Teething

Olivia has been showing signs of being a little under the weather. Dave and I have been keeping a close eye on any new and persisting symptoms. I think we are a little bit hypersensitive because the first and last time that Olivia was sick with the ear infection, we had no idea.

We've been taking her temperature obsessively, and she seemed fine. She has had a cough and congestion and we were afraid that would lead to another ear infection. Yesterday, I mentioned her symptoms to her two teachers and I made a note about them on her daily chart. When I went to visit at lunch, one of her teachers mentioned that Olivia seemed to be tugging at her right ear and was particularly fussy. So off to the doctor we went.

It was such a relief to be told that Olivia's ears looked great. The doctor said she thinks because Olivia is actively teething and slightly congested there may be pressure in her ears, which would be why she was tugging at one. I've been looking for signs of teething for months, and I guess that time is now upon us. She is only slightly droolier and slightly fussier. I felt like the fussiness has been from her somewhat clingy stage right now, but it may just be due to the teething.

In further Olivia news, she is now full-blown on her hands and knees crawling! She still scoots, and also does a strange pulling her legs forward in a sitting position sort of scoot, but she is also crawling at times. It's amazing to see. I can't get enough of it. Oh! And the pulling herself up has gotten crazy! She tries to pull herself up on anything and everything. 

Olivia is also selectively waving goodbye. I can tell she is mimicking the wave, but I don't believe she really knows what is going on. It is very cute nonetheless.

Another new development right now that I’m not particularly fond of is her crying when I leave her at daycare. It’s only happened a handful of times, but it can really send me off to work in a cruddy mood. I’m so torn up about it, but I know it’s a totally normal stage that can go on for months (I’ve heard years, but I refuse to believe that.) Right now, I’m just trying my best to hang out for a little bit, and then give a big hug, and kiss, place her with some buddies, and wave goodbye from the door. I’m trying not to prolong my departure, but also make it pleasant. All I really want to do when I see her crying when I leave is run back to her and squeeze her, and take her with me.

I know she knows that we love her, but it’s really hard to leave your baby when she is crying. I have considered swapping drop-offs with Dave, but I couldn’t imagine not dropping her off everyday. Plus, I’m still nursing her right before I drop her off, and I don’t want to give that up, yet. We will pull through this.

Chokin' on the Ritz

Olivia has shown a lot of interest in food.  She is very interested in playing with food, but she has very little interest in actually eating most food we have offered her.  However, Olivia does like Ritz crackers!

Yummy cracker!

Oops, Olivia "bit" off a big chunk.  Way more than she could manage.

Coughing.

Moment of panic, and Mommy helping Olivia out.

More coughing.

Whew! Consoling Olivia, and reassuring her that she is okay.

Uh oh....Mommy and Daddy didn't think to take the cracker away...

Olivia protesting the removal of the Ritz cracker.

First fit caught on camera.

Thank you, Dave for capturing these moments.  

I had no idea that babies eating real food could be so scary.  During every meal with Olivia so far there have been at least one moment of panic from either Dave or me.  I don't know if we are just paranoid or if Olivia doesn't quite have the skills yet.  She is still without teeth, so I worry that she won't be able to handle certain textures.  

We are all still learning! 

Olivia's Daddy

is the best!!!

Vent: my baby is sick.

My baby is sick and I hate it.  I absolutely hate it.  I hate everything about her being sick right now.  I hate that her ear infection, albeit very mild, was discovered at her 6 month check up and neither one of us had any idea.  I hate that for the past 5 days Olivia has had a fever on and off.  I hate that I cannot be with her today comforting her while she isn't feeling 100%.  I hate that the medicine that we have been giving her hasn't seemed to be helping.  I hate that we took her back to the doctor on Saturday, and it still didn't make her feel better, or answer the question of why she is still sick.   I hate seeing the droopy eyes that my baby has when the fever gets a little bit higher.  I hate that we don't know what it is that is causing the fever. Teething? Ear Infection? Something else?  I hate that I "had" to give her Tylenol for the first time last night.  (More on that another day, maybe, maybe not.) I hate that she goes in and out of having energy and wanting to play to just wanting to put her head on my shoulder out of tiredness.  I hate that I hate that she is sick even though I know very well that babies do get sick.  But, truthfully, most of all I hate not being able to be there today to comfort her.

I can also go on about the ways that we are blessed.  We have be lucky enough to go 6 months before we have seen a fever in our baby.  I am extremely lucky to have a great parenting partner who has been there every step of the way for our little girls sicky time.  Except from about 1am to 5am last night when it was all me.  This was only fair because I was sick as a dog on Friday night and Dave had to take over 100% of the parenting responsibilities, minus the nursing.  We are fortunate that Gammie has been available and willing to watch our sick little one 2 of the 3 work days that we have needed her to.  We are also fortunate because although she is clearly sick, we have been able to comfort her and keep her a comfortable as we can.  We have also been blessed because we have still seen our happy baby on and off for the past 5 days, it has not been all misery.  We keep getting glimpses of our happy and energetic Olivia, and hope and wish that it has passed. 

However, it hasn't yet.  This sickness is still around.  I'm praying that it goes away soon.  I will be able to stay home with Olivia tomorrow if she still is not better.  I will also be able to take her back to the doctor in hopes that we can come up with some answers as to why she isn't better yet.

The Fastest Six Months of Our Lives

Olivia is half of a year old!  I cannot believe that she is six months old already.  I'm beginning to understand how my mom felt when she used to squeeze us extra tight each birthday and begged us not to grow up.

Developmentally, Olivia seems to be doing well.  She is sitting up completely unassisted.  She will occasionally  tumble over, but more and more it's becoming intentional.  Olivia has started scooting and is quickly gaining speed at this new skill.  She is also able to get up on all fours and will rock back and forth a little bit before she collapse back to her tummy. 

Olivia is always busy!  Gammie says that Olivia has two speeds, very awake and asleep.  She is in constant motion when she is awake.  She loves toys and has a couple of favorites already.  We have a couple of packs of "busy balls" and she loves to scoot after them.  She is becoming really good at transferring the ball from one hand to another.

Last weekend we introduced a couple of foods to Olivia.  She was offered avocado and bananas.  The jury is still out on whether she liked these two new flavors or not.  From the looks of her face when she tasted them you would of thought we had given her something horrible, but she continued to keep bringing them to her mouth for more tasting.  So who knows.  We are attempting the Baby Led Weaning approach to food introduction, but may have to modify it as we see fit. 

We are still anticipating the teething stage, but so far, no signs of any teeth.

The other day I absentmindedly took something away from Olivia when I went to pick her up and she got visually upset. That was definitely a first, and although it was adorable at the time, it was also quite scary. Sort of a little look into the future and what a mild tantrum may eventually look like. Although, I immediately gave her back whatever she was playing with, it was interesting to see her make that conscious effort to express that she was upset.  Like I said, ubberly cute now, but I would imagine it loses its cuteness in the future.

Olivia had her 6 month check-up today and currently weighs 14 pounds and 11 ounces, and is 24.25 inches long.   Everything seemed to check out well and the doctor said that Olivia looked great.  We love our pediatrician, but we do not exactly see eye to eye on the introductions of food.  She is very persistent  on starting with rice cereal, then purees, the food, etc.  She also said that soon Olivia should be on 3 meals a day.  I just smile and say, yes.   I know she is a doctor and all and I do not disagree with her at all when it comes to medical matters.   I feel like how we feed Olivia should be left up to mommy and daddy.

That being said Dr. P discovered the beginning of an ear infection in Olivia's right ear.  My poor baby!  Olivia showed no signs that her ear was bothering her, but I still felt pretty terrible when I heard this.  Dr. P prescribed a 5 day dose of azithromycin which we began last night.  Dave was pretty traumatized having to administer the antibiotics to Olivia.  Who knew that it would be that hard?!  The medicine was cherry flavored!  And I give Olivia vitamin D drops and that is no where near as difficult as it was to give her the antibiotics.  Olivia was thrashing, and moving her head and would spit the medicine out.  The meds were everywhere, on her, on me, on Dave, on her clothing and in her hair.  I know we will eventually get the hang of it, but that first time was rough.

We monitored her for the next  couple of hours.  I used to be allergic to certain strains of penicillin when I was a baby, which is why she was prescribed the azithromycin rather than the usual amoxicillan.  Olivia seemed to be doing well, but she seemed incredibly tired and fell asleep by 6:30 last night.  Olivia woke up at 4a.m. with a 101.6 fever.  Since then the fever has gone down, and come back up, but not reaching any higher than the 101.6 degrees it was at first.  Hopefully the medicine will do its job over the next couple of days and we kill this infection.  Today I am home with my baby, who is currently napping on me in the Ergo, and Gammie will watch Olivia for us tomorrow.  Thank God for grandmothers!!!

Picture taken yesterday morning before heading out for work.

6/8/2011 - 6 months old

Six months old also means six months of breastfeeding for this mommy.  When I first got pregnant, this was my original breastfeeding goal.  We made it.  Hopefully we can continue to go just as strong for another six months. 



Photoshoot

Grandma Jimenez bought Olivia several new summer tank tops. The cut on these tank tops are so incredibly adorable. I love them a lot. So naturally that meant a photoshoot! I took a bunch of pictures at home this morning before work, but that still didn't seem like enough. So once we got to daycare I snapped a couple more pictures with my phone.

Memorial Day weekend rocked, and I have tons of fun pictures to share here on my blog.  I will update and post them as soon as I can.  We had a great time with all of the Copelands and saw the Jimenez family on Saturday, too.

BFFs

The last time we all met up, Olivia was still in the womb.  This was the first time she got to meet Aunt Jenny & Aunt Sam, and got to see her Aunt Kelly, again.  We make an effort to all get together at least a couple of times a year since college, and as always, it was wonderful.

Kelly & Olivia

Jake, Jenny & Olivia

Josh, Sam & Olivia

All of us.

The ladies :)

Although we try really hard throughout the year to stay in touch and up to date in each other's lives, it's so nice to be able to catch up in person.