Six Months and RSV

Well, just when I thought we were going to get off light this cold season, both of our girls turned up positive for RSV. Thankfully, we have been able to stay on top of it, and the only real inconvenience has been that no one is sleeping and we've had to change out a few cough-induced pukey sheets in the last week. I know RSV sounds hella scary because a lot of folks wind up in the hospital with their kids with this junk, but again, thankfully we've dodged that bullett thus far.



So, breathing treatments have become our day to day. Neither kid particularly likes it (despite the awesome mask painted like a dog's face), and we may or may not have had to wrap Taylor up straight-jacket style in a towel to get the job done. Also, I may or may not have gotten a swift kick to the right eye the one and only time I tried giving Taylor a treatment without restraining her first.


What do responsible parents of kids with RSV do? Take them out in public for donuts! In my defense, at this point in time we were still being led to believe that they had swabbed negative. It wasn't until about an hour after this picture that our doctor called with the, "Um, yeah. I screwed up, the test was actually positive," phone call.

The upside is, that since our failed doc-in-a-box diagnosis last Tuesday (they didn't swab Taylor for anything), the kids were greenlighted to go back today. Taylor went back to school with flying colors, while I had to call and beg my mom to come and stay with Ava one extra day. She's still a little crackly, but not terrible, and I think she'll manage come tomorrow.

Anyhoo, moving along from the depressing, my baby is six months old! How in the hell did that happen so fast? She is still weighing in around 18 lbs. (starting to taper off a bit on the growth charts) and is 26 1/2" long. Looks like we're gonna have another sturdy baby on our hands. And as a double shocker, guess who is now sitting up?


Yeah, yeah. I realize she looks like Rosita the migrant farmer in that hat, but I have some hella Caucasian kids that burn just looking at the sun.

Ava is also finally holding her bottle by herself about half of the time, she's been able to do it for several months now, just never had a whole lot of want-to. She's also reaching for faces, hands, HAIR. Anything she can get a grab on. Sometimes though, this is a sweet moment. Last night she was sleeping with us due to the coughing spells, and every time I moved I felt a little hand reach out to make sure I was still there. There is something to being needed that will always melt a mama's heart.

Now that she's starting to get the hang of sitting up, I've also unearthed the playpen so that she can sit up safely, and if she topples over I at least won't be spending an evening at the ER.

Ta-da!

Also, since we're catching up, Miss Taylor is once again going through a "strong-willed" phase. We have been told by her teachers at school that she doesn't listen, something that wasn't news to us. So, we've been trying like hell to get her to listen when she's being corrected, and to do things the first time we tell her. So far we're batting around 50%.


Nice, eh? This is what you get when you tell Taylor, "Don't play in Daddy's boots, you can get hurt." Obviously our chiding sunk in......