Cara at Home

Cara at Home

One of our “recent” blogs had Cara coming home from hospital. Well as you can see she is well and truely home and almost one!!!! After a bit of shaky start she is now doing wonderfully.

The first three months of her life Cara did not want to be here. She was miserable, did not sleep and did not put on weight. There was nothing specifically wrong, just a prognosis of – “failure to thrive”. Not a pleasant phrase to see on your daughter’s medical charts. But once she learnt to smile, boy did she work it. She is now one of the smiliest, happy, energetic babies I have had a pleasure of seeing.

She is a pure JOY – so full of life. We are so grateful she is here.
While not taking away from Ellen, she has helped heal so many hurts that the death of Ellen brought us. She makes our family whole.

We are some of the lucky ones……
Thank you to everyone who shares our journey with us

 

Harry’s Birthday

Harry’s Birthday

Harry Turned Four Yesterday! I can’t believe how much he has grown. We celebrated his day with a small family party and a “H”cake. He was so happy, he sang and danced his way through the morning in his very cool Batman suit.

While we would be lying if we said that (as with all children), life with Harry has always been easy, yesterday was a wonderful day – a celebration of his life. Yesterday he was heaven sent and absolutely delightful.

He woke up singing he was so excited. Morning cuddles were followed by some present opening, and then some more cuddles for his beautiful sister who was now awake.

A great day was had by all of us. Who would have thought???????

 

Off to day care

Finally got around to updating a few photos on the flickr site. This one was taken this morning as Harry and Mum set off on the 200m walk to Harry’s new day care – he loves it!

 

Harry’s 2nd Birthday

Harry turned 2 a couple of weeks ago, so it’s high time a couple of photos made it onto the internet of the occasion. He had a great time!

 

Following in Dad’s footsteps?

Could not resist posting this photo!

 

Pa’s birthday, Beccy’s Christening, and other stuff

An eventful week or so for the family.  Pa and Grandma came over to celebrate Pa’s birthday (cake is a Harry favourite).  It was also Rebecca’s christening (Harry’s cousin) last week.

The photos above are posted using Picasa.  Thought I’d try the Google Picasa option to see how it works.  It’s easier to upload photos but I think Flickr has a better feel and can link with this blog better.  Anyway, enough of the techno details, you want more videos.

Harry’s very fond of the Wiggles. The problem is that Mum and Dad have had enough. The three Wiggles DVDs that we have have been watched to death. Mary’s good idea was to buy the Mary Poppin’s DVD for a change. Such decisions can have unintended consequences…

 

It’s been a while…

Harry and Sam

Almost three months since the last post here on the blog and a lot’s happened. We’ve settled in nicely to our new home in Dutton Park and are really enjoying being so close to the city. It’s about a 2 minute bike ride down hill to Southbank where the bike tracks and play gyms have seen a fair bit of Harry. It’s also been great to catch up with some more friends – and for Harry to meet some new ones.

 

Harry and Lachlan

Two little boys

It was a great surprise to catch up with Bill, Linda and Lachlan on the weekend. It’s fantastic to watch two toddlers have a really good time together!

 

Rebecca Genevieve Hardy!

John, Debbie and Rebecca

Harry got his first cousin earlier this week (and Mary and I became aunty and uncle). Exciting stuff!!

 

Goodbye Townsville, Hello Brisbane!

Harry and Jim sit down for a chat

We finally arrived in Brisbane, a couple of weeks ago now.  We’re living in Yeronga, which is pretty much close to everythingas far as we can tell.  Harry’s now got a backyard to play in (at least 10x the size of the strip of sickly looking grass that passed as our backyard in Townsville) and heaps of new friends and family to meet and get to know better

The move didn’t go all that smoothly though.  Harry decided to get sick again at the end of October and the timing couldn’t have been worse.  He ended up in hospital overnight, with the packers arriving the next morning.  As it turns out there was some good amongst it all.  The good was that tests showed Harry’s neutrophil levels have risen out of the ‘neutropenic’ range.  After about 6 months of recording values of 0.1 – 0.3 (he was even measured as having a level of 0 at one stage!) his count is now over 1.  So with a bit of luck Harry’s neutropenic phase is behind us.  Of course the fact he had been neutropenic was the whole reason we ended up at the hospital in the first place, with a fever and other signs of infection a trip to the emergency ward was the low risk option for him.  A couple of follow up tests over the next couple of days revealed it was just a viral infection and he was pretty much back to himself within a week of arriving in Brisbane.

It was a bit sad to say goodbye to Townsville, particularly to Jill and Kent - thankyou so much guys! Without Jill (Harry’s non-blood Grandma) it would have been pretty tough over the last couple of years.  However, so far it’s been good… actually it became fantastic today when a mate offered me a ticket to the first Ashes test! – Davo, I owe you many, many beers! – now that wouldn’t of happened if we’d been in Townsville!

 

So much news!…

It’s been an eventful month since we last posted.

• Gran and Grandbob came to stay for a few days – here we are down at the Strand.
• Harry added kicking the ball to his list of skills (both left and right feet Pa!).  Here’s the video evidence.  He’s also mastered climbing the back stairs even while carrying a walking cane (he looks a bit like Moses without the beard when he does this).
• and…
• We’re moving back to Brisbane!!  After a great 2.5 years in Townsville we’ll be back in Brisbane in about 3 weeks (anyone want to buy a house in Townsville?).

 

Back to hospital

A friendly nightime visitor

Tell me why I don’t like Mondays… Actually normally I have no issue with them, just when we have to make a visit to hospital for Harry. He had an abscess near his ear that had to be cut out and drained. The procedure went well and he’s fine. It’s funny how these minor things can get you so worried. Unfortunately the trip to the pediatrician to investigate the abscess also brought some other news – his neutrophil count is still extremely low. This doesn’t seem to be affecting him though – on the whole he’s happy and healthy. The bad news for Harry is it means more doctor trips and checkups over the next few months.

On a lighter note, after I got home from the hospital I could hear something rustling through the small bush in front of our place. Lo and behold, it was Eddy the Echidna (now I read so many children’s books I’m totally into alliteration!). Not as cute as Harry, but it’s pretty cool to know they’re in the neighbourhood.

 

Father’s Day update

It’s been an amazing few months.  As I’ve been telling people, when I went to work during the first 8 months of Harry’s life I didn’t feel like I was missing out on too much (he didn’t really change too quickly).  But now he seems to be doing something different almost every single day.  This evening he gave us a piano performance (apologies for the injudicious video editing).

The last few weeks have also reminded us what we went through to bring Harry into the world.  A couple of other web sites are referring to our site (NHIC, blogher) and we’ve also been emailing couples who’ve been through similar experiences in Canada, New Zealand and Perth.  The tragedy is that to get to this point we’ve all lost a child.

 

Happy First Birthday Harry!!

Happy First Birthday Harry!!

We couldn’t let today pass without wishing Harry a happy birthday. The party will continue on the weekend… it’s been Harry’s party for the last 365 days!

 

Harry takes a few first steps

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Well from a half shuffle on the weekend, Harry is rapidly progressing towards becoming a walker! Couple of video clips in here of him today as he’s has quickly jumped from crawling to auditioning for a snare drum role in the under 1’s marching band.

 

Harry goes to Paluma

We had a great long weekend (thanks to the Show Holiday here in Townsville). We went for a trip up to Paluma on Sunday with Teresa and had a fantastic time. Harry chased turkeys, got a lesson from Teresa in how to keep his hat on, rode a horse, and then got up to mischief at home. You can watch it all below on the small video by clicking this link (yes the brush turkeys are there if you look hard).

 

Harry Update

It’s been a while since we’ve provided a decent Harry update.  The world cup hasn’t helped, getting up in the middle of the night for a couple of weeks straight takes it out of you.  The saving grace for Mary has been that at least if Harry wakes up I’m on call.

The last month or so has pretty amazing to watch Harry.  He’s not walking yet, but not far away.  Today saw him take a few half steps on a couple of occasions, so I’d say he’ll be walking by the time his first birthday comes around at the end of this month.  In other news on Harry’s likes, dislikes and development…

• He’s been starting to use signs (we’re attempting to teach him to sign) with more confidence.
• His favourite book is “Where’s My Teddy” and he loves turning the pages by himself (though has little concept that pages should [did I just say should?!] be turned in sequence) – it’s the first book I’ve learned by heart.
• He still loves baths, but unfortunately hasn’t been able to get back into swimming.  We’re waiting til his neutrophil counts (which are still low) start to rise.
• His babbling is becoming more recognisable but don’t think we can claim any real words yet.
• He was weaned a good couple of months ago, and now happily drinks from a bottle he holds himself.
• Loves playing with his toy blocks, and is able to put square blocks through square holes… but relies heavily on a brute force solution (actually this applies more generally to his play… “gentle Harry, gentle…” He’s also started to throw the blocks (Hmmm I may have taught him that) looks like he’s right handed, but the evidence isn’t conclusive.
• He sleeps pretty well – about 7pm to 6am, though sometimes wakes a bit earlier.
• He enjoys music – particularly when I play a recorder for him.  He quickly want’s to have a go but hasn’t quite worked out how to blow, he has however, put litres of dribble down that recorder!
• Likes getting outdoors and is able to sit in the same spot playing with a hose for 30mins+.  Up at Paluma yesterday he spent an equivalent amount of time trying to chase down brush turkeys.

The whole child development thing is absolutely amazing! 

 

Visit to the Aquarium

Look at all the fish Harry!

Harry checked out the fish at the Reef HQ Aquarium today. Nice way to spend the Monday holiday.

 

Experimenting with youtube… A Harry Video

I was inspired by Mick and Mel's blog site (I used to work with Mick in Isa) who used youtube to put together a groovy video of their ski adventures.  Naturally I've attempted to use this for the purposes of sharing Harry videos!  Unfortunately our wordpress site doesn't seem to be able to cope with the idea of embedding the video, but you can access it by Clicking Here.  In this episode Harry demonstrates his easy going nature and a growing musical talent?!

 

Harry makes the Front Page!

In case you didn’t catch the Townsville Bulletin last week, Harry’s story made the front page. This was backed up with a great article on Page 5 (Click Here for the link to the article). There was even an editorial!