It was somewhere between 3am and 4am, in the loneliness of the night between Monday and Tuesday. F had finally stopped throwing up and was getting some rest. J had also stopped throwing up, but had no interest in rest. I was worn out, still throwing up too much to get any rest, and not thinking very clearly. In the corner of our den is J’s little table, where she likes to color and eat her snacks. She’s not allowed to climb up on top of it, so of course she frequently does if she feels that we’re not paying attention to her. I walked over to the table and flipped it upside down so she couldn’t climb up. Then I turned on Sesame Street. Then I wrapped myself in a sheet, checked that the baby gates were all closed, and dozed on the floor while J clambered around on the couch and played with her toys and frequently just leaned up against me, presumably watching the television. I occasionally lifted myself up enough for another puking session, which would get J very excited. She would point at my bowl and exclaim, “Da! Da! Da!!” as my empty guts tried to empty themselves further. I would rinse out what little was in the bowl, then lie back down. Rinse, repeat. Why didn’t I wake up F? I have no idea. How long was I there? No idea. When the TV stopped making noise, I selected a new episode. I did that a couple times. I was definitely a little delirious, possibly slightly feverish.

And so it is that we hit a number of milestones all at once:

– We experienced having the whole family sick with the stomach flu, and somehow survived and took care of the kid.

– We experienced both parents being ungodly sick while the baby felt fine, and still managed to keep her fed and her diaper changed and she didn’t get injured.

– I used the TV as a babysitter. I knew it would happen eventually. I knew there would come a time when I had to turn on the TV and just let it go. My friend Beth is always reminding me that sometimes parenthood is not about being perfect but about being enough. And this week, I embraced enough for the first time. I don’t feel bad about it. She was safe, she was happy, and when I thought I might be able to not puke for a couple hours, she was ready to go back to bed.

On a happier note, we also hit the point where she can indicate assent! She hasn’t quite figured out how to nod her head yes, but she’ll kind of bounce her whole body up and down a little when you ask her a question and she is affirmative in her answer.

I think I’ve also already mentioned that she now loves to spin until she’s dizzy, then stagger around until she falls down. The whole times she’s doing it she goes, “Wowwwwww!” I need to get a video before it stops. I’m still sad that I never got a good video of the step step game.

J peed in the potty this morning! We’ve gotten off track because of all the diarrhea concerns we’ve had going on recently, but she’s been waking up dry on many mornings. This morning I managed to get her diaper off before she needed to pee, and I sat her down on the potty. She peed almost immediately! She stopped once she realized what was happening, not because she was scared or anything, but because she wanted to splash around in it (sigh, this kid REALLY LOVES WATER). I congratulated her very effusively and told her that she should be proud she peepeed in the potty, while at the same time holding her hands so she wouldn’t play in it. She got up and started playing with a stuffed animal, and immediately started peeing again. I put her back on the potty and she finished up! I should have then had her go flush it with me, but I forgot in my own excitement. Next time, we’ll go flush it and then wash our hands.

So much has happened!

– J had her first tantrum :(. She was playing with some fun new toys when I came to get her at daycare, and she didn’t want to leave. I would have let her keep playing, except they were closing and so I had to take her out. I gave her a few warnings before we left, but even so I know she was not done with those toys and did NOT want to spend an hour in the car. I don’t really blame her. When we got out to the hall she refused to move any further, and started rolling on the floor and crying. I felt terrible for her, because I know she was just frustrated and tired and at the end of her rope. I spent some time trying to talk to her and acknowledge her feelings, but because I was in a rush and my arms were full of bags of stuff, I couldn’t really give her as much attention as I think might have helped. Instead, I basically just scooped her up and told her I know she wanted to play with the toys and I was sorry that we had to stop now, but that she could play with them another time. I told her I had her snack ready for her and that we would eat it outside on the bench before we went home. By the time we got outside she had stopped crying. Tantrums are going to be hard for me.

– Spinning until dizzy! She’s discovered that she can spin around in circles all by herself (there’s a spinning chair at the playground that she loves). So she’ll spin spin spin spin until she is dizzy and then stagger around. It’s nerve-wracking. Adorable, but nerve-wracking.

– She has learned the word, “no.”  Well, more accurately, she has learned, “nooooooooooooo.” She pronounces it, “nuu” which makes it pretty cute. Offer her something she doesn’t want and you get a little, “nuuuuu.” Take away something she does want and you get a much more emphatic, “nuuuuuuu!” She did not learn these at home.

– This one probably goes hand in hand with swimming, but recently she has discovered that she can lie down in the bathtub! She’ll lie down and talk to herself or splash a little bit. I think she’s enjoying how things sound different underwater. It’s fun to watch her sit up and lie down repeatedly. One of these days I’ll work up the nerve to have the bath be deep enough that she can practice her floating.

– We also moved J into her own room. For many people, waiting until she is 16 months seems like a very long time indeed. Others don’t move their children out until they are 3 or 4 years old. In our case, it was time to move her into a toddler bed and there’s not quite enough room in our room for one. The crib is snugged right up against the bed, but a toddler bed needs to have room where the child can get in and out. It would have fit, but getting her down into it would have been a bear. So, out she moves. Since she’s not yet sleeping through the night, and still nursing at night, I also got a little mattress for me to go into the room. Last night was our first night with the new arrangement, and it was definitely hard for me to go to bed and not be able to just lean over and listen to her breathe or rest my hand on her back. Every time she woke up in the night she flipped out. At about midnight, I decided to make use of the mattress in the room. It was still a long night. I’m guessing it will take some time for everyone to get used to the new setup. J also woke up incredibly congested, and I’m hoping that contributed to her trouble sleeping. With luck, tonight will go better. I think it’s more likely that I’m in for a rather long week.

At school and at home, we shush J to sleep. Recently, she has started shushing her dolls and Ah! Eeh! when they go to sleep. She can’t quite figure out how we make the shushing sound though, so she purses her lips and blows on her finger.

She dances now! With her feet! Not just the arms back and forth that all children seem to develop, but a little pittery pattery of her feet. She’s so excited and cute when she does it!

On Tuesday, I had her tested for food allergies. The diapers at school have just been unrelenting and we’re trying to get to the bottom (no pun intented) of it. They did a skin test for a number of things (I’ll try to remember to scan the results tonight). Basically, she came up as maybe mildly allergic to: oats, oranges, tangerines, and fresh whole milk. However, the doctor tested tangerines and fresh milk on his own arm, and had a stronger reaction than she did. Apparently, when you’re an allergist, and someone brings in something to be tested for that they don’t already have a baseline on, you get to be tested for it as a control. So he recommended cutting oranges because that’s easy to do, but keeping milk because dairy is so important. He also recommended a blood test, since the skin tests have a 50% false positive rate. I originally agreed, but the more I thought about it the more I feel like we’re subjecting J to a number of medical procedures of questionable value. The EEG, I think was necessary. The hospital trip for constipation was not (even though my doctor’s nurse line sent us there.) The skin testing, debatable. We needed to know if she was clearly horribly allergic to something, and she isn’t. The blood test to confirm… just ugh. They would need to pull blood from her arm. We did that when she was a year old and she was very good, but honestly, I can’t bring myself to see it as necessary. I talked to the allergist and he agreed that a very well kept food diary would be good enough. So no blood test! Her diapers have been pretty normal the last few days anyway.

Speaking of medical procedures, I got my flu shot yesterday. As usual, they put a bandaid over it. I left the bandaid on, and when J saw it she got very excited! I told her it was a bandaid because I got a shot, and she pulled her shorts up to point to her thigh where she gets her shots. Dad thinks it was coincidence, but she kept doing it until I said, “Yes, that’s where you get a shots and then a bandaid!” and then she clapped. Then she did it a couple more times, and then switched to pointing to my bandaid and clapping. Maybe she was trying to tell me I was a very brave girl, and that she knew that hurt but she promises it will feel better soon and help keep me and other babies healthy?

The only other new thing I can think of (aside from some new words! All birds are ‘duchhhhhhh’ and trash on the floor is ‘chhhhh’) is that she has started blowing kisses goodbye. She puts her hand up to her mouth and then goes “WAH!” as if to make a big kissing sound. She does it a few times, though the “wah” sometimes never comes or sometimes she forgets to move her hand. Nevertheless, it’s obvious and cute. She’s so sweet and patient.

Oh! And new signs: Please and thank you!