18 months of Fay.

Welcome to the shakedown of month 18 with Ms. Fable Elaine, the best thing since sliced bread (or, as is the case in our household, brown rice psuedo-bread). For those of you who don't speak parent, 18 months = 1 1/2 years, which means we are just that much closer to 2 years of toddlerage. It's a milestone, really. For your reading pleasure, here are the highlights of the last month:

1. "Goooo?!" Fable has adopted this A*frigging*DORABLE affect-- whenever she misplaces something, or when someone leaves the room, she holds her hands out to her side and says, "Daddy, go?" The lilt in her voice is simply darling; it should be canned and sold to depressed people. It's especially cute when she asks for her blanket ("baybit"). So super cute.

2. "C'mon!" My little adventurer runs around the house yelling this at everyone and everything in her path. She looks over her shoulder and gesticulates wildly, commanding everyone to "Mon, c'mon!" It's so irresistible that I can't help but put down the laundry and follow her wherever she leads.

3. On the not so wonderful side, my favorite girl has found her will sometime in the last few weeks. She shrieks "NO!" while pushing my hands off the shopping cart, throws her cereal off the table, and simply lays down in the middle of the grocery store when she will go no further. My approach is to give her a firm, "No!" in appropriate situations, or the ignore her in others. We also try time outs when all else fails. Just the other day she repeatedly hit another child and I said, "Fable, go to time out!" She turned and walked to time out on her own with tears streaming down her face. It was so cute and a little heartbreaking.

4. Fay is still a tiny little peanut. At about a year she hit 20 pounds, and she's just now hovering at 22. She eats up a storm, and just like her mommy, snacks all day long. Her doctor isn't worried about her being on the small side because she's growing according to her own growth chart and hasn't lost any weight. I'm glad she's still small enough to fit in my arms!

5. Lastly, and not so happily, it seems we are destined for a lifetime (or at least a toddlerhood) of chronic sickness. Since she was born, Fable has had more than 5 ear infections (most of them in both ears), one nasty bout of RSV, a double case of staph infection, been diagnosed with serious food and seasonal allergies, and has been fed a steady diet of antibiotics for sinus infections. At the moment, she has a horrendous sinus infection that has lingered for well over a month. To hear her cough is pitiful. She wakes up anywhere between every 5 and 15 minutes at night, and consequently, so do we. Doug and I sleep in shifts, neither of us getting more than 4 solid hours a night. Nothing seems to help-- not the humidifier, nebulizer, bulb syringe, Benadryl, or codeine that was last prescribed us. So we have an appointment with a specialist on Wednesday who thinks she can help us figure out a course of treatment and determine why Fable gets sick so often. I sure hope so, because this is getting costly-- both financially and emotionally.

But let's not end on a sad note. Life is good in the Mauss household. Ms. Fay brightens our day, most certainly. I don't know what I did without her. You know, aside from sleep. And fold laundry. Wouldn't trade it for the world...

:)