Notes on the life, times, and development of Miss Zoë Bromage, as recorded by her mother. Also includes minor notes on updates to this website.

Thursday, June 28, 2001

She got a nosebleed last night. No idea how, as neither of us were in the room when it happened. Andrew and I had put her in her cot in the darkened livingroom so she'd go to sleep, which she did. But when Andrew lifted her up to put her to bed upstairs, she had dried blood all around her nose and face!

Andrew used to get spontaneous nosebleeds when he was a kid, and eventually he had to have the inside of his nostrils cauterized. I also frequently had nosebleeds as a child, sometimes spontaneous, and sometimes in response to a little bump (something as innocent as reaching up to scratch my nose). I eventually outgrew it, but still sometimes both Andrew and I get the occasional nosebleed.

So I'm thinking that perhaps Zoë managed to inherit the tendency to get a bloody nose and she's just gotten her first one. Or, maybe she was picking her nose (yes, she knows how to get her little fingers in her nostrils) or I suppose she might have slipped and fallen, but there's not much in the cot that could hurt her (the sides are even mesh!).

It's completely gone today, by the way, with no sign of starting up again. We'll just have to keep an eye on the situation, I suppose.

:: posted 28.6.01 :: link

Zoë is finally starting to really talk, to use words to express herself rather than just make noise. Her most common words right now are: up, Daddy, baby (that means herself), kee-kee (cookie or bickie, the American and Aussie terms for the same treat), drink, down, and no.

She doesn't pronounce any of those clearly, mind you. "Baby" is mostly "ba-ba" and "Daddy" is "da-da" and so forth, but she's very definitely using them consistantly as words. She says "na-na-na-na" (translation: no no no no) when she's been told "no" or prevented from doing something, and normally she sobs it very dramatically to express her frustration.

She's been able to talk for ages now. It's only recently that she seems to have decided that talking is actually useful.

In other areas, we went for a visit to my best friend's place and Zoë got to interact with other kids (ages 3 and 5). She mostly ignored them, occasionally tried to take things from their hands, and cried when one of them took something away from her, but there was no blood shed or loss of limb. When we got ready to go, she gave Auntie Lori and Isaac (age 5) kisses, quite voluntarily. Very cute, I want to tell you.

She is also entirely and completely over her recent illness, including the very bad rash she had on her bottom. There is nothing more pathetic than a sick toddler.

:: posted 26.6.01 :: link

Well, the busy girl is busy again. This is a good sign. She seems to have an appetite and although she's still got some diarrhea, it's much better now. She's been drinking a lot, so she's not dehydrated. In fact, today she's been pretty much alert and playing again, which is a huge improvement over yesterday, when all she wanted to do was sit on me and watch television. She did end up sleeping in our bed with us, which is another way I knew she was very ill (normally she refuses to sleep in our bed, much preferring her own, where she can kick the covers off and flop all over the place). The worst part of her illness is the very, very red rash on her bottom from all of that diarrhea, poor kid. But, she seems to be past the worst of it. Whew. A sick Zoë is not a pretty sight.

:: posted 14.6.01 :: link

She's very noticibly sick now. The fever went, but she's had mild diarrhea for a couple of days and today she had several enormous, foul-smelling bouts of diarrhea. She's got no appetite (she's had a bit of cereal and a few crackers today, but that's about all). She mostly wants to just be held and to watch television. Right now she's sleeping, but she had a few episodes of crying in her sleep, poor kid.

I'm noticing a pattern with her, and that's that she tends to get an upset tummy and diarrhea very easily. I guess she's just susceptible to that particular kind of illness.

:: posted 13.6.01 :: link

Zoë's got a bit of a fever. It's not very high at all, but I noticed it earlier and took her temperature. She had some children's Panadol and the fever went down, but she's still very, very irritable and she wobbles around a lot when she walks. Poor kid. I dunno what she's got, but she's pretty unhappy about it, whatever it is.

:: posted 10.6.01 :: link

She has entered the picky eater phase. She will eat chicken (but only in certain forms), french fries, fruit fingers, milk, juice, dry cereal, some kinds of fish (depends how it's prepared), scrambled eggs and bacon, crackers, and potato chips (not that we give her a lot of them, mind you). That's about it. If you noticed that there are no vegetables on the list, very good. She will sometimes eat breaded vegetable fingers if she's very hungry and she's not being offered anything else (and that includes a drink). She also won't eat any kind of red meat at all, no matter what we do to it or how we prepare it.

I know this is normal. I'm not terribly worried about it. We keep offering her a variety of healthy foods and that's the best we can do. If I start to get really concerned, I'll look into giving her supplements of some sort (I'm most concerned about her iron intake, which isn't very high). For now, she's doing all right on one meal a day and several small snacks. I just keep telling myself it's normal, she'll grow out of it, it's normal...

:: posted 8.6.01 :: link

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