Yesterday, I headed into Gallery 71 in Hobart to take photos of Mum’s ceramics as she set up for her exhibition. I had a ball and got to snap some photos of the other work there.
After I spent all day editing and shaking children off my legs, you can see the finished results here, on Flickr. (Go on, click! It won’t kill you!)
I’m hoping to get to photograph some of the work there at the opening Wednesday night, because oh there is some beautiful stuff. And I’ve only seen a small part of it!
My son wakes from his nap. I can hear him in his cot, gooing and giggling at himself. I creep up the hallway to see whether he is likely to go back to sleep, but he hears me instead. I can see him wiggling and smiling, just waiting for me to come and get him. I pick him up and kiss the softness of his exposed skin, he doubles himself up into a ball and laughs, long and loud.
Smiling, I carry him out into the lounge room and lay him down on the floor. A moment later, I lay down too. I kiss his stomach while he laughs at me and we roll around and around, playing and laughing. He loses interest and starts to climb up against the couch, standing on his two feet. Racing to grab the camera, an idea for a blog post pops into my head ‘Mobility in pictures’.
Setting up the camera, I snap a test shot or two before Isaac notices me. He drops to all fours and crawls towards the camera. Slowly I crawl backwards, however it’s been a long time since I crawled and my son, he is much faster than I am. Giggling madly he catches me and I have to hide the camera as he tries to eat it.
I distract him, trying to get him to stand up so I can photograph it. He obliges, just as the camera goes dead.
Flat battery.
As Isaac hauls himself to standing again and looks around for his praise, I’m rummaging through my handbag, looking for the spare battery I know is in there. Successful, I snap it into the camera and turn it on.
Nothing.
I suspect this battery is dodgy, seeing as how it was in the camera that got a bath.
Sighing, I give up on the idea of a photo blog and instead find the battery chargers so that I can take photos tomorrow.
I sit down to write and Isaac spots me, crawling up to stand at my knee and whine while I write. After he bites my knee for the second time, I give up (again) on the idea of getting any work done. Soggy knee’d, I lay back down to play.
My children clamber all over me while I write blog posts and chapters of books in my head. Sadly, I can’t magically transport the words from my head to my computer and so later, when they’re sleeping, I will have to transcribe them.
But for now, we’re playing on the floor.
Yesterday we received the results of Amy’s blood test results for Coeliacs. It was negative for the antibodies commonly found in people with Coeliacs when they’re eating gluten.
However.
Amy showed all the classic symptoms of a child with Coeliacs when we put her back on gluten. Tummy upsets and pain, bloating, rapid and insane mood swings, and finally, the big one, drastic weight loss.
My little girl? She weighed 1kg less than 8 weeks ago when she was weighed in the Paeds office. This is after a month back on a gluten free diet when she gained back some of what she lost. I suspect she probably lost 2.5kg (5+lbs) over the 3 weeks she was eating gluten. She looked like we hadn’t fed her. I could see every single rib and every single vertebrae. Poor little girl.
Add in the complete loss of impulse control, a severe regression into the realm of not toilet trained at all and the very sad little girl we had, well, we’ll just say that the Paeds are happy to diagnose Coeliacs even though the blood test was negative.
Apparently they’re only 70% accurate anyway. Plus, Amy only spent 3 weeks on gluten when they would have been happier to have her eating it for 6 weeks.
[Side note: 3 weeks of gluten nearly killed us. I’d hate to think of 6 weeks like that.]
At this point in time, they’re not happy to schedule an endoscopy for a definitive answer. The Paediatrician felt that it would be unfair to put Amy [and Nathan and I! we were going to refuse the testing until she was older anyway] through any more gluten, plus, he felt that she really didn’t have the weight to lose if we put her back on gluten. She’s only 5th percentile for weight, despite being 75th percentile for height.
Yeah, you try finding pants to fit her. Sigh.
So the diagnosis is Coeliacs. A life long auto-immune disease that can possibly make her very ill.
Looking on the bright side, Coeliacs is so manageable with a gluten free diet. Don’t feed her gluten and she won’t get sick. Easy!
Dear lady in the blue top eating lunch at Eastlands today.
Hi. I was sitting just behind you with my partner and our baby. I don’t even think you noticed me, you were interested in eating your lunch and talking with your friend. I’m thankful for that, truly I am.
I was eating my lunch and sharing bits with my wiggly son. Eventually he cracked the shits with his stroller and started throwing food around. So I did what anyone would do in my situation, I gave up on solid food and breastfed him instead. He must have been thirsty, as he wiggled and snuffled and drank like a parched baby.
This is where you came in.
You see, when my son decided he was finished with his feed, he grabbed my breast and ripped it out of his mouth, giving it a squeeze for good measure. I had no control over this mind you, I didn’t make him do it.
In the middle of him giving my breast a good squeeze, I may possibly have shot a single line of milk in an arc. I watched, horrified, as it landed on your back. I could almost see the line where it hit.
So, dear lady in the blue shirt, I’m really really sorry. I didn’t mean to squirt you with breastmilk and I would have apologised if I thought you’d realised. As it was, some things are probably better left unknown.
But if you so happen to be one of my blog readers (unlikely, but it could happen) please accept my sincere apologies. You didn’t need a milk bath. I didn’t need to watch it arc across the food court, hoping like fuck no one else saw. It seems I was safe and the only one who noticed.
I still feel bad though.
Regards,
The lady in the grey shirt, sitting behind you with the wiggly baby.
***
In other news, the 2009 Weblog award nominations are open. Go over and nominate your favourite blogs in their categories and nominate yourself while you’re there.
And, if you’re so interested, I did an interview over at Murray Newlands’ blog. You can find it here.
Yesterday was shit.
Even though Isaac standing up on everything was very cute, it was slightly less cute when he used my ponytail to haul himself to standing. Once there, he tried to remain standing, using my eye sockets. He’s very um, grabby. And his grabby hurts. Sometimes I’d just like to put mittens on him so he can’t keep trying to claw me to bits.
Add the grabbing, standing, falling and clawing to a lovely tummy bug and Isaac was miserable yesterday.
So was I actually, as I ran backwards and forward to the toilet, retching all the way. I think I’m better today, thanks to some anti-nausea drugs and a few panadeine fortes.
Sigh.
Then, on top of Isaac and I being sick, Amy got into some flour. You ask why I’m keeping wheat flour in the house, knowing that Amy has gluten issues? Well I’m baking a wedding cake remember? I can’t throw it out until December.
She finger painted with my foundation. She poured water into Nathan’s tobacco. She smeared herself in honey.She also screamed like a banshee and wailed and cried and I think she might have spun her head around in circles at some point.
I popped her into the shower to clean off and when she got out I rubbed her dry and sat her on my lap to have a talk about why we don’t play in the honey/foundation/tobacco/flour.
She wee’d on me.
All over my lap.
I might have cracked the shits just a little. She was sent to bed while I got my head back together.
There were other various assorted things but oh my god, I was ready for bedtime. Unfortunately, the actual falling asleep didn’t happen until 2 hours after bedtime and I didn’t keep count of how many times I had to put her back to bed.
Sigh.
Dear Saturday. I want a do over. You sucked.
Dear Sunday. I know our morning has had a rocky start, but I’d like if you were better than yesterday. Please.
Update: Sunday, you’re not playing nice. It would be better if Isaac and I were no longer sick. Also, a little less energy for Amy would be fine. And less naughty. I’m sick of the naughty.
***
You know, to make me feel better, you could head on over and press like on THIS photo for a competition I’m in? If the link doesn’t work properly, mine is the photo of Barbie and Chuck. The page it’s on is a Fan Page, not my page, so you don’t need to be a friend to like it, although you may need to be a fan. I’m not sure.
I’d love you forever.
Promise.