Recovering

It has been a quiet week..no major adventures to report. Eliana has been under the weather--twice! First last Tuesday she was hit by a stomach virus. She did recover quickly and was almost as good as new by the next day. So she was feeling all right for a few days, but then came down with a cold by Saturday. Since Sunday she really hasn't been feeling so great..she has been coughing a lot and keeps saying, "nose running!" We wipe her nose, and then "nose running" again within a minute or two. Poor little girl!

She also doesn't have much of an appetite. Here is an example of our conversation at Sunday lunch:
Eliana, would you like some avocado?
No.
Would you like some squash?
No.
Would you like some pasta?
No.
Would you like some soup?
No.
Would you like some of Abba's nice tofu?
No.
Would you like some crackers?
No.
Would you like some humus?
No.
Raisins? Cranberries? Ice cream?
No, no, no...

It has been a bit discouraging...especially when she is already below the zero percentile for her weight. Of course, we know that will get better in a day or so. If not, we'll call the doctor and see what we need to do.

Not so surprisingly, being sick has brought out the "no, no, no" toddler in her. (This is rare: most of the time we have a kid with a generally positive outlook.) Yesterday morning I said we should give her some medicine, and she said, "no medicine, no medicine!" and last night I was feeling her forehead to see if she had a fever, and she said, "no fever, no fever!" The thing was that, despite her protestations, she had a fever, and needed the medicine. Now we sneak it into her juice.

Except for Marty, all of us are recovering. Eliana's playmate Lucy has a cold and cough. Lucy's parents had the flu and stayed home from work today. I have some flu symptoms as well and am trying to get rid of a sore throat.

But lest you think it's all serious stuff...Marty's friend Raj came over this weekend with his Japanese friend Akiko. They met Eliana for the first time and brought her a huge Hello Kitty doll. She sang "Twinkle, twinkle little star" to them and we all did some coloring together.

But about the doll. It is a little unwieldy:





But I'd say that it was a hit with Eliana. They presented it to her and she said, "kitty cat" which was amusing and descriptive. Then she wanted to sit with Hello Kitty, read Hello Kitty a story, etc.

Also a good sign was that Eliana was interested in munching on Hello Kitty right away:



Here we are all sitting down in the big chair.



Actually what happened was that I tried to join Eliana & Hello Kitty in the big chair, and there wasn't enough room and Eliana got squished. Remember (not so long ago) when she was a little peanut lying on my lap? Now she needs her own armchair!

Yes, in less than four months Eliana will be two...in many ways she seems much closer to two than one.