The week(s) of the sick

Alaina still has this cold. Poor baby. Honestly though, she mostly seems unphased by it. Her nose is really stuffy, especially in the mornings. I use the bulb aspirator and at night she gets saline spray. She also has coughing fits, mostly in the mornings and when she gets up from a nap. She's had a couple more 'cough til she throws up' incidents, one of which was tremendously bad. Almost comical--though not in the moment. Chad took her back to the doctor on Thursday. Since it had been three weeks, they prescribed amoxicillin. Trying to figure out ways to give it to her was a challenge but thankfully we got some great suggestions from friends on FB and we think we've found a system that works. Our current system involves convincing her to open her mouth (easier said than done), squirting a small amount under her tongue to make it harder to spit out, and blowing on her face to cause her to swallow. Only 8 more days of this...I joke that she is keeping the sickness on purpose to keep stalling her transition from the rock n play in our room to her crib in the nursery.

Because she's had a cold, she's also been less interested in eating and she even lost a few ounces. The doctor was not at all concerned (one look at her rolls and you can see why...) but of course this still worries me and brings back bad memories of all the anxiety and obsessiveness I had with her weight the first two months of her life. Her appetite seems to be coming back though. So that's good.

Unfortunately one sickness was clearly not enough for this house. Last Sunday/Monday I was really sick with a 24 hour stomach bug. I could barely nurse or hold Alaina. Chad was really great about completely taking over. I felt awful about it but I canceled everything at work and sent Alaina to daycare. I don't know how stay at home parents handle illness! Fortunately by Tuesday morning, I was back to normal (thanks to Ricki who brought medicine!). And even better, neither Chad nor Alaina got it. She is very happy about this, too. :)

However, Chad has been dealing with his own major cold. His allergies have been awful and he also probably has Alaina's cold. He got a cortisone shot yesterday so we are hoping that helps some. He's always cheered up by her funny noises, though.

Daycare has been going fantastically well. The teachers say she has adjusted. She is (for the most part) napping really well and enjoying watching the other kiddos. There are a few toys there that the teachers say make her laugh so hard she cackles. My life is so much easier knowing that she isn't miserable during the day. You can see below that she's hanging out in a seat, watching her little friend, Nathan.

I have some other things I'd like to mention--mostly related to (surely normal) feelings of incompetence at home and at work--but I'll save those for another day. Instead, I'll end with how cute she is. Still no rolling over (her cousin, Sam, who was born just a few hours earlier can now roll front to back and back to front!) but she's doing a great job sitting up unassisted for short periods of time (before toppling over in a fit of giggles).