Alan usually goes grocery shopping with me and Isabelle. Isabelle is so heavy that he is the one that usually lifts her car seat and her. Well when I went shopping with Olinda, Alan wasn’t with us. Man it was hard. Isabelle has gotten so heavy. Everything seemed more difficult, even just pushing the cart around the store. It was so hard to see. Guess it would have helped if I had lowered the canopy on the car seat. Silly me. Olinda figured that one out.

Read Silly Parent #11, Inappropriate Toys.

This picture doesn’t show Isabelle’s little red itchies. I thought this was a nicer picture to share. She had just fallen asleep rocked in Alan’s arms.

So anyhoo back to what I was going to say. Isabelle had some dry skin on her arms. I thought it would go away but it didn’t. It got worse and then she started scratching at her belly. It’s all red and it’s so sad. So we saw the doctor today.

The doctor says she has eczema. She recommended a 2.5% hydrocortisone cream, lukewarm baths with Dove soap, Benadryl, and Eucerin lotion to start. If that doesn’t help I may have to change my diet. I think she said peanuts, milk, and crab are likely culprits. But she said to go with the creams and such first. It sounds so complicated. Isabelle’s not going to like the Benadryl. We’ve had no luck with Tylenol or vitamin drops. It makes her gag and vomit. So maybe I’ll just start with Dove baths and Eucerin lotion and see how that goes. Wish us luck!

Update: Alan thinks my idea SUCKS. He doesn’t understand why I don’t want to use the prescription hydrocortisone cream. He says she’ll just get worse.

My mind is bursting with all sorts of ideas of things I want to make. So we went to the fabric store and I bought some fabric. I’m excited to start something new. I don’t know when I’ll get started though since my itchy baby has been needier than usual. Maybe it’s because she’s itchy.

Update: Maybe she was so very needy because her belly was really BAD. Last night when I went to give her a bath and took off her onesie she had red angry marks. It’s the worst I’ve seen it. It didn’t look like dry skin anymore. It looked like actual rashes. It almost made me run for the prescription ointment. But I wanted to give the gentler method a try. But then in the middle of the night she was crying or I should say whining and rubbing her little belly. Made me wish I had used the ointment. But it really scares me. I guess it’s the whole need a prescription to get it that worries me.

Thank you Pink Rocket for the suggestion and the offer! My sister is sending something in the mail for us to try.

I don’t know. I’m so torn. This morning her belly still looked bad and I grabbed the ointment with every intention of putting it on her. But then I didn’t when I read the paperwork that came with it and got freaked out again. Don’t know what to do…maybe Alan will just put it on her and take the decision out of my hands.

After everyone’s comments I thought I would go put some hydrocortizone on Isabelle today. And when I lifted her onesie, I noticed her little belly (you know I keep saying belly but it’s really over her belly and chest) looked better and I hadn’t even put the hydrocortizone on. It didn’t look as red as it did yesterday. So I decided to put some on a small area just to make sure she didn’t have a reaction to it. I used the over the counter 1% hydrocortizone instead of the prescription. It says “MAXIMUM STRENGTH” and when we were buying it I said why do all of them say maximum strength? It’s for a baby, I want regular strength. So anyhoo she seemed to do fine with it so the next time I rubbed it all over.

So today I’ve been trying to figure out why it was better even before the hydrocortizone. I did use the Eucerin lotion yesterday and that’s when it looked bad. Or maybe it was because it was so hot yesterday. Did I use the Eucerin lotion today? Today wasn’t as hot. I don’t know. I think I should start keeping track in a notebook.

When I let Isabelle play with my cell phone she slobbers all over it. (Yes, it’s not a toy!) Then when Alan calls me he says it sounds like I’m underwater.

Oh my gawd!! We have internet access!! We’ve been down for a couple of days and a man just came and fixed us. YAY!!

So, Isabelle turned eight months old on Friday and gave us a challenge sleepwise. She only slept for four hours and then decided to wake up fully at 3am in the morning. Luckily for me Alan was awake and took her for a couple of hours and then she came back to bed for another 5 hours. Happily that was the only night and not a new pattern she developed.

Ok, on with the little recap of this past month.

Isabelle does wonderfully on car rides now. I don’t know if it’s because she realizes she’s going somewhere to see something or what exactly has changed but it’s really nice. That’s why we could drive down to the Maker Faire without worrying about her fussing. We’ve been invited to go to Disneyland next month but I think that might be just too long of a ride.

Oh and eczema! Worst part of this past month!

Ok that’s it for this post. Isabelle’s fussing for a nap.

Read month seven.

Angels and devils is the topic for this week’s Illustration Friday. And actually they have been in my thoughts lately for designs on baby clothes. See, I’m still kicking the idea around of opening my own online store. I’m looking at getting into silkscreening but to be honest I didn’t even thouroughly check out heat transfers. I am easily distracted see. Last week Bridgette sat down with me and looked up business info and I was all set to get a silkscreen kit. But then I’m so wishy washy I haven’t ordered it yet. But I guess that’s ok since I really didn’t research heat transfers.