Jeyanth doesn't like being not allowed to have milk or food all day. Odd that. And we HATE not being able to give him food when he's obviously very hungry! And it doesn't help that Jeyanth hates Gastrolyte.
Chris had a pretty tough afternoon today, with an increasingly cranky child, who was too hungry to nap, and really couldn't understand why his otherwise wonderful daddy just wouldn't give him something to eat. It didin't get much better when I came home, since we still didn't have too many options. We tried making jelly out of gastrolyte (tastes foul), and managed to get him to eat a couple of spoons, but weren't quite sure if this was such a good idea, since gelatine is a protein. We ended up giving him a drink of dilute lactose free formula before a very delayed bedtime, since he was obviously dehydrated, and there just wasn't anything else he would drink.
Half an hour ago, I held a little bundle in my arms, crooning gently, trying to soothe a hungry, thirsty, exhausted little child to get him to fall asleep. My ankles got cold with pins & needles, my neck developed a red hot crick and I definitely wasn't getting in blood to one of my elbows, and I realised that I could have stayed there all night, if it meant Jeyanth got some rest. And 10 months ago, I wouldn't have believed that you could pray so fervently about poo!
It appears that every second blog entry at the moment is about Jeyanth being sick. Well, after recovering from his ear infection at the end of last week, J went down with diarrhoea over the weekend. We'd been sort of expecting it as a side effect of the antibiotics (which he is now off), but it was rather more severe than anticipated. His appetite was way down, and on saturday in particular he was very sleepy all day. On the other hand, when awake he has been totally cheerful, playing happily (perhaps a little less boisterously) - in fact, if you didn't feed him or change his nappy, you probably wouldn't know he was poorly.
This morning I took him back to see the doctor, and he is now off all food (milk and solid - his diet consists of gastrolyte and, if required, peppermint tea) for 24 hours to give his gut a chance to recover. We go back to see the doctor again tomorrow morning to see if any other treatment is required.
Today's visit did, however, confirm that the ear infection is fully cleared up, and the throat is well on the way to recovery, so it appears no more antibiotics are required at this point, which is a relief.
Now, for some better news (a bit of what Mike calls baby boasting) - Jeyanth has been shooting ahead with 'in', 'out' and 'on'. As well as putting his stacking cups (best toy ever) in and on each other, he's just starting to get the hang of putting blocks through the holes on the top of their box. He obviously doesn't yet get the idea of shapes, though. Because the ball is the easiest (it goes through the round hole in any orientation), he has concluded that the round hole is the one which works. When the cube or pyramid don't go through, the solution is clearly to bang harder. Occasionally this results in the pyramid missing the round hole and going through the triangular one, but this has not yet resulted in the penny dropping.
Since Jeyanth seems none the worse for his infection, he went back to play school on wednesday and thursday. I went in to talk to the member of staff responsible for him (there are two qualified early childhood staff in the under-two section at CSIROCARE, who divide up specific responsibility for the babies/toddlers). She was very positive about the way Jeyanth is adapting to play school; he's a bit variable in his eating, but is sleeping well (2 hours each day this week, which is perhaps a little less than we might want, but not at all bad), interacting with the other children, playing with some of the toys and, most of all, crawling around everywhere to sit and watch what is going in with the intense look of concentration on his face that he wears whenever he is observing something new. He cries for a minute of two when we drop him off, and from time to time during the day, but he seems to be easily comforted, normally just by giving him his muslin to chew on. He's even managed to do a couple of finger paintings...
Whether or not it has anything to do with play school, we've also noticed some significant changes at home in the last week or two. J is a lot more adventurous now, he's done a few things that could be categorised as 'cruising' (although he still prefers to get down, crawl, pull up), and he's crawling all over the place in the bath at night. His fine motor skills are also coming on in leaps and bounds. Dayan commented a while back about overpriced baby toys - well, we can confirm that the things Jeyanth has recently enjoyed most - and learnt most from - have been a set of stacking cups ($5 from IKEA) and the balloons. He's getting really good at putting the cups into each other (or into a box), and taking them out; he's even managed to put them on top of one anther a few times. His latest trick is to take a toy, put it up onto a box or coffee table, then pull himself up, grab the toy and throw it back down onto the floor. This can be repeated many times...
It seems that our duck was premature; since he's never repeated the word (at least not in context) we'll write that one down to coincidence. So we're still awaiting a first word, although (much to Amma's delight) Jeyanth has finally mastered the 'mmm' sound, and is starting to use 'namma' as a term of happiness (replacing the previous favourite 'dadada'). I think he will soon learn that if he wants attention (or release from the cot) and Amma is around, reaching out his arms and saying 'namma' will have a 100% success rate.
The other noticable change recently is Jeyanth's keeness to feed himself. When he's in a good mood we can now put some food on a spoon and hand the spoon to him (left hand, again...). Over half the time the majority of food will then get into his mouth. His biggest problem is that he won't then let go of the spoon which makes it hard to reload it. He's also quite keen on grabbing food directly from his bowl and smearing it in the general vicinity of his mouth. I use the term 'general vicinity' very generously here.
Jeyanth has now had four very good nights on the trot, and as of yesterday he also seems to be getting his appetite back. He still seems to be slightly bothered by one ear, but if he hadn't been ill I don't think we'd even notice it. At this rate he'll be back at play school tomorrow...
Jeyanth had 14 hours sleep last night, started antibiotics this morning, and other than for being a off his food and having a bit of a runny nose, seems to be coping really well. He remains cheerful and active and isn't running a temperature, for which we are very thankful. We are however steeling ourselves for antibiotics induced diarrhoea, and the consequent aggravation to his barely healed bottom. Ah well.
This time it's official.
Some days with a baby are perfect. They play happily, smile at everyone, cooperate with you, laugh when you tickle them, go gladly on trips and goo and gah at everything, nap on demand, eat their meals... today was like that. Until 4:30.
Then Jeyanth started to howl inconsolably. Sureka came home soon after 5, and after a minute or two of 'happy because Amma is here' J continued to cry. He was pulling at his ear and really didn't seem happy. An inspection of said ear by his Amma suggested there was something wrong.
A quick trip to our local medical center to see the excellent Dr Tan confirmed that Jeyanth has an ear/throat infection. Not uncommon in babies, and we seem to have caught it early, but enough that he is on antibiotics from tomorrow. We aren't starting tonight at the advice of the pharmacist, since he has never had a penecillin derived drug and as we don't know if he will be allergic we want to be able to watch for symptoms.
He's still mostly a cheerful baby, but he obviouly isn't very happy with life right now :(
The pieces of the 'how will we arrange Jeyanth's care from July onwards' jigsaw have started to fall into place with Avaya agreeing to my request to return to work on a part time basis for the rest of 2004 [Avaya employees, please read the footnote!]. From July 13th I'll be generally working tuesday-thursday, and at home on monday and friday, looking after Jeyanth. The exact details of who will be looking after Jeyanth when are yet to be worked out, but will certainly involve a couple of days with Ammamma, and may involve Sureka and I both working odd hours to minimise the time we are both away. Watch this space...
Footnote: I'd appreciate it if any Avaya employees who happen across this entry would keep the fact that I will be returning part-time to themselves for the time being. As requests for part time work are not generally granted, the Auslabs management, quite reasonably, would like the opportunity to control the news cycle. I believe a formal announcement will be made sometime soon, along with an explaination of the basis upon which the decision has been taken, and I think it is fair to allow Russell and Quentin the chance to announce to a leak-free environment!
For posterity, if not for our readers, I thought it worth adding some more of Jeyanth's quirks and habits to Chris' list.
He still prefers to talk/sing to himself in the cot than to us, and he has shown very little interest in climbing the stairs (for which we are grateful), but some of the rest is captured below.
Breakfast
Two new food favourites. Oatmeal porridge served hot goes down really well these cold winter mornings. Also a big hit are Kelloggs wholemeal mini-weets (little pillow shaped nests made of fine threads of wholemeal paste), not just at breakfast, but as a portable snack for any time of day. He can pick them up and stuff them in his mouth himself, and since they take a fair bit of chewing, they keep him busy for a while. (Now, who else do we know who eats dry cereal?)
Kiss
Jeyanth is getting increasingly difficult to get a decent cuddle out of (unless he's half a sleep). Nowadays the little motor doesn't slow down long enough for extended stays in parental arms, but, there is an upside. He doesn't quite know about using his lips to kiss, but he will bring his entire face up to yours for a rub/nuzzle, sometimes spontaneously and sometimes in response to you saying 'kiss'. It is entirely up to the recipient of the 'kiss' to position their head to avoid any painful collision of noses (There's a Jeff Murdoch line in there, somewhere).
Sleep
Well, Jeyanth, who's always put in a solid 10-12 hours in over night, has recently started waking up a few times during the night. We think this is a combination of several things; a nose prone to getting stuffy occasionally, cutting several teeth at once, the habit of standing up in the cot as soon as he wakes up, which considerably reduces the chances of him dropping off to sleep again quickly. Anyway, despite all the excuses we make for him, we're trying to be consistent and disciplined and not resorting to giving him a drink (which always works!) every time he wakes up. Chris is taking the brunt of this, as I do pretty early starts to get to work, but we both hope this is a rapidly passing phase!
Logic
He's getting quicker and quicker at cathing on. Yesterday he threw a rubber ball which rolled into a small gap behind the paino on the other side of the room, out of sight. He then proceeded to go and extract it, not following the route the ball had taken, but an alternative one, approaching from a different direction, which gave him better access to the same hidden place where the ball lay.
NO!
Yep, that's one word he definitely understands. And he's not beyond a bit of deliberate naughtiness to get a bit of attention. The most common cause for inciting a shout of "No!" from parents is Jeyanth touching or climbing onto doggy bean bags (The dogs are smart enough to run away when they see him coming, but he still persists.). And Jeyanth will often crawl over to a bean bag, stop just short of touching it, turn around to make sure there's someone watching, and while retaining eye contact, lean over to put his hand on it. Hmmm.
There are a few things that Jeyanth is currently doing that I don't think we've written about yet...
A few backdated uploads onto the photo album; Jeyanth's first attempt at pulling himself up and Chris' 35th Birthday Party.
Note; Chris' party page will load without frames, and you will be left stranded in a window which doesn't have links to anywhere else... I know, I know - but it's too tedius to rebuild the whole site..)
OK, so this probably a bit of overinterpretation from eager parents, but Jeyanth may have said his first word in the bath yesterday. We were offering him various toys, saying their names in that very stupid looking parent way, and Jeyanth grabbed hold of his squeaky rubber duck with a cry which sounded very like "duck".
Since Jeyanth's most common vocalisation is 'da-da-da-da', it's not a big step to 'duck', either in reality or in parental imagination. We'll have to wait and see if he repeats it in the next few days. But for the time being, we'll pencil it in as first word.
As Chris mentioned before, we're not very good at telling you the good news.
Jeyanth has been consistently healthy, happy, active and cheerful since the last blog update. We don't quite know why he had an apparently random episode of elevated temperature which lasted a few hours, but we are much relieved that he seems no worse for it.
Though teething can't of itself cause a fever, there seems to be quite a lot of circumstantial association between the two. The best hypothesis I've heard is that the constant stuffing of things into the mouth, particularly the grubby hands that have been crawling all over the floor, can cause infections. Who can say?
After clinic this morning Jeyanth came home and decided he was going to have a morning nap. He had a long sleep, and when he was finally woken up he had an elevated temperature and was seemed very sorry for himself. A couple of hours on, with a bottle of milk, a dose of infant panadol and another nap inside him he's a lot more cheerful, but we'll have to see how he is when the drugs wear off...
[update - at 10pm, the drugs have worn off and Jeyanth's temperature appears to be back down to close to normal. Hopefully he's set in for a good night's sleep.]
We went to the baby clinic today. Nurse Pauline did the usual run of checks on him - he seems to be coming along with unremarkable normality. His hearing is fine, and he seems to be doing all the cognitive development thingies on cue.
His weight and height measures confirmed what we've all noticed, that he's slimmed down a bit and is no longer quite as chubby as he used to be. No weight gain last month (50th percentile), but has grown (I was about to type 'elongated') 1.5cm (~60th percentile). His head is quite big in comparison, but apparently that's an anglo-saxon male thing :).
Nurse Pauline also declared Jeyanth ready to enter the world of salads (ie raw veg), and gearing up to eat food pretty similar to ours. So we eagerly await Jeyanth's first curry experience!
So, the long awaited first day at CSIROCARE arrived. A slightly chilly morning at the end of a somewhat disturbed night. After a quick breakfast, Jeyanth, along with his bag of changes of clothes and labelled nappies and bottles got into the car for the drive to Sureka's work.
Sureka met us at the entrance, and we took Jeyanth in to be introduced to all his new friends. My initial impressions were very good; they talked me through the routines, showed me where to write down when he got up, when he last ate, when I thought he would want a nap and a bottle and so on, and then we took J outside, put him down in a nice spot where there were some toys and a good view of all the toddlers running around in the garden and cautiously moved away.
Jeyanth clearly saw that we were walking away, but was far too fascinated by everything happening around him to be upset. He had his very serious 'ok, this is new, I'm going to figure this out' look on his face as he looked from toys to carers to children to artwork. We slipped out quietly...
Sureka had to go off to a meeting, but I lingered outside the back fence, from where I could see Jeyanth at a distance. He was still sitting where I had put him down, still looking around. He watched a couple of toddlers go past pushing trollies noisily. After a while he made his decision, and crawled over to the next playmat, where there were blocks quite like the ones he had at home, and which he was obviously confident he knew how to throw. I wandered off to have a coffee and muffin.
An hour and a half later, I went back to see if he was ok, and spoke to Karen (the admin person) who told me that he had settled in fine, and seemed to be enjoying himself. Knowing that seeing me was more likely to disturb his settling in than help it, I left, content that all was well. Unfortunately, as I walked back to the coffee shop I passed the back of CSIROCARE, and Jeyanth, out crawling in the garden saw me and made a beeline for me. One of the staff saw and moved quickly to distract him, but it was too late. Howls of protest followed me as I forced myself to keep going...
Fifteen minutes later, they phoned to say he had been very upset, and would I like to drop in and see if I could settle him down. I returned (not quite at a run, but...) to find a tearful Jeyanth, just about allowing himself to be consoled by one of the carers. I took over, and as it was around 10:30, went into the cot room to see if he was tired and wanted a nap, but he was having none of it. In the end I stayed for about 15 minutes, then managed to put him down and attract his attention back to a toy and slip out. Noticing me going, he started to complain again, but not very strongly, so I took a chance and kept going. I waited in the foyer, and after five minutes asked Karen if she would go in and see if he had settled. He had, and was playing quite happily, so I went back with Sureka (who had arrived while I was waiting) to get another coffee.
At noon, we went back to see how things had gone, and found him lying quietly on some cushions, having eaten all his lunch and drunk most of his bottle (all by himself!). It was in the quiet nap period after lunch, and I suspect that had we put him down in the cot room he would have slept happily, but we figured maybe it was best to end his first day on a good note, so we waved bye-bye and went off to the car. Jeyanth fell asleep on the way home, and is still asleep as I type.
So, overall, it looks good. By all reports he had a good time while he was there; he's certainly going to drop his morning nap (no way he'll ever go down when things are happening), but I think he'll sleep in the quiet time; he ate happily and certainly enjoyed seeing the other children. As he starts to cruise there will be lots of toddlers for him to copy and lots of things for him to see and do; although the toys are not new, they are varied and plentiful (and new to him); we know he loves to see and do new things, and he'll be seeing and doing lots of them at CSIROCARE in the coming weeks.
Yesterday, Jeyanth had a fabulous half hour, chasing a balloon all over the house, swatting it, kicking it, hugging it, waggling it by the tie and squealing with delight throughout.
Mixed with the pleasure of seeing him enjoy a new toy (I'm sure he's forgotten the last time he had a balloon 3 months ago), was the inevitable tension of knowing with near-certainty, that any moment now, there'd be a loud bang followed by terrified tears and howls.
Perhaps this is a parenting parable. My son is going to fall off bikes, have sporting injuries, crash his car, have his heart broken by some girl etc etc etc. And I must do my part in encouraging him to do all the wonderful, dangerous and risky things that make up the joy of living, all the while clenching my stomach muscles and keeping an ever-ready supply of hugs and comfort handy.
Well, the balloon survived the boredom threshold. I am grateful for small mercies.
Jeyanth is currently threatening to drop his morning nap (which, for a couple of reasons, might not be a bad thing), which would mark the first change to his routine since he settled into in when we came back from the UK in January. And I realised I've probably never actually recorded what that routine was. If I don't do it now, in a couple of months, I don't expect I'll remember...
6am (ish - sometimes as early as 4am): Wake up and cry until someone comes and gives me a bottle of milk. Howl furiously when they insist on changing my nappy first. Drink milk, go happily back into cot and back to sleep.
7:30am: wake up again, and start talking to self. Talk louder and louder until someone comes to get me up. Look very pleased with self when rescued from cot and taken out to play.
8:30am: Breakfast. Eat anything between nothing at all and a decent bowl full of either cereal (mini wheats are current favourite, eaten dry like Daddy does), or yoghurt or fruit puree.
9am: More playing. Read me a story, Daddy.
10am: Yawn. I've had enough of this playing. Time for a nap.
11:30am: Up again - time to play, Daddy! Time to play!
12:30pm: Lunch time. Either 1/2 to 1 jar of baby food, or 4-6 ice cubes of frozen vegetables and meat, or a combination thereof. If Daddy is in very good mood, fruit jelly for desert. Then a bottle of milk.
1:00pm: Time for a trip. Out for a walk in the stroller or in Daddy's backpack, or perhaps in the car to go to the shops. Lots of things to see!
2:30pm: Sleepy now. Nap time. Story first?
4pm: Up again. Maybe a little bit grumpy. Play, but want attention. Where's Amma? Bored with Daddy now.
5:15pm (or thereabouts): Amma! Lots of hugs and smiles and laughs.
5:30pm: Dinner time. Similar in content to lunch, but better, 'cause Amma is here.
6pm (or a little later): Bottle of milk. I don't finish it, because then I wouldn't have any for later.
6:30pm: Bath time! Splash splash splash splash howl. I like the bath, but sometimes complain about getting water in my face - or getting out.
7pm: Sleepy... drink rest of milk in nice warm room in nice warm cuddle. Say goodnight, say prayers, go to bed. Talk to self for a while...
Over the last week, Jeyanth has started to pull himself up to standing more and more frequently. Unlike most of his new skill discoveries, this has been a gradual affair; it's taken him a couple of weeks from first finding himself on his feet to being able to do it more or less at will. For a while it seemed as if he simply wasn't interested; there was lots to do and lots to explore simply by crawling. But then he discovered the joys of things left on the coffee table or on the seat of the sofa by unsuspecting parents, or on the shelf in the cupboard, and his attempts to get up became more determined and, ultimately, successful.
He's not cruising as such yet, although he does seem to be comfortable moving his feet while standing; on one occasion, having pulled up on a big empty cardboard box only to find it slipping slowly across the floor under his weight, he walked the width of the room until finally trapping the escaping box against the world, scolding it loudly throughout the process. But for the most part, even if we arrange the furniture to make it easy, and tempt him with an interesting object on another surface, his response is to sit down, crawl over, and pull up again, rather than cruise across. And he's right; that is more efficient!
In theory, tomorrow is the first day of CSIROCARE for Jeyanth. However, we're going ot let him fully recover from his current cold before he goes and mixes with lots of other kids; quite a few babies seem to be getting secondary infections with the current batch of colds, and we'd really rather avoid that if we can.
In the coming weeks, Jeyanth has a slot at CSIROCARE tuesday, wednesday and thursday each week. Initially I'll be taking him along and staying with him, just for a few hours each day, while he gets used to the environment and the people. My guess is that he'll really enjoy it, since he always likes being with people - especially babies and kids - and seeing new things. If he does, we'll extend the day for him, and see if he continues to enjoy it if I'm not around all the time (Sureka's office, of course, is just next door, so I don't imagine he'll ever spend very long there without a parent dropping in...)
Two new videos in the archive.
Playing with the shadows (3MB)
On the swing with Amma (4MB)
A link Alan posted in the comments deserves a wider audience. If you thought that we were obsessive in our record keeping, you need to check out Trixie Update.
Now that is obsessive.
We aren't very good at giving updates after we've got people worried by saying Jeyanth is sick, are we?
So - Jeyanth is much better now. He's very cheerful (actually, he's been cheerful throughout), his diahorrea is gone and his nappy rash is well on its way to being fully healed. His nose, having cleared up during the week, is runny again, so we had a slightly disturbed night (using a nasal aspirator on a screaming baby at 3am is not one of the highpoints of parenthood).
This afternoon, he's off for a haircut. Photos may follow...