Indoor Fun for Sickies

We successfully weathered Keira's fourth tooth, now we're all sick. Bummer. We had been doing so well on the wellness front until this week. Last week, Keira, Eli and I took Keira's stocking in to be embroidered. The embroidery shop is walking distance and on the way to Jump 2 It. I decided to risk it, and take Eli for a little afternoon fun on a freezing cold day to jump to his heart's content. Although he had an absolute ball, I guess it was a bad choice.

Since Keira's hospitalization we've stayed away from large groups of kids. We haven't gone to any MOMS Club activities, story time or indoor jumping places. It was probably no coincidence that we all stayed healthy for almost two months. I guess I was feeling lucky. Even though Eli had a ball and I practically had to drag him out of Jump 2 It, I guess it ultimately was a bad decision. Sunday night, Eli's nose was running like a faucet. He was feeling so crummy that he asked for Benadryl even though he hates the taste. You know he's feeling bad when he asks for Benadryl! He's been sick all week, and he sounds worse now, but I think he's feeling better. A few days ago, Keira and I started getting sick. It would be no big deal for me, just a little cold. But, of course, when Keira doesn't sleep, neither do I. Once she's asleep she eventually can't breathe through her nose. She wakes up gasping. She can breathe through her mouth fine, but transitioning from her nose to mouth scares her and wakes her up. Then, she wants to nurse to fall back to sleep but her stuffy nose makes that difficult or impossible. Last night, she even threw up in the middle of the night -- I think it was all the snot. Poor girly. We tried suctioning her nose out, which is horrible, and unfortunately doesn't seem to last very long. Today her naps have been going pretty well, so that's a bonus.

Fortunately, Keira's mood has actually improved as she transitioned from teething to being sick. She's not sleeping well at night, but when she's up she's in a much better mood. She has gotten back in her old routine of playing independently for long periods of time. It's been so nice for all of us. She likes her playplace and her jumperoo, but she's happiest on the floor playing with toys. We've set up the large letters into a play mat which is a great surface to sit her on. I also put the Boppy behind her for when she falls backward. But, she's starting to get so mobile that she's often scooted away from the Boppy before she falls over, which is why I'm happy we've set up the play mat. She's mobile, but I think it's almost accidental. She sort of leans to one side while playing and then slowly scoots forward or sideways to reach her toys. Eli never crawled (at least not until after he walked.) So, it will be interesting to see if she does. Her behavior definitely lends to the possibility more than his ever did. He played on the floor, too, but not for nearly as long as she does. He liked playing in his playplace the best.



Another thing that increases her chances of crawling is that she does quite a bit of tummy time. We tried to do tummy time with Eli every day, but he screamed the second that you put him face down. Keira, on the other hand, does well for ten to fifteen minutes at a time, as long as I read to her. Her favorite books are Karen Katz flap books, especially "Where is Baby's Belly Button?"


Since Keira has been taking good naps and playing for long periods of time independently, it has given Eli and I much more time together. His favorite thing to do right now is crafts. I think we've done about six crafts in the last couple of days.

My Babies

I never can resist taking pictures of my two together. Eli likes to cuddle and love Keira a few times a day, and when they are together he asks if I'm going to get the camera. Ironically, once I have the camera he has no interest in smiling or even looking at the camera. Oh well. Here are the best of my recent attempts.

Teething Troubles

Keira is TEETHING! If you look closely in this first picture, you can see her two bottom teeth. She is now getting her fourth tooth -- her left front tooth, and it's a doozy. I think this tooth has been the single, worst one yet. I'm usually so lucky, in that, Keira is a wonderfully, easy baby. She still wants to take four naps each day, and when she's awake she's happy. I move her from her playplace, to the floor, to her jumperoo, or her high chair and as long as she's got something to play with or look at she's happy. Before this tooth started coming in, her latest favorite toys were a tupperware full of Eli's playdough tools. Who knew?




Unfortunately, my low maintenance baby is nowhere to be found. When she's awake now, Keira wants to be held almost all the time. Here is a picture that Eli took of me talking on the phone and holding Keira in the Baby Bjorn -- where she's spent a lot of time lately. Notice how she's chewing on the Baby Bjorn.


She also seems to want to nurse constantly, although her finger in her mouth can serve as a temporary substitute.


Scott is really good at entertaining her in one of her perches to try to extend her brief happy time. One night, he played Keira the guitar while she was in her jumperoo. She is fascinated by the guitar.



The biggest, most unfortunate casualty of her teething troubles has been our sleep. Last Thursday night, I didn't remember sleeping at all. Everytime she'd almost nod off, she would wake up screaming, whimpering or crying. It was awful. I think our sleep has slowly improved the last two nights, but I'm still walking around with that exhausted, raw feeling that you usually only get with a newborn in the house.

Santa Hat

As we've unpacked our Christmas things, our Santa hats are now within reach. The other day, while Eli was napping, I snapped a few pictures of Keira in a Santa hat. She's easy to photograph since she is constantly smiling.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

After baking the Christmas cookies, Scottie unpacked the Christmas tree so we could decorate it. Eli had already helped Grammie and Babo decorate their tree, so he was a pro. He even put the hooks on the ornaments by himself. He was very careful, as he broke one of the glass ornaments at Grammie's house -- it made an impression.



When he had filled all of the lower branches with ornaments, he wanted to bring out the stool to stock the top branches. Instead, Scottie suggested picking him up so he could hang the other ornaments. To compensate for the fact that Eli couldn't use one of his favorite things, his stool, Scott turned into Robot Daddy, complete with the necessary sound effects. Eli LOVED it! In fact, it was such a hit, that later on, when we found some more ornaments to hang, I was not an acceptable substitute. I'm horrible at making sound effects. :) Robot Daddy had to make another appearance.



So far, this Christmas season has been the most exciting for Eli yet. He keeps asking when Christmas will be here. We've wrapped a few presents and put them under the tree. Eli is having fun speculating about what he thinks are wrapped inside. We are using the Advent calendar that was such a hit last year, and counting the days until Christmas. It's fun to see all the anticipation and excitement written all over his face.

Christmas Cookies

This week has been a little tricky as far as Eli's behavior is concerned. He has a very short fuse. If he doesn't get his way, he storms into his room screaming and crying. Thursday was especially difficult. Fortunately, I kept my cool and I don't think I contributed to the problem, but I was happy when Scott got home to relieve me. The good thing is that he goes in his room on his own accord, so that I canI close the door behind him if he's being too loud. I tell him that when he's ready to be calm I'll be happy to talk to him. It's usually short-lived, but frustrating nonetheless. Scott and I are trying to convey to him that he can solve problems in much more fruitful ways, but I guess it's just one of the things that comes with the age. By comparison, two was such a breeze...

As I said, the temper tantrums are short lived, and besides Thursday, they don't seem to dominate the day. We managed to have a good week despite the behavior snafus, and even managed to squeeze in a little holiday fun. Last Sunday, on Scott's last day of his vacation, Eli and I baked Christmas cookies. He was mostly interested in sampling as he went and making as much mess with the flour as possible.




But, he still managed to enjoy the rest of the process including: mixing, rolling out the dough and using the cookie cutters.

Thanksgiving Break

We had a peaceful Thanksgiving Break. It's always wonderful having Scottie home for a week. We spent most of our time inside: playing games, making puzzles, reading and generally staying warm and cozy. Which left plenty of time for cuddling.


When we did go outside, we had to bundle up as it's getting colder. Here are Scottie and Keira in their hats.


When we did venture out, we often went to one of the grandparents' houses. We had some catching up with Dendi and Bapa to do on the first weekend of the break, since they'd been out of town on a ten-day cruise to celebrate their fourtieth anniversary. Eli loves to build with Mega Blocks when he visits them. Keira is getting slowly more comfortable with Bapa, and she loves her Jumperoo at home and at Dendi's house. These are some pictures that Dendi and I got with her camera.




Then, on Thursday, we went over to the Summerville's house for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. It's such a different experience having two kids at these kinds of functions. I spent most of my time keeping Keira happy. As Eli was on his first Thanksgiving, she was overwhelmed by all the people and tired as the night wore on. Fortunately, Seana got some great pictures of Keira and I after she woke up from her nap.




Unfortunately, Keira woke up on Friday morning with a heinous rash on her tummy. As the day wore on, it only got worse, so I decided to take her into the doctor before the weekend. He said that it was an allergic reaction. Since, she's only tried two foods, and had been eating both for at least a week, we decided it was probably a reaction to something that I ate. The only things I could figure were Brazil Nuts or Turkey. So, I've taken all nuts and turkey out of my diet and it's slowly gotten better. I decided to take all nuts out of my diet because Keira's had a little red patch around her eye off and on since she was born. While we were at the hospital it went away. At first, I attributed it to Kodi, but now with the Brazil Nut possibility I tried a little experiment. I realized I'd had no nuts for almost a week at the hospital, and I wanted to try it again and see if the redness went away. Sure enough, after almost a week off nuts again, the redness around her eye is almost gone. So, maybe she has a nut sensitivity. In babies, they call it a sensitivity, not an allergy, since they usually outgrow them. Here's a picture of her rash.


The hard thing with this rash is that it impacted her sleep and made her fussy. That only complicated her already rocky sleep brought on by teething. We've had several rough nights. And, Keira got two teeth in three days. She got her top right front tooth on November 30, and her bottom left front tooth on December 2. Now that the rash is finally going away and she's gotten those two teeth I'm hoping she'll improve. Yesterday, was especially rough, she was only happy nursing, or being carried in my arms, the Baby Bjorn or the sling. Fortunately, Eli spent Tuesday and Wednesday with his grandmas which let me concentrate on Keira.