Mommies Don’t Get Sick Days

Nor do they get breaks for the craziness that a full moon brings. It would be just my luck to be sick over the weekend of a full moon, wouldn’t it?

It finally happened. I’m generally not a sick person, and in fact can’t recall the last time I was down for the count like this–possibly not since 2009, my first senior year of college, when I came down with Influenza A–the same year swine flu was big on the scene and my mother told me in a panic “that flu is killing young people!” Real confidence booster. Usually when I feel oncoming cold symptoms, I overload with vitamin C (praise ye, god of Emergen-C) and fluids and I escape unscathed. Two weeks ago this happened; I had a sore throat for about three days but thanks to my overdosing of VitC and herbal tea, nothing ever came of it. I guess this time I wasn’t so lucky. It was my time.

Anyway, I am finally feeling human again after several days battling a sinus infection, or something otherwise devised by Satan. These are especially fun when you also have a four-month old at home and you are desperate to not get her sick. I went to the doctor on Friday morning just to make sure it wasn’t something contagious (it was) but she gave me a round of antibiotics just in case it was bacterial. I know it doesn’t necessarily work this way but I started taking them anyway. What the hell. After several days of begging the baby to sleep for just twenty minutes longer so I could just rest a little more, the worst of it hit in the early hours of Saturday morning when I arrived at the “I just want to die” stage. Saturday wasn’t a whole lot better, but Cameron managed to come home a few hours early so that I could catch a break. Sunday I hit the “nose so raw I want to cut it off” stage at the same time that I hit the “I am so tired of being sick I just want to cry all day” stage, which might have helped clear out my sinuses.

I ended up using a teething ring to cool my burning nose. Yes, I washed it after.

But, this morning when I woke up, I felt sort of normal again. Still stuffy and coughing a bit, but not quite at the death-warmed-over point. So, progress.

And luckily (knock on wood) it doesn’t appear that either Cameron or Caroline has picked it up. I’m hopeful that by now she would have been showing symptoms and she’s not, so fingers crossed. Unfortunately, the poor thing didn’t escape quite unscathed, because you know what happens when Mommy is stuffed up and can’t smell shit? Yeah, just that. Mommy can’t smell shit. Saturday night after I put her back to bed following her middle-of-the-night bottle, she kept waking up and fussing. I was terrified she was becoming cranky because she had caught my sickness and wasn’t feeling well. (Oh, and did I mention this was also the weekend she decided to start rolling over in her crib and cry for help when she landed on her back and couldn’t go back to sleep? Full moon!) In the morning when I finally got her out of bed, I discovered an hours-old poo in her diaper, which I had been unable to smell but is more than likely the cause of her continual waking and fussing. Womp womp. Sorry Bean. The same thing happened this morning, but this one looked like it hadn’t been in there since 3 in the morning at least. So as much as I hate to say it, I’m hoping my sense of smell returns soon so I can sniff out the FPD (Formula Poops of Doom) in the middle of the night so that she doesn’t have to sit in it all night long.

Now I am facing the daunting task of picking up my house, which has been woefully neglected since I came down with this crap. Ugh.

You’re sick Mommy? Aint nobody got time for that!

Food!

Last week at the baby’s appointment her doctor said we could start giving her solids like oatmeal and fruit/veggie purees. I was super excited about this because I’ve been looking forward to exposing her to foods! I love food, hope to attend culinary school some day, and I was reeeally excited about getting Caroline interested in food too.

The first attempt, oatmeal, went rather as you might expect it: messy! In fact, after the first mouthful, she looked at me and burst into tears.

Not a whole lot made it down that first attempt, naturally. I tried again the next day, but she still wasn’t particularly interested. She also still has a pretty strong tongue thrust reflex which naturally makes it a little more difficult to finagle a spoonful in there.

After giving it a couple days, I tried some apple juice, since the doctor suggested using it as a sweetener when I pureed fruits. He also said to try everything by itself first and to wait a few days so that if there are any allergies, we can nail it down to the right food. Anyway, I gave her the apple juice bottle and she immediately looked at me like “just what the hell do you think you’re trying to give me here?”

It took a bit of persuading, but she did eventually drink 2 ounces.

)

We tried pureed banana after that and she gobbled it up. She’s getting much better at opening her mouth wide enough for the spoon and is keeping most of it in her mouth. Today she had two servings of oatmeal with a little apple juice stirred in for some more taste and she snarfed it! Later today I’m going to do some apple puree (I used this as an excuse to finally buy a food processor and snagged a Ninja choppy thing last week, wahoo) and probably soon will try something like green beans or peas.

Now we’re working on nailing down the right amount of food for her. The suggested serving size on the oatmeal is for a much bigger child, so I can’t really go off that yet. I’m working on cutting out her lunchtime bottle and giving her juice, oatmeal and a fruit or veggie instead. I think some oatmeal at dinnertime is in the works too. Maybe that will keep her full through the night and I can soon start to wean her off her midnight bottle!

4 Months

Sweet Bean is 4 months old! A whole third of a year! (Right? I almost failed remedial math in college…)

At her 4-month checkup yesterday, she weighed 11lbs 12oz and was 23 1/2 inches long. That’s the 10th percentile for weight and the 15th percentile for height, so she is still a tiny li’l thing, but growing fast! The doctor was really pleased with her growth and happy to hear that the colic had been resolved by switching to bottles. She is fitting into 3 month clothing at last, even the sleepers! She is still rocking the gray eyes (I’m so pleased) and light brown hair, which is getting wicked long in the front.

Eating, sleeping, and her daily schedule are pretty much the same as they were last month, except that now on top of her 5-6oz bottles we are also venturing into cereal. She had a few bites a couple days last week and naturally most of it ended up on her bib or her face, but it was still fun to try! Her ped said we could continue with the cereal and also start doing fruits and veggies which I am sooo excited for. (Plus it gives me a great excuse to finally buy a food processor!)

She is FINALLY learning to enjoy bath time! Took long enough. Now it is part of our nightly routine. She sits in the bath in her Super Seat and kicks her feet around and watches her duckies swim by and for the most part she doesn’t cry anymore!

She is almost sitting up on her own. She can sit up without support if she is sitting against something, like a chair. There’s still a little wobbling going on but she is really getting the hang of it. She loves going for walks in her stroller, which is nice because the weather has finally been warm enough to go outside without 500 layers. A few weeks ago we took her to the Cherry Creek Mall down in Denver and she really enjoyed cruising around!

On top of walks in the stroller, she goes grocery shopping with me every week, which is actually a huge leap for me in terms of the PPA. For the time being, she hangs out in the K’Tan while I shop since it’s pretty much the only way I can finagle her and all the groceries. I’m hoping soon she’ll be able to start sitting up in the front part of the cart.

This girl is a mover! She lies in her playpen on her mat and kicks and wiggles like crazy. Last night I heard her crying on the monitor so I went in to replace her binkie and found her completely sideways in the crib with her head up against the slats and she was basically crying for help. As soon as I moved her she went right back to sleep. She can get around that crib though, even wrapped up in her blanket. When I hold her up to stand, she really puts her weight down and stands up quite strong. She still isn’t really crazy about tummy time, and tends to get frustrated quickly, but since I can see her gearing up to roll from her back to her belly any day now, she’ll hopefully get into it more.

Her development this month was really amazing to watch. She is starting to recognize more things and show favoritism to certain objects. She always smiles when Cameron or I walk into the room, and she loves her horsey toy and her bedtime bear. She’s getting really good at grabbing and holding onto things, and she giggled for the first time on Valentine’s Day. (I had a fit of excitement) She’s showing independence and is not clingy at all. She’ll lie in her playpen for 45 minutes at a time and just hang out with her toys, no problem. She likes to be near us and to be held while we’re walking around, but she is not much of a cuddler. She’d much rather be held facing forward while we walk around so she can see what’s going on than just be held close to me–which is nice on the one hand because I appreciate having a baby who exhibits independence and curiosity, but on the other sometimes I just want to sit down and watch tv while holding her and she is just not into it. She’s definitely discovered her hands, and the last few days wants to put them in her mouth all the time–and if it’s not her hands, it’s anything she’s holding. I handed her my bedtime bear (yeah, seriously) the other day and she immediately stuffed his ear in her mouth, so I think maybe not so much playtime with him anytime soon. (He’s almost 26 years old and getting a little fragile, and since I still sleep with him nightly I really don’t want anything to happen to him. I am still just not ready to put him into “retirement”…as silly as that sounds.) It’s incredible to watch her change daily from this little bundle who cried all the time and needed to be changed and fed nonstop into a real little person with personality and a smiley face. She started using her voice a lot more this last month, and now she makes little squawks and sounds that are pretty much the cutest things ever.

Mmmm, hands so yummy!

Happy 4 months, my sweet Bean!

Oh, and just because who doesn’t love a baby growth comparison photo….

She’s still so tiny in comparison to other babies her age but to me she looks giant!