Flexibility

If there's one word I could use to sum up what we've learned in the last year that wouldn't usually appear on a Hallmark card, it would be flexibility. There was what we thought, hoped, assumed or believed to be our plan---and then Holly (or reality) threw that out the window and we just had to be flexible enough to adapt. It started before she was even born when I realized that my plan of running through my pregnancy wasn't going to happen. Since she was born, everything from my belief that I would have a tiny baby (like I had been) to my daily assumptions about Holly's sleeping schedule has had to become highly flexible. The list of incorrect assumptions is long and varied. Here's a very short sample:

• Holly would snuggle up in the sling with me while I walked around the neighborhood.
• We would use cloth diapers.
• We could go to parties at friends' houses with her and she would sleep while we chatted.
• We'll figure out breast feeding on our own.
  
• Working from home on Fridays would be easier once Holly was older.
  

I think the key to our sanity and happiness has been to roll with it. We're really getting into the habit of saying, "bye-bye!" as our dashed assumptions go rolling by us gaily. These past few weeks have been a real challenge for us to be flexible as we've met some road blocks on several fronts. We came back from our road trip and immediately fell back into a nest of work and home projects. We finally started to poke our heads out at the end of last weekend only to have our heads chopped off as all of us came down with this yucky virus.

The facts (as presented for our MPH followers) are these:
Child X went for a play date at Chelsea's house on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday evening Child X had a fever. On Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, Holly went to Chelsea's for her usual 3 hours (the times have all been cut due to Tom's current job situation). On Friday night, Chelsea's kids had fevers. On Sunday night, Holly had a fever. On Monday, Chelsea's kids were diagnosed with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (also known as the coxsackie virus). The symptoms are no fun but not serious: high fever, mouth sores, sore throat, malaise, fatigue and a non-itchy rash. Chelsea's kids were well by Tuesday. Holly by Wednesday. On Wednesday night, Tom and I both had fevers and all the goodies followed. Here we are on Sunday and we're all pretty much recovered---although totally exhausted.

During our Coxsackie Week (as we'll always remember it), we had to be very flexible about everything. I was off work Monday, Tuesday and most of Thursday while Tom juggled clients on the phone between baby and self care. We had been working on something resembling sleep training in the weeks leading up to this situation. Of course, during this whole thing, that went out the window. On Tuesday, I was so desperate for her to sleep that I laid down with her for (all 2.5 hours of) her afternoon nap- something I hadn't done since she was 2 months old. We had introduced Holly to a third solid meal per day (lunch) but that went bye-bye as we struggled to keep her hydrated during her sore throat. When we were struck with the same thing, flexibility was more around appropriate clothing to be wearing in the afternoon and meal planning (or lack-thereof) for all of us.

It's flexibility that got us through last week as well as all the weeks before it. Here's one example. On Tuesday morning when she woke up, Holly hadn't nursed since the previous evening. It had been more than 12 hours. She had slightly chapped lips. Wasn't wetting diapers. And was making this terrible whimpering sound. I tried several times, but I think it just hurt her too much to suck. We tried a bottle, no. We tried both kinds of sippy cup, no and no. We tried mushed up frozen breast milk on a spoon, no. We tried a medicine dropper, no. Finally, we were successful by putting an ice cube in a mesh Baby Safe Feeder and then just giving her a cup of cold breast milk (1 oz down the throat, 2 oz down her front). Two hours later, she started breast feeding again. I am so glad that our flexibility (and creativity) helped us avoid dehydration.

I'm sure all you parents of older kids are thinking, "Yep, just you wait! This is just the beginning!" I'm sure we'll be met with serious challenges as the days move forward and more times when we'll watch our assumptions turn out incorrect, our beliefs get altered, our hopes change and our plans derailed. Weaning, potty training, pre-school, bed times, etc...and that won't even get us to the teen years! Yay!