I can't believe it's been 3 months since I've updated this blog, but it's been a total whirlwind! In an effort to catch up again, let's break this down by month...
February:
Claire learns to crawl, and makes her first real trip across the room on Feb. 19th. Here's a lovely video!
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| From Claire - Feb 2010 - 7 months |
That music you hear is the sound of our impending doom... We soon learn that the only reason she wanted to be able to crawl was so that she could crawl TO things and pull herself up! Since that day, she's been non-stop cruising around the furniture and frantically crawling after Desmond and Shiva! She also learned to climb the stairs.
At the same time, her reflux issues aren't getting any better. We go to see a different pediatrician, and he basically gets frustrated with me challenging his, "She's gaining weight so she must be okay!" attitude, and passes us off with a referral to the gastroenterologists. The GE specialists love her because she is such a big healthy looking baby, (I can only imagine the sad cases they see!) but basically they increase her Zantac dosage slighly and it totally solves the problem. Why the ped couldn't do that, I don't know, but my theory is lazy doctoring!
At this time, Claire also stops sleeping through the night. We hoped once she figured out crawling that she would settle down again, just like she's done with every other major milestone she's gone through, but as you will see we were terribly, horribly wrong. She starts waking up, crawling to the crib rail, standing up and crying until we come to put her back to sleep, sometimes three times a night.
At the SAME time, the very same week she learns to crawl, we see her first tooth! Just a little white spot on her gums at first, but then... Oops we're wrong -- it's TWO teeth. Both bottom front ones. We hope the end of this round of teething might get her back to sleeping through the night. But no.
March:
We decide we need to put carpet in the living room now so someone doesn't bust her lip open (again) every time she falls down. Note: It is mid-April, and this still isn't done, but we're a lot closer. The whole month of March is a wash basically because Craig and I are still waking up multiple times a night to put Claire back to sleep. During the day we juggle our jobs, and making sure she's fed, cared for, has time to play and takes some naps. Claire is trying hard to drop her third nap during the day, but sometimes she takes it. Neither way fixes her sleeping through the night. She has also managed to outgrow all her footie pajamas, so we need to transition her to the top and bottom kind. NOTE TO RETAILERS: It's still cold in March! Stock more pajamas with sleeves! We couldn't find anything with sleeves in her size. We try warm room, cold room, feeding more solids, Tylenol before bed, any and everything we can think of... No use. She's still waking up two or three times a night.
April:
Aunt Veronica comes to visit for Easter on Good Friday. Claire uncharacteristically spends the evening screaming and crying! Nothing we do makes her feel better or stop crying. I run out to CVS to get some infant Motrin. I have to ask the pharmacist whether to get infant or childrens Motrin -- am I supposed to dose by weight or by age? The cut-off for the infant Motrin is 24 lbs or 2 years old, and then it's up to the childrens' med. God bless my 9-month old, 24 lb baby! The pharmacist says use the infant one because she's still young, and she's only just at the max weight. We try to give Claire the medicine right away with the syringe, and in typical fashion, she barfs. So it goes into a couple of ounces of formula, and she gets some sleep that night.
The next day she's got a little temperature, but she only seems a little grumpy. We hope that's the end of it.
Easter Sunday she's got 101.4 fever and goop in her eyes! We have a pretty Easter dress for her to wear, but we decide she will be much more comfortable in her jammies all day -- who wouldn't, right? It's a very mellow Easter, and 70th birthday celebration for Grandma. Claire doesn't nap well all day, but is easy to put back to sleep during the night.
Her 9-month checkup on Monday turns into a sick visit instead. She's got pink eye in both eyes, they're puffy, swollen and red, and she's got an ear infection.
Claire's first real illness! Oh no!
I got through it a lot better than I thought I would. A week of amoxicilin-and-eye-drops later and it was over before I even really noticed.
To celebrate her recovery, we take her to the neighborhood playground, and put her on the baby swing for the first time. She LOVES it!
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| From Claire - April 2010 - 9 months |
Now when we go on our evening walks, if we go near the park, she gets really excited and we know it's because she wants to go play on the swings!
Claire started taking her first steps last Sunday, and though we haven't caught them on video yet, she's still taking tentative toddles from object to person to object as often as she can. I have a feeling she's going to be walking more confidently within the next month or so. We REALLY have to get that carpet installed in the living room!
So mid-April, my 9 month old is 24lbs and 12oz, and about to outgrow a bunch of her "accessories" that have a 25lb weight limit! She's also 30.5" tall, which means she's still proportional, on the same growth curve she's always been, and >95 percentile. Crazy baby!
We've begun to decrease her formula for her two middle feedings of the day to add in more solid foods. This was working really well until a couple of days ago, when she went on a food-spitting rampage again! But she's trying more table foods -- bits of cut up fruit, cheese, crackers, etc. and it's cute because she TRUSTS when I go to put something in her mouth! She carefully watches us while we eat, and she always wants to try whatever Mommy's eating because, well, it must be good, right? Mommy wouldn't give me anything bad, she thinks! So cute.
So that's been the last 3 months or so. She's STILL not sleeping through the night. Craig and I are taking turns with who gets up with her. Except now, we've put an air mattress in the living room for the person on baby monitoring duty so they don't wake up the other. This way each one of us will get a good night's sleep every other night.
But we had a breakthrough on the sleeping thing last night, because even though I heard her wake up a few times, she put herself back to sleep!!! The only thing I changed yesterday was her crib sheet. I changed it to one that was a solid color. My theory is that now she can see the pacifiers in her crib, whereas before with a patterned crib sheet she could not. So when she wakes up, she gets fussy, but grabs her own paci and goes back to sleep! We can only hope!
Keep your fingers crossed, because I'm taking a second shift on the air mattress tonight as Craig feels like he's coming down with a cold and he needs his rest. There will be a wild celebration if this baby goes back to sleeping well!
