The Sickies

Well, it's been a glamorous couple of days in the Russell household, let me tell ya. At one point Mark was getting pooped on and puked on at the same time. Early on in the making of this blog I vowed to never go into the intricacies of our kid's bodily functions so I won't discuss the shade of green it was... nor which of the two I'm referring to right now. Better him than me.

Our poor baby has RSV, a respiratory virus, and has been utterly miserable since Saturday. That's five days of having a fever, coughing, wheezing, being congested, and having a difficult time nursing; because as it turns out, when given the choice to eat or breathe, infants usually choose to breathe. Our poor Sickie hasn't been able to sleep anywhere but on me during the last couple of days (and nights). I'm literally sore from holding her, mostly due to the amount of hours I've logged sitting completely still in the same position on the coach as to not wake her.

It's the worst thing to see your baby sick and miserable and not being able to make her feel better. It's scary, stressful and emotionally draining when you don't know what's wrong or how serious it is. It certainly helps that Mark's an ER physician, and I'm so thankful for his knowledge, but he's been working nights which means he's gone at night (obviously) and getting much-needed sleep during the day. Plus it took getting a chest X-ray to know what was really going on in this case. We took her to the pediatrician yesterday at 9:30 a.m. and apparently it's going around because Ava's was the second case of RSV the doctor had seen already seen that day.

Thankfully, Ava was looking and feeling much better today but we still has a ways to go until we get our sweet, happy, healthy, baby back. I know I've said it before, but as sad and draining as these times of illness can be, I can't help but feel thankful that what we get to deal with is treatable and manageable and will only last a couple more days. I don't know how parents deal with watching their babies and children suffer life-threatening diseases. And hope and pray I never do.

Here's a video of our usually happy girl giving her Mama some courtesy laughs even though she feels like crap. The weird noises are me pretending to eat her fingers. It's kinda our thing.

Notice the chapped red cheeks, it's a rash that's part of the virus. Sad huh.

On a brighter note (for me anyways, not for the poor little girls) I'm watching Toddlers & Tiaras right now and feeling like a pretty damn good mom all of a sudden.

It's a Good Thing She's So Cute

I feel like Max in the show Parenthood. You know, the eight year old kid with Asperger's Syndrome who flips out and looses it whenever plans get tweaked in the slightest. Our only plans for the entire weekend were going to our friends' place to watch the Bronco's game. Ava's been super needy all day today, only taking naps if I'm holding her and switching from crying to whining and back if she's not being held. My only outing of the day was a thirty minute jog. I made an appetizer for this evening and then showered and got ready with her crying the entire time because they don't make waterproof Ergo's that can go in the shower.

We were supposed to be there two and a half hours ago and Mark's still at work. I finally gave up on going, realizing it wasn't going to happen, that the shower and done up hair and makeup; which are treasured occurences these days will go to waste, and decided to give Ava some Benedryl as she clearly wasn't feeling great. We've been dealing with some pretty serious eczema lately which is a whole other story. She proceeded to SPIT IT OUT ON ME. My face, my hair, my shirt, my jeans, all of them now have little pink sticky spots of cherry-flavored children's Benadryl on them. First I just froze. Sat there thinking really? REALLY? Then I picked her up and walked her straight to her crib, gave her a pacifier and blanket, turned the white sound on and walked out. I'd had it. She's now, wait for it... crying in her crib. Don't worry, I'll go get her in a second. I just need a second of my own or I'm going to loose it.

Whenever my mom says something completely ridiculous my dad just looks at her, smiles, and says; "It's a good thing you're so cute." I love it and I think the same thing about Ava on days like today when she's being a turkey.

Did I mention the Bronco's are getting whooped? Whooped, whooped. Score is 42 to 7 and getting uglier and uglier by the minute...

...and silence. Ahhhh, sometimes taking a moment pays off.

7 Month Stats

Ava is seven months old. I'm SO sad to say goodbye to six months. It's been the best so far. I've always loved six months in babyhood and Ava's six month was everything I expected it to be: giggly, active, cute, fun. My parent friends who are farther along on this journey than I am say that every stage is the best (well, maybe not two years old) and that it just gets better and better. I hope they're right and I have a feeling they are, but still, I wish I could just bottle up six months and let it out to play every once in awhile. Ava was ecstatic most of her sixth month. Smiling at the blinds, cracking up in her crib all by herself, pleasing strangers with her sweet smiles and waves as we walked down the street. Ah, six months, don't go.

There was something magical about the six month mark for me to. I started feeling like me again. Physically (did I mention that my jeans fit? Ahhhhh), mentally, emotionally. We're into a (fairly) predictable routine which helps with the sanity side of things. She's eating about every three hours now instead of hourly which means I can go out to lunch AND a get a pedicure with a girlfriend and not worry about coming home to a screaming starving baby. She's waking up twice a night still but just for about five minutes each time to eat and then goes right back down without a fight. It feels like everything has fallen into place, like we finally have an idea of what we're doing, like we've got this... which I realize is just asking for it to change up, but whatever. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Ava, at seven months you are...

• In 6-9 month clothes and still size 3 diapers
• Weigh 18 pounds
• Finally sitting. You crawled and pulled yourself up on things before you sat, which is totally backwards, dad calls it "the Russell way." Whatever that means ; )
• Crawling really fast
• Pulling yourself up on everything. You'll use anything to help you get to where you want, up. Even people. Kids, fellow babies, ponytails, pant legs, all of it is fair game in your eyes to help you pull yourself up. Kids think you're trying to give them a hug and get all excited and think it's so cute, but really you're just using them to get some leverage.
• Love tags. You find the tag on any toy and put it straight in your mouth. You'd rather suck on the tag than play with the toy. 
• Learning how to wave. It's so cute. It's delayed, usually long after someone's waved to you and sometimes it's just a sprawled out hand at your side, but we know what you're trying to do and it makes us smile. You're very calculated about it, moving your hand back and forth, slowly as your watch it intently.
• Celebrated your first Christmas! You sat through the whole church service in our arms and it was such a special time with you. You were in awe of the lights and the singing and the people. You were so well-behaved and daddy and I were so thankful to sit through a whole service together for the first time in seven months. Thank you Baby Girl. We had a great first Christmas as a little family of three!

7 Month Photo Shoot

 

Reliving My Childhood

They say one the best parts of parenthood is seeing the world through a child's eyes and sharing your own childhood favorites with your little one. These are the things I've been loving sharing with Ava lately.

Mary Rice Hopkins songs. I sang these songs from Forest Home Summer Camp all growing up. My mom bought all the cassette tapes every summer and we'd sing them all year long; in the car, in the shower, dancing around the house in our socks on the slippery wood floor. My mom knew all the words and hand motions that went along with them too, what a fun mom. One I want to be like. Now Ava and I have impromptu music times just about once a day. I blast these songs and we sing and dance around the house. Ava gets a huge smile on her face every time she can tell we're about to break into song. It's our own little episode of Glee. I can't carry a tune for the life of me but the best part is that it's just me and her and she couldn't care less... yet. Did I mention that the songs are all from 1991? Heavy on the Casio keyboard synthesizer jam sessions, just the way I like it.

P.S. This song, though extremely cheesy, now makes me cry every time I hear it. Ava just looks at me like, "What mom? I thought we were having fun..." when I go from dancing around to turning into a weepy mess the moment it comes on.

The Velveteen Rabbit. My Grandpa Power used to read this book to me when I was little and gave me the copy I now read to Ava. Even though it's long on words and short on colorful pictures for her, I'm loving sharing this classic story with my daughter. There are new memories that it conjures up now as well. This passage was read at Danielle & Gabe's beautiful wedding last summer,

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

What a beautiful description of love. This new mom can relate to drooping eyes and loose body parts and a feeling of general shabbiness. But with the love of a husband and baby like mine, it's true, it doesn't matter at all.

Swimming lessons. These are new, as in the last half an hour new. Ava had her first swimming lesson today and it was so fun to watch. She didn't love it but she didn't cry the whole time either. She's still getting used to being in the water, having it on her face, and the feeling of floating on her back. I think those twenty minutes wore her out. She nursed for a long time afterward and is now sleeping like a rock.

Sharing swimming with her is something we've very excited about. Both Mark and I are from water-loving families. I grew up spending my weekends at the beach and in the ocean in Ventura and he grew up spending his summers on the lake in Montana. Some of my favorite memories are of Power family boogie boarding sessions, playing "over or under" in the waves with my mom, and being pushed into waves on my surfboard by my dad. It's so cool to have your own family and conscioulsy decide what it will value together. Between swimming, surfing, wake boarding, kayaking, snorkeling, catching air on wave runners, speed boating, and taking the stand up paddle boards out from Grandma & Grandpa Power's dock, Ava is bound to be a water girl. Here's to many Russell family water adventures!

Ava with her swim teacher, Miss Sophia:

Little surfer girl in the making

Now I just need to get my hands on some Poky Little Puppy books and cassette tapes. This was my favorite book growing up. I must have listened to the cassettes and followed along in the book 3,149 times. I mentioned my desire to bring them back so Ava can experience them to my mom and she just rolled her eyes and mumbled that she didn't know if she could handle hearing them even once more. Ha!