(Entry written Monday 10th September:)
It’s been a little while again and it feels like so many things have happened. Wednesday (4th), when Jessica and I were over in Redhill seeing some of the mums and babies from the post-natal group, she seemed to be teething properly: her cheeks were flushed and hot, when she grizzled she whined (a new thing for her) and she dribbled excessively (she looked like I’ve felt after I’ve been to the dentist and had a jab…). I kept giving her Calpol (baby paracetamol in liquid form) and teething gel, hoping that it would help in some way. The afternoon didn’t turn out all bad though; in fact Jessica was really enjoying herself shrieking happily at the other babies, trying to steal their toys and pull their socks off… She hadn’t had much of a nap in the morning, though – which increasingly is the case nowadays, unfortunately – and come mid-afternoon she was really unhappy. I tried to settle her in her pushchair, which had been tucked away in our hostess’ dining room, but Jessica wouldn’t have it, so after a while I decided to call it a day and we took our leave. As I’d expected, we weren’t too far down the road before Jessica had fallen soundly asleep…
The following day Jessica was a bit the same – hot, flushed cheeks and extra grizzly – but the experience still didn’t seem too bad for her farmor, who came over to spend a couple of hours with Jessica in the morning, while I went out for a jog. (This is a weekly arrangement between me and Diana, though the day varies to suit.) The Friday was better, with Jessica more chirpy, but then at the weekend things were a bit funny again. Jessica was tired but found it hard to sleep, her cheeks weren’t flushed but come Sunday evening she was hot all over: her hands and feet are usually a bit cold but were warm and when I touched her head it felt hot. The thermometer showed 37.7 degrees – not sure if I held it in the best spot under her arm, but it did confirm a bit of a fever. She drank her supper slowly and didn’t want to finish her bottle (something she otherwise always does at her last feed for the day), but there weren’t any other causes for alarm, so I put her to bed as usual.
She took ages settling – not being upset, but just moving around in her cot. In the last week or so, Jessica has started to roll up on her right side during or before going to sleep. Sometimes in the night I hear her crying in her sleep and find her struggling against gravity to stay up on her side while her hips and legs want to roll back. (I usually try to ease her legs in a better position for her, though I’m not always able to – anything for a better night’s sleep, for the both of us…) She’s never been keen to have a blanket on, either in her bed or in her pram/pushchair, and promptly kicks it off if she’s awake and one of us put it over her. Now that she’s stronger, this pushing action shifts her in her cot, so that she moves further and further up during the night. She’ll also tug at the bumper guard (and has managed to tug at it so that it has untied in a few places), grab the bars and shake them, as well as sticking her feet and legs out through the bars. Sometimes it’s mayhem in her cot if she’s put in it wide awake. A couple of evenings ago I found her fast asleep lying across the cot with her legs crossed, her feet sticking out through the bars on the outer side and her fingers in a grip around two of the bars by her head…
Something I don’t think we’ve mentioned before, or at least mentioned enough, is Jessica’s keeness to use her legs and feet. She’ll grab for toys and things with her feet quite often, when I lean over her in the pushchair or when changing her nappy she’ll grab my arm very confidently with her legs and she likes to brush her lower leg across the surface she is sitting on, presumably just to see how it feels against her skin. For quite a while now, she’s got the habit of raising her leg slightly and then rotating her foot at the ankle – always her right foot and always clockwise…. Sometimes she’ll pull her trouser leg up a bit before the spinning starts. She likes watching her foot as she does this. Sometimes when in her highchair eating she’ll stop to look at her feet for a while. I don’t know whether this is a typical baby thing – I’ve certainly seen lots of babies put their feet in their mouth like Jessica also does – but it’s interesting to watch her fascination with her feet. I hope she keeps using them.
Thursday (6th September) Jessica and I were out in the garden in the afternoon. Jessica wanted to stand up, as she’s done a lot the last week or so – she reaches out and if we offer her our hands she’ll grab them and pull herself up to standing. This happened out in the garden this time too, but one of the garden chairs was not far from Jessica and she decided to take a few steps towards it to reach it, still holding my hands for support. In front of the chair, though, she let go of my hands and grabbed on to the seat. And then she took a few gingerly steps to the side, whilst holding on to the seat, until she reached the arm of the chair…! She couldn’t support herself for long once there (well, the garden chair was too light to provide any counter balance, at any rate), so I reached out and supported her again, at which she promptly put her face against the arm of the garden chair; she had wanted to put it in her mouth, so no surprises there, then… I was quite amazed, though, when the realisation that I’d just witnessed Jessica’s first steps without the support of another human being sunk in.
Jessica still hasn’t shown any inclination towards wanting to crawl. I’m starting to wonder whether perhaps Ian is right and she’ll skip that stage, perhaps do a bit of bum-shuffling to get places, like Ian and his sister did. This morning, when I came back in the living room again after having sorted myself some breakfast, she was still sitting on the floor among her toys but she was facing a different direction to how I’d put her. Ian assured me he hadn’t moved her. So I’ll be keeping a close eye on her to work out how that happened…
Gabriella