Say mama

On Monday Kien said mamamama - first time he has been able to say the m's. It's now is new favourite sound so we are hearing a lot of mamamamam around the house.

Last Saturday evening I did a spot of babysitting for Linda and Jason so they could attend the fashion show. Jef did the evening bedtime ritual all by himself for the first time; feeding, bathing and putting to bed. He did a splendid job and sent me this adorable photo.

I finally went to a coffee group meeting on Tuesday for the first time. It was really nice to be amongst a group of like minded women with kids the same age as Kien. I've been hesitant to attend any of these types of things because I had an idea in my head of what it would be like - and I didn't like what my mind had conjured up; gossipy women who love to spend time at the mall. But it wasn't like that at all. The women in this group were all roughly the same age as me, taken a year off on maternity leave just like me, and into fitness too (2 of the women do 1/2 iron men events). It was a pleasant morning drinking coffee and eating homemade scones in a beautiful sunny villa in Herne Bay while the children played so nicely together. I walked home with Frana who lives on Richmond Rd, a woman who is finishing her physiotherapy degree and has just started a business importing french baby clothes. I am looking forward to catching up again in a fortnight.

That night Kien came down with a major fever - 40 degrees actually. Needless to say we had a sleepless night as he was also vomiting everything he was consuming. In the morning we took him to A&E, and then to Starship as his heart was beating quite rapidly. After a few hours there the Dr was satisfied Kien was OK to go home. We had to feed him small amounts of milk often since he continually vomits. I am still doing that today and have just cleaned up some more spillage.

Well hopefully we get a good night sleep tonight and I can send Kien off to daycare tomorrow.

How many dirty nappies?

I have just changed Kien's forth soiled nappy for the day. I'm expecting another one or two before bedtime tonight. The more he eats the more he poos I guess :-) And they are real stinkers too! Good thing I'm his mother!

Speaking of nappies he is now on the "crawler" size for disposables, and when we use the washables we no longer button them up to make them smaller. He isn't much bigger than he was a month ago, just longer.

Speaking of crawling Kien has been on all fours properly now for the last week or so. He no longer does the commando crawl unless he is too lazy, but he wants to get wherever he wants to go fast so it is much more effective being up on his knees. Boy can he go....really fast, and thumpy.

Best night yet

Last night was the best night as far as sleeping through the night is concerned. Kien had a proper dreamfeed at 23:25 and settled back after he had finished his bottle without even waking up. Then he self settled all through the night when he transitioned between sleep cycles, and finally waking for the day at 6:19. I didn't have to go in there to comfort him once!


He's pretty good at being on his feet these days. I was in the kitchen this morning and turned around to see this. Such a little monkey!

I still can't get over what a difference him being able to sleep has made to our life, especially for my sanity! I'm now back running to get fit and healthy again. Yesterday I ran 8km in 1 hour - not bad considering it was only my 6th run since pre-pregnancy.

Changes

What a difference; in just over a week Kien has been sleeping practically the entire night without requiring our help. It is simply astounding that we have finally come to this point. I never thought he would sleep through the night, not ever!

Jef still gives him a feed around 22:00-23:00. Then Kien will self settle when he wakes through the night, and will only have a major awaking anywhere between 4:00-5:00. I will then feed him and he will go back to sleep until he wakes up fully - usually around 6:30. I am so pleased (and relieved) we finally can sleep for longer than 1 hour at a time!

This Saturday we have our 9 month interview for "Growing up in NZ" study by the University of Auckland. I requested transcripts for all my interviews, and have been bounced around from one person to another because no one seemed to be able to help me. Today I had a call from their Data Access Coordinator. She said that of all their participants (around 7000) I am the only one who has made this request so they had to put together a policy (as further down the track they anticipate more requests). She asked me why I wanted the information (which actually surprised me somewhat as I thought it was fairly obvious). I told her my reasons are two-fold:

1. This is an intensive research study spanning over 21 years. I want to be able to refer back to my answers so I can reflect on my responses and provide more meaningful information. There is nothing worse then providing a whole lot of answers that are inconsistent due to me simply forgetting what I had said originally.
2. The study is also a reflection of Kien's timeline, and like the BBC documentary series "Child of our time" it is a snapshot in time. I want Kien to be able to see this, and how he (and we) contributed to the study, including our thoughts, hopes, dilemmas, and state of mind.
   

She was so impressed with my reasoning that they are now going to look at expanding their study to provide access for participants to be able to review and contribute to their individual information on the website to include photos, hopes & dreams, interests and talent etc. She has asked me to provide further ideas and suggestions for this new development. I guess I can put my thinking cap on, after all I am now sleeping so much more than I was a couple of weeks ago and I actually don't feel like I've had a lobotomy anymore.

Remember this pic from when Kien was 4 weeks old?

Well, spot the changes at 36 weeks...he can still fit into it :-)

It took 35 weeks

Yes, 35 weeks until he finally managed to sleep through the night! It's a miracle. Jef fed Kien at 23:40 and he went straight back to sleep - not a peep until 4:54 this morning.

What has changed? Justine sent us a dustmite mattress cover which we put on last night. Also it was the third night that we have not fed him after the dream-feed until morning, and using pick up/put down instead of shh/pat. Perhaps it was a combination of these factors, but more than likely it was the cover :-)


We've been so very tired and in survival mode for so long now. Last week was bad because I was still sick and also did not manage a lot of sleep. On Friday night I took Kien to Linda's place and she looked after him overnight while I slept. Jef had the house all to himself which he greatly appreciated, although I did get a text from him to say he missed us terribly...awwww.

On Sunday was Jef's first Father's day. We had such a lovely day. We went to the Belgium Beer Cafe at the end of Ponsonby Rd. Jef had 3x 500ml of the white beer and I had the cherry one (can't even remember what they were called but they were so yummy). I ordered their soup of the day (a spicy pepper and tomato soup) and gave a little bit to Kien mixed with some rice cereal. He had a few spoonfuls before he realised how spicy it was.

Kien loves to kneel, and when we are eating at the table he comes over to join us. Raw carrot is his favourite thing to chew on right now (besides the keyboard USB cable).