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2007-01-19 - 11.20pm previous entry next entry
Update, Arthur's monkeyness, and foody photos!
Thank you so much for the messages!!! :) Hmmm, tea tree oil... I think I may have some somewhere. In fact I'm sure of it... I just can't think where I put it. I'll have to hunt around. I have lavendar oil but not calendula so will have to go and get some asap. Thanks for the great tips! Matthew got a single dose of oral antibiotics so I am not sure whether or not that could affect his little tummy just on its own. I haven't started him on dairy yet so not sure how to get extra friendly bacteria into him?? In fact I've stopped the solids these last few days, and he's just having plenty of breastmilk. He was taking down so little as it was that I figured it would keep things simple to just do breastmilk while he was poorly. I need to increase his solids (or offer more meals - I still only offer him one or sometimes two) when he's better. I'm so slack at this!
That's interesting about teething and bugs (and maybe it IS a boy thing?), because Arthur was always that way. If he was teething (as in actually cutting a tooth or just about to, or having got a new one in the last few days) he would get something viral EVERY SINGLE TIME from about 10 months old. Every time. Mostly he happened to be exposed to lots of bugs because his peak teething time when he got the most teeth in the shortest period, was this time last year (well, Jan to April), and he was attending regular playgroups at that time. But sometimes he was not, and we would just have to go out to the supermarket or for a WALK and he'd come down with a cold with his new tooth, urgh. It got so that I sometimes used to keep him home if I had the choice, when I knew he was cutting a new tooth, just to give his poor little system a chance! So maybe Matthew is going to be the same. I don't actually SEE any very obvious evidence of new toothies coming yet though, despite all this awful teething. I see the bottom two middle ones beneath the gum but I know that doesn't mean they're going to pop through right away. Surprisingly, it's his TOP front middle teeth that are looking different today and yesterday. His gum there looks a whole different shape, and it's more swollen and I can see the actual shape of the teeth outlined against the gum on the front. Maybe those will push through first? Arthur had the classic bottom middlies first and then ONE top middle followed by a top lateral - he was a one-sided boy for a while, hehe! But I suppose they can do anything really, these toothies!!
I also use those Ashton and Parson's teething powders, Jemma! Absolutely NONE of the other brands do so well, and in fact one time when Arthur was about Matthew's age, we ran out and couldn't find any A&P's, so I got some Nelson's (or was it Boots own?) and he was absolutely REPELLED by the stuff! I can't think what was so different about it, but he wouldn't have it! Matthew was the same when we tried him on it. A&P's was recommended to me by another mother when Arthur was 2 months old. It's the FABBEST teething powder around! But it isn't doing a lot for Matthew at the moment :(
I am starting to feel more like Matthew has had some sort of tummy problem. I'm not sure about whether it's been viral or not though. Arthur shares the breast with him and I have been kissing him (plenty of his drool, etc!) allll this time, and we're all fine. I'm sure I'm run down enough to have picked something up, even mildly, if it had been viral?? But anyway, last night every time I fed Matthew during the night, he would strain as usual (he's recently been pooing horribly every time I feed him) but just fart and not poo. Then every time I put him down in his cot half-asleep, he would fart again as he got comfortable. One time he did SIX noisy farts in a row!!! This morning he did a little poo and lots of farting! No poos for the whole morning either. It started to remind me of after you've had a tummy bug or other diarrhoea-causing thingy, once it stops you tend to be FULL of air (or is it just me?!) and farting away like crazy until you get eating normally again! I seem to recall that isn't very comfy, but still you feel WAY better than when you were poorly with the diarrhoea, so... It made me wonder if Matthew HAS had a little something, and a large part of his pain might have been a crampy tummy, poor lovey. That's just the WORST. I feel so sorry for him in hindsight!
I am surprised at how much better he seems today already! Yay! I think it's the tummy issue clearing up that's helping so much. He has done 3 poos today (mostly later in the day) and they were still basically horrible but fewer of them. BUT he had one nappy where he only did one tiny wee for a nearly-4-hour stretch (there was a reason for the lonnnng spell in the same nappy, as I'll go into in a minute!) so that worried me a bit. He is still feeding normally and getting plenty of breastmilk though, so I am doing all I can for him. All his other nappies have been VERY wet (both before and after that nappy) so I think he's fine. I will keep an eye on it, but I think he's getting better now. He had been fussy over his feeds for a few hours before that not-very-wet nappy though, not taking much milk during the feeds for whatever reason. He had some big feeds later and weed aplenty!
Matthew's abcess seems the same to me, so far. Neil thought it was a bit smaller this morning, but I don't think it is yet. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day though. Nappy rash is still horrible, and the barrier cream isn't cutting it so I must get those oils tomorrow. It's easier to do his antibacterial cream now that he's not pooing so much.
Matthew's mood has been SO much better today! He didn't cry much. He did still cry more than usual and seem in pain sometimes, but he only seemed to need one dose of Calpol during the day. It was soooo indescribably relieving to watch him just "potter around" for like an hour non-stop this morning. He just crawled to a toy, sat up and played with it for a while, crawled to another toy, sat and played with it, patted his legs and made chatty sounds, crawled to the toy garage and tried to push trains down the ramps (!), crawled to another toy and sat up to play with it, etc. He seemed happy and interested and it was just sooooooooooooo nice to watch him!
All that sitting practise that he was doing before he could quite get the hang of crawling has really paid off! Now that he can actually crawl, he doesn't have to worry about what to do when he gets to something, or stay on his tummy to play. He sits from crawling and crawls from sitting in one smooth (very quick flip-like!) move which seems like he hardly needs to even think about it to do it, which is great for him because it means he can go straight to sitting at something to play with it when he has crawled there. For lots of toys, sitting makes the play easier (or even possible at all) when sitting rather than lying on his tummy, so that's lovely for him. He likes to practise it a LOT still.
We have had a rather.... interesting day, courtesy of my like-mother-like-son little monkey boy! Late this morning, Matthew had had his long nap earlier in the morning and was acting happy, and Arthur had been bugging me to take him out for a walk all morning. The weather was unexpectedly sunny and not toooo windy, and so I thought it would be ideal for us to go for a short walk before Arthur's lunch and then naps for both boys after that. So I got Matthew changed and dressed and ready to go out, and then changed Arthur's nappy and got him dressed too. Then I went in the kitchen to get washed up and dressed. I have basically learnt to wash and dress in the kitchen since Matthew was born! It sounds gross (and probably is) but I don't care. It's less stressful than leaving them alone while I disappear upstairs to get myself ready. There is no time before they are up in the morning - they're up before ME usually! So I'd rather stay in the next room where I can keep putting my head round the doorway to see what they're doing while I wash.
Anyway I went in the kitchen to wash, and as I finished and reached for the towel, it struck me that Arthur was being "too quiet" (you know that sinking feeling?!) so I popped my head round the door whilst drying, and there was Arthur, having somehow reached Matthew's antibacterial cream down from the top of the merchant's chest (I did not put it on the edge), and he'd bitten the tube until it burst open IN HIS MOUTH. He was frozen in this horrified stupor with his mouth hanging open and filled with white cream, disgust all over his face. He was holding the bust tube in one hand and there were globs of cream on the floor and his hands and his face, ugh. He looked at me and said, "Hulk!" (which is "help!" spoken open-mouthed around a ton of nasty-tasting cream ;) ) so I cleaned him up best I could. I wiped his mouth out with a cloth and to my surprise it wiped RIGHT off, not even leaving a white residue or anything, which was good. I got it all, well, everything that I could see. I DID tell him off though! Little monkey!
Once I'd cleaned him and the carpet and put the tube out of reach, I consulted the leaflet that came with the medication and discovered that I had to seek a doctor's advice IMMEDIATELY if it was ingested! Yikes! I had no idea if he'd actually swallowed any, but it was entirely possible given how much was filling his mouth (it went right to the back of his tongue almost) and how explosively it probably came out when he burst the tube. I asked Arthur if he'd swallowed any down to his tummy and he said yes, but I am not sure if that is true so I couldn't rely on it! He often says yes in response to questions that are related to something he DID do, as though he hasn't quite understood the question.
I phoned the doctor straight away but they were closed till afternoon surgery (four hours away!!) so I phoned the chemist where Neil had got the cream, asked to speak to the pharmacist and explained it all to her. She asked me questions about how much he might have taken, and his age, etc, and told me she ought to seek further advice so she took my number and called me back. When she called back she said he needed to be seen by a doctor asap! I told her the surgery was closed for lunch and she said that if it opened again within say 45 minutes then fine, but otherwise I must take him to Accident and Emergency!! I phoned Neil at work to let him know and he managed to get out of work to come with us. We drove to his office and picked him up and then went straight to the children's A&E near where we live. Urgh.
We had a long wait and during that time, Arthur played with the filthiest looking toys I have seen in a LONG time, and got coughed all over by a really unhealthy looking boy the same age as him. His nose was streaming and his cough was awful, and his mum was worried about his asthma so she brought him in. I hope he was past the infectious stage (though I think probably not) because otherwise Arthur was WELL exposed to whatever he had. Yuck. I hated watching him get too near that little boy, playing with him all innocently! His mum didn't keep him back from playing with Arthur and I felt rude telling Arthur to stay away from him, and also it was just too long and boring a wait for poor Arthur to have to sit with me away from the toys just to avoid him. Ugggh. I sooooo hope he won't come down with anything, Matthew too. He was in either my or Neil's arms the whole time. I tried breastfeeding him once or twice but he was too interested in his surroundings, hence the not-much-milk and the resulting rather dry nappy, I think.
We eventually got seen and Arthur's stats were fine. His oxygen saturation was 97% and his pulse 117 - both healthy and normal. He had no erosion inside his mouth from the cream and his heart and lungs sounded fine. The hospital had decided to contact the London Poisons Unit (yiiikes!! Thank goodness I didn't know this before they told me!!) for advice and were told that Bactroban (Matthew's cream) was only mildly toxic! Anyway they said they thought he would be fine, and that if he HAD ingested any cream, he might have an upset tummy in the next 12 hours, but he was healthy and energetic and fine at the time of our visit so they were happy with him, and we came home again. The boys were very late for their naps and Arthur only had a snack at lunch time which I had hurriedly stuffed in my bag as I left with the boys to pick Neil up. He has made it up with lots of breastmilk this afternoon and some healthy snacks. His late nap meant he didn't go to sleep till 8.45pm which is CRAZY late for either of our boys! But oh well. They are asleep now and have slept peacefully so far. Matthew has woken twice to nurse, and I'm thrilled to get the opportunity to get milk into him so that's fine.
What a day! My MONKEY boy! I say he is like-mother-like-son, because he is exactly the age I was when I was discovered with an open bottle of my grandfather's blood pressure pills, and nobody could tell if I'd taken any or not (or how I got hold of them in the first place, for that matter!), and so we had to go to the hospital. In those days, the way of dealing with that kind of thing was NOT pleasant. It meant mucho epicac orange juice to drink followed by terrifying endless uncontrollable vomiting, and resulting lifelong phobia. *sigh* These days they give kiddies this tar drink that makes all the bad stuff stick to it inside them (or something) and then they just do a BIG tar poo which has hoovered up any pills they took and passed them out neatly and conveniently! I WISH they'd had that when I was two.
I am also just like my own mother, who at this VERY age was discovered in the garden one day with half a slug in her hand and the other half in her MOUTH!!! Ugggggghhhh! ;)
Okay, enough of the gross talk! Hehe!
I have so many photos to catch up on! I think I will start with Matthew's foody ones :) I haven't been keeping up here with how his introduction to new foods is going! It has now been a month since he started solids and I kind of feel like I should have offered him a bigger variety by now. And meals too, rather than one item of food at a time (or two). I am just so ridiculously disorganised. I am working on it though, this New Year. Not a resolution as such, as I don't tend to make those, but yeah. It's not fair on the little ones to continue being THIS disorganised in everything! I know Matthew would probably love full meals by now! When he's better I want to start cooking properly for him, and hopefully his interest in MY cooking will start to wear off on Arthur. *sigh*
Anyway! Here is my happy boy trying pear for the first time:
I can't get over how thrilled he is with ALL foods (so far!). He did make this face about the skin....
... but only because it was a bit new and a completely different texture to all his other things so far! He didn't keep the expression for long! My boys are SOOOOO different! Let's just remind ourselves of Arthur's expression the first time he tried pear, hehehe!...
And he's been the same ever since! Which is why I have high hopes for Matthew, being so different with foods and all. In fact you can even see Arthur in the first photo of Matthew and the pear above, being highly unimpressed with some meal that Neil is presenting him with, haha! It's funny how they show such traits so clearly when they are still just tiiiny babies, and it's part of them for years to come.
Matthew has also been eating apple:
Apple and cinnamon rice cakes (which he loves!):
A fistful of baked beans, which was kindly donated by his brother without me noticing! Arthur was having beans on toast at a close enough distance to reach out and plonk a handful of baked beans in front of Matthew, saying, "Air-go Ma-Ma!" ("There you go Matthew!" - he's so generous with him!) and Matthew was soooo thrilled! He couldn't get enough of the baked beans and shoved them into his mouth with his fist once he'd picked them up, and even licked his hand afterwards! I let Arthur give him a few more and gave Matthew a spoon to fiddle with as well, which he did try to eat them with actually. He just loved the baked beans!
Also Duplo, which, whilst not exactly a FOOD, he still looks very cute chewing on, and thus I couldn't resist adding this photo! :) Not sure why he's dressed like Joseph in a nativity play, but methinks we were having a silly Mummy-and-Matthew moment and he seemed to find it funny :)
And then most recently, delighted with his pizza crust:
And eating wholemeal toast, and starting to get a bit fed up of the continual paparazzi-style harassment every time he tries to sit down and enjoy a new food, hehe!
He did try a pea or two recently, and I can't remember if there has been anything else. Nothing that I've taken photos of, anyway. I'm going to make him a chicken and leek casserole thingy this weekend, if he's better :)
Okay Matthew has been awake again (seemed unsettled but he's asleep again now) and I've been and eaten some food, and now it's reeeally late so I should finish. A car alarm a few houses away went off about 10 minutes ago and it's STILL going, ugh. It's - oh my gosh! - 1am!!! Neeeed to go to bed. But tsk that a stupid car alarm is going off at this hour! And it's one of those that is like a car horn being leaned on permanently, not a rise-and-fall sound. Yeurgh. It's so loud that I know there's no point me getting in bed and trying to sleep. It'll only wind me up and get me annoyed. I'm just glad the 3 boys are sleeping through it - not sure HOW though!
Okay I'll post two more photos and then I have to go and put my head under a pillow or something. Here are my two sweetie boys about a week or so ago! Arthur still loves to "hold Mashew" and asks quite a lot. He sits on the sofa and waits expectantly, patting his little legs that are stuck straight out in front of him! I put Matthew on his legs like I used to when he was tiiiny, and Arthur puts his arms round Matthew with a huge smile and says, "Ohhh getting huuuge!" hehe! :) He soooo loves his baby brother! Here he is doing just that:
And a minute or two later, when they'd flopped back on the sofa:
I love them sooooooooooooo!!!! :D
Oh thank goodness, the horrid noise has stopped! I'm going to revel in the lovely silence from my comfy bed :) Night night! I'll write again over the weekend, as I have so much to update. I've told Neil I need to make time to write my diary a bit more to catch up, so I should be back soon (I hope!). Thanks again for the helpful and supportive comments! xxx
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