4 of 7: Peekaboo surprise

September 9: Amy and Daddy play a little peekaboo, with a surprise ending.

3 of 7: (Supported) Walking

September 9: Holding onto my hands, Amy walks across the room.

2 of 7: Chairs

Early September: Amy cruises and clambers around a couple of chairs. In the background, the stereo is playing Tim Seaman’s “Forest Succession,” from Sycamore Rapids.

1 of 7: August Spaghetti

Mark took Amy to the bank and the grocery store today, so I got to go to the library and upload videos!

First up, I finally got a good upload of Amy feeding herself spaghetti. This video is from August 21.

Sick, poo, puke, medicine, aspirator

We are all three still sick. I think I might be just a few days from better, and Mark and Amy perhaps next. Amy’s cough sounds deeper today, but it’s still only occasional, along with her stuffy nose. Mark has dorm duty tonight but he was relieved from football duty last night and we’re all staying home from church tomorrow (even though I was supposed to play a dulcimer offertory and play guitar to accompany the dulcimer group which is leading worship).

This evening during Amy’s naked time, she squatted on the old comforter, holding on to the playtable, and very neatly plopped out a poo — very messy to clean up from the comforter, but leaving her bum nearly spotless. We’re just made to squat. It works so well. Anyway, the comforter is now bunched up in a corner waiting to be washed.

Yesterday evening, we got take-out chinese (which was disappointing). In the car on the way home, Amy puked.

I think it was my fault. At lunch, I’ve been giving her bits of nectarine or mashed cooked blueberries mixed with yogurt, which goes down just fine. But yesterday the only fruit in the house was an apple. I felt too lazy to cook it, so I just stuck a few slices in the food processor, thinking that would mash it up well enough. Still raw though — so even though the pieces were tiny they weren’t really mush, and perhaps there’s something about raw apple that just doesn’t digest well in a baby.

She objected strenuously to the vomiting experience. However, she eventually calmed down during and after a bath, and was fine the rest of the evening. And the car seat cleaned up very well, too.

She objected to her medicine the first two dosings. She is supposed to get two droppers three times a day for a week. After that first dosing I was so dismayed at the thought of having that ordeal so often and so long. But around the third dosing or so she discovered that it tasted fine, so now she mostly accepts it and even opens her mouth eagerly for it.

She continues to object to having her nose suctioned. We try to let her be, as much as we can. When we do feel that a good suctioning would benefit her, we at first have to hold down her arms and cradle her head still. However gently and cuddlingly we do that, she still hates it and is not comforted until it’s all over. But while she cries vehemently, the rest of her mostly goes limp — poor little one, I guess she knows it’s no use to try to fight it.

Reminds me of the great William Carlos Williams short story (go read it!) “The Use of Force.” A benefit is sometimes worth the cost of using force, but it is never a solution to use lightly.

Bottle, bottle bottle bottle, bottle

Tonight Amy and I sang the bottle song.

Verse 1, 2, 3, and so on –

Me: Bottle…, bottle bottle bottle, bottle…

Amy: Bah l

We’re more and more sure that she is making some sounds meaningfully, even though most of them are still very distorted.

Among the first almost-words have been “kitty” (kee kee, keesh, and variations) and “bottle.”

Most clear is “uh-oh,” which she makes when she drops something, when someone else drops something, or when she is thinking about dropping something. She also makes this sound at apparently non-meaningful moments, too.

Today I am pretty sure I heard “milk,” along with the sign, which we’ve been demonstrating to her at lunchtime when she drinks her formula from a sippy. Of course she also clenches and unclenches her fists at other times, so we can’t yet be sure she understands the connection of the sign and the spoken word.

Then there’s “Daddy” (da da, da doo, da boo, and variations), which again sometimes seems clearly to signify Daddy, and other times seems to be random vocalizing.

“Mama” only rarely seems to have any connection with me. Sometimes it seems to mean something about food. (And nope, she’s bottle-fed, and Mark feeds her at dinner and sometimes other times, too.)

To the doctor we go

I woke up this morning with a cough — the cough that, when I get it, typically lingers months after the sickness is gone. The one that makes me feel like I have to be careful breathing and moving so as not to set off a coughing fit.

Therefore I called to see if the doctor could see Amy and I today.

The office we went to for her nine-month wellness visit informed me that they could not see me today because I was a new patient, and they were scheduling new patients two weeks out, and that’s why they recommend new folks establish themselves as patients before they get sick — i.e. just going to the doctor and saying hi, I guess.

Except in all the vast literature they sent me when I made Amy’s nine-month appointment there was nothing about this policy.

Yikes; I was miffed and upset, too.

I called another doctors’ office and asked if they would see us, and they did — unfortunately the only times available were right in the middle of Amy’s afternoon nap, but you take what you get.

Nice nurse. Didn’t like the doctor so much, and he terrified Amy (was it him? or just that it was naptime and she has a cold and was in a strange place…). He seemed careless.

I don’t really know what I want from a doctor.

Good manner is very important to me — I want to be listened to and respected, and I want Amy treated gently and respectfully. This guy’s seeming carelessness, and dismissive attitude towards Amy’s upset (”I don’t take it personally,” he said; did he care about *her* feelings?), were not the manner I’m looking for.

The confusing part is how much authority I want from a doctor. On the one hand I want a doctor to examine the situation and pronounce his or her recommended course of action. On the other hand I want my concerns and ideas to be taken into consideration. This guy may have taken consideration too far — he seemed to essentially say, “whatever you want, I’ll give it to you,” which is not quite authoritative enough. I don’t like a doctor to give in to a patient’s fears or demands if what the patient wants is not really the best solution.

Anyway, we came home with antibiotics. Amy hasn’t had any before, and I haven’t had any in a long time, so I won’t worry too much about overuse. Even if I’m not convinced that the doctor was convinced we both had bacterial infections, we might, and this one time won’t hurt us if we don’t. And it just seems better to be precautionary, and not wait until I’m too sick to take care of Amy.

Mark seems to be getting sick, now, too.

Sun glare

This evening as I was making dinner:

And from yesterday evening:

Two other newish developments (besides splashing): standing on her own for several seconds, and putting things into containers.

Splash

It’s definite — Amy and I both have colds. Mark might, too. Mine is the “post-nasal drip making the throat sore” variety. I suspect the same of Amy (and Mark).

She hates having her nose suctioned. Who can blame her? I thought, maybe if I squirt a little salt water up there, it’ll drain better on its own. She hated that, too, but not long after, there was a big splashy sneeze, and some smaller drips and drains as the morning went on.

I gave her a little orange juice from a dixie cup — she didn’t do so well drinking from it but we’ll try again later.

And I’m trying to make sure I offer her water often, too.

Meanwhile she’s also got two persistent sore patches of diaper rash. Usually if she gets a sore spot — which isn’t that often — it clears up in a day or two just with ointment treatment. These patches have been hanging on for a few days.

So, I put her in a diaper but no cover, for better breathability.

When it was time to change it, I gave her a bath and let her play in the tub a nice long time before I washed her.

She has discovered splashing. She sat there enthralled, first slapping her leg (the top of which was just out of the water), then slapping the water next to it, comparing the results. She also did a little sideways waving in the water to get a different kind of splash. Her face was covered with water beads, but she who hates water in her face did not mind at all.

After the bath, I put an old full-size comforter on the floor in her room, put her blocks in the middle, the rocking chair in one corner, the playtable in another, and the rocking horse along one side, and let her play naked.

She peed a little in one spot, which I sopped up with her towel and then covered with the playtable so she wouldn’t step in it. Much later she peed again in another spot; by then it was naptime, so after I sopped that up I put a new diaper on her (coverless again) and put her to bed.

I hope all that time in the air will make a difference to these sore patches.

If the pee spots have dried by the time we’re done with lunch, I may well flip that comforter over and do it again for a while.

Sweet (and a little annoying)

For whatever reason, Amy had a really difficult time with her morning nap today. Something was causing her distress, whether it’s the cold she might have or something else.

Once I went in and patted and shhhh’d her and left again when she seemed calmer, but as soon as I headed for the door the distress cry began again, and didn’t fade after several minutes.

I went in again and sat on the floor working on something, shhhh’ing some more. No luck. I glanced over and she was standing at the rail crying at me. She had a stuffed up nose so I got the aspirator (second time today) and slurped up as much mucusy goodness as I could, then I held her and swayed with her for a while.

She seemed about to fall asleep so I lowered her into her crib. The distress cry began again, so more patting and shhhh’ing, and once again I left as she seemed calm, and once again she started to cry. I stood there holding her gaze* until again she seemed calm, left, she cried, but she got herself to sleep after a while.

It’s not like her to have this much trouble with a nap, so I thought it was fine to go in to be with her and rock her a bit.

It was sweet.

It was also a little annoying after a while. No, not her fault, but still annoying.

*One of the entries in a past Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest was something like, “It was on nights like this, with the wind howling outside the walls and a fire crackling in the fireplace, holding her hand and gazing into her eyes, that he wondered what had become of the rest of her.”