baby's first cold

His cough, which had been persisting on and off over the last week, yesterday got noticeably and decidely worse, and now sounds a bit chesty/bronchial. Eyes watering, nose running. Up till 12 last night, checked his temperature (normalish). Corey woke up as he heard the boy's terrible coughing, stood in the doorway of R's room while I was giving him some baby panadol and scared me half to death. Grumpily told him off. When I was in bed 5 minutes later, he was dead to the world. Probably won't even remember getting up. At this point, my head had gone out in sympathy - scratchy throat, nose running, bit of a cough. Now I've got the cold as well. Corey up at 5 this morning to give him a bottle. Said he looked worse. The boy is grumpier when he coughs and his nose is streaming... clearly a bit painful, and gets whingey. Dislikes having his face wiped immensely. After his morning nap, he woke up with smile to his dad and mum and looked much better. Still has the terrible sounding cough, but nose and eyes seem to be watering a little less.

UPDATE (2/9/08): Visited the Doctor, who diagnosed Bronchiolitis, which is a common chest infection in babies, and usually starts out as a cold. Nothing can be prescribed, and the GP said we were doing the right thing by giving baby panadol and plenty of bed rest. Just need to ride it out apparently the cough can last for some weeks. Said we should be alright for mother's group today, the infectious period has probably past.

lazy saturday

This weekend we have no plans. Well, I have no plans, just good intentions. A few things - finish off a b'day quilt, do some sewing for mum, do more work on the brigade annual report, pay bills, do filing... maybe this will help me remember. Or maybe not. Corey's plans, as usually lately, have been to get more work done on the shed. As I write, he's managed to get most of the roof on, just as well as it's been spitting on and off for a while.

Nanna (Vicki) visited this morning to see Master 1/2 Year before he went for his morning sleep. We heard from Al - back from overseas this week and up for a chat. He's coming over for tea so that will be fun. He said he's bringing some photos too.

The small boy has a runny nose and seems a bit off his bottle today so have been rectifying it/supplementing it by giving him a little more to eat - need to get him to feed a bit more. As of late, it's just been 2 meals (morning, then lunch) with the usual bottles. Now I'm adding another meal - breakfast (cereal), which we tried this morning and went well. Pureed some carrot and some broccoli and froze them in the Qubies trays. Might try him on the carrot over the next few days, then maybe some broccoli.

tuesday mothers group

It's midday, the boy is asleep and I've just finished lunch (dinner leftovers). Mother's Group is on today, and I'll be leaving in about an hour. It's at Tyler's Mum's house, which conveniently is quite close to home - as is Carter's Mum's place. Taking some homemade double choc (dairy and white) biscuits which I hope will be appreciated - means there'll be less at home to tempt me!

Yesterday we visited an old high school friend, Sally and her little boy Max, who is nearly 1 and a half. Rory was very well behaved, and went for his nap without a peep. It was nice to chat with Sally about motherhood and stuff, and catch up with her since she's been interstate for many years.

Tomorrow is a big day for Rory - he'll be 0.5 years old (the big 6 MONTHS!). He also has his 6 month vaccinations and a baby reading session at the library. He's fast growing out of his size 00 clothing, and I've just gone through his size 0 clothing and put it in the drawers. Size 00 clothing now gets relegated to the storage tubs.

Still thinking of what to do for my 30th birthday in October, and who to invite. I want it relaxed and easy going - no stress, no food for me to organise and no dishes for me to clean...

5 years

Yesterday was a small anniversary for Corey and I : 5 years since we got together. We had Thai takeaway for dinner as a small celebration and watched (because nothing else was on, including the olympics) So You Think You Can Dance.

rainy thursday

Yesterday was quite busy - a walk in the morning to the library and a quick stop at K-Mart (where it used to be the cheapest) for some S26 formula. Home - and then got organised to go to Mum and Dad's (Grandma and Grandpa's) for tea.

Rory had his third serving of Heinz pureed apple today - and while he ate it all, he still made the scrunched up faces ... probably due to the tartness of it. Tomorrow we'll try the sweet potato.

Given today's weather, it's been an all-inside day today. No walks :( I did make some choc chip biscuits which came out really nice. Vicki (Nanna) is over for dinner tonight so I'm actually expecting her to turn up fairly soon (as I write).

Rory's getting stronger at tummy time, which he's getting more tolerant of. He's now able to sit unassisted for a little while, and if he starts to lean to one side, he'll balance himself right. Not all the time, as he still manages to fall to one side and plant his face on the floor.

monday wrapup

Not much to report today, except that I picked up the Pixifoto pics today from Cranbourne... they look great, except the only problem now is that we need more walls!

Rory is enjoying eating banana, however he is a little constipated (thanks to S26). Hopefully the poo situation should be a bit better after I start him on the pureed apple tomorrow.

In other news, Corey's got most of the shed walls up on the weekend. It rained and rained today so my high hopes of getting washing dry lasted for about 20 minutes - for as long as there was blue skies today.

My session at gym was good today - they've got new staff starting there, so there's a few new faces to get to know. Still feel as though I've seen (owner) Kathryn's partner before - just not sure where I've seen him. Didn't go to WPSC, so maybe its somewhere else.

And thanks to Contours ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjRJkyL2Yb4), I now can't get this song out of my head, especially when I've been singing the regular version to Rory.

shopping. and stuff.

Yesterday's excitement was a trip to the supermarket with the small boy, buying tantalising goods of the cheaper (homebrand) variety. I deliberately didn't buy any fresh produce, figuring I'd get it at the Pearcedale Farmer's Market on Saturday.

Friday evening was spent visiting a friend of a friend's baby shower, taking the small boy along for 'show and tell' - a sort of "Here's one I've prepared earlier!" - to the 3 heavily pregnant ladies there. 2 of them are due on the same day in September: one looks absolutely ready to burst, and the other only looking like she's half done.

Today (Saturday), Kim and I went to the aforementioned farmers market with the small boy, while the bigger boy went about concreting the shed footings, with the help of workmate Nick. Arrived at the market, to be slugged $2 per person, for about 10 stalls arranged in a circle (one selling each variety of produce: ie, pasta, beef, vegetables, jams/chutneys, flowers, olive oil, eggs, potatoes, bread and cakes, etc). All the stalls (bar a couple) had exhorbitant prices on their goods, and I'm too ashamed to say how much was spent on a hummingbird cake (which better be bloody good, I can tell you!). Fair enough the produce was fresh - but charging that much? Jeez!

So, Kim and I ended our trip back in Hastings, buying fruit/veg from Hastings Fruit Supply. There's a lot to be said about quality goods for quality prices and I'll be steering clear of farmers markets for quite a while now. Grr.

In other news, Rory's been producing lovely orange poos thanks to the pumpkin he's been trialling.

busy wednesday

Yesterday was quite busy, so did not have much time to blog.

Had our last library session yesterday - they now will be monthly occurrences. Rory spends most of the time watching the other babies, mums and presenter than paying any attention to me, especially when I'm trying to sing and do hand gestures! The rest of the other Mums & bubs from Mothers Group were there - except for Jake's mum, who had prior committments. We don't see Lexie and her Mum anymore at Mother's Group (she doesn't seem to bother contacting us at all now), so I think we'll probably stop letting her know when it's on and where.

Afterwards, we went to Mum & Dad's for the weekly Weds dinner. Tried feeding Rory pumpkin for the first time - went better than our experiement with the pureed apple. At least he only upchucked a little this time. He was very entertaining at dinner, and had us all in stitches with his raspberry-blowing, which seems to be his new favourite past time.

Today's going to be quite busy too: we're off to CFA HQ in Burwood to visit work colleagues. If we have time, I might try to drop in at Region 8 HQ, but I'll see how Rory and I go.

fish

The olympics are on, and I've made an observation (or prediction) about Rory's possible future career, solely based on his bath habits and nocturnal habits:

1) His activities in the bath - kicking his legs heaps and spreading so much water around that it wets all surfaces (and people)

plus

2) His sleeping habits - for the past month (and a half, possibly), he's been waking up at 4am or 5am (our current solution: bottle, then straight back to bed)

equals

Potential superfish (olympic swimmer), since swimmers get up r-e-a-l-l-y early in the morning to practice swimming

soup and slices

Day 2 of my blogging challenge, fingers crossed I stick to it.

Mother's Group was at my house today, so we had the usual 4 mums, plus the return of Jake's mum, who'd been in QLD for the past month (with Jake, I must add). It was good to have her back. Made pumpkin soup, lemon slice and double-choc fudge brownies, which all went down well.

The babies are growing hugely, and a no longer the sleepy little blobs that they once were when Mothers Group first started. Now they're little blobs (well, the boys anyway, because they still don't move much) with their personalities beginning to shine through. And they're beginning to interact with each other as well, which is quite amusing to watch.

Corey's just come back from getting his tax done ... amazingly his group certificate was done in August (not October like last year!) so we'll have some money to [sigh] put on those credit cards.

blogwork

I've done some tidying up around here :)

Whilst tagging my posts, I realised that I've been blogging for over a year, that's a small milestone for me! Hooray!

I've also added links to blogs that I frequently read. Some of my friends from high school have blogs of their own, so it's quite nice to be able to read about what they're up to these days...

a challenge...

Feeling bah about the whole blog thing: it's been well over a month since I last made an entry, and usually, from past experience, when I get to this stage, I feel slightly petulant about the whole blogging experience, like it's a task that needs to be done. And I don't want to do it! I've never been good with keeping a diary, but I'm determined to keep this thing going.

So. I've set myself a challenge. I'm going to try and write a little each day (nothing ground breaking) to prove to myself: a) that this is worth continuing; b) that it's more than a baby diary (not my original intention, but it has become one) and c) that it's something I can feel slightly accomplished with, and it's not a nagging task in the back of my mind.