Eminem played an amazing gig last night!

Apparently....I wouldn't know much about that because I didn't go. Haha (can you tell I am just slightly jealous?). Our family went to the hot pools instead, along with my sister and her family. The kids had an absolute blast! My older two had new snorkelling gear to try out and loved practising what they learn at their swim lessons with my sister and her fiancée's older girls. All the kids (including the two biggest kids - my husband and my brother in law) spent ages running up to the top of the hydroslides and coming zooming down on the mats, being hurled into the water at the bottom and fumbling around a sea of people to find the right way up. The bigger kids at the pools kept blocking the slides so that when the next lot of people came down the water would come gushing out, tumbling people upside down. Was hilarious to watch peoples faces as they came caning out into the sunlight.
Of course, after watching for ten minutes or so, Olive decided she wanted a go. So Eddie took her on the slide with him, and shared his mat. My sister and I watched, phones poised to record, expecting them to come out the slower slide. Next minute, Olive and her Dad come whooshing out of the faster slide, Olive being held high in the air so as not to go under the water.
'MORE!' comes her little voice.

Of course she wants more. Of course.

We were all over it by dinnertime and got out to get changed. In the changing rooms, I stripped Oli off and as I went to dry her she, being the mischievous toddler she is, ran off. There were a lot of people in the changing room, and I was well aware that my daughter was zipping around nudey rudey and she had a very very noticeable giant mark across her back that most doctors (let alone your average person at a pool) have never seen. I automatically expected some stares and whispers and as she whipped out into the corridor in front of a woman of about 50, I was anticipating a reaction of some kind from this lady whose view was the different back of my precious babe.

'And she's off!', was all she said, with a big smile at me - obviously someone who understood toddlers....a Mum to Mum smile.

I grinned, grabbed my baby and took her back to clothe her.

God bless that sweet woman, for normalising what I anticipate people making hard for my beautiful and naughty child. She made my day.

Ready or not....

As parents, we are designed to protect our young. It is the natural instinct that comes to us, generally (of course there’s the odd exception), from the moment our child is born. It is instinctual to protect them from harm and to love and nurture them. Of course, our own upbringing often comes into play with how we behave with our own children but the natural course is overall, to protect.

You are probably aware that Eddie and I never wanted to treat Olive any different to our other children, though it is actually inevitable that there will be differences anyway – as there are with each child you have, and their siblings. There are differences in how you parent your eldest and your youngest, your boy and your girl, your twins and your singleton and so on, whether we like it or not.

I’m not sure if it is the fact that Olive is my last baby, or because she has a difference, but I definitely feel super protective of her. In some ways, I am more relaxed in my parenting with her, (letting her climb things even though it gives me heart palpitations, or allowing her to have probably far too much chocolate!) but when it comes to trusting others with her care, I am not very good at letting go.

I let both my older two children cry it out in order to get them to learn to put themselves to sleep, instead of being fed or rocked to sleep. It was torture with Jaxon, and I remember crying on the phone to a friend while 8-month old Jaxon was crying in bed.

When Olive was younger, she would make herself throw up with the way she cried. If she wasn’t ready for bed, she would do this awful throat thing and make herself vomit throughout her bed. For us, letting her do this went completely against the grain of the Nurture side of parenting. So we didn’t let her do it. We let her get away with far too much – we still do! – And have learnt instead to read her signs, as opposed to us dictating when she goes to bed.

Jaxon started community kindy at 2.5 years old. Meisha was 7months old and whenever we dropped him off or picked him up, she would crawl around and play and paint as well. So when she turned two, it was her time to go off to kindy. They both thrived there and it gave them a lot of confidence with other people and in themselves.

With Olive nearing two, and being the social butterfly she is, we have been contemplating whether to enrol her. The kindy in question is not in our current area, we would have to drive across town but I know all the teachers and they know Olive from when she was born (Meisha was 4 years 8 months when Oli was born, so still at kindy for a short while).

Our issue though, is that there are not set age groups. With the 2 year olds are also 3 and 4 year olds. Which worries us because Olive is really active. She climbs, and runs and talks. Older children may mistake her for being more capable, and what if she fell and tore her nevus? We are always going to have this in the back of our minds, but we have decided right now, we are not ready. I think I will enrol her at the local kindy instead, which takes children at just over 3 years old.

So while we are not ready to let her go off into the big bad world on her own, we are ready for a bit more Nurturing. We feel it is a real responsibility as her parents to have an active role in the nevus community, as small as it is. Haley (Olive’s ‘same/same’ friend) and I are going to organise a New Zealand get together, and Eddie and I are going to try our best at getting our family to Australia for the January 2015 conference. It has been a goal of ours since Olive was born and we learnt about Nevus Support Australia and Nevus Outreach. But we always said we would not take her unless we could take the older kids as well, to avoid that ‘special treatment’.

So that is our 2014 goal. To get our family to Australia after Christmas this year.

 

 

When all of a sudden, you realise that the condition you once thought would dominate your child's life, has in fact become a back seater in all the goings-on.

The Girl is almost two! Well OK, it's still a few months away but she is now 21 months and that is a lot closer to 2 than 1. She is a bright wee 21 monther as well. Olive is already talking in sentences of up to about 4-5 words. She has great manners and thanks people appropriately for anything they may give her or do for her . She apologises if she thinks she has done something wrong ('Oh sowweee Mummy'). She has grown up etiquette when people arrive to visit ('Hi Rach, come in!'). And she surprises us with the 3 syllable words she manages to pronounce to almost-perfection (delicious, attitude).

Olive is at a mischievious but oh, so fun stage in her life and it is starting to drive me bonkers, though I can't help but laugh. She is testing the boundaries, with the odd swear word thrown in mid conversation (always in context mind you! I really must watch my language more :-\), climbing eeeeeverywhere, running away when she is naughty, amongst other things.

One thing that infuriates me, is she bites shoes. Jandals, in fact. Meisha's jandals looked like a puppy had got to them, with all the knaw marks and chunks around the front of them. Then she started on her own. More chunks and bite marks. So we got them all new jandals for Christmas - you know, brand new, lovely clean looking new jandals. Except, after today, they are all brand new, lovely clean looking jandals with great chunks of the toe part missing.

Yesterday we rescued a young kitten and have made it a home here while we look for her owners. Olive has taken great delight in welcoming this kitten, Sadie as we have named her for now, to our family (as have the big kids). Olive bounds after her like a miniature ogre, stumbling and fumbling to touch this little ball of fur. She also tries to take some responsibility by helping with feeding Sadie...by putting kitty litter in her milk, and cat biscuits on the floor.
The 'help' aside, she is lovely with Sadie and pats her with a soft fat hand whilst nodding and repeating her mantra of, 'gentle, hi cat! Nice cat. Gentle...Hi cat! You right cat?...gentle. Niiiiice cat'. She likes to prepare herself for a hold by sitting down, getting her legs all in the right position and farting around for far too long and then having a quick 2 second hold before Sadie's tail scares her again and she is off to the next thing.

Amongst all her character building and quirky days, she has had a few rough days as well. Our New Years Eve was cut short as Olive came down with a fever which at the time I didn't know the reason for. It appears it was due to a new tooth erupting and was giving her grief, poor little mite.

She has also had a few instances lately where she has scratched her back. One was on my bracelet, another on my sisters bracelet and another on something unknown. All 3 times, her nevus skin has broken and bled. It has reminded us how sensitive and fragile it is. She is such a regular toddler and lives her life so normally that it is easy to forget sometimes a little extra care is needed with some simple things. In saying that, while these scrapes have obviously hurt her and she has cried, she is tough as guts at other times! She falls over and scrapes her knees, gets up and soldiers on.
There have been so many times lately where we would expect tears and sobbing, that I actually asked Eddie if he thought she felt pain! lol.

For all her funny, and humourous things she does and says, there is still nothing better than waking in the morning to this little face saying, 'morning Mummy!' and snuggling her tiny body into mine to spoon.

I'm often told I should start a blog just for the funny things Olive says. Perhaps it is because I have forgotten what my older two were like at this age, but I'm sure Oli is the funniest kid we've had. She is a wise old soul and has been here before, I am sure. There is a certain 'knowing' that radiates from her. She is like an adult in a tiny person's body. This post is purely to give an insight into Life With Olive.

Recently Olive had a sleep over at her Pop's house. She was a very big girl and was very good for Pop, and thoroughly enjoyed her special time with him. When he dropped her home, he told me he'd finally figured out what she'd been giving him...I cracked up. I'd forgotten to warn him that she likes to pick her nose and shove her hand at you saying, 'here yah! Have it!', heavily demanding you take the booger from between her fingers. Revolting little mite she is!

I've mentioned before about Olive making friends when we're out and announcing her arrival whenever we get somewhere by loudly proclaiming, 'hello!'. Most shop keepers find this utterly amusing, as well as most passersby.
Recently I went to the dairy to grab a few baking things and Oli came for the ride. There is a lovely Chinese man who owns the dairy and my Aunty also works there. Of course, Olive got doted on by the both of them and Olive was eyeing up the ice cream as Choy, the owner, scooped one up for other customers. As soon as I'd politely declined my Auntys offer to buy the kids an ice cream, Choy came over with a vanilla ice cream on a cone for Oli....that was it. She was his best friend. The entire way home, she repeated over and over - 'hanks Choy! hanks Choy!'.
Once home, she showed off to the big kids that she had an ice cream and they didn't. While Meisha tried to hide the fact that she was more than a tad pissed off, Olive continuously knocked on the door of the room Meisha was in and whenever Meisha looked, Olive would take a biiiig lick of her ice cream and announce, 'ICE CREAM!'. Needless to say, Meisha was not impressed!

Speaking of when we are out, Olive has decided to no longer call Eddie Daddy, but to call him by his name. So often when we are out, she makes him look like my boyfriend lol. Sits in her buggy, calling, 'Hi Mum! Hi Eddie!' and just the other day she even made another transition when she called, 'Ed!!'. It makes me laugh every time.

She is at that terrible in between stage - the one where she is old enough to be naughty, but too young to really understand,' NO'. She has taken to climbing the fireplace, the tables, the TV table, chairs....ugh, my nerves!
Distraction seems to be the key, though she can also be a determined little blighter. On the odd night her bedtime is later than the big kids, she runs into the room and speeds up to Meisha's face, saying 'hi Moo, hi Moo' (we call her Meisha-Moo).  Tonight she was doing it so I sat in the doorway to block her entrance. She proceeded to full on head charge me, ramming at them, trying to get through my legs.

Olive has a scream to rival a banshees. I think because we are all so loud and talk over the top of each other (terrible trait, I get it from my Father's side :P), she has learnt to do the same. As soon as we all start having a conversation, Olive will start demanding something - anything!- at the top of her lungs. Failing that, she will just sing her go-to song: 'why, why, why, why whyyyyyy'. Thanks for teaching her that one, Grandma.

This daughter of mine is going to have a shoe fetish when she is older, I'm telling you now! She is forever eyeing up people's kicks. She chose her own pair of Puma's one day at the shoe shop, by walking into the shop, grabbing that pair of shoes, demanding 'on' to the salesgirl, and then announcing, 'bye!' once on. I'd like to say she has style but she actually doesn't. She loves traipsing around in different shoes, different sizes. Doesn't bother her if one has a heel or if they are two left feet gumboots, or if they are 10 sizes too big. She just. Loves. Shoes.

Being the beginning of December, we have started to bring out Christmas Decorations. We have a large ornament/contraption thingy which is a scenery of a snowy mountain with lights and train tracks and all that jazz. There are two little train tracks on which two little trains go around and around to Christmas songs. Little Miss has take it upon herself to stand and watch, dance for a moment or two, clap in delight and then promptly take each train off, claiming the thing is broken 'Boken, mum! Boken!' I am dreading putting the tree up.

The other day, Olive wandered around chiming, 'can't can't can't'...only her pronounciation was way off and she was rhyming it with 'runt' instead of 'aunt'.

She tries to sit on the small Barbie furniture, the couch and bike, horse and what have you. The sheer determination of trying again and again without frustration, when the tiny piece keeps buckling astounds me! Size doesn't fit in anywhere for her.

Olive likes to greet people she likes with, 'hey buddy'. After she farts or burps she says 'pardy me!'.
When we go to get in the car, Olive will run and say 'fwont!' copying Jax and Meish, even though she is never allowed in the front and I doubt has any idea what it means!

Some of these things exasperate me (especially the climbing!) but she gets away with it all most of the time. I am probably making a rod for my own back and all of that, but this kid does all of these funny things with such charisma and humour that it is hard to not see the pleasure in it.

Fingers crossed it doesn't turn out to bite me in the bum!

People can always pinpoint the exact moment they found out News. Good news, bad news - it is often highlighted by our surroundings and events to make the moment memorable. The way our bodies absorb everything happening around us, when in the actual moment, we often feel as though we are wading through thick mud...things are blurry at the edges and you don't often take note of any of the finer details, until much much later when you can tell your story.

Tonight, Dad and I were telling our stories about when Olive was born. He was looking after my two big kids, and they were all excitedly waiting for The Phonecall. Except, when he got The Phonecall, it wasn't quite the one he expected and he then had to break the news to my brave big babies that there was something 'wrong' with their sister. (I use the term wrong in this context because at the time, we had no clue as to what it was with Olive and Mum, being the messenger telling Dad, truly thought we might still lose Olive. For the record, I hate the reference 'something wrong' to be used with my little girl. She was born perfect and just the way she was supposed to be.)

It feels like so long ago that our Moment happened. Olive is such a crazy full on toddler now, it is easy to push aside the fears we had in the beginning and the stress of the uknown taking it's toll on us and our families. With her 6 monthly dermatologist appointment approaching, it gives me a chance to reflect on her last few visits from birth - how determined I was to get her that first appointment, and how relaxed I feel about them now.

I will never forget after Olives birth and knowing there was something wrong when she didn't cry. I will never forget the overwhelming sense of empty arms I had in recovery, when the two previous times I'd been in there, I'd had a brand new baby to cuddle, and this time, my child was off without me and needed help to breathe.  I will never forget being wheeled into SCBU and seeing all these tiny baby's and then my big fat 8lb14oz baby lying on her own, not being held and I didn't care one ounce about her marks, I just wanted to know why she was not being cradled as both my other babies were, constantly, from their birth. *I have come back to edit this part as I didn't convey what I meant correctly about her being on her own. As I was wheeled into recovery after the birth, Olive was rushed off to SCBU. Both Eddie and my Mum went with her, and were with her the entire time. Eddie held Olive's hand as she lay in the weird box in SCBU (apologies, I don't know what it is called!). Olive was never alone, but in my head at the time (which you must understand was in shock from not only the drama of her birth, but also the routine shock of caesarean and the drugs that go with it etc.), *I* was supposed to hold her. She was supposed to be on my chest, she was supposed to be having her first breast feed, she was supposed to be recognising that I was her Mother....so in MY head, she was alone, though in reality her amazing and doting Father never left her sweet little side.

I will never forget the big point of NOT ringing my friends, because I just didn't know what to say. With Meisha and Jaxon, I rang my good friends from recovery and in the ward....with Olive, I only rang one friend and it wasn't until well after her birth. I just didn't know how to tell anyone, because I had no answers.

And I will never forget, ever, how that one friend responded and how all of my friends, both old and new, have been so amazingly accepting and supportive, and outright wonderful in this beautiful journey with my darling baby. I never could have imagined my life being the way it is, being taught such wonderful and valuable lessons from such small people. My children are my life and I thank each and every one of you for sharing this with us, and for being such a wonderful and supportive part of our lives.

Same, same

New Zealand's population is 4.433 million.

Giant Congenital Melanocytic Nevus affects 1 in 500,000.

According to those figures, there should be just a handful of people in our country living with this condition.
So what are the chances then, of meeting another person, with a CMN in the same location as Olive (a bathing trunk nevus), before she is 2 years old?

Personally, I think it's pretty damn awesome and incredible.

On Saturday, Olive and I got to meet a new friend. Her name is Haley, she is 19 and she has a nevus like Olive. And she only lives in Hamilton (For those who aren't familiar with NZ, that is only about a 2 hour drive from where we are in Auckland).

I think the meeting had much more significance for Haley and I, considering Olive is barely even aware that she HAS a back, let alone that the skin there is different to everyone else! She was content with rifling through Haley's wallet the entire time, and emptying what she could. She did try a few times to get me to pocket Haley's phone but I wasn't willing to be an accomplice.

This was also Haley's first time meeting another person with CMN, and I can only imagine how odd/cool/emotional that may have been for her. We discussed lots of different things, and both agreed that it is wise to hold off on the New Zealand Nevus charity. There isn't a lot of interest and momentum just yet in NZ for an association or foundation of its sort, so we figured we would wait a bit longer and see what happens. For now, we will piggyback on Nevus Support Australia, and Eddie and I still hope to attend the 2015 conference, though we are not sure yet how achievable that is.

 Through our chats, I learnt a lot about her journey and what her parents had been through when she was a baby and young child. She has overcome some huge hurdles in her life, and is an amazing person. Full of positivity and has a real 'Get On With It' attitude. I hope for her to become a good friend, and would love for her to be around for Olive to see someone else who KNOWS what it's like to be a little different, but is beautiful and happy and enjoying life.

Unfortunately, we both totally forgot to get a photo of them together! We will have to do it next time. For now, I want to thank Nevus Outreach and Nevus Support Australia for connecting Haley and I so we were both able to meet. Eddie and I never imagined we would meet another person as special as our wee girl so quickly after her birth.

I think the most touching part came just before Haley left. Olive often lifts our shirts and tickles our tummy's saying 'tittle, tittle!'. She sat next to Haley, and lifted her shirt. Just as she went to tickle her, she noticed her skin and went 'oh!'. Haley lifted Olive's shirt as well and said, 'look - same, same'.

Olive looked at both, grinned and said, 'same, same!'

Parenting young children can often feel mundane and a heck of a lot like Groundhog Day. Along the way, there are lots of rewards - when your newborn smiles, or giggles, when your toddler walks or cuddles into you; when your kid gets an excellent report and you beam with pride. The rewards are actually neverending, they are all of their own definition but ultimately it comes down to pride. Tonight I had a conversation with my Dad and told him a story. He said one of the most rewarding things as a parent, is when your child grows into an adult and supports you - in an emotional sense.

Today, my 6 year old did that for me.

At school pick up today, a good friend of my middle baby, Meisha, was playing with Olive. The girls all love Olive and cuddle her when ever they can. Today Oli had shorts on, and this little girl announced, 'she has a hairy spot on her leg!'. It took me absolutely by surprise. I forget that other people aren't used to it....and this was just a satellite! While my brain jumped through what to say, my dear beautiful Meisha replied with such busting pride, 'yeah! That's her nevus. She has lots. She has a biiiiig one on her back. And more on her arms. And those on her legs. They're her special spots!'. The little girl looked a bit stumped for a moment and then smiled, and carried on playing with Olive.


It is hard to explain to somebody who hasn't lived this, but I will try. Though we are absolutely at peace with Olive's nevus and we are used to it, there are still times when I am hyper aware of it, and of people looking and what they may be thinking. Like when I have to remove her top in the mall carpark because she tipped water all down it. Or when she does that rigid plank thing toddlers do when you try to pick them up and her top rides right up.
I realised tonight that on these occasions I get a little flustered and tend to work a bit quicker, perhaps to avoid people staring. I shouldn't be doing this, I know, but I suppose I am still not used to having to answer questions so I brace myself and almost expect someone to say something....nobody ever has. It is a complete over-protection act on my part, and today Meisha showed me how I need to react to people questioning the differences our baby has.

My kids drive me nuts. Absolutely bonkers! But I couldn't be more proud of them. All 3 of them are incredible little people and if I might say so myself, I think Eddie and I are doing a pretty bloody OK job.