Dreaded Coxsackie Virus

For being a breastfed kid, my daughter sure seems to get sick a lot. I know that is supposedly good for her immune system later in life, but it sucks for all of us right now. Big Time--capital B, capital T.

G had a runny nose last Sunday, developed a mild fever Wednesday evening, and a rash started kind of appearing Thursday night but really got going on Friday, and she slept absolutely horribly Thursday night into Friday (up every hour almost, including a 3 hour screaming fit from midnight to 3 am). Something was clearly wrong. The difference in her skin between Friday morning and Friday afternoon was really scary. I, of course, googled some things and determined she must have something like Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease. She hadn't seemed to have anything in her mouth, but everything else fit.

Thankfully her doctor's office was able to get her in Friday afternoon (20 minutes after I called). The doctor confirmed my suspicions, in a way, by saying that this was 99% certainly a Coxsackie Virus (causes HFMD). He wouldn't say 100% without a blood test, which wasn't really necessary because either way we just had to manage her symptoms.

{My 20th} Seven Quick Takes

--- 1 ---

This time next week, we will be in Kansas City! It's just a short trip back required by my husband's job, but G and I are tagging along (at our cost) to visit some friends and spend extra time with daddy. He doesn't have anything to do on Friday, so we are hoping the weather allows us to go to some outdoor attractions we never saw when we lived there. We have direct flights both going and coming, but that doesn't make flying with a baby easy, so I'm crossing my fingers for the least amount of stress possible. I'm really excited to see loved ones we haven't seen in nearly 2 months, and the comfort of the midwest has been calling my name since we left. EXCITED!

--- 2 ---

Guess who's been sick this week? Yup, the poor baby girl. We had a short play date at a park last Friday, and the little boy we met there had a runny nose. Apparently it leached onto G and she's been fighting some kind of respiratory illness since Sunday. She spiked a fever Wednesday evening but it's been low enough not to warrant medicine or a call to the doctor. Hopefully she kicks it before the beautiful weekend we are supposed to have.

Crafty Momma (2): G's Homemade Easter Dress

I've written a few times about how I got the crazy idea to sew G's Easter dress...and you may remember I explained how my mother is an amazing seamstress but I never really took the time (and she got kind of frustrated with me on several occasions) to master her craft. I have her old sewing machine. This past Christmas I did use a pattern under her direction to sew my husband a pair of boxers for Christmas (complete with dorky holiday print fabric). I've hemmed a few things and I made some curtains for our kitchen, and you may remember the crib rail covers I made. I suppose all of those things gave me the courage to jump right into dress making (which is probably the hardest thing to start out with).
I'll let the pictures take it from here:

I was off to a good start, despite miscalculating the amount of fabric needed

this pattern may have been in English, but it was not easy to understand

G's first trip to a Zoo

I love going to zoos, although I don't think I've ever been to more than one (the St. Louis zoo, which is awesome and FREE) until a few days ago.

We took G to the San Francisco Zoo and she loved it, as did we.

She is currently on a big dog kick (almost any animal is 'daw-daw' and she knows 'wooooof' and can spot a dog in any book we read). We don't have any pets, but she LOVES dogs and cats, so I knew she'd enjoy the zoo. We went on the Monday after Easter, and it was very un-busy, sunny, not to cool or hot--so basically it was the perfect time to go. I will get around to writing a review of the SF zoo one of these days.

Here are some photos of our great day.

THE Full House house

This past weekend I fulfilled a personal 'bucket list' item. I found the Full House house. Growing up, I was truly addicted to the show. Before TV on DVD was a 'thing,' my nana recorded all the episodes for me onto VHS. In preschool, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I responded, "Michelle" (not the Olsen twins, I wanted to literally be Michelle, ouce cream and all).

I recently learned that the Full House house was not actually part of the famous Painted Ladies from the intro credits, as I had assumed. It was a seemingly random house at 1709 Broderick Street. The occupants of the house have since changed its front door to--I can only assume--throw off the swarms of pop culture fanatics looking to find the Tanner family.

Seven Quick Takes

1. So last Friday I mentioned how we had a leaky pipe somewhere in our house that was causing water under the floor in our bedroom. The plumber found a pipe that had a hole in the master bathroom shower/tub. It was kind of a freak accident, actually, because a screw from the faucet piece had "a lot of pressure" against it (duh? water forces it's way into it) and somehow flew out and punctured a pipe in the wall. This was all concealed by the wall, and had been going on for a little over a week. We noticed it because the laminate flooring started to bow and water would squish out of it when pushed on. A baseboard near my closet showed water damage last Wednesday which definitely signaled something was wrong.
Half of our bedroom floor had to be torn up and also part of the hall way. There were two holes cut into our bedroom walls and my closet was not useable. Our bathroom door also had to be taken off and a blower was put in the other bathroom too. The restoration company brought in five blowers and 1 huge dehumidifier. The loss of use of both bathrooms, noise, heat, and unsafe floor caused our landlord to, thankfully, put us up in a hotel last weekend. While I really appreciate that, it did lead to a certain amount of non-productivity on my part. It was nice to be forced to halt my projects/blog writing/cleaning and savor the time with my little family. I was stressed to the max though, especially when the insurance people told me the entire house's floor would need to be replaced. I was freaking out at that point. Luckily my landlord figured out they only said that for cosmetic reasons, and he was fine with just replacing the small area that needed it (even if the shades of laminate are slightly different). By the end of tonight almost everything should be back to normal. My closet will be repainted next week, so it's still not usable until then.

2. I'm so proud of G and her walking. She gotten much petty in the past week. She's able to stand up if she trips, squat down to pick something up, carry things around without losing her balance, turn right angles, walk in circles, go up small differences in elevation, and has started to get a little gait going on (so I know running isn't far behind). It's like watching a small miracle happen before my very eyes. This precious little girl came out of me unable to do much but wiggle, and now she is prancing around, exploring the world! She's a beautiful sight to see and I really enjoy her personality. She's so fun.

Moving across the country: diaper edition

When we found out we would be moving from Kansas to California, we had about two weeks notice. There were a lot of things running around my head; moving check lists, address changes, settling our lease terms, finding a new place to live, how to physically get to California with a baby... but I never even blinked when it came to diapering. We'd obviously continue our cloth diapering.

A year ago, I would have been scared to even think about moving with cloth diapers; but our experiences in cloth have brought us to a point where we trust them and prefer them over disposables. (I do hate to say that I did briefly blame cloth diapers for G's night-wakings about 2 weeks ago). I used to fear traveling with cloth because of the smell and hassle of changing--not to mention trying to find a place to wash them. Thankfully both of G's grandparents used cloth and are okay with me doing laundry at their houses. We've never stayed in a hotel longer than 2 days, so we've been able to skate by on our good size stash. The smell is contained in our awesome travel wet bags (one planet wise and one itti bitti). The 'hassle' of changing a cloth diaper versus a disposable is just something I've gotten used to, and pocket diapers that are pre-stuffed make changing G pretty comparable to using a 'sposie.

I wanted to share how moving across the country in cloth worked for us, incase you ever find yourself in a similar predicament.

#BFBBP Grand Prize from Stokke High Chairs

I have some great news!
The Babies First Birthday Blog Party grand prize is a Stokke Tripp Trapp High Chair and the giveaway starts now!!! Melissa at the Mommyhood Chronicles reviewed this item and Stokke is giving away another high chair to our BFBBP participants! You can read Melissa's review on her blog.

Happy Baby Winner

I know many of you have probably been on the edge of your seat waiting to know who won the Happy Baby giveaway (hint of sarcasm because only 35 people entered, which is a shame because these are still G's favorite treats), and without further ado...

Thanks to everyone who entered.

I will be on a brief review/giveaway hiatus because I've been very overwhelmed with real life things the past few weeks, such as moving to California, having a pipe burst in our master bath...you know...the usual.

I'm in a box! Wordless Wednesday

My aunt sent G some super cute clothes and shoes this week... Until she wears them, the box is obviously the star :)