Well...it seems like Ava is feeling better. Her appetite hadn't improved as of last night when it comes to actual food, but she's drinking her bottles, so as long as she gets the hydration and nutrients from the formula I'm not worried. We've had one dose of antibiotic thus far and I gave her the eardrops at bedtime, and she slept ten straight hours last night with no coughing!! It was great! I, on the other hand, did not sleep...always happens when I'm fighting a cold...I got about 5 hours and could've used a full 8, but oh well. Ava did not go back down after her 6am bottle (she coughed on some mucous and threw up all over both of us, and the process of cleaning her up fully woke her) so we went downstairs and she played while I had a cup of tea. She tires quickly if she doesn't sleep after her morning bottle, so when she started getting cranky at 7:45--into the crib! She fussed and banged on her music maker (the musical part of her mobile, the actual mobile part has been taken off) for about 10-15 minutes and then fell asleep, which seems to be par for the course with naptime these days. I'm wide awake (not rested....but awake....) and debating: do I get myself ready for the day, or do I clean the house? I'm thinking get ready, because I can clean later when Craig gets home.
So, that's about it here. I can't believe we're almost done with the first week of track-out...ugh!! Anyhow--here are a couple of pictures I took on my phone yesterday of Ava at the doctor's office. You can tell she's not feeling well because she didn't bother to rip the hat off of her head. :o) 
They really need to have a sticker on Ava's baby calendar to commemorate the event--we were lucky enough to escape the dreaded ear infection for 8 1/2 months, but now we've got two of them. In addition to a red throat and rattly lungs (apparently it could turn into pneumonia if we didn't treat it. Obviously, we're treating it.)....I knew something was really wrong beyond the usual cold or allergy attack when Ava 1.) lost her appetite and 2.) absolutely flipped out when I layed her down for her morning nap. Screaming her head off, arching her back, flipping over, sitting up--refusing to go down even though she was obviously tired. Anyhow we did get to the doctor (God bless Jeffers, Mann and Artman! They're awesome at last minute appointments!) and get a diagnosis and drugs so hopefully she'll be on the road to recovery soon. I probably got about 5-6 hours of sleep last night, not all at once, so it's better than the previous night's three hours but I'm in bad shape with a sore throat and headache, which will turn into a cold if I continue to lose sleep.
Anyhow, we'll pull through, no doubt kicking and screaming, but it'll be okay! I felt so bad last night--I finally went in to check on Ava when she wouldn't go down and was really sobbing, and the minute I picked her up, she snuggled against me and fell asleep. I guess she just needed some extra cuddling. :o( I rocked her for twenty minutes and then put her down and there was a lot of coughing and sneezing (like, ALL NIGHT) but no crying, at least for awhile.
I can't wait for everyone in this house to be healthy again, all at the same time!
ANYBODY! PLEASE! HELP! My sweet baby who goes to bed without fussing? Yep--she's apparently been abducted by aliens and replaced with an evil look-alike. We've never had to let her cry it out before but that may be starting now....my question is, how do you do that? How long to you let her cry (she's 8 1/2 months old)? At what point do you need to go in there? I understand leaving her if it's just some fussiness but what about full-on sobbing? And what if she's sick? Do normally good babies suddenly freak out and not sleep when they're sick? Should I comfort her if she's sick or still let her cry? Because honestly, I thought she'd pass out.
I'm completely lost. I'm alone this week. And if I don't get more than three hours of sleep tonight (like last night) I am going to DIE.
My mom likes to tell me stories about what a devious child I was when it came to getting into things. I used to love hearing those stories....however, observing Ava in recent days, it seems as though she's inherited that from me. We don't have a baby gate yet (I don't know if one will even fit on our stairs) so we just wedge these two giant, heavy throw pillows at the base of the steps to keep her off of them. Moments ago she plowed right over the pillows (I have no clue how, they're bigger than her!) and made it up about three stairs before I grabbed her. Ohhhh boy.
Oh yeah....last night the weirdest thing happened. I was chewing gum and I blew a bubble....I thought this would amuse Ava, but instead she started CRYING!!! Tried it again later....same reaction and she watched my mouth fearfully for the rest of the evening. Strange....
Thought I'd start out with a couple of pictures--both were taken on my phone this week. In the first one, Ava is crawling under the end table...she likes to crawl under/behind things now. In the second one she's desperately trying to destroy everything on the coffee table. (Please note: our coffee table is now completely bare.)
Anyhow, as you can tell from the title of the post--we are now on fall track-out! Even though I have a good group of students this year and I do enjoy my job, this track dragged on like never before--I think it's because I look forward the breaks so much because I can spend a lot of time with Ava. I've also needed the rest, physically and mentally...there is a lot going on here. Let's see....
**We are going to be quitting day care. The situation with the new teachers not having any clue how to care for Ava just got worse and worse: they never filled out her paperwork correctly so I never knew if/when she got diaper changes, or when she napped, or how much she ate. On Monday she had an unexplained bruise on her face, they seem to think she fell in or around a crib. That's fine--I expect a lot of bumps and bruises in this pre-walking phase--but to not have any idea what happened and to not have an incident report for me, even though I requested one TWICE, is not acceptable. She has come home with poop still on her from previous diaper changes--three times. She had the wrong diaper on one time (A SIZE ONE!), and an extremely tight diaper when she already had a terrible rash. She's filthy when I pick her up, too. ANYHOW--a former co-worker of mine (I worked with her for four years) now stays at home with her two little kids (including a girl Ava's age) and has offered to baby-sit, so we're going to meet up and work something out over-track out and hopefully Ava will be going there after track-out! It will be such a relief to know she's being well cared for again.
**We've not sold our house, in fact, we showed it today for just the second time since we put it on the market. However, we signed a deal with the realtor that he'll buy our house if it doesn't sell by the time we're ready to close on the one that we are building so that's good!! There are loads of paperwork but hopefully in another week we'll be able to commence with the actual building.
**Ava's 8th tooth poked through her gums this morning--with four on top and four on bottom, her mouth is starting to look a little more normal! No more vampire fangs.
**Our daughter is now completely mobile, crawling around and pulling herself up and walking around furniture like a crazy woman. She likes making monster noises at us---"RARRR! RAAAAAARRRRRRR!!--and has tons of energy, though she still seems to take pretty good naps and sleeps about 9 hours a night. (For some reason though, she slept a solid 11 1/2 last night, awesome!!)
**In less than a week, my mom will be here to visit--yay! We're very excited to see her, and Ava will have a lot of fun with her grandma! This also means that Craig and I will be going out on a real date, the first one since....I don't know. It's been quite some time now. We're going to a nicer restaurant than our last date, which featured lots of other people's screaming children. American Express sent Craig a $50 gift certificate for Ruth's Chris, a really nice steak place (even though I totally don't understand the name)....all he has to do is pay for the meal with the AMEX card. I think they sent it as one of those rewards for being a good cardholder, since he uses it for all of his business expenses. At any rate, we will enjoy a great meal for a discounted price. Can't beat that!!! I'm guessing we'll probably try to catch a movie as well, but we'll have to see what's out.
**I have big plans to read a few books (I have a Koontz, an Evanovich, and at least one Patterson to catch up on), and to work on my scrapbook, over track-out.
That's about it here! We're (mostly) healthy and happy, and now that the day care issue has been all but settled there's little to complain about. :)
But, I have been really lazy about posting lately so I'm going to do an update. Things around here are pretty crazy: I stayed home from work last Tuesday with that stomach bug, and my stomach went all wonky again on Friday so I missed another day of work. I'm kind of freaking out about that, but what can you do? Craig felt icky all weekend and is now taking antibiotics again....Ava's allergies (I'm assuming that's what her persistent "cold" is) are under control but she has a rash under one eye and in the past day or two has also had a raging diaper rash. Bad enough that she's screaming and practically shaking, and I'm crying whenever I have to change her diaper. There are new workers at day care during the afternoon and they are nothing like the original people, who were very on the ball with everything. Today, Ava's daily report sheet was incomplete (documents diaper changes, when she ate/how much she ate, nap times, etc.)....I rely on that report so I can keep up with her schedule. They also threw away one of her food containers and one of her bottle lids is missing. Her face wasn't clean when I picked her up, either--the other workers were pretty anal about keeping the kids clean, which was absolutely fine by me! I'm going to see how it goes tomorrow--maybe it was just a really crazy day or something--and then talk to the director if it doesn't seem better. Then there's one week until track-out so if worse comes to worse, I'll have three weeks to find something else. I'm seriously disappointed. Anyhow, parenting has really got me down lately....I just feel so helpless lately, and I constantly feel like I'm doing something wrong. We're on a new feeding schedule and I'm trying to introduce chunkier foods but I have no idea what I'm doing. I hate feeling so lost.
ANYHOW--the past weeks haven't been without their good points! Ava is babbling away like a maniac, constantly making shrieks, squeals, and growls that crack us up. She crawls all over the place, tries to climb the stairs, pulls herself into a standing position, and today she removed the cat bed from under the end table and tried to crawl under the end table but then changed her mind and tried to lay in the cat bed instead. I got a few pictures, but they're still on the camera. When she gets up in the morning on the weekend, we bring her back to bed with us after the 6am bottle and she will snuggle and sleep there with us for up to 3 hours! We never did get to take her to the petting zoo so I think we'll just wait until my mom is here (IN TWO WEEKS!!) and go during the fall festival. YAY! I love fall....even if the weather isn't very fall-like around here yet. Still hot. But, we've had a lot of dreary, rainy days this week and that always makes me happy. I know it sounds ridiculous--usually sunshine makes people happy--but I like a few days of steady rain. I find it very soothing and it reminds me of home.
Okay, there's the update....here are a few pictures from last weekend. And I need to go get some sleep! :)
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I was up all night throwing up. Feel awful today. Not as bad as when I had food poisoning but it still pretty much sucks...think I have some kind of stomach bug. Ugh. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, this is my second sick day this year--usually I use 2-3 for the entire YEAR, not for one quarter!! Glad I toughed it out when I had a cold and went to work, unless Ava is sick I'm not using any more days on myself unless I'm throwing up.
NOT. FUN.
EDIT: I almost forgot....Ava has a THIRD tooth coming in...three at once...poor baby! It's her other front tooth so pretty soon she won't look like a vampire anymore. :)
