G's New Year!

G had a quiet New Year, as she developed a cough a few days before. So far, she's only slightly congested and still coughing, so we are happy that she has not developed a fever, as her dr thought might happen. But despite her cough, she is still eating and sleeping and playing fairly normally (she is still waking up once every night, usually between 2-4am, but it can vary). 

G is now eating more and more table food. Recent table food she's had: nai wan bao and (unsalted) french fries, mushrooms and cheese from S's hamburger. The reason she only had nai wan bao at dim sum, was that she slept through most of the meal, so by the time she woke up, there wasn't much available for her to eat. I still have not given her boba, though I've thought about it the last few times. Her typical diet these days: For breakfast, she has yogurt or cottage cheese with pureed fruit (pears, apples, and/or prunes), maybe some fried egg yolk. For lunch, if we are out, more finger food type stuff like olives, grapes, tofu, chunky soft veggies, egg yolk, bao (bread) or crackers. For dinner, multi-grain puree cereal mixed with two kinds of veggies (usually one green and one yellow/orange) and maybe some meat. She has now had all the main meats, turkey, chicken, pork, and beef (in that order). She has bao (brioche dinner rolls) or crackers at almost every meal because we can give her some to start eating as we are preparing her other food. Foods she's not allowed to have yet: fish, egg whites, nuts, honey. We've also avoided citrus fruits and tomatoes for their high acid content. 

A few days after she learned to feed herself, G also learned how to spit food out. Now we have a constant battle of her pushing food out with her tongue. The funny thing is that it's not necessarily that she doesn't want it or like it, it could be stuff she likes, and eventually she will eat it if you put it back in her mouth enough times.

In other news, G also got a new car! New Year's Eve, we took a family trip to a Subaru dealer, and 3 hours later, drove away with a used 2008 Subaru Outback wagon, Blue. G loves that it sits a little higher than her old car, so she can see more, and also that it has the LATCH system making her carseat a little easier to install and maybe making it a little safer too.  Her new car also has more storage/trunk space so it easily fits her stroller, portable high chair, spare diaper bag, with plenty of room for groceries and Costco shopping, and room for small family vacations like trips to Tahoe for snow and trips to Yosemite for camping.

It's been ages...

I know, things have been crazy around here.

Last week, G turned 4 months. That means that she got loaded up with shots at the doctor's office. The last time she had shots, she slept through the next two days. We were told by her ped. that typically babies will react the same way for all their shots. She did sleep, and seemed really sad and wimpery all day. But she also seemed hot. As the afternoon wore into evening, she seemed to get hotter and hotter, and I got more and more worried, and had E pick up some baby Tylenol from the store (the normal drops kind, last time he picked up some in rectal suppository form, eeww!).

When he got home, we prepared to give her some after debating what exactly 0.8 dosage meant (0.8 of the dropper not full but where the line marks the full dosage, and not 8 drops). I squeezed it slowly, just like they did at the dr's office for her oral vaccine (which I failed to mention that she promptly spit up and they wanted to re-give it to her, but we became concerned about overdosing so we dressed her and left without the second serving). For some reason, maybe because it was taking a while, I squirted the last bit in. G promptly spit up all of it. We called the dr's office advice line (our first time, not bad for 4 months and first time parents!) to find out if it was ok to give her another dose since she spit it up. We got the go ahead and did another dose, this time very slowly. G spit that up too. Second call to the advice nurse. But by the time they called back, her fever seemed to have gone down and she was nursing so we just decided to forgo the Tylenol. The nurse suggested if her fever went up again to use the rectal suppository form (great, we already have that!) and walked me through the instructions on how to insert them (apparently flat side in, not pointy side).

By the next day, her fever was definitely gone, but G was not her typical self. She nursed longer each feeding (and spit up more), still seemed sad and wimpery, and for the next few nights woke up at 5-6 hrs instead of her usual 8-10 hrs. After the few days passed, it seemed like all the vaccines had messed up her immune system so that she ended up catching the cough and congestion that E had earlier, and that S was beginning to catch. It's a dry cough, that makes S gag, but poor G hasn't mastered the ability to control her gag reflex yet, thus all the spit ups. We've broken out the nose sucker to use (yes, G hates it) once or twice a day. We are prepared to put saline drops in her nose also, but she seems able to breathe fine, so we are holding off on that.

Anyways, that was my last week, and my reason for not posting.

Also, E's parents were in town this past weekend visiting. We went to Hakone Gardens with them, which was pretty and peaceful (there was one wedding party there taking pictures and another one that had rented out the gardens for their ceremony/reception).

Pictures to follow later when I get a chance to go through and upload them.

Heat Wave Chills

It's nice to have a husband who can leave work in the middle of the day to come home to help take care of G and me when I'm not feeling well.

Over the weekend, I felt very weak and nauseous, and thought it was over because I felt much better by Monday. However, this morning, after E left for work and G woke up from her nap, while I was feeding her, I realized that I was shivering and had goosebumps on my arms, and my feet were frozen. I bundled us up on the papasan chair with a down blanket (only covering me, not G), and added long pants and a hoodie to what I was wearing. I figured nothing better to warm yourself up with than your own little 12-lb heater (G). Wasn't freezing anymore by the time we woke up from our 2 hr nap, but still very weak.

My women's group is supposed to be going down to Capitola this weekend for our prayer retreat to wrap up our bible study series, so I hope this isn't spiritual attacks. Two other women in the group have said that their kids have gotten sick this week as well.

By the way, we started studying Philippians when I was pregnant with G, her blessing prayer that we say to her every day (and prayed over her while she was in utero) is from the first chapter: And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ -- to the glory and praise of God. Yes, it's a tall order, but that is what we pray and hope for in G's future. We pray this blessing for her at the end of her bedtime routine every night.