Chicken Pox? Really?

The last couple of weeks have been interesting. Liv seemingly had a growth spurt both this past weekend (every 2 hours during the day and 3 hours at night for 48 hours - oh, yeah) and the previous weekend. Then last night, she went 9 hours between feeds. Go figure. Of course, she was in Jeff's superior swaddle, which I maintain adds at least an hour to Liv's long period of sleep. Liv also started looking at faces instead of around them and started smiling. Just in time... ;) We'll have more pictures after this weekend.

Morgen got the chicken pox last week - yes, really. Evidently, it's not that uncommon to get a mild case despite being vaccinated. She had a running nose and was grumpy and teething, so it took a fever to let us know something was amiss. What about all of those red spots? Well, the timing was such that she'd been on a walk in our neighborhood and had a bunch of bites already (mostly on her legs and feet), and the next morning, she had additional "bites" on her tummy. When she got a fever the next evening (102!!), we checked with the doc and then with our favorite dermatologist, Dr. Colby, and confirmed that these bites were indeed "the pox." Morgen never scratched them, nor did she have other symptoms beyond the runny nose, fever, and extreme grumpiness.

Today, Morgen made up for the last week of fussiness. She's been on-again-off-again interested in using the big potty. This morning, she asked to "go pee-pee," which is great, but Jeff had an early meeting, so I was getting Morgen ready with Liv without any backup. The "pee-pee process" takes a good 5+ minutes, so if Liv is fussy, it can be a bit much for a still sleep deprived mommy when the likelihood of actual "pee-pee" occuring is not very high. Well, this morning, Morgen did go in the big potty! She actually asked again about 15 minutes later, and I wasn't as supportive, and shortly thereafter, I realized that she'd gone "poo-poo" in her diaper, so she might have actually been trying to ask to go for that reason. We had a repeat performance just before her nap - our first two "pee" day! (Never thought I could post so much about bodily functions...)

Morgen has started showing some of her jealousy of Mommy's time, but it comes out as frustration with Mommy, not Liv, so that's a lot easier to manage (I would guess). She's been hitting me when she gets mad, so I asked her teacher if Morgen's hitting any other kids. Turns out, she's not hitting at school. Evidently, she's really aware of other kids' moods, and today, the kids were using paper plates for a project, and another girl was upset and didn't have her plate yet. Morgen gave her plate to the girl to help console her. So sweet. She has also started using "please" and "thank you" without prompting with some consistency, and her teacher said that's true at school as well.

She's adding words daily and her pronunciation is getting better and better. She even let me put a "hair bow" (rubber band or clip) in her hair the last two days without removing it right away. Yikes! She's getting to be a big girl!

All for now - Jeff is almost done with dinner. :)