Bottles and pigtails

After the past two weeks, I feel like we have survived a hurricane! I realize that is so overly dramatic, but seriously, having a sick 1 year old is really, really hard. Last year I was over-the-top with my germ prevention; we had a sign on our door requesting no sick visitors, and our entry way was stocked with face masks and hand sanitizer if you made it in :) As I am writing this, I realize I was sort of like the gate keeper from the Wizard of Oz.

 

Little did I know that keeping a tiny, non-mobile, baby healthy is so much easier than keeping a toddler healthy. Everything goes in her mouth. She crawls around and then sticks her hands in her mouth, and she and her friends share toys, drool, and snacks. I try and wipe her hands with wet ones as much as possible but there is only so much you can do. So this year has been the year of coughs, colds, and viruses. We had a second follow up with Gabriella's pediatrician yesterday and they are really happy with how her lungs sound and how she is doing overall. She is eating again, playing again, and pretty much back to herself. Yesterday she went on strike for half the day, refusing to have anything to drink, but we were reassured at her appointment that is totally normal for toddlers to do, especially after getting over respiratory viruses, and as long as she was still eating and still having wet diapers, not to worry. And sure enough, by the evening she was happily drinking water. At the recommendation of our pediatrician though, we decided to try and take advantage of her little protest, and of the fact that we haven't given her milk for a few days to let her stomach settle down, and start her with milk again but only in a sippy cup. I wasn't sure how well it would work because this girl LOVES her morning bottle of milk, but to my surprise, she was so happy to have some milk again this morning, she didn't even care that it wasn't in a bottle! So we ripped the bandaid right off and put the bottles away. It may seem like a little, silly thing, but having her drink milk from a cup, twice today, is huge over here :) I feel so accomplished (how things change haha :))

Bye, bye bottles!

 In other big news around here, Gabriella finally has enough hair for two little pigtails! Bear with me on what we classify as big news, it's been a longggg couple of weeks :) She keeps them in for about 20 minutes max, but that's long enough for me to take a few cute pictures. 

We stayed in and had a quiet and relaxing Valentine's Day. We had waffles for breakfast and Gianni cooked dinner for us on Sunday night. Gabriella was acting fussy most of the day; she was starting to feel better but still not 100%, so I dressed her up in her Valentine's Day dress because let's be honest, kids somehow don't seem as whiny and exhausting when they look cute :)

I finally feel like she is back to healthy today. She's been eating, drinking, and napping well and not nearly as fussy as last week. Fingers crossed that things stay this way! One last laugh for your Tuesday; I got Gabriella dressed today and when we were playing, I realized with the pigtails and bright colored sneakers, she looks like Punky Brewster :)

 

Have a great Tuesday, stay warm and dry if you are getting poured on like us!

xo,

Mary