Fire Truck! Fire Truck! Fire Truck!

Rose and her mate Percy had a play date this morning. We had brunch then adjointed to the park over the road to play some more. But holy moly, there was a fire truck parked right near the park, and all the firefighters were sitting around outside having coffee. Percy and Rose got to sit in the drivers seat! Rose even fiddled with the radio, naughty monkey. Anyway, big thrills for the girls.

Also, Tess has been rolling for a few weeks. She obsessively rolls whenever you put her down, even when she doesn’t want to be on her tummy. I remember Rose going through the exact same phase! Here’s a little video of her rolling:

Physics lesson

Rose and I had a stand off at 7.30am in the deserted eye wing of the Prince of Wales Hospital. When she wants you to carry her she does this thing where she pretends to be frightened and pleads with you to “cuddle her” (thus carrying her). I have to admire her, as ploys goes it’s pretty well thought out and effective. But nevertheless, a ploy.

I told her, “Rose is a big girl. Rose can walk. It isn’t far to the car.”

She folded her arms across her chest and started walking backwards. I recognised this as the old I’ll-follow-the-letter-of-what-you’re-saying-but-I’ll-still-openly-defy-you trick.

“Rose, this way. Hurry up!”

She stood her ground, glaring at me.

In our family when the irresistable force of the toddler is met with the immovable object Mum, we usually discover that the irresistable force is not as stubborn as the immovable object. However, when the experiment occurs out in public, and there are people watching, the toddler becomes amazingly irresistable. This time, I won. She saved face by pretending that she was only going my way because she wanted to press the button for the lift.

In the last few days we’ve had quite a few of these stand-offs. I suspect this is because her Granny has been letting her get away with murder. Rose has been asking for soda water or juice at all hours of the day, has been suggesting cake for dinner, and has been asking to take turns at things such as operating the stove and using scissors.

As for the reason why we were in the eye clinic this morning? The registrar did a few checks and found that Tess’s eye has improved a lot.  There’s definitely no leak. The only problem now is that her eye is showing high pressure, which will have to be (guess what) closely monitored. Also, another set of drops. These ones came with a really scary warning that if we didn’t get a drop in the eye first time it should be “wiped up IMMEDIATELY”. We’re going back to the hospital tommorrow (Saturday) for another check up, this time with her Ophthalmologist, who is returning from a few days of “doing surgery in the bush”. (How Australian is that?)

Thank god this week is over. Tess hasn’t been sleeping much (we think it’s the prednisone that’s making her jittery) so neither have we. Thursday night was the pits. Chris went to sleep on the couch and I got maybe 2 or 3 hours. The only way I could get her to sleep was in bed with me, with me stroking her tummy intermittantly. I’ve really resisted co-sleeping with her (it freaks me out) but given the choice between no sleep at all and a few hours? I’ll take the latter every time.

Isn’t she adorable?

We’re not out of the woods yet

Tess’s post-op checks have been alarming. Yesterday there were four doctors in the consultation room with us. They were all nattering away in that medico-scientific language which was pretty unnerving. I was trying to read their levels of optimism and they appeared to be mixed. Tess’s eye was leaking and her pressure was low. On the good side, high pressure would be bad because that would mean the eye was failing. The ophthalmologist told us that her anterior chamber was flat and that if it didn’t improve soon she’d need to have further surgery. We were told we’d be coming back to the clinic almost daily for a check.

Today we thought she’d just have a check of her eyes again, but the registrar told us that if her eyes were still leaking she’d be whisked to surgery to re-stitch her eye. Fortunately there were some good signs so the surgery threat was put off until Friday.

It’s all pretty exhausting. It’s hard for Chris to make work plans because we’re being told on a day-by-day basis new information. We have to put three different types of drops in her eyes; one lot once a day, others four times, another lot six times. They can’t be put in at the same time. Add to that the fact that she’s on six-hourly paracetamol doses and once a day each for bactrim and prednisone. It’s really hard work keeping up with her medicating schedule. I’m exhausted. And a bit bewildered.

Sadly, Granny Anne goes back to NZ after a wonderful visit. Rose will miss her greatly, and Chris and I will miss her possibly even more!

Rose’s thoughts on her current carer

Chris: Rose, what would you like for breakfast?

Rose: Granny!

(p.s. Thanks Granny Anne for taking such good care of Rose the last few days so that we can concentrate all our energies on Tess!)

We’re home

We’re all home. We had been told that Tess would be admitted for an overnight stay, but in the end the doctors said that we’d be going home after the surgery.

It went okay. Tess’s eye looks red and sore and the ophthalmologist said it would be. She’s making unusual sounds, a sad sort of mewling sound and a strangely pitched cry. She’s doing really well considering what she’s been through.

I can’t really say how the surgery went. Tess’s ophthalmologist said it was a difficult surgery, but that he was expecting it to be. The other details evade me. Truthfully, the idea of eye surgery freaks me out quite a bit, so while he was explaining it I was thinking “lah lah lah” to keep from vomiting. If I peer into the back recesses of my mind he did mention a fair amount of incisions, staples and the word “holes”.

Despite the stresses of today Chris and I have some special memories to treasure. For Chris it was having Tess fall asleep in his arms after the surgery, and for me it was breastfeeding her the second she woke up. We have our baby and she’s safe.

I have a few photos to share, but they’re all from my phone, so a little grainy.

And some positive news: just as our bank balance had slipped below $100, we discovered today that the Australian government had put $1500 in our bank account (part of the finanical stimulus hoo-ha). Amazingly, this pays for our new washing machine (the old one blew up this week) and the hospital excess from today. Yay!

Turns

Until recently Tess hasn’t been all that interested in toys. She’ll wave a rattle around if you give it to her, but she might just be waving her arms anyway. But in the last few weeks I’ve realised that she’s very attached to a particular toy (A Sqwish Colour Burst that Dave and Laura sent Tess when she was born). When you give it to her she squeals and yelps and sometimes she gets so overwhelmed by it that she starts crying and when you pick her up she’s so exhausted by how much she loves it that she falls into a deep sleep. It’s the only toy I’ve seen her roll over to reach.

Rose has never taken an interest in the toy, but the other day she saw Tess playing with it, went over and tried to yank it out of her hands while saying, “Turn?”

Wow, the start of a new sisterly relationship. One that’s not just based on kisses and hugs and tickles but one that involves competition and territory.

But still, the kisses and tickles and hugs remain a large part of their relationship, as shown in this little video:

Surgery update: surgery is scheduled for Monday morning. Tess has to fast for 6 hours before the surgery, so no breastmilk past 4am. She’s going to stay overnight in the hospital on Monday night and I’ll be staying with her.  I’m so thankful that we won’t be going home right after the surgery. I was betting Chris and I would be taking turns at standing over her cot watching her breath all night.

Another milestone reached

Teething was one of those things that Rose did not go through. Every time my friends would talk about their kid dribbling excessively, sleeping poorly, chewing everything in sight, and getting strange rashes, I just nodded and looked sympathetic. But to be honest? I was starting to think if it was just a bunch of completely unrelated symptoms that people were tying together with a big pink bow called “teething”.

It turns out I was wrong.

Wrong, wrong wrong. Boy has Tess been teething. And by teething I mean: unreservedly cranky (despite sleeping pretty well), chewing everything in sight, dribbling like a dog with rabies and stuffing her chubby little fists into her mouth. If she could point at her little mouth and say, “What the hell’s going on in there?”, she would.

But in some happy news, she’s also learned to roll from her back to her front. Hurrah!

And in yet other news, her surgery has been booked for Monday. We started giving her a pre-operative daily dose of prednisone in order to 1) eliminate the (as yet unknown) infection causing her eye problems and 2) reduce the chance of inflamation post-surgery. I’ve heard that it can have yucky side-effects, so fortunately it’s only for a few days. Poor little lamb. I’ve also decided that I actually quite like her pediatrician. Even though he’s gruff and not very good at communicating, he was very sweet to us today. He told us not to worry about Monday and then didn’t charge us for the appointment (even his receptionist look surprised). And I’d rather have House as my doctor than a lessor scientist with a charming manner.

Adventures in cooking

I’ve been trying to get Rose interested in where food comes from and how we prepare it. I’d noticed that she was hanging around a lot while I was cooking and has been showing an interest in food preparation (eating the ingredients, at least). On Saturday we made scones together. She helped me to sift the flour, salt and baking powder, and she helped me stir everything together. I had to cut the dough up (she’s not quite ready to handle knives!) but she took great pleasure in putting grated cheese on top of each scone. A fair amount also went in the mouth, but still. She absolutely loved each stage of the process, especially eating the warm scones!

One food-related item that Rose is simply obsessed with is juice. We don’t keep juice at home, but all the parties we’ve been going to lately have involved lots of juice. She absolutely loves it, and takes every opportunity to suggest, “Juice?” even though she knows we don’t have any at home. Tonight she requested juice, but instead of fobbing her off I got a grapefruit out of the bowl. I showed her we can squeeze it to make juice. I mixed her a cup  of half grapefruit juice, half soda water and she absolutely loved it. She screwed up her face plenty, and said, “sour!” but kept drinking it.

And on an unrelated note, Chris just came to tell me that Rose pushed him out of her room and shut the door.

The picnic neurophysiologist

Hey everyone. We had a couple of important meetings at the end of last week that I wanted to write about.

We saw Tess’s pediatrician on Thursday, and the ophthalmologist on Friday. Tess is going to have eye surgery, probably on the 20th. Wow, that’s only a week away! The ophthalmologist is fully booked that day, but he told us he would “bump” someone because Tess’s case is urgent. The aim of the surgery is to improve Tess’s eyesight, but he told us in no uncertain terms that he’s “not very optimistic” that it will work. He says that several months (that’s how long she’s been without sight in that eye) is a long time for a baby. He said that because she hasn’t been able to see from that eye her brain will have started to ignore the eye. The neural pathways to the eye will not have been developing as they should. So, even though her eye will be able to see her brain will not be able to use the eye. However, he said that there is a small chance, and we should take it.

There are also other reasons to do the surgery. If we don’t she could develop glaucoma. Also, there are cosmetic reasons. The surgery will make her eye look more normal. It will look less like a non-functioning eye, if that makes sense. He then told us that he will completely remove the lens from the eye, and she’ll need to wear a contact in that eye (they don’t do intraocular lens implants in babies).

The surgery is going to be done under a general anaesthetic at the local children’s hospital. In some ways that’s the part I’m most worried about. I won’t be able to be with her during the operation. (But then at least I won’t be able to see what’s being done to her, either.) We’ll have to wait for her in the recovery room. It’ll be done as “day surgery”, which is a bit scary, too. I’ll be a bit freaked out about taking our little baby home. I’m sure they won’t let her leave if they’re worried in the slightest.

After the surgery her visual development will need to be closely monitored. She will need changes in contact lenses as the eye matures. There may be patching therapy (covering of the good eye), and continued follow-up care.

The crazy thing is that we met some friends for a picnic yesterday. We were catching them up with everything to do with Tess and I noticed a guy listening intensely. He started telling me that Tess has got a “good chance” of recovering the pathways to the brain. I asked him how he knew so much about eyes (I’m bold like that) and he told me that he was a professor of neurophysiology at an area university. Oh… okay…. now I started listening intently. He was positive about Tess’s chances. He said that the opthalmologist was probably preparing us for the worst (makes sense… and our ophthalmologist does seem to be one of of the more “brutally honest” doctors that we’ve met). So, a good sign!olog

Where I go

I was looking through the photos of Rose’s party when I saw it. At first I was shocked. I mean, it was honest. Laid bare for all the world to see. Then I was ashamed. I always knew that I did it. But having photographic evidence makes its truth unavoidable.

Of course, I only do it to cope. Full time parenting is a hard job. I am never away from them. Two years on the job with only a day or two’s holiday. I hardly ever get an hour’s break. No daily lunch break. I don’t even get a lonely bus ride to work.

But still, it’s embarrassing. No one ever talks about it. And here I am doing it in the middle of cutting my child’s birthday cake. Argh. I even have a fake smile on my face while I’m doing it:

Zoning out

This is me zoning out. In this moment I am a Mummy zombie (or is that Mummy mummy?). I might be thinking about how much I like vanilla, or any one of hundreds of trivial private thoughts. It’s me. Only far away.