What a Week,..... Is it Over Yet?

Well, Olivia is officially better. I think. I can't remember exactly where I left off before, but diarreha (there's that word again) continued through Wednesday (are you kidding me). Just when I thought all was well, she would have another blowout. We ended up switching to soy formula for a while and ate nothing but apples, bananas and rice cereal. Then lucky me, Chuck became sick by Tuesday morning with the same thing. Let me just say that between Olivia's poop and Chuck's vomit, our house smelled marvelous. Things were looking bleak for our Thanksgiving plans, as we weren't sure if traveling was a good idea for anyone at that point. However, we were able to make it to the farm after all without any major catastrophies. Luckily, by the grace of God, I came down with nothing. Of course, once Olivia stopped having diarrhea, she went polar opposite. UGH. There is no happy medium with that kid. However, I know how to deal with constipation. That was our life for months. So of course, I loaded her up on prunes, prune jusice, apricots etc. and ended up with a HUGE mess this morning. Why do I make so much work for myself?

We spent Thanksgiving at Chuck's parents house. I would like to say that it was relaxing, but it really wasn't as Olivia will no longer allow me to leave her side without having a huge outburst and repeatedly saying "mama ma". I believe this is all due to our "bonding" this past week while she was sick. Olivia also decided that sleep for her parents was overrated and they needed to either stay up all night while she slept on one of them or, they could attempt to fall asleep sitting up in the recliner listening to little Raleigh make atroscious sounds in his sleep while she slept soundly in one of their arms. Apparently sleeping in the pack-n-play is no longer cool and something Olivia wants nothing to do with. Nice. Thankfully when we returned home, things were back to normal and Olivia slept through the night in her bed and had no problems with her naps.

In the span of one day, Olivia has changed tremendously. The minute we stepped foot in our house yesterday Olivia was all over the place and into everything. Yes, I know this was the case before yesterday, but it has increased ten fold. Within the span of about 1 minute this morning I dug out a piece of a plastic bag, a string and foam (foam?!) from her mouth. Olivia has also begun talking a lot more. Now when I ask her to say mama she says it. She also says dada when asked and she says ba for puppy or KB. We now have what I call "laugh time" right after our bedtime bottle and before bed each night. For about 20 minutes Olivia sits on my lap and we play and just laugh. It is the perfect way to end my day.

Chuck just informed me that I talk a lot about poop in my blogs. Oh well.

Puke and Poopy Pants (for real)

Olivia has officially had her first stomach virus. Oh, wait, not had, HAS, as she still has it. Chuck woke me up from a sound slumber close to 12:00 Friday night. He needed some help, as he said that Olivia had gotten sick. I was not prepared for the regurgitated smell of vegetable beef baby food that was literally covering Olivia's entire mattress. When I say covering, I mean covering, everywhere. Olivia was also covered, head to toe, in her puke. Nice. We quickly got into the bath, changed, and went back to bed only to have Olivia vomit the rest of the contents of her stomach within about 2 minutes of laying down. Needless to say, I remained up with Olivia on my lap sleeping. I tried to put her down twice more, but both times she vomited and began gagging the second her head hit the mattress. She did finally lay down around 4:45, but was up for the day by 6:00 a.m.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. Chuck gave Olivia her bottle (not a good idea) which she promptly vomited everywhere. She also had a low grade temp of 100. Later that morning we ended up going to the doctor, who prescribed Pedialyte and then told me what to do once she was able to keep the Pedialyte down. Luckily, Olivia was able to keep all of her Pedialyte down the rest of the morning and all afternoon. She was able to eat some applesauce for dinner and even had a Pedialyte/formula cocktail at bed. However, by 6:00 p.m. we were dealing with full fledged diarrhea. Even nicer.

Fast forward again, to Sunday morning. Olivia slept through the night, but when she woke at 5:45 a.m. she had horendous diarrhea. By 11:00 a.m. we had gone through 4 sleepers and had already taken 2 baths. Olivia was still able to keep her cereal and applesauce down, as well as her Pedialyte/formula cocktail. Because she had diarrhea so bad, I wanted to continue with the Pedialyte, which she then refused to take. Grr. Her diarrhea (let's see how many times I can add that word to my blog) continued throughout the day, but the vomitting had stopped. So we thought. After eating some bananas for dinner (the doctor said it was ok) and having another poopy diaper, Olivia decided to spice things up and puked up her entire stomach. On to sleeper #5. Olivia also developed another low grade temp off 100 and continued to poop.

Fast forward to right now. Olivia is currently sleeping, probably with poopy pants by now and I fully anticipate a blowout that requires a bath in the morning. The good news to all of this. Olivia is honestly in a wonderful mood, laughing and smiling. Though she spends most of her time on my lap sleeping and cuddling. The other piece of good news, all of this, and I wouldn't trade motherhood for anything.

For those of you who don't know, I have been calling Olivia "poopy" or "poopy pants" for the past few months for some odd reason. I guess the name is fitting now!

Diarrhea (I just wanted to say it one more time).

I have found that it is much more difficult to keep the blog updated now that I am back at work. I also know that I am falling behind when Kim gives me a hard time about there being no new updates and she sees Olivia 5 days out of the week!

So, what's new?

While Olivia has been waving for quite some time now, she currently waves at EVREYBODY! There is not a person Olivia will not wave at. She waves at the check-out clerks at the grocery store. She waves at multiple servers at restaurants. She waves at random people at the mall. She waves at the neighbors. She even waves at KB.

Olivia also likes to make clicking/clucking noises with her tongue and mouth and can turn her tongue sideways in her mouth, which she does often. Olivia also gives kisses (even to the dog). This requires her to lean forward, open her mouth and stick her tongue out when her mouth reaches yours. Nice.

Livy currently enjoys playing with objects that are not "toys". Such items are the remote control, the phone, my cell phone, plastic hangers, her sippy cup, the plastic egg shaped container to her finger tooth brush (oops, I need to remember to use that more often) and KB's stuffed lobster Linny. Which by the way KB will retrieve for her and lay at her side every stinkin' time I take it away from her. The other day I took it away from her 4 times and each time KB would wait a few minutes, go get it and give it Olivia. I think that is his way to spend time with me by distracting Olivia. He is a smart dog. Dodo, but smart. I think the one thing that Olivia enjoys playing with the most is her socks. I can not keep the darn thing on her feet. This afternoon she pulled one off and shoved it in her mouth, which is where it stayed for the next 10-15 minutes (see pictures below).

Olivia has begun eating Stage 3 baby food and does get "people" food from time to time. Unfortunately, Olivia is much like her mother (poor girl) and the consistancy of some foods bother her. The child gagged on mashed potatoes. Who the heck gags on mashed potatoes? I started giving her chicken and noodle baby food, which has pieces of noodles and chuncks of carrots. It only took 4 days, but she no longer gags. Tonight she even had spaghetti and meat sauce baby food (who the heck thinks that these things would be a good idea to make into baby food when they are coming up with baby food flavors) and actually really liked it with no gagging. Soon to come is vegetable beef, broccoli carrot and cheese and lasagna. Mmm . . . . . . . . .

I have a couple of videos to share, but they aren't downloading at the moment. I will add them as soon as I can (that may be another 2 weeks in my world).

Happy Halloween?

I think I was more excited for Halloween than Olivia was (duh). The child would NOT smile the entire time she was in her costume. She did make some fishy lips, but other than that there was absolutely no affect what so ever. However, once I took the darn thing off she gave me a big smile and said "mama". Olivia visited Grandma and Grandpa Mackin, Grandma Linda and Grandpa Dale (my parents good friends who live across the street from them) and Aunt Patty and Uncle Bruce. She also wore her costume to Kim's house that morning.

Olivia has been having some issues with sleeping, oh wait, lack of sleeping lately. I tried getting rid of her 3rd nap of the day, as it was occuring so late and she was not waking up until 7:00 from her nap and then going to bed for the night after 9:00. Well, I successfully got rid of the nap, but it messed EVERYTHING up and we were up at all hours of the night, as it seems that Olivia was thinking that was her 3rd nap and then was up and ready to play for a while. Needless to say, I gave the 3rd nap back, tweaked it a bit and we are doing much better. However, stupid day light savings time screwed it all up today. UGH!


Tooth #4 came last weekend and #5 is ready to bust through. I hate teeth. Hoenstly, they are so overrated......

Here are a couple pictures of KB. The poor dog is tortured, lovingly tortured, but tortured none the less by Olivia on a daily basis and then Chuck had to go and decorate him with Olivia's linky loos. He is a trooper. (Notice Olivia in the background watching).


Poor KB is also going through a bit of anxiety. Ever since we had the car accident (remember KB was with us) he has had HUGE issues with riding in the car. This makes me so sad, as KB used to LOVE riding in the car. Now he has so much anxiety that he literally pants the entire ride to wherever we are going. Unfortunately, two weekends ago that was a 3 hour trip to Dubuque and then a 3 hour trip home. He panted so hard that I thought his poor heart was going to jump out of his chest. It has also gotten so bad that when we go to my parents every Sunday he will now refuse to get in the car to return home. He is fine getting in to leave, but then pants all the way over, but when we leave my parents later in the day/evening he absolutely

refuses to get in the car. In fact, tonight he wouldn't even leave their living room. Poor puppy. That makes me so sad. With that said, KB is fine as long as he is not in a car. He is wonderful with Olivia and takes a lot of CRAP!