Hand, Foot, Mouth, and Everything Else!

Lord have mercy. The last few days in this house have been....exhausting.

Last weekend Olivia came down with a crazy fever in church. I mean she was HOT. She took a nap, was clingy (which she never is) and was totally sluggish. It scared me to death. So we got some fever reducer in her and lots of liquids and she managed to get some food down, but the temp just spiked again a few hours later. Overnight was rough--clingy, constant waking, crying, fever. We kept her home from school Monday. She did well during the day, but the fever went up again at night. By Tuesday morning she was acting more normal and eating fine but I noticed a rash developing on her hands, calves, and toes. AHA! Chicken Pox!

I made an appointment with her doctor to confirm my sharp diagnosis. The doctor took a look--nope not Chicken Pox. Then he took one look inside Olivia's mouth and then look at me and smiled, " It's Coxsackie." My response "damnit." I had heard about "Hand, Foot and Mouth disease" from my sister's experience with my neice and another friend of mine and her kids, now Olivia had it. In fact she was pretty much done with it--and handled it pretty well considering. Apparently the rash shows up when the fever breaks. After the fever she's no longer contagious but then we were freaking out about how she got it and if Lucas had been exposed. The doctor said she was safe to return to school once she had no fever for 24hours. So Wednesday she returned to school with non-contagious rash just in time for her first SCHOOL PICTURES! HIP HIP HOORAY! I covered her arms in long sleeves and legs in tights and it was a beautiful 75 degree day. Come to find out three other kids in her school had been out with coxsackie as well. Aha! And turns out sandboxes can be breeding grounds for this thing. Olivia comes home with gobs of sand in her shoes and pockets everyday.

I'm glad that it is behind us and she is now immune--and also thankful that Lucas dodged the bullet, but I am not looking forward to dealing with this thing again with him anytime soon.

Charm City Daddy and I crash every night, only to be constantly awakened at least twice a night by Lucas! Lucas was just beginning to improve in the sleep department but had a total relapse this week--with daytime naps, bedtime all of it.  It is driving us both to near tears.We thought we had a fool-proof system all figuredwith Olivia--no frills, no fuss. It turns out we may have just had a fool-proof little girl. He JUST gave up swaddling at 6 months. If it were up to him--he would still be swaddled.


Lucas' separation anxiety is off the charts too--and to top it all off he seems to be a shy guy. He balls his eyes out when he sees an unrecognizable face. The well-meaning church ladies who crowd around him every Sunday are the worst for his nerves. Poor baby.

Also--Olivia is officially done with the paci at bedtime. She has never needed it at naptime at school and it was time to let it go to avoid her mama's overbite. It wasn't easy, but I told her I simply threw it out of the window of the car--just like she did to her paper elefante from Spanish class on the ride home. She certainly understood the permanence of that action and it ended our discussion. Awesome.

Oh! And CCD celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary this week. We decided to celebrate the way we've celebrated all of our anniversaries--with a family dinner out--but at a nice restaurant to give the kids the experience. They were well-behaved, and the restaurant was wonderful to us--food also incredible. Olivia loved the live jazz trio and I taught her how to skat. It cracks her up--but she is pretty good at imitating me.

CCD and I have been researching vacations (to keep our sanity and hope alilve) but we both agreed today that we would feel bad asking anyone to take care of our kids (ha!)---at least until Lucas gets this sleep patterns under control. So then we started looking at family vacations--then we looked at family airfare---then we stopped looking at vacations and went back to work. HA!

More to come---I didn't even tell you about my car accident. We just got our car, "The Milk Truck" back this week.

Let's Talk about Lucas

Lucas is changing before our eyes everyday and knocking down milestones like they stole something!

He is also teething ferociously and it makes for a sad, miserable baby some days and some nights.
He still needs a bottle most nights around 2-3 am--lucky me. Sleep training is going okay. About 4 out of 7 nights a week I can put him down totally awake and without fussing he knows what to do. Other nights he won't settle for anything less than holding him until we fall asleep together.  He is so different than Olivia in that department. Then and now she doesn't want to be bothered when she is tired or sleepy--just let her go and do her thing.

He says mama, bah bah, and dada--and it seems to be in context too! He loves screaming matches with his sister and finds her incredibly entertaining. Olivia can snap him out of any bad mood. She likes to rough play with him and I think his first words to her will soon be "stop"  or "no!"

He's trying to sit up on his own. Splashing and kicking like crazy in the tub. Grabbing and using his hands to put things in his mouth.  He's eating solids--but still won't open his mouth all the way for the spoon unless I play airplane with the spoon to get him to smile. He's also survived his sister shoving random food in his mouth at the dinner table (while we're looking away) that she doesn't like.

He is such a sweet sweet boy. Smiling and laughing all the time. Love him so much and feel so lucky to be able to experience parenthood a different way with another little one with a different personality.

Olivia 2 Yr Stats

O dressed as a pirate for her school's International Talk Like a Pirate Day celebration

Olivia had her well baby 2 year doctor's appointment last week.

It is amazing to think about the difference in her behavior since the last time I had her in the doctor's office just a few months ago at 19 months. She was so well behaved and easy to reason with--and bribery works like magic these days.

Here are her stats:

• Weight: 30 lbs..89 percentile
• Height: 36 inches... 95th percentile
• Head: ? I forgot to record this...but the doc said in the 69th percentile.

She took her two shots like a champ too--only wincing. I gave her fair warning that the nurse was going to give her medicine but she would also give her band-aid too. Yay! She, like all kids, loves the band-aids. Then they had to up the ante and take her down to get two vials of blood drawn. Yikes.

In anticipation of the bloodwork, we stopped by the pharmacy on the walk to the lab and I let her pick out candy--gummi bears--for opening only after the blood. Hey get this, she actually complied with that request and sat like an angel in the waiting area with the gummies in her lap. Since she never gets candy--she knew I was expecting big things from her--kind of like potty training.

For the bloodwork she only jumped a little until the nurse told her the needle was a butterfly with a magic straw. She was amazed that she was making blood/red juice with zero effort!

I was SO proud of her. We opened her gummies when she got back to the car and she ate the entire package in about 15 seconds flat before we could exit the hospital campus.

Her budding personality is the best thing to witness. She sings the Barney song "I love you, you love me..." to Lucas all the time giving him the "great big hug" and kiss. It is so sweet.

She loves school--every minute of it. I was worried that she'd be tired of it after being there for 8 hours a day--5 hours more than most kids her age. But nope--and in fact she is thriving her Spanish classes on Saturday too. The child is a learning machine--a little sponge.

She also loves the grocery store---I mean she gets really excited about it which makes me get excited too and I HATE the grocery store. Now that she's potty trained and her bladder is stronger the short trips are actually enjoyable.

She's such a little girl now--a tough little girl but a little girl nonetheless.