In sickness & in health

Our little warrier baby, little miss healthy, little miss independent, has just had a week of quite a change in her personal health fortunes. And acquired a host of new nicknames in the process. Here are some of them to give a general picture:
Snotlet
Stinky pants
Smelly bum
Snotster
Snotmonster
Super Sooky Baby
Cling-on
While they may all sound rather derogatory, they're all said in the most loving fashion! She also attracted the following nicknames, to counterbalance:
Cuddlemonster
Snugglebum
Snuffles
Sniffles
Pooky

About a week ago, Maya started to get diarrhea. On day three, rather than just getting better, as I'd hoped, she almost completely lost her appetite, and what little formula she drank got vomited up, all over herself, carseat, back seat of car and her blanket. I drove this charming mess to the pediatrician in Playas. He prescribed a medicine Unamol, a lactose-free formula for a week & lots of fluids. Easier said than done. All of the above. Trying to get a rather fussy eater and a definitely fussy drinker to take liquid medicine involved screaming and lots of arm-flailing. Similar results with attempts to get her drink fluids. Even the novelty of drinking out of a cup was extremely short-lived when Maya realised that she was actually supposed to swallow the stuff inside it.

Anyhow, the little amounts of the medicine that actually made it into her body and the lactose-free formula eventually did the trick, and we went back to being able to survive the day with one outfit, not four or five, which would be soaked through by watery poos every hour or two. Maya went back onto lactose formula with gusto. I breathed a sigh of relief. That same day she started to cough. Which then developed into the worst cold she's had so far. Super snotty, lots of phlegmy coughs, and the strangest one: extremely clingy and unable to be put down for a second without fits of tears and rage. My active, independent little miss was suddenly this little cuddly, inconsolable cling-on. This might normally just mean me sticking close to Maya all day, but it happened at precisely the time we moved from Brisas del Mar back to our old house in Playas - on one of the wettest days yet - and over Christmas with all its cooking needs. Phew! So Maya in the frontpack was my cooking assistant for the Christmas baking, salad preparation, roasted fish and various other dishes.


This morning Maya woke up to her normal self, and instead of looking forlorn and bawling when I put her down with her toy box, she took off in the opposite direction to explore her new (old) space. She still stops and looks back at me with a big cheeky grin, to check that I'm watching her, and let me know that she's planning her next mischief. All's well, and long may that last.