So haven't posted for a while, in fact was surprised to see that I lasted posted three months ago, as it only seems like yesterday!
Anyway Maya was seven months old last week - and the last couple of months have seen loads of highs, but unfortunately a few lows. We'll get them out of the way first - we were so excited when her first tooth arrived back in October - very early indeed. However, we were less keen on the constant dribbling, crying and the diarrhoea that accompanied it. Eight teeth later, we are sick of teething!!!! Particularly as the last four came through at the same time and it seemed that for a couple of weeks we were stuffing her full of calpol constantly - something that I feel as a good mum I should probably not be doing! We also hate teething as it is horrible to see Maya in so much pain, but probably even more so as she no longer sleeps through the night.
Back in the autumn we thought we had cracked it. A bottle before bed and a dream feed at around 11pm would see her sleeping through til 6-7am. Now we are lucky if she only wakes us up once between midnight and 6am and she has only slept through two or three times since Christmas. Unfortunately as she is much more mobile now she constantly wakes herself up by rolling over and hitting her head on the cot sides! We have even had a few miserable evenings where we have had less than four hours sleep - which is worse than when she was a new born!
Back in December we may as well have set up camp at the surgery. Several appointments were spent discussing bowel issues - even to the extent when we were going to send samples to the hospital when suddenly it sorted itself out. Unfortunately we then had a fierce battle with bronchiolitus - the week before Christmas we trotted once more up to Felixstowe Road Medical Practice (one of my most hated places in the world) where the nurse practitioner misdiagnosed Maya with a chest infection - she stated it definitely wasn't bronchiolitus and prescribed some antibiotics which Maya hated, made her vomit up her feeds, gave her diarrhoea and had absolutely no effect on the bronchiolitus which she was then diagnosed with a few days later. Typically she went rapidly downhill on Christmas Eve - and with the surgery closed for four days we endured an unpleasant trip to the Riverside Clinic (a horrible place where the most infectious people naturally seem to drift towards babies). Luckily due to Maya's age and the fact she was very wheezy meant that we were regarded as an urgent case so got to jump the queue. She was given oxygen there and prescribed steroids (which were spat up straight away!) and an inhaler. We were then told that if she started wheezing again we had to go straight to A&E. I was distraught as the prospect of spending her first Christmas in hospital. Luckily she was okay all Christmas Day but on Boxing Day we were back at the clinic. This time the doctor said she was absolutely fine, was coping very well with the condition and definitely didn't need hospital treatment - as I thought. This was great to hear, but it was annoying that an over-cautious nurse a couple of days before had got us really worried!
Since Christmas we have coped with several colds and a constant streaming nose, a small bout of conjunctivitus (compared to my own hideous bout where I couldn't see!) and a small burning incident which made me feel like the worst mum in the world. I will not be checking the slow cooker again with Maya in my arms. Luckily she escaped with just a small blister on one finger. We are hoping that she is back to 100% fitness soon as that might lead to bit more sleep for us all!
I know I may seem really moany but there have been so many more highs over the last few months. Some highlights...
(1) Lots of laughing and talking - admittedly it makes no sense at the moment but is still lovely to hear. The best laughs are huge chuckles and are normally triggered by us blowing raspberries on her belly!
(2) The first 'mama' and 'dada' - again we are under no illusion that she knows what this means or that this was on purpose. 'Mama' came first - fantastic!
(3) Enjoying proper foods - and in particular the ones I have cooked myself. The only food she has not liked has been salmon - everything else has been embraced with lots of excitement (and mess!).
(4) Sitting up and entertaining herself with her toys - she is so much more interesting now!!
(5) Interacting with other babies - she loves playing with Jack and Maggie and it is so cute how they recognise each other. However poor Jack is bullied by the girls - if they are not pulling his hair or poking his ears, then they are stealing his toys.
(6) Taking much more notice of everything. At the zoo the other day she was watching all the animals closely and was getting very excited.
(7) Being the most smiley baby in the world!
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