Tag: D

Baby girl D

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Another F

I had to give myself another F for Mommy for Saturday. The story goes a little something like this…

D’s torso and head were covered with a red, slightly raised rash Saturday morning, so I called her doctor’s after hours care line. Fortunately her doctor was at their clinic taking patients that morning, so we got her last appointment and headed in. Turns out D’s allergic to the antibiotic that was prescribed for her double ear infection last week. Awesome. Her doctor said it was either that or roseola (very similar symptoms – spiking fever followed by a rash in the shape of rose petals once the fever subsides, and apparently D’s just the right age for it), except roseola doesn’t itch. And as R put it, D was itching like a motherfucker. I’ve never seen her rub and scratch at her head like she did all day and night Saturday. Ok, allergic reaction it is, says the doc. And her ears of course weren’t better, so the doctor prescribed a different antibiotic for those and recommended children’s Benadryl to help get rid of the itch. Okey dokey, back to Walmart we went to get the medicine. My favorite place on Earth. (please sense the dripping sarcasm)

Why did we have to put her right away on another antibiotic instead of letting the allergy-causing one get fully out of her system before trying something new, you may ask? Well you see, we’re heading on vacation in less than 2 weeks’ time for a week, wherein we will have no cell phone or internet service, so if we need D to be on medicine to clear all this shit up we have to get her on it with time to spare to see the doctor again before we leave to make sure all the nastiness is finally gone. Whew.

They gave her the first dose of Benadryl at the doctor’s office to help her stop scratching, and by the time we got home from Walmart D was exhausted. So I gave her a bottle (she didn’t want any lunch) and put her down for a nap pretty much right away. R left for the afternoon to go to a WI craft beer festival, so it was just me and D. Little did I know what was in store for us. I thought great, she’s down for a nice long nap, I’ll sit out in the sun for a little bit to catch some rays, then get the house cleaned before R gets home. No sweat. HA! Damn, SM, why do you keep thinking your luck is so good? Let’s just say things didn’t go exactly as I had planned or hoped.

D napped for maybe half an hour the entire rest of the day. And that was from about 5 combined attempts, minimum, before R even got home. I knew from my days on maternity leave that accomplishing stuff around the house is a carefully choreographed art involving a combination of stealth and acute time management during the precious minutes of baby’s slumber. An art, I may add, that I mastered. I could get every chore and all the laundry done while D napped, no problem. So I thought yesterday was going to be a breeze. However, the doctor and pharmacist only mentioned that Benadryl may make D drowsy, not turn her into a demon spawn. I have never seen her so upset and miserable. This rash itched her so badly she clawed at her head constantly, and every time I tried to put her down it was like her crib was a bed of pins and broken glass. So she didn’t want to sleep, she didn’t want to eat, she didn’t want to take her medicine, she didn’t want to be put down, and then she’d decide she didn’t want to be held either. Well what the hell?? I couldn’t win – I couldn’t make her stop hurting, I couldn’t make her happy, I couldn’t get anything done, I just felt like a total failure. By the end of the afternoon I had reached my breaking point. I couldn’t take it any longer. She kept screaming harder and harder and nothing I did was working or seemed to be right, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I put her in her crib and walked away. If I couldn’t just have 5 minutes to get 1 thing done, I was afraid I was going to scream at the top of my lungs, and then what would the neighbors think?

I felt horrible. I was so mad, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. I wasn’t mad at her, I was mad at it, the sickness that was torturing her. I was so frustrated that I could neither placate her nor get anything accomplished, and it just took me to my boiling point. Of course R came home not 5 minutes after I’d left her crying in her crib, and when I said, “Welcome to hell,” he said, “Oh please, come on.” In case you were wondering, that was not the correct response. Yeah, you’ve been drinking beer out in the beautiful weather for 6 hours while I’ve been battling an inconsolable infant who’s sicker than she’s ever been. Come on? I’ll come on you with a swift kick to the nuts if you’re serious.

And so the evening continued. D alternating screaming with brief interludes of play and seeming relief, yet not going to bed, while R and I took turns trying to comfort her. What happened to the drowsiness of the Benadryl? Was that supposed to be a joke, or were they just flat out lying to me? For it seemed that drowsiness was the last side effect it caused for D. Finally at 11:00, hours after her normal bedtime, I was able to get her to sleep after a bottle. Ahh, fingers crossed. Holy hell! 1 hour later and she was back up crying. It was during this round of trying to get her back to sleep that Ryan said we were going to have to take shifts, I told him to just go back to bed, and he told me not to get mad, as I was holding the sleepless, writhing, monster that had possessed our child. “I CAN’T HELP IT!” I shouted. Seriously! I couldn’t. After that day and that night and my feeling completely inadequate, all I could do was get mad. But again, I wasn’t mad at him, I wasn’t mad at her, I was just mad. Because what else could I do? I had no more nice, patient Mommy left. It ran out hours ago. I know that wasn’t the right answer, but it was the only one I had at that point. And then an hour later, she was back in bed. Only to wake up at 3:50, when R had to take her out to the couch again, like we did earlier in the week.

And I had planned on being the one up early with D yesterday so R could sleep in on Father’s Day, then here he was the one dealing with her in the wee hours of the morning. Plus I didn’t wake up until 8, when he stomped into the bedroom to get his cup of water. Shit. Another F. When I saw what time it was I felt terrible, I’d ruined his Father’s Day morning. So I quickly got up, took over the D patrol, and he instantly climbed into bed. I thought maybe just not being around was what he wanted, so I took D to the store to get milk and diapers, since we’d run out of both during the night in her maelstrom of sickness and itch. I ended up driving around with her for a couple hours since she fell asleep and I knew he would be too, then I stopped at McDonald’s for his favorite breakfast items just before they switched over to lunch, to try to do something right.

I hate those days. Those days where all forces combine to create the perfect storm of my parenting failure, and I just can’t take it. I did what I could and it just wasn’t good enough. What else am I supposed to do?

 

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Your turn

So D is still sick, her fever reaching 104.5 last night. Which sucks, since I thought she was getting better after a decent day at daycare yesterday with no high fever. Maybe the medicine just hasn’t had enough time to kick in all the way. But last night was wretched for her. She wouldn’t sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, and whenever we tried to put her in her crib she would wake right back up and start crying. So we had to take turns sleeping with her on our chests on the couch. R took her until about 1, then I went out and slept with her on me the rest of the night until 6:30 this morning. Her fever was still 101.5 by that time, so she had to stay home from daycare. Fortunately R was able to stay with her, because I had a busy day at work ahead.

In light of the fact that she’s about all I’ve been concentrating on these past couple days, hoping her brain isn’t frying, I thought I’d try something different here today. You guys run the show. Ask me something. Anything about me you’re curious about? My past, my present, being a mom, being a wife, my likes/dislikes, anything? I promise to answer all questions honestly, assuming they’re not too incriminating, anyway. 😉 Or suggest a post topic you’d like to see. I’m always open to suggestions for the site – what you like on here, what you don’t like, what posts you’d like to see more of, what posts you don’t like.

A lot of you already know me irl so this may be totally boring for you, but is there anyone new out there? Anyone, anyone?

If you want to ask/say something but don’t want to leave a comment, please feel free to email me. My email address is up there in the Contact tab.

Thanks!

SM

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Fire burning

Unfortunately this one wasn’t on the dance floor, it was on D’s forehead.

Daycare called me at work yesterday around 1:00 saying she had a fever of 102.5, so I had to go pick her up (they can’t be there with a fever of 101+). I was debating calling her doctor’s office yesterday anyway to try to get her in, because she had begun acting like her ears were really bothering her again, coughing, the phlegm in her throat and snot rivers out of her nose were back, and she has had a couple bad nights going to bed recently, all of which were symptoms present with her first ear infection.

We’re going on vacation for a week in two and a half weeks, so if it was an ear infection coming back and we had to get her on another round of antibiotics, I wanted to make sure we gave it plenty of time to work its magic before we leave.

D’s doctor is off on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer, and there was actually only 1 pediatrician of the 4 in their office in yesterday, but fortunately she had a 2:00 appointment open to get us in. Sure enough, there was fluid in both ears again. Fortunately her chest sounded clear, though, so that’s good.

I was just worried that whatever is plaguing her now may be a little more serious this time around since she’s never had a fever, let alone one that high. So the doctor put her on a stronger antibiotic for this one, since the amoxicillin doesn’t seem to kick these things for good.

Her ears weren’t raging with infections this time, but since there was some fluid in both this was more preventative than anything, especially with the fever. And since we haven’t been in to see her doctor since her last appointment when the second infection was diagnosed, we can’t be sure that it actually ever totally cleared up. Great fun.

So when R got home from work and a quick run, he took over cradling our sick little girl so I could get a run in too. It was obvious how awful she felt – not only was her face all red from the fever, but her eyes just looked so sad and sick, and she was very cuddly, burrowing right into your shoulder or chest to sleep as much as she could.

The prescription wasn’t ready until last evening, and her fever continued to climb, reaching 103.4 at the highest – yikes! Fortunately R gave her a little bit of baby ibuprofen while I was gone, which brought it back down to about 100. It was a struggle to get the medicine in her once I got it, but we managed to control the dragon long enough to administer the full dose, and she was in bed about half an hour later.

She woke up once during the night and was a complete fireball – I could feel the heat through her jammies and every touch on my face from her little fingers was like a flame.

When was this thing going to break? She can’t stay that hot for so long, her brain is frying! Then I started worrying that her breathing sounded more rapid than usual, too. I was tempted to look online for some clues but knew I’d just find signs that she all of a sudden had some rare, incurable virus, and would spend the rest of the night worrying myself sick. Thank god the fever was gone this morning, though, back down to 99.

This is her first real illness, and the first time we’ve ever had to go get her out of daycare. I felt so horrible when I got that call at work, and I just wanted to run to her and make everything better. Hopefully the medicine will be able to do the rest of the job that Mommy’s hugs and love can’t.

Her rosy cheeks - they felt as hot as they looked 🙁

 

(run stats from last night = ran 3.58 miles in 33:57, 9:29 pace. a little slower, but i knew it would be. this is a “longer” route that i haven’t run since before i was pregnant, so i wanted to take it easy to make sure i could still do it without walking. plus the turnaround point is a huge hill down to the lakefront with a run back up stairs taken 2 at a time – that hurts.)

 

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10 month stats

D turned 10 months old on Wednesday – double digit months! She seriously gets funnier and crazier each day. I have a feeling we’re going to have one precocious little girl on our hands if these past couple months are any indication.

Not a whole lot has changed since the 9 month stats and she doesn’t have another doctor’s appointment for measurements until August, but I’ll do a rundown anyway.

Tricks:

  • Her new thing in the past week or two is “crawling”. I say it in quotes because it’s still not your typical hand-knee, hand-knee crawling, but she’s at least now got the idea of getting on and staying fully on her hands and knees. Then she kind of hops/scoots herself forward. It’s hilarious. We thought her frog-legged scoot was crazy, but now the hopping forward while pulling along on her knees has taken its place. I’ll try to get a video of it to put on here so you can witness the cuteness first-hand.
  • She pulls herself up to stand on anything with ease now. When she first learned this it was more of a tentative wooahh, what is happening here? Why are my legs straight underneath me instead of in a little pile? Now she just pops right up like nobody’s business. It’s funniest when she does this while on the couch so she’s standing against the back cushion, then she’ll start falling down and rolling all over the place then standing back up to do it all again – very goofy infant acrobatics.
  • She also walks around holding onto furniture after pulling herself up quite freely now. Again, the first couple steps when she discovered this trick were pretty wobbly, like ohmygosh what are those feet things doing down there?? But now she’s all come on guys, you mean you wanted me to just stand there? Pssh, that’s baby stuff. I’m walking here!
  • Still lots of clapping and “singing”. The best is when she breaks out into a chorus of high-pitched squeals as I’m trying to change her diaper first thing in the morning. Sorry, Daddy, I know you’re sleeping but I’ve got to wake up my vocal chords too!
  • We have started hearing more new sounds fall out of her mouth lately, like she’s starting to try to put consonants together instead of the usual strings of na-na-na, da-da-da, ma-ma-ma, dis-dis, dat-dat, etc. She’ll throw some br sounds in every once in a while and kind of a ml sound. Yeah, I guess it’s a lot harder to explain in writing. I’ll try to start posting some audio clips too as she progresses.
  • Still just the 6 teeth in there so far. We think some new ones may be sprouting soon though because she’s begun drooling a lot again and she’s constantly playing with her tongue. If it’s not curled up out the side of her mouth, it’s flapping in and out in a blather-blather-blather noise. (again, a hard sound to explain in writing, but i know you know what i mean. try it – flick your tongue and and out of your mouth making noise and it sounds a lot like blather-blather)

Likes:

  • Pretty much all the same foods are still her main go-tos – Gerber baby cereal (usually either oatmeal or mixed grain), bananas, sweet potatoes, applesauce, baby yogurt, etc. We did switch her to eat solely off the daycare menu last week, so we no longer have to take food for her. That is very nice. And fortunately she gets a lot more variety there than I’ve had luck with getting her to try at home – they’ll have things like pancakes, toast, cereal, and fruit for breakfast; pastas, veggies, grilled cheese or turkey and cheese sandwiches, and fruit for lunch; goldfish crackers or Cheerios and fruit for a snack in the afternoon; and they always give her a sippy cup of water after each meal/snack. My goal is to get her eating all non-baby food at meals, but we’re not quite there yet. That’s why I keep giving her the Gerber cereal at home – I know it has good nutritional value in it and she’ll eat a lot of it to fill up. Especially when she gets picky with food, I worry that then she doesn’t eat enough.
  • She switched to all whole milk as of last week as well, and daycare provides that each day for her too. Fortunately she enjoys the whole milk as much as she did breast milk, so that transition was nothing for her. Now if I could just get her to take the vitamins she needs since there is no iron in the moo juice. I can’t really blame her though – they’re a dropper full of nasty dark yellow liquid that smells like ass, so I can only imagine how it tastes. She’s taken them a couple times, but usually she gets one taste, scrunches up her whole face like I’m trying to feed her poison, and spits out whatever has managed to make it into her mouth. Not cool since that shit stains like you wouldn’t believe.
  • Reading books (especially Karen Katz lift-the-flap ones) and playing with all of her toys. She’s not picky – she’ll play with anything and everything.
  • Playing with and rearranging all the magnets on the fridge. She also loves to look at all the pictures on there.
  • Looking at pictures of herself. I’m not kidding. This kid’s vain, too.
  • Being outside – stroller rides, playing in the grass, sitting with Daddy on the porch just watching.
  • Following you around the house and watching your every move. She gets especially mesmerized when you brush your teeth, which she likes to do with her finger toothbrush and baby toothpaste as well.
  • Pulling on your hair, smacking your cheek, or exploring your face and mouth with her free hand while you give her a bottle. If anyone else tried to smack my face or dig out my molars and tongue with their bare hands I’d be more than slightly annoyed, but those sweet sweet baby hands can roam as they please.

Dislikes:

  • In the foods category she isn’t a big fan of new textures. Pastas and pears have been ones she’s spit out on me a couple times. But she is getting better at eating meats – she likes brats. 🙂
  • Diaper and clothes changing
  • Still not liking getting strapped into the car seat, but fortunately she’s fine once in there (usually).
  • Being put to bed if she’s not fully ready. Good luck trying to get her to go to sleep if you put her in her crib too soon.

And here are some recent pictures of our growing beauty.

Just drinking some water, no big deal

 

10 months old!

 

Peekaboo, Mommy!

 

 

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It was a family affair

Did everyone have a nice long weekend? I certainly did. I LOVE 3-dayers! We usually have an annual Memorial Day party to kick off Summer, but this year we changed things up a bit and decided to push it back to later in the season. So this year we had the whole weekend free, and it was blissful.

Friday night my mom came up to spend the night and get her requisite monthly Grandma time with D. Saturday afternoon R’s mom came down to babysit D while we went up to Kohler for one of their Festival of Beer weekend events, Cheers to Beers. One of our good friends planned a surprise get together for his wife’s upcoming 30th birthday, so we headed up to be a part of it. It was a blast! Cheers to Beers was a 3 hour beer tasting held in the Kohler Design Center, and it was a lot of fun. What’s better than sampling some of the best beers from around the country while moseying through some of the finest toilets in the country?

Sunday my dad came to town for the afternoon, and despite the cold, rainy day, we had a really nice visit. Plus he brought some of my favorite sandwiches up from Peoria, always a bonus. 😉 Yesterday was fantastic. We woke up to blue skies and what turned out to be some blazing sun, so we took advantage. We walked over to a park a few blocks from our house for a round of frisbee golf, which D enjoyed immensely by taking a nap. It’s quite obvious I haven’t played in a couple years, judging by the number of discs for which I had to go foraging in the woods surrounding the course. R trounced me, as usual, but that’s ok – it was fun to be out on a course again and enjoying some finally nice weather. (i usually don’t even keep score during frisbee golf. my lack of aim and arm strength make for a discouraging combo when i do) Afterwards D and I headed out to some friends’ house to see their 2 week old baby boy, K, and he is just about the cutest, tiniest peanut ever. He snoozed the whole time we were there, and he looked so little and scrumptious in his swing. Congrats again, Ds! When we got home R fired up the grill for some outstanding brats, we sat in the driveway and listened to the Brewers on the radio, then enjoyed a fire in the fire pit until it was time to call it a night.

It was the perfect way to ring in the summer. Family, friends, warm weather, ahh… Thank you to all of our servicemen and servicewomen who have allowed us to enjoy these times.

 

I love frisbee golf

 

 

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FF

TGIF!! And especially an F before a long holiday weekend! Everyone pay a little tribute to our honorable vets for Memorial Day (or even better, a big tribute).

What I have for the FF this week are some long overdue pictures that I promised from D’s first Brewers game a few weeks ago:

My 1st tailgate

 

Miller Park, yippee!

 

Mom, this place is fun!

 

Mmm, strings

 

Thanks for letting me chew on your water bottle, Auntie Stacey

 

Of course I cheered with Daddy too

 

And just because, here are some more artsy nature shots of water droplets in the gardens. This time they were on my bleeding heart plants.

Into the heart of the bleeding heart

 

Just some more droplets

 

Have a wonderful 3 day weekend, everybody. I get to go meet our friends’ brand new baby boy, K, on Monday, yay!!

 

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Picture pages

Yesterday morning as I was getting ready for work in the bathroom, I heard D’s usual morning wake-up noises – rustling around in her crib, kicking the projector on the side of her crib up and down, random thuds as she wiggles around in there grabbing for her toys and blankets. When I finally went in to get her out, however, I was met with quite a surprise. She was fully standing, grabbing stuff out of the hanging fabric shelves on the side of her crib! My jaw dropped, because I’d never seen her standing all the way up in there before, just kneeling when she was first starting to learn to pull herself up on things. I knew she could pull up to standing now, as we’ve seen her do it countless times on everything else in the house for weeks, but for some reason seeing her standing there so much taller than the side of her crib was quite a shock. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t tipped over the edge. And I had just said the night before to R that we needed to lower her crib mattress soon, since it was still on the highest level for newborns. I must be clairvoyant, as all mothers are.

I was kicking myself that I hadn’t gone out to grab the camera when I saw D standing so tall in there yesterday morning, but I really was afraid she was going to flip over the edge as she kept grabbing for stuff. So I reenacted some shots last night right before I lowered the mattress to the lowest of the 3 levels.

Picture her in duckie pjs, and this was what greeted me yesterday morning

 

Oh hi, Mom. No big deal, just hanging out here, standing

 

I really really love it in here!

 

Um, Mom, what have you done? I don't like it as much down here

 

Oh wait, what is this I can do now?

 

Mm nom nom, crib sides. Ok, it can stay down here

 

And just for fun, D playing with Daddy’s new Indiana Jones hat.

C'mon, Dad, let's go raid some lost arks!

 

Super model adventurer