The Swing of Things

It has yet to get easier to drop Jillian off each morning at daycare. I realize this is only the second week but I find myself not wanting to let her go. Miss Sarah, one of her caregivers, stands next to me after I pull Jillian out of her car seat and I reluctantly hand her over. Once I do let go of her, I tell her to be a good girl and I just have to touch her little hand. Every night last week I cried at the thought of having to drop her off again the next morning. I have held back the tears this week, so perhaps it's not that it's getting "easier," rather it is just something we have to do. She's such a perfect little baby.

Jillian continues to grow and change so quickly. She follows us with her eyes when we walk across the room. She watches Huntley and the cats when they catch her attention. She has started grasping her toys when she feels them brush on her hand. Garrett was offering her her pacifier a few nights ago and she leaned forward with her mouth open to latch on to it. She smiles more and more and has great conversations with us, especially Garrett. When she hears either of our voices she turns for us. She was dozing yesterday afternoon when I walked into her room at daycare and said hi to the caregiver. She opened her eyes and looked around for me. She has been doing really well with her rolling over from her belly to her back with little effort. Yesterday Sarah said she was cooing a bunch. She has been doing very well at daycare with taking bottles and not being too fussy. That makes us happy that she seems happy there. Perhaps that explains why she cries almost the entire way home each evening. Well, not sure if that's the reason, but I like to think that she has a good time.

Last weekend we started supplementing her with formula. I had stocked some milk in the freezer before going back to work but she was going through it really fast. Perhaps the stress of everything kept me from producing as much milk the week before going back to work so I decided to try the formula over the weekend. I gave her half breast milk, half formula in a bottle a few times and she has had no problems with it. She continues to have the combination at daycare this week. I'm bothered about supplementing but I tried to increase my supply with little luck. I called a lactation consultant and they presented the option of trying herbs. Supposedly there are a couple that help increase supply but there has been little research on their overall effect so I'm hesitant to try them. This week I'm almost keeping up with her so we'll see how it goes. As long as I can provide some, that's better than none.

Every time for the past few weeks that she's had a bm, she has overfilled her diaper! Then she urinates but there's no more room for it to absorb. Needless to say that she's been getting frequent baths and we've been doing more loads of laundry. She has a Bumbo chair that is supposed to help her gain strength in her neck and back. You can look it up to get a better idea of what it looks like and she enjoys sitting in it. We have renamed it the Bubble chair because every time we put her in it, she passes gas. I'm not sure if it's just the position that helps the bubbles come out or if she relaxes in it, either way, it works! And the best part is that she's happy and isn't crying her eyes out with the gas. It doesn't work if she has colic before we put her in it because she's too unhappy to be set in the chair. Her colic doesn't come as often anymore and doesn't last as long as a month ago, thank goodness.

Jillian had her first cold last week but quickly recovered. We set up a cool mist vaporizer in her bedroom at night and that seemed to improve her stuffiness. She was so congested in her nasal passages she was having a difficult time eating and it was making her frustrated, understandably so. She continues to sleep most of the night. This week she has been waking around 4:30am to eat, then quickly goes back to sleep until we're ready to leave the house for the day. That's enough time for me to get back in bed for another 30 minutes but then I really don't want to get back up. Since Monday night I've had a dry scratchy throat so it's been hard to fall asleep. Last night I got about 4 hours by the time I was able to fall asleep with help from a throat spray. I was thinking this morning that from now on I should just stay up and get on our elliptical so I don't have to fit in exercise in the evenings. Until Spring, then we'll be taking more walks. We've been going out on the calm days when there's little wind. At least the cold temperatures are bearable then. I'm ready for Spring. Ready for green grass, tall corn and soybean fields surrounding our house and flowers and the garden. Not sure what we'll plant this year in the garden but it would be fun grow something. Perhaps I'll use our entire garden spot and plant a gigantic plot of flowers. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Well, we'll see. It would be fun to plant at least pumpkins again.

My work has been going well. I got back into the swing pretty quickly. The work right now is steady but not crazy busy. Garrett continues to be busy with his job. Everything else seems fine and we're enjoying every minute with our little girl. She's the best gift and we feel so fortunate to have a healthy and happy baby.