Ear Aches, Colds, and Potty Training

Since our last post....

Emma has gotten over her ear infection and the cold that seemed to go with it. She shared her cold with me and I have been working on getting better for the last 10 days or so. I'm probably back to about 90%, but the cough is still lingering. Since both of us have been sick, we scaled way back on our activities. It's been 2 weeks since I made it to the YMCA to exercise and I definitely miss it. We did make it to her Discovery Play class on Wednesday and found out that several other kids had also missed the week before, so we think the germ culprit may have been there.

Emma started expressing an interest in the potty back around Labor day. We gave potty training a shot back in October, but she just wasn't ready and we got NO where. Since then we found an eBook that described a 3 day potty training method. We decided to give it a shot.... Based on our experience in the fall, we planned for Dave to take a vacation day to lower the stress level a little. Emma and I got started with PT on Friday and it was a rough day. There were way more accidents than successes. The only bright spot was that some of the accidents were my fault... Emma tried to tell me she needed to go, I just didn't get the message in time. Saturday was vastly different - there were NO accidents until about 6 PM - when Dave and I both got distracted by dinner and missed her trying to tell us. Today - Day 3 - was another big improvement. Dave and I were still sounding like broken records reminding Emma to tell us when she needs to go, but there were NO accidents all day. We also saw a decrease in the number of times that Emma needed to go, so we know she is holding it well. We are hoping and planning to reinforce the message and progress made tomorrow while Dave is home with us. We are a long way from saying that Emma is "potty trained," but a lot of progress has been made and we are very excited about how far she has come in just a few days.

First Ear Infection

Our cutie pie, Emma, gave us a scare on Sunday night.

She had been fine all day until about 4:30 when she came down with a big case of the crabbies. After a few snuggles, she seemed okay and we went about our day. When she and Dave came up for dinner, Dave made the comment that he was a little worried because Emma seem lethargic. The next red flag popped up during dinner... Emma didn't want to eat at all, she wouldn'ttry any of her food even though she did drink her milk. Then the poor baby started shaking and we noticed she was burning up. The culprit was a fever of 102.....

We struggled with getting the fever down... Infant Tylenol wasn't helping. We made the switch to Children's Tylenol about 1 AM when we realized the fever was actually creeping up to 103. That finally helped! (Emma weighs enough that the infant version just wasn't strong enough). When the fever was back in full force at 6 AM, we called the doctor. When the office called back, we were able to get in at 9:15.

After two exams (a resident and our regular pediatrician) the verdict was an ear infection in the left ear. We got our prescription and off we went to the pharmacy... After a few glitches caused by our insurance company and the intelligent way they print their benefits cards we had Emma's antibiotics and were home.

I started Emma's medicine right away, including more Tylenol to control the fever picking back up. She spent the afternoon alternating between sleeping, veggie in front of the TV, and playing. Every time she wanted to play, I was a little more relieved. The fever popped back up about 2 in the morning, but as of now Emma seems to be on the mend.

Who's the boss?

If I wondered who the boss was in my house, the question was very plainly answered tonight. About 8 PM, Emma came up to where I was sitting on the couch and said "cookie." I figured she was asking for her pre-bath snack. When I didn't move fast enough for her, the next comment was "cookie, go." This caused Dave and I to joke about our little dictator.... And since I didn't get up right away, she pulled the blanket off my lap and started tugging on my leg saying "up, up."

When I did get up, Emma crawled up on the couch and took my spot where she waited quietly for her milk and cookies. I did get a "thank you" when her snack was delivered, but I think we definitely need to work on how Emma asks for things.

Brrrrrrrr

We survived a VERY VERY chilly week at our house! It started snowing on over night on Wednesday and made slow going for Dave to get to work on Thursday - almost double his normal commute time. It snowed enough that by the time Emma took her nap on Thursday, the driveway needed to be cleared.... Thank goodness for the snow blower!!!! The snow was fairly deep, but light and fluffy, so I was able to clear the driveway and sidewalks in about 45 minutes. It snowed again overnight, so Dave had to clear the driveway one more time before going to work on Friday.

I headed out to run a few errands on Saturday and had an epiphany... Even though I managed to bundle myself up and hop on the train for 7 + years to go to work in the loop, I don't ever want to do that again. Staying home for the last (nearly) 2 years has made me a softy! The couple of errands I had to run in our little village "downtown" was enough to make me wonder if I was insane for being out and walking in the cold with the partially cleared sidewalks.

The good news is that it's supposed to be up in the 40's later this week....

It's a New Year!

We saw 2010 in with a small party at our house on New Year's Eve then at Dave's parent's house on New Year's Day. We then spent the weekend getting the Christmas tree and decoration taken down. That's always a sad process!

Dave and I also battled a bug of some kind over the weekend, so we didn't make it to church as planned on Sunday. (I had a fever on Saturday night and didn't want to chance spreading germs). We did make it to the YMCA though where we started on our resolution to exercise more by getting our family membership. Emma and I even made our first trip over there today. Emma had a blast playing in the Strong Kid Zone while I went and took a 2 mile walk around the indoor track. What a nice way to start the day/week.

Other good news.... our boxes arrived from Houston today, so we are excited to start unpacking again!

Emma's Adventures

Emma had a big week over our Christmas vacation. Not only did she get to fly on an airplane (one of her new words) and have the excitement of the airport (watching all the "trucks" and "trains"), she had several other adventures...

1) Sleeping on a big girl bed - Emma spent the week sleeping on an air mattress. This worked well, except that Emma kept rolling off the bed! Most night this wasn't a big deal, but on Christmas night, she rolled off her little bed and started crawling under the big bed. Dave and I woke up to urgent cries from a scared little girl.

2) Petting an Alpaca - We took Emma out to look at the animals and some of the younger males were out and about so we took her for a closer look. The boys weren't sure about coming close to us, so Dad wrangled Revenue for Emma to pet. She seemed to like it.....

3) Riding a tractor - Dad gave Emma a ride on his John Deere and this she didn't seem to like. It wasn't a long ride, but she was scared and cried a little bit.

4) Bunk Beds - While we were at Melissa's for Christmas Eve, Emma was playing with the other kids and found herself in the boys room. She followed on of the older kids up the ladder to the top bunk and then couldn't get down. We found her when we heard Emma crying, she was fine, just scared.

So far 2010 hasn't had any big adventures, but I'm sure they are just around the corner!