Holiday plans

Both being in the tertiary sector now means for the first time we can take holidays at the same time. Previously Simon's down time was when the law students all turned up at the firms for summer clerkships - which meant that it was my busiest time. Now summer is quiet for both of us, and we're both compelled to take our 4 weeks leave each year or risk losing it.

So we've booked a week's holiday at Esperance in December, and a further 3 weeks in January. Add to that the public and University holidays between Christmas and New Year, and we have quite a long break. The January trip will be a bit of a test - we're driving almost 5000 kms to Brisbane, and then Harrison and I are staying for 2 weeks and flying back, while Simon is staying for a week and driving another 5000 km back to Perth. Some would say that isn't a holiday, but Simon is looking forward to it. It will be interesting revisiting places we haven't seen since our trip around Australia in 1994. The occasion is VJ's 40th birthday party, plus a general catch up, since it's 6 months since we were in Brisbane.

Gardening

We had a big weekend of gardening - Simon did an enormous amount of weeding, and shifted a cubic metre of mulch on Saturday. Unfortunately the back garden beds are all raised about a metre, so there was lots of shovelling required as we couldn't just tip the wheelbarrow load of mulch out onto the garden beds. Now the back and side all looks fabulous, and hopefully will survive a hot summer much better. Next weekend we plan to do the front gardens as well. We hope the landlord appreciates the expense and effort we're putting into their gardens!

Sunday was a bit of a rest day (the cricket was on TV and it was at least 35 degrees in Perth, so Simon did a bit of recuperating in the lounge room). We also started our Pilates/pool routine where I do a Pilates class at Inglewood aquatic centre and Simon and Harrison play in the grounds and the pool. Makes for a relaxing start to the weekend. Only issue is that the early class is a fitball/Pilates one and I am terribly unco-ordinated. I just managed to survive the class without falling flat on my face...

Harrison came through the endoscopy with no ill effects. He had the most wonderful anaesthetist (Craig Sims) who used magic tricks to have all the patients laughing and relaxed before their procedures. Harrison went under in my arms, and woke up happy, saying "it smells like bubblegum!". He's been talking for days about the very nice man who chatted to him and showed him stickers as he went to sleep. A lecturer from work had Dr Sims the next day for her son's general anaesthetic, and she also raved about how relaxed he made her son, and how happy he was when he woke up. Apparently the nurses in post-op love Dr Sims' patients because they're not scared when they wake up.

Dr Mews said afterwards that his small intestine was definitely atrophied, so the diagnosis is in no doubt. We go back on Wednesday for the follow up appointment. Our Medicare refunds last week totalled over $900, which gives an indication of how many doctors visits and pathology tests we've had lately.

Endoscopy

Tomorrow is Harrison's endoscopy. He's doing very well on his gluten free diet - loves his new cereal, and his special home made bread. I'm providing muffins and bread to Renee at daycare, and she is doing a great job catering for his needs and making sure he has something similar to the other kids for meals and snacks as much as possible. He seems to have accepted that babycinos no longer come with marshmallows (but I have to check if I need to request no chocolate sprinkles as well), and we carry GF mini muffins and rice crackers with us everywhere now. After a bit of reluctance he now eats "super" rice crackers (rice cakes). And he is making progress with his vegie intake too.

We went to the park at Jackadder Lake yesterday afternoon for the first time in a few weeks. Last time I took him to that park he clung to me, wouldn't go on the swings or slides, didn't want to go for a walk to look at the ducks, or even just sit on the grass with me. He just wanted to go home. It was heartbreaking, and at that stage we didn't have any idea what was wrong with him. Yesterday he was into everything, dribbling the soccer ball, wanting to climb on rocks, trip trapping across bridges, having fun on the slides, he fed us an imaginary picnic, and had to be dragged away from the playground at dinner time. It's such a relief to see him behaving like a healthy little toddler.

Update

We saw the paediatric gastroenterologist on Thursday and she is totally convinced he has coeliac disease. She was quite shocked at the extent of his weight loss and distended tummy, and has slotted him in at the top of her next list for the biopsy. In the meantime we've started on the totally gluten free diet. Dr Mews thinks he looks so severely effected that his villi won't recover in the week before the biopsy, and she thought it was more important that he starts getting well, so the normal advice to continue eating gluten didn't apply to Harrison. We're quite relieved to be getting some action, and are waiting hopefully for Harrison to start putting in weight again.

Virtual Bribery

We're really keen to get Harrison eating a decent amount now that he's a bit more interested in food (even though it seems to go straight through him). So when he loses interest in dinner I now resort to virtual bribery - I get out a food magazine and he picks something he'd like to eat. Then I pretend to feed him one mouthful of the food in the magazine for each mouthful of his real dinner. It's quite hilarious having him muse over which of the pictured dips to have with his virtual breadstick, or whether to have the photo of the raspberry from the top of a cheesecake or a bit of the "cheesecake" itself.

We also have to keep track of which character we're all playing at any time of the day. If he calls me Murray I know he's Jeff - and he says "oh, sorry, I was Jeff" if I get it wrong. We play the whole gamut of Wiggles characters, plus B1 (Harrison) B2 (me) and Morgan (Dad), mummy daddy and baby cats and dogs, and so it goes on. I don't know how he remembers who we're all supposed to be.

Cafe au lait

We had Simon at home all weekend last weekend, so did a fair bit of shopping on Saturday, and went out for breakfast and to the zoo on Sunday. George's at City Beach is becoming a favourite weekend morning destination. They have ridiculously large cafe au lait in big bowls (which I love). Zerbans in the same place is really nice too, and there's a park across the road for Harrison. There is a very steep hill between our house and those City Beach shops. I pushed Harrison in the stroller up there last week and nearly killed myself. My fitness aim is to do it at least once a week.

Terena and I are trying out aqua aerobics at the Bold Park Aquatic Centre on Friday. Again, if I walk there it's up that hill.

And we scored an appointment with the paediatric gastroenterologist next week! Things are looking up.

Here's one of Mel's photos of Harrison with chocolate all over himself.