28 June 2007

Pushing the bounds

E-chan comes from a line of late walkers, apparently. His paternal grandfather walked at 18 months, which is the later end of the scale for normal children. This was reassuring to learn - about 6 weeks ago (when he was 11 m old), we were worrying about his apparent lack of motivation to move on his own. Anywhere. Apart from the occasional roll onto his tummy. Of course, his communication and hand-motor skills were superior, given the amount of time he spent sitting and playing, or directing us when we were carrying him.

Then, soon after starting childcare, he learned to get from a sitting to a lying position on his own, then he started the belly-shimmying crawl, then he started crawling in the style that most babies crawl. All within a month! Then he learned to crawl to a standing position, and now he does it all the time. And he has started to cruise (move in a standing position from one bit of furniture to another). So in 6 weeks, he has rapidly made up for lost time.

Now we love hearing the little padding of his hands on the carpets as he crawls around after us in the flat. And gradually all our cupboards are getting baby proof locks or the knobs are linked together with rubber bands to prevent opening. And things are getting put high out of reach.

23 June 2007

Achoo!

Booked myself into the allergy clinic to look into getting desensitised to dust and maybe one of my other allergies (pollen or mould), as quite frankly, I'm getting sick of the asthma/eczema/hayfever that they cause me. Especially when I visit family and stay in dust-ridden spare beds, but it affects me almost on a daily basis. I also wanted to talk about getting E-chan tested soon, just in case he has some allergies.

So there we were in the waiting room, which I must say has the coolest toys ever, and a Paediatrician there, who had a spare appointment, took one look at E-chan and said "I want to see him!" (he has a rash around his mouth). So we changed course a bit, and talked about us both. After my appointment, E-chan got tested for allergies. At his age, environmental allergens are only just developing as their bodies get exposed to them increasingly, but food allergies are possible. Given both his dad and mum has allergies, he had a 50-80% chance of having allergies, poor sod. And he does.

To eggwhite (no suprise there, he's had some exposure, and I ate it while breastfeeding), cashews (I gulped a lot in the middle of the night when ravenous whilst breastfeeding), so again, no suprise but the shock allergy was: SESAME!!!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

This means he will have to be raised without hommous (one of my 6 food groups) and tahini!! I guess I must have wolfed down more sesame than I realised whilst breastfeeding.

Next week, I'll ask about the likelihood that he'll grow out of these with time. The good news it that he isn't allergic to fish, milk, or soy, and due to not being fed nuts, he has no other nut allergies. And the other good news is that we know he's had egg and hommous recently, and there was no extreme reaction (e.g. anaphylaxis). But avoiding them will help keep him clear of eczema. Along with avoiding tomato, broccoli, mushroom, avocado and other things that bother me, as it's likely he has the same intolerance to salicylates.

But for me, there will be 15 weeks or so of weekly allergen injections, followed by monthly maintenance doses for a year or so. Probably followed by allergy-free bliss. It worked for my Dad, and countless others. Oooh, and Seagreen - they reckon my so-called cat & dog allergy is probably just my dust allergy - they told me to think of cats in particular, being indoor creatures, as "big dustballs"!! (NB This says nothing of the past cleanliness of your house - I've reacted to every cat I've been near since I was about 3).

10 June 2007

Happy Birthday, E-chan!

Well the 10th June whipped by, and our little boy turned 1! We were inundated with grandparents (his) and and uncle*, that weekend, and some more close friends on the day, and we all crammed in our little flat on what turned out to be the wettest weekend Sydney has had in a while. He was spoiled rotten with lots of lovely presents, both bought and hand made. My biggest suprise was that my folks brought over my own private jet (above) - a retro 70's toy jet, complete with nuclear family (mum, dad, boy, girl) and luggage. Being a 2nd child, this was apparently one of the few toys that was bought especially for me when I was very young, and my parents kept is all these years to give to my own child. And it's a hit!


I made a banana cake, his dad and I designed a teddy shape, and his dad and uncle decorated it with chocolate icing, marshmellows and licorice. The cake wasn't too much to his liking at first, which is fine by me.
So anyway, happy birthday, little fella. We love having you!

* I think I 've mellowed a bit - it was much more enjoyable this time, and the house even felt empty when they all gradually went back to 'delaide.

04 June 2007

New roomy

After 4 weeks in the job, the lady I share an office with has gone of leave for 3 weeks, and has been replaced with a temp! It's funny to spend time getting to know someone on this level for a second time in as many months. And last month, I was the newby, whereas this month, I actually know a bit and can help out new chick.

I got the dreaded unsolicited eczema advice again today, from this temp. It starts as it often does "Oooh! what have you done to your wrist/fingers/throat?". I replied, then warned her that the reason I had come over a bit wary was that I get a lot of unsolicited advice. "Oh, I know, I know exactly how you feel!! I get it too!" But unfortunately it didn't stop there. I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she has suffered as I have, but there were few parallels in our cases. She, for example, has never felt the need to get allergy tested and find out what causes hers. For her, finding the right low scent/chemical moisterisers and soap alternatives was enough. Not for me, I told her. She ranted about the brand of moisturisers/cleaners that had "cured her". Sigh.

I decided to rant on for a while about what I had tried and hadn't worked, and that I was considering getting dustmite desensitisation done as my dust allergy is becoming worse, and how hard it was to keep up the 3 pronged attack of no irritants/soap, no allergens, and treating the symptoms. Finally, a bit of silence, before a last ditch effort to push her brand of moisterisers/cleansers on me "I was sceptical, but it worked for me!!". Some people just can't take a hint. And one of these days, I will just routinely nod and say "thanks for the advice!". But dammit, she had me at "...I get eczema too!"

Yawn. Back to work. At least the topic probably won't come up again.