gratitude, germs, growing teeth

Every day for the past 4 weeks, someone in our babysitter's family has been sick. Fevers, nausea, coughing, oozing eyes. Gross. We kept Ellie home the whole time, and, with the help of grandparents, understanding employers and coworkers, and complete abandon for any normal sense of daily life, we made it work.

The first day home was too much fun. All day I kept thinking, "I'm not sick, Ellie's not sick, but I still can't go to work!" It was so much better than staying home when you actually are sick, and even so much better than staying home when you're pretending you are sick (because those days are filled with worry... that you might (1.) get caught or (2.) get hit by a bad case of karma and find yourself actually sick/with a broken down car/etc.) As day after day passed, I felt more exhausted by the demands piling up at work and the number of favors we had called in. It was an awesome time for Ellie to spend with her grandparents (plus extra time with her super fun parents). Taking her back to Laura's was bittersweet. Ellie was excited to see her (which, OMG, what a relief) and I guess it was nice to be at meetings today without trying to entertain Little Miss Independent who wants to be walking around and eating everything she can't. (shoes? really?)

The newest problem in our little world is that Ellie's teeth have finally decided to make an appearance, leaving us with a slobbering, snotting, and very-fast-to-scream-and-cry-infant. Is it just her teeth or is she getting sick? How are we supposed to figure this out since the little one can't talk? Moms? Not only is she crabby, but I'm crabby, too; with an upset stomach, sore throat, and achy body. Blah.

You might think it's crazy that I'm surprised (again) by how much this little babe has changed my life. The extra care and attention that she needs always takes priority in my mind, but it's a struggle to balance that, while trying to work and maintain the rest of our life. It's so much more of a struggle right now, with all these germs floating around. It's only October. How many more months until spring and good health? Eek. I feel like a bad employee (barely working, very unfocused), an unhealthy person (so much fast food, why do we have a gym membership?), and a shell of the old me. I guess the most important part right now is that I don't feel like a bad mom. Mostly, I think Ellie agrees with me.

participation challenge 1: family traditions

When we were growing up we had a lot of silly traditions. A few that I think of often: Saturday morning chores (complete with personalized task lists by kid), a kid-of-the-week award, being allowed to pick out whatever candy we wanted from the hospital gift-shop after a doctor appointment, "blowing out" the red light on the video camera to turn it off, and our parents singing "who's got the power?!" after we finished watching TV shows and it was time to go to bed. Other traditions related to our birthdays: being able to pick the dinner we wanted and the style of cake that Nanny would make, singing an extra verse on the end of the happy birthday song, and everyone in the family having a tootsie pop (on your real birthday) or a dum-dum lollipop (on your half birthday).

Miss Ellise is a few days shy of the biggest day of her life so far... she's about to celebrate her first half birthday. It has me thinking about what kinds of traditions we should start so when she's out on her own, she can think back fondly of the quirky things that only happened in our family. I can't figure out if these things happen on their own (over time, because it's not like Ellie will remember this one anyways), or if parents decide to plan special things. We've already decided on a few special things that we'll do on all of our birthdays (you'll have to wait til April to hear about those), but I really think celebrating a half-birthday, even with something as small as dum-dum lollipops held up by a wooden bear is super awesome.

So, if you're out there (and I know a few of you are), you can help our family get creative by clicking on the Post a Comment link and explaining some of your favorite childhood traditions. For parents--how did your family traditions start? Did they just sort of happen or did you make a decision to do something silly/special/awesome? In a few days I'll let you know how we marked this spectacular day in baby girl's life.

this is how ellie and i entertained ourselves while waiting for grandpa and daddy to finish their triathlon.