting to get a bit hungry.

Babykins and her godparents

Nanny then stayed with us an extra couple of weeks to spend some time with babykins, grandad is yet to make it over the big pond to see her because of ongoing tests, something we hope will be over and sorted very soon. During this time babykins started talking.....firstly it was baba the day before everyone flew in, followed soon by dada which remains her favourite. before nanny flew home we'd also had a mama and nana though these are still scarce - it's like the baby in Dinosaurs she knows you want her to say it so she won't say it. She also started soldier crawling, but of course has decided that rolling is faster and now rolls everywhere and anywhere rather than crawling. We've started sitting up on our own and can nearly get ourselves from our tummy to sitting without help, we also like standing and taking the weight on our legs and can stand holding onto something.

June was also a busy month as well as a hot one. We had her little cousin's baptism (we say little he's bigger than her but two months younger), which was on yet another extra hot day, and meant babykins got to spend time with grandma and pop. We started to react to the cat and want to play with her. Mitzi has been really good and the few times Babykins has grabbed rather than petted she's not reacted like she would if one of us did it....I'd expect claws if i tugged her tail like that...baykins got a head whipped round and then a relax....it's like she knows the baby doesn't mean it and doesn't mean to hurt her. On the other hand babykins has decided it's fun to yank mummys hair by grabbing it at the roots which means it doesn't matter how I wear it or if I had it cut- pull she will continue to do.....I've had some success with saying OW loudly when she pulls but it doesn't always work.

The end of June was also the time when we visited the beach for the very first time and saw the Ocean. We liked looking at the ocean and we liked the dry sand on our toes......but the minute the waves hit mummy while mummy was holding us.....did not like, or getting her feet wet, though I made sure she wasn't immediately whisked away and 'paddled' for a little bit. We did however love rolling around the floor at the OP house and showing Grandma and Pop what a big girl we were eating all our food and the puffs she likes so much as well as sitting nicely and standing up holding onto the table.

with mummy looking at the Ocean

So why such a late night post, well someone likes to vary her bedtime depending on her mood and she's only just gone down after a long day. Mummy's on pain meds for a hopefully soon to be gone gallbladder, which means she was playing Daddy up when he's been trying to get her to go to bed. Daddy has been a trooper with her this weekend and hopefully we'll have news and be able to book a nanny or grandma to come help while I have and recover from surgery......She'll love having someone extra here to be cute with.

of teething and lack of naps....

Babykins is not a baby who likes napping. Naps are a thing to be shunned and ignored and fought against for as long as possible. Even when we try to have a quiet time to aid the ability to nap just doesn't work she will fight her way through.

The one thing she does like is the carrier, but even that can take a long time to aid the napping process and there is no guarantee that on carefully taking it off that she will remain asleep long enough to put her down. So when she does nap I try hard to get as much in and as much done as i can and this leads to tired mummy.

We're also on a teething jag right now which probably isn't helping the napping, she's constantly chomping on something and pulling fingers to her mouth to chew on.  I know it's going to get worse before it gets better.

And babykins is getting very very talkative, she spent ages yesterday talking to her nanny and cousins over in England. She loved it. I did too, after she talked to my eldest niece we talked to my eldest nephew who at 8 was very interested in what babykins calls me and his uncle and telling her that her mummy is his god mummy. He was also very concerned and told me all about that there had been an earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the tsunami had reached America and had it got to us......I told him we were fine that we're the far side from Japan and it didn't get anywhere near us.....he does worry so much  - bless him