Natalie’s Blog

Natalie loves to talk about what color things are—she labels the cars and trucks we pass on the road, the crayons she’s using, and what color shirts we wear. Every morning when she sees us, she announces what color our shirts are with great enthusiasm. Yesterday she was super excited because we were all wearing brown shirts. She kept exclaiming, “Mommy, Daddy, Nah—BROWN!!”

At our last visit to the pediatrician, Natalie yelled, “Black!” as soon as Dr. Stephen walked in the examining room. Dr. Stephen is of south-Asian decent, so naturally she looked rather aghast at Natalie’s statement. I felt equally aghast and rather horrified that it seemed like Natalie was labeling the color of her skin. All was well after I frantically explained, “Your shirt is black! Natalie’s talking about your shirt!”

…Hello, Melissa!

Starting tomorrow, Natalie will be going to a new daycare—an in-home daycare. We’ve realized that big daycare is not the right setting for Natalie or for us. Although she got comfortable with her teachers, wasn’t crying at drop-off, and napped well at school, Natalie was not thriving at Goddard. Most people we talked to about daycare told us that Natalie would learn more things faster being in a daycare environment. But after going to school 3 days per week for 5 months, Natalie still wasn’t talking while she was there. Her teachers reported that if they ever heard her babbling to herself while playing, as soon as they tried to engage her, she shut down and wouldn’t respond. Although this concerned us, Natalie has been thriving in general, so we didn’t start looking for other options until Natalie started transitioning to the toddler room.

When we toured the school last February, they stressed how slowly they transitioned the children from one room to the next. I had expressed my concerns to the school director about Natalie adjusting to the toddler room (the toddler room starts at 18 months) a month or so before Natalie was scheduled to start, given how long it took Natalie to adjust to school in the first place. Again, I was assured that the transition would happen very slowly, with the children visiting their new classroom with a familiar teacher for increasing lengths of time. We received a packet of information about the transition and the toddler room that stated that the transition could take 1-4 weeks depending on the child. Her transition was scheduled to start on June 30.

When I got to school on June 30, the head teacher in the infant room looked surprised to see us and told me that Natalie was to be dropped off in the toddler room. I was flabbergasted. I assumed that the start of the transition would be the start of the visits to the new room. Then I noticed that every room seemed to have crying children, which is normally not the case. Jennifer, the head infant room teacher, explained that there would be lots of crying today because a number of children were starting in new rooms. This was not transitioning, it was making kids change their routines cold-turkey.

I told Jennifer that there was no way I was leaving Natalie in the new room. After leaving her in the infant room, I spoke with the school owners and the director, who were surprised that I didn’t realize that that day was the day Natalie would be in the toddler room. They also couldn’t tell me if Natalie had ever visited the toddler room before. We felt that despite our best efforts to tell the school our concerns, they were not communicating with us. They apologized and said they would do better.

The next day, I went with Natalie to visit the toddler room. When Natalie and I left, I had a horrible feeling in the pit in my stomach. I knew there was no way I could ever leave Natalie alone there. There was nothing abusive, neglectful, or incompetent happening. The three teachers in the toddler room were doing all the things they were supposed to do: singing songs, reading books, giving out snacks, etc., but in my opinion they may as well have been robots. None of them seems to display any enthusiasm for the children. None of them seemed engaged or appeared to enjoy their jobs. Those factors, combined with a higher student to teacher ratio in the toddler room, plus difficulty communicating with the school management led us to the decision to find another child care arrangement for Natalie.

When we first started looking at daycares, a friend recommended we look at Monday Morning, Inc. For some reason at the time, I pooh-poohed the idea. On one hand I regret not looking into it before, and on the other hand, I realize that we couldn’t have known that daycare wouldn’t work for Natalie until we tried it. Anyway, Monday Morning does all the vetting for the clients, and does ongoing inspections and support for the providers. They led us to Melissa, who will start watching Natalie 3 days per week tomorrow. Melissa worked at a daycare for years before having her own children, comes highly recommended, and has a sweet, down-to-earth personality. It may be another hard transition for Natalie, but we’re hoping she’ll adjust to the smaller, homey setting a little easier and quicker than she took to daycare. Two of her teachers at Goddard told us that they also believed that Natalie would be better off in a smaller setting with fewer children.

Melissa has two of her own kids, ages 6 and 4. The 6-year-old goes to school, and Melissa also watches a 2.5-year-old and will have a 5-month-old starting in October. So for most of the day, it’s a 4:1 child to “teacher” ratio. We’ve visited Melissa every week since we decided to make the switch, and taken and looked at pictures and videos of Natalie with Melissa and the other kids. From the first time we went to her house, Natalie appeared to be comfortable. When I asked Natalie to recall our last visit to Melissa’s, she exclaimed, “Fun!” Fingers crossed that Melissa’s will still be fun when Mommy leaves her there and goes to work!

Are you still reading?? Man, I can be long-winded! To balance my wordiness, here are some of the latest pictures of Natalie.

I put her hair in pigtails for the first time a couple of weeks ago…although she likes having “2 ponytails!” she screams and wiggles through the process of hair dressing, so I doubt it’s a look that will be repeated anytime soon.

Natalie loves to color and eat at her new just-her-size table. I love that I bought it from Craig’s List for a mere $15!!

Natalie enjoying an afternoon dip in her kiddie pool:

Natalie mad that I won’t let her hold the camera:

I should start by mentioning that we’ve long since given up cloth-diapering and Natalie’s been wearing Seventh Generation Disposable Diapers since she was about 7 months old. We’ve always been happy with the diapers, until a couple of weeks ago, when they started leaking. The only other time her diapers leaked was around when she was a year old and needed to move from size 3 to size 4. She’s been wearing the size 4 diapers for the last 8 months. The leaking was beginning to drive me crazy, especially because it would often happen when she was sitting in her car seat, which meant the car seat needed to be cleaned as well. One particularly frustrating day, I think I changed her pants 4 times. I figured it was time to move her into size 5.

But then I looked at the sizing chart:

Stage 1: 8-14 lb., 44 diapers
Stage 2: 12-18 lb., 40 diapers
Stage 3: 16-28 lb., 35 diapers
Stage 4: 22-37 lb., 30 diapers
Stage 5: 27+ lb., 26 diapers
Stage 6: 35+ lb., 22 diapers

and I realized that at 22 pounds, Natalie is at the very lowest weight for size 4 and still well within the weight recommendation for size 3! We also realized that the leaks didn’t seem to be a problem of absorbency—it was more like Natalie would sit a certain way, causing a gap between her leg and the diaper, and pee would just soak into her clothes. We got some size 3 diapers, which seemed small after she’s been wearing the size 4s, but we’ve haven’t had any more problems with leaks! As a bonus, the size 3 diapers include 5 more diapers per pack!!

So, is Natalie shrinking? Probably not. I think she’s just gotten taller, but not gained much weight, which means that her legs are not as chubby as they once were.

Saturday morning we went back to the doctor, who said Natalie’s ears were finally cleared of infection! Thank goodness the first shot worked, so she didn’t need another one. Unfortunately there is still fluid in the ears, which may take a while to drain. That’s only a problem because as long as there is fluid in the ears, they are at risk of becoming infected again.

The doctor’s visit confirmed our belief that Natalie is much more comfortable with women than she is with men. We saw two female doctors (her regular pediatrician we see most often and another female doctor we saw for the first time) during this ear infection and Natalie was completely fine with both of them. She let them look in her ears and clean out tons of wax without making a peep. On Saturday we saw a young male doctor (who looked completely harmless) and Natalie completely flipped out. She was okay sitting on my lap while we told him all the details of the infection. As soon as he tried to look in her ear, she screamed her little head off and acted like a bull let out of a cage. She acted the same way the last time she saw a male doctor. It took both Chris and I to hold her still enough for the doctor to examine her ears. I was so glad he was able to see enough and didn’t need to clean out any wax, because we seriously may have needed to sedate her…

Please keep your fingers crossed so that Natalie stays healthy for a while!

I’m so frustrated I could cry. Poor Natalie has been in pain for over two weeks after a second antibiotic failed to clear up her ear infection. Last night Natalie had a complete meltdown at bedtime and was trying to stick her finger in her ear. After giving her some motrin, she felt better but still didn’t go to sleep until 11 pm. Today the doctor (who we’ve now seen for the third time in 3 weeks) decided to try giving her a shot of antibiotics. It was a big shot in her leg and ever since then, Natalie’s been crying in pain when she bends down. Fingers crossed that it will do the trick. We go back on Saturday to see if the infection is cleared up. If it hasn’t, she will need a second injection. Oh, and she also has pink eye, so we need to put drops in her eyes 3 times a day for 5 days. That should tons of fun…

P.S. My cell phone is completely dead. If you need to reach me, email is best until I get a new phone. Hopefully this weekend.

Ugh. When will I ever learn? Note to self: next time you think your daughter has been possessed by evil spirits, try taking her to the doctor. I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection, when we just went down this road in February.

Poor Natalie. I took her to the doctor last Friday after she’d shown clear signs of an ear infection. She’d had a cold around Memorial Day, and then Chris got a sinus infection, so it made sense that an ear infection would follow. We saw Dr. Stephen, who had to clean out a ton of ear wax in order to see the infection. She was extremely gentle and Natalie got through the experience without shedding a singe tear. What a difference from the last time a doctor had to clean her ears. Dr. Stephen prescribed Augmentin and sent us on our way. And just like with Natalie’s last ear infection in February, I got sucked into a false sense of security. Silly me for thinking that antibiotics actually work.

When Natalie was still cranky and not eating by day 4 on the antibiotics, I should have realized that something was wrong. But like last time, I attributed her mood to her age and thought she was just going through a bad phase. If you read my two posts (one from February and one last week) side-by side, it’s amazing how similar they are—same issues were happening with Natalie. I even used some of the same phrasing.

After being cranky all week, last night Natalie woke up 30 minutes after she went to bed, screaming and tugging at her ear. So, I took her back to the doctor this morning. After clearing away yet more wax, the doctor confirmed that not only was last week’s infected ear not any better, but her other ear is now infected as well. She prescribed a different antibiotic, one which I really hope will work. But if Natalie’s not better soon, I’ll take her back without hesitation. Anyone else have a sense of déjà vu? This post is almost exactly like this one that I wrote a few months ago. Hopefully this time I’ve learned my lesson and Natalie will never have to go through this again. I feel so guilty that yet again I thought Natalie was acting out when she was really just in pain.

On a lighter note, Natalie has picked the same sticker from the doctor’s office two weeks in a row. I gave her choices of stickers with different animals on them, which she rejected. Both times she rifled through the sticker basket until she found a sticker with a picture of Skinner from Ratatouille on it:

I wonder why she likes this image?!?

I promise I’ll post some pictures of Natalie soon!

Thank goodness for these articles on askmoxie.org about the 18-month-old stage of crappy sleeping, non-eating, and throwing tantrums. Otherwise we have assumed that our child has been possessed by evil spirits. For the first time ever since starting this blog, I’m too tired to go into much detail. Suffice to say that one minute, everything will be fine, Natalie will be her sweet self and then all of a sudden she’s hysterical and inconsolable. Remember a month ago, when Natalie wanted to get down all the time? Now she often screams when we try to put her down. Cranky and clingy during the day wouldn’t be so hard if it didn’t take 30 minutes or more of bouncing and shushing (standing! sitting results in loud screaming protests!) all 22 pounds of her to get her to sleep at night. My new mantra is, “it’s just a phase, it’s just a phase….”

Our longest (post-daycare) illness-free streak ended last Thursday. Natalie, who hadn’t been sick since the beginning of April when she had croup, had a mysterious fever with no other symptoms for 4 days. We had a trip to the Poconos planned for Memorial Day weekend, so I took Natalie to the doctor Friday morning before we left. We saw Dr. Pierson, who must have been a founding member of the large practice. Natalie was petrified of his white hair and hairy ears and became hysterical before he even got near her. No ear infection, no strep throat, so Doc declared the fever to be viral. Despite the temperature, she was in a good mood for the holiday weekend (more about that in the next post).

Unfortunately, when we got home the fever turned into coughing, sneezing, extreme clinginess, and hardcore crankiness. She had little appetite and trouble sleeping. Today she’s in a better mood and eating a little, but still having explosive-snot sneezes that make her cry. Right now I’m the only healthy one in family—Chris caught the bug and is home sick with fever, aches, and nausea. Luckily, Natalie’s napping now, so I finally have time to blog! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can stay healthy…

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:

I always thought croup was a horrible disease. Turns out most cases of croup are caused by cold viruses that concentrate in the upper airway, causing a loud barking cough and wheezing (which in bad cases can cause difficulty breathing). Natalie’s case of croup came on rather suddenly on Thursday night. One minute she was in a great mood and seemed totally healthy, the next minute we realized she had a fever, and then she was up half the night coughing and barking like a seal. Since then she’s been mostly okay during the day—we’ve been keeping the humidifier on full-blast and occasionally turning our bathroom into a steam room. Motrin is helping keep the inflammation in her throat down.

Yesterday we decided to take her to Terhune’s just to get out of the house and get some fresh air. Despite her illness, she had a great time visiting the animals. On the way home Natalie was happily eating an apple, choked a little and then could. not. stop. coughing. Poor thing ended up throwing up a bunch of phlegm. Yuck. Luckily, she recovered pretty quickly once we got home.

Since she’s been sick, Natalie will not sleep without me holding her. Every time I’ve made sure she’s in a really deep sleep and tried to sneak away, she’s woken up crying within minutes. So I’ve been spending the nights (and nap time) squeezing into Natalie’s tiny bed with her. We have an incline pillow under Natalie’s mattress that keeps her head elevated, plus the humidifier is in her room (otherwise I would’ve just put her in our bed).