Que Sera Sera

Thankfully week 18 of Daisy's life has been significantly less eventful than the previous one - I don't think we could have handled 2 of those in a row! Which is not to say there haven't been developments.

So, let's run them down...

Wriggle-Worm


Our little munchkin is now more wriggly than ever before. She's never been an easy baby to hold for some reason but now that she's figuring out how to control her motor skills, it's getting more difficult. From arching her back when she doesn't like something, to trying to stand all the time, to rolling over from her back to her tummy constantly (and yes, she still moans and groans like she's being tortured when she gets there), it's a constant wrestling match with this child. With my hip and back not being in stellar condition right now, some nights I can barely walk upstairs to bed for all the pain and stiffness I'm left with after a day with her!

Her hand-eye coordination is also getting really good, as I mentioned in a previous post, but now it's extending to wanting to grab and pull to her mouth anything and everything in sight - particularly things that mummy and daddy have in their hand. Trying to drink coffee in the morning is like playing a game of dodge-ball and there is no way you can sit her on your lap while you eat at a restaurant any more - today she got her little pincers on one of daddy's fries and he had to smush it up into mashed potato to get it out!

Obviously, this interest in food leads us to experiment with some rice cereal, something which we have yet to do on a regular basis yet. I'm sure that will make for an interesting post later this week!

The Great Escape

Since she's obviously trying to fine-tune these new motor-skills, the "Great Escape" from her Miracle Blanket has now become a daily thing. We're still clinging on to the MB for dear life and, fortunately, she still responds well to being wrapped for bed at night (at least for now) but, as soon as her eyes open in the morning (somewhere around 5:15-5:30am we're surmising), she begins her slow and steady process of escape. Invariably she will have wriggled her way out of the blanket and rolled to the other end of her crib by 5:45 on the dot. After several minutes 'exploring' she finally gets bored and starts "meeping" for us to get her. This has knocked about 1 hour off our sleep, aparently an important hour because we're both just ridiculously bleary-eyed when we roll out of bed now.

For me I think it's worse because I am just not sleeping well right now. As I said in a previous post, since I've had her, I typically wake up at 2am, 4am, and 6am. Now, since she's been doing the Great Escape, my subconscious is probably more worried about her moving around in her crib (or something!) and so I'm waking up now almost every 45-60 minutes after 1am. Basically, I'm only getting 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep. To top it all off, I'm not getting back to sleep as quickly either. I'm not quite sure what's going on, because I can definitely attest to being significantly tired when I go to bed at night. Hopefully, like everything else, it's a phase and my body will relax and get back to more REM sleep.

Que Sera Sera

Daisy has always responded well to music and dancing but now it's one of the only things that calm her down. Unfortunately my mother is to blame for choice of songs that "do the trick". One of them is "Que Sera Sera", the Doris Day song (particularly apropos, I might add), and thereafter our playlist goes something like this:

• Yellow Submarine
• Chorus to the theme song for the TV show "Flipper" (don't ask me, I didn't pick it!)
• Ride a Cock Horse to Bambury Cross (English nursery rhyme, usually accompanied by bouncing her up and down on your kneee - yes, goes down a trat with my hip)

Today I believe we added 10 Green Bottles. Yeah, mum, thanks for that.

On the plus side, since we're trying to get her used to not having anyone sitting in the back seat of the car with her moving forward, singing these songs at the top of our voice has proved to be an invaluable tool in avoiding an in-car meltdown. However, I give myself a sore throat and headache from my own singing voice, which (at least to my ears) leaves a lot to be desired.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Yep, we're still exercising those vocal chords to their full potential. We now have 15-20 minute periods each day where we just squeal away to nobody in particular and for no particular reason. Today we almost cleared the "parental section" of Chili's with our happy squeals of excitement.

Here I was thinking I'd be leaving restaurants because she would be crying inconsolably and instead I'm ushering her out because she's smiling at all the other diners and trying to get their attention with her ear-piercing symphony.

Of course, only my child.

SPLISH SPLASH!

It's official, we love water.



On Saturday we got invited to the house of a new friend I made at Mommy & Me meetings, Renee. She has a little girl called Maddy who, I think, is 9 months old, and since she stays home, maintains a lot of other mommy friends with kids under one. She also happens to have a friend who gives baby swim lessons for a living. So off we went to her pool for our first proper swim lesson.

Considering she was the youngest one there by several months and that the swim lesson lasted almost an hour, she did FANTASTIC. No meltdowns, no fussines, not even when I dunked her under water (purposefully and with instruction) a couple of times. Even when we got her out and wrapped her in her hooded-towel, she was a happy little bunny. This bodes well for our 18 weeks of lessons starting the first Saturday in September at Swim Otters.

Honestly, the best part about my weekends is getting out and about with her - she just loves to see and do new things and I just love to get out of the house.

A BIT ABOUT MUMMY

Couldn't leave this post without indulging in a little Mummy update re: my hip and other related "issues".

As those of you who have been following on Facebook know, I had some problems getting in to see the Osteopath that my PCP recommended but today I finally got an appointment and some treatment.

You can read more about the philosophy of Osteopathy here but in short, it was an interesting blend of many different techniques from Physical Therapy, Massage, Accupressure, Reflexology, and Chiropracty.

Osteopaths believe that your body has everything it needs to heal itself but that it sometimes gets stuck or out of practice due to injury or illness, and so needs some reminders of what it is supposed to be doing. Their philosophy is "Find It. Fix It. Leave it Alone," meaning their treatment is not for treatment's sake but rather to assist the body in taking the next step(s) toward healing itself. For the most part (and in highly simplified terms) Doctors of Osteopathy don't just look at the one part of your body that you're reporting problems with, they look at your whole body and "unwind" (their term) the problem from Z-to-A, addressing all issues whether they be cause or effect, and at the joint, muscle, and fasciae levels. Their treatment also includes Craniosacral therapy (something my massage therapist also does) and an understanding of how blockages in the lympatic system impacts the body's proper functioning.

The best thing about my first treatment is that the doctor was able to address pain, stiffness, and misalignment in areas that more traditional therapies don't normally touch. For instance, I am still experiencing pain across my pubic bone and, to "unwind" that, the doctor literally had to press on my pubic bone - and dang it was sore. She also identified some EXTREME soreness in my pelvic floor area (and yes, you can guess where she had to go to get to THAT). Osteopaths refer to this as the pelvic diaphram. THIS was the sorest part of my whole body and something that not one single medical practitioner thus far has dealt with. She even suggested that a lot of my problems may actually be beginning in these two areas since they are the most upset. Who knows? I'm willing to consider anything at this point.

The upshot is that I'll have 5-6 more weeks of these treatments and we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I'm continuing with my massage therapy (which, to-date, is still the most effective at addressing my pain and stiffness) as well as my physical therapy. I can tell you that I'm really very sore this afternoon and so that must mean something, right?

LASTLY BUT NOT LEASTLY...

Here is a pic of our newly painted house. Gone is the puky-peach in favor of a lovely (at least I think so) green. We still have some work to do - touch-ups, change-out the door for one with glass and paint it black - and let's not even mention the dire need for landscaping, but at least we don't look like the next house about to disappear into foreclosure on the street right now!

For even more recent pics of Daisy and her shenanigans in the last week or two, click here.