All last weekend Lily kept talking about wanting to see the “hot doctor” and both Paul and I were mystified. We thought she was quoting some boy-crazy person she had been around but didn’t know who. On Monday when she and Paul came to pick me up from work and parked by the Survival Flight helicopter pad as usual, Lily excitedly pointed and declared, “hot doctor!” We had to laugh that apparently hot doctor = helicopter.
Much to our dismay, Lily came down with croup on Thursday night. It was to be expected, though, as she always tends to get either an ear infection or croup a week after she has recovered from a cold. It sucks to always have her follow up an illness with an even worse one. I took her to the doctor on Friday to get the diagnosis confirmed. The cold air exposure getting her in and out of the car did her some good and she finally felt well enough to want “burger fries” on the way home. I stopped and got her a McDonald’s Happy Meal but her exhaustion from crying through most of the night instead of sleeping won out over her hunger and she ended up falling asleep with a fry hanging out of her mouth on the way home. It was the most adorable thing. I had to pull over and take pictures then wake her up a bit so she could finish chewing the fry before falling right back to sleep.
On Friday night, I had already planned to go to my friend Amy’s special ‘Friday Night Fiesta’ Zumba class in Mason then spend the night at her house. I felt bad leaving Paul with a sick baby but they both did okay without me. I had a lot of fun at the class and the best part was being able to catch up with my former roommate from college, Lisa, who I haven’t seen since 2001. We went out for drinks after the class and had a lot of fun. It was just like no time had passed. I spent the night at Amy’s as planned and thought I would sleep well being baby-free for the first time in forever but I kept waking up out of habit and perhaps out of guilt for leaving Lily when she was sick. I went home early in the afternoon on Saturday and we spent the rest of the weekend hanging around the house while Lily recovered. Thankfully, she was almost back to normal on Sunday. Those steroids work wonders!
My weekly email from babycenter.com was mostly about speech and language development this week. It said, “Your child may be using the most basic words, or he may be stringing together sentences already. First sentences tend to be brief, but they get the point across and are exciting to hear. Help your child internalize sentence structure by repeating his words in full sentences.” Lily has been talking in full sentences for quite some time now. All of her sentences have subjects, verbs, and objects used correctly in the right order. I am frequently impressed at her proper use of verb tense and definite and indefinite articles. She does always say, “I pick you up” instead of “Pick me up” but that is too cute to correct. Other than that, she has a really good grasp of the English language. But while she is ahead on the language front, she is behind on the next subject in the email- sleeping. Sleep has ALWAYS been an issue for Lily. One interesting thing they said was that “fighting sleep is a way to take control, but it’s also a way to stave off fears that come with the night.” Fear is definitely one of Lily’s major problems. Not only does she fight sleep because she wants to keep playing but her meltdowns and desire to sleep in our bed seem to be truly fear-driven lately as she tends to talk about all of the things she is afraid of while we are trying to put her to bed. I reassure her the best I can but wish I could do more and REALLY wish I could get her to go to sleep on her own in her own bed like I could four months ago. They went on to discuss transitioning from the crib to a big kid bed but I can’t even get Lily to sleep in her crib. She is definitely not ready for a big bed since part of getting her down is the necessity of having her caged in! We’ve had a toddler bed waiting for her in our garage that was kindly given to us last summer by Kirsten’s neighbor. Who knows when she will be ready to use it? At this rate, not anytime soon.
Here are some pictures from this week.
Forming "words" in the tub while her beloved cocodrilo looks on:
Exhausted croupy baby passed out in the car with a french fry hanging out of her mouth:
It makes me so sad to see her this sick but I thought it was cute that Lily and Amber were sharing a pillow to watch TV:
Lily playing on a tote while watching UmiZoomi on Sunday. You know she feels better when the living room becomes a disaster zone of toys:
