Addy is definitely feeling a lot better today. She still has a
little bit of a cough, but her appetite and attitude are much improved.
And now that we have stopped the albuterol, the guano level of crazy
seems to have subsided as well. More importantly, with the decreased
drainage also comes decreased gagging and throw-up. Hooray!
Tonight,
I had Addy snoozing on my lap for a very late afternoon nap while I was
eating some cold pizza for dinner. She woke up when I was most of the
way through the slice and she started reaching for the crust. I
figured, "What the heck. If she can get past the parmesan garlic butter
on the crust, maybe she'll enjoy it." She gummed and sucked her way
through about 1/3 of the crust and then went on to have 6oz of garden
veggies mixed with corn casserole.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
100% Grade A Pure Bat Scat Bonkers
Last night's bedtime story (as in, a story about bedtime, not a story that will induce sweet, peaceful sleep) went a little something like this:
At 7:00 (about 90 minutes after first dinner), Addy starts smacking her lips and chanting "Tens, tens, tens. Manummy Nummy Nummy Nom." So I decided to see if she was hungry. She ate about 4 animal crackers, half a jar of peas, and drank some milk. That's after she had eaten some cooked apple bites, 4oz of turkey and rice dinner, 4 or 5 animal crackers, and some milk for first dinner.
At 7:45 we went upstairs and started bedtime routine, including doing a nebulizer treatment and giving her some Zyrtec to help dry up the congestion (and hopefully help her sleep better). By 8:30, we had the lights off and I was trying to snuggle her while singing the totally made-up mommy original song "Sweet Adelaide Is Getting Sleepy." I got through 6 or 7 verses of the song, but the last one went something like this:
Me (singing): Sweet Adelaide has 10 little toes...
Addy (popping up from a deceptively restful pose): Tens! Tens!
Me (not singing): No, sweetie, you made the tens all gone, remember? It's sleepy time right now.
Addy: Tens! Manummy Nom!
Me: Let's just snuggle.
(Addy laid her head back down to pretend to snuggle.)
Me (singing again): You are my sunshine, my only sunshine...
(Addy pops up again, this time signing "more"): Tens!
Me (not singing): Really? You had second dinner not that long ago and decided you were done.
Addy nods yes. "Tens!"
So we went back downstairs, where she coughed up a yuck-o snot wad and then proceeded to eat third dinner, which consisted of 4 more animal crackers, the other half of the jar of peas, and some more milk. At one point there were two bite-sized pieces of animal crackers sitting on the highchair tray and Addy decided to pick one of them up and share it with me. I tried to politely decline, so she decided to drop it into the jar of peas. I was not successful at thwarting her, so we ended up with animal cracker marinated in puree of peas. Yes, I have been watching way too much Food Network lately. (Supposedly that's a developmental milestone--dropping small objects into a container--but I was really not in the mood to praise her for achieving it.)
Then she wanted to play. Only, she didn't really want to play. She wanted to race with me from the living room/play area into the kitchen so she could sit in the cats' water dish, because what could possibly be more fun at 10:00 at night than to need fresh jammies and a diaper because you've decided to take a sitz bath in the cats' water dish (never mind that the cats would probably want some fresh water in that situation, too).
At this point it was almost 10:00. Not a terribly unreasonable time for me to go to bed, but way later than I was hoping for since I (a) am sick and (b) theoretically needed to get up at 2:00AM to give Addy another nebulizer treatment. And definitely too late for Miss Sunshine to be heading to bed. Fortunately, we had several episodes of "Veggie Tales" on Netflix streaming, so we had watched one of those for about 20 minutes until she finally calmed down enough to fall asleep. You see, it turns out that Albuterol has the power to take a sick kid and help them to feel some better by opening up their airways. But it also has the power to take a mostly well kid and turn the crazy dial all the way to 12. Since Addy seems to be doing so much better, we're being a little more selective in how often we use the nebulizer today.
At 7:00 (about 90 minutes after first dinner), Addy starts smacking her lips and chanting "Tens, tens, tens. Manummy Nummy Nummy Nom." So I decided to see if she was hungry. She ate about 4 animal crackers, half a jar of peas, and drank some milk. That's after she had eaten some cooked apple bites, 4oz of turkey and rice dinner, 4 or 5 animal crackers, and some milk for first dinner.
At 7:45 we went upstairs and started bedtime routine, including doing a nebulizer treatment and giving her some Zyrtec to help dry up the congestion (and hopefully help her sleep better). By 8:30, we had the lights off and I was trying to snuggle her while singing the totally made-up mommy original song "Sweet Adelaide Is Getting Sleepy." I got through 6 or 7 verses of the song, but the last one went something like this:
Me (singing): Sweet Adelaide has 10 little toes...
Addy (popping up from a deceptively restful pose): Tens! Tens!
Me (not singing): No, sweetie, you made the tens all gone, remember? It's sleepy time right now.
Addy: Tens! Manummy Nom!
Me: Let's just snuggle.
(Addy laid her head back down to pretend to snuggle.)
Me (singing again): You are my sunshine, my only sunshine...
(Addy pops up again, this time signing "more"): Tens!
Me (not singing): Really? You had second dinner not that long ago and decided you were done.
Addy nods yes. "Tens!"
So we went back downstairs, where she coughed up a yuck-o snot wad and then proceeded to eat third dinner, which consisted of 4 more animal crackers, the other half of the jar of peas, and some more milk. At one point there were two bite-sized pieces of animal crackers sitting on the highchair tray and Addy decided to pick one of them up and share it with me. I tried to politely decline, so she decided to drop it into the jar of peas. I was not successful at thwarting her, so we ended up with animal cracker marinated in puree of peas. Yes, I have been watching way too much Food Network lately. (Supposedly that's a developmental milestone--dropping small objects into a container--but I was really not in the mood to praise her for achieving it.)
Then she wanted to play. Only, she didn't really want to play. She wanted to race with me from the living room/play area into the kitchen so she could sit in the cats' water dish, because what could possibly be more fun at 10:00 at night than to need fresh jammies and a diaper because you've decided to take a sitz bath in the cats' water dish (never mind that the cats would probably want some fresh water in that situation, too).
At this point it was almost 10:00. Not a terribly unreasonable time for me to go to bed, but way later than I was hoping for since I (a) am sick and (b) theoretically needed to get up at 2:00AM to give Addy another nebulizer treatment. And definitely too late for Miss Sunshine to be heading to bed. Fortunately, we had several episodes of "Veggie Tales" on Netflix streaming, so we had watched one of those for about 20 minutes until she finally calmed down enough to fall asleep. You see, it turns out that Albuterol has the power to take a sick kid and help them to feel some better by opening up their airways. But it also has the power to take a mostly well kid and turn the crazy dial all the way to 12. Since Addy seems to be doing so much better, we're being a little more selective in how often we use the nebulizer today.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Road to Recovery
Addy is still working her way toward full recovery from whatever this
nasty cold is that she's had. Her constant sharing of all things
visible and invisible has, of course, included sharing her germs so both Mommy
and Daddy can now fully appreciate just how miserable she has been over
the past 10 days or so. At least Addy is getting better! She's even perkier than she was yesterday and has been eating a whole lot better today than she has pretty much since she started getting sick.
Other than being sick, Addy's hair is finally long enough for ponytails and pigtails. So super duper cute!
Other than being sick, Addy's hair is finally long enough for ponytails and pigtails. So super duper cute!
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Forward Progress
Addy is way perkier today than she has been. She's still super congested and having an extra gaggy day, but it's a definite improvement over yesterday. Whether it's the nebulizer or just the normal progression for this virus, I don't know. All I know is she's getting better.
In other exciting news, Addy was sitting on my lap tonight while I was eating a bowl of baked apples for dessert. She kept leaning over, reaching to get at my food, so eventually I took one of the apple slices and offered her a bite. She nibbled a little piece off and chewed and chewed until she finally swallowed it down, at which point she opened her mouth and leaned forward toward my hand to get another nibble. It took about 20 minutes and she had one small gag threat, but she managed to eat about half the apple slice. Yay!
In other exciting news, Addy was sitting on my lap tonight while I was eating a bowl of baked apples for dessert. She kept leaning over, reaching to get at my food, so eventually I took one of the apple slices and offered her a bite. She nibbled a little piece off and chewed and chewed until she finally swallowed it down, at which point she opened her mouth and leaned forward toward my hand to get another nibble. It took about 20 minutes and she had one small gag threat, but she managed to eat about half the apple slice. Yay!
The Weapons In My Battle With The Barf
I am determined to come out victorious against the hyper-sensitive gag, so I am working on acquiring some tools to assist in that endeavor. In order of likelihood that you have them in your kitchen, my arsenal so far consists of:
* Knife and cutting board: so far, not very useful. But I keep hoping there will come a day where all Addy needs is for her food to be chopped up into bite-sized pieces!
* Mesh strainer: the tool of last resort when I can't deal with trying to feed her one more gaggy bite. The goal is to not use this any more (not for this purpos at least).
* Food processor ("full size" and mini): not really my favorite tools for this stage of the game, though both are certainly useful outside the realm of baby food. By the time things have been chopped small enough, we have purée and not textured food.
* Leftover plastic baby food containers: reduce, reuse, and recycle. They're already the right size for portioning home-made (or at least home-mushed) baby food, and they go into the freezer with no worries.
* Potato ricer: it's quick, it's easy, it goes in the dishwasher and generally comes out clean, it's a good size for mushing up a toddler-sized portion of food for one meal, and it does a descent job of mushing up the food while sifting out some of the extra big offending textures. But it only makes one texture, so I'm thinking its days may be numbered. (If you've never seen one before, a potato ricer is basically a gigantic garlic press.)
* Food mill: it's so old school it's almost cool again. Almost. A pain in the neck to truly get clean some times (food gets caught in the grinding disks really easily) and really too much tool for dealing with a single meal's worth of food, it actually does the best job of achieving texture like the OT would like, and has three grind sizes to choose from. It's also a great tool for making up a big batch of baby food to put up in the freezer. It is, however, more likely than the ricer to be garage-saled in a couple of years. I just have no desire to ever make home-made apple sauce or tomato sauce again, but heavenly whipped potatoes are definitely going to be served again!
* Knife and cutting board: so far, not very useful. But I keep hoping there will come a day where all Addy needs is for her food to be chopped up into bite-sized pieces!
* Mesh strainer: the tool of last resort when I can't deal with trying to feed her one more gaggy bite. The goal is to not use this any more (not for this purpos at least).
* Food processor ("full size" and mini): not really my favorite tools for this stage of the game, though both are certainly useful outside the realm of baby food. By the time things have been chopped small enough, we have purée and not textured food.
* Leftover plastic baby food containers: reduce, reuse, and recycle. They're already the right size for portioning home-made (or at least home-mushed) baby food, and they go into the freezer with no worries.
* Potato ricer: it's quick, it's easy, it goes in the dishwasher and generally comes out clean, it's a good size for mushing up a toddler-sized portion of food for one meal, and it does a descent job of mushing up the food while sifting out some of the extra big offending textures. But it only makes one texture, so I'm thinking its days may be numbered. (If you've never seen one before, a potato ricer is basically a gigantic garlic press.)
* Food mill: it's so old school it's almost cool again. Almost. A pain in the neck to truly get clean some times (food gets caught in the grinding disks really easily) and really too much tool for dealing with a single meal's worth of food, it actually does the best job of achieving texture like the OT would like, and has three grind sizes to choose from. It's also a great tool for making up a big batch of baby food to put up in the freezer. It is, however, more likely than the ricer to be garage-saled in a couple of years. I just have no desire to ever make home-made apple sauce or tomato sauce again, but heavenly whipped potatoes are definitely going to be served again!
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Doing Something Feels More Productive Than Just Sitting Around
Took Addy to the doctor this morning; apparently her cough is slightly concerning, but her extra-hyper extra-sensitive extra-gaggy reflex is just going to have to be lived with. On the up (?) side, we now have a nebulizer to address the slight breathing problems caused by the gunk in her chest. It does seem to be helping, but ask me again at midnight when we have to get Miss Sunshine up for one of her treatments.
Merry Christmas
Merry second Christmas, Addy! She had a mostly good Christmas--still not quite a present-opening fiend, but definitely interested in playing with her new loot once someone else has removed the pesky wrapping paper. Poor thing still has a yucky cold and is having a lot of issues with post-nasal drip that tickles her (apparently many) throw-up spots. Made for a less relaxing visit with Grandma and Grandpa Gottlieb, though I'm not sure they noticed.
Now, 3 days after Christmas, Addy's cold has moved from runny nose to yucky cough. We're still having fun with the extra yucks it's causing. Unfortunately pediatricians generally don't want to treat a cold in a youngster; just let their little immune systems do their thing and spare them the what-ever-down-side-there-is-to-sleeping-through-the-night-and-also-not-having-a-coughing-fit-that-causes-the-kid-to-throw-up-several-times-per-day. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to over medicate my kid and put her at future risk for developing asthma or ADHD or whatever else is linked to tots who take cough syrup. But I think I'll be calling the pediatrician later this morning to ask for an exception in this case.
Now, 3 days after Christmas, Addy's cold has moved from runny nose to yucky cough. We're still having fun with the extra yucks it's causing. Unfortunately pediatricians generally don't want to treat a cold in a youngster; just let their little immune systems do their thing and spare them the what-ever-down-side-there-is-to-sleeping-through-the-night-and-also-not-having-a-coughing-fit-that-causes-the-kid-to-throw-up-several-times-per-day. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to over medicate my kid and put her at future risk for developing asthma or ADHD or whatever else is linked to tots who take cough syrup. But I think I'll be calling the pediatrician later this morning to ask for an exception in this case.
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