Darling boy, I cannot believe that you are nearly one! This past eleven months with you has gone in the blink of an eye, and yet at the same time I can barely remember what our family was like without you. You are such a part of us, and we all love you so much!
This has been a big month for you. You are learning so much, and you’ve been through a lot with your health, too.
This month we started going through tests to find out why you vomit so much. You had ultrasounds, xrays and eventually a barium swallow, which showed that you had some kind of blockage in your stomach. Last week we were in hospital for two days while the doctors did lots of tests to figure out what’s going on in that little tummy of yours.
Your hands all numbed up waiting for blood tests. We had to bandage them to keep you from eating the numbing cream!
You were such a little champ in hospital, you make everyone clucky. You’re so cute! We’re still in limbo at the moment; the gastroenterology team in Brisbane are getting us to put you on a strict dairy-free diet for two weeks to see if we can rule out a dairy allergy before they do anything invasive. If we do have to end up going to Brisbane, they will probably do an endoscopy to further investigate your ‘blockage’. We’re just living it one day at a time and we’ll see what happens I suppose! You are vomiting less at the moment, but still around five times each day, so I guess it will depend on your other test results (various urine, stools and blood tests) and what your weight does in these two weeks!
The doctor’s think you’re a bit of a marvel, because your numbers (weight and growth charts) and results from the barium study show that you should really be a sick little fella, but you are so super healthy, you eat well, and your whole paediatric team were so impressed by where you are with your milestones.
You’ve become so much more communicative in this last month. You wave hello and goodbye, and make sounds that mimic the words too. You call me Mama. You love cars, and call them ‘brrrms’. You know how to push them around the place, ‘brrrrmm’ing away to yourself. If I ask you to clap your hands you do, and if we sing the poem ‘clap hands Papa comes with a pocket full of plums, one white, one red, one as big as bubby’s head’ you clap your hands and grab your head at the appropriate times. When we say grace at meal times, you always proclaim, “May-mem’ at the end when say amen. You really are growing up.
You are not at all happy being on your bottom or hands and knees these days. You are up on your feet as much as you can be, and can almost navigate your way around the whole house holding onto walls and furniture. You also like to walk around holding onto our hands, and sometimes it’s almost impossible to make you let go of our fingers and sit down and move around by yourself! Your latest trick is to manoeuvre a chair from the dining room table and push it around so you can walk around the house. The walker your sister used to use goes too fast on the tiles, and you can’t keep up with it, but a dining chair seems a good substitute.
You also had your first proper trip to the beach with a swim this month! You thought the sand was great fun, and while you didn’t eat any sand you had a good chew on a piece of coral, which I’m sure was great for your teeth (did I mention you have 5 now!!). You were a little nervous in the water, which meant that I got some lovely big snuggles. After we had been in there for a while though you got a lot braver and happily splashed around and were not so happy to be getting out.
You are just such a bright and happy ray of Sunshine my gorgeous boy. We all absolutely adore you. You have so many people who love you, and we have been overwhelmed by all the people who have prayed for your health while we’ve been going through this bit of a tough time. We’re so blessed!
I love your cheeky smile with those huge teeth poking through, and that delicious giggle that comes right from your toes. You’re just so precious.
Next month, you’ll be a whole year old. It’s just crazy! You have so much on this month too; your first Easterfest, your first interstate flight, your first wedding, and so many family members to meet over in WA. It’s all just so exciting! And you, Mr Placid baby, I know will just take it all in your stride and enjoy every moment.
I love you, darling.
Love Mama x
