Finally Annika's birthday

Since our computer is now working for at least 5 minutes I'm finally going to post some photos of Annika's 4th birthday party.

Annika was weighed last week and was 12.3kgs, hopefully she can keep this weight on until her paediatic appointment next week.

Annika's horsey 4th birthday cake

Annika in her cute ladybug/Queen of Hearts outfit

Annika is doing really good at the moment. She has just started going to Puddleducks 2 days a week as well. She loves it. Anytime I take her out in the car she will sign Puddleducks. Such a swap from May and June where she didn't want to go to Puddleducks at all (very quick on learning how to manipulate the teachers with tears). Puddleducks were great at changing Annika's behaviour.

Back to work full-time and the chaos that now reigns

I can't believe how time has flown.
Since my last post Bella has lost 2 more teeth (only swallowing one of them) and has turned 7! Bella has also had her hair cut short into this cute bob and it really suits her. We went to the hairdressers where Bella told them just what she wanted, hair cut to just above the shoulders, which ended up being just below her ears (which is why I've always hated going to the hairdressers). She loves her haircut though and it really does suit her, I think I missed her lovely long hair more than she has. She looks so grown-up now and it really is much easier to look after her hair now.
Here's some photos of Bella's birthday party. They had an awesome time and it seems 7 is still a good age for fairy parties. Bella was very spoilt with a Dora the Explorer jersey from her Great Auntie Ruth, a tennis racket and a fishing rod (pink of course) from us. A jewellery box from Nana Chris and lots of games, books, a pair of pyjamas from Nana Corkran. Lots of cool stuff from her friends and many cards.

Bella's star birthday cake.

Bella and Annika (the beautiful fairy sisters together)

All the kids at Bella's fairy party;

Bella, Annika, Brayden, Nicole, Brittney, Emily, Skyla and Caragh.

Annika has finally put on all the weight that she lost in Austria. Yay. And the paediatrician has finally said they are happy with her progress. Annika's speech is going really good and she has over 90 words now (not that many words in sign though). Just when we think things are going well with Annika though she seems to like to remind us what our priorities are in life. Annika ended up in hospital again in May, on Mother's day of all days, no breakfast in bed for me. Annika had developed supra ventricular tachycardia (SVT for short) again and is now back on flecainide to control it. As this blog has been in draft for a month already I'll publish it finally and add Annika's birthday party to the next blog. Very soon hopefully!

Another tooth gone

Well Bella's fourth tooth has come out (and was swallowed too!!).
That makes 3 out of 4 teeth swallowed so far!!
I have to download a picture next time as Bella is so excited about having her 2 top front teeth missing. She loves to hear the song "All I want for christmas is my 2 front teeth". All the kids in Bella's class have at least one tooth missing too. She regularly wiggles her other teeth saying that they're ready to come out. She does it so often that now Annika also wiggles her teeth with her fingers too.
The day after the tooth fairy visited Bella was very excited that Tinkerbell and Isabella the air fairy (yes, she has 2 tooth fairies) left some fairy dust behind. She wrote a note, all by herself, that she would like some more fairy dust too please. Bella was so excited when the tooth fairies left her a envelope full of fairy dust (read glitter) this morning. However when she went off to try out a spell with her fairy dust she was a bit disappointed when it didn't work (what have we started!). I wonder what her spell was?

February and back to school

Wow the 1st of February already!!


Gareth had a birthday, which had a zero on the end and we therefore went out for dinner again. 3 times in 3 months, yay. This time we went to Bangkok Thai which was lovely.


The 26th January was a great day. Gareth's birthday was on that Tuesday. Annika had put on weight again. Up to 11.5kgs now. After 3 months, I'm finally relaxing about Annika's eating. She has very typical 3 year old eating behaviour really and she'll eat when she's ready.


And finally, on the 26th, Bella's top left front tooth came out! She didn't swallow this one, like she did with her first 2 bottom teeth that came out! The next top tooth is only just holding on, Bella is waiting until school starts before she loses that one. Can I show everyone? Can I take it to school as news?!

Bella's favourite photo of the moment!! Bella is cuddled up with her beloved Tiger.

Not to be left out Annika must have a snuggle too!

Weigh-in #5

11.35kgs. It's amazing what makes you happy and stops you stressing. Annika has finally put on some weight!! Well we weighed Annika for the fifth time since we came back from Austria and she now weighs 11.35kgs, up from 10.85kgs when weighed 2 weeks ago. Of course, like the stress machine I like to be, I think 500gms is too much weight to put on in 2 weeks!! But I know that our paediatrician at the hospital will be happy now!! We have been asked to put Polycal (20cal per 5g scoop) in Annika's food which we have been doing for the last 2 weeks but I feel they are worrying too soon about Annika's eating and lack of weight gain. We'll definitely stop the polycal if she puts on too much weight. I do wonder if they would worry if she was too fat (Annika was overweight when she was 7 months old and entirely tube fed but that didn't seem to worry them, the more weight she put on the happier they were - the only one who mentioned she was overweight was the plunket nurse, who also was the only one who noticed that Annika had a squint).
Bella is enjoying her christmas holidays. So far she's flown to Christchurch and spent 6 nights at her Uncle Jimmy's, with her Nana, which she loved. Done most of her craft things that she got for christmas; painting a mask, making a fairylite (ahh! nothing like the smell of melting plastic in the oven), made a rainbow fairy mobile. She has also started swimming lessons today and decided she would like to do ballet and gym if possible this year?! "But I'll only do gym if it's on at the same time as ballet, Mum".

Here's some great photos from the end of last year.

Annika in her labybug dress-up she got from us for Christmas

Gareth, Nana Chris, Annika, Bella and Nana Corkran


Our new addition, Tiger!!

The End of 2009

It's been so long since I've had time to write. So much has happened!!

Gareth and I have even had 2 nights out by ourselves, with no children and not having to worry about hooking Annika up for a tube feed. The first was for our 20 year anniversary (no not married but we still count you know) and the other was Gareth's work christmas do with the teachers of Rongotea school.
Bella has had a ballet recital with Maureen Ax school of dance and made a very pretty princess. She enjoyed her last term in Mrs Tornquists class at school. Next year she will be in Year 2 in Miss McLeod's class and is growing up way too fast. Bella's favourite present this year would have to be her new kitten, who she called Tiger. He's now 10 weeks old and spends his time terrorising the girls, when they aren't lavishing him with love? that is. Annika loves to give him big bone-crushing hugs and Bella is constantly picking him up and putting (rather roughly) down again. Will show photos when I get a chance to download some. Bella spent the week after christmas with her Nana down near Christchurch with her Uncle Jimmy. She came back very spolit and very happy.
Tonight Bella is at her Nana's with her cousin Alanna, who is visiting over from Australia after moving there a year ago. Alanna stayed here last night, with Bella and Alanna both supposedly sleeping in a kids tent in the spare bedroom (which lasted for 10 minutes for Bella before she moved to the bed!)
Annika has grown up so much in the last 2 months. She is using more words; me!! (so cute when she's asking for food), please, Tiger (very quick to learn this one), juice and just tonight 'beer'. Pointed to Gareth's t-shirt and said 'Dad' then 'beer' - hmmm, observant little one isn't she. She has also apparently grown 2 cms!? if they measured her right at the hospital. Annika has gone from 10.85kgs - to 11.05 - and back to 10.85kgs again. She still weighs in at 10.85kgs as at 29th December but she's so happy and active we're trying not to stress. Although the paediatrician was not happy with the loss of weight?? and Annika's limited diet (mostly custard and chocolate) but we keep reminding ourselves she's just been eating for over 2 months and weight gain and a varied diet is going to take time. We have got Annika eating more soups now (mushroom is a favourite) and are adding cream to everything we can, she's even eating some things with lumps in it depending on her mood. The paediatrician was so concerned she got the dietician to contact us, so now we have polycal to add to Annika's food as well as a lovely recipe book on what to make with the nutritional supplement Nutrini (revolting stuff we'd been tube feeding Annika with for 2 years). Very depressing visiting the paediatrician, I think next time I'll send Gareth and Annika by themselves (she wants to see Annika in 2 months time) as I didn't handle the last visit too well. I'm not sure I'd be so calm next time. I think it's too early to panic about Annika's eating and I don't want to stress like we did before with Annika's eating (or lack of it). It didn't help that my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels were low again and I had to go back on medication for it (diagnosed last year with hyperthyroidism). It certainly explains why I'd fall asleep at 7:30pm, felt like I had PMS all the time.... Gareth says it's like living with Jekyll and Miss Hyde but he's still alive to tell the tale so it can't be that bad?
Annika had many other hospital visits before christmas including an ENT one where he looked at her 'large tonsils' and suggested a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy as he's sure that she must suffer from obstructive sleep apnea. I'm to check whether she mouth breathes at night (or day) and whether she stops breathing while she is asleep. Oximetry readings we did for a night seemed to show several large drops to 80% saturation which is big indication that Annika does have obstructive sleep apnea. We have to go back to the ENT in February so we'll have to talk with him further about surgery for Annika. I did panic when the ENT first mentioned surgery as surgery on her throat so soon after getting her eating would not be good!! But I suppose it would take months for Annika to get through the public health system before surgery would actually happen!
One great hospital visit was the heart clinic where the found no detectible heart murmur and hardly any leak in her mitral valve. Also they said we could stop her flecinide medication for tachycardia (she hasn't had a episode for 2 years) straight away. Yay! No more medication!! It's been 3 weeks and no tachycardic episodes so far.
Annika also had her eye's checked and her eye sight has changed. She has astigmatism, which means her eyes are becoming a rugby ball shape. She needs new glasses anyway and will have her eyes checked again in 2 months (sometimes the hospital visits never seem to end).
This year will definitely be a better year though!!

Back home in New Zealand

Gareth, Annika and Bella - play picnic in Graz on the last day

We've been home nearly 2 weeks now and Annika is eating her way through all the custard and chocolate she can. We've been so tired we've been going to sleep on the couch as soon as the girls are in bed. For the first week we could blame it on jetlag and this week we're blaming it on colds but thankfully we don't have to get up and set-up Annika's tube feeds anymore! So maybe we're really catching up on all the sleep we've missed out on in the last 3 years!!!

Bella was very excited to be back and couldn't wait to go back to school (and to see Brayden) and tell everyone about her trip. And also to start back at ballet (to learn her part in the end of year ballet recital) and swimming (where she has moved up to the next level, the breathers).

Annika has been trying lots of different kinds of food (mainly junk, but as long as it is high in fat and calories), new favourites are; chocolate freddos, SKOFs (corn chips, BBQ and chicken flavours in tripod shapes), ice-creams (in any shape or form, MacDonalds are good), pretzel sticks, pureed kumara (have to add tomato sauce), anything that Bella eats (including tinned beetroot and she has a fork to stick into it like Bella does), pureed fruit (but only if it's mainly custard), hummus (great licked off toast).

We saw the dietician today who was impressed the varied foods Annika is having. She has given us a pamphlet of food ideas to try with Annika that are high in fat etc. She especially wants us to increase how much protein she is having. One way is to use "magic milk", which is 2-3 tablespoons of dried skim/whole milk powder added to 500ml of milk. Then add this "magic milk" to whatever we are making for Annika, like custards, milkshakes, in baking etc.

Annika was weighed on Friday 6th November at PN hospital and was 10.85kgs. We discussed briefly with out paediatrician about Annika's great progress to eating and agree to bring her in every 2 weeks to be weighed. Nikki, Annika's paediatrician is going to try and organise a paediatric clinic with her soon and wondered if we minded her discussing Annika's progress with colleagues in due time (read if she's still doing well in months to come).

We have found that Annika is not drinking a lot of fluids especially since the first week that Annika was tube weaned. We find ourselves constantly asking her to have a drink but hope this doesn't have the opposite effect as Annika has become more like a typical wilful 3 year old. She eats when and what she wants - for dinner tonight she ate some of the yummy banana muesli mixed with cream AND custard that we made up for her but much preferred to have a piece of beetroot like Bella had!! So hopefully we can get Annika to vary her diet but probably only if Bella eats it too!