Unexplained illness

A couple of days ago, William woke up from his afternoon rest. I was feeding Samuel in my room (I have a breastfeeding chair in there, and Samuel sleeps in there too - my room that is!), William came in and was looking a bit pale, but I thought it might have been from just waking up. He was lounging around me on the chair. All of a sudden he stood up and vomited all over my legs. While I was feeding. It was everywhere. He ended up in the shower, was happy enough afterwards but didnt want much dinner - understandable.

Last night while he was telling me he was hungry. "When's my dinner coming?" We had pork chops, salad and chips. It was a little bit past dinner time, all dinner times have been a little later than out usual 6pm since Samuel was born! Once his dinner was in front of him he didn't want it. We put it down to typical toddler behaviour. There was some trying to force him to eat, trying to reason with him, some questions "I thought you liked chips?" William-"I've had enough".
Then, all of a sudden - yep - another huge vomit. Everywhere. Into the bath this time. After the bath, he was hungry again and ate some pasta - no sauce. He went to bed and was fine.

This morning, woke up, came into our room, declared his hunger and ate some toast.
We decided to go out for breakky, he seemed fine and said he wanted pancakes.
Everything was going fine, William had his pancakes, so did Ben. I had french toast.
Not even halfway through his pancakes another completely unexpected projectile vomit. Over the table, over the chair, over the breakky and over the floor.
"Why did I spew?" were the first words out of Williams mouth. The next were "why is she taking my pancakes away?" He was completely fine before and after and even managed to eat another pancake.

Now? He looks a little pale, we convinced him to have some Gastrolite. He's eaten an apple, played like normal, been running around like normal.
What should I feed him tonight? I want to get him looked at by the Dr tomorrow but I am sure they will tell me it is a virus. It is always a virus. But is it a virus if he is completely fine before and after? With no temp and no diarrhoea?

This is what he is doing now...

One week already

I can't believe it has been one week already. Little Samuel seems to have settled into life in our house with amazing ease.
He has two little 'awake' times one in the morning and one in the evening, other than that at them moment he sleeps for a couple of hours, wakes, feeds and then sleeps again. Easy! For now!

I am waiting for the two and a half week mark for it to all change. It may not happen, but with William he hit two and a half weeks and then the world became too much for him. It was like his little brain became overwhelmed with data and activity and we would get lots of crying and screaming every day about five pm. I did lots of observing and thinking about it and realised that the TV was a main culprit. Not me putting him in front of the TV, but the flicking lights from me watching it in a dark room. As soon as I realised this, which was about 2 weeks later I kept the TV off while feeding and 'hey presto' the crying subsided and wasnt quite as bad.
Have I learnt from this? Yes I have so far!

So, Samuel has settled in, but his big brother is having some difficulty. Oh, he loves his little brother and reminds us that he is excited to have him, but his ears seem to have closed over to any sound I make. I keep being told it is normal, but it really is breaking my heart at the moment.



William has gone from an obliging, independant and helpful two and a half year old to an insecure, displaced almost shadow of himself. It brings tears to my eyes thinking about it. He now sucks his fingers, he can't have me out of his sight, he has completely forgotten his manners. He will do anything for attention and I mean anything. Negative attention mainly. I try to do stuff he wants to do and spend time with him but it isn't enough for him it seems. I sure hope it settles down soon.

Getting back to sewing, I can't wait to get back into it, I have a quilt to finish and another one to start - one for Samuel. Pyjamas to make - my Madeit store is looking empty and I have some orders to get to. But at the moment as my legs still look like tree trunks from the Caesaren I have to keep them up as much as possible so it has to wait.

AND did you see this The auctions raised an amazing $99,089! That's incredible!! WELL DONE everyone involved! That is a huge effort

Introducing Samuel James!

Well, he's here! Little Samuel arrived into the world at 8.32am Thursday 20th Jan 2011, and what a mission it was to get him out! He certainly didn't want to budge!




My Dr and I agreed that the best option was for a Caesarean as the little guy wasn't engaging and on Thursday morning with no less than four, yes four, people pushing on my chest and stomach he confirmed that he would rather stay nice and safe and comfortable in my tummy! Samuel weighed in at 9 pound 10 (a week early remember!).

I was pretty sick for a few days after as I had a pretty heavy bleed and lots of bruising, so wasn't allowed to eat or drink for 24hrs after and had to be on bag after bag of fluids for 48hrs. I'm feeling fairly despondent about the birth as it was pretty scary for a while, being pushed so hard and seeing a few worried faces around me, not to mention the silence that dropped over the room while they were trying to get him out.
I had hoped to go back for a third, but not too sure about if I want to go through all that again.

Little Samuel has been such a champion, sleeping, feeding, having a couple of little awake play times, then back for a feed and back to sleep. The nights have been pretty good, a rough one the first night with me sick and Samuel wanting to feed all night to get my milk coming through. He is at the moment only up twice during the night which I am sure will change now that I have mentioned that!

I had mad a sweet little wrap from AMH folksy flannel and some voile and when we came home yesterday I wrapped him up and carried him to the car in it. I love it.

whoops!

In my last post I was talking about having an auction to help raise money for the QLD Flood Relief Fund.

WELL, seems my good intentions have been thwarted to some extent. I had an appointment with my Dr to make a final decision about what our plan was going to be with this baby which is due in two weeks.
Well, baby is not playing by the proper baby delivery rules and is playing ring-around-the-rosie in my belly! SO, my darling Dr decided the best thing to do is to have a Caesarean next week. Right in the middle of the Auction. Bit inconvienient to my plans I know, but he knows best.

So instead of holding my auction I have donated directly to the relief fund.
Hope this isn't a problem for anyone who was looking forward to seeing what I was going to auction!
It may be a good thing though as I am having great difficulty in even typing this post as I am mis-spelling almost every word and having to delete and re type, making for very slow progress!

On the other hand we now know that next week we will most definately have a new addition to our little family and that is really exciting! Not looking forward to all the needles though - especially the long epidural ones!

QLD FLOOD APPEAL

As you may have heard on the news or read about in the papers, Queensland is experiencing extreme rainfall at the moment resulting in flash flooding, loss of homes, possessions and more seriously lives.
Toni Coward over at Make it Perfect is organising a list of bloggers who will help raise money for the Queensland Flood Relief Appeal, by holding auctions on their blogs.
I have relatives in Queensland and though I am not sure if they are affected at this stage I have put my name down to host an auction. I will post more information shortly.

Williams quilt

I started this quilt way back in April or May last year, it was so long ago I can't remember!

Originally I hadn't planned on any sashing, just the blocks all sewn together. I made sixteen and lost my mojo!I simply didn't want to make any more blocks for it so I folded it up and left it on the pile!

When it was two weeks until Christmas I decided I wanted to finish it before the baby arrived so that William would have his promised quilt for his big bed.
I unpicked the blocks, made four more and sashed it with white.

The back is just plain red, but I love the binding. I have no idea of the name, I remember I got it from Spotlight yonks ago and the rest is from the stash.

I wrapped it up and put it under the Christmas Tree for him.

It has been perfect for summer sleeping as he hasn't been getting too hot under it it looks great in his room.

Guess I need some panoramic room photos now!!

37 weeks

This is me at 37weeks exactly today.



Next week we decide if we are just going in for a C-section or if we keep going till bub decides to come for itself.
It really seems to have the Duncan and Dutch traits from both Ben and my side of the family - doing what it wants! William did the same and showed no sign of ever wanting to come out - 12 days overdue, head wouldn't engage even at 9.5cm dilated. This little one is looking like doing the same thing. Oh well, it makes life interesting!

The last of 2010

Just before Christmas I had a last minute sewing splurge I guess you could call it.
I finished Williams quilt which I had started about April or May last year. I pulled it apart and as I couldn't find the enthusiasm to make another 20 blocks for it I sashed it with white and ended up only having to make 2 extra blocks. I'm pretty happy with it and he loves it. Unfortunately I haven't taken any pics of it yet so can't show you, but will I promise.

We didn't have anything to give to Bens sister so I whipped her up one of my famous reversable aprons in her favourite colours. She loved it and so do I actually!


I felt that William didn't have enough stuff in his Christmas stocking so I quickly made him a bucket hat as he had outgrown his other two. Again no photo yet but will get one tomorrow. Oh and he got a pair of PJ pants as I felt guilty for making heaps of specially ordered Michael Miller Dig It sets for lots of little boys and William constantly asking if they were for him as "But I love them mummy" was ringing around the house when the fabric was out.

It was Bens little sister Kates birthday on the 30th and last year I made her a purple and white quilt. This year I made her these matching cushions.





Never made cushions in my life, but I managed to get these two done in the same afternoon, so I was pretty happy with that. So was she actually! They were fun to make so I think I will be making a few more this year. I've seen some really cool ones on Flickr, infact I've seen LOADS of really cool stuff on Flickr that I want to use as inspiration this year!
So there you have it. Not many photos, but I did get a fair bit made right in the last week and a half of the year 2010.
My list for 2011 gets bigger by the day!

Snake!

What a morning! We took Ben down to the beach so he could do a shore dive, that's where he walks into the water with all his dive gear on and swims away instead of diving off the boat.

William and I found a shady spot under a tree and set up his little shade tent he got for Christmas. He was happily playing init with his diggers and trucks - he didn't want to swim or playing the water. It was pretty hot in the tent and his face was getting redder so he came over and set up his construction site with me under the cooler shade of the tree. About 5 to 10 minutes later I noticed a little head poking out from behind the tent, then out slid a long green body. It was heading away from us so I kept watch quietly so as not to scare William.

It headed into a bush so I relaxed, but all of a sudden, it was as if the snake got a fright by something in the bush and jumped round and was facing us with its head in the air as though it was looking at us. I grabbed Williams arm and dragged him back up toward the car park and watched as the snake sped over to where we were sitting, sliding all over our towels and mat and Williams toys. It started to come up the rock that I had been sitting on, but thankfully turned and went back behind the tent and into the rocks it had obviously come out of.

My heart was beating a million miles an hour and William was quite shaken also, more so by the fact the snake had been slithering round in his toys I think!

We stood hand in hand looking to see if it was coming back for what seemed like ages, and something made me look to the side where the bush was. Out ambled a blue tounge lizard! They are supposed to be very territorial and keep snakes away. Probably the reason the snake left the bush in such a hurry.

We slowly returned to our stuff and William cautiously started playing with his stuff again, constantly asking questions about snakes, where had it come from, what was it doing, where was it now, was it coming back?
It didn't come back, and we made Ben pack up the tent when he got back, just in case it was underneath!

I really don't like snakes and the last place I thought I'd see one is at the beach!

Some sewing tomorrow - hopefully!

New Year - New Beginnings

Happy New Year!
Wow 2010 went by so fast. I don't know if I can keep up with 2011, and it has hardly even begun!
This year is going to be such a big year. New baby, new beginnings, new old stuff!

New Years Resolutions? Yeah I said to myself that I was going to make some this year. I haven't stuck to them yet and this is only day 2! They weren't anything like quit smoking or stop drinking so much. I haven't smoked for 4 years and haven't had a drink since I found out I was expecting number 2 child. They were more like, pay more attention to me, write down the things that William says that really surprise me or make me laugh, or I want to remember. Pay more attention to my husband, who I am sure I neglect a fair bit, especially when I sit behind the sewing machine most of the day. Blog more.
I think the reason these NYR's aren't happening is I'm too caught up in my own mind about the fast approaching arrival of number 2. Only 25 days to go....give or take a few!

I did make myself a new pair of Pjs yesterday, finally. The ones that I have been wearing all have holes or are getting holes and I thought they might be a bit awful for hospital. The ones I made I'm pretty happy with. I must take a picture but to me they seem soooo big. I wanted them loose, but still they look like monster pants to me!
That was another NYR. Weight control. I know I'm not supposed to diet while pregnant and I am far from doing that, but I do need to watch what I am putting in my mouth more. I'm no where near as active as I used to be - running daily and riding horses, lots of horses. I'm hoping I might get more of a chance to do that again later in the year (another NYR).

A good thing - the baby's room is pretty much finished. Cot is up, tall boy in, new parm, new bassinet, sheets on the line. I want to make a cot quilt and a couple of wraps/receiving blankets still. I best get a move on and get them started now, well in a minute anyway!