Boo2 - What the Eck?

Okay, so Boo2.  He is a different character than JBB, not better or worse, just different.  From the beginning he was on the go, you could never really hold him as he squirmed and squirmed - my Mum called him 'pass the parcel'.  Within a week of him walking, he was running, he desperately wants to keep up with his big brother, he does everything JBB coes.

Last weekend, we had a family party at a playground which was awesome, we had a beautiful spot under a tree away from the hot sun and the kids could run wild.  I saw Boo2 engaged in a battle with a kid twice his size.  Boo2 was playing with a little dam wall and the bigger kid had come over to push him off so he could play with it.  Boo2 hunkered down and held on to that dam and would not let go.  Finally, the other kid gave up and walked off, I had a little chuckle to myself because Boo2 is one determined little business. I hung back to make sure all was okay and the funny thing was, this big kid obviously decided that Boo2 was worth playing with after that he took Boo2 under his wing.

One of my favourite things that I absolutely adore about Boo2 is his great capacity for joy.  He has always been easy to make laugh and you can really do the same thing over and over again and he will keep on laughing, I love it.  So does everyone else.  When I pick JBB up from school and then we go get Boo2 from daycare, JBB loves to make Boo2 laugh in the car.  Boo2's laugh could make anyone smile, it is mouth open, whole face engaged, head thrown back loud chuckles.  It is one of the most gorgeous sounds in my life.

Since he was a baby, Boo2 has loved to go on slides and pretty much any climbing equipment in a park.  Slides are his favourite by far though and he has this hilarious habit when he is so happy after a slide, he has to jump at the end.  He will do it for hours, run around, go down the slide, jump for joy, run around again.

Today we went to a pool not far up the road that has a little frog slide into the water, even going down that slide, he goes under at the end, pops up and jumps for joy.  Every time he does it, it makes me smile.  I didn't know that 'jumping for joy' was a literal thing until Boo2 came along, bless him!!  I told him today that when we go to Thailand in June that the hotel we are staying at has a little slide into the pool, his response 'awesome!!!'

So, the other thing that happened that has made me say 'what the eck?' is that I was walking down the sideway the other day and Boo2 pushed past me and said 'get out of my way'.  I was very much 'how about you say excuse me?' and he pointed to me and said 'that's what you get'.  Really!?!?!  Then of course, JourneyMan laughed at the situation so I have heard 'that's what you get!' quite a bit lately. **sigh**

 

A 1st Birthday Wish

It’s been a long time between posts – and it is a very, very busy life here. 

First things first – my beautiful Boo2 has turned 1.  My goodness where did that year go.  When I think back to the days before he was born – I was so fearful, Boo2 had stopped moving as much and I was constantly worried.  I remember Anzac day last year was horrible, I was cramping badly all day, I felt super sick and he wasn’t moving very much – I was desperately worried.  Fast forward a year later and our Anzac Day was spent on a family holiday to the Gold Coast where Boo2 took his first steps. Our lives have changed immeasurably since he came into it.

To My Darling Boo2:

Happy Birthday my big 1 year old.  You were tiny when you came into our lives but you have gone from strength to strength.  You smiled so early – months earlier than you were supposed to and you haven’t stopped smiling since.  You are a happy and engaging fellow, who loves to laugh and play games.  You started walking on our Easter holiday to the Gold Coast and there has been no stopping you ever since.  You call your Dad and I both ‘Da’ and there is no greater joy in my day when I see you and your face lights up and you say ‘Da’ and crawl (now walk) to me as fast as you can.  You gave me a beautiful present for Mother’s Day yesterday, you said ‘Mum’ super clearly for the first time – well the smile still hasn’t left my face.  You are super cheeky, you love to climb up on things and when I notice and say ‘Tiny!!!! ‘ (one of your nicknames), you give me a big grin and a hearty laugh!!

You have had your challenges over your first year.  Firstly, there was the bout of bronchiolitis, then there were the ultrasounds because your hips weren’t developing properly, then we found out that you had pretty bad eczema and there were more trips to the doctor.  Then there was the trip in the ambulance to hospital when we found out that you were allergic to egg and, of course, now we know that you are also allergic to peanuts.  It has been a massive learning curve for all of   Apart from that

Exploring is your favourite thing to do, along with just being able to do what everyone else does.  Indeed within a couple of weeks of taking your first steps, you are now running.  You are super social and love people, especially all of our immediate family.  You love your Nanna’s especially as they both take such beautiful care of you each week.  You love music and singing and you can’t contain your delight when we sing songs. 

Your brother is super special to you and the feeling is reciprocated in spades.  You love to mimic what he is doing and after you walked to me, you were the person that you wanted to walk to the most.  You have a special laugh of joy when you first see him when you wake up in the morning or from a nap.  He loves you so much and is a super great brother to you.  Sometimes he gets a little jealous but for the most part, you are his favourite person.  You are a bit of a Daddy’s boy and for a bit you only wanted to go to Daddy

The day you came into our lives, Tiny, was like when the sun hits your body for the first time after a long winter – and you have been shining for us ever since.  You make me laugh, you are a joy and you are so special to me.  I love you my darling – thank you for coming into our lives.  Love Mummy.

In other news – I have to give a bit of a bullet list because so much has happened:

• We sold our old two bedroom unit for a good price

• We bought a new amazing family home that we hope we will never have to move from – it is a gorgeous two storey house with a lovely outdoor area and most beautiful garden 
•  We spent our Christmas holidays at my Bestie’s new house by the beach while they were in Las Vegas getting married

• We celebrated my Bestie’s Australian wedding with her – it was a lovely day
• We moved into our new house in February – it was a hard move but thankfully we hope we won’t have to move again.  We are just now really only starting to settle in to the house – though there is still heaps to do!!
• My sister is pregnant with her 2^nd baby (a girl – yay!!) and she is due in July
• We had Boo2's 1st birthday party at the new house on the weekend - it was immediate family only but there was still around 26people - it was a really nice party
• We are hoping to travel to Thailand in October for our first trip there (since our honeymoon) that we won’t be having a cycle

That’s about it for the moment but it has been soooooo hectic – I have many, many posts in my head – I hope to start posting regularly again soon.

Mastitis and Colds + Boo2

It has been a rough couple of weeks.  I had a bout of mastitis which was terrible.  It came on very quickly, Boo2 sucked so hard on my breast that he bruised it and a blockage came and then came the mastitis.  The fever was brutal, I had to get up in the middle of the night (apart from feeding) to have scalding hot baths so that I could sleep.  I felt like I had been hit by a truck and my breast was so, so sore but you have to keep feeding and completely draining it so that the breast can heal.  I am a little ashamed to say that I cried a few times breastfeeding it was so painful.

I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics and things improved pretty quickly after that.  However, hot on it's heels came a cold for myself, JBB and Boo2.  We were all pretty miserable and of course, Boo2 getting was the most worrisome - we listened very carefully for any whooping, which I am hoping that he has escaped from.  JourneyMan and I, plus both of our Mum's got immunised for whooping cough (there has been an epidemic in Australia) when JBB was born so there hopefully shouldn't be a high chance of him getting it.

Finally, the last few days, I have started to feel better and that has made everything a little easier.  I found that I was having a lot of trouble staying patient with JBB during this time, I was just so exhausted.  I even went to the doctor to see about post natal depression because I was very worried about myself.  I feel a lot better now though, thankfully and whilst, JBB can still push my buttons, I am much more patient with him now. 

Now on to Boo2 - he is an awesome kid.  So smiley, he started randomly smiling at us at around 5-6 weeks and now he smiles in response to talking, songs and games - it is absolutely amazing.  He also goos and gurgles and chortles heaps - it is just so nice.  I had to take him to the Children's hospital last week for a follow up on his bronchiolitis that he had back when he was around 6 weeks and they put a camera down his nose to look at his larynx - this was not a good experience for him, he screamed and I had to hold him - I just felt so bad, it was awful for him.  He also has to have an overnight sleep study done to make sure that he doesn't have sleep apnoea.

We also had an appointment with the maternal health nurse at 8 weeks and he is putting on weight like a champ (though still only in the 5th percentile) and she said that he looked the picture of health which was great.  The only bad thing was that she heard a click in his hip so he had to have an ultrasound to check that the ball joint is developing okay.  He has had the ultrasound but I haven't heard back about it as yet - I am assuming that 'no news is good news' but I will have to give them a call this week.

In total in the last few weeks, I have been to 2 doctor's appointments for Boo2, a maternal health nurse appointment and 3 doctor's appointments for myself.  I have had an Xray, Boo2 has had an ultrasound and camera down his throat and is having a sleep study done tomorrow night.  

I am hoping that things settle down in the next few weeks.  

The action for our unit is on Saturday - please cross your fingers that we get a buyer and a good price!!

Boo2's Arrival....

We have met our beautiful Boo2 and he is every bit as delightful as promised!!  He arrived on 2 May 2013 at 11:45am, weighing 2.7kg.  He is small but, thankfully, healthy.  Here is the story of how he arrived.

Unsurprisingly, I did not sleep well the night before the Ceasar, I got to sleep okay but I woke up at around 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep until 5:30am and that was only for an hour.  In that time, I couldn’t help but think about my Dad and how Boo2 is his first grandchild that he won’t meet.  I had a bit of a cry – I miss Dad,.

JourneyMan dropped JBB and JourneyDog off at my Mum’s place and then headed in to the hospital where we began the big wait.

I got my gown to wear and JourneyMan was in scrubs and then they took us down to the surgery area.  By this time, I was so nervous, I thought I was going to vomit.  The thought of the spinal was making me so fearful, I didn’t really worry about the actual Ceasarean but I really felt sick abou the spinal. 

Finally it was our time to go in, JourneyMan had to wait outside while I got the spinal and although I didn’t get the electric shocks down my legs (thank goodness), it still was very painful and uncomfortable.  The hardest part was keeping myself hunched over while they poked and prodded my back, I felt like it was really hard to breath.

Finally it was done (for the last time, hurrah!!) and they helped me to lie down and put up the curtain.  JourneyMan came in at this point.  It is such a scary thing that you can feel every touch but not any pain.  I could feel when they opened me up but it was not painful.  I could feel all the pushes and pulls and everything like that.  At one point I started to feel nauseous so they gave me some anti nausea medication and I felt better immediately.

After around 7 short minutes, they announced that Boo2 was just about to be born and sure enough, the next noise I heard was his crying – I started crying immediately, I was filled with absolute and utter joy. 

They took him away straight away to clean him off and clear his airway, JourneyMan went with them.  I was left alone with the doctors stitching me up.  I started to feel very sick when they took out the placenta and unfortunately had a vomit.  They gave me some more anti nausea medication and I started to feel better again. 

After awhile, I noticed that they were taking a huge amount of time with Boo2 and I couldn’t hear him – immediately, I started to panic.  I look around the room for JourneyMan and he smiled and let me know it was okay.  The pediatrician came over and said that Boo2 was born with a large skin tag on his arm and that he had tied it off and that it would drop off over the next week or so.  Other than that, he was absolutely perfectly healthy – a huge relief!!

Very quickly it was all over and we were all being wheeled to recovery.  In recovery, I was able to get the skin on skin time and it was wonderful.  I felt like we were only in recovery for a blink of an eye and then we went back to the room.

The rest of night passed with me still in the bed, I didn’t start to get the feeling back until late afternoon and then I started feeling some serious pain.

The pain was nothing compared to the complete, unadulterated joy that I felt just having our darling Boo2 with us.  It was quite a different feeling than with JBB, really mainly because with JBB I didn’t know what the hell I was doing or what to expect.  This time I feel reasonably confident that we  know how to care for a newborn.

After 9 months of worry, after 6 years of fertility treatments, after operation after operation, drugs, acupuncture, complimentary therapies coming out of our ears – our family is complete and it is amazingly beautiful.

There are no words for how happy I am, there are no words for how lucky I feel.

I am absolutely grateful that our boy is finally here – thank you everyone for your support and comments.