Looking back on infancy, it seems a bit like one long string of milestones: first bath, first tooth, first words, first steps. That last one, of course, marks the end of babyhood and the beginning of the toddler years, and Nora finally figured out the walking thing, around 17 months, so now that she's approaching 19 months we're well and truly in the midst of it. To be honest, I was dreading the toddler phase somewhat. And, despite the excitement of watching her learn new things—in the last couple of days, for instance, she has picked up the word "happy" and also "two," as in "I must have both of those two pacifiers in my hands right now or I will scream bloody murder"—some of it is a little wearying.

That is why we are so glad that she has started day care a few days a week. I feel like a better parent when I'm not doing it all day, every day, and she loves being there, or seems to. The first few weeks were rocky, of course, and there was a lot of wailing when her dad or I left (wailing that, from all reports, stopped the instant we left the room), but now she starts smiling when we step in the door.

Day care has, however, led to some milestones of a new sort. There are some nice ones: first glitter-sprinkling art project (Mama don't play that way at home; I don't need glitter in my house on top of everything else), songs and circle time, imaginative play involving putting her stuffed animals down for a nap with a blanket, the way they nap at day care. And then there are ones I could live without. For instance, she seems to have learned some new phrases, such as "Go 'way!" which I'm not too thrilled about. I guess that's her first anti-mama verbalization. (I look for those to really flower and take off in eleven or twelve years from now.) First physical violence also came to pass with a mercifully brief hitting phase. (Luckily, she's too little to do real damage, and we nipped that one in the bud quickly. I'm pretty sure it will resurface, though.)

Even more contagious than cute imitative play and behavior, though, are the illnesses. Other milestones we've endured in the last six weeks include first rotavirus/stomach flu thing, first bout of pneumonia, first unexplained blotchy rash, first fever over 105º (leading to first emergency-room visit), and first ear infection. They didn't come in that order, but quite frankly some of them are a little fuzzy. They've been one on top of another, and it all lasted throughout the holidays.

I know that nearly all of them happened on long holiday weekends and that the super-high fever was right before Christmas—that's when we went to the emergency room, the first time. The rash was over Christmas itself, which makes our photos from this holiday somewhat less than optimally cute. Also, if I may add: the combination of a weary, under-the-weather young toddler, lots of presents, and plenty of randomly timed and unhealthy snacks (many given by relatives; brownies for baby, anyway?) does not make for charming behavior. Two days after Christmas, we were practically looking up the time that the day care opened in order to drop her off as early as possible.

Unfortunately, I think that's the day she picked up the possible rotavirus, so our day off with her at day care was a dearly bought pleasure. The less said about the rotavirus the better, in many ways, but I will leave it at the fact that the vomiting peaked on New Year's Eve. I've never before had someone puke down my cleavage. I would have thought that now that I am well past college and underage drinking, the danger would have passed, but it turns out that wearing a V-neck top around a potentially sick kid exposes you that risk more surely than any kegger.

She seemed—sort of—to be on the mend from the stomach whatever-it-was by two days later, but after perking up with nibbling a cracker and taking droppersful of Pedialyte every few minutes, suddenly she started to get worse and worse. She began to get a fever, refused liquids, and sank into fitful sleep from which we could scarcely rouse her.

On the day after a four-day holiday weekend, our pediatrician's office was full of sick kids, but Nora looked so much worse than any of them that one of the other moms, on her way out, looked pityingly at me and said, in that sympathetic, whispery tone, "Good luck with your baby." Ouch. The doctor took one look at her, called the ER to get her a bed, and sent us off for IV rehydration. We got there at 5:00 p.m.; we left at 1:30 a.m., after three attempted IV sticks, two urine samples (one lost by the lab), a chest X-ray that revealed probable pneumonia, and several sobbing, crying fits—most of them by Nora, but one memorably by me. There were other annoyances, but considering that we were in the bed next to a girl who had been hit by a car and for whom neurosurgery was being discussed, we were not too unhappy with our lot, overall.

Still, we are good and sick of her being sick, but there has been more. Last week she brought home one of those snotty, bubbling, crusty, nasty colds: fun for the whole family! On the plus side, she has learned to blow her nose (another milestone). Less happily, it's led to her first ear infection. So many kids are all ear infections, all the time, though, that we're pretty lucky she hasn't had one until now. Presumably, one of these days winter will end, the kids in day care will be well again, and so will she. In the meantime, we're just looking around and wondering what there is left for her to get. Whatever it is, we hope it's not serious enough to count as another milestone.