Birthdays Galore!

Pleins d’Anniversaires!

The last few weeks have been birthday-celebrations filled in the Cathal & Co household. Late January it was the Mammy’s. On the 25^th February it was Oisín’s first birthday…. I am just wondering where that year has gone! And then exactly 2 weeks later (thanks to the extra day in February). Cathal blew out 4 candles.  Yes! 4!

Ces dernières semaines ont été pleines de célébrations d’anniversaires chez la famille Cathal & Compagnie. Vers la fin janvier c’était celui de la Maman. Le 25 février c’était le premier anniversaire d’Oisín… je me demande où est passée cette année ! Et puis exactement 2 semaines plus tard (grâce au jour supplémentaire en février), Cathal a soufflé 4 bougies. Oui ! 4 !

Here is a little taste of my Little Princes’ celebrations.

Voici un petit goût des célébrations de mes Petits Princes.

Oisín’s was very puzzled as to why he couldn’t touch the flame….

Oisín avait du mal à comprendre pourquoi il ne pouvait pas toucher la flamme…

Yum yum yum….

Miam miam miam…

How old are you Cathal? Four! Who is a big boy? Me!

Quel âge as-tu Cathal ? Quatre ans ! Qui est un grand garçon ? Moi !

The loveliest kiss EVER!

Le meilleur baiser JAMAIS donné !

The brothers relaxing after a hard afternoon of birthday partying

Les frères se relaxant après une long après-midi de fête d’anniversaire.

In their own time… whenever that may be

Cathal has never been a crawler, rather a bum-shuffler. He has developed his own very accurate and very fast style in this form of locomotion. Walking has not been that easy for him. Low muscle tones and weak ligaments in his ankles and knees have meant that standing and then walking were difficult for him. In the beginning his little legs simply could not position themselves well enough to carry his weight, and then they could not carry his weight with enough stability to enable him to walk on his own. Confidence to try and launch yourself unaided comes only if stability is there to some degree. Until now it has not been there for Cathal.

But it has not been for lack of trying. Remember this video taken around Christmas last, when Cathal was about 2 and a half months short of his third birthday? It was then such fun trying out this Walking Business.




A couple of weeks ago, after months of practising, and at the great age of 3 years and 6 & half months, encouraged by the Dad, Cathal very bravely took his first steps unaided. And it was all captured by the Mammy:

I am very VERY proud of him. It has been a long and difficult road for him to get there. Since then, as a matter of routine, he still much prefers to bum-shuffle his way around than to walk. But every so often, if in the right frame of mind, and coaxed properly, he may take off for a few steps. All in all, a major milestone for Cathal.


On the other side, Oisín seems to be a great student of his big brother. He may be only barely 7 months old, but sometimes he looks at Cathal with such intensity, you would think he is willing himself to follow him... and he is not that far. Because he is very clearly attempting to emulate the Big Bro in the house. For example, look at this, filmed only a few days ago by the Mammy, when the lure of Cathal’s garage was simply too much to resist, and when sitting still against the green pillow was not an option…




We have been wondering for a while now which of the two will be the first to walk and run around freely. And right now I still would not hazard a guess. But one thing is for sure, they are encouraging each other, and pulling each other along. God help their parents by the time both of them walk and run around!
;-)



One last little thing I wish to share here, two photos I took on Friday evening, after putting Cathal to bed (he fell asleep in my arms as I went through “our” ritual, singing him a French lullaby).

One very tired little boy, one very tired cat...

(hmmmm, no place like Mammy and Daddy's bed!)

... and one very tired big brother.

All so sweet!

Where is...?

“Where is?” is a great game, with so many levels of complexity.

As for any child, Cathal started playing it when he was very small. In the first version, we would ask him: “Where – is – yourrrr... NOSE?” and then point at it. And then we would repeat the question about an increasing number of body parts. After a while he did all the pointing himself.

As Cathal got a little older, we moved on to the next level and started asking about objects around us, and people. And then he took the game into his own hands, adding a sprinkle of imagination to spice it up. His favourite version works like this:

- Take a small object (one of his socks freshly pulled from his foot is a favourite) and put it behind your back, look around with a bewildered expression and shout “Oh! Oh! Where!”
- The adult / older child present pretends to look around, querying if the sock is here or there, underneath this or inside that.
- Then pull the object from behind your back, shout as loud as you can “THERE!” and burst laughing.

NB: for added fun, before taking the object from behind your back, do a “roly-poly” motion with your hands pretending this is a magic trick. Adults find this irresistible.



Such fun!

No matter how old we are, we all love games. They entertain us, they make us feel good, they absorb our attention. And we often forget that they are the best medium of education and learning ever devised. “Where is?” is not only fun, it helps with visualising the concept of what is missing.



Last week I was looking after Cathal in his own home for a few hours. During the afternoon Cathal asked me “Mammy! Where?” I explained she was gone to a wedding. He repeated “Eddin” and seemed satisfied with this.

After a while he asked “Daddy! Where?” So I explained he was gone with Mammy to a wedding. Again he repeated the word “Eddin” and continued his activities.

During the course of the afternoon he talked a few times about Mammy and then Daddy, always happy with the explanations.

But when we were having dinner (pasta, his favourite!) disaster struck. He suddenly became very quiet. I asked him if he was alright. He looked around, then at me, and with a panic look on his face said: “Oishhhin! Where?” I told him that Oisín was with Mammy and Daddy at the wedding.

“Noooo! Oishhhin!” followed by uncontrollable heavy sobbing. Forget about pasta dinners, this was serious. Cathal had just realised that his little brother was not there. And that he was missing him.

And I suddenly understood that, though Cathal is well used to doing things without his brother (he goes to Montessori every morning), though he is well used to being on his own with me (he is no stranger to sleepovers in my house), this was the first time that, since the birth of his little brother three and a half months ago, he was in his own home without his parents AND Oisín. I witnessed the strength of love he has for his brother, the importance his sibling has taken in his life.


I hope that in the future, when Cathal asks the question “Oisín! Where?” he is always able to then shout with delight “There!”And that when in his own time Oisín asks the same question, he too can count on his big brother to be there for him.

5 Words Make Such a Difference

Our lives descended into emotional turmoil following Cathal’s birth. This new member of our family burst onto the scene with five little words:

Down

Syndrome

Congenital

Heart

Defects

And nothing was the same again.

Huge sadness. Gripping fear. Unbearable pain. Sense of Loss. Un-comprehension. Overwhelming powerlessness. Most of all, for the days and weeks that followed his arrival, the constant worry, relentlessly occupying the mind, physically gripping the body during the day, invading dreams during troubled sleep.

I first saw Cathal in the Intensive Care Unit of the maternity hospital. He was only a few hours old, waiting for his transfer to the Neonate Cardiac Unit of Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital. I was standing by the incubator with the Mammy, and we both agreed he looked perfect. Simply perfect. Yet by then we knew our lives had taken a turn onto a road so less than perfect! And the following 18 months indeed turned out to be so tough!

A few hours after meeting my first grandchild, once back home and talking to my sister on the phone very late that night, I remember saying to her: “He is going to need a lot of love, so much love.... All I can do is love him so much... I can’t do anything else....”


Down
Syndrome
Congenital
Heart
Defects

These words were absent from our vocabulary last Friday morning when Oisín joined our family. When I asked the Mammy “What is he like?” she said “He is perfect!” With a laugh I reminded her that Cathal was perfect too when he was born. “Of course he was. But Oisín IS PERFECT!” Joke aside, I knew what she meant.

Strangely, I did not have any sense of relief at the confirmation that Oisín was as we had been told to expect. Somehow, I was not worried, and even though all the signs pointed to a “no diagnostic needed here”, the shock of Cathal’s own diagnostic had prepared me for accepting anything that may come our way. All I felt was joy. Joy of the anticipation of loving and spoiling another little being, joy for the joy my own daughter was experiencing.

Oisín and his Mammy went home the next day. I had been looking after Cathal and we waited another 24 hours to allow parents and new baby some time on their own before introducing Big Brother to Little Brother. This introduction went very well, and all signs are that Cathal is very accepting, and mindful, of Oisín. I am so proud of him!

But two things struck me on that day: The first was the atmosphere of serenity and joyous contentment in the house. Relaxed faces. Happy voices. Ease of interaction, where no one was afraid of saying the wrong thing, or letting their own angst spill out. Also the ease of looking after a newborn who is in good health, who can feed so easily, who does not have weak muscle tone hampering his sucking, who is not exhausted after a few seconds because his little heart cannot keep up the pace. It all felt ordinary, even (dare I say it?) “normal”.

And then, I noticed how grown up Cathal suddenly seemed. Even though he was the same child as the little boy who had been playing in my house earlier that day, or cuddling up to me in bed that morning, he was no longer the baby. Rather he simply looked older, responsible. He radiated with knowledge, ideas and imagination.

Oisín has no idea yet of how lucky he is to have a big bother like Cathal. Deep inside me is the certainty that I will truly enjoy watching the two of them growing up together.

Do not tell the Mammy and the Dad this, but I secretly hope that the two of them will quickly gang up together and drive their parents demented... You know: “grandchildren are parents’ revenge over their own children”.... ;-)

Oh! The fun they will have!