Through the woods?

Fay seems to be on the mend. There has been no throw up for 48 hours. Although she is still sick on the back end. She doesn't want to eat much. So far the only foods acceptable to Fay have been blueberries, pears, applesauce and a few crackers. She really wants milk which I'm trying to limit because it is supposed to be bad for the diarrhea.

Her spirits are pretty well though. She is more tired than normal, but I'm trying to get her back into her regular routine. Yesterday we went to her music class which she enjoyed somewhat.

One silver lining -- I've had to do a lot less cooking for Fay over the past couple days.

still sick

Well, of course 24 hours have not even passed since the first vomit, so I probably should have expected some more. Fay threw up again this morning. She woke up at 4am, ravenous -- so I gave her some milk and put her back to bed. The crib was clean when she woke up at 7am and had some more milk. She promptly vomited by 7:30am and had her first of perhaps many baths today. This time she was pretty content to be in the bath.

I decided to stay away from milk because its probably hard to digest and it stinks something awful when it comes up. So when she was begging for more food and milk, I gave her some toast with peanut butter and some water. That was at 8am. So far so good. She went down for a nap at 9am and all seems well.

UPDATE:

Its 12:30 and no more throw up so far. The toast stayed down, along with some banana and applesauce. She cries for milk but will finally take water after some protesting. I've mixed up a rehydration solution for when she wakes up from her current nap. 4 cups water, 8 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt. I read that this solution combined with some potassium (banana) is good to use if you don't have a store bought rehydration solution.

UPDATE:

Nap number three started at 3pm. Still no throw up since 7:30 this morning! She's not really interested in eating anymore, which I was expecting. But she did manage to finish a single size applesauce. Which makes me happy because she is refusing to drink water! I had to force feed her a little before her nap started. That was fun. Almost as fun as taking the butt temp with her crying over my knee. She has a temp of 100.3

UPDATE:
Yay! No more throw up. She has mostly been eating blueberries and pears all afternoon. Which again was great because the pears were really juicy. Finally around 5pm I gave her a little milk even though all the advice for vomiting/diarrhea say not to. I limited it and watched her for an hour, and she was fine. Guess I made the right mommy decision for Fay because she seemed to have better energy and was in great spirits. She could barely keep her eyes open past 6:30, so she is now slumbering. Hopefully tomorrow will be another day.

silkwood baby

No photos on this post since the tale it tells involves much vomit.....

Fay is sick. And mommy is very tired of cleaning up smelly, disgusting clothing and blankets. yuck.

It all seemed a bit sudden. Fay did have a little runny nose yesterday, but it turned into something else today. This morning she was playing fine and eating fine. She had a hearty lunch of mac/cheese/peas. She went down for her afternoon nap really easily. Then after about 2 hours of napping, I thought I'd check on her because it had been quite a long nap. At the same moment that I thought of checking on her I noticed this awful vomit smell consuming the apartment. I opened her door and the smell was stronger. Then I saw my baby girl lying in a large pool of curdled milk, cheese and peas. There was a lot of it. Pretty disgusting.

She was still sleeping fairly blissfully. So I removed her blanket from her grasp and washed it in the tub. By the time I was done, she was rustling awake. But she wasn't cranky or bothered by the stinky, stinky state of her crib.

I sprang into action....picked her up and rushed her to the bathroom where I immediately removed all her dirty clothes and tried to get the milk out of her hair. But the milk was too strong for me and a puny washcloth so I had to run a bath for Fay. And this is where Silkwood comes in. Poor little Fay started crying and shaking her head "no". She didn't want a bath. If I had to guess, she probably wanted to be hugged and gently walked out to the living room for her after nap snack. But no, she was sitting in water being scrubbed by her mom. I was completely reminded of the scene in Silkwood where Cher is being scrubbed for radiation in a shower with uber-hot water.

And the fun didn't stop there. After bathing Fay and putting on fresh clothes (both of us). I brought Fay and her washed, wet blanky down the the laundry room so we could dry the blanket. Oh, AND, I gave Fay a healthy dose of milk before heading down to the laundry room (oops).

Fay lost her milk all over the laundry room floor. After creating quite a mess, I rushed her over to the laundry tub/sink and desperately asked this old woman to move aside and let me use the sink because my baby was vomiting. She either didn't hear well, or couldn't understand me because she mentioned something about hurrying up and just continued to tidy up the lid of her liquid laundry detergent! Finally, I got to the tub, and washed Fay down a bit.

She up-chucked two more times before finally heading to bed. She tossed it on her blanky again, so I had to run that through the laundry again. And we attempted to put Fay to sleep with an imposter blanky, but she was not happy with that. She just sat and cried in her crib (so SAD!). Finally, her blanket was dry and I brought it in to her. She immediately snuggled into it and fell asleep. Ahhh, finally some much deserved rest.

ok, how cute is she?

How cute is she in her little boots and tights? We had a balmy 44 degree day on Friday so we went to a nearby park to frolic. Fay "walked" around and was intrigued by the snow on the ground under her feet. She also let out some blood chilling screams of excitement at two separate flocks of birds. Birds are so exciting.

music class and snowday

Well I've been having so much fun with Fay lately that I haven't put in any time posting to the blog! We signed up for a music class during winter which occurs once a week and has proven to be really fun. A couple of mom friends of mine that live in the area are putting it on. One of them has been teaching toddler music classes professionally but wants to break out on her own.

We play with instruments, and dance around and sing songs. Fay seems to be enjoying it. I can't wait for her to walk a little more so she can really get her groove on.

We've had major progress in the walking area. I've been offering my hand a little less and I've been setting Fay on her feet and then walking away. And she is taking about 5-6 steps on her own before falling down or gracefully descending to the ground. She has also chosen to take steps from a table supported stand to something else...like a couch or a mommy. So she is well on her way.

I can't wait to start dressing her in dresses more often. I've put her in pants mostly because its hard to crawl in a dress. Today I put her in the shortest dress possible. Her tushy was hanging out (luckily it was covered by a diaper and onsie). But she could crawl and the tights were adorable.

Last weekend we had a beautiful snow day and decided to take a little trip to central park. Kids were sledding and making snowmen all over the place. We visited the skating pond and all our favorite sights. Fay mostly liked the squirrels. Ryan fed a squirrel a Ritz cracker right from his hand. As we walked away, Fay screamed for more! She wanted to go back and feed the squirrel some more. She LUVED that squirrel.

How Fay must torment her babysitters

Our Friday night babysitter put in her notice last week. That's babysitter number two that's left little Fay. I wonder if Fay is somehow tormenting her babysitters while Ryan and I are out on the town. She is a perfect angel for us. Well that's not the complete truth; her horns come out when she finds a vegetable where she was expecting a cracker. And we've recently gotten over the hump of wanting the blanky with her EVERYWHERE. A new off-limits list has been started....

1) No blanky on the changing table!
2) No blanky at the high chair.

...more to be added.

Babysitting interviewing is well under way. Its a lot easier to interview for Friday night babysitters than for full time nannies. Not only is the job easier, but the post brings in a wider pool of candidates because you have students and professionals that want a little extra cash in their pocket and might want a quite night in to read or study. I'm actually confronted with the opposite problem than I've had in the past. I have two girls that I really like and I'm trying to decide how to pick between them -- looking for faults that are not immediately evident! Maybe they'd like a job-share.

still no walkie, still no talkie

Hmm, I'm a little lacking in milestones lately. Maybe its because I feel like I've been saying "she'll be walking any day now" for about 4 months. Maybe its because the 14th month bday has passed, and Fay's walking skills have not changed. I shouldn't say skills...she continues to get more stable and capable, but she simply refuses to let go of mommy's hand. When I let go of her hand mid-stride, she gently descends to her hands and knees to continue on her way. Well, and, sometimes she screams at me to let me know her displeasure at the situation. But I think mommy may have to start being almost as stubborn as her little one year old. I'm going to have to make the walking hand less available. I remember when we went from two hands to one, Fay had the same apprehension, but it only took a handful of days. I don't know if I can go cold turkey, but I'm going to make strides to restrict Fay's dependence on my hand. Perhaps I'll regret this once she is off and running and doesn't need me quite as much anymore.

Oh, and to be fair to the blog post title, Fay's word count is still at one. She says 'da-da'. She sometimes says it for more than daddy. But mostly it means daddy. :)

Jamaica!

We have just returned from our Jamaica xmas vacation. We left on xmas day and returned on new years day. I have to say it is one of the best vacations I have ever taken. I think Ryan and Fay would say the same.

We went to an all inclusive resort in Jamaica about 1.5 hours from Montego Bay airport. The resort is called FDR and as I mentioned in the previous post, the cost of the hotel room includes all the food and booze you can consume as well as your personal vacation nanny.

The resort far exceeded our expectations. They really know how to run resort focused on family enjoyment. I felt there was equal attention paid towards ensuring that the parents, teens, little kids and babies all had fun. For the kids, it was like a camp -- there are young staff that bring the kids on excursions like horse back riding or biking or snorkeling. There is a playroom, playground and beach area dedicated to the little kids and babies. There's even a disco for the teenagers to enjoy late at night.



Each day, Fay's nanny would show up around 9:15 and encourage Ryan and me to go off and have fun. Ryan and I mostly sat by the pool or swam in the ocean. We also went for a run on the beach together and took a brief "bike-tour" around the neighborhood. We would pop in and visit Fay with her nanny, and take her during the one hour lunch break. Also we took her on the glass bottom boat and in a soft kayak, which she LOVED!



I had so much time to relax, that by day 3 I had finished the ONE book I brought to read and had to scrounge around and borrow another book to last for the rest of the trip.


The resort had fantastic rooms and a great layout for the grounds. Every room was a suite of rooms. Ours was a one bedroom suite consisting of a master bedroom, bath, kitchen and living room that could sleep three kids. The two bedroom suites were divided into two floors for an even better layout. And all the rooms had balconies. Ours directly overlooked the beach and ocean. On the one day that it rained in the morning I was perfectly content with the prospect of reading on my balcony all day.

The resort had 3 restaurants to choose from: the main restaurant which served much of the food buffet style, an Italian restaurant and a Jamaican restaurant. Also there was a "grill" that served hamburgers and phillies all day long and a kids section that served kiddie food (pasta, pb&j, pizza, chicken, etc...). And of course the bar was open all day long.

They also provided free glass-bottom boat rides, snorkeling trips, bike tours, lead running/jogging trip and I'm sure a lot more. There was always this feeling of excitemetn by the pool as someone was always leading some sort of event such as bingo, swim aerobics, Jamaican trivia...whatnot.

Fay's favorite part of the trip was going down the Big Blue slide with Daddy and Mommy. She loved the sliding part, but wasn't so keen on the splashing part at the end.



It was really easy to meet people because everyone seemed to be in the same stage of life -- surviving and enjoying raising kids. During the day you could chit-chat by the pool with a couple and then see them later at the kiddie buffet with their kids, attempting to get the kid to just stay in the high-chair for once. We met a ton of folks from the NY and NJ area. I'm not sure why.

And it seems lot of people made little couple dates for dinner to socialize more. We never did this, but would do it if we thought ahead enough to plan it. Also there were a lot of returning guests who maintained friendships with other families from year to year. Many people we met had been coming to FDR for 10-15 yrs. We were the "newbies".



I can't say enough good things about the place. I would definitely go back. It would be really fun to bring my family down there. I know my sister and her girls would LOVE it. I overheard a family saying their kids like FDR better than Disney. :)

Go to the Flickr set to see all the photos: Jamaica Photo Set
Happy New Year!