Staceytown

This week I did something that I haven’t done since before Josie was born: finished a book (if you thought I finally got a haircut, the answer to that would still be no). In fact, I finished three (The Hunger Games trilogy), thanks to the Kindle Ryan got me for Christmas. I had been resisting as long as possible, since an ebook reader just does not provide the same multi-sensory experience a regular book has (no difference in heft of the book, sound of the pages turning, smell of the pages, etc.), but then I realized that I could continue holding out for the time to read a real book, or I could give in and get an ebook reader and actually have a chance at reading something (especially since most of my reading time is in the dark). So I did the latter, which has really been coming in handy for the time between when Josie falls asleep and when I move her into her crib. Instead of spending the time daydreaming or falling asleep myself, I now get a designated 15 minutes of reading, which has been great. And sometimes I’ll get some reading time on the weekends too, when, like last weekend, she slept for several hours on me…. and on Ryan too.

Josie is continuing to get better at sitting, and can now sit by herself for a few seconds – and even correct herself (sometimes) when she starts listing to the side :) She’s been doing more tripod sitting, but I think it just happens to work out sometimes that she’ll put her hands down to support herself, when really she’s just going after her feet. She’s also getting more interested in standing, and even pushed up to standing on her own yesterday.

She also had an avocado and drank out of a cup for the first time this week… she could probably use some more work on both, though. The avocado was probably the most she’s ingested of any solid food so far, probably mainly because – after thoroughly mashing it with her hands – a good portion was still stuck to her thumb when she decided she wanted to suck her thumb for a bit. And with the cup, since she was trying to drink like she would nursing or out of a bottle (which is more of a chewing motion), most of the water poured right back out of her mouth. But the interest is definitely there, so hopefully she’ll figure out to keep her lower lip up at some point ;)

[Going after Ryan's mason jar]

Josie has now been relatively healthy for over a week(!!), which I believe is the longest stretch since she started daycare in October (Ryan and I are still not quite better though). It may very well be coincidental, but we started doing “baby massage” (as we like to call it) about a week ago now, which is an osteopathic manipulative treatment used to keep the fluids draining from her head and neck, which should supposedly help prevent ear and respiratory infections. It seemed maybe a bit far-fetched, but we figured a massage wouldn’t hurt her, and if it did happen to work, then all the better. We’re hoping to be able to avoid some ear infection/antibiotic cycles, since we really don’t want her on antibiotics all the time (and we’d rather not have any need for her to be on them to begin with!). So far, so good, and hopefully this will help the next time she gets a cold and the congestion drains into her ears again…

Work is finally going a bit better for me. I’ve been happy to be back at work, but a bit frustrated with how unfocused and inefficient I feel like I’ve been ever since I came back from leave – probably not helped at all by the fact that I have to pack up to head over to “my other office” (i.e., the mother’s room) every two hours, which is quite disruptive. But I’ve finally started noticing that I’ve been able to have some really productive days again, so hopefully I’ll be able to get my mind back in the game and have those days more and more. It also helps that I’m able to work from home one day a week, so by starting earlier and ending later – even taking into account the time I spend catching up on laundry (or writing blog posts) – I’m still getting more done and putting in more hours than usual. And, as I told one of my coworkers who just came back from maternity leave this week, it has gotten easier to be away from Josie all day – now sometimes whole minutes go by when I’m not thinking of her. I meant this as a humorous part of the pep talk, but I think my coworker caught the truth in that too – it’s so easy to miss Josie when I have this to look forward to:

[Ryan's Rosco P. Coltrane impression seems to be a hit with her]

[Where I suspect she got ahold of some caffeine somehow...]

This week we enjoyed a couple of days of near-healthiness (or, at least, nearing healthiness), with Ryan and I feeling better than we had in weeks (months?), and Josie seeming to be feeling better as well. And then Josie came down with a cold again, with lots of congestion but not as much coughing this time, Ryan’s congestion got a lot worse (and more colorful) and he now has some sort of stomach bug, while I held pretty steady with the congestion I’ve had the last couple of weeks. We knew we were going to be sick more frequently with Josie in daycare and being exposed to (and bringing home) all those germs, but this is pretty brutal – we just keeping coming down with illness after illness for months on end now.

Before she got too sick again, though, we were able to sneak in a couple more vaccines, although we’re still behind on the recommended schedule. So she went to the pediatrician last Wednesday for her 6-month appointment, and she is now 27 1/2″ long (up from 20.1″ at birth), 20lbs, and her head circumference is 18″ (for those keeping track at home, that’s the 95th percentile for length, 95-98th for weight, and her noggin is still off the charts). Josie is continuing to hit her milestones (like standing with assistance, passing toys between her hands), although for some reason the skill she’s really excelling at – babbling – wasn’t on the list ;)

Also, given my penchant for doing comparison pictures (see: my entire pregnancy), I’m kind of surprised that I haven’t been doing comparison pictures for Josie’s growth. So here’s the closest thing I have:

[Four days]

[Two months, but a slightly better shot to compare her length]

[Six months]

The pediatrician also wanted us to get Josie going on solids, and to be feeding her rice cereal for the added iron. We momentarily freaked out that we were behind on introducing solids, but after Ryan and I had a chance to talk about it more, we realized that we’re still fine – for the most part (except for the couple times we gave her an apple or banana within the last few weeks) we’re following the World Health Organization and American Academy of Pediatrics‘s recommendation of exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months, so since that just happened on January 8, we really can’t be that “behind” yet ;) And after doing more research on the rice cereal, we may not go that route either, since rice cereal is really not that nutritious, and the added iron is not that much of an incentive since apparently it’s not absorbed very well (~4-10% in the cereal) vs. the iron she can absorb through breastmilk (~50-70%). So this may be another case where we’re being given directions based on formula feeding being more of the norm in the U.S. for babies of Josie’s age (since we are now officially in the minority: ~44% of babies in the U.S. are still breastfed at 6 months), and is just something we need to keep on top of and make sure we research – since obviously we don’t want to deprive her of nutrients that she needs, but we also don’t want to follow guidelines that aren’t applicable in her situation.

In the meantime, she has now had bananas, apples, pears, sweet potatoes, and multi-grain cereal. She seems to like all of them so far, based on the amount of hassle she’s willing to go through to get them in her mouth, and by the amount of crying that ensues when she drops a piece ;)

We’re also thinking that introducing solids may be causing her some digestive distress though, since she’s gassier again and hasn’t been sleeping well at night (which has been going on for weeks though, too, so it may also be a combination of her body getting used to digesting solids as well as all the various illnesses she’s had the last few months). In any case, we’ve been honing our skills of sleeping with a baby on our chests, and we can both apparently sleep with her on us for hours, with our hands clasped around her so she doesn’t slip off (Ryan has been able to do this from the start, but this is a new development for me, since I would usually not be able to intentionally fall asleep with her in bed with me or on me – funny what happens when exhaustion sets in). This obviously isn’t an ideal situation, but we try to make it as safe as we can – we do the arm “seatbelt” around her, and we do wake up each time she wakes up (and she’s not a wiggleworm in her sleep like she is when she’s awake), and I still don’t appear to move a muscle when I’m asleep with her near me (given the number of times I’ve woken up with my arm asleep, aching back, etc.).

Josie has also gotten better at standing, and can keep herself upright for a few seconds now without any help. She also appears to like the falling part, as she was rather happily flinging herself into the couch cushions, so I’m not sure how well that will serve her in learning to stand, but it’s funny enough in the meantime.

Josie continues to enjoy her new favorite toy: her feet. Diaper changes have gotten even less efficient for me (the master of the slowest diaper changes ever) since as soon as I get her feet in her line of vision, she realizes that she must chew on them (or at least hold on to them) immediately and for long periods of time. I also finally understand the yoga pose “happy baby“, as she has done this a few times recently, and does indeed look happy doing so :)

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[Plotting her next move]

[Taste-testing her toys]


[When only a thumb won't do...]

[...or when one thumb is not enough]

[Putting her little monkey toes to good use]

Josie is now 6 months old :) We celebrated her half-birthday by going for a walk (to drop off a contract that has now been ratified for the rental house!), going out to Sweetwater Tavern (where we also went for my birthday when she was three weeks old, back when I thought that would be the last time we’d be going out to eat until she was six years old – funny how much that changed), and having lots of naptime on us.

[Ready for her walk!]

This week was a bit of an adjustment again – after all of us being home together the week before, I was surprised at just how hard it was to go back to work this week. I was happy to get some work done that had been building up, but it was hard to be apart from Josie (and Ryan, for that matter) after getting to spend so much time together again. The need to be near her was a bit over the top this week and maybe not even in my best interest – if she had had a good night and didn’t wake me up before 2:30am, then I started getting twitchy and watching for her to open her eyes so I could snatch her and “comfort” her – when really, the two feet separating our bed from her crib was just too far for me to deal with, and I just wanted an excuse to cuddle with her :)

As far as Josie’s development, she’s gotten much better about putting weight on her legs, and was standing for a while today with Ryan just supporting her belly so she didn’t topple over, but he wasn’t actually holding her up. She also rolled tummy to back going the other way now, but she still isn’t too interested in rolling back to tummy all the way over by herself. Josie has been working on her grip, and has been grabbing onto any loose skin she can get a hold of on Ryan and me (his throat, my arms, etc.), and doing other rather unpleasant things like digging her little dagger fingers between the bones in my elbow (which feels even worse than it sounds).

Josie’s feet continue to be a point of fascination for her, and she can now grab onto and pull her feet towards her to gnaw on:

[Note the hiccups - she doesn't get them as much as she used to, but still will if she gets laughing hard enough, as was the case here; apparently, yelling "naked baby!" at her a bunch of times was enough to set her off ;)]

Jose also started working on some other new consonant sounds, with our favorite being “t”:

[A very soft "t" makes its appearance at around 16 seconds - note also her abuse of poor Mr. Hand Sanitizer]

So 6 months marks not only the halfway point to Josie’s first birthday, but also marks the halfway point for two more things: my goal to keep doing weekly updates for her entire first year, and my hope to also keep nursing for a year. I’ve heard there are companies out there that will print and bind blogs, so I was thinking a weekly narrative of Josie’s first year would be a really nice thing to have and to be able to give to her at one point. And while I know I had previously said that the plan was to nurse for 6 months, that was more the “attainable” goal, while the real, “stretch” goal was always to nurse for a year. So since I’m halfway there and know what to expect a bit more, we’re going to just keep going and see how far we get :)

Something else I was looking forward to when Josie hit 6 months was that this was supposedly the magical age when her digestive tract would be mature enough that the food sensitivities should begin to subside and her spitting up should start getting better. She did spit up much less than she had been for a few weeks, but – perhaps not coincidentally – she just started spitting up pretty badly again. “Not coincidentally” because I also started to slowly reintroduce some of the foods that I’d been trying to avoid for the last 3 months. I’ve had some cheese and other dairy in small amounts, and I suspect that’s probably what she’s reacting to. I’ve also had some corn several times now, which she seemed fine with, as well as some bread and pasta (which was a twofer, with wheat and tomatoes!), which she may have been ok with. I’m fine with continuing to avoid these foods for as long as I need to, though, although it does make it a little easier if I don’t need to, since I do still forget to pay attention to what I’m eating until I’m halfway through it sometimes.

Last week I also had a beer for the first time since I got pregnant (the near beer last Thanksgiving notwithstanding). I’ve read that I could have a beer, and, if timed correctly, it wouldn’t have any negative effects on breastfeeding, but I didn’t feel like worrying about the timing, so instead I had maybe a quarter of the beer New Year’s Day and then had a few sips each night throughout the week. Surprisingly, the beer actually kept its flavor and didn’t get too flat over the course of the week :) So I made it all the way through 2011 without any alcohol, but I’m still going to wait until after Josie is weaned before I properly enjoy a beer again – maybe even all in one sitting ;)

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[Blowing raspberries and getting distracted by her feet]

[Hamming it up when we went out to eat...]

[...and the aftermath of all that hilarity]

[My little helper - when I wasn't looking, she somehow got her leg through the armhole of her outfit this morning]

And so we mark the end of our “Christmas vacation” – after staying home with Ryan, me, and various members of Ryan’s family two weeks ago because of a virus, Josie (and apparently Ryan and I) came down with RSV last week. RSV is apparently a very common – and highly contagious – respiratory virus, so Ryan and I stayed home with Josie last week and attempted to work from home. We went back to the pediatrician this morning though, with me fully expecting her to have RSV again since we all came down with something AGAIN towards the end of last week (when she was finally almost better), but apparently this time it’s just a cold: her lungs sounded great and she wasn’t wheezing as much, so she’s now back at daycare for the first time in two weeks. Oh, and she has now broken the 20-pound mark, weighing in at 20lbs 4oz :)

While it wasn’t very fun to be sick and to essentially have to take a week off work (especially since I look forward to working the week between Christmas and New Year’s – it’s my “catch up” week since it’s usually so slow), it was also really great to stay home with Josie and see all the changes she’s gone through in the last couple of weeks. Josie has really progressed with her babbling, and (only partially tongue in cheek) we’re pretty sure she said her first words now: “dada”, “nom” (which, while I say this to her all the time when she’s eating or I’m chewing on her ears, probably doesn’t really count since it’s not in the OED… yet), and “nada”. Now she just needs to say something intentionally while understanding the meaning behind it ;)

She also has gotten more hilarious with her babbling – she gets a very serious tone in her voice as she expounds upon whatever it is she’s talking about, she has a certain look of concentration, and her little chin sticking out and off to the side just kills me. She also is watching us far more now, and it’s fascinating to see language acquisition in process, as we say things to her in an exaggerated manner (“lalala”, “bababa”, etc.), and watch her focus on the way our mouths move as we sound out each syllable.

[Explaining her point of view to the burp cloth]

[Her babbling was a bit difficult to catch on camera this week, so I resorted to trying to record her from other rooms]

Josie also rolled over for the first time! She’s fairly consistent going tummy to back now, but has only gone from back to tummy (on her own volition, at least) maybe once. Here’s the video of I believe her fourth time rolling over (she was a little tired by that point and was over the whole tummy time thing, hence the crying):

Also, she can chew on her feet now, which she does with a gusto (and least when there are reindeer involved):

And after not being too interested in putting any weight on her legs, she has now started to stand with some assistance (Auntie Sara, in this case):

Given everything else she accomplished this week, we figured we might as well start her on solids too :) As I mentioned before, we’re planning on skipping the rice cereals and purees (for the most part, at least), and just giving her finger foods that she can feed to herself. We’re abiding by the mantra “Just for fun until the age of one”, so the next few months are really less about her actually ingesting solids for nutrition and more for her to explore textures and tastes, and to become more skilled at feeding herself and learning how to chew and swallow the right sized bites of food (and apparently gagging is perfectly normal as she learns this, which I’ve heard can be a bit scary until the parents can tell the difference between gagging and choking – not enough has actually gotten into Josie’s mouth for us to experience this ourselves though!). So she’s had some banana and apple so far, and already seems to be learning how to grasp a bit better and with more skill, since she’s learning if she squeezes too hard, the food will pop right up out of her hand :) She seemed to like the banana just fine, but given the crying that ensued each time she dropped the apple, it seems she prefers apples so far.

[Her not-very-successful first attempt at eating a banana]

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[On her activity mat, now relocated to the living room and covered in toys (yes, we even bought her some ourselves too ;))]


[Helping wash Ryan's face]

[Delighted with a job well done!]

[39 seconds in the life of Josie: playing with her favorite of the tags on her Taggie (the care label), getting distracted by her hands, and making funny noises]

This week Josie celebrated her first Christmas :) But first, we had yet more medical issues, with a trip to Urgent Care on Thursday after she broke out in a rash, presumably due to an allergic reaction to the new medication she was on for her ear infection. She’s on new medicine now and the rash cleared up within a couple of days, so hopefully this medicine will do the trick. We kept her out of daycare for the week, first because of her fever and virus, and then for the latter part of the week since she was being a bit needier and more easily upsettable than normal, so we wanted her to be able to get a bit more one-on-one attention. Ryan’s family really helped us out last week – Ryan and I alternated staying home with her at the beginning of the week, then Ryan’s mom, dad, and youngest sister each helped watch her for the second half of the week. That is a huge benefit to living so close to family, because it turns out it’s really not very easy to work and watch her at the same time, although it does really help that she can entertain herself with her toys for a little while now.

This week really brought a lot of changes with Josie – she seems to have made some big developmental leaps, and that on top of being sick and feeling miserable! She is now babbling, which is apparently the next step in language acquisition after cooing – cooing was working on the vowel sounds, now she’s working on her consonants, “bababa” being a favorite so far.

She has also gotten far more active and precise with her hands. She went from grabbing my camera strap for the first time (which was oh so cute and charming – little did I know just how quickly she was going to progress in this skill) to being super quick with grabbing things (and usually sticking them directly in her mouth). Josie even grabbed my shirt as I was walking by, which was crazy since normally she had been a bit slower to grab onto anything – first she would usually touch it with just the tips of her fingers, then bat at it a few times, then eventually grab onto it. In the space of a couple of days, she went from that level of contemplation to basically seeing something and immediately grabbing for it.

[The first of probably many pictures like this]

Josie has also gotten much quicker to laugh, which is just great :) She randomly started laughing at me the other day because I was doing… approximately nothing. I was walking to the kitchen and Ryan was heading up the stairs with her, and something about that situation was hilarious. And each time I said “what?” or “Josie!” she would just giggle more :) Ryan also called me out on the fact that I had yet to do “superbaby” with Josie, which she just loves. I tend to be a bit more restrained with her physically since I’m not exactly very coordinated (I especially take to heart Ryan’s song entitled “You can’t fall off the floor”), but I buckled down and agreed to do it last night. There were just a couple of problems: 1) it’s hard to focus when there is a baby with a huge grin of gleeful anticipation laying 2 inches from my face, and 2) I apparently have no upper body strength, because I could only lift her up a couple of times for a matter of seconds. In the meantime, I could always just bounce her toys off her, which she also inexplicably loves:

Anyway, on to Christmas pictures! We had a last-minute change of plans and spent Christmas Eve with my family at our house this year (since we thought it might be pushing it to stay overnight at my mom’s like normal with Josie feeling under the weather), and then went to Ryan’s sister’s house on Christmas Day with his family.

[All dressed up in her "Baby's First Christmas" outfit]

[My mom reading to Josie (shortly before that book got taste-tested as well]

[My brother and Josie showing off her barrettes (part of the gift from Brian and his girlfriend)]

[Smiling hello to Ryan's family]

[Getting in some quality time with Uncle Christian]

[Being ridiculously adorable in her bunny hat]

[Delighted to see Mirror Baby was attending the Christmas festivities as well]

Poor Josie – she’s had a rough week. She was to finish up her medication for her ear infection on Monday, but she ended up coming down with a virus of some sort over the weekend. So her cough has gotten much worse, she was running a temperature up until yesterday that got up so high (104.3) that we took her to the E.R. on Monday, and now we just found out that her right ear is badly infected again. And yet all we really know is what she doesn’t have: pneumonia, strep, RSV, the flu. She has been one sad baby, and has been sleeping more than normal (but will only fall asleep if we’re holding her) and sad crying when she’s awake :( She did give me a couple smiles this morning, though, so I’m hoping she’s feeling a little bit better, and hopefully this new antibiotic will clear up her cough and ear infections as quickly as it’s supposed to. It’s so hard to see her hurting and as sad as she’s been the last week.

We did still take Josie to a community event over the weekend (before we realized just how sick she was), so Josie got to meet Santa for the first time :)

[Walking over]

[Blowing some bubbles]



[Tuckered out and snuggling with Grammy]

Last week was (almost) my first full week of pumping since I moved from an office into a cube (“almost” because I was out sick last Monday). My office building is being renovated to change from all offices to mainly cubes, so after almost 5 years in an office, I am now back in a cube :( Having sunlight again is nice (since I was not in a window office), but it’s massively more inconvenient to pump at work now. I’m still pumping every two hours for about 30 minutes, so it’s much less convenient now that I can’t just pop my door closed and keep working. So now I have to pack everything up, trek over to the Mother’s Room in the connecting building, set up, hope my computer hasn’t flaked out from being disconnected and then reconnected to the network), pump, work, and usually eat something. Then pack it all back up again, and get set back up at my desk. All in all, it’s quite a bit more difficult to work and get really involved in my work, since I know I’m only going to have at most about an hour and a half before I will be disrupted by moving locales. I’m still dedicated to pumping, but this is definitely making me look forward to when Josie will be eating solids for nutrition (which is still months and months away…) so that maybe I can cut down on a pumping session or two during the day.

So I’ve been back at work for 2.5 months now, and except for the disruptions from pumping and a few rough days from lack of sleep, it’s gone pretty well. Josie seems to like daycare (and they seem to really love her there), and while it is still hard to be away from her for so long, it helps that I’m comfortable with the care she’s getting during the day, and knowing that she’s still getting plenty of attention and interaction. Daycare has also been good about working with us on stuff that’s maybe not entirely mainstream – mainly, cloth diapering, exclusively having breastmilk (beyond the age when I think a lot of babies have started on cereals), using glass bottles (with a slight learning curve – turns out glass bottles don’t mix very well with bottle warmers). In turn, I think this has helped us stick with doing some things that we had planned on. Although we’re not as diligent about using cloth diapers at home (I tend to use disposables at night), she’s in them 100% at daycare except for if she has a diaper rash. Really, out of everything that we were really planning on doing (natural childbirth, exclusively breastfeeding, cloth diapering, cosleeping, etc.), the only thing we haven’t done is using cloth wipes rather than disposable wipes. Try as I did to remember, I just kept forgetting until I finally just threw my hands up and started buying disposable wipes in bulk.

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[Josie has no problem finding her fingers to suck on no matter which way is up]


[Playing with her gift from Ryan's grandma ;)]

[Blowing raspberries]

Another week, another trip to the pediatrician. I was supposed to take Josie back to the doctor this past Monday to check that her ear infection had cleared up and to do the second half of her 4-month shots, but after ending her medications at the beginning of the week, her cough got worse and her eye started draining again, so instead I took her a few days early on Friday. She is now over 19 lbs (not sure how far over though, since she was wiggling around so much I couldn’t catch the number of ounces), and her ear infection got worse over the last couple of weeks, so we had to continue using the eye ointment and add a stronger antibiotic than the amoxicillan we did for the first ear infection. We’re not too happy about having her on antibiotics again (still), but she seems to be tolerating it okay so far, and then we get to go back to the doctor just before Christmas to try to get her shots in then (assuming she’s healthy).

Josie has been a bit more fussy this week, though, so either her stomach is a bit upset and she’s not feeling quite herself, or she’s coming to the realization that not everyone is here to be charmed by her and entertain her ;) Apparently she has gotten a bit more demanding at daycare, and is now crying when she’s set down, or even if she’s being held but not getting enough attention. I think this is interesting, since for her first few months she really only cried when she was tired, hungry, or uncomfortable, so now she’s begun crying for other than her basic needs. Interesting, but also a bit exasperating, as she has started getting very upset when she drops her toys. Which she does a lot, seeing as how she just really started getting interested in her toys a couple of weeks ago, so she’s not very dexterous quite yet.

On the flipside, she has been giggling more and more readily lately, and was outright laughing last week when the other kids at daycare were jumping up and down by her (and then she got mad when they took their jumping elsewhere…). We’ve also gotten her to giggle by making faces at her, saying certain things to her (“blink!” “arm up!” being two popular ones), and even just nodding our heads at her.

[This is my more elaborate method of getting her to giggle]

Her sleeping has gotten a bit more erratic over the last couple of weeks. She had started to sleep better overnight again, but with feeling under the weather, she began waking every 2 hours or so from coughing… and then one night woke up coughing every 45 minutes, which was rough. We have a humidifier going now, which seems to be helping with her congestion at least, and she’s started only waking a couple of times a night again which is definitely welcome – I’ve been sick as well, and I came down with a nasty virus this weekend that completely incapacitated me for a couple of days. Luckily, Josie has been relatively easy on us for the last couple of weekends. Last weekend was the epitome of a lazy weekend, with Ryan and I both getting to have lots of sleepy Josie time:

As far as development, Josie has been pushing up and trying to push forward when we lay with her on our chests now. She also discovered the joys of swinging her arms around, so now we’ve woken up several times to her thumping her mattress while she swings her arm back and forth (punctuated with some thumps from her swinging her legs up and down too).

[Trying to crawl up Ryan]

She’s also tolerating laying on her stomach more – before, she would usually be crying in less than 5 minutes, but she actually relaxed and laid quietly on her stomach a few times last weekend.

[It turns out that Josie laying on her stomach creates a nice resting spot for her stuffed kitty and other miscellaneous toys as well ;)]

I forgot to note one important milestone from a couple of weeks ago: on November 29, 2011, Josie monkeytoes’d me for the first time. So now we know that she has Ryan’s ears and toes ;) She has been gripping our arms like a firepole with her feet for a while now when we change her diaper, but on that fateful day, she actually pinched my arm with her toes for the first time – and it hurt! So this serves as fair warning to steer clear of her little baby monkeytoes ;)

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[Sucking on her index finger and watching some skate videos with Ryan]

[Josie's new sound for the week]

[A video Ryan put together of just a sampling of her various sounds]

This week included another trip to the pediatrician, since Josie’s cough had been getting worse and she then started to have some eye discharge too. Ryan had a skateboarding incident over Thanksgiving weekend, so he stayed home with Josie on Monday to take her to the pediatrician and so he could try to recover from his concussion. This was going to be the first full day he had watched her on his own, but I ended up coming home after lunch once I had enough time to question the judgment of leaving a sick baby home with a husband with a head injury ;) They were both doing just fine, but taking care of Josie doesn’t usually leave much time for resting, which is more what Ryan needed (although being pressured into going to the doctor doesn’t really lend itself to rest either, as Ryan astutely pointed out to me).

So Ryan took Josie to the pediatrician, where they confirmed that she had a cold, pinkeye, and an ear infection in her right ear again. Her congestion has come and gone throughout the week (and we’ve gotten more adept with the saline nose drops/bulb syringe combination), she was on antibiotic eye ointment for the week (with her eye looking much better within the first couple of days), and we’ll be going back to the doctor in a couple weeks to check that her ear infection cleared up all right. It wasn’t as bad as the first one, with just some fluid built up behind the eardrum, and since she hasn’t been acting like her ear has been bothering her we’ll hopefully get to avoid another round of amoxicillin – especially coming on the heels of being on the antibiotic eye ointment, we’d prefer to not have to have her on more medications since they don’t seem to agree with her.

I don’t know if she just had another growth spurt or if I’m just seeing it more now that daycare commented on it, but Josie seems to be noticeably bigger again. She did weigh in at 18lbs 10oz at the pediatrician, and I’ve suddenly realized all of her 0-3mo clothes really, really don’t fit now, and her 3-6mo clothes are too small too. So now she’s in 6-9mo clothes, and I actually had to go clothes shopping for her – everyone else has kept her well-outfitted so that I’ve just bought onesies and an outfit for special occasions, so this was the first time I had bought regular outfits for her. I got very little pink, but some of the stuff was still more cutesy than I would have expected I would get for her ;)

Miss Josie also got LOUD this week. She likes to make a lot of noise anyway, but this week she began shrieking. This is still adorable and quite funny, but can be a little startling ;) She is continuing to explore more with her hands, and started doing some more repetitive hand motions, including “shaking hands” – she was holding one of my fingers while she was nursing once, and kept moving her hand up and down so that we were shaking hands the whole time she was nursing – since she was giving me some dirty looks when I kept laughing at her, I don’t think she found that nearly as amusing as I did ;)

[Shaking hands]

[Touching fingertips]

[Running through her various noises]

She has also started to hold onto the hand sanitizer when she’s getting her diaper changed, which is also (of course) adorable:

[Note the furrowed brow - clearly she thought I was not taking her needs seriously, since it was 4am and she just wanted me to get on with the diaper change so she could have some food]

One of the blogs I came across on a forum recently had a list of “things to remember”. I think I’ve been pretty good about writing down (and trying to capture on video) the little things I’m going to miss, but as I found myself nodding along and getting all misty-eyed and nostalgic while reading through them, I thought I’d repost it here (with some added comments). The only things I’d really add are watching Josie sleep (I’ve found myself on more than one occasion recently just watching her peaceful face and just trying to drink in the sight of this wonderful little being that we brought into this world), and having her sleep on us, as I can’t think of much that’s better than having our little baby curled up and asleep on our chests.

-Her baby stretch. It’s gone now, already :( Arms so so high, fists balled, lips straight across, head arched back, bottom lip stuck out. I adored this. She did it from day one. [Josie has stopped doing this already too - sad, since it was so cute and I was never really successful at catching it on video]

-Her “heh heh heh” sound that she would make when she was so eager to nurse. It’s also gone. We would always laugh because it was sooo adorable. [Josie pretty much stopped doing this the day I tried to record it - she still will do it on the rare occasion though, and then I repeat it back to her and we end up sounding like Beavis and Butthead ;)]

-Her “baby talk”. It was like she was trying to “talk” extra soft and extra baby like. Little Ahh’s and Gaaah’s. She would do it oh so quiet and soft. It was like she sweet talk….also gone now. [Josie kills me with her quiet baby talk - she does these super-quiet raspberries when she's awake and waiting for me to get her out of her crib at night]

-Her screeches. They are hardcore and shrill. Most would want to cover their ears but I just love them. We all laugh. The other week at the Nutcracker Market she went on for probably 30 minutes. We got laughs from others. haha [Ah, the screeching. Love it.]

-The way we both just love staring at and admiring her.

-The time right after waking up in the mornings. She is very quiet and touches all over Mommas face. Hands in my mouth, over my eyes, everywhere. I pretend like I am going to eat her fingers. She laughs [Josie has just started really doing this - gently exploring my face, grabbing onto Ryan's chin, sticking her hands in my mouth]

-Her face mesmerized by mine. She just stares in amazement as to be thinking “My Momma is so pretty”. She did it for almost a full 30 minutes while facing me in her Bjorn at the Nutcracker Market. My Mom even kept on commenting. I of course was thinking the same thing that I suspect she was ;) [I have not had this experience yet - I'm pretty sure she hasn't sat still long enough to have a chance to be mesmerized by anything ;)]

-Her sleeping face, lips puckered…while I kiss them. [I haven't kissed her when she's asleep for fear of waking the beast, but she gets more than her fair share of kisses while she's awake though :)]

-Nursing. [Yes. Also, Josie sleeping on me after nursing]


-The way she rushes back to nursing burying herself after briefly pulling away to look around. She also laughs at my face during nursing and gets too distracted to eat, so funny. [This kills me too - and also the face she gives me whenever she's done nursing and actually not asleep (which is normally the case). It looks like the picture below, although most of the cuteness is in the expression on her face, which you can't really see from the angle.]

On a more serious note, this is a somewhat bittersweet time of year for me. I’m looking forward to the holidays and getting to spend them with family (and Josie, as it probably goes without saying), but it’s also hard since about this time last year, we were in Rochester laying Ryan’s beloved Grandma Dot to rest. All of my grandparents had died when I was still pretty young, and with Grandma Dot living with Ryan’s parents just up the road from us for the last few years, I got to spend more time with her as she became my honorary grandma. I hope to never forget the times we spent with her, especially the evenings I went over to have dinner with her while Ryan’s parents were out of town, and we would eat the entire meal holding hands.

I had so hoped that she would be able to meet Ryan’s baby, but unfortunately she passed when I was about two months along with Josie. We had told her when I was about that far along in the first pregnancy, and I had never felt more like I was going to suffocate as I did then with all of the excited hugging :) That made it all the harder when we learned just days later that that baby had passed, so we struggled a bit with whether or not to tell her I was expecting again. We ultimately decided against it since it was pretty clear her health was failing, and we were afraid it would make her feel worse to know that she wouldn’t be around by time Josie was born. So as we head into the holiday season, how much I miss Grandma Dot is reminding me again how important it is to hold close those who are dear to you.

This week marked Josie’s first major holiday – one guess as to what I was thankful for this year ;) We spent Thanksgiving at Ryan’s parents’ house, along with one of Ryan’s sisters and her kids, and Ryan’s grandmother (who also just met Josie for the first time this week). We played a bit before dinner, with Josie getting to be “superbaby” and showing off her big smiles, and then Alyson also showed us how to prop Josie up so she could sit unassisted (although she didn’t last very long!).

Josie was very good throughout dinner – despite being a bit tired and hungry herself – and just hung out in her swing next to the table with me stroking her leg between bites of food, which seemed to help keep her content. She then partook in a family tradition and laid on the floor with Ryan after dinner. However, she didn’t quite get the part that she was supposed to be resting on the floor, and instead spent the time kicking around and blowing raspberries.

We took a feeding/nap break upstairs, and then when we came back downstairs for dessert, Josie got to lounge around and watch some football… and probably knows more about it already than I do ;)

We also did Thanksgiving Part II with my mom, aunt, brother, and his girlfriend this weekend, but I had misplaced my camera by then (…again) so unfortunately no pictures from Josie’s first trip to West Virginia/Nana’s house. We went out to a restaurant, and Josie fussed a bit at first in her carseat, which is a bit unusual for her now – usually she’s quietly content or falls asleep when we take her out to eat. But I suspect she knew exactly what she was doing, because when Ryan turned around with her after getting her out of her carseat, she had the biggest grin on her face ;) So she got to spend the meal being held, smiling at everyone and generally being a happy baby.

Developmentally, this was a big week for hands. She did, in fact, remedy the situation from last week where she had sucked on every finger but her pinky, since Ryan caught her sucking on her pinky this week. He also caught her holding up and contemplating each finger before settling on sucking her thumb :) Hands are endlessly fascinating for her, and it’s even better when we add additional hands to the mix – I can just hold my hand up for her or wiggle my fingers, and she’ll usually gently touch them or grab onto a couple of fingers and play with them for a bit before they inevitably end up on a path towards her mouth. I also got her giggling just by singing to her and tapping each of her fingers like I was playing the piano. And sometime between this week and last, she figured out how to grab for her toys more effectively. She had been reaching for them if they were held up for her, but hadn’t really been reaching for them on her own. However, I ran downstairs this week to throw some laundry in, and came back to this sight:

Josie is also still dealing with a cold, and compounded with the discomforts of teething, this was another week of not great sleeping. She had a couple of good nights of sleep, but besides that, she was waking more frequently – and earlier, so we no longer got a nice 4-5 hour stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night. Poor thing has been quite congested though, so having difficulties breathing probably isn’t helping the situation. She’s had more problems falling asleep too, since she normally takes a couple of deep breaths right as she falls asleep, but the sound of her stuffed-up nose (and likely the less than satisfactory oxygen intake) have instead woken her up a few times.

Miscellaneous cuteness for the week:

[The risk of being a deliciously adorable baby is that she may just get eaten up...]

[...she was spared this time though ;)]

[Josie just has so much talking to do]

This week was a rough one when it came to sleep. First, the good news: we are now swaddle free! We left Josie unswaddled last Saturday night, and although she kicked around and woke up more frequently, for whatever reason we decided to try again Sunday night, and she did much better. She seemed to sleep very well the next couple of nights, actually, except I couldn’t enjoy it since then I couldn’t sleep. I had been noticing that I seemed to have been losing the magical sleeping abilities I developed when Josie was first born (of being able to be wide awake instantaneously in the middle of the night, and also go back to sleep quickly after each waking), but then I suddenly just couldn’t get to sleep. It seemed so cruel that Josie (and Ryan, for that matter) were sleeping so peacefully that I was excited to be able to get some sleep in as well, and then it ended up taking me over two hours to fall asleep Monday night. Then, when I started being able to fall asleep again, Josie appeared to have hit her 4-month wakeful/sleep regression/whatever you’d like to call it – basically, babies around her age can have some troubles sleeping as their brains are working overtime on some big developmental leaps. Either that, or maybe it’s the full-blown cold she has now, since being congested is probably also not helping her to sleep well.

So as it turns out, Josie’s chatting is much cuter at 7pm vs. 12am. And 2am. And 4am. And 6am. Because the last several nights she’s gone back to sleeping about 4-5 hours at the beginning of the night – sometimes waking after the first 30-minute sleep cycle again too – and then waking every 1-2 hours after that. It’s amazing how much harder it is to function with such interrupted sleep when I don’t have the luxury of being able to try to make up the lost sleep via afternoon naps with Josie. I’ve been in a bit of a daze at work the last week, but I guess there’s not much else I can do except try to get her back to sleep as quickly as possible and for me to get myself to bed as soon as I can after she falls asleep. Thank goodness for A/C-powered swings though, too, since we put her in that last night to see if being more upright would help her with her congestion, and she seemed to sleep very well in that for about 6 hours.

Josie is also very close to rolling over from back to tummy now – she can get everything over except for her bottom arm. She’s so cute when I go to feed her now – she’ll roll over to meet me, and usually laughs as she does so.

Josie has now decided that it’s not enough to have two thumbs to choose from, and she’s branched out to sucking on every finger on her right hand except for her pinky so far (I think given another week, she’ll remedy that oversight).

[Sucking on her index finger]

I also finally pulled out some teething rings for her, which she actually grabbed for and got in her mouth a couple times, but I think she didn’t fully understand the purpose quite yet ;)

Josie is now consistently eating an extra 4oz each day at daycare – I’m not sure if 24oz in a 10-hour period is a lot, but it seems to keep the weight on her ;) I also made it out to a La Leche League meeting for the first time since I returned to work, which was timely since the topic was Vitamin D supplementation. Josie’s pediatrician had just recommended we start Josie on some Vitamin D drops, so that was good to have some confirmation from other like-minded moms that Vitamin D supplementation is not only fine, but highly recommended, given the latitude we live at and that we’re heading into winter now. Especially since our at least once-daily walks with Josie that we were doing all summer for some exercise (for us), sleep (for her), and Vitamin D intake (for all of us) are now down to one, maybe two walks on the weekends.

We’ve also had some more success with getting Josie to laugh – apparently the perfect combination for some serious giggling is for Ryan to lift her over his head in “superbaby” pose, and then say “zschew, zschew, zschew” – that’s my best attempt at spelling the following sound:

As a sidenote – yes, Ryan currently has a mohawk…. he hadn’t shaved (or gotten a haircut) since the beginning of August, and then decided last weekend that he was ready for a haircut and shave. For some reason the shave didn’t happen (which I think Josie is happy about, since she likes to hang onto his neck beard :) ), and it only took a little bit of peer pressure to agree on him getting a mohawk ;)

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[Josie is ready to take on whatever you're dishing out]

[Second time on a forward-facing walk = excitement...]

[...followed quickly by sleepytime]