Uncles are the best!

Yesterday we went to Hamilton to watch Zoe's Uncle Dean play drums at church, and of course he was awesome as usual and didn't miss a beat (*cough* really bad pun *cough*)! It's always wonderful catching up with Dean and Zoe had such a good time she started to giggle and laugh (this was a first). I practically balled my eyes out with joy at her cuteness... I couldn't help it! It was such a cool sound. It's been a week of milestones as she also hit 4 months AND rolled over the next day. eeee!

I caught some giggles on camera...

We love you Deano!

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A Creation a Week for a Year: No.5

Wow it's Feb already and I've continued to make something a week for 5 weeks. There's going to be a lot of handmade stuff in this house come December! (don't tell J - he hates clutter!)

Using some more of my Mum's Laura Ashley fabric I acquired while at her place at xmas I've made a baby sling. I know I'm kinda late at the old sling thing, but I'd been meaning to make one for ages and only really got around to doing it.

I used the tutorial from Karma Baby here for anybody who is interested in making one too. It was super easy and took no time at all and they have a measurement table on their site so you can work out the perfect size so that it will fit your body shape perfectly.

I used it at church on Sunday and although it worked, Zoe is just 8kgs too heavy! While standing most of the time and rocking her back and forth (I used it to help her sleep in my arms so I wouldn't need to bring the buggy in) it munted my shoulder and I've had sore shoulder and neck muscles for days since... ooouch!! But it was handy none-the-less, I'm just a big weakling.

I think it will be good just to have it as an option for carrying her and soon I'll be able to use it in the hip-position anyway. It was also good using the extra fabric in the sling to hide Zoe's face while she semi-lay down in it to sleep, meaning less visual distraction for her while drifting off.

Links: No.4, No.3, No.2, No.1, A Creation a Week for a Year Goal

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I love it when you win stuff that's actually cool!

I won Kindling, a book of pull out prints by illustrator James Jean last week and it arrived yesterday! All I had to do was comment on the competition post on the pro-design website of which I read about on Twitter (I wasn't that into Twitter until now!).

My favourite prints are these ones here... awesome!

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Munchie Update: 4 Months

The Zo is 4 months today! Here she is, my little chub-monkey.

Snippets:

• Zo is a wonderfully content and happy little bubba, she smiles heaps now and I have had many comments about how content she is.
• She hasn't been weighed for a wee bit but a couple of weeks ago she was about 7.8kg so she could be around the 8kg mark now. She is getting rather heavy to hold and I'm developing muscles in my arms that I never knew existed.
• She loves her Jolly Jumper and her Exersaucer in which she gets to play in each day for exercise (ok ok I'm just trying to wear her out a bit for a better nights sleep - it's working!).
• Speaking of sleep, we've been back into our routine for 2 weeks now and Zo is thriving. Her sleep patterns throughout the night are getting longer and longer with a big 9 hour stretch recently. Otherwise she has been going from 6 to waking anywhere between 12-3am and then again around 6am. We are getting there!
• I have only a couple of outfits left that actually fit her and badly need to go shopping for some more clothes. I'm contemplating getting some skirts and and more girly onesizes so she will be extra cute.
• Her blue eyes are getting lighter and lighter and her hair is still a mystery. I think she will be Strawberry Blonde but I have family betting on Ginger or Snowy White.. still not enough hair to work that one out yet.
• Her tummy time is getting better and better and she has made movements like she is about to roll over but not yet, any day now.
• She talks a lot, coos, ooos, aahs, and heaps of squeals. I can get her to talk on demand if I ooh and gah at her.. no giggles yet but lots of smiles.
• She has her hand in her mouth 95% of the day. Drools alot and likes to spit up - I swear it's her favourite thing to do these days! haha she's a pro at it.

She gets covered in kisses everyday and is loved so much by her whole family. She is a lucky girl!

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The Great Strawberry Birthmark Debacle

{Warning: This post and the pictures are gross, make sure you don't mind pus!}

Zoe developed a strawberry birthmark which ulcerated a couple of days after she was born. We had no idea it would be so much trouble, and we had no idea that there would be next to no information (in NZ) or on the internet. So I'm writing about our experience with this type of ulcerated birthmark in the hopes that it puts some 'dumbed-down' straight forward REAL info out there for worried parents.

Strawberry Birthmark aka; Capillary Haemangioma, Capillary Naevus, Strawberry Haemangioma, Strawberry Naevus.

What is it? A red bubbly birthmark usually located on the head or neck area, more common in girls. It develops approx 3 days after birth, grows to 80% of its maximum size in the first 3 months and can keep growing for up to 18 months (most stop at 5 though) and can take as long as 3-10 years to go away completely. Up to 5-25% can become ulcerated, get infected and can leave a small scar. The majority of these types of birthmarks don't need treatment but marks that are located on the face, eyes/nose/mouth area could need laser treatment or even surgery!

This is the best website for information on these birthmarks: www.dermnetnz.org.

Around Christmas Zoe's mark doubled in size and ulcerated leaving an icky sore and scab. It is located on the back of her neck on the right, just in that annoying crease where her head meets her neck/shoulder area. Her clothes rubbed it raw and it got infected.

I took her to my GP who then sent us to Starship Childrens Hospital, where we spent a good chunk of 2 days waiting to see someone that could help. 6 different Doctors and Nurses saw Zoe and had never seen a birthmark ulcerate like hers before. It was SO frustrating. We were so stressed and so annoyed that no one could help. We were told we were going to have to wait a month to see a specialist because of the time of year, and to just wait to be contacted. All information was so vague, we had no idea what was going to happen - if anything.

Along came Christmas and we decided to see if the local Doctor in Katikati could help as we were down there for the holidays. She too hadn't seen this ulcerated type of mark before but prescribed antibiotics as she thought it looked infected. Because of the holidays the test results of the swab my GP took didn't get to us until later on which did indeed show a high level of infection.

The medicine had to be taken on an empty stomach, which is super hard with a baby! Zoe was on a snack (medicine), play, eat, play, sleep routine as we had to add the medicine to breast milk for her to take it, then wait 1 hour before she could actually feed. It was really hard work and threw her feed/play/sleep routine out the window (I've spent the last couple of weeks getting her back on track). She threw up her feeds a few times and it made her pretty grumpy.

We then had a nurse come each day and redress the wound (some quite poorly - it was a different nurse every time, we had to explain it every day - it was so exhausting) until Joel told them to no longer come over. We both knew we could do a better job of dressing it ourselves so we did (the sticky tape used just ripped Zoe's skin off and made things worse, even the alcohol based wipes that were needed to dissolve the tape just ate at her skin!). Joel worked out a dressing with the least amount of horrible sticky stuff and it worked a treat.

After a couple of weeks and clear slow healing of the wound, we bypassed the public health system and forked out some cash to see a private Pediatric Dermatologist (we did get a specialist appointment at Starship that same day but after waiting for an hour we bailed as we didn't want to miss both appointments). It was great! Finally someone who'd seen a mark like this before, who'd in fact seen plenty. FINALLY. He reassured us that laser treatment or surgery was not necessary, its bark is worse than its bite and that it will eventually go away. The best medicine is time and care. It was what we wanted to hear and we were really pleased. He gave us some solution to cleanse her bath water and some cream incase it looks to ulcerate again (fingers crossed it just disappears one day instead).

It was really very stressful for us as new parents. We were so worried that our little girl would need surgery, need to be put under and this giant thing cut out of her precious body. It seemed so huge at the time, but it doesn't bother her, it doesn't hurt her and we just put a light dressing on it to keep her clothes from rubbing it and it works wonderfully. As you can see from previous posts - she is a happy bubba so no problem there!

These photos were taken over time showing the growth, infection and healing. Yeah they are pretty gross and sore looking! eeeep!

17/12/09: first signs of it ulcerating and getting bumpy, 31/12/09: infected, 3/1/2010: starting to clear up and smooth out.

5/1/2010: small wound left, 7/1/2010: getting better and better, 12/1/2010 drying right up.

28/1/2010: This is how it is now, skin clear around the mark, still large though but skin all intact and cleared up. No scab or broken skin. You can see it better in the first pic in relation to her body and size.

I hope this (long) post has helped someone out there dealing with the same thing. If your child has experienced an ulcerated birthmark please write to me and let me know your story here.

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Happy Bubba...

Who could resist that smile :-)

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A Creation a Week for a Year: No.4

Another Softie! fun fun! (he is the giraffe from the More Softies book).

Links: No.3, No.2, No.1, A Creation a Week for a Year Goal

I had loads of ideas come through for names for No.3 Softie (now called 'Pink-nosey-the-bear' thanks to little Hazel) what should I call this little guy?

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Zoe with her Dad

Just a photo today: my two favourite peeps!

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Boot Love: Converse All Star Ankle Boots

Yikes, I am seriously foaming at the mouth over these boots I saw on the weekend. Only problem is I don't work anymore and have no pulling power over the husband for a frivolous buy! Hehe I'll get my mitts on them next month after HIS pay day. Thanks Joel! Aren't they delicious? they are like my ultimate footwear. I like sneakers, I like boots, I don't like leather boots so much as my clothes are too casual for them (and somehow they always make me feel overdressed even if they are flats?) so these ultra casual boots are perfect. Practically made for me.. can you tell I seriously can't wait?! I've got it bad! *drool*

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Tinkerbell Towel

Zoe was given this cute Tinkerbell towel from Aunty Libby on the weekend. As you can see - we are both stoked about it! Thanks Lib!!

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New Maternity Photography series at Pacing the Panic Room

I love Pacing the Panic Room. I just can't get enough of this gorgeous blog. I posted a while back about Ryan's maternity series where he took photos of his pregnant wife each week and wrote a little letter to his unborn child. The series went right up to 40 weeks and it was just awesome going along for the ride, especially since I was pregnant through some of it too.

He has now started a new series for his friends Trish & Peter. What makes this new series extra special is it's format using a horizontal scroll bar. Every Monday Ryan posts a new image of Trish walking along a street and each week the picture is in front of the next house along that street -you have to scroll to the right to see the next image in line. Come week 40 and I'll be scrolling for ages! It's a brilliant idea and I love it! Check it out here.

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Underwater Smiler

After posting about the beautiful Water Babies underwater photography, my Mum sent me this pic. It's 3 year old me, learning to swim. It was in the local paper - it's one of my favourite pics in the family album. eeeee!

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Grandma's two cents worth: Swaddling

The need to continue swaddling your baby after 3 months is a whole new thing to those of us who had babies in the 80s or previous. When this problem came up with Zoe I searched and searched my memory to try and remember how I solved this problem with my four babies and then I realized that I just didn’t really have it. In the 80s we swaddled our newborns in exactly the same way as today, but we slept them on their sides. That was the “rule” then. We were told that a baby should not sleep on their back as they could choke easier, and sleeping on the side meant that any spit up ran out easily. As baby grew and was able to wriggle out of the swaddle, the arms were still not that free in the side position. Try it yourself, it’s not that easy to fling both your arms about when you are lying on your side.

Today, a baby lying on its back has so much more freedom and can fling their arms right up over their head and wake themselves up. I’ve even found myself doing it! It was also not unusual once they were at this age to sleep them on their tummies, and I did that with Sarah. Here is a picture of her on her tummy at 4 months. She was a thumb sucker so the head was always turned to the side to find her thumb, and arms were pretty much unable to go anywhere.

I’m certainly not advocating the tummy position today, as I know that mothers are told they must sleep baby on their backs now, but if sleeping your baby on its side can be made safe I think it would save a lot of headaches regarding this swaddling problem.

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A Creation a Week for a Year: No.3

No.3 : Mamma Bear Softie. Now she just needs a name...

Links: No.2, No.1, A Creation a Week for a Year Goal

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Zoe's Room

I was asked to take some photos for Maddie at Li'l Magoolie of Zoe's room, here they are below and here is the feature on her blog: lilmagoolie.wordpress.com I took some of the room but also some close ups of her pin-board that she loves looking at and some of her special toys and things around the place :-)

NB: the bird mobile has sparked lots of interest! It was lovingly made by my pixie pal Linzi (here blog here) for Zoe. She absolutely goes nuts for it, moving her arms and legs like crazy, as it's over her change table.

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