Beach Babe

Our trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa at the beach was a huge success. Emma loves the water and is completely fearless. And she would have sat there sorting sand all day if we let her. I'd say the swim lessons are paying off.

No nap today

So Emma took a 20 minute cat nap in the car on the way from the doctor to daycare yesterday morning. She considered that her nap for the day. The teacher could not get her to take a nap at naptime no matter what. As soon as I got her in the car she passed out. I took her in the house and deposited her into the bouncy seat where she slept for another 30 minutes until the dogs barked indicating the arrival of Mike. When she woke up I picked her up and gave her a bottle because she was incredibly fussy. Don't judge me! I tried to give her dinner but she was having no parts of it so off to take a bath we went. Poor kid laid her head on the side of the tub she was so tired. She ended up crashing at 6 PM and slept until 12:30 when she woke up and had yet another bottle. (How's that bottle weaning going you ask- Great, thanks for asking) She slept the rest of the night until 6:30 AM. Do you think that taught her to take a nap? Probably not. But it taught us what happens when she doesn't.

Our little family

The Rash From Hell

So my sweet little Emma seems to constantly have a diaper rash. Sometimes it is a plain old run of the mill rash and sometimes it is a yeast infection. She has had one of these angry red rashes on and off for the last month or so and we have been through 6 tubes of Nystatin trying to combat it to no avail. I emailed her doc last night and took some photos of the rash (yikes please don't arrest me child porn cops) and sent them to her doctor. She said bring her in because she might have anal strep. Huh? I don't think I like the world anal being used in conjunction with my daughter at any time.

Off to the peditrician's office this morning where Emma behaved remarkably well even when the doc looked in her ears. The verdict-strep negative! Hooray. Doc said it isn't a yeast infection either so it is just a plain old diaper rash from hell. She recommended Neosporin and a thick coat of Desitin. She also asked if I had ever tried Greer's Goo.

Let me just say oh yes I have heard of it. When Emma was a newborn she developed a yucky rash and a different ped recommended Greer's Goo so being new parents and desparate to relieve our child we went to the pharmacy and $60 later we have a tub of this fancy desitin like stuff. It didn't work. Threw out the big tub a few months ago actually. So yeah I've heard of it. Not going back to that junk.

So we'll see how this Neosporin works out. Should be fun.

Bumps and Bruises and Bottles

Nothing wild and crazy over the last few days with Emma. Yesterday when I picked her up I had to sign an incident report because Emma bumped her head on the table. Today, she fell and bit her lip. Our little daredevil tends to get in a hurry and not watch where she is going. She also had her first time out yesterday in her time out chair. It worked.

The biggest thing that we have been working on is weaning Emma from the bottle. Our peditrician said she needed to be completely off the bottle by 15 months or else we just have to take the bottle away cold turkey. So I've been slowly replacing bottles with sippy cups over the last few months. We are down to one or two bottles a day- one at night night time and one sometimes in the middle of the night. I've been very stressed about these last two bottles and getting her completely weaned in the next 2 weeks.

A couple of days ago I was googling weaning etc and ran across a forum of moms giving advice etc on the subject. The consensus was that this is the last vestiges of babyhood for these toddlers and why rush it. It's sweet to sit with Emma and let her drink her bottle before bed while we get to snuggle. So, I've stopped stressing about it. She'll give it up when she is ready and until then we get a few more months of baby Emma.

Two entries in one day. It's been that kind of day. So as I am walking into Emma's classroom today I am greeted by the words "Emma bit someone today." Wonderful. Guess who she bit? The teacher. Miss R was holding her and all of a sudden Emma bit her on the arm. And when she got in trouble she sort of smirked. Not good. I don't think that she meant to bite. Sometimes she gives open mouth kisses and she is also cutting another molar so maybe that explains it. In any case, guess we are going to have to really starting disciplining her rather than thinking it's so cute when she does naughty things. Good thing we have a time out chair!

Our first throw down tantrum

Emma had her first all out, throw down couldn't get over it tantrum this morning. Now she has had many, many tantrums before but she usually cries and sits on the floor for a few seconds before getting over it and moving on. Today's was an all out tantrum. The trigger- her new toddler high chair. Before she was born, Mike found a deal on one of those restaurant style wooden high chairs. Yesterday he put it together and Emma got to sit at the table like a big girl. She loved it!

This morning I put her in it as I always do when finishing getting ready for work downstairs- packing lunch etc. I had my breakfast with her and noticed that she had managed to unbuckle the safety belt. Since she wasn't doing anything wrong, I left her unbuckled. She played and we chitchatted etc. Then I took her out of her chair. She had a minor meltdown so I put her back in, buckled her back up and gave her more breakfast (since she threw most on the floor the first time) and kept on getting ready. Well within a few seconds she had managed to turn herself completely around and stand up in the dang chair. The buckle was still buckled but now on the bottom of the chair. Ugh. So, I told her that since she couldn't sit down in her big girl chair she had to go back into the other highchair. She was MAD! She screamed and cried and howled. I took her out of the other highchair and sat her on the floor where she continued to scream and cry and demand to be picked up. Once I picked her up she pointed at the highchair and when I wouldn't put her in it, she screamed some more. This went on for at least 10 minutes.

If this is what happens at 14 months- dear God help us when she hits 2!