Life & Harmony's Growth:
So many exciting milestones! I've combined the two sections "Life" and "Harmony's Growth" because this week it all ties in together...
On Wednesday I hear her first "belly laugh"- it was so adorable! We were at supper club so Krissie and Sarah and the girls were all witnesses! :) She was sitting in the little bouncy chair they have there for babies and I was tickling her by squishing my head into her tummy and she just thought it was the most hysterical thing. She'd laugh and then I'd pull back and she'd smile and wait for me to do it again. And then after about twenty "tickles", it just wasn't funny anymore and she just gave me this look that someone described quite perfectly as "Hey mom, now you're just milkin' it!"
For the past week, Harmony has thrown in an extra feeding around 3 am, but has still kept all of her other feedings! This combined with the news on Tuesday that she's only gained 4 oz in two weeks (from 14 lbs 3 oz to 14 lbs 7 oz) seemed to indicate that Harmony was ready for some real food. I talked with the public health nurse, who said that yes, it did seem like she was ready. So on Thursaday, March 25th, we did! We got the whole thing on videotape. I breastfed Harmony a little bit first so that she wouldn't be really really hungry or anything and mixed up a tablespoon of plain rice baby cereal (and 2 tablespoons of water). She actually ate more than I thought she would- everyone kept saying that in her first feeding she'd end up with more on herself than in her tummy, but I'd say she managed to suck down about half. She had a couple little smiles and didn't seem to have any bad reaction to it at all. She ate the rice cereal around 8 pm and nursed a couple more times before settling off to sleep around 10 (a little earlier than usual!). So I'll keep trying a little bit every day and maybe by the end of next week she'll actually be finishing most of it! Hopefully this will satisfying her growing appetite!
Also on Thursday night (I had my friend Marc-Andre over to help with feeding and so I decided to finally get this out of the way too!), I did Harmony's hand and feet prints with purple finger paint! We did them on blank paper and I'm glad I thought of that because there were a few botched tries (especially with those wiggly little hands!) and I would have hated to ruin a page in the baby book. We only did two sets of hand prints (one for each of the two baby books I have) but we did several foot prints to give to Grandma Dee-Dee and Grandma Toni, Dad & Jo-Ann, and maybe Harmony's dad too. And maybe I'll keep one to frame too! I'm going to do many sets as Harmony's hands grow, and maybe someday I'll try to find some clay to do an imprint with. There's so many little artsy/keepsakey things that I want to do with her and there's just never enough time! She's growing so fast! But I'm so glad I've managed to stick with this journal. It's taken a lot of effort to sit down and write everything down on a weekly basis, but I just keep thinking about how much Harmony and I will appreciate it when she's older. Eventually I'll only be writing once every two weeks (this'll probably happen this fall when I go to university- I just wont have any time!!!) and then once a month (maybe after she's 2 or 3) but I plan to just keep writing as long as she keeps growing. I'll probably stop when she hits 13 or 16 or something, but I know this will be a nice gift for her later, and especially when she's a parent! Wow, that's a scary thought! And then of course if I have any more kids (my little Daylen must be waiting around somewhere, I've seen him in my dreams!) I'll keep journals for them too...
Four months means another very important milestone- Harmony will be old enough to go to daycare at at the Children's Welcome Centre while I attend Drop-In and at Bethany Centre (support centre for young/ single parents run by the Salvation Army). I'm hopefully going to be starting an intensive program at Bethany (sorta like school, with daycare from 10-12 and 1:30-3:30, but with parenting classes too). I'll be there Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and I'm going to try to spend a lot of the time there working on another OAC- if I can pull my average up by a percent, I can get an extra $500/year tacked on to my scholarship at university next year!
Life is really busy, but I'm really enjoying the time I have with my daughter. Now that I'll be starting to get more breaks, I think the increase in my patience level will make Harmony's crying so much more bearable! My aunt wants to take her overnight this Saturday (I'll be sleeping in!!!) and then her father is going to take her on Friday of Easter weekend. He's actually starting to come around a little, I think. It seems like it anyways, although I'm reluctant to put too much faith in his words since he's made promises and broken them before. For example, he says he'll be there for her birthdays and Christmases, but he also said he would be there for her birth and first Christmas and he broke that promise without even seeming sorry about it! It will be nice, though, to have the extra financial help with diapers and for Harmony to see him on a regular basis. That's if he actually sticks to what he's saying. I really hope he does...