Natalie’s Blog

Lindsay, ask and you shall receive…I’ve been meaning to do a daycare update, and I’ll throw in a croup update as well!

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:

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 11:40 am and is filed under Challenges, Growing, Illness, Learning, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.