Valentine's Day

The last time that my husband and I went to dinner together, alone, was 8 days after Jayla was born. September 1, 2005 - it was our 4-year wedding anniversary. It wasn't particularly enjoyable as we had just spent 10 hours at the hospital that day, visiting her in the NICU. So, clearly, we are overdue for a meal together, alone. As we do not have a babysitter lined up for tonight nor dinner reservations for anywhere, I decided that a lunch date could be in order and then we'd be free to spend Valentine's evening with our sweet baby girl (and our long-term house guest). I sent him this in an email yesterday:

My darling husband,
You are my perfect mate.
So let's seal this v-day
With a lunch time date.

He liked the idea but, isn't sure if he can get out of an all-day meeting long enough to meet me somewhere for lunch. So, I'm still waiting for a firm answer...

On Sunday, we opened Jayla's Valentine's Day gifts from my mom. I thought it was a little over the top to send a 5.5-month-old a card but, I'll just save it until she's old enough to actually read it! My mom also bought her some tummy time soft books. They're kinda like mats that you roll out and it gives them something to look at while on their tummies. We tried it - Jayla is not easily fooled into tummy time. She liked the book so, she grabbed it, and rolled over so that she was viewing the book on her back while holding it in the air. So, not the intended outcome but, at least she liked them.

So, this past weekend, I pulled out Jayla's two Valentine's Day bibs so that she can wear one of them to day care today. Apparently, her wardrobe manager (aka daddy) didn't remember that today was the day...neither did I - UNTIL, I got to the day care. All the kids had on red and white and Carson's bib said, "Hug Me", while Emma's bib said, "I love you". Jayla has on pink, green, and yellow stripes and a bib that says "I Love My Daddy". Her bib could be special if she didn't have 11 "I Love My Daddy" bibs so, she basically wears one of those everyday. Oh well, surely, I'll just put the Valentine's bib on her tonight for a photo shoot.

What was I thinking?

Last night, my husband had another basketball game. Jayla and I went. Of course, the other wives wanted to hold her and play with her. I warned them that she was sick. My pharmacy tech friend was asking me if I was giving her any medicine. I explained that I hate medicine and never take it. And unfortunately, I have decided that Jayla must hate medicine too and I never give it to her either. Plus, I had given her some medicine when we were out of town over Christmas and she slept NOT A WINK that night. I vowed to never do it again.

But still, when I got home, I was thinking more about the medicine thing. I decided to go ahead and try to give Jayla a small dosage of some infant decongestant. I would feel selfish if I didn't do it. She took it with a smile, then sopped up some oatmeal, and nursed for almost 2 hours (I fell asleep and I'm sure she did too so, it wasn't a solid 2 hours). So, when she went to bed, I figured it'd be all good and I'd see her in the morning. But, Jayla decided that "morning" was 3:30am and we went through a similar scenario as we had 2 months ago when I gave her medicine the last time! Finally, at 5:00am, we shut her in our closet where we couldn't hear her and went back to sleep. I have no idea what she did between 5am and 7am.

Now I'm serious - no more medicine for Jayla...or at least not any infant Robitussin!

Instructions

It appears that my sweet Jayla hasn't been feeling well since about Tuesday. She's got a runny nose, a wicked cough, and a very low grade fever. Yesterday at the day care they said she was just staring into space sometimes and sleep the rest of the time. I noticed the same thing yesterday evening. Luckily, my husband told her not to put any toys in her mouth today that have been in another person's mouth - glad we nipped that in the bud!

Day Two

As I was so kind as to actually warm the milk that I mixed with Jayla's cereal last night, she returned the favor by absolutely sopping up every bit of cereal in the bowl. A few times I almost stopped feeding it to her because she was scrunching up her nose at it. Then she did a complete 180 and started opening her mouth very wide every time she saw the spoon coming towards her. I do think that she's got the hang of it. I think I'll stick with rice cereal for another day or two and then move on to oatmeal.

I experienced another very exciting Jayla moment yesterday. Jayla relies on pacifiers to calm her down when she is sleepy. It only works when she is sleepy. She will not take it any other time (and even spits it out as soon as she is sound asleep). So, when she is fighting sleep, she is trying to holler and suck at the same time. It doesn't work so, she ends up losing the pacifier and hollering louder until someone crams it in her mouth and holds it there until she falls asleep. My husband and I have been absolutely living for the day when she has the coordination to just put the thing in her mouth at will instead of needing us to do it every time. Well, I saw her do it TWICE yesterday!! I was SO excited. I gave her the pacifier so that she could relax enough for our after work/school nap on the couch. I watched her take it out of her mouth and place it back in twice...without so much as a wimper in between. I do believe this is going to be huge for our sanity.

In other news: A friend of mine from college is coming to live with us for a while. She is moving here from Atlanta to start a job on Monday. So, she's staying with us until she gets an apartment. I made it clear up front that I cannot guarantee a full night of interrupted sleep every night - she wanted to come anyway...(In Jayla's defense, I will say that she has slept 7-8 hours straight each night for a week now.)

Introducing Rice Cereal

So last night we finally let Jayla eat a little bit of rice cereal from a spoon. We planned to give it to her right after her evening feeding. I'm trying to do this where it will affect my milk supply as little as possible. So, after I fed her, we put her in the high chair and made up just a little bit of cereal with breastmilk for her. She took it VERY well and seemed to really enjoy the whole experience. She only ate a little bit but, everything that I put in her mouth pretty much stayed in her mouth and was ultimately swallowed. The experience was not nearly as messy as I thought it would be. After a few spoonfuls, she lost interest and became completely engrossed in exploring her high chair instead. I count it a success, especially considering that the cereal was mixed with ice cold milk! I promise to remember to warm it up a little tonight. Here she is in her chair and after finishing her meal: