Illness and Throwing Out the Rule Books

It's amazing to think that we received our bad news about Taylor just one week ago - what a long, strange trip it has already been.

I had to take Taylor into Dr. Dudas Monday morning - she has had a lingering ear/eye infection for the last few weeks. She's now on her third round of antibiotics and we really hope it kicks this very diligent infection. She hasn't been chipper and she had a slight fever on Sunday. Because she has her development assessment tomorrow, we wanted antibiotics quickly on Monday morning to give her time to feel better. She began to perk up this afternoon so we're hopeful that she'll feel well enough tomorrow to be accurately assessed. Of course, any ear infection in the Gurry household brings several sleepless nights and David and I are both hoping tonight is an improvement over the last two.


After seeing other mom's at my book club and the past few days at work, I can tell I'm going to have to work really hard at the cardinal parent rule - don't compare your children to other children. With Lauren and Jake this has always been relatively easy - they've been on par with their peers - ahead in a few areas and lagging in others, but always spot on, if not ahead, of development milestones. With Taylor, we're going to have to work harder to hit the milestones that I really took for granted previously (such as reaching for toys, pushing up on her arms during tummy time, and likely many more) . She's reaching an age where others expect her to be sitting and crawling and I get these well-meaning questions all of the time. My stock answer has become "no, not sitting yet, she's on her own pace". Accurate, but not too much information. It's also hard to not obsess anytime I see other babies around her age - I want to ask how old they are, based on whether they're sitting, playing with toys, etc.

We're working on throwing the rules out the window, along with my "What to Expect The First Year" book. Every milestone and new trick for her is a gift and over time, we will really, truly savor every moment of her growth and development.

Returning to work has been quite anti-climatic - I'm off to a slow start which is very nice and I've received a ton of support from the very few friends/colleagues that know our situation. I will only go into the office 2 days a week and those days will likely revolve around Taylor's many appointments. I am SO thankful for Microsoft - I'm a poster child for a happy employee right now.