Saturday, August 25, 2007

Super Psycho Baby Day 2007

On the Sunday following Laney's 2nd birthday party Dylan was sick, which continued into Monday sickness as well. Jason gallantly offered to stay home and take care of her that day (which was a relief to me since Dylan is never really all that sick when she's sick. When she's "sick" even with a high fever she mostly runs around the same, but is clingier and fussier, but still does not sleep any more than a regular day - so for the poor soul that has to tend to her all day - it's... ... well, it's freaking exhausting!)
Jason stayed home and I made a doc appointment for Dylan. He took her that Monday morning at about 11. They said no infection (we were fearing yet another ear infection of course- so BIG relief there!) but that she had a very congested chest. They gave her a breathing treatment and some decongestants and expectorants to boot - on top of her regular allergy medication. Jason took her home and they played, hardly ate and she ran around like she had just eaten a lot of cake. He called me at work a weensy bit frustrated because of said running around and because she was hitting him as hard as possible with her toys then putting herself in "time-out." She would knock him hard with something then yell "Time out" and run to the corner and sit down until Jason would tell her that she was okay to come back and play. He said that once she even sat there in a war of wills with him for a full five minutes, without batting an eye - in a "I can do this standing on my head Daddy" gesture at our futile attempts at cool-down time.
So at this news I am actually for a moment, speechless, then I am thinking "Crap, how on Earth are we going to be able to punish her? Ever?" So I let Jason go since Dylan is in the background singing, yelling, then whapping Jason with another toy and saying "time out!" and I am getting slammed at work. I am totally at a loss with the time-out thing.
A couple of hours later I am talking to an even more frustrated version of my patient (with Dylan anyway) husband who is informing me that she still hasn't hardly eaten anything and that she will not take a nap. At one point she played quietly in her crib for a full 45 minutes without crying, but will NOT sleep. (And he needs her to sleep - I know!) Then as I don't know how to help there he tells me that Dylan can now open doors... (WHAT!? - she couldn't this morning!) and that she has figured out how to silently creep up the stairs when we are in another room... (Fabulous!) So he's had a great day so far! Jason says "If there is anyway that you can come home a little early, that would be AWESOME!"
I tell him that I will leave as early as I can. I got home at about 4 and poor poor Jason is sitting on the couch with one of Dylan's books dangling from the end of his fingers and a look like I don't think that I have ever seen on his face - ever! He says "She still hasn't slept," which was hilarious since Dylan was on the love seat right by the couch and she is literally bouncing back and forth from side to side on the thing like a pink ping pong ball. She is babbling at about 55 miles an hour, laughing maniacally and bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. It was kind of totally nuts. And it was funny for about the first 10 minutes. I told Jason to go take a break and that I would take over. Oof, what a mistake! She pretty much went on like that all night. At one point I had a shivering horror come over me that she might never sleep at all that night. I voiced that to Jason and we shared a look and a nervous laugh that indicated that he had already though the same thing and that yes, it might actually happen.
We had dinner and a bath and she never stopped. She was a raving, bouncing, careening, laughing, crying ball of nuts all night long. I took some reference pictures so that we could never forget that look of whacko she had in her eye all day and we could hopefully one day laugh at the thought and not cry. I have that all included on this same day's postings so you can see the look of a crazed baby. So the lesson we learned from this was only that if she ever has another breathing treatment, she will be going to daycare that day as they have many many trained professionals that can deal with this sort of thing for the better part of the day and won't feel guilty in wanting to lock her in a closet as she's not their kid!

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