Author Archives: Cindy

I think I need that Daddy guy back here

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Apparently I was mistaken when I thought that Cate’s cold was mostly over and done with. Yesterday when I picked her up at Patsy’s, she was coughing what seemed like an excessive amount. Patsy mentioned that she’d been coughing like that since she woke up from her nap. Huh. Weird.

We had to go run an errand in Redmond (not getting into details, but y’all? There is a customer service employee at Bank of America that I am sincerely hoping gets fired after all the crap she put us through), and Cate fell asleep on the way back. No biggie, I figured she was just bored, and she only slept about 15 minutes.

She was unusually cranky that evening, which should’ve struck me as odd, seeing as how she had taken a three hour nap that afternoon, and then also had a short power nap in the car. She even got mad during her bubble bath, which is usually one thing guaranteed to have her happy and laughing. I couldn’t get her to eat very much, and the coughing had never let up all evening. All of that should’ve been big ol’ red flags for the night ahead.

Last night, she woke herself up having a coughing fit at least four different times. Oh, and I think I forgot to mention this, but I’ve caught her cold, so I had taken NyQuil to get myself to sleep, and the constant wake-ups left me feeling not just loopy and tired, but also sort of hung over.

This morning I tried to get her to take some Motrin and she coughed so hard that she barfed it right back up. Righty-o. Off to the pediatrician, then!

The doctor said that the coughing was related to her asthma, and she gave her an oral steroid right there in the exam room (which Cate was not a fan of, and oh my lord, it took a long time to get it down with all the gagging she kept doing) and two puffs of her albuterol inhaler. I could tell she was better almost right away; while we were still in the doctor’s office, I noticed that she could sometimes go an entire minute or two without coughing! Wow! By the time she got home, she actually talked a little bit and smiled, which I hadn’t seen from her all day.

I called Patsy to let her know what was going on, and she said that if I wanted to bring her over so I could take a nap, that was fine. After all, if Cate’s cold is contagious, all the kids got exposed yesterday anyway. This is one of the reasons I love Patsy so much. How many people volunteer to take on a sick toddler? So that’s what I did, and I came home and took a looong nap. It was glorious.

Cate’s pediatrician said that if she isn’t 100% by tomorrow, I should bring her back to the office for another dose of the oral steroid. I’m hoping that with the dose she got today, and the increase of her albuterol (which we’ll be doing for the next few days), she’ll be back to her normal happy self before tonight.

peekaboo!

I miss that smile.

Oh, and I really miss Dave right now. I sure could’ve used my night owl husband for some relief last night.

P.S. Unrelated: today is my mom’s very last chemo treatment. Hooray!!

all by ourselves

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Dave flew to California yesterday for work, so I’m officially on Single Parent Duty until he gets back on Friday evening. To be honest, I was pretty nervous about this because I’ve never been on my own with Cate for such a long time. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is the first time she and I have ever been alone overnight (unless you count when I was pregnant, which I don’t). The last time Dave went to California, we went with him. The time before that, I had my mom and then Cat and her mom stay with me.

So, the first day on our own? Was not so bad. Cate is clearly still feeling a little crummy from her cold, and there were a few tantrums, but it was mostly fine. One of my big worries was how I was going to take a shower with her around. I’m weirdly protective about my showers, it’s like my sacred little 20 minutes of pure uninterrupted Me Time. Obviously, Me Time is out the window this week, and that’s fine, I can adjust. I decided to let Cate play naked in our bathroom while I showered (she loves Naked Time, and she loves to empty out my make-up basket; I figured it was a win-win), and then afterward, I’d give her a bath.

Well, it turns out that she didn’t like that plan so much. As soon as I closed the door on the shower, she started screaming. She came over and banged on the door for me to let her in. So I did, and even though there are no fun bath toys in our shower, she had a blast. She liked playing with the bubbly water on the floor of the shower when I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair. And since I already had an extra bottle of Baby Wash in the shower (leftover from the days when Miss Puke-A-Rama often required us to take joint showers), I went ahead and soaped her down in the shower with me. See? We saved time AND water. Score one for efficiency.

This morning, Cate went running down the hall screaming “Daaaaddy!!” because she loves to wake Dave up. When I explained that no, Daddy isn’t in the bed because Daddy had to go bye-bye, we had a few tears. Poor kiddo. I have a feeling she’s really going to miss him this week.

I will too, for what it’s worth.

the "no" phase has commenced

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Cate appears to be feeling a little better today. The fever is still there, but she’s definitely not as miserable. I took her to our pediatricians’ after-hours clinic anyway, because she rubbed her ears a couple of times and I figured that it was worth a $10 co-pay to have the peace of mind of knowing that she doesn’t have an ear infection. And she doesn’t. Her ears are perfect, in fact. So is her throat (no strep! Yay!). The doctor told us to keep doing what we’re doing – using her Flovent inhaler twice a day, and the Tylenol/Motrin to keep her comfortable. Good enough for me.

Funny video time! I think all babies go through this phase, but Cate answers almost all questions with “no” right now. Case in point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfr_DlDH_v0

It’s kind of fun to twist the questions around when you know she’s going to say no all the time. The other day we were watching “Blue’s Room” and it was the episode where they were trying to get ready for bed, and Blue asked the viewers if we would help Sprinkles find a sleepy game to help her fall asleep. Cate looked at the TV, totally serious, shook her head and said, “nooo.” Sorry, Sprinkles. You’re crap out of luck.

Although she might just be biased against Blue and her ilk, because she doesn’t say no to all TV characters. This morning, we were watching “My Friends Tigger and Pooh,” and Darby asked if we could see something that was behind her. Cate pointed at the TV and said “dare!” (as in “there”). I was impressed, it goes to show she definitely understands way more than we think she does.

unHappy Fourth

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I don’t understand how a child can go from totally happy and normal in the morning, to completely miserably sick by the time she wakes up from her nap. Poor Cate has had a rough 24 hours. And the change from not-sick to sick literally occurred over the course of her nap yesterday.

She has a horrible fever, she’s been coughing and snotty, she won’t eat anything (I’m still getting some fluids in her, which is keeping me from all-out panicking), she’s had several asthma attacks that required her inhaler (of which she is not a fan), and last night she barfed all over me. That was fun. She also woke up several times in the middle of the night, so Dave and I are both feeling pretty ragged and awful today.

Oh, and we learned that Cate is not a huge fan of fireworks. We didn’t go out to see any, but some of our neighbors were shooting them off, so we heard plenty. She didn’t cry about them, but she sure wasn’t happy about all the random loud noises keeping her awake.

She seems to be feeling a little better now, but I’m not sure if it’s the baby Tylenol that made her fever drop or if it was just some sort of 24-hour virus. I’m praying that the worst of it is over. And I already have my sweats on, so that when she starts asking to go outside, I can put her in the backpack carrier and take her for a walk, rather than worrying about her triggering another asthma episode by exerting herself too much running around.

Stupid germs. Boo.

we won't be homeless in August, hooray!

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It would appear that we officially have a house in North Carolina. Yay! It’s a super-cute house in a really nice neighborhood, it’s actually a little bit bigger than our current house, and you Seattle folks would fall over dead if you knew how much we’re going to be paying for it. For reals. I can’t quite believe myself how much we’re going to be saving.

So now I get to tell the movers that we actually have an address where they can deliver our stuff. Hallelujah. That’s one huge source of stress that’s been lifted.

I’m still trying to work out the details for moving Beaumont and Teenie. I’ve gotten an estimate from a pet-moving service that gets good reviews from what I’ve seen so far. They pick up the cats from our house, take them to the airport, take care of boarding them in Raleigh, and deliver them to our new house once we’ve arrived. They’re a bit pricey, but I’m thinking that the convenience factor alone might be worth it.

Total topic change, here’s some new Cate-speak for this week:
* At daycare, when she woke up from her nap: “Passy, come get me!” (Patsy said she thought she must’ve mis-heard her, but she said it twice. So Patsy did indeed go get her.)

* To me, when I was sitting at the kitchen table working on my laptop: “Get up! Get up!” She wanted me to stop typing and chase her around. So I did.

* Also, she knows the sign for bird, but she does it backwards, so it looks sort of like the bird’s beak is eating her face. It’s very Hitchcockian of her.

That’s all the news on our end. Hope everyone has a great Fourth of July!

this month

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It’s July. That means we are moving this month. Gulp!

Really, I don’t know why I get so panicked and anxious whenever I think about it. It’s not like there’s that much packing left to do. Our bedroom and the kitchen are the bulk of it, plus sorting out the garden tools and whatnot in the garage. But that’s really it. The movers will be able to handle everything else in no time. A month seems like long enough to take care of those few things, right? So why do I get butterflies in my stomach every time I think about it?

I think part of it is that I don’t know where we’re going yet. Our “representatives” in North Carolina (my faboo cousin Cat and her realtor friend Cara) went looking for houses for us a couple of weeks ago, and they found 3 good possibilities. Our top pick turned out to already be rented. The second pick was 20 miles from Dave’s office, which didn’t seem feasible. I would’ve been happy with the third pick (cute house, nice neighborhood), except the landlord seemed totally shady and kept trying to come up with ways to make us pay rent for July, when hello, we won’t even be living there until after August 1st. So we passed on that place. Cat and Cara are going out to look at houses again tomorrow, and hopefully will find something great. Fingers crossed. And hoo boy, I am going to owe them both some phenomenal gift baskets after all this is over.

I’m also trying to figure out transportation arrangements for the cats, which is giving me a headache. I can’t fly them cargo, because the airlines won’t take them if it’s over 85 degrees, and the odds are pretty good that it will be at least 85 in North Carolina in late July. So I’m looking at pet moving services, and lordy they’re expensive, but it’s worth it if it means that I won’t have to worry about them possibly suffocating from the heat. If any of you have had some experience with a professional pet moving service, please drop me an email and let me know, ok?

Oh, and if you have any spare Valiums lying around and want to donate them to a good cause? I’ll give you my home address. And probably a kiss on the mouth.

the winner (for now)

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I chose the peekaboo picture for the sidebar – if you don’t see it, you might need to refresh your browser. I do really love that laugh that she’s doing. The only thing that bugged me about the other picture (um, #1 in the top 3, if that makes sense) is that there was a window between our heads, and it was kind of an odd bright spot in the middle of the photo. I do think that I looked better in that picture, which really should be all that matters (ha ha), but I think this one is a funnier picture of Cate, and I like the sort of smeary effects around the edges (which was a total accident). Hopefully I can stand to see my weird neck angle on this picture for a while.

Of course, I’m going to be seeing my sister next month, who’s responsible for almost every really good picture of me and Cate ever taken (like this one, and this one… and also this one), so I’ll probably soon have a super-fabulous picture that I’ll end up using on the sidebar instead of this one.

And speaking of my sister, the first thing that both she and my mom told me upon seeing these pictures is that I am apparently in desperate need of a good eyebrow-waxing. I love my family.

Meanwhile, just to brighten up your Monday, here’s a video I took yesterday of Cate and Beaumont playing in the front yard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEqHmSugxS4

You might think that she’s saying “hi” and running toward me at the beginning of the video, but no, it’s all about the cat. Of course.