Mother of the Year Award goes to...

Me!! Why? Well, now it turns out to be for two reasons.

The first one is a little, uuhhh, gross maybe...FYI

So, first, Maggie's ears. For the past several weeks, maybe even up to two months, Maggie has had yucky crusties behind her ears. I chalked it up to excessive moisture. Sounds reasonable. It never seemed to bother her. It washed away in the bath - only to reappear. I really never thought anything of it. A couple of friends had mentioned that it was probably cradle cap that was a little misdirected and got lost behind the ears. So, fast-forward to Maggie's 4 month checkup; I mentioned it to the ped who looked at it and then decided to take a culture - uummm, I thought it was just a little rash. So culture goes out and a phone call from our favorite pediatrician comes back. Not just a little freaky bacteria, not even a yeast infection which we thought might have been the culprit. No - staph!!!! Seriously, my baby had a staph infection! Okay, I don't know about you, but when I think staph - I think unsanitary...right? Well, come to find out 20-30% of the population actually carries staph! (Betcha didn't know that, now did ya!) So, who knows from where it originated. But the next complication to wait for was the possibility that it was MRSA. UGH. (MRSA is antibiotic resisitant staph, very contagious and difficult to treat). So, in the meantime we started with an antibiotic topical ointment, hoping that it would do the trick and as a result it would rule out MRSA. Low and behold - one single application of the medicine virtually wiped out the rash!!! YAY - not only is it cleared up, it's not MRSA. Yes, being an antibiotic, it's a 10-14 day stint, but it worked. whew.

Next up - if anyone had reason to doubt my qualifications as mother of the year - here's number two (significantly shorter - one word in fact): sunburn. Yeah, apparently shades and umbrellas don't do diddly.