Ups and Downs

The past week and a half has certain been full of ups and downs. I'm talking mostly about Leila's temperature, but also about my emotions. As most of you know, Leila suffered a terrifying febrile seizure about a week ago. It was definitely the worst moment I've had as a mom...actually probably the worst I've had, period. I've actually struggled to write a new blog entry because I wasn't sure how I wanted to approach the past week. Dramatic, because it felt very much so? Joyful, because Leila is happy and healthy. Humorous, because sometimes it's easier to talk about difficult times through humor? Well, any which way I go, we've been through one heck of a week! I just have to stop and be thankful for how the situation turned out and realize once again how blessed I am to have Leila in my life.

After the seizure and visiting the hospital, finding out it was caused by a spike in fever, continuing to battle a fever for about a week, visiting the doctor twice, paying $25 dollars to talk to the doctor at 8pm on Sunday night when I totally freaked out and started wondering if the fever was a sign of some horrible disease, and now finally accepting that perhaps it is just a lingering viral infection...we find ourselves pretty much back to "normal." I'm still taking her temperature twice a day (out of worry it will spike without me knowing again...), but no more medicine, and through it all, you'd never even know this little girl had anything wrong. She is one tough cookie!

Obviously I wasn't much in to taking pictures for most of the week, but finally lugged out the camera to capture a few moments around the house. By the way, there are so many things about Leila that can't be understood in a picture, but let me just take a moment to brag about what a smart and funny girl we've got on our hands...

At 18 months:

- her vocabulary includes at least 60 words (the average is between 8 and 20)
- she can recognize about 20 words in print
- she can label almost every part of the body
- she uses sarcasm to be funny (must be her mommy's girl!)
- she can throw a ball pretty darn well
- she remembers and recites certain parts of books
- she knows many of her abc's
- and trust me, she understands close to EVERYTHING we say.

Summary: She is truly amazing and obviously brilliant (says the proud mommy).

Okay, on to the pics!


Speaking of ups and downs...the Bears season came to an end this past week, but at least Leila had one more chance to sport her adorable Bears dress!


Game time face



Because of Leila's lingering fever, we were trapped inside for many days. I ended up setting up a little tent for us to read and play in. Here is my cutie lounging...


When I say this is the best picture I got of us playing in the tent, you can only imagine how awful the others were...but we had such fun!



Another brilliant thing Leila does now is show us different faces based on what we ask for...for example, "Leila, give me your happy face..."


"Give me mad..."


My favorite..."Give me surprised face..."



Well, that's it for January...still unbelievable to me how fast time is going by. Leila certainly isn't much of a baby anymore, and fast becoming a little, independent person.