Than A Happy (and Healthy!) Girl!!!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
So Here We Are
Five days into Gracie's first real illness, I've learned that:
She takes after her mother in two ways-
1) Her eyes are the most pitiful things in the world when she is sick, they resemble weeping red hots
2) Lack of appetite my foot, girl likes her comfort food (even if it just comes right back up)
She does NOT take after her mother in that she is the world's best patient...hacking cough, weepy eyes, runny nose, and other less pleasant symptoms and she still has a perma-gummy grin...UNLESS...
Forget what pyschology says about object permanence, the only time the child is not smiling is when she spots a nasal syringe...she knows good and well where it is, who had it, and she holds a grudge.
I wish I could say that I've been as well behaved as my brave girl, but to be honest I've been a wreck. I am just no good at this sick kid stuff. Poor girl hasn't woken up once over the past 48 hours without my big head hovering over hers and Parke has been called in multiple times a night to listen to her breathe (I've set up camp by the crib).
The doctors have all assured me that she is doing very well (multiple times...pretty sure I've earned myself red flag sticky note on the charts, some things never change). And I believe them...most of the time.
So here we are, Gracie is still sick but handling it beautifully. Clearly, she gets a lot of her personality from her father.
She takes after her mother in two ways-
1) Her eyes are the most pitiful things in the world when she is sick, they resemble weeping red hots
2) Lack of appetite my foot, girl likes her comfort food (even if it just comes right back up)
She does NOT take after her mother in that she is the world's best patient...hacking cough, weepy eyes, runny nose, and other less pleasant symptoms and she still has a perma-gummy grin...UNLESS...
Forget what pyschology says about object permanence, the only time the child is not smiling is when she spots a nasal syringe...she knows good and well where it is, who had it, and she holds a grudge.
I wish I could say that I've been as well behaved as my brave girl, but to be honest I've been a wreck. I am just no good at this sick kid stuff. Poor girl hasn't woken up once over the past 48 hours without my big head hovering over hers and Parke has been called in multiple times a night to listen to her breathe (I've set up camp by the crib).
The doctors have all assured me that she is doing very well (multiple times...pretty sure I've earned myself red flag sticky note on the charts, some things never change). And I believe them...most of the time.
So here we are, Gracie is still sick but handling it beautifully. Clearly, she gets a lot of her personality from her father.
Pull it together Mama, geeze
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Really Sucky Visit
RSV...it stands for Respitory Syncytial Virus, and it is apparently what Gracie has..and what it amounted to today was a really sucky visit to the doctor.
I realize it is really common virus, and tons of babies get it every year with little or no complications. But, and there is always a but..
I had to sit in the office today and listen to the "ifs"...if Gracie started having trouble breathing...if she retracting her lungs...if she had to go to the hospital...if she had to be put on oxygen
And when you have lived all of those things, the ifs have a sneaky way of becoming whens in your mind.
Gracie IS NOT Rip. I know that, I really and truly do. But it is still so scary.
So a little prayer request for no more RSV...really sucky visits or otherwise.
I realize it is really common virus, and tons of babies get it every year with little or no complications. But, and there is always a but..
I had to sit in the office today and listen to the "ifs"...if Gracie started having trouble breathing...if she retracting her lungs...if she had to go to the hospital...if she had to be put on oxygen
And when you have lived all of those things, the ifs have a sneaky way of becoming whens in your mind.
Gracie IS NOT Rip. I know that, I really and truly do. But it is still so scary.
So a little prayer request for no more RSV...really sucky visits or otherwise.
Crazy Girl
This morning has been One of Those Mornings. Gracie has her first official daycare cold and yes, I know she is building her immune system and blah blah blah, but leaving her when she is sick is my least favorite thing about being a working mother. Thankfully, my mother-in-law volunteered to watch her for the day, but being up all night suctioning and wiping and rocking left even more mentally drained than usual this morning.
So, by the time I got in the car and realized that what had formally been 75 and sunny was now 59 and raining, I just didn't care. Yes, I was soaked and freezing, but oh well. And then when I looked around for my umbrella and had a flashback of me, in a post-partum hormonal cleaning frenzy, chunking it out the back door, again I thought ah well, I won't melt. But, when I looked in the back seat and my eyes were met with other eyes, piercing green eyes that were most certainly NOT supposed to be in the back of my car, I freaked. Tired, wet, freezing...fine. Hallucinating...we have a problem.
Thankfully, I didn't fall down the rabbit hole just yet. The cat evidently decided hitching a ride to work sounded like a good idea. Once I stopped screaming, screeched back home, and dropped her rear off, I had to laugh.
You know how after you lose a loved one, people will always say, very sentimentally, "they are looking down on you from Heaven now".
Well, if that's true, I can only hope Rip gets a laugh or two out of his mother being a crazy girl...and maybe adds a little extra emphasis on the guardian part of angel on his little sister's behalf.
So, by the time I got in the car and realized that what had formally been 75 and sunny was now 59 and raining, I just didn't care. Yes, I was soaked and freezing, but oh well. And then when I looked around for my umbrella and had a flashback of me, in a post-partum hormonal cleaning frenzy, chunking it out the back door, again I thought ah well, I won't melt. But, when I looked in the back seat and my eyes were met with other eyes, piercing green eyes that were most certainly NOT supposed to be in the back of my car, I freaked. Tired, wet, freezing...fine. Hallucinating...we have a problem.
Thankfully, I didn't fall down the rabbit hole just yet. The cat evidently decided hitching a ride to work sounded like a good idea. Once I stopped screaming, screeched back home, and dropped her rear off, I had to laugh.
You know how after you lose a loved one, people will always say, very sentimentally, "they are looking down on you from Heaven now".
Well, if that's true, I can only hope Rip gets a laugh or two out of his mother being a crazy girl...and maybe adds a little extra emphasis on the guardian part of angel on his little sister's behalf.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Laugh it Up
I've done everything up to and including standing on my head to try to get Gracie to laugh. Somewhere along the way a friend told me that her child laughed around 14 weeks, so for the past two weeks poor kid has had my face in hers almost constantly.
One baby we knew got a real kick out of the dog barking. Poor old Dock was having none of it when I tried to get him howling...finally after about five minutes of me yipping and yapping like an idiot, Gracie gave me a little half smile of pity, probably wondering if she should try to seek help.
Someone else sent me a video of a baby laughing his head off at his mama after she sneezed...after thirty fake sneezes I was so dizzy I could hardly see straight and Gracie was covered in spit. Not even a smile on that one.
Everyone saw the baby who got tickled over his dad ripping up the rejection letter. When I tried it the noise scared Gracie and I got a paper cut.
And then last night, it finally happened. Parke walked in the door and she squealed. And then chuckled. And then full out froggy belly LAUGHED. And then we laughed, which made her laugh even harder, and soon we all had tears coming down our faces from laughing. It was the best sound I have ever heard in my life.
When all the hilarity finally calmed down, I asked Parke, "wait, what did you do?"
"Nothing."
So, So Typical.
Oh well! I am still the proud mama of a laughing baby!
One baby we knew got a real kick out of the dog barking. Poor old Dock was having none of it when I tried to get him howling...finally after about five minutes of me yipping and yapping like an idiot, Gracie gave me a little half smile of pity, probably wondering if she should try to seek help.
Someone else sent me a video of a baby laughing his head off at his mama after she sneezed...after thirty fake sneezes I was so dizzy I could hardly see straight and Gracie was covered in spit. Not even a smile on that one.
Everyone saw the baby who got tickled over his dad ripping up the rejection letter. When I tried it the noise scared Gracie and I got a paper cut.
And then last night, it finally happened. Parke walked in the door and she squealed. And then chuckled. And then full out froggy belly LAUGHED. And then we laughed, which made her laugh even harder, and soon we all had tears coming down our faces from laughing. It was the best sound I have ever heard in my life.
When all the hilarity finally calmed down, I asked Parke, "wait, what did you do?"
"Nothing."
So, So Typical.
Oh well! I am still the proud mama of a laughing baby!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
And Then It Hit Me
And then it hit me, as it usually does right around a "birthday". Today is April 11th, Rip would have been almost a year and a half today.
It hit me out of nowhere yesterday, that prickly feeling behind my eyes, that feeling of just plain old missing my baby boy. So I stopped, closed my eyes, and told him. Told him how much I missed him and how much I loved him. Told him how much he would have loved his little badpot of a sister who kept me up all night because her doggone Sleep Sheep was broken. Told him how proud he would be of his Daddy who is working so hard. Told him about the fun Easter we had and how thankful I always am to be his mama on that day.
I don't know for sure if he hears me when I tell him these things, but when I opened my eyes and looked down at my sleeping baby, felt the warm breeze caressing my cheeks and ruffling her hair...it hit me...I'd be willing to bet he does.
It hit me out of nowhere yesterday, that prickly feeling behind my eyes, that feeling of just plain old missing my baby boy. So I stopped, closed my eyes, and told him. Told him how much I missed him and how much I loved him. Told him how much he would have loved his little badpot of a sister who kept me up all night because her doggone Sleep Sheep was broken. Told him how proud he would be of his Daddy who is working so hard. Told him about the fun Easter we had and how thankful I always am to be his mama on that day.
I don't know for sure if he hears me when I tell him these things, but when I opened my eyes and looked down at my sleeping baby, felt the warm breeze caressing my cheeks and ruffling her hair...it hit me...I'd be willing to bet he does.
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