Funny Girl

Jillian's cold is mostly gone now, with just a bit of a cough remaining. There has been no need for the saline wash in the past few days and she seems to feel better. She is becoming very aware of her surroundings and watches everything gone on around her. She really likes watching the dog and cats walk around and she has started petting them with our help. Ally was next to us on the couch one evening and Jillian was watching her. I leaned us over and put Jillian's hand on Ally and moved her hand across the fur. I let go and she kept her hand on the cat and then grabbed and pulled out some fur. Ally didn't even care! Poor kitty, I think she just wanted attention and it didn't matter how she got it! She's also becoming so aware of her surroundings that after nursing for a few minutes, she pulls off looks up at me and smiles really big, then latches back on. She takes a few gulps, looks up and smiles, and latches on again. It is really funny and adorable but a little irritating, so to speak. I looked up why she might be doing this and what I found is that she is most likely becoming more aware of her environment and getting distracted. Last night I gently held her head in place and she would stop nursing, look up at me, then continue again which worked nicely. I just laugh when she starts doing this because she just smiles sooo big. She is a funny baby.

Jillian has been starting to fuss in the evenings when she decides she wants to go to sleep for the night. It took a few nights to figure this out but now most nights, as soon as we lay her down in her crib she falls to sleep very quickly. Beforehand, I can tell she gets sleepy and lots of talking to her or walking around with her is more stimulation than she wants and she gets a look of being overwhelmed. I've heard that once you start to figure out your child, it seems they've changed again and you start all over. I'm starting to see that. She is growing so fast. Sunday we moved her up into a small 6 month piece of clothing and we're finishing up the bag of Newborn diapers, going to start her in size 1. But I don't want her to be in bigger diapers! Sheesh. Happy and sad at the same time. Gotta love my Jilly Bug.

The Sniffles

We made it through the past few days of bad weather and are back to work today. Tuesday it began to snow about 1:00pm and I was able to leave work by 2:00pm. Purdue cancelled classes and only required essential staff to report to work so Garrett had the day off. This worked out well because Jillian's daycare closed so she got to spend a good part of the day talking to daddy at home. After I got home it started sleeting heavily. My work, Purdue and Jillian's daycare were all closed again yesterday so we tried to catch up a bit on cleaning. We had a little snow come yesterday after the continued sleet but we didn't get near the amount of snow originally forecast. The county roads this morning had been plowed but were ice covered most of the way into town.

Jillian has had the sniffles for a couple weeks now. I thought her cold was gone but it returned. I called the pediatrician early last week asking how I could help her. We've been doing saline washes along with running a cool mist vaporizer in her room. I took her to the pediatrician on Monday because she'd seemed to be worse on Sunday and I wanted to make sure she didn't have an ear infection or getting pneumonia due to the rattling in her chest. He said she was fine and just had to work through it. The saline washes work really well with clearing out her nose, but oh my how she dislikes it. She has figured out when we're about to do it and gets fussy and cries while we do it, but as soon as we're done, she stops crying and seems happy again. She's back to sleeping most of the night again which makes mommy happy. The two girls that watch her at daycare said that she is a joy to care for even when she's feeling lousy and that that is saying something. I love my baby. She is just perfect.

Jillian is now grasping items very well and holding on to them for a period of time. The past few days when we've set her on her activity mat she bats at the dangling toys. She reaches up to her mouth all of the time and if her pacifier is there, she either holds on to it in her mouth or pulls it out and keeps a hold of it. If anything gets near her mouth, she leans forward to mouth it. She really likes daddy's shoulders and gets them nice and slobbery for him. Instead of sucking on her pacifier at one point yesterday, she was chewing on it. In addition to chewing on things constantly, she has been drooling A LOT. I'm convinced she is teething and we need to get more things for her to chew on. This chewing is getting uncomfortable for mommy, too.

She is now on 1/4 formula in her bottles we take to daycare. I think my body has adjusted and I'm almost making what she needs each day. We gave her a bottle a few nights ago because she hadn't eaten it at daycare and we didn't want it to be wasted. When it got to the last ounce, she started chewing on the nipple instead of eating. Here's our sign (she's teething)! I wasn't expecting the teething yet but I looked it up and it can certainly be happening this early. It's hard to believe she's coming up on four months young. Every time we lay her down to be changed, she starts smiling big. She does the same thing when she hasn't seen one of us for a while and we walk up and tell her "hi". She brings her hands up to her face and smiles and wiggles. I took her over to a friend's house last Sunday for a play date. Addison is one week older and I work with her mom (Melissa) at Klondike Canine Academy as playgroup monitors. Addison was one week late and Jillian one week early. Addison is a big girl and very sweet. She really liked looking at Jillian while Jillian wasn't quite into looking back at her as much. We spent over 3 hours visiting and had a great time. More play dates to come I hope.

I submitted my online application and had fingerprints taken last week for my handgun permit. I need to take the paperwork the police station gave down to the sheriff's department to complete the process and then they will send me the permit. I should have it by next week. The fingerprinting was neat with it being digital. They roll your fingers across a clear plastic platform and it shows up on the computer screen while your finger is rolled. I found it really cool but I'm kind of a dork sometimes.

More to come later. Hope everyone is well. Stay toasty!