I had another oh so glorious "mother of the year" moment yesterday and it was terrible. I'll try to give you the short version. Elyse has had a runny nose and apparently she gets that with teething. Saline drops before suctioning help get it all cleared out. Elyse takes swim lessons so she also gets ear drops after her lessons. Can you see the set up yet? The bottles look almost exactly alike and I normally store them in separate areas but this time they were not.



I put one good squirt of the "saline" drops up Elyse's nose and she immediately arched back, stiffly froze and held her breath. She briefly turned purple before letting out a terrifying scream. I picked her up still not knowing what was wrong and it was then that I smelled the alcohol and I knew exactly what I had done. I felt terrible. Horrible. I flushed her nose with the saline to clear it out and a few minutes later gave her some yogurt to get the taste out of her mouth but primarily I just held her. The poor girl was so upset and I hated myself for doing that to her. After she calmed down the never ending running nose and sneezing began followed by red, squinting, puffy eyes. It was then that I really got scared. Was she having some sort of reaction? Did the drops get in her eyes? She looked just pitiful and it broke my heart into a thousand pieces. How could I be so negligent?

Thankfully one of my friends happened to call almost immediately after it happened and she made me feel so much better. After talking to her and several other girlfriends who shared their own "mother of the year" moments I realized accidents happen and it could have been much worse. I'm so thankful for my friends and our "honest mommy" moments.

They followed up at the doctor today and it was time for her 9 month well visit. She weighed in at 16 pounds 4 ounces which is in the 9th percentile and her height was just under 27" which is in the 21st percentile. She's little. Apparently a bit too little I guess. Our pedi wants us to start hiding healthy fats into her diet. I'm apprehensive about this but I'm going to give it my best shot. The older Elyse gets, the pickier she gets and she wants to eat less and less from a spoon which greatly limits my options. I am however up for the challenge and I came back from the grocery store today with a bag full of tricks I'm going to try. I'll give it my best efforts but so much of me thinks it's just her and she just happens to be little. She doesn't come from a huge family and Matt's mother in particular was very petite. Part of the concern lies in the fact that this is when babies are at their "chunkiest" and they tend to really start to thin out as they get increasingly mobile and active and at the weight she is now she doesn't have much to spare.

The pediatrician also confirmed my teething suspicion and said 6 teeth were coming in at once and we should expect to see them all within the next 2 weeks. I am not looking forward to this. I'm going to miss her little one tooth grin.


Side note: Now that it's warmer out I suddenly feel the need to get into better shape since I won't be able to hide beneath my winter clothes anymore so I am starting back at the gym and I WILL do better this time.


Time to get ready for swimming lessons!