The Croup

Last Sunday Angelina had a few sniffles and was a little quieter than normal. No big deal. Until the evening at bedtime, then the crying started, and then the coughing started. But not just any cough, she had the classic 'barking seal' cough. Each time she coughed she cried it caused so much pain. Then the fever. Never dangerously high, but when you're the parents and its 2am and your baby is burning up at 101.6F, it might as well be. Initially when it was just crying + low grade fever we wondered about a UTI. But once the coughing started and the fever spiked I knew it wasn't that, so went through all the likely options. She had all the classic symptoms of The Croup - caused by a number of viruses, mostly parainfluenza. Monday I called the pedi who agreed it sounded like croup, told me what to watch for and when to bring her to the ER, if necessary. She had no appetite for solids or her sippy cup, but she was nursing. A lot. I figured that was a good sign. All I can say is, I'm so glad I'm still nursing her. For 2.5 days she wouldn't eat or drink anything at all, but she'd nurse. In addition to reassuring me that she was breathing ok if she was nursing fine, she was at least getting some nourishment and fluids, although mommy was getting sore, not being used to nursing so often anymore (usually it's only 2x/day now).

It got worse before it got better, but by late Wednesday when we had our Thanksgiving meal with friends, she was on the mend. Still not her self - and indeed, a week later, she's still coughing a bit and cranky much more than normal - but definitely improving.

On the plus side for her, instead of having Mommy and Papa home for 4 days of Thanksgiving, she had Mommy for the whole week and Papa for some extra hours too!

And - knock on wood - we managed to avoid a trip to the ER.

Baptism in Oxnard

We also took advantage of Angelina's American Nino and Nina (godparents) being in CA at the same time so we FINALLY had her baptized. Thanks esp. to Fr. Jon who welcomed us to his parish in Oxnard for the baptism - all 20 of us. She slept through most of the Mass (or rather she nursed through most of it). She was still sleeping when we walked up to the altar, until we all touched her head and she woke with a start. Then the cold water didn't help. She cried through most of the baptism part, except when the congregation clapped. She heard the applause, looked up and smiled brightly. She doesn't look too happy here, that's because we woke her up....



She's much happier here -


Afterwards Fr Jon took us on a tour of his rectory, a wonderful old turn of the century house, complete with haunted rooms. Then the 20 of us tried to go out to lunch...the restaurant wasn't too excited to see us. He was going to take Fredo flying as well, but the weather was lousy so we skipped that for this time.


Fr. Jon and the girls.

Little Indian Princess

Angelina had her 3rd trip to California last week. We all attended the wonderful wedding of my cousin Jimmy and his bride Sangita. Of course Angelina had to dress for the occasion. It was hard to get her to stay in one place for a good picture, but you get the idea. She had a blast playing with a bunch of her cousins. And she finally got to meet her cousin Olivia from Ohio (who just sent her two huge boxes of clothes)




The wedding was a beautiful traditional Indian ceremony complete with sanskrit vows. Ok, so really it was non-traditional as it was only about 30-40 minutes long instead of multiple days, but it was gorgeous. We were so happy to see Jimmy (ok, James now, but he'll always be Jimmy to me) get married and especially to such a wonderful person as Sangita. We're very glad to have her in our family.




We also got to see a lot of relatives, including Crazy Oscar!

How fast time flies

Here's Angelina at 20 days old, her first day home.



I don't think she's slept that soundly since!

"Maman"

Not only is Angelina a clone of her Papa, she talks like him! It appears French is easier for her to say. Despite hearing French only from Frédéric and the occasional CD of farm songs, yet hearing English all around her (and some Spanglish), all the words Angelina can now say - which are coherent - are French. I am trying to convince myself she says "here" and "Thank you" in English, but she doesn't really. Instead she only speaks in French.

It's great, I want her to be at least bilingual, hopefully tri-lingual or more. And I was worried the French would lag due to lack of exposure, but I would like to have just a little bit of influence. She doesn't even say 'Mommy,' she says "Maman."