Monthly Archives: August 2013

last night

Last night was very rough.  We let L stay up later than usual, and I put her to bed at 9.  She didn’t really go down, so I just stayed in the room with her rubbing her back and holding her part of the time.  At around midnight, I brushed her head and noticed she was burning up.   I got us out of bed and took her temperature (always fun) – 103.4.  Ouch!  She wasn’t even really warm at 9 when I first start putting her to bed, as I’d specifically checked her temperature.  I had an immediate flashback to our last trip to the ER and hoped we weren’t in for another trip.  We gave her a dose of Ibuprofen, and I walked with her for 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, we took her temperature again, and it was down to 101.7 or so, thank goodness.  I went back to bed with her, but she was just miserable – breathing fast and moaning and just very unhappy.  I was so worried about her and just counting the hours until we could give her more medicine.  I just held her and rubbed her back and talked to her until about 2:30 when she finally fell asleep.  Her fever finally broke around 2:30 or 3.  Keep in mind I really haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since Friday night and I am suffering from the same ailment, minus the fever.  Anyway, I took her to the doc this morning, and her ears and chest are fine, so the doc thinks it’s just a virus.  Interestingly, the doc said we don’t need to call them unless her fever goes up to 105.  105!  Really?  I found that surprising.  We didn’t see our regular doctor (as she was out of the office), so I’ll definitely ask about that at our next visit.   I am just completely swamped at work – 14.5 hours of meetings in the next 2 days, for example – and I just can’t wait for this week to be over and for L to be able to breathe again.  I really hope tonight is better than last night.

anticipating a long night

One thing I didn’t really recognize before having a baby is how unique babies are.  I thought of them as rather monolithic.  Obviously, the opposite is true.  Some babies are much, much harder than others, and there are all manner of challenges people face.  We had a pretty tough time at the beginning when L was colicky and then we struggled with thrush and giving medicine four times a day (including once in the middle of the night), but since then, I think L has been average to easy.  She is demanding in that she likes to have her Mommy around, and sometimes no one else will do.  She thrives on individual attention, and I think she cries more easily than other babies over minor bumps.  (She will throw a temper tantrum over just falling on her rump while walking around.)   She’s given us a certain amount of worry by being a very late walker and talker.  However, on the flip side, she’s very good at entertaining herself.  She loves to go for walks and generally all that’s required to make her happy is to let her go for a walk with her cart or her scooter.  I can almost always soothe her with a hug and a back rub.  She’s really a very agreeable little girl.  She’s barely been sick, with really only one minor cold other than vaccines.

I’m thinking of this now as I prepare for a long night.  She was really due to get sick, and she’s now got a rather nasty cold.  I also have it.  She’s got a nasty cough.  I’m pretty sure her throat must be hurting (as mine is), and her nose is running.  I usually take the night shift, and I was up with her until 4:30 last night.  B is entertaining her now, but shortly, it’ll be bed time and I’ll take over for the duration.  I had to hold her for her nap today, and I expect she’s going to require a lot of holding, back rubbing, and soothing tonight.  It’s going to be a very long night.  Unlike yesterday when B took L and let me sleep in, I have to work tomorrow.  I’m under a lot of pressure at work at the moment, and I just have a feeling it’s not going to be a fun week.

I hear B coming in now.  Time to get to work.

scarborough

I started this sweater for Isla a long time ago, maybe even before she was born.  I honestly don’t remember.  About 70% of the way through, I realized I’d made a major mistake that would require ripping out about 1/3 of the sweater.  Disheartened,  I put it down for quite a while.

Recently, I picked it back up again.  The sweater is knit entirely in the round.  There is no knitting of pieces together.  Instead, it’s knit mostly in one piece, with stitches picked up as needed.  Basically, you knit up from the bottom, circularly, all the way to the neck.  Some stitches are put on holders for the arms, and you pick up the rest.  Each arm is knit top down, and you pick up stitches for the neck.  The neck is then also knit in the round.

I knit the sweater with a Size 2 needle.  I think that makes it the finest gauge sweater I’ve ever knit.  As a result, it took quite a while to knit.  It probably has almost as many stitches in it as the Aran sweater I knit for my brother, though it’s much smaller.

I knit it using one of Alice Starmore’s yarns.  I love the subtle color variations in the yarn.  It’s green overall, but if you look closely, you can see all kinds of colors.  It’s especially eautiful in the sunlight.

Overall, I’m glad to be done but quite pleased with the finished product.  Now, I plan to knit some easier items – things for newborns in a large gauge, preferably, though I may try and make some progress on the christening gown I started last summer.

 

crazy

I had an incredibly frustrating day today.  I could write a novel about it, but I’ll just say that government bureaucrats make me CRAZY.  Seriously.

sleepers

Uncharacteristically, I just left B and L in the bedroom.  (B usually gets up first.)  We are still room-sharing.  L sleeps in her crib.  The side is taken off, and we lowered it to be about 6 to 8 inches lower than our bed.  We have it pushed against our bed, and she usually stays in it, though she sometimes we crawl into our bed, or even sleep across the two levels.  This morning, she was sleeping in her preferred position, rump in the air, arms straight back either underneath her chest tummy or at least very close in to her body, and head smooshed against the edge of the crib.  She’s lying perpendicular to the long axis of the crib.  Meanwhile, B is sprawled across the bed, limbs akimbo, with one foot sticking out.  It’s a cute scene, seeing my little family sleep.  The only missing one is P.  He’s been relegated to the living room since L was born.  He prefers it that way, actually.

18 months

L is 33 inches tall (85th %) and 20# 11 oz (25th %).  She is healthy as a horse.  I think the 18 months of her life she only has had a couple of mild colds, excluding of course post-vaccine fever.  The doctor was happy to hear she is walking but wanted to know if she was running.  She has taken maybe a few steps running, but not, she isn’t really running yet.  I am just happy to see her walking everywhere.  We also discussed her speech,  or lack thereof.  According to the doc she’s about 3 months behind and there’s no need to start speech therapy if we don’t want to.  I elected not to, so we’re continuing to wait and see.  She got a couple more vaccines, and as usual, was none too pleased.

Overall, I have a happy, healthy little girl.