The weight is over

Scarlett playing at Port Discovery in Baltimore...

She made friends whenever she could find another child who would pay attention to her!
She put herself in jail this time! This was part of a "sink" at Port Discovery.


Scarlett playing in the Volkswagon Bug. There was another kid in the backseat who wasn't paying adequate attention to her.

Bonnie playing in one of the tunnels with Scarlett.
Scarlett and Flossy at lunch before Port Discovery.

It turns out that Scarlett still hates snowflakes hitting her face. She was really excited about going out into the snow to play, but it didn't last long!

After I shoveled for the third time that day. Paul timed his trip to the keys to correspond with a sick baby, mommy, and a 6-8 inch snow storm. Shoveling thunder snow with the plague.
She LOVES Bacchus. He often lets her catch him. In this picture she had just given him a kiss.
This is a swim diaper. On her head. Everytime we took it off, she asked us to put it back on her.
This was the birthday colossal cupcake we got for Kristie's 30th birthday when she was in town. Almost 3 1/2 pounds of red velvet!

Scarlett started trying to ride the dogs on her own recently. Both of them are very patient with her!

I looked at our records back to November and Scarlett has never weighed 21lbs. As a matter of fact, in November she was close to 21lbs, but ended up getting sick and quickly went down to 19. It is now nearly February and technically Scarlett hasn't gained an ounce since November (still just under 21lbs last time we weighed her). The odd thing is that our arms have been telling a different story. Are we out of shape? Probably. Is she actually gaining weight? Possibly. A couple of days ago we decided to weigh her again. 22lbs 3 oz??? Where did the 21's go? She gained over a pound in a week. Our arms knew what they were talking about. She has consistently been above 22lbs since that weigh-in.
Side note: shortly after weighing her, she puked on daddy and went slightly under the 22lb mark.

Her weight gain is certainly not from a lack of activity. I remember back before we found out she was a "she". We watched our little embryo do back flips on ultrasound, and we were positive she was a he. Nothing has changed (Of course we know the gender, but she is still the energizer bunny.) We certainly understand that she needs to run/play quite a bit these days or we don't get much rest. Any chance we have, we let her go. Whether it's running through an empty restaurant/bar area, a department store, or front yard, we realize the more she moves, the calmer she will soon become. Not that it's a bad thing. She fills out our entertainment card, and strangers constantly comment on her energy and looks. Actually, she makes sure they notice her!

So... this weekend (Jan 28-30) was the only time I spent with Scarlett this week. I know it sounds rough, but I was stuck in Key Largo Sunday through Thursday. Actually it was a work conference, and for those jealous that I missed the horrible weather in DC, just remember that I spent a TOTAL of 8 waking hours out of 70 NOT attending work seminars, presentations, trainings, or lunch/dinner breaks. Sounds fantastic, eh? Why do companies spend $100,000+ at these resorts when you could get the same pleasure (or lack of ) by spending a week in Dundalk? I had a 1200 sq ft suite with beautiful tile floors, a full kitchen, a divider separating the king bed + luxurious bath from the living room/kitchen area. In 4 nights and 5 days, I spent 5 minutes in the kitchen, 25 hrs in bed, and the rest waking up and getting ready to attend the conference. At least I had nice things to look at during those precious minutes! I guess I learned a few good nuggets, but other than that, the conference basically kept me from spending time with my family. I was able to play golf once. It was the first time in 4+ years that I swung a club. No practice, not my clubs, and after the first 6 or 7 holes, I essentially played Bogey golf. Not bad for a scrub!

Anyway, I'm bitter because Scarlett and Shonna were sick and I couldn't help them. When I returned, I made sure I spent as much time as possible with my family. I bathed Scarlett a couple of times, put her down Thurs-Sat, and basically tried to give Shonna as much time to sleep as possible (although with Shonna's prescribed Codeine cough syrup, it was difficult to keep her awake!). Scarlett returned the favor by puking on me. That's my girl...

On Friday, I spent the work day with Scarlett. All of this sickness talk wasn't really an issue. Was it just a myth? She was perfect! ;) Actually I was able to get all of my work calls in without an interruption. It was more luck than anything else. When I had a 90 minute call in the morning, she was busy playing with her toys in her play pen. I had a call at 1pm and she went to bed at 12:50. I had a call at 2 and as luck would have it, the call was canceled and she woke up at 2:10! What can I say. It was as smooth as silk :) The weekend wasn't all peaches and cream but I couldn't ask for a better day back with my daughter. As I mentioned, she did puke on me, but that was just Scarlett saying "welcome back"!

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Backing up a bit, the last time we blogged we told you about Scarlett's first (and most horrible) haircut. We got that fixed at an adult salon the next day. Although her hair is still quite short, it looks much better and she still manages to be pretty darn cute. Maybe we're imaging it, but it also seems thicker now. It wasn't long after her haircut that Scarlett and I started getting sick. She started getting sick on a Wednesday. By Thursday, I was also pretty sick and had started losing my voice. Scarlett wasn't sleeping well (her usual stuffiness resulting in her inability to sleep). We were supposed to go to a kid concert at Jammin Java on Saturday morning but Scarlett and I were too sick to go and even Paul who is usually impervious to illness had started feeling crappy. That evening we met up with my grad school officemate, Kristie, who happened to be in town for the weekend. We went to dinner, which was nice except that Scarlett came out of her illness long enough to want to run around the restaurant. We hung out at the house for a while after dinner and gave Kristie her belated birthday cake -- a massive cupcake from Crumbs Bakery in Clarendon. We weighed it and it was over 3 pounds!

Paul had to leave on Sunday morning for his business trip and by the time he left, I was in pretty bad shape. I couldn't talk at all and was constantly in really painful coughing fits (which really hurt my sore throat!). The worst part was that Scarlett wasn't feeling very well either, so she was VERY clingy and had little to no interest in independent play or her toys unless I was playing with her too. I felt worse about being a crappy mom to a sick baby than I did physically but couldn't do much about it. My sister was in Ohio and Dave was in Costa Rica (Key Largo, Costa Rica?? Why don't they ever take me?!) so essentially my entire support network was out of town. At one point I considered hiring a babysitter to come over to watch her for a while so I could try to rest but I felt bad bringing someone in to watch a sick baby, especially since she was really fussy. That night she fell asleep on my chest on the couch when not 5 minutes later, she threw up. A LOT. The worst part really wasn't the mess, but how tired she was. She just wanted to put her head back on my chest and go to sleep but I couldn't let her because I was disgusting. I realized while I had the laryngitis how much I rely on my voice with her. I'm constantly talking to her, singing to her, and reading to her under normal circumstances. Without a voice, it seemed very... quiet. She kept trying to get me to talk (e.g., pointing to things, trying to get me to sing itsy bitsy spider or pat-a-cake, handing me books to read) and it felt very neglectful to not respond to her.

The next few days were pretty similar. I took her to daycare on Monday and stayed home from work to try to recover enough to care for her in the evening. With enough cold medication and caffeine, I made it through the days okay and managed to even play with her some but at night I had to stay up late catching up on work and then woke up every 15 minutes coughing once I finally did go to sleep. Between the laryngitis and Paul's hectic work schedule while he was gone, we also barely got to talk to him. It wasn't our best week! To top it off, we ended up finally getting a substantial snowfall -- somewhere between 6 and 8 inches! It snowed a bit the night before... enough to warrant my shoveling before I went to work. I picked Scarlett up early from daycare because we were supposed to start getting "Thunder Snow" during rush hour and I wanted to make sure we were off the roads. It turned out to be a good thing I did because by all accounts, it was the worse commute anyone had ever seen, with lots of people just abandoning their cars on the street. The heavy snow started around 4 PM. Scarlett and I watched the snow out the window and she got REALLY excited. She kept bringing her coat and shoes to me to try to get me to take her outside. Finally, around 5 PM I decided it was time to go out and shovel for the first time (the news said it was going to be wet and heavy so shovel early and often!). We put her snow suit on her, got her all bundled up and she was bouncing with excitement ready to go outside. We got out there and... she started crying. She was a little fussy in my arms, but if I put her down, all hell broke loose. She was okay on the porch, but as soon as the snowflakes hit her face, she was NOT a happy camper.

My plan had been to let her play in the snow while I shoveled. That was not going to happen. I ended up doing the entire first round of shoveling with one arm while I held her in the other. Not an easy way to go, but luckily at that point it was only about 2 inches. By the time we got back in, she and I were both hurting. As it turns out, being out in thunder snow with a cold isn't really a good idea. By then it was coming down 2 inches per hour, so I'd planned to go back out in an hour. Instead, Scarlett and I shared some hot chocolate and snuggled up on the couch for a while, both feeling sorry for ourselves. I got my second wind just before 8. I re-bundled and decided there was no way I was taking her back out there, so I left her inside the gate and left the door open so that she could see me through the storm door. She screamed the entire 30 minutes it took me to do the second round of shoveling. She tried to climb over the gate and got her foot stuck so when i came back in she was hobbling around with one shoe on. She hadn't played with any of her toys, but in a sign of protest, she had taken all of her toys our of her playpen and thrown as many as she could on the other side of the gate. Sigh. It looked like a tornado had gone through. You have to give her credit for her communication skills.

By morning the snow had stopped. We had breakfast and I again listened to her scream as a shoveled the rest of the snow. Well, everything except the part of the walkway that was ow under our broken tree. We have a single ugly tree in our yard and we lost 3 of its 5 large branches in the storm. It could have been worse! I was excited about finally having the opportunity to try Scarlett's new sled out. I was determined to "reward" her for her "patience" while I shoveled so I quickly put her back into her snow suit and brought the sled outside. She initially seemed much happier with the situation. There weren't any snowflakes hitting her in the face and she liked making snowballs and then throwing them into the cement and watching them break into a million pieces. She also liked eating the snow. When I put her on the sled, she was initially having fun, but then wanted to be held. I picked her up and we trudged through the snow a hill a few blocks down. A bunch of neighborhood kids were out sledding down the hill with a few parents standing watch. I pushed Scarlett up the hill on the sled and pulled her back down. She laughed all the way to the bottom. Once we hit the bottom, she started crying. And crying... and crying! We stopped for a snack (cereal bar and milk) until she seemed okay to proceed. We did one more trip up (and down) the hill (excellent exercise for me!) until it became clear that she was not in the mood. I pushed her back home and she cried the entire way but at that point I couldn't manage her in one hand and the sled in the other, so she just had to go for a ride. Man would I have paid someone to push me around on a sled that day!

Once we got back she was super fussy until I let her curl up on my chest on the couch again. I think she just wasn't feeling very well, so I finally accepted that we might be too sick to take advantage of the snow and we stayed in the rest of the day, eating chicken noodle soup and resting. She took a lot of hot baths and showers to help with the congestion and seemed to be managing her disappointment around not getting any bedtime stories. She ended up being very easy to put down those nights -- she was usually asleep in 5 minutes or less! Very kind of her!

The next day, I was starting to have a bit of a voice again and she woke up in a very good mood. She seemed to be starting to get over her cold. I had gone to the doctor on Tuesday who had said that both of us should be getting better any day. Just in time for Daddy to come home! We took it easy all day but I had said "Daddy comes home today!" and Scarlett was running around all day saying "Dada, da da, da da". We were very excited when his delayed flight finally landed around 7:45 that night. Woo hoo!

Scarlett has been adding new words to her vocabulary all the time. Just while Paul was gone, she started saying "bang, bang", "bath", "dance", and "yuck." She loves onions (sauteed, carmelized, vinegary), greek yogurt (which she thinks is ice cream), baked potatoes, sour cream, calamari, coq au vin, pickles, asparagus, miso soup, cereal, tofu, seaweed... Every time I think there is no chance she'll eat that, she ends up liking it. She seems to really like strong or tart flavors, like vinegar and lemons. Bizarre. She clearly understands almost everything now. Tonight I asked is she wanted to take a bath and she immediately got down off the couch, ran over to the gate, started to climb out until I let her out, ran up stairs, waited at the door to her room until I let her in, ran into the bathroom and went straight to the tub and pulled the curtain back. I thought that was pretty good (a) comprehension and (b) focus for an almost 15 month old! It's amazing how fast that happened. She is way too much of a little person for my comfort!