Cheeky Monkeys and a Hat

There are three cheeky monkeys in our house but it is the middle monkey that is the most mischievous, I love the first photo where you can actually see him plotting to take Owens beanie and the last photo you can see his delight at Owens reaction!

MIA

No posts and no photos recently because I have been sick with vertigo for the last 10 days. It was probably a virus but I realise that this crisis in my health is probably a reflection of the constant day to day stress I put myself under with little time for friends, time out, hair appointments etc. The vertigo was completely debilitating all I could do was lay in bed, if I got up I was staggering and bashing into furniture and the walls and the nausea was overwhelming. Randall was calling me "Future Mum" - because I would have to have someone to support me to walk to the toilet! My partner Col looked after the boys, the house, the cooking and me (and I am a pretty awful patient), but he had to go back to work last week so my mum flew from Adelaide to look after us all, she left yesterday. I am running on about 90% of normal just the ocassional dizzy, nothing debilitating. Back to fulltime parenting tomorrow !

Here comes the sleep train

One nap a day has shifted things big time.
Owen is waking just once a night now and woke at 6.30 this morning !!! and I can put him down at nap time without nursing him (he is just so tired he falls asleep with just a little patting) YAHOO fantastic. I feel a million bucks.
Its a job to keep him awake at 10 o clock but with a quick snack and a drink he can get through until about 1130 (he is having lunch at 11am. I moved Cy's nap too now his going down at 12pm (was 1pm) and waking at 2.30pm an hour earlier which means he is sleeping through the night without the antics.

Owen has found EYES are for poking ! I ask him where are your eyes and he points to my eyes and then his own eyes (well sometimes its his ears) and he goes back and forth back and forth sometimes poking both my eyes one after the other as if to say, and you've got two of those ! Very cute. Photos to follow

urrrrrgh to sleep to dream

Owen is not sleeping well
two weeks ago he was waking every 1.5 hours at night then it stopped YAHOOO just when I was threatening to do some "sleep training" (read night weaning).
But the new pattern he has adopted in no fun either, sleeping till 2am then he has a feed back to sleep then awake at 4 am sometimes for the day sometimes I can get him back to sleep for another hour so our day starts at 5am - it is beyond a joke.
But to top it off his big brother Cy is waking at 2am and STAYES awake until 4am (around the time Owen is waking for the day).Cy talks and giggles and plays with his teddy's for the whole 2 hours, he doesn't call out for us or cry, just wild laughter and voices (which would be cute at any time after 7am) His bedroom is right across the hall from ours and it is so hard to sleep through the antics well I speak for myself because this is when Owen is sleeping soundly.
The last few days I am starting to feel really depressed even now I sit and type in my PJ's (Its 1pm in the afternoon).
Today I am going to give Owen just one day sleep, because maybe he is getting too much sleep in the afternoons? So my plan is to have him have just 1 sleep each day for a few days to see if it improves things or makes it worse (heaven forbid).uuuuugrrrh I am just so exhausted.

Honey Bear

Our speech therapist did a drinking assesment on Owen about a month ago and was happy with the tiny amounts he was taking from an open cup. I wasn't happy the amount he would take was just so tiny. So it was time to hit the blogs, I saw so many children having success with the Honey Bear, it was time to order one.

I had to order it through a distributor in Brisbane and after only 4 days of squeezing the bear - squirting water into his mouth and me making exaggerated slurrpy noises with pursed lips HE GOT IT.

He can now drink good amounts from the bear instead of having to rely on breastfeeding alone (I feel more hydrated already !).

we have movement !

Owen is on the move !
He is creeping forward just a little bit just 30cm or so but in combination with sliding onto his tummy and sitting up again he is managing to move about the room. This is the first movement he has had since he was rolling, which he only did for about 3 weeks before rolling off the bed he was 10 months old, (thats 4 months ago !).

As a total bonus I have noticed his habit spasm is hardly happening at all Yippee.

Speech, Sign and Surgery

Owen sigining 'up' (we're going up, we're going up, as high as we can go, were going down, we're going down, we're going way down low, up up up up up up and down down down down down SPLASH (goes the boat in the water)

Owen had his first speech evaluation last week and I think they were impressed with his signing, I haven't told them he has 30 signs and I haven't told them that he is also sight reading from the Your Baby Can Read DVD's http://www.yourbabycanread.com/ words like dog, cat, tiger, no, head, clap, wave, arms up, point, baby, swing, elephant. Its pretty wild and I feel like I would be looked at like an over involved parent but honestly he has learnt to read from just watching the dvds. And he has learnt most of the signs from singing songs and nursery rhymes (there is not much else to do when you can't creeep or crawl !

Since he was around 3 months old I have been using the Communicating Partners guidlelines http://jamesdmacdonald.org/ and Owen learnt from early on that his actions were valid communication just as much as using his voice we did lots and lots of turn taking -like he would bang on the highchair so I would bang the table back and forth back and forth always with big smiles on our faces. It has been a very natural progression into formal signing from there. He started signing at 12 months old - eat, milk and duck and since then there has been an EXPLOSION of sign and 8 weeks later he has 30 signs/natural gestures ! Most have been learnt through nursery rhymes singing and signing at the same time (like twinkle twinkle little star).

Two weeks ago he started making a making a new sound at the back of his throat it sounds like gccggrrrrrr, after a few days I wondered if we could turn it into a word - so every time he said ggcccrrrr I would say CAR to him and sign car or hand him a toy car or point to our real life car - he learnt VERY quickly, in a day I think, we take 3-4 turns and I am now trying "car, broom brooom" to extend him by 1. He also has "words" for cow (mmmmmvvv) and tiger (grrrrrr), mouse (eeehhh eehh), light (ite ite) and look (eeeeeeggrrk).

He used to babble alot until he was about 10 months old when he suddenly stopped, at first I was worried then he started making other sounds (not babbling) and I didn't worry about it anymore. But then he started signing and I noticed that he was signing "Duck" when I said truck, signing "Low" when I said Go, and would moo like a cow when I said Karl (a character from a tv show) it was obvious to me that something wasn't right. Outwardly I would say it was very hard to tell that there is anything wrong with Owens hearing, but through his signing I could see he was mishearing (a new benefit of signing - hearing assessment?).

Today we went to the ENT to follow up on some hearing tests from a fortnight ago and Owen has "moderate to moderate/severe loss" and he needs grommets except - the private hospital where the surgeon does his operating from, does not have insurance to operate on children younger than 18 months of age. So can you believe we have to wait for another 3 months ! But it might be just as well because Owens ear canals are SO TINY that he could not see the whole ear drum clearly and there is a risk that he may not be able to fit grommets to such a tiny ear drum - another 3 months of growth maybe just the thing.

I know that lots of typical kids have grommets but I did feel it is another "victory" to DS, its a funny thing to think I know. And I felt a bit teary that Owen has to have another operation it brought back all the nervous uncertainties and memories of his open heart surgery. ahhhh well , the count down is on for surgery - September 29th,- in the mean time we have to talk louder, and directly to him because he can hear us its just that it is like he is wearing a set of ear muffs (or a bubble hat perhaps?)