Injury Time

OK, so I've been a touch lax in updating the blog recently.  It's not that nothing has been happening, just that I've not got around to documenting it.  So, with that in mind, here we go with a super-sized post!

Grande nappiccinos

When we last left our hero, he was struggling with some poo issues.  After a bout of constipation, Alex had moved (boom-boom) on to producing tiny, high density pellet poos.  (HDPPs.)  These were very small and had a curious texture, rather like wet peat.  They also stank.  Really, really badly.  They were clearly difficult to pass too, as poor Alex would go bright red and gurn while trying to fire them out.  We started feeding him lots (lots!) of fruit, especially prunes, and some laxatives from the GP.  Finally, something shifted.

And oh boy did it shift!  The first "normal" (non-HDPP) poo was epic.  It required not one, not two, but three (count 'em, three) nappies to contain!  Gushing would be a good word.  To say Alex was relieved is an understatement!  His tummy is now noticeably less taut.  Poos have returned to more normal volumes and regularity, although they still really pong.  I suspect this is a side effect of solids and will not change.

Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

Alex has also been experimenting with causing bodily harm to his parents of late.  (His Dad specifically.  I don't know if he likes Mum more, or if Nic's just faster than me.)  So far Alex has jabbed me in the eye with sufficient force to make opening said eye difficult for a good five minutes and rammed a finger so far up my nose that he caused it to bleed.  (My nose, obviously, not his finger.)  He's also cut his own ear with a pointy fingernail.  We try and keep his fingernails cut to reduce these incidents, but the only way you notice they've got sharp again is when someone looses an eye.

In charge, but not in control

Last Thursday Nic went in to the office for a couple of meetings while I stayed home with Alex.  I've said before that I don't know how Nic manages to cope so well at home most days, and last Thursday has left me no more informed on that score!  Alex and I coped, but I'm not sure how well we'd do in the long term.  (Apart from anything else, it's a weird mix of terror and boredom.  Like the Army, but with less bullets and more Bargain Hunt.)

During the day Alex and I went to both the baby drop-in clinic at the health centre (he now weighs 7.96kg, or 17 & 1/2 lbs) and Rhymetime at the local library.  I was the only dad at either one.  I guess this isn't surprising given how childcare and parental leave are divided up in the UK, but it's still a bit of a shame.  (It's also remarkable to hear some of the nursery rhymes sung at Rhymetime!  Talk about old-fashioned stereotypes!  The woman running Rhymetime at least had the decency to look slightly embarrassed about it, although only when it came to stereotypes about dads.  Ones about mums sailed right by without comment.)  We also had a nice time in the garden, where Alex attempted to denude the lawn of grass, one handful at a time.  (He wasn't interested in eating it though, thankfully.  Just pulling it up, looking at it, then discarding it.)

Night fever

The day after I was looking after Alex we had our first real health scare.  About lunchtime he went grey, spaced out, head flopping, and then spewed.  He was also boiling hot.  Nic phoned the health visitor, who said she'd get the emergency doctor to call back, then my dad, who said just to go straight to the GPs, as they'd want to see Alex anyway.  Once she was there they diagnosed him as having a viral infection.  (GP speak for "you're going to feel like crap for a couple of days, but you're basically fine and there's nothing we can do anyway".)  Alex seemed to be ok-ish once I got home, albeit somewhat subdued and clearly running a fever.  When we had our regular bath though, he did the grey faced spacing out thing again.  We dosed him with calpol and prepared for a disturbed night.

In fact he slept relatively well over night.  It was just that when he woke up it was a touch more... interesting than usual.  First time, Nic fed him then went to give him some more calpol, at which point he vomited, with extreme prejudice.  It went all over him, his sleeping bag and Nicola.  Especially over Nicola.  Her pyjamas, her hair and even down her pants.  I was handed Alex to change while Nic took a shower at 2am.  The next feed he managed to only puke on his sleeping bag and a bit of Nic's jumper.

The next morning he seemed a bit better, although still a bit off his food.  No more spew at least.  By lunch, the fever seemed to have broken.  JRB warned us that kids often appeared to get better from viral infections before having another fever (although this doesn't seemed to have happened to Alex), so we didn't count our chickens at that point.  By the evening he looked to be in that "I'm not really ill any more, but I'm too knackered to do anything" stage.  By Sunday, he was right as rain.  If anything, he was in a better mood than he'd been in for days.  He stayed bright and breezy all day.  He was fine this morning too, so I hope we've survived this bout of illness.  Let's hope so, anyway.  It was no fun at all.

Welcome to the World, Baby Brown

Congratulations to Esther and Al Brown, who had a baby boy, Hugh Alexander, last night.  7lbs 4oz, mother and baby both well.  A new friend for Alex!

Le Chat Noir

I wrote previously about Alex and Ringo's mutual ignorance pact.  Well, the pact has been well and truly broken.  Alex is now very, very, VERY interested in Ringo.

This interest seems to have been sparked by a trip to Fife, where he was allowed to stroke my mum's cats.  Since then Ringo, and cats in general, have become the greatest things in the known universe.  If there's a cat in the room Alex's eyes will be glued to it.  If the cat comes near him, oh!  The sheer joy!

It can be pretty funny to watch.  You can see the interest and excitement in Alex's face.  His thought process seems to go something like:  Cat!  Cat!  Cat!  Fabric!  Cat!  Cat!  Patterns!  Cat!  Cat!  Dad.  Meh.  Cat!

About the only thing better than looking at a cat is getting to touch a cat.  Ringo is particularly fuzzy, so is particularly interesting to touch.  His long, silky fur is also, rather unfortunately, particularly easy to grab in a chubby fist and rip from his body.  Unmoderated cat touching can result in a baby with hairy palms and a grumpy looking mog with bald spots.  The best solution is to hold Alex's hand whilst stroking the cat, allowing Alex to get a feel of his fur, but preventing him from getting a handful of it.  This leads to big grins of pleasure as he strokes the cat.

Ringo is amazingly tolerant of all this.  The poor beast has been demoted from his rightful spot as head of cute brigade, generally neglected in favour of a pink, gurgling thing and now he's getting tufts ripped out of his coat!  Despite this he's never even threatened to lift a paw to Alex.  In fact, he'll sometimes come over and speak to Alex of his own volition.  Thank goodness they get on.

Poo Update!

He's done one!  Woo hoo!

Apparently all he needed was to have his bowel problems discussed on the internet for all to see.

Maybe Tomorrow

(Hideously catchy explaination of the title.)

Alex is a little blocked up at the moment.  At both ends, unfortunately!  He's managed to combine a stinking cold with an epic bout of constipation.  How bad you ask?  (Well, you probably don't, but tough.  I'm going to tell you anyway.)

He's not had a poo for seven days.  Seven days!  How is there even any space left for food?  How come he hasn't exploded?  He's eating just as much as ever (although he is throwing more of it back up than usual).  Where is it going?  More to the point, what on earth is it going to be like once it finally comes out...?

There's a curious dichotomy to your child's poo.  On the one hand, a day without poo is something of a blessing.  On the other, it does mean that he's saving up a real cracker for tomorrow.  After seven poo-free ("Poo free!  As free as the wind blows!") days, what's the first bowel movement going to be like?  Evil, I'm betting.  Something of a relief for Alex too, I should imagine.

Surprisingly, he doesn't seem in the least upset about it.  I'm sure that if I'd gone seven days without taking a dump I'd be pretty hacked off with life.  Not Alex.  He's just as happy as ever to jump about, eat noses and fling soft toys about.  (Carrot-Rabbit and Mr Lion (pictured at his interview for the position of soft toy (0-6 months)) are the current top toys.)

We've had a quick look on the internet (mmm, trustworthy) and asked JRB (famously missed the fact that I had measles as a baby) and come up with no really good answers.  More fruit seems to help.  Sometimes.  If you can get them to eat the damn stuff.  Alex was due to have mushed pears for breakfast today.  Goodness knows if he ate any of it.  (He's a real junk food addict.  Boxed Heinz baby food or nothing!  (That's an exaggeration.  He likes his home-made cauliflower and potato mush as well.))

Fingers crossed.  Maybe tomorrow he'll want to settle down to a massive dump.  Even better, maybe he'll do it when I'm not there!

P.S.  Google ad on the dashboard of the blog as soon as I clicked "post"?  "Feeling bloated?  Try Activia!"

Little Man

When I arrived home last night, Nicola and Alex were sitting in the kitchen, watching dinner cook.  Alex was in his high chair, Nic was on a dining room chair.  When I said hello, Alex turned around, gave me a big smile of greeting and then went back to watching the veggies roast.  That little moment was one of the times I've felt most connected to him since he was born.

It can be hard to see babies as people sometimes.  Alex is tremendously cute and I love him to bits, but the same can be said of Ringo.  For the first few months, babies really are like cats in clothes.  They know what they want and they can tell you if they're happy or upset, but beyond that it can be hard to see the person they're going to become.  As adults we don't stuff everything we see into our mouths, nor do we take great delight in holding our own feet.  Babies do.  They're learning about the world, one tiny step at a time.  It's obviously necessary, but it makes them seem like a member of a different species sometimes.

Alex's response when I got home was so obviously human, so easily intelligable, that it really brought it home to me that he is a person.  A little man with likes and dislikes.  Not just a cat in clothes.

P.S. Three updates in a week?  What's going on?  Could it be that I'm doing literature work at the moment and any excuse to avoid it for five minutes is most welcome?  Surely not.

EDITED TO ADD:  Hmm, re-reading this it sounds rather like I was suggesting I didn't feel connected to Alex before.  That's not what I meant, rather that this was a moment of particularly heightened connection.

Mobile Reception

Meet the newest recruit in our war on wakefulness.  I give you the Fisher-Price Precious Planet 2-in-1 Projection Mobile (tm)!  (No, that isn't Alex in the photo.  It's a promotional shot from the Fisher Price homepage. I was way too tired to bother taking a photo of a piece of plastic.)

Basically, it's a fancypants mobile.  Strap it to the cot, place baby underneath it and sleeping ensues.  At least in theory.  To aid sleep, it rotates under its own power (or at least under the power of four 'D' batteries, not included) while (and I quote) "animal friends from around the planet twirl and smile down at baby as music plays and a fascinating light show dances up above".

The "animal friends" are a curious assortment.  They are: Yellow Lion, Green Crocodile, White Polar Bear and Cyan Whale.  Yep, you read that right.  Cyan Whale.  I can only assume he's cyan so you don't mistake him for a 190 tonne Blue Whale.  They apparently represent different environments on Earth.  (Ocean, Savannah, Tropical and Arctic.  No love for the temperate regions it seems.)  The "fascinating light show" consists of slightly fuzzy pictures of the same four animals, plus a couple of friends.  (In wanton disregard to geographical accuracy the polar bear is snuggled up against a penguin.  The lion at least gets an appropriate giraffe and hippo combo.  (All baby toys must have a giraffe on them.  It's the law.))

The music comes in three varieties.  Classical, as rendered by one man and his electric keyboard.  (Assuming said man had lost nine of his fingers in an hideous Casio accident some years back but struggles on gamely with his one remaining finger.)  Nature sounds (a wee inducing collection of waves lapping the shore and gulls skwaking) and inter-uterine heartbeat and white noise.

The very best thing about it, though, is the remote control.  Clearly designed for parents who have not had much sleep, it has a single, massive button (marked with a red arrow, just in case you missed it) and little else.  If all you could manage was to mash the controller with your face you would still be able to operate it reliably.  Amusingly it is marketed as letting you "restart the mobile without disturbing baby".  Ha.  Restart the mobile without getting out of bed more like it.  If I need to turn the bloody thing on it's because baby has already disturbed himself!

Enough cynical whinging though, let's get down to the nitty gritty.  Does it work?

Yes.  Yes!  A thousand times yes!  God bless Fisher-Price!  All hail the mighty powers of Cyan Whale!  (All right, I might be over selling it a bit here.  It's not a magic bullet, but it really does help.  Alex particularly likes the nature sounds.  So far we've had two successful getting back to sleeps with the aid of the mobile, and it's very handy for getting him off to sleep in the first place.  Nicola's hairdryer may finally go back to only being for drying hair.)

So, fingers crossed, maybe we'll get a chance to catch up on some sleep soon.  Then perhaps I'll be able to work out how to operate that damn remote control...

(Photos in this post are from http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=10&e=product&pid=48400 and are used under fair use/fair dealing.  Please don't sue me!  We got our mobile from Amazon.co.uk and I'd heartily recommend any parent to get one!)