This week Kenzie is TEN MONTHS OLD! She is officially in the double digit months and ever so closer to being one year old! This week, we are nursing a sick baby. Within a week, we have visited the doctor a total of 5 times. Kenzie’s fever finally died down at 6am over the weekend and it back at a healthy temperature however, as soon as her fever cleared, Kenzie developed a full body rash, dry blocked nose and a dry cough and she was still not herself until we got towards the end of the week. We know we can’t leave her in a bubble to protect her but it felt like we reverted back to the newborn phase for a few days as we tried our best to accomodate Kenzie while she was ill. Our doctor kept us well informed and took a lot of time and care when treating Kenzie. We’re so blessed to have such a good health system in Australia.
So far, here is her tally:
Nappy Changes: 50
Sleep: 92 hours
Feeds: 95
When Kenzie developed a full blown body rash, we didn’t know if it was due to allergies or because of her fever. It was a process of elimination and was advised by the doctor to continue using Moogoo as her skin is too sensitive and she’s too young for antihistamines. Her nose was blocked and she would cry as she struggled to breathe and suckle on her dummy at the same time. It was so hard to watch her suffer, especially as she was so tired and just wanted to sleep. We continued with breastfeeding to help clear her nose as well as a saline drops. With a few loud cries, deep breathes and the help of an aspirator, she managed to push out the big boogers that were preventing her from breathing.
Taking Kenzie to the mall proved difficult while she was sick. I had a few errands to run and wasn’t able to escape it. The pram became obsolete as she refused to stay in the pram without throwing a fit. My gorgeous 8kg baby demanded I carry her while pushing her pram. I had to give in as she still wasn’t feeling like herself. She usually loves being at the mall, looking at all the lights and seeing all the little kids and adults walking around. I felt broken watching her get irate as she was fighting to be herself again but her weak body was focusing her energy on getting better and fighting off the viral infection. Grabbing a balloon fro Cotton On Kids helped distract her for a little while.
My parents went overseas for a holiday and before they left, we celebrated Mother’s Day early with a dinner at our local restaurant. It’s always nice to have the family together, but Kenzie wasn’t feeling 100% and was very unsettled in the restaurant. We also treated my mum for High Tea at a local cafe for some mother/daughter/grand daughter bonding time before she flew overseas. While Kenzie is still young and hasn’t understood human relationships, Ramon and I have been trying to change our bad attitudes, bad habits and weed out negativity so we can be better role models for Kenzie. This means cherishing family time, living in the now and not making a big issue out of small things. We’ll be her first role models and her actions will reflect our actions. We know we only have a few months left before she starts becoming her own person.
By the end of the week, we had our chatty, happy, bubbly baby back! One morning, she woke up, bright-eyed wanting to stand and walk and dance and smile. Her favourite words became “Dada”, “Wawa”, “Baba” and together she was speaking gibberish. It looks like she wanted to tell us something but we couldn’t understand it. What has made our hearts melt is that she has learned a couple of new tricks! It’s like she wanted to play catch-up for the week she was sick! She now knows how to find items we hide, can anticipate tickles, open books and speaks gibberish like she’s reading to us, hides under the blanket and reveals herself, can stand on her own unassisted for a good 30 seconds… and the WIN… KENZIE TOOK HER FIRST STEPS! It’s like her development went from zero to a hundred so quickly. It looks like our baby will be walking before she crawls. We can’t wait to work on her development some more next week.