On Childcare

Tomorrow, on the day she turns four months old, Juliet will begin daycare.  We tried to have an in-home nanny during the month of January, but we were unable to work something out.  We have Rachel lined up for the summer, and I've got something in the works for the fall.  But, for now at least, Juliet will need to go to daycare.

I think that I feel as good about this situation as one could expect.  The plain and simple truth is this: I do not want her in daycare.  I want her in our home with someone spending good one-on-one with her.  It's where she's been for the first four months of her life.  It's where she's comfortable.  It's where I'm comfortable having her. 

The place we found is as good as we could hope. It's affiliated with a church, and that makes Ray and I both feel better.  It's where our youngest niece goes.  We like the director and the teachers.  It feels clean and safe, and they welcome us to visit any time we'd like.  They welcome us to call them if we think of something that Juliet likes that we want them to know.

Both Ray and I have taken Juliet for visits there this week. Everything was fine.  Miss Leah, in particular, seems to really like Juliet already.  But I saw some things I did not like.  For example, a couple of older kids who have moved out of the infant room had come back in to visit the teachers.  And one of those older kids snatched a toy from one of the infants.  In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal.  I know that kids are going to be kids, and that one day, some brat will snatch my precious angel's toy out of her beautiful hands.  Juliet will survive this experience and then probably go on to snatch a toy from someone smaller than her.  But as a mom, I wanted to take my baby and leave.  I don't want her exposed to such bullies.  (Yes, this is ridiculous.  I know.  At least I own it, right?) 

And then there was the crying kid.  I'm sure he's a perfectly lovely kid most of the time.  But he cried the entire time we were there this morning.  They held him, and he cried.  They put him down, and he cried.  They fed him, and he cried.  They changed him, and he cried.  He just cried and cried.  When I told Ray about this fussy baby, he said, "Oh, the boy?  With the big head?"  Yes.  That kid.  "Yeah, he was doing that yesterday, too."  Ugh.  Juliet is not that kid.  She is happy pretty much all the time these days.  She's only fussy if she's gassy or hungry.  I don't want her learning how to just cry incessantly from that little boy.  And I don't want his incessant crying to upset her or make her feel sad or stressed out.

I know that these are very small things to be concerned about.  I know Juliet will be fine.  I know that everyone will come out of this a-okay.  And I'll do it because we have to.  But it just doesn't feel good.  I am sure most other moms who have to leave their children in daycare feel this way. 

My friend Leah told me that she had her husband drop their son off for the first week or so when they had to start daycare.  I think that's pretty brilliant since I almost cried just visiting.  So Ray will take her tomorrow and drop her off.  I will be at work, trying not to think about it and trying to remember that it will all be okay.

If only Ninja was like Nana in "Peter Pan."   She's pretty close, though!

Happy Baby

 

I know I've mentioned in previous posts how much Juliet enjoys bath time, so I thought I'd share some pictures from her bath tonight.  She is so much fun to bathe.  She talks and laughs and makes faces that show how excited she is.  You can't bathe her and not feel better than you did before you started.  My days have been pretty long this week, but bath time makes the long hours at work and the stress of functioning as a single mom totally melt away.  It's reason number five million that I love her and am so, so, so glad we have her.  She's so good at providing perspective on what really matters: family.

Bath time is also a good time to notice how much hair she's starting to get.  She's still got about 15 long hairs on the crown and a funny little baby mullet in the back, but she's starting to get real hair all over the rest of her head.  It's fine and dark and soft.  And it sticks up in the middle kind of like a mohawk right after a bath.

We do a good bit of snuggling these days.  She is very snuggly first thing in the morning, and she wants to snuggle around her 7:00 PM feeding, too.  Her sense of touch is something that she's really become aware of, and it's most evident during these snuggle times.  She will sweep her hands back and forth against your skin or shirt, and sometimes, she'll do the same thing with her feet.  It is the sweetest thing to feel her just softly brushing your arm or shoulder.  I think it must also soothe her because she does it when she's fighting sleep, too.

One more gratuitous picture of the happiest baby I know:

 

Three and a Half Months

 

Sorry it's been such a long time since my last post, but we've been very busy in the Handley house.  I went back to work on January 2, and I started a new job.  I love it, but it's nothing I've ever done before, so there's a lot of learning going on.  Ray's jobs have kept him busy also, and we've been struggling to work out child care on top of all of that.  Let me say that it's been an exhausting 19 days.

All of the frenzy hasn't bothered Juliet one bit.  She's continuing to grow and change daily, and she's been such a good reminder of how awesome life really is.

So, since January 1, there haven't been any huge changes (like walking), but there have been a ton of small changes in her.  For starters, she's really starting to grow out of her personal fussy time.  Thank you, Lord!  The evenings that we come home from a long day at work and have to manage her incessant crying really are few and far between now (I hope I'm not jinxing myself by writing that).  She is happy to see us, loves to hang out in her Bumbo seat or on her activity mat, and is generally just a joy to come home to.

She has really discovered how to grab things and pull them to her, and she now constantly has something in her mouth because of this new skill.  Her latest trick seems to be spitting the pacifier about two feet away and grabbing the bib or burp cloth to chew on instead.  It's neat to watch her develop, but now I feel like we've got to be extra vigilent about making sure she doesn't have anything she can choke on.  This weekend, I hooked her pacifier to her bib or shirt to keep her from being able to make it hit the floor.  She has used the leash to snatch the paci out of her mouth, but twice, she's also managed to find the pacifier and put it back in on her own.

Juliet likes to talk a lot these days, but she will only do it when she wants.  You can't prompt her to talk.  She seems to enjoy hearing herself right after bath time or when getting changed.  It's so funny to listen to Ray and Juliet have a conversation while he's getting her dressed in the mornings.  You can tell by the tone of her voice that she feels that her thoughts are very important, and he is excellent at taking her seriously.

Since she was born, she's been very strong (see post on her "atypical" strength).  And that's continuing to be the case.  She spends a ton of time sitting up tall in our laps or in her Bumbo seat.  And now, she's attempting to stand.  Juliet will push/pull herself to a standing position while hanging out in your lap, and then she grins and laughs and kind of does a happy dance.  On top of that, she's now strong enough to be on her tummy and push herself up to really be able to look around for extended periods of time.  It's so cool to watch her go from completely flat on the floor, to just her head lifted, to her whole chest off the ground and her head turned to try to see what's going on behind her.  

Finally, of course, she's outgrowing clothes.  That's what babies do, right?  But I swear she's outgrowing things every week now.  I'm looking at her as I type this, and I see that this will be the last time she wears the cute black and gray animal print onesie she has on.  It's too short for her at this point.  So, I'll wash it and move it to the bin with all the other things she's outgrown.  (I'll also be adding two sets of footed pajamas to the bin, too.)  I'm excited to start putting her in the clothes in the next drawer down, though, so at least there's that.  

I promise I'll work harder to post more frequently in the future.  And I'm going to try to get video of her talking to share, too. 

Three Months

Today, January 1, 2013, Juliet is three months old.  She has changed so much in three months that it's hard to believe.  Actually, she's changed so much in the past month alone, that's hard to believe.  In the past month, she has:

• Started sleeping through the night pretty much every night
• Discovered her voice and begun talking to us, Ninja, herself, the tv, and toys
• Begun drooling so much that I have to keep a bib on her when she's awake or change her onesie every twenty minutes
• Started sticking her fists in her mouth any chance she gets
• Gotten even stronger and started spending lots of time in her Bumbo seat sitting up
• Discovered how fun her activity mat is and spent lots of time pulling on the rattle, kicking the whale, and looking at herself in the mirror
• Become an expert escape artist and gotten out of every attempt to swaddle her in the past two weeks

Hanging out on her activity mat

Playing in the Bumbo seat

Let's talk about this escape artist thing she's got going on.  We have swaddled her from Day 1, and it's been awesome.  The tighter she was swaddled, the better she slept.  And then, she started kicking out of the swaddle.  After that, she started kicking out and then scooting herself around on her back in her crib.  Now, she kicks out, gets her arms out, and moves pretty much wherever she'd like in the crib.  I've tried putting her down without swaddling her, but she won't stay asleep that way.  According to what I read, this is normal, and the best way around it is to start trying to wean her off the swaddle.  At this point, we just swaddle one arm in.  Hopefully, we'll be swaddle-free soon.

Juliet after a full escape and rotating herself (somehow!) 90 degrees clockwise

Passed out in my lap

Juliet's First Christmas

Juliet's first Christmas was pretty wonderful for our little family.  We really wanted to spend the holiday enjoying our time together, so we made it our priority to take things slowly and enjoy each thing we did.

On Christmas Eve eve, Ray and I loaded up Juliet, Ninja, and Filch, and we went to look at Christmas lights.  Going to Dorothy B. Oven park to look at lights is something we started doing our first Christmas with Filch.  Over the years, we've started including Ninja, and now, of course, Juliet.  After we drive through DBO, we typically drive through some neighborhoods that can be counted on for good (and/or tacky) Christmas decorations.  It was fairly cold that night, so we bundled Juliet up before putting her in her car seat.

All bundled up in her cute Christmas hat

With Dad in front of the Christmas tree

Ray went to take some pictures of me with Juliet in front of the tree, and she promptly spit up all over herself, all over me, and all over the floor.  It was simultaneously gross and impressive.

Better shot of her cute hat

We hosted my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and grandmother for an afternoon of visiting and munching on food on Christmas Eve.  I pulled out our wedding china and Granny Squeaky's crystal, and Ray fried a turkey using the big propane cooker he got for his birthday.  We really enjoyed hosting family for a holiday, and it felt sort of like this solidification of my adulthood.  I have a husband, a child, and I've hosted a Christmas gathering and used china and crystal.  I'm not sure what else you do as a grown-up! ;)

Juliet in the rocking chair my parents gave to her (with cushions made by my mom and grandmother)

After hosting my family, we went to Christmas Eve service at John Wesley United Methodist Church.  Juliet was fantastic during the service and didn't fuss a bit.  She did talk a little to whomever she thought was listening, but she was mostly quiet.

We spent Christmas Day at our house, just the three of us (okay, five if you count Ninja and Filch).  It was so nice to get up and have a nice breakfast together, open presents at a leisurely pace, and just really focus on enjoying our many blessings this Christmas.  Christmas night, we went to Ray's parents and had dinner with them and Ray's sister and her family. 

I have to say I think it was my most favorite Christmas ever.  I spent the entire time thinking about how happy and blessed I was the whole time. 

Two-Month Doctor Visit

On December 17, 2012, we took Juliet to Dr. VanLandingham's office for her two month check-up.  I was very nervous about this visit because I knew that Juliet would be getting four vaccines in this one visit.  I wasn't nervous about the vaccines.  I've done a lot of research and feel comfortable with the vaccines, but I was nervous about how she would do when she got them.  When she got her vaccine at her four-week appointment, she cried the most heart-breaking cry for about ten seconds.  And it was the worst ten seconds of my life.  I cried with her.  Hearing your child make a sound that clearly expresses surprise and pain is just awful, and knowing that I'd subjected her to that (even if it is for her own health) just killed me.

Not surprisingly, Juliet did the same thing this time around.  I was very glad Ray was able to be there with me and helped me comfort her.  I was also very glad that they called in two nurses and gave her all the vaccines at once.  I can't imagine having to subject her to four rounds of shots in four separate stickings.  Eek.

But, in good news, Juliet weighed 11 pounds 7.5 ounces.  And she's 23 inches long.  That puts her in the 25th percentile for weight and 20th percentile for height.  The teacher in me, used to thinking of percentiles in terms of test scores, got very worried about her low percentiles.  I asked Hugh about them, and he explained that everything was fine; Juliet is just taking after the VanLandinghams in terms of size, not the Handleys.  Her weight gain indicates that she's growing steadily and that she's eating well. 

Big stretch the morning after her shots... Pink band-aids on each thigh over the injection sites.