V & D

I thought I'd seen pretty much all that a child could 'produce', and then Zack came down with gastro. We suspect it might have been the rota virus, but whatever the diagnosis, it is pretty disgusting. It began with vomiting on Friday night at 10pm and then we had diarrhoea for days on end, which seems to be abating today, finally. Poor little guy has been quite under the weather - subdued and listless. Can you blame him ?

You start getting desperate too. I know that the doctor and hospital will just send us home again because he doesn't have a fever, nor is he dehydrated. They want it to just run its course. So we did that - lots of fluids and monitoring. It isn't easy though. After yesterday I started wondering whether I should slip him an immodium, but the medical profession are dead against that. And then today, it seems to be a improving. He is full of beans and into everything again. Even attempting to walk a bit.

Life goes on tho' : we had a lovely lunch on the Bank Holiday with Frank & Aga, and my friends from the NCT, Amy & Matt, Trish & Shap. Two of Zack's little buddies joined us - Caitlin and Ruby. It was a good afternoon of hanging out without too much stress.

On the upside, Zack has been sleeping through the night over the last week, without waking up. Keith and I are so knackered, we've hardly noticed how much sleep we're getting. It's wonderful ! More of this please.

having a bit of fun on Uncle Frank's shoulders

If Zack was a pub...

he'd be called the Bite & Strop. Honestly, the way things are going at the moment, you'd think we were in the terrible twos already. Keith and I agree that there's been a very real change in his behaviour in the last month... He is so willful and will have a complete wobbly if he doesn't get his way on something. He is still hitting his head on the floor (or any other hard surface that presents itself), when he's frustrated. So much so, that Keith thinks there's something the matter with him. Daddy's can be completely obsessive too. It's exhausting. There is lots of literature about hitting your head - it's normal, esp. amongst boys.

Zack will bite me on my thigh when he's a klingon, on my neck or chest if I'm holding him - even when we're just playing on the carpet or sofa. He doesn't choose to understand "No Biting!", so we're going with the Thousand-Repetitions-School-of-Thought. I hope there'll be a peaceful little part of me left at the end of each day - right now I feel quite frazzled by the constant clash of wills.

And everyone says, "He's such a cute baby." Yeah! Right. Did I mention the biting ?

the itchy and scratchy show

Zack is in a new phase... he likes to pinch you when he's frustrated. And he's biting too, which is unpleasant. The question is : what to do to stop this behaviour ? I'm guessing it's a combination of frustration and teething. We'll need to manage it and be sensitive, because the temptation is to shout "no", and take a hard line. Many schools of thought, many different opinions.
In addition he's head-banging quite often, especially when he's tired or frustrated. He'll hit his head on anything sold (even my chest) and do it again and again, wailing all the time. He won't desist and the expression on his face says, 'mummy it's your fault this is sore'.

We can't talk, so we can't say what the problem is.

We have not been sleeping well at all. Zack has been up every few hours through the night. We're taking it in turn to get up and see to him, and yes, he was running a temperature yesterday and this morning - probably teething. I'm guessing it's a jet-lag/ body clock thing and he's got it all mixed up. He is going to bed on time, but he'll wake around 01h00 and wail, and then it starts sometimes up to every 2 hours. Exhausting. Thankfully we're staying with friends a the moment and there's enough space for Zack to be in his own bedroom, so the door will be shut tonight and baby will have to cry. Enough is enough.

7th tooth

Zack has been an absolute delight of late : in such a good mood in the mornings, playing by himself and paging through books, walking around on the zimmer (me). And today I looked in his mouth, and there was another tooth - bottom left. How exciting ! And he hasn't been too awful about it either... yes, he's not sleeping terribly well at the moment, but there you go.