Sick of being Sick

Well here we are again. This past Thursday we took Sophia to the doctors and guess what? Go ahead guess. Yep, that's right an EAR INFECTION. When Sarah asked the Pediatrician about this and why the tubes weren't working as we expected, she asked what we had expected. Well we expected that there wouldn't be any more ear infections. We were corrected, the tubes are there to help the ears drain. Ear infections are still possible, but can be less painful, etc. So we accepted this and started thinking of ways to help her limit the infections. However, before we could get to far, Thursday night to be exact, Sarah said she wasn't feeling well. What, this can't be, so she went to the doctors on Friday and has a throat infection, most likely Strep. I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Figuring we only had two legs and two shoes I figured we were through it. For those of you that know us well, we call ourselves the Griswalds. You know the Chevy Chase led family that always had everything go wrong. Well that's us. Whether it be a vacation trip, a trip to the grocery or just our plain 'ole luck we have the same outcomes. Back to the two legs and two shoes. In the Griswald family, er Contino family, there are three legs and three shoes. The third shoe dropping was that on Friday night I took my temperature and I had a fever.

Here we are Sunday night and Sarah is feeling better, but not the best. Sophia has had to make a return trip to the doctors because she is still running 103+ degree temperatures and cranky as hell! So the pediatrician says the ears looked infected but not really that bad so we just changed her antibiotics. I am staying home tomorrow and going to see a doctor myself. Anyone seen any good medical masks on sale. I think we are going to need to buy in bulk. Maybe lather ourselves in sanitizer each morning too.

This post might sound desparate or whining, but it's not. I am actually laughing at how we like to live our lives. It's never a dull moment. Until next time.................

Morning Routine

It is quite an experience getting ready in the morning. We have certainly needed to learn how to get more organized in order to get out of the house on time. A typical morning Monday through Friday looks like the following: Sometime between 6:30 and 7 I start to hear Sophia making noise. Usually she starts to babble, talking to her butterflies floating above her crib. This goes on for a while and she can usually entertain herself before she becomes impatient and starts to cry. I usually get out of bed as soon as I hear her and start the coffee (first things first!) then prepare her bottle. Now some mornings I may be feeling particularly ambitious and may already get up and prepare these things before I hear her (sometimes a shower even!). But most mornings I am arriving in the kitchen, one eye open, coffee started and bottle warming. By the time I get to Sophia's room I find her now standing in her crib with her eyes peeking over the top. I can tell she is smiling, even though I cannot see her mouth behind the top rail, because her eyes squint up when she smiles. This is one of the best parts of my day. As tired as I may be I smile back as I pick her up and kiss her good morning. Off we go to get her bottle and sit down in the living room. I turn on the Today Show and watch the morning weather while I feed Sophia. These days she has no interest in being held like a baby while I am feeding her. She usually sits straight up in my lap and holds her arm against me, making sure I don't try to cradle her. She never wants to miss out on a thing! By this point I usually hear Jason's alarm clock going off and he stumbles out of bed. He'll come out and say good morning to us before getting ready for work. When Sophia is done with her bottle she is anxious to get down and start playing. I get up and fix myself a cup of coffee while watching her climb onto her toys and start taking things out of her toy bin. After Jason is done getting ready we 'tag team' and he takes over watching and playing with her while I jump in the shower. I get dressed and if I'm lucky, try to fix my hair a bit. Jason comes back to the bathroom and asks me if I am ready to take over because he needs to leave for work. Sure, I say. I find a bottle of something to give Sophia to keep her occupied while I turn to do my 3 minute makeup routine. It is amazing how one can become so efficient at tasks that used to take 15 minutes or more! When I finish I pull Sophia out of the closet and she has found some of my heels to chew on (gross). With her in one arm I finish packing her bag for the day (most of the time Jason has this prepared for me while I am in the shower). I try to put her down to pick up some things but she clings to me clearly not prepared for separation yet. I fix a bowl of baby cereal and fruit for her with one arm while she is still in the other arm. She trieds to pull the bowl of cereal out of my hand when I put it down on the table and I have to move fast to avoid a massive spill. I set her in the high chair and buckle her in. I finish my coffee while feeding her cereal. Thankfully Sophia is a great eater so we don't have any struggles with her refusing to eat. Toward the end of her breakfast sometimes she tries to blow raspberries which results in food spit out. I tell her no, and sometimes she cries, but lately she stops before I have to scold her. I dump our dishes in the sink and try to wipe her down the best I can but she pulls her hands and face away. I pick her up and found where I missed my cleaning when she wipes her booger nose right on the lapel of my suit. Ahh, great...well, that is why I have shout wipes in my desk at work and thankfully most of my clients have been parents themselves and understand the stains of boogers and pureed peaches.
Believe it or not, the morning routine is much better since Sophia got tubes in her ears. When she would have ear infections the additional to do's included a dose of oral antibiotics, followed by a dose of liquid steroids. Sometimes if she wasn't feeling the best we would also have to give her a dose of tylenol. Sometimes she took the medicine well, but sometimes she didn't. After that we would have to lay her on her side and put antibiotic drops in her ears. This was her least favorite and she would squirm and scream. This usually had to be done before Jason left for work so the two of us could hold her. Thank god for the ear tubes, she is so much happier and feels better now.
Anyway, back to the normal morning routine, after realizing I have added boogers and food to my accessories I put her in her play seat to keep her contained and occupied while I make sure I run the last items like her bag and my purse in the car. When I come back in to get her I make one last check through the house, to see if I have forgotten something. I head to the back door and just as I am ready to open the door I see Payton standing there, panting and crying. Ughh! I forgot to let her out. We hussle to the porch door and I let her out, encouraging her to hurry up and do her thing, all while holding Sophia. Payton finally makes her way back in and I grab a treat to tempt her to the kitchen so I can put the baby gate up (otherwise I come home and find her sleeping on the couch). I feel the muscles in my thighs and butt as I am up and down, squatting again while holding Sophia and I wonder with all of this why my butt has not gotten smaller yet? I head out the door and buckle Sophia in the car. I'll have to worry about weight loss another day.
While I pull the car out of the driveway I realize I have not packed myself a lunch yet. No time to worry about that now. I guess it will be canned soup and whatever else I find in the vending machine in the office. When I drop Sophia off at daycare, the ladies there are excited to see her. While 'pop goes the weasel' plays on the CD player, one of the ladies takes Sophia from me and kisses her hello. Sophia is happy to see her, but she looks back at me like she wishes I could stay and play. I quickly say goodbye and kiss her on the face while smiling but turn to leave before I start to cry. I am happy to go to work but it is so hard to leave her sometimes. When I get in the car I remind myself to buy a lotto ticket on the way home. And then I count down the days until Saturday morning where the routine is much better!

Flugtag!

Last night Sophia was up most of the night. I think there was only two other nights that were worse since she has been born. Thankfully Jason took most of the wake time duty as I was not feeling well either. Of course Saturday morning Sophia wakes up and is ready to play while we sit bleary-eyed waiting for the pot of coffee to finish brewing (actually I couldn't wait, I had to pour a cup before it was even done).
Later we went to the famous Flugtag which was held in South Tampa this year. Thank goodness Missi and Jacob got there early to save a spot under a tree where we could put up camp. While the guys watched homemade gliders run off a ramp into the water Missi and I played with Sophia. It was so hot out there I had to undress her down to her diaper and pour water on her to keep her cool. She did so good out there! We heard not a peep out of her while she played on the towel and ate her biter biscuit. Finally after 2 hours we left and Sophia fell asleep before we even started the car. Later in the evening it appears now she is back to her old self playing and babbling and pulling herself up on anything that is semi-stationary. Have to run now, Sophia is trying to grab the keyboard.

Sick Again

I keep hearing that Aerosmith song in my head, "Same 'ole Song and Dance". It's Friday night and Sophia has been battling sickness again. We took her to the doctors a week ago and the pediatrician said she had an ear infection in both ears. As I write this, Sophia is sleeping and Sarah is laying in bed with a cold as well. In any case, we made an appointment for Sophia to see the pediatrician again today, because she has continued to run a fever throughout the week. She said the ears still look infected. This time she got an antibiotic shot in the leg. Now that is not something fun to experience as a parent. First of all the nurse asks you to hold down her arms. All I am thinking now is, "You have just made me an accomplice". When she looks at me she is going to think, you two are the ones. Now we havent even gotten to the needle. As I am holding down Sophia's arms, and trying to distract her, the nurse inserts the needle into her thigh. Once second I am looking at a confused face and the next..........the quietest cry in the world. One of those cries that starts off with the look of excruciating pain, mouth open, eyes closed and crying and chin shaking. The silence seems to last forever, and then becomes audible. Sarah suggested I bring a bottle for this, good thing she did. As soon as I got her up, I had the bottle in her mouth. This seemed to appease her.

I will keep you posted on her wellness. Instead of refering to her sickness, I am going to try and act positive. On the brightside, when she is sick now, she doesnt have the pressure in her ears as she did before the tubes.

Back to routine

It's Sunday July 6th, Sarah is working from home today and Sophia is napping. She has actually been down for quite awhile. We went for a walk this morning to get the newspaper. She fell asleep in her stroller before we got back. Maybe we should go for a walk more often.

It has been somewhat difficult to get back into routine with her. While we were on vacation in Austin, she slept in her pack-n-play in our room. This did not help with keeping her on the sleeping routine. She seemed to wake up in the middle of the night screaming, with no consoling. Considering we were sharing a house with our friends and their families we wanted to be more conscious of them. One night, it was actually 1:30am, we had to take her out for a drive in the Texas hill country. Don't get me wrong she was great for the whole trip. We actually got many compliments about how happy and easy she was on our flights. That was nice to hear because, in comparison to her other flights, 3 in total, this had to be her worst. However, to hear people say nice things put it in perspective for us.

Once we got home it was back to "baby boot camp". The first night we put her down to sleep she cried. Sarah had read one of the millions of baby books she reads, and it said we should go in there every 2-3 minutes to let her know we were there. This didn't sound good to me, and 2 and a half hours into this it sounded even worse. Therefore, I told Sarah we would try my way the next night. We would just let her cry it out. This lasted only 45 minutes this time and she slept the rest of the night. She has been sleeping through the night, for the most part now, except for when we lie her down. She cries for a bit, but just because she probably wants to be out and not missing anything.

Father's Day

Well, I just had my first father's day. It was a great day. Started by going to church with the family. Sophia was so good. We sat in the "kiddie" section because there was carpet for her to sit on. When we got home, Sarah and I made some breakfast and just lounged around with Sophia, playing and laughing. About 2 p.m. we left to go to the Tampa Aquarium. This was Sophia's first time to an aquarium. She seemed more interested in watching people than fish. We had a great afternoon and then headed back to the house before the rain started. What a great way to spend Father's Day.

First Post

I am writing this as the first official post on Mommy and Daddy's Blog page. I hope you come back often to hear about our lives with Sophia. Until then........