Matilda has been sick with her first New England Cold since she was 6 months old!
On August 1st I thought Matilda was teething what with the cranky and drooling and general discontent. As we all know, I was wrong. It was not a tooth pushing up but a head cold with two ear infections, one vomiting incident, two fevers, three trips to the pediatrician, one trip to the ER, a drool rash and two scripts for antibiotics. Also, Benadryl, a dreaded loathing of the bulb syringe and many many kleenex.
This poor kid has been through the ringer but babies, they are strong-willed and not prone to complaining (like their parents). She can hardly breathe but that's not stopping her. Oh no. She's crawling
and pulling up to stand around
and learning about "no."
She's basically Go Go Go these days, runny nose and ear infections be damned. She claps her hands and blows raspberries and has elaborate conversations with her wash cloths. She's also 100% mobile so this past weekend we began baby-proofing the house. We started with the gates. One trip to the local baby-centric store and we'd purchased not only the gate we needed and the extension for the gate we already had, but we'd spent $100 on bright molded plastic things that make noise and music sounds and light up like Christmas hams. No wait, Christmas trees. (Two and a half months till Christmas! Bright lights, shiny ornaments! Presents! Wrapping paper and pumkpin pie! After Christmas ornament sales! ...Oh right, sorry.)
She's partial to plastic balls and wooden blocks as both are good for banging. As far as her new table is concerned, (see above) her favorite is the banjo -- she dances along. She pulls herself up on us but doesn't want to be held. We pick her up, she jabs a fist at our neck or a fingernail inside our lip and scissors her legs off our hips. *DOWN*
The head cold has put a damper on her appetite but last night I managed to get her to eat some corn. BY HERSELF, thanks very much. Spoon-feeding is for sissies. When I took her upstairs for her bath, we left a trail of corn niblettes that Hansel would have been jealous of. I took off her shirt and corn fell out like rain. Off came the pants and corn skipped out across the floor all neener-neener you-can't-catch-me. Removed the diaper and yes, CORN. That had not seen the insides of her body. Corn corn everywhere. Dropping to the carpet and getting stuck in her hair and in the corner of her eye and the bottom of my foot.
Later, when she was asleep, I found corn in the bathtub and the hallway and on the kitchen island. It was under the padded seat on her high chair and stuck to the glass doors of the wine glass cabinet. The corn, it moves almost as much as she does.
