Life is Better in a Box

Little Trooper

Ginny's had kind of a rough go of it the past few months. Shall I just list of few of her troubles?
1. Right before Christmas she got a bad flu followed by a very bad cold. The flu threw her digestive track for a loop and she still isn't able to get back to solid foods. Her insides think about it, then send the food right back.
2. Her two bottom teeth broke through.
3. Some kind of upper respiratory infection went through our kids. The older two weathered it just fine but Ginny got an ear infection and the beginnings of pneumonia.
4. The antibiotics for the ear infection leave her with a pretty nasty diaper rash.

So our poor little Ginny is constantly having medicine shoved into her mouth. Besides the prevacid and axid for her reflux, there's the antibiotics and ibuprofen and tylenol.
The great thing about Ginny is she smiles through all of it. We may hear a wimper when the ibuprofen wears off, but about 99% of the time, she's still giggles and grins.
What a great baby.

Silly Puddy Woes

"My head is stuck to my pillow!"
Not something you want to hear at 3:00 am.
Poor little Ethan fell asleep with silly puddy in is hand. In the night it transferred to his pillow, and then with the turning over that happens in sleep, spread to three different parts of his hair.
Thank heavens for google. Olive oil left to sit for a minute helped to break it down enough to be encouraged out with a comb. There were some tears and some cries of "just use scissors!" but it came out in the end.
I pulled out a hot wheels car that I had stashed away and gave it to him for being brave and we both went back to bed feeling like champions.

My Favorite Sunday Afternoon Activity.

Cheese Part 2

Ginny is our smiliest baby by far. Ethan was a good smiler but he was nearly 8 weeks old before popping out with a grin. Joanna's smiles came earlier, but she was always a little stingy with them. Ginny's smiles came even earlier and she gives them out like it's easier than breathing. Sometimes she even has a little grin on her face while she's sleeping.
For the past little while she's been getting really good at mimicking. Stick out your tongue, she'll stick out hers. Nod your head, she enthusiastically copies. And with smiles, it seems like she has noticed that we have a lot going on in our faces when we smile at her, so she has tried to follow our lead.
She smiles, then scrunches up her face, then lets out a giggle and looks at us like she's so proud of herself for figuring this out.
What a doll.

Cheese

Joanna paid very close attention when I was taking pictures of Ethan and his missing teeth. She watched how he maneuvered his jaw to best show off the new gap. Now it's hard to get her to smile for a picture without mimicking the lost tooth pose. Silly grins abound lately.

Good Bye FIghty

Our pet beta Fighty went to fish heaven sometime during the night last night. He was a good little fish, he lasted two months shy of a year. There was debate about whether to tell the kids outright or try and sneak a new "fighty" into the bowl. Telling the kids won out, and we didn't have much to worry about. Ethan was sad for about two seconds and then moved on with his life. It'll take a couple days for him to process it (already his usual slurry of 'what if' questions have been replaced by questions about death), but for the most part, he's just accepted it as part of life. Fighty will be missed though, and thanks to Joanna calling all fish "fighties", he'll be remembered for a while to come.

Tooth Number Two