Blogging Fail Due to Sick Child

A three day weekend can fly right on by when taking care of a sick baby.  Poor Olivia.  She just wasn't feeling well, and were pretty sure that it's just a nasty cold coupled with the possibility of teething. We took her in to the doctor anyways, and they said it was just a virus.  We took her in again on Sunday because we had such a horrible couple of nights, and fever spiking pretty high, but still they said just an infection. Monday, more of the same but she stayed at Gammies house and we really thought she was on the up and up, until we discovered a rash all over the trunk of her body. Great.

Well, Monday night into Tuesday morning was a true test to my motherhood.  It had already been decided that I would be staying home with Olivia on Tuesday, so that was a good thing.  She woke up every 1.5-2 hours screaming.  Not just crying, full-blown screaming.  That has never happened to us before.  We have had fussy nights, and wide-awake nights, but never screaming.  We knew she had to be in pain, somewhere and she was not running a fever.  We thought maybe it was her teeth, so we gave her teething tablets, and ibuprofen, which didn't really seem to help.  All I could do was try and rock her and comfort her, which she hated and loved.  I would hold her tight, and she would scream and try and get out of my embrace, and so I would lay her back down, and she would look at me with shock and scream so more.  It was such a hopeless feeling.  I just kept saying, tell me baby girl what's wrong?  I know that's silly, but would that be nice?!  At one point, I was walking her around the upstairs trying to soothe her, and went into the bathroom, and flushed the toilet.  Surprisingly, that worked to stopped the screaming just long enough I could stick her pacifier in her mouth and rock her back to sleep for another couple of hours.  Seriously, who would have thought repeatedly flushing the toilet would help???  There needs to be a better handbook for these sort of things.

Tuesday morning I was able to take her to her regular doctor and Dr. P discovered an ear infection in her right ear, which explained the screaming, and the virus called roseola, which explained the rash.  Thank God for modern medicine. In the evening by time Olivia had her second dose of antibiotics, she was slowly becoming her happy self again.  Plus, her appetite returned and she ate a really hearty dinner of tortilla soup and avocado that I had brewed in the crock pot all day.

Olivia did a lot of this yesterday:

Last night was amazing and almost felt like normal.  She "woke" up 2 or 3 times, but only to nurse and to feel around for me to make sure I was still there.

So that is why I failed at blogging everyday for the past couple of days.  I hope to hop back on and finish up strong, but who knows.  Life is crazy.

Olivia is sick

Yesterday, Olivia really seemed under the weather when I visited her at lunch.  I took her temperature, and it was a little above normal, so I just gave her some teething tablets, and lunch and lots of cuddles.

After school she really seemed tired, so while we were at the daycare we took her temperature and it was 101.4.  We took her to the after hours clinic and were told that she just had a cold, and it was peaking.  It was a relief to rule out an infection, especially an ear infection.

Last night we just gave her a warm bath, and dinner, and took turns holding and rocking her to sleep.  The fever finally seems to be coming down this morning.  Olivia just went down for her morning nap, but  has been in and out of feeling well all morning.  I also think that she MAY be cutting the top two teeth, but I have regularly thought Olivia has been cutting teeth, with no luck.  She currently has about a tooth and a fourth on the bottom.

I was so glad that this cold peaked when it did and we are able to have these three days to be with her.  The doctor said if the fever doesn't go away by Monday we should bring her in again to rule out infection.    Hopefully this is just a cold and Olivia begins feeling 100% soon!

Happy Birthday, Gammie!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNETTE!

We all love you very much.  Thank you for being such a wonderful grandmother, mother, mother-in-law, wife, and person to all of us.

Olivia is 11 months old today.

I kept thinking last night, maybe if I don't go to sleep tonight, my baby won't turn 11 months old tomorrow.  If only it were that easy.  My mom used to beg us, and annoyingly ask us all of the time to stop growing up.  She would drag her feet at all of our birthdays and say, "No!  You aren't turning ___ years old."  I would roll my eyes and try and wiggle from her death grip.  I used to never understand what the heck she had against us getting older?!  Now, I know.  I completely understand.

I can honestly say that it literally hurts my heart to think that my baby girl is one month away from turning one year old!  While she is growing more amazing each day, I hate the thought of her growing up. 

11 months have flown right on by.  Whew!  What the heck did we do with our lives and our time before Olivia?  She has given me such a purpose in this world, and such a drive to be a better person.  I want to do better for her, and for our family, and it amazes me that someone so small can motivate me so much.

A year ago

Look at that sexy lady.  This picture was taken almost exactly a year ago, I was 37.5 weeks pregnant.  My face was so fat/swollen it looks like I was having a hard time smiling, but hey, I was still smiling.

I was likely smiling because I thought I was going to have a baby any day.  Little did I know that I would still be pregnant for another 4 weeks!  I think after about this point, I gained another 5 pounds or so, so imagine that hotness!  Holy smokes.

I would marry my husband over and over again.

Not only does my husband clean, but he also cooks, and he is amazing at both.  I never knew that men could cook!  Ha.  Growing up my dad only grilled, so Dave cooking, and cooking extremely well, was a new experience for me.  Dave cooks 95% of our meals, and packs our lunches. I feel like this is only fair because I have been in charge of feeding the baby almost 100% of the time.  However this is starting to slowly change since Olivia is eat more of what we are eating.

I've been making most of Olivia's baby food and sometimes I get an itch to do a little cooking.   Usually I will just bake sometime to go with what ever Dave has made.

Our weekends, when we stick around the house, are very domestic.  We clean, we shop, and we prepare meals and menus for the weekend and the week.

Today Dave cleaned our entire upstairs while I tackled the downstairs and entertained Olivia.  When we have a "cleaning party" like we did today we are able to finish up all of the chores and the laundry in 2-3 hours tops.  We wake up, make coffee, have breakfast, turn on Pandora and then set about cleaning.  It's bliss.  Then we are free to play the rest of the weekend.

This evening we ended our night watching OSU v KState and chowed down on some home-cooked chicken wings, celery and homemade blue cheese dressing compliments of my amazing husband that I will never ever be thankful enough for.

Running

Today was the first time in a really long time that I actually felt like running again.  I used to love to run and did it almost everyday.  At my peak I was running 25-30 miles a week.  Mostly 2-5 mile runs and a long distance run, 5+ miles on the weekend. 

I was walking to Olivia's daycare at lunch, and I think it was the cooler weather that made me feel like running again.  So I actually jogged most of the way, about .5 miles to her daycare.  I was in my work clothes, and I wasn't wearing the best running shoes, but at least they were flats.  It felt amazing.  I think I'm ready to start picking it up again.  We don't have a jogging stroller, but the stroller that we do have would work I think.

Aside from not having much time to work out, I have been reluctant to start running for a bunch of reasons.  I didn't want to take any time away from the time that I did have to spend with Olivia.  I irrationally felt like I was being selfish; this is a conflicting feeling I often struggle with.  I know that it is important to take care of myself, but I feel better when I am able to give Olivia 100% of my time and my energy.  So mentally I just wasn't into.  I have also been afraid of what working out would do to my breast milk supply.  I know I could just eat more to compensate for the calories burned, but I have been able to lose all the baby weight,plus some, and keep it off just by eating healthy and breastfeeding.  Because the weight has come off rather effortlessly, I have not been very motivated to do much.  And trust me, I am not in anyway bragging about losing the baby weight so easily.  This is a very new phenomenon for me.  It has never been easy for me to keep my weight down, I used to smell food and gain 5 pounds.  I truly don't know what the change has been.   

Jenny & I before the San Antonio Marathon - November 2006

Jae and I after the San Antonio 1/2 Marathon - November 2007

Jenny & I - after the Austin AT&T 1/2 Marathon - February 2007

Today I missed those good feelings I used to get from running.  I'm not making any promises to myself or anyone about how much running I will actually set out to do.  It's killer to get back into shape after taking such a long hiatus, but hopefully I will get at least one decent run in this weekend!!!