This morning, Maya and I settled down with a cup of yogurt for her morning snack. All was well for the first few bites, then Maya wanted to take the spoon and feed herself. Okay…feeling semi-brave, I put some yogurt on the spoon, then handed it to her. Perfect! Well, sort of perfect.

After a couple bites of feeding herself, Maya then wanted to *load* the spoon herself too. Keep in mind that we’re in my office, over the carpet. Um…no. As I offered Maya another pre-loaded spoon, the tantrum hit. WHAP! Yogurt everywhere.

We tried again a bit later, this time sitting in her bucket chair (still over carpet, just in another room). Result: same. Note to self: don’t do the same thing and expect different results!

Finally, I gave Maya a handled cup of yogurt IN HER HIGHCHAIR. She couldn’t have been happier. So happy, in fact, that she polished all of that off, and continued to eat cinnamon applesauce.

I’m a little slow sometimes, but I swear I’m trying, Maya…

So I was saying…by Wednesday night, I thought Maya was on the mend. The next morning, I presented her with breakfast (milk, cottage cheese, fruit, her normal…). Um, dairy? Bad idea.

I didn’t mention, but at this point, I was getting sick too. Tuesday night, I could barely swallow, so by Thursday morning, I decided to haul myself to the doctor. While we waited for my appointment, Maya let breakfast loose — all over my shirt. (My doctor was gracious enough to bear with the smell and see me anyway — ear infection causing issues in my throat.)

By that afternoon, Maya was a ragdoll: limp, lifeless, and completely unlike herself. We visited her doctor, who recommended an overnight visit for IV fluids at the hospital. I declined, and chose to take the wait-and-see approach. The doc said she was on call, and if I changed my mind, she’d get it set up.

Within minutes, I realized she was right. Maya couldn’t even hold down water, and what she spit up was tinged with blood. Scary!

The stay at the hospital was awful for Maya, and if awake, she refused to spend time in their cage-like crib. Can you blame her? The nurses and doctors were wonderful…and I especially liked the floor techs…guess it takes a special sort to work tech on a Pedi floor!

By Friday afternoon, Maya wasn’t doing much better, but at least was playing a bit…just not drinking anything, a requirement for her release. It looked like a second night at Memorial was coming, blech. Wouldn’t you know, shortly after the doctor left from the afternoon checkup, Maya started requesting drinks. A second girl was admitted to the adjoining bed in the room, and Maya wanted to chat with her…she was being…HERSELF!

We got to go home.

A few days later, Maya was back to being her (onery) self. I couldn’t have been happier. Now, if she’d just sleep in her crib without screaming…I think the cage left her traumatized.

All of this is added after the fact, for obvious reasns…

Tuesday the 7th, a friend of mine from college was scheduled to come down for dinner — he was attending a conference in Denver, and I hadn’t seen him in two years (I was pregnant!). Poor Andy. He didn’t know what was about to hit him.

Before Andy arrived, Maya threw up all over the carpet in the master bath. Oh well…I had time to get her bathed and clean before he showed.

Not so fast. Shortly after Andy’s arrival, I was giving him the tour of the house when we both heard a loud SPLAT! The sound was somewhat reminicent of this, so I had a feeling I knew what was coming. The kitchen floor was covered, and Maya was very unhappy. On the bright side, she missed her pjs, so I was able to get her off to bed, where she conked out right away.

Middle of dinner…crying. Yup, she’d gotten her bed. Then while I was holding her, she did it again, this time down my shirt and all over my jeans. Andy was gracious enough to clean up the kitchen mess so I could give US a bath. Poor baby.

The next day, Maya slept. And slept. Then slept some more. Her temperature hovered in the 101-102 range, but at least she wasn’t puking! By evening, she was begging bits of frozen fruit bar from me, and even ate some cream of wheat.

I figured she was on the mend.

Thursday would prove otherwise…(continued above)

I love adding a blob of ricotta cheese to my pasta…so I gave Maya some to go with her dinner. Um…not such a good idea, you see.

Ricotta obviously looks like hand lotion. Hair mousse, too, it would seem.

Bath time!

So, Maya’s running early this morning. She had breakfast around 7:30 (norm is 8-8:30), then watched Blue’s Clues until just a few minutes ago — WITH a snack.

Just now, she started signing “more” to me and walked to the pantry door. I looked at her and said, “Maya, you just had a snack!” WIthout missing a beat, she turned on the sweetest smile ever, looked up at me and said “Pleeeeease.” If that weren’t enough, she then signed “please” too. Fine. I gave her some baby goldfish and said, “okay, say thank you.” “Dank uuuuu.”

It’s amazing watching these kids change. The funny thing is that once I gave her the goldfish, she didn’t care about them — maybe she just wanted to see if she could get them?

We experienced our first encounter with pinkeye…but fortunately, caught it early on and got some antibiotic eyedrops.

The second day of the infection, Maya looked like she’d been in a boxing match and lost.