Libby was feeling much better yesterday and even found a way to make elephant sounds.

And about how much she has grown from sitting and chewing on things that were towering over her…
To watching her build things and tower over them…

Watching her grow up is one of the most exciting things I have ever done. I am so thankful to have this little wonderful girl in my life.

Last weekend I proclaimed to my husband (who is a fantastic writer even though I can’t seem to get him to write here) that I wanted to write more on this blog. He, of course, supported me but Libby decided it was time to start acting like a 2 year old. My sweet, beautiful little girl turned into this little kid that was doing anything she could do break the rules and just act up. What we discovered Sunday evening after getting up with her for the 1 millionth time is it wasn’t all together her fault. She was teething again.

Now Libby started to teeth early so we are pretty used to it. This seemed to be different though. First, she cried non-stop*. When she started this routine up on Monday morning I chalked it up to being a Monday and not wanting to go to daycare. Then her teacher called me at 8:30 to tell me she hadn’t really stopped crying and begged me to let her give her some Tylenol. I happily said yes, thinking we had dodged a bullet and now my little girl would return to her sweet, loving self. Wrong. While realizing what Libby really needed was Motrin (Tylenol does squat for her), I called the daycare back to find out she had over a 101 fever. I quickly rushed to pick her up only to find her beet red and sobbing with her wonderful teacher attempting to calm her down while 3 other kids were running around having a great time since she was distracted. I was so surprised by how upset Libby was I sat down with her on the curb and let her cry a bit before getting into the car. Once in the car I turned the A/C on full blast (yes, I am pretty sure that is a no-no but if you saw her your only thought would be to cool her off too) and made her there was a movie in the DVD player to keep her company on the way home. The next few days seemed to go on forever with crying fits, sleepless nights, fevers, etc.

Sadly, Libby still wasn’t feeling well and by Thursday it was making me nervous. Teething shouldn’t be this rough, right? I called the Doctor and made an appointment for that afternoon. We were going to see the other Doctor in the practice, not our normal one. I wasn’t concerned but I just wanted her to find something to explain this. But what did she find? Nothing. Not. A. Thing. So, her advice was to not give her Tylenol or Motrin anymore and see if the fever comes back and only give her Motrin at night to help her sleep. Sadly this made for a horrible night full of screaming and getting up constantly and brought her fever back to 102.5. We took her back to the Doctor today and her normal Doctor was there. For some reason, one I would love to know, she thought she might have a Urinary Tract Infection and wanted to get a sample of her urine. This involved cleaning Libby’s private areas and ‘taping’ a bag to them to collect the urine. Libby hated this and of course refused to go to the bathroom. This resulted in getting her first ever catheter. Or at least I think so, by this point we had been in the room for almost 1.5 hours and I was about to pass out from the heat, screaming, and sobbing (from both me and Libby). I couldn’t even watch and then I saw it. She was looking for me. I needed to step up and so I did. I stopped crying (which I hid by looking away) and focused only on her. We got through it (even though they barely got anything to do a test) and found out she didn’t have any kind of infection or bacteria. They also did a Strep Test which came back negative. So, even after almost 2 hours they still had no idea what was going on with her. Their suggestion was to get her to drink more (duh) and continue to give her Tylenol and Motrin (double duh). I am not really frustrated by the whole experience with the Doctors…mostly just frustrated that we still don’t know what is wrong. I hope it is just a virus and it goes away really soon.

* My heart goes out to any parents with a baby with colic. After 5 days of non-stop screaming and little to no sleep, I am a zombie that will cry or scream at you for any reason whatsoever.

As the video explains, we are having a difficult time teething right now. I swear this kid must be growing another set of teeth. This morning was our first good morning since last Sunday. No fever and very little pain. I took today off to take care of her and decided why not try finger painting. She loves it at daycare so I figured it would be a hit. Libby loved it. At first she was a little hesitant (as the video shows) but after I turned off the camera and showed her how to write her name using her fingers, by the end the paper was completely covered with paint. It was awesome fun!

Libby loves stickers. More importantly, she loves to take them stick them somewhere and then move them 1 million times. Sadly, not all of them hold up. Jim got her a Mickey Mouse coloring/sticker book and she went immediately to the stickers. She stuck them all over her activity table but the wanted to move them. This is one that split in half…I don’t think she minded much though. =)

and is happy to do it to protect her ‘babies’

but after she’s done, she is my sweet little girl again. She wants to give you kisses….

We’ve entered the fun phase of “No”. Not us saying it to her but her telling us it. This picture if her telling me “No” (again because this kid is tired of getting her picture taken). Normally she has a little finger up shaking it at us while she tells us no. It was cute the first 5 or 6 times but as we enter the 1000th time, it isn’t so cute. Not sure how to stop it but she is definitely becoming assertive!

Libby loves her some “ah ahs” (think monkey sounds). We took her to the STL Zoo because we hadn’t been in a month (our longest time since she has been born). The monkey house was on the top of our list since she likes them so much. At first she didn’t like the smell and couldn’t see the monkeys very well but once she did she went crazy!! This is a pic of her running, not walking, from monkey to monkey. She would push adults or kids down (she didn’t care) to get to the monkey. It was cute…and a little scary.