Tuesday, September 20, 2011

10 Weeks

This week's big firsts were not of the fun developmental variety: Josie received her first vaccines and also got her first ear infection :(

The vaccines themselves went well enough - she got an oral vaccine and a shot in her leg (and a jaunty band-aid to go with it), and only cried for a minute or two until Ryan put on the crickets sound app on his phone that she inexplicably likes so much. She seemed fine when we got home, but she woke up later that afternoon with a fever, so we gave her some acetaminophen over the next couple of days to keep her fever down. I was expecting her to be a little more fussy or sleepy (and was definitely hoping for the latter!), but she was just a little bit more needy than normal, and ended up taking more naps than usual on me, and in more unusual circumstances (e.g., bouncing on a fitness ball while she was in her carrier, sitting on the couch with home renovations - including power tools - going on around us).
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[Said jaunty band-aid, which we kept on for a couple days as a helpful reminder of where not to squeeze on her]


However, as I was giving her her acetaminophen dose the first evening, she seemed to choke on it and then vomited. And then kept vomiting. I had been told that we would know the difference between spit up and vomiting, and while I wasn't sure how at the time, I understand now. It shook me up to see just how much she could throw up, and then her eyes were red and she looked upset afterwards, and since she can spit up a good amount and then still be happy as a clam after (and during, for that matter), I think it was safe to assume this was vomiting. The vaccine handouts said that vomiting could be a side effect of the vaccines, so I didn't call the pediatrician until a few days later, since she seemed to be getting more fussy and was vomiting once each night. It turns out she had a middle ear infection in her right ear, so now she's on amoxicillin (the pink stuff) for the next 10 days, and I was told she would be noticeably better within 24-36 hours.
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[A bit blurry, but her chubby cheeks were too adorable in this one, and this swaddler is the perfect color to mask any of the amoxicillin that spills onto it]


We also have her new stats, and she is now in the 98% percentile for weight, length, and head circumference. She's now up to 14lbs 8oz (from 10lbs 3oz at her 2-week appointment), 24.5" long (from 21.5"), and 16.5" around her head. I was happy that she so clearly seems to be thriving, although the pediatrician was a little concerned about how rapidly her head grew, since she had been in the 50th percentile at her 2-week appointment and now jumped to the 98th. So we are going back in to get her head measured again in two weeks (when we'll get the other half of her 2-month shots too), and if it's increased a significant amount again, then we'll likely be having an ultrasound done on her head to make sure there isn't any fluid building up. Hopefully it's mother's intuition, but I'm not too worried about this and I think her head is fine - and who knows, maybe the 2-week measurement was off anyway. It also helps since the different doctor we saw when she was diagnosed with an ear infection said that her head looked fine, and showed me how to check her fontanel (soft spot), since it would be bulging if fluid was building up and it wasn't.

This week was not a great one for cute baby smiles and cooing since Josie wasn't feeling that great, but hopefully next week she'll be doing better again, because I really look forward to her goofy smiles :) She has started to relax her hands more from their usual state of "fists of rage" (as I like to call them), and her legs and arms are starting to stretch out more too, rather than being tucked up against her body in more of the fetal position. She's definitely grabbing things more intentionally, and has batted at her toys more and grabbed the burp cloth I had tucked around her.
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[Josie laughs at my futile attempts to catch all the spit up with mere burp cloths]


She's nowhere near rolling over yet (except for lifting one leg slightly higher than the other when she's kicking around during tummy time), but she is starting to rotate herself around on her back. Which was cute on her activity mat, but not in her crib. We had taken the front rail off the crib and pushed it up next to the bed with the intention of putting the rail back on as soon as she started moving, since this setup was inherently unsafe as our bedframe extends beyond the mattress so there is a gap of a few inches between the mattress and crib. This was a tolerable risk with an immobile baby, but not with one who likes to rotate around in the middle of the night and end up with her head closer than I feel comfortable with to the edge of the mattress. So on went the front rail, which I'm a little sad about since I really liked having an unobstructed view of her at night, but I also feel more relieved to have that rail back on. So now she's safer, and I just have to work on strengthening my arm muscles, since I already pulled my shoulder once having to lift her over the side :)

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[Random cuteness.]

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