Natalie’s Blog

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).

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the nice weather by going the BIG playground at Mercer County Park. Unfortunately, our fun ended pretty quickly…On her second trip down the twisty slide, Natalie put her foot down. The rubber sole of her shoe caused traction, but she was already moving pretty fast, so she flipped over and hit her face on the side of the slide (which was plastic). Chris tried to catch her, so she may also have fallen against his arm. Neither of us could see exactly what happened, but her screaming made it pretty clear she was hurt. We could see blood pooling up in her mouth—a pretty scary sight— but couldn’t really tell where it was coming from. When we got back to the car, she nursed herself to sleep…so we reasoned that her mouth couldn’t have been too hurt, otherwise nursing would have been painful rather than comforting.

When she woke up from her nap, she still wanted to play outside, so we walked to the little playground around the corner from our house. Natalie was happy take the walk and climb up the stairs at the playground, but wouldn’t go near the slide! Hopefully she won’t be traumatized for life, since going down the slide used to be one her favorite activities.

Today her cheek near the corner of her mouth is a little bruised, but she’s eating, drinking, and nursing fine, so there must not be any permanent damage.

UPDATE: We just found out that the same thing happened to Natalie’s friend Robert—on the same exact slide! We’ll definitely be steering clear of that slide. It’s a hazard!

Here are some pictures from happier times at the playground from earlier this week:

Our Easter weekend in Connecticut started out with the drive from hell. Chris was working in the city on Friday, but Natalie and I had the day off. Never in a million years would I attempt to drive 3 hours with Natalie by myself if she were awake. So, I opted to leave Thursday night around bedtime, figuring that she would fall asleep in the car, then Chris would take the train to CT after work Friday. This traveling arrangement has worked really well for us in the past. Not so this time. For whatever reason, Natalie didn’t go to sleep. She started fussing somewhere on the Jersey Turnpike, so I kept her entertained as best I could by singing every song I could think of (not so easy to think under pressure!). As we approached the Vince Lombardi rest stop, I considered stopping to let her run off some energy and have a break from being in the car. Then I looked in the rearview mirror and noticed her head was leaning on the side of the car-seat and her eyes were half-closed. Figuring she would fall asleep any second, I decided not to stop.

Of course as soon as we passed the exit for the rest stop, she started wailing! The crying escalated until I got off the highway right before the George Washington Bridge and found a parking lot to pull over in. I thought maybe she just needed to nurse before being able to fall asleep. But no, Natalie was wide-awake and had little interest in nursing—she just wanted out of her car-seat and was happily playing with the buttons on the door handle within minutes of being freed. Since we weren’t exactly in a safe place, it wasn’t long before I began to get antsy. I considered checking into a hotel to avoid having to drive the rest of the way. Realizing that that would only delay the torture, I decided to continue driving at night so at least the risk of traffic would be lower.

Natalie launched an incredible arched-back, kicking, screaming protest as I tried to wrestle her back into her car-seat. Man, she is strong. I sang every song I could think of and played every CD we had in an attempt to calm her down. I offered food and water. I narrated every exit sign and landmark. I validated her feelings. Nothing really worked…Natalie alternated between silence (just to tease me into thinking she might be asleep) and screaming her angry little head off. It was the most white-knuckled drive I’ve had since it took me and Chris 17 hours to drive through a blizzard to a friend’s wedding in Boston. After a second stop in a safer parking lot in Greenwich, CT, Natalie finally fell asleep 30 minutes before we got to our destination.

After all that drama, we had a swell weekend. We spent the first day with Auntie Jodi, but got no good pictures. Then we stayed with the Huey’s for our annual egg-dying party. I had the ridiculous thought that Natalie could help color eggs this year, but she’s still a little young. After she tried to eat the egg and drink the bowl of dye, Chris had the idea to give her a bowl of plain water and a spoon. Natalie thought dipping the spoon in the water and licking it was just as much fun!

Here she is opening her Easter basket. She’s too young for candy, so her basket contained rain boots, a hooded duck towel, peeps bubble-blowers, a rabbit hand-puppet, some books and a stuffed duck:

Here’s “Natalie the Duck” with her Dada:

Natalie warming up after her nap:

In her Easter dress:

Sitting with Mama:

My grandmother (Natalie’s great grandmother) who is 93 years-old, painted bunnies on these nested boxes for her:

After Easter dinner was over, we took Natalie to the park to get some fresh air and run around. Here she is going down the (6-foot-high) slide with my cousin Margaret:

Natalie with the giggles!

Our drive home confirmed my fears that nighttime plus car doesn’t equal sleep for Natalie anymore. Funny that in the past, the car used to be our last-resort, sure-fire way to get Natalie to sleep, and now it’s not working easily at all. She did go to sleep, but only after 2 bottles and us singing “Old MacDonald had a Farm” very slowly over and over for 30 minutes (after we already sang about 50 slow verses of “The Wheels on the Bus”). To make “Old MacDonald” extra monotonous, we sing “Old MacDonald had a farm, EIEIO, and on his farm he had a farm EIEIO, with a farm farm here and a farm farm there, here a farm there a farm, everywhere a farm farm…” As if it’s not hard enough to not fall asleep at the wheel…

Everyone told us that the first few months of daycare are filled with illness after illness because your child is being exposed to a lot more germs. Is it true? I’ll recount our daycare experience so far:

Week One (3/3/08 - 3/7/08)

The Friday of Natalie’s first week of daycare, she woke up in the middle of the night crying. I made the really, really bad mistake of sitting down next to her in her bed before turning on the lights, cause when I sat down, I realized that she had thrown up. Ewww! She threw up a few more times over the next couple of hours, requiring several pajama changes for both of us. She eventually went back to sleep and was completely fine the next day.

Week Two (3/10/08 - 3/14/08)

That week was when she had her terrible diaper rash, bad enough to require Natalie to miss daycare on Wednesday and take a trip to the doctor’s office.

Week Three (3/17/08 - 3/21/08)

Natalie only went to school on Monday of this week, because Monday night she had a mild fever. She still had a fever Tuesday morning, which meant that even if it cleared up that day, she couldn’t go to school on Wednesday, because children have to be fever-free for 24-hours to attend school. In the middle of the night Tuesday, her fever spiked to 105.6!!! She and I took a luke-warm shower, which brought it down to 103. Then the motrin finally kicked in and she was able to go back to sleep with a temperature of 102.5. We took her to the doctor for the second Wednesday in a row this morning. The doctor found that her lungs, throat, and ears were all clear. He did a blood test to check for a hidden infection, (like a urinary tract infection) which was also clear. No elevated white blood cell count or anything else to indicate a problem. So, she has a virus that we’ll let run it’s course.

Was all this sickness because she’s in daycare or just a coincidence? We’ll ever know for sure. One thing I do know is that all these absences from school are not helping Natalie adjust to being there. It’s getting a little better, but still not great.

Grandma had the brilliant idea of taking some picture of Natalie’s teachers and classmates and spending time everyday looking at them. She got the idea because Natalie loves her Aunt Katy and has always been comfortable with her, even though Natalie has only seen Katy (who lives in CA) a few times in her life. The reason? Because we have pictures of Katy that we look at and talk about. If you ask Natalie “who’s that?” she says “Taty!” In fact, she learned to say Katy well before she learning to say Grandma or Nama.

The school director and Natalie’s teachers were enthusiastic about the project and took some pictures this week. Thank goodness, because between Natalie’s illness and the school being closed for Good Friday, she’ll have a whole week before going back to school.

Here is Natalie with one of her teachers and classmates at the beginning of the day, eyes still red from crying after Mama left:

And looking calmer at the end of the day, but eyes red from her impending illness:

Don’t worry, there will be no picture accompanying this post! I’ll also spare you the most gory details…

Poor Natalie’s bottom was in bad shape this week. Of course, just as Natalie was starting to be her happy self again on the changing table, she developed a bad rash, which means every diaper change is painful and therefore a struggle. I first noticed it Tuesday morning, the day that Nama was watching Natalie. Nama looked at it and declared, “I’ve seen much worse!” so I didn’t worry too much. We continued using our usual diaper cream. Tuesday night, Natalie was crying out in her sleep and waking up frequently (although I didn’t make the connection—being woken up repeatedly in the middle of the night doesn’t allow for the most logical thinking).

By Wednesday morning, the rash looked a little angrier. Chris was in charge of taking Natalie to day care that morning, so I asked him to be sure to tell the teachers about the rash. Of course he forgot, because it’s impossible to think straight when trying to smile and tell Natalie to have fun at school while she’s hysterically crying. 10 minutes after he came home from dropping her off, Natalie’s teacher called my cell phone to ask me if I was aware of the rash.

I decided to call the pediatrician’s office, even though I was pretty sure they were going to recommend I use diaper cream and tell me to go away. But no, when I described the rash, the nurse scheduled an appointment within the hour. (What gives? In December I called to say that Natalie was coughing so hard she was vomiting, which didn’t warrant an appointment and now they want her to come in for diaper rash?!?!?) So I picked Natalie up from school (poor thing was pretty upset when I got there) and we went to the doctor. It was a good thing the school called and we went to the doctors, because by the time we got there, the rash looked worse than it had only a couple of hours earlier. The two doctors who looked at Natalie’s rear and a test for a strep infection (who knew you could get strep butt?) couldn’t determine the cause of the rash. Dumbfounded, the doctor recommended we try triple paste—a recommendation I could have gotten from my mom’s group without a $30 co-pay.

Thankfully, the rumors I’d heard about triple paste are true! 24 hours later, Natalie’s rash was much improved and now 48 hours later, it’s almost gone. Like everything else, the rash was probably related to teething.

What good is a baby blog if it’s contents won’t embarrass said baby when she becomes a teenager?

The second day drop-off was a little rougher than the first day. The first day Natalie really didn’t know what she was in for, so she had nothing to cry about. The second day she wailed like a heartbroken little girl whose parents just abandoned her. It was really, really, really hard to walk away. Then I made the mistake of calling the school only 15 minutes later to check on her. The teacher explained that another teacher was holding her and they were trying their best to distract her and transition her as best they could. I could hear her crying in the background. I felt physically ill—as if my heart could break. All morning I had a big lump in my throat and an ache in my chest. I felt so, so awful, which led me to imagine how awful Natalie must have been feeling…small…frightened…confused…in an unfamiliar place with strangers…unable to communicate. Then I had to stop that line of thinking for my own sanity.

Thankfully, when we called at 1 pm, we heard a very positive report. The teacher told us that although Natalie had a rough start to the morning, she perked up a lot when they did an art project. She also had fun reading stories and singing songs, ate nearly all of her lunch and went down for a nap with no problem.

When we picked Natalie up in the afternoon, she looked to be in better spirits than she had when we picked her up on Monday. The teachers reported that Natalie got upset when other parents come to pick up their kids—their theory is that she gets scared of seeing new people.

I have to keep telling myself that Natalie knows we love her. The fact that she reacts strongly to us leaving her shows that she has a healthy attachment to us. I have to remind myself that going to daycare is a tough transition, but I really think Natalie will love it once she’s adjusted. But I think tomorrow I’ll wait until the afternoon before I call to check on her.

Our plan was to get Natalie to bed early yesterday so she’d be well-rested for her first day. Natalie gets cranky if she hasn’t slept enough, a trait she gets from me. She had slept in on Sunday morning, so we tried to prevent her from napping to force an early bedtime. The plan completely backfired. Natalie fell asleep in the car at 4pm, took a 1 hour nap, and then (despite several tries beforehand) didn’t get to bed until midnight!!!! So we were all a little tired and groggy this morning—not the best way to start the first day of school. Quite to my surprise, however, Natalie was in good spirits as we headed to the Goddard School.

Here she is eating Cheerios (Organic Morning O’s actually) on the way to school:

When we got to Natalie’s classroom, we stowed all her stuff (sleeping bag, two changes of clothes, blanket, and mousy) in her cubby, hung her coat (2 coats actually—one for the car and one for going outside) on the hook, and put her lunch (peas, grapes, veggie burger, and yogurt, plus a cup of water, 2 cups of milk and 2 bottles) away in the refrigerator. We let Natalie loose to play with some toys while we gave the head teacher the “Natalie Information Sheet” we wrote up:

At this point, Chris and I both started to feel a little panicked, but I think Natalie was too confused and too busy looking at all the kids and teachers and toys to realize what was happening. When we left, she was sitting at the table getting ready for snack and barely looked up when we kissed her good-bye. I only shed a few tears as we walked away from the classroom. Whew—not at all the tear-fest I was expecting!

We called the school around 1 pm to see how Natalie was and were shocked to hear that she was taking a nap! The teacher reported that unfortunately Natalie’s good mood didn’t last very long after we left. She was clingy with the teachers, reluctant to get down even during outside play time, cried during lunch and didn’t eat much. As we predicted, with little sleep the night before, she was tired and cranky and probably ready for nap-time well before noon. We resisted the urge to pick her up early.

When we arrived at school at 4:15, we peeked through the window before going in. Natalie was sitting on a teacher’s lap watching the other kids play. When we went in, it was clear that she had been crying—the teachers explained that she started getting upset when a few other kids got picked up by their parents. The funny thing is, when we greeted her, she seemed more interested in my car keys than in either of us. Thankfully, the teachers reported that Natalie slept for almost two hours and woke up in good spirits! She ate some yogurt for snack, drank a bottle, and enjoyed playing outside. All in all, she did very well on her first day!

Natalie was happy and giggly in the car, and wasn’t even desperate to nurse as I expected she would be when we got home. We had a nice time playing and eating dinner. Around 7 pm, Natalie started saying “night-night” and was asleep by 7:20!!! By 7:45 all the dishes were done and Chris and I were sitting on the couch with our laptops and our feet up. If we can stick to this schedule, we’ll be golden. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that she doesn’t wake up soon and think she’s had a nap…

!@@#@#!$#%$#%@@#$%$#%$&^%&*&&%$@#@#@#$#@!@!@!$

I gave Natalie a nosebleed. In an attempt to clear her clogged nose with saline and a bulb syringe, I gave my daughter a nosebleed.

Chris, bless his heart, keeps telling me how easily noses bleed and to let it go.

In reality, as guilty as I feel for Natalie’s prolonged ear infection and mom-induced nosebleed, I really feel lucky and grateful. Overall, Natalie is extremely healthy. I can’t imagine how tough it must be to cope with caring for a child with chronic health problems.

Let’s hope tomorrow is trauma-free and poor Natalie gets a break from people sticking things in her ears and nose.

Poor Natalie. We went back to the doctor’s office this morning after another sleepless night and discovered her ear is still infected. The last doctor we saw didn’t think it was necessary to check her ears after the last infection, so it’s possible that it’s a new infection, but we’re guessing this is a continuation of the last one. She seemed to be getting better…she was in a good mood, no more ear tugging, sleeping okay, although her nose was still yucky/runny. Then we were trying to get her schedule adjusted to getting up earlier before starting daycare, and her sleep patterns got completely out of whack. Or at least I thought that was the problem. Now that I look back, her sleep became a problem as soon as she finished the course of antibiotics, which was also the same time that she began rebelling against diapering, bathing, and dressing. My guess is the medicine was enough to make her feel almost better, but she must have still been in pain when lying down. Poor Natalie. I feel so guilty.

To make matters worse for a sick, cranky, tired girl and a tired, frustrated Mama, the doctors visit today was horrific, thanks to Dr. McConlogue. We saw her once for Natalie’s 6 month check-up and I didn’t care for her, but I didn’t think we needed to actively avoid her either. This is the 6th time we’ve gone in to have her ears checked and it has never once been a problem—Natalie’s never fussed or cried. That’s because none of the previous doctor’s have ever required that Natalie be physically restrained during the exam. Dr. McConlogue wanted me to hold Natalie in a bear hug while she looked in her ears, which caused Natalie to fight a whole lot harder than she would have if we had just let her be. Natalie was already quite hysterical when the doctor announced that she couldn’t see past vast amounts of earwax, and she would need to clean her ears. I had to hold Natalie down and pin her arms above her head while the doctor shoved a sharp plastic instrument in her already infected ear. Natalie was in such a state I feared she might throw up and I was near tears myself. Needless to say, we will never see Dr. McConlogue ever again. I am kicking myself hard for not being more assertive.

After we left the doctor’s office, Natalie recovered pretty quickly and fell asleep in the car on the way home. She was so zonked that she didn’t stir at all when I transfered her from the car to her bed. I was even able to take her sneakers off without disturbing her.

Speaking of footwear, how adorable does Natalie look wearing Daddy’s big shoes? (Nothing like a cute picture of Natalie to lighten a post and put a smile on my face!)

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this new antibiotic will clear the infection. And I will bring Natalie back to the doctor at the first sign that it isn’t working. I’m adopting Lindsay’s mantra: “I will never attribute anything to teething, only to ear pain.” If only I had listened sooner!!

I like to think of myself as a pretty easy-going person. Flexible. Not one for bullying. I don’t think of Chris or myself as “authoritarian” in any way, but especially not as a parents. We’ve long since given up the sleep battle—we’ve accepted that we cannot force Natalie to go to sleep. She’s a strong-willed girl and sleeps only when she’s good and ready. We’re okay with that. Natalie is pretty free to do what she wants, as long as it’s not dangerous or disrespectful. We follow her lead. But there are limits. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that changing diapers, getting dressed, and bathing are not optional activities. These are our battlegrounds.

As an infant, Natalie was never more happy than when she was on the changing table. Oh, how I long for the days when we’d lay her on the changing table and she would reward us with coos and smiles. The smiles have been replaced with an arched back and stiff legs; the cooing with annoyed grunts, cries of protest, and shrieks of anger. We’ve tried distracting her with toys, books, singing songs, tickling, making funny faces etc. Sometimes she calms down, but usually not for long. The funny thing is that Natalie often tells us that she needs changing using sign language. Today, she actually came up to me and said “poopy” (I’d been teaching her that word in another failed attempt to distract her on the changing table). But even when she initiates the diaper change, she still ends up in tears. Once we’re done changing her, she’s fine.

Same thing with getting dressed. It goes a little better when we involve her in the process, including letting her choose between two shirts, but sometimes we have to just strong-arm her into her clothes. It feels horrible to shove her (while being as gentle as we can) into her clothes while she’s upset and crying. But the way she carries on, you’d think we were trying to hogtie her. And it’s not like getting dressed is a new thing—we’ve been dressing her every morning since the day she was born. I keep reading that routines make children feel like their world is safe and predictable. But every morning Natalie reacts to getting dressed as if it’s some new form of torture.

Bath time is great fun for Natalie. She’s so eager to take a bath that she tries to climb in the tub with all her clothes on. Everything is lovely until we break out the washcloth. As soon as she sees it, she starts crying and tries to climb out, while frantically signing “all done.” So in order to get her clean, we have to force her to stay in the tub while we wash her. She never really minded getting washed before, so I thought maybe the soap was irritating her skin. But we’ve used the same Burt’s Bees baby wash since she was born, so I can’t imagine that all of a sudden that’s the problem. Washing her hair is even more of a struggle. We bought this special bucket to keep the water out of her eyes, but she thrashes around so much that we’ve taken to dumping water right over her head to get it over with as fast as possible. While she was never crazy about getting shampooed, she’s never taken her protests to this level before. I felt slightly better when I read that other babies around Natalie’s age go through this phase.

I have sympathy for Natalie. It’s hard to be a baby. As nice as it is to have people catering to their every need, babies also have people trying to control their every move. It must be frustrating to have activities imposed on you that you don’t like. I understand that Natalie doesn’t enjoy getting dressed, having her diaper changed, or being washed and that she had limited language with which to express her thoughts and feelings. At the same time, I feel frustrated when she acts as if by forcing her to do these things that I’m trying to sever one of her limbs. I’m not sure how to handle her protests, either. About half the time I try to acknowledge that she’s unhappy while reminding her of the routine and reassuring her that it will be over soon. The other half the time I ignore her crying and try to distract her. I always try to finish the torture as quickly as possible. All the while, I try to reassure myself that it’s just a phase…and I try not to think about the battlegrounds we have to look forward to when Natalie becomes a teenager!