Thirty Four Weeks!

Weight: Somewhere between 15 and a half  and 16 pounds.

  
Sleep: Praise the Lord, we're sleeping through the night again! Two nights ago, girlfriend woke around 4:30 and thought it was time to play, which is so was not. Regardless, I'm counting that as a "sleeps through the night" night because really, we were pretty close to morning, right? Plus she'd been asleep since probably 7:30 p.m. And last night, she slept clear through until morning when I woke her up around 6:40. 'Atta girl! Previously, she had been waking up once a night or so due to her awful cough that wouldn't seem to go away. That's getting better now, so I think I'm going to blame the nighttime wake-ups on the cough + growth spurt.

Medical Issues: As mentioned last week (and possibly the week before), Lizzie has had a really icky cough that we've been trying to shake. Well, I waited it out and waited it out, using a humidifier next to her crib always each night, thinking that would help. Alas, it did not. But sweet girl was still acting like her normal, happy self and didn't have a temperature, so what's a momma to do? Well, we finally decided that enough was enough and called her doctor. I mean, the girl had been coughing for two weeks with no improvement. Anyway, her doctor didn't recommend we come in necessarily. He said we could definitely ride it out and she'd likely get better. Unfortunately, (but fortunately, really) there were some mix-ups with communication and Lizzie ended up being scheduled for an appointment anyway (with a different doctor because hers was booked up). By the time the nurse called to tell me we really didn't need the appointment, I'd already picked Lizzie girl up from daycare, so we decided to go anyway and just get checked out. And good thing we did! Turns out, she has an infection in her head (his words, not mine) -- which, initially, I thought meant that she was imagining it and making herself cough. However, it really meant that she has kind of a sinus infection thing going on with a lot of drainage. Anyway, after expressing how impressed he was with her for not yet having to be on any antibiotics (woohoo!), he prescribed her some delicious bubble gum medicine to take for the next 10 days, twice a day. Already it seems to be making a huge difference. As mentioned previously, she's slept through the night twice, and her cough is a thousand times better and more productive than it had been. I asked if she had to take the antibiotics to clear it up, because I'd prefer if she didn't take them, but he said that she really does have to -- if it were going to clear up on its own, it would have already.

Clothes: We're in three to six month clothes and three to six month jammies.

Socialite!: Hanging out with friendly friends at daycare!

Diet: I've decided that the reason Lizzie had been getting up to eat [seven ounces] in the middle of the night was because she was going through a growth spurt. She's definitely slowed down on her eating these days in terms of formula. Table food, however, is another story. Girlfriend can't. Get. Enough! She's now eating pretty much everything we do, though I'll sometimes pull her portion out before I add extra salt and things like that (for example, last night I made burgers using ground chicken. I added seasoned salt to mine and Andy's, but pulled out some ground chicken and made a mini-burger for her prior to adding that as the last ingredient). A new favorite this week is steamed carrots with paprika. Loves them! But it took me awhile to figure out just how to prepare them. They take forever to get soft.

Lizzie is still taking only around four ounces at night, but now this week she doesn't wake up to eat anymore, so as I said earlier, I think we were going through a growth spurt last week.

Baby Gear Love: Currently, our favorite toys are that (same ol', same ol') Fisher-Price Go Baby Go! 1-2-3 Crawl Along Snail and the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn: Learning Kitchen. I think one of the reasons she loves the snail is that it has a mirror in its belly, so she can see herself :) The kitchen is definitely number one, though. Her little face completely lights up the moment she sees it come out of the toy box! Regardless, I've noticed that she really ends up liking things that have a face on them. She'll smile back at anything with a smiley face :)

From the mommy perspective, we're loving the Bumkins Waterproof Sleeved Bibs. I ordered three of them back in October, knowing that I wanted to do Baby Led Weaning, that it would be messy, that I didn't want her clothes to be destroyed, and that not all social situations would lend themselves to allowing Lizzie to strip down to a diaper every time we eat (which is what we do at home for our suppertime feeds most of the time, depending on the messy-factor of the meal). Anyway, we sent one to daycare and have kept two at home. They're awesome. She basically swims in them because they're so big (and she's a peanut, too), but they have elastic around the wrist that prevents anything from getting on her sleeves, and they're basically like a waterproof shirt, so it protects everything really well for the most part. We have found that the one weak spot is around her neck, so we now layer a regular terry-cloth bib underneath the sleeved bib, which seems to have taken care of that issue. I love that when she's done eating, the bib doesn't need to go in the wash, no matter how badly it's been destroyed by her eating habits -- instead, we can just wash it in the sink and it ends up looking quite clean... for the first few uses, anyway ;) But that's why we bought two, so we didn't have to constantly be doing laundry because of her bibs. Another perk? There are a bazillion options for prints for this bib -- so many that it's hard to choose! I'm not lying when I say I was tempted to order more than three because I just couldn't decide! We went with a Dr. Seuss print (which is similar to the One Fish, Two Fish print, but seems to not be for sale any longer...), Dandilion and Tweet (because I have an unhealthy obsession with all things bird [except for the actual animal itself]).

Crying: Lizzie cries when hungry or tired and if we take something away that she's playing with. She also does a hilarious 'tantrum' a few times a day if we put her down when she wants to be held. She sits on the floor and will lower her face all the way to the ground between her legs and rest her forehead on the floor, crying. It really is pretty funny just because it's so adorable (will we always think her 'tantrums' are adorable? HA! I'm guessing not). She'll also do it sometimes when she's on her tummy and doesn't want to be, and is apparently not feeling like rolling herself over to get out of that conundrum =) Otherwise, she is ridiculously happy!

Mommy News: I experienced something a few days ago that I'd hoped would never happen and that I had mentioned being worried about four months ago... when I came to pick up Lizzie from daycare the other day, she did her usual big smile and flailing arms when she saw me (love how excited she gets to see me!). She put her arms out toward me to take her (as usual), but as soon as she got there, she looked back at the daycare lady, cried, and reached for her. So I was a good sport and let her go back, attributing it to... well, I don't know what I attributed it to, but I didn't assume she actually wanted her more than me! Anyway, then Lizzie turned and looked at me, and put her arms out to me again, so I took her back. Same thing happened again: she cried and held her arms out to the daycare lady. Oh, my heart broke. It shriveled up five sizes. I died a little inside, and I could feel that icky, painful lump in my throat show up all too quickly while my eyes started to well up with tears. I turned quickly away and pretended to check to make sure everything was in her diaper bag and ready to go home (of course it was, always is). Unfortunately, the daycare lady only said things that rubbed salt in the wound and made it worse. "Oh Lizzie, I wish you could come home with me, too." Stab. I fumbled with the carseat while my baby cried and watched the daycare lady. "I think you miss me as much as I miss you when you're gone!" Sucker punch. Those darn straps! I couldn't get them around Lizzie's shoulders fast enough to make my exit as quickly as possible in that moment. "You can play with me tomorrow." Yeouch. Because Mom's not fun enough to play with tonight? Because Mommy is not as fun as the daycare lady? The lump in my throat swelled larger, and praise the good Lord, I finally got Lizzie situated safely so we could leave and I ran out the door with a real casual "See ya", which is highly unlike me. As I clicked her carseat in to the back of the car, I looked in her little eyes and felt like all she was thinking was how much she wished the daycare lady were her mommy. (How dramatic... ha!). I called my own mom on the ride home and told her what happened while fighting back tears. She told me that's just how kids are -- and my coworkers told me the same thing the next day when I told them what happened, too. They told me to get used to it -- because when they can talk, they'll be even more vocal about not wanting to go home with you.

Alas, I knew it was true even before Lizzie was born. I've seen it in all the childcare situations I've worked in -- kids have lots of fun doing whatever it is they do at daycare and, at times, end up being disappointed when Mom or Dad comes to pick them up.

But still.

I didn't think my baby would do that.

And then I realized: this is part of being a working momma. Another sacrifice.

Anyway, I've spent the better part of the last few days trying to be extra fun to win some brownie points with Lizzie girl. Which is ridiculous, I know. I know she loves me everyone else (aside from her daddy). Even my husband said, "Meg, if I thought like you, I'd be sad all the time. Who does Lizzie always want to be with? Mom. Who does Lizzie always want to hold her? Mom." And I know that's true. I can feel it in the way she snuggles her little head in in the middle of the night when I answer her cries. I can see it in the way she ever so gently touches the curls in my hair when we play. I hear it so clearly in the way she laughs just because I'm laughing. She's my baby girl. Mine. She always will be. And that Mommy-daughter love is a one-of-a-kind thing, that no one else will ever have with her.
 

Milestones: Rolling over is old hat now! Girlfriend sees something she wants, and she'll pop right over to get it. She hasn't quite grasped the idea that she can utilize rolling over to travel across the room, though (maybe that's a good thing?). She's also showing quite a bit more interest and much less hesitance to lunge forward into the crawling position these days. Of course, that position quickly ends with her being on her belly, but no matter -- it's definitely a big milestone that she's not so apprehensive about it and is figuring it out.

She's getting incredibly talented at pulling herself up on and standing next to things without help, too. If she has something to grab onto, Lizzie can get her feet underneath her and push up. That skill definitely popped up overnight, as well as her ability to stand next to things, unaided. Now, I wouldn't trust her to stand solo and walk away from her, but she can easily do it without any help.

On Sunday morning while getting ready for mass, we did hear a couple of "ba-ba" sounds. Now since then, we haven't heard it...  but still, it happened! So I imagine it'll become more frequent anytime.

Her eating skills continue to be extremely impressive. She's got her pincer grasp down, and has problem solved how to get small bits of food off of her tray; she'll pick up small pieces in her fist, then open that fist up and take the food with her other fingers with the pincer grasp, and then put it in her mouth. It is awesome to watch.