Makeup & Beauty Monday: Addict Lip Glow Reviving Lip Balm

At my daughter’s 15-month checkup, we found that she had actually lost a little bit of weight (6 or 9oz I think) since her one-year appointment. I’m trying to remain calm and the obvious reason is a week-long stomach flu followed by a week-long high fever. She basically ate nothing those two weeks and very visibly lost a lot of weight. It has been about two weeks since she’s been better though and we were hoping she would have recovered faster. The other issue is she doesn’t eat that much! And she’s picky! I’m trying to get her to eat more fats and protein but her main favorites are yogurt and raspberries, which if what I would eat if I was trying to lose weight…The doctor said we should offer her a variety of foods and that she will eat what she needs to be healthy. In retrospect, I’m super annoyed about this because obviously we feed her well! She eats way better than my husband and me. I’m all for the division of labor around foods/mealtime but this weight loss is straining my relaxed approached. Anyone dealt with this? Or have recommendations for high-calorie foods your toddler will eat?

I am trying to replace my 2013 BOB running stroller with all the issues that came out with it. Any running stroller that anyone would recommend?

I know there are a lot of places to ask baby gear questions, but thought I’d try here: is Uppababy really worth the cost over something more affordable like the City Mini? I had basically decided on the City Mini, but all my friends with kids recommended Uppababy. Is it worth the extra $500? I’m in a very urban area and don’t plan to drive much with the baby. Thanks!

I work from home & just did an entire video conference call with my son’s 4-foot-tall stuffed giraffe clearly visible in the background. (Baby shower gag gift, don’t ask.) Mondays…
Feel free to share your Monday woes/ laughs here!

Any recs for a northern VA pediatrician? We don’t think we’ll need a lot of hand-holding, so efficiency and ease of appointments are probably key. We’re in southern Arlington. Have already bounced off one small practice for having an unpleasant staff experience (seriously,if my wife and I are literally standing there holding hands and having a very married conversation, referring to us in a *tone* as “you and your…friend” is certainly telling).

Are there any moms here who have older (tween or older) girls who are Aspy? We are thisclose to getting it diagnosed (originally had ADHD, but that didn’t seem to encompass all of her struggles, and as she’s gotten older and socializing is more complex, that seems to fit best with describing her current issues). Advice? She is in a normal public school and we need to decide what is a good placement for middle school (current options are a smaller neighborhood school where she will qualify for advanced classes with 20 kids in a class and some ability to do sports, clubs, etc.; vs a magnet where they take high/average kids but don’t differentiate much and do to bus schedule will have perhaps only theatre options after school, which she currently is meh on). She has been miserable at school this year (BFF transferred out, other kids are teasing much more) but has made a sustained recent effort to “talk to 5 people a day” that she seems to be pleased with (I believe that 90% of kids will talk to you if you talk to them; maybe only 10% are true meanies; neutral to positive social interaction is always good; ability to make small talk is an important life skill).

I am not freaking out over this and daughter seems relieved. I think she will be able to have a “normal” life and go to a regular college. I think that learning how to interact with people will be harder, but that she is going to be able to handle that.

Thoughts? Advice? Thank you!

Help me choose between a variety of unappealing childcare options? We’ve been on the waitlist for a fantastic daycare for two years now. They were optimistic they’d have a spot for our now-15 month old at some point this summer, so we’ve kept her home up to this point. They’ve just told us they won’t have a spot for her until next summer at the earliest (they only enroll in summers), and now we have to figure out care for (at least) another year. I’m stupidly upset about it. There are a couple of other equally convenient and equally highly-rated (according to state licensing) daycares, and I’m sure they’d keep her alive, fed, etc. but it’s hard not to see them as sub-par after touring our preferred daycare and seeing how much less chaotic it is and how much more individual attention the kids get. Even my husband felt that the daycare we want to be at was night and day from the others we toured, and he’s not someone who generally has strong opinions about childcare or parenting philosophies. We tried to hire a nanny last fall, but it was kind of a disaster all around – I spent a ton of time searching and interviewing, we paid her above market for our area (and way more than we would spend on daycare), but it pretty much immediately it became clear she wasn’t a good fit, and she ended up leaving much earlier than expected. We then had a series of college students who worked part-time, essentially as mother’s helpers, and they were great at entertaining the baby, but none of them wanted to work full-time and schedules didn’t align for the same people to work spring that worked fall, so it was a lot of turnover and a constant juggle to piece together anything resembling 40 hours of care in a week. I also wasn’t comfortable with any of the students driving her to activities, because they were so young and we never really got to know any of them very well, so they just stayed home and played in our house/neighborhood, which was fine for an infant but maybe not so great for a toddler. It wasn’t great, but we figured it was temporary. But now that we’re faced with a minimum of another year of this, I don’t know that I want to continue such an ad hoc arrangement.
I’ve discussed this with a couple close friends, both of whom suggested my mom just come stay with us for a year, which she definitely will not do. My friends are from immigrant families where this is standard, and I’m not, and very jealous they have this option. I love them, but talking to them has made me feel worse, not better, because they just don’t get that family isn’t an option for me and nothing I can do will make it an option.
I guess my gut says 1.5-2 year olds don’t need a ton of socialization and we should hold out for the better daycare, but I’m scared to do the nanny search again since I so clearly blew it the first time. I don’t really know what I did wrong or how to avoid making the same mistakes, and that worries me. And it’s not like an abundance of qualified candidates the first time. The person we hired (who turned out not to be good) was pretty much the only person who met our requirements.