Tuesday, January 24, 2012

28 Weeks

This week I did something that I haven't done since before Josie was born: finished a book (if you thought I finally got a haircut, the answer to that would still be no). In fact, I finished three (The Hunger Games trilogy), thanks to the Kindle Ryan got me for Christmas. I had been resisting as long as possible, since an ebook reader just does not provide the same multi-sensory experience a regular book has (no difference in heft of the book, sound of the pages turning, smell of the pages, etc.), but then I realized that I could continue holding out for the time to read a real book, or I could give in and get an ebook reader and actually have a chance at reading something (especially since most of my reading time is in the dark). So I did the latter, which has really been coming in handy for the time between when Josie falls asleep and when I move her into her crib. Instead of spending the time daydreaming or falling asleep myself, I now get a designated 15 minutes of reading, which has been great. And sometimes I'll get some reading time on the weekends too, when, like last weekend, she slept for several hours on me.... and on Ryan too.
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Josie is continuing to get better at sitting, and can now sit by herself for a few seconds - and even correct herself (sometimes) when she starts listing to the side :) She's been doing more tripod sitting, but I think it just happens to work out sometimes that she'll put her hands down to support herself, when really she's just going after her feet. She's also getting more interested in standing, and even pushed up to standing on her own yesterday.
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She also had an avocado and drank out of a cup for the first time this week... she could probably use some more work on both, though. The avocado was probably the most she's ingested of any solid food so far, probably mainly because - after thoroughly mashing it with her hands - a good portion was still stuck to her thumb when she decided she wanted to suck her thumb for a bit. And with the cup, since she was trying to drink like she would nursing or out of a bottle (which is more of a chewing motion), most of the water poured right back out of her mouth. But the interest is definitely there, so hopefully she'll figure out to keep her lower lip up at some point ;)
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[Going after Ryan's mason jar]


Josie has now been relatively healthy for over a week(!!), which I believe is the longest stretch since she started daycare in October (Ryan and I are still not quite better though). It may very well be coincidental, but we started doing "baby massage" (as we like to call it) about a week ago now, which is an osteopathic manipulative treatment used to keep the fluids draining from her head and neck, which should supposedly help prevent ear and respiratory infections. It seemed maybe a bit far-fetched, but we figured a massage wouldn't hurt her, and if it did happen to work, then all the better. We're hoping to be able to avoid some ear infection/antibiotic cycles, since we really don't want her on antibiotics all the time (and we'd rather not have any need for her to be on them to begin with!). So far, so good, and hopefully this will help the next time she gets a cold and the congestion drains into her ears again...

Work is finally going a bit better for me. I've been happy to be back at work, but a bit frustrated with how unfocused and inefficient I feel like I've been ever since I came back from leave - probably not helped at all by the fact that I have to pack up to head over to "my other office" (i.e., the mother's room) every two hours, which is quite disruptive. But I've finally started noticing that I've been able to have some really productive days again, so hopefully I'll be able to get my mind back in the game and have those days more and more. It also helps that I'm able to work from home one day a week, so by starting earlier and ending later - even taking into account the time I spend catching up on laundry (or writing blog posts) - I'm still getting more done and putting in more hours than usual. And, as I told one of my coworkers who just came back from maternity leave this week, it has gotten easier to be away from Josie all day - now sometimes whole minutes go by when I'm not thinking of her. I meant this as a humorous part of the pep talk, but I think my coworker caught the truth in that too - it's so easy to miss Josie when I have this to look forward to:
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[Ryan's Rosco P. Coltrane impression seems to be a hit with her]

[Where I suspect she got ahold of some caffeine somehow...]

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