Sickly Mommy = Sickly Monkey

It comes as no surprise that Wren-Lee is sick. Being around my germy germs isn't exactly good for a kid who no longer has the protection of Supermom's awesome antibodies. But what did come as a surprise was just how sick Wren-Lee is.

I was booked off work for two days with flu and told to be careful around kiddo. That meant little contact and having my hands drenched in sanitiser. We sent Wren-Lee off to my mom in law for the day so I could rest and recover. Unfortunately, she didn't have a good day and was miserable when she came home. She hadn't slept well, was struggling to drink her milk and burst into tears for anything and everything. Fortunately, we planned ahead and made a doctors appointment for the next morning just in case. And then came the puking. We all know how much I love the puking.

We did the best we could to try to help her but sleep just wasn't on the cards. I was up till sometime after 3am and spent that time singing "Incy Wincy Spider" and "Jesus loves me, this I know", rocking back and forth and I even turned the bathroom into a steam room to help with decongestion. By 5:30am she was unhappily awake. I looked and felt like the walking dead and Trev wasn't much better either.

We called the doctors office and had her appointment moved up by 2 hours because there was no way she could endure any more lack of sleep, coughing, sneezing and being unable to keep her food down. Doctor told us she has a really bad cold. Thankfully nothing to be concerned about. However, her symptoms were so bad because this was the first time her immune system had to fly solo. It was over-compensating slightly.

With meds in hand, I fed Wren, bathed her, got her comfy and she's been sleeping for over 2 hours now. I, on the other hand, aren't sleeping at all. I'm on cortisone and the medication keeps me awake. Not great for someone who's had like 2 hours of sleep. My brain literally doesn't know what to do with the mixed "Sleep" and "Awake" signals. So please don't be alarmed if my eyes start fading, my heads starts drooping, this keyboard starts to look awfully comfy and then vgsgrw4rfewr4efesw4erewvgftftr3wfew4rweftrwszdx...zzz...

Uh oh, Mommy's not feeling so good

Somebody really needs to write a book called "Stuff about being a new mom nobody bothers to tell you" 

For example, nobody tells you how stinky baby poo becomes as they get older. Nobody tells you when you should take your kid to the paediatrician or when a trip to the GP will suffice. Nobody tells you that sometimes you and your husband will fight over whether or not the baby's bottle is the right temperature. This  is important stuff. Why don't they tell you this?!

I think Chapter 3 of "Stuff about being a new mom nobody bothers to tell you" will be dedicated to what happens when mom gets sick. The internet and my baby books are filled to the brim with info on what to do when the baby is sick but there's nothing about mom taking ill. There's no paragraph on feeling guilty because you're sick. No subsection explains how to deal with relying on hubby to do the evening feeds, settling baby down to sleep for the night and then prepping the bottles for the next day. There isn't a little footer for hubby saying what he should and shouldn't pack in the baby's bag and he can't ask wifey because she's sleeping already. 

Come on man, why didn't anybody write about this before? 

I shall break the chapter down into "You're sick. Just rest and get better" and then for the dads there's "How to multitask like Mom" and a blank section called "Mom's emergency notes, use only in case of Mom illness" where I'd write down all the little details Trevor wouldn't know. 

I'm writing all this in a bid to make light of the situation. I genuinely feel awful and I'm headed off to the doctor as soon as I'm done typing. 

My heart is heavy because I'm torn between needing to care for myself and wanting to care for Wren-Lee. The time I spend with her in the evening is precious and I don't give it up easily. But it would be unfair of me to handle her when I'm not healthy and I risk getting her sick too. 

Trevor did some heavy persuading to get me to make an appointment to get checked out and he's assured me he can do Daddy Duty so I can take it easy. I suspect I'll be fielding many questions but rather that than eventually ending up in hospital with something that started off as just a sinus infection (at least that's what I think I have). 

I really do wish a book had told me that something as silly as a little cold could bring up so many conflicting emotions. This moment of vulnerability reminds me that even Supermom has kryptonite. Mine happens to be my sinus and an unwillingness to accept that sometimes in putting my needs first, I'm actually doing what's best for Wren. 

Chapter 4 of "Stuff about being a new mom nobody bothers to tell you" should be, "You're human. It's ok." 

Grow, grow, grow the kid...

Oh.My.Shattered.Nerves.My.Kid.Is.Growing.Up.Waaaaaaay.Too.Fast *proud crying face*!!!!!!!!!!

The little monkey that I feel was born just yesterday is now 5 months old. She grabs things, stands up, baths sitting upright, sometimes sits by herself with some support from the couch, holds her own teething toy and has worked out that her milk is in the bottle.

Soon she'll be holding her own cutlery and literally throwing her toys around and there will be teeth. It's too cute!

The last few days have seen some massive changes. She's not gaining enough weight despite getting the maximum feed so we started mixing formula into her milk. Well, we were supposed to gradually change the ratio of breast milk to formula over 2 weeks but she just took the formula as is after 3 days. Coupled with that, she's been showing all the signs of being ready to start solids so Trevor and I made her first taste of rice cereal her 5 month birthday celebration.

I was so nervous about giving her cereal. I was still Googling and reading my baby books about 20mins before her feed. Honestly, hosting a live TV show was less stressful than giving a small child mushy food. Anyhoo, she had her milk and thankfully didn't drink the full amount so I used the leftover bit to mix into the cereal.

Trevor stood ready with his phone (I must have everything in a digital format for posterity. Nerd!), we got her into her bouncing chair and I made sure the cereal was runny so she could just taste it. She was pretty confused at first but kept on accepting little spoonfuls although most of it ended up outside of her mouth. She tried getting her hand into the cup I had the cereal in and also tried to take the spoon from me because she doesn't know what on earth it is or what it does. All in all, it went quite well and she will officially be getting her little dose of porridge before bedtime.

"I'm happy about this food stuff"

"I wanna hold the spoon Mommy."

Now all this will contribute to her increased growth and prosperity. The downside is the effect all this has on me. Besides being super proud to see my girl grow, it also means I'm no longer breastfeeding. Let me tell you; having one's boobs decommissioned isn't pleasant. I'm pretty sure my bra size changes by about four cup sizes during the day and I wake up in the morning looking like I got silicone implants from the night before. Ja, it's quite something.

Also now that I'm no longer the milk machine, I can officially drink again. Woohooo!!! It's Woman's Day tomorrow, we're going away for a few days and there's a braai tomorrow night with friends. Guess who'll celebrating her kid's independence with a glass or two of vino :-)

Here's to you Wren-Lee!!!!!!!!!!

*Being 5 months old is tiring*

Baby BFFs

Every kid needs friends. Wren-Lee has a few already but the magic happens when they're together...like last weekend at the Morris house.

So our friend Clint had a birthday and our troop were invited to his house. That means 4 little people all in the same place at the same time. Not for the faint of heart. We call it a baby convention. 

When you have an 18 month old, 6 month old, 5 month old, 3 month old and a newborn in the same place, there's a lot of baby swapping, feeding, diaper changing and general madness going on. Car seats, baby bags, blankets, burp cloths and bibs are EVERYWHERE. And surprisingly the non-parent people there still socialise with us and our kindergarten. There was a LOL moment when we saw that Wren-Lee and Sienna were wearing the same dress and had matching dummies for the day. 

Anyway, Wren-Lee loves other kids. It's a fairly new fascination and we were keen to see how she'd react to having her buddies around. Because there's only a 4 week age gap, Sienna is the kid Wren-Lee is most likely to react to and she reacted pretty loudly. She tried every kind of yell she had and Sienna responded by staring blankly back at her and then looked at me as if to say,"I don't get this kid. Why is she yelling at me?" 

The second attempt went slightly better. We had the girls on a mat and got them to sit facing each other. Sienna grabbed Wren-Lee's feet because she liked the multicolour stripes on her tights while Wren grabbed the bow on Sienna's sunhat. Eventually they were on the tummies and Wren-Lee was overjoyed to see Sienna's blue eyes in front of her. Sienna, however, wasn't too keen on being on her tummy and that game didn't last very long. 

Just when we thought we lucked out with miss SJ, a special moment happened. While Natalie and I were standing side by side holding our girls, Sienna reached out and held Wren's hand. Thanks to my and Natalie's  squealing at this tiny gesture of friendship, Trev quickly snapped a pic of the girls although Sienna had let go by then. 

And then there's Gabriella. As the oldest of the lot, she's had to learn how to deal with all these small kids including her own brand new baby brother. Gabs is super affectionate and loves to hug and kiss all the babies. This particular afternoon, the affection was on a whole other level. 

I was sitting on the couch with Wren-Lee seated between my legs. Gabs came running along, gave Wren a hug and hopped onto the couch to sit next to me. She leaned over and I knew she was going to kiss my kiddie. 

What started out as a cute little kiss became Gabs sticking out her tongue and licking Wren's face from chin to cheek. It was hilarious and Wren-Lee just sat there totally mystified by what happened! 

You just don't get this kind of stuff happening under normal circumstances but, then again, there really is nothing normal about my friends and all our kids. 

This one's for Mea...

I'm extremely blessed to have wonderful friends and even more blessed that five of us have been pregnant together. Just before I was supposed to write my next post a few weeks ago, I learnt that one of my dearest friends, Tanya, was having trouble with her pregnancy. 

She went into premature labour and then developed pneumonia so she was in hospital for some time. At that point, I didn't feel right about writing about Wren-Lee when I was so worried about Tanya and baby Mea. 

Fortunately, Tanya recovered well and eventually was discharged. A mere 24 hours later, she was readmitted and Mea had to be prematurely delivered at only 26 weeks of gestation. Sadly, Mea deteriorated rapidly after birth and passed away a few hours later. 

Our circle of friends is heartbroken for Tanya and Louis. We were also excited for the little girl who would be the youngest of our brood. Many tears were shed at Mea's beautiful memorial service and we continue to keep Tanya and Louis in our prayers as they slowly process and recover from this tragedy. 

Mea, you were and are still loved by so many. You left this world completely pure and innocent and we hope you are happy and safe. 

We miss you...

Un-fun

Like most things in life, parenting has its ups and downs. We've had a pretty good up run with Wren-Lee so the down had to come along eventually...we just didn't think it would be quite so steep a slope.

Sending out an SOS

On Saturday night, Wren-Lee decided she just wasn't going to sleep after her last feed. I left her to babble and laugh in her cot which she did for almost 3 hours. Eventually, I figured I'd just top up her feed seeing as it had been so long since her last one. She had her fill and I held her upright for a burp. Instead of a pleasant belch, I was drenched with milky puke. It was down my chest, over my shoulder, all over my fluffy winter gown and even my PJ bottoms were soaked on one side. Totally freaked out, I had Trev grab her and get her cleaned up while I ran around looking for clean PJs and generally trying to stay away from the precipice of a small nervous breakdown. She, of course, was happily laughing as Mommy ran around trembling like a flower in the wind while Daddy smiled and got her into fresh clothes. 

When I need order in my life, I clean. In a desperate bid to calm down and process the volume of milk my small child had just vacated from her tummy, I got stuck into hanging up laundry. Dumb, I know, but it helps me get a grip and I was trying not to hide in a corner and sob. She vomited again not half and hour later. This time it's all over Trevor and thankfully missed her clothes. I took charge of clean up this time and we ended up staying up till almost midnight to watch over her as she went back to sleep. The next morning, she's all fine and we have no problems all day. We also chose to not give her the medication she usually has for her reflux as it had made her vomit a few days prior. 

Monday afternoon comes along and we get a call from Trev's mom who informs us that Wren had been throwing up again and it's mostly slime. We rush over to get her and manage to sneak in an appointment with the paediatrician. Kiddo didn't enjoy having her ears and nose checked out but the diagnosis is good: A sinus infection which we caught right before it went down into her airways. It was all the infected mucous heading down into her stomach that made her so sick. The doc also says it's ok for her to go off the meds for her reflux and we can see if she no longer needs it. 

So, the following day, what do you do with a sick baby? You take her to work! It made sense seeing as my mom was in the office and we could keep an eye on her. Wren-Lee helped with filing, learnt how to do a bank account recon, read my e-mails and played with GD's new iPhone cover :-) All in all, it was a good day and we figured our little person was feeling much better. 

Well, she had other ideas. I let her fall asleep on my chest or in my arms straight after her last feed for just a few days. That night, I put her to bed when she was tired but awake and she was not having it. With my patience tested to the absolute limit and lots of deep breathing, I sat next to her cot and waited as she fought against sleeping. Please note; I'd come home, fed her, cleaned up the house, made dinner, went straight to Pilates and endured a killer workout, came home and fed her again and was now dealing with this. I hadn't eaten and I hadn't taken a break in hours. And so I waited and watched. Eventually, she figured out what her comfort blanket was for and nodded off. 

As I forced myself to eat dinner at 22:30, still sitting next to her cot because she kept on waking briefly, I knew that this was the start of the not-so-nice part of parenting: The exhaustion from a busy day, a small child who's sick and can't tell you what's wrong, having to exercise an enormous amount of patience and by far my least favourite, being puked on. 

I knew when we got into this that it wasn't going to be all moonshine and roses. I don't mind all the other stuff and it was kind of nice to feel like a real parent. This story does have an upside though. After a solid night's sleep, I woke up before Wren-Lee (for a change). As I woke her up, she turned her little face to mine and greeted me with a big smile. I could see she was content and I knew all the drama before was worth it. There's not much that could dampen how much I love my kid and how much joy she brings. As long as we can keep the puke to a minimum, I'll go through all the sickness, the tiredness and the tantrums for years to come. 

Momma's gotta work

After 4 fabulous months, I have returned to civilisation and can now add "Working mom" to my CV.

For most people, this transition is really difficult but our family is adjusting with only minor hiccups. We're still getting the hang of leaving on time but that's going to take a while to perfect. Packing Wren-Lee up is a bit of a mission but we get better at it every day. Also, we've been spoilt with days where she's been at work with us. It's been great having her at the office and fortunately it's quiet enough for us to get on with our tasks and spend time with her.

Trevor's desk became a changing table 

Her transition hasn't been altogether smooth. She has a bit of separation anxiety and doesn't really like going to other people, even her grandparents. So, Day One was quite a drama with lots of screaming and crying and it took a bit of walking around with her daddy and a chamomile tablet to calm her down so we could leave. The next time we dropped her off was much easier and we slipped away while Granny changed her diaper. Hopefully, she'll continue getting better and I'm praying she'll grow out of the "stranger danger" fearfulness. Everyone wants to hold her and play with her and she goes off like an alarm with almost everyone the instant she realizes we aren't holding her anymore.

I have to admit that being at work does make me feel more normal. I'm not stuck in Mommy mode 24/7 and I can feel other sections of my brain coming back to life after many months of rest. Getting through the day isn't bad but I do start to miss her really badly at about lunchtime and she ends up getting massive hugs and kisses when we pick her up. Thankfully, Trevor can share my sentiments. The fact that we work together also means we've suddenly got more time together and it's been good for us.

Now the fun bit is seeing how long her grandparents will let us go through a day without asking for her to come pop in at the office.

Chips! My blogging time is up; boss man just got into the office after 2 weeks away.

Momma's gotta work....