nielsen

Turns out Mom was wrong - everyone IS entitled to my opinion. Or so says the Nielsen company. The Hater and I were chosen to write down everything we watched on tv this past week and we've mailed it back to them. Now the world will be subject to more science fiction and horror tv shows.

Speaking of tv, this was probably the worst week to have us write down what we watch. The problem is that baby is now figuring out that it's something fun to watch, so we've been listening more to the radio and watching less tv while she's awake. We know it's not feasible to declare she won't be exposed to television, but we are making every effort to encourage her to play and explore without that distraction.

Between baby and that very few of our regular tv shows ran new episodes this week, our Nielsen diary was sparse. There was a section in the end where we could write whatever we wanted, so we wrote about the shows we do like to watch that didn't come on this week, which made us feel better.

And then we complained about our shows that have been cancelled.

And about how it's ridiculous how loud commercials are and cited that as a major reason we only watch programming taped onto our DVR.

Meanwhile, baby has a new cold. This one is creeping into her lungs and she's a coughy-semi-miserable little thing. Daycare called this afternoon to tell me "she's not breathing well" and "she won't eat and we can hardly get her to play." Right. So I called the pediatrician and relayed that message to them on my way to get her; of course they worked us in. Except when I got to the day care she looked fine to me. Sure, she looked like a sick semi-miserable little thing, but not like a SICK baby who is working really hard to BREATHE.

This isn't the first time daycare has told me that something was awful and I wasn't impressed. I don't know if it's because this is our first baby and we want to believe that someone with 20+ years of childcare experience will really know when to sound the alarm, or if my lack of mirrored excitement is because I'm a nurse and I can look at someone and tell if they're SICK, sick or Sick.

The pediatrician concurred with me: she's sick. I sucked snot out of her nose before he came into the consultation room so he could see that it was yellow. And she coughed for him on cue. However, this time she did not scream her head off and act like he was going to eat her. This was our regular doctor who The Hater and I both REALLY like. Bottom line - she weighs enough (20# 14oz) to up the benadryl dose, which she'll get around the clock for a few days with tylenol/motrin and TLC.

Easy to say, but it's pitiful when you hear the coughy whiny baby over the monitor and there's really nothing you can do for her. That was our last night and my expectation for tonight's second showing. Like the fragile snot bubble and the Dollhouse series, this, too, shall pass.