Bigger and better adventures

This past weekend has seen Talia finally brave enough to take a couple of steps without hanging on to anything or anyone. Our goal of walking before Christmas now looks more likely! She has been a barefoot baby (just in socks over winter) all her life, but I’m putting her in little sandals for short periods of time each day now. We have a cute little pair with “woof-woof” on the front that squeak with each step - so cute!

She is now 16 months corrected, 19 actual, and as of this morning weighs just under 9.5kg.  In other recent news, she has enjoyed her first see-saw experience!

Talia started swimming classes last week. Today was her second time in the pool and so far she’s not at all convinced that it’s going to be enjoyable.  However when she was given a little ball to hang on to she decided maybe it wasn’t completely awful, maybe just mostly dreadful.  Hopefully she will relax as time goes by and she figures out I am not actually trying to drown her.

Back at home, she has fully grasped the concept of putting a puzzle piece into the puzzle - as long as it’s almost there already.  Otherwise she enjoys waving them around, clapping them together and saying “woof woof” regardless of which farm animal piece she is referring to at the time.

We have also had an interesting new development with our “That’s not my …”books.  Following a suggestion from a friend, I deliberately pointed out the little mouse which is on each page (having never done it before now).  Then as she turned each page I asked “where’s the mouse?”  What a great new game!! She can spot every mouse in all three books of the series that we own, apart from the mice who are wearing goggles, flippers and a snorkel.  Clearly we have a very intelligent baby who knows that mice are hopeless when it comes to scuba diving.

This time last year my friends’ son Alexander turned one year old, and we went to his party. It was the first time we had taken Talia anywhere further than a few blocks from our house since she came home from hospital six weeks earlier. It was a big event for us emotionally as new parents of a prem, as we were still very concerned about her contracting even a cold after she was diagnosed with chronic lung disease as a result of spending 11 weeks on CPAP, and we were not sure how we would cope with seeing lots of big babies.

In the end it was fine, Talia was thrilled to make her first acquaintance with balloons (which she has loved to bits ever since) and I ate the contents of her lolly bag (tut tut mummy!)

Fast forward 12 months to today and we were back at Alexander’s house for his second birthday.  The little kids from last year were positively enormous this year, but Talia has grown quite a lot too.  She scoffed three pieces of fairy bread, two pieces of sushi and a range of other food, crawled around the place, popped a couple of balloons and greatly enjoyed trying out some of Alexander’s many toys.

Then after a power nap in the car on the way home, she spent part of the afternoon rearranging the sandpit.

Life is good.

Daddyfeatures and I are natural born couch potatoes. We were the kids who had no natural co-ordination and always got picked last for primary school sporting teams. In short, Nerds ‘R Us.

As a result of our own miserable playground experiences, we’d really like Talia to be a life-be-in-it, have-a-go sort of child. Given her genetic inheritance and her prematurity, we figure it will take a bit of effort on our part to help her gain the confidence and the skills that we seemed to miss out on. So we’ve started by giving her experiences in the playground beyond what she might get if we worried too much.

Fortunately for us, she loves it! The swing is a daily delight and she shrieks with happiness as we push her until the chains of the swing are flying out almost horizontally. (I give thanks to the person who invented the bucket swing for toddlers!)

The slide was tolerated and she didn’t seem to mind sitting at a height almost 5 feet above the ground and sliding down on her bottom while holding my fingers. Then a couple of days ago I decided it might be interesting for her to go down on her tummy, feet first. A stroke of genius, even if I do say so myself. She was exhilarated and couldn’t wait to do it over and over - and then she climbed back up the face of the slide, for the first time ever - and not only that, but she managed to clamber all the way to the very top, twice!

As you can imagine, she was very pleased with herself, almost as proud as I was!

At this rate it will be no time before she’ll be in the front carriage of the roller coaster at the show with her eyes open and both arms in the air. If my hair isn’t grey by then no doubt it will be soon after!

We were planning to fly to South Africa to visit Talia’s Grandpa in hospital, and these are the photos taken for her passport application.

Talia finally had a hearing check at the audiologists today, following on from the one where she was too clogged up with a cold to be able to test properly.  It showed that although her eustachian tubes are “sluggish”, her hearing is within normal ranges.  They’ve recommended we go back in summer to confirm that the sluggish tubes are not a permanent problem.

Hoorah, one less thing on the list of potential problems! Although I’m sure selective deafness is only a matter of time…

At her 8 month (corrected) paediatrician appointment Talia was making very few consonant sounds, so we were told she would be given another hearing test.  Three months later we still hadn’t received our appointment, so I phoned the hospital to ask what was happening.  Less than 2 days later the audiology people were hastily offering us an appointment for early the following week (today).  Ho hum.

Unfortunately Talia currently has a cold, and the audiologist decided that this was likely to be blocking her ears at the moment.  She was able to determine that Talia hears loud noises (we knew this) but could not get down to the 20 decibel level they would be happy with.  We will need to return for a second appointment in a month’s time, a week before her 12 month (corrected) paediatrician appointment.

At the moment she does babble, and uses da, dee, ya, wa, ba and sometimes na, ma, ga.  Not to mention lots of “oooh!” which is very cute.  The only word in her vocabulary that I am certain of is “cat” but she does struggle to say it.  The audiologist said that, given her other delays, it’s likely that speech will also be delayed (so no surprises there!)  As long as she has no physical impediment (like a glue ear) to hearing then I’m really not too fussed.

At the end of January, Daddyfeatures, Talia (7.5 months corrected) and I took our first flight together, from Perth to Sydney.

It was a big milestone, because before Talia arrived we travelled interstate and overseas quite a lot, and we were upset to be told by hospital staff that we would not be able to fly with Talia for ages because of her chronic lung disease. Fortunately her lungs improved rapidly once she finally came off CPAP (after 11 weeks) and oxygen (a further week), and at the four month check up our paediatrician said it would be OK to fly although he didn’t recommend doing it during winter.

I was 16 before I flew for the first time, so in comparison Talia is definitely quite advanced for her age!

I hesitate to call visiting family interstate a holiday, because it was just as much work as being at home (especially with my father-in-law’s wife in hospital for the duration), but it did have some highlights.

In particular, it was great to meet my LAP friends Pixie and LouCC in Canberra, and Julia (lilronan) in Sydney - and all the other prems. It was especially lovely to introduce Talia R to Talia G. Cuteness plus plus plus.

We also caught up with other friends we hadn’t seen for 18 months - it’s easy to forget how quickly time passes when you are tied up with baby things, especially when you have an unexpected 3 months of hospital visits on top of the usual chaos.

The Sydney branch of the extended family were delighted to see Talia (and didn’t mind seeing us either) and showered her with gifts and cuddles. The weather was abysmal but fortunately we hadn’t come with any plans for sightseeing.

Talia enjoyed a bunch of “firsts” - first flight, first time out in the rain (she was too small the last time it rained in Perth!), first taste of gefilte fish, first posh restaurant… the latter due to Marion being in hospital and Michael’s father not being keen on takeaway. We ended up in a very chic Double Bay eatery with friendly waiters who gave us a table with a bench seat packed with fancy cushions. I wish I’d had my camera.

From a practical perspective, the trip was very successful - we took our own portacot and pram, checked in electronically to get seats with a bassinet, hired a high chair and a car with a baby seat in Sydney, made up a batch of home-cooked baby food on arrival and Talia just rolled with everything, although by the time we’d driven to and from Canberra she was well over long distance car travel, and she finally decided that the morning boob service was no longer required either.

You can never predict these things, but in the one week we were away, every other baby in our mothers’ group (and most of the mums as well) came down with a dreadful gastro bug. So our timing was perfect.

Now we are looking forward to the next trip - a bigger and better adventure!

A month ago I posted about being advised to start Talia on extra physiotherapy. Since then she has made absolutely fantastic progress, so I was feeling much more positive about it than I did on December 6. Still, I took my mother along for additional support - and it made sense that two of us learn about any extra exercises Talia should be doing.

Well, the physiotherapist could hardly believe it was the same baby who wouldn’t do anything other than lie on her back and cry the last few group sessions. She sat up confidently, reached for toys and demonstrated her “stuff tummy time” rolling action. We learned a few useful ways to play with her which will help build her core strength even if she is not on her tummy, and then we were told that we don’t need to continue with one-on-one sessions unless I feel she is having any problems. Hoorah for my little superstar!

As a bonus, we dropped off a bag of clothing to the hospital op shop and then bought a few more items from the same place. I love charity shopping, everyone benefits, and the clothes I bought are gorgeous, I can hardly wait until she grows into them.

Growth seems very likely. I missed my weekly weigh-in with the child health nurse this morning, but I’m certain Talia is getting heavier. She might even be having a growth spurt. Since I posted a week ago to say that she wasn’t eating consistently or very much, she has decided that solids are GOOD. I have gone from one serve of mush per day to 6 serves, and she is guzzling formula like there is no tomorrow. Current favourite: pumpkin and avocado. I’m also serving pumpkin with carrot and pea, banana with milk, banana and pear, apple and farex.

Slowly we are making use of what the real world has to offer, in a way that I would not have contemplated in the first few months after Talia came home from hospital.

Last Thursday we went shopping, catching the train half a dozen stops to a big retail complex. Talia was very well behaved, in what was probably the longest time she has spent in a pram. She was tired and cranky by the end of it, but I was really pleased to have finally gone clothes shopping, with the baby, for the first time since she came home. I didn’t buy anything for Talia - she is the lucky recipient of many excellent hand-me-downs from one of my best friends, who has a little girl a few months older. So I bought my friend a voucher for Pumpkin Patch - so that she can choose some nice new outfit which I anticipate will later become another fabulous hand-me-down.

Now I’m looking forward to doing it again!