Our trip did not start out well. First, Natalie hadn’t napped. By the time we needed to leave at 2:30 pm, she was tired. Then, while I was trying to scarf down some lunch just before our departure, I had the nerve to stop Natalie from sticking her fingers in the butter and smearing it all over her face. As if that weren’t enough, I put the butter dish back in the refrigerator! Since just last night I allowed this indulgence, Natalie was naturally quite angry and confused as to why I was stopping her now. She proceeded to smack me across the face in rage and defiance. Since you can’t reason with a two-year-old who is hell-bent on defending her love for butter about the difference between a greasy mess right before bath time and a greasy mess right before a visit to the pediatrician, I said “we don’t hit” and plopped her on the couch to scream her head off while I ate a few more bites of lunch and tried to regain my composure.

When some of the shock of her hitting me wore off, I picked her up, wiped the snot and tears from her face and she calmed down some. Next, I had the audacity to tell her that she needed her diaper changed. The girl is especially intolerant of diaper changing when she’s sick. But diapers need to be changed. First she whispered it’s just gas and started whimpering. I know, honey, but your diaper is wet and we need to put on a clean, dry one before we go see Dr. Stephen. When I put her on the changing table she started howling like a wounded animal while I counted out loud. Literally 5 seconds later, the new diaper was on and we were good to go.

The carrying on stopped briefly until I tried to put Natalie’s coat on. A coat in 40 degree weather? I may as well have tried shove a sharp stick in her eye. She went completely limp and slithered to the floor. I had my own little meltdown and started cursing not so under my breath. After a few feeble attempts at getting the coat on her spaghetti arms—while muttering some choice words to myself— I wisely decided to forgo the stupid coat and wrangled her into the car kicking and screaming. As I picked her up, she was wiggling so much that her head smacked into my chin. More muttering.

Once we were both strapped into our seat belts, I gave her a bottle of milk. Five minutes into the car ride she handed it back to me and started singing I’ve been working on the Railroad happy as a clam. Meanwhile I was sweating, my heart was racing and I was in near tears.

When we got to Dr. Stephen’s office, we had both calmed down. Natalie readily agreed to put her coat and shoes on before going into the building. Natalie likes Dr. Stephen, and sat on my lap like an angel while Dr. Stephen listened to her heart and lungs. She wouldn’t open her mouth, so Dr. Stephen decided to go for the ears next. But of course her view was obstructed by a ridiculous amount of earwax.

Logically I thought that if my trying to prevent greasy butter messes and putting Natalie’s coat on could insight the tantrum that ensued, there was no way Natalie would tolerate a doctor she’s only seen 10 times in her life poking in her ear with a stick. But there’s nothing logical about toddlers. Natalie sat patiently on my lap while Dr. Stephen slowly extracted bits of wax from Natalie’s ears with a long plastic stick. Finally after pulling a raisin-sized piece of wax out, she declared the ear to be in perfect health.

The next ear wasn’t quite as easy. After some poking with the stick, Dr. Stephen reported the wax was too close to the ear drum to safely continue with the stick extraction. She sent the nurse in with a syringe and some warm water in hopes of flushing it out. Again, Natalie surprised me by allowing a stranger to squirt water in her ear. Not just once, but 4 or 5 times! Tiny bits of wax appeared in the water of the container I had to hold under her ear through the procedure, but no mother lode. After the fifth round of flushing, Natalie lost it. Purple-faced-breath-held-before-blood-curdling-screaming kind of lost it. The nurse decided we could take a break.

When Natalie recovered and was starting to smile again, we resumed the torture. The nurse was stupid enough to tell Natalie “one more time” when she didn’t really mean it. Natalie of course knows what “one more time” means and was rightfully outraged and upset when the nurse wanted to continue squirting water after the alleged last one. I was fuming, too. Luckily, the wax was now at the front of the ear and Dr. Stephen came back to get it with the stick. Another raisin-sized piece was gone. And another ear was found to be in perfect condition.

So, the verdict after all that torture? Just a virus…

The doctor’s visit confirmed our belief that Natalie is much more comfortable with women than she is with men. We saw two female doctors (her regular pediatrician we see most often and another female doctor we saw for the first time) during this ear infection and Natalie was completely fine with both of them. She let them look in her ears and clean out tons of wax without making a peep. On Saturday we saw a young male doctor (who looked completely harmless) and Natalie completely flipped out. She was okay sitting on my lap while we told him all the details of the infection. As soon as he tried to look in her ear, she screamed her little head off and acted like a bull let out of a cage. She acted the same way the last time she saw a male doctor. It took both Chris and I to hold her still enough for the doctor to examine her ears. I was so glad he was able to see enough and didn’t need to clean out any wax, because we seriously may have needed to sedate her…

Please keep your fingers crossed so that Natalie stays healthy for a while!

P.S. My cell phone is completely dead. If you need to reach me, email is best until I get a new phone. Hopefully this weekend.

Poor Natalie. I took her to the doctor last Friday after she’d shown clear signs of an ear infection. She’d had a cold around Memorial Day, and then Chris got a sinus infection, so it made sense that an ear infection would follow. We saw Dr. Stephen, who had to clean out a ton of ear wax in order to see the infection. She was extremely gentle and Natalie got through the experience without shedding a singe tear. What a difference from the last time a doctor had to clean her ears. Dr. Stephen prescribed Augmentin and sent us on our way. And just like with Natalie’s last ear infection in February, I got sucked into a false sense of security. Silly me for thinking that antibiotics actually work.

When Natalie was still cranky and not eating by day 4 on the antibiotics, I should have realized that something was wrong. But like last time, I attributed her mood to her age and thought she was just going through a bad phase. If you read my two posts (one from February and one last week) side-by side, it’s amazing how similar they are—same issues were happening with Natalie. I even used some of the same phrasing.

After being cranky all week, last night Natalie woke up 30 minutes after she went to bed, screaming and tugging at her ear. So, I took her back to the doctor this morning. After clearing away yet more wax, the doctor confirmed that not only was last week’s infected ear not any better, but her other ear is now infected as well. She prescribed a different antibiotic, one which I really hope will work. But if Natalie’s not better soon, I’ll take her back without hesitation. Anyone else have a sense of déjà vu? This post is almost exactly like this one that I wrote a few months ago. Hopefully this time I’ve learned my lesson and Natalie will never have to go through this again. I feel so guilty that yet again I thought Natalie was acting out when she was really just in pain.

On a lighter note, Natalie has picked the same sticker from the doctor’s office two weeks in a row. I gave her choices of stickers with different animals on them, which she rejected. Both times she rifled through the sticker basket until she found a sticker with a picture of Skinner from Ratatouille on it:

I wonder why she likes this image?!?

I promise I’ll post some pictures of Natalie soon!

Unfortunately, when we got home the fever turned into coughing, sneezing, extreme clinginess, and hardcore crankiness. She had little appetite and trouble sleeping. Today she’s in a better mood and eating a little, but still having explosive-snot sneezes that make her cry. Right now I’m the only healthy one in family—Chris caught the bug and is home sick with fever, aches, and nausea. Luckily, Natalie’s napping now, so I finally have time to blog! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can stay healthy…

Daycare
Natalie has been slowly and steadily adjusting to daycare. Yesterday was the first day she didn’t cry during the drop-off, which Chris and I were absolutely thrilled about. Even though it was extremely difficult to leave her each day as she cried, we knew from frequent check-ins with her teachers that the drop-off wasn’t a good indicator of how Natalie’s overall day was. Gaging from the pick-ups, I could tell that she’s been getting more and more comfortable. For the first few weeks, when I came to pick her up, she would get hysterical if I put her down—even just to put her coat on. Then she would tolerate holding my hand as we walked to her cubby to get her stuff. And in the last couple of weeks, she continues to play as I gather her things.

A few weeks ago, her teachers reported that she was starting to play with the other kids, rather than hang out with the adults all the time. She takes a nap every time she’s there without any problems. Some days she eats better than others, but since she does that at home too, I don’t think it’s indicative of any daycare adjustment problems. I think Grandma’s brilliant idea to have Natalie look at pictures of her school when she’s not there has helped with the adjustment a lot. The other day she was looking at the pictures and giving kisses to all her teachers. Natalie is still not talking much (if at all) at school, which make me sad since she’s speaking so well (she’s learning new words at a rate of about 1 – 3 per day) at home. But I suspect that she will start talking at school in the next couple of weeks.

Croup
As Natalie’s doctor predicted, the croup lasted about 5 days. Thank goodness for me, she’s sleeping better on her own again. Unfortunately, she still has a cough sometimes at night. Last night, in fact, she woke up a couple of hours after she went to sleep and was coughing and gagging on phlegm for a while before she could go back to sleep. Holding her upright seemed to help, so I was rocking her sitting up in the glider, but she (like most people) wants to sleep laying down. Every time she leaned back, even to a 45-degree angle, she started coughing again. Then she’d sit up and start crying, we suspect, because she was so tired and just wanted to go back to sleep. Then Chris remembered that she was coughing a lot in the car on the way home from daycare. The car was really hot, and she stopped coughing when he rolled down the windows. We opened the window in Natalie’s room and sure enough, as soon as the temperature went down a few degrees, the coughing stopped.

She went back to sleep and slept without coughing in her own bed until about 4 am, when the whole thing started again. I brought her into our bed, where she coughed and gagged in her sleep for about an hour until she spit-up all over my arm. Then she fell into a really peaceful sleep and didn’t cough again. The doctor warned us that the cough may hang on for a few weeks, but maybe she also has allergies? If it doesn’t clear up completely soon, I guess we’ll take her back to the doctors.

Here’s a couple of pictures to balance out all the tedious words in this post!
Natalie coloring:

She wrote those letters herself! Just kidding!!

Wearing her too-big-for-her rain boots and rifling around in the cupboards:

Yesterday we decided to take her to Terhune’s just to get out of the house and get some fresh air. Despite her illness, she had a great time visiting the animals. On the way home Natalie was happily eating an apple, choked a little and then could. not. stop. coughing. Poor thing ended up throwing up a bunch of phlegm. Yuck. Luckily, she recovered pretty quickly once we got home.

Since she’s been sick, Natalie will not sleep without me holding her. Every time I’ve made sure she’s in a really deep sleep and tried to sneak away, she’s woken up crying within minutes. So I’ve been spending the nights (and nap time) squeezing into Natalie’s tiny bed with her. We have an incline pillow under Natalie’s mattress that keeps her head elevated, plus the humidifier is in her room (otherwise I would’ve just put her in our bed).

Week One (3/3/08 – 3/7/08)

The Friday of Natalie’s first week of daycare, she woke up in the middle of the night crying. I made the really, really bad mistake of sitting down next to her in her bed before turning on the lights, cause when I sat down, I realized that she had thrown up. Ewww! She threw up a few more times over the next couple of hours, requiring several pajama changes for both of us. She eventually went back to sleep and was completely fine the next day.

Week Two (3/10/08 – 3/14/08)

That week was when she had her terrible diaper rash, bad enough to require Natalie to miss daycare on Wednesday and take a trip to the doctor’s office.

Week Three (3/17/08 – 3/21/08)

Natalie only went to school on Monday of this week, because Monday night she had a mild fever. She still had a fever Tuesday morning, which meant that even if it cleared up that day, she couldn’t go to school on Wednesday, because children have to be fever-free for 24-hours to attend school. In the middle of the night Tuesday, her fever spiked to 105.6!!! She and I took a luke-warm shower, which brought it down to 103. Then the motrin finally kicked in and she was able to go back to sleep with a temperature of 102.5. We took her to the doctor for the second Wednesday in a row this morning. The doctor found that her lungs, throat, and ears were all clear. He did a blood test to check for a hidden infection, (like a urinary tract infection) which was also clear. No elevated white blood cell count or anything else to indicate a problem. So, she has a virus that we’ll let run it’s course.

Was all this sickness because she’s in daycare or just a coincidence? We’ll ever know for sure. One thing I do know is that all these absences from school are not helping Natalie adjust to being there. It’s getting a little better, but still not great.

Grandma had the brilliant idea of taking some picture of Natalie’s teachers and classmates and spending time everyday looking at them. She got the idea because Natalie loves her Aunt Katy and has always been comfortable with her, even though Natalie has only seen Katy (who lives in CA) a few times in her life. The reason? Because we have pictures of Katy that we look at and talk about. If you ask Natalie “who’s that?” she says “Taty!” In fact, she learned to say Katy well before she learning to say Grandma or Nama.

The school director and Natalie’s teachers were enthusiastic about the project and took some pictures this week. Thank goodness, because between Natalie’s illness and the school being closed for Good Friday, she’ll have a whole week before going back to school.

Here is Natalie with one of her teachers and classmates at the beginning of the day, eyes still red from crying after Mama left:

And looking calmer at the end of the day, but eyes red from her impending illness:

Poor Natalie’s bottom was in bad shape this week. Of course, just as Natalie was starting to be her happy self again on the changing table, she developed a bad rash, which means every diaper change is painful and therefore a struggle. I first noticed it Tuesday morning, the day that Nama was watching Natalie. Nama looked at it and declared, “I’ve seen much worse!” so I didn’t worry too much. We continued using our usual diaper cream. Tuesday night, Natalie was crying out in her sleep and waking up frequently (although I didn’t make the connection—being woken up repeatedly in the middle of the night doesn’t allow for the most logical thinking).

By Wednesday morning, the rash looked a little angrier. Chris was in charge of taking Natalie to day care that morning, so I asked him to be sure to tell the teachers about the rash. Of course he forgot, because it’s impossible to think straight when trying to smile and tell Natalie to have fun at school while she’s hysterically crying. 10 minutes after he came home from dropping her off, Natalie’s teacher called my cell phone to ask me if I was aware of the rash.

I decided to call the pediatrician’s office, even though I was pretty sure they were going to recommend I use diaper cream and tell me to go away. But no, when I described the rash, the nurse scheduled an appointment within the hour. (What gives? In December I called to say that Natalie was coughing so hard she was vomiting, which didn’t warrant an appointment and now they want her to come in for diaper rash?!?!?) So I picked Natalie up from school (poor thing was pretty upset when I got there) and we went to the doctor. It was a good thing the school called and we went to the doctors, because by the time we got there, the rash looked worse than it had only a couple of hours earlier. The two doctors who looked at Natalie’s rear and a test for a strep infection (who knew you could get strep butt?) couldn’t determine the cause of the rash. Dumbfounded, the doctor recommended we try triple paste—a recommendation I could have gotten from my mom’s group without a $30 co-pay.

Thankfully, the rumors I’d heard about triple paste are true! 24 hours later, Natalie’s rash was much improved and now 48 hours later, it’s almost gone. Like everything else, the rash was probably related to teething.

What good is a baby blog if it’s contents won’t embarrass said baby when she becomes a teenager?

I gave Natalie a nosebleed. In an attempt to clear her clogged nose with saline and a bulb syringe, I gave my daughter a nosebleed.

Chris, bless his heart, keeps telling me how easily noses bleed and to let it go.

In reality, as guilty as I feel for Natalie’s prolonged ear infection and mom-induced nosebleed, I really feel lucky and grateful. Overall, Natalie is extremely healthy. I can’t imagine how tough it must be to cope with caring for a child with chronic health problems.

Let’s hope tomorrow is trauma-free and poor Natalie gets a break from people sticking things in her ears and nose.