New and Improved! Now Rash Free! Thursday, January 15, 2009

Olivia’s rash is out of the picture.  I haven’t had to medicate her for itching in 3 days.  She no longer looks like a chemical burn victim.  If you stare at her calves long and hard, you might faintly detect the outline where the largest areas were.  Barely.  You’d need to squint and get uncomfortably close to a toddler’s derriere.

This is a mighty good thing for many reasons.  The foremost being that it nearly broke my heart to see her so uncomfortable.  It just about killed me to have my baby in pain and not be able to do anything about it besides dope her up and wait it out.  The thought of having to do so for weeks, possibly months…

<shivers>

The other great thing is that Olive is now healthy enough to attend a Mother’s Day Out Program.  She’ll get some socialization with other kids and I’ll have a regular block of time to myself!  Win-win all around.  I’ll be visiting the program this Friday (after a dental appointment…  ) to check it out.  I’ve already talked over the phone with the head honcho and the lady who would be Olivia’s teacher.  They were exceptionally nice and very enthusiastic about having her in the class.  As long as I like what I see, she’ll be starting come Monday.

………………………..

My dad’s birthday was yesterday, so….

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DA!

Triumphant return! Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Hi there!  Remember me?  Susan, the slacker-blogger extraordinaire?  No??  I don’t blame you, people.  I’ve been a non-entity for a very long time now.

You see, I’ve been struggling with the “mommy” thing in the past few months.  It really threw me off balance.  I’m not a perfectionist, but I do demand the best of myself in the important areas of my life.  I’d say raising Olive to be a good person pretty much tops that list.  Unfortunately, a lot of other things had to fall along the wayside so I didn’t, oh I don’t know, RUIN THE BABY FOREVER.

I’m more zen about it now.

Sure, I still bust a freakout when I see her eat a dead bug, but I don’t hyperventilate when she eats a butt cheerio.  For those of you not in the loop (everyone), a butt cheerio is an errant cheerio that Olive pulls from under her heiney and pops into her mouth while I strap her into her booster seat.  Some of them are already half-eaten.  No big.

I am trying to focus on how happy she is.  I have to be doing something right, because my daughter smiles 99.9% of the time.  The other .01% she flings herself into piercing screams.  No one is perfect.

My new theory of parenthood is that if she’s smiling a large majority of the time and is reasonably healthy, I’m doing great.  And if I’m doing great, I shouldn’t feel inordinately guilty for wanting to have some time for things other than my outrageously cute daughter.  Like, say, my outrageously cute husband. Or my outrageously neglected social life.   Or a shower now and then.  (I’m not kidding about how much has fallen along the wayside).

Even the occasional blog post.

I’m not naive enough to believe that this new perspective will prevent all future blowouts regarding parenting vs. having-a-life.  But I am hopeful that it might keep me from becoming completely unhinged at the end of a long, long day.

Anywhoo, just wanted to say hi.  I’ve missed you.

Photos, etc Monday, January 12, 2009

A few quick things:

Olivia is improving, much less itchiness and much less visible rash.  I think she’s off the meds, but Susan would have to say for certain.

Olivia and Susan will be visiting a mother’s day out program on Friday and, if we’re lucky, Olivia will be attending as soon as next Monday.  That will offer Susan a break on Mon / Fri every week for about 6 hours each day.

My 365 project continues, but as a benefit to everyone else, there have been a lot more photos of Olivia lately.  You can look at her 2nd year set to check them out.

Neglect! Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Ok, so yes, the blog has been neglected really, really badly.  But no – tonight just isn’t the night to correct that neglect!

I’m stopping by for two reasons.  We’ll start with the fun news first – our Disney PhotoPass CD showed up today, and I’ve pushed all those up to Flickr in a set all their own.

So now for the news that isn’t so fun.

We found out this morning that Olivia has a viral rash over a large portion of her body.  It may actually be two separate viral rahes, but they don’t really know for sure.  However, just like the cold virus, there isn’t anything to do except make the symptoms bareable.  And how do you do that?  With antihistimines.  And how do those make you feel?  Sleepy.

So you ask, how long will it last?  They aren’t sure – the doctor has seen a patient that had it last for a couple of months.  The short end of the scale is a couple of weeks.  That’s a couple of weeks to a couple of months of a baby that wants to peel her skin off because it itches.  A baby that screams the majority of the time she’s awake.  A baby who can’t visit most of her family or friends because they’ve got easily compromisable immune systems…

So… that’s us.

Oh – and if you’re watching the Flickr stream, don’t mind the over abundance of photos of me, some of which may be odd – I’m participating in the “365 Project” where I’ll end up with a self portrait every day for the rest of the year.  I’ve started it once before, but I’m hopeful to make it through this time…