Chocolate chip cookies!

I can't even remember the last time I made these. Mind you, that could mean that I made them in February, the way my brain works these days.

Happy, happy birthday, baby



Kara and I slept in on the 11^th — an almost unheard-of occurrence around here. She seemed to be in good spirits when she woke, so I gave my parents and sister the All Clear to come visit, despite the fact that she was clearly still sick. We went out for lunch and Kara enjoyed playing on the playground. I put her down for a much-needed nap after my family left.

Then things went sour. Kara woke unusually early and clearly upset. She was clingy and seemed to be in pain. By 4:30 pm, I was sure she had a recurring Urinary Tract Infection; she was in discomfort when I changed her diaper and was prone to crying fits (which she never does any more) at what seemed to be random intervals. When Matt came home, I got us back out to the ER at NYGH.

Long story short, 6 hours, a urine collection sample and narrowly avoiding a catheter later, we went home with an antibiotics prescription for Kara's first ear infection. We've also been giving her Advil and Tylenol to keep the fever in check and to help her manage the pain.

She napped twice today, each for the duration she does for a single daytime nap, when she takes one. She was exhausted by bedtime. Everyone's completely wiped and we'll all been eating poor excuses for food for days.

Yesterday we had the plumber in to fix the elbow joint in the kitchen sink which gave out when Matt was cleaning up at 12:30 am, following our trip to the ER.

It's been a helluva week and I'm sad to say that I don't think anyone feels we gave Kara a "proper" birthday celebration. At least she had fun for the first part of that day, I guess.

F7U12

A rundown of how today's gone so far:

• Kara's calling for her dad just before 1:30 am, asking for milk and/or water
• Matt goes downstairs to bring her water to her and finds her with a high fever
• Matt brings Kara back upstairs with him to update me
• Matt checks Kara's temperature with the ear thermometer and gets a 38.7° C reading
• yet another trip to NYGH's luxurious ER!
• no traffic, fast processing, small victory
• 3 ½ hours later, toddler is playing with the hospital gurney's paper liner and the attending doctor tells us it's likely a virus and we should manage it with Tylenol and Advil and can leave
• everyone's back in bed by 6:15 am
• Kara, ever the early bird (who's kid is this?), wakes at 9:15 am
• I haul my massively sleep-deprived ass out of bed for the twelve billionth time to see to her and hope that Matt gets enough uninterrupted sleep to function manageably for the rest of the day
• Matt relieves me at 11:00 am, I head back upstairs to nap until almost 2:00 pm
• Kara goes down for her first nap of the day shortly after I head back downstairs

And tomorrow she's two!