I am using writing I did all those years ago. As I get more up to date then I will write "live action".
02 April 2005
The time with Mom and Dad was really special for everyone. They were able to spend lots of time with their granddaughter. It was an easier time for me there compared to the last few times I have been home – somehow simpler. Dad expressed so many times how much he loves Susie and I. He has been doing that a lot recently – it is lovely. We went down to the beach with Kayla and dipped her little feet in the sea. She didn’t really seem to mind it one way or another. I went for a swim in the water which was lovely but not as much fun as when I go with someone else. Mom wasn’t going to swim and Dad couldn’t swim with his healing shoulder (he had an operation to rejoin back the tendons to the bone – he damaged it when he fell and then again when he put his hand out to stop Eunice hitting the dash board when he had to break sharply).
I sometimes just watch Kayla for ages. She is so precious and I can’t believe she is part of my life. Her smile is just too beautiful and comes quite frequently now. She was 3 months on 28 March and weighs 5.1kgs and is 59 cm long. Her head is getting so strong and she often holds it up for a duration. I am reading a book called Invincible Spirit – Liz Wickens. She is a South African lady with a child with Downs. Wow she had some really hard times with her son. I am so grateful that Kayla is so healthy and that we haven’t had to have her in hospitals with drips and things. We had a bit of a traumatic afternoon 2 days ago. She hadn’t pooed for 3 weeks except 2 when I gave her suppositories so we went to see Dr Leschner – the paediatrician. He said it could be because of the low muscle tone or low thyroid. He put his little finger up her bottom – oh the poor little mite – she screamed. Anyway she didn’t have a block because she pooed immediately. I calmed her down and then we had to have blood taken from her. She screamed again. She was so upset that whole afternoon and I couldn’t put her down. I understand now about parents wanting desperately to take the pain away from children and rather have it themselves. Anyway the next day she was fine and to my GREAT joy she made a huge poo in the afternoon. I have never been so happy to see so much shit in all my life!!
July – 6 months – bubble noises. Makes big mess when eating. Laughs when stimulated verbally is not just when kissed or tickled
Mid Aug – 7.5 months – noises are di di di da da da
20 April 2006 – almost 16 months
Gosh a year down the line and what a beautiful year. Kayla – alias Miss Chaos Factor – is simply beautiful. She is the happiest most content person I have ever come across and she is absolutely thriving. She is crawling now and started doing so in Feb. She is so fast now and so independent. She goes all over the house. She crawls up the stairs to leave our bedroom but hasn’t quite got the gist of coming down the stairs. She loves exploring all the rooms and all aspects of the rooms. One of her favourite activities is to pull all the magazines from the shelves and sit in a pile of print. This journey on the communication channel is so exciting. She is starting a few signs – bath, more, milk and understands many commands – blow bubbles, splash, clap hands. She clearly shows her displeasure by growling like urghurgh sort of noise.
We started Aquatots 2 months ago which she loves. She is confident in the water and wriggles around like a little tadpole. The Aquatots is basically teaching the children how to get in and out of the pool, how to float and I guess just how to be comfortable and as safe as possible in the water. We have signed up for the next classes so we’ll see what we learn next. We also do Kindermusik which is stimulation through movement, music, beats, textures, socialising. I chose these 2 activities because Kayla loves the water and music so much. She dances often when she hears music – just jigs her little body up and down and often sings in accompaniment as well.
She generally feeds really well but clearly spits out the food that she doesn’t like with a wrinkled face clearly showing her displeasure. She loves egg and I make her scrambled egg with fresh herbs (basil, parlsey and oreganum) quite often. She also loves liquorice and we have a beautiful picture of her in the bath with a face covered in liquorice.
Memory did not in fact end up working for us but we have another angel instead. Lydia started with us last year May. She was the only lady I interviewed besides Memory and she got the job because when Kayla sneezed she leaned towards her and said “bless you baby girl”. Lydia is wonderful and loves Kayla very much. She has her own little boy – Thabo who is about 3 months older than Kayla. He is walking and talking quite a lot and is very sweet with Kayla. Often when he comes into the room Kayla gives a shout of joy and bolts over to him as fast as she can crawl.
I am more convinced that she is saying Dada with more understanding and tends to say Nana for Mama. Although for the last couple of days she has been saying more Mama noises.
She slept over at her Nan and Grandad’s 3 weeks ago because Doug and I were doing an adventure race. I was quite upset all night (although I did sleep through the whole night!) and she slept most of the night there. When she woke up in the morning she was apparently a little upset and kept on turning her little mouth down and there were silent tears running down her cheeks. But apparently by lunchtime she recovered her cheerful happy self. She made up for it the next night by waking up loads of times in the night – I guess to check we were still there.
She had a tummy bug a few weeks back for about 15 days and she seems to have fallen into a habit of waking up a few times in the night now looking for her bottle. She was doing that while she was sick I guess because she was hungry coz she didn’t want to eat much at mealtimes. She is still sleeping in our room in a camper cot. I am ready for her to move to her own room but we are still in negotiating stages with Doug over this.
She has been so healthy – only having a couple of colds and a tummy bug. I breast fed her solely until she started on solids at about 5.5 months. Then at about 8 or 9 months she started getting formula as well. We stopped breastfeeding at 12 months. She barely noticed we had stopped (although we were only doing a morning feed at that stage) but I definitely noticed. My breasts were very hard and sore for a few days and I was quite sad to stop.
We did start with the vaccinations and started them when she was 1 year. She had no funny reactions and was generally very brave with the injections. Kayla has a pretty high pain threshold and tends to only cry when she bangs herself hard. Shame, with learning how her body fits in space she falls and bangs herself and pulls things on top of herself regularly – poor pumpkin. That is the learning process though.
I must try be more regular with this coz I think it will be full of forgotten things. Just reading through the 1st few months brought back so many wonderful memories . But for the moment - ciao for now.
22 April 2006
My days are much slower but so full with this little girl. I haven’t been working since February and it has been so wonderful to have this rate opportunity. I don’t really miss the work – the money and sometimes the challenge perhaps – but not the stresses and the results of the work. So much time is spent on Kayla and this family and myself. Perhaps I should put myself first. It is Saturday today and Doug went off for the morning on a long cycle at Hartebeespoort Dam. Kayla was very restless last night and woke up about every 30 minutes or so from 22:00. So needless to say Mom was quite tired this morning. We woke up at 07:30 and had a shower and some tea. Then breakfast and then I tided the house and then we eventually made it out the house at 09:40. We only went to 3 shops – hardware, vegetable and fish shop and then back home again. She fell asleep in the car. I love watching her sleep. I wonder if she plays with her angels in her dreams. Then when Doug came home we had tea and made a fire. I read and watched my little daughter play with her toys in the lounge. She was putting the blanket over her head and squealing with delight. She also bangs things together and puts them in buckets and talks to them and gets this high pitched excited noise at times. It is priceless to watch. So much so that I put down my very good book and this rare time of reading during the day and sat on the floor with her and played. Her face just lights up.
She is like a blossom that attracts all the insects. At the shop this morning there were about 3 people who came immediately over to her with such purpose to be in her space I guess. She is so friendly and cute with them and so engaging. I am so blessed to have this child in my life – even if I did not get more than 3 hours consecutive sleep last night!!
A real live angel in my arms.
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