Saturday, July 11, 2009

"Grasp the subject, the words will follow." -- Cato the Elder

On July 4th the three of us were heading down to The Husband's parents' house for a 4th of July shin-dig. We were ready for copious amounts of food, swimming, and fun. As I watched the trees fly past the window, I heard the tell-tale sound of a pacifier clinking down the side of a car-seat as Lydia threw it out.

"Uh-oh," I thought. I waited for the fussing to begin.

"Uh-oh," said Lydia.

I looked at The Husband, and he looked at me. "Did she just say, 'Uh-oh?'" I asked.

"I think so. Maybe," he replied.

"Lydia, did you say, 'Uh-oh?'" I asked her.

"Uh-oh," she said. She continued her 'Uh-oh's' for the rest of the trip. Of course, she didn't do it when we prompted her upon arrival to The Husband's Parents', and I wasn't even sure of 'Uh-oh' counted as a word. It's more like an extremely mild curse. I wouldn't play it on a Scrabble board, you know?

I must confess out of all the words we say repeatedly around her, I'm surprised she picked up 'Uh-oh' first. That's a VERY GOOD THING.

Throughout this past week she has continued with her Uh-ohing. She definitely connects it with dropping stuff. She will drop -- or deliberately throw -- her toys/food/things that aren't hers to the floor and say, "Uh-oh!" On the way home from daycare she works on perfecting it: "Ah-oh . . . Uh-uh . . . Uh-ohhhh . . . UH-OHHH . . ."

Everyone says it's definitely a word, so even though Hasbro wouldn't accept it, I will officially declare 'Uh-oh' Lydia's First Word (tm).

Spoken modestly, God help us (name that movie!).

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

twelve month old taco (1 year old taco!)

Yesterday, Lydia turned one year old. An entire twelve months has flashed on by.

This last month was a doozie.

At the very end of May we lost my mother relatively unexpectedly, and it seems with each passing day I have a greater need of her. Not two months ago I was discussing with her my vague plans for Lydia's birthday party, and now that party is just a few days away; I cannot fathom that she won't be at the very event we talked about just a few weeks previous. I remember her voice just a year ago when I called to tell her Lydia had arrived; half excited, half admonishing (for catching her by surprise) -- it seems unnatural for her not to call this year and send birthday wishes. It feels so unfair to me that Lydia will never know her Nana -- I knew my mother's mother, so why can't Lydia know hers?

Lydia, bless her soul, was a trooper during all the multi-day functions that a funeral brings. She spent the first night away from us, staying with her Grandma and Papa, and she was a sweetie for them. As long as she has her snuggle blankie, she's good for a sleep just about anywhere.

Table foods continued to become more interesting to Lydia. She quickly switched to eating straight table foods -- she was eager to try anything!



Pretty soon, she started having trouble with looser stools, then straight-up diarrhea -- as in straight up the back! It became a daily occurrence for me to pick her up from daycare and find her in a completely different outfit from what she had on that morning. Sometimes she went through two outfits a day. Daycare clothes became commonplace. The doctor said to feed her more starches (the BRAT diet) but, alas, nothing seemed to stop her up.

Then her feet started peeling. Not like sunburn peeling, we're talking huge thick chunks of skin off the bottoms of her toes and heels. Good Lord, my baby is falling apart! The doctor said to moisturize and wait since her checkup appointment was around the corner. And the diarrhea raged on.

In desperation, I switched Lydia's milk from regular cow's milk to soymilk. She liked it and, the next day, a poo came forth that stayed within its bounds! More tamer poos continued and so far things are looking better. Her peeling feet are calming down as well. The doctor is thinking she could have developed a temporary intolerance to the lactose because of a virus (Hand, Foot, and Mouth, anyone?). I'm thinking Lydia can now shed off the stigma of being The Diarrhea Kid at daycare.

Throughout the month of Skin Shedding and Poo, Lydia became very adept at Walking With Assistance (tm), a pastime that my back is not very fond of. If you hold her hands, she can walk all over the place, and Lydia always makes sure she gets her money's worth. I've had a constant backache since this new endeavor began. Now I see why all new parents get so damn excited when their kid starts to walk -- their backs can now begin to recuperate.



In the teeth department, Lydia is now up to four -- her second top tooth finally decided to join the party. Most of the month she was an Itty Bitty Snaggletooth Girlie.



The night before Lydia's birthday, she had another first -- barfing. Technically, she's accidentally gagged herself and thrown up before when she was leaning to eat table foods but hadn't gotten down the chewing part yet, but that was nothing compared to this.

She had already gone down for the night but was fussing, but when I went in her room to give Lydia her pacifier, something didn't smell too good. When I turned on the light I saw she had barfed all in her crib. A mountain of grossness. The Husband and I got her out, cleaned her and the crib up, new pajamas and new sheets and back to bed. She pretty much slept through the whole thing.

Twenty minutes later The Husband hears her on the baby monitor and says, "She threw up again." We went back in there and sure enough there was more barf all in her crib and on her. This time she was wide awake and upset. We had not dealt with this before and I wasn't sure what was wrong. I just wanted to talk to my mother so bad. After we got Lydia cleaned up this time she was still wide awake and just wanted to be held -- I was happy to oblige with some snuggling.

Thankfully, she didn't throw up again and she was a most happy girlie for her first birthday. Something just got her tummy upset. Amazingly, we were also able to clean up and salvage her musical crib bear. It will live to play another day.

I didn't trust myself to take Lydia's one year portrait, so I got a real photographer for Lydia to ham up to. We actually did the photo shoot last Saturday and the pics are totally awesome. So here you go.

I know this is the longest monthly post ever, but I told you this past month was a doozie.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

June 23rd

Happy First Birthday to Miss Lydia (and her Daddy, too)!

An entire year -- wow!

Friday, May 29, 2009

open mouth, insert foot . . . and hand?

Over the weekend, Lydia broke out in what looked like a heat rash or fever rash. She also had a low-grade fever but for once I was not too worried and I'll be damned if I was going to go running to the doctor for every little thing. Lydia will sometimes run a low fever -- we're talking like 99 degrees here -- for no reason for all then it will go away. Her cousin had a similar rash and her pediatrician said it was a fever rash. Lydia was fine otherwise so off we went to daycare on Tuesday.

That afternoon the daycare was calling me about the rash; they were not amused. It apparently looked similar to Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease which the Christopher Walken kid -- little girl in Lydia's class looks JUST LIKE HIM -- got diagnosed with earlier that day.

Sigh.

So off we go to the doctor's. When he walked in I said, "Hey, at least it's something different."

And of course she had the Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, too. It sounds horrible, but you know what it is? A non-itchy rash and mouth ulcers with low-grade fever -- it's just highly contagious.

So she was out of daycare for a day and back yesterday, where she started kissing on another boy that was not her boyfriend so he came up and whacked her. Ahh, young love!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

eleven month old taco

One more month till the Big One. Oh, goodness. I need to get planning!

Lydia turns 11 months old today. This past month she has enjoyed multiple visits from her cousin, Elizabeth. They have had great fun together sharing toys, secrets, and pacifiers. One time they even went grocery shopping together. Thankfully, they have not yet shared any germs.



The relationship between Lydia and Hermione has really blossomed this month. Lydia has gotten very good at 'petting' versus 'hitting' and Hermione loves the attention Lydia gives her and is a very good sport, even when Lydia just grinds her head into Hermione's body (of course, Hermione does this to us all the time). If Lydia is playing on the floor, you will find Hermione very close by.



Here is an excellent moment I caught of the two of them lounging while watching The Emperor's New Groove:



Lydia has been more finicky about food this past month so it's been a bit frustrating. She's getting fed up with the baby food and will tend to swat at it when you try to feed her but she not only doesn't really like table food, she just won't try it. You put different foods down in front of her and she plays with it but doesn't bring it to her mouth. God forbid YOU try to put it in her mouth; she will get all offended. I get lots of notes on her daycare sheet where they offered her things like ravioli or tater tots but she refused it all.



Then the other night, we brought in pasta with my parents from a nice Italian restaurant. I plopped some on her high chair and, as normal, she pushed it around the tray while making her concentrating noise. Then we forked over a bit of her Grandpa's marinara-covered fettuccine pasta. After a few minutes she took a taste . . . then ate it. Then she ate some more. Then she started shoveling it into her mouth just about as fast as we could put it onto her tray. We finally just stopped giving it to her; we were afraid she'd be sick later. She had marinara sauce all over her, but her tummy was full of yummy pasta!



The same night as the pasta night, we made a discovery that we'd been waiting on for quite some time -- her right front upper tooth was starting to poke through! The left one is not far behind.

Though I wrote a whole separate post about it -- see below -- Lydia did get tubes in her ears this past month. We all hope this will end the consistent ear infections. Even though she just got the tubes in last week, she did not have any ear infections during this last month. My theory is since her boyfriend moved over to Infant III in daycare they're not kissing on each other as much and, thus, not as many colds are passed back and forth between the two. Lydia herself moves over to Infant III next Tuesday to be with him again but hopefully with the tubes in place she will be well-armed. She would do better to just stop with the kissing, though.



Lydia is starting to look and act less like a baby and more like a kid. There are times when she's just sitting there and I can tell she's contemplating something . . . I wonder what it is. I wonder if kids ponder about the size of the universe or why chicken tastes like chicken. Most likely she's wondering when she can blow this joint and see her boyfriend again.

hole-punched taco

Lydia has had a very eventful medical month. As I posted last time, we had our consultation with an ENT at Children's Hospital. We were there for over two hours, with the majority of that time waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting a bit more. Thankfully Lydia is a pretty patient girl right now and is only squirmy in her own personal zone. I'm sure that'll change once she discovers walking.

When we were finally in the exam room and the ENT doctor walks in, he comes at us like, "Hi, I'm Dr. Hill; she needs tubes; any questions?" His talking was so NOW and IN THE MOMENT I had to ask and make sure they weren't doing it that day.

So after an initial scheduling of the procedure in mid-June, some phone calls and an additional physical appointment to placate a potentially over-cautious anesthesiologist, the procedure was scheduled for this past Tuesday, May 19th.

We had to arrive bright and early at 6:15 a.m. with a hungry baby. Thankfully she isn't incredibly demanding about food right now. She was much more amused with all the COLORS and the SEATS and the PEOPLE TO WATCH.



She was not amused the the little thing they put on her finger to take her pulse, however. The blood pressure cuff on her leg was no problem, but the thing on her finger was a horror. The nurses there were awesome -- about three of them flooded in to amuse her with words and bubbles while her vitals were taken. Everyone commented on how cute she was, and Lydia already loves a good compliment.

After they finished the vitals and took off the Finger Wrap From Hell, we got our own little hospital room, complete with little kids' hospital bed, rocking chair, sink, and television. The whole place was very nice and kid-friendly. Older kids were driving up and down the halls in little cars, which made great entertainment for Lydia.

This is where we did most of our waiting, punctuated by visits from the nurse or anesthesiologist who really was nervous about her cough. I explained to him she'd been to the doctor more than once about it, her lungs are clear, so it's either allergic rhinitis or somebody's slipping my baby cigarettes. Apparently I said that with too much of a straight face because he wasn't sure if he should laugh or not.



At 8:15 a.m. they finally came to take her for the surgery. She did cry when I handed her over to the nurse but I knew she was going to be fine. She was back there a good 30 minutes and I just chugged some coffee and watched kids and parents go by our door.

A little while later I heard a low, tired-out-from-crying-but-I've-still-gotta-cry cry that was my Lydia. A nurse was cradling her and bring her up to our room. I was ever so glad to hold my baby. The Husband gave her her pacifier and Lydia went right back to sleep. Apparently Lydia could have had her pacifier with her back in surgery but I didn't know that so I had taken it from her.



We stayed there about an hour or so to let Lydia sleep it off some then we headed on home, where Lydia played for a while then had another good long nap.



Hopefully the next cold she gets will just stay a cold. If she would just stop kissing her boyfriend at daycare she would stop getting the colds in the first place.

__________________________________

In addition to having tubes put in her ears, the other thing Dr. Hill did was remove two skin tags that have been on Lydia's right ear since she was born. I've never specifically mentioned them; they've just always been a part of her. I'd always thought of them as her nubbins.



The doctor asked us at the consultation if we would like them removed while she would be in surgery and we thought, well, how often are you in surgery, so we said sure.

Between the consultation and the surgery date I had debated on changing my mind about that. They've never bothered me, they don't bother her, so the only reason we're doing it is for aesthetic reasons -- because some day some kid will say something mean. But kids always say something mean about something. Kids said mean stuff about my red hair and freckles when I was younger but I didn't go back and shave off all my hair or dye it (though I probably threatened it a few times).

But we went ahead and let the doctor do it; I think mainly because I was caught by the IT'S OUR ONLY OPPORTUNITY feeling. Right before I handed her over to the nurse for surgery I kissed her little nubbins on her ear; I knew it would be my last chance before they'd be gone.

When she came back from surgery and I saw her nubbins were replaced by stitches and a steri-strip, I knew I regretted it. That wasn't my choice to make; it had been her's. I think it will be one of my very few regrets in life.

But what's done is done. She's still my happy, smiling, blue-eyed girlie; nubbins or no nubbins.

Monday, April 27, 2009

ten month old taco

Ten. One zero -- double digits. That's a lot of months, unless you're counting in binary, and there's only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. But I digress.

Lydia was a busy bee of a girl this month. Crawling continues to be her main source of enjoyment because of all the things she can get to. The world is her oyster. Sometimes life is just ducky, especially on her forehead.



One of those Why Didn't We Do This Months Ago moments was Lydia's first bath in the big tub. She loved it and scooted up and down the tub while Mommy tried hard to scrub her down. A few baths later we figured out the best way to give Lydia a wash without breaking parents' backs is to sit on the side of the tub with feet in the water. So much easier on Mommy.



We visited the zoo again where Lydia participated in her favorite pasttime, people-watching. She kept a safe distance from the flamingos this time and got to meet some colorful birdies. People-watching is the best, though.



It was yet another sickly time with two more ear infections and I'm quite positive we're on the road to getting tubes in her ears. We meet with an ENT tomorrow so we shall see. Poor Lydia has gotten way too used to being attacked with medicated syringes. Every time we lay her on the changing table she cringes.

Easter came upon us this month and Lydia got to check out what the Easter Bunny dropped off for her. She enjoyed her first camera just like Mommy's and a new book. Notice the Santa jammies.



After we checked out her basket we got ready to go down to Auburn with her grandparents to visit her cousin. They had a great day of fun together playing with each others' toys. Elizabeth has some pretty spiffy stuff. We think they made a secret plan beforehand to NOT SMILE when the grown-ups tried to get nice pictures.



Right before she turned ten months old, Lydia began to perfect the fine art of pulling up. Oh, glorious day! She is oh so pleased with herself and yet frustrated because she can't seem to just walk on from there. Crawling is now old school -- walking seems to be the next goal. Eating table food is not on her List of Goals.