Florida - Day 2

Olivia's temp at 9:30 today was just over 102 so she got more Tylenol and we talked to Jan again. Aside from being a little more clingy than usual, she wasn't seeming sick. She was acting like herself, asking questions, talking a lot and being pretty sweet. She ate a little fruit and yogurt, which encouraged us. I gave her a bath (finally) and then we went outside to enjoy the high 60's and sunny morning weather. After chatting with the neighbors and pushing her stroller around, Olivia took a two+ hour nap, during which my mom ran to the store and bought some children's Ibuprofin, which Auntie Jan recommended we alternate with the Tylenol. When she woke up, she ate a little bit and we went outside again. I painted Olivia's fingernails and toenails bright pink, which she loved. We decided to walk down to the pool. Grandpa rode his bike, and my mom and I pushed Olivia's stroller. When we got there, Olivia was eager to go for a swim. We hadn't planned on swimming, just checking it out, but Olivia had more than dipping her toes in the pool in mind. We soon took off her drenched capri pants, and then her shirt. Seeing that she definitely wanted to swim, I took the bike back to the house and got a suit for her, changed into mine and grabbed the camera and a few towels. She LOVED the pool. We swam for quite a while. She checked out the "water mountain" (water fountain), she crawled along the edge of the pool, and played on the stairs. When she was ready to get out, we stripped her down and she layed on the warm cement, wrapped in a towel. It was a great time. We thought the water may have cooled her off a bit. After a quick bath, she ate a pretty good dinner and had more medicine. Her last temp check showed 102.2. It's puzzling that her temperature remains high, though her demenor is pleasant. She seems almost totally normal. I'm glad for it, and happy that the fever hit AFTER our long day of traveling, not during it. We ended the evening reading books, playing the piano and hunging around until bedtime (7 p.m.). She is sleeping soundly, but the Tylenol and thermometer are ready to roll if we have a repeat of last night. Pray for a complete healing, please. We are planning to visit the beach and/or the outlet mall tomorrow :)

Florida - Day 1

For the next week or so, I'll be using this blog as a journal of sorts to keep my family in MN (and anyone else who's interested!) informed about our Florida trip. My mom, Olivia and I left yesterday afternoon. Getting out of Minneapolis went fairly smoothly. Upon check-in at the airport, we were told our plane was delayed 20 minutes - nothing as far as delays go. We walked the concourse and looked out the windows to pass the time. I had a suitcase full of wrapped dollar-store toys to keep Olivia entertained and tons of snacks. When we boarded, I asked the flight attendant to fill O's bottle with hot water for a little formula snack during take-off. We were sitting waaay in the back so it was super noisy and it was super bumpy until we got up to cruising altitude, but Olivia did great. She sucked her bottle right down and showed no signs of discomfort. For the duration of the flight, she played with her two favorite (at the moment) toys- a panda figurine and a squishy bunny named Cottontail. We read one or two books, but mostly passed the time by snacking - animal crackers, pretzels, Delta cookies, string cheese, Goldfish - to name a few. She did totally great. A nice bonus was that the flight wasn't fully booked so we had an empty seat in our block of three. We used the middle seat as a little play-space and Pie enjoyed using her tray as a launching pad for her toys. She fell asleep in my arms for the last 40 minutes of the flight. Because of the delay, we felt like we needed to hustle once off the plane to catch our connecting flight. We booked it through the Atlanta airport, only to find that flight was delayed as well. Maintenance... My mom and I got dinner and tried to interest O in food, but she wasn't having it. I think she was super tired. Unfortunately, she was up and hour and a half earlier than normal that morning and took less than half of her regular nap time. It seemed she was starting to melt. Upon boarding, we were told the carry on that housed all of Pie's treats and comfort items was too large to take on the plane. What?!?! The guy said it was because this plane was a smaller one and it wouldn't fit. I had about 30 seconds to grab anything I felt was vital to a smooth flight and could fit in the diaper bag. Not fun. We once again made a hot water/formula bottle for take-off and once again, Pie was a champ. However, she wasn't interested in sleeping. We tried to feed her some snacks, but she didn't want anything. She played quietly with us and with the two little kids sitting in front of us. When we landed, it was coming up on her bedtime. My grandparents met us at the airport and after collecting our 19 (almost) bags, we made the 20 minute trip to their house. Olivia, amazingly, was cheerful and quiet the whole way - charming, even. While I would have liked to bathe her, food and sleep won out over cleanliness. My mom made a scrambled egg (an Olivia staple) while I PJ'd Olivia, but when I offered it to her, she totally melted. Like completely and utterly fell apart. Instead of fighting her, I whisked her off to bed (a pack 'n play that fit almost totally in the closet in my room). She fell asleep right away. That SHOULD have been the end of Wednesday's festivities, BUT... shortly after I went to bed at nine, Olivia woke up crying. I rubbed her back and hushed her back to sleep. Around ten, she woke again. When I picked her up, found she was BURNING up. I got my mom and after feeling her, she confirmed a fever. Brilliantly, I had not packed the Children's Tylenol (yes, I looked at it and considered it, but my kid doesn't get sick...hmmm.) My mom called Jan in MN and they decided we could crush up a bit of regular Tylenol and give her that. I called Evan in MN and told him what was up. I gave Olivia some water and crushed up pill in baby food fruit. After laying in bed with me for a while, I deposited her back in her crib. The next several hours were not fun - she was awake approximately every 20 or 30 minutes. Around three a.m. she woke up crying again and my mom came in. She got a thermometer by digging around in my grandparents' bathroom (yep, didn't pack that either) and found that her temp was near 103. At that point, we knew we needed some children's meds. I called (and woke) Evan back at home so he could check for a 24-hour drug store near us and at 3:30 I left the house, a sad and very hot Olivia being held by my mom. I made a bottle and added the dosage to it and Pie sucked the whole thing down. I made another 8-ounce bottle and she took almost the whole rest of that. She soaked three diapers that night - which we were glad for. At four, my mom told me to try to sleep while she rocked Olivia. It seemed she may have cooled a bit, and was sleeping soundly in her arms. I slept for a bit and then at five, encouraged my mom to put O back in her bed and get some rest herself. Olivia and I both slept until 7:15 when she woke crying again. She felt warm again and I put her in my bed. She started dozing almost immediately so I transferred her back to her bed. She didn't wake again until almost 9:30.

Correction

Olivia inherited a super cute coat from her cousin, Megan. It's a red coat that has toggles as fasteners. I taught her the word "toggle" a couple months ago, but had never heard her use it. Today when I was putting on her coat and I said "you have buttons on your coat!" She said, "no, toggles!"

(BTW, I was talking about the buttons on her coat sleeves :)

Flashlight fun

Olivia has been really interested in flashlights as of late. She loves taking the flashlight into the dark bathroom (she's totally unafraid of the dark) and shining it on different surfaces. She discovered that when she lays the flashlight on the ground, it makes a triangular shape which she calls "arrow." The other day when we were going through the flashlight/bathroom routine, I noticed there was a rainbow ring around the center of the light when we shined it on the wall or ceiling. I pointed that out to her and we had a fun time checking it out on the bathtub, sink, and ceiling. Today, when we were playing (again) I noticed that if we shined the light on the corner of the tub, the middle refracted and it looked like a heart. We were amused by that; then we looked at the rainbow again. Seeing how much fun the flashlight could be, she said, "Make butterfly!"

Sorry babe, I'm out of tricks...

Boom!

Olivia and I were driving home from the grocery store at 4:30 this afternoon. She was a champ during our shopping trip and on the (very short) trip home, she requested some goldfish to snack on. Her bag was in the back seat so I tried to blindly feel around in it while I drove. Unsuccessful in my attempts, I dragged the bag to the front seat. I quickly glanced down to see if I could locate the snacks and as I did, I have grazed the shoulder of the road, plowing over the icy chunks of snow laying by the snow bank. The sound was sort of clunk-cu-clunk-ba-boom. From the back seat, Olivia yelled, "thunder!"

How Big?

I taught Olivia a new song this week. It's one that we sang at Sunday school with the three- and four-year-0lds last week. It goes, "My God is so BIG, so STRONG, and so MIGHTY! There's NOTHING my God cannot do!" And we sing it like that - emphasizing the important words and using actions. We sang it a bazillion times and then I decided we should talk about the theology behind it. I said, "Olivia, God is bigger than you, and bigger than Mommy and even bigger than Daddy." This blew her mind, so she thought bigger. "Paul Bunyan?" she suggested.

I guess the water park is still fresh in her mind from our Brainard weekend last month... (note the mural of Mr. Bunyan on the back wall.)

Who?!

Yesterday I was going on and on to Olivia about how cute she was. After a minute of "you're so sweet, you're Mommy's cute girl" etc., I said "who's cute?" She replied "Jonny!"

"Uncle Jonny is cute?" I asked her.

"Yes! Auntie Nicki cute, too!"

At least all my gushing hasn't made her think she's the only cutie-patootie in the world...

(She has become an expert at using "too" properly. It's pretty hilarious.)