Jessica’s cold got better yesterday, with no more runny nose or sneezing. Yesterday was, however, a bit of a frustrating day for both Jessica and me: she was cranky and wanted to feed every two hours, but her signals for wanting food were a bit confusing. It made me think that maybe she was having some sort of a growth spurt, wanting more food than I could produce and kept being hungry and miserable for it. We solved this by giving her a bit of formula to top up.
Today she seems much better – well, at least so far. She slept through until 5.30am again, which consequently meant that I had plenty of food for her in the morning. I had to be a nasty Mummy, though, taking her to our surgery for her 12 week immunisation jabs… I’d managed to get a different nurse this time and she didn’t make as much of a spectacle of it, was just friendly, reassuring and matter-of-fact. She had an assistant with her, who paid Jessica some attention while the nurse was going through the different jabs with me (it was diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, HIB, polio and meningitis C this time), and Jessica smiled at, talked to her and completely charmed her…! (The assistant was saying how very aware Jessica seemed of her surroundings.) I held Jessica in my arms like last time (but no hysterical shout-singing, thankfully) and she started to scream when she got the jabs in her thighs but I kept cuddling, stroking and kissing her. Afterwards it was time for her next feed so, just like last time, we got shown to a quiet side room where I could feed her. After the feed Jessica was all smiles and gurgles again. I’m keeping an eye on her today of course, but as she had no reaction last time (though the nurse today said that perhaps Jessica getting so ill that time we had to go to hospital could have been the result of her having something in her system already which got aggrevated by the jabs), so we’re hoping she’ll be fine this time too.
It seems Jessica’s made herself a new friend… She’s started to pay extra attention to the octopus toy in the baby gym, staring at it intently for ages, smiling and laughing at and even talking to it. It’s a bit odd and very interesting to see. Maybe it’s the bold, round, forward-facing eyes – babies are apparently meant to prefer seeing both eyes of a face at the same time, I guess that way they know you have their full attention. Am curious as to whether/when Jessica will realise that the octopus actually isn’t actively communicating back…! Another toy to which Jessica’s relationship has changed slightly is the rainmaker rattle. When we turn it over in front of her now, she’ll jerk a bit (not out of surprise or fright), pull her fists up in a boxing pose and bop it! Not sure why this is, apart from that she in general seems to reach out more purposefully nowadays: she’ll look at something and then reach out and touch it, rather than just generally flaling her arms and randomly hitting things. We’ve noticed, however, that it seems to be her left hand mainly that does these things – does this means that she’s left handed…?
She feels more ‘solid’ now to lift up and to carry, not as fragile – her neck is stronger and she supports her head much more herself, so I’m not feeling as worried about supporting every little bit of her all the time. Will be fun when she can sit up without support, but I’m sure that’ll come around soon enough and I won’t wish her life ‘away’ by wanting everything to happen too soon…
Gabriella