19 weeks and 4 days old

Shit the time flies! Caelan's nearly 5 months old - I know I do this every time I write about his age, but oh my god it really does blow me away! It goes sooooooo fast. Yesterday was another calmer day - ssshhhhhh, don't say it out loud though, it may wreck it. I'm always so scared after a particularly bad patch to mention when it gets better again. But it really is - he's interested in toys again and is happy, he sleeps when it's sleeping time and wakes up happy after that. HORRAY!!!

On the solids front - he's really enjoyin' em. It took a while to get used to the non-sweet taste of vegetables but now that he has he loves them. He has cereal and pears with his losec for breakfast, vegies for lunch - its pumpkin or kumara at the moment (or both combined sometimes) and dinner is vegies again with pears and losec for dessert. He loves it all! After every meal of solids he has his glass of water which is heaps of fun - the mouth opens wide, takes the water and gargles it before swallowing or shooting from mouth at speed. It's a great game! hehehe It still doesn't beat the Jolly Jumper though - that's the favourite. He loves it so much that he's constantly jumping when being held - damned sore and annoying after a while!

What a bumbum!

Last week was hideous. We don't what was wrong with him but we sure do know we didn't like it! The weekend was okish, Saturday was hell - happy 9 monthiversary for us! He couldn't even be considerate so we could have a nice time to celebrate 9 months of being married. Rude little boy! Those are the joys of having kids I spose :) We were hoping to get out for a while in the evening to spend a bit of time together but it just couldn't happen. Maybe next month! Things were much calmer yesterday thank god, he fed a bit better and he didn't scream all day. YAY! Hopefully he continues to get happier and better.

He's got a new game

Well actually it's a old game that seems to have come back into fashion. It's called 'Let's see if I can drive Mummy completely insane'. Dunno what the hell is wrong with him but am over it! Can ya tell??? hehehe He's been really unsettled for a while now. He nearly won the game yesterday too - woke at 7am and pretty much screamed all day, feed at total of 10 minutes for the whole day and when he wasn't screaming he was grizzling (which I've discovered is nearly as bad!), he wasn't interested in any toys and certainly wasn't going to sleep. It was horrible and I wanted to die - I shouted at him once and then later on apologised while crying with him. To feel anger and then the following guilt for ones own baby is a horrible, horrible thing. Here's hoping he bores of the game soon cause if he keeps playing he will win!

Gettin' better

The bronciolitis is much better now - he's hardly wheezing at all, just has the odd bout every now and then. Just has the cough left which apparently will be here a while but he's so much better. YAHOO! His sleeping is poos again though, he's been waking between 3 and 4am every day since Friday which aint fun. This waking in the night is hard to get used to after such a good run of sleeping right through. We'll get there again though. He's loving the Jolly Jumper, he has such a good time in it - leaping about doing his monster noise. Super cute!

On the roids

Caelan's cough and wheezing got worse so we called the Healthline, the nurse asked a whole lot of questions and got us to count Caelan's breaths in 20 seconds - which was too fast and combined with the wheezing and coughing fits, advised us to take him to get looked at. So off to the Ascott A & E we went. He's got bronchiolitis and we've been given a short course of steriods to ease the wheeze and if he doesn't improve or gets worse we're to take him in again. Poor little guy. It sucks, our doctor told us babies can tend to catch everything and it's really hard for them to shake colds and viruses. Well that's definitely proving to be the case with him! Hopefully he gets over this quicker than the last 2 week cold! One of the babies from our coffee group is in Starship with a servere case of bronchiolitis - been there overnight and looking to be there a couple more. Poor wee thing, she's got tubes for oxygen and feeding. Hopefully he doesn't get that bad! He's just woken so gotta go.

Four months old and full of snot

Caelan's sick again - poor little bugger. He's blocked up and has a horrible cough again. Last night it got worse and he was really miserable and wheezy. It acutally sounds like he's got asthma when he breathes - real wheezy and whistly. Chris thinks he has asthma as at one stage he was really out of breath and doing short quick wheezy breaths. It settled down and he was breathing normally again but still really wheezy. Oh god I hope he doesn't have it! That would suck. Chris is really concerned cause he knows how horrible it is to have and doesn't want Caelan to go through that.

This means that the night sleeps are up the poop again. He started waking at 5am when he first got it but now it's 4am - horray! He's not sleeping well either, constantly coughing and choking in his sleep which ends in crying. Poor little boy. Hopefully he gets better soon. If he's still this bad all day and as wheezy he'll be off to the doctor.

Apart from the cold everything is going really well. He's exactly four months old today as well - it's odd, it seems like we've had him for ages but that he was just born yesterday all at once. Makes no sense I know! hahaha On Thursday we're going to the Plunket Family Centre for his four month check and weigh - horray! Can't wait to see what he is - that's always fun. While there we're doing the Introduction to Solids course which'll be good. Ohhh and on the solids front - he HATES his vegetables now. Thinks I'm trying to poison him. It started off that he was a bit confused by the new taste, the confusion gradually turned in "UGH!", with the "UGH" turning into "I hhhaaaaaate this! I haaaaaate you! What are you trying to do to me?!?!? HELP! They're killing me here!". So after a week of having vegies for lunch yesterday he finally refused completely and really wasn't happy about it all. We think it's because he's only eaten sweet things since he was 10 weeks old when he first started the apples and pears. That's a long time to get a taste for the yummy sweet fruit. Now he thinks the vegies are awful! I'm considering mixing a bit of vegies with some fruit and gradually reducing the fruit so he gets used to the vegie taste. But yucko - apple and carrot!? Pear and potato anyone? No thank you!

Chris' parents came over to watch Caelan so we could get out for a while and do our groceries. It was nice to spend a bit of time just the two of us - we haven't been able to do that since my birthday so we were REALLY looking forward to it. Especially me as getting out of the house these days is damned exciting! hehe We had some lunch and I had a coffee - ohhhh it was nice! I haven't had a coffee for yonks as I don't wanna drug Caelan up with caffeine. Ahhhh no feeding for a while so coffee it was for me - and a STRONG one at that. Well Caelan had a different idea! No way was he drinking out of the bottle!!! No way hozzay! Chris' mum called saying that she'd tried and tried and he didn't want to know about it. Thanks a lot! So home it was for us without any groceries as we were just on our way there when we got the call. Little poo bum! I tried again today with his medicine dispenser and paracetamol and no way! NO TEAT! Don't want it. Bugger. So I'm pretty much poked which makes me wanna cry!! He's bound and determined to make it so I can't do anything but tend to him. hehe We're gonna get a sipper bottle and try that, can't go this week though as the weather is horrible and he's too sick. Hopefully that works when we get it though.

Chris left us

But we survived! :) Chris went snowboarding and spent last night in Ohakune - poor thing. We were fine, I considering giving Caelan a bath with me but had visions of me attempting to stand with him and slipping over, cracking my head and passing out ontop of the poor thing. Needless to say - I didn't have a bath with him! I decided to be lazy and just change his clothes and put him to bed. The bath can wait! hehehe Anyway he's screaming and has been for 20 minutes now! Don't think we'll get a sleep out of him before the next feed at 7pm. Sooooo I shall go.

Food is good

I cooked up some carrot and potato for Caelan yesterday and he had carrot for lunch. Ate it all - yummy scrummy! He was a little confused to begin with I think but kept on eating - he had about five teaspoons which is a pretty good amount for such a little tummy (well let's be honest it's quite big!). I gave him a bit of potato that couldn't fit into the icecube trays and he ate that too. What a good boy! So he'll continue having his pear/apple in the morning with the losec and vegies for lunch, then pear/apple at night with losec. We haven't dropped his dosage yet - it's just too damned scary. Perhaps we'll let him outgrow that dose and see how it goes... We'll see, we may get brave. The amount of vomitting has decreased too like Dr Phillips said (he's magic I tell ya!), he's still Mr Chucky but not as often. Horray! :)



Carrot is yummy!




Holding my new toy.

And the little one said "Roll over! Roll over!"

Caelan can roll over by himself now - yay!! Yesterday I put him on his tummy to play, I went into the kitchen to put some toast on and when I came back he was on his back. Clever little boy! I was soooo bummed that I didn't see it, so back onto his tummy it was with Mummy not taking her eyes of him. Waiting. Nothing. Waiting. Nothing. Toast popped - went into the kitchen to get it and yep, when I came back cheeky little thing was on his back again. Dammit! Determined to see this I put him on his tummy again and stared, scared to even blink! hehe AND HE DID IT! I scared him with my excited praise too. He did it another couple of times and then I stopped, didn't wanna use up my quota and for him not to do it when Daddy got home. But he must have wanted to show Daddy too because he did a few times later on. Our clever little boy!

He's still really good, everything is so much nicer for us and painless for him, oh and nicer for us, did I say it's nicer for us? He had a really bad day on Friday which consisted of no sleep all day (nice one!), completely disinterested in feeding (a total of 10 minutes for the whole day) and much, much crying - totally inconsolable. No amount of cuddles, feeding, playing, leaving him alone would help. But one day out of how many? I can handle that and I'm sure he can. Saturday was pretty yucky in the afternoon and evening as well but by Sunday he was much better and yesterday he was back to the delightful baby we now know as Caelan.


I got a visit from my Great Grandfather and Merl yesterday morning and I'm so clever that I turn to look at the camera when Mummy calls me.






Hanging out with Toa.

Mummy's boy

He's soooo yummy

Caelan's found his shouting voice and LOVES using it really loudly. It's so cute - he shouts and giggles, shouts some more and giggles, shouts more and giggles. Soooo cute - I'm sure it'll get tiresome at some stage but for now it's the most adorable thing I've ever seen! :)

Well it happened...

One of my worst nightmares came true last night – Chris fell down the stairs with Caelan. I was in our room grabbing a sweatshirt, Chris had just gotten Caelan a jersey from his room and was heading downstairs. I heard the dreaded thudding sound and my heart jumped into my throat. No! I was out the door before I knew it and looking down the stairwell to Chris on the floor at the bend halfway down the stairs with Caelan in his arms. God the terror. Chris looked shocked and scared but Caelan was fine. All I could say was “Fuck Chris” - that was all that came out. I wasn’t blaming him I was just so scared. I nearly died, it was instant fear, the kind of fear that makes your eyes water and your heart beat so hard and fast that your chest hurts and the lump in your throat is trying to choke you. Caelan was completely fine, perhaps just a little stunned wondering what just happened, but fine. A went back into our room and tried to put a sweatshirt on with hands so shaky an alcoholic with DTs would have bin proud. It took a long time to get that horrible image out of my head – the one I saw in my head when I heard the sound, not what was actually there. It’s been something I’ve been terrified of since coming home with Caelan. Heaps of people have fallen down these stairs – everybody that’s lived here as done it more than once, it’s the corner I think, perhaps the stairs aren’t quite big enough on the corner... I don’t know but I hate it. I did it when Caelan was about two months old, not with him though, I’d just put him to bed and gone downstairs and ended up falling. I fell from the middle bend all the way down to the bottom and I fell forward – it scares the shit outta me! If I was holding Caelan he would have been really hurt if not completely crushed by me. God it really scares me. After that happening last night Chris said “We HAVE to get a one level house” - I agree it’s just too scary. Though that isn’t as easy as it sounds – we’ve been looking for another house for a LONG LONG time now.

Caelan had a bad day yesterday, first one in a while. He only had one short nap early in the day and was awake from 2pm till 9:30pm when he finally settled and went to sleep. AND he didn’t sleep through the night – woke at 3am. Poos! Hopefully today will be better. Fingers crossed.

15 weeks and 3 days old

Everything is going really well! Caelan's such a happy wee boy now, the cold's basically gone and he's not suffering with the reflux. Thanks to either the medication or Dr Phillips' treatment - we've been too scared to start reducing the losec. Just don't wanna risk him turning in The Screamer again. Not now that it's going so well. But that's the plan. Soon.

We saw his Paediatrician again on Friday and she was thrilled with his progress and how much happier and alert he was. She asked us to keep a journal of his 'spasm' things because she's looked into it further and can't think of what it might be, other than severe pain caused by the reflux and bought on by movement. He was weighed and measured there too which was exciting - he was 7.74kg and 65.8cm. What a biggun!! She was astounded at his weight gain - little budda is still putting on just over 300 grams a week. I thought he'd slowed down but no!!

He's started reaching for and holding his toys now which is so cool, and when he's on his tummy he pushes himself up onto his knees - crawling soon???

All in the Clark household rejoiced!

Caelan slept through the night again last night! No more of this horrid waking at 5:30am!!! He went to bed at 8:30pm and slept till 7:30am – wahoooooo! Hopefully this means we’re back to doing this every night. Well his cold is pretty much completely gone, sooooo fingers crossed.



What dribble?




Aren't I special? My bib has my name on it - thanks to my lovely Aunty Kylie in London.




Playing under my new musical gym that Grandma and Granddad got me. I love it!


Eating my pears this morning - yummo!

Happier little boy

Well Caelan's cold has nearly gone - thank god, after 2 weeks of having it! He's still pretty snotty but the horrid cough has gone and he's not sounding all gurgly any more. Horray! Little so'n'so gave it to me as well - ggrrrrrr. So we've been a snotty, coughy pair for two weeks.

We saw Dr Phillips again today, he did his stuff and is pretty confident that the vomitting will slow down and stop within the next week. It's so interesting listening to him explain his form of treatment. I don't understand it at all but it's interesting! Well it makes sense when he's saying it but buggered if I can remember shortly afterwards! haha

Things have been so much better all round (apart from the cold of course), Caelan's been so much more settled and happier. No screaming for hours on end - yahoo! And is sleeping so much easier now. Though the damned cold wrecked the sleeping through the night - he's waking at 5-5:30ish now instead of 7:30. Poos! Let's hope he goes back to that real soon.



Silly Mummy put her ear muffs on me! They're pink - I'm not a girl Mummy!




Told you not to hold me up like that Daddy!




Fun on my bedroom floor.




Woops! Don't need that.

Ah the sweet smell of vomit

There was a time when I would always smell like Chanel No 5, Dolce Vita or something equally delish. These days it's au de baby vomit. Nice.

Caelan's cold seems to be getting better - horray! He's still blocked up but he's not coughing as much. Hopefully he gets better real soon.

A friend told me about www.tshirthell.com. Here's a couple of the funny baby t-shirts:

If it aint one thing it's another

Poor little snot machine has a cold! It's just not fair, just when he's starting to feel a bit better with the reflux he gets a cold. He's completely full of snot, blocked up and has a horrendous cough. He's sleeping really badly because of it too, constantly wakes with a coughing fit or not being able to breathe and cries.

We had such a good day on Friday and were even able to go to friends for dinner and he had his 8pm feed there and went TO SLEEP there as well. It was soooo good! We were real people - had dinner AND I even had a glass of wine after dinner as he wasn't feeding till the morning. We woke him at 11pm to to bring him home and he went to sleep after a bit of a cry. He slept till 7:30am when he usually would have woken! So good!! Then it turned to crap as the cough started on Saturday and he got worse gradually over the day till it was a full blown cold by night. Which meant his sleeping through has stopped again. It's so sad. He's so miserable and sick. It sucks!



Playing with Daddy on Saturday morning.

Ah he aint so bad

He's no longer trying to kill me, or make me kill him! Things have improved again - thank goodness! Something has worked... not sure if the the upped dosage of losec or if Dr Phillips fixed him, like he was convinced he had or if he was just going through a bad patch and is now having a better one... Who knows? I sure don't but I'm glad for this nicer time.

It was really interesting, REALLY interesting. Blew my mind actually! This neurophysiological stuff is amazing, well if it works it's amazing! If it doesn't he's really clever and making A LOT of money from us suckers. I hope it works and from what he explained and what I've read on it, it's something I agree with. It makes sense to me. Let's hope it makes sense to Caelan. The doctor did his thing and said that something was out in the base of Caelan's spine, I think! Or at least in that area! Wish I had a dictaphone because I was just amazed by it all and don't really remember much. He also said that Caelan had a fungal infection in his stomach and that's what's causing the reflux. He said that he'd fixed that and the infection would clear up in 48 hours and we would notice a difference within a week. Hallelujah! He said when we go back in two weeks he's expecting to see major improvements. And to call him if we don't notice an improvement within a week. And I've gotta say there's been a definate improvement in the last two days. He's so much more relaxed and happy, feeding better, sleeping better, no huge bouts of screaming for hours (praise the lord!). He's also back to sleeping through the night - for the last two nights he's slept from 9:30pm to 7:30am again. So who knows what is working - it could be the higher dosage of losec, it could be Mr Freaky Doctor Man, it could be just that the bad patch was only gonna last that long... I have no idea. But I'm sooooooo THANKFUL!

He's exactly three months old today and 13 weeks old and my how he's grown! He's already 7.2kg - well he was last week, sure is growing well!



I love looking at my book.




Just about to go for one of our evening walks - Mummy and Daddy wrap me up nice and warm.







Little Budda!

Hell

Caelan's been gradually getting worse and the last two days have been absolute hell. It was like pre-losec days but for some reason seemed a lot worse... not sure why, perhaps because he'd been better for a while or perhaps because it's been 3 months of screaming and now I just can't handle it. I don't know but it sure aint fun! This morning was hideous and incredibly hard, I actually felt like I couldn't cope anymore and was really angry. It's not a nice feeling at all. Thank goodness Chris is amazing, I called him and we talked to the sweet sounds of Caelan's screaming. Well actually Chris talked and I cried! It took a long time to get ready amongst the screaming that had been going all morning, but we were finally able to head to Starship.

The Paediatrician was great AND, thank goodness, Caelan was screaming his head off most of the time. Not that I like it when he's doing this, but at least she got to see it. I'm sick of feeling like people think we're over-reacting and that he's not bad at all. I want to tell them to come and live with him and see how "lovely and happy" he is. She was awesome and although her sheets said he was on the dosage he should be on, she called the hospital gastro-something-or-other specialist and said that she's got a severe case of reflux and wanted to know what he could be put up to based on his weight. We can triple what he's currently on - horray! She could hear him refluxing constantly the whole time there and in obvious pain with it. She heard his rattling as well and said it's all related and it should calm down once it's managed better with the higher dosage. She saw the video and thinks that it looks like really severe pain overtaking him and thinks that it's probably related to the reflux as well. She said to keep an eye on it, manage it as we have been and if it's still happening when the reflux is managed better they'll look into it more. She then asked how I'm coping and if I've got the support that's vital with a reflux baby, of course this bought on the tears! I told her that I'd been ok but it's now getting hard after three months of it. She was so lovely and I feel much better about things now that I know it'll hopefully be better again with the higher dosage. We're seeing her again in two weeks. It feels good to finally feel like we're being taken seriously and that things are going to get better. God I hope so anyway because I really don't think I can take much more of this!

12 weeks and 2 days old

And he's already going bald! hehe Poor wee thing has started losing his hair, just when we thought we were gonna escape it. Damn!

Well our Plunket nurse is due to arrive so we'd better get ready. Wonder how heavy he is now?! Exciting! Busy week - Starship Paediatrician tomorrow then the other Specialist on Wednesday, his shots on Thursday (oh no!!) and recovery on Friday. Awesome!



Tummy time this morning.




Play time this morning.




Wearing Daddy's beanie.




So happy!




With my cousin Zarleen and her husband Steve.