More No, Please

Today at school Ellie was . . . much like she's been at home for the last couple of days.

"Ellie was . . . I don't know how to describe how Ellie was today. Chatty! But mostly she just said, 'no!'" said Ellie's teacher when I stopped by to pick up Ellie from preschool.

"She went poo poo in the potty, but then she stood up, looked right at me, and reached her hand into the toilet! Later, when I was changing her diaper, I had to use the safety strap on the table because she just wouldn't lie still. Then she crashed and wouldn't even wake up for lunch until just a few minutes ago."

We're now in the stage of the antibiotics process when she will no longer tell me when she needs to go to the potty, or when she's gone in her diaper, because the cleaning up hurts so much. But the not-cleaning-up makes the problem much worse. So there are many tears. 3 more days of this . . . and lots of yogurt: yogurt in her oatmeal, yogurt in her dinnertime milk, yogurt for an afternoon snack . . .

We see her doctor again tomorrow, though. I'm going to ask her if it's possible that this hyperactivity and rough behavior is a symptom of the medication, or even of her illness itself.

Maybe she'll also be able to tell me why Ellie sometimes holds her arm to her chest and cries, "Arm! Arm!" like she's in terrible pain. Nursemaid's elbow? But no, she's inconsolable for a while, and then she forgets all about it in half an hour and uses both arms normally again. Odd.

It's shocking how quickly I've become accustomed to my walking, talking little Ellie. It's inconceivable that I wondered when she'd begin to talk. It's impossible that a mere 7 months ago I wondered if she'd ever be walking around the house or to and from the car independently. Amazing.