Dates and Records

Me to DH: "If we don't have home group this week, I think we should still get the babysitter and go on a date!"

M&M: "Yeah, Mommy. You need to go on a vacation with just you and AJ. She needs to spend some time with just Mommy and AJ togeth-wer because she hasn't been vew-ry nice to me lately."

AJ: "Yeah, that's a great idea! M&M hasn't been being nice to me, either, so she needs to go on a date with you too."

M&M: "We've been being reall-wy mean to each othewr. So you should go on a vacation with AJ and talk to her, and I will stay hewre with just Daddy and Baby E, and we'll have FUN!"

AJ: "We aren't MEAN to each other. We've just been fighting with each other. So I can go out on a date with Mommy, and Mommy and I can fight with each other."

M&M: "Yeah, that would be FUN! And I can rr-westle with Daddy!"

AJ: I think you and Daddy need to take us both out each by ourselves every day that it's fall, okay, Mommy? Every day that it's fall.

They must have overheard me saying something to a friend at some point about how I could tell the older girls needed more Mommy time because they were grumpy and not getting along with each other quite as well as usual. They stored that information away in those bright little brains to pull out and use at the opportune moment.

I started keeping detailed records about Baby E today. Whew.

I would have classified today as a good day. It's definitely been better than many days lately.

But looking at my notes is interesting.

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She's had 2 or 3 hours of actually feeling good and acting energetic and interactive today. For most of the day she's been subdued, fussy and clingy. She cried for 20 minutes while I cooked breakfast.

Then we had a slightly unusual episode where she got soap on her face while I washed her hands, and gasped and sneezed violently for several minutes until I finally got it all off.

At church she mostly sat quietly with me and wouldn't even interact with a baby (she normally loves babies and makes a beeline for them).

She pushed people away if they tried to touch her or get too close, cringing away emphatically. Normally she loves to be touched, and she smiles and talks to people and wants to give them hugs. Usually she'll perk up when there are other people around even if she's not feeling good.

Several people commented that she wasn't her normal self and looked like she wasn't feeling well.

She's refused most food and water offered her, except to nurse. Over the course of the day she's eaten: 2 tiny nibbles of a zucchini slice (less than a bite) and 3 nibbles of bread (breakfast), 3 bites of buffalo meat and about 6 slices of lotus root (aha! I found something she'd eat!) (lunch), part of a chicken thigh and a handful of pomegranate seeds (dinner). That's all. (Wait a minute--she's eating like Baby Blue. That can't be all that bad, right?)

She's been offered a large variety of food and lots of water and has refused most of it even after making her "eat" sign to ask for food.

For much of the day Baby E has wanted me to hold her and fussed when I couldn't. She had several periods of crying, but none lasted longer than 20 minutes or so. She took two naps, one very short and one long.

This afternoon she played quietly for 30 minutes or so by herself, mostly just sitting on her rocking lion and hugging it (very cute).

After she finally ate the chicken and pomegranate a couple of hours ago, she perked up quite a bit and played more energetically, giggling and copying her sisters' words and movements. We all played Ring-Around-the-Rosey and giggled when we fell down. All three girls chased each other up and down the hall, laughing.

After having three oozy and strange-colored BM diapers yesterday, she had one this morning that was basically a combination of hard marble-like lumps mixed with oozy stuff, and over half was completely identifiable undigested food.

In the 13 or 14 hours since she woke for the day she has urinated twice. Maybe three times. She peed a small amount once in the potty and she had one wet diaper and one diaper that was barely damp, enough that I couldn't tell whether it was just sweaty or not.

Most of the time when I check her diaper it's still clean and dry, and she doesn't go when I set her on the potty. The lack of much urination concerns me a bit.

And that was a good day.

I'm going to try to keep records like this until our appointment with the pediatrician a week from Monday.

Maybe I can quantify some of the details like number of wet diapers averaged per day, duration and frequency of screaming episodes, frequency and type of abnormal BMs, and other details. (Don't worry; I won't be posting them all!) It will at least give me something specific to discuss with the doctor.