Daycare, Night Care

Oliver started daycare this week.  After all the kerfuffles with finding one, I'm actually really happy with the one we ended up at.

Let me tell you a little bit about it.  It's out of Ms. J's home.  At its current fullest, there are nine children: three babies (one shares Oliver's birthday, the other is two months younger), one 18-month-old, and four over 2 (I'm not sure of their ages); and three adults.  One of the adults studied ASL in college, so they're big on doing sign language with the kids.  Which is awesome!  We'd signed up for our baby sign language class before finding this out, and it's really great to have what we're doing at home reinforced at "school".  Ms. J had great references, no marks on her license, and seems really nurturing and knowledgeable.

Oliver knew something was up on Monday.  Instead of waking up at 5:30 to nurse and then going back to sleep for several more hours like he usually does, he woke up at 5:30 and then was up.   By the time we left for daycare at 8:00, he already looked like this:

Somebody needs a nap.

Ms. J texted me pictures of Oliver playing happily on his first day, which did a lot to make me feel comfortable.  I wasn't worrying about him Monday morning, but I was seriously not concentrating on work.  By noon, I'd used my cell phone battery down below 60% by putzing around on the internet and Facebook and Words With Friends and texting people.  Not so much the star employee, here.  Don't worry, I buckled down, gave myself a working lunch at my desk, and powered through the afternoon with a bit more productivity.  After receiving those picture texts.  So even though I wasn't entirely conscious of the fact, getting them eased my mind.

Cool new toys!

Somewhere between the two, he lost his pants.

We've had some sleep challenges.  After the early wake-up Monday, he also didn't want to take a nap at daycare.  He barely slept at all.  Then he came home and crashed for two hours, and then he was awake until almost 11:00.  And again at 4:00.

But Day Two was better.  After that 4:00 wake-up, he slept right up until we had to leave.  (I nursed him in his sleep, actually, before waking him up to get dressed and go.)  Then he took two decent naps, and went to bed at a reasonable hour last night.  He was up at 1:00, but now it's 7:00 and he's still asleep.  Which means that I had time to both do the elliptical this morning and write this blog post!  After Monday, when I did neither of those things and it somehow took me three hours to get two of us ready and out of the house, and yesterday, when I had to leave an hour earlier than usual and was rush-rush-rushing from 5:00 until I got to work (eight minutes late) at 8:38, I wasn't sure how mornings would work out.

Part of our sleep secret at this point seems to be letting Oliver sleep in the bed in the nursery instead of the crib.  I KNOW!  It's a terrible habit.  Right now, the comforter is bunched up at the bottom of the bed, creating a barrier, and there's a body pillow along the not-wall side of the bed, creating another barrier.  But pillow-and-blanket barriers are not going to stop a climbing baby, which is coming soon.  He seems to hate his crib.  The mattress is too hard, I'm sure.  Which is for his safety!  I know this!  I don't know what to do.  He sleeps like a log in the bed, and not in his crib.  (See: 1:00 wake-up, which lasted until 2:00, when I finally put him in the bed.)  What am I doing?  I don't know.  I don't know!  Sigh.  I bought another book on no-cry baby sleep, and once I've read it and Oliver's adjusted to daycare, I'm hoping it'll help us figure things out.

So.  That's what's new in this house.  Sleep challenges and daycare!

Six Months

Dear Oliver,

You are were six months old today on Thursday.  (Due to a houseful of illness, I didn't get this posted on time.)  I look back at pictures of you from not that long ago and I'm amazed at how little you looked "back then".  You are more delightful every day, and you started out pretty darn delightful, so that says a lot.

Just two weeks ago, we would prop you up in a sitting position with your hands.  You'd balance like that for five seconds or thirty seconds or a minute, and then you'd topple over.  Now, I can sit you down at your little piano or on a blanket on the grass and you might not fall over at all.  You don't even need your hands for support!  People compliment you on your excellent posture--something you did not get from your parents.

Falling...

You had a rough month in the sickness department.  You caught a doozy, one that knocked us all out for two entire weeks.  Fever, cough, croup, throwing up... you had it all.  (And so did I.) (Minus the throwing up.) (and croup, since I don't think grown-ups can get croup.)  But we made it through!  And I hope your little immune system is stronger for it.

You love the hand-me-down walker J gave us, and you're becoming a pro at buzzing all around the downstairs.  And, occasionally, the outside.

Mamamama is your favorite babble.  I have hope that it'll translate into "mom" being your first word.  Fingers crossed!  We're halfway through our baby sign language classes, so we've started teaching you signs: mom, dad, more, all done, eat, milk.  Those are the ones we're really working on for now.

You laugh.  You laugh when you think something's funny and you laugh when you're tickled.  Your laugh is magical!

You are not sleeping.  It's frustrating, because we know you can.  You slept through the night consistently from about eight weeks through four-and-a-half months!  And now, in these last six weeks, you've had maybe five no-wake-ups nights.  Maybe.  Some nights you're hungry, and nothing but nursing will calm you.  Other nights, you just cry until someone comes in.  If it's me, you decide you're hungry.  If it's Dad, you might go back to sleep with a little coaxing.

Because you often seem hungry in the middle of the night, your doctor suggested we start you on solids a little earlier than planned.  So for the last few weeks, you've been trying new foods.  You've had avocado, oatmeal, banana, peas, sweat potato, pear, and zucchini.  You didn't like banana or peas, but everything else is going well.  I think sweet potato is your favorite, but it's hard to tell.

Avocado: yummy!

Peas: not so much.

You want to be on the move.  You can scoot yourself around in your crib easily.  And you've fallen off the bed (luckily, the one in the nursery, which is a mattress and a box spring on the floor, so it's not very high).  If you could figure out how to get your knees under you and push up with your arms at the same time, I think you'd be crawling already.  As it is, those are two separate actions.  But I think it'll happen soon.

No teeth!  That's another thing I think will happen soon.  You have your fingers in your mouth a lot, now.  You're already a finger- and thumb-sucker, and now you're a finger-chewer, too.  

You are 29¼ inches long (off the charts, still) and weigh 19 pounds, 8 ounces (80th percentile).  You are a big boy, and strangers like to comment on it.  You graduated out of your infant carseat.  Depending on the brand, you can still fit into some 6-month clothes, but you are consistently wearing 9- and 12-month outfits.

I can't believe you've been around for half a year already!  Happy six months, Oliver!

Love,
Mommy

Dropping Balls

I don't know how people work full time and parent and do anything else at all. 

I don't think I've cleaned my house since the beginning of September.  Really.  Oh, Steve does things here and there as needed (he vacuumed the stairs this weekend and it's like I can breathe again, seeing all carpet and no tufts of grey cat hair), but Steve is still home with Oliver.  What will happen when he's back at work, too?

We had a three day weekend this weekend, and we didn't even make it to the grocery store. 

My plan for the weekend was this:

Friday: Family game night with my mommy group, stay an hour, get to bed at a reasonable hour for early morning Saturday.
Saturday: Baby sign language class in Santa Barbara, home for lunch, nap/cleaning (for Oliver/for me), pumpkin patch in the late afternoon for an hour before dinner. 
Sunday: PEP Halloween picnic, home for nap, grocery shopping (for me) while Oliver naps, prepare lunch stuff for the week, have dinner.
Monday: visit probable daycare, baby blankets at the park (weekly mommy/baby get-together I've missed since going back to work), home for nap/baking cookies/cleaning, lazy afternoon, dinner.

Instead, my weekend went like this:

Friday: Game night, stayed until 11:30 pm.  And Oliver was awake that entire time.  Then he was awake several times that night.  (Rookie mistake: taking the baby who never wants to miss a party to a party.)
Saturday: Baby sign language class.  Unexpectedly ran into a friend we hadn't seen in a while, went for lunch and back to her house to see the progress she's made renovating.  Came home, absolutely crashed.  Oliver and I slept for two and a half hours.  We had dinner and it was time for bed.
Sunday: PEP picnic, ran errands, dinner, ???  I can't even remember Sunday, but it was busy.  And the grocery store was not one of my errands.
Monday: Accidentally slept in after being up with Oliver, worked out (unplanned but much needed!), didn't make it to the daycare, didn't have time to make lunch to take to baby blankets.  Afterwards, we were starving, so we went out to a late lunch.  Post office, made pumpkin lactation cookies, made dinner, made lunch stuff for the week, BED.

No cleaning.  No pumpkin patch.  No daycare.  No lazy afternoon. No grocery store. 

I did do laundry, but if I hadn't, I'd have had to go to work in my bathrobe today.

And let's not talk about the animals.  I'm a horrible pet parent.  They're fed.  Their litter boxes are cleaned.  The dog is walked three times a day.  And that's about all I can say.  I no longer cuddle with any of them.  I don't brush them (and Monet needs it).  I don't pet them more than a few quick strokes.  I don't play with them.  When I'm sitting on the couch, which is prime Renny-snuggle time, I'm nursing Oliver or playing with Oliver or snuggling... Oliver.

I have gifts I want to make for people, Halloween costumes to finish.  I need to work on Oliver's baby book before I forget things.  There are seasonal experiences I want Oliver to have. 

But every minute of "free" time I have, I spend reading to Oliver (or listening to him be read to by Steve), making him laugh, helping him practice his sitting or his rolling, nursing or feeding him, working on these baby signs we're learning. 

And I'm dropping all of the other balls. 

Not Quite Over the Weather Yet

Wow, this whatever-it-is Oliver caught is really knocking us down.  He's been to the doctor four times since last Monday, because the doctor keeps checking in (for which I am grateful), and our description of Oliver's symptoms (mostly coughing and breathing related) prompts them to ask to see him again.  Then this is how the visit goes:

Doctor: listens to Oliver's breathing, does examination.
Doctor: "Well, it doesn't sound [insert medical term].  I think it just has to run its course.  Keep an eye out for [list of scary symptoms] and call if he gets worse.  Call back on Thursday to let us know how he's doing."

Oliver's symptoms have changed.  In the beginning, it was a fever and a tiny rough cough.  The cough turned into that loud, croup-y bark with accompanying difficulty breathing at night (super scary!) that had us camped out in the steamy bathroom several times a night for a few days.  We ended up borrowing a nebulizer from a friend, which Oliver hated but which did seem to help.  Oliver slept a few nights in his bouncy chair because it kept him elevated.  Then the cough turned less seal-bark-y and more mucous-y and rough.  And... that's where we're at.  I do think it sounds better today than yesterday, and better yet than the day before.  And there's been no fever in a week now. 

Bathroom camp-out

The best part, though?  I think I caught it, too.  So I've been feeling pretty miserable myself since Saturday.  And since we temporarily abandoned solid foods, added to Oliver not feeling well, he's been up nursing several times a night again.  So I haven't been sleeping well at all, which just compounds the miserableness of being sick.  On top of worrying about our sick baby.

Please, please, let everyone be healthy again!

And then, something happened to foreshadow more rough waters ahead: I think Oliver might be teething soon.

Yesterday evening, he was nursing peacefully when he bit down.  Hard.  And then he bit down again and wouldn't let go.  I pinched his nose shut, which did the trick of opening his mouth... and he laughed at me! 

And then I noticed that he's got his fingers in his mouth a lot lately.  So... once we're done with this cough, I foresee us moving into the wild world of teething.  Not much hope, I fear, of following in my footsteps and not getting teeth until a year.

When one thumb just isn't enough

We've had to put the daycare search on hold while Oliver's been sick, so that's set us back almost two weeks now.  Thank goodness Steve is still home!  We have it down to two very-different-from-each-other places, and we want Steve and Oliver to visit them both during daycare hours to see what kind of feeling they get from each.  I just want to get this piece settled.  It's so stressful! 

So, that's the status of our lives right now.  Sick and stressed.  Luckily, Oliver is in pretty good spirits during the day, which helps all of us!

Under the Weather

We've had another first around here: Oliver's first illness.

It started on Monday.  I came home from work, and Steve said, "It's been a hard day.  Oliver was really fussy."  He woke up from his nap just then and I picked him up; he was burning up!  I took his temperature three times in an hour and a half, and it went up, and up, and up to 102°.

During that time, I'd called the after-hours line at the pediatrician's office.  The on-call doctor, whom I had not met, gave me a good scare.  When I told her Oliver had a fever and asked at what temperature I should be concerned and take him to urgent care, she said, "It's not about the fever.  He could have meningitis at 101° or be fine at 104°."

Well, gee, thanks!  That makes me feel better!  My first child has his first fever and you tell me he could have meningitis?

He also had a little raspy cough, so when he spit up epically (and he's not a spitter) just as we were about to heat up dinner, I decided we needed to go to the pediatric urgent care.  The doctor there tested for a few common bacterial infections (flu, RSV, bladder infection) and when they all came back negative, she said to see our doctor if he still had a fever by Wednesday.

Which he did.

So, to the pediatrician we went.  While Oliver had been uncharacteristically fussy for two entire days, he was happy and lively at the doctor's office.  He was diagnosed with his first cold.

He came home and took a nap.  And then he woke up throwing up.  Over the course of two hours, he threw up several times.  He was upset and pale and so, so sad.

Being sick sucks!*

I called the nurse line again.  She asked me a series of questions I didn't know how to answer, like does he have a stiff neck?  a sore throat?  is he disoriented?  Did I mention he's five months old?

She recommended I nurse Oliver for five minutes every half-hour for four hours, and give him Pedialyte if he wasn't keeping anything down.  Luckily, he did fine with the nursing and went to sleep.  I slept with him in the bed in the nursery, and he was up several times through the night.  His little raspy cough turned much rougher, and by this morning, he was losing his voice.

I didn't know a baby could lose his voice!

Back to the nurse line to report the new symptoms.  She said to watch him throughout the morning, and she'd call back around noon.  We hung out in the bathroom with the shower running for a bit this morning, which seemed to help.  When I got the return call, she could hear Oliver's rapid breathing over the phone, so she asked us to bring him in.

And so in we went, to our third doctor's visit in four days!  And this time, the diagnosis was croup.  The plan of attack was much the same as we've been doing: humidifier, keep an eye on him.  Thankfully, his cough doesn't sound chest-y, so hopefully it clears up soon.

Hopefully, because the poor kid is miserable (when he's not at the doctor's).  And none of us are getting much sleep.

But, on a happier note: yesterday, in the middle of all this craziness, Oliver met his great-grandparents for the first time!  Steve's grandma and grandpa came for a visit on their way from Long Beach to Sacramento.  I wish they'd been able to meet Oliver at his best, instead of at his worst, but they got to see him happy and playful in the morning, at least.  And when he started feeling real bad in the evening, it was comforting to have someone there who's been through this before!

Great-Grandma Margaret

Great-Grandpa Oliver

Three Olivers: Oliver Kidd, Steven Oliver, Oliver James

* Oliver will probably yell at me some day for posting so many pictures of him not feeling well!