Dinky Diner and other Things I love

Awhile back I posted a few of my favorite baby things and I've got a couple more things to add.

Dinky Diner
I LOVE this product. I was looking online for things I thought would be useful for our trip to Thailand this summer. I wanted a portable highchair that I wouldn't mind carrying all day everyday, on public transportation. It had to be lightweight, easy to use, and do the job well. At first everything I found was too big to carry around regularly. Then I stumbled upon a totally new concept, a new one to me anyway-- the fabric highchair. The first ones I found ran about $40. That's alot. So I kept up the search and stumbled upon the Dinky Diner on ebay. It was only $12.50! It works great on almost any chair, will come in handy when we're in a generally highchairless country this summer, and I'm already putting it to good use. Tonight for instance the restaurant we went to was super busy and out of high chairs so I pulled the Dinky Diner out of the bag and voila-- instance highchair. Holding her throughout dinner wouldn't have been the end of the world, but this made things alot easier. Anyway, these are pics of Adelaide in our chairs at home.



Here it is in its handy carrying bag, next to a diaper to show its size. Sweet, eh?


Pampers Swipers
Another thing I've been meaning to post about for awhile is diapers and wipes. As I mentioned in my post on diapers long ago, Pampers are hands down my favorites. I love Pampers Cruisers and Swaddlers in particular but Baby Dry will do also. Well, when I originally posted that, Pampers contacted me and sent me a package of diapers along with some Swipers, the corresponding wipes, to test out.

Up until this point I'd been using whatever kind of wipes I had. I actually still have wipes I received as gifts from my baby showers (which is super sweet). I'd mostly used Huggies and Target brand until then. Well, the Swipers were awesome. Adelaide had been having some ongoing diaper rash and the swipers were softer and thicker like a washcloth or something and seem more mild. I think they helped clear things up. They smell great too, not just for wipes. They smell great in general. And they help clean up the messes of a kid that is eating lots of solids. They sort of grip the poop (I don't really know a polite way to put it) better than other brands I've tried. Anyway, as much as I love Pampers diapers, I love their wipes just as much. I look forward to using the Clean 'n Go ones next. And another great thing is that their wipes along with the diapers have Gifts to Grow points to redeem for cool toys and stuff. Adelaide's Christmas gift from us was a freebie from Pampers. (Yes, we are cheap parents). For what it's worth, there's my 2 cents on wipes.

Fisher-Price Walking Toy
This was the best $17 ever spent (by my mom. Thanks, Mom!). Adelaide loved this thing and used it so much as she was learning to walk. There are others out there for more moola but why get those when this one works fine.

She's a Walkin'

Tonight we were at a friend's house for dinner, and Adelaide decided she'd walk for the first time. She was holding on to a dining room chair and walked about 4 or 5 feet to a walking toy she'd been playing with. Then as we were getting her ready for bed she walked from the bedroom door to a basket of toys about 5 feet away again. When we got her out of bed  minutes later after we found her covered in vomit (poor girl's still sick-- she chokes on mucous) and cleaned her up, she was walking all over the place downstairs. She went from couch to couch, from person to person. I'm a proud momma. We'd love your prayers by the way that she would get completely better soon. I'm currently trying her off dairy to see if that helps get rid of some of her snottiness. 

Fun with Grammy

Some fun pics from the week with Rocky's mom. Yes we did have some fun even though Adelaide was pretty miserable alot of the time. Since it was such a hard week it was so nice to have some help. There were a few times when I didn't know how I would have done it alone.

Here's Adelaide with the little crocheted monkey Rocky's mom brought for her. It was Rocky's when he was a kid. Adelaide loves it. She nibbled on the little banana he's holding and tried to get the monkey to eat it too.

We walked to the neighborhood playground one day. We had a good time on the slides.

It was drizzling on the way back home so we put Adelaide in her "bubble." She loves it as you can tell from her expression.

We did spend alot of time around the house with Adelaide being sick and all. Here's some pics around the house.

I think Adelaide looks so big on this toy. She really IS so big. I'm struck so often these days.


Here's Adelaide peeking around the side of the gate at Scooter.

She's been standing up on her own alot recently. She can stand up in the middle of the room no problem and she's even been taking steps on her own initiative.

We did get to get out some. We went to Rudy's upon request, and Adelaide didn't get BBQ but instead had spinach. Look at her disgust at the taste.

Rocky's mom brought Adelaide some Valentine's day presents. Do you think she likes them?

Adelaide's addiction to hugging continues. I have a video of her hugging herself. I'll have to post it sometime soon.

An 11

Well, here's what the doctor said. If you don't know what I'm talking about just read my last post to see what was going on.

The visit started out like always: the doctor commenting on how happy Adelaide was. Then he asked what was up. I recapped the horrible night we had but said other than that she'd just been snotty. He proceeded to check her ears.

As he was checking them, he told me that at Adelaide's age the first things he considers when there's major crying and no sleeping are ears and throat. Leaving me in suspense I asked, "so what are you saying? What's the verdict?" He said on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst possible ear infection, one ear is an 11 and the other is a 9. An 11! He said her eardrum has a chance of rupturing. He said if it does, it will relieve the pressure but puss and blood will come out.

About this time I'm freaking out. I think he's starting to realize it too. I'm picturing permanent hearing loss here along with general freakiness. He goes on to assure me that there won't be any long term effects though, that the eardrum would mend itself in a day or so. Wow, her ears had gotten that bad. It was taken a while for me to real believe what I was hearing. My little girl that was laughing in her carseat on the ride over?

Everything else was OK but I felt like a horrible parent for not recognizing this sooner. The doctor asked me I don't know how many times if she'd been pulling on her ears or fussy prior to last night and my honest answer was no. He was amazed. He said it freaks him out that she didn't complain prior to that because it's so bad. Freaks me out too. It freaks me out even more that I almost canceled my appointment because she'd been so happy all day. The kid is crazy; she could fool anyone.

So she'd got to be seriously doped up now-- strong high dollar antibiotics to fight the infection, twice the normal dosage of Motrin for the pain (which totally freaks me out), and nasal spray to fight the continual drainage since the decongestants hadn't been working. He basically contributed the prolonged snottiness to allergies since we hadn't seen any relief with any cold medicines. That's totally a bummer. Now we've got to figure out if it's a food allergy or environmental.

We'll have to go back in 10 days to recheck her; he said he normally wouldn't recheck on those antibiotics but since Adelaide obviously has the highest pain tolerance in the world and won't complain until her eardrum is about to rupture, he wants to see her.

I've always seen Adelaide's happy demeanor as a huge strong point and never really thought it could also be a downfall until today. As I type this she is finally sleeping in her swing in our room. It's so nice to know she's comfortable for now.

This one takes the cake

Last night we picked up Rocky's mom from the airport around 7:45 and then got home 8:45 or so and put Adelaide to bed. So she was already an hour or so behind her normal bedtime to start with. Then about an hour after she'd gone to sleep, she woke up crying. Not just crying, really, bawling. Rocky went up first to try and console her. Nothing. She didn't want to eat. She didn't want to be held by him. She just cried. Then I went up, same thing. She would not stop crying. Finally after about an hour, she fell asleep on my shoulder. I kept her there until she started breathing heavily and decided I'd try to lay her down. Well as soon as I even shifted my weight, she started all over again. We repeated this several times and then I decided maybe we'd try to put her into bed with us. That didn't work. I think she associates our bed with play time cause that's where we spend alot of Saturday mornings together.

Well, that didn't work so finally after exhausting every possibility including teething tablets, oragel, motrin, etc. We put her in her pack n play next to us to hopefully fall asleep on her own. She cried for only about 10 minutes to our surprise (we'd already tried that a few times) and then went to sleep. Not for long.

At 3 am she woke up again screaming. We did it all over again but this time she wouldn't even fall asleep on my shoulder. Rocky went into the attic to find her swing that we'd packed away months ago and tried that. It didn't help. We gave her some time to just play. That didn't help. She threw up lots of mucous on me at some point in there. 2 hours later at 5 am, after we realized she had some bad gas and gave her some mylanta, she finally fell asleep again. I dont' know if that's what did it or if it was just plain exhaustion, but it didn't last for long.

She woke up at her normal time of 7:30am ready to start her day with dark circles under her eyes. I tried to get her to drink some formula cause she didn't want any before bed and she refused for awhile. Finally she drank some but then threw it up instantly. Fluke? I don't know. She'd been feeling warm all night but I checked her temp about 3 times and it was always fine, but this morning I checked it at about 8am and it was 100. Again at about 9am and it was 100.5. Dang it.

So after what I'm now referring to as the worst night of Adelaide's life, I'm exhausted (you may be able to tell from my writing) and am bringing her to the doctor at 2:30pm. My kid is just not a crier so something's up for sure. I'm wondering if the snottiness she's had for over a month has finally led to an ear infection. That mixed with her getting so many teeth in driving her over the edge? Don't know but I'd appreciate thoughts and prayers especially since Rocky's going out of town on Sunday.