Tossing and Turning

Wynn had a follow-up appointment with the doctor yesterday, which went very well. He listened to her lungs; there's still something in there, but it's not too bad. She's having more productive (i.e., disgusting) coughs since she started on the medicine. It's hard to wrap your mind around seeing a big green blob of snot on her face and thinking, "Well, that's a good sign." Luckily, it's easy to get her to take the medicine; they flavor it up real nice, so she opens her mouth like a little bird the second she sees the medicine dropper.

Speaking of the medicine dropper ... we finally found a way to get more liquids into her. The spoon method took FOREVER, and she (and we!) were getting bored and frustrated having to get out the spoon every time she needed a drink. I saw how eagerly she took the medicine, so last night I sat her down with a cup of apple juice and the dropper. Voila! She loved the juice so much she smacked her lips between "sips". We will need to get her drinking independently eventually (I'm not going along to kindergarten, afterall.), but at least we've got a faster way to pump the liquids in her now.

The doctor's advice yesterday was to fatten her up - in his words, "Butter up that bread!", so we're working on introducing more fats into her diet. As we thought about what she'd been eating, we realized that her diet was almost fat free. No wonder she's so skinny; she's been on the ZONE diet for the last year and a half! (We keep having to buy new clothes for her; everything we have is WAY too big. She fits in a twelve-month top and needs size SIX months on the bottom. All those lovely 18 month and 2T sundresses we have will be worn next summer, I guess. Or this winter with tights and a turtleneck.) After a quest for "fatten up the toddler" food at the grocery store last night, we discovered that she very much enjoys the Eggo mini pancake. She polished off the first two and then brought us the empty bowl to say, "I'll have a few more of those please."

The biggest fight we're having with her (other than getting her to wear shoes) is getting her to go to sleep at night. Once we've got her out, we don't hear a peep from her for eight hours, but she resists falling asleep with such fury! It took over an hour of watching her flop around, kick her feet, talk to her stuffed dog, hum songs to herself, etc. before she finally dropped off. We're working on the going to bed rituals - snack time, bath time, put on lotion, put on pajamas, turn down the lights, etc., but she's just not playing along yet.

Meanwhile, enjoy some pictures from the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Ann