what a week

Wow. It's been an unusual week at our household, that's for sure. But the entire experience really started last Saturday.

One of my goals this year is to be less of a hermit, more of a social butterfly, and to bring my family along with me. So we had a few friends and their kids over last Saturday. It was a wonderful time, and Al and I were contemplating that fact five minutes after our last guests left. Bridget wanted to practice walking (my hands under her armpits) and was speeding across the kitchen floor when up came all of her dinner and formula. (The force of projectile vomiting in these kids is truly amazing.) She was coughing and crying, too. We comforted her, cleaned her up, and prepared her last bottle for the evening. As it was warming up (she still doesn't like drinking cold liquids), Bridget and I were laying on the floor and she crawled onto my back. That's when I learned that she wasn't exactly done vomiting. My back (and my hair, gross) saved the carpet, but the newest onesie wasn't safe, either. One more time, and then she was done for the night. We decided to forego the last bottle, rocked her to sleep, and went to bed a little worried. The crying and the coughing along with the vomiting was a bit unusual, but we were hoping against hope that it was just the excitement of the night that overwhelmed her tummy.

Even though I warned our friends Sunday morning of Bridget's potential illness, by midmorning I was convinced that she was fine. She hadn't seemed too interested in breakfast, but that wasn't highly unusual as of late. She was playing and laughing and having a grand old time when I got a phone call from my cousin. Did I want to go to the Red Wings game? Of course I did, I just wasn't sure Bridget would be allowed in. After doing some checking around, I decided to chance it, fed Bridget her bottle and took off. Before you knew it we were in our seats at Joe Louis Arena and Bridget was having the time of her life. She loved it! So many people to smile and flirt with. The entire first period she was entranced by the people around us, waving, smiling, jumping up and down, and occasionally acting shy. The woman behind us told me, "That is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen." (See, Regis and Kelly?)

During the second period Bridget was getting kind-of restless so we walked around the arena. I found a place to change her diaper, which was strangely dry (uh, parents, that's a warning sign, if you haven't guessed what's coming), and we went back to our seats at the beginning of the third period. I fed her some yogurt but she wasn't that interested and halfway through the period was starting to fall asleep in my lap. The Wings tied it up with the Blackhawks and I thought, My first live shootout! This will be fun. And then, with about 9:36 left on the clock, Bridget coughed. With the cough came a little vomit. Oh please God, no, I thought, as Bridget coughed again and some more came shooting out of her. "Uh, David," I said to my cousin. (Amazingly, at this point no one had even noticed that Bridget was getting sick.) He looked at me questioningly, then noticed what was going on as she projectile vomited all over our laps (hers and mine) and even got a few small spatterings on the back of the Zetterman jersey of the guy in front of us (oops). I had my cousin wipe off my hands with her bib, grab my car keys out of the diaper bag, and I took off. The good news: I missed the traffic leaving the garage. I missed the shootout, but the Wings lost anyway.

Bridget slept on the way home, but other than a bit of diarrhea toward the evening, Bridget seemed back to her normal self the rest of Sunday evening. Mommy and Bridget went to bed, Daddy went to hockey, and when mommy woke up a few hours later, she heard vomiting sounds coming from the other end of the house. Not Bridget, Al. When he finally came into the bedroom I asked him to close the bathroom door next time he got sick. It sounded disgusting.

I should have been a bit nicer (and honestly, I did say, "I'm sorry you're sick) because a few hours later it was me in the bathroom. I'll just say that between Al and I that night it was not pretty. By the morning I had no idea how either of us could take care of Bridget (I wasn't about to send her to daycare) but Al tried. That lasted til about 11:30, when he went off to take a nap. Bridget slept for a little while, too, but was inconsolable when she woke up and I was so weak I could barely lift her to change her diaper (she is 26.5 pounds now, and I've never had tremendous arm strength). Right then my sister texted to see if everything was alright (I had alerted her to our situation earlier) and, when I replied, "No," said she was coming to get Bridget. Bridget ended up having her first sleepover Monday night with Aunt Beth. Al and I slept all Monday afternoon, were up for two hours, and then went to bed around 8:00.

Since then, Al has gone back to work and I only had a few I-don't-feel-good hours recur last night. Bridget did end up getting sick at Beth's, but hasn't had diarrhea for a few days and I was going to send her back to daycare this morning until--oops--more vomiting last night. The doctor said that formula and/or dairy products are too heavy for their stomachs to digest when kids aren't feeling well so to give her Pedialyte, only half as much and more often than usual (yeah, that goes over well when a kid is hungry and wants more in her stomach). So I've had a week home with Bridget (keeping her home tomorrow too in case of recurring vomiting)--a sometimes fussy, sometimes fun week, and totally unexpected. I'm just hoping next week isn't quite so eventful.

beautiful baby

Bridget's pediatrician tells me I should each time I go to the doctor's office, so I'm finally going to do it: I'm going to enter Bridget in a beautiful baby contest.

I've hesitated on doing this for a while since most contests exist (at least it seems like it) solely for the purpose of building the company's database and sending out more junk mail/emails. But with the prospect of paying off my education looming in front of us (I managed to avoid student loans until my PhD, but quickly became indebted to the US government while in Iowa), the thought that Bridget just might be able to earn a college scholarship is appealing. So I'm giving in and doing it--I'm going to enter her into the Live! with Regis & Kelly Beautiful Baby Contest 2010. The deadline for entries is January 29, and I've decided I'm going to need your help.

I'm going to take photos of Bridget throughout the month of January and post them in a Picasa web album titled Beautiful Baby. (I've posted the first fourteen choices already.) What I'd like you to do is visit the album regularly (or even just near the end of the month) and vote for your favorite pic(s). Bridget's got the best personality (if you haven't met her, you haven't met one of the happiest babies in town), but sunny personalities don't always come through in photos. So I'd like to get other people's opinions--which pics do you like? And on the 28th or 29th, I'll enter a photo: hopefully one with a lot of votes from friends and family, and one that I love, too (being her mommy, I am holding overriding privileges since I know her the best!). And okay, if you have a kid that you're going to enter, I'll do the same for you. I'd rather have one of her friends earn the college money than a stranger--although I'm sure there are beautiful strangers' babies out there, too!

Here's hoping for some great pics!

morning blues

I've got the morning blues. It's all because my baby's growing up too fast and I miss our old morning routine. It's hard to believe that at almost ten months (in a week), Bridget's already changed a habit that I'd grown to love.

Up until a few weeks ago, I always knew when Bridget was ready to get out of bed in the mornings. It wasn't when she woke up crying; from experience, I knew that crying meant she wasn't ready to get up yet. By the time I got out of bed, slipped into some clothes, and put in my contacts, Bridget would have fallen back into a deep sleep--if she ever fully woke up at all. It was anywhere from half an hour to an hour after the crying that she'd wake up ready to face the day. And the sounds coming through the monitor let me know: "Da da da da da. Na na na. Ah woah we woah. Da da da." Yep. She'd wake up and start talking to herself.

Bridget would talk to herself for twenty minutes or more waiting for me to come and get her. She'd play with her hands, move all over in her crib (something she doesn't really do when she's sleeping), and then look up at me with a big smile when I came into the room. I'd sing her my version of "Good Morning" while I changed her diaper and dressed her, and then we'd go get her breakfast. It was listening to her talk to herself that I loved the most, and it's that part that I'm missing now. Now, I have to listen for a different sort of breathing and an occasional whisper, for the movement in the crib that tells me she's moving (and might try to pull the cord for the humidifier out of the wall again if we forgot to move her crib). It happened gradually; there were a few mornings when we were struggling with a bad cold that made it hard for her to breathe on top of teething, and on those mornings I'd hold her the last few hours of the night while she slept. But now that she's sleeping the night again, the morning chit-chats with herself are gone.

The missing chatter in the morning just makes me realize that my baby is growing up. I already mentioned that she's picking up on the meaning of language, and I think this might be a sign that she's already learning that speaking is typically a social act--people speak to each other more than to themselves (although I have been known to speak to myself frequently, especially when my husband's glued to the television and apparently unaware of my presence). She still talks when she's playing, so I've got that to cherish for a while yet. The morning talks, though, seem to be a thing of the past. Sigh.

of all things new

Sitting on the couch in the family room, I should be writing a former student of mine the promised recommendation letter to graduate school and then start an editing job for a friend that I said I'd do (and then forgot about) before Christmas. But watching my not-quite-a-toddler, but-getting-there baby girl, I had to write about her. After all, it's been two months.

Currently, she's playing with a greeting card that I got from a friend when I found out I was pregnant. She pulled it out of the media cabinet (don't ask me what it was doing there in the first place), which she loves to open and close, open and close, pull all of daddy's music dvds (things like the Beatles anthology, etc.) and video games out, and then open and close again. She's actually pretty inactive this morning since she's had a nasty cold for about a week now, complete with infinite amounts of gooey yellow snot, raspy coughs, and trouble breathing toward morning. The trouble breathing often leads to us sleeping in dad's lazy-boy (borrowed it during the pregnancy, still haven't managed to give it back yet) the last couple of hours in the morning. I actually got the cold too, a couple of days before Bridget, or I would have had her to the doctor's three times already worried about pneumonia, bronchitis, and everything else I could dream up. Colds, they do nothing for; I know we're in the clear.

I was actually quite surprised when I realized I haven't blogged since Halloween. Really? That long ago? I missed blogging Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve? Guilty. And since Bridget's already 9 and 1/2 months old, there are a lot of new things to blog.

New: Bridget's crawling all over the place. I thought she might start a few weeks ago when she crawled backwards about five inches, ran into the ottoman, and stopped. Then a few days later she was doing a very difficult army crawl. Within the last two weeks, she more than perfected the army crawl and is now up on all fours--although sometimes she drags her legs instead of using them to help propel her. At the rate she's been going, I'm sure she'll have that down pat within a day or two. She can crawl up the one step from the sunken family room to the kitchen and has discovered the dog dishes. She also discovered the cast iron fireplace tools, which are now in the garage, and the floor lamp, which I've had to hide behind a giant snowman so she won't pull it down on her head. She can pull herself to standing, too. And has begun walking holding onto the ottoman and couch--baby steps, of course, going between the two, but walking nonetheless. I should be losing weight soon from the running I'll have to do to keep up with her.

New: Bridget finally got her two top teeth. They've been coming in for what seems like months now, and they finally broke through the gums a couple of days ago. She's still a drool-monster (add that to the snot from the cold and she's quite a mess most days), but at least she doesn't seem to be aching so much now. She's also learned to bite. It hurts! But she's not doing it frequently (yet), so let's hope that doesn't become a problem.

New (I think): Bridget's made some talking noises for a long time, and quite a while ago started saying "Dada" very clearly whenever Al called me on my cell or came home from work. But now she says "Momma" too, and I'm fairly certain she knows what both of the words mean. She definitely is understanding a lot of what we say--she understands when I say, "Come here, Bridget" and make motions to come, and she definitely knows "Where's Daddy?" and "Daddy's home!" The language-learning process is just beginning and it's fascinating me. It'll be fun to see how much and what she picks up!

New: She watches her dvds on television. I'm not sure I'm thrilled about this one--I'd rather not have her too interested in tv--but she got three dvds for Christmas and watches two of them with rapt attention whenever I put them in. One of them is a music dvd (the Laurie Berkner band, I think) and another is a Christian dvd called the Donut Man. She got Veggie Tales too, but I think she's a little young for that--she likes music and live people, especially kids, when she's watching television. They help at mealtime because mealtime has become a real problem (that's new, too). Suddenly she's not very interested in food and it's like pulling teeth to get her to eat the recommended three meals a day. Even if it's something that she's always loved (like bananas, yuck), she's suddenly not interested in eating. At least if her eyes are glued to the tv I'm not running in circles around her trying to find her mouth, pry it open, and shove the food in.

And, finally, new: I pulled out all of the twenty-four month clothing that our friend Laura gave us just the other day. At Bridget's nine-month appointment (Dec. 16), she weighed 25 pounds and was 29 and 1/2 inches tall. That's just under the weight for most twenty-four month clothing (which explains why her 18-month jeans are starting to get tight), but it's about three inches under for the height. I've got her in a mix of 18-month and 24-month clothing now. Honestly, I needed the extra pants that the 24-month wardrobe provided, because in addition to getting a little tight, she's been pooping through pants like crazy the past month. At daycare it would be up to three times a day, and at home she'll do it maybe once a day (although I do tend to leave her pants off until she poops in the mornings). And no, Luvs don't work either. My friend Jen suggested using plastic training pants over her diapers, and I think I might just go out and buy a few pairs before she gets back to daycare on Monday. If there's one thing I hate (possibly worse than dishes at this point), it's treating poop stains in three-quarters of the pairs of pants she's worn in a week. I'll be happy when she outgrows this stage!

Oh, and new: Last night, Bridget started to figure out how to undress herself. She got one arm out of her shirt and went around like that for the fifteen/twenty minutes it took us to put her in her pjs. And this morning, as soon as I put her shirt on, she started pulling the front of it trying to get it off. Great. If we're not careful, soon we'll have a little topless dancer on our hands. :)

Finally (really, this time), new: Pictures. I've loaded them up (finally) from November and December. Take a peek!

Even with all of these "news," I'm sure I've missed a lot. But with a new year, new semester (as student only; not teaching this semester), and new schedule, I'm hoping to post more often again. Thanks for catching up, and happy new year!