Roll Over Beethoven

It's official!! The rolling has begun! She's been hovering at "almost" for at least 2 weeks now and yesterday she accomplished it all on her own.

Monday Night
Roll one: I put her in her travel cot downstairs when Mark got home and almost immediately she started the attempt. (Her leopard bear was just out of reach and she was determined to reach him.)

Roll two: she'd gone down for the night and I thought she was asleep, I hear some rustling so I go back to see if she needs settled only to watch her flip over. I reverse her flip explain that for now she needs to sleep on her back. Does it take? No. A new trick is the funnest trick of all and she immediately rolls again.(Roll 3)

Roll four: I decide this is too cute for Mark to miss and tell him to hit the light so he can see (he's already asleep at this point and his eyes fall shut just in time to miss the 4th roll of the night.) He's disappointed and tries to keep his eyes open but apparently she's done rolling for the evening.

I lost count on the rest of the rolls, she continued rolling at random points throughout the night. She would roll and wind up halfway out of her crib and into our bed. Looks like we bought the crib just in time! If she tried rolling in our bed she'd push us both out!

The adorable baby has also found her thumb. She's been sucking on her fingers since around 2 and a half months old but yesterday it clicked and she realized the thumb would be easier and she couldn't gag herself with it. I'll see if we can manage to capture it in action with a photo. :)

plus a day

Just wanted to update you on the little one. She's doing much better today. Sleepier than normal combined with a bit more neediness means I have a baby sleeping on me while I attempt to type but I'm okay with that. We soaked her band-aids off in the tub before bed last night and with that ceremonial end to the day she seemed to put it all behind her.

I've got a question. Teething and drooling. I hear they go hand in hand, but I've also heard that babies can show symptoms of teething months before teeth start to show. How is that fair? Jessica has really stepped up her drooling in the past 2 weeks. I was wondering was I was going to do with all those bibs I'd been given until she started solids. Now I know!! It's all good, she likes playing with them and it keeps her dry. Does this mean she's started teething already? What else should I be looking out for?

I'm not sure what the development milestones are.. I guess I should try looking them up. We think she's a baby genius whenever she does anything. :) She can push up on her arms while laying on her belly now. It's adorable. Imagine if you'd just climbed Mt.Everest... that's the expression she has on her face! She rolled over the other day too - have I said that already? We're not counting it as the official 'first roll' because she was on our bed and if you're laying next to her it gives her a slant to help with the momentum but she's so close to doing it on her own.

Of course she's smiling, cooing, grabbing her toys, my hair, my shirt, Daddy's glasses- anything she can get her hands on really. She even came away with a palm full of Leeloo hair the other day. Leeloo has been amazing with her though. Not a single hiss or aggressive move at all. Impressive considering the fistful hair the baby "borrowed." It's like she knows that the baby belongs here and that she's delicate and needs protecting.

I hope they stay such good friends as Jess grows into a toddler!

Yes... that's Leeloo thinking the baby blanket is hers. Silly kitty.

3 Months Old!

Immunizations round two. Definitely more stressful than the first set.

The waiting room seemed packed with babies and strollers today but it also had a nice sprinkling of the disease ridden just to make things fun. Surely a doctor's office of all places should see the value in "sick" and "healthy" waiting rooms. I've been to that same practice more than a dozen times in the past year and not once have I actually been sick, however I have found myself hovering as far to the edges as possible and visibly wincing every time someone hacks in my direction. Additionally, it was hot. Not Florida hot but definitely Scotland hot. Jessie made her displeasure know almost immediately. Normally she's very content to sit in her car seat and make happy faces at us until it's time to go in and see the doctor, but today she started crying. Actual tears crying! Picking her up and walking around made her much happier but I can't imagine it made her any cooler.

Eventually we're called in. (I say eventually like it took forever. It didn't. I readily admit that it could have been a much longer wait. But in a hot waiting room with an unhappy baby even 15 minutes can seem like a lifetime.) Ethel, Iris [the Health Visitors] and a young blonde woman I don't know are waiting and getting things ready. I look over at the baby scales and Iris asks if I'd like to weigh her before we get started. I do. Jessica now weighs... (hold on yeah like you're going to notice the lapse in time here I need to go weigh the clothes she had on today and see what she actually weighs)12lbs 15oz. [5.88kg]. Iris briefly runs through the same spiel as last time "I know it's unpleasant but there's no reason for her not to get the vaccinations" however, this time it sounded a lot more like a question so I fill in the silence with "She's getting over a stuffy nose." They look at me kinda funny and say, "yeah that's not a problem." Mark is hovering by the door with the stroller I can tell he's not looking forward to this any more than I am. They'd asked who was going to hold her and I could tell he would have stepped up if I needed him to but I decided it would be quicker to nurse her afterwards if I was holding her. Jags simultaneously in both thighs, howling baby, tears. I feed her. It takes a minute or so to calm her down and get her to nurse, at which point Iris says something along the lines of "you can go and get a good feed with Mummy now" obviously trying to get us out the door. I don't move. (My baby is still crying and I know in a minute she'll be calm again.) Then I get a polite nudge of "we'd love to let you stay and feed her but.." I'm going I'm going. Shessh. She thinks she's won because I get up to go - but she hasn't. Not really. Jessica has stopped bawling so I'm happy to move her. Yes I'm being a bit cantankerous, but my baby is upset and there's nothing else I could do, so I'm going to do what I can. I hand her to Daddy while I ask some questions and via the power of Daddy-magic manages to calm her completely.

We leave and Jessie seems happy enough. She falls asleep in her car seat while we stop by the post office to mail off her American citizenship documentation, grab some baby essentials from Boots and pick up a quick lunch at Subway. One of the staff in Subway tells us how tiny she is. We kind of look at each other confused since the medical staff just gushed at how big and long she is. Mark concluded that people who don't see babies all day everyday must forget how small they really are, so must think they're super tiny when they see them. I tend to agree.

Home again and Mark heads off to work to earn the bacon. Jessica is not impressed. She goes from grumpy to angry to inconsolable. I try to give her some Calpol but she refuses and most of it winds up down the bib. (Yes. I was smart enough to realize that this endeavour would probably require a bib.) I finally get her to fall asleep for about 40 minutes.

This is her sleeping it off:


The rest of the day has continued pretty much the same. Content - grumpy - angry - WAHHHHHH! We got a brief play in the garden during one of the short content periods. Leeloo wanted to come out with us but the neighbour's cat wouldn't leave and she was too scared to force the issue. Jessica is taking another nap at the moment, hopefully she'll feel better when she wakes up. Although I hear the day after is sometimes just as bad if not worse than the first....

Happy Mother's Day!

Officially I had my first Mother's Day a couple weeks after Jessica was born, but I'm going to celebrate this one too. Plus this is the one that applies to my mother. Happy Mother's Day Mom, I LOVE YOU! You've taught me so many things about being a great mother and I can only hope that I'll be as good a mother for Jessica as you've been to me. Mark authorized the purchase of a moby wrap for my present. I bought it in an auction on Ebay. Actually the very first auction that I've ever won on ebay when someone was bidding against me. (I was very excited.) I'll take some pictures of me and Mark 'babywearing' when it arrives later this week.

Jess is still growing by leaps and bounds! However, this past week she's had a bit of a cold. At first it was just the snuffles but the other night we decided she had a sore throat so she had her very first bit of Calpol. (That's kinda like baby Tylenol for my Americans out there.) I think it helped; both times we gave her some, she went to sleep and had a really good nap. That's bound to be good for her recovery. She seems to be feeling better today, still a bit sniffly but definitely getting better. She's napping on her Daddy at the moment.

Crib finally purchased!! I didn't get the dark walnut I originally wanted - we went for natural instead because it was 50% cheaper than the walnut or the white. Strange that the colour would affect the price by more than £150? It almost matches the wardrobe and dresser we bought for the nursery. Mark's been busy building furniture recently, but I think we're finally finished. The last big ticket item we need to buy is a baby monitor but we're still trying to figure out which one we want and if there's a way to not spend a fortune to get it!

I hope all the other Mommies out there have a wonderful and blessed day.