Posts in Category: Isaac
Progress in May 2011
Wow. What a difference a good day makes.
We had a particularly good day on a Wednesday a couple of weeks ago – the best day we have had for so long. Isaac had next to no colic, we relaxed, Anastasia had fun with animals, we ate delicious seafood, everybody slept well, we got to watch a whole movie in one go. It made us feel fantastic. In fact, despite a number of significant crying episodes since it felt as though we turned a bit of a corner on that day. Wednesday, 18 May 2011. It’s a date for us to remember in perpetuity.
What made this day so great?
- Bateman’s Bay
- Birdland Animal Park
- No colic
Aside from one session of crying for about half an hour or less when they were arriving at the animal park, Isaac had basically no colic all day. In fact, during the afternoon he was particularly delightful – smiling and gurgling at us. - Excellent seafood
- Anastasia slept for at least 3.5 hours during the day
- Free time and good sleep
- Did I mention, no colic
To begin, we were staying at Bateman’s Bay in a very nice little holiday apartment at a place called Parker By The Sea. I would heartily recommend this place – the apartments were gorgeous, modern and well kitted out. The kitchen was fantastic. The bedrooms were nice and large. The whole place just had a great feel to it. Our apartment had the master bedroom downstairs, where we slept with Isaac, and two bedrooms upstairs – one with a queen bed and one with twin singles. We let Anastasia choose which one she would sleep in and she chose the queen bed. She looked so small sleeping in the middle of this enormous bed but she loved it. She slept more soundly there even than she would normally at home.
Not the famous jazz club, or I might have gone as well. As it was, I stayed home and read books while the girls went to the animal park, which is part wildlife vet, part tourist attraction.
Anastasia had a ball – she patted wombats, looked at wallabies and even had a snake draped around her. In fact, she enjoyed the snake so much she went back to it and had it placed on her several times.
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay
Thanks to a most excellent tip received from our friend Bianca the last time we were in Bateman’s Bay, we returned to the 3 Fish Cafe in the main street of Bateman’s Bay. An absolutely delicious mixed seafood grill consumed while sitting in a little park looking out over the water. A pretty much perfect lunch.
That pretty much explains itself.
Because Anastasia slept so well during the day and because Isaac had a good day, Tegan and I had lots of free time. We got to read books, watch Masterchef and even watch a movie (Mao’s Last Dancer – we liked it) after Anastasia went to bed. And then everyone, including us, slept well overnight. It was glorious.
It was just so good.
Isaac – 8 to 11 weeks old and our life in that time
I previously said that Isaac cries lots. This wasn’t really quite true.
Isaac screams. Lots.
This is what most days entail for a substantial portion of the day:
These times are terrible and trying. Tegan and I get quite stressed by it after a while, which is compounded because it makes Anastasia quite upset too. She now often says things such as, “Isaac, stop crying!†or simply comes up to us and says “I want Isaac to stop cryingâ€. She often asks to go out, for example to her little park, but wants the other parent to stay at home with Isaac. While she does love her little brother he obviously wears on her. Unfortunately, on the days that Isaac cries and screams the most and upsets Anastasia, her behaviour is also at its worst, characterised by whinging, crying tantrums over the most minor things and general naughtiness. Of course, this also makes things worse for Tegan and I because we then have two upset and trying children to manage. I’d say that over the past few weeks we have felt stressed and exhausted much more often than not.
As an example of the kind of days we’ve been having, on Easter Sunday I posted the following update to Facebook:
Egg hunt completed successfully = very happy two year old. Adults had scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast = very yummy. But Isaac has been screaming almost non-stop since 6:45, to the extent that Tegan was trying to feed him his bottle and eat her bacon at the same time while in the shower. Poor little mite – really not having a good time.
Isaac also screamed through most of the church service that morning, settled for the first part of our trip on the car to Goulburn for a family lunch, screamed for the last 45 minutes of the trip and also for about half of the afternoon, before finally sleeping the whole way home. Fortunately on that day we had lots of family who were happy to help and hold him (although we may have scared some of the younger ones out of ever having their own kids), but such assistance is rare. Mostly it is just us, which really means mostly Tegan, who has to handle the screaming and try whatever we can to settle him and cope ourselves.
Isaac – seven weeks old
Isaac is now seven weeks old. This is an update of what has happened in that time. It’s a long read, so perhaps grab a cup of coffee first to keep you going and awake if you want to read all the way to the end.
Week 1
Tegan recovered really well from her caesarean. In fact, she recovered so well and so quickly she somewhat shocked the midwives and the obstetrician and received some renown for being able to get out of bed and walk only about 12 hours after the operation and then move out of her surgical bed and into a normal room the next morning. Personally, this didn’t surprise me as she recovered quite quickly from her caesarean after Anastasia was born and this time around she wasn’t in labour for over 30 hours first.
The only complication, if it can be called that, in the first few days was that we had to start feeding Isaac formula in addition to breast milk on his second night. As was the case with Anastasia, Tegan couldn’t produce enough breast milk and Isaac needed additional formula to supplement what Tegan could give him. This came to a head on the second night when Tegan was looking at the colostrum she had been expressing and realised that she wasn’t expressing 3mL in the 40 minutes after a feed, but just 0.3mL. At least this time we were prepared and picked it up while we were still in hospital rather than several weeks later, as we did with Anastasia. Consequently, Isaac lost only about 200g by the end of our stay in hospital, in contrast with Anastasia who lost about 700g in her first week and who didn’t make back her birth weight until she was four weeks old.