Our First Week 'Alone': Soap, X-rays, a Tick, and TOILET TRAINING?!

Well, I do have some pictures to put up here, but that requires getting more than 10 minutes without a little one demanding some time, so I thought I would at least put something on here.

Mum left on the 4th. Unfortunately she left after the Canadian fireworks, and before the American ones. I took pictures though... :) This left us on our own with the two little ones, which we hadn't been until that point. We've survived the first week with no casualties (despite the x-ray in the title of this post).

Monday... Rebecca decided to throw a huge tantrum, and got into a brand new bottle of baby wash. Justin was outside working on fencing, and I'm very thankful he was home, because that bottle of baby wash ended up all over Rebecca's bed, floor, half her clothing, and her... plus we're pretty sure she drank about half of it. The bottle was empty (had been an 8 or 10 oz bottle full). Know what consumption of baby wash does? It causes diarrhea. Yeah... that was GREAT. She spent the rest of last week in disposable diapers instead of cloth.

Tuesday morning, Elias didn't seem to be acting quite right, and then about two hours after he got up, he started spitting up really bright yellow. It actually looked about the colour of a breast milk bowel movement, just it was coming out his mouth... and he hadn't had a poopy diaper in a couple of days...so we got him a doctor's appointment. The doctor agreed the colour was rather odd, and sent us for x-rays to be sure there were no bowel/intestinal obstructions. The children's hospital clinic on this side of the water actually kept their radiology lab open a little late so we would be able to get him in that afternoon. He didn't have any blockages, so we're just hoping that he doesn't start spitting 'funny' colours again! If he does, I believe we'll be following up with either a pediatric neurologist or a pediatric gastroenterologist (or however that's spelled) for further investigation into the issue.

Wednesday was our 3rd anniversary. Hard to believe it's already been three years. Even harder to believe that we had two kids in less than three years! Anyway, we spent the day at home, and in the evening we took everyone to the beach for a walk. Wow are things ever dry around here right now! Places that are almost always FULL of water are so dried out right now that the ground underneath is cracking! Anyway, the beach we went to has a bit of a walk through a marsh where there are some bushes and such as well as lots of loooong grass... and somehow I picked up a tick. We found it on my back less than two hours after we got home... and so we went looking for how to remove a tick correctly (especially when you don't own the correct sort of tweezers!), and discovered the best method, aside from tweezers, is actually a little piece of thread tied in a knot around the tick's head, and then you just pull with gentle pressure and the thing backs out on its own! We're pretty sure it didn't even get through all the layers of my skin, but regardless, research is showing that it seems pathogens don't transfer from the tick to the new host until at least 24 hours after they've embedded, so there shouldn't be any issues whatsoever. :)

And then... Rebecca decided on Thursday to initiate some form of toilet training. She's been asking a few times every day for the last five days to use the toilet (though she hasn't actually used it yet). I felt she was feeling a little insecure on our big seat, so we picked up a toilet training seat for her this morning. I wasn't expecting to have a 20 month old training... I was expecting to wait until after the new year, lol! She LOVES the seat... it might mean she spends a lot of time in the bathroom in the next few days. We'll see how it goes... I think I'd prefer she train herself, and I don't think it would be far off-- she will tell us when she needs her diaper changed, when she needs to go (so she still has a dry/clean diaper on), and she is waking up dry most times from naps and often from nights as well... all big signs of readiness. Maybe we'll be diaper free by the time her birthday comes? Or maybe not, hehe.

1 year check-up

Rebecca had her one-year appointment with the doctor today, and it seems he was quite impressed with her development! While she didn't say any words while we were there, we were able to list more words that we've heard her use than he was expecting for her age. He informed us that speech develops at different rates in all children, and by the sounds of it she's at least on target, perhaps slightly ahead.

He watched her walking around and investigating and such, and informed us that not only was she walking exceptionally well for her age (which he was surprised to learn she started doing at 9.5 months!), but all of her motor skills seemed to be well beyond the norm... apparently she comes closer to a 2 year old's motor skills than 1 year old's!

He also informed us that she was extremely alert and bright for a baby her age... which I take to mean that probably her mental functioning level is beyond "normal" too... which we have known for a long time, lol. :-)

As for stats... it turns out that our scale is a little off, she weighed in at 18.5 lbs exactly this morning. She's 27 inches long as of this morning as well. These measurements place her between the 5th and 10th percentiles for weight, and below 5th for height, which is pretty consistent with her birth percentiles, and definitely explains why her current clothing size is only 6-9month when she is 12.5 months old.

And, finally, he answered our question about her current stuffy nose (which has been there for nearly 2 months) VERY thoroughly, and advised us about how to treat it. Did you know that vitamin C has a natural antihistamine effect? He recommended that so long as she doesn't have a cold which would need some drying up, to simply treat every day with 250-300mg of vitamin C. Apparently using Benadryl actually causes fluids to dry up from the nose area, yes, but it also can cause those fluids to recede back into the sinuses and ears, which is when you start having major infections in those places, and can end up with things like chronic sinusitis and such. Interesting fact I never knew before. :-)

So... there's the "one year" update.

One Month Check-up

Rebecca went to see the doctor for her one month "well baby" check-up thing, and since he doesn't have a pediatrics scale we have to weigh her by deduction. Her approximate weight therefore is about 8.25-8.5lbs when you remove extra weight for the clothing she was wearing. Basically, she's gained about 1lb 4oz in the last four weeks. She's also measuring about 20.25", which is 1.25" longer than she was four weeks ago. He seems to be happy with how she is growing (how he couldn't have been is beyond me!), and said it doesn't look like she has thrush any more, but it does look like she may get her teeth early, as it looks like her gums are already preparing for one or two teeth to break through! I'm not sure I'm ready for her to have teeth too soon though... I think she can just keep them inside her gums for another five or six months! He also said that she is tracking things really well, so I guess that's good.

We've been reading a book called Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown in the evenings, to give us something to do. She seems to enjoy the book, and it's kind of funny, but the first few times I read her the book, I pointed to the various places on the page that the words were talking about, and now when I read it to her, her eyes follow the story, so if it is talking about the barn, she looks at the barn, if it's talking about the horses, then she looks at the horses, etc! I was quite surprised when I realized she was paying that close attention!

Speaking of being surprised... yesterday I was holding her in a standing position, and she took hold of my thumbs, so out of curiosity I let go of her, and she actually continued to hold herself in a standing position! Talk about a shock for me, lol! I guess if she's going to get teeth early she might as well learn to stand on her own early as well, but honestly... one month old and holding herself in a standing position??

I finished all the baking I had planned to do, aside from the gingerbread house portion of the baking, and Justin and I took cookies to all our neighbours this morning. I've got one or two more trays to take to people, but the majority is now done. I'm just curious as to whether we'll get any of the trays back (empty, of course), as we didn't say if we wanted them back or not. :) So far people have been surprised, and very thankful or excited to be getting cookies from us... and seeing as I taste tested every batch, I know they all taste good, so hopefully they'll all enjoy them as well!

This evening Rebecca and I are going to choir practise, but there's something on at 6:30 at the church as well, so I'm not sure if we'll go to that as well or not. It seems it might be a somewhat long evening if we did! We go to the library before we go to choir most Wednesdays as well, so we would therefore have to be leaving here by about 6:00 so we would be at the church for 6:30 after going to the library for 15 minutes or so (hah, that won't be the case when she's a little bigger!). Of course, we also have some things that need to be mailed from the post office itself, so we would have to leave even earlier. Probably by 5:00, because of the enormous line up there almost always is at the post office. Okay... so the more I think about it, the more I don't think I really want to go to this thing earlier than choir practise!!! :)

Anyway, I now need to get back to working on getting things ready for the mail, so they will hopefully all be sent today!