Well, this was something I really didn't see coming. Wren is having trouble gaining weight. When he was just released from hospital I was so proud of his ability to gain weight. He went to the 90th percentile and stayed there till 6 months. By nine months he had fallen back to 75th. He was 48th percentile at 12 months which I put down to lots of recent physical activity and made an effort to feed him more.
He does not want to eat! He just likes nursing in little snacks a few times a day and during the night. I took him to the doctor for a check on his chest since he has had a cold for 2 weeks and was up all last night coughing. The doctor was concerned that he has gained only 3oz in a month. He is now 35th percentile.
He has to go back in a month for another weight check and the pediatrician recommended that we tell cardiology if it continues as this can be an indication of his heart having problems.
Great.
My sense is that the relative weight decline negatively correlates with his increased walking. He walks around the block, climbs and chases cats all day. Still, I have to admit that he has very little appetite for solid foods. Today, he ate the following:
A few bites of dry cereal
Banana
3/4 tub of baby yoghurt
5 raspberries
1/2 cracker
5 spoons of cream & delicata squash puree
Nursed 4 times
I have no idea how to encourage him to eat more. I lay a lot of little bites of good food on his tray and he throws off everything except broccoli and raspberries... oh, and cookies.
Tomorrow I am going to make a rich cream/egg yolk custard and offer that with steamed apple. But why won't he eat if he is not getting the calories he needs? Or is he getting what he thinks he needs nursing but just not building up an appetite. This is what our other ped insinuated... that I should offer butter and creamy foods instead of breastmilk.
Josh is not concerned.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Petition to Support CHD Awareness Week
Dear Mr McDermott
H. Res 858 is "Supporting the goals and ideals of the National Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week". Please sign on to this H.Res 858 as a co-sponsor to help get this resolution passed this year.
Our little one year old was born with a potentially fatal heart defect and it was only the great resources of local hospitals that saved his life through surgery. We were lucky and had the condition diagnosed early.
In the wider community, not much is known about heart defects and many children are diagnosed lat and go into severe heart failure. Some require transplants, many die. Please help raise awareness of this important issue.
---------------- BACKGROUND ---------------------------
Hi, We are once again trying to get Congress to pass a National CHD week
resolution.
Representative Robert Andrews has introduced House Resolution 858, "Supporting the goals and ideals of the National Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week". You can read the resolution here.
Please contact your representatives and ask them to sign on to H.Res 858 as co-sponsors and we'll get this resolution passed this year!
To contact your representatives, start here.
Enter your zipcode into "Find your Representative" at the top left. Once
you've done that, go to their official website (a link will be on the page)
and send them an email message asking them to support H.Res 858.
H. Res 858 is "Supporting the goals and ideals of the National Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week". Please sign on to this H.Res 858 as a co-sponsor to help get this resolution passed this year.
Our little one year old was born with a potentially fatal heart defect and it was only the great resources of local hospitals that saved his life through surgery. We were lucky and had the condition diagnosed early.
In the wider community, not much is known about heart defects and many children are diagnosed lat and go into severe heart failure. Some require transplants, many die. Please help raise awareness of this important issue.
---------------- BACKGROUND ---------------------------
Hi, We are once again trying to get Congress to pass a National CHD week
resolution.
Representative Robert Andrews has introduced House Resolution 858, "Supporting the goals and ideals of the National Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week". You can read the resolution here.
Please contact your representatives and ask them to sign on to H.Res 858 as co-sponsors and we'll get this resolution passed this year!
To contact your representatives, start here.
Enter your zipcode into "Find your Representative" at the top left. Once
you've done that, go to their official website (a link will be on the page)
and send them an email message asking them to support H.Res 858.
Wren's first hike
Today Wren walked around the block on his own two little feet. He was very happy to be out in the freezing sun. He followed a cat. He threw pebbles. He explored every element of the urban landscape showing no respect for those invisible boundaries between the public path and the private lawns and pathways. He climbed the stairs of many homes, invaded their shrubbery, thumped the hub-caps of cars, pointed at crows and mainly followed the fluffy grey cat who lives in our neighborhood and chose to escort us on our wanderings.
I picked Wren up on a few occasions to cross roads. I tried to make him hold my hand to cross the road but he won't walk holding hands, tugging and pulling away as I try and grasp his cold fingers. Besides those short periods of being carried( and a few times when I had to turn him around to change direction) he walked the whole way.
Moving slowly, the beautiful blue skies, the smell of woodsmoke, squirrels running around, crows eating peanuts, the quiet streets. It felt like being on vacation in the woods. I am replenished after my days of exhaustion while Frost was on school break.
Wren was exhausted by his walk and is having a good nap.
I picked Wren up on a few occasions to cross roads. I tried to make him hold my hand to cross the road but he won't walk holding hands, tugging and pulling away as I try and grasp his cold fingers. Besides those short periods of being carried( and a few times when I had to turn him around to change direction) he walked the whole way.
Moving slowly, the beautiful blue skies, the smell of woodsmoke, squirrels running around, crows eating peanuts, the quiet streets. It felt like being on vacation in the woods. I am replenished after my days of exhaustion while Frost was on school break.
Wren was exhausted by his walk and is having a good nap.
Pictures in the icy garden
Here are the boys playing in the icey garden yesterday. First, there is Frost (in the morning).
Then we have Frost showing Wren a large icicle. Wren is alarmed by it and has been warning me about it with pointing and hoots.
Wren in the afternoon sitting on a chair. He is wearing an owl sweater that used to belong to Luca (Tamsyn's son). She sent it to me when they moved back to Geneva and we are very much enjoying it (as well as the other clothes!)
Wren wearing another of Luca's sweaters. He is standing behind some big rounds of cedar from the tree we cut down.
Then we have Frost showing Wren a large icicle. Wren is alarmed by it and has been warning me about it with pointing and hoots.
Wren in the afternoon sitting on a chair. He is wearing an owl sweater that used to belong to Luca (Tamsyn's son). She sent it to me when they moved back to Geneva and we are very much enjoying it (as well as the other clothes!)
Wren wearing another of Luca's sweaters. He is standing behind some big rounds of cedar from the tree we cut down.
Freaking out about soap and other things you didn't know about Wren
Its been a while since I posted about Wren's daily games and Herculean abilities so here goes.
Chatter box in a strange language
Wren can speak his own version of English. It has some resemblance to the one we speak but can require imagination to understand his dialect. He says the following words in his own way:
bu-bye
ello
dada
mama
teezzy (Kitty)
bub-bil (bubbles)
muk (milk)
vroom (car)
baa (sheep)
he snorts for a pig
he goes "aaar" for a tiger
He signs:
UP
MILK
NO (vigorous head shaking)
Waves BYE-BYE
Waves HELLO
ALL-DONE
CHANGE (for diaper change)
Understanding Instructions
It is clear that Wren understands what we are saying and has a sense of the routines of the day. Last night, when Josh mentioned getting a book, Wren went to his room and returned with a board book. (By the way, he loves reading books.) I tell him its time for bath and he toddles off to the bathroom. If I suggest he gets a ball he looks around and fetches one for us to play with. Sometimes, if one is not in sight, he lies on his belly and peers under the couch and table to see if a ball is under there. In the early mornings (yes, he is waking pre-dawn again) I suggest he plays with his animals and he goes to the cupboard and starts offering me pigs and Dalmatians and tigers until I turn on the light.
A Fascination with lids
Wren has a few passions that are all his own. Firstly, he is obsessed with lids to containers - the smaller the lid the better. His favorite are bottle lids. He doesn't play with them as much as feel a very very urgent need to replace a lid I remove. If he sees me take the lid off the milk carton to pour some into cereal he lurches forward out of my arms hooting in alarm until he can grab the lid. He replaces it on the carton and twists it to try and fasten it back on. Unfortunately, he continues to hold the lid while twisting both ways so the lid seldom engages on the thread but I manage to satisfy him by screwing it on and putting it away. He is really upset if I leave a lid off. For example, while making vegemite toast I often leave the vegemite jar open. He will yell and hoot until I allow him to replace it.
Fear of foam and cream and slime
Wren's greatest antipathy is for slimy, creamy or sticky things. He hates having anything clammy and wet on his hands. This week the poor babysitter offered him fingerpainting. He was curious until he touched the paint and it remained on his hand. Then he became inconsolable until cleaned up. He dislikes foamy soap on his hands and is actually afraid of the small pieces of soap left in the soap container since he had a bad experience with them (I don't know what). He is horrified by the kids shaving cream soap Frost played with in the bath once. The moment it is squirted into the water or on the side of the bath he cries and reaches out out out, signing "all done, all done" and trying to climb out if I am not quick enough. He does not mind dry dirt or mess on his clothes... its just the wet squishy stuff on his hands that bothers him.
Pounce pounce BONK!
Wren loves to pounce on soft things. Put him on the bed near a stuffed animal or pillow and he stretches tall and makes the most almighty belly-flop into the soft thing. He does not have good aim and sometimes pounces head long into the side of the bed or smashes his head against my nose or Joshua's eyebrow as he overshoots our soft bellies. Still, the joy of pouncing is eternal and he can be distracted from just about any bad mood by a (naked) bed pounce.
Cat bashing, or "gentle" flesh and fur clutching
He still loves the cats but is only marginally better at molesting them. He throws things at them and chases them under tables but if reminded he clutches their fur gently and strokes their air above their bodies for a few moments. Then it is back to grabbing chunks of cat or thudding in joyful hoots. The only exception is when Kitty Haiku is sleeping on one of the dining room table chairs. SHe likes the nook when a chair is pushed in under the table and Wren has learned from a painful scratch that she is not very tolerant of being abused while there. So, every morning he checks under the table and if he finds Kitty Haiku asleep on a chair he shouts and points in a warning cry until I acknowledge that its "kitty, sleeping, carful!" Then he walks off, satisfied.
Throwing dangers
It is not only the cats who are in danger from Wren's enjoyment of throwing. Wren is a good thrower but is unable to differentiate between safe and unthrowable objects. While it seems self-evident to most of us that balls are for throwing, Frost and I suffer daily injuries from being hit on the head or body with heavy missiles such as blocks, plastic animals, cups, books and even cutlery.
Wren is about to wake from his nap so I shall have to go and get him up. I shall try and post our pictures from playing outside in the garden yesterday. It is very cold in Seattle at the moment with sheets of ice remaining all day in the shade. Still, we are so excited by dry sunshiney days that we are outside at every opportunity getting red cheeks and lowering reserves of hot chocolate in the pantry.
Chatter box in a strange language
Wren can speak his own version of English. It has some resemblance to the one we speak but can require imagination to understand his dialect. He says the following words in his own way:
bu-bye
ello
dada
mama
teezzy (Kitty)
bub-bil (bubbles)
muk (milk)
vroom (car)
baa (sheep)
he snorts for a pig
he goes "aaar" for a tiger
He signs:
UP
MILK
NO (vigorous head shaking)
Waves BYE-BYE
Waves HELLO
ALL-DONE
CHANGE (for diaper change)
Understanding Instructions
It is clear that Wren understands what we are saying and has a sense of the routines of the day. Last night, when Josh mentioned getting a book, Wren went to his room and returned with a board book. (By the way, he loves reading books.) I tell him its time for bath and he toddles off to the bathroom. If I suggest he gets a ball he looks around and fetches one for us to play with. Sometimes, if one is not in sight, he lies on his belly and peers under the couch and table to see if a ball is under there. In the early mornings (yes, he is waking pre-dawn again) I suggest he plays with his animals and he goes to the cupboard and starts offering me pigs and Dalmatians and tigers until I turn on the light.
A Fascination with lids
Wren has a few passions that are all his own. Firstly, he is obsessed with lids to containers - the smaller the lid the better. His favorite are bottle lids. He doesn't play with them as much as feel a very very urgent need to replace a lid I remove. If he sees me take the lid off the milk carton to pour some into cereal he lurches forward out of my arms hooting in alarm until he can grab the lid. He replaces it on the carton and twists it to try and fasten it back on. Unfortunately, he continues to hold the lid while twisting both ways so the lid seldom engages on the thread but I manage to satisfy him by screwing it on and putting it away. He is really upset if I leave a lid off. For example, while making vegemite toast I often leave the vegemite jar open. He will yell and hoot until I allow him to replace it.
Fear of foam and cream and slime
Wren's greatest antipathy is for slimy, creamy or sticky things. He hates having anything clammy and wet on his hands. This week the poor babysitter offered him fingerpainting. He was curious until he touched the paint and it remained on his hand. Then he became inconsolable until cleaned up. He dislikes foamy soap on his hands and is actually afraid of the small pieces of soap left in the soap container since he had a bad experience with them (I don't know what). He is horrified by the kids shaving cream soap Frost played with in the bath once. The moment it is squirted into the water or on the side of the bath he cries and reaches out out out, signing "all done, all done" and trying to climb out if I am not quick enough. He does not mind dry dirt or mess on his clothes... its just the wet squishy stuff on his hands that bothers him.
Pounce pounce BONK!
Wren loves to pounce on soft things. Put him on the bed near a stuffed animal or pillow and he stretches tall and makes the most almighty belly-flop into the soft thing. He does not have good aim and sometimes pounces head long into the side of the bed or smashes his head against my nose or Joshua's eyebrow as he overshoots our soft bellies. Still, the joy of pouncing is eternal and he can be distracted from just about any bad mood by a (naked) bed pounce.
Cat bashing, or "gentle" flesh and fur clutching
He still loves the cats but is only marginally better at molesting them. He throws things at them and chases them under tables but if reminded he clutches their fur gently and strokes their air above their bodies for a few moments. Then it is back to grabbing chunks of cat or thudding in joyful hoots. The only exception is when Kitty Haiku is sleeping on one of the dining room table chairs. SHe likes the nook when a chair is pushed in under the table and Wren has learned from a painful scratch that she is not very tolerant of being abused while there. So, every morning he checks under the table and if he finds Kitty Haiku asleep on a chair he shouts and points in a warning cry until I acknowledge that its "kitty, sleeping, carful!" Then he walks off, satisfied.
Throwing dangers
It is not only the cats who are in danger from Wren's enjoyment of throwing. Wren is a good thrower but is unable to differentiate between safe and unthrowable objects. While it seems self-evident to most of us that balls are for throwing, Frost and I suffer daily injuries from being hit on the head or body with heavy missiles such as blocks, plastic animals, cups, books and even cutlery.
Wren is about to wake from his nap so I shall have to go and get him up. I shall try and post our pictures from playing outside in the garden yesterday. It is very cold in Seattle at the moment with sheets of ice remaining all day in the shade. Still, we are so excited by dry sunshiney days that we are outside at every opportunity getting red cheeks and lowering reserves of hot chocolate in the pantry.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Freaking out about soap and other things you don't know about Wren
Its been a while since I posted about Wren's daily
Wren can speak. He says the following words:
bu-bye
ello
dada
mama
tizzy (Kitty)
bub-bil (bubbles)
muk (milk)
vroom (car)
baa (sheep)
he snorts for a pi
he goes "aaar" for a tiger
He signs:
UP
MILK
NO
Waves BYE-BYE
Waves HELLO
ALL-DONE
CHANGE (for diaper change)
Understanding Instructions
It is clear that Wren understands what we are saying and has a sense of the routines of the day. Last night, when Josh mentioned getting a book, Wren went to his room and returned with a board book. By the way, he loves reading books. I tell him its time for bath and he toddles off to the bathroom. If I suggest he gets a ball he looks around and fetches one for us to play with. Sometimes, if one is not in sight, he lies on him belly and peers under the couch and table to see if a ball is under there.
Wren can speak. He says the following words:
bu-bye
ello
dada
mama
tizzy (Kitty)
bub-bil (bubbles)
muk (milk)
vroom (car)
baa (sheep)
he snorts for a pi
he goes "aaar" for a tiger
He signs:
UP
MILK
NO
Waves BYE-BYE
Waves HELLO
ALL-DONE
CHANGE (for diaper change)
Understanding Instructions
It is clear that Wren understands what we are saying and has a sense of the routines of the day. Last night, when Josh mentioned getting a book, Wren went to his room and returned with a board book. By the way, he loves reading books. I tell him its time for bath and he toddles off to the bathroom. If I suggest he gets a ball he looks around and fetches one for us to play with. Sometimes, if one is not in sight, he lies on him belly and peers under the couch and table to see if a ball is under there.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Baby Elephant Lost
This is a picture of a baby elephant trying to wake up its dead mother. She died following translocation to a larger game park in Kenya but baby elephants are orphaned all the time through poaching, illness, natural disaster and accidents (like falling into an open drain and becoming stuck). Thankfully, this baby elephant was rescued by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust which runs a very professional Elephant and Rhino orphanage (which we have added to our list of Charities and you could too!).
I became empassioned about baby elephants after the most traumatic dentist appointment every, this past Tuesday. I went in to my new space-age spa-like dentist for a major filling. It was almost a crown and took about an hour and a half. As they began they turned on the flatscreen TV about the chair and offered me headphones to watch the BBC Life on Earth series. I have seen ads for this on TV and it is truly stunning in HD so I agreed. It was a bad idea.
I have never been good at nature shows. I know that you are always rooting for the underdog. We love the wolf when we have met the wolf pups (with sweet names) and urge the doe to stumble to save the wolf pups from starvation. But come the time we meet the cariboe who struggle on their long migration and we will the evil wolves to tire to let the spindle legged caribou baby find it way back to its mother. After seeing about 10 minutes of one of these shows I am always reduced to trauma and anger (anger that the wildlife photographers and David Attenborough are so manipulative and trauma at the reality of Life Is Suffering while we remain attached to it and our babies.
So, I cope through a few gruesome tragedies until we meet the elephants of the Kalahari desert who make a migration over 100s of miles in the dry season (starving, dying of thirst and assailed by dust storms that blind the little baby elephants) to the okavango delta which floods the desert in the annual rainy season.
We meet a mother and baby who are lost in a dust storm but find their way back. Then the group moves on. But there is another baby elephant who has become disoriented in the dust. He has lost his mother and when the dust settles he cannot see her. Instead, he finds her trail and as we pan back from the helicopter we see him setting out across the vast desert following her footsteps. The voiceover continues "sadly, in this case he is following her footsteps in the wrong direction".
This tragic futility is very very sad. I wanted to rescue the baby elephant and all my feelings of protecting Wren were transferred to protect that lost elephant following the wrong way. I felt Wren was out in the desert and although my mouth was trapped open by that horrible dental contraption my tears ran down under the sunglasses and were wet in my ears.
So, we are now supporting baby elephant orphanages and I am never going to watch those awful nature shows again. And Wren is never going hiking in the Kalahari.
I became empassioned about baby elephants after the most traumatic dentist appointment every, this past Tuesday. I went in to my new space-age spa-like dentist for a major filling. It was almost a crown and took about an hour and a half. As they began they turned on the flatscreen TV about the chair and offered me headphones to watch the BBC Life on Earth series. I have seen ads for this on TV and it is truly stunning in HD so I agreed. It was a bad idea.
I have never been good at nature shows. I know that you are always rooting for the underdog. We love the wolf when we have met the wolf pups (with sweet names) and urge the doe to stumble to save the wolf pups from starvation. But come the time we meet the cariboe who struggle on their long migration and we will the evil wolves to tire to let the spindle legged caribou baby find it way back to its mother. After seeing about 10 minutes of one of these shows I am always reduced to trauma and anger (anger that the wildlife photographers and David Attenborough are so manipulative and trauma at the reality of Life Is Suffering while we remain attached to it and our babies.
So, I cope through a few gruesome tragedies until we meet the elephants of the Kalahari desert who make a migration over 100s of miles in the dry season (starving, dying of thirst and assailed by dust storms that blind the little baby elephants) to the okavango delta which floods the desert in the annual rainy season.
We meet a mother and baby who are lost in a dust storm but find their way back. Then the group moves on. But there is another baby elephant who has become disoriented in the dust. He has lost his mother and when the dust settles he cannot see her. Instead, he finds her trail and as we pan back from the helicopter we see him setting out across the vast desert following her footsteps. The voiceover continues "sadly, in this case he is following her footsteps in the wrong direction".
This tragic futility is very very sad. I wanted to rescue the baby elephant and all my feelings of protecting Wren were transferred to protect that lost elephant following the wrong way. I felt Wren was out in the desert and although my mouth was trapped open by that horrible dental contraption my tears ran down under the sunglasses and were wet in my ears.
So, we are now supporting baby elephant orphanages and I am never going to watch those awful nature shows again. And Wren is never going hiking in the Kalahari.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Much many more
It has been only 3 days since my last post but I am overwhelmed with loose ends and stories untold. I feel as if I am sitting in my kitchen with 20lbs of apples and not sure what to make of them.
Ok, here are some little story-pies:
Ok, here are some little story-pies:
- I went to an indian/middle-eastern grocery store today and bought mango chutney and mint chutney and ingredients for a new dal. It is made with squash and chicken and fresh fenugreek seeds and ground fenugreek. I am going to try and grow some fenugreek seeds to make leaves for the indian day in a few weeks. I love mint chutney. Nothing is wrong in the world when I am eating mint chutney.
- Wren is recovering from his cold and loves playing with the animals. He spends a lot of time carrying his animals around. He makes them eat things (making a munching noise while pressing their faces into something he imagines to be food), make noises (pigs snort, cows moo sometimes, tigers roar, sheep baa) and they also chase and tickle people. He plays hide and seek with them too. He is a very good mimic. For example, he watched us playing the Clue boardgame and started to roll the dice himself and raise his arms as if going "yeah" when the dice fell.
- I know I shouldn't but I have been following the carepages of some CHD babies who are awaiting or having surgery:
Justin's Blog &
Jacob's carepage = JRHONAKER - We went to Wyndi's wedding on Saturday. Wren was surprisingly good and liked to climb up and down the stairs and roam around the room. It was a beautiful wedding at the top of the Columbia tower and the food was delicious. Wren ate a great deal of fruit salad which reminded me to buy him more grapes and pineapple.
- Mum is travelling somewhere in Africa. According to her itinerary she is in the Orange River Canyon tonight (or this pre-dawn darkness).
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Snotty Boo
At infant co-op we sing a song that goes: "huggy boo, huggy boo, you are my huggy boo." This morning, Wren, who has been up since 4.45am (and his mother with him) is my snotty boo. He has a cold in his nose. It has kept him waking all night on the hour or so. He was easy to settle again until 4.45am when he lay and moaned and sang and cried for 30 minutes before I gave up on him returning to sleep.
He was so glad!
He rushed off and grabbed a toy, dumped it on the bed where I was lying. Climbed back on the bed. Bounced a bit. Looked down the crack behind the bed. Squealed to me about the ongoing darkness. Rushed to the door of the bedroom and set about our usual daily tasks like chasing the cats and making coffee (hoo hoo = hot hot).
I suspect Wren has contracted the virus Josh has been suffering from over the past 3-4 days and in this context I cannot resist referring to an article I read yesterday on BBC News. It reports on contenders for Australia's Macquarie Dictionary's Word of the Year 2007. One of them is "man flu." Now I am not suggestion Joshua had a man flu but there are times he has:
He was so glad!
He rushed off and grabbed a toy, dumped it on the bed where I was lying. Climbed back on the bed. Bounced a bit. Looked down the crack behind the bed. Squealed to me about the ongoing darkness. Rushed to the door of the bedroom and set about our usual daily tasks like chasing the cats and making coffee (hoo hoo = hot hot).
I suspect Wren has contracted the virus Josh has been suffering from over the past 3-4 days and in this context I cannot resist referring to an article I read yesterday on BBC News. It reports on contenders for Australia's Macquarie Dictionary's Word of the Year 2007. One of them is "man flu." Now I am not suggestion Joshua had a man flu but there are times he has:
Man flu, meanwhile, refers to a minor cold contracted by a man who then proceeds to exaggerate the symptoms, the dictionary said.
Alternatively, we need a word to refer to the case in which a woman gets the flu and continues in daily life with all responsibilities intact (cleaning, cooking, waking for children, driving carpool) and does not get to collapse on the couch until everyone else is doing their daily grind. Oh, and if a baby is involved the baby must be having a nap before she rests. See, it would be a hard word to find. Easier just to say "man flu" with envy for its opposite.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Angels or Devils
Last week I took the boys to JC Penney for a photo shoot. Great Granny Charlotte had asked me for some pictures and none of the ones I have seem quite right. I put it down to the difficulties in taking good indoor photos with my digital camera. It wants to go to flash all the time and that washes everyone into startled deer expressions or paparazzi ghosts. I digress.
Here are some of the pictures from the photo shoot. I think they are lovely. However, an experience there reminded me of the different perspective you have once your child has serious health concerns.
The walls of the studio are covered in portraits. Many of them have children posed with some captions underneath. Some have them posing with bears and fake Christmas trees. Some have them wearing wings.
I was looking at one portrait of a little girl with ringlets with a background of wings and clouds. It was captioned "My Angel, Marie". Among those whose children have been in hospital and certainly on all the online communities, an angel is a child who has died. People write something like "Mother to brian (8) and ^o^ angel Claire. I felt sad for a moment thinking of the little girl who had died. The next picture had four children in fuzzy clouds "our 4 little angels". Suddenly, it dawned on me that the child wasn't dead!
I was pleased. Still, it left me feeling very superstitious. I would not let her make Wren into an angel or do any fuzzy clouds. The one of Wren in the stars is okay although I was a bit disturbed when Heather (the babysitter) said "he looks like an angel".
No, he does not. He looks like an earthbound troll. He is.
Here are some of the pictures from the photo shoot. I think they are lovely. However, an experience there reminded me of the different perspective you have once your child has serious health concerns.
The walls of the studio are covered in portraits. Many of them have children posed with some captions underneath. Some have them posing with bears and fake Christmas trees. Some have them wearing wings.
I was looking at one portrait of a little girl with ringlets with a background of wings and clouds. It was captioned "My Angel, Marie". Among those whose children have been in hospital and certainly on all the online communities, an angel is a child who has died. People write something like "Mother to brian (8) and ^o^ angel Claire. I felt sad for a moment thinking of the little girl who had died. The next picture had four children in fuzzy clouds "our 4 little angels". Suddenly, it dawned on me that the child wasn't dead!
I was pleased. Still, it left me feeling very superstitious. I would not let her make Wren into an angel or do any fuzzy clouds. The one of Wren in the stars is okay although I was a bit disturbed when Heather (the babysitter) said "he looks like an angel".
No, he does not. He looks like an earthbound troll. He is.
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