Playtime

Playtime
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

So Yesterday was an interesting day. We went to my mother’s group in the morning, and when we first arrived all of the toddlers were still there. This is always so overwhelming, because there is like 10 2 year olds running around and playing and the room is so noisy and active and the mother’s all look so tired, and I am like.. Wow... This is what I have to look forward to, both in awe and fear I think this.

Slowly the 6-12 month old moms come in and the toddlers leave as we cross over we talk about how we may be combining the group to crawlers and pre-crawlers, and have 2 instead of 3 groups. Since Holly is about the crawl, she will be with the older kids. It is great for her to be around them, but it was nice to just have the 4 of us 6-12 month old moms in a quite room on our own, with our little ones crawling back and forth and playing with each other, and no worries about a 2 year old stomping by.

That said, little miss Holly is going to need to toughen herself up a bit.. Little Olive, also 8 months old came crawling across the floor to play with Holly who was sitting happily playing with a toy, Olive firsts tries to take the toy which Holly is holding tight, but when her grip doesn’t loosen, she simply grabs her arm and pulls her back. Holly tumbles down to the floor and lets go of the toy. Olive quite amused with herself picks it up. Holly was un-phased, and tries to sit herself back up, but then gets frustrated and yells MahMah. At which time I sit her up and hand her a new toy. She doesn’t want this one, so she drops it and reaches back to olive, as Olive looks like she would make a good toy, and Holly tries and grabs her cheeks. By this time Olive’s Mom is over here apologizing that Olive pushed Holly over, and I said, oh don’t worry, it’s nice for her to be around another baby that I don’t have to worry about her hurting.

It seems like this was the theme of the playgroup. Olive is distracted again and crawls away, but Jack, 10 months old decides he wants the toy Holly is playing with and takes it away this time. Now jack is a little tougher then Olive was, he is learning to walk, and he is holding heavy toys and swinging them around (like the triangle toy) so I have to be careful he doesn’t swing a toy into Holly’s Head. But he plays nicely with her mostly, and she grabs his hand and arm and tries to chew on him, but he just takes the toy and crawls away.

Lukas is now the brunt of Jack and Olive’s Exploits, as he is also a sitter and not a crawler. He is happily eating Cheerios and Olive wants some.. So we get into a discussion on Food. Olive’s mom, like me is surprised that Lucas is doing so well with the Cheerios, neither of us have given our babies much n the food department.. But apparently he is a pro eater.. For dinner he had baked beans, and he eats rice, and avocado, and fruit, and melon, and just about everything. So we have a food discussion. Two of the moms there have given their babies everything to eat, the other two, (including me) have given them nothing. But we are reassured that they can have all kinds of stuff, yogurt, rice, pears, ect. I say.. But rice is sticky, and gloopy, it won’t stick to the back of their throat and choke them? Apparently not, but I am not sure I am ready to go quite that far. I then say, but Yogurt is Whole Milk, they aren’t supposed to get that until 1 years old, Ah.. Well no.. they are just not supposed to “replace” formula or breast milk with whole milk until 1 years old, but then can have some, cottage cheese, string cheese, yogurt, it’s all ok apparently. So I guess Holly and I will be experimenting some more soon.

So Lucas’s mom offers me some of his cheerios and we try them. Holly seems to like them, she picks them up with a pincher grasp which means developmentally she is ready, and she puts them in her mouth, but she isn’t quite sure what to make of them, then she takes some more.. and just when I think it is a success… Gag.. out comes the 3 ounce breast milk bottle she had 20 minutes earlier.. She had a gag reflex. She thinks this is hilarious, and just giggles as I try and get her out of her now wet cloths without making too much more of a mess. Olive’s mom reassures me, it’s just a gag reflex, we had one of those with a banana the other day, perfectly natural.. Well. You could have warmed me in advanced; I would have waited until after she drank formula, or had more time to digest… oh well.

So now that it is well past her nap we get back into the car and she is asleep in about 5 minutes. I decide to go and get the estimate done for the car repairs… remember the tire that came barreling down the highway and hit me… well it will cost 2300$ to fix the damage, luckily I only have to pay a 250$ deductible.. Bad news is it will take 4 days, so I schedule the repairs for December 15th, while I am in Florida, and won’t need the car. Then we are off to the supermarket. Last night Joel went shopping but forgot to pick up the free turkey he earned, so I am hoping they will give it to me today, receipt in hand I go in and ask, and its no problem at all! Yeah – free 12lb turkey, 24$ value.. Very exciting. And then we are home in time for our 2:30 visit with Sally, Holly having napped the entire time I ran errands.

Tracey and Lucian were not able to come over because Lucian got a cold, and had a runny nose and was up all night the day before, and they needed rest. I was disappointed, but called to tell them I hope they feel better, and look forward to maybe seeing them on the weekend.

Our visit with Sally went well, we were working on stretching out Holly’s Flexor Muscles, which are still tight because she doesn’t get much tummy time, we also worked with the big bouncy ball which she seems to really like, and we worked on some of the rolling. We didn’t have time to tape her up this week, but next week I will remind Sally at the beginning of the session. Holly did a lot of kneeling and squatting and sitting on Sally’s leg and trying to stand up. Sally had her completed report with her that I was able to read and review, and she said that even though she is doing some advance skills like sitting herself up from crawl (10 months) and trying to stand, that she wanted to focus on her 7 month skills, that were iffy, like the rolling to belly, and stretching her legs out, and the bouncing, that is a big one. So we will do that, its fine with me, Sally is very good with her, and really whenever Holly initiates something Sally lets her do that, so if Holly wants to walk, Sally will do that too.

We had a fun afternoon listening to music, reading stories and playing. And then it was time for Mommies date with herself. I was going to see the Duchess.. And I really liked it. It was so nice to get out of the house for just 2 hours, I had not been away from Holly well since Virginia, but especially the last 5 days of 24 hour care, I earned a little break. I thought the Duchess was very good, and it made me think of motherhood, and think about all of the extraordinary things a woman can bear when necessity calls, and to think about the times and duties of woman and how they have changed, and how they have not, and think about double standards, it it was very beautiful to look at with the sets and the costumes, so all in all I had a great time.

When I got home Daddy was exhausted… He said he realizes that my life is officially over, and that Holly is a handful. Since he is used to seeing her in the morning when she is still sleepy or the evening when she is grumpy and mellow he wasn’t used to her being so active. But apparently she was the energizer Bunny, and he let her crawl from the center of her blanket all the way to his chair. He said it took her 30 minutes to get there, but she did it, and that’s about 10 feet. She does this thing where she gets on all fours, sticks her but in the air, rotates around and then does it some more, sometimes she will go in circles for a while, but other times she makes these arcs that do propel her in a direction. He was amazed with her determination and ability to move, but more so, he was shocked with how she doesn’t want to crawl, but the entire time is trying to stand mid air, and pull herself up, and convinced she will be walking before we know it, or are ready, She apparently really likes the hard wood floors, and once she got off the blanket to them was able to propel herself much better and pick up some traction.

So overall Joel had an amazing time playing with Holly and was shocked she was so mobile and had so much energy. She had woken up from a nap at 5:00 and it was 9:30 when I got home and she was still the energizer bunny. It ended up being almost midnight before she did go to sleep. We had a rough night after that. Holly sorta fell asleep at 10:30ish after a bottle, but then when we transferred her into bed she woke up, and she was very cranky, she basically cried for the next 90 minutes, I mean not really she was just cranky, awake, fussy and had to be held. She didn’t want to go back to sleep, even though she would close her eyes she would whimper and whine. My asthma was acting up again and I just didn’t have the patience for it, I was having trouble breathing, so finally Joel took her and he walked around the kitchen in circles for 30 minutes. Finally she went to bed.

This morning she woke up at 8:00 but took a long nap from 10:30 to 12:15 so she is well rested this afternoon and as cute as ever.