A short tale

Once upon a time, Nev was dressed up like her daddy

... but daddy doesn't use a binky, so it was taken away

... Nev got mad, and flailed and kicked and whined

... and was mighty proud with herself, for kicking a bootie off her foot and onto the floor.

The end.

(Yeah, needs a little more work, LoL!)

Open mouth, insert foot. And hand, apparently.

So last Thursday, Nova was his usual chipper self, trying at times but in general, you know, chipper. Like this:

"Mommy! I LOVE this! More onion bagel please!! Why have you NEVER fed me this before??!?"

... then came Friday, which happened to be one of his daycare days, and it's always a challenge to get him fed and into bed without a meltdown, because he's just SO TIRED after a day at daycare. This kid's ideal bedtime is 6pm!

But wow... he was particularly angsty that day:

"How dare you give me something that's not yogurt! Now I don't even WANT yogurt!"

Really really angsty.

Refusing pretty much all food. Except yogurt (which I'd coincidentally/intuitively stocked up on a few days prior. Love it when the Universe does that!!).

And over the weekend he drooled and drooled and drooled, and whined and whined and whined, and ran a slightly elevated temperature, and chomped on his hands & fingers a lot ...

Oh. Teething, huh?

Then some blisters appeared at the corners of his mouth.

FML. It was HFMD.

So that was how we spent our Labor Day weekend: taking care of a kid who was really badly-hit by Hand Foot & Mouth Disease, without knowing it was HFMD until maybe 3 days into its emergence. Nova's timing was perfect, as painful as it all was, better "waste" the long weekend than have to juggle sick kid *and* work! Poor Kosh though, he got no rest at all. None of us did.

Oh, and "waterboarding" your kid in order to get liquids in him? so NOT what I'd ever thought I'd have to do, ever! [Okay, not really waterboarding, but it certainly felt like we were torturing him with water/pedialyte. Nova was refusing food and drink, and we had to keep him hydrated, so finally we held him down and squirted Pedialyte into his mouth with a 10cc oral syringe. Took many rounds to get even 4oz in him. Ugh! We need a larger syringe!!]

Let's just hope Nev didn't get hit with it too. The pediatrician's office said kids that young rarely get it because their immune systems are usually really robust. Let it be so, Nev, let it be so ...

Nova's on the mend, but daycare won't take him in until his blisters start to dry up. Damnit! I *so* need a break!!

Especially when I have to subvert the ring sling being lent to me to strap him to the high chair, otherwise I wouldn't be able to feed him mush or yogurt, nor would I be able to waterboard him solo.

Ugh.

15 months!

Hey so remember a while back, when I took a few pix of Nova in his monkey swing?



This is him now:

I think he's grown a bit, eh? ;)

Happy 15 months, boyo!

One week already?!

Just a quick picture post. Nev at one week.

PROM, the second time around ...

So some of my dear readers may recall that about thirteen months ago, I woke up at 2:45 in the morning to go to the bathroom, only to find myself lying in a pool of liquid. I woke up the hubby, who told me it probably wasn't what I thought it was, and to go pee lah. As I walked down the hallway to the bathroom, liquid totally dribbled down my legs ... called out to hubby about it, who responded by saying I needed to pee, right? So go pee. Just ... don't "push", ok?

And that was how my first P.R.O.M. started. Premature Rupture of the Membrane, more commonly understood as "my water broke!".

But wait, you say. Your FIRST P.R.O.M.?

Yup.

Guess who's here, 5 weeks early?


For Nev, it was different, yet similar. This time, it was 2am, and I felt three good gushes into the pad I was wearing (ah, the joys of a weak pelvic floor as a result of having already pushed a kid out of my nethers!) as I walked down that same hallway. Smelled the pad: did not smell of amniotic fluid to me, but it was saturated. Changed it, went back to bed and woke the hubby with the news that we might be having a repeat event. This time it was me who downplayed it, because I really really really didn't want to face this all over again. We had a toddler to deal with now, for goodness' sake! I'd only officially asked one person if she'd be on our 3am baby call list for when Nev was to arrive, and I had only planned tapping her in July. This was early/mid June. Very big difference!! The hubs and I kinda talked through what we thought about all of this for a while. Then I had a bout of coughing that send a huge gush of stuff out of me. That settled it - no more putting it off. I wasn't feeling any contractions, but I definitely had a PROM again. Time to get moving. We decided to not call anyone, and for Kosh to take the day off from work.

So at 2:45 am, I took a shower.

Then tidied myself up a little.

Added to my "to go bag" (hey, I learned something from last year!)

Packed Nova's diaper bag.

Kosh packed his own bag o' stuff, then woke the kid, changed his diaper, and got him ready for some hospital time.

... ... ... NEXT: the initial hospital experience, the second time around ... stay tuned!

A day in the life ...

This past weekend, Nova had a busy busy Saturday. First, he was graduated into the big boy stroller (i.e. NOT in the bucket seat in the stroller).

Then he cheered on guys in heels...

Then he was totally knackered, and rested a while.

Daddy and Mommy then drove him around in the big boy car seat (technically this pic is from the following Monday, but, well, I wanted the story straight, LoL!)

... then we arrived at Scheels, where he said hi to some fishies...

... and to Meijer, where he totally lounged in the cart (because he kept slipping, LoL!)

... and gave his approval to the purchase of a ball for his amusement (there's a vid of him and the ball up on FB, if you're friends with me and you missed it)

We then had dinner at our fave restaurant: he didn't get any Thai food, though. A *bit* too soon for that, LMAO! Daddy played scritchy scratchy through the stroller cover fabric with him. He liked it. Can you tell?

I have more cute pix of him, but these capture a LOT of those moments already :) p/s: I do NOT like the new blogger interface!!! Waaaahhhh!!!! :((

Phone test

So I'm wondering if tackling blogging by phone will help me bit more active here on the blog.

Right now I wanna check how this would deal with multiple pics ...

Posting ...

UPDATE April 26th: okay blogging with images by phone SUCKS, can't dictate where they sit within the text so they'd just end up clustered at the end of the post. I suppose I might do text-only posts this way? :p

Nova: Solidifying his intake

Way back in November, we had started Nova on solid food. Click on that link to see him experiencing rice cereal for the first time.

We then moved him on to oatmeal, then barley.

He might have some sensitivity to either one, or both of 'em.

So those were taken out of rotation, and now he's slowly making his way through pureed veggies, and later fruit.



I totally intend to make my own baby food. I just don't have the energy to get it done. Yet. So in the meantime, storebought it will be!

Here are the veggies he's gone through:

• peas
• carrots
• green beans

and here's the plan for the next few veggies & fruits:

• sweet potatoes
• spinach (as part of a mixed veg including already-vetted carrots & peas)
• squash
• corn (as part of a corn & sweet potatoes combo)
• advocado* (will be of the freshly-mashed kind)
• prunes (will this give him the runes?)
• bananas* (will be of the freshly-mashed kind)
• apples
• pears

After that we'll move on to include meats & legumes.

Each type gets fed in the morning for four days in a row (unless a reaction is seen/detected earlier) followed by a day or two of rest (this slot is then filled with rice cereal).

He also gets rice cereal in the afternoon daily.

I had been taking it easy about feeding him solids, maybe once a day, skipping it if it was inconvenient, if we were gonna be out and about, etc. But at his 9-month check-up, it turns out he's not been gaining the weight he should be, so we're upping his solids (and therefore caloric) intake in addition to trying to maintain his liquid intake.

From the way Nova is snarfing down his food (I swear I've got to shovel the cereal and/or veggies at full speed into his mouth otherwise he starts chewing his bib) I guess he's liking and wanting this change.

We've got a follow-up weight-check appointment in 6 weeks' time. I think we should be on the right track.

A year ago today...

A year ago today, I "came out" on Twitter and Facebook about being preggers with Nova. What better way to mark this day than to announce that we are once again expecting a little one? :))



Introducing our very own grey... or skrik (he/she DOES look like that famous Munch painting, right?)... who will be henceforth be referred to as Nev Naranek. Pronounced NEHV, it could be short for Neville, or an alternate spelling for Neve (which itself can be pronounced NEHV or NEEV), hence serving as a gender-neutral moniker for the internets.

Nev is due in the teens of July.

I freely admit that the first thing that popped into my mind when they told us the due date was "Hmm. I guess I'm gonna have to hold him or her in just a few days longer than that, in order to have a Leo!" Haha, I have my priorities! I was denied a Summer Solstice baby after all, so it would be nice to have a fellow Leo... ;)

Updates as and when time, kid(s) and energy allow!

Cheers!

The Book Challenges that Weren't: what I read in 2011

Last year I was all excited about joining two book/reading challenges that dovetailed nicely with what I had been planning to do anyway: re-read Stephen King's Dark Tower series



Unfortunately, with the pregnancy, and school, and the 3 weeks of hospital bedrest, then just taking care of a baby 6 weeks earlier than anticipated... reading just didn't happen.

Of the Dark Tower-related books, I read 4.05, but reviewed only 2 of them:
The Eyes of the Dragon, DT 1: The Gunslinger, DT 2: The Drawing of the Three, DT 3: The Wastelands, and have yet to make it past the prologue of DT 4: Wizard and Glass.

Two non-DT books I managed to read during the 3 weeks in hospital:

• The Wise Man's Fear (Kingkiller Chronicles Book 2) by Patrick Rothfuss [was *gasp!* bored thru the first third or so, and thru the faerie copulation section]
• Dark Jenny (3rd Eddie LaCrosse) by Alex Bledsoe [anything Arthurian goes a long way with me :) ]

So... apart from books used in class (including You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L Hay), and What To Expect When You're Expecting... it looks like I read a measly six books last year.

SIX

ouch :(

Perhaps I'll be able to sink my teeth into the books I want about the time the last Kingkiller Chronicles book comes out? :p

The Nova Story: Chapter Three: The Cliff's Notes

Previous "chapters": One & Two

So, how did the pregnancy go?

The pregnancy was trouble-free for most of the first two trimesters. No morning sickness, no sensitivity to odors, no discernible fatigue (I didn't work, but had class from 6pm - 10pm, so I could sleep in, I'm sure that helped!), you name most pregnancy complaints, I did NOT have them.

However, my hands did start to swell and ache starting in the second trimester. However, that coincided with the start of our weekly Massage Clinics, where on a full session we'd have three back-to-back hour-long massages once a week, in addition to the hands-on stuff we'd do during regular class at least two other nights a week. How much was pregnancy-related, massage-related, or one feeding off the other? Who knows.
Sleep was a precious commodity: with Nova pressing on my bladder, I had to pee every two hours or so. Yes, through the night too. And I couldn't get comfortable anymore in bed, so was hardly sleeping. That was not fun, ugh.

I was also being monitored for Gestational Diabetes since diabetes runs strongly in one parent's family: I squeaked past the 3-hour challenge, but when the fetus doubled its weight in one month at ~ week 25, we knew we needed to start properly monitoring my blood sugar levels. I had was issued a blood sugar testing device, and had to test myself four times a day while recording all I consumed. The numbers were slightly higher than they should have been, but not atrociously so. The folks in charge wanted to me to meet with a dietitian to get better about my meals.

Then the PROM happened.

I guess that'll be Chapter Four.

The Nova Story: Chapter Two: Mum's The Word

[This post was started on the 15th of November last year; over two months later, I'll try to get this done between laundry loads, while the baby sleeps!!]

Chapter One was about finding out.

Kosh and I were in agreement that news of the pregnancy would NOT be publicised to anyone until we were well past the 1st trimester. We ended up breaking the news around Thanksgiving-time to immediate family ('live' with Kosh's side, and by mail to my Swiss & Malaysian sides), then via social media in January (Kosh via Facebook) and February (me, via Twitter and Facebook -- this was when "Nova" was chosen).

On the medical side of things, I'd neglected to get myself a local OB/Gyn despite having been in Springfield for over a year, so an immediate task was to identify someone, and make an appointment. Found someone, and was scheduled for an ultrasound on what turned out to be the fetus' 7th week. Couldn't see it via my belly so they had to stick a wand up my vajayjay, ugh. And Kosh wasn't there for that because he was running late *and* they actually took me in early. And I forgot the phone in the car. Gah! What a day! But hey, we walked away with baby's first picture:



I had started my Massage Therapy course about 2 months prior... since there are some contraindications surrounding massage and pregnancy, I had to break the news immediately to the main hands-on instructor. Coincidentally, the day I broke the news to her was the day she was teaching the "pregnancy massage" modality, LoL! Broke the news as necessary to some of the other instructors, and to my classmates at the end of the year. So yes, they knew before the official announcement in February :)

Next, I guess we'll cover some details of the pregnancy itself. The Cliffs Notes version: it was easy until we entered the 3rd trimester. Stay tuned!