All I want for Christmas...

is a healthy, toothy, baby. Sigh.

Dreaded germs strike again. Last Wednesday, Zoe and I had a fabulous day at home together. She napped, she ate, she played, she laughed, I worked. Perfect. Wednesday night, not so good. Lots and lots of coughing kept waking her up. Some coughs were like barks. Thursday morning she was very icky and groggy - we both were - since she'd had a very wakeful coughing night, so we both stayed home again. Thursday was a bit less great. She was so restless; still eating well, but not so happy and not getting good naps. That evening her cough was horrible and constantly barking and high-pitched. I knew what it was and by Friday, we knew that we had to bring her in...again.

Good thing. Turns out it wasn't only croup, it was another ear infection (same ear). So they treated her for the croup in the office with an oral steroid and gave us an Rx for an even stronger antibiotic than last time. Another antibiotic. So much for trying to avoid the meds, but what do you do? She really was so far removed from herself that to let her rough it out seemed cruel. We didn't even discuss it really. There's actually a little piece of me that thinks that she's just never quite kicked the first real bug she caught in September.

So that, mixed with the glacially slow descent of her top front teeth, makes for a tired household. Oh, thus the posting drought :)

Life picked up for a bit this weekend, though. Dave stayed home to hang with Zoe while I hit the town with our friend, Becky, to make good of the holiday sales and take care of the end of the Xmas shopping list. I fared well, as did Zo and dad, for the most part. She wanted to be held quite a bit and slept a ton; she's still our generally great sleeper, but this was impressive: a four hour nap. This apparently did the trick to perk her up for our dinner with Becky and her husband, Tim, at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Zoe had a blast and chatted us up, plus she was all hands and arms - making good practice for her mom and dad. I guess it had been a while since we'd been out to eat with her...we could barely keep up and keep all of the interesting food and tableware out of her reach!

We thought we'd kind of rounded the corner, but as this week has worn on, she's developed a hideously evil diaper rash. Those antibiotics are tough on the gutt and tough on the bum, too. Poor baby. It's nearly brought me to tears to change her lately. Seriously. And yesterday, upon picking her up from daycare, we learned that Zoe earned herself a bath because she'd had a major diarrhea blow-out and had thrown up. I nearly crumbled right there. She seemed in great spirits and wasn't fussy or tired, but that her tummy was so upset was awful to hear. And to hear that the daycare had to deal with such a mess. They were great, though, very concerned with her and had obviously taken good care of her given her condition. It was a huge step for us though I think, to really feel what it is to let others care for your child and to trust them to do what's best. Had they called us, we may have come running when it had happened and then have been able to do nothing to change the situation. Mind you, kisses and hugs and snuggles were abundant when we got home, and I felt terrible about her day. But I can't go forward from here beating myself up for not being with her in every moment - good and bad. We do our best with the way it is and trust that in the end it will be the sum total of our love that Zoe knows and not the missing pieces.

I have only a couple of pix to post tonight. My sincere apologies - there just haven't been too many occasions lately that I wanted to capture on 'film'. I've been too absorbed in the joy when it's upon us because man, we need it!



Zoe advising dad on some fixes for mom's 'puter :)