Happy days are here again

My sweet little girl is back. Whatever was bothering her has passed, and she is once again a happy little wild coyote. Yay! I'm glad she's feeling better. The world is a brighter place!

We had a play date at our place yesterday. It's great to have someone close to my little one's age around. Busy, as she's known, is an adorable little girl, and I love watching them interact. They both appeared to be sharing quite well, although I've read that they really don't understand the concept yet. Whatever. They played quite nicely, and seemed to enjoy each other's company. The older sister, Big, was also quite entertaining. She has the most wonderful imagination, and comes up with lots of fun stuff. A good glimpse at what it'll be like when mine is about 3 years older.

So far, my little coyote seems quite sociable. At the park over the weekend she caught the eye of several little boys, and even received a kiss. It was terribly cute, seeing them follow her around, though I'm really not ready for her to enter the dating scene just yet! It was also wonderful to see her and her daddy running around the playground. He let her go down the big slide, which was a little scary for me, but she loved it. He and I have different definitions of "safe". I'm learning to look away and trust him not to let her get hurt. Very difficult! But he's an intelligent guy, and logically I know he can handle it.

The big move is only a week away. Or the beginning of the big move. We'll have a week and a half to get it done and get the old place cleaned up and ready for the new owners. And with the husband traveling for the first 5 business days of that, I know it won't be nearly long enough. We're flying my sister out to help, which is a big relief. She's an expert mover, plus she will be more than happy to play with little coyote as much as possible, leaving us free to get the work done. Since we haven't even started packing yet, it's probably time for me to start panicking.

I spoke too soon

Yesterday's relatively decent morning turned into a pretty crappy afternoon and evening, though the night's sleep was mostly uninterrupted. Today has been one long melt-down, except for the blessed relief during our play date. I decided to take her to the doctor to make sure there wasn't something medically wrong. She screamed (and I mean screamed!) through the entire exam, but got a clean bill of health. No ear infection or other apparent malady. Could be that she's just having a very bad teething experience (I think she's working on a molar and 2 eyeteeth at once). Could be that aliens replaced my sweet happy child with a less pleasantly natured replica. The only thing I'm pretty certain of is that this too shall pass (at least that's what they tell me). I gave her some tylenol. Didn't cure her, but it seems to have helped. Or that could be my imagination. She still had some crying fits for no obvious reason this evening, but went to bed pretty easy. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

It's really quite alarming to see your little angel in total distress, crying, screaming and rolling on the floor, and no amount of comforting or attempts at distraction even make a dent. The past few days, none of my usual tricks seem to work, or at least not for long. Kali was somewhat more successful today. Seeing that pooch jump and catch her toys managed to momentarily turn the tears to giggles. Good dog! Even Luna started looking concerned about the little one's wailing and actually put up with some petting and finger-poking.

To preserve what's left of my sanity, I left my husband in charge for about 45 minutes after dinner and secluded myself in our room and took a little nap. Put in earplugs. It was fabulous.

Tuesday Night Fever (or Staying Awake)

Our little coyote had a rough night last night. She was running a pretty good fever and didn't sleep well, waking up every few hours. This after a day of not taking her naps, despite a 45 minute drive in a desperate attempt to get her to sleep in the afternoon. Perhaps the trip wore her out more than I thought, and maybe she ran across some evil out-of-state bug along the way. Or maybe someone who looked at the house while we were gone left their cooties everywhere for her to catch.

This morning she seems to be doing much better. Fever is down, she ate her breakfast well. Isn't particularly cranky. She's happily playing with her blocks right now. Hopefully the fever did it's job and fought off whatever was in her system. I'm really looking forward to her getting her naps today, and being her usual happy self. And 24 hours of a normal temperature means she's not contagious and she can have her playdate tomorrow. Oh yeah!

It's good luck on my husband's part that he always seems to be out of town when the little one is sick. I'm pretty sure he got a really good sleep last night. I probably should be happy for him, instead of insanely jealous, and somewhat resentful. Maybe next time.

Home again, home again

We survived the road trip to CO relatively unscathed, though it was certainly a bigger undertaking than past trips have been. Toddlers are not meant to sit in car seats for hours at a time. But all in all, the little one was quite a trooper, and tolerated the ordeal fairly well. She didn't get as much sleep as she needed most of the time, which resulted in several melt-downs, and was a little crankier than usual in general, but some of that can be chalked up to teething and diaper rash. It's unfortunate that they had to coincide with the trip (again!), making it that much harder on her.

One thing in particular to note: concentrating on driving while a toddler is happily, and sometimes not so happily, screaming at the top of her lungs in the back seat is not so easy. Add earplugs to the list of things to pack next time. Not that I consulted my list anyway. Totally forgot the outlet covers, and those would have been very handy!

Another note: when expecting a crib for your late arrival to a hotel room, it's a good idea to call an hour or so before your arrival just to double check on it. The 30 minute wait resulted in a completely awake (formerly asleep in the truck) girl that wouldn't go back to sleep.

The wedding was wonderful. Everything was beautiful, especially the bride! It's so nice to see two people that really belong together get married. Bon and Steve are a great couple, and I know they'll be good to each other. Our little angel looked particularly cute in her new dress, thanks to Jo and eBay. My procrastination almost left her with nothing to wear!

We spent several days in the mountains, which was fantastic. Aside from the time in Pine, we also took a day and drove around the Indian Mtn. and Elk Horn Ranch areas looking at properties for sale. It's a hobby of ours to pretend were in the market. The landscape was breathtaking. It was very peaceful, and I think the dogs and the munchkin really enjoyed running around and discovering things. The altitude didn't seem to slow them down any, though I was short of breath after a little hiking. I enjoyed pretending I could build a cabin here or there and spend weeks at a time living the quiet life, watching the clouds traipse across the huge sky, contemplating the not-so-distant mountains. I can't help wonder how I ended up in OK after a trip back to CO. While I love our town, the people, our life here, the mountains call to me. However, a day or two in amongst the press of humanity and traffic in the city (and a look at real estate prices!) reminds me that it's not all good, and then I'm thankful to return home again.

As much as I love going somewhere, I do love coming home. It's nice to get back to our routine, especially for the little one. She seems happy to be home with all her toys and the familiar surroundings. Luckily, we sold the house while we were gone, so we won't have the disruption of leaving while the place is shown. What a relief! A few weeks of "normalcy" before the move. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we all adjust quickly to the new house, which we'll be moving into in about 2 1/2 weeks.