Siahn photos

Smiley girl.


Oh so happy!


Tummy time.


Just woken up - lookin' pretty grumpy about it too!


With her Great Grandmother.

Today's prayer

Lord give me the strength to make it through the day without killing my defiant two year old monster who has just started shouting and arguing in response to everything I say or ask - "Noooooo!" "I don't want to!" "I can't!" "Don't get angry at me!" "I wont do it!" "Don't tell me what to do!" "I'm not going to" "I'm angry at you!" all at the top of his lungs with the angriest look on his face as he glares at me... or my icky screaming demon of a baby who was awake and crying from around 2:30pm yesterday till 12am last night... or myself who has had enough. Lord give me strength.

Yawn

This having babies thing is bloody tiring! We had a shit night last night, Siahn was really miserable - going between crying, grizzling and screaming while wriggling around. She really seemed like she was in pain and at one stage Chris came in and said he's sure she's got reflux. God I hope he's wrong! I don't know what I think. Her feeding has been really weird on and off for a while now - most of the time she feeds fine and how she always has, then other times she'll wriggle and cry or whimper while feeding and pull off and scream. She obviously hungry though and wriggles around then gets back on, feeds for a little while before crying during feeding again and eventually pulling off and screaming again. We try burping her when this happens, sometimes she burps, sometimes she doesn't. Either way though it doesn't stop the strange feeding. This strange feeding has been happening for the last week and more in the last couple of days - so much that she's hardly feeding as much as she used to. When she feeds like this she doesn't end up feeding at all after a few attempts and pulling off screaming. When we finally settle her down, she usually falls asleep straight away and wont wake to feed, so she goes to bed not having fed that time. It's worrying and it definitely could be reflux. But it could also be to do with how difficult it is for her to feed and she's getting frustrated. She has always had a hard time feeding due to the tongue-tie and although she got better she's always lost her latch frequently through all feeds. She'll suck a couple of times, then lose the latch, suck a couple of times, lose the latch - this has always happened and her feeding is really noisy and clicky due to it. I think it'd be frustrating and tiring - sometimes she stops feeding earlier and I think it's because of that, usually that happens at a particularly bad feed where she's falling off/losing latch a lot and it's like she can't be arsed dealing with it anymore so just stops. I don't blame her! So I don't know if all the screaming and crying during feeds is to do with that and being annoyed with it and getting really tired from it or if it's the dreaded reflux. Ugh.

She's booked in to get "the snip" on Tuesday at 11am. I CAN'T WAIT!!!! It's a bummer we couldn't get in earlier, with her feeding so bad four days seems like an eternity to wait. But we've gone this long without it I'm sure she can wait till then. I'm really worried about it, but after talking to a friend whose little boy got done at 6 weeks I'm feeling a little better (thanks Maurine!!). Plus I'm sure I've read absolutely ever piece of information on the condition and procedure available! TWICE EVEN!! hehe Though the idea of someone cutting a part of my baby's tongue without any aesthetic or anything is still scary, scary shit!

Caelan's great and we're soooooo fucking thankful that he doesn't wake to her night screaming sessions. That would be the killer. Though, Chris did have to go to him last night - he'd woken with a poo. Weird! But after a change and being convinced it's not "up time" he went back to sleep.

Speaking of poo's, earlier in the week we were in the lounge and Caelan starts walking to his room saying "I'm going to do a wee wee in my room" (or at least that's what I thought he said at the time, now that I think about it he probably said poo poo) and I said "No you're not, remember you wear undies now cause you're a big boy so I'll open the bathroom door and you can do a wee wee in the potty or toilet". Off we go with him saying "Ok, I'm gonna do a poo poo on the potty", I said "Cool, ok you do a poo poo on the potty and when you do you can have a special treat". He sits down on the potty and does a poo poo - as if he's always done it!!!! No drama. No problems. Just like that. I was over the moon!!! It hasn't happened since as he's tended to go while he's go his night nappy on, but it was pretty exciting! Dunno why he's gone from being fine to poo in the potty to not, but we'll get there. I think it's pretty amazing that he's toilet trained for wees so early without major drama or anyw accidents anyway. Can't have it all right?

Siahn's 4 weeks old tomorrow

Bloody hell, second time around it goes even faster! If that's possible!!! I know I was always going on about how quickly the time had gone with Caelan and how I couldn't believe he was already how-ever-old... I have no idea how the hell Siahn is already nearly a month old!!! But she is and she's doing well, putting on weight awesomely regardless of the spewing, which actually isn't as much anymore. She's still "spilly" (find that term really funny), just not as many projectile or huge cot drenching, baby drowning ones - this pleases me! She's pretty screamy but we're hoping it's nothing more than that, refusing to think it's reflux just yet thanks. We keep telling ourselves that these are normal baby things and she wont have reflux, she WONT have reflux, she fucking better not have reflux!!!

She's been smiling since just before two weeks old. Real smiles, smiles where she looks at us and then slowly smiles till it's a gorgeous gummy grin reaching her eyes too. It's so lovely and I've been trying desperately to get a photo of it. So far have only managed to get one on my phone - so the quality is poos. At first Chris thought I was mad when I told him she was smiling, but then when he saw it he knew. Gill has seen it too and thinks that because she was so overcooked she's doing things earlier. She's smiling all the time now, which is good because it makes all the sleep deprivation and screaming much easier to deal with!

She's feeding heaps better but her tongue-tie still concerns me, I dunno if we should get it snipped now before she's too much older and actually has a problem with it. Or do we wait to see if it's a problem. I sooooo don't want her to have speech difficulties due to it, or have a lisp. Might call our doctor to see what he would recommend. A friend visited yesterday and after seeing Siahn's tongue said if it was her she'd get it done. It is pretty tied and when she moves it to cry or anything it gets heart-shaped at the tip (which means it's pretty tight for her and pulling when she moves it), she hardly ever pokes it out of her mouth. Actually I don't think she ever has. It comes to her bottom lip, but that's the most I've seen it come out I think. Something we have to decide pretty soon, like this week I think.

Anyway, here's a photo of her taken this morning. She soooooo looks like Caelan! I remember a photo of Caelan like this and it looks just like this. Crazy.



Caelan's really good. Still snotty but feeling fine now. He's pretty crazy and full-on at the moment - I think it's called being a two year old! hahaha He's great though, aside from being pretty rough and yucky with Siahn a few times - GGRRRRRRR. It's only to be expected though huh? Generally he's pretty good, wowing everyone (including us - though we're getting used to it, so much that it seems odd when other kids his age don't talk! hehe) with his amazing talking. We keep saying that Siahn isn't gonna talk till she's 15 because he's been so amazing at it. We've used up our good talking quote with him and she'll be incredibly slow!

We have demon children

We had sooooo sooooooo sooooooooo hoped that Mark II would be a lovely, easy, delightful normal baby. Caelan was/is hard work a lot of the time and with all that reflux shit and screaming he's done/does we had hoped like heck this meant we would get an easy second one but unfortunately it's not seeming to pan out this way. Though it still is early days and I'm not prepared to give up hope just yet. Though yesterday it was a different story - the morning was bad but we finally got out the door and to playgroup where I was asked by a few people if I was ok and that I didn't look good, the beaten look must have been showing through! haha I was too tired and had THE BIGGEST headache known to mankind (well maybe not quite but it sure felt like it!). Then we got back and the afternoon got worse, the worse started when Demon2 screamed A LOT before finally going to sleep and 5 minutes later Demon1 woke after only 30 mins sleep screaming the house down, not able to be stopped or calmed for anything (even The Wiggles who can sometimes help in these bad times didn't work), cuddles, talking, distraction - nothing worked, he just screamed and screamed while pushing me away. I then pleading with him to stop, telling him that I cant handle it at all today and please stop screaming because if Demon2 wakes I'd just cry. Demon2 then woke screaming her head off, I cried and me crying made Demon1 scream louder. I went and got Demon2 from her cot - she just screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed (anyone would think someone was ripping her arms off - I did consider it!). We went back into Demon1's bedroom where he was still screaming blue murder. I sat down on the bed and cried with the screaming Demons, 1 next to me with my arm around him and 2 on my lap throwing herself around. It was horrible. I called Chris crying and all he could hear was screaming. It was a bad, bad afternoon. When it all finally subsided about 45 minutes later and we were calmly watching The Wiggles with Demon2 feeding Gill turned up and Demon1 told her "Mama was crying on my bed, we were all crying". Gawd. LOL She didn't notice or hear what he said though thank fuck! He said it again and I quickly said "I don't know where your digger is, why don't you go and look in your room".

The kids

hahaha That cracks me up! We have kids - it just sounds weird. I haven't even gotten used to be pregnant (the first time!!!!) and now we have kids, PLURAL! Strange stuff.

Let's start with the biggun... he's such a good big brother! He's handling it SOOOOO much better than I expected. I thought he'd struggle, seeing as though he's such a Mama's boy, but no he's fine. He's handled it all wonderfully and loves Siahn. He found it a little odd when Chris bought him into the hospital the morning after she was born, he'd seen me the morning before at home and then suddenly I was in this strange place with this strange little baby attached to me. He was looking at me oddly while taking it all in, but he has done so, so, so well. We explained everything and he understands, he knows she's his little sister and he's her big brother. He like's to cuddle her on the couch and kisses her sweetly - it's so gorgeous! He does get a little rough every now and then - but he is only two and a boy at that! hehe

He's had a cold lately, but is getting better now - though of course that's just the start of all the disease and sickness bloody winter brings!! The main thing to mention here is he wears undies all the time now! Well apart from sleeping, which he still wears a nappy for. He's done so well and has just got it, without a problem, clever kid!. Though we're having a wee problem, well actually it's a poo problem! He has decided for some reason that he doesn't wanna do poos on the potty/toilet. Dunno why. Dunno what started it. But we're working on it and will get there soon I'm sure.

Siahn, pronounced Sea-arn not Sharn like the Gaelic Sian!!! A lot of people have been saying Sharn even though we put the "h" before the "n" to dissuade people from doing it. Even though it's not spelt the same and is a different name it's still been happening. But NO everyone it's not supposed to be pronounced Sharn and is not the Gaelic name Sian that means God is gracious. It's Siahn - just something we made up after seeing the name Sian and liking the sound of Sea-arn and how it works with Caelan. It's so annoying to be told by people that it's pronounced Sharn and it means God is gracious - well NO IT'S NOT! And NOT IT DOESN'T! Crickey! We named her, we should know! hehe

Anyway, she's really good. She's much better at sleeping at night now - she screamed for the first five nights of her life till we had enough and put her in her bed to scream herself to sleep. Otherwise we were going to be killing both of them the next day after so many nights of no sleep - well me mainly as I'd had three nights extra nights of it in hospital. Though Chris wasn't too keen on the couple of nights he'd had! He is the tougher one with the crying and leaving her - I have a really hard time with it, especially with a newborn. An older baby, even though it's still hard, is a bit easier for me, not so heart-wrenching. Anyway she didn't cry for long and soon we were all sleeping. It's hard though because she pretty much screams before every sleep and I sooooooo didn't want another one of those. It's so tough listening to so much screaming and crying, hopefully she gets the hang of it though and stops it soon and just goes straight to sleep. Caelan didn't really ever get to that stage till around a year old - but of course he was dealing with reflux (which we hope, hope, hope like hell she's not!) so that's why he didn't ever get it. I find it super hard and it feels wrong for one so young, but Gill continues to say there's nothing wrong with it and Chris is for it, so I shall try to be tough.

She isn't going to get her frenulum (the skin that connects the underside of the tongue to the bottom of the mouth) snipped now either - thank god!!! There was worry that she has ankyloglossia (Tongue-Tie) - which is the tongue movement being restricted by a tight frenulum. She was having trouble latching and keeping the latch due to this and wow oh wow - this really makes feeding painful while they try to work it out!! My poor nipples looked as if they'd been chewed up and spat out then glued back on in a rough manner! So so so so so so sooooo painful but thankfully she worked it out and my poor nipples started healing and she put on weight really well. YAY. I was so worried about this having to be done, I know there's nothing to it and heaps of babies get it done and they don't remember. But I didn't want it anyway thanks very much!!! Bloody Chris and his deformed tongue getting passed on to our kids! hehehe Thankfully though it hasn't effected Caelan's speech in any way - he is super advanced and doesn't have a lisp or anything much to my delight! Soooo I'm hoping it's the same with her too - they can do it later on but it's a bigger operation then and it's done under general anesthetic when they're older, but if she needs it later on then that's ok. I would have hated to do it to her as a baby for no reason, so just waited to see if the feeding improved and it did!

She's putting on weight awesomely actually, was nearly back up to her birth weight in a week - she was 3.7kg within a week. Good girl huh?!? And put on 520g in the next week - yay. That was the weight gain Caelan was having weekly, sometimes it was more which was crazy but then it leveled out to just over 500g. She's amazingly spewy - way more than him, and we thought he was spewy! But she really is, big power chucks frequently and vomits in her bed every sleeptime - sometimes huge and drenching herself and all the bedding (this happens every couple of days). As well as the projectile ones, she does big normal vomits, heaps of milk everywhere as well as spilling pretty much constantly. It sucks. As if babies didn't create enough washing anyway, hers is horrendous with her constantly hurling everywhere all over herself, us, our bed, her bed, her capsule and where ever else she happens to get. This makes us pretty nervous about the reflux thing, now is the time you usually start seeing effects of this. She is seeming to be less settled over the last couple of days, but who knows - babies are unsettled and do cry for no apparent reason and not sleep when they should. For the past couple of days she's been really unsettled from the afternoon throughout the night and then her feeding went funny and suddenly changed. Last night it was like she was starving and would feed for a little while (less than a quarter of the time she'd usually feed for) and then stop, then scream blue murder, feed for a little while, stop and scream blue murder again. This went on from 3am till 8ish - scares me!!! That could be caused by reflux but then again it could just be a baby being a baby too!