White Christmas

We had a happy, successful trip to Ohio for Christmas! Lainey traveled well and was spoiled beyond belief! Even though I scolded their overindulgence, Uncle Chris and Uncle Sean get mega points for buying all soundless toys. (And it just so happens that the duplo Legos and animal pop-up are her favorites.) Grandpa didn't hold back either. He was shameless in showering his little granddaughter with gifts. Our apartment currently looks like a ravaged Toys R Us.

Elaine had a blast leading her Uncle Chris all around the house and having him do her bidding. "Sit down. Walk. Up." And I enjoyed sitting on my rear and letting him do the heavy lifting with her (thanks again, Chris!).

Of course Grandpa got his fair share of being bossed around with some cuddling in between. Although I don't think he ever managed to get that kiss. Elaine is a real Scrooge with her kisses lately.

A big snow storm hit Ohio on Wednesday and while it made our travel back to Chicago a little harrowing the first few hours, it also gave us a chance to get Lainey out into the white stuff for some play. I was very happy, because my gift to Mark was a sled for Lainey. It may seem strange to most to give him a gift for her, but he'd been talking non-stop about playing in the snow with her. He loved it! As suspected, we probably spent an equal amount of time dressing Lainey for the outdoors as we spent at play, but it was worth it. She was adorable in her little snow pants.

The real gift Mark and I gave each other was sending Lainey to daycare on Thursday even though we didn't go to work. We love our little peanut to pieces, but it was nice having time to ourselves. It was our first full day alone in exactly 18 months. We didn't have any great adventures--just went back to sleep after dropping Lainey off, had a nice lunch, and then watched a movie on the couch. It was awesome!

So onward and upward to 2013! I just know our luck is going to take a change for the better. Lainey will return to sleeping, we'll find the perfect house, and best of all, we'll welcome Baby Brandi #2!!!

Kisses from Uncle Chris

Lainey loved her rocking horse from Santa!

 

Sitting pretty

Checking out the tree with Grandpa

So much snow!

Yummy! (We're teaching her to avoid the yellow stuff!)

Happy family! Merry Christmas!

Lainey won...

At 5:40 a.m., I caved and brought Lainey into the guest bed with me. After two more battles at 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. (mercifully much shorter than the big round), I just didn't have it in me any more when she started screaming again. I got 30 minutes of restful sleep before we had to rise and shine. Maybe tonight will be better...

WARNING: Carbon Monoxide

I had planned to post a happy retelling of Christmas in Ohio tonight, but a run in with a gas issue with our stove and then a computer that didn't want to connect to the Internet derailed my plans.

Around 7:00 p.m.the carbon monoxide monitor went off in Lainey's room. There's no gas source in there, so we assumed it was just an issue with the detector. Mark took it down and stuck the one from the guest room in her room. About 10 minutes later, it went off. And kept going off. Long story short, after a visit from the fire department and gas company, it was determined there's a blockage on our broiler, which I'd used to make dinner. We were never in real danger. Per the fire department team the carbon monoxide levels weren't high enough to make us sick. Our landlord is supposedly getting it fixed tomorrow (we'll see about that). He was actually a pretty big jerk about it and got mad that we called 311 to talk to the fire department. He said we should have called him first to let him investigate. Ummm...no. I'm not messing around with something like this. And unless he has a CO reader and expertise, I'm not trusting his opinion.

At the moment, it's 2:07 a.m. and I'm about an hour and 55 minutes into trying the extinction method to get Lainey sleeping at night again. This is not fun, but we're out of options. It's been over 5 weeks since she slept through the night. She had a three week bought with various illnesses that just completely destroyed her sleep routine. After getting used to us cuddling and rocking to comfort her during all the sickies, she didn't want to go back to the old ways. We had her to the point where she would sleep in her crib (as opposed to our bed) as long as Mark or I slept on the floor next to her. Not really a sustainable situation. So, with music playing in my ears and blogging on my phone, I'm desperately trying to distract myself from the shrill screams of "Mommy" coming from my sweet girl. Sorry, honey, this is for your own good, too.

Anyway, I promise to get around to posting Christmas pictures and details from our Ohio trip (which, glory of glory, did not involve a trip to urgent care for a sick Lainey). But, maybe not tomorrow...I think I'll be kind of tired...

Merry Christmas!

"Don we now our gay apparel"...or not.

Merry Christmas from Mark, Kylie, and Lainey

Consider this your Christmas card from the Brandi household. I sat down to begin the design and ordering process of holiday cards about two weeks ago at 9:00 p.m. (because when else would I do it). As I started sifting through designs and photos, I got crankier and crankier and thought, "why am I forcing myself to do this?" The spirit just wasn't there. So, I flipped over to Toys for Tots and donated the money I would have spent on the cards. Then I got a bowl of ice cream and watched 30 Rock, before stumbling off to bed.

I feel a little bit like a loser for not sucking it up and getting the cards ordered and out (especially when we received a beautifully designed card from our friends, the Mackies, who have a brand spankin' new baby boy and a 2 1/2-year-old to chase after). But, I just decided to be selfish on this one. Merry Christmas to me--the gift of time to just veg out. Maybe I'll do Valentine's Day cards...but, don't hold your breath.

Happy Holidays to all our friends and family! You are much loved and thought of every day!

The Fun Doesn't Stop

Well, now I've had my experience at Northwestern Prentice's triage. Because I was induced with Lainey, we went straight to the birthing room (and after hearing all those women last night, I'm leaning towards another induction).

I was having a different kinda' party last night battling a nasty case of the flu. I honestly had no idea how dangerous the flu is for the pregnant set and almost didn't call the doctor. Luckily, as I started feeling increasingly worse yesterday, I finally checked my "when to call" list. Hmmm...all my symptoms were on the list. So, they sent me in and I hit the hospital around 7:30pm. I sent Mark home with Lainey, because "this could take at least an hour or two." Famous last words...11 hours later I called Mark to say I was in a cab coming home.

I started quickly spiraling down at the hospital with fever climbing up. Even though I was shaking with the chills, the nurse stripped me of my coat, blanket, and even my socks to get my temp down and get the baby's heart rate to slow (must not have been too comfy in my tummy for the little one). About an hour later, the doctor came in a gave me some heated blankets--I could have kissed her! Total heaven. But, heaven was brief, because I started having contractions. In went an IV. After a few more tests (EKG and chest x-ray) I was finally left to rest at about 3am and discharged at 6:45am. My nurse and the on-call doctor were awesome. And by 1am, I was the only patient, so I got extra attention.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, poor Mark was battling Elaine through another rocky night of sleep (no need for further explanation. If you read this blog, you already know--our kid doesn't sleep) and looking up flu and pneumonia in pregnancy and freaking himself out. I think he ended up with less sleep than me.

So, our weekend is effectively shot, while I try to get back on my feet. Errands postponed, plans canceled (sorry, O'Grady's), and our place looks like we've been robbed, because we're just letting Elaine run wild.

Just another day in the life. I do think at this point we're owed an illness-free Christmas. Santa, are you listening?

What a week...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before I get into this past week's events, let me start by saying we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was awesome. We drove to Moline Tuesday afternoon, Elaine sleeping peacefully for the entire three hour drive. Fully recovered from her ear infection, she slept soundly through two nights and napped long both Wednesday and Thursday (as did I). The picture above shows our happy, healthy, and rested little family right before we headed to Mark's sister's house to enjoy our delicious Thanksgiving dinner (that I didn't lift a finger to prepare). It was the most relaxed and rested I have been since before Elaine was born. It was bliss.

And as I'm thanking Lonnie and Rebecca for their hard work on the meal and reveling in my state of rest, Mark comes into the kitchen with Lainey and says, "I think she feels warm."  She did feel warm. But, she'd been running around with her cousins and was cutting a molar. Surely, if she did have a mild fever it was just the tooth. Right?

Fast forward to 1:00 AM and an unhappy little girl with a temperature of 101.5 degrees that would continue to climb over the course of the day. Once again, we made a holiday trip to the urgent care center to get her checked out and see if maybe another ear infection has cropped up. The doctor looked at her ears first and said they looked fine. They took strep and flu cultures--both came back negative. I'm thinking, okay, so she has a virus. But, the doctor second-guessed himself and decided to diagnose antibiotics just in case it was her ears. Against my mother's instinct, we went ahead and filled the prescription and started her on the meds. By Sunday morning, when she still had a fever over 102 degrees, we decided to take her to her regular pediatrician who confirmed her ears were fine and she just had a virus. She had us stopped the antibiotics and said these things usually clear in 72 hours (which the fever did almost to the hour).

But, we still had a problem. Lainey couldn't go to daycare until she was fever free for 24 hours. Neither Mark nor I could possibly miss work on Monday. Now on my third day averaging about 4 hours of sleep, I had spent much of the morning crying and stressing over how to get in touch with an emergency nanny, knowing the service provided through our daycare didn't take calls until 9am Monday morning (and also knowing the last time we used this service, we were very unhappy with the woman they sent). Finally, through my sniffles, I asked Mark, "do you think your mom could come for a few days or is that stupid?"  It was not stupid. And, Lonnie, my wonderful mother-in-law got in her car that Sunday afternoon and drove the three hours to Chicago to be our savior. And acted as if we were doing her a favor. Knowing we had Lonnie around to care for Lainey allowed me to unclench a bit and enjoy the four hours of sleep she let me get that night. Lainey had a fun Monday playing with Grandma, and Mark and I went to work without feeling guilty about leaving our sick daughter with a stranger. Thanks again, Lonnie! It really meant the world to us!

So, with our little peewee feeling all better, you'd think she'd hop back on that sleep wagon. Alas, not so much. It has been a very, very long week. Maybe she's just trying to keep me primed for when the new little one arrives. We were all geared up to do a little "crying it out" again tonight (we have to do this after most of her ear infections to get her back on track), until...

...Lainey and I got home and couldn't get into our apartment because the lock was broken. I'm not going to get into the whole background on this situation, but when our landlord still didn't have the door open for us at 6:30pm, I sent a text to Mark at work and told him to take a cab home, because we needed to get Lainey somewhere for dinner. Mark finally arrived at 7:00pm (no cabs to be found downtown) and we rushed off to a nearby restaurant. By the time we had our food it was 7:30pm--Lainey usually eats at 6:00pm and goes to bed by 7:30pm, so I'll let you imagine her temperament at this point. But, I have to hand it to her, she behaved pretty well considering. I don't think I've ever seen her eat so fast in my life though--and my girl knows how to put down her food. She's sleeping peacefully now, and I'm hoping it lasts through the night. But, if not? I'm not letting her "cry it out." She can come sleep in the bed with Mommy and Daddy again tonight. She deserves some extra cuddles.

I'm hoping the weekend looks up from here (even though both Mark and I brought home bags full of work for the weekend, and we have a very long personal "to do" list to accomplish). But, it IS the holiday season, so I'm going to try to keep the bah-humbugs away and put the "want to dos" ahead of my "have to dos." Looks like that laundry may not get folded again this week...

Dude Looks Like a Lady

For some unknown reason, Lainey has started calling Mark "mommy." I'm still "mommy," and if you ask her "where's daddy?," she looks for Mark. So, she knows the difference. But, no matter how many times we correct her, and much to Mark's chagrin, she continues to greet him with an enthusiastic "MOMMY!". We'll see how long this lasts...

Here's a picture of our girl and her mommy getting in some story time...