Panting

Frost says "When there is like a ball and Wren is over at the chair and he crawls to it then he starts going like this 'hah a hah a hah a hah a'. He starts like panting."

I have noticed this but I didn't really notice. Now I am worried. Wren is obviously vigorous and happy but he does pant and get out of breath when he has been busy moving about a lot as he is these-days. I think this is our first clinical sign of Wren's heart condition.

I called the cardiac clinic nurse's line just to check that its okay to wait till our next December appointment and Ashley is going to call me back. Really, I think he is okay but as she said "cardiac kids have to self-limit". By this she meant that when they get out of breath they may have to stop and take a break and exercise within the limits of their condition.

I feel a bit sad. We know that Wren is not cured but its been easy to forget the perils of his anatomy when he has behaved so normally in most every way. I don't like to think of him puffing from the grand exertion of crawling across the room.

Follow-Up
Dr Lewin said he thinks we are seeing this because Wren is getting more active. He feels it would be okay to wait until December unless we see him getting more fatigued or panting more or feel anxious. Then he would be happy to see Wren. I feel better now and reckon it is just because of his left-ventricle having to work harder than normal. I know that's not good but its not something new.

Chasing the cat

We had a lovely day today. Frost went to Camp Long on a school trip and I spent an hour at an estate sale around the corner. In the late afternoon we lay out in the yard where Wren explored and tried to catch the kitty.

11 hours (well, almost)

Wren went to sleep at 7pm last night. He was out like a light. He woke briefly at 1.30am and woke for a nursing at 2am, roused a bit around 4am but just cried out once and then WOKE FOR THE DAY AT 5.45am!!!!

Of course, I was awake at 5am wondering what he was doing but still... it was a fabulous night's sleep for both of us. I hope that tomorrow builds on this foundation.

The greatest thing is he is back to his old self in the morning - crawling around, exploring, seeking floor nuggets and watching kitty in the back garden through the gate. He is smiley and happy. We both are!

Over the past few days Wren has learned a trick. If he has something in his mouth and I put my finger on his lips (as if about to scoop it out) and say "spit it out", he does. It saves us both a lot of indignity and biting.

Wren has been eating new food recently. He now has chicken dinner: blended carrot, squash, chicken and kale, teething biscuits with barley flour, gerber finger foods (ick) with some corn flour, white navy beans and lots and lots of raspberries. He even had a fry when we were in the U-district yesterday but wisely spat it out.

I have also found that Frost eats better when I don't feed him. Uh huh. I didn't give him lunch yesterday (long story without many excuses) and then we went out at 3pm. He asked for FOOD. I gave him a teriyaki chicken burger which he ate all up (with fries). Normally, he has to be coaxed and reminded to eat. While we waited for the burger he said:

Frost: I love food. I have a sore tummy and I feel hungry and then I get food and I eat it and it is so good and I feel sooo good. When is my food coming?

Okay, okay. I do not starve him on purpose. He had a carrot. He had access to a lot of food at home but didn't want it because he was playing lego at lunch. I just didn't follow up, okay? But it is refreshing to have him appreciate food instead of moaning about whatever is on offer.

Mother Ogre's Lullaby by Jack Pelutsky

Hugh baby ogre, stop raving and rest,
Slumber, sweet savage impossible pest.
Stifle your tantrum, no kicking, don't bite.
Close your red eye... baby ogre, good-night.

by Jack Pelutsky from Monday's Troll (a book of poems)

Wren was okay last night:

6.45-2am
3.45am (cried for a while)
4.50am (woke and cried off and on till 5.20)
We got up.

It wasn't so bad.

Brook may have found me a babysitter for Friday's during work-shift which is very exciting.

Later bedtime earlier wakening

Last night we put Wren to bed at 6.45pm as part of an attempt to get him to sleep later. I have read and been told this may take 2 weeks to take effect and that he may wake at the usual time Still, I was not a Shiny Happy Mummy this morning at 4.30am when Wren decided it was daytime. I decided it was time to show him it was not daytime and left him to try and go back to sleep [aka cry and be miserable] for half an hour. When I went in he was lying down but hopped up and smiled when he heard me.

We got up.

He couldn't crawl he was so tired. He kept bonking his face into the carpet and lying there a while before whining at me to be carried. I was also bumping into things. We played a while [aka whined at each other] until 5.40am when I decided it was naptime. I nursed and put him down but he didn't agree and became suddenly animated and shrieked. I decided to try and give him 20 minutes to sleep.

He didn't.

It is now coming up to 2 hours awake and it is only 6.15am. I would go for a walk if I didn't have to get changed out of my PJ's. Even that task seems monumental. I am so fed up with this stage.

Last Few Days

Yesterday, Natasha and Douglas left on their long trip home to Natimuk. They had a colossal number of bags and objects including multiple laptops, bicycles and costumery but managed to get it all checked through to Melbourne (all 315lbs of it) with limited overweight charges. We miss them already and are having to make plans to get ourselves back into a getting out and going mindset.

The day before they left (Friday) we went down to the UW climbing wall and Frost and Doug had a go. Douglas managed to overcome more obstacles and scaled greater heights but Frost reached the top of the angled wall and was both alarmed and excited by it. Frost is struggling with physical activities because of his injuries - badly scraped toes on one foot after an accident at the Seattle Center Fountain and a nasty scabbed knee from falling over at the wading pool. Neither injury takes bandaids well so they are getting reinjured daily. Yesterday Josh and Frost tried to play soccer at the park but it was too painful to kick the ball and Frost says he wishes summer was over so he could stop getting hurt.

Frost and Wren on the climbing wall:



Douglas spotting Frost while he does a big move.



Natasha and Frost do a circus trick.

Wren and I hang around and watch and eat pine cones, well, moments before he was eating them.


My mind remains addled because of sleep disruption. I am going to bed at 9.30 to be asleep before 10pm because Wren is goign to bed arond 6.15 and getting up at 4.45am (again). This sucks. Sorry, I have to say it. I have a new plan which is getting him to go to bed progressively later and seeing if I can keep wake-up time from staying the same. I am not sure how to make this happen other than hope hard enough. He actual night sleep is going well in his own room. Last night he cried for 5 mins at 11.30pm and midnight but Josh did not go in. He woke and nursed at 2.45 and then was up at 4.45 ARGH. I managed to stay in bed in the dark with him until Kitty Haiku came in and he tried to lurch off the bed to get the kitty.

This super early wakening gives me a very skewed view of the world. It seems that shops open ungodly late and it gets light late too (6.am). I want to do the Trader Joes grocery shopping at 6.30am but it only opens at 9am. I walked to Safeway in my quest for Ranch Dressing and Dijon mustard and was home at 7.30am after an hour's walk. I guess it is good for my health and weightbeing (yes, I started Weight Watchers yesterday and other than the temptation of left-over Bengal Tiger dinner, did okay).

While Wren had morning nap Frost and I watched REading Rainbow about pioneer families. Frost wants to go and stay at a pioneer village for a vacation sometime. I think this is a mighty-fine idea - especially if one could do it yourself rather than visiting a pioneer theme park, but even so. He had a hard time with the idea that you couldn't pop home to get something you needed.

Yesterday, I noticed Wren has more white patches in his cheeks and I suspect a fungal yeast infection (again, although our ped through it was not so last time). I have been giving him borax homeopathic on advice from our naturopath who we will see next week. ITs a long weekend here for labor day so it won't be until Tuesday. Wren doesn't seem too fussy about it unless I have to schoop somethign out of his mouth like bark, catfood, lego etc.

Okay, time to give Wren his pear breakfast and then head of to the belatedly open Trader Joes.

The little me

My mother has been converting the family slides to digital images. It is a huge task. This morning I received two images of me as a baby around Wren's age, neither of which I had seen before. The black filaments on the image are mould. I am hoping we can find some way to clean them in photoshop.

This first one is of me with my Granny Audrey who died of breast cancer many years ago:



This second one is of Uncle Mike, my Dad, Grandad and Mum. See how wonderfully young they all are. Grandad is now 96!

Robins are flocking

Wren woke at his usual 5.30am after a very rough night. He was up for almost an hour between 11pm and 12pm (denying me my best sleep of the night) and was up again at 3am and 4.30am. I ignored 4.30am again but he woke within 45 minutes for the day. During the night Joshua and I decided he was definitely ill and perhaps had an ear infection. This morning it was clear he was fine. Later, it was clear he was irritable. Now I don't know. He has no fever, no sign of pain and is just sleeping worse than usual and being less self-sufficient during the day. He wants carrying and seems to be a bit more tired at naptime.

As a result of his whining and need for entertainment Wren is being allowed increasingly inappropriate toys to distract him. This morning I let him play with the large cowries and gave him a pen to hold. He promptly hit the cowrie on the floor repeatedly for the banging sound and drew on his face with pen. Bad mommy.

Because Wren continues to wake so early and be noisy AND I am so exhausted we head out every morning Foraging for pears. There is an old pear tree overhanging the road a block away and every morning a small harvest of pears has fallen into the street and parking strip. I collect them in a fleece hat and stuff them under the stroller. I have a great sense of satisfaction in foraging in this way. Pears are selling at $2.99 a lb at Wholefoods and these are sweeter and more plentiful. Sure, I have to cut out the bitten portions sometimes but I have frozen a week's supply of Wren's Pearfood and will have another couple of weeks when I cook up the next 8 pears tomorrow.

Interestingly, other people have the same idea. This morning was so beautiful (cool, quiet, the sun like butter) that I walked around Dahl Field with my gathered pears. While there I noticed a small man in a grey tracksuit climbing a tree and shaking it. He held a stick with a long rope on the end. When we came closer I saw that he was gathering pears and had heaped them in the grass.

I know its still summer but its becoming fall. The robins are flocking. Mornings are chill and at 6.30am I had to walk all the way up the ridge before we reached the sunlight that makes Wren squint and twist sideways in the stroller choking and spluttering because he ate the spike of lavendar I gave him to hold. When we came home Frost was up. He and Wren greeted each other with squeals and joy. Frost's joy turned quickly to concern:

Frost: "Wrennies hands are freezing! Feel Wrennies hands they're freezing! Feel them! Come, come. They are SO COLD"

On the way to the Morningstar Bakery I wondered whether Frost knew the names for jobs people do. I asked him what a baker was, a dentist, a doctor. Those, he had figured out. He even knew pediatrician: a doctor for kids. It was when we got to Software Engineer (what Josh is) that things became interesting:

Frost: A software engineer.... hrmmm... a Software Engineer comes and does the pipes and the paint inside a house when its been built.

This is kind of true in our house but not really in the job description.

"A meteorologist studies comets and the stars"

Parents of six year olds, illuminate me. Why does Frost suddenly greet my every announcement with "NO."

Me: Frost, we are going out in a few minutes to buy a zester.
Frost [from bedroom]: NO
I shrug at Josh as if to say "see what I put up with all day"
Josh: I think he said "Oh"
Me [voice raised as I call to bedroom]: Pardon, what did you say Frost?
Frost: NO
Josh: He did that to me last night too. I said 'time to clean teeth' and he said "NO"

In the past he would have asked what a zester was. Why I wanted one. If he could get candy. Now its just a flat NO. Silence.

I need to check my parenting books between Wren's whines and thuds and fallings over.

Things that go "CLICK" in the night

This was another of those mornings that has me hugging my coffee mug before 6am. As September approaches, it is becoming increasingly dark for my morning stagger clutching the slightly soggy Wren in his oversize and overdamp diapers.

We think he is teething. I guess that is an overused excuse for an old-enough-to-know-better-baby waking all night (and getting fed for it) but he has been very whiney and not-put-downy during the day and is gnawing stuff more than usual. I gave him Tylenol and he slept 6.15pm-11.15pm and then yelled so much that Josh and later I went in to calm him. He had another Tylenol and nursed and slept till 3am, then 4.30am (ignored that one) and then 5am and napped in bed with me (in his room) till 5.30am and was up.

When he wakes up he crawls right off the bed unless grabbed so I have to lurch forward and grab his legs as soon as I feel him leave the warm blanket. Its hard. I am motivated though because a couple of days ago he fell off the bed with an almighty thud and it was the same day he fell into the table and hit his head on the bookcase while standing so I feel I have to prevent more bonks. He always crawls towards the nightlight and then to the guitar. He thwacks the guitar strings until they sound a discordant getup and go for me.

If I don't get up and go the guitar would fall over. Why do we have a guitar in his room. Gosh, at 5.57am I can't answer that.

Wren is crawling around at my feet and I swear I can hear milk sloshing in his belly. I see him as a vampiric hippo. You know? Vampires are always depicted as scrawny beasties but think how much a vampiric hippo would drink during the dark hours? That's Wren.

To top it all Frost had trouble going to sleep in his room because he could hear "a strange clicking sound. Its like this CLICK. It isn't "click click click" its just CLICK. It doesn't happen often, perhaps it won't happen again tonight"

Me: "Okay, goodnight"

Frost: (5 minutes later) "I heard it again. What is it?"

Me: Let me come and listen.

Frost: It probably won't happen again. I've only heard it about 3 times. ITs like CLICK.

Me: Where does it come from? The bed? BEds creak sometimes

Frost: No.. it doesn't come from anywhere. Its just THERE. Its like IN THE ROOF. [looking upwards]

Me: Shhhhh let me listen

Frost: What? What is it? What are you listening?

Me: I am listening for the click, I can't hear anything.

Frost: It probably won't come again.

[We sit in silence for about 20 seconds]

Me: I can't hear anything. Okay, goodnight.

Frost: But I hear this CLICK!

Me. There ARE noises in a house. Its nothing dangerous. You are quite safe.

Frost: Can I sleep in your room?


At least I noticed we were out of coffee yesterday and ground a whole lot of it. It is my company for this belated dawning.