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2005-12-10 - 11.14pm previous entry next entry

13 months old!! Photos and movies :)

FINALLY a window of opportunity to update!!!

Oh my gosh, I have sooooooooooooooo many photos to post! Well, quite a lot anyway. They have been piling up, so some are from a couple of weeks ago. I will get to those in a bit.

Arthur turned 13 months old yesterday!!!! Wowee. I am waiting on a 13-month breastfeeding milestone blinkie (someone is making one for me) but as soon as I have it I will update my blinkie section with it! I found the CUTEST and most appropriate blinkie the other day - see it?! My Little Monkey! That's Arthur to a T! I love it.

We took Arthur to have his plaster casts put on last Monday. The physio examined his feet and watched him walk holding my hand, and on his own, with and without shoes on. I was worried that he wouldn't perform for her, but he did, he was eager to walk all over the place :) She said he walks sort of almost on the outer edge of his left foot, but not on his right. She graded both his feet individually (which she has done at each appt since he was 3 months old) and found he had a score of zero on every count for his right foot!!!! I totally didn't expect that! So his right foot is normal. I still think it looks a little curly but it is graded completely normal - phew! She said she did not need to treat the right foot therefore. He used to have several scores of 2 and a couple of 1.5s for both feet, so it's great to see how his feet have improved over time and with treatment. A score of 4 is club foot. He was diagnosed with "skew feet" originally.

But his left foot had a couple of scores of 0.5 and she said it definitely needed a full-length plaster cast on that leg :( So she put one on. It took ages but Arthur was as good as gold! I was so surprised because he has always created such a scene before. He seems to hate it so much, but this time he was fine. I think it helped that he is quite a bit older this time, but also we had Neil with us for the first time, and we took along some of his favourite musical toys. He is SO much more into musical toys now than he was the last time, and they keep him occupied really well. I'm so glad we had Neil with us because I came over pregnant and had to keep sitting down and catching my breath, urgh. The physio said to Arthur, "Oh, Mummy's tired!" and I said, "Mummy's just pregnant" and she was all excited for us :)

Anyway so the actual putting on of the plaster was a success! I'm so glad, because usually it's such a traumatic thing for poor Arthur. He was perfectly content with his daddy and his Fimbles wind-up musical telly thingy. It took about 15 minutes to apply all the plaster and they had to hold his leg really firmly in uncomfy positions while they did it, so he did soooo well. I'm so proud of him!

He wasn't allowed to walk or stand on the plaster for the rest of that day, but she said he could do whatever he wanted the next day. He crawled on it fine when we got home. He just sort of dragged the plastered leg slightly behind him! I was so pleased that he only got one plaster done, because it makes SUCH a difference to his mobility, to be able to still use one leg as normal. He was trying and trying to stand and walk on it (which I was amazed at!) but was very frustrated when we couldn't let him do that, poor thing! We were so careful.

His sleep was just normal, not affected by the plaster at all, which was a relief. However, the next morning when Neil got him up, he found that the plaster had broken in a full circle around his ankle, so his foot was loose and flopping and the plaster was definitely not supporting his foot in its stretched position any more :( So we had to page the physio. I ended up asking her if it would do any harm to delay replacing the plaster till January, because I was just so tired out and weak and giddy for that one day with the plaster - it was so much harder than I thought to lug Arthur around in it, and particularly to be poised at every moment to catch him if he overbalanced, or stop him walking on the plaster, etc. I have just hit a SUPER exhausted patch in my pregnancy and I am hoping I'll feel less wiped out in January. The physio said in Arthur's case it would be no harm at all, and she was so understanding about the pregnancy tiredness. So Neil and I put Arthur in the bath that morning after I spoke to her, and soaked that plaster off! Yay! We know he still has to get another set or two eventually, but all the same we were just SO thrilled to be getting rid of it! Both of us said that we felt on a real high for the rest of the day! I really hate when Arthur has to wear those enormous casts on his little legs.

Sooo he is out of plaster for now. I have to wait to hear from the physio about when to go back in January. I personally think that his feet have started to show a little improvement since about a week before he had the plaster put on, from when he started to walk just everywhere, rather than a few steps here and there a couple of times a day. I am hoping and praying that somehow if he does a lot of walking and gets plenty of walking done in his boxy shoes, that his feet will have improved further by January and he won't need such a lot of treatment for them (or the left one, anyway). The physio said his foot may improve or worsen. He IS walking stiffly with his left foot, sort of on the outside of it a little, with the foot stiff and slightly turned in, whereas he walks fine on the other foot. It's only a subtle observation, but it's there.

Anyway, so I am glad he is out of plasters for Christmas and New Year. We are going all over the place to visit family over the holiday period. I am partly looking forward to that and partly dreading it! I REALLY want to see all the family but I don't look forward to the travelling and the unfamiliarity of other people's houses and having no personal space to escape to if I need it, and living out of a suitcase with a little one. But we're not staying anywhere long, and Neil has arranged his holiday time at work so that we can go to both his parents (who haven't seen Arthur since he was 11 weeks old, so they definitely get first dibs!!!) AND my parents in France!!!! We had no expectation of being able to go to France this winter because of how we have no money and no time and Neil's family come first on the visiting stakes at the moment. So I am really excited and thrilled that we're going! My parents are wonder-people and are paying for all our travel over there. I love them to bits. But I know they want to see us as much as we want to see them.

We are driving (5-6 hours, yeurgh!) to Neil's parents in North Yorkshire (brrr!) on Dec 22nd and coming back on Boxing Day, and then we'll have 3 days to ourselves at home (to recover!) and then fly to France on the 30th, and come back home on Jan 5th. We both like to do it that way round, even though I would LOVE to spend actual Christmas with my parents one year soon (it's been 3 years now), because we find staying with Neil's parents a bit stressy, and my parents ULTRA lovely and relaxing. It's nice to finish the visiting and travelling with my parents. It isn't Neil's parents' fault. His dad is completely incapacitated after countless strokes, and really we are all amazed that he didn't die years ago, as the doctors did not expect him to. He has leukaemia (the chronic kind) as well and new things keep cropping up all the time. They keep saying another stroke will kill him, but he just keeps still hanging in there year after year. His quality of life is terribly poor though, and Neil's mum and sister work so hard as carers for him. It's hard. Their house is full of clutter and not much space. It's just not the most relaxing break, but we do want to see them and spend time with them, and have them see Arthur. My parents on the other hand are blessed. They have health, are very active and constantly socialising with the extremely friendly other villagers (who just can NOT get enough of Arthur!), have the most BEAUTIFUL spacious renovated 15th century farmhouse in the middle of acres of rather breathtaking vineyards and old stone farmhouses in the Loire Valley. I have also never been in a house that felt so spacious and roomy and comfortable and inviting. It's just the perfect break, and the bonus is having my lovely parents to spend it with, since it's their place! So it's lovely for us to see them, and to see them last.

I am so excited about seeing my parents!! I always am :) I know Arthur is going to get a LOT of walking done in that house! The floors are stone though, so I hope he won't crack his head on them too much! They have biiiig rugs, and the floor is heated from underneath so it's not cold or too hard everywhere. There are a few parts of the house on a different level to others, so there are places where you have to go up one step or down one step, which will be great for Arthur too. They have a big garden with lots of interesting things in it for a little one, especially birds - Arthur LOVES birds! And so far three ladies in the village have insisted on visits from us with Arthur - WITH Arthur, you understand! Hehe! One of them is my parents' good friend, the village baker (well, his wife who sells the bread). Last time we were there she just swept Arthur up and covered his cheeks with kisses and cooed over him incessantly in French! Of course he didn't mind ;) She has been known to continue serving customers behind the counter with someone else's baby on her hip while she wraps baguettes and puts money in the till! Arthur is a little more aware of whether he is with a stranger (ie - not Mummy) these days so I am not sure how well he'd take to that. I might be surprised though, he might do fine. My mum says he'll have no choice with this lady!

I have actually written Christmas cards this year!!!!! Wow. Last year I didn't send any or buy any even, but then I had a newborn and we got flu. Ohhhh that was the most awful Christmas on record, seriously. Most of you were already reading me then, but for those that weren't, I got flu the week before Christmas. Arthur was 6 weeks old. And not, "Oh, I've got flu" (I HATE when people call something comparatively puny, "flu") - real influenza. I have had it 3 times in my life now. The first time was at school. The second time was also right before Christmas, in 1999, and unfortunately my immune system was pretty run down at the time, so the result of that bout of influenza was being completely housebound for 2 years with M.E. So I consequently HATE flu. Hate. It's stupid but I feel really angry towards the disease, like it ruined my life or something. Hate it. I feel like if I never caught it that year, I wouldn't have lost 2 years to horrible illness. But maybe I would have, just in a different milder form? Anyway, that doesn't even matter anymore. But I hate flu with a passion.

Soooo the nasty bugger struck again right after I had a baby, and I was ill for 3 weeks. I couldn't even sit up to breastfeed Arthur, and Neil had to do so much for us. He came down with it 3 days after me, but my fever got so high that he had to tend to me in the night and stuff even so. Ugh. So naturally we couldn't have any sort of a Christmas or see any family, or indeed ANYONE last year. We were so sick over Christmas itself. We called the emergency doctor 4 times. Ugggggh. Arthur got a slight fever and I nearly carped my pants, convinced that my 6 week old would never withstand influenza and we'd lose him. But amazingly he did fine. He got snotty eventually but his fever never got dangerous and he didn't act too unwell. I was so thankful to be able to breastfeed him throughout. Neil had to prop me up while I did it. Ohhhhhhh it was so horrible. It took a month to get my strength back afterwards.

Sooooooo this Christmas I feel sorely tempted to keep the three of us indoors and seal the windows with bubble wrap until the season is over, haha! I am just praying we none of us catch anything, big or small, over this whole holiday, or the whole winter for that matter. I just want to be able to have Christmas this year. It feels like we haven't done Christmas in a long time - since before I was pregnant with Arthur actually! Weird.

So I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year (which would have been the SHORT version, tsk!)!

The next thing coming up for Arthur is on Monday (in two days) he has his automated appt for his first MMR jab. I am absolutely torn over whether to take him or cancel. I think every parent seems to be like this since the hype about the MMR jab. I don't know what to do, but I have been researching online like crazy the last couple of days, and so far I am not too convinced about the individual vaccines, since research doesn't seem to support there being any difference to the child's body in having them seperately or all together. Plus they cost money that way, and we haven't got ANY. At all. In fact, we have minus money. We are not buying Christmas presents this year, because we just can't, but I am making a video of Arthur's first year for Neil's family and mine. They know we are in the poo and don't expect any presents, which is a relief. Arthur will not know any different, so we feel fine about not buying him anything this Christmas. He just got a lot of presents for his first birthday, and he will get presents from family for Christmas.

Anyway so we can't afford single jabs in any case, but I feel better finding that there doesn't seem to be a benefit (though it makes sense in my head that there would be, sort of). Okay so then I considered delaying the MMR till he's older, as some people say that they wait till their little one's immune system is stronger. But is it sufficiently stronger to make a difference, a year or two down the line? I'm not sure. And I researched autism (the bit I'm most worried about) which showed that symptoms usually appear (as a given) around the time that MMR jabs are often given. So maybe it SEEMS like there's a link but there isn't? All the research I looked at did not support any link, except one with a sample size of TWELVE which isn't so great. I don't know. Then I think that if there's even a TINY risk then I don't want to put Arthur through it.

So far he doesn't display ANY early symptoms of autism, but the type that is hyped up with the MMR is the regressional type, where everything seems to be going normally till something causes a regression of normal development and autism is diagnosed. I guess there is just no way to know what will happen. I also don't want any risk (even tiny) of Arthur contracting mumps or measles. At his age, or even in a year or two, he could have such serious complications that he could even die, or have some sort of damage for the rest of his life. I have had both mumps and measles myself and they SUCK. I was seven when I had measles. They just started the vaccine here around that time, and they told my mum that my brother should be vaccinated (he was four) but at the age of 7, I should deal with it okay if I caught it. I was soooooooooooooo sick for so long. I don't even remember most of it. I know my temperature went off the thermometer and well into brain damage levels which scared my parents silly, and the doctor came daily because he didn't feel I was stable enough to move to hospital. I do NOT want Arthur catching measles. I know it's rare now that the MMR has been around a while, but it still happens (mainly due to those that don't vaccinate their kids, it has to be said). I got mumps when I was 12. I managed okay with that - no complications, but it was horribly painful for 3 weeks and I had a high fever all that time. My mum and brother had mumps when I was 7 (that was not such a good year for us, was it?!) - don't know why I didn't catch it then actually - but Bennie had it mildly and Mummy had it terribly. She developed encephalitis as a secondary complication and lost the hearing in her right ear, which she will never regain.

So I don't want Arthur at risk to those sucky illnesses. At all. So that leads me wanting to just take him and be done with it. But I feel so nervous. Urgh. I still haven't 100% decided yet. I DO want him vaccinated, but the issue is my fears over it. I should pray. He was vaccinated with the Hibb booster at 2, 3, and 5 months old and those are like SIX different things at once. He did fine. So I don't know..... If I knew everything would be 100% fine then I wouldn't even hesitate. But he's my precious love....

Ooh, (changing the subject slightly!) I need to write about night weaning again!!!! I did follow on from stage 1 of the plan and do what I said I wanted to do - just nurse him for a very short time before taking him off the breast in the night. I chose a window of midnight to 5am. I wanted to do it until 6am (and Dr. Jay Gordon says to choose a 7-hour window, but oh well) but he is difficult to get back to sleep after 5am so I would rather be allowing him to nurse almost back to sleep after that time if it means us getting more sleep! Otherwise he is awake from 5 or something similar (which is CRAZY) and we just end up trying to settle him until an hour later when we finally get him up. We aren't willing to allow him to get used to 5am wake-ups! We definitely couldn't deal with that.

Anyway so it went fine. Arthur cried for a few minutes when I took him off the breast but I was right there snuggling him up against me and stroking his back, and then he would just stop and go to sleep. I stop patting or stroking him if I sense he is ready to fall asleep. I really want him to learn how to do it all by himself. So two nights ago came the time to stop offering him the breast at ALL during that window at night. I was really dreading it because I felt sad not to be letting him nurse at any time when he wanted to. Also I know he gets more of my milk at night and I didn't want to put a stop to that. But if I didn't, then the sleep issues would not change, and we need them to. So I did it. The first night he slept all evening and then woke right before midnight which was ideal for him, as I was able to let him nurse for as long as he wanted before taking him off the breast as he got near sleep. Then he woke at 3.15am and I cuddled up to him and patted his back and he cried like he was soooooo sad, which made me feel all heartbroken myself, but then it only lasted a few minutes and he stopped and went back to sleep! I was so happy about that because I had prepared myself for maybe a LONG crying spell as I tried to comfort him. It felt amazingly easy and I had no idea it would. I felt so relieved. He next woke around 6am and had a nice long snuggly breastfeed! Last night was weird. He slept all evening and didn't wake before midnight which he NEVER does. He also has never gone from bedtime to morning without nursing, not even close. So I really wanted to nurse him at my bedtime before midnight so it wouldn't be such a long spell for him without nursing, but I fell asleep by mistake and when he woke me up it was 1.30am!!! Of course this was well inside the window so I patted him and he cried for a couple of minutes, but sleepily, and then went back to sleep. He woke again at 5ish so I nursed him, and then he slept till 6 or so. So I would say it's going well!!!

I still cannot IMAGINE Arthur will ever really stop waking up at night, but the programme assures me that he will once he realises that he won't get any milk when he wakes. That very idea makes me feel sad, but I try to keep focused on the goal which is Arthur sleeping through the night, and me getting SLEEP again! I haven't slept through the night - not even one! - since about halfway through my pregnancy with Arthur. That is 18 months ago! Long enough that I can't remember what it feels like not to wake in the night and to sleep soundly for more than 3 or 4 hours. Although Arthur DID sleep for 7 hours straight once, at around 8 weeks old. And a few nights of 5 hours straight. But I forget how it feels to go to bed at bedtime and wake in the morning, even if it's early morning for when Arthur gets up. Annoyingly, even if he DOES start sleeping through now, pregnancy peeing gets me up at least twice in the night still, so I doubt I'll get the solid night's sleep! But it will make things SO much better. I really hope it's true that it will happen. But I just don't really believe it right now. But I'm glad it seems to be working so far! I miss my sweet little boy in the night though, already :(

Talking of whom (changing the subject again!), I have a bazillion photos and two little movie clips of him dancing to some music and walking!!! Yay! We finally bought new tapes for our camcorder (on the credit card, ugh) so that we didn't miss Arthur's new walking. I would hate to have a gap in our video footage of his first toddly walking! Also we wanted to get some stuff filmed before he went into plaster casts.

His latest thing is dancing. He LOVES to dance! He was dancing around his birthday but he has had a lot of practise since then, and he now likes to dance standing alone without holding onto anything. It's so funny, because he just bends and straightens his knees, bopping up and down with his hands all floppy in front of him, but it takes sooo much concentration that he always wears a funny little frown while he's doing it! I love watching him dance!

Here is a video clip of Arthur dancing (quite spontaneously) to Kylie Minogue (which happened to be the CD we were playing at Arthur's earlier request!). Also he walks a little in this clip so I finally got that on camera too at the same time, yay! He walked all stiffly with his arms out in front - we called it zombie arms, because he really did hold them out just like that as he walked sometimes! That stage seems to have passed already (boo!) and he is now walking much more smoothly and steadily, and doesn't really hold his arms out much anymore :( Anyway, here is the clip - the images for the links to the clip seem to be coming out as broken links (little boxes with a cross in) at the moment but you can still click on them and get taken to the video clip:

This next clip was taken probably the next day or something. Arthur sometimes switches the TV on by the power button on the front (something we are trying to teach him NOT to do, but in vain so far!), and on this occasion the TV went straight to a music channel which had a music video playing. Arthur gave us a joyful look and then started dancing to it straight away, bless him! It was cute :) Of course we missed that initial moment on the camcorder, but here is the rest of the scene from shortly after :) I know it's just more dancing but I love it so much, so you have to put up with it too, haha! ;)

Now for PHOTOS!! I have so many. I will just put them up and be done with it! Here goes:

I'll update again as soon as I can. I'm updating my pregnancy diary a little more these days because stuff changes so fast there and I'm all excited and want to keep recording it. Not that I DON'T want to record all of the exciting stuff that is going on for Arthur or me and Neil, but you know. Pregnancy is thought-consuming, and needs an outlet! But I will try to update here when I can - hopefully much more frequently soon!

Recent entries.....

Moving time... - 2009-01-04
Christmas Eve! - 2008-12-24
Long-overdue update, a few Nathey pics and a video clip :) - 2008-12-01
Lots of news! - 2008-11-03
Nathan at 8 months... - 2008-10-12