As expected, Jessica didn’t set her clock back when everyone else did last weekend. On the Monday, she decided to wake up at 4.20am…! Although, as we had been out the previous afternoon and early evening (more about that later) combined with slightly bad planning on my part, Jessica hadn’t had any solids for dinner, only formula. As she because of that might be hungry sooner anyway, I gave her a bottle of formula and put her back in bed. She didn’t grumble for long and, by the sound (or lack of…) of it, went back to sleep. I later gave her her usual breakfast at 6am and then we carried on from there. I’d decided to stick to the ‘new’ times as strictly as possible to help Jessica adapt. But, as it seems, she was very happy to go along with it straight away and it has taken no effort: every morning since, she has woken up at 5.30, 6 or even 6.30 am, seemingly not troubled at all by the fact that it has all been shifted one hour compared to before.
Jessica is getting more confident on her feet still. She’ll walk the length of the sofa, the coffee table (which is lined up next to the sofa at the moment) and then on to the dehumidifier (yes, we have that one up and running again…) and back again several times in a row now, without any support from us and seemingly without too much effort. She’ll also walk around the high chair and onto the chair opposite again and again (they’re fairly close together) without us lending her a hand too. Yesterday I watched her standing at arms’ length from the dehumidifier, only her fingertips touching it, contemplating whether she should risk the distance to the back legs of the highchair – it was just that little bit too far away and would have required a couple of steps without no support whatsoever. I was so chuffed when she went for it – as it happens, she lost her balance but Mummy was there to catch her mid-fall. She’ll pick up things from the floor herself quite readily now, supporting herself on a low table or the sofa, and I’m very pleased to say that she keeps her back straight and bends properly at the knees – that’s more than most adults manage…!
I was going to bring Jessica to the health visitor weighing clinic already on the 17th but completely forgot, as Ian’s parents were here that day. Instead I took her last Wednesday (24th October). We were having a quiet day at home just the two of us, so it was nice to be able to let her spend a little bit of time somewhere different, watching other babies and toddlers. They had lots of toys as usual, so I put Jessica on the floor near some of them. Smiling at everyone as she always does, she soon – separately – attracted the interest of a couple of boys at about 2-3 years of age. They were quite similar in their behaviour, though: at first they wanted to take some of the toys away from her (especially a bigger car and a fire engine), but in her usual chilled out way Jessica didn’t mind, just found herself a new toy, and after a while of the boys’ mums going “give that toy back, Josh/Adam, these are not your toys and you have to share”, the boys instead started to go and find toys to bring back and place in front of Jessica for her to play with. It was quite fun to see.
Finally it was our turn at one of the sets of scales. It’s now easier to sit Jessica up on the scales rather than laying her down on them, but she still moves around lots (excited about the relatively unfamiliar environment and people) so it takes a while for the digital display to decide what to show. It eventually stopped at 10.2 kilos (22lbs 7oz). When we left, the little boy called Adam waved and said “bye, bye” to Jessica. Ian and I got the tape measure out a day or so later and made her length 73 centimetres. She’s certainly growing…!
Something strange that Jessica has started to do in the last couple of weeks, although she was absolutely fine with it before, is to start to cry whenever Ian or I blow our noses. We have no idea why this is. It doesn’t seem to be the noise of blowing our noses, as just wiping one’s nose makes her cry just the same. So we’re thinking it must be the act of moving a handkerchief up to the nose, partly covering our faces. When we do, she stares at us, then the corners of her mouth turn down, her bottom lip starts to tremble and then she starts to cry. We’re really puzzled! We can’t think of any association she might have made that could explain it. We now take great care not to do this within her field of vision, as she sometimes takes a while to comfort – I’ve had to lift her up and then she’s buried her face in my shoulder and cried for a fair while. When we sneeze, cough or yawn she’s not troubled at all – actually she smiles quite widely both at me sneezing and yawning. Has anyone else come across this before…?!
Back to the afternoon and early evening (Sunday 28th October) out that I was going to tell you more about. We drove over to Heathfield, about an hour’s drive, to see a couple of friends that have bought themselves a house there. Last time we saw them it was in the evening past Jessica’s bedtime and we’d settled Jessica for the night in her car seat at home, then taken her with us in the car and re-settled her in our hosts’ bedroom to sleep their during our visit. This time, we’d originally been invited to a house warming party on the Saturday evening but then our hosts suggested the Sunday afternoon for just the three of us instead, to make it a more sociable hour for Jessica, and this worked out great. Their new house was lovely and huge, and Jessica really enjoyed walking around exploring it. She reached for a few things, especially the plates with snacks on the coffee table which were nicely just at the right height, but not too persistently – she was too preoccupied with taking in her new surroundings in general, I think – and played happily for quite a long while on a rug at Daddy’s feet with some of her toys that we had brought with us.
The most exciting thing for Jessica, though, was perhaps meeting a cat for the first time! Ian’s parents have a cat, Sheba, but she tends to be hidden away when we’re around, as I’m allergic to cats (not too badly but I get wheezy, my nose starts to run and I feel uncomfortable). So Jessica hadn’t seen a cat close up before. Millie was lying on a bed while we were given a guided tour of the house, so I lifted Jessica up on the bed too and she got very excited when she saw Millie. Nowadays it’s a case of holding a hand on Jessica’s arm when she reaches out to touch babies, toddlers and animals – she likes to grab hold when she explores but doesn’t, of course, realise that she can hurt others. I let her touch Millie’s fur with the palm of her hand but then she tried to grab hold, so I held her arm back just out of reach. Millie was very calm, though we could tell she was watching Jessica intently from the corner of her eye. Later, when Jessica was walking up and down the kitchen and Millie came in to get some food, Millie made sure to keep just that extra little bit of distance.
One of our friends said a while ago that babies are at their cutest at about 9 months old – that’s when you need to be aware because you’re very likely to go “oh, he/she is so cute – shall we have another one?”. I thought Jessica was the cutest baby ever already before but I must admit that now, at 8 1/2 months, it’s getting a bit ridiculous: she’s so adorable I sometimes don’t know what to do with myself…!
Gabriella