Day 7: A picture of me with the person I've been closest with the longest. I'm going to go ahead and say that's m'Mama. Here's a picture from about a year ago, with me, my girl, and my Mama - and of course Declan was there, just still on the inside. Hard to believe how much Talia has changed in a year, and now Declan is almost a year old and there's another babe in there!
What else is new here at the Raine Drop? Well, I have to say, I'm usually a big fan of winter. Number 1 supporter, even. I love all the winter things: sweaters and hot drinks, skating and playing in the snow, sleighrides and Christmas lights...... love it all. And yet, this year I'm feeling seriously close to being done with winter already. How can this be?
I think it's because I am so worn out from lugging m'babies around. I'm trying to be a healthy role model, trying to instill the benefits of living in a small town in the kids, blah blah blah, so I try to walk whenever we're going someplace here in town. The weather has been pretty great all fall and even since we got snow, it's been fairly warm. So last week I pulled both kids over to Playgroup and back on the sleigh. Abacus did not approve, and I had annoying Braxton-Hicks contractions for the rest of the day. A few days later, Declan and I ventured out to do some shopping and I had the worst time pushing the cart through all the snow. Today again, I had both kids with me to go to Superstore, so I needed a cart. Of course at Superstore you can only get carts outside, and it was really busy so we were parked about a mile away from the store, and it almost killed me to get the cart inside - never mind to get it back out to the van, full of 50lbs of kids and all our groceries for the week. Then of course there is the hassle of getting the kids into boots & snowsuits, then cramming my little abominable snowmen into their carseats, which NEVER tighten enough with a snowsuit on...... sigh. I'm just worn out. I need a day of staying home & doing nothing to recharge my batteries and rekindle my love affair with winter.
In other news, I took Declan to the dr. today, half expecting it to be another wasted trip of the "it's a virus, it has to run its course" variety. Imagine my surprise when we left with a prescription for a double ear infection, a different prescription for a yeasty-looking diaper rash, a referral to the top Pediatric Allergy & Asthma doc in the province, and a referral to the Child Development Clinic.
The first referral is because we suspect Declan may be allergic to the pups. He's coincidentally part of the CHILD Study, which is a 5 year long national study re: allergies & asthma, so because of this our regular dr. was able to get him in to see the specialist - the formal referral guarantees that Declan will be seen by the top guy, as opposed to some of the other (very good, I'm sure) docs that are running the study, and he will likely receive his allergy tests (that are a part of the regular study) earlier than planned. As an added bonus, this guy can apparently diagnose or rule out asthma in kids as young as Declan, which doctors don't typically do, so that will be good to know - my Mom claims Declan is just like my brother was before he was diagnosed with asthma as a child.
The second referral is because Declan doesn't use his legs at all. He *can* use his legs, and he seems to have average muscle tone, but if he's in his exersaucer/jumper/walker, he just dangles and refuses to put his feet on the floor. When he's in his walker he will use his arms to grab on to furniture to pull himself around the room, but again lets his legs dangle. He has also not rolled for about 4 months, and can't stand being on his belly so he has no interest in even attempting to crawl. Now, I'm not terribly worried about any of this, since Talia was very similar and didn't start walking until she was almost 18 months old. But we're getting him checked out anyway, because a) we won't be doing him any favours if there IS a problem and we don't discover it for months and b) I don't have anything going on so I might as well run him all over the city for appointments where we'll find out everything is fine. (Just kidding..... sort of.)
I also received notice today that our wonderful daycare will be closing after Christmas, which is really too bad. I already have a lead on another home daycare, though, so hopefully that all works out!!
