Category: Faith

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Sugar and spice and all things nice…

Somehow I never thought I would have a girl child.  Especially when my first born was a boy, I figured that was that, I would be  a boy mommy.  Then along came  Faith and with her a whole whack of questions girl related.

One of those questions is ear piercing.

My ears are pierced.  I was about 6 years old when my mom took me to the local jewelry store to have it done.  I remember the day clearly for two reasons.

One:  The jeweler  (arsehole!) made me sit on the stool and then stood at the other side of the store, asked me to turn my head and to hold still, he then lifted the piercing gun like a real gun and ‘took aim’, freaked me out good and proper.  He thought it was hilarious…

Two:  After calming me down, bribing me with wine gums and actually doing the piercing, it freaking hurt man!  I still get a twinge in my lobes when I think about it.

So here is my question…

When is the ideal time to get a little girls ears pierced?  Should I wait until she is older, should I take her now at 6 months?

It goes without saying that I have no issue with pierced ears on little girls, for the record though if she wants second/third holes or holes anywhere else on her body she needs to be 18 before I will let her!

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three sixty five

I cannot believe how fast the last year has gone by!

A few days before mothers day last year we found out that after a year of trying we were finally pregnant with Faith.  I was about 4 weeks along.

On mothers day last year we had our first family shoot with Jenty.

Look how much Aaron has grown…

From this:

To this:

From 3:

To 4:

I truly cannot describe how blessed I am.

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Back to work and guilt (Its not what you think…)

Today was my first day back at work.  I took 4 months maternity leave as well as 2 weeks of annual leave before Faith was due.  So all in all I have been away from work for about 17/18 weeks.

The first day was ok, a bit long for someone not used to sitting behind a desk all day.  I came back to a small crisis but that is being handled and I have stayed out of the details of it and am just helping where I can.

Tomorrow is a half day for me (Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays by default as we finish at 2pm anyway) so that makes it a bit easier to be motivated.

Onto the guilt…

I dont feel guilty about leaving Faith to go back to work.  I know I have to work and I know if I dont do something during the day I will go nuts.  Im glad that I work 3 half days, it definitely makes going back to work easier.

In order to explain my guilt I have to give you a little back story.  As you may or may not know I suffered from PND after having Aaron.  When my 4 months maternity leave was over I could not wait to get back to work.  It wasnt that I didnt love my baby, I did.  It was more about getting away from a place that I was not in control of and going to a place that I was in control of, a place I felt was ‘safe’ I suppose.

*Please note that its only now, almost 3 years later that I can articulate these feelings, at the time I just felt a fantastic sense of relief at being at work and not at home*

My guilt back then wasnt that I was leaving baby at home, it was about the fact that I didnt feel guilty for leaving him.  The fact that I felt I was running away from him to go to work.

This time I am not running away, yes I miss Faith but I know she is happy and well looked after and that its not full day every day.  This time there is no guilt that I am not feeling quilty.

This time the guilt comes from the fact that I am petrified that the difference in how I have handled going back to work after Aaron and after Faith will effect my relationship with them in the future, especially with Aaron.

I know that it wasnt my fault, I know that even though I was depressed it wasnt for lack of love for my son.  But the cold hard truth is that it took me a long time to bond with Aaron, a long time for me to not want to run away to work.  I just hope that as he grows older and more aware he doesn’t feel like I love him less than his sister.  I hope he understands, even if its never said, that it wasnt really him I was running away from.  That it was my own demons.

I hope that even though it wasnt ‘me’ that one day I can forgive myself.

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H.o.l.i.d.a.y. Say it with me!

In two sleeps, Paul, Aaron, Faith and I will be flying to Cape Town for 6 nights.

I CANNOT wait!

It has been almost 2 years since our last holiday…

I cant wait to see Ash and Megs.

I cant wait to walk on the beach.

I even cant wait to see your moooouuuuuuntain Cape Town.

I really really cant wait!

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Butterflies…

Before Faith was born I was trying to decide what ‘theme’ her room would be.  I wanted something that would last past the baby phase and I came up with butterflies.

Finally, 4 (!) months after she was born I finished putting the butterflies on her wall!

I got two different sizes and used super glue to stick the bigger ones onto the wall and double sided tape to stick the smaller ones.

This beautiful purple butterfly came from a wonderful lady, it was on my tea cup at her annual thanksgiving last year and I just knew it was going up on Faith’s wall.

Another one of my (non-blogging) friends found this wire word and added it onto the present she gave Faith when she was born.  As soon as I saw it I knew it was going on Faith’s wall.

I think I need to add a few more butterflies but for now I am really happy with how it came out.

Oh, I also found the most perfect curtain tie backs at Mr Price Home but I need hooked screw/nail type thingies so will only put them up on the weekend.

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Oink!

So after 4/5 days of feeling flu-ish then gastro-ish I decided to go to the doctor.

Good idea!

He seems to think I may have the dreaded Swine Flu! Oink!

He isnt 100% certain and has based his diagnosis on symptoms not a test.  Because I am breastfeeding Faith and because there is no definitive certainty that Tamiflu is safe in breastfeeding we decided to try a general antibiotic first, if by this time tomorrow I am not feeling better at all then I will go onto the Tamiflu.

Im really really grateful that I am a very good cow and that I have a freezer full of stored breast milk.  Today and up until I have to go onto Tamiflu I will be expressing after every feed or between if I feel ‘full’ so that I can add to the stock.

Then, if I do have to take Tamiflu I will bottle feed Faith from the supply and ‘pump and dump’ as many times a day as possible while I’m on it so that I can keep my milk supply up.

I really really hope that I start getting better because I really dont want to bottle feed Faith (she hates it) and I dont want to compromise my supply.

Oink!!!!!!

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I’m so mad!

Its partly my own fault and that makes me madder…

Faith turned 12 weeks old last Sunday.

I had scheduled to take her to have her 12 week vaccinations on Tuesday.  I was going to take her to the sister at our family doctor but even though she is lovely she is expensive (higher than medical aid rates) and you have to pay up front and then submit.

I spoke to a friend of mine who suggested taking her to the clinic at the Pick n Pay Norwood pharmacy.  Apparently the sister there is amazing and they charge medical aid rates and submit without payment.  When I got there at 2:30pm she had just taken lunch (late) and I didnt feel like waiting an hour for her to get back so against my better judgment I went to the clinic at Dischem.

A bit if background… I do not like the clinic sister at Dischem, I find her very rude, abrupt and impatient.  We stopped taking Aaron there because if this.

So I wait in the queue adn eventually it is our turn.  I try make conversation and get one word answers.  She doesnt ask me anything about Faith and barely looks at either of us.  She weighed her, measured her and then got all the medicine ready.

The first shot was ok, she said it wouldnt hurt and of course Faith cried.  The second shot was supposedly the painful one and oh boy, Faith screamed!  I also noticed that the sister wasnt holding her leg tight enough and Faith kept moving it, I could see the needle moving in and out of her thigh while the sister was pushing the plunger.

Now I dont cry when the kids get shots.  Its part of life, they get the shot, they cry, its over, they forget about it.  I dont cry or faint when I get shots or blood drawn.  I was so close to crying when Faith got that last shot!!

I tried to get Faith to breastfeed to calm her down and she was so upset she wouldnt even take my boob.  Eventually I got her to latch and she hiccuped while sucking for the next 10 minutes.  Meanwhile the sister tried to get the invoice printed and proceeded to swear at the computer and abuse the tech she had on the phone.  Im not a prude but some kind of professionalism would have been nice.

I came home and Faith seemed ok.  She was super niggly the next day and I put that down to side effects of the shots (when I asked the sister said there would be no side effects).  When I was changing Faith I noticed that the second injection site was extremely red and swollen and hard, about teh size of two R5 coins.

To cut a long story short, our family doctor sent us to have Faith’s leg scanned with an ultrasound to make sure that the huge hard lump wasnt an abcess and that it didnt need to be drained.  According to the radiologist it was just a massive bruise.  Our family doctor was furious that the sister would administer an injection that left such a huge bruise on a child.

When I went back into Dischem and told her about it, she shrugged, said that it was normal and that I should put arnica on it.  She didnt even ask to see it.

The bruise is slowly going away and the hard lump is getting smaller.  I will never go back to that Dischem clinic ever again.  And I will be sending a letter of complaint to Dischem head office.

*Paul posted his thoughts here with a pictuer taken the day after the shot.

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Look who’s talking!

When we fell pregnant with Aaron we looked into signing as a way of communicating with him before he could talk.  Due to a few obstacles, lack of resources on the web and locally, being overwhelmed by the new addition to our family and suffering from PND, signing with Aaron fell by the wayside.

To be honest I didnt even think about signing with Faith until I came across this website!

Wow! What an amazing site.  Simple, concise  and easy to use, not to mention free, makes this site a win.

So far we have been signing ‘Mommy‘, ‘Daddy‘, ‘brother‘ and ‘milk‘ to Faith.  I am going to teach Aaron how to sign ‘brother’.  Tonight we will all be learning ‘Uncle‘, ‘Aunt‘ and ‘Granny/Bobba‘ as those three people will be having supper with us.

Oh yes, ‘dog‘ will also be a sign that is used frequently in our house 🙂

I really hope that Faith picks up signing easily as Im pretty certain that it will reduce a lot of frustration between us as she gets older and is able to communicate more effectively.

Edited to add: The sign language being used on the website above is based on ASL (American Sign Language) and that is what we will be teaching Faith and Aaron.  Unfortunately I cannot find any effective online resources that are based on South African Sign Language (SASL).  According to Wikipedia (see links) SASL is based on Irish, British and American sign language, while both Irish and American sign language seem to be based on French sign language.  Perhaps one day we will explore SASL.

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A little bit if Moo!

Today I went to visit Mandi, who I have only met very briefly before.  She made me a lekker cup of tea and we chatted and had a lovely morning.

For those of you that dont know Mandi owns and runs MandiMoo, an awesome store that creates the most beautiful handmade baby accessories.

While we were visiting I collected some MooBurpps that I had ordered and Mandi gave us a beautiful MooTagg that she had personalised for Faith.  I also got my MooMonster that Timor had ordered for Faith.

I only got them this morning but so far about 5 people have seen the MooTagg and the MooBurpps and they are in awe of them!  I am in awe of them!  We are definitely going to be the most stylish mama and baby out there 🙂

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A catch up of the last few weeks…

Whoever said that maternity leave was all about mama and baby bonding and cuddling and feeding and about mama drinking tea and resting lied!

They told a big fat smelly lie!  Liar liar pants on fire!!!!

*pulls great big raspberry*

Ok, small tantrum over.

The last week or so has been hectic, my brother Matthew has been here since Cliffs funeral and was sharing a car with our grandfather.  I say was because he was in an accident the Sunday before last.  Some drunk guy skipped a robot and turned into my brother, on the drivers side.  He was so drunk he couldn’t open his eyes!

Despite some whiplash and some back ache, Matt is ok.  The (uninsured) car, not so much…

So Monday was spent taking Matt to the police station to file a report and get a case number which, it turns out, we didnt need to do because the drunk guy was arrested and that case number should be sufficient.  We then killed some time having a late breakfast before taking Matt to my family doctor to be checked out.

Towards the end of the week before the accident, our doggy, Bandit, started to get ill, like really really ill, like not moving, losing weight, vomiting ill.  So we had taken him to the vet for testing.  Turns out he has Auto Immune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA).  We started him on cortisone and had to take him back to the vet nearly every day to see if his blood levels were rising.  According to FourSquare I have been to the vet 8 times in the last week and a half and that doesnt include the 2 times I was there that I couldnt check in or the 2 or 3 times that Paul took Bandit to the vet.  Thank heavens and all the deities for pet insurance!  As of our last check up today, his blood levels are at 45% and rising and we only need to go back again in 10 days time.

Then on Friday Aaron got sick, so it was back to the doctor and a diagnosis of tonsillitis, again.  This poor kid.  If this carries on I may have to insist on removing them tonsils.  He seems to get it an awful lot.

In between all of this I finally got to meet Megan, who at the time of publishing this post has just had her beautiful baby girl! Squeeeee!

I also managed to fetch my drivers license, this is a huge thing for me as I have been driving without a valid license for quite some time.

I took Matt and Faith to go visit my grandmother.  She is one amazing lady.  She is 94 years old and despite being slightly deaf and losing her sight, still lives on her own with just her nurse and her new little doggy for company.  She takes walks in her garden, which is magnificent and keeps a hand in on what gets planted, where and when.

I’ve been to a few therapy sessions which I have to say are doing wonders.  I heart my therapist!

I have also been in to work a few times, maybe 5 hours in total, as there were a few things they needed me to sort out for them.  Hopefully I wont be going back into work until maternity leave is over.

As for the kids, Aaron has settled back into his school routine nicely and has made some new friends.  He is so curious about everything and constantly questions everything around him.  He needs to work on his patience levels but Im told thats a 3 year old thing and he will learn to have a bit more patience soon.

Faith is too adorable and has started rolling from her tummy to her back and she smiles at everything.  I cant believe she is 9 weeks old already, its going way too fast.

*pic by the magnificent Jenty! From our 8 day shoot.

Paul and I celebrated 5 years of marriage on Saturday.  5 years! We left the kids at my mom and spent a few hours with just each other for company.  It was great!

This week has been and will continue to be equally busy.  Hopefully next week will be a bit calmer 🙂