Letters to my Grandchild

You just LOVE it when we sing Happy Birthday to you!  We started singing it to you about three weeks before your birthday and you started to join in - pursing your lips, "...tooo-yooooouuu.  Happy buffda toooooo... yoou!"  And, as soon as we get to the HIP HIP HOORAY you throw your arms up in the air and shout HOORAYY!!!!  Every day, for a couple of weeks, we spoke about your 'Par-tee!'  "What are you going to have for your party Em?  Balloons! YAY!  Fweeties, chips, joos - YAY! bistits, tate, ice teem, YAY!"   Your birthday party was lovely.  It rained on Saturday (the day of your birthday) but was bright and sunny on Sunday when we had the party.  Mom chose a barn-yard party theme so the paper cups, serviettes and cake decorations on your number two cake she baked were farm animals.  She bought you a gorgeous new outfit - denim dungarees and a checked blouse.  There were coloured helium balloons with lon...

Hello my noo-noo, I am so sorry that you have had another fracture baby. On Tuesday night you slipped in the kitchen at about 6:45pm and sustained a hairline fracture on your right tibia.  We didn't know about it until your Dad phoned us at 9:15pm to say that you were in a cast again.  They had taken you to Entabeni, had the x-rays and you were home already.  It took me back to the days when I did that with Mark. I didn't tell anyone when he broke until after he had been treated and brought home.  It was so much easier and less traumatic to do it that way.  Tammy put the old gutter splint from your last fracture onto your leg and Dr Stead agreed that it would be fine not to apply a new cast.  Patty and I popped in to see you on Wednesday night and you were quite subdued.  When I asked you what that was on your leg you said, "Emmy boom. Ouch!"  By Thursday when you visited me wearing a gorgeous polka dot dress and matching cerise pink ca...

Hello Em, Last weekend we all went to the Umfolozi Game Reserve.  Gumpi and me, you and your Mom and Dad, Greg and Sharon and Sharon's parents Rita and Dennis.  Its the first time we have all been away together and it was great fun!  The Umfolozi Game reserve is the oldest game park Africa and it used to be the favourite hunting ground of the Zulu kings, especially Shaka.  The Hluhluwe/Umfolozi park was established in 1895, mainly to protect the rhinoceros which had become endangered. 280km is a long way for a little one like you to sit still in a car so Mom and Dad left very early, straight after you woke up. They attached the portable dvd player to the back of the driver's seat and you were able to watch Barney - your favourite dvd - on the road. We left at about 6h30 and finally caught up to you at the Petro-port where you had stopped for a nappy change and something to eat.  We drove north to the Memorial Gate at the Hluhluwe entrance and drove ...

Hello my darling Em. You are now 22 months old, have a vocabulary of about 50 words, understand at least another 100 words, can still sign at least 20 words.  And sometimes you sound just like your Mom!  When you see something wonderful you say, "Oh WOW!"  (Just as she does).  When we say thank you to you, you say, "No problem" and when something disappoints you, you say, "Oh no!" And, you have become a Mommy's girl.  You don't like to let her out of your sight and if I play with you, you take your Mom's hand and say "Come mommy, come."  You wave your little fingers as though calling a dog! On Saturday I babysat while your Dad drove your Mom to the airport. (She was going away for her friend's hen party).  You woke up while he was gone and when I went into your room you were rubbing your eyes and calling, 'mummy-daddy, momma-dadda!'  As soon as you saw me your face dropped and you said, "Oh no!"  I couldn...

Hello Em my darling.  I am baby-sitting this morning while Mom helps out for a couple of hours at Derivco.  Because I'm still nervous of you walking, I plonked you in the pram and took you for a nice long walk after Mom left.  We usually go eastward up Anthony drive all the way to High Ridge (about 2km) looking at birds, flowers, dogs, cats, other walkers, aeroplanes etc along the way. There is one verge along the way that has a long hedge made up of different coloured bougnvillas. You know the word Bouganvilla and I always show you the flowers on our plant at home. Here are some of the colours we see. When we walk along Anthony, we look out for the bouganvilla and I pick a few flowers of each colour for you to Oooh-and-aaah over. You also like the Hibiscus hedge at the corner of High Ridge and Anthony becuase the branches with flowers on are low enough for you to reach. It is so sweet when you take on and hold it to your nose to smell! This morni...

Hello my noo-noo!        Mark has taken a couple of weeks leave and said that he has had a 'baptism of fire' with you walking everywhere.  You have started letting go and taking off - sometimes lurching, sometimes stumbling.  Its really scary!  I don't allow you to walk alone when I'm around so I hold onto the back of your shirt and onto one hand and walk behind you, doubled over, all over the house!  Sometimes you take us by surprise.  You'll be standing next to a table or chair and the next minute you've let go - it freaks me out!  We all said that it doesn't matter if you only learn to walk when you are two but now that you are 21 months old and are starting to take steps, we are all holding our breath!!  I really, really hope that you do learn to walk without any falls, accidents or fractures but every time you fall we nearly die - like today in the lounge you tumbled side-ways onto your hip and poor Mark went whi...

Whoo-wheee!!!!  Mom sent a message to say you had taken your first steps!!  You stood up, in the middle of the lounge and took four steps unaided!  If I had been there, I would probably have rushed forward and grabbed you as you took the first step!  We are baby sitting tomorrow night and but I don't think you'll be doing much walking on my shift!!

I went away for two weeks Em.  I accompanied Patty on her dream trip to Russia.  Patty has wanted to go to Russia for a long time but her health has deteriorated so much that she thought she would never get there.  So, on 22nd June we left for St Petersburg for a river cruise on the Neva, Svir, Volga and Moscow canal system to Moscow.  It was wonderful but I missed you while we were away.  Last weekend you had to go into Parklands for your PAM treatment.  Mom said that Dr\Roos was away so Dr Jonathan Egner did your treatment.  I've known Jonathan for a long time - since the early days of SAIDA.  Did I ever tell you about SAIDA?  It stands for South African Inherited Disorders Association and in the '70a and 80's it was really a big, busy, active organisation with about 16 affiliated genetic disorder self-help groups.  Jonathan was involved with the CF (Cystic Fibrosis) group - I think he still is but his prime interest is paediatric...

On Monday Mom took the cast off - just three and a bit weeks this time.  You are giving me the heeby-jeebies crawling around and trying to stand again!  Yesterday I baby-sat while Mom had an appointment.  That is actually a bit of a misnomer, because when I 'baby-sit' I never actually sit! I push you in your pram - usually along Anthony Road all the way to High Ridge (about 45 minutes) and back, past your home to Wedgewood Crescent.  Yesterday we walked around Wedgewood and stopped to look at a lovely grey cat sunning itself behind a fence.  I called the cat and it came over.  You looked over the side of your pram and said, "Heyyo woo-woo!"  I told you that it was a Kitty and twirled my fingers next to my cheeks - the sign for kitty.  I picked the cat up to let you stroke it.  You are afraid of animals and pulled away but you touched it and pulled your hand away.  It stretched, rolled on its back and started cleaning and p...

Oh dear, Em, just when we thought you were doing so well, you fractured the right tibia. It was almost mid shaft and the fracture stopped where the Pamidronate lines are.  Its interesting to see the white lines on the x-rays, like the growth rings on a tree. (This is not a picture of your bones but it does show the Pamidronate lines). Dr Stead has put a half cast on - a back slab - which should only be on for about 4 weeks.  The cast is held on with a crepe bandage and Mom bought a whole lot of different colour self-stick bandages to put on top. Patty gave Mom money to buy you a little scooter and you loved being pushed around the garden path.  You can see your yellow bandage on this photograph. After a few days you started leopard crawling around the house, dragging your casted leg behind you!  And then, after just a week, you started trying to stand. Last Thursday - 2 1/2 weeks after the fracture - you went for a check up and an exray and it showed that t...

Hello Litle Em, You had your Pam treatment again this weekend.  It is going much better now that you are allowed out between treatments.  You were in a different ward this time, sharing with a little boy - 18 months old - who was in for chemo as he has cancer of the kidney.  It is really sad to see some of the children in Parklands and we are so grateful that you are not sick, don't have a disease or a life threatening disorder. When Mom brought you round to the house, I tied a bandage on your dolly so that you both had a bandage on your head. 

Hello little Em, It was a BIG day for you today!  You attended Day Care with your Mom this morning for two hours, just around the corner from our house.  When Gumpie and I walked the dogs we came back up Heather Road hoping to see you at 8h30 and as we turned into the road, we saw your Mom's car and Dad right behind her.  So, we were able to see you before you went into the house. Mom said that you loved it!  She said you laughed a lot and loved being with the other babies.  Your favourites were Aiden (who is very quiet) and Hannah.  It went really well and you will now go twice a week - Wednesdays and Fridays - from 08h30 to 10h30. I am SO pleased that you are going to be able to socialise with other children Em.  You were 18 monthsold on Sunday and you have never had a friend or other children to play with.  You are always with adults and, as a result, you have a wonderful vocabulary, are quite precocious (in a good way) and you are advanc...

Hello darling Em, Two weeks ago you went in to Parklands for your Pamidronate treatment - but this time it was different. Dr Roos agreed that you could go in as a day patient. The hospital made a bit of a mess with your first appointment though. When Mom and Dad took you at 8am they were told to come back at lunch time as there were no beds available for you. So they went back at 1pm but then Dr Roos was consulting and couldn't get there until after 5pm. The tube and drip only went in at around 5:30pm so you had a long first day, only getting home after 9pm. Mom says that you screamed when Dr Roos put the needle in and then started signing and saying, "No more! No more!" Poor Dr Roos was quite upset! The next two days went much better and Mark and Tam brought you around here on Saturday so that they could have a little rest. You still had the port in your head and a bandage to keep it in place but it didn't seem to bother you.  On Sunday the treatment went very smoot...

Hello my darling Emily, I am convinced that your brain is like a mainframe computer that absorbs and stores every input.  Yesterday I showed you the sign for please (clockwise rub on the chest area) and today when you came to visit you asked for a banana.  "Say please" I prompted and you immediately rubbed your chest!  You are just SO bright, so clever, so smart, so amazing!!  Tammy took you to the clinic the other day and the sister asked if you could say between 6 and 10 words.  Good grief - you had a 20 word vocabulary when you turned one and now, between words and signing, there is hardly anything you can't say:  umbrella, broom, swim, pool, cheese, juice, thank you are some fo the new words, and - you understand everything we say. You are due for your next pamidronate treatment in a couple of weeks. The months pass so quickly and it seems like last week that you were in hospital. Mark contacted Dr Roos and asked if they could take you home between...