That's a lot of talking...just wish I knew what you were saying

Miss C has an ever expanding vocabulary and her understanding of what I am saying to her is increasing as well. Of course, we think she is the smartest baby ever and enjoy just watching her motor around talking to everything and doing everything.

Tonight I sat on the floor while she walked back and forth between the sofa and the ottoman with her stuff giraffe from her old floor exerciser in hand. She was talking up a storm and having quite a good time. I guess the giraffe understood her because I certainly didn't. Back and forth she walked rattling the giraffe and having the time of her life.

The good news is that she does sign a lot and if I am paying attention and not fully understanding what she is saying I pick up on the signs. The ones she most often uses are more (accompanied by "mo-ah"), eat, all done and has her own sign for when she wants to be picked up. If we don't respond quickly enough to her verbal "mo-ah" she will sign it as well. We are definitely all learning together.

Happy Birthday Daddy

No stopping her now

Last night I was washing dishes and looked up to see Miss C standing in the middle of the family room. Then she just took off walking like she had been doing it forever. And now, she walks. Not just a few steps, but everywhere.

They had been telling me at the day care that she had been trying out her walking skills and that soon she'd be walking. They were right. Today has been filled with her walking drunkenly around the house. A couple of times she smacked her face on the floor which resulted in some tears shed but no blood thankfully.

It is hilarious to see her little butt wiggling and arms flapping as she maneuvers around. She seems so tiny to be walking. Our little girl is growing up.

In other news, Miss C's primary caregiver is no longer her caregiver. I am not fully sure what transpired but I believe my reporting her sleeping on the job set a ball rolling. I've felt pretty conflicted about the whole situation because I honestly would never wish anyone to lose their job, especially in these economic times. BUT...Miss C is my responsiblity and I have to do what is in her best interest. Unfortunately in order to keep her safe I had to address a shitty situation that resulted in a girl losing her job. No matter how guilty I feel about that, I would have NEVER forgiven myself if something had happened to Miss C or any other kid in her room and I had said nothing.

Updates

• We finally graduated to a new car seat for Miss C. I researched and finally opted to get the Britax Marathon.
• She's getting two new bottom molars and loves brushing her teeth with her new toothbrush.
• I've figured out that if we let her have the perception that she is doing it herself than she goes with the flow much better.
• Shocked that I have a severely independent child? Me either. Haha!
• Anyway, when we eat, she gets her own spoon and will feed herself while we feed her. When we brush her teeth she has to do it and then we do it.
• We were making good progress with walking and then Miss C decided she would prefer to crawl. I think she is lacking the confidence for whatever reason...maybe she stumbled a the daycare or something. She can walk and we are working on helping her build that confidence back up.
• The latest thing she does is mimic things we do like put the ribbon in her hair, try to put her socks and shoes on her feet and try to put her bib on. It is hilarious and she is so proud of her efforts.
• Words that she is using: More, MaMa, DaDa, Hi, Bye...sometimes we understand other times we don't.
• She'll shake her head yes and no when asked a question.
• She'll lean into people with her arms out to "hug" and extends her arms to be picked up.
• When we sing Itsy Bitsy Spider she moves her hands in a distinct way that she only does for that song. SP has had to learn the words quickly.
• If we say yeh or clap, she will clap.
• We use the cup throughout the day and only do formula in the AM and PM.
• She eats jar food rarely now and primarly eats what we eat. She actually LOVES to eat what we eat and we encourage that.
• There are so many things that she is doing now it's difficult to capture everything.

Differences

I was reading what Dawn was writing about Mia's transition to her new room at daycare and was thinking about the differences between the two day cares. Dawn has never mentioned anyone SLEEPING at Mia's which is a BIG difference, but there's other differences as well.

Miss C's room is considered an infant room. The age range is 3 months to 2 years. In her room...The Cardinal Room, they sleep in both cribs and on cots depending on their age. Miss C is still in a crib.

Kids sit in high chairs and at a table and while Miss C is a high chair girl the other day she did decide to take a seat at the table to eat breakfast. Miss C eats all the meals they serve there, with only minor exception and is using her cup and working on utensils.

They regularly have center-wide themes as well as individual room themes and activities. She has painted and drawn some beautifully unique pictures for us. We've also participated "color" days where each day they learned about a new color and were asked to wear that color.

The room is set up with activities for the walkers, crawlers, sitters, rollers and bouncy-seaters. Some talk. Some don't. Most cry at some time or another.

I guess these things were just normal to me. I didn't know any different. The change will come for us when she transitions to the toddler room which will come all too soon I fear.

The week of naps

There are all these layers of feelings that go along with being a "working mom". For me, I always thought I would be a stay at home mom so the decision to go back to work was tough for me. Once I got over the feelings of guilt for even thinking I might actually enjoy working and need a career outside of the home, I had to wrestle with the issue of childcare.

That's difficult...giving up control of the primary care of your child to strangers. No one can ever do it as good as you do and there are so many risks associated with group care. At this point in Miss C's life I had started to adjust to her new day care. I was working on accepting all the positive things the day care had to offer while not focusing on my anxiety over her not being cared for a) by me and/or b) in our home.

Overall, I like the activities they support at the day care and all of the things Miss C learns and does while there. She paints and draws, reads and sings, plays A LOT, learns sign language, etc. She also interacts with so many different people from the care givers to the kids in her class and other classes.

Then yesterday, for the second time, I arrived to pick her up and found her primary caregiver asleep. ASLEEP. There stood my baby next to this sleeping person who is supposed to keep her safe and out of harms way. Thankfully, there were two other caregivers in the room so she was not entirely unsupervised. But, the class was full. Every kid was there. And she was ASLEEP.

I have to tell you I am a wreck. I spoke with the facility manager immediately. Then today I was distraught thinking about her being safe...would her caregiver treat her differently when she was reprimanded for sleeping on the job? Would she fall asleep again? Was she ok?

The thing is, I like her caregiver. Miss C likes her. But it is unacceptable to fall asleep when you are caring for a child...for my child. I am trying to trust that this issue will be addressed and will not happen again. I have to tell you though, if it does, either Miss C will be moved to another room or we will be removing her from the facility.

Unseasonably warm

Everyone around here is starting to recover from their ailments. I can actually move my head. Miss C's blochy rash has almost faded and I am hoping her ear infection is going away. SP is up off the couch and semi-human.

These last few days have been trying but today was a lovely warm day. We took full advantage of the 70+ degree weather to take a long walk and play a little outside before Miss C had to go to bed.

She LOVES being outside and crackled with delight as the wind blew her hair. We played with sticks and grass and touched all the plants and trees we could. I am so looking forward to spending a lot of time outside this summer. Just need to get a handle on the obnoxious mosquitos that plague us during the summer months.

When it rains, it pours

Last night after dinner I noticed Miss C had what we thought were hives all over her torso. We tried to remember what she had eaten differently or done differently. All we could think of was that the egg in the egg noodles was causing a reaction or the new antibiotic was causing it. We called the doctor who told us to give her anti-histamine and call in the morning if it had not gone away.

The night was restless with SP kicking me and tossing and turning. I got up at 6 and somewhere in the movement to the sofa managed to pull something in my neck. Horribly painful. Could barely turn my head. Laid on the heating pad until Miss C woke up at 8.

Her "hives" had spread all over her faces and arms and legs. It was horrible looking. So, we called the doctor and got an appointment. At the same time SP got up and was not feeling well himself. So, I took Jake and Miss C with me. Needed Jake to hold Miss C because the next pain had not subsided and I could barely hold her. SP went to the Immediate Care Center.

And here's what both of those visits got us...

• Miss C has a viral rash, not hives. Doctor thinks she has/had roseola. Oddly though she never had a dramatic spike in her temperature.
• SP has an upper respiratory infection, a viral infection, strep throat and muscle spasms in his back unrelated to the other things. He is still running a fever and contagious.

As a result of Miss C's illness she has had diarrhea and got a lovely diaper rash that is causing her a lot of pain. This all would explain a lot of what has been going on this week. I can barely get her diaper changed and she screams like I am causing her the most severe pain she has ever experienced. Tonight after her bath I had to trick her by loading her diaper up with our homemade butt paste and diapering her while she was standing. Not that easy.

I must admit I am exhausted. My neck is killing me...killing me. Miss C has not been herself and overly fussy. I am trying to keep her away from SP, keep her comfortable and disinfect my entire house. She is sleeping now. He is on the upstairs sofa and I am in the basement. I expect and early night for me.

Who's your Daddy?

Miss C has always been a child who makes sounds from the moment she arrived. Those sounds have transitioned into her trying to speak. We are starting to pick up on some of her "language" and figuring out what she is trying to communicate. SP has said he can tell when she is saying "Ma" in reference to me but I don't hear it. But today, today she very clearly referred to him as "DaDa".

It was really sweet to get a text from him while I was at work (They were home together because she is still fighting the ear infection.) telling me that he kept hearing her say "DaDa" and looked up to find her waving at him. Then she did it tonight as well. Crystal clear "DaDa" which melted my heart.

In other news something she had tonight broke her out in hives all over her entire body. We think it was either the new antibiotics or the carrots. My vote is for the antibiotics. We gave her Benadryl and will monitor it tomorrow. Good times.

Stupid ear infection

Yesterday when I picked Miss C up from the daycare they said she hadn't slept much so I expected a fussy baby. What I didn't expect was for her to crawl up into my lap when we got home and rest her little head on my shoulder and curl up to sleep. I also didn't expect the low grade fever or to be up all night. But that is what we got.

I love ear infections.

We had a follow up appointment today for her ear infection and found out that she still has it so we got another round of a new antibiotic. This is really only her second ear infection but it feels like more. It would further explain her less than desirable behavior this week.

She is wiped out. While at the doctor she fell asleep. Then when we got home she took two very long naps. One was almost 3 hours long and she would have slept longer had I not gotten her up to eat. Fighting those cooties.

Stages

I have tried to prepare myself for my spirited baby to become a fiesty, spirited toddler complete with her own independent personality. I know that just when I feel like a pro with whatever stage we are in Miss C moves into a new stage.

The last few days have been the I don't want to be on the changing table so I am going to scream and roll over like you are killing me stage. It's also been the I don't like it when you put me in the car seat and we go for a ride so I am going to wail and throw my toys and just be down right pissed off unless you sing to me and then I might keep yelling until you play music that I like on the radio stage. And then there's the I am freaking starving and you cannot feed me fast enough for my liking and don't even think about feeding me anything with plums or raspberries because I will shriek and turn my head away stage. Oh and then there's the I am going to lay on the floor face down with my arms and legs extended and flap my arms like I am throwing a tantrum on two different occasions just to see what you will do stage. Which is right up there with the don't you even think about taking away something I have like that pen that I could stick in my eyeball or the hunk of food that I want to shove in my mouth because you weren't feeding me fast enough and I am hungry damn it so I don't care that I might choke stage.

Wow! It's been fun.

These last couple of days have been trying...TRYING. But I am trying to be calm and logical. Calm and logical...hahahaha. I don't want a bratty kid. I don't want the kid who throws uncontrollable fits and the parents just get steamrolled and overwhelmed to the point where they cave and their kid runs the show. I also know that she is a 1 year old who is expressing herself and testing her boundaries.

I get it. I just don't like it.

So I am trying not to sweat the small stuff and keep my perspective. Like knowing that we started giving her cows milk for the first time this weekend which gave her a little diarrhea. The diarrhea in turn gave her a diaper rash like it always does. Her typical reaction to a diaper rash is to reject the changing table and car seat because they hurt her. Stop the cows milk, stop the diarrhea, stop the diaper rash, stop the screaming on the changing table and in the car seat.

I am also adjusting dinner time because right now Miss C wants to eat at 5:30ish which is somewhat impossible because that is when we are getting home. So, I am trying to give her a little appetizer to hold her off until I can get my coat off and get something pulled together for her to eat. This seems to be working so far.

The tantrum on the floor...well, I ignored that and just redirected her. I am chalking that one up to seeing it done at daycare because it happened those two times and hasn't happened since.

And the displeasure over taking something away from her...well, some times she's just not going to like it but if it's in her best interest and for her safety it is what it is. Redirecting works wonders for little minds that quickly forget what had them so wound up a second ago.

I guess my point is this...I know absolutely nothin' bout raising no babies but I have a brain and I intend to use it. If we screw her up, well, we did it with the most loving intentions.

Walk this way...

There really isn't any reason why Miss C isn't walking on her own. She likes to walk. We have multiple of those push toys that you can walk behind. A lot of her play time is spent walking behind a toy until she pushes into a wall or door or cabinet, then she walks to the other end and pushes in the opposite direction. Then she does this ridiculously funny cack cack cack laugh.

However, full out walking hasn't been her thing. She'd rather crawl at a rapid pace to her destination. We haven't pushed it though because I figure she'll walk when she is ready. When the time was right for her. All along I have said she will just walk one day. Just do it.

Today was that day.

After a fabulous rendition of Itsy Bitsy Spider complete with Mom and Dad singing and Miss C doing her hand gestures reserved just for this song we went downstairs to play before bed. SP and I were sitting across from each other with Miss C rolling the ball back and forth and then she stood up in front of me and walked to SP.

Just walked. WALKED. Not one step or two but full fledged walking to him and we both about shit. After that she walked some more and got real excited that we were excited which resulted in more falling than walking. We were thrilled.