Life:
Whew, what a crazy week! I spent most of the week settling Harmony into daycare at university #2- doing what they call "transitioning". Basically, I needed to spend a lot of time with Harmony at daycare so she could get used to the people and the environment while still having the security of knowing mom is right there. She did really well and stayed almost the whole day without me on Friday. I didn't get much done since I was getting her settled, though, so I kinda feel like I haven't accomplished anything.
Unfortunately, we really haven't accomplished anything because we're switching daycares! My first choice university called (on Thursday!) and said they had a spot for Monday! If only they'd called a week or two earlier it could have saved us a lot of time and effort! This presented a lot of short-term negatives, but a lot of long-term positives, so I decided to accept the spot. One of the short term negatives is that last week was pretty much wasted. I guess we could chalk it up as "practice", but we're both going to have to go through the whole "trasition" process again next week at Harmony's new daycare, starting from square one. Also, Friday was a really crazy day. I spent several hours, cleaning frantically while waiting for my worker to call back. If she hadn't have been able to call me, or set up the subsidy, we would have had to stay at Carleton. The subsidy needed to be set up for Monday, and my worker obviously doesn't work weekends, so the pressure was on! Fortunately, she did call me back and got everything set up. So now we're going to U #1! Which is so great, because it saves us a whole 45 minutes of bus time per day. U #2 is about 1hr-1:30 by bus per day, but Ottawa U is 45 mins MAX, and usually only 25 minutes during rush hour. That's one of the main reasons I wanted to go there in the first place. I was actually really surprised to get the spot, because we only got on the list in October 1998- usually it takes up to two years to get a spot, especially in university daycares. But what had happened was that of the people ahead of us (11!), most of them didn't want a spot until Sept. 1st and I guess the rest of them couldn't be reached or no longer needed daycare. So that's very lucky for us! :)
During her short time at the daycare at U #2, we did begin re-arranging her schedule. I'm hoping the schedule at U #1 is similar since we've already started in that direction. She had trouble adjusting to things at first, since everything was about an hour ahead of her usual schedule, but she's doing ok now. The one thing she had a lot of trouble with was napping at daycare. I don't think she napped for more than an hour and half total (am and pm naps!) while she was there, although she usually caught up on the bus ride home. I think it was just because there's so much more going on. When she falls asleep at home, it's pretty quiet, and I just carry her to her crib. It's usually the same degree of brightness everywhere and she's familiar with the surroundings. At #2, I gave her her bottle and she fell asleep. Then I went to carry her over to the nap room and she started waking up. She opened her eyes a peek and it was all over from there. It's really bright in the play area and there's so much to see, she just instantly got interested in looking around. And one time we got as far as the nap room, but I think she picked up on the drastic light change, cause she woke up and started looking around. We may still have that problem at U #1, since I'm pretty sure their setup is similar, but hopefully she will adjust and fall into schedule with the other babies.
Her sleeping at night continues to improve. She's now pretty much on a 7-7 schedule, although she still wakes up for a bottle at 4 or 5 am. On some nights, she'll fall alseep at 7 and sleep right through until 5 am, then back til 7, but on others she'll wake up for her soother as many as 6 times in the first couple hours before finally settling for the night. Can you guess which nights I prefer??? When she wakes up within the first couple hours of falling asleep, she usually reaches around for her soother. I go in just to check and make sure she's able to find it, but I don't pick her up or interact with her, cause she's still half-sleeping, with her eyes shut and everything. If her soother has fallen, I'll put it into her hand. She's usually pretty good about finding it and putting it back into her mouth and then after a few sucks, she's settled herself back to sleep again. I'm so glad we've progressed past the stage where I've had to settle her back to sleep by nursing her! (Thank you Ferber and Mindell!) :)
Harmony's ear infection is all cleared up. She got better at taking the meds as the week progressed, and she seems to be a little happier now. It also helped to clear up her cold, which had lasted quite a while. So now besides her usual lingering excema, she's a very healthy, happy baby! :)
Harmony's Growth:
See, I don't know how this is going to work now with Harmony at daycare all week. Usually I'm at Bethany with her on Tuesday and we just pop in at the well-baby drop-in to see Margo or another public health nurse, but now it would just be too much trouble to go all the way out there just for the clinic. I'll have to check and see if there are any drop-in clinics on weekends or in the evenings and whether or not they are close by. So no weight for Harmony right now, although her weight will be slowing a lot now anyways, so even if we got her weighed every 3 weeks or so, it'll still give us a good idea of how she's growing.
My little girl is getting more mobile! She can now "crawl" backwards a little bit- when she's on her tummy and pushes with her hands. She's also gaining more and more confidence when she is sitting and is reaching farther and farther to test the limits of her balance. She's had a couple little tumbles when reaching around behind her or too far in front, but for the most part, she knows when to stop reaching and to start whining at mommy to move the toy closer. I always move it closer for her when I notice it's too far beyond her reach, but I always try to move it just within her reach, so she's still challenged. I think she may start crawling not from a tummy position but from a sitting start point. She now pulls one leg behind her if she's reaching very far, and is starting to use one knee as a support as she lifts her bottom to reach farther. She's almost there- another month or so and I think she'll be on her way! Hopefully she'll settle into daycare at the new daycare quickly so I can start the major babyproofing. Dad found our old toy box in my uncle's basement, so we'll be getting that over here soon, so hopefully that'll keep all the toys and stuff out of the way. Now all they need to invent is a "mommy" toy box for all the clutter!!! :)