Skin issues sidetrack

At our last pediatrician appointment I pointed out a few marks which have appeared on Wren's skin. The three smaller ones are tiny pale brown marks called cafe au lait spots. His are less than 3mm across but were not there before. The pediatrician said that was nothing to be alarmed by but if he had or grew many more they would watch for a neurological condition called neurofibromatosis. Ick.

The fourth marking was there from birth but has thickened slightly and reddens when he is hot or cold. The pediatrician said she suspected a mastocytoma and scratched it to see if it caused "hives". I have since read that this is called a Darier sign. She said that Wren's did not form a hive quickly but by the time we were home it had blistered and looked like a little weal so that is probably what it is.

Today Frost finished his last summer camp - a play of Roger the Jolly Pirate. Here are some pictures I took of the final performance in the park. Frost was "Man 1" - one of the Admiral's men. He had a single solo line to say "it is a ghost!" and said so with a flourish before running over to tell me he had seen an inch worm on a tree.



Frost and Wren on the grass at the Good shepherd center:

Moving to own room

There have been a few changes and lots of moving about going on in our home this week. Natasha and Douglas are still visiting from Australia and its wonderful to have them around. I have company in the morning, people to offer me tea (made from loose leaf Harrods tea mum gave me a few visits ago) and lots of getting out and about to counter my rather repetitive and mundane habits. This evening Tash and Doug are dining at Wild Ginger (there is a bit of envy in my tone) and Doug spent some of the afternoon browsing at Elliot Bay Book company.

It is testimony to the monorail of my life that I mis-typed Elliot Baby Book company. Yeah, its all baby all of the time!

On the baby front (mis-typed as Frost) things are also afoot. Wren is pulling up on everything and just starting to take a single shuffling step along while standing up. If he wants to travel some distance along the couch or gate he sits down and crawls before standing up again. Still, the shuffling has begun and will no doubt evolve into cruising before too long.

I know I owe you pictures of this standing business but although Frost has been in camp all this week (its one about Pirates) I haven't manage to catch up on much of anything. I am more relaxed though and feel I am a much better mother. I guess my mothering know-how only extends to about 8 hours a day. If I have more than that I feel some depletion (decomposition seems a better word) and find myself tuning out and having to say "pardon?" when I have missed a conversation.

Yesterday, I moved Wren's crib into his own room (which was once Granny's room and more recently Frost's camp). Joshua moved from Frost's camp to our room and Frost moved to his new room. Wren is now sleeping in his crib in his room although I am still willing to move to the room in the wee hours until the Night Weaning plan takes effect. I have decided to give him a week in his new room before night weaning in case he has trouble adjusting.

Wren has lots of routines which he enjoys and some he doesn't. He does not like clothes changing or bathtime. He loves to stand at the base of the yellow slide in the garden with his diaper hanging low and covered in leaves and twigs, eating pebbles. Thankfully the pebbles are tiny but they keep me busy doing the mouth scoops.

Speaking of mouths - I noticed Wren had a few white spots in his mouth yesterday and fearing thrush I took him to our pediatrician. It is not thrush but he has mouth ulcers probably from a low grade virus. He had been fussy nursing which now makes sense. While there I mentioned my concerns about some skin markings Wren has. Three little brown patches less than 3mm across have emerged in the past month and he has an irregular reddish slightly raised and scaly patch to the left of his spine.

The doctor said that the brown patches are cafe au lait marks and up to 6 are okay. More than that and they can be a sign of some neurological issue I don't want to dwell on but have. She scratched the other mark and said she expected it to cause some hives if it was what she thought it was. It didn't cause hives but she still suspects its this thing which name I forget. It is benign. This didn't satisfy me either and I left more anxious than before. I will discuss this further at our 9 month checkup in a few weeks.

Okay, enough for today. I am going to eat dinner.

Birthday Party by the lake

Today we all went to one of Frost's school friends's birthday party. They have a cabin by a lake in Snohomish county. The water was warm and pleasant for swimming and Frost had a wonderful day swimming in the lake without a lifejacket, jumping off the jetty, climbing up onto a large inflatable lake trampoline and playing extended bouts of super squirter combat. He has a nasty graze on his knee from falling while running at the park yesterday but it didn't hurt him or slow him down until he returned to the car. Then he started groaning.

He said it was the best birthday party ever.

Wren also had a fine time crawling around on the large grassy lawn by the lake. He tried to eat hemlock cones and cracker jacks (caramel coated popcorn) but was denied. Instead he had avocado. He napped much of the drive home but revived to eat "dinner" when we arrived. He had some of the frozen sweet potato granny made him with some frozen spinach. He ate two cubes of food (frozen in an ice cube tray) and could have had more.

Josh and I also enjoyed ourselves. I had a margarita and a swim in the lake. Joshua had lots of time looking after Wren. He and Frost have just about finished watching the latest Pirates of the Carribean from netflix. I think Frost was too exhausted to do anything else and while he is enjoying it he keeps saying "wow, this movie is long".

I hope Wren sleeps well tonight.

Crawl up stairs

Wren has just crawled up the stairs from the back yard on his own. He started getting on the first step and I followed him all the way to the kitchen!

Mudbath

This morning, I opened my email to be greeted by the following note from my mother:

Poor Wren! Are you feeding him enough solids! I am on his side. There he is crawling around the floor foraging for food! Are you alerting everyone to be ultra-careful about little dangerous items being left around!" I have nightmares [about this].

For the record I am feeding him a wide variety of solid food throughout the day. I am not as systematic as Mum was due to a shortage of labor in our home. I am the labor and the bosses are restless.

Today, Wren has eaten rice cake, banana, spinach, sweet potato and one arrowroot cookie. It is only 2pm.

This morning Wren helped me in the garden. He climbed a tree and played in the mud. Here are the pictures I took:

Joshua watches Wren climbing out of the mud.

Wren plays in a muddy puddle while I water the albizia which is growing vast this summer.

Wren comes to share his muddiness.

Wren stands at the back gate watching Kitties in the garden.


We just returned from a walk to Bagel Oasis where Frost had a bagel with his friend Nate, Clarissa and their Mum Laine. The whole family is moving to Norway and it was good to hear the latest on their preparations. We were going to have Nate for a longer playdate but Laine had to come early because he was stung by a wasp while we were walking to the restaurant. I had some thai chicken salad with roasted eggplant from Bai Pai (which I can highly recommend).

Now its Wren's naptime. This morning nap was only 35 minutes so I am hopeful of a longer respite this afternoon since Josh is going to archery and, if last night was anything to go by, it promises to be a long night.

Oh, the trick of the day was climbing onto the coffee table. I have no idea how Wren did this but I was watching him, turned away, turned back and he was sitting in the middle of the coffee table. I have seen him trying since but he has not repeated it. However, he climbed from my lap onto the dining room table while we were eating breakfast.

Before I go, I want to share a link to a newborn baby with Shones Syndrome [Jelly Bean's Journey]. His family received a very similar diagnosis to Wren's prenatally and he had his coarc repair surgery a couple of days ago. I am sure that prayers and positive thoughts would be appreciated.

Gnasher

Wren has such large teeth that I call him "the shark". He likes to bite - pierce, gnaw, tear - at anything and everything. That includes raw potatoes (Tash was peeling for the gnocchi we made for dinner). She said he dug into them with his bottom teeth repeatedly. He also likes to bite my nipple when nursing. I don't look at him with quite as much affection thesedays.

He is now wingeing and whining and crawling after me because I took a gnarly piece of seaweed from his mouth.

Yesterday I removed:
* pebble
* bark
* lego
* rice cake and
* dirt
from his mouth.

He is almost cruising. He doesn't really move his feet but has started to rock and shuffle when standing and yesterday he lunged from the coffee table to the couch while standing. He made it!

His favorite places to pull up on are the gates, the baby einstein activity center, the world globe stand and the ottoman.

His favorite things to destroy are the telephone and the shell collection.

8 months old today

Wren is eight months old today. He is eating rice cakes in crumbs, bits of carrot and he even had an arrowroot cookie yesterday (a la Joshua).

He likes to squeak through a baby whistle and stand up on everything. He also likes to hold long thin objects while he clambers about and gets very angry/upset if you take it away. Today, his long thing choices have been: a sharpie, a chopstick, a ballpoint pen, a playmobil lance and a magic wand.

He is now sqwarking at bedtime. His sleep is still fragmented - typically he is in bed by 6.45pm, wakes around midnight yelling his head off. We try and ignore this (ie, I try and sleep through it) or Joshua comes in and says soothing things. He wakes again around 3-4am and nurses. I put him back in his crib or sometimes fall asleep nursing and he wakes again an hour or so later (4-5am). This second time he used to stay awake for the day but now he tends to go back to sleep if nursed a bit and wakes for the day around 6am. If not for the fragmented early mornings I wouldn't complain as much but its pretty touch and go after 3am and I am still very tired even though I am asleep by 10pm almost every night (9.30pm being common!)

We have quit cloth diapering and are on Seventh Generation #3s.

Now the big news is that Frost had an echocardiogram today due to teh family association of CHDs. We just heard from the pediatrician that his echo was totally normal! This is a great relief. I am happy!

Floor nuggets

Since the gate went up Wren has taken to crawling the perimeter of his zone searching for floor nuggets. When he finds one, he puts it in his mouth with his evolving pincer grasp. This morning he ate cat food. It was disgusting. By the time I did the search and retrieval operation the catfood had disolved into a brown paste which Wren thought pretty tasty.

It was not on the 6-9mth first foods list.

Wren was even more upset when I removed the remaining three catfood balls from his hand. He was saving those for later.

He has also discovered my collection of seashells and right now he is fingering and mouthing and bashing a large Lettered Cone shell. Apparently, some more things will have to be removed from this area as he has spotted (but can't yet access) the small cowries and indonesian shells in the plastic drawers.

His most common accident is pulling up underneath something low. Yesterday, he repeatedly bonked his head by pulling up on a table leg under the table, or under the tall desk stools. He has an absolute desire to pull upright. This morning I saw him move his feet across a bit but more usually he just lowers himself down to sitting with a little bump.

Speaking of bumps.. last night was a bit bumpy. Wren cried a lot at midnight till josh came in and spoke to him. He woke and nursed at 2am and then was up for the last nurse/wake at 4.45 but dozed till 5.30 so I didn't try and get him back to sleep.

Hopefully Frost sleeps in till 7.30am at least. Having both up before 7am is a bit rough.

Okay, wren is standing up under the chair and needs help.

PG 2

Wren went to bed at 6.30pm because his second nap was not a long one. He slept until midnight when he started crying and it took 20 minutes of complaint before he fell asleep. This first waking was softening me up so when he woke again... at 1AM ugh... I nursed him quickly in hopes of better sleep.

I guess it backfired. He slept until 4am and then felt it was morning and no amount of nursing could convince him otherwise. He just wasn't hungry enough. So, I tried the "roam freely around the bed" thing I did last night. It didn't work. I was too tired to watch him and he was too tired to play but not too tired to avoid sleep. I put him back in his crib and he played and rolled quietly before starting yelling. He STILL could not nurse to sleep and started crawling when I brought him to bed. Eventually... at 5.35am (after a few attempts at nap-nursing) I put him in back in his crib for the second tiume and left the room. He cried loudly but fell asleep within 15 minutes. We both got another hour of sleep to get up around 7am.

I am not sure if these broken/extended nights are a step forward or back. They are better for me as I am less tired than getting up at 4.45am but perhaps I should just let him yell earlier?

Meanwhile, Josh finally got to go to archery last night ending a carless day for me and the kids. It was a long one with many irritations but in the end Shrek 3 for Wii arrived. While Josh was out Frost and I started playing Shrek and I am glad to say it is easy enough and forgiving enough for us both to enjoy it. I defeated all the bosses and found lots of treasure and Frost went to bed believing I am an all around good Mummy. I felt he was pretty good to because he ate all his rice, tofu, cabbage and broccoli (aka leftovers) stir-fry AND had a second helping. I cook roast chicken and he picks at the potato but loves this cabbage concoction? I will just have to accept it I guess. It was pretty tasty.

Just a while ago Wren and I came through from the bedroom to play on the living room carpet. Wren discovered the Wii controller and nearly Pii'ed on the Wii while I was diaper changing him. I couldn't resist that, sorry.

Coffee is now brewed. We are off to the farm today, belatedly. Tomorrow is the "Heart to Heart" CHD support group pool party. The group has been a great support for me, particular during the prenatal diagnosis and early surgery. I am looking forward to the pool. I am not looking forward to appearing in my slightly tight, semi-transparent swimsuit (don't you hate it when they kind of rub off and you are left wearing skeletal lycra?).

PG 1 [Post-Granny Day One]

This morning was the first time in a few weeks that I was alone on the early-baby shift. Wren was a superstar sleeper in one way. He went to bed at 6.45pm and woke to nurse at 4am. This is the longest stretch EVER. However, he thought that 4am was a fine time to get up and blamed my reluctance on lack of light and that silly digital clock saying 4 something.

I spend a lot of my time in bed counting hours on my fingertips. My mental math, once brisk, is now a sorry mess so I have reverted to my digits. For example (in the dark of bed) I count on my mental fingers. If I got to sleep at 10pm and get up at 4.15am that is six and a quarter fingers of sleep.

This morning, having no coffee companion, I decided to stay in bed. So I nursed Wren and then let him crawl around the bed without speaking to him. My only intervention was to stop him falling off the bed or pinching my nose. After 45 minutes he realized he was tired and fussed and flopped a bit. When he started crying more loudly I nursed him and he slept another horu from 5.20 till 6.20am. Somehow that feels like a great triumph.

This was made possible by Josh being in "grannies room" with Frost. Frost woke at 4am crying because he was "scared" on his own and wanted to come into our bed. This is not an option for me until I get 8 hours of sleep so I offered Daddy as a sacrificial sleeper and he staggered in and is still asleep. Frost tells me that he is scared at night because he thinks "bad thoughts" about things he sees on TV. Scooby Doo is a particularly rich source of bad ideas because there are "always bad guys who get some stuff".

I have suggested he stops watching Scooby Doo and he has agreed. I doubt this will stop the anxiety but perhaps the monsters will more manageable.

I nearly forgot to feed Wren real food this morning because Granny had taken total responsibility for feeding him. She has him eating a wide variety of food. This morning he ate the cherry cubes she made him. Recently he has been eatng sweet potato with baby rice mixed in, pureed cherries, cherry chunks, avocado chunks, banana chunks, chicken pieces, floorboard and dead moth. The last two were a la carte (or floor).

Yesterday I visited Babies r Us on the way to the airport. While there we picked out two gates to limit Wren's roaming. He is pulling up on everything and is starting to shift his weight from foot to foot. He crawls like a wind-up toy... vrooooom... Frost says that he is wonderbaby because he doesn't even see him move and suddenly he is somewhere else!

The first gate has been installed between the kitchen and corridor. This corrals Wren in the living room and kitchen area. The second gate is going at the top of the back stairs so I can leave the back door open and still have basic baby proofing in place.

Oh, on that count. If you have tried to phone us and found that the answering machine does not pick up it is because Wren has taken to pulling down the telephone and bashing the buttons, invariably turning off the answering machine function. Sorry.

Now its time to get Wren ready for a short short walk. Today Josh has the car so we are having an at-home day and will be making choc-chip cookies and catching up on laundry. I hope Mum made it hope okay and her luggage makes it too.