One of the biggest

Big day tomorrow. Tess’s first day of childcare. She’s been visiting the centre for weeks, but each time with one of us to hand. This time we drop her off, make up her bed, say our goodbyes and leave.

Will I be shedding a tear or two throughout the day? Yes

Will disaster scenarios be playing out in my head all day, the main one being that Tess loses her contact and no one notices and she can’t see and is frightened? YesYesYesYesYesYes

Will I be thinking of that magazine article I just read that said that small children can be harmed by poor-quality childcare? Yes

Will I be wondering whether there was a control study done about the harmful impact of poor-quality parenting while stressed out and sleep-deprived?

Will I be calming myself about the fantastic centre the girls go to, the wonderful carers, the fact that Rose and Tess will be together, and the fact that Tess is now 15 months old and only going two days a week? Yes

Will I feel incredibly lucky that I have finally found the right mix of family life and work? YesYesYes!

The tale of two parenting moments

This photo tells a story. A story of two parenting moments: one wonderful, one a bit shameful. The wonderful? We’ve worked out that Tessie asks for kisses by moving her head on to one side. She’s been asking for kisses a lot lately. We’ve been kissing her non-stop.

The other parenting moment? Notice that she’s in the nude? That’s because we’ve taken to feeding her in the nude. You end up doing less laundry. There’s less mess. That’s right, folks, not even a bib. How lazy is that? One day the Queen will drop around and she’ll be appalled. Appalled!

Suffer little children

Tess came home from hospital on Monday, and we’re so glad to have her back home. She’s doing a lot better in that she doesn’t have a temperature any longer, her colour has come back, and so has her personality. In hosptial she was just so sick, either crying or asleep. The bummer is that she seems to have picked up a bit of a respiratory infection as well, so I took her to her GP today to get her checked out, and she was fine. But we’ve still got a lot to deal with. Because she got such a bad infection (which was a UTI, but probably involved a kidney infection as well) she has to have a lot of follow up tests as well. She has a renal ultrasound next week, a follow up with a pediatrician the week after, a few weeks after that a nuclear scan of her kidney to check for signs of scarring.

Why did she got a UTI in the first place, as she’s been taking a daily dose of antibiotics to treat the renal reflux she was diagnosed with at 5 months old? Well it turns out that she got a bug that was resitant to the bactrim she was taking. The disquieting thing is that the new antibiotic she’s on also has strain-resistant bugs, and there’s further possibilities she’ll have other infections. The reason why they’re sending her for further tests is to check whether there’s permanent damage to her kidneys and to check to see whether her condition is serious enough for surgery. Needlesstosay, we’re all hoping for the best?

But actually the hard thing right now is the patching therapy for her eye. We missed one day hospital because Tess was really ill (ie. not really awake) but the rest of the time we tried to keep up with the patching. But she is HATING it and fighting it. She screams whenever the patch is on, rips it off, and keeps ripping off replacement patches until her face is bleeding. We’ve been using pediatric arm restraints when desperate and she also hates these and screams. I’m not sure why she’s fighting it so much, but my guess is that it has something to do with the hospital visit, the difficult time she went through having IVs and all sorts of tests done. Whatever the reason it’s very stressful and feels traumatising for us and her. In short, it sucks right now, but we’re trying our best to be strong and help Tessa get through this difficult time.

Sick Tess

Poor Tess is sick in hospital. It started with a fever she got on Monday night. It’s now Sunday and she’s still got it! She’s been well taken care of in the hosptial and hopefully she’ll be out soon. She’s on an IV drip for antibiotics and fluids. Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery. We’re all managing as best we can, but let’s just say that good sleep seems like a distant memory!

A quick one while she’s away

I just got back from an incredible awesome but sad 4-day trip to Auckland to see my Nana. I will always treasure the memories from that weekend. The special time we had talking about the trivial to the profound. The highlight was listening to her sing while we were driving back from Birkenhead wharf. I had a nice time with my Dad and cousins Amy and Vanessa, too. But I missed my girls terribly. So when I get my energy back and my head straight and my heart a little less wrung out I will update you on the huge stuff going on at the moment:

• Rose is pretty much toilet trained (Wow, that was easy!)
• Tess has four new teeth, including two molars
• Tess is cruising around (standing up and shuffling around furniture)
• Tess is either talking or possibly just mimicking quite a few words (such as “tickle” “bubba” “mama” and others)
• Rose watched her first movie (My Neighbor Totoro)
• The patching wars have started now that Tess knows how to take her patch off. Sometimes we have to use pediatric arm restraints (when I tell you about these things you’ll either want to call child protective services or nominate us for parents of the year. Maybe both.)
• We’ve been taking Tess in to the childcare centre for visits but we haven’t been leaving her yet. I think we start leaving her next week. She’s been enjoying it, although she hasn’t napped there yet. I take her in for a nap tomorrow!
• Rose has been making huge  leaps in her emotional development, understanding complex things such as kindness and regret. While I was away she told Chris that she missed her mummy and she’s been saying some heartfelt “sorry”s completely unprompted.

Enough said

A carer told Chris that Rose had said the following, about 30 minutes before she was picked up: “I’m heading off soon!”

Also, at nap time she feigned sleeping. She was actually talking quietly to Lucas for almost the entire time.

We are so in trouble.

Messing about in boats

We had a wonderful day. In the morning we blew up the paddling pool and the girls frolicked around. Then, in the afternoon we met up with Petra and Paul, Percy and Talvin and spent the afternoon paddling up and down the river at Audley and running around like mad, happy things. Late in the afternoon we all stood and watched Percy and Rose chase each other around and around. The most delightful giggling rising up from the scene. “Are they pretending to be princesses?” said Petra. “Who knows, it’s just so beautiful.” No photos. The cameras were left behind. But the images are burned into my retinas.

Also, I’ve been meaning to add this for a while. Tess does this weird thing with her jaw. When she’s extremely happy and excited, she moves her jaw back and forth. It reminiscent of the way Marlon Brando holds his mouth in The Godfather. Honestly, I feel like saying, “Why come to me? What have I done to deserve such generosity?” I’m sure Tess would just give me a goofy grin back and do that clicky thing with her jaw.

On the joy of kissing

Tess learned to do two new things this week. The first and most important one is that she learned to kiss. I first noticed it on Sunday when she was sitting with her 5 month old buddy Talvin (Percy’s brother). She leaned forward and put her lips on him. Definitely a kiss! And how wonderful that Talvin (another baby) was the recipient. And today, when I got home from work, Chris told me that Tess had kissed him deliberately. It was a bit wet and ill-defined, but a kiss it most certainly was.

It seems that our Tess is a freaking adorable human being. She’s feisty, independent, stubborn and oh, so happy.

The second thing she learned to do this week is cruise. Cruising is where babies learn to move around while standing up against objects (i.e. assisted walking). She’s still pretty wobbly and uncertain, but in the girls’ playhouse Tess can now quite happily shuffle around its perimeter. I know what’s going to happen next – walking. I know all that it’ll bring for our family – more chaos, more juggling, more busyness. But I’m so excited for our little girl who’s growing up so fast!

A Catch-up with pictures

I just uploaded a few new photos and realise I’ve only mention about 0.5% of what’s been going on lately. Here’s a pictorial run-down:

We bought a new (for us) table and chairs off ebay. It’s been fantastic having a large table to eat around and prepare food on. Family meals have been so wonderful lately, and with a full house tomorrow it’ll be great to be able to have a sit-down meal. The sad thing is that when Chris went around to pick the table up the owner’s daughter said, “NO! Why is that man taking our table?” Apparently they were moving to Melbourne, rather that being hard up. This is a picture of our first meal around the new table.

Granny Jo has arrived for a 10-day stay over Christmas. She’s been especially enjoying seeing how much Tess has grown. Such a big little girl these days! And she’s no longer wearing glasses. That’s because she had a check up last week at her ophthalmologist, and her eye has changed and needs a weaker prescription. She still needs the contact lens, though. The great news is that the doctor thought Tess was seeing better and that her eye was “fixing” on objects well. Hurrah!

Tess has also been sleeping really badly lately. Ever since she learned to stand up in the cot, it’s all she’s been doing. Daytime naps are not so bad. But at night time it’s sometimes taking an hour or two of going back in a laying her back down to get her to sleep. We’ve also had some atrocious nights with her waking up and not going back to sleep. We’re all doing the best we can as we get through this rough patch.

It’s also been really hot lately. And hot days call for….. nudity! (and grumpiness?)

Fortunately a cooler day (24oC) is forcasted for Christmas Day so we won’t be all swealtering with the heat of the stove being on all morning.

There’s a lot of other things to mention that I don’t have photos for, such as Andy and Charlotte’s visit with us a few weeks back. And Granny Anne’s visit last week. The kids have been enjoying all the visitors and the special attention they’ve received!

Also, Rose has been becoming more and more inventive every day. She’s starting speaking in made-up languages, and inventing all sorts of creatures. Her favourite inventions are “logidolls” and “longyongs”. Both Tess and Rose are logidolls and longyongs, and they are the only two. Also, logidolls are known for their capacity to fly around.

We’ve got that Christmas-y feeling

Granny has arrived! The presents are bought, they’re mostly wrapped, the food has been organised, the cooking will start tomorrow. Rose’s last day of childcare was today. Chris and I celebrated the fact that we had some free childcare for a few hours and bunked off to the movies this afternoon. What a complete treasure it is to steal a few hours in the afternoon with just two of us! Best Christmas present ever (apart from a lie-in, of course!) (In case you’re wondering, we went to see A Serious Man. You couldn’t get a less Christmas-y movie if you tried!)

Tomorrow’s going to be a hectic day of cooking, attending a bbq at our friends’ place in the afternoon, and Christmas Mass at 6pm. The Christmas morning with presents and phone calls and then lots of guests arriving for lunch. Rose is going to love it all. I predict lots of excitement. And a few Christmas meltdowns.