Gobble Gobble!

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! I know what I'm thankful for: a great husband, a wonderful baby girl, a lovely home and health!

That last part is *now* easy to say since, well, Zoe and I aren't sick anymore. She's about done her antibiotics for her ear infection (which seems to be gone - yay!) and I stopped puking on Monday. Yep. I was hit with a nasty stomach bug that just about kicked my butt. Fever and everything. This, mind you, on top of Zoe's ear infection which was just starting to clear up, although its companion, fussiness, hadn't. Poor Dave had me out of commission and Zoe out of sorts all day Monday and most of Tuesday. The days are a blur, and it took until Thursday for me to be back to 100% - just in time for food! ;)

T-day was a nice, mellow affair. Read: relatively tiny :) All of Dave's fam were out in Florida, taking Disney and the rest of the attractions by storm, (hope a great time was had by all!); Greg, Amy, Nick and Tim stayed home to eat some Maine turkey (sorry we missed your call!), so it was just the three of us, my folks, my cousin Keith and Chris and Erin who rolled in for their second T-day meal of the day (talk about gobble gobble! ;).




Zoe had a fantastic time entertaining all of her fans, er guests, showing them how to tear down cup a good cup tower and how she can do chin-ups on the kitchen stools.


Sitting in on a speaker-phone call with Aunt Pauline & Uncle Skip


Showing Nana her favorite book - it has pictures of babies in it!


She's a busy gal. So busy that she apparently didn't have time for her afternoon nap. Oh well, what are the holidays for if not a party?

Dinner was yummy - Dave did another bang-up job on the turkey and other T-day vittles, of course and our guests' contributions helped make it a feast. It took a while for me to sit and eat, since bug and the turkey went down at the same time, but I made up for lost time....and continue to do so :)

After a wakeful evening (she was up again ~11, ~3 and then again ~7), mom & dad, Dave, me and Zoe all dressed and headed out to breakfast (who was going to cook?!) at our favorite local diner, Leena's. Good grub.



Back at home, Nana and Pepere obliged my plea to hang with Zoe so that Dave and I could get the much-needed fall clean-up done outside. Zoe proceeded to bore them during her three hour nap, but I was thrilled to get the yard into a less-depressing state.

Saturday was good for hanging and usual Saturday stuff before we headed over to our friend, Deb's house for a post T-day 'Tur-duck-en' (that's a de-boned chicken stuffed inside a de-boned duck stuffed inside a de-boned turkey!) It was a lovely evening. Especially since Zoe did her best to make Dave and I look like good parents. We heard lots of "she's such a good baby!" while secretly, actually, Dave and I thought she was kind of fussy! Heh. We know. We're running out of good baby karma. We'll be screwed with #2...

Today was good and mellow. Zoe had another wakeful evening - she's been TIRED and HUNGRY this weekend - did she know that's how holiday weekends are supposed to go? So somehow things worked out for us to all sleep in a little. After a bit of morning play, Zoe went down for a nap so I hit the yard to finish up with the piles (and piles) of leaves I'd raked in on Friday (overall, four *filled* green bins' worth) while Dave manned the monitor. It was a great finish to the long weekend. Zoe was in a great mood, exploring the kitchen and back 'extra' room.

Following in dad's footsteps?



She really gets around now and definitely wants to be both where the action is and where something's new. She actually calls out for Da or Ma before heading in our direction which is just awesome. We're continually getting peeks of little kid-ness this is both exciting and heartbreaking. So much fun.

Oh! and I almost forgot! Not only did Zoe power through her dinner - which included chicken again (she'd been boycotting the texture so we've been missing its extra staying power over the past few nights) - but she actually made the sign for 'more'. HOW AMAZING IS THAT??? She even clapped for herself (another new trick) each time I was hooting and hollering all through dinner, celebrating. The neighbors must have wondered what Dave put in the leftovers ;)

Little trooper

Daycare sucks. I mean, what a persistent little petri dish it is!

On Monday morning, Zoe finished a full round of antibiotics to fight an apparent sinus infection. She actually had a few days of normalcy - no snottiness, pretty good feeding, great sleeping and a really great disposition. Wednesday, she got her flu shot with really very little fallout.

Proof:

A bit of giddy exploration in the kitchen...


and in the toy box - drunk with the fun ;)


But, come Thursday morning, we went in to find Zoe had puked a bit in the nighttime...and didn't cry about it! Poor little thing! Poor gross little thing! She puked all over her little bear-blanket and sheet and pacifier. It was in her hair. We felt AWFUL that she spent the night that way. But she was absolutely forgiving. All smiles. Man.

So we brought her in to daycare - because nothing else seemed to be wrong with her - and heard from Chris, her caretaker, that a few other families had called in regarding their sick little ones. Sick with puking and diarrhea. Sigh. So, she said she'd call if anything went awry.

When we picked her up in the afternoon, she seemed her usual great but tired self. But by the time we got her home and playing before dinner, we knew she was sick again. Between the fuss and the fever, the poor kid couldn't enjoy anything. It was terrible because I was committed to going out with some girlfriends for dinner, leaving Dave to placate Zoe. It was a bit of a rough evening for them, but overnight she slept pretty well. However, she woke without her usual gusto. I honestly didn't want to leave for work, but had to. Thankfully Zoe was with Daddy today who kept a good watch on her. And her fever. When, after fitful naps and barely any eating, it spiked to 103.5 (103.8 later that night), and we decided it was time to call the doctor. Good thing because it turns out that it had nothing to do with her flu shot (which we worried about after talking the the lame@$$ nurse). It's an ear infection.

So what's amazing through all of this is that despite the bit of fuss she had on Thursday night, she has remained in a relatively great mood. Now, she only wants to sit in your lap, snuggle, nurse and snooze. All subdued and utter sweetness. The girl is usually fantastic, but she's an utter dream as a sick baby. How did we get so lucky?

What a difference a week makes!

I mean, we still of course have this adorable and lovely little baby girl. She's still all sweet and smiles. But now this girl is on track! She's sleeping through the night like she hasn't since the night before her four month check-up (yes, literally since THAT night). She's raring up to move - rocking on her knees instead of just rolling around the floor. Her little personality is really taking shape and finding new outlets. All that and her terrible little cough has finally started to subside since we caved and put her on antibiotics.

This has been a big week, otherwise. This weekend felt a little short because Friday evening was about prepping for our gal pal, Linda's, baby shower that we helped throw on Saturday. It was fantastic to see her all preggers and happy - yes glowing - and on the precipice parenthood. It was a lovely, but long, day. Sunday was all about catching up on preps for the busy week ahead. Tuesday, I left before dawn to head over to Quincy in central WA, to present at a conference my program had put together. After three hours of talking, I hit the road to get home again for dinner. I just didn't want to spend the night there! Today, we got up early so that I could return the rental car I'd used for my trip, and then dropped off Dave at work. This afternoon, Zoe and I took our kitty, Lucy, to the vet to get some attention to her persistent cough - yes, our kitty's been coughing horribly. So now Lucy and Zoe are *both* on antibiotics! Tomorrow, I'll be working late, presenting again, this time to folks at the Seattle Public School District and grabbing a bus home from downtown to Shoreline so that Dave can tend to bug without disrupting her evening routine.

I'm reading this back to myself now and realize that I sound like I'm saying 'poor me', however I guess what it's really all about is that I'd much prefer being a little tired and extended than to stay away from home - from Dave and Zoe - for more than I have to, or to disrupt the balance and rhythm that we work so hard to find. I won't say that there aren't moments when I miss how simple life was before we worried about a 7pm bedtime or whether our baby eats a good dinner, but those "complications" become nothing, totally vanish, when I walk in the door and see that little girl smile. Her appreciation of me, of my simply being there, is all it takes to make me grow humble. I'm honored to be of service :)