Let this be a lesson to you

Every time I visit the Plunket nurse with Kathleen, I am reminded by them about keeping your baby or toddler safe. I tend to dismiss this as common sense - things like keeping medicines and poisons out of reach, supervising them around water, etc. I thought "that doesn't apply to me, I already do that stuff". However I have now learnt that you can never be complacent about safety where a toddler is concerned. Even the most watchful parent can take their eyes off a child for just a moment, and that's all it takes for them to get into trouble.

Three weeks ago we had a few friends visiting us. It was after dinner and everyone was relaxed and happy. Kathleen wandered off into the kitchen, which is somewhere she goes every day. I wasn't too worried about her, except that I knew it was time for her bath and was about to go get her when we heard the sound of something falling and Kathleen start screaming. Someone had left a cup of hot tea on the bench to cool, and Kat had pulled it down and spilled it all over herself.

We quickly threw wet towels all over her head and shoulders. However she was still in a lot of pain, so Peter and I took her down to the emergency department at the hospital. It was Friday night, so there was nowhere else open. They admitted her straight away and gave her both Pamol and Morphine to stop the pain. The doctor said she had a first degree burn on her left shoulder. She had a large blister on top of her shoulder which had burst, and they wrapped up her whole shoulder with gauze and a stretchy bandage.

We were at the hospital for only about an hour in total, but it seemed like a very long time. We spent a lot of that time by ourselves waiting for the drugs to take effect, and keeping Kathleen busy by playing with toys and reading books. By the time the nurses came back to bandage her up, she was quite tired and sleepy due to the drugs and the late hour of the evening, and didn't protest at all.

The next day the extent of Kathleen's injuries could be seen (apart from the damage to her shoulder which was still bandaged up). The left side of her face was pink, like a sunburn, and her left ear was red and swollen. However none of it seemed to bother her, and she was happily bouncing all over the place.

Sunday evening we had been told to go back to the emergency department to get Kat's dressing changed. The skin under the bandage was very red and sore looking. But once again it didn't seem to bother her and she was bouncing around all day. Maybe it was the Pamol helping to hide the pain.

Two days later, on the Tuesday, we went down to our local GP to get the dressing changed again. This time they used a Fixomull dressing rather than gauze. This type of dressing sticks directly onto the skin and onto the burn. And it doesn't come off. At least not without soaking it with oil for four hours. The nurse said to treat it as another layer of skin. Although it sounds a bit strange, apparently it helps burns to heal faster and also makes them hurt less. What I liked about it was the fact that Kat could now bounce around without the gauze slipping out of the bandage or rubbing her skin.

Kathleen however wasn't particularly happy about having her shoulder touched. Either by the nurse or by me on subsequent days, as I followed the instructions to clean the dressing twice daily.

The new dressing was meant to stay on for a week, i.e. until the following Tuesday. However, by Sunday Kathleen's shoulder had started to become itchy. A good sign that it was healing. But she didn't understand this and just wanted to itch it. And she managed to pull the bandage away from her skin a little bit. Which it's not meant to do. I stopped her and kept her covered up all day. However overnight she was free to itch as much as she wanted, and by Monday morning the dressing was half off and her t-shirt was covered in blood.

So I took her back down to the GP a day early. They advised me to soak the rest of the bandage in oil and come back in the afternoon once it had had at least four hours to soak in. Well, that was lots of fun. I distracted Kathleen with a Barney DVD and attempted to rub oil into her shoulder. She protested and wriggled a lot. Then I had to wrap her up in Gladwrap (cling film) to keep the oil off her clothes. That was funny. And very difficult. I was reminded of that scene in the Full Monty where Dave wraps himself in cling film to lose weight. Only, it's not as easy as it looks. Especially on a one and a half year old!

We went to the supermarket, had lunch and then I put Kat down for a nap. And amazingly, everything stayed in place. We went back to the GP in the afternoon. The dressing peeled off nice and easily. Her shoulder was still looking very red and sore but they said it was healing nicely. The doctor did however pick up on a couple of areas that she thought might be infected, so she prescribed some antibiotics for Kathleen and then they re-dressed the shoulder.

This time round Kat's shoulder seemed to heal a lot faster. There was no bleeding and no weeping or crustiness that we had with the first dressing. But the antibiotics were a different story. She had to take them three times a day on an empty stomach - meaning "two hours after eating and one hour before eating". She had to have 7ml at a time and she HATED it.

For the next five days I turned into Evil Mummy, forcing my daughter to drink this horrible medicine three times a day. Not only that, but starving her in between meals. No snacks allowed. We were both pretty miserable by the time the five days were over.

However, on the bright side, her shoulder seemed to be healing pretty well. It was still itchy, and by the next weekend it appeared that the skin underneath was peeling like a sunburn would, as the dressing was starting to lift away from her skin. I kept her wrapped up with stretchy bandages over her dressing so that her couldn't peel it away again.

We went back to the GP's for the last time on Monday this week to get the second dressing removed. Once again I had to oil her up again and wrap her in Gladwrap. This time the protests were much less. When the nurse peeled the dressing off, even I could tell it was much, much better. Her skin was mottled pink but there was no sign of scaring or bleeding. There were a few spots which the doctor said indicated there had been a small infection, but they had cleared up nicely.

That was at the beginning of this week. It is now three weeks tonight since Kat got burnt. Her shoulder is still pink and mottled but it isn't bothering her any more. We have to keep her out of the sun for the next several months, so it will be a summer of hats, shirts and lots of sunscreen. I am just so thankful that there is no lasting damage, and that she will be ok.

And so the moral of the story is - always be careful, accidents can happen any time when you least expect it. And the reason the Plunket nurse is always going on about safety is not to be repetitive but to remind you that you can never be too careful.

-Megz

Kiki

Kathleen is in the midst of the "toddler word explosion". Every day she learns more and more words. At first it was just one word a day, but now she just learns so many new words that I can't keep up. I have no idea how many words she knows. She repeats a lot of what I say (yes including the bad words).

For the most part her pronounciation is pretty understandable. Especially if you know the context of what she is saying. But sometimes she comes up with some things out of the blue, and I have to admit even I don't always understand her.

Her powers of observation are amazing. She is always looking around and notices the smallest details that I would normally miss. Things like a tiny National Bank logo on a newspaper, she will immediately spot and say "neigh" (because it's a horse). And don't even mention Dora or Maisy. The funny thing is when she spots something that reminds her of something that happens in one of her videos or books. She will say for example "Dora, Dora, Dora" until you acknowledge her - "yes, Dora has a bracelet doesn't she", or "yes, Maisy's friend Eddie fell over and hurt his knee too".

One day last week, Kathleen and I were playing outside. We found a small stick and I told her it was a stick, which she repeated a couple of times. She then said "cookie". I was like "it's almost lunchtime, you can have a cookie after lunch". But she kept insisting "cookie, cookie, cookie". I kinda wondered where she learnt that word from, as we say "biscuit" not "cookie". But I figured she probably learnt it from one of her books. Anyway, she kept insisting "cookie", and when it became obvious to her that I wasn't understanding, she changed tacks and said "dogg, woowoowoo". Then I realised she wasn't saying "cookie" at all, but "Corky" the name of the dog in one of her books. A dog who chases sticks. It's the little associations like this that she makes that really blow me away.

Some of the funny things Kathleen says are:

Kiki - She calls herself Kiki, and it has stuck. Half the time we now call her Kiki instead of Kathleen (I only call her Kat when I'm typing now because it's quicker). She's actually pretty good with names and can say the names of everybody she knows (except for Uncle Richard - see below), but can't say her own name. But she knows that Kiki is herself because if you show her her photo or look in the mirror, she will say "Kiki".

Uncle Winkle - Kathleen's Uncle Richard was for the longest time just called "Uncle". Or "Uncle, Uncle". This morphed into "Uncle Runkle", whether by Kat intentionally or by being misheard by us. In any case, everybody thought it was funny and reinforced the name by calling Richard "Uncle Runkle" all the time. Kat has since morphed this into "Uncle Winkle" and this is what she calls him now.

Speaking of Uncle Richard, he and Kat's Auntie Mardie and Poppa have all now moved back to Texas to live. Kathleen misses them a lot and talks about them all the time. She understands that they have gone, because every mention of them is followed by her saying "pann", which means "plane". Which is her way of saying "they went away on the plane".

Lubb ju - This is her way of saying "I love you". Awwwww.

Numbers - Kathleen learnt long ago to say the number two. Especially if she's in trouble and we start counting to three - "Kathleen ... one ..." and she will smile up at you and pipe in "twooo". Which makes it incredibly difficult to keep a straight face and continue to "three".

Her standard answer if you ask her how many of something there is, is always "twoo".

She has learnt even more numbers than that though.
- She'll sometimes say "wunn".
- If you say "one" she almost always says "twoo".
- If you then count "three" through "five", she will say "siiix" after each one.
- If you say "seven" she will say "att"
- If you say "nine" she will say "tennn"

In other news, we are all doing well. Peter is now contracting at IBM in Petone. A bit of a hassle for him to get to and from work (bus + train) but he seems to be enjoying it. A couple of times Kat and I have gone out on the train to have lunch with him, and she has really enjoyed it.

A little over a month ago we all went up to Mount Ruapehu with Richard and Mardie. The idea was to give them the opportunity to try skiing or snowboarding before they went back to Texas, where I imagine there aren't a lot of ski fields. Richard had a go at snowboarding, while Mardie, Kathleen and I went sledding on the learner slopes. Had a good time, but it was very crowded, being the end of the school holidays and great weather. Kat enjoyed eating the snow!

I am doing well. Here is a comparison of Kathleen and Not Nooboo at 28 weeks gestation ...

Not Nooboo

Kathleen

Cheers,
Megz

Introducing Not Nooboo

We had our first ultrasound scan for the new baby last week. It was great to finally see him or her, and now it finally feels real to me - there is now a reason for my ever-expanding tummy besides eating too many biscuits! Luckily everything is looking ok in there. Everything is doing ok on the outside too. Kathleen continues to grow and her vocabulary is ever expanding at the rate of at least one word a day, plus she repeats a lot of what we say. We are trying to prepare her for the new arrival. She understands that there is a baby in Mummy's tummy, but there's no way we can really prepare her for what that means.

We have nicknamed the new baby Not Nooboo, and here is an explanation of what that means.

Before she was born, Kathleen was known as Nooboo. This term comes from the Sims 2 computer game, which I used to be addicted to, back when I used to have time for such things. The Sims is all about controlling virtual people as they go about their daily lives. Because it is designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, the sims don't speak English but rather they speak a made up language called Simlish. The Simlish word for baby is Nooboo. Thus Kathleen was known as Nooboo.

Just after we moved to Auckland in 2002 we got a new tortiseshell kitten named Noodle. When she was about six months old, Noodle went missing. We put up posters and an ad in the local paper. One morning when I was out, Peter got a phone call from someone who had found Noodle. They brought her around to him and he said "well she looks a little different but I guess I haven't seen her for a few weeks", and took her in. I got home an hour later and immediately said "that's not Noodle". And it wasn't. But we didn't know where she had come from and couldn't return her. We advertised her as a found cat but got no reply. So she stayed, and became known as Not Noodle, or Bubby. Noodle was never found, but we still have Not Noodle.

So when we were coming up with nicknames for the new baby, I said to Peter "will it be Number Two, Nooboo Too, or Not Nooboo". He ROTFLOL and said it had to be the latter.

-Megz

Conversations with Kathleen

Kathleen, what sound does duckie make?
Makes a quacking sound

What sound does piggy make?
Snorts

What sound does cow make?
Mooooooo

What sound does sheepy make?
Ba Ba

What sound does horsey make?
Nee

What sound does lion make?
Raar

Kathleen, where's Mummy?
Mama
Points

Where's Daddy?
Dada
Points

Where's pussycat?
Maow
Attempts to give the cat a cuddle

Do you love pussycat?
Attempts to give the cat another cuddle

Do you love Mummy?
No

Do you love Daddy?
No

Can you say Yes?
No

Is it time for a nap?
No way


-Megz

An addition to the family

Our little family is soon to be joined by one more. And no, we're not getting a new cat (although Peter did try to kidnap a beautiful Burmese a couple of weeks ago). We are going to have another baby, a little brother or sister for Kathleen. He/she is due in mid November so the two of them will be around 22 months apart, almost two years. I'm sure she will love being a big sister. Already one of the few words in her small vocabulary is "bebe" and whenever she goes to playgroup she is always excited to see the other "bebes". I am a bit nervous about having two babies/toddlers in the house - one is definitely hard enough. But I'm sure we will find a way to cope. Hopefully Kathleen will be of an age where she will enjoy 'helping', but with the terrible two's looming, who knows...

We had our first midwife appointment this week, and got to hear bub's heartbeat for the first time. So that kinda made it official for me at last. I'm currently almost 15 weeks pregnant, past the first trimester now. There's nothing to see yet. Kathleen didn't pop out till well into the 20's so I don't expect this one to be much different. Once again we're not going to find out if it is a girl or a boy.

Apart from that we are all doing well. Kathleen now happily toddles around everywhere, although I still carry her when we're out because she's just so darn slow. She is now working on expanding her vocabulary. Words she currently says are:

MAMA, DADA, MIMI and BEBE
NO (LOVES to say this one)
GO (especially when I say "let's go")
UH OH
OH KEEEY (OK)

And in the last couple of days she has added TEDDY and MICKEY to her vocab. Plus she loves to repeat words that I say, particularly CLICK, CLOCK, CHICKEN, SOCK, STUCK, TRUCK and anything else with a "K" sound.

She also says many, many, many other words that I'm too dense to understand.

We've all been pretty busy as of late. Last weekend Peter travelled to Nelson for a paintball tournament, while Kathleen and I went to Palmerston North to help a friend move house. This weekend we're all headed back to Palmy for another friend's baby shower. Heard on the news today that NZ is experiencing a baby boom. That comes as no surprise to me as I know lots of people having babies at the moment. That's good - lots of friends for Kathleen and number two to play with.

Cheers,
Megz