Since Tuesday, when Joy was able to get up on her hands and knees for a second or so, it seems like she always wants to be on her tummy. Anytime I put her on her back, whether it is to rest or change clothes or change her diaper, she flips over to her tummy if she can. That has certainly made changing her diapers and clothes much more interesting!!!

I remember when she was just a couple months old, she seemed to hate tummy time. The last few months, she has seemed okay with it, although maybe a bit indifferent. She certainly didn’t seem to have a preference between that and any other position. But, now things have changed. She often seems annoyed to be on her back and will roll over immediately if the way is clear. If the way isn’t clear (like if I’m trying to keep her on her back for a minute so I can finish cleaning her up), she will squirm and wiggle until she can roll over. Sometimes, she’ll even fuss if I don’t let her go on her belly right away.

Now that she has figured out which muscles to use to pick her chest and butt up at the same time, she always seems to want to practice doing so. Before, tummy time was just an alternate way to hang out, but now to her, it has become a goal oriented activity that can show real results! I am seeing a new level of determination now in Joy, and it’s kind of fun and interesting.

Being I thought I’ve seen Joy displaying a nice pincer grasp, I figured I’d give her some cooked peas, so she’d have a good chance to practice!

First, I put a bowl in front of her with the peas. Cleverly, instead of reaching in the bowl, she lifted the bowl and attempted to pour the contents into mouth (sorry, no picture of that moment!). They rolled all over her tray (none landed in her mouth).

Here she is, assessing the situation:

Then, she started at it:

Look at that concentration! I believe I make that same face when I'm concentrating!

She successfully picked up single peas in the pincer grasp several times, although she never made any attempt to put them in her mouth. She picked them up, sometimes looked at them, sometimes rolled them around, and then always dropped them back on the tray. A couple of times, I offered to help her try eating them, and put the peas into her mouth myself. This was her reaction each time:

So my little girl really is as talented as I thought she was! Her fine motor skills have come along nicely. She went through batting at things, to awkwardly grabbing, to skillfully grabbing, to passing between her hands, to picking up things with her thumb and forefinger. YAY, JOY!!! I’m so proud of you!

Last night, Joy seemed to feel great. This morning, too. So we canceled the appointment, because I figured whatever was wrong had gotten better. We went to swimming instead. Joy seemed to enjoy it, and kicked a lot just like last time. A couple of things concerned me, though:

1) She acted a little cold in the water, and none of the other babies acted this way
2) She didn’t reach for the water toys like she did last week.

Based on these two things, the teacher speculated that Joy was going through a growth spurt. Interesting idea. Maybe she is, and that’s why the last couple days were so tough for her. Maybe she’s gonna start stretching out some. Either way, Joy has been cheerful for the rest of the day. We took a super long nap together this afternoon, which was great, and she was cheerful into the evening.

Today has been the unhappiest day of Joy’s life. Never has she cried more than she has today. She has cried so much, her voice is hoarse. There’s a fever, too. Also, she’s barely eating. Yesterday she also had an intermittent fever and a lot of fussiness. There are no other symptoms, and her teeth don’t seem any worse than normal. I called the doctor to ask if it might be reaction to the vaccines Friday, and the nurse I talked to said no. She recommended I bring Joy in, though, so we have an appointment for tomorrow morning. If Joy still feels crappy tomorrow, we will see the doc and we will skip swimming, because I don’t think she’d be up for it.

Today, right at the beginning of our new babies only music class, Joy got up on her hands and knees for the first time. She got her shoulders up first, then clenched her belly until her back hips came up, too. After about a second and a half, she went PLOP! back down on the ground. In the next 5-10 minutes she managed to do it a few more times, each for a second or two. Very exciting!!!

From all estimates I’ve heard and read, it may be around a month now until she crawls. It may take a couple weeks to be able to get up on hands and knees consistently, then a week or two of rocking in that position before the crawling starts!!

Very exciting!

Joy had an appointment today with Dr. Minkus, her new pediatrician. It went very well!

First, the basics: Joy is 30 pounds, 29.5 inches. That’s big!

The doc reiterated a few things that I already knew:

Joy is a “giant baby”
Joy is very content and happy
There is no such thing as overfeeding a breastfed baby
She will slim up once she starts moving around, crawling then walking

He flatly rejected our former doctor’s advice to put Joy on a schedule, for the above mentioned reasons. He feels that she is really healthy, and that her health is not being jeapordized in any way by my parenting practices. He agrees that breastfed babies should be fed “on cue.” In fact, he told me I am an “amazing mom,” not only that but because I am doing it on my own, I am a “hero!” I love feedback like that!!! His only concern about Joy’s weight was that it could cause problems for my back. How sweet is that? A pediatrician who actually thinks the well-being of the parents is important!! Anyway, he went on and on about how he thought I was doing a really amazing job. He was very happy with Joy’s development in every area. With Joy’s ability to move around, he was pleased as well. She’s been hitting all of her milestones on or ahead of schedule. He said sometimes bigger babies are a little slower to roll over, etc., because of the laws of physics, but he was impressed to hear that Joy has not been slower in these areas.

He noted that her first two teeth had come through, and also that the top two seem very close to emerging as well. He predicted it could be as soon as the next few days.

Joy got a couple more vaccines today. I’m doing a graduated vaccine schedule that avoids too many shots in any one day. That’s because many of the vaccines are loaded down with metals like aluminum that can pose health risks, although nobody is sure how high the risks are. Dr. Minkus was fine to go with my schedule, and also felt too many vaccines in one day is a bad thing.

I was very happy with how the shots went today. At our last clinic, the needles were huge, nearly an inch and a half long, and they stuck them in all the way (even though they said they wouldn’t). Here, I’d guess the needles were closer to 3/8 inch, which seemed less painful. Instead of screaming for 5-10 minutes like before, Joy cried for about a minute and a half before getting distracted and forgetting that she was in pain. There’s a little localized tenderness where they shot her, but no other side effects, including crabbiness!

I’m happy that Joy is still as healthy as she seems. I wasn’t too worried about her health, because she seems really happy (except when the teething pain is real bad), she’s developing right on track, and she’s really active and wiggly all the time. It is nice to get confirmation of these things via a medical professional, however, and it was nice to have the doctor try to pound it into my head how I’m doing a really amazing job. It was nice not to get criticized about her size, too. I look forward to our next appointment with the doc, in a couple of months! :v)

Side note about her size–I found a baby picture of myself at 8 months old. It’s interesting, because my body looks exactly the same as hers. I was a giant baby, too! My face looks a little different (not quite as cute), but my body looks nearly identical. I’ll post this picture soon, once I can get it scanned!

Today, Joy had her first swimming class! Doesn’t she look good in a suit?:

This picture was taken after the class was over. I tried to keep her wrapped in a towel, but she was too excited and wiggly for that to be possible.

Kudos to Dixie, Brian’s mom for finding us this suit!!! I panicked this last weekend, realizing I had no idea where to get a swimming suit in January. Dixie made some calls, and last night FedEx delivered this one-piece strawberry shortcut swimming suit in Joy’s size! Woohoo!!! Thanks! You (and the family who you called around to get this) are amazing!!!

Joy did great today! I had no idea how she’d like it, being she’s not a huge fan of bathing, but I was worried for no reason. She did great!!! I might even go so far as to say she’s a natural (or maybe I’m biased!). For most of the class, we had the babies in a football hold, so she she was floating on her belly on one side of me, with each of my arms at one of her armpits. We chased through the water after floaty balls and rubber duckies, and she would try to grab them (and of course, put them in her mouth). She kicked a lot!!!! I think she may have been the best kicker in the class, it always seemed like she was kicking, and even more so when I was moving her around.

She also did some splashing, which was great, too. One of the purposes of the class is just to get babies used to the water, especially getting water on their face. Joy started splashing in the pool right away, and then we did some teacher-instructed splashing too. We sang some songs, and splashed along with the songs. It was fun! Joy got splashed directly by the teacher, too, who came around and splashed during the songs as well. Joy blinked and sputtered a little bit, but when she saw I was smiling, she would smile too. So, she didn’t get scared, which is so wonderful!

So, it was a fun time, and we will continue with the classes. Yay, swimming! This will be a great activity for her throughout her life, I’m glad that we have found a gentle and fun way for her to learn how to do it this early.

Joy’s second tooth broke through today. It happened in the space of an hour, during my La Leche League meeting. The first one still isn’t very higher, although it is still higher than the new one. Once these teeth rise a little more I’ll get pictures!!! I’ve been trying, but they don’t quite yet show up. Also, I see 4 more teeth are starting to come. There are those little white ovals in the area of her two top center teeth, and the bottom teeth that are adjacent to the center teeth (called eye teeth). I’m not sure how soon these will come through, but they are definitely bugging her some. I’ve gotten so used to her big gummy grin, it might take a bit to get used to a toothy smile!!!

Okay, Joy’s first tooth still has not risen very much. It is sharp and jagged, though! The other bottom center tooth next to it is still working its way through. I’m still using the magic clove oil/ olive oil solution, although today and yesterday it doesn’t seem that helpful. Instead, Joy seems to be enjoying her raspberry teething toy more (and although sometimes her maneuvering skills are a little awkward, she often won’t let me help much):

Other news:

We signed up for a baby swimming class today at the Y! It starts Thursday. Now, we just have to find a swimming suit in January! Dixie is on the case, and between the two of us, I’m hoping we can find something!

I found a couple great new books… a Spanish Counting board book and a Van Gogh board book. Van Gogh is my mom’s favorite artist, so I thought it was perfect. They had similar books for Monet and other painters. Each page has one painting, and a little rhyme to go with it. Both of these books are very nice. I haven’t read them to Joy yet, but I will tomorrow. Joy has really been enjoying me reading to her lately. I’ve noticed a preference for books that I can do lots of voices for (like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?), but she seems to enjoy most of the books I read to her. She listens and looks very intently, and when I do voices or sound effects, she smiles. Yay! Reading is fun!

Here’s the last picture I took of Joy in 2008:

Here’s the first picture of Joy in the New Year:

A little story about the picture: The reason her hand is a blur is because she is moving it up to the glasses to take them off. Her teeth were hurting pretty bad today (they’ve just broken through the skin of her gums), and so she took glasses on her face as an invitation to chew on said glasses. This photo took a few takes to get, because by the time I got the glasses on her face and got ready to take the picture, she had them in her mouth. So, it was a test of my lightning reflexes to get this, but I got it! Cute, huh?

2008 was the year that Joy arrived, so it will forever be precious to me. I’m pretty excited about 2009, though!!! In this next year, Joy will learn how to walk and talk. She might learn how to swim (we are signing up for baby swimming classes soon!) She may do a little singing and banging to make music. I know she’ll have lots of fun exploring the world around her. My wish for her is that life be always this exciting to explore.

When Joy was first born, I was scared out of my mind because I had no idea what I was doing. In the last almost 7 months, I have learned a lot and gotten a lot more comfortable. Joy and I have a really solid and secure bond, and she feels really safe with me. I’m learning more and more about who she is, and we are exploring the world together. It’s fun and interesting to observe a baby figuring out how life works, and I feel like I’m on the journey right with her. She is so much fun, even on bad days there is a lot of pure joy in my life! She has changed who I am, I am more confident of a person, and more relaxed too. She has taught me to laugh with my whole body, which I try to do as often as possible. This is the purest love I have ever felt, so free of the complicated feelings that can come with adult relationships. I am really excited to be having this experience and I am so happy that I get to be in her life.

Thank you, Joy, for choosing me to be your mama! I love you so much, and may many blessings fill your life this year and for all your years!