Week 40: October 14 - 20

MADELEINE TURNED 9 MONTHS THIS WEEK! I cannot believe it; we are closer to her first birthday than her day of birth. There were a few weeks I thought we'd never make it. LOL. We're already discussing her first birthday party, so keep that in mind for January!

CONTEST!! Huge thanks to everyone who entered! We'll do this again for the one-year appointment, and we hope to see increased participation. The winner was decided by less than ONE (1) point! It was ridiculously close.

The winner is ..... (DRUMROLL.....) Uncle Weh! (With Papa Pete JUSTTHISCLOSE!!) Your prize is a picture with Madeleine. It'll be in the mail very soon. :)

Madeleine's 9-month stats were: 17 pounds, 6 ounces (17.375), and 27 inches. She's in the 29th percentile for length, 22nd for weight. Her head circumference was 17.5 inches, which is the 63rd percentile. Her weight-for-length is right on the 50th percentile line, which is excellent. I also plotted her head circumference for age, and it, too, falls DIRECTLY on the 50th percentile line on the CDC growth chart. We are so blessed with a happy, healthy little girl!

Nursing
Well. It's going. I don't really think I have that Raynaud's disease. There's not a lot of information for nursing moms. I certainly have never had my fingers turn white and/or blue, so I'm not sure what to think.

Here are my symptoms: pain on initial latch, pain between feedings that is alleviated by warmth.

I never got around to calling the lactation consultant this week, so I'll try to call her Monday. It was certainly not an intentional decision; I only remembered to call after Madeleine was in bed, and I don't want to call after business hours. So Monday!

I finally called Anne on Tuesday. We had a good talk. She said she is sure I don't have Raynaud's disease, but she believes I have what are called vasospasms, where the tiny blood vessels spasm and blood gets cut off. This often happens as a result in temperature drop. There are some treatments, and I've been doing a couple of things in an effort to help the pain. One big thing is Madeleine's latch. I suspect it's always been slightly wrong, but for a while, it didn't seem to bother me. Since meeting with Anne in September, I've been working on Madeleine's position and latch, and I have definitely seen improvement. I will continue to do the treatments listed here that I've been doing and will also add those I haven't been doing. All in all, things are getting better, and I'm looking good for making my goal of nursing for one year!

Sleeping
Madeleine was feeling better earlier in the week, but after coming down with another cold, she started waking early again. So we are back to early bedtime. It's bizarre: she cannot handle being awake too long before bed. Supposedly, babies can go longer as the day goes on, i.e., each successive waketime is longer than the one before it. I ... suppose, actually, thinking about it, that her third waketime IS longer than the others. I guess it just can't be much longer, and we need to be very careful about getting her to bed in a timely manner. Otherwise, she wakes too early and has a poor sleep day.

As of Wednesday, things are again getting better. We bought a humidifier, and I think it really helps her sleep. She's still super snotty when she wakes up, but she doesn't wake too early.

Solids/Food
There is definitely a difference in how she's eating. She is really EATING. She still spits out a good bit, but she is really going to town on her food. Now, we just need to be good about offering a good variety of good foods. Especially veggies. This week, she's enjoyed green beans, chicken (of course!), beef, more zucchini, apple, biscuit, and cheese toast.
Foods she doesn't love: bananas, cucumber.
Potential problem foods: cheese, yogurt (dairy??)

We talked to the doctor Monday about the dairy sensitivity, and she said to try offering dairy foods occasionally to see if there is still a reaction. If the condition persists to her one-year appointment, there's a test they'll do to check for allergy. I SURE hope there's no allergy, as I am looking forward to having cow's milk as a weaning option, but we'll deal with it if she can't have cow's milk. Since Madeleine hadn't had any dairy in a few weeks, we gave her a little this week, and she still had the skin reaction.

By the book...
According to "Your Baby's First Year, Week by Week," during this week, Madeleine:
1. Stands with little support (she is crazy about standing. CRAZY! She sometimes goes "no hands" but it's only for a second or so)
2. May develop sleep problems caused by practicing standing in the middle of the night (not yet....)
3. Voluntarily releases object in an awkward manner (not sure what this means. She's been doing this for a while, dropping one toy for another...)
4. Grasps tiny objects with thumb and index finger (not yet. Watching closely for this one! I think she's close)
5. Increasingly imitates actions of others (YES! She's been doing this lately! SO cute!)
6. Understands and obeys some words and commands (she's learning "no"; we don't give her many commands at this point...)
7. Enjoys water play (BOY, does she! In the last week, she's started really splashing. It's fun and very wet!)
8. Prefers one of several toys (she doesn't seem to have major favorites. Except the exersaucer, which she wants to walk around)
9. Repeats sounds and gestures to get attention (dunno?)
10. Waves bye-bye (not yet)

New Things
On Saturday, Madeleine sat up from a crawl/tummy position for the first time!! For WEEKS I've been hoping she would learn this because it will greatly increase what she can do. She woke from her first nap at 10:15, and we were waiting for her to really wake up before getting her. Matt came over to see what she was doing, and he said, "Is she awake?" Often, we can't tell exactly what she's doing. I looked at the monitor -- and she was sitting!! Matt and I rushed in her room, and she looked so pleased with herself. We praised her and clapped our hands, and she just grinned! It was awesome. One of the coolest moments with little baby.

Madeleine is getting a lot of practice standing and cruising. Her favorite thing to do is hold onto the exersaucer and walk around it. She goes slowly, plays with the toys as she goes. Mostly she goes counter-clockwise, but she can go both directions. Thursday, she started attempting to climb the exersaucer. She put her feet up on the bowl portion (here's a picture of it) and kinda bounced. We have to stay very close because she's almost tipped the thing twice now. I sorta miss the days when I could set her down and leave the room. It is HARD to get anything done!

OOOOOh, oooh. On Wednesday, Matt and I were sitting on the couch, and Madeleine was playing on the floor. She had a couple of books and various toys, but there was one book in particular she wanted to look at, and she had to crawl to it. So she did. Then I noticed her trying to do something. She'd get her knees tucked up under her as far as they would go, then she'd kind of rock back and forth. That didn't work, so she tried putting her feet on the floor and "standing" (with her arms still on the floor, so kind of like a bridge?). I elbowed Matt, and we watched her, FOR THE FIRST TIME, successfully sit from a crawl NOT in the crib!! It was awesome. We praised her, and she looked at us with a HUGE grin on her face! Big baby girl.

Misc
This is Madeleine's second runny nose, but it is WAY worse than last time. She is just constant snot. She'll sneeze or cough and it'll just fly. She blows snot bubbles, sometimes out of both nostrils. LOVELY, right? LOL. And then, since she doesn't love snot on her face, she'll rub it with her hand and smear it all over her. It gets on her crib sheet, her clothes, MY clothes, Matt's clothes ---- everything! But she is just as happy as can be ... until we try to wipe her nose. Then she lets us know she is not pleased.

And, like last time, she liked the nasal aspirator for the first day. It was fun, novel, and we blew little puffs of air in her face with it. On day 2, it was just this annoying this we kept trying to stick up her nose. So basically, we have no recourse against the snot, and we just have to do our best to keep it out of her food.

Slideshow

Video of the week!