Birthday Month

July is birthday month at our place.

Oliver's birthday is the 4th July. Mine is the 18th July. Chelsea's is the 21st July and Mark's is the 30th July. Poor Byron is the only one not born this month.

But because of all the clustered birthdays we thought we'd do something special this year and purchased ticked to Cirque Du Solei. We got my Step-mum to babysit Byron especially, bundled up Chels and off we went to the (rather expensive) circus last friday. She lasted about 30sec before she starting thrashing around and kicking people in front of us and screaming like a banshee. In the end we got ushered into the 'sky room' right up the top of the entertainment centre it was being held in. But not even her own private viewing room was enough to pacify Chels. So we ended up leaving shortly after intermission. Needless to say, Mark and I were a bit annoyed.

Then Monday came, and it was my birthday. I actually had a good day despite waking up to a mountain of washing up, the dirty laundry basket overflowing and three dirty guinea pig cages!



Mark bought me some awesome flowers and a WHOLE chocolate cheesecake. (I'm trying to loose weight - 12kg down in the last 4 months through Weight Watchers so far) - so this was an interesting birthday situation. Yummy, but not ideal! My mum had asked me what I wanted, and I explained that the only thing I really needed was more fur. So that's what she got me. I asked her to choose things she thought I wouldn't have chosen myself, to try and give me something a little different to work with. These are the three awesome pieces she picked out!



Then on wednesday it was a mad dash out to the shops to buy provisions for Chelsea's 2nd birthday and her party scheduled for today. I managed to juggle both crying children through the supermarket to collect colour matched table clothes, cups, cuttlery, party bags, food and ingredients. Got home. Fed the kids. Started on the rainbow jelly cake, and was maybe 5mins away from having them both in bed at the same time when I caught sight of Chelsea falling from her new trampoline head first.



I ran outside and she was screaming. (which in itself isn't unusual for Chelsea!). But this scream was different. She was physically shaking and not holding herself properly. I figured out that she wasn't able to use her left arm. So after a couple of frantic phone calls to Mark to get him home to watch Byron so I could take Chelsea to the hospital, we were on our way.

Originally the doctors thought it was her elbow. So they got me to hold her arm out straight, palm side up for an x-ray while she screamed the place down. We quickly realised why when the x-ray showed she had actually broken her wrist. And the bone was misaligned.




So they strapped her up, told me to give her some panadol and present to the children's hospital in the city the next morning. Which basically translated to a night of no sleep for Chelsea, me or Mark. I was literally going from feeding Byron, to cradling Chelsea in my arms while she whimpered 'hurt hurt' over and over. We all finally fell asleep at 3am this morning, only to have to be up again at 5am to head into the hospital.

They were great though. We'd seen the specialist by 7:30am, were up at theatre by 9:00am and in recovery by 10:00am. Home by 2pm. She then slept until 4pm when we were finally able to give her her presents and try and make the day feel a little more like her birthday.

It still felt like a crappy day though. I know she doesn't understand that today was any different to other days. But she loves everything to do with balloons, candles, singing happy birthday and unwrapping presents. I get really sad when I think about the day I had planned for her versus the day we actually experienced.




She's sleeping now, and seems reasonably comfortable (after a fight to get some pain relief medicine into her - resulting in sticky pink syrup spat out all over my face earlier). So I really hope we all sleep better tonight. You don't really realise how amazing a full night's sleep is until you haven't had one for the better part of 12months. And then you don't realise how good slightly broken sleep is until you don't sleep at all! :P

My 'Pretty Rose' - Li Mei

I would have had this gorgeous young lady finished a lot earlier than this - but unfortunately things didn't go so smoothly over the last day or so!

I had a doctors check up appointment yesterday, just to make sure baby is growing as he should be. Firstly my blood pressure was too high, then baby was measuring too small, and then I was informed that I had missed a check up appointment (I didn't realise there was another one I should have gone to! Woops!).

So with all of that information, my Dr decided I needed to go to the local hospital immediately, so they could do further tests. Luckily my mum was coming around to visit, so she watched Chelsea. Mark left work early and we spent the better part of 4 hours at the hospital with a monitor strapped to my belly checking bub's heart beat (a very strong 170bpm) and movement (he didn't really stop moving the whole time!). I was measured and poked and prodded, had to do blood tests and urine tests and have my blood pressure taken again - and it was decided that everything was perfect! If anything, they think he's big for his gestational age - a good 2+ weeks big!

So after all the 'excitement' of the day, I managed to have some relaxing time in front of the TV last night, and got my first panda finished. I've called her Li Mei, which means 'pretty rose' in Chinese (according to babynames.com anyways!). She is so gorgeous (if I do say so myself!) and such a nice way to have finished an otherwise rather stressful day. I find that I just can't stop looking at her too. There is something so special about the black/pink combination!

Evil Peanuts

My poor baby has an allergy. Which is so odd, as neither Mark nor I have any allergies. Not my parents nor his. Nor our collective grandparents/extended family. So this has just come out of no where!

When she first started eating solids I was so careful to follow all the recommended guidelines. Introducing certain foods at certain ages. When she was getting close to 12months I started giving her little tastes of peanut butter - no problem. I assumed it was all fine.

Then a few weeks ago I purchased an all natural 100% roasted peanuts, peanut butter. I thought I was doing the 'healthy' thing. I gave Chels a bite the size of my thumbnail and her chin went all blotchy. I kept an eye on her, but it went down about half an hour later. I made a mental note to keep an eye on her after eating anything peanuty.

Yesterday, I was eating a muesli bar and without thinking gave her a bite. It had peanuts in it. Immediately she got all blotchy again. But it seems to subside after an hour or so. However, while I was bathing her I noticed her tummy and bottom were bright red and bumpy. Like hundreds of ant bites. I put some cream on her while I was dressing her. Gave her a bottle then went to check her nappy before putting her down for the night - she was COVERED in the rash!!! This was 5 hours after eating the muesli bar.

We took her to our local hospital and they gave her a drug to help ease the reaction. She was tired, and itchy, but handled everything beautifully! This morning you wouldn't even know it had happened!!!

I am just in a little bit of shock that she has this allergy. It just seems to have come from nowhere... Anyone else out there in blog-land had any similar reactions? I'm taking her to get fully checked out on Friday, so hopefully we should know soon if its just peanuts, or if there are more things we need to watch out for!