Thursday, July 28, 2011

4 month well visit



What a nice day, even if it was a bit muggy. Stasa even got to play outside like 3 or 4 times at school and we took her out again after dinner.


Both girls were exhausted by 7:00, so much so that Lexi fell asleep while we were blowing bubbles.


And speaking of Little Lexi, I took her in for her 4 month well visit this morning. She was in the best mood and put on quite a show for Dr. Cooper. Let's start with her stats:
Weight: 13lbs 13 oz (juuuuuuuust over the 50th percentile)
Height: 26.5" (95th percentile!)
Head: 15.75" (juuuuuuuuust under the 25th percentile)

She got a few vaccinations - 2 shots and an oral and took them like a champ. She showed off her rolling skills and once she was on her belly she was scooting all over the place. Dr. Cooper thinks she's going to be an early crawler and should be sitting up soon with her good back control. While we were there I mentioned Stasa's hitting and biting and told her how we put her in time out, for how long, and where and how we try to keep from yelling. She reassured me that we're doing everything right and that she should eventually grow out of this phase, but that she's not surprised that she's being the aggressor at home since she was bitten at daycare. So all in all a great appointment.

Conversation with Stasa in the car

Me: What did you do this morning?
Stas: I play mahkahs.
Me: Markers?
Stas: Mahkahs!
Me: Sparkles?
Stas: MAHKAHS! MAHKAHS!
Me: Marcus?
Stas: MAHKAHS OKAY!
Me: Okay. You play with mahkahs.

Monday, July 25, 2011

And so it begins



She really wanted to "play makeups" tonight and I thought "why the hell not?" So play makeups we did. I gave her some eye shadow and mascara I didn't really care about and let her have at it. And don'tcha know she knew exactly where everything went. She even got her hot little hands on my bronzer and managed to get a few swipes on her cheeks before I put it away. I'm sure I've started a terrible thing because now I'll need to put my makeup on before she gets up in the morning lest she see me and insist that she do the same.

And speaking of Miss Stubborn. We've been having a terrible time lately with abuse. I'm pretty sure she's just testing us, but it's breaking us down a bit. Lately if she doesn't get her way, she hits us or sometimes bites us. The biting thing is totally new and somewhat unexpected. Let me rewind a bit to explain.

So last week Tom was giving Stas a bath and called me in to see a mark on her arm. Sure enough there was a bite mark there. It wasn't too bad, but we could tell it was definitely not her biting herself because of the placement of the bite. Stasa insisted that Karma bit her and that she bit Caley. Well, there is no kid in her class named Caley, so who knows what she's talking about. We told her that if anyone bites her again, she should tell the teacher right away. We even asked if she knew who her teachers were to be sure. I mentioned it to the teacher the next morning and figured that would settle it.

Well, that night there was another bite on her arm, this time it was bruised. I told the teacher about it again and showed her the bite and later that morning I called the director to make her aware, too. When I picked up that afternoon I was told that they had a talk about biting and in the future I should get an incident report if it happens again.

Now we think that since she doesn't say anything when she's getting bit at school that it's okay to bite others, particularly Tom. The other night he was trying to get her out of Lexi's room and she of course refused and then bit his leg. Hard. Through his jeans. And left a pretty bad mark. She was immediately put in time out and Tom showed her the mark and told her that biting hurts and that we don't bite, but I just don't think she's getting it because she's still hitting and occasionally biting. The hitting is mostly light swipes, but she's doing it out of anger and sometimes just to do it. Either way it's hitting and it gets a timeout.

Everything I've read has said to refrain from raising your voice when it happens (because they want that reaction and think it's hilarious), put the kid in timeout, don't ask for an explanation (because that implies that there are times when hitting/biting *is* okay), and have them apologize, even if it's a throw-away apology. It's so hard not to yell when she's laughing at us while in timeout. I'm not sure if there's anything else we can do. Hopefully she'll grow out of this terrible phase soon.

I don't want to end on a frustrating note, so here are some pictures of the girls from the past few days.
Saturday morning couch potatoes


Future librarian


FUNNY FACE!


Jumping around



She's so cute, when she wants to be.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

If you give a mouse a cookie

Lately I've been giving Stasa choices so she feels in control of something, but I'm learning that if I'm going to give her choices, I'm going to have to be okay with what she selects. I usually let her choose which yogurt she wants to eat, but somehow she got it in her head that the peach is Daddy's and the vanilla is Mommy's. No idea how she came up with that one because we both eat any and all yogurt, but she only wants "mommy yogurt" and while this isn't a big problem now, it will be when we run out of the vanilla. But then maybe she'll learn another lesson: you can't always get what you want.

I also let her choice which plate, utensil, and cup she wants and what she wants to drink with dinner. And recently I've been giving her full control over what she wears each day, which leads to some questionable outfits.
Exhibit A (and no she's not summoning a waiter or calling a cab):


She insisted on the long-sleeved pink shirt, pink sparkly skirt, and pink crocs. I almost said no to the long-sleeved shirt, but then thought if I'm going to really let her have control, let her have it. So I just told her that since it was hot outside, she had to wear the shirt with the sleeves up. She was totally cool with that as long as I wasn't making her take it off. Because who wouldn't want to wear a pink polka dotted shirt with a bow on it?

Exhibit B (I so wish I had a picture of her standing so you could get the full effect of this masterpiece):


This outfit was a gem. Pink Easter shirt that says "DAD'S GOOD EGG", pink camouflage panks, blue and yellow Easter socks, and black patent leather Mary Janes. My only alteration was to roll up the pants since it was like 150 degrees outside.

Unfortunately there are many problems with letting her choose her own attire. Mainly, the amount of time it takes her to make a decision and we just don't have the luxury of extra time on weekday mornings, especially when she decides to sleep in.

(Sidenote: Since I'm a pretty frugal person I always buy her clothes on sale, including socks. Well, you can get a huge bag of all white socks or you can pay more for individual pairs of patterned or colored socks. Guess which ones I bought? Mmmhmm. I also stupidly bought her that pair of blue and yellow Easter socks from the Target dollar bin. Of course now that she knows there are sock options, she doesn't want anything to do with her plain jane white socks. Dilemma.)

I'm thinking the way to solve the time issue is to have her select her clothes the night before. That way we can go through her entire selection process with less tears. I should start taking daily pictures of her ensembles. She's quite the creative one when pairing colors and patterns.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Oh, Stasa

I left Stasa playing with my iPad in Lexi's room this evening while I ran downstairs to get her antibiotic. I came back to her adding entries in my Baby Connect app, the place I store all of the girls' milestones, medical information, and growth stats. She added the top 3. At least she got 2 of the 3 right.


And yes, those other entries are correct. She's still sick. We went to the doctor on Friday for a follow-up appointment and she checked out fine. No fever, lungs sounded clear, and she was in great spirits. Betsy (our favorite nurse practitioner) did see the beginnings of an ear infection in her right ear, but said the antibiotic she's on would clear it up. We were told to come back a couple of days after she finishes the Biaxin or earlier if she spikes another fever.

Well, she woke up around 4:00 this morning crying and was burning up. Her temperature was back up to 104, so I pulled her in our bed and gave her Motrin and we all fell back asleep for a couple of hours. Her temp had dropped to about 99 by the time we left for our appointment, but it was creeping back up once we were there. Her lungs still sound clear and now she has a full fledged ear infection in her right ear. They did a flu test just to check, and that came back negative, too.

So, the doctor suggested a few things. He had us stop the Biaxin and gave us prescriptions for Augmentin and Zithromax. He told us to monitor her for the next 24 hours (from the first dose of Zithromax) and if she can't shake the fever or if it spikes up to 104 again, we have to take her to the ER. And no matter what, he wants us to call him tomorrow for an update. My poor baby just can't shake the sickness. You can't even tell she's sick until the fever hits and then her eyes get glassy and she's lethargic, but as soon as it starts going down, she's back to her high energy self.

So. Yesterday while she was seemingly well, we played with Lexi (aka the rolling machine).


Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The House That Plague Built

Ah, illness, how I hate thee. Why can't we all just shake the sick out of our house? Yesterday Lexi woke up with a low grade fever (which went away after a does of Tylenol), but she has to be fever free for 24 hours to go to daycare, so she stayed home with me for the day. She was fine this morning though and off she went to daycare. Stas, on the other hand, woke up with a fever. BUT OF COURSE SHE DID. Why would we have a day without a sick kid? It's like some sort of sick joke (probably a trick played on us by that giant monster spider from last night). ::sigh:: Well, it was a low fever, 99, just bordering on 100. She got a dose of Motrin, the fever went away, and she was back to her crazy normal self.

Well, I, too, woke up sicker than I was the day before. I can not seem to rid myself of this cough and it got much worse overnight so I dragged myself (and Stasa) to the doctor to see if I was dying (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration). Turns out I have mucous in my lungs, but 10 days of antibiotics should clear everything up. On the way back home I picked up McDonald's for us for lunch, but Stasa wasn't interested in eating at all and then she fell asleep in Tom's arms. It was only 11:30. I had already made an appointment for her since her fever returned the day after we finished the Augmentin. I woke her up for her appointment and she was burning up - red cheeks and shivering. Her temp was 104.1. Off we went to the doctors. Her strep test and urine sample came back negative, and the next step was getting a chest x-ray. Weeeeeee! More films. Thankfully they put asked for the reading right away so there wasn't a ton of waiting around to do. Welp, she's still got pneumonia and is now taking a much stronger antibiotic (thanks to Jules for explaining all that) and has another follow-up appointment on Friday.

So, can we be done now? I think we've had enough illness for the year. Please and thank you.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

OMG I ALMOST HAD TO SURRENDER MY HOUSE

I was minding my own business (I know, so unusual for me, but whatever) and was making myself a cup of tea since I have a bad cough. I was joking around with Tom while walking over to the pantry to get a tea bag and then all of a sudden I saw a huge giant monster of a spider on my floor. Okay, I totally admit that I'm a bit of a drama queen and my fear of spiders can cause me to exaggerate their size, but seriously, this spider was so huge if Tom weren't around to kill it, I would have packed up and let the spider keep the house.

Tom thought I was overreacting until he went in the kitchen to kill the spider and then saw the beast. I've never seen a spider that large. It was like the size of a tarantula, but scarier and I'm pretty sure it was carrying knives. Apparently I'm supposed to calm down know since the spider is dead. Allegedly.

Let's try and forget about how I almost lost my life tonight and talk about something else, shall we? Lexi stayed home with me today since she had a fever this morning (she's fine now, BTW). She was in a pretty good mood most of the day, although a bit clingy, and had a blast doing tummy time. No, seriously, she loved it. See?


We managed to eat early tonight and had enough time to walk to the pool and play for awhile before it closed. Water day at school + pool time = bath night for everyone. We put Lexi in the tub with Stasa and they both loved it, even though they look shell shocked in this pic (I think it's because I was trying to get them to smile and they didn't want me interrupting play time).




Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go spider proof my house. Or at the very least find a way to guarantee they won't get in my bedroom. ::sigh:: I don't anticipate sleeping well tonight.

Sick

I ended up getting whatever creeping crud Stasa had and, good Lord, she must have been miserable because this cough sucks. Or maybe I'm just a whiner. We learned that Lexi had a slight fever when we picked her up at daycare yesterday. It came down after a dose of Tylenol, but she still had a fever at bedtime and again this morning so the little booger is home with me for the day. But even a little cold can't keep this one from having a good time.



Oh! And guess who's been doing better about going on the potty? Yep, that would be this kid.


She's nowhere near being potty trained, but tries to go on the potty a few times a day and gets so excited when she actually goes. She loves being the big girl. And big sister loves "helping" with baby sister. Her new thing is trying to soothe Lexi when she starts fussing and the surprising thing? It actually works most of the time. Lexi gets a huge silly grin on her face when Stasa interacts with her or pats her back or tries to comfort her.

Monday, July 11, 2011

We stopped the swaddle. Cold turkey.

As you've seen from my many posts about it, Lexi is a rolling machine. Well, unfortunately her rolling over isn't limited to awake time anymore; she's rolling all over her crib, which casuses her to wake up well before she's ready, which makes for a crabby baby and a crabby mommy. No bueno.

She forced my hand a little early. I was hoping to keep her swaddled a bit longer, at least until we had Ferberized her, but I worry about her rolling over without having her arms free to lift her head off of the mattress.  So we ended up putting her down unswaddled for her nap on Saturday. I checked on her no less than 15 times, every time I was sure she would have her nose in the mattress, but she was on her tummy with her head turned to the side. And she actually slept a decent amount. It makes me kind of sad though that she doesn't need the swaddle anymore. ::wipes tear:: Such a big girl. Look at her, getting ready to roll over and soothe herself to sleep.



Oh, I didn't mention that? Yeah, not only is she going down unswaddled, I've also been putting her down awake. And she's been quietly putting herself to sleep. I'm loving it.

Of course the Great Unswaddle wasn't our entire weekend - we kept pretty busy, especially since it was so nice out. Saturday we walked to the pool and splashed around for about an hour or so. Tom got Stasa chicken fingers and fries at the pool snack bar since she was being so well behaved and she scarfed those down in between playing.

It was still nice out when the girls woke up after nap, but it was also the time of day I loathe - mosquito time, so we took them to the mall to let Stasa run around the play place. Loony toon loved that.


Sunday was pretty jam packed. After breakfast we took a walk to the playground and found that if we put Lexi in the stroller without her car seat, she's happy as a clam (for the most part), so walks will soon become much more enjoyable for everyone. We also learned that if you go to the playground at 10:00 am on a Sunday, you'll have the whole thing to yourself. Nice, but kind of boring.

We were so hot and sticky when we got back from the playground (since it's about a 30 minute walk), I decided to suit up and take Stas over to the pool to cool off.

We ran into the same little boy she played with on Saturday, only this time he was a little bit mean. He got mad at his grandmother for taking away a toy, walked up to Stas, and pinched her. She looked at him like he was crazy, walked over to me, and said "he not nice, mommy." Other than that, she had a lot of fun and didn't want to leave at all. Of course I neglected to put sunscreen on my legs, so they got a little more sun than I wanted. Oh well.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Just another evening in Casa de Crazy

Halloween isn't limited to October.




Everyone loves a little tummy time action around here.


Friday, July 8, 2011

The "I do it" is going to be the death of me


I don't think I can count how many times each day I hear "I do it" or "Stasa do it" or my personal favorite, "I DO'S IT!" Anyone that knows Stasa knows she's Miss Independent, so her wanting to do everything herself should come as no surprise. And yet each morning I get frustrated because she insists on selecting her own outfit mostly because it's such a laborious process. First she touches all of her shirts, selects a few as finalists, chooses a winner, and then moves on to the shorts and skirts. After deliberating for what feels like forever, but is actually more like 5 minutes, she usually decides to chuck it all in favor of her current favorite dress: this green summer dress with random bunnies on it that we got for $0.25 at a yard sale. This morning I hid the bunny dress because I want daycare to know that she has more than just 1 outfit so she was forced to select something new and (after touching literally every dress she has) settled on her I <3 NY t-shirt dress.

The "I do it" is not limited to just her attire. It's heard during virtually every activity, including teeth brushing, table setting, car seat buckling, vacuuming...you get the picture. I suppose I should be grateful that she wants to help, but it can be so frustrating for everyone involved when she's not actually able to do the task herself. 

15 Weeks Old