Piggy flu?

I don't know what Georgia has picked up, but she is FINALLY taking a nap and I'm hoping that when she wakes up, she is feeling a bit better. She has had a fever of 39.5/103 since Wednesday, more or less. She has a bit of a runny nose and on Thursday her diapers were toxic* and she is a bit cranky but after some Doliprane, seems just fine. I can't bear the thought of going to sit in my pediatrician's waiting room for an entire afternoon, just to have him tell me, 'I don't know what she's got. Just keep giving her paracetamol, I guess.' So we'll wait this one out. Oh, how did I manage to suppress the horrible memories of ella's first year in daycare, when she caught every single bloody cold, cough, gastro, flu, and ski disease (foot and mouth disease was my favorite, if you're keeping track at home) that when around. Guess we are in for a few more months of fun until her immune system is a lean, mean fightin' machine. I'll just keep downing vitamin C and taking power naps so that I can keep up.

*This is a blog post in and of itself- she has started rejecting baby food and insisting on eating food off of our plates. Her poor little digestive system is having a rough time of it, I imagine. I'm going to need to see some sort of improvement soon or desperate measures will need to be employed (Declare her changing table a Superfund site? Buy a hazmat suit? ) I may need to look into that thing where you balance your infant on the toilet seat 25 times a day, until she figures it out and is potty-trained before she can walk. I actually know someone who did this successfully, with her two kids. And yes, I would qualify her as certifiably insane.

Due to Mystery Illness #359, she didn't go to daycare on Wednesday, got kicked out early on Thursday, and we missed playgroup on Friday. So I did not get a lot done this week. I did finish up Ella's album, which feels like an enormous accomplishment. I ran out of picture corners though (I think I went through about 1000 on Ella. Yikes) so that threw up a roadblock for a few days. I did manage to get over to Bon Marche one morning to pick up some more and was bummed to see that they had all the picture frames marked down an extra 40%, making it a total of 64% off regular price! But since I hadn't had a chance to go through my stuff and figure out what I wanted framed and where I wanted to hang it, I couldn't take advantage. Rats.

I did go out and buy a new desk chair on Friday. I should have done this in December because there is the usual 8 week delivery delay, which sucks. And even though we had pretty much decided on the model back before Christmas, I only went to look through their fabric selection yesterday. The salesperson told me that they had like a thousand different fabrics to choose from so i had high hopes of getting exactly what I had been imagining in my head. Imagine my joy to find out that they actually had about 950 different types of linen, in different weaves of the same 35 colors. Arg. I chose this fabric, mainly because B was really excited about it, but I'm not that sure. I think the color is good for the living room, but my worry is that the chair will be sitting in front of curtains that are basically the same color, a little lighter. I think it might be a bit too blah. But it will also be sitting in front of a built in desk unit that is all dark wood, so a brown/beige would have been too dark, I think. And although I was fairly sure that I nice ivory would have been great, we have two small children (one of whom is Georgia...) so there is no way that a white chair would survive the year. I'm just hoping that I can easily sew up a slipcover for the chair, if it turns out to look all wrong. See, this is where I always wish that I had a very talented decorator girlfriend who could pop over to give me a bit of advice. I have lots of opinions about whether or not something looks right, but not enough experience to know ahead of time.

In any case, this chair is our test case since it isn't too expensive. We need two chairs for the ends of the dining table and I wanted to buy this one, but it costs a fortune. We decided to try out a cheaper chair to see if we could live with it before committing to the expensive Baker version. We already blew our budget when we got the Charm Chair by Studiovolto for the side chairs, so a little effort is required, unless I want to spend the next year serving buttered pasta to my children.

Speaking of expensive stuff, the only other thing that I accomplished this week was buying Ella's ski gear. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that she doesn't grow more than 2 inches in the next year (or two, that would be nice) so that it fits for more than 5 mintues. She looks so cute though! And to top it all off, I cracked for a pair of Moonboots. I don't remember them being this awesome when I was a kid. I think I kind of remember hating them because they seemed so big and heavy. She loves them because they make her about 5 cms taller. I love them because they make her little legs look like toothpicks. I wish I had a photo but it takes like 20 minutes to get her stuffed and zipped and buckled into everything, so you'll just have to wait til we get to the mountains.

I also sorted out my jacket situation. I tried on the Pyrenex jacket and, frankly, I looked stupid. I think its one of those things that you need to be a 6 ft tall model to wear without looking like a linebacker for the Bears. I ended up getting a really nice fleece and a vest with a fur hood (makes me feel like a snow bunny) from Narapujri. I looked at proper ski jackets but the ones I liked were over 300 euros, and lets face it, my ski skills do no merit 300 euros of gear. They probably ring up at around 1.50 to be honest. Ella is only doing half days at ski school so I will definitely only be doing half days of skiing, with the other half spent at the pool. Or reading. Or napping. Yeah, probably napping. I wonder if that vest makes a good pillow? Then I would definitely get my money's worth.

Hopefully by teh end of the weekend, I'll have my album all caught up on so I can (finally) cross that off my To Do list. I also need to start ordering stuff ASAP for Ella's birthday, which is in less than 3 weeks. She has decided to do a Sam Sam/superhero party, which I think sounds fun. I wanted to order personalized superhero capes for all the kids, but she will not stick to a guest list for more than 5 minutes. Sigh. 4 year-olds are fickle friends. What do you do in this situation? Do you just say, Suck it up. I'm making the guest list and you just have to try and stay friends with all these kids til the big day. Or do you sort of hold out til the last possible minute for invites. Hmmm. To be decided.

I've also got to figure out a way to build Sam Sam's spaceship, I've got my heart set on it. But I can't think of anything bigger than a salade bowl made of clear plastic that can serve as the lid. Any ideas? Also need to find a place where I can have t-shirts embroidered. If I have to, I'll have it done in the States and have them shipped here with the capes, but all those shipping problems just add an extra unwanted layer of stress. And I'm already at my limit, hoping that Benedicte and Orna stop insisting on being Barbie Mousequetaires at recre and play Tinker Fairies with Ella so that they can stay on the guest list.