Month: June 2009

Cuddles

Today was the last day of the latest parenting course, but dad wasn’t around to stay with him in childcare so he ended up in the library with us. At the end, another kid joined us and Inigo excitedly chased him around the room. Xavier loved that he had a little fan, and they gave each other a cuddle every time Inigo caught him. Its a crappy picture, but you have to trust me, the cute is unbelievable.

Click here for a pic, I can’t get it to co-operate!

Squishy

Squishy has had a rough day. But not nearly as hard as last week!

Thanks to Simone for coming with us, and for her superb sock puppetry, and for covering herself with mango lassi for our amusement. What a champ.

The Nursing Unit Manager was able to get the catheter in first time, and though it wasn’t fun, it was a million times less distressing than last week. And he got presents! Enya, the nurse from last week gave him a little toy, and a pile of books as compensation for his suffering. Lovely.

No results yet, but I am confident they got what they needed, so even if it’s bad news, we won’t have to go through that again for at least another year.

As for psychological damage, he is showing no sign tonight. Touch wood.

Ask Meta Disco

So. iPhone.

I am so close to having a 3 GS, my head is spinning (and it gives me something to think about that isn’t scary).

So, I need some information. You guys that have iPhones, yes, all of you – can you tell me how much data you use a month, and wheter you use push or pull email, what sort of email volume you have, and how much internets you use?

Having never had a mobile internets device, I am unsure how much I will need, and I am hesitant to go on a plan that has more than I need.

I have an appointment at the Apple Store on Friday, so I hope to get some info before then.

Thanks!

P.S. Nasty test is tomorrow. Please send happy vibes for us around 1pm, and for Fe about half an hour later.

Life is full of challenges

And today had more than it’s fair share!

I’ve been stressing about today, I agreed to give a presentation at a Breastfeeding Education Class about positioning and attachment. To twenty people. Far out. Weddings are all about emotion, so while you’re talking to a hundred people, you have a script, and people are so high on the romance and joy of the day that they don’t really notice if you miss something.

Expectant parents are a very different crowd – some are very well informed, others know very little. All of them have paid money to learn a little more about the joys and possible pitfalls of infant feeding, and having to present factual information to such a large and enthusiastic audience was something that I was quite worried about.

Despite my intense nervousness, it went well. Two people left a comment on the feedback form saying that they really enjoyed my part of the presentation, which is far better feedback than I ever hoped to get. So I left on a bit of a high, and didn’t pay much attention to the fact that the car was almost out of fuel. I thought I’d make it to a petrol station on Parramatta Road. I was wrong.

Word to the wise – when waiting for the tow truck on a cold and raining night, turn off the GPS, turn off the radio, and turn off the headlights.

Or you might end up like I did after I was towed to the petrol station. A full tank, and an empty battery. Eventually, a lovely bloke gave me a jump start, and I got home to His Squishyness much, much later than I had planned.

One of the worst days ever

They couldn’t get the catheter in. A nurse tried twice, and then they asked me if the should try again. I said yes, wanting to avoid bringing him back. He was so desperate, panicked and in pain, wondering why his mama was holding him down so they could torture him.

I said yes, and the doctor had a go, and she failed too. And when the catheter came out, it had blood on it.

All afternoon he was spontaneously screaming, while tears rolled silently down my cheeks, and I fought to maintain composure and a soothing calm manner. I sang his favourite songs until my throat was raw.

Eventually, he fell asleep, and aside from a temperature early this morning, is acting as if nothing happened.

And I’m a wreck. I don’t know if my immune system was weakened by the extreme stress of yesterday, or whether I was due for it anyway, but my throat is on fire, and my head is full of snot.

I think I’ll take a day off life.

Oh, and we have to go back on Thursday.

Today is the day

We booked in to have Squishy irradiated two months ago. He has to have a dye injected into his bladder (up the urethra), and then x-rays taken while he pees to see if he still has the urinary reflux.

Cue two months of increasing anxiety about a nasty medical procedure that I have to hold him down for, anxiety that increased day by day as the day grew ever closer.

Then on Tuesday, the day before the test, Westmead Childrens Hospital rang to say that they had run out of radioactive isotopes, and wouldn’t be getting any more for at least 6 weeks. And would I like to reschedule for late July?

When I expressed surprise at the late notice, she said, “well, I tried to ring you this morning”. I felt sick.

So I rang another hospital, spent almost an hour (no exaggeration) trying to convince the nuclear medicine people that if a test involves radioactive isotopes, then it is a fair bet that it’s done in Nuclear Medicine, not Urology or Medical Imaging. Really.

Finally, I was able to get through, and the test is booked for this afternoon. It will be painful for Inigo, and no doubt terrifying, and it will be my job to stay calm and soothe him. I just have to remind myself why we are doing this – because hopefully, hopefully, he’ll have grown out of the dicky bladder, and he can stop taking the antibiotics that he has been on for over a year now.