Poor little bum

My little guy is having some tummy trouble. Yesterday, he had 8 BM's. This has resulted in a very red and angry bum.

It breaks my heart when he's so distressed and trying to tell me that he has to have to BM. And the cries of pain when I wash his behind. It's terrible. I'm not sure what happened or why this is happening. It's not runny and looks like normal BM's, but I'm not sure where there are so many. He wasn't in any discomfort yesterday until late in the evening, so I didn't have the foresight to put diaper cream after the diaper changes. I'll have to remember this for next time. There have been days where he'll have 3 BM's in the morning and he'll be fine for the rest of the day. No sore behind.

Ah.. the life of a parent. Concerns about BM's, diaper rash, and folds in little necks. And like the life of a recent mother (again), I think I'm going to catch a nap before either baby wakes up. But just by typing that, I may have jinxed myself.

Sleep training

In the last few weeks, my daughter has been screaming bloody murder if I leave her sight. I understand it's that she misses me and doesn't understand that if something leaves her sight, it still continues to exist. Goodness, that must be traumatic to mourn me each time she stops seeing me.

In any case, she's been sleeping with me. She refuses to sleep alone for more than 30 minutes so she no longer sleeps in the swing and I no longer get 6 hours of uninterupted sleep. Needless to say, it's been getting tiring. I know she doesn't need to eat for up to 6 hours because she did that in the past. I'm tempted to start her on sleep training.

My problem is that she seems too young to sleep on her own. She's not even 6 months, yet. And if she thinks I fade from existence if she can't see me, wouldn't it be very scary for her to sleep on her own and have no one come to her when she cries at night?

When we sleep trained my son, we held firm to the "don't go in at night unless they've been crying for x number of minutes" rule. We did that for about 4 months. Now, we go in immediately when he cries because it's typically because he's had a nightmare. We had been concerned that our behaviour might encourage him to wake more frequently, but that hasn't been the case at all. Typically, he just needs a hug and will agree to be tucked in. Sometimes, he needs to leave his room for a short period. When this happens, he usually picks out a toy from the living room and he's fine to return to bed. My point is that it hasn't been a problem and he was sleep trained very late. It seems like there is an optimal time for sleep training.

Actually, it's probably that my memory is bad. So, maybe it would be fine if I start sleep training my daughter. Maybe after Christmas we'll start.

Caramel sauce

I found a super easy recipe for caramel sauce.

1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 cup of water
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter

Bring sugar, water, and lemon juice to a boil over medium heat. Do not stir. Wait for it to become a deep amber colour. Remove from heat. Gradually stir in cream. It will bubble vigorously. Stir in butter.

Enjoy! It made about 2 cups of delicious caramel sauce which now sits in my fridge.

You can warm up apple juice (an apple blend drink is better because it's less sweet) and put in some caramel sauce. Add some cinnamon and it makes a wonderful winter drink to cozy up with.

It starts off white-ish


Then the mixture becomes clear


Getting there..


Deep Amber.. actually.. I over did it a little.

Is your iPhone stuck in a backup?

My iPhone gets stuck whenever it tries to do a backup. It's terrible. I give up on it before it ever completed one. I'm partially to blame for this because I'm constantly installing free applications just to try them out. I finally got around to fixing my iPhone and I must say, it's nicer now.

Here are the instructions:

1. Disable auto-sync
2. Remove folders in Users/you/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
3. Under "Applications", uncheck the "Sync Apps". It's okay.. your apps are still there.
4. Sync. This removes all your applications
5. Check the iPhone to make sure that there are no residual applications. If there are, remove those. Sync again.
6. Install the applications back.

I lost a couple of recordings from my EccoNotes. I should have transferred them off before starting this. I couldn't tell you whether they were backed up, but EccoNotes provided an ability to FTP the files off the phone to the computer. Very handy. Too bad I forgot about the notes.

To flu shot or not to flu shot

I've got 2 little ones, a 22 month old and a 4 month old. Should I get the 22 month old a flu shot this year? Here's my hesitation.

1) The Mayo Clinic reports that children who are receiving their first flu shot must get 2 doses, each a month apart. I got the flu shot yesterday and my arm is still sore. Is this what I want to do to my child?

2) I read a news article where a 4 year old died from the flu. However, it wasn't the flu that she died from. She had a fever and began vomiting. Her parents thought that she was still taking in fluids, but her complexion had gone gray. The article suggests that she died from dehydration.

3) My son, like anyone else, dislikes needles. All of his shots have been terrible. Do I really want to put him through it? He's not in daycare, so I could theoretically limit his exposure to other children. Those of you with 22 month olds at home would understand that keeping an active indoors 24 hours a day would drive both parent and child batty.

4) Thiomersal. A product that's used as a preservative. It was removed from childhood vaccinations in 1999 as a precaution, but continues to be in flu shots. There's controversy over whether this mercury-based product caused autism in children. Autism is also more common to boys than girls.

I've gotten the flu shot. My husband will be getting the flu shot next week. Is this enough?

A new life

So at the beginning of next month, my father is going to Vietnam to find himself a new wife. One the one hand, I'm glad that he's moving on. If he gets re-married, it means that he'll no longer stalk my mother... hopefully.

There are many cruel thoughts in my mind. I feel sorry for whichever woman chooses to marry my father. He's old, negative, petty.. at the same time, he's my father. His attempts to start a new life indicates that he's given up on his old one. Instead of trying to fix the problems with his children and my mother, he's chosen to start fresh. I'm hurt that he's turned his back to me. It's a surprising emotion because I thought that I was beyond his reach, but I guess he's still my father and that still means something to me. I had hoped that he and I could have reconciled, but I guess this isn't going to happen.

He turned his back to me and I've turned my back to him. I'm not willing to forget the hurtful things he's said and done in the past because he has expressed no remorse for those actions. Even to this day, he continues to say terrible things. My sister helps him a lot. She does his taxes, performs any paper work that he needs, and is his link into the English speaking world. He got upset a while back and declared that he had no children and no grandchildren. It was a terrible slap in the face. They didn't speak for a short time... but when my mother fell ill, my sister contacted him. He said to her, "Why haven't you come to visit me?" It's as if he has no memory of the terrible things he says.

So there was no point for me to remain in contact with my father. He hasn't changed, won't accept responsibility for the hurt that he's done. I can forgive him, but I'm not going to let him continue to hurt me, so I don't actively seek communication with him. However, there's a part of me that wishes that he would express some remorse or that he would change the way he does things.. just a little.. just enough to give me some hope that he's capable of change, that reconciliation is possible. It's difficult for anything like this to happen when I don't see him. And now, it won't be possible at all because he will have moved on.. to a new life, at 68.

He'll be gone a month. There's no one expecting him. I don't know if he has any plans for accommodations. He's no longer a young man and he has a barrage of health problems. I hope that he'll be okay adjusting to a tropical environment. I hope that he thought ahead a little and made arrangements for shelter, made back up arrangements in case he's mugged.. things like that. My mother had done all of that for him in the past; my sister has been this for him of late; he's never had to take care of himself. I hope that he'll be okay. Either way, this trip will change him. I wonder if he'll return at all. He'll be in a country where he knows the language and the customs. In the thirty years that he was in Canada, he never adjusted to the way of life here. He always seemed out of his element. I wonder if this would be the case in his "home" country.

A part of me wishes him well. Another part of me is sad to say goodbye to my father.

Autumn

I love the colours of autumn. Today was a beautiful day to enjoy them. We went to the nearby park to get photos. I would have preferred to do a photo shoot at the local pumpkin patch, but I changed my mind in the parking lot of the pumpkin patch. There were 7 long school buses and the parking lot was completely full. I saw moms, carrying multiple bags with pumpkins inside while their older children walked beside them. I could not imagine M staying by me, so I envisioned myself walking with a big diaper bag on one shoulder, a pumpkin on the other side, a baby strapped to my chest, chasing a toddler while he (in an attempt to thwart my efforts to control him) sits down in a big muddy puddle. I also saw that both myself and M failed to bring the appropriate rubber boots. A tired mother yelling at her child because he would not change out of his muddy clothes convinced me that a pumpkin patch is not a place to go without re-enforcements and without adequate footwear.

As it turned out, an extra pair of hands were needed for a proper photo shoot. We got some great photos. The one above was taken with my iPhone. It attest to what a gorgeous day it had been, when even an iPhone can a great photo.