Sick

We were all sick this week. Aidan has had a cough for the last 6-8 weeks, so two Fridays ago I took him to his pediatrician (Dr. Perez, Dr. Eng's new associate) to get him checked out. She gave us an inhaler to help him get the junk out of his lungs and told us to come back if his cough wasn't gone in a week. It helped a bit, but he was still coughing this Friday, so we went back. They said it wasn't strep, they didn't think it was pneumonia, and it was probably just something that we would have to get through with the winter, unless it got worse. However, Saturday, Aidan woke up with about a 102 fever, so we called them again, and Dr. Eng prescribed him some antibiotics. Fortunately, a couple of days of that has really started to turn him around, and today Aidan is a much cheerier boy! However, meanwhile, the rest of us got sick: Wednesday and Thursday, Daddy came down with a major cold. He took some sick time and is now feeling better. But Sunday, Kiana woke up with a 100.8 fever and a cough, and I woke up with Daddy's cold (nasal drip cough, headache, but no fever). Not fun! :( Of course, all of this compounds the sleep problems we've had since coming back from vacation, and still nothing is back to anything that looks "normal." On the plus side, since Kiana was up from 3:30 to 5:00AM on Friday morning, I managed to prepare a couple of spinach quiches that I'd been wanting to make, and gave one away to some friends (Aidan's friend Eme's family) who just welcomed their own second baby in mid-December!


Fortunately, Daddy was feeling good enough to do some major childcare on Saturday and Sunday, which made it so that I could work on the post-doc application which is due (at Rutgers) Monday. Saturday they spent a bunch of time inside avoiding the cold, but Sunday Daddy took both kids on a train adventure (A and 1 trains, downtown and uptown) - a first for Kiana in NY (though she did have another one in San Francisco). Then they made brownies! (Yum!) :) I'm grateful for backup!


Highlights:


AIDAN:
- Aidan's "why's" are amazing, recently! Once this week he asked, "Why do we have skin?" Another time, he had an amazing conversation:
AIDAN: "Why can't we see that the earth is spinning?"
DADDY: [Explains, and talks about the sun being always up in Antarctica right now)
AIDAN: "I want to GO there!"
And later, he marched into my room to tell me that, "Mama! The Yankees are NOT NICE! They want OTHER TEAMS' players!" (Yes, Alex is already indoctrinating him!)
- He is also continuing to try to negotiate: like, "I want my milk to be LESS cold!"or "If you do not give me cheese, I will not eat!" We are working on trying to have more "please" phrases and less ultimatums!
- Aidan is blowing us away with what he has learned, recently. Miss Nana gave him a United States puzzle for a Christmas present (made for 5+yr olds), and he can put the whole thing together by himself almost completely unaided, and can tell you what the state names are and things about each one (e.g., Tyler's grandparents live in Tennessee; Olivia visited Florida; Nana and Pop-pop live in Hawaii)! He also, for the first time, consented to READ US stories this week! He read Daddy and then Mommy some stories from the "a" book in the Sing, Spell, Read & Write kit that we have. It is AMAZING to watch him do all of this!!!!!! We are so proud. :)


KIANA:
- Kiana has been doing some amazing things, too, recently! For the last few weeks, she has been playing "peek-a-boo" *with herself*! She will pull whatever is near (her pants, a blanket, whatever) over her face, wait for up to 10 seconds, and then pull it off with a huge grin on her face, waiting for you to say "boo!" She totally understands the game - it is SO cute!
- I think she is also really starting to so some signs. She definitely seems to know the "all done" sign (she waves one arm up and down and up and down when she is done nursing), and she repeatedly does a "milk" clenching motion against my skin when we nurse. It's very exciting to watch her understand and relate to the world!