Cyber Monday means a new blog post...

...It also meant scoring a few footed pjs for Alaina for $8. Not too shabby. We've almost reached the end of Alaina's hand me down and gifted clothes and are finally having (/getting?) to buy her wardrobe.

Last week started off pretty well. I think we were all excited about a short week.

It's important to note that Alaina still is not sleeping in her crib. She just hangs out in there a bit during the day sometimes. Otherwise, we wouldn't keep the toys in there. 

On Monday afternoon, I peeked in on the daycare cameras and saw Alaina just hanging out (I started humming "All by myself"). At this point in the day, there were only 3 other kiddos and they were all sleeping. Shortly after this, they were up and Alaina took a nap. The penguin behind her is her favorite thing at daycare. Apparently it makes her laugh hysterically.

 

Lately she has been very into wanting to hold her own bottle at daycare. I demonstrated this to Chad. She still prefers when we give her the bottle, which is good by me. I like the cuddle time.

Unfortunately, we got a call on Wednesday that Alaina looked like she might have pink eye and I needed to come get her and take her to the doctor. Her eye has been yucky on and off for the duration of this cold and it had looked particularly bad (somewhat swollen, matted shut upon waking). However, the whites never had any redness or pink to them. But her teacher noticed some redness when she woke up from her nap so off to the doctor we went. We weren't able to get in with her pediatrician so we just went to our clinic's walk-in office. Fortunately she does not have pink eye. However, she did have a double ear infection! I felt bad but she hadn't shown any obvious signs of ear infection and she has been pretty happy. But maybe that was why she had been a little less interested in food lately and it could explain the fever spike we had seen the previous week (though that just lasted a few hours). Anyhow, we immediately started her on an antibiotic that we are also hoping knocks out this remaining cold. We go back next Wednesday to make sure her ears are clear. Alaina is taking cefdinir which has a really interesting side effect of making her dirty diapers brick red. Fortunately I had been warned about this but it was still pretty alarming to see! So there is your PSA in case you or a loved one is ever placed on this antibiotic.

You can see in this photo how swollen her eyes look. Poor thing.

She was pretty tuckered out after the visit to the doctor. She was so good there! She stayed occupied in the waiting room for over half an hour and she only got fussy when they looked in her ears and swabbed her nose. We had to wait for her prescription so we went to visit Chad at work. By the time we got home, she had fallen asleep in her car seat which almost never happens. Madeline wanted to check her out when we got home.

Thanksgiving was pretty low-key. My dad was going to visit but he ended up getting whatever bug is going around in Kentucky (I hate this time of year with all the viruses going around!!) so he ended up not coming. I made dinner and our friend Ricki came over. It was fun. I always miss family at the holidays though. Especially my grandparents, since they were always a huge part of my Thanksgiving growing up and as an adult.

Alaina has renewed interest in food again. She is just not a fan of carrots, it seems. She had sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. Yesterday we introduced green beans and she was not impressed! I mixed them with oatmeal later and she seemed less offended by them. Here is a video of her first taste.

In general she just seems to be feeling better. She was always happy and smiling but she seems to have a bit more energy. I'm so hopeful this will knock out the cough/congestion as well. But we are glad she is feeling good. Last night she stole the burp cloth off my shoulder and started waving it like a flag. This made Chad and I laugh pretty hard, which she thought was hilarious. This set off a laughing fit of all three of us, feeding off each other, lasting for at least 5-10 minutes. At one point she got mad that the laughter stopped and did what can only be described as a "Hulk" move by scrunching up her face and pushing her fists together. Which of course set us off again. It was, without question, one of the best moments we've had as a family. In the end, I was crying with laughter and Chad's side was killing him. I wish someone had been filming it.

You'll have to settle instead for a video of her being ridiculously silly before bedtime.