Baby Gator: August 2011

Today Olive is five months old. Early Thursday morning Olive's new cousin Quinn was born. Of course hearing all about the labor, delivery, and new baby made me start to reminisce about when Olive was born, and what it was like to have a newborn. I realize it was only 5 months ago, but it she has changed and developed so much in those 5 months. It's interesting to me because this 5 month age gap will never be greater than it is this first year of their little lives. By the time they are 3 or 4 this 5 month difference will barely register. But right now, 5 months is huge.

Olive started daycare August 2. It's funny because I have always been a big fan of daycare for older children. I've worked in daycare in the past, and it's amazing the developmental leaps and bounds a 2-4 year old child will make after a little bit of time in daycare. Children learn so much from each other, and really seem to thrive when surrounded by other children their own age. That said, when we were first starting Olive in daycare I really wished we had some other option for childcare. I felt like she was too young, and I would really prefer she get one-on-one attention. But financially that is not an option for us, so we enrolled her in Kindercare. I can honestly say I was completely wrong. She has matured and grown and changed leaps and bounds since she has been in daycare. Those same jumps in development that I used to see in toddlers when I worked in daycare I now see in my infant daughter.

There were a few milestones that it seems like she has been on the verge of for awhile, and once she started daycare it was like she hit those milestones all at once. Let's start with rolling over. She has been able to roll over for awhile now, heck the first time she rolled from her stomach to her back she was 8 weeks old. But she has never really seemed 100% in control of her rolling, and she has never used her ability to roll over to get any where in particular. Now if she is laying on a blanket and she sees something on the other side of the blanket she wants, she will roll to it. She is also starting to push with her feet when she is on her stomach to propel her forward to get things she wants. She used to hate tummy time, now if I lay her down on her back she immediately rolls to her stomach. It makes diaper changing time a whole new experience. Let's just say I've been "mooned" a time or two. It's awesome seeing her so comfortable on her stomach now, and it's nice that she no longer gets frustrated with tummy time after 5 minutes.

Another change is her ability to sit up. She still can't exactly sit up on her own, but she stays up a lot longer now than she used to. She's also getting better about sitting in high chairs, and shopping carts which makes life a lot easier for us.

Probably the biggest and best change daycare has given us is the fact that she can now sleep on her own in her own bed. I can't believe I am that parent that let daycare teach my child to do something, that was I being overly indulgent on, but that's the way it worked out. She no longer sleeps swaddled, and she sleeps on her own in her bed. She falls asleep much more easily now, and we don't have to have marathon walks around the house where we walk, rock, shush, and pat her all at the same time. Our current nighttime routine consists of me breastfeeding her for an extra long feeding (usually around 30min) putting the pacifier in her mouth, laying her down in her bed, she moves around a little bit and then is fast asleep. We're still working on getting her to sleep through the night, but that first stretch of sleep is usually at least 4 hours which is nice. We've even gotten 5 hours a few times.

The first week of daycare was definitely difficult, and I hate the fact that someone else gets to spend more waking time with her each day than I do, but overall the experience has been very positive for Olive. She seems fine when I drop her off in the morning (usually a little groggy) and happy when Mark picks her up in the afternoon.

One other exciting milestone that Olive experienced since my last post is meeting the New York side of her family. We went for a long weekend to NY the last weekend of July. Olive got to take her first plane trip, and it actually went pretty well. She wasn't interested in sleeping on the way there, but she was pretty happy, and she nursed for take off and landing. On the way back to Atlanta she slept some (she was incredibly worn out from our super busy visit) nursed some, and managed to drop a major bomb in her diaper, that leaked out all over me. It even got on my sock.

Olive was huge hit with her NY family. She was pretty happy and easygoing, and did a great job being passed among her family members. She went on her first boat ride, met her great grandfather Paboo, taught her Aunt Carlene a few cheerleading moves and managed to charm everyone, especially the men. I have to say my daughter is pretty sweet and loving towards everyone, but she tends to save her biggest smiles for men.