WARNINGS about Sleep, Pink Eye, and Sore Throats

Our trips out to Nevada and Oregon were great. It was good timing for our visits as well since Pennsylvania is so far away from Grandmas and Grandpas.

I just have to say a word or two about a few other little experiences from the last few weeks. It seems like everything moves along status quo until it all explodes in your face!

While on vacation in Nevada, Mia learned how to climb out of her pack and play. She was fairly competent at this skill pretty fast, however one night she did face plant and cut her mouth resulting in a lot of blood... This new found skill was most devastating for the sleep patterns in our household! Our normal routine was to put Mia in bed at 8:30, let her cry for 10 minutes until she realized that she was tired, and then she would fall asleep.

Well, that just didn't work any more and I had no idea how to help her fall asleep. So - we went for nightly "drives" until exhaustion overcame the little tyke. It wasn't so fun, and we're still working on the sleep thing. So just as a warning to my friends out there with kids Mia's age: it's rough when they start climbing out of bed!!!


Another special treat during our trip was a bout with pink eye. One day we started to notice that some sort of yellowish goo was coming out of the inside corners of Mia's eyes. At first, I thought it was related to a cold she was fighting. We considered pink eye, but we assumed that if it was pink eye she would be rubbing and scratching her eyes and that they would be red. I let it go for a day or so and then one morning she woke up with her eye crusted shut. We took her in and sure enough, it was pink eye. The doctor gave her some drops and told us to be sure to wash our hands.

It was only about two days later that I woke up at 3 AM and panicked briefly as I tried to open my left eye and it just wouldn't budge! I wasted no time getting into the doctor the next morning. It was not an experience I want to repeat. The worst part of it was that the doctor gave me an "ointment" to put in my eye instead of eye drops. Awful, awful, awful. If you ever get pink eye - be sure to ask for the drops!

The last special treat from our trip that we have enjoyed is the most prolonged sore throats ever. I believe it was Andrew who was so kind as to share this nasty bug with our family when we were in Nevada. Usually a sore throat only lasts a few days, I STILL have a sore throat that just won't give up - and it's been three weeks!



Well anyway, I just thought I'd share some of the more stressful aspects of our recent busyness. It's funny how things like climbing out of bed, pink eye, and illness always coincide with vacation, moving, stress, etc. But we live through it all and hopefully have some good laughs about it too.