Hi everyone
Yes, we are still alive and growing. Sorry about the lack of 5 month update but things have been rather hectic since I started work.
Firstly we have all been really sick. Emma had a bad cold and slight ear infection (the Doctor says she thinks she is also a hayfever sufferer like mom) this was followed by a 24 hour bought of throwing up everything that passed her lips. Solution: take her off the milk which she refused to drink and put her on rehydration fluid only. Then mom lost her voice on her 2nd day of work and was booked off for 4 days. This was followed by mom getting severe Bronchitis, being put on a drip, and being booked off work during the holidays (I still worked as there was no one to fill in for me) Then there was the niggles (Emma) followed by a lovely rash (German Measles), this she dutifully passed onto mommy, Daddy luckily avoided it. And last but not least, Emma got Bronchillitis and was on terrible medicine so we went through a stage of her not eating or drinking anything at all (very stressful!). Dad says it is not great when we are ill together – we apparently have to take turns. Apparently these are the joys of starting baby school!
On the sleep front, we are glad to say that Emma is moving towards sleeping through again. YAY! With her being ill we have been up numerous times in the night to give her more medicine, try and feed her etc. She also now tries to wake up to practice her sitting, rolling, pulling, talking and all the other cool things she can do but 2 nights of crying it out soon put pay to that! Closed doors and piles of pillows on your head do wonders to block out the howling.
You may remember that we planned to go to Kruger with my mom in September. With all the illness in the house we decided to postpone the trip by a month and go in October. We headed off for Letaba camp on Saturday 14 October in Toad (my mom’s new 1980 Range Rover). The trip was uneventful if hot and Emma did really well in her new big travelling chair. She got her first taste of icecream (courtesy of granny) and has decided that Megas are the best! She loved the birds (nice colourful and noisy starlings and weavers), the scenery and got a huge fright when the Elephant next to camp grumbled at her. We saw tons of elephants, some buffalo, impala, and various other goodies including a far sight of lion. We also saw the flood damage from earlier in the year and were truly amazed at the vast quantities of water that ran through the park, some of the rivers must of been 10 times their normal size, huge 100 year old river tree were ripped out and deposited on bridges with no effort and the damage to roads and land was amazing. We have never seen it so green, which made a really nice change. While we were there though, a bush fire started and burnt out the entire Letaba to Olifants section of the park in 3 days (about 300 km stretch).
The weather was really hot so we would wet a kikoi (cotton wrap) and put it over Em her to cool her down. We tried to put her in a bath of cool water with no nappy on but this resulted in grumbles, the solution: in the bath with her nappy on. You will be amazed how much water nappies absorb, but she was much happier. We also tried out her camp cot, which we discovered is still too big for her so she slept on blankets next to us on the floor. All in all it was a really great trip but far too short, our next trip will be to Sodwana (kwazulu Natal) to go diving in December after I finish work. This time the troops will be going: Cavan, Josh, Sue, Us and my mom, Vaughn’s parents will be preparing for their Christmas trip.
Onto all the cool things that Emma can do. She is mostly sitting on her own now and is desperately attempting to get mobile. She has figured out that if she kicks her legs really fast she moves forward a little. She has also figured out that if you wiggle around a lot you also move and change direction. She is now eating finger foods such as biltong, biscuits, toast – all of these are dutifully gobbed on and then smeared all over herself and everyone and everything else. I have also resorted back to home cooking for her as the purity mixes are really terrible and she refuses to eat them (not that I blame her!). She is not really a great eater but a little more home food seems to make it into her tummy than the purity (although purity apple is her favourite, favourite). She is pushing up onto her arms and pushing up onto her knees (but not at the same time). She has also discovered how to jump in the jolly jumper (using both legs and therefore going up and down instead of around and around) this is a really great discovery for her and she will spend a little while jumping and giggling her head off. Baby giggles and baby talk also abound and she will spend lots of time talking to dad but only when she feels like it. You cannot coax her to talk if she is not interested. She is also starting to cry when people leave, she had a big howl this morning when daddy left for work (dad is much cooler than mom!).
She is really growing big now. She is 65 and a half cm in height and weighs 5.8 kg. She only gained 100g last month but we are not too concerned as she was really continuously ill. She is also very happy and content, a little less so with the approach of the teeth. She is eating really well again and we are hoping that she will double her birth weight by next month.
Vaughn is still working really hard and is nearing the end of his management course. He is really grumpy because they could have covered the material in half the time but they have to cater for all intelligence markets. He still has not started his personal project but the group project seems to be coming along and they will write exams in December. Work seems to be less turbulent with the buying out of the one partner seeming to take a back seat as everyone comes to the realisation that they will not get the money that they expected, but we will have to wait and see what happens. He has a new computer game (Diablo 2) that is taking up some time but this has been severely dented by Cavan’s Playstation gaming. What time is leftover is divided between the landy, visiting parents and trying to sort ourselves out.
On my side, School is going OK. It is completely different to high school and I find it frustrating that you cannot handle discipline as you would in high school. I also find that the parents are not very authoritative with their kids and let them get away with murder – leaving the discipline up to you. We have found that threatening to chop off their toes and phoning the police to report naughty people does have a slight effect. I suppose we will figure it out. We have also been in “training” for a month which is really tiresome as the trainer specialises in picking fights with everyone, smacking the children (apparently a non-smack school) and she also does not like ideas if they are not hers. But I have been told by her that I seem to do what I want to do and that she sees me as stubborn as I say yes, yes and then do what I want to.
We are working full day from 2-15 December, Emma will go to the baby centre and we will get the holiday program money to split between Benitha (my helper) and myself as a kind of 14th cheque so we decided that it would be a viable option. Hopefully the money will pay for December dive course?
Anyway got to rush to school
love us
Carrie, Vaughn and Emma