Just One Day

Friday October 19, 2012

Time is a dimension I no longer understand. It used to be a pretty straight-forward concept...wake up, go to work, come home. The days passed one by one and I painstakingly counted down to the next holiday or vacation. Now I've been sucked into some kind of time warp where I never know what day it is (and I can only remember by trying to recall whether or not she went to school yesterday), or what the date is (something in mid-October?) and one minute I'm muddling through the sleep-deprived days of a constantly-crying newborn and the next I'm sailing through the peaceful rhythms of life with an eight-month-old. I know what those misty-eyed wistful grandmas in Target mean when they smile at my baby and say "it goes by so fast." 6 months ago I would've rolled my eyes at those people...time was the enemy and I could NOT wait for her to get older so we could start having some fun. Those first 3 months were just such a rough adjustment, but once we got her ailments under control time started flying by at warp speed. Now we're entering my absolute favorite time of year- holidays!!- and I'm so excited about sharing it all with her, and I know it will be January in the blink of an eye and we'll be getting ready for her first birthday.

So this post is for me. (Warning! It's a long one.) A snapshot of our life right now, each tiny little detail recorded and stored away for some day when I know I'll need it. Because somewhere in the future I know there's a me who is wistfully pining for one more day with that sweet little baby. 10, 15, 20 years from now I'm flipping through her baby album and wanting so desperately to go back in time and re-live just one day....one more day to go for a refreshing 4 mile run with the baby in the jogging stroller, feeling fantastic and enjoying the beautiful weather...one more day to play with her on the floor in her room and watch her giggle and laugh...one more day to take her shopping and count the number of strangers who stop me to say what a cute baby...one more day to watch her come crawling at full speed for the bathtub, so overjoyed for bathtime....one more day to rock her to sleep. Beauty and joy in each and every single moment. I don't want to forget a single drop of it.

Our day begins at 7:45 am. She usually wakes up between 6:45-7:15, but today she decided to sleep in a bit, so I got up and enjoyed a cup of coffee and reading emails and browsing the interwebz. She wakes up happy as always and easily takes her medicine. While we're waiting 30 minutes for the medicine to kick in we play on the floor in her room. 

First things first- she notices the door to her bathroom is open and makes a beeline for it, hoping it's bathtime.

I re-direct her towards her toys and she gets sidetracked when Winnie comes in. Her other favorite! She makes a beeline for him and he avoids her like the plague.

Finally he's had enough so he steals her owl and runs out the room.

After 30 minutes have passed it's time for breakfast, a nice big bottle of Elecare. We certainly will not miss it when she gives this up! Costs a small fortune. (We had to refinance our house. True story.)

Next we load up the jogging stroller and head out for a run to enjoy this absolutely perfect weather. She loves the stroller and is always happy to oblige.

It is a wonderful gorgeous fall day perfect for running and I ran 4 miles without hardly breaking a sweat. One of those days where each deep breath of crisp air makes you glad to be alive.

When we get back home it's time for baths for everyone. She happily plays on the bathroom floor and inside my closet while I shower off. She gets a big kick out of the most random objects...an empty milk jug, a box of kleenex. Easily amused.

Next it's time for her bath. I walk into her bathroom and turn the water on and she comes crawling in as fast as her little legs can carry her. She pulls up on the tub to watch it fill up.

Bathtime is one of her absolute favorite activities. She loves the rushing water, crawling around and splashing around, playing with her toys, and trying to figure out what's going on when the drain starts making noises.

Drying her off is a challenge because she adamantly refuses to sit still for 2 seconds. (Hence so many of my photos are a blur.) But with some creative wrangling with my hands and feet I manage to dry her off.

After getting dressed we have a bit of time before naptime so we read some books. She LOVES reading books...it surprises me that an 8-month-old has such a good span of attention to pay attention to books.

Her favorite book right now is Doggies. I'll put a few books on the floor and let her choose which one she wants, and she'll choose Doggies first every.single.time.

Now it's naptime and I attempt to rock her to sleep. On a good day she might fall asleep in my arms, but not too often, as is the case today. I finally just have to put her in her crib and let her wear herself out. She rolls around for about 10-15 minutes and finally passes out.

Usually her morning nap is 1-2 hours, but today she's just in the mood for a quick 40 minute catnap. So once she's up we change her outfit to be 'dressed for the day' in something cute. Because she has so many clothes that we need to wear a minimum of 3 outfits per day just to get good use out of them.

She sits in her highchair and plays with toys while I scarf down some lunch. I'm not much of a foodie, but I have to brag on today's lunch. Homemade chicken lasagna with butternut squash and spinach....yum yum yum! I've never made lasagna from scratch, mostly b/c I'm not a big fan of red sauce, but when I saw a recipe for a white-sauce lasagna I had to try. DEELICIOUS!

After lunch it's time to run some errands. She's happy to tag along in her carseat, which weighs a small ton and I'm shocked that I don't have arms of steel from hauling this thing around everywhere!

She charms all the cashiers everywhere we go. Of course.

We stop by Daddy's volunteer project so Caroline can meet all of his coworkers. Once again...all smiles.

His project just happens to be right around the corner from one of my favorite stores in Houston, Half-Price Books. I could spend allllll daaaay in there. So much fun to browse...and everything's half price what you would pay in Barnes and Noble/Border's/etc! Sadly they didn't have the book I was looking for...but I did pick up a great find for Nana for christmas!

Once we get home it's time for a bottle and change of clothes to get ready for naptime again. The little wiggleworm escapes my foot hold and wanders over to the bookshelf for some book browsing al fresco.

We read a few books and have a few laughs. Once again she chooses Doggies. I must read this book 15 times every day. But the sound of her contagious little laugh makes it worth it.

Time for a nap. But before she dozes off she wants to practice pulling up on her crib. I kept hearing a slight thumping noise coming from upstairs and was panicked that she had hit her head. I turned on the monitor to see she was standing up and banging away with her hand on the edge of her crib. 

She eventually falls asleep, and sacks out for about 2 hours. When she wakes up Daddy is home and wrestles around on the floor with her and Winnie for a bit.

Then it's time for their daily afternoon stroll. Sometimes Daddy goes running, but today being the end of a long work week, he's more in the mood for a leisurely stroll. She's happy either way. When they return from their stroll it's off for another bath. She is all grins as she grabs the water, kicks and splashes, and crawls around in the tub.

Our bedtime routine is always bath, bottle, book, and bed. The bath part is a breeze...but sometimes the bottle part is a bit of a challenge. She's just too busy and distracted to sit still and eat! But tonight she eats contently and is rewarded with one of her other favorite stories, Guess Who? She loves seeing herself in the book's mirror.

Finally it's time for bed. Daddy takes her up and rocks her and she usually falls asleep in his arms. He has a signature baby-holding position that I haven't mastered and he has a pretty good track record at rocking her to sleep. Sweet baby is down for the night.

And now I have time to sit down and reflect on the day's events. So mundane, ordinary, peaceful and predictable. There is such a graceful rhythm to our days now that I truly cherish. As busy as she is and as much of a full-time job as it is chasing an 8 month old, I still feel like I have time to stop and just breathe and soak in the beautiful details of these ordinary days. I want to take this day and put it in a bottle and open it up again sometime far in the future when I'm missing my little baby. Just one day.

8 months, and a return of the symptoms

Well there is good news and bad news with this month's monthly-birthday update. The good news: Caroline is growing and developing perfectly fine. She is right on track with her physical growth and motor and cognitive skills. The bad news: we've had a return of her pain/fussing/crying/uncomfortable symptoms and I feel terrible that she's in pain again.

Looking back, I can see now that it started about two months ago. She was sleeping through the night just fine since she was 12 weeks old, and all of a sudden 2 months ago, she started waking up crying at night. At first we thought it was the 6 month growth spurt, and we waited it out for about a week. Then she had a cold. Then she was cutting a tooth. Then another cold. Then another tooth. It seemed like it was just one thing after another and we just couldn't catch a break. Sometimes she would wake up crying and would take a bottle, so we thought she was waking up out of hunger, but sometimes she was just crying inexplicably.

A few weeks after the night wakings began, she stopped eating well. She never used to refuse a bottle, and all of a sudden she was adamantly refusing to eat her 7 pm bottle. It didn't matter that it had been over 6 hours since she last ate...she just would.not.eat. Her daily consumption dropped to about 15 ounces per day. Babies her age should be eating closer to 30. She was never a voracious eater to begin with, and usually took 20-25 ounces per day, but 15 was a new record low for her. 

And of course she didn't want anything to do with solid foods either. I had lamented her poor eating skills since we started solid foods. At first I thought she was just a picky eater. Then I thought she didn't like the texture or consistency of the baby food. She frequently gagged and choked and then refused to open her mouth and accept any more food. (You've seen the video montage, right?) Then I thought she might be food-avoidant since she spent so much of her young life throwing up. I was coming up with every excuse in the book, and it didn't dawn on me what might be going on until a few days ago. 

The fussing and crying...the night wakings...the problems with eating....it all started when she  began eating solid foods. 

I think she has some type of food allergy/intolerance issue with something she's eating. I thought I was well-prepared and careful about introducing foods, but I missed it because I had assumed any food intolerance issues would present with vomiting, which is what it did with her milk allergy. But it didn't. And it's taken me 2 months to figure this out, and I feel awful that she's probably been uncomfortable and in pain for so long.

I had asked the on-call pediatrician about her eating/sleeping issues a few weeks ago when she went in to be checked out for her cold. His ridiculous advice was something about 'tough love' and letting her cry it out b/c she'd developed a habit of waking up to eat and we needed to break that habit. I wanted to punch him. In fact I want to punch most doctors these days. I have NO FAITH in the entire medical establishment. But just for precaution's sake, I made an appointment with her GI last Monday to discuss her issues. He basically said yes, I had reason to be concerned that she was only eating 15 ounces per day but he kind of dismissed her night wakings saying 'not all babies sleep through the night at this age' and that 'their personalities start to emerge now' and I didn't come away with any clear answers about what was going on, other than we should increase her meds a bit.

SO UNBELIEVABLY FRUSTRATING. The possible food allergy issue didn't cross my mind until 3 days after the appointment with the GI. And I was furious that he never even once mentioned it as a possibility, never said that maybe solid foods were causing her problems, never told me some of the possible effects to be on alert for. Once again, I had to figure this out entirely on my own (with lots of researching on the internet and discussions with my mom, who also wants to kill all the doctors.) So now, once again, I am trusting my mother's intuition because that was the ONLY THING that helped me fix her the first time. I'm taking her entirely off of solid foods for a good 2 weeks to let her system clear out, and then I am demanding a referral to a pediatric allergist who can hopefully help me figure out what she's possibly reacting to.

chomping on some Puffs, which gives her an
attractive buck tooth appearance.

Whew. So enough with the bad news. On with the good! She is crawling up a storm these days, and she has even mastered the 'cross crawl' which is a fairly advanced skill for her age. (Cross crawling is moving one arm and the leg on the opposite side, as opposed to crawling with one arm and leg on the same side.)

http://youtu.be/I2K95275zuk

She likes to carry things in her mouth like a dog. Perhaps she picked this up from Winnie. 

Winnie does it so why can't I?

She is pulling up to a standing position all by herself on everything she can get her hands on. As I was flipping through the photos I'd just taken on my phone I looked down and she had pulled herself up so she could see too! She likes to sit on her knees a lot too, practicing her balance I suppose.

enjoying baby jail

hello!

getting good at balance

Another interesting development: they say that by 9 or 10  months babies should be able to follow your finger and gaze at an object when you point at it. It's one of the earliest building blocks for language development...they need to learn how to show you what they want before they can name the object. And she is definitely following my pointing finger! Exciting!

She can imitate certain actions and sounds when we initiate. Daddy will sing a song and clap, and she'll bang her hand on her high chair. We'll say 'where's your tongue?' and stick out our tongues, and she'll stick out her tongue. She likes to grunt and growl, so we say 'what does the T-Rex do?' and make the growl, and she'll growl back.

http://youtu.be/sZJzLeHFmb0

Her favorite toy right now is the Tickle Monkey. He laughs and sings and she gets a kick out of him.

http://youtu.be/mjDx4gJWhAI

Hopefully we can get this fussing/crying/not eating/not sleeping business taken care of soon and we'll have our happy pain-free baby back soon!

more fall fun

We had another jam-packed fun fall weekend last weekend. We started the weekend off with a trip to the dog park for Pug Play Day, so Winnie could run around with all his pug pals. We haven't been to pug play day in foreeeever, so I know Winnie was happy to get out and run around. It was Caroline's first trip to the dog park and I knew she would love seeing all the doggies. Since it's October this was the Halloween meetup and all the pugs were decked out in their costumes. One year Winnie was a bumblebee...he still has not forgiven me for that humiliation.

The year that Bill and I went to Maui we got him a hula shirt so he could be Magnum PI. He won the doggie costume contest! I think it was the shades that got him a win.

This year I decided to go with the old LSU jersey. Glad we did because there was another pug there wearing a Florida jersey....the horror!! 

All the other pugs were too cute of course. But it was a quick trip, since Winnie made a beeline for the swimming pool and promptly became a muddy mess and Caroline was nearing naptime.

This year Winnie's costume was carefully selected to coordinate with Caroline's. It took some extensive searching...I scoured pages and pages of Etsy listings...but finally I found the absolute perfect outfit. He too was quite excited when his package arrived in the mail.















But then the shame and despair appeared when he finally realized what was in store for him.

why do you DO this to me???

He was none too thrilled with my choice of costume. I got him to sit still long enough to take a picture and then he started violently flinging his head around trying to get it off. I relented and removed the despised headwear and put it on the coffee table. He then grabbed it off the coffee table and attempted to destroy it. I snatched it away and put it back on the coffee table, but I caught him trying to do it again later. He's going to be one humiliated pug come Halloween....

Aunty Em was in town for a concert Friday night so she came over to our house Saturday afternoon to watch the LSU game. She brought her service-dog-in-training, Kline, whose good manners and training put Winnie to shame. Caroline ADORED Kline and was thrilled with the attention Kline gave her, I guess since she's so deprived of any attention from Winnie. It was Kline's first time meeting and interacting with a baby, but of course he did wonderful. Emily will be very sad to see him go when she turns him in for full service dog training in about a year! 

On Sunday afternoon we met the Huggins at a pumpkin patch for some pumpkin picking and lots of photo-taking. Caroline was pretty cooperative and seemed to enjoy herself. 

Afterwards we stopped at Schlotzky's for a quick bite to eat, which was her first restaurant adventure and her first time to eat any sort of 'real' food (i.e. not baby food from a jar). At Jackie's encouragement, who assured me she would not choke to death, we gave her small pieces of saltine crackers and bits of tomato from my sandwich. She ate them! And she liked it! This is a major milestone considering that just a few weeks ago she was gagging on stage 2 jarred baby food. 

Eating real food! Perhaps it is time to venture into Cheerios and Puffs.

The past few days she's enjoyed playing with the mini-pumpkins, which are just the right size for her little hands to grab.

So excited about trick-or-treating in a few weeks! Can't wait to show off my herd!