Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Timing is everything

Paul woke up this morning (IN HIS CRIB) (!!) with his eyelashes coated in green gunk. Pink eye is BACK! At least it explained why my eyes were so dry and itchy yesterday. (Because of course I have it, too.)

Last time Paul had pink eye I waited to see if it would clear up on its own, then treated, then got yelled at two weeks later at his six month checkup because it had been caused by an underlying ear infection. So this time I went to the doctor immediately. Where they told me there was nothing wrong with him. The doctor didn't even believe he has pink eye. "Sometimes if kids have a little congestion, they get goopy eyes." HAHAHA. Neither Paul or I have especially red eyes yet, but I unfortunately know exactly what pink eye feels like and this is it. I just took him in too soon. I almost asked her to look more closely at his ears. She barely peeked! She did write a prescription for eye drops, but told me not to use it unless his eyes get worse. I just hope we're not back in a couple days with an ear infection for real.

How do I always end up taking kids to the doctor too soon or too late? Does an exactly right time even exist?

Also, who is this big kid and what did he do with my baby boy?


Monday, January 30, 2012

Have I mentioned my husband HATES Ryan Gosling?

I was in a fantastic mood this morning for some reason. We didn’t sleep very well last night (will we EVER AGAIN?), but I was apparently woken in the sweet spot of my sleep cycle so felt perfectly fine. I showered (which doesn’t happen every morning!), did my hair, full makeup, started a load of laundry, and left the house feeling good about myself. I thought about how wonderful the internet was. I was wearing my beloved boots, which I never would have known about if Sundry hadn’t mentioned them. I had my scarf tied a different way, learned from the internet. I had fancy sunglasses purchased at Marshalls, which I never would have went to if –R– hadn’t mentioned it (pushed up into my hair because it was still dark out, but I was accessorizing, OK?) and I was wearing seven (7!) Birchbox products. Also my new coat (which I love) was purchased from Kohl’s online Thanksgiving day sale, which I wouldn’t have known about if not for Julie tweeting about it.

Then I read all these heavy blog posts and got into a stupid argument on Twitter and ended up feeling fat and depressed. The Twitter thing is still really bothering me, too, because I want to clarify a lot of what I said so I don’t sound so dumb, but at this point it would be beating a dead horse and 140 characters isn’t enough space anyway.

But! I’m off to get lunch and eat it outside because it is supposed to be almost 60 (!!) degrees today. Does anybody have any LIGHT and FUN blog posts I can read? I’m seriously considering sticking to DYAC only. And Handmade Ryan Gosling, of course. He’ll cheer me up, right?

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Valentine's Day Cards (sponsored post)

I rarely do sponsored posts, but oh I love Tiny Prints. Not only do I love all their cards (including my Christmas cards!), I'm excited they're offering Valentine's Day Greeting Cards. I'm pretty much a fan of anything I can order from my couch instead of dragging myself off to the store. Last year I didn't bother and Meg ended up being the only kid who didn't bring Valentines to daycare (she was twenty months old! Do 20-month-olds NEED Valentines? I'm not saying it's wrong or anything - it could even be fun-, just unnessary.) Luckily, she had no idea.

This year, though, I'm sure she'd definitely know if other kids brought Valentines and she didn't. Especially because Valentine's Day is on a Tuesday, which is her normal daycare day. (How do I know it's a Tuesday? Because today I scheduled a 2 hour dental appointment to get a crown. On Valentine's Day. SEXY!)

I looked through the Tiny Prints Valentine Cards and was trying to decide between these two...



...When I discovered they had Dora cards. I showed Meg and she was VERY excited. She's going to be disappointed when she can't bring the cards this coming Tuesday and has to wait a week.
I have a feeling we'll be watching for the mail every day.

(Tiny Prints is giving me 50 Classroom Valentine's cards for writing this post)

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Teeth

Did you read Arwen’s post on teething this weekend? She had good timing, because I’ve been trying to remind myself I need to note somewhere Paul cut his first tooth last Wednesday (January 19th). For reference, he turned 7 months yesterday (January 23rd). With Meg, I had a little “first year” calendar with milestone stickers. I hope I wrote down when she got her first tooth! (Or maybe it’s on the blog? I started it when she was…let’s see…8 months, so probably not.)


Teething in babies has always annoyed me, because there’s no way to know if it’s actually the cause of discomfort. If they’re super cranky, then cut a tooth, who knows if that was the cause? If Tylenol helps, who’s to say they weren’t mildly ill and in pain somewhere other than their mouth? What if they have teething pain AND are cranky from a wonder week/developmental leap/ear infection/pink eye?

Per Arwen, her doctor said “studies have found that parents often attribute symptoms to teething when their children are not actually cutting teeth. He hypothesized the symptoms are probably caused by developmental leaps or by mild viral infections.”

I agree teething is overused as an explanation for cranky/drooling/chewing babies. I don’t, however, think teething is never the cause of discomfort. Sure, most of the time someone says “that baby must be teething!” something else is actually going on. But, like I said in my comment (verbatim), Paul really seems like his gums hurt. Chewing on teething rings helps a lot, as does Tylenol, so I think there's got to be something going on with his gums. Also, I've always thought teething pain doesn't necessarily correlate to when the teeth break though - just when they're moving through the gums.

Some commenters essentially said they remember pain associated with teeth coming in and/or their older children have complained of mouth pain as they got molars, but the pain wasn’t necessarily the worst (or even present) at the time the teeth broke through the gums. I don’t remember having any pain either with wisdom teeth or molars. It makes me very curious as to whether my teeth hurt as a baby. Of course, sometimes my gums hurt “for no reason” and I forget about it when it goes away. Does that happen to you? I know they hurt like crazy when I had braces/headgear and have always assumed that’s what babies felt. (Which means I felt really really bad for them.) Just talking about braces makes my mouth ache. It does make more sense, though, to compare teething as a baby to getting my wisdom teeth as opposed to braces. I wonder if some babies never have tooth-related pain?

Monday, January 23, 2012

Books

I set a goal of reading 100 books in 2012. I joined Goodreads last year when Paul was born, because I figured I’d read a lot of books on maternity leave and that my brain would be so shot I wouldn’t be able to remember which ones. I was right on both counts. Per my account, I read 66 books after he was born roughly halfway through the year (June 23). I had a hard time translating that to a goal for this year. I would like to read that much, but being back at work makes it hard. I do read three times a day when I pump, which adds up pretty fast, so when I stop pumping at work my reading time will go down even further. I have a feeling 100 books is going to be a stretch. Apparently I’m already 2 books behind (way to be encouraging, Goodreads).

It seems all the books I read now come from recommendations. When someone mentions they liked a book, I almost always add it to my library hold list. It’s great, but the books are often not the kind I’d usually pick out (also I'm having a terrible time keeping up with my holds!). While I enjoy them, I miss reading suspenses/mysteries. I just read The Snowman (which Holly recommended) and loved it. I finished it in two days. Two WORKDAYS. Do you have any mystery/suspense recommendations?

Friday, January 20, 2012

Not quite 7 quick takes

7 quick takes sm1 Your 7 Quick Takes Toolkit!

--- 1 ---
I reorganized my closet this past weekend and feel like I have a whole new wardrobe. A lot of stuff had been pushed to the side/back when I was pregnant and immediately postpartum. I also tried a new way to organize so it would take me less time to pick outfits. I’ve always arranged my closet by color, but this time I decided to separate work clothes, casual clothes, and layering pieces (cardigans, shirts I only wear under sweaters). Within those categories I separated clothes into no sleeve/short sleeve/long sleeve/sweater, then by color. It’s…detailed and I’m not sure how long it will last. For now, though, I love not having to wade through clothes that are too casual when I’m trying to find something to wear to work.

--- 2 ---
Remember my boots problem? I needed the next half-size up, but because DSW processes online exchanges as a return and then a new purchase, I thought it would cost $35 to change sizes. I finally got around to returning the too-small boots the physical store and it turns out it wouldn’t have been a problem. They gave me full price for the boots, so I was able to get the bigger size without it costing me anything. I am VERY impressed.

--- 3 ---
Meg has figured out how to turn on DVDs in our bedroom. If the DVD is in the player, all you have to do is hit play and the TV will come on or switch channels. I was watching the Golden Globes on Sunday, left the room for five minutes, and came back to Meg all snuggled in our bed watching Clifford. I was so impressed (and not very interested in the Golden Globes) I let her keep watching.

--- 4 ---
I went to Goodwill last week to look for belts (no luck) and discovered they had a whole bin of sunglasses. I got a new pair for $1.19! They’re not the nicest, but I lose sunglasses constantly and can never find ones I like anyway. I’m going to try to always leave them in my car so I have sunglasses when I’m driving.

---5---
Meg hates to leave Grandma’s house. When we went to pick her up on Monday, she tried to run away…and plowed right into a buffet. This is the first time she drew blood from a facial injury:( It was a pretty small cut so we didn't take her to the ER, but now I'm worried she might have a scar. Would it have been better to take her in for a stitch?

Monday, January 9, 2012

Miss M

Meg has taken to going into the bathroom, saying an empty powder foundation container is her “sour cream,” wiping it on her cheeks, then rubbing them with her toothbrush, saying she’s “getting all the hair off!”

She means shaving cream, but if I try to correct her she insists. “Its SOUR cream, mommy.”

Then she goes and sits on the couch and pumps breastmilk.

No props for this one, she just holds her hand up to her belly button as if she’s holding a flange and says “I’m makin’ milk!”

******************************************************************************
Last night I told Paul he had chipmunk cheeks. Meg said “Oh! Oh! I have chipmunk cheeks, too!”

“You do?”

“Yes! I’ll go get them!”

She ran off and came back with her Alvin and the Chipmunks happy meal toy.

“Look at his cheeks!!”

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

More than you ever wanted to know about pink eye

A couple of you commented on my last post saying you didn’t know pink eye could infect the ear as well. I’ve spent way too much time thinking about pink eye since.

It’s my understanding pink eye is a catch-all term for any illness that…makes the eye pink. It could be a virus or an infection, including an infection that also affects the ear. The first time I caught pink eye from Meg I didn’t have a doctor*, so I picked one out of the phone book, made an appointment, and told him I needed medicine for pink eye. He said, rather condescendingly, in adults it’s just called an eye infection and that it often clears up by itself. I was skeptical. I’d always thought pink eye was a bacterial infection that wouldn’t go away unless treated. But I also had an ear infection and a sinus infection, which he treated me for, so I figured it was the same either way.

Also, after I walked out I noticed he’d written conjunctivitis on my billing sheet and went ohhhhhh (doesn’t conjunctivitis sound way more specific than eye infection? It’s actually not, but it totally sounds like it.)

Of course, after thinking about it this weekend, I came up with a couple other theories – like maybe pink eye IS a specific bacterial infection and the term is overused. Maybe when people say pink eye is viral x% of the time, what it really means is x% of the time it’s not actually pink eye. Or maybe the opposite – perhaps pink eye is always viral (like a cold), so if you have an infection it’s just an infection, not pink eye.

After spending way too much time going over every time the kids or I have had pink eye and thinking about every possible scenario for what it actually is, I realized I could just look on WebMD. Duh. (You can tell I rarely play Dr. Google.) Turns out I was right to begin with. Pink eye/conjunctivitis just means your conjunctiva (membrane that lines the eyelid and eye surface) is swollen and red. It can be caused by a virus or bacteria, but also allergies or dry eyes. DRY EYES. No wonder I feel like I often get an internal eye-roll when I tell the pediatrician’s office one of the kids has pink eye.

Anyway, as far as the ear infection goes, in my kids it usually comes first (before the eye). They don’t catch pink eye, then have it spread to the ear. Usually, they get a cold, which causes fluid to become trapped in their ear (and/or sinuses), which then becomes infected, and then the infection travels to the eye. I got tripped up this time because when I took Meg in for the pink eye the doctor didn’t see an ear infection. I thought she’d picked up just the eye infection at daycare or the library play area. When Paul got it a few days later I thought he’d gotten it from her. They both had drippy noses, but when do they not? Of course, AFTER this whole thing, last night I read in a magazine that if a baby has a cold AND eye drainage, they almost always have an ear infection. GOOD TO KNOW.


*I’d moved 2 ½ years earlier and started going to the OB 1 year after that. Up until the pink eye, the OB had handled everything with no need for a GP.