Week 32

31st July - 6th August 2005

Emma's Entry

Evan is self-sufficient when it comes to the bottle :)

This was another stressful, hectic week. We had our anniversary and enjoyed a lovely meal at a Chinese restaurant in the Village near to where my mum lives so that she could baby sit for us. It was a successful evening and Evan slept ok in his travel cot.

Our week then deviated from normality. Caroline attended a nurses appointment for a scheduled dressing change on her surgery wound only to find out that she needed to return to hospital for some antibiotics as the wound had become infected. It was not as straightforward as getting the antibiotics and then returning home... Once there, she was notified that it was a ten day course and an IV was required so she would have to be admitted to the hospital. Being sick and in hospital is one thing, feeling fine and being trapped in hospital is completely different. My mum again saved the day and has pretty much lived with me this week to help look after Evan so that I could spend time with Caroline hoping to relieve her boredom. When will this mini nightmare end....?

This week I have started to notice that as long as when Evan awakens there is no dirty nappy or he is not overly hungry or unhappy etc, he will quite happily enjoy a little chatter time with himself and his teddy giraffe that we have named Gerry who sleeps in his cot. It is lovely having Evan's chatter sessions as my wake up call, it's lovely just listening to the sounds he makes. Sometimes he will quite happily chat to himself for 30 minutes while I just lay in the next room listening to him whilst I wake up fully - he's such a cutie.

So... is this team any good mum?

Evan has been pulling at his right ear this past week and I decided to get him checked out by the Doctor. She examined his ear, which was very hard to do because he kept trying to turn his head to look at the probe thing she was trying to put into his ear. He has a build up of hard wax and I have to put a few drops of Olive Oil (for the skin) into his ear to help dissolve the wax. This is a nightmare procedure to do when there is only one of you and I tend to get Olive Oil everywhere!

Seeing as Caroline is away for 10 days, I have had to do lots of cooking for us all and I also had to clip Evan's finger nails as they were starting to get quite sharp. Again, he kept trying to grab the clippers and in the end I had to use my arm and shoulder as a shield to stop him from getting a look at what I was doing. It was a long procedure but he was very patient in the end.

Feeding is becoming a much longer task now as the food is much lumpier and Evan is so easily distracted. I have tried various positions but if it's not the TV, it's the cats wandering around or even the garden that Evan finds more interesting than eating, except when it's pudding of course! It can take me up to an hour on a bad day to feed him :). I've started the finger foods now, Evan loves cucumber sticks and he also had some toast with margarine and marmite this week. He'll suck the toast until it goes all mushy and detaches. I find it very scary watching him eat finger foods like this as I am so worried he'll choke... but he has to learn to eat, I just wish there was an easier way.

Evan has really mastered the art of bum shuffling. He became obsessed with the TV unit (which has no doors) one evening this week and three times in the space of 5 minutes he bum shuffled over to the unit and started pressing at the buttons and attacking the video flap! I think it's time to get a new baby safe TV unit :). Hehe and I thought I was safe from this because Evan is not a crawler!

Emma