Coughing, coughing, coughing

Earlier this week Mara Kate started getting a cold and had a fever for one day, then was fine the next (no fever), then her fever came back the next day. Odd. Now she has started coughing, coughing, coughing....and so have I (and it is hurts like heck every time--my chest is burning & on fire!!)

I just got over being sick with a bad sore throat and now I am feeling under the weather again, while I have a child that isn't feeling great either. I laid in bed last night wide awake, trying to muffle my cough so I wouldn't keep Kane awake and as I laid there I could hear Mara Kate in her bed coughing every few seconds for a long, long time. I gave us both meds that would hopefully calm the cough so we could sleep, but I know I didn't get as much sleep as I normally do and I don't think she did either.

When is the weather here in Atlanta going to stabilize so we can get better and then stay better?! The large temperature shifts are surely not helping. I want Spring to get here and just stay!

Anyway, I guess that's why I haven't blogged much this week. We've been laying low trying to get better.

Say a prayer for us and our coughing selves if you think about it. Thanks!

Sick Girl

Mara Kate is fighting off some pink eye this week. Her eyes started oozing late Sunday night and we called the on-call pediatrician and thankfully he called in a prescription for some eye drops for her that night. Kane went out early yesterday morning and got her drops and had them here and ready for when she woke up yesterday morning. After only 4 doses she is already acting and feeling much better. Although, she is supposed to stay on the drops for a whole week, I am glad her eyes are already looking fairly normal again.

We declared yesterday a "sick day" and we pretty much let her lounge on the couch and watch movies. A big treat for her! I actually was able to get some house cleaning done while she rested.

Even though it's not fun for your baby to be sick in any capacity, this was actually easier to manage than a feverish, vomiting child, in my opinion.

Our sick girl hanging out on the couch. As you can see, she still loves cuddling with her beloved Penelope penguin, but she has added a new friend to her stuffed animal kingdom. You can also see Buster, the beluga whale who she is also quite fond of these days!

God's Love in the Little Things

One thing I didn't dwell on or think about too much when I became a parent was how my life and plans would sometimes get lost in the shuffle while taking care of my child.

One of the hardest adjustments for me becoming a mother was learning how to change or abandon my plans to include my child's needs--especially when those needs are sudden or unexpected and especially when you are not USED to taking care of a helpless someone with constant needs. I'd like to think I have gotten better at learning to "lay aside" my plans to meet Mara Kate's needs over the past 2 years--or to choose "her good" even when it demands ALL of my time, attention, effort and energy. Maybe it will get easier to do the longer I do it. Some days I still have to stop and remind myself to pray for strength (first of all), then tell myself to choose to do what is required of me as a loving parent, even when that means everything on my to do list gets thrown out the window.

Today has been one of those days. This morning we headed out the door with several errands on our list. One of the errands was to a playground to let Mara Kate play with a couple of her friends. We never made it. While I was driving on the interstate through downtown Mara Kate vomited all over herself, her car seat, the back seat of the car and YES all over a library book she was looking at (and ruined it).

I of course got off the next exit, turned around and headed straight back home. Next I lugged Mara Kate and her car seat up the stairs. Then I gave her a bath. Then I spent the next 30 minutes trying to take apart her car seat enough to get the fabric cover off and into the washing machine. During all of this I was telling myself that this is what loving sacrificially means and that this is what God has called me to do as a mother. Did I feel for a few minutes like going on strike? Yes! Will I? No. Why? Because I love Mara Kate more than I love getting things accomplished and marking things off my list. Sometimes even though it is hard and a challenge to have the right response to tough (and sometimes gross) situations, I am thankful that God can use everything in our lives (even interrupted mornings and bodily fluids) to remind us what is truly important---that He uses these things to continually squeeze the sinful selfish tendencies from my soul---little by little.
I am so thankful I have Mara Kate and that I have been given the opportunity to model God's love and sacrificial heart in front of her, even when she doesn't fully understand. I do the things I do because I want her to know and see (and eventually understand) that we love others because He first loved us!

Learning all the Time

Mara Kate has been sick this week. As far as we can tell it is just a little cold---runny nose, gunky eyes and not sleeping too well. Lately I have been feeling like I have lost my baby somewhere over the past few months. She is little Miss Independent these days and will practically NEVER be still enough on my lap for me to enjoy cuddle time and is always wriggling down to do something more important and fun! But, the last few days we have had a few sweet times of rocking together, cuddling in bed or in the recliner and for a few minutes here and there I have held my little baby again (and tried to take it all in and cherish it).

When Mara Kate was really tiny and fussed a lot I would try to rock, nurse, cuddle and soothe her to get her to stop fussing. I didn't appreciate those times as much as I should have. I just wanted to her STOP FUSSING! Why is it we never appreciate things while in the moment? I want to try and do that more deliberately as she continues to grow.

She has recently learned the word "no" and uses it even when she doesn't mean it, but when I ask her, "Do you love Mama" and her response is a simple, polite and quiet "No" it hurts just a bit somewhere deep down. I know she doesn't mean it and she is simply experimenting with her vocabulary, but still, it hurts.

I am amazed at the words she understands and the words she can say. Her vocabulary currently includes:

no
mama (only when she wants something--never to address me)
daddy
e-i-e-i-o
ducky
quack quack
ruff-ruff
please (she attempt to say this when she is "signing" it)
ball
Pa-Pa (for Papa and Grandpa)
Heidi
de-de (for Mimi and BeBe)
Tuie (she says Tu-Te)
hi
bye-bye

...some more pictures of our big girl!

Even though she isn't feeling too good, she is happy and smiling.

Curls!

These pictures were taken right after bath time. I thought she looked so cute
with her freshly clean, curly hair and lavender bow! I wish you could smell her too---
she smells SO GOOD right now! (I just love that clean baby smell).

Mara Kate will be 17 months old tomorrow---which truly doesn't seem possible. We sure are enjoying the joy, smiles, laughter, discovery and sweet aroma she adds to our home!

Sick Baby Girl

Mara Kate has been sick for the past 24 hours. Last night she threw up, pretty much everything she had eaten all day and then several more times throughout the night. Needless to say we were concerned about our little girl. This morning we tried giving her only water, but she couldn't even keep that down. We took her to the doctor and came home with a prescription for some anti-nausea medicine. I am thankful for the medicine, even though it was quite pricey. We paid around $80 for 3 pills. Mara Kate's dosage is only half of a tablet, so we got 6 doses at around $13 each. (Thankfully our insurance company will reimburse us for most of our cost in about 6-8 weeks).

The medicine seems to be helping because she has kept everything she has consumed down fine all day since she started taking it around noon today. She has had quite a bit of the Pedialyte fluids as well as some breast milk and some dry toast and a few goldfish crackers. I think we are probably through the worst of this little bug, but she hasn't had much energy today. I do hope our little girl feels better, regains her spunk and desire to play, talk and just be herself soon. Say a little prayer for her health if you think about it.

our little nun

Mara Kate a few days ago playing with her shirt stuck on her head. :)