Pretty nails

We have been promising Veronica since summer that if she stopped chewing her fingernails, we would paint them for her. She has been obsessed with having painted nails ever since I got a mani-pedi around this time last year. And while I still believe that in general, two years old is too young to have painted nails, I completely see the bribery value in being flexible on this one. 

So on Friday before bed, after a week of promises, we painted Veronica’s fingernails. (Colin was not allowed to get his nails painted because he, unfortunately, has picked up Veronica’s nail biting habit — he’ll get his manicure when he can go a week without chewing). And she is thrilled.

It’s very funny to watch — periodically, in the middle of play, she’ll pause for a minute to admire her nails. And the first thing she does when encountering someone new is to show them her pretty red nails. She really wanted purple nails, but the purple polish our neighbor bought for her had dried out … so she was stuck with red. 

However, capitalizing on the bribe factor, I did promise her that when she goes a whole day without going potty in her diaper or pull-up, I will go buy her purple nail polish. Her response: “And pink too!” And so, we have ourselves a deal.

On a completely unrelated note, we are starting to suspect that Colin might be lactose intolerant. He has been suffering from some intestinal distress (as in completely liquid poops) for about a week and a half. Because he wasn’t getting dehydrated or showing signs of distress (except when he was a mess), his doctor wasn’t concerned, saying it was probably a lingering virus, which I also suspected. 

But as the one who was blessed with at least half of the cleanup, I was getting desperate. So we decided to eliminate everything from his diet that might be irritating his intestines from his diet. He already gets a probiotic every morning, but we started giving him a second dose in the evening. Then we took away all dairy, citrus and sugar. And was added lots of rice, bananas and blackberries. And after several days, he started to get better.

So after a few days, we started adding in cheese — no problems. Sugar — still did okay. Milk — oh crap (literally). So we went back to the soy milk (which he quite likes), and he has been okay again. We’re going to wait a full week this time before we try the milk again. And if the problem returns, we’ll be seeing the doctor for a test.