So last week was pretty horrendous. This new feeding schedule is supposed to be freeing up time for me and Little O, but it's actually become a little more taxing. On Thursday for example, Little O woke us at 5am for a throw-up and scream fest, but then did settle down again until 7.30am... for another throw-up and scream fest. He basically hasn't gotten all his PediaSure overnight since we started this routine a week ago, so on Thursday morning I just dumped out the remainder and put it back in to the fridge so I could give it to him later in the day via a bolus gravity feed. (I hate that term: bolus gravity feed. It makes me think of bowels and space and Newton and, for some reason, balloon catheters. It's just a really irritating phrase.) So that day I had to give him his remaining PediaSure at 9.30am because he got fussy and I correctly interpreted that as hunger, then water and an oral feed at 11.00am because his speech therapist came over, and finally set his pump to run at 12pm for his regularly-scheduled nap. It meant I spent allllllll fucking morning feeding (or fretting about feeding) my son.
It's been pretty much the same story all week.
Anywhoo, my husband and I weighed him tonight before bed and Little O has gained three ounces! Yay! He was 23lb 3oz last Thursday (July 29th), and weighed 23lb 6oz today (Aug 7th). It's not a great gain, but I WILL TAKE IT! We're still not jumping up and down, but hopefully this is the start of a better journey. The more weight he puts on and the bigger he gets, the more his stomach will be able to tolerate (in theory, I stress), which means we can up the pump rate and he'll hopefully keep more down. It's all a matter of biology I suppose.
My Mum is coming to see me next week! She'll be here for my birthday, which makes it the third year in a row I've had family out to Wisconsin on that day. It's rather remarkable and I feel incredibly special, but it is helped by both my parents working in education and August falling during the UK schools' summer holidays. She'll be bringing over D, who is a lovely young chap who lives with my Mum and Dad, and who has had a rather interesting start in life. It's not my place to discuss his affairs online, but I'm looking forward to seeing them both. (Worth noting is the fact he's openly gay, before anyone raises an eyebrow at a 52-year-old woman and 22-year-old man going away together on holiday.) Hopefully D will help break some of the inevitable tension that accompanies those times my Mum and I get together.
Mmm... they're bringing some Cadbury's Dairy Milk too...
In anticipation of their visit, my husband and I have been madly preparing the house for guests. Normally this involves washing the sheets on the guest bed and cleaning the bathrooms (both done far too rarely), but we've gone a little mad this time.
On the list this weekend:
1) Go to the DMV for the Ford's MOT/emissions test
2) Vacuum carpets
3) Clean carpets (we bought a fancy carpet cleaner machine for this, seeing as Little O gets our house rather filthy, and it's already paid for itself after four months)
4) Wash all bedding (yup, all three beds)
5) Tidy and organise the basement (a rather big job, which we're excellent at avoiding)
6) Clean oven inside and out (again, a job done too rarely, but I seem to have fallen in love with the self-clean programme and I fancy this will be done more often now)
7) Clean microwave (ditto... sigh)
8) Clean both bathrooms (I refuse to do this. It's gross)
9) Wash all non-carpeted floors
10) Clean upholstery in living room (our fancy-pants carpet cleaner has a gizmo for this, and Little O's goo gets EVERYWHERE)
11) Mow lawn (I actually really love doing this)
12) Stain the deck (we did this earlier today and now it's a rather startling shade of orange. Oops)
13) Replace batteries in kitchen clock (cheap piece of crap)
14) Go grocery shopping
15) Dusting
16) De-flea Bob (all done now! He shrieked like you wouldn't believe, but that shampoo is awesome. And now we have clean carpets and anti-flea stuff down too, so those little buggers better find somewhere else to live)
17) Finish toy box (my husband's job. He started making Little O a toy box for his birthday... which was in May... sigh...)
18) Put up curtain tie-backs in guest room
19) Replace air filter in heating/air conditioning unit (it's been well over a year, and who knows how long it had been there when we moved in. We changed it today and it was black)
20) Clean kitchen top to bottom
21) Laundry
There are others, but we've either done them already and I've forgotten them, or we're clearly never going to do them and I've also forgotten them. But at least five of those items on the list are BIG JOBS and it took us all day today to get them done. Tomorrow we're going out for brunch at the Botanical Gardens, thanks to our lovely friends J&G, who gave us a voucher for free babysitting and two paid-for brunches to use whenever we chose. I'm trying really hard not to stress about leaving Little O for a couple of hours because I know he'll be safe and loved, but I'm such a control freak when it comes to my son. It's really hard to spend all day looking after him and then hand him off to someone else, no questions asked. I feel guilty and a little bit lost. I need to work harder at letting go... but I don't really want to...
This post is a little bit of a ramble, I know. It's probably very boring to read about the chores we're getting done this weekend, but I felt a bit absent after my last post and I wanted to write about something utterly mundane. And chores are pretty fucking mundane.
I still miss Anthea. She moved in to a new flat a few weeks ago (they OWN it! In London! How cool is THAT?) and hasn't had any internet since then. She also works in education so it's not like she can nip in to work and get online for a few hours. It means I haven't chatted to her for aaaaaages, and right now she, her husband, her son, my other sister V, and my Dad are all on what sounds like a rather hilarious canal boat holiday. My Dad's always wanted to go on one but my Mum prefers city breaks so we never did it as children. Now Mum's flying over to see me, and Dad's taking the initiative and cramming four adults and a one-year-old on to a narrow boat for two weeks. It will be absolutely fucking hilarious and while I miss them like crazy, I also can't wait to hear about how much they got on each other's nerves and how my Dad nearly capsized a 30ft-long canal boat in some random lock.
Good times, man... good times.
Tina.
Showing posts with label Cat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cat. Show all posts
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Mmm... thanks for that, Bob
After all the drama at the weekend, I'd like to present to you some more... normal... stuff.
Owen woke up at 4.45am to cry, throw up, and generally annoy both himself and us. All the commotion woke up our cat, Bob, who decided that this was the perfect time to bring us a 'present'. As we settled back down to get another few minutes of kip, Bob was out hunting. And catching. And mauling. At about 5am, I was just nodding off again when the rather alarming sound of a bird twittering and tweeting very close to me brought me to my senses. Now, we had an amazing thunderstorm last night, so my first thought was that we had a hole in our roof and a bird had somehow managed to get inside the attic and couldn't find a way out again. Anyway, it stopped shortly after and as there was no water dripping on to the bed, I figured I'd just deal with it when I got up.
The alarm went off at 5.30am and Mike got up. Now, yesterday he had some minor surgery on his toe (more on that later), so he was kinda hobbling about and knocking shit over in an attempt to re-dress the bandage. So he turned on the light to see all the shit he'd knocked over. And saw instead, horror of horrors, that Bob had not only brought a live bird in to our home, but that he had chosen the spot just outside our bedroom door to play with it and kill it. There was blood and feathers and dead bird carnage EVERYWHERE. Bob, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found. He was obviously very pleased with his offering and had gone off to bother some more of Wisconsin's wildlife, and we were so mad at him that we closed his cat flap and locked him outside for a bit.
That poor, poor birdie. It's Bob's fourth present snce we've allowed him outside: three birds and a baby bunny rabbit. The rabbit was very sad, but at least it was a swift, clean kill. This latest one was obviously very distressing for the birdie because I could hear all its twittering as it died. I have no idea if, had I gone to investigate the noise, I could have saved the birdie, but I think it would have been even worse. Bob would have probably released it, and then we would have had a flying, twittering bird in our house with severe injuries. Poor little birdie.
Stupid cat.
So, Mike's toe surgery was to FINALLY fix a problem he's had for eighteen months. Christmas 2008 he went out in the snow to get something from the car, and decided flip flops were the sensible footwear of choice. As the snow was coming down thick and fast, he ran back up the steps to our (then) flat, and slipped on some ice, slamming his big toe into heavy-duty concrete. It's never been right since, and all attempts to help it heal haven't worked. Until yesterday he had a pretty serious ingrowing toenail, and an infected site that oozed pus every day. Well, the doctor whipped that sucker out and GOUGED OUT THE OVERGROWN FLESH that was trying to compensate for a poorly toenail, so that Mike is now left with two-thirds of a big toenail, and two open wounds on each side of the nail. He's pretty miserable and hobbling around with one toe stuck straight up in the air. Also, he can't wear open-toed shoes to work (oh, that he were a woman!), so he's planning some covert operation where he slides his shoes off under his desk and goes barefoot all day. Lol. We'll see how well that goes...
I've also joined a gym where childcare is only $1, but the free weights instructor completely kicked my arse today and I can't be bothered to type any more. Besides, there's still some blood on the carpet upstairs and it's not like I can ask Bob to clean it up.
Tina.
Owen woke up at 4.45am to cry, throw up, and generally annoy both himself and us. All the commotion woke up our cat, Bob, who decided that this was the perfect time to bring us a 'present'. As we settled back down to get another few minutes of kip, Bob was out hunting. And catching. And mauling. At about 5am, I was just nodding off again when the rather alarming sound of a bird twittering and tweeting very close to me brought me to my senses. Now, we had an amazing thunderstorm last night, so my first thought was that we had a hole in our roof and a bird had somehow managed to get inside the attic and couldn't find a way out again. Anyway, it stopped shortly after and as there was no water dripping on to the bed, I figured I'd just deal with it when I got up.
The alarm went off at 5.30am and Mike got up. Now, yesterday he had some minor surgery on his toe (more on that later), so he was kinda hobbling about and knocking shit over in an attempt to re-dress the bandage. So he turned on the light to see all the shit he'd knocked over. And saw instead, horror of horrors, that Bob had not only brought a live bird in to our home, but that he had chosen the spot just outside our bedroom door to play with it and kill it. There was blood and feathers and dead bird carnage EVERYWHERE. Bob, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found. He was obviously very pleased with his offering and had gone off to bother some more of Wisconsin's wildlife, and we were so mad at him that we closed his cat flap and locked him outside for a bit.
That poor, poor birdie. It's Bob's fourth present snce we've allowed him outside: three birds and a baby bunny rabbit. The rabbit was very sad, but at least it was a swift, clean kill. This latest one was obviously very distressing for the birdie because I could hear all its twittering as it died. I have no idea if, had I gone to investigate the noise, I could have saved the birdie, but I think it would have been even worse. Bob would have probably released it, and then we would have had a flying, twittering bird in our house with severe injuries. Poor little birdie.
Stupid cat.
So, Mike's toe surgery was to FINALLY fix a problem he's had for eighteen months. Christmas 2008 he went out in the snow to get something from the car, and decided flip flops were the sensible footwear of choice. As the snow was coming down thick and fast, he ran back up the steps to our (then) flat, and slipped on some ice, slamming his big toe into heavy-duty concrete. It's never been right since, and all attempts to help it heal haven't worked. Until yesterday he had a pretty serious ingrowing toenail, and an infected site that oozed pus every day. Well, the doctor whipped that sucker out and GOUGED OUT THE OVERGROWN FLESH that was trying to compensate for a poorly toenail, so that Mike is now left with two-thirds of a big toenail, and two open wounds on each side of the nail. He's pretty miserable and hobbling around with one toe stuck straight up in the air. Also, he can't wear open-toed shoes to work (oh, that he were a woman!), so he's planning some covert operation where he slides his shoes off under his desk and goes barefoot all day. Lol. We'll see how well that goes...
I've also joined a gym where childcare is only $1, but the free weights instructor completely kicked my arse today and I can't be bothered to type any more. Besides, there's still some blood on the carpet upstairs and it's not like I can ask Bob to clean it up.
Tina.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Things which confuse me...
1. The difference between "that" and "which". I really ought to know this by now, seeing as I correct other people's grammatical errors for a living.
2. Why people iron baby clothes. Or children's clothes, for that matter. Actually... I don't know why people bother to iron on a regular basis at all. I certainly don't and I'm still alive.
3. Gender stereotypes.
4. Why chocolate isn't good for me.
5. Manual gearboxes on cars. Yes, I learnt to drive in a manual and I even passed my test in one, but now I've been solely driving an automatic for the last five years, a manual really baffles me. Biting point... what?
6. Vegans. Vegetarians, I get. Vegans, I don't.
7. Bob. He's just TOO Bob sometimes, as I said to Mike last night. The cat needs Zoloft.
8. Wisconsin weather.
9. Illinois drivers.
10. Why people in this country don't want healthcare reform, and they use the "Socialist" UK as an example of it not working. Firstly, the USA IS Socialist, and secondly, the NHS might have its flaws, but it seems to be trotting along just fine.
Tina.
Monday, January 18, 2010
It's been a while.
Sorry it's taken me so long to update, but the day after we got back from the UK Owen's cough got really nasty, and by Thursday it had developed into full-blown pneumonia. Again. Sigh.
He's just about getting over it now, although it's taken nearly two weeks for the antibiotics to have any real effect. Owen seems to need stronger and stronger stuff to kill his bugs, because we went through the same thing last time he had pneumonia in September. It's a shame too, because the stronger the antibiotic, the worse his nappy rash gets (don't ask me why, but antibiotics and pneumonia often give babies horrible diarrhea and that then gives them painful, red cracked bottoms). Anyway, we've got drugs to fix that too, so providing he gets the full course of antibiotics, steroids, nebuliser treatments and butt gel, he should be healthy enough for his eye surgery in February. Fingers crossed.
Oh... and we have a new cat. :) His name is Robert BartholeMEW Turner, but he's known as Bob. He's seven months old and all black with a single white dollop on his chest. He's the snuggliest, most playful cat I've ever owned and he keeps me company during the day. We like him A LOT.
He's just about getting over it now, although it's taken nearly two weeks for the antibiotics to have any real effect. Owen seems to need stronger and stronger stuff to kill his bugs, because we went through the same thing last time he had pneumonia in September. It's a shame too, because the stronger the antibiotic, the worse his nappy rash gets (don't ask me why, but antibiotics and pneumonia often give babies horrible diarrhea and that then gives them painful, red cracked bottoms). Anyway, we've got drugs to fix that too, so providing he gets the full course of antibiotics, steroids, nebuliser treatments and butt gel, he should be healthy enough for his eye surgery in February. Fingers crossed.
Oh... and we have a new cat. :) His name is Robert BartholeMEW Turner, but he's known as Bob. He's seven months old and all black with a single white dollop on his chest. He's the snuggliest, most playful cat I've ever owned and he keeps me company during the day. We like him A LOT.
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