first trip to the emergency room

since i'm blogging about it, violet is obviously fine, but it's been a long week. come to think of it, last week was pretty rough too because we kept getting reports from daycare that violet "just wasn't herself," but she didn't have any symptoms.

finally she developed a fever of just over 100 on thursday night, so i kept her home on friday. by bedtime, the fever was at 102, and the tylenol didn't seem to be helping. she was burning up in the night, restless, moaning, her sweaty little body just clinging to me, so we took her temp at midnight and panicked. it was 105.

i'd never been to an emergency room, so this is probably stating the obvious, but what a freak show that is in the middle of the night. the fluorescent lights did not help to endear the cast of characters in that waiting room. i tried to keep violet asleep in the corner, in a shadow by a pay phone, but the loud hum of the vending machines and the episode of south park blaring from the only television didn't do much for my cause. finally we were admitted to a room of our own, adjacent to that of a poor child who was repeatedly vomiting. our woes were nothing compared to the others that we heard along the hallway.

violet was diagnosed with bronchitis and an ear infection after a pneumonia rule-out, and we were sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and instructions for a rotating regimen of tylenol and motrin. but even with tons of drugs in her, violet's fever was still over 104 when we were discharged. as i waved to the nurses down the corridor, they waved back with funny smiles on their faces. i looked over my other shoulder to find that we were standing next to a thug who was bleeding profusely from the face. "come on, we'll stitch you up," a nurse said to him, and he lumbered down the hall like this was his average friday night.

back at home, violet slept until 10:30am.



her fever slowly improved over the course of the weekend, but on sunday night, she started breaking out in a rash. long story short, her regular pediatrician diagnosed her with roseola and took her off the antibiotics, saying she had neither bronchitis nor an ear infection. where was alex karev when i needed him?





we had some birthdays in our house. first mine, then kevin's, and kevin shares the same birthday as my mom, so we celebrated hers too.









there were a lot of playtime options in the stacks of wrapping paper and gifts, but as you can see, it's the nordstrom half yearly sale bag that won over the little debutante. it's so funny to think about whether or not she'll end up a girly girl. i was decidedly not as a kid. i did not like dolls (i preferred to play veterinarian to my stuffed animals). i did not like to play "house" or "school" (i preferred "orphanage" and "lost at sea"). somewhat counterintuitively i was also not a tomboy, not athletically inclined, and not a daredevil (see: never been to an ER). we can already tell that violet's going to be a climber. she's more active than any baby we've ever seen. and when i pulled out a huge stack of stuffed toys from her closet yesterday, she grabbed the one and only baby doll - this cheap lump of plastic that i'd obtained for our hospital infant care class. yeah, violet loves it. apparently my daughter and i are already opposites (see: loves meatballs).

but even though i've never been the girliest, "girls trips" have always been a tradition in my family (don't feel bad for my dad, he goes fishing with "the boys" every summer), and my mom and sister just got back from savannah with our good family friends wendy and liz, with whom we've taken many x-chromosome onlies in the past. i was wistful that violet and i were missing out, but i teared up to see that we were missed too.





the ever thoughtful wendy had turned us into flat stanlies. in an 80s movie moment, violet came face to face with her two-dimensional doppelganger. (or is violet flat stanley's doppelganger? i'll leave you to ponder this existential dilemma while i bandage another bleeding bald spot on my head, courtesy of one of these two.)



we've also been enjoying some summer fun, seeing family and friends.









and to bring this roundabout post full circle, violet is back to full health. remarkably, even the roseola wasn't slowing her down. home sick? time to rearrange the furniture in my room, thank you.

happy little dictator

i was scrolling through our dvr recordings and was baffled to find that six minutes of a hairstyles program had been recorded. could violet be unhappy with the state of her 'do?



much like the keys, the remote control is another new favorite "toy" that is hell to get away from her once she has her hands on it. i was eagerly following a ravioli recipe the other day when the sound dropped out just before the "secret ingredient" was revealed. the down volume button is one of violet's favorites. and i swear to you, every time i look up, the screen is featuring high school football. i don't know how that's possible, given that it's july, but there you have it. high school football games with no sound. apparently the happy little dictator knows what she likes: older boys with big muscles who don't talk.



it really is incredible to see how violet is becoming a person with preferences and opinions. when i take away something that she wants (and she is wise to "trades" that exchange a dollar for a dime), she yanks my hair hard, her eyes ablaze. i don't think i've seen furious "eyes ablaze" so definitively before now, nor do i think i've felt "bleeding from the head" so definitively before now. we're working on "gentle," but that's like saying we're working on organic chemistry. "ouch! that hurts mommy" is apparently uproariously hilarious.

but despite the pain, it's awesome how interactive violet is becoming. she knows what we mean when we ask her to roll her ball back to us (even if "roll" in violetspeak is "throw hard at the ground in your general direction"), and she can follow other requests like "arms up" or



a couple of weeks ago she started clapping, and oh my god is it freaking cute.



kevin is trying to teach her the slow clap, so i'll keep you updated on that (along with the scores of her o-chem exams).

anniversary present

today is our fourth wedding anniversary, and this morning kevin gave me the perfect gift - a new big bird toy to entertain the munch, who has been increasingly irritable in the car as of late. as you can see, it worked like a charm on our commute:



violet is obsessed with my keys and loudly voices her protest whenever i take them away, so i made a set of her own for whenever a trade is necessary. to kevin's disgust, "violet's keys" are comprised of three keychains that i purchased on a desperate lunchtime run to the university bookstore. i swear i'm not trying to turn her into a trojan fan. but i mean, she COULD get free tuition. a quarter million dollars (at least by 2029) vs. kevin's college pride? is it a trade on par with the key swap? fight on?



happy anniversary, husband. i can't imagine a luckier wife than me.

culinary leanings

violet started rejecting the spoon this week, with the exception of her very favorite purees, so we've been ramping up the finger foods. it's bittersweet for me that i'll soon have to retire my trusty beaba, but it's pretty exciting to watch her decide what she wants to eat when presented with a tray of options. i'm sure i'll regret having said that once toddlerhood hits and "what she wants to eat" is cheese, period.



here's what's on the menu lately:

favorites: sweet potatoes, snap peas, green peas, mango-banana sauce, puffs, dada's meatballs, waffles.

likes: cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, zucchini and yellow squash, winter squash, bread, strawberries, peaches, plums, blueberries, cantaloupe, green beans, hummus, black beans from loteria (mmm illicit salt), mozzarella from los olivos cafe (with a hint of olive tapenade, mmm illicit salt), roasted corn (off our new grill!) pureed with veg stock.

so-so: carrots, spinach, watermelon, honeydew, applesauce, pears.

no thanks: potatoes (with butter!), rice cereal (but remember you used to like it!), plain yogurt, cherries (despite a stockpile of frozen puree that now goes in "my" yogurt that you refused).

gag: avocado, egg yolk, figs.

we already spend a lot of money on food. on the lynn family budget, food ranks third after rent and child care costs. some months it may even rank second (what's up sushi takeout?). i'm a little afraid for the future of our grocery bills, but then if you ask me what's the number one thing i want to spend money on, it's food. then retirement savings. then cardigan sweaters. (booze goes into the same category as food.)

and we want our kid to eat well, so we'll be fighting the good fight in the whole foods parking lot as long as we can afford it.

if you're reading this, you probably know that i haven't eaten beef and poultry for twenty years, while kevin is a committed meat eater (who probably doesn't eat as much as he'd like due to my influence in our kitchen). i've got my reasons (ethical, economic, nutritional), just as kevin's got his (delicious), and we want violet to figure out her reasons on her own.

so my awesome husband has been making meatballs for her, first beef, then chicken. i'm perfectly willing to cook meat for her - i did for kids i nannied for while in college - but obviously kevin's going to be better at it. his baby's beef meatballs are made with spinach, and the chicken ones have onions, garlic, and cornmeal. violet gobbles them up. GOBBLES. i can already picture her wolfing down a dodger dog with dada while i stumble around the stadium in search of a pretzel from the warmer.

the four-legged members of the family have been benefiting from violet's still developing pincer grasp (and well developed eagerness to throw everything on the floor). but even they wouldn't eat the figs. which work nicely in plain yogurt with defrosted cherry puree, if i do say so myself.