A little more detail (9) An irritable child in pain is a challenging one

So by now, my LIFE AS IT WAS, featured a ten-month-old and an almost four-year-old. And, it has to be said, a few more grey hairs. 

It was about this time, that Simon and I returned from camping in Dorset from our first ever Summer holiday to Lyme Regis. And it was about this time, that Sofia began screaming in earnest again.

I think mainly, we put it down to teething. We gave her so much Calpol - I look back now knowing that probably just made things worse. For Fia's silent reflux issue was plaguing her again. But I was blindsided to that.


I told myself, she's on Baby Gaviscon, it can't be silent reflux. It must be food allergies. For yes, she can tolerate egg now, but sometimes, other things cause her to react. Usually hives, often wheezing, sometimes vomiting. Honey was a definite trigger for all of those symptoms.

Fia was a grumpy little so and so. Often irate. She was a little ball of anger. Simon and I continued on disturbed sleep. Fortunately we were stronger than ever... although I'm not sure how we got through some days with the sleep deprivation. (That was to last 14 months in total). God the days were long long long. 

Childless friends would complain to me how tired they were. I would nod thinking, 'You haven't got a clue.'

It wasn't only an obvious pain that led to her being so challenging. Sofia was a handful in other ways. She was adventurous; shuffling along on her bottom with speed, making her way around, to see what she could get to. Climbing everything she could. I would take her off the dining room table at least twenty times a day. Once she used the A frame of the blackboard to get onto the kitchen work surface. And just when I thought I had seen it all from her, I found her standing on the bath ledge leaning against the wall. Developmentally, she was so young to be achieving all these physical missions of hers and looking back, I am sure pain drove her very spirited behaviour a lot of the time.

Fia's adventurous side was to land her a black eye when she climbed out of her cot at an unbelievable ten months old. And just prior to that, we were headed to hospital in an ambulance due to a choking incident, where for the most horrendous moment, I thought we had actually lost her...