The Childcare centre has been asking about shoes for Jack. I mentioned his strong aversion to them, but they cheerfully and confidently offered to help. We figured why not. (In fact Al and I had fantasies of this latest little issue being resolved.)

When Al dropped him off on Monday morning she also handed over his new shoes. When I picked him up that afternoon they handed the shoes back and said, “Wow, he really does not like them”. Without actually saying it, the offer to help appeared to have been withdrawn.

I guess it is back to us again – all fantasies squashed.

Jack was kept home today. He is running a temperature and has antibiotics for an ear infection. Along with his teeth, he is one unhappy little boy.

We are once again going through the hell of trying to give Jack medicine. The instant he realises what we are doing he struggles with all his mite and gets extremely upset. It takes two of us, and we estimate he often still only gets 20 to 40% of his recommended dose – the rest being spat, dribbled or forced out of his mouth.

We are going to have to resort to mixing it in with his food again – although even that is hit and miss since he seems to pick tampering immediately.

He doesn’t seem to care for things that are good for him when he is sick...

Posted by Doug at 11:27 PM

After three long days, Jack’s fever finally seems to have broken this evening. It has been a worry for us. Jack’s eyes are normally big and wide open, but they have carried dark bags and heavy lids over the last few days. I looked in on him a little while ago and found him sleeping very peacefully.

Posted by Doug at 1:10 AM

Jack had a cautious start back to his activities last week. For swimming he clung to me for the first 10 minutes and refused to do anything. Thankfully there was then a ball activity that he got right into. This was his first chance to walk across the floating mat rather than crawl. For his first attempt he walked half way then got down and crawled. He then managed to walk the whole way for his second attempt - albeit crying the whole way both times. He clung to me for all of his music class, but did join in the various activities. He was most relaxed at Gymbaroo, walking and running between all the different equipment. He did cry briefly however when I had to take him over for a formal part of the session. So all told it was about what I expected for the first week back, and it could have been a lot worse!

On a more positive note, he had what I think was his best ever session at Playgroup. I think being able to walk gives him a lot more confidence, so he wasn't as bothered by the other kids. When they did approach him he was able to walk away. At other times he gave them a stern 'no. It was interesting to see him repeating this as we use the same stern 'no' for things he isn't allowed to do. All told it was an improvement on his previous behavior of head butting or pushing the kids, and then crying. It gives me more hope for a happier year ahead for Playgroup - fingers crossed!

We were also happy to welcome another of the mother's group into the Playgroup, expanding it to be four mothers, two little girls and two little boys. It was amazing how much busier it seemed with just one extra mother and child.

Sadly Jack has had to miss all his activities and outings this week after being struck down with an ear infection. After three days of fever in which he attached himself to me for around 23.5 out of 24 hours of each day (20 of each spent in bed) he finally returned to a more normal temperature last night. Today he is obviously still not back to his normal self, but seems over the worst. I have had to take two sick leave days from work. Since working part-time accrues only a partial leave allowance, I am already worried that the remaining balance of four and a half days for the rest of the year will not go far enough. I already fear my small supply of annual leave days will be needed to cover sickness. It does add to the stress of the situation when you really have to justify each day I take off to care for him, rather than just being able to give him my full attention each and every time he gets sick.

So unfortunately another milestone (his 19th month) goes by in the shadow of illness. Summary of where Jack is at for 19 months:

. Jack now has around 175 words. Given he had around 100 words at his 18 month milestone, this means he has been picking up two to three new words a day, a more rapid pace than previously. Latest words include light, dark, lawn, pasta, cat, lion, monkey, oct-pus (octopus), frog, jump, run, orange, gate road, path, pink, black and white.

. Jack now walks almost constantly and rarely crawls. He has also got up to a slight run and can certainly move fast when he wants to. He loves doing circuits around and around the first floor - sometimes with his little dog pulled on string behind him. He loves doing circuits around the ground floor – especially on his bike, car, walker, or pulling his wagon. His particularly loves it if we chase him.

. Jack also loves going for walks down the street, and can go down the court and two to three blocks in either direction before turning around and walking all the way home. He is very excited to be allowed out to walk, and races on a quickly with a determined look on his face, not wanting to stop for much. The main things that distract him are bricked or paved driveways (that he starts to walk up), interesting fences (such as those with circle designs on them), or white garden rocks (that he tends to want to play with). He also keeps a running commentary of 'blue car', 'white ute', 'truck' as we go along. Unfortunately it also means he now constantly goes to the front door asking to go 'outside', and throws a tantrum when he is not allowed. Sometimes he will repeat 'hot, hot' if we tell him it is too hot to go out.

. Jack has taken a great aversion to shoes, and refuses to wear them thus far. The only times we have managed to get them on his feet have been met with kicking tantrums, and refusing to put his feet down. Childcare offered to help and we were hopeful they could resolve this issue, only for them to reluctantly agree after the first try that he really does not like them at all. Unfortunately Jack doesn't realise that if he wears shoes that his opportunities to go walking 'outside' would increase.

. In the break from activities Jack has had more opportunities to go to parks, the beach, and Play Centres. He has shown us that he had already mastered climbing up small ladders and sliding down slides – a skill he picked up at childcare. Although he is cautious when first facing a new environment, he is gaining more confidence in himself and enjoying these different play opportunities.

. Jack enjoys playing with his new wooden puzzle, with pieces numbered 1 to 10. He has been surprisingly quick to master most of it, and be able to recognize what each written number looks like.

. He has also shown excitement and interest in helicopters this month. He spots them in the sky before we do, and loves carrying around a ball with a helicopter inside it, talking about his 'copt'. So another new toy for him this month was a helicopter.

. Between Jack walking and now being one of the older kids in his childcare groups, he has gained more confidence in talking at childcare. Both childcare places have noted that he was previously pretty quiet but is now suddenly speaking at a great rate. In reality he has always talked a lot at home, but only recently seems to have developed his confidence to talk at childcare. They have also reported that he sings 'baa baa black sheep' and 'twinkle twinkle little star' to them.

. Now that Jack is up and walking he enjoys dancing to music all the more. He also enjoys imitating our actions while dancing such as stamping feet, patting his head or his knees, clapping, and walking around in a circle, all accompanied with a big happy grin.

Posted by Al at 11:27 PM

The fever has gone, but the antsy behaviour remains. To make matters just that little more testing, Jack has developed a rash that covers his back and forehead whenever he gets hot. We are not sure if this is a side effect of the Chickenpox Vaccine he had two weeks ago (plausible), a reaction to the Penicillin based antibiotic (also plausible), or a mix of both. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to be bothering him, and it seems to effectively become invisible once he cools off.

Posted by Doug at 5:19 PM

One tooth down, three to go. The latest teething round continues, although we are just into a bit of a lull where Jack seems half way happy. The signs are there however that a new round of angst plus a tooth are on the way, in particularly the nappy rash and strong smelling wee.

I picked up a new PC yesterday. I had it built to my own specifications, and am now working through migrating my data and applications on to it. It will very likely take me weeks to complete, slowed somewhat by having to look into compatibility issues with running my old applications on Windows Vista.

The blog software was the latest migration – and it is with some trepidation that I now hit the publish button for this post…

Posted by Doug at 10:59 PM

We have had some really great days with Jack since my last post. He has been in a great mood, although just tonight was seeming out of sorts again. His latest trick is counting to 10.

I was looking at the statistics for this website tonight. Someone visited after searching for "her little boyfriend in pram". Why would someone do a search like that?

Posted by Doug at 10:52 PM

Jack made it along to all his childcare and activities last week, allowing me to return to work. He had happy reports for all childcare days, and they were particularly surprised that he could count to 10. With the long break over Christmas, then only one week back, then one week off, he was still a little cautious and clingy when he returned to his classes again, but warmed to them as they went along.

Unfortunately on Monday night he had a bit of a cough, which developed into a barky-sounding cough on Tuesday morning. Since it sounded similar to when he had croup I felt better to be cautious and get the doctor to check him out. He indicated it was just a cough and slight sore throat, and nothing to be too concerned by. I had already organized for my mum to come down to mind him (due to the travel lead-time involved) so Jack got to spend a happy day at home together with his Grandma Q.

Grandma Q noticed that he is participating in more 'imaginary' play, such as lying his soft toys down to sleep, and taking his cars to 'work' (parking them near dad's study) and 'home' again (back to their normal spot), when she suggested these plays to him.

I kept him home from swimming as a precaution yesterday (he cried when I asked him if he wanted to go swimming, so this helped make up my mind on the matter). He did manage another happy day at playgroup.

This morning I think he had his best music class to date. He really got into it, and was following the instructors lead in waving his ribbon and instruments up and down and behind his back, slow and fast, doing peek-a-boo back at her with his sheer cloth, walking around in the circle, and 'running' across the room for different activities. He was also able to point to his different body parts for another song. It had all the other mother's asking me how old he is (all the other kids in the class this year are around 12 months old so he is the oldest by far, whereas last year all the other kids were about 6 months older than him so he was by far the youngest).

Although he still has a slight cough, we felt he was ok to return to childcare today and can only hope he has an ok day there. With having to worry about sick leave days, we just don't have the luxury of keeping him home for every small thing.

Today we heard news that the first mother from my mother's group to be pregnant again has given birth to twin boys at 31 weeks (all well). She now has to cope with 3 under the age of 2 - hard to imagine or even contemplate. Exciting news all the same, and I look forward to meeting the new additions.

Posted by Al at 2:30 PM

I spent most of the weekend rerouting cables, sorting and neatening in my study. It was a huge task. Al kept Jack amused and elsewhere for much of the weekend - allowing me to get the job done.

 

Posted by Doug at 5:22 PM

Jack had another fever today and was again kept home. Pretty sure (hoping) this is just the normal 24 hour teething fever, since his second top molar has just broken through. The mind boggles at just how frequently this has been occurring - I feel apologetic discussing it. Al is running a little ragged – from lack of sleep and feeling a little exasperated at how much time off she has had to take.

Jack has actually been pretty good, all things considered. He has recently taken to pulling off his socks, saying “hello toes”, handing his socks to you saying “more sock”, and then saying “bye bye toes” as you put them back on again. That is rather cute - for a short period of time.

Posted by Doug at 10:43 PM