Everything goes well . . .

The Giant Baby has had all of his hearing tests for the moment and seen all of his specialists and his hearing is steadily improving. Basically whatever fluid was trapped in his ears is slowly draining away. He's going to have to have regular hearing tests to make sure the problem doesn't return but for now he's going to be fine.

And he is picking up new words. "No" is still his favourite but over the last week he's added "mine" and "don't" to his repertoire. And he's finally started actually calling his dad "Dad". His speech therapist (who he loves and keeps trying to drag me back to her office) thinks he'll probably catch up on his own and so he doesn't have to have another appointment with her for another three months.

I delude myself how much easier it would be if he could talk. "Would you like yoghurt or an apple?" "Do you want to watch Toy Story or Frozen?" "Do you want the blue cup or the orange cup?" Even though I know that most two year olds are psychotic little dictators that will specifically ask for one thing and then freak out because they actually wanted the other thing. At least this way I can pretend he's freaking out because I didn't understand and not because he's a mad person.

I'm seriously considering learning Dianna Effner's eye painting techniques. I've always wanted to be able to do more with my dolls and I'm a big fan of her work. But I'm having trouble finding affordable dolls to practice on. I need a doll with painted eyes and molded eye sockets (like Barbie but preferably bigger) but literally all of the dolls available here seem to have inset eyes or flat faces with decal eyes. I'm thinking of resorting to Ebay and getting some second hand Lil Miss or Dolly Surprise dolls. For now I got to practice my fantastic dolly skills at work last week when someone uncovered a naked, headless El Cheapo Barbie in a cupboard.

She's stunningly beautiful now!

Almost every shop near us has posters in the window at the moment advertising an upcoming Stevie Nicks concert at one of the local wineries. This is driving me mental. I haven't listened to her music in years now but from the age of four to about twenty-five, I would have given my right arm to go to that. And for that reason I kind of want to go. But at the same time I know that the winery concerts tend to be a little disappointing. A friend of mine goes to see INXS every year and every year she says the same thing. "It was a great day out, but it wasn't really worth going for the music." Which is pretty much what I hear from everyone that goes to these things. So as someone that doesn't drink alcohol (I know! I could lose my Australian citizenship for admitting that but I'm too much of a control freak to enjoy it) and doesn't like crowds, I'm not sure that I would enjoy it enough to justify spending two hundred dollars on tickets. But I also worry that if I don't go, I'll regret it.

Last weekend I got one of the Our Generation accessory sets thinking the scale would be right for my 14 inch dolls. I chose a beach set, thinking that when I take photos of the sundresses I've made this month, I can use them as props. I don't have a picture of the set yet and haven't checked the scale against my dolls yet but most of it looks like it will work. If it does, there may be more of these in my future. (Especially since I just got a Kmart gift card!) Weirdly it looks more likely that some things are going to be too small for my dolls rather than too big. For example, there's a sandcastle that looks to me more like Barbie scale than 14 or 18 inch doll scale!

I finally ordered a Wellie Wisher doll. I kept talking myself out of it because to make an international order with American Girl, you have to do it by phone. I hate talking on the phone. AND frankly time zones are a pain in the neck to figure out, especially if you're incorporating things like daylight savings time. AND then there are international dialling codes . . . Ugh. Yeah, turns out those things are easy to google and were probably just excuses not to have to talk on the phone. Hopefully she'll get here soon.

Last week I discovered that shirring isn't even vaguely as scary as I've been imagining it to be. I had poured over tutorials online and lots of them said it wasn't scary. None of them pointed out that it is literally just sewing straight lines with your sewing machine! It probably wouldn't even be noticeable if the lines weren't quite straight. Although it's possible that I just lucked out by having a sewing machine that likes shirring. Either way it only took me twenty five minutes to make a coffee, wind a bobbin with elastic, do a test run, shir a dress and finish sewing the remaining seams on the dress! I'm sure I could still play around with different stitch lengths, a better brand of elastic and different tensions to perfect it but I could already do it competently on my first try so it can't be too hard! The biggest issue I had was that nobody local had the Gutterman's shirring elastic in stock so I was using an incredibly cheap brand. (The only one I could find.) And every tutorial ended with ironing the shirring to shrink it up more. I couldn't do that because even using my iron's lowest setting my elastic was melty burning and marking the fabric and smelling like death!

 As for the sundresses, I put on some finishing touches Thursday. Currently I have a pile of ten dresses made from the sundress patterns I made. Hopefully I can get photos taken of them on actual dolls on Tuesday.

I'm also trying to work out the best way to get the finished patterns on here in a printable format that takes into account that the US uses a different paper size to the rest of the world. Where to host the PDF file and what size to make it. If I use US paper sizes, it won't print right anywhere else. If I use the international standard, it won't print right in the US. I'm also avoiding thinking about that because it's confusing. Life was so much easier before I knew not everywhere uses A4 paper! At the moment I'm pretty sure I'm just going to take the smaller length and width measurement from each so it will print as smaller than a full page on either paper size.

And since this post is already all over the place, I'm going to leave it here.

And now the bad news . . .

The Giant Baby had his hearing test. Leading up to it, I didn't think about it too much. I kept thinking back to a year ago when he discovered that he could see trains from our backyard if someone picked him up. As soon as the boom gates started making noise, he would ask to be picked up, even though half the time I couldn't even hear them. I didn't realise he hasn't done that in a very long time or that now he only asks to watch the trains if one toots.

 He did not do well on the hearing test at all. But they couldn't draw any conclusions from it either, because it turned out he had an ear infection when they did the test. He has to do a second test but not until the end of July.
 I finally looked up some information on hearing problems in toddlers and now I feel terrible. So many things we just took for granted as being cute or even clever are actually more likely signs he hasn't been hearing properly for a while now.
 For the last few months he's been developing his own sign language. Nothing ridiculously sophisticated. In fact it's pretty basic stuff. If he's thirsty, he'll bring me a book open to a picture of a drink and point to it, then point to the kitchen. If he wants to watch something on television, he will bring me a toy or book from the show he wants and then point to the dvd player. That kind of thing.
 We thought he was so very clever because he could tell us what he wanted without even trying to verbalise it. (Unless we say no, he verbalises his displeasure with that pretty darn effectively.) It didn't even occur to us that the fact that he wasn't even trying out new words was probably a bad sign.
 I also feel particularly terrible because after seeing the audiologist, we went tothe doctor and it turns out his ear infection is so bad, he has blisters on his ear drum! That sounds incredibly painful to me, but I didn't even know that he had an ear infection. Although in all fairness, I've been watching him like a hawk since then and I swear that he has shown absolutely no sign of having an ear infection.
 So, he's on the waiting list for speech therapy, and he has another hearing test booked. At this point we're fairly certain there is going to be an issue with his hearing and are praying that it's something that can be solved with ear tubes or grommets. Yes, that will require surgery but it's also temporary and fixable so definitely preferable to something permanent or unfixable.

Because of all this, I've been having far too much fun making various appointments and beating myself up about this to do anything doll related this last week. And on top of that, one of the ladies that I work with had emergency surgery on Monday and now I'm covering a lot of her shifts. So for the forseeable future, I am working every night until I have a complete breakdown, then probably sobbing in a corner for a few days at least, before I can even think about doing anything worth posting about.

 To make things even more fun, I also messed up the other day and the baby finally got his Shirley Temple curls cut off. Basically, since the weather has turned cold  (so very bloody cold!) his curls have been fairly limp and frizzy and tangly and his fringe has been in his eyes most of the time. I decided to trim his fringe which I've done heaps of times. Except he wouldn't sit still and it was uneven and looked funny. So he finally got the haircut his dad has been begging for. Now he looks like a little blonde Ginnifer Goodwin. I'm hoping I'll be able to talk his dad into letting his curls grow back for next Summer but that may be beyond my powers.

Finally, we get some good news!

The Giant Baby has been on the waiting list for an Early Intervention Test. That's a test where experts run tests disguised as games in order to diagnose children who may have developmental issues, and decide what services are appropriate for them.

I've had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I've been 99.9% sure that there's absolutely nothing wrong with him, except that he can't talk. On the other hand, I'm not a doctologist, and so I have wondered if maybe I've been in denial. At the end of the day, I've figured that if there's nothing wrong, we don't lose anything by having him take the test, but if we are in denial, it's probably better that he takes the test sooner rather than later. But I've also looked at the whole thing as a massive bother, and a pain in the neck.

Part of the issue, was the preliminary test he had to do to see if he qualified for the big test. Half of the test, you can't pass if you can't talk. And the lady that did it, did that bit first. By the time she was halfway through, the Giant Baby had decided he didn't like her, and had his hands over his ears. By the time she moved onto other things, she was getting pretty impatient, and  he really didn't like her, so he insisted on not only ignoring her, but also standing with his back to her. He did not do well on that test. Part of me wanted to say the result wasn't fair. Another part of me felt that doing that would make me sound like one of those parents that blame all of their kids issues on their teacher.

They got back to us about the next test today. He won't be taking it. The people that do the test have reveiwed the application, and his earlier test results, and spoken to his daycare centre, and they've rejected the entire application. From the information they have, they've decided that clearly the only issue is that he can't speak, and since he's only just turned two, they don't find that overly concerning, so the test isn't necessary. Instead, they've referred us to a speech therapist.

This is the result that I was expecting to have, but after he took the test. To have this result already, feels like a huge relief and a small victory. He still has to have a hearing test next week, but I really don't think there's anything wrong with his hearing. Sure, he often appears not to hear me when I say something he doesn't want to hear, but he can hear a fridge doir opening, or an offer of juice, from three streets away.

 It's really unsettling to hear, that there may be something wrong with your child. But, it's really nice to hear proper experts saying he's absolutely normal and basically backing up what I've been saying all along!

Searching for dolls

This year, I've been pretty disappointed in dolls. Tonner and Wilde Imagination are no more. Kish and Company swear they still exist but they don't seem to be making dolls anymore. I don't have the patience required to get one of Dianna Effner's Little Darlings. I'm not designed to wait twelveteen thousand years for things. Meanwhile I've gotten increasingly disappointed with the selection of dolls available in big stores at the moment. But I've also insisted on investigating exactly what's available.

I found a small toy store with a great range of Our Generation accessories and mini dolls. I'm not a fan of their 18 inch dolls. Their noses look weirdly adult and their lips generally look like they're about to go into anaphylaxis but I rather like the mini dolls. (Kmart has Our Generation too, but the range is usually very limited and they don't have the mini dolls.) I'm considering getting some of the accessories as props for my 14 inch dolls. I figure they're generally kind of small in scale to the dolls they're meant for so they may work with a smaller doll. I'm also finding that the two big dolls carried by our local Kmart (April and May Lee) are actually growing on me.

I also rediscovered a relatively local toy shop that I loved as a kid because they had heaps of Playmobil and Sylvanian Families and all the european dolls like Corolle and Gotz. They don't have that stuff anymore but they do still have My Scene dolls (including the creepy ones that "grow up") and original Bratz and Hannah Montana and all sorts of extremely outdated stuff in stock. It's not stuff I want (although I was tempted to spend a LOT of money just because "You can't get these anymore!") but it was fun to see.

Almost a toy museum!

We also went to ToysRUs. Usually I find ToysRUs disappointing. I imagine it as a wonderland of toys then find they have the exact same stock as everywhere else. Just more of it. This time I was actually impressed. They had a lot more range than the other places we've been. They had the Disney Princess and Me dolls (Ariel anyway), they had Lalaloopsies, and a whole bunch of dolls I've read about but never seen. I nearly bought one of the Lalaloopsy minis with changeable clothes and wigs, except they only had them in playsets with a styling table or a sewing table and they were fifty dollars which just seemed silly.

They also had this Sylvanian Family furhiture set that made me laugh.

Somehow I think this company and I have different opinions

on what counts as a "working fireplace"

I also discovered a line of Australian 18 inch dolls called Florrie, that I'm really impressed by. (On the other hand, don't even ask my opinion of Australian Girl dolls.) I don't know that I want one but their concept store sounds really amazing and I would like to check it out. 

I've looked into getting a Wellie Wishers doll. I COULD get one through the American Girl website BUT the shipping would be sixty us dollars, effectively doubling the cost of the doll. I'm not sure I can make peace with that.

I'm also finding myself drawn to the Maru and Friends mini pals. They'd fit in well to my doll collection but I still have to find out if they ship internationally.

I ended up spending my birthday money on an Emma Wiggle doll and a Made to Move Barbie. I'm considering doing a mysterious something to Emma (not entirely sure what yet) and switching out the Barbie's head for a more interesting one. (They only had boring, blonde, blue eyed ones with candy pink make-up) Just have to work out how. We don't have heat guns or heat pads and we don't even own a hair dryer, so I'm going to have to do some research and see if it can be done using hot water somehow.

But right now our big thing is the Giant Baby. (As ot should be) We've had a few issues over the last few months with strangers mistaking him for a three or four year old and then openly discussing his behaviour and why he's not talking. Asking if he's deaf or autistic. If we've had him tested. If we've heard about this or that early intervention program.

We know he's behind in talking. But he shows no sign of being autistic or deaf (that I'm aware of) though, and he has only just turned two, so he's not as behind as people think he is. Except the nurse at his two year check up wasn't happy with it so now I'm running around, calling various places and waiting for call backs to arrange hearing and developmental tests and of course freaking out that maybe something is wrong after all. I'm confident that there's not anything wrong but I'm also aware that denial can be pretty powerful in these cases.

He has his first set of tests tomorrow, it'll be great to just get that out of the way.

Weird or not, he's still pretty!

There's something weird going on with the font sizes in this post. I keep changing them to "Normal" but for some reason bits keep showing as "Smallest" no matter how many times I try to change it.

Adventures of a Giant Baby

The Giant Baby and I have had an exciting week. . . and not all in a good way.
 Last week he started daycare. He's only going to be going one day a week and it's mostly for the social aspect. He gets to get used to spending time with adults that he's not related to and he gets to play with other kids without me having to socialise. That possibly sounds horrible but I'm just not a social person. When I get the chance, and I don't very often, I'd much rather invest in some alone time. So far he seems to love it and I'm actually really impressed with the centre and he's already trying to talk more so I feel like I've done the right thing.
 Then on Thursday night we were outside running around and he tripped. He had a dummy in his mouth and he landed on it. It cut up the inside of his mouth and pushed his two front teeth back up into his gum. There was screaming and crying (and not all from him) and a LOT of blood and a rushed visit to the doctors before they closed. The doctor's attitude was "Ack, he'll be fine, stop freaking out." which was equally comforting and insulting.
 I also discovered that even though I know first aid and know from experience that I'm great in an emergency, the sight of a single drop of blood from the Giant Baby turns me into a puddle.
 Saturday night the baby had a fever of forty degrees. We tried to find a doctor, but the only one we could find that was open was already overbooked and told us to go to the emergency room. We were there until a million o'clock when he was given the all clear.
 But Saturday and Sunday he cried all night. We gave him ibuprofen before bed and even still he spent half the night crying. Except it was this terrible crying where he would try to get up or get away but he wasn't actually awake. He couldn't even open his eyes. It's not easy comforting a child that isn't even aware you're there.
 Because he'd been so miserable, he went to the dentist yesterday, just to check that everything is fine and that his baby teeth getting pushed back didn't damage his adult teeth. Luckily his adult teeth are fine and while not everything is quite where it should be, nothing is actually where it REALLY shouldn't be. It's just a case of waiting another week and a half for it to heal. I had mixed feelings when I heard this. On the one hand Yay! It's all ok! On the other hand it may be another week and a half before I get to sleep through the night again. Not so yay.
 But actually he did sleep through last night although he's still clearly not a hundred percent (he just spent five minutes crying over a puddle.) At least things are looking up.

Meanwhile in doll related news, I've decided to start a weekly series of posts called Tiny Tuesday, showcasing the little toys (up to four inches) and dollhouse miniatures in my collection. Hopefully I can get the first one up by tonight, otherwise I'm going to cheat and post it tomorrow on the grounds it's still Tuesday in America.

A Little Light Rambling

  I haven't gotten much of anything done lately. The Giant Baby and I took turns having a bad cold. Then it was time to try to wean him off the antacids he's been on his entire life. We're supposed to try this every three months to see if he's grown out of reflux. He hasn't. Not only has he not grown out of it but the experience was so harrowing that right now as far as I'm concerned, he can take the antacids forever. Then, just as he was starting to seem more like his usual self, his Dad left him in a dirty nappy while I was at work and he got his first ever nappy rash and it was nasty. And he was miserable.
  All of this has made the Giant Baby uncharacteristically fussy and clingy. Even now I can't get him to nap in his cot. He will only nap in my arms, on the couch or in the car. Which limits what I can do at nap-time. I don't want to spread sewing stuff out and then have to madly scramble to put it away when he wakes up. Mostly because I'm pretty sure I'd miss something and he'd get hurt. I can't spread doll stuff all over the lounge room to take photos. Partly because turning enough lights on to take photos will wake him. Partly because if he wakes up, he will turn into a tornado of rage grabbing dolls and my camera and anything else he can reach.

Mega-Toddler! He'll hide the tv remote and then scream because you take too

long changing the channel.

  And he's turned into Mega-Toddler. Can't reach something? Screech. Can't find Mum? Screech. Don't want to do something? Screech. Want to do something? Screech. Every day he falls over or bumps into something at least once, gets told no, tries to do something he's not allowed to do or doesn't have the skills for yet or that isn't physically possible. And his response to all of these things at the moment is screaming. Which is super-fun.
  His Grandmother taught him to say please. I honestly had no idea he was old enough for manners. So now, if he wants something he shrieks "Ease!" in a voice that makes Elmo sound like Barry White. Even better, when he gets angry (usually because the first please didn't work) he'll keep yelling "please" but it sounds more and more like "arse" each time he says it until I start to wonder if he's going to turn into Father Jack Hackett from the tv show Father Ted. Although if I could teach him to say "drink", "girls", "feck", and "that would be an ecumenical matter." perhaps we'd have some kind of routine on our hands. The Giant Husband says this is not allowed.
  Meanwhile between the Giant Baby, housework, work-work, and everything else, by the time the Giant Baby goes to bed at night, I'm too tired to do more than scroll listlessly through my pinterest feed for five minutes before going to bed myself. So my projects have been temporarily put on hold.

  The dress for Not-Glinda in particular has hit a snag. The bodice is done. I need to make the skirt and attach it. Except I have no intention of hemming it by hand which is a problem. I can't use the sewing machine when the Giant Baby is sleeping because it wakes him. I can't use the sewing machine when the Giant Baby is awake. Because there is nowhere in the house that I can set up the sewing machine that he can't get to. . . actually since the doors in our house don't close properly, there's just nowhere he can't get to full stop. So it has to wait until there's a weekend when I'm not working and we don't have plans, when I can talk the Giant Husband into taking him somewhere, even the other end of the house would do.

  The Baby So Beautiful dolls are progressing. Slowly. I'm putting money aside for a new wig for the bald doll. I want screamingly red, wispy ponytails for her. I have a vague idea of what kind of clothes I want for her, but I want to see her finished with her new hair before I make my final decision. At the end of the day it will almost certainly be a simple, high waisted dress. I don't think I will try to make her clothes that disguise her injured hand after all and I think I'll go for something cute rather than something fashionable so it dates better.

  I recently bought a new play doll. A Shibajuku Girl doll. I want to write a review of her here because before I bought her the only reviews I could find of the line were Mum-blog reviews which more or less read "Amphetamine and Lobotomy received this doll for review. They both thought she was pretty. Amphetamine loves her long hair. Lobotomy hasn't stopped playing with the accessories since we opened the box. The end." Which is great but doesn't answer any of the questions I have. Like how is she different to other dolls? She's taller than other fashion dolls but is the extra height just her giant head? Can she wear other dolls clothes? What's her jointing like? What sort of quality are we talking about? How well made are her clothes? And most importantly do I like her? Strange as it may sound I don't know if I do or not. I'm intrigued. But I don't know what I think yet. Possibly because I haven't even had a chance to open the box yet. I have a few extra shifts at work this week, but if I survive that, the Giant Husband has promised to amuse the Giant Baby on the weekend so hopefully I can get that done then. And hem Not-Glinda's skirt.

And now back to the battlefield.