Movement in progress -Spica Cast recovery.

When we were reading up on Spica casts many parents were concerned and asks questions about how soon and how quickly their child would and should start walking again (if they were walking to begin with). So I decided it might be helpful to keep track of Curious George's progress.

So it's been a week and here's what's happened so far. With encouragement and just a little bit of pushing he has come pretty far in a week.

• First day he is too across to even sit unaided but by the end of the evening is trying some leaning forward and balance himself with his arms to fetch toys. 
•  Next I encouraged him to sit on the floor and play rather than propped up on the bean bags, which of course he preferred as he felt safe and was used to it. The big trucks, we rediscovered in the garage, greatly aided this process as they didn't fit on the play tray.
• At the same time we encouraged rolling around on pushing up from his tummy by playing on the our king size bed.
• Next he figured out how to sit up from lying down. Once again reaking havoc on sleep time. 
• Then he started getting into crawling position and reaching forward for toys.
• Then he started to crawl a little and bum shuffle a little.
• Then he really got into a rhythm and it was just like having a little crawler in the house again. We didn't realise quite how lax we had become with baby proofing since he has been imobile. 
• Now a week on and he is starting to push up from crawling position onto his feet and hands (like a downward facing dog pilates position). Today he was even brave enough to try successfully standing and climbing on and off the couch.  Sorry for the terrible lighting in the video but it was one of those moments where you just grab a recording device (in this case the IPad) and hope for the best.

Sitting unaided for the first time and playing with his big trucks.

Nursery inspiration - Gillmore girls and vintage tea cups.

With a huge renovation on the go, a 21 month old just out of a Spica cast and a traveling husband my second pregnancy seems to be flying by with little to none of the attention Curious George's pregnancy was given. I am by told, those in the know around me, that this is very normal with number two. Especially if the two are close together.

I've been craving some way to kick that mother-daughter connection into gear. Now in the third trimester, she's much bigger and bouncer than ever and I am now in the truly broody phase and desperate to do some nesting. Unfortunately as you can see on Going Up, Growing Up our house is not in the same phase as I am and so there is nothing to decorate or make nesty yet. In fact at this point only the shell of the nursery exists, no walls or floors. What a pain, I'm desperate to do something..... so I'm planning and shopping. Both are very extremely fun but unfortunately not particularly fulfilling. Oh well.

My best friend is a big Gilmore Girls fan and recently she lent me the first couple of seasons. I've really gotten hooked and it was during one episode that inspiration for the nursery first struck. Impressive right - inspiration for a colour palette from a TV show. Well its unusual but not unheard of (I hope or else perhaps pregnancy has just wired my creative juices strangely).

So now I'm on fire and going great guns with the nursery planning - 0 to 100 in the 45min span of one Gilmore Girls episode. Thanks Nici and Lorelai. So here's the inspiration and colour palette for my baby girls nursery. For a mother who is a designer at heart this is super exciting and has really forged the connection I was craving with my little swimming daughter.

So here is it. Turquoise, Pink and just a hint of gold (not the shiny ostentatious kind the mat antique jewelry kind)

Pink, Turquoise and a dash of dull gold.

When I was searching for the turquoise, pink, gold combo I found a beautiful vintage tea cup and was inspired by them as well.So here's a 'board' I put together of the tea cups I love.

Colour palette inspiration from an awesome site called Design Seeds. These were my favs.

Oh dear can't remember where I found this but the colour scheme is perfect.

The Spica cast is off

20 March 2012

Today the cast came off. We were so excited. We were even given an earlier slot in the surgery schedule so we didn't have to wait all day, just till 2pm. 

Curious George was not at all happy to be back at the hospital but he soon relaxed and by the time we were waiting in the pre-surgery area he was chatting and laughing about some car racing on the TV.

After the procedure it was a different story though. By the time I got to the recovery room I was greeted by the worst sound a mother can hear, her child screaming for her in a sobbing, hoarse voice. When the nurse cradling him handed him to me my first thought was how light and flexible he felt in my arms. How wonderful it was to cuddle my little boy again. Apart from the obvious shock of waking up after anesthetic without mommy to greet him, he was in serious pain from a terrible flare up of his dermatitis. The skin along his spine and in the folds of his upper thighs was red, raw and full of little blister-like marks. It looked so painful it made me want to cry. He screamed and cried for over an hour until finally a good dose of paracetemol, some Epizone E (moisturizing ointment) and some Happy Feet on TV calmed him down.

The thing I noticed the most was that he was terrified to sit on his own and couldn't figure out how to sit up or hold his own body. This passed as the afternoon wore on and by the time the doctor got to see us he was sitting propped up on some pillows in the hospital cot and he had worked up the courage to lift his own head of the pillows an lean forward to fetch toys. 

The doctor was happy with the way the break had healed. 'Now don't let him break it again' he warned jokingly serious. He told us that we should just follow CG's led in terms of getting moving again and that the would probably start by crawling first. 'Take things easy the first week and no jungle gyms'. We are truly thankful for his expertise, advice and exceptional care. 

That first nappy change was pure bliss and being able to hug him and put him on my lap was wonderful.  I'll keep posting on his progress as the weeks continue and we make our way, finally, back to some form of normal. 

Broken leg outstreched as he was very nervous of hurting it. It was a bit stiff and sore.

He decided that he needed to wear the theatre cap all afternoon.

Curious George explains how he broke his leg

Curious George has been explaining (for weeks now) to anyone who will listen how he broke his leg. Its how he introduces himself right now. You say "Hi" he says "broke" and makes the sign for broken. It is so cute. I thought that this was something I definitely had to capture to show him in the future. So with a little prompting I got it on film. Enjoy.

Dealing with cast smell

The big tip that everyone will tell you is to keep the cast clean and dry. This is a fantastic tip and it is completely true however it is just about impossible. Once you reconcile yourself to that fact then your life with the cast will be much less stressful.

Yes, we tried our best to keep poo and wee off the cast but there were 'incidents' and sweat becomes a big issue as well. So each morning I do dry the back edges of the case with a hairdryer on the cool setting. If we have a big spillage we dry with the hairdryer or the absorbent kitchen cloth.

We have also used baby cologne (Johnsons and Johnsons) and vanilla essence to mask the smell. Curious George has very sensitive skin so I did not put the baby cologne on his skin. With the baby cologne I put some on a piece of cotton wool and then dabbed the edges of the cast around the nappy area. I also squirted little amount into the outside nappy. With the vanilla essence I also just dabbed some on the cast edges with a piece of cotton wool. Vanilla does a good job of nullifying scents.

However the thing that worked the best was something I invented (a little bit of blowing my own horn - sorry). I read that some people had sprinkled bicarbonate of soda on the cast. As we all know bicarb is great for soaking up smells - most people I know have some in their fridge. I tried sprinkling it on the edges of the cast but I was worried that it would cause CG a rash, plus it just makes a huge mess. So what to do.

Well I came up with the idea the bicarb bag. I used a filled a close weave teabag with bicarb and then taped it to the cast as you can see in my post on Nappy Changing. At the end of each day I take the bicarb bag off the back of the cast and throw it away. It works wonders at pulling extra moisture out of the cast and soaking up yucky smells. I put the bicarb bag on the part of the cast that seems to get the most damp each night.

Here's the how to on making the Bicarb bag.

To make the bicarb bag you will need a close weave tea bag (bags for things like rooibos tea have too wide a weave and the bicarb falls out), Micropore, a pair of scissors and some bicarbonate of soda.

Cup one edge off the tea bag and pour out the tea leaves. I used some apple tea I had in the cupboard which I really didn't like.

Fill the tea bag with bicarb to about 3/4 fill. Then tape the bag closed.

Nappy (diaper) changing box of tricks

We put together a box with everything we needed for nappy changes so that we would have everything on hand whereever we were in the house.

1. Plactic Storage tub
2. Nappies in two sizes - we used Pampers Active size 5 and 6
3. Maxi Pads - we used StayFree Ultra Thins with the cottron touch cover. We chose these because they are cheap and they have a cotton cover and not a dry max cover like Always which might have irritated his skin.
4. Panty liners - we used Comfite Body Shaped Panty Liners. Once again they were cheap and had a cotton cover.
5. Cotton Wool
6. Super absorbent kitchen cloth
7. Scented Nappy Bags
8. Baby wipes
9. Plasters to cover any rubbed area of skin. In this picture is Primapore.
10. Nappy rash creams.
11. Baby cologne

12. Scissors for cutting the cotton wool and tape.

13. Linen Saver for changing incase there are any leaks.

14. MoliMed adult pads

15. Micropore

15.

14.

Nappy (diaper) changing in a Spica cast

This is something I really wanted to share because for me this has been one of the hardest parts of the Spica cast. Just trying to figure out how to put a nappy on Curious George required some serious Internet research. We found some very helpful websites and YouTube videos. Take a look....

Hip Spica-Baby-Toddler-Toileting - The Steps Charity You Tube videos on Spica Casts so look the others up as well.
Caring for an Infant/Child in a Spica Cast
Hip Spica Cast: Info for the Worried Parent
Spica Cast.com - Cast Care Tips. On this site have a look at the images of the pads around the cast as well. This is where I got my idea from.

Dr Greg told us that we must keep the cast clean and dry otherwise it would really start to smell terrible. We had also read some others experiences with this. So the first few days were very stressful for this perfectionist mom trying to keep the cast perfectly clean and dry. You'll be relieved to know that after a week and half I eventually gave up and realized that with a little one in nappies this really is not 100% possible.

At first Curious George had diarrhea from the antibiotic he was on which made things even more difficult. Once that calmed down things definitely got easier but it was still taking us at least 20 min each time and we were really struggling to keep the cast clean and dry around the edges. We put together a Nappy (diaper) changing box of tricks with all we needed so we could change him where ever we are in the house.

1. Change the nappy regularly. We eventually settled on a schedule which worked for our child. Change the nappy every 3 to 4 hours during the day. When there's a poo change it straight away. At night we eventually worked out a nappy and pad combination that allows us to change him just before bed, half way through the night and as soon as he wakes up. We did this because waking him up with a nappy changes through the night was terrible for him and us.

2. We used strips of cotton wool around the top of the legs of the cast, as in the photo. We cut strips of cotton wool about 3cm wide and long enough to fit from the back of the cast leg (on the bottom side) all the way around the cast edge to the front (the penis side). We pushed the edge of the cotton wool into the edge of the cast on each side. This words very well, especially for poo, as it causes a dam that keeps everything away from the cast edge.

3. Protecting the cast with pads and panty liners around the edges works very well. However we were not able to do this during the first week as the cast was still quite tight around the edges. As he wore the cast in and the padding got squished up a bit I was then able to fit more padding around the edges.

4. We tried all sorts of tape to stick the nappy and pads to the cast and discovered that the best was Micropore. It is an opaque fibre medical tape, a little like masking tape, just much more pliable. We did read that some people used masking tape but we found it didn't bend enough or stick very well. Unfortunately Micropore is expensive but it works the best and so we have just incurred the cost and written it off to a sanity necessity. Our motto has become; anything that can make life in the cast easier is worth it. With the Micropore you must rub the tape into the cast with your fingers, espceically round the edges, to get it to stick really well. We used 45mm x 10m rolls and so far have used up 10 rolls (do not do the math.... at R40 a roll.... you'll freak out).

5. Just as shown in the YouTube clips we used a smaller nappy inside a larger nappy. We pushed the smaller nappy into the front of the cast, pushed it in around the edges of the legs (making sure the little elastic skirt was under the cast around the legs) and pushed it in at the back. We then taped each side to the cast. See photos below. Each Spica cast is formed slightly differently and so the space your inside nappy will need to fit into will differ. We used number 5 pampers active inside and a number 6 pampers active outside.

We remove the tabs of the inner nappy as they are not needed and the front ones add extra bulk and the back ones stick to the skin.

6. To deal with leaks we always wiped the area as best we could under the cast using a baby wipe. For bad leaks we then dried the cast edges with a hair dryer on low on the cool setting. At the moment I dry the back edge of the cast every morning because it gets drenched with sweat at night and was beginning to rub his skin and smell.

7. To deal with the inevitable cast smell (no matter how careful you are it WILL start to smell) we used the bicarb bags, baby cologne and vanilla essence. I will expand on this in another post as this post is getting rather long. Here's the post on Dealing with cast smell.

8. At night we add an adult pad, Moli Med midis, to the back of the nappy to stop urine from running around the edges of the cast and off of the absorbent centre core of the nappy. See photo below.

9. My last tips is that you will need loads of patience and perseverance. There were a couple of times when we had big poo leaks up the front of the cast or into the leg of the cast. These made me really panic and being a perfectionist mommy did not help. These changes took about half and hour to make sure we had all the poo out (or as much as we could possibly get to).

In the mornings we do a long nappy change which includes drying the back of the cast and adding all the pads for the day. So for this change we lie Curious George on his tummy on some cushions on the couch and he watches TV. This change started off taking about an hour it now takes me 20min.

This is what the back edge of the cast looks like before we add the maxi pad. You can see the dirt which has seeped through. We discovered that this is actually body dirt and sweat more than anything else. This photo was take around week 2.5, the dirt stain is now much worse.

The top edge of one of the cast legs before the panty liner is put on.

I bought a super absorbent kitchen cloth to absorb some of the moisture under the cast edges. It turned out to be most useful for protecting his skin from the hairdryer while I was drying the cast.

After the cast is is mostly dry I stick on the Bicarb Bag, with Micorpore to draw out smells and damp.

Next I add a maxi pad over the whole back cast edge. I pull off the wings then stick the one side to the cast with Micropore. Then expose the pads own sticky strip and wrap it over the edges and tuck it under the cast edge.

Here, along the front side of the cast, I stick panty liners around the edge of the cast legs in the same way I stick the maxi pad on. At the top edge of the cast near the penis I stick a panty liner up the front of the cast and then tuck a part of the liner inside the cast. Its difficult to see in this photo but there is also cotton wool around the cast edges around the legs.

Here I am tucking the elasticated wings of the nappy inside the edge of the cast leg after all the pads are in place.

I then stick the nappy to the edge of the cast from the back, along the leg to just beneath the bottom to hold it in place.

Then I put the bigger nappy (size 6) over the smaller inner nappy (size 5). This nappy goes over the cast and around the waist and holds the more delicate under nappy in place and helps with any little extra leaks that might happen.

5,4,3,2,1 ...... Cast off

We've got under a week left until the cast is removed, yay. Both Curious George and I are excited and relieved. I can't wait. To help him make it to the day we're doing a count down like we do When daddy is away.

6,5,4,3,2,1 ...... Cast off.




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Scratching an itch - spica cast tip.

The other night Curious George asked me to scratch his short cast leg for him. He was very itchy and I spent a long time rubbing under his short cast leg while he went to sleep. Luckily I have long fingers so I just put them inside the cast edge and rubbed every where I could reach.

Them he asked me to 'scratch' his other leg - the full cast one. Oh dear. Fortunately a very helpful physio, who came to visit us and give us advice in the hospital, had given me a good tip for this. She said that if you gently tap or bang on the cast with an open hand near the place it's itching then that helps to confuse those nerves and distracts the brain so the itch is not as bad. I tried this with great success and CG was eventually able to go to sleep. What a great tip, thanks Georgie (the physio).


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Talking maths with your child

Found this article online and thought it had some interesting points and good advice.

Take a look.

Why It’s Important to Talk Math With Kids

Baby Sign question answered

I received the following question via my Facebook group, a day in the Peas Pod. Please feel free to join me there is you'd like to follow our daily lives.

My 2nd girl is 15months now, and knows what she wants! My sister says you used baby sign with Curious George. She knows a few basic signs that I got from a book. Too late to teach her more? What resources did you use? Our home language is Afrikaans but my older girl is bilingual. Do you think that will be more difficult for little one to adjust? Thought I'd pick your brain, though porridge brain might interfere:)

Thanks so much for your question, I love being able to help out where ever I can. I hope you don't mind if I answer your question on my blog. I think it's a great question and others may benefit from the answer.

I would highly recommend baby sign. We are truly seeing the benefits now. It was really fantastic that he was able to communicate his needs to us when he was in the hospital in traction with his broken leg. At the moment he tells anyone who will listen the story of his leg - he makes the sign for ball and says ba ba, then he says bick (his word for fall over) and then he makes the sign for broken (which we made up for him) and points to his leg. So you can see that at 21 mnths he is using a combination of signs, words and sounds.

I definitely don't think it's too late for your daughter to learn baby sign at 15mnths. She will probably learn the signs quite quickly once she realises that they help get her what she wants. CG learnt the sign for broken after my showing him just three times. Every child is different so I would just suggest trying some signs and seeing how you go.

We used Baby Signing Time DVDs, which you can read more about in my Baby Signing Time post. The DVDs are in English but there are many other Baby Signing time resources you could use that you could translate; there are apps with the flash cards and there is a blog which has some of the signs on it. I also Googled some signs, which Baby Sign didn't include, using an American Sign language website called Signing Savvy and then just showed CG the signs myself. This is how he learnt the signs for some of our African animals like hippo, lion, giraffe etc.

As long as you are consistent in using the sign every time you say the word and saying the word every time your child does the sign then you should be able to teach any words you like. At first I was against teaching CG general words like train or car. I didn't want to stunt his speech at all and only wanted to use the Baby Sign to help him communicate his needs. So I didn't re enforce these words beyond what he saw on the DVD. However he picked them up on his own without me repeating them during the day and started using them himself to communicate. He was so excited that he was able to 'talk' to us and tell us about the things he saw around him that in the end we just went with the extra vocab as well. His ability to communicate his needs, feelings and thoughts astounds me each day. Of course we are really the only ones who can understand him at this point but I suppose this would be the same if he was using grunts and sounds like other little ones do.

We have heard some people's concerns that we will stunt his speech development because he is not being forced to speak to make himself understood. My opinion on this is two fold.

1. At this age and stage of development what they are really developing is the ability to communicate. I am not worried about what form the communication takes as long as his ability to do so is being developed. Words will come in their own time. Just like crawling leads to walking. Every child moves through the movement milestones in a unique manner but all (except a rare few) will walk and then run. As long as I am not concerned about comparing my son to other children of the same age (which as you know is never a good idea anyway) then I see no issue with the actual spoken words coming a little later if that ends up being the case. However we have already watched him drop many signs in exchange for the words. After all every one understands the words but only mom and dad get the sign. When he starts to speak in earnest I am confident that his vocabulary and ability to express himself will be far more advanced than if he had not had baby sign. I'll keep you posted.

2. One of the key reasons for communication is to have ones' needs met. I would rather have an himself understood. CG has even made up some of his own signs for things and people to get his point across. Just as other children might say woof woof for dog before they actually say dog.

In the end I think you could quite easily teach her some signs in Afrikaans the sign wouldn't matter as long as she understood the meaning and more importantly that you are able to understand her. I'd try some signs and see how you do. It will take some repetition before you see any results so I'd give her at least two weeks. In the end if it doesn't help you won't have done any harm (her ever expanding brain will simply kill off the synapses for the signs as it learns other things) but if it works your life may suddenly become much much easier. 

In-cast enteraintment part 1

Here's some of the things we've been doing to keep busy. Some ideas for anyone who finds themselves in this predicament - ie entertaining a once mobile toddler with sitting still games all day.

Visting the ducks at Emmerentia Dam

Making crazy clay blob creatures. Mommy makes the balls and Curious George puts them together.

Making patterns and towers with  magnetic Edushape Magic Shapes from Think Toys.

Playing IPad games of course. This big smile is for the Noah's Ark book.

Reading the Yellow Pages (which I was using to prop up a puzzle) has become a firm favourite.

Look mommy a mommy and a baby (the arms are the sign for baby) hippo.

Rolling balls down our TV tray

You know you're a mom when .....

.... you have loads of books you're dying to read but you can only concentrate for long enough to read/browse a magazine (even when your child is asleep).


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Cut yourself some slack

When we heard that Curious George was going to be in a Spica cast for 4wks we did what we usually do, go to the Internet and start reading. There were a lot of great tips and tricks out there which I was and am very thankful for. I'll try to find the links and put them in a post for anyone who finds themselves in this situation.There were also a lot of great ideas for mobility devices and entertainment ideas. I thought 'great as soon as I get home I'll start creating and making these things/games to make our lives and CG's life easier and better'.

However when something unexpected like this happens there is little time to get organized. Especially if you have to spend a week in hospital. By the time you get home you need to have gotten yourself organized except that you weren't home to do any organizing. Well that's old Murphy for you. So you hit the ground running and on the first day you find that you can't even go to the loo cause there's nowhere to put your child in the bathroom and he can't sit even sit on his own.

Well we're officially one week in and I have done very little making or creating and our lives are most certainly not easier. Just getting through the day feels like wading through mud  - which my thighs will confirm from all the standing up and getting down to the floor to play with CG in is bean bag. Everything takes 6 times longer and at the end of the day, after at least 30 to 60 min of lying with CG to get him to sleep while he cries about being stuck, I'm far to exhausted to be creative. I'm lucky if I can muster the energy to talk to my poor husband - mostly he just gets sobs.

So I've decided it will be a good idea to put to paper some of the things I/we have instituted since we've been home. That way I can make myself feel better. So here goes,

1. Put up the side car cot in our bedroom again so CG is sleeping right beside me and can easily be looked after during the night.
2. Borrowed bean bags from my aunt so he has somewhere comfy to sit in the lounge and tv areas.
3. Put the car seat from my moms car into the bathroom so he has somewhere to sit so I can go to the loo.
4. Organized a tv tray (with the help of my mom who bought it at a Hopsice shop) so he can play games on his lap while sitting in the bean bag chair.
5. Put a whole bunch of sit-still games together in big plastic tubs in the lounge for us to easily access for play time. 
6. Sort of figured out how to make the nappies work and dry the cast when it inevitably gets wet.  
7. Figured out to to fit him and strap him into his existing car seat so at least we can get out and about. 

Ok well that does sound like quite a bit after all. So I will definitely be cutting myself some slack now. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad