Sickness

Poor poor Livi. She is not doing well at all, and neither are Mom and Dad. The sickness has spread through the house (as we knew it would.) Brooke was up a lot of the night with her sickness, and I was very achy and snuffly. It is hard taking care of Olivia when we are both sick as well. I imagine this will be our life for the next few months, as she adapts to the germs at Daycare.
We took Livi to the doctor's office this morning since her eye was looking so bad. On examination, she does have pink eye as we expected, but also has a ruptured eardrum from the pressure in her sinuses. So now we have added an antibiotic to her meds. That makes 6 medications that she is on. I don't feel comfortable giving her that much stuff, but the doctors say it will be OK. We just need to keep her fever down. It was 101.8 when I got her at 1:00 from her nap. I will keep everyone informed. I hope that she starts feeling better soon!! Bye bye Halloween :-(

Reap what we Sow

**Updated 8:00PM: We decided since she still had a 101 fever to go ahead and start on Tamiflu to be safe. We are pretty lucky that we even have any as alot of the country is out of the baby formula of this. However, along with her cold (or flu) she has pink eye. We have medication left over from when she was 1 month old so we can use that. We also believe that her ear infection is starting to develop. So here is what she is on: Tamiflu, pink eye med, decongestant, child Tylenol, and her daily Zantac. Can she TAKE any more meds??? I went out and splurged on a 1 second ear thermometer. Doing it under her arm was hard and in her mouth impossible (didn't even consider the third option!!) So now we feel comfortable that we are getting accurate readings.

**Update 11:30: The doctor's office called and said the flu swab came back negative. The only tricky part about that is that a positive is a positive, but a negative 50% of the time can be wrong. We are going to hold off on the Tamiflu for now and see how the rest of the day goes, mainly because of the side effects that the medication can cause. So far she is still puny but temp is holding and she still seems like she just has a cold.

Well, the first day that I went in to see daycare I looked around at all the crusty little noses of the kids, then looked at my beautiful Livi and said, "Why do all the kids have runny noses and messed up hair? I don't want Olivia running around with snot-nosed kids.." Brooke said that is just how kids get. But I was used to a perfectly groomed, clean nosed Olivia, I was spoiled because Brooke is soooo good at keeping her in order.
Well, after getting Olivia up this morning, seeing her crusty nose, and crusty pajamas, and hair that felt like it had hair gel in it, and saw what her sheets looked like after having a runny nose all night, I realized she is a kid too. Ugh, it was disgusting.
But aside from that, her temp is 99 this morning and she is doing OK. Not 100% by far, but we still get smiles out of her now and then, and she ate a good amount as well. She is very needy right now and wants to be held all the time. It is kind of nice. Hopefully she will be well enough to at least wear her costume and go to the Fall Festival in downtown Clinton tomorrow night. We have had this costume ready for too long. We will just keep her away from the other kids.

Immunities

**Updated 5:40: Brooke and I snuck in to get her temperature, and it was down in the 90's, and she woke up from it (we did it under the arm.) She woke up all smiles and excited. We brought her out to the living room and it is the old Livi, though congested. She is happy, clapping, playing, and just finished eating baby food and meat sticks. She sneezed mid food and it went everywhere, what a mess. Either way, no fever and high spirits. So far so good. We will see what tonight and tomorrow holds.

**Updated 4:30: Doctors gave her a flu test but seem to be pretty sure she has the flu. That does not mean she does, but they will let us know tomorrow. Brooke picked up a Tamaflu prescription and we are supposed to give it to her tomorrow morning if symptoms remain or worsen. We are fighting to keep the fever down at the moment.

**Updated 1:30: Young World called me and said that she still has a fever but thinks her thermometer must be broken because Olivia has been playing non-stop and doesn't show any signs of feeling bad. She said that any other kid would be wanting to be held or would be sitting in the corner alone. Little Livi is always a trooper. I told her to call me if the fever gets any worse or if she starts getting needy and I would come get her.
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Olivia usually wakes up at 7:30 on the dot, but this morning 8:00 rolled around and she was still laying there. Brooke turned up the volume on the video monitor and we heard her doing her "singing" while she was laying there. Since it was getting late I went in to get her up so she could get dressed, eat and get to daycare. When I got in the room, she didn't sit up, even with Lu jumping and making all her normal noise, so I pat her back and picked her up. I could see that her nose was running. She was also making wimpy noises. As soon as I got her upright she started coughing. Poor Livi got sick already. She was defiantly not feeling good, so we gave her some Tylenol, fed her and I had to leave to get to work so Brooke brought her to Young World. Young World called me around 12:00 to double check when she last had Tylenol, and to tell me that her temp was going up again. I told them that it would be ok now for her to get some more, and told them to call me if she gets a higher fever or gets a lot worse. Not a good Livi day so far, and just in time for Halloween :-( Mima wants to take her tonight and I hate that she will be sick for them if she does go. I will leave that to Brooke and Mima. But even though she is sick, she is still doing her puny pointing when you carry her around. Nothing stops her from letting us know what she wants.

First Day of Day Care

Today was Olivia's first day at daycare. While Olivia was asleep in her crib w/o a worry in the world, all I did was have strange anxiety daycare dreams. Needless to say, I didn't sleep too well.
The morning started off as normal, I gave Olivia her bottle, she pretty much rejected it then ran around playing with everything. Brooke got up and dressed her, did some pre-work work, before heading out with Olivia to Young World. I left for work myself while Brooke dropped Olivia off. The plan was that Young World would call me if Livi was too uncomfortable or got real cranky and I would go pick her up and bring her home until Brooke got off work. But the call never came. Brooke called and checked with them around 2:00 to see how everything was and they said that she was perfect. No problems at all, in fact they said that if all kid's first days were this good they would watch 100 kids at a time. (They were probably just making us feel better, but I would like to think that she really was that comfortable there.)
Brooke ended up having a meeting later than normal so I left to get Olivia so she wouldn't have to have her first day a LONG one. When I got there I peeked in the window and Olivia was busy kicking around a big bouncy ball. I walked in the room and she looked up at me, walked all the way across the room, got to my feet, looked up and put her hands up in the "pick me up daddy" motion. It was great. I guess she does know who I am ;-)
The lady said the she didn't want to have her second bottle, showed no interest, and didn't really want to nap either (who can blame her.) I think as she spends more time there she will get used to the napping in public. All in all it was a great first day, harder on Mommy and Daddy than her, but that is to be expected.
After Olivia got home, she drank a FULL bottle and went right into a nap. She was a tired tired girl. She is not used to running around that much. After she woke up we gave her a preview of her Halloween gift from my Aunt Gail. Since she loves her gummy worms so much, looks like she is going to really enjoy a big fat gummy centipede. I will be right here with her to help her eat what she can't finish. Or maybe I will save her the sugar rush and just take care of the whole thing myself?? Na, I will at least let her have an antenna.

The Sound Of Silence

I was watching Olivia as usual Sunday morning and realized that everything was just a little too quiet from her normal self. I looked down the hall and saw the linen closet door open (the door opens towards me, obstruction my view.) As I approached I saw the towels on the floor. Olivia had removed all the towels she could reach and had them laid out on the floor. It is funny how she can be so loud while playing with her toys or even walking around, but when she is doing something questionable, the silence begins. Such a little sneak!!
Sunday also marked the day of ending the food and diaper logs. We are now solo, no record of what she did. It feels odd. I feel like I am going to skip a meal because I don't have that log. But looks like we got through the day ok.
We made pizza for dinner last night and Olivia had another whole piece. She is starting to really prefer "real" food to formula or even baby food. We think that after she turns a year she will be totally on real food. Maybe even sooner.
Oh, one more thing, Lulu has found a new favorite place to sleep, Marty Bear...

Homecoming

Yesterday was Homecoming for PC. We had planned on making this Olivias first PC football game and the weather cooperated. It was beautiful out. We put Olivia in her PC dress that she got at her baby shower, tattooed up her cheek, put on the pig-tails and headed out to the game. We had a great time, but only stayed through half-time. Livi was a busy girl the whole time, meeting people, watching kids, playing with dogs, and running around everywhere. I think that she was pretty popular, even the photographer of the game put 9 pictures of her on the game's website.
After half-time she started to get a little tired so we picked a good time to leave.
Brooke got all of Olivia's stuff packed and ready for daycare. Monday we will drop it off and get it all setup in her "cubby" and ready for her Tuesday. I will take an hour Monday and go with them to see the place. I have not seen it yet. It will be nice because it is literally 100 yards from our house. Talk about convenient.
Ok, I am sitting here writing this and Olivia just CRAWLED by. She crawled all the way down the hall and back. It is strange seeing her crawl, she isn't even good at it anymore. Wonder why she is crawling. She is weird sometimes.

Halloween Jammies

I am watching Olivia today until 12:00 so working from home. Olivia has finally gotten to the point of being a little bit cuddly. When SHE wants to, if you squat down in front of her she will walk over to you and put her arms around you neck and hug you. It is great, and long overdue!!
She continues to grow teeth like crazy. Lots coming in on top now. But she still seems to be pushing through the pain well.
Mima got Livi some Halloween jammies a week or so ago and last night we finally got to put them on her. Halloween is close enough now. Enjoy the pics.

Tub, Diaper, What's the Difference?

Brooke showed me one of Olivia's tricks today when she gave her a bath. She stood her up in the warm water of her little bath tub and she instantly started peeing down her leg. We used to joke that every time we put her in there she was peeing, but now we know it is true. I don't blame her, it is hard to resist total relaxation when being dunked in cozy warm water in a blue whale shaped bath tub.
Brooke got Olivia's medical paperwork today for daycare, along with the forms for daycare. She will start Tuesday. Brooke toured the place today, I have yet to see it, but I will sometime. Brooke said the all the kids were fixated on Olivia when they walked through. Who wouldn't want to look at Olivia, she is the best!!
I don't have any new pictures of Olivia as this has been a crazy week, but enjoy another Mamacat picture. Livi is being nice in this one, no back stomping.


I should also note that Chili has not been himself lately, he has been sleeping in the closet under my hanging clothes and yelps a lot when touched or picked up. Brooke brought him to the vet today and they did some physical tests to him and concluded that he has a sprained back. They gave him some pain killers that he will be on for a while and said to keep him from jumping on beds or playing with dogs. Tonight i went to pet him gently and before my hand even touched him he yelped very loudly. Poor Chili, he pain pills don't seem to be working as well as we hoped. I will keep you informed.

Celebration and Sadness

We received exciting news. Mima got a new job! We got some sad news. Mima got a new job. Actually it is great news and especially in this competitive job market. So Olivia will officially start daycare Tuesday (assuming we get all the paperwork in order.) We are sad to see her go to daycare but are soooo thankful that we were able to wait until she was almost 1 year old. Olivia is walking, and a tough little girl now and should have no problems there at all, plus she LOVES other kids. Now if we can all keep from getting sick we will be OK.
Mima had Olivia today as normal and for the first time ever her cat decided it was time to finally spend some time with Olivia. I guess she loved Livi, because even after all the ear pulling, tail pulling and back stomping, she just hopped the baby gate and came back for more after Mima tried to save her. Below is a classic picture of a child knowing that what they are doing is wrong but seeing just how far she can push. Along with touching new things with her thumbs, Olivia also likes to gently stomp with her feet. Sometimes it is not so gentle, just ask Chili.

Sunday we brought Olivia to the pumpkin patch. It was colder than normal but Olivia was layered well and was nice and toasty. I think she had a good time for the most part, but did start getting tired near the end, but never cranky. Sometimes when Olivia gets sensory overload or sometimes when she is tired she gets this blank face where she just looks past you. There was a lot of blank face this day.
We have found that Olivia's "blank stare" as we call it can be scary to other kids. There was another little girl about her age that was looking at Livi, and Livi at her. Olivia decided to walk over to her and greet her with her blank stare, causing the other girl to cry. I guess Olivia can be pretty intimidating when she wants to be. She actually made her cry twice. It was pretty funny (at least to me, but then again, I am warped.)
Also, note to my parents, do you notice the motion that Olivia is making with her hands in the picture above? It is her new thing, she does it all the time. The palm point runs in the family!!

I like this little series below. You gotta wonder what extra charm that particular rock had that the others didn't. Brooke made it to her in time to get it away from her before she actually got the rock in her mouth.

Daddy Walk Around.

I brought Olivia a keyboard home from work the other day since she continuously tries to bang on my laptop keyboard. I removed the cord, Brooke disinfected it and I set it on the ground for her to play with. She looked it over for about 2 minutes, hit a key or two and didn't touch it again. I finally threw it out, yet she continues to go for my laptop. How does she know!!
On another note, Livi was walking in the hallway yesterday afternoon, she was kind of in a tired mood already, and she fell sideways into the bathroom door. It was a pretty loud hit and I knew there were going to be tears, but wasn't sure how bad. I held my breath for about 10 seconds and then the screaming began. You can always tell when it is a real cry because it is frantic. I scooped her up and rocked her for a while as she screamed in my ear. After about 2 minutes of this rocking and her not even showing any signs of slowing, out of nowhere her little hand comes up and she extended her little finger and started pointing at the picture that she likes. She didn't skip a beat on the crying but her little finger was showing me what would make her feel better. It was soo cute. So I just rocked her and brought her to everything she wanted to see. She finally calmed down, but it was so cute that even in a fit of tears she knows what she wants..

Burrito Baby

I started playing around with Olivia on the dog pillow because she loves how soft it is. I started rolling her up in it and she loved it. I made her into a little burrito and would roll her around in it while she just laughed and laughed. Then she really loved being picked up in it and swung around. She is going to love roller coasters someday.
Brooke should be getting home sometime between 3 and 5 today, depending on when she leaves Atlanta. She will be home in time for Olivia's bedtime routine. Olivia loves taking advantage of me when Mommy is not here. She struggles during bath time and rolls like an alligator attacking its prey when she is getting dried off and lotioned for bed. Other than that she is a little angel. We will see you soon Mommy.

Like Mommy Like Daughter

The post title says it all.
Brooke is out of town right now at a conference. We miss you!!

Updates and Gummy Worms

A few updates. First, her top tooth is starting to show alot now, along with a few others up there. Second she is starting to finally do much better at holding her own bottle. Yes, she can walk just fine but holding a bottle is still difficult. Such strange milestones.
Her Zantac also seems to be working again. A lot less spitting up.
On our way back from Fall For Greenville, in an effort to calm Olivia down I decided to give her a gummy worm. She loved it and did not want to let it go. It will be hard to give her these little treats when those teeth start growing in more as she will be able to bite off more than she can chew.

Fall for Greenville

Yesterday we took Olivia to Fall for Greenville. It is Greenville's fall festival. It was packed for a Sunday. They close down Main Street to cars and set up vendors and rides all over downtown. It was a fun event. Olivia had a great time as well. We went down to the Falls, but they had all the grass closed for "turf preservation" so we couldn't get any good pictures of her with any flowers.
Olivia had a good time walking around down town in some of the less congested areas. She was just like a big girl.
At the end of the day we brought her into our favorite store "Mast General Store." She loved looking at all the stuffed animals, clothes, candy and books. As we were walking down the ramp to the lower area, there were a bunch of stuffed animal pelts hanging down along the ramp and she immediately went and buried her face in the softness. She loved it.
When we were done in the store, we decided to let her run around in the grass outside. A lot of kids ended up doing the same thing and Olivia played with them, running all over the grass. She really wiped herself out. One little girl in particular fell in love with Olivia and was all over her the whole time. She would help her up when she fell and even would kiss her on the forehead.
We got home at exactly the perfect time to do Olivia's night routine and put her down. It was a fun day!!

Dinner Party

Last night we went to a dinner party thrown by Fernando and Alecia (Psychology department.) They had invited some faculty from outside Psychology as well that had some kids between ages 4 -8ish. Olivia had a good time watching them play, but as usual, had more fun with Moxie (the rat terrier.) Olivia and I went in the back yard and we threw the Frisbee to Moxie for about 1/2 hour and she loved running after the dog the whole time. She may not have ever caught her, but had a great time either way. Livi also had fun trying many different foods from our and other people's plates. She had some chicken, beans, peas, corn, rice, and even some cupcakes (she strayed into the kids room and they had broken up some cupcake into crumbs onto a small end table in the room for her.) Brooke of course had made some awesome Halloween cupcakes for the kids. When I walked in, Olivia was busy scooping cupcake crumbles into her mouth. She was loving it. I got jealous as the cupcakes were for the kids only!!


Olivia also has a new tooth just barely coming in. It is her top right tooth. You can feel the little razor blade and if you look close enough (meaning you have to have her laughing hysterically laying on her back and peek at her top gums) you can see it poking out.

The night before last while Olvia was having dinner, we made stir fry and bread. Brooke decided to give Olivia some of our bread and see how she handled it. She loved it so much I had to get the camera out. She was laughing as she squished it between her fingers as she ate it. She was in heaven. We got some good video of her (and Chili as you will see) enjoying the bread. The girl likes her carbs!!

Jazz Hands

Olivia's second love (dogs being her first) is music. Brooke recently discovered that if she puts on interesting music for the drive home from Mima's house that Livi will kind of go into a trance. It is kind of amazing. She put on a "skat" song from the Tarzan soundtrack and Olivia just sort of sat there and listened quietly the whole way home. Mom's sanity may have been gone after hitting repeat and hearing the song the whole way, but it is better than a crying baby.
As we sat around last night and bedtime was creeping up, I put on some music to lighten Olivia's mood. I started with "Toddler Tunes" but it was a little too blah, so decided to try some Jazz. Livi immediately loved it and started dancing. She really likes Hip-hop, Jazz, some kids tunes, and Skat. We really need to play music for her more. Notice the arm that continues to keep beat after she falls on her stomach half way through this video. She just can't stop.

Computers

About a month ago I took Olivia to work on a Saturday because I needed to do some checking on one of the servers. Rather than doing it remotley, I thought it would be fun to take Olivia in the jogging stroller and get a picture of her with the computers. She had fun walking around looking at the computers and heading for all the keyboards. It was hard to keep her away from all the blinking lights and shiny objects.
Someday she will be able to tell me what every single wire in here goes to.

Squeelin' On The Square

Olivia had another busy weekend. She is quite the partier. Saturday was our annual Squeelin' on the Square event. This is where all the top BBQ spots compete for best BBQ and also sell samples of their food. You can buy samples or full meals, I prefer to sample a bunch of different places, and they are all GOOD.. After Olivia's morning nap, we loaded up and headed over to Laurens for the event. It was fun, there are different bands playing throughout the day and other little events. Tractor pull, horseshoe toss, car show, all the things you would expect at a small town event. There was also a petting zoo that we were excited to take Olivia to. She got to pet a goat, bunny and a chicken. She actually poked the chicken in the eye and grabbed its gobbler, but who's keeping track?





Olivia was also able to sit on her first tractor. She loved the levers and wanted to pull them all.



Olivia had a great time at the square. She even ran into a baby she had been wanting to meet. I look forward to the day when she is a little older and can sample BBQ with me. She will love it. I hope that chicken can see with its right eye this morning.. Sorry little chicken, but if it is any consolation, Olivia pokes what she loves. Just be happy she didn't have her spoon on her, you might have lost a beak.

Off the Wagon

Poor Livi, we had to go back to Zantac again. After 2 weeks off of it Olivia has been spitting up like a fountain, so we are going to try to again and see if it makes a difference. We really thought we had that solved, but I guess not.
Today we went over to Mima's house to celebrate her and Rob's belated birthday (Rob was unfortunatly out of town so was unable to enjoy the festivities.) We had a good time and had a lot of cake, as did Livi. Olivia was busy all day, walking around non stop. She became a tired little bean and had a hard ride home where she couldn't sleep, but wanted to. She finally slept for about 10 minutes in the car and that seemed to satisfy her until bedtime.

I also saw Olivia's results of eating the other day and had to capture her little mess on camera.
This is a little puff that was in her mouth for a while before she stuck it on her nose.

The New Toy

I promised a video of the new toy so here it is. I have had to do a re-install of my laptop so have been out of commission for a few days, but hopefully Olivia's World will be back in step now!
Brooke has been trying to find a place that gives baby flu shots so Olivia can get one. Seems everytime they come in, they sell out the same day. Oh well, soon enough I guess.

Again, sorry for the diaper shot....