A rough couple of weeks

Our house has been the house of perpetual sickness.

Annabella's ear infection has turned into a war, with the ear infection winning the first couple of battles. She's now on her 3rd different antibiotic, which seems to be doing the trick finally.


We've also all had some wretched stomach virus. Jason and I were zombies last Friday, barely able to take turns taking care of our fussy baby. We thought she was fussy because we had no energy to play with her and she was bored. After her 6th round of nasty diapers for the day, we finally figured out that she was sick too. You'd think we would have figured it out after the first 3 or 4, but really, that's not a day out of the ordinary when she's on antibiotics.


Neither Jason or I feel especially great still and are guarding our tummies from anything too upsetting. I think Annabella's got it worse though because her new antibiotic actually makes her tummy upset. So she's been throwing up a little here and there, which isn't really like her.

I think we're almost out of the woods though. Annabella was in a much better mood this morning than she's been in for days, which is an indication that this round of antibiotics is actually working.

So yay for the light at the end of the tunnel.

5 months

My sweet little baby isn't so little anymore.  She turned 5 months old last Saturday.  And I can't believe how fast the time is flying by!

Here's an update on what she's doing these days:

Annabella loves loves loves shoving things in her mouth.  She still doesn't quite understand size very well though.  So she'll reach out for this cow that's almost as big as her head and try to get it in her mouth.  Her favorite toys right now are the ones that she can easily hold onto and suck on.  She's almost always got a fistful of my hair in her mouth.  "Leggo Mommy's hair!" is coming out of my mouth about 1000 times a day.  Oh, and she's learning how to put her paci back in her mouth.  She'll flip it around until it's right.  Her biggest hurdle with this one is that she can't get her hand off the paci while keeping it in her mouth.  So she'll get it in there the right way just to accidentally yank it out.  It's super cute though.

She's showing almost no interest in rolling over, but we're fairly convinced she can just do it whenever she wants.  She's able to get herself up onto her side without even trying much from her back, and we've seen her roll from her stomach to her back.  She's more interested in trying to get her legs up under her and pushing up on her arms.  I don't expect to see her crawling anytime soon, but that seems to be what she's working towards.  I doubt we'll see much more rolling until she realizes it's a way to reach toys that are out of her reach.  Mostly though she doesn't care about the toys on her sides, just the ones in front of her, but she does try to reach out for those and has scooted a little towards them.  So that's exciting stuff (for us at least).

Her personality is starting to come out more and more.  She often times goes straight to screaming now when she's not happy, which means that she's learning how to communicate her feelings with us more.  Thankfully she's a pretty happy baby and doesn't scream all that much.  She loves watching people, especially new people.  We really don't have to worry much about how she'll be in a store or a restaurant right now because she's just so entertained by all the new surroundings, and that keeps her happy.  She's also started reacting to our laughs.  She's realized they're good things and has smiled and laughed back at us.  I could just see the wheels spinning in her head the first time our laughs sunk in.  She stopped for a second, looked at us, and then laughed back at us, absolutely thrilled.  For me it was a pretty special moment.  

Stranger anxiety is slowly starting up now.  When somebody comes up and talks directly to her she buries her head in my shoulder.  I think it must just make her feel safer.  Yesterday was the first time I've seen her react negatively to being held by a stranger.  She gave a big pout and turned to look for me.  Also, I took her to a meeting with me this week, and a bunch of people in the room started cheering for something, and she really did not like that.  She was startled by the suddeness, and I think it actually scared her a little bit.  She buried her head in my shoulder and pouted.  The last one could have more to do with her ear infection than her shyness.

OK.  That is it for now.  The baby who was sleeping in my arms as I typed is now awake and trying to help me type.  More later!

Ear Infection

Annabella has her first ear infection.

Before I became a parent I had no idea that an ear infection was such a big deal. At this point Annabella's had a couple colds and RSV (which is really just like a bad cold for most infants, but can be a big deal...for her it wasn't.) After all that, how bad could an ear infection be?

The answer is that the ear infection trumps everything she's had before. She'll be asleep and crying out in pain. And there's not a whole lot we can do to make the pain go away. The doctors don't even want us to give her Tylenol because she doesn't have a fever. Not that we've listened to them.

She's finally feeling better today. And she slept really well last night. The antibiotics (which she hates!) must be kicking in now.

So for all the non-parents reading this blog, pay attention to this: Once you have a kid, if you notice a change in behavior and an increase in fussiness during the night, think ear infection and get them checked. Kids don't always tug at their ears or carry fevers with ear infections, and they can still be distracted and smiley through the day. I really wish we would have checked her out a little earlier. It pains me to think she might have had this thing for longer than we realized, and that it took a really grueling night to convince me she needed to see the doctor.

Snowy Morning

This is what it looks like outside right now:


It's below freezing and the snow is still coming down. Both of our work places were still open for business today, so we bundled Annabella up and Amber took her to day care.


That hat used to be so big on Annabella, and now it looks like a skullcap.