Prep

Today is the last day of the school term.

Tova has been going to school now for a few weeks full time and taking the bus all by herself to get there!
Thank goodness that Tova likes the bus, actually Tova LOVES the bus. On the weekend just past, she took me outside to go and wait for the bus. She also spends much of her time signing (in Auslan) "School Bus".
It would have been quite different if Tova didn't like either the bus nor school. I feel lucky.

School holiday programs have been way too hard to find. We have ended up having to get a nanny so that Yuval and I can still work and Tova doesn't just get plonked in front of a TV for 2 weeks.

Nissim is really becoming a great big little brother (he is bigger than her but younger). He loves making Tova laugh and tries very hard to play with her even though she isn't as interested in his games as he is. But they are great together and can spend quite a bit of time together laughing and entertaining each other now. It is great.

The Growth Hormone seems to not be bothering Tova. She is very good about having the injection each night. She cries sometimes and laughs others. I stuck the needle into my leg one time and didn't even feel it.. I'm not sure why it makes her cry. But it does.. often. Yuval and I love Friday nights as it is our night off the injection.

Tova had her eyes tested recently. No eye problems.. yay.

That is about it for now. There have been no hospital visits since the last one posted on here. We can only hope for no more ever!

 

SCHOOL

So creche is finished and now Tova is at school full time. wow.

Tova has swimming at school every Thursday. I went to watch. She did much better in the pool without me in there with her. MUCH better. She swam with her teacher Andrea. Tova loves Andrea the most apparently.

After swimming was home time. Tova went on the bus for the first time.

Andrea took her to the bus and read her a book she made (Andrea made) about taking the school bus to and from school. Andrea sat with Tova until the bus went. I raced home so that I could meet Tova when she got dropped off. Tova is the first off after school and last on in the mornings.

Apparently Tova was happy and smiling on the bus trip - all 15 mins of it.  That's lucky.

This morning the bus arrived out side our house at about 8.20. I put Tova on. She wasn't terribly impressed about it and I did have to sing a nursery rhyme to get her to sit down.

I then followed the bus to school. She was apparently happy on the bus.

By the time I got there someone had already taken Tova down to her class room. So I walked down there. She was in a different room having cuddles with one of the other teachers. She looked at me and could see her own class room and indicated that she would rather be in her class room than with me. So, off she went to her little desk and asked for Maths.. she most certainly doens't get that from me.

Today, she will get the bus home and I won't even be following it.

The next school day is Tuesday as Monday is a public holiday. But it seems that things are finally about to settle down into some sort of routine. Just in time for school holidays to shake it all up again.. :-)

following-bus My Tova is in that bus!! The bus company are getting brand new buses over the next couple of weeks too! This one is so loud and clunky, I thought it was going to wake up my entire street this morning.

Tova in my car. Tova in School Uniform. Tova in my car. Tova in School Uniform.

Monash Hospital for Croup Yet Again

5.45am - I woke to pitter patter of little feet walking to my bed room. Nissim stood next to me and told me he had been having bad dreams. Through the monitor I then heard Tova breathing badly. Great... croup... stridor...

I went to her room, Yuval put Nissim back to his bed and Tova joined Yuval back in our big bed while I went and got Panadol, pred and Ventolin.

Being a bit out of practice with the hospital bags (and not having one packed anymore), I took ages to get everything together. Tova had seemed to calm down a little bit after half an hour. But not enough, so I drove her to Monash. I didn't feel like calling the ambos. So I drove the 4 mins to the hospital.

When we got there she seemed to have improved a little more. Still, she had that stridor. So I went in. There was not one person in the waiting room. We were sent right in.

The doctor on duty in the peads emergency ward said "Hi, I'm Ari".. I said "oh good, someone that will actually pronounce Tova's name correctly without me explaining". He then quickly switched to key words in Hebrew when he spoke to Tova. He was LOVELY!!!! He blew up a blue glove like a balloon (Tova LOVED him for that), then he drew eyes and a mouth etc on it to make it a fish. He and Tova played catch for a bit then she didn't want it anymore so Dr. Ari put it in the sink, turned the tap on and said "Fish swimming now".

It had been an hour since I gave Tova the pred. It had started to work. So NO ADRENALIN. There were some touch and go moments in there and at once stage the adrenalin neb was set up, but Tova started breathing just fine. So we ended up staying there for about 5 hours, no extra drugs, then home.. amazing.

The last croup was in November I think. So we are getting the episodes further and further apart each time. It seems to have gone from every 3 weeks to every 3 months. NOT BAD!

The doctors were all quite impressed that Tova is on Growth Hormone and said that it will help stop the croup too! GREAT. They better be right because Tova cries almost every time we give her the injection. Poor baby. She doesn't try to stop us giving it to her, in fact she get ready in a comfy position, but she knows it is going to hurt and she looks a bit worried and cries and then is fine. Yuval and I both hate giving it to her and always want the other person to do it. Tova likes it when Yuval does it the most.. which is fine by me! Poor Yuvie.tova wondering what to watch first, the ipad or the dvdI asked for a cot because Tova loves to jump and fall off beds when I am too tired to pay attention. She actually really enjoys being in the little 'jail'. I like her being in the cot too, as I can take my eyes of her for moments at a time. One of the last times we were stuck in there she threw herself off the bed (which I had lowered to the lowest setting). I had passed out, and she was on Adrenalin.. I think I had managed to get 1 hour sleep before I had to rush her to hospital, so as the hours ticked past I fell asleep, and was awoken to Giggle, THUMP, CRRRYYY.. So this time I avoided it by the use of a cot.. and anyway, she was quite reasonable this time with her croup.. it was almost 6am.. I can handle that.

 

School, Eating and Hormones for Growing

Tova loves her new creche. Taylor her Aide came along from Chabad Glen Eira to the new creche, which made the transition much easier. Tova and Taylor have both been there since Late January, 3 days a week. It has been great for Tova to have someone like Taylor in her life, knowing how to feed her and communicate with her, they even have their own special secrets and games that they play together.

However, for some reason that I am not quite sure about I decided to enrol Tova in school. I had a look at about 5 schools last year, not expecting to send Tova until 2014. I really don't know what happened but for some reason I kind of just fell into the school and the idea that Tova could possibly go this year. So for two days a week over all of Feb, Tova has been attending Prep. She took a few days to get used to it and I couldn't leave, but for the past 3 or 4 visits she has loved it and I have even left her there for 2 full days.

She is starting to do what the teacher says, like "stay in your seat"... I have spent quite an amount of time sitting in the back of her class room, watching. It is great to see that Tova will learn so much. The teachers and the schoool SEEM fantastic. I hope they really are fantastic.

We will however be sad to say goodbye to Taylor whom has now been offered a full time job at the creche.

The school are happy to take time out to feed Tova and will even try and teach her how to self feed!

Another crazy thing we have started is Growth Hormone. This drug is a bit scary. We have been thinking about it for about a year, and were even still trying to decide if we should go ahead right up to the last moment before we gave Tova her first injection. Yuval and I feel like it is something that we must try. This magic drug has the potential to help with Tova's muscle tone. Our friend has been using it on her son for over a year and she says she can't believe the difference it made in her son's muscle tone.

It is a scary drug because it has some horrible side effects. So far Tova has suffered from a few of them, we first noticed them at about the day 3 mark. Tova is more tired, seems to be uncomfortable and is rubbing her ear more than normal. I think she is a bit consipated too. Today at school they said she wasn't herself all day. She had frequent bursts of sadness. This is so unusual for Tova. She was the same when she got home and for the rest of the afternoon and evening. i gave her tpanadol after dinner (which she didn't eat).

At about midnight she woke up hungry, Yuval gave her a midnight snack. I watched her eat. She is so cute. I am still amazed that she eats with her mouth.

So this growth hormone is an injection into the fat part of her thigh 6 nights a week. Tova hates it, is scared and cries just from seeing it. Poor baby. She also makes yuval do it so she can hold onto me tight. Poor Yuval.

I think we will call the nurse tomorrow and ask if the side effects stop soon or not. It is bad enough that it hurts her giving it to her.. Stupid side effects.

I just hope we see some dramatic changes in her to make it all worth while.

ALSO, Tova has been seeing a very lovely Chiropractor for the past few months. He has managed to get the fluid from Tova's ears to bugger off. For the first time in Tova's life she doesn't have fluid on her ears.

Toilet training is going just fine. Slowly but surely. Almost every poo is in the toilet.. wee is a bit harder for some reason. Tova loves wearing pull ups.

Nissim is being a good boy and once Tova is settled into school Nissim and I will have Ima and Nissim Tuesday every week! I think we will start up swimming lessons again. And perhaps something else like kick boxing or what ever 4 yr olds do once a week for 'sport'. 

Ok, so once I get a school uniform I will post a pic of Tova 'first day of school' kinda thing.

Now just to get over to Lively Eaters to get Tova eating independently. Or anywhere that has an eating school! That would be great. 

Doing Poo

Ok, so yes, I gave up toilet training after about 8 days of my house being a big wee wee nappy!!

However there is some success! Tova now does poo in the toilet as long as we get to her when we see the warning signs. So far all but one have been done on the loo!! Congratulations Tova!

She loves sitting on the toilet.

Our next challenge will be wee! Yuval and I went back to the continence nurse to talk about strategies. We have our plan and have put into to place at home and child care.

The nurse, whom is very impressed with Tova and has much faith in her, said that she thinks Tova will be fully toilet trained within this year!

Incredible! I am so proud of Tova.

Eating is pretty much the same, but we are going to shake it up this year.. I hope we get to Lively Eaters soon!

No hospital for quite a while.. I think it has been about 2 months! We are loving it.

There was an ambulance parked out the front of our house the other day, it gave me a fright because I immediately thought of Tova. But it must have been for a neighbour.

Nissim is great.. cute! He lost his voice the other day, he isn't sick at all, just not much voice. When I asked him where he thinks he may have lost it he told me that it was somewhere in his head right now.