Toilet Humour

I was in the kitchen tidying the bench.  Hannah had been asleep for about 45 minutes and I'd promised Alex that we'd go to the park when Hannah woke up.

Alex wandered in to make sure I wasn't slacking, and I noticed a smell wafting after her.  "Oh, do we need to change your nappy and put yucky poop in the toilet?" I asked.  We'd been doing this together (as opposed to me disposing of the mess by myself) for a week or two in an effort to get her interested in toilet training and it was working.

She nodded, said "Yucky poop in the toilet!!" and trotted off into the lounge while I finished up what I was doing. 

Thump. 

Loud crying.

I race around to the bathroom to see Alex on the floor holding her foot.  She climbed onto my lap for pain relieving cuddles.  I looked over her shoulder to see why she fell.  Water.  Water everywhere.  Up the walls.  On the floor.  All over Alex.  And now all over me. 

There was a sopping wet cloth nappy on the floor too. 

Hannah is now screaming from her cot, having been rudley awoken by Alex's crying.

Did I say bathroom?  I meant toilet.  We were all covered in toilet water. 

My good helpful girl had nabbed the nappy I was using as a change mat and was dunking it in the toilet in what I assume was an effort to put (imaginary) yucky poop in the toilet.

Fffffffffffff

To the tune of Hannah's cries (getting more and more desperate the longer I ignore her) I turn the shower on, strip Alex off, pull the toilet door shut and throw her into the shower with a couple of cups.  Then I remove my own toilet-watered clothes and wash my arms, find more clothes for myself (crawling, mind you, in an effort to avoid being seen through the windows), get dressed and go and rescue Hannah from the cot of doom.  Not only had I ignored her for so long, she'd rolled onto her tummy and was so worked up she had apparently forgotten how to roll back onto her back.

I sent Nev a photo message.

"Esplain?" ...so I do.  "Oh.  Oh.  That's not good.  Kind of funny.  From this far away.  ...OK now very funny."

Arse.

Hannah and I supervised Alex's shower, but I didn't want Hannah concussing herself on the hard floor while I got Alex out so I popped her in the lounge with an assortment of toys to keep her happy before going back to get Alex.  Hannah promptly started crying from the lounge, which is not surprising given her recent trend of hating everyone that isn't mum.  I finally convinced Alex to get out of the shower and marched her into the lounge to dry off and get dressed. 

I'm met with Hannah head down, bum up, a favourite toy just out of reach, and crying louder now because she knows I'm in the room and haven't immediately leapt to her aid.  So I let Alex go and rescued Hannah.  Alex promptly dropped towel and ran away into the kitchen.  "Argh, come back, your feet are wet!  You'll fall over again!"

Luckily she didn't!

She just weed on the floor instead.  While standing.  Wee all down her legs.  Sighing, I picked her back up and ran her back into the bathroom, turned the shower back on and threw her back in.  Hannah started crying again because by now it is clearly evident that I hate her.

Paper towels applied to the puddle, I gathered up the damp towel and raced back to the bathroom to grab Alex.  Again.  Just as she's opening the shower door to get out.  Doors clashed because our bathroom is teeny tiny, Alex slipped, more tears.  I scooped Alex back up, assuming she had been sufficiently rinsed, and brought her back to the lounge.  Again.  More tears from both girls as I try to dress Alex (wanted to "sit up on the couch!!!") and calm Hannah down (staaaaarviiinnnngggg ohgod).

Alex cleaned, dried and dressed, I went and properly cleaned up the kitchen puddle, then fed Hannah.

So we didn't make it to the park after all.  And I still haven't reopened the toilet door.  Hope Nev doesn't need to go loo once he gets home.

Six Months Old!

Hannah is six months old today!  Time has gone even quicker this time around and I really can't believe half a year has zoomed past. 

Hannah has found her voice and makes the sweetest little sounds.  She rolled over (back to tummy) for the first time at 4 months, spends a lot of time wiggling around the lounge, and love love loves the Jolly Jumper.  She's getting better at sitting up by herself, but I can see her concentrating on getting mobile rather than becoming an expert sitter like big sister was.  She has decided bananas are quite delicious.

She's also just finished up the last of her iron (medicine).  After all those times I had to give it to her while she was crying at me, she now grabs the syringe and sucks the medicine right out of it - sometimes complaining when it's all gone!  

A few hours old...

One month (still slightly yellow)...

Two months...

Three months...

Four months...

Five months...

 

Six months!

Whose stupid idea was it to go overseas with a baby?

No red eye, neutral expression, no shadows, mouth closed, no reflections on face, background plain and light but not white, with child straight on and looking at the camera.  Passport photos suck at the best of times.  Now, let's try that with a 4.5 month old baby:

My Exciting Life

I realised today that there are many things that make me happy.  Not the obvious ones like my kids' smiles, Nev cooking me dinner, or buying myself a nice new pair of shoes (when the hell did I last buy shoes???).  No, I'm talking about things that really shouldn't be so exciting...

Doing housework without any assistance.  Vacuuming without Alex following me around turning the vacuum down to low, or hanging out the washing without her destroying all the pot plants by the washing line.  "I am alone.  I can do the dishes!  Yay!" is NOT a normal thought process.  What's wrong with me??

Popping into the supermarket, taking only my wallet and phone with me.  I'd say just wallet, but I need the phone in case the tiniest human decides she's OMG STARVING while I'm half way around the store.  Anyway.  Nobody in the trolley singing Elmo's song at the top of her lungs (as adorable as that can be).  Nobody in the carrier meaning I have to do squats every time I need something from the bottom shelf.  Just me and the groceries.  Aww yeah.  

Only dealing with two pooey nappies per day.  Again, nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks "gosh, I hope I get to change only two shitty nappies today" but that thought has crossed my mind.  This is of course not to be confused with hoping for no shitty nappies today, because that just means tomorrow is going to be a world of poo.  Stinky stinky poo.  Everywhere.

Five hours of uninterrupted sleep.  This one isn't so relevant anymore as I have magical babies that sleep through the night from seven weeks of age.  Pre-kid (PK?) I'd feel half dead if I'd only had five hours of sleep before work, but the first time the tiny humans sleep for five hours straight is amazing.  I've never felt so refreshed in my life!

Good weather.  "Silly Ree, it's normal to be happy about good weather!" you might say.  You'd be right.  But I don't get excited about good weather because I'll be able to take a nice relaxing walk along the waterfront on my lunch break.  Oh no.  I get excited about good weather because I can do extra washing.  And it will all be dry by evening.  Super duper bonus points if I get to hang it by myself.  

And finally, finishing a blog post in one sitting.  This one took me a week.  

Spot Birthday Party

Little Miss Alex is quite fond of Eric Hill's Spot books (she has 16 of them at last count, two of which are mine from when I was little..!).  One of her favourites is Spot Bakes a Cake and she always says "wow!" when the cake is revealed, so a plan was hatched to make her birthday party Spot themed. Here's a wee look-see at what we did.

First, the invitations.  I downloaded some Spot placemats from this website, and through the magic of Photoshop, drew an Alex into the picture and added the party details (duh).

For the envelopes I got some coloured A4 paper and used these instructions to fold them up.  I also printed off some return address labels with Spot on them.

I drew four pages from Spot's Birthday Party, painted them all pretty-like and stuck them to the wall at toddler height along with the accompanying text from the story:

Alex and Spot checking them out

 Nev bought 10 helium balloons in bright colours (just like Spot's balloons at his party), and brought them home with him on the train.  What a good Dad!

We cleared out the lounge and set up a ball pit (do you have any idea how much mess a bunch of kids with 300 balls can make??) and colouring table with some of Alex's favourite characters and stickers.

The table had a table cloth just like Spot, dog bone shaped bowls for the chips and little metal dog bowls full of Pebbles and Jelly Beans.  There were dog bone shaped biscuits and because Elmo is her best friend at the moment, we had to make Elmo cupcakes too.

Ready and waiting with Elmo and Spot

 And then there was the cake.  Just a round chocolate cake, with pebbles stuck around the side, blobs of yellow icing with jaffas on top, sherbert rope things (Spot used icing in the book, but I wasn't about to pipe icing that thick all over the cake!), and four of the dog bone biscuits dipped in white chocolate.

Nev's Mum pointed out that Spot baked the cake for his dad, and it's Nev's birthday next Saturday so I might have to repeat the process with an Alex assistant.  We'll see...!

Other neat things I found online and copied were fruit (melons, pineapple) cut with cookie cutters into stars/hearts and cheerios cut so they look like octopuses when cooked.  And This is where I found the candles and paper plates etc.

Well, that was an interesting six weeks!

Warning:  Wall of text ahead!

Just before Alex was born, blood tests showed that I had anti-C and anti-e antibodies in my blood. Nothing had happened to cause me to develop antibodies - no transfusions, no procedures during pregnancy (ECV, amnio etc) and no trauma to my belly during pregnancy.  Awesome.  Breech baby, low amniotic fluid and random appeared-for-no-reason antibodies.  When Alex arrived (via the sunroof) they took extra bloods from her because of the antibodies but she stayed nice and pink and we came home after 3 days.  

When I was pregnant with Hannah I had to have monthly blood tests to monitor the antibody levels.  These levels spiked in April, to a level just below "oh shit" but high enough to warrant me visiting the High Risk team once a week, along with weekly scans to make sure baby wasn't anaemic and blood tests to monitor antibody levels.  Luckily levels stabilised, and baby was fine.  I had the choice of being induced or another c-section.  I chose the latter.   

Miss Hannah arrived on Friday, 25th May.  3.52kg, 51cm long, and pink... for about a day.  They took some of her cord blood to test, and she had heel pricks done every few hours to monitor her bilirubin levels.  Over the weekend she tracked just under the level required for treatment, so after her Monday morning test they decided 12-hourly would be sufficient and told me we'd probably be allowed to go home on Tuesday morning.  But then her Monday evening blood test showed that levels had spiked and I was told I had to finish her feed then take her down to neonates.

Once we arrived they took more bloods from her, stuck a tube into her stomach via her nose, put heart, oxygen and respiration monitors on her, and an IV line into the back of her teeny tiny hand.  She was put in an incubator with 3 blue light lamps over her and a biliblanket under her.  I was told to express milk 4-hourly, and was welcome to come and see her when I dropped the milk off.  Um.  Right.  Argh!  The only positive thing about her being rushed to neonates was that they moved me into my own room and offered me ear plugs in case the sound of other babies crying might upset me..!

This is the graph they used to track her levels.  There are a few dots just under the treatment line, then three for Monday where she went from OK (just), to lights required to blood transfusion required (400) in seven or so hours.  Luckily the lights brought her levels down enough over Monday night for the transfusion to be avoided.

(Click to make bigger...if you want)

On Tuesday and Wednesday I was allowed to breast feed her (with expressed milk top-ups afterwards).  She was only allowed out from under the lamps for 30 minutes, and had to have her biliblanket wrapped around her.  But I got to feed and cuddle (as best you can with wires all over the place) and she got to have her sunnies off and stare at me for a bit.  They also "let" me change her nappy after each feed.  Thanks guys!

On Wednesday they started turning down and then removing lamps, and by lunch time on Thursday she even had her bill blanket turned off... and I was kicked out of postnatal.  I had to move into one of the parent rooms at NICU with no notice, and nothing to eat (yay for Wishbone downstairs).  Hannah came to my room that evening, and I had to call them after every feed to report on whether she woke herself up or not, how long she fed, her temperature and her "output".  Her haemoglobin levels were low due to all the red blood cells her body had been killing so I was told we'd probably be in for another couple of days.

But on Friday a miracle happened:  we were allowed to go home!  I had strict instructions to make sure she fed regularly etc and to rush back to hospital if she became lethargic and/or wouldn't eat.  They called Masterton Hospital and my midwife and filled them in.  I left with six copies of her discharge notes and graphs to distribute.   

Over the next couple of weeks we had blood tests twice weekly, then weekly, and her bilirubin levels continued to drop nicely.  Unfortunately her haemoglobin levels also dropped so we were given a prescription for folic acid.  Tuesday two weeks ago she hit a low of 76 (normal should be 110-150 ish according to Dr Google) and transfusion was mentioned again.  Feck.  We were given a prescription for iron to go with the folic acid and our local pharmacy now knows us by name.

The following week her haemoglobin was back up to 81, so we avoided a transfusion (again!).  Her next appointment with the paediatrician is Wednesday, and depending on the results of the blood tests that day, we may be allowed to go a whole month before having more.  I really hope she doesn't develop some kind of foot phobia from all these blood tests though.  She kicks like mad and grizzles if anyone even goes near her feet.  Makes putting socks on her a bit tricky.

Hannah's still pale, and it's more obvious as she loses her yellow-ness.  Throughout all of this she's never acted jaundiced, even when her levels went through the roof.  This was possibly helped by my epic milk production (the paediatrician was well impressed, and now I know why Alex packed on the weight so quickly, heh).  She's doing all the things she should now too -  vocalising, tracking us with her eyes, smiling and demanding milk and cuddles all damn evening long.  Hopefully we can now get on with enjoying her instead of worrying about her constantly.  I'd hate to have been doing this as a paranoid first time mum, and seeing as the antibody issue is meant to get worse with each pregnancy, I definitely don't plan on doing this again.

:D

Shaving Foam Paint

For some reason, my mother has made a pinterest page thingy full of Kids' Stuff.  And on it there are various bath paint recipes.  

We don't actually have a bath at the new house, so bath crayons and paints tend to just run down the wall as they get splashed by the shower.  Through trial and error we've concluded that the best recipe is shaving foam + food colouring. 

Picture stolen from pinterest

It's thick enough that unless you point the water directly at it it stays on the shower walls quite nicely.  It's also thick enough that you can paint yourself pretty colours if you want.  And it's gloopy enough that you can pick up lots on the brush and then splash pretty colours all over your parents and the bath mat (don't forget to insist that the shower door stays open)...

Nice hand placement, Alex!

On the down side the bathroom stinks of shaving foam after Alex has had her shower, and she's now started painting with anything she can find.  Last night she painted the dining table with her curry sauce.    

Cats make great pets! *shifty eyes*

So I was sorting out our filing cabinet stuff yesterday (yes, after we moved it all here) and found the note that came with our two darling felines.  I read it to Nev.  He laughed.  A lot.  Then suggested I go through and bold all of the FILTHY LIES it contains.  So here goes…

Hi there,
I am your new Ragdoll kitten.  If you feed me and if you look after me like my mum and dad have, I will give you lots of enjoyable moments. 
I like to eat cooked fish, minced meat, raw meat (not cut too small, I need something to chew on), cooked chicken and now and again chopped up potatoes and pumpkin placed on top of my tinned food.  I need only water.
I also like Chef tinned kitten food and Iam's kitten biscuits.  I could be started on Chef adult food but must only be given a little at a time mixed in with my kitten food, too much at once could give me the runs and we don't want that, do we?
Please also make sure that you leave the toilet seat lid down as I might like a swim and I am not a good swimmer.  Also, I would like you to make sure all stove elements are off when not in use or unattended as I could burn myself badly.
As I am a very clean kitten and well toilet trained I would like it if I could please have 2 litter trays at my disposal.
I come to you in the best of health.  My mum and dad guarantee this.  I have had my 2 injections, have been desexed, wormed and defleaed, but will still need further worming and deflating during the year.
Should you feel that at any time you can no longer love or care for me, would you please ring my mum and dad.  They will gladly take me back and find me another loving home to go to.  My mum and dad will refund you the full purchase price or replace me with another kitten should you find me to be defective in any way which is found to be not of your doing.  This is for a period of 6 months from possession day.  
P.S.  If you value your furniture it would be a good idea to buy me a scratcher.

There is an ongoing debate as to whether "I will give you lots of enjoyable moments" is a filthy lie or not. 

And to be fair, Zari will at least eat raw meat and cooked chicken quite happily.  But damn did she ever pretend like she had never eaten Chef kitten food - and how dare we insult her by dishing it up when we brought her home.  And vegetables?  HA!  Though she did grow out of making a mess of herself whenever she went to the toilet.  Basil did not…

Finally, Nev would also like to know if 6 years is too late to return Basil.  His brain is clearly defective.

So..disorganised...*twitch*

You know how builders tend to have half-finished projects all around their own houses?  The same applies to IT professionals.  Or my IT professional at least.

Half the desktop on his Windows PC is taken up by random (but very important) icons.  I mock him about it regularly, and he recently went through and had a bit of a clean out.  But half his desktop is still taken up by random icons - just with holes in the grid from the ones he's deleted.  "Gah, please sort those by name or something!"  ... "No, I'll get confused!"

Then there's the way he organises his documents.  At one point he had a series of folders titled "New", "Newer" and "Newest New" and if I wanted to find something I was expected to know under which category it fell.  HE knew where everything was.  Duh. 

At this point I feel the need to point out that the way Alex constantly reorganises the icons on her iPad makes him all twitchy because it's not logical.  HA.  Hahaha.  Pot.  Kettle.

We have Media Portal installed on the HTPC for the watching of TV/movies, and it has gradually been getting buggier and buggier over the last six months or so.  Then one of the external HDDs failed and he promised to copy the files on to the NAS and redirect something something*...but Nev hates Media Portal so hasn't bothered yet.  I think his plan is to just let it destroy itself completely before looking at fixing it.  Though he will at least clear the cat hair out of the CPU fan for me (with assistance) to stop it overheating...

I guess that's what you get when you spend your day looking after servers, ensuring everything is all neat and tidy and running properly.  Buggered if you're going to come home and do the same thing all evening!

*  The NAS is very neatly organised and maintained, and runs teh lunix, so I daren't touch it myself.  

The land of bird poo and feathers...

We went to Nga Manu on Sunday.  Technically for my birthday, also because Nev actually had the day afternoon off (he ended up working overnight/morning beforehand), but mostly because I thought Alex would have fun at the duck/pukeko/swan feeding areas.    It also provided the chance to play with my new zoooooomy lens.  

Alex did indeed have fun feeding the birds.  Though once she'd run out of pellets she started throwing gravel to them instead.  She must've been won over by all those hopeful little faces looking up at her.  She also insisted on doing a fair amount of walking, but you had to keep a very close eye on her so she didn't sit down in a pile of duck poo.  

Typically, the more interesting birds (Kea and Kaka) weren't posing nicely for the camera, but I still managed to take a few decent photos.  There's a whole set on Flickr and a few below.  You can click on them to make them bigger, or not, if you're lazy and really don't care that much.  Whatever.  

Rocking her new sunnies

Getting swarmed

Paradise Duck

Heron

Young Pukeko.  You can actually see its face on the bigger version of this photo.

Swan - liked to pluck ducks when being fed.  Dick.