My Girl is Back

Thanks to all of you who answered my call for help. Just like when you feel better as soon as you get to your doctor’s appointment, Lilia and I had an amazing day on Wednesday. We slept in and enjoyed lots of play and cuddles. Meals weren’t messy, they were healthy and easy. She went down for a 2.5 hour nap allowing me to get in some work and when she woke up she was in a darling mood and happily ran some errands with me. She fussed a little through bath time but there was no major meltdown. We enjoyed one of the nicest bedtime routines we’d had in awhile. She may have turned up the cute a bit because Sarah was over for a visit. She didn’t have any trouble going to bed even though we had a little dinner party with Sarah and Jen and she even slept through our rousing game of Apples to Apples. Today has been equally enjoyable so far and even her daycare day went a lot smoother yesterday. She is still battling her bath which is a bummer, but at least I recognize her as my kid again.

The calm before the storm

Check out my sweet little girl enjoying tons of bubbles.

So fun, so cute!

Now picture this same angelic child morphing into a beast and throwing a giant temper tantrum from the beginning of bath pretty much right through bedtime. That’s been our new routine on the days she’s been in daycare and it’s exhausting. I think she’s just over tired and over stimulated from her day but misses us and wants more time with us before bed. That’s one theory, though I am totally open to others, especially if they come with sage words on how to make it through these post daycare hours. Sending out an SOS!

Dizzy dizzy spinny girls

Lilia and Juliana spin and twirl then CRASH. What did not get captured, thanks in part to my timing and in part to my loud out of tune singing is both girls singing “dizzy dizzy” right along with me.

Happy Father’s Day P-Bear

Lilia gave Daddy the best Father’s Day present ever. She slept-in until 7:30am this morning, happily snuggled us in bed until around 8am and when we all did get up she was in the cutest, sweetest mood ever. I had prepped her to be extra nice to Daddy the whole day before, but she exceeded my expectations!

We gave Daddy his homemade card and some presents, then went out for a delicious breakfast in our new neighborhood.

After some errands and playtime, Lilia and Daddy took a nice long nap together while I started the process of assembling our new grill. When they woke up they were refreshed and ready for a rousing game of soccer.

It was a good day.

Uh-Oh Ailments

In the midst of our unpacking Lilia broke out in a vicious rash. Apparently it was an allergic reaction, though to what we are not entirely certain. Since it happened at the end of her first week of daycare it could have been anything. Tilapia was one of the last things she ate before the rash appeared but she’s eaten plenty of fish without an issue before.  The list of potential causes is overwhelmingly long, and in Lilia’s case, nothing new had been introduced to our knowledge. The advice nurse told us it’s often difficult to determine the cause and that it can sometimes be a newly formed allergy to something that has been tolerated before. Well that could be pretty much anything. Two days of dosing her with Benadryll cleared it up and thankfully the rash didn’t seem to bother her all that much.

Not more than a week after we got the rash under control, Lilia woke up caked in vomit. We heard her fussing and going back to sleep several times but around 11pm she sounded more distressed so I went to her and her crib, blanket, piggy, jammies and hair were all covered in vomit. Poor thing. We’re pretty convinced she threw up a couple times and went back to sleep in it before she woke up enough to really complain and get our attention. It’s scary to think how lucky we are that she didn’t aspirate it and choke while she slept, a concern I know I share with other mom’s on Mamapedia.

We threw her in the tub, got her all cleaned up and in fresh PJ’s, stripped her bed after scooping out handfuls of puke (my kid eats so much) and of course, she threw up again. We cleaned her up again, left her stripped down, threw some towels on the bed and brought her to bed with us. She had a fever and no appetite for two days and as soon as she started to feel better her clear liquid diet resulted in diarrhea. Today was the closest we’ve been to having our monkey back to full health and normal appetite. Poop was pasty, just one step away from solid!

She still conked out early for nap and bedtime and has a touch of diaper rash from the aforementioned liquid diet poop fest, but otherwise all systems are a go. Even her faucet of a nose that has been present since our move has lessened to a slow drip. I’m hoping we’re through the worst of the new city, new house, new daycare repercussions and will have a healthy girl again, maybe, tomorrow!

Go Back to Bed!

I know we’re not alone when it comes to our toddler and her sleep issues. In fact there are hundreds of posts and replies from sleepy mama’s on Mamapedia which is why it’s fun to share when you have a bit of success.

Usually when Lilia wakes up in the night we just bring her to bed with us. For the most part it works out fine and we all just sack back out. Other times it  seems like she just can’t get comfortable. Last night was one of those nights. She kept rolling and kicking and thrashing and fussing and grabbing my fingers and flopping and grunting and, well, you get the picture. At 4am, after about two hours of this, I sent Adam to the couch so he could get some rest and so Lilia could have a bit more room to roll. This technique has served us well in the past, but last night Lilia just figured Daddy was getting up and she wanted to go too. I kept telling her, it’s still sleepy time, Daddy is just resting on the couch. Her reply was trying to squirm off the bed repeatedly. Finally I told her she could lay down and rest with me or she could go back to her crib. She didn’t seem to care for either option and was pretty adamant that the crib was not where she wanted to be but after another 10 minutes with me telling her about the two choices, I carried her into her room, gave her a hug and a kiss, handed over her pig and told her it was still time to sleep, that I loved her and goodnight. Less than 10 minutes later she was back to sleep and stayed that way, in her crib, til a quarter after 7. Miracle on sleep street! I can’t wait to see if lightening will strike twice with this new technique.

First Day of Daycare

Lilia started daycare the week after we moved. The first day went really well. She didn’t get upset when we left, took a great nap and was so excited to see me when I picked her up.

On the downside, she didn’t eat much which is very odd behavior for her. Even worse, she pushed Juliana. Twice. Say what? My kid? Lilia is not usually aggressive at all. Even when she is the one getting pushed she usually just rolls with it. So aside from the fact that she was acting in all ways completely opposite to her normal self, the best we could come up with is that she and Jules had gotten on each others nerves a bit as they spent a lot of time together the weekend before. Also, Juliana had pulled Lilia’s hair a couple times, and hard. Seems Lilia needed to stand her ground as they have been loving and kind to each other ever since. Hopefully that’s the end of that.

Getting Settled

Looks like I underestimated the power of those 8 1/2 month pregnant nesting hormones and overestimated my ability to unpack in the same time frame with more stuff and a toddler. Suffice it to say from my absence, I didn’t have us unpacked in a single weekend. We’re settling in nicely though and Lilia barely skipped a beat. Her transition from a city apartment to a house with a gated front porch and a backyard was pretty seamless. We did manage to get her room set up pretty completely on the first day and when she came home from playing with The Rose’s all day she walked into her room, headed straight to her crib and made the “sleep” sign. She went down without a fuss and slept in her crib until about 4am then slept with us until a bit after 7am. Far better sleep results than we were used to at our old place.

As you can see, Lilia is relishing in her new found freedom in more ways than one.