Its New Years Eve?

Seriously?! Where did the year go!? I have already been off of work for over a year, and I cannot believe it. I am probably one of the only ones on the planet that is sad to see 2010 go. But I am. Jan 2011 is going to suck. Yeah I know. Way to be positive.... But it is going to suck. I enter in to 2011 dreading LO going to daycare, although I know that eventually she'll be fine. Studies say that children whose moms go back to work before they're 3 are just as well adjusted as those who have SAHM. Its just right now she is VERY attached to me, and I am to her too. And she spent a total of under 4 hours in daycare, and she is STILL sick, and cranky as hell. She has been unbelievably cranky the past two days. Crying and screaming for no reason. I know she is still a bit sick with a cough, but this is crazy. She is even starting to kick her feet when she is mad! Temper-tantrums already!?!?! And actually, her being attached to me has WORSENED since the day I left her at daycare on her own for just under 2 hours. So I have this fear that daycare is going to turn my sweet little calm easy going girl into a cranky sick kid who doesn't sleep the night and never sleeps past 6. :D And then there's going back to work. I dread that. Its not working itself, its where I work and who I work with. Even if I could stay at home, I would probably pick up a part time job somewhere for a few days a week. That would be the ideal. So I feel like I am sending her to a germ factory, and I'm off to a Parana tank, me being the lunch. Yep. Happy New year.

LO's 1st Christmas!

We have been looking forward to LO's first Christmas for a while now! On the 23rd she had her alone daycare visit, which went terribly, and I felt kind of depressed for the rest of the day. Then things got even better *ugh* Sure enough, Christmas eve, around 2, LO started to get sick. She started with the runny nose and fever. Christmas day was even worse. She was sooooo cranky. And here we are, 6 days later and she is still sick. She is not sleeping well, coughing like crazy, not eating well, etc. Just another reason for me to hate/dread daycare and going back to work, as if I didn't have a million other reasons! Seriously, she spent 4 hours in Daycare over the span of 4 days, and she gets sick for 6 days and counting. Awesome.

Back to Christmas. Hubby had to work until 3pm on Christmas eve, so LO and I spent the day at home, singing Christmas songs, dancing, etc, until she started not to feel well. That night, we went over to my grandmother's house for supper like we usually do. This year we had fried foods for supper, which I hope we don't do again, because my mom and I were not feeling too awesome after all of that grease.....UGH......Onion rings, wings, mozza sticks. We stayed for a bit after but then went home because LO was not in good humor.

Christmas day, LO slept in till 9:00. We got up, ate, fed baby, and then let her open the gifts that Santa and mom and dad had brought her. Hubby and I didn't exchange gifts this year, we just put a few things in each other's stocking. The coolest thing was looking at one of the gift tags that said "To: (LO's name) From Mom and Dad." It was kind of strange. I've been mom for almost a year, but it was still kinda funny to see that, in a good way. And even funnier was the one my hubby made out for her. "To: (LO's name) Love mamamamama and Bab." LOL That's what LO calls us hehe. LO got some clothes that she can grow into, and santa brought her a doll called babbles, I think. Everytime we went to Walmart and walked by this doll, it would babble, giggle, and jump up and down inside of the box, which was shaped like a crib. LO Loved it. She would stare at it, smile and laugh. We weren't going to get it, but on the evening of the 23rd, we were in walmart looking for a better gift for LO. We wanted to get her something better than the toboggan, especially after I had spent more than we anticipated on it, only to have my step-father look at it and say "why did you buy that, we have 2 in the basement?" Ugh. I was not pleased, especially because it was about 10 min after I had picked up LO from her daycare visit.... i was not a happy camper to begin with! But in the end, we did get the doll (she loves it) and we will be taking the toboggan back.

Then we headed off to my grandmother's house to spend Christmas. LO had a good time opening up her presents. She was spoiled this year! I had to laugh at her though, she had a huge pile in front of her, and she would always come to mine and hubby's pile hehe. Poor thing was not herself at all though. SICK. CRANKY. UGH. STUPID DAYCARE. Hubby and I also got sick, but not as bad as her. I am still fighting mine off, but its really not that bad at all.

Boxing day we went down to my MIL place to visit and exchange gifts. LO was still not herself and sick :( Poor thing. I hate it because I never know if I should take her to the Dr or not... So far we have been using tylenol, saline water for her nose and a nasal aspirator. But her cough is getting worse, and it's keeping her up. Last night was not too bad, she was up at 9:30 until 11 ish, but the night before she woke up at 11pm and didn't sleep until after 1:30, and only because I gave up and had her sleep on my chest in the living room. I put her down when I woke up at 4ish.

Well, she is up from her nap, coughing and hacking. Poor thing. Still hoping for a lotto miracle this friday or sat. She'd be much better off not in daycare.

LO alone visit at daycare

On the 23rd, LO had her "alone" visit at the daycare. I brought her in, and when she was busy playing, I left. I knew she would have a hard time, and I didn't want to be there when she was crying. It breaks my heart. Well, I didn't even make it out of the driveway and I was in tears myself. I'm not someone who cries often or easily, so it even shocked me a bit. But I really don't want to go back to work, and I don't want her to be in daycare. I went to the store to buy her a toboggan for Christmas. Hubby and I figured that would be cool because we can all go sliding. She would sit in front of us, and we would just go down the hill at our house, which isn't much of a hill. And it was on sale for $25.00, which was a plus, because we are really short on $ this year. So I got it up to the cash and she rang it through. "That will be $59.00 please." WHAT?? I asked about it and it turned out the toboggan CUSHION was on sale.... OMG so I used our last $60.00 of cash to pay for it. I went to anther store to get my grandma some socks that she wanted. I had a $10 off gift card that would help. When I got to the cash, she said it was expired. OMG. But she said she could use it anyways if the computer would let her, and it did, thank goodness.

So I went to pick up LO a bit early... I peaked in and saw that one of the workers was sitting on the mat with LO on her lap. "ok" I thought.... "This didn't go so bad.." Then I walked in, and the worker saw me and said to LO "Hey look over this way. Look who's here...... I know you don't want to, but look!" and she turned LO around. LO's eyes were all red and I knew she hadn't had a good time at all. When she saw me, she started crying, crawled over to me, stood up, grabbed onto my pant legs, and, while crying, pulled them back and forth. The worker said she didn't have a good time, and wanted to be held a lot. She said "we held her as much as we possibly could." I felt terrible. I think she could see it because she kept saying "But that is normal." and "it takes a little while for them to get used to it." But nothing was making me feel better at all. So I thanked them, took LO and left.

Wow, what a difference a few days can make!

Just a few hours after I wrote last, LO crawled over to the pantry. She plays in the pantry a lot, and we have things baby proofed in there so that she can only get a hold of boxes, bread, etc. I knew she was over at the pantry, and I got a text on my cell. I went to get my cell, which was also in the kitchen, and when I was about to read the text, I heard "CRASH" and then my LO screaming. Turns out, one of us had accidently put a jar of salsa on the shelf where LO could grab it. And she did. She pulled it down and it fell on her toe, and then broke. Her toe was bleeding and I scooped her up, took a look at it, grabbed paper towel, took her to the bathroom, and used anything I could to stop the bleeding. She didn't want me to put any pressure on it, so it was pretty hard to stop the bleeding. But eventually we got it rinsed and put a band-aid on it. I didn't really want to put a band-aid on it because it looked like it had ripped her toenail. I thought the band-aid would pull on the nail when we took it off, but I also didn't want it to be open, and not be able to stop it from bleeding. When we were finished getting her all bandaged up, I looked around and there was little drips of blood everywhere! On the kitchen floor, bathroom floor, towel, sink, etc. Poor little girl. Even in the middle of the pain and crying, she smiled and laughed when I stuck her toe under the water and made funny noises while I rinsed it off. She is a doll. She was in quite a bit of pain even after she was bandaged up. She kept crying which is VERY unlike her. I actually gave her .5ml of tylenol to help with the pain, although looking back on it, I wouldn't do it again. I don't think she needed it that bad. I was pretty sure her nail was cracked in half and that she might lose her toenail :( Oh yeah, did I mention that our second car broke down, and hubby had the car at work? FUN TIMES. I talked to my hubby, and when my mom found out, she sent him home from work and told him to take LO in to the hospital. I didn't really want to take her to ER, as it wasn't an emergency. I took to the net and researched a bit. It did say that if it was blue under the toenail, she should go into the dr because they would have to drain it. So I decided we'd take her into the walk-in clinic. I was totally nervous because really, it was my fault. I took my eyes off of her. But the doctor had a look and said no need for the glue, or to drain it. There is a cut right underneath the nail that would drain it for us :) So she sent us home with a prescription cream, and told us to soak her toe twice a day. She said there could be a fracture underneath, but didn't see the need for an x-ray, because they would do nothing for it if there was a fracture. I have a bit of a background in health, and I agree. Besides, she was standing on it before we took her in, so I was pretty sure we were fine.

Friday, Dec 17th: Hubby had to work late, so baby girl and I were hanging out at home. She really hasn't taken many steps since she took her first ones, and I hurting her toe would put her back a bit for sure. I was playing with her, and I stood her up and told her to come to me. She did! She walked over to me! So I did it again, and stood away from her, and she walked over, fell forward a bit, got back up, kept walking, fell forward again, got up again, and walked some more! I have this one on video thank goodness! SOOO Proud of her! Even with a cut up toe she started to walk! LOVE my baby girl!

Monday and tues I had to take her in to Daycare for some visits just to get her used to it. On monday when we first got there, she just sat there and watched everyone. Just taking it all in. By the end of the hour, she was playing with the toys and emptying the toy box LOL Tues it didn't take her any time at all. She started playing right away. By the end of that hour, she was pushing toys across the room. Yep, she was comfortable. hehe Tomorrow I have to leave her there for 2 hours by herself. I think she will be fine. Its me that will have issues. Not so much tomorrow though, because I have a TON of Christmas stuff to do... When I go back to work, that will be when I have issues.

Today, she slept till 8:30 after being woken up at 6:30 monday and tues so we could drive into town with hubby. She did not want to nap at all. I finally put her down at 1:20pm!!! That's usually the time she goes down for her SECOND nap of the day! HAHA I guess she's getting rid of her morning nap! Before she went down, she fell right in front of me, and hit the coffee table. Poor girl. Later on she fell backwards and hit her head on the floor. SERIOUSLY??? I couldn't do anything to stop either incident, but you feel like an idiot. When I was feeding her lunch, I noticed that there was a bit of red on her tongue. There is red peppers in what I was feeding her, so I thought that's what it was. I looked closer and it turns out that on one of those falls, she bit her tongue!! Crappy mom award is coming my way! Man.

Giggy giggy

As of tues, LO has started "talking" ALOT more. She baby talks a ton. She just started with G sounds. Tues she started saying her g sounds and saying a word that sounded like "giggy giggy." I finally figured out she is trying to say "Kitty Kitty!" LMAO she crawls after the cat saying "giggy giggy!" I LOVE IT!!!

Right now she is taking a nap. She slept until 8:15 this am (yeah, I know, I'm so spoiled) and went down for a nap at 10:45....its now 1pm.... hehe. I think she is combining her morning and afternoon nap.... looks like her feedings will be all messed up again today! Yesterday she did without her 4:00pm bottle because she slept in till 9am (she got up in the middle of the night from 3:15-4:45ish, which is weird!) so lunch was around 1-1:30, and we had to go get hubby from work at 5, and I forgot to bring her bottle :( But she didn't cry or anything. I guess she got enough at breakfast and lunch. We started her on cheese the other day. Ever since then, she has been a bit gassy. I am supposed to be introducing milk soon and I am worried about that because she had such a hard time with milk based formula when she was a few weeks old. I know that they tend to grow out of it, but I wish there was a way to tell for sure without putting her through the pain! Poor thing.

Just when I was about to put her chair away, she has decided she likes it! She sat in it today and watched tv for a few min! I was pretty surprised. She also found my Burl Ives CD and crawled around with it, scratching it all to heck. So what did I do? Hey! Look what else it can do! And I rolled it on its side across the room LOL. Oh well! Haha.

This past week: Her first christmas pictures, and her first steps! FOR REAL! :)

Last Sunday, we went and got family Christmas pictures done. We have never had any family pictures done, and being her first Christmas, we figured we should get some done. Well, she didn't really love it at all haha. She didn't cry, thank goodness, but she wasn't her usual smiley happy self... At one point I was jumping up and down in heels singing the theme song to the "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" to try to get her to smile! haha. THAT was a sight.... hehe. Even better, was that we didn't tell anyone about it. We thought it would be cool for the pictures to just appear on facebook one day. And it did, last wed :) It was fun. We had to go to a family dinner right after the pictures were finished, and we didn't want anyone to know what we were doing, so we even changed in the car!!! We didn't want to show up dressed up, so we changed in the car on the side of the road back in the middle of nowhere! HAHA

Wed Dec 8th she took her first steps! She was at the dishwasher, which she is obsessed with, trying to get into it and grab some forks and knives. I said no, and started to put the door up. I have to put it up slowly, because she won't let go until the last min. So it was up and she was just standing there. I put my hands out and said come here or come to mom or something like that, and she took a few steps towards me!!!!!!!!!!! YAYAYAYAYYAYAYA! She took a few steps at moms lastnight too which was cool.

Next week we have her visits with the daycare. 3 visits in 3 days just to get her situated. I hate the idea of putting her in daycare, and I hate the idea of having to go back to my job, but I've got to suck it up. :( COME ON LOTTERY!

YAY!

We took LO to meet her great-grandpa for the first time on sat. I was really surprised how much he took to her. When we pulled up, he peaked out of his window! I guess he is a little lonely and was looking forward to us visiting and meeting her. She didn't react so well. Hubby sat down beside great grandpa and was holding LO. She started to cry just sitting next to him, so he didn't get to hold her or anything, but he watched her and laughed at her as she "danced" and clapped and tore around his house lol. She was moving things, and trying to get things off of his table, and moving his walker, etc. He just laughed and said "she keeps you busy!" He walked out of the room for a min, and came back with a little santa head for her to play with, as well as a teddy bear. I thought it was so cute. He seemed like he really enjoyed the visit. We told him we'd be back before Christmas.

We had Sunday dinner at my grandma's house this sunday, like we do most sundays. LO had a great time playing with the toys that my mom and step dad brought over. She is getting stronger on her feet. Ever since I started putting her down in the middle of nowhere instead of right by a table or something she can grab on to (only since late last week sometime) she has become a lot more comfortable with standing. We all thought she was going to take some steps last night, but she didn't.

But she did TODAY!! :) :) We were both standing up, and I was holding on to her hand. She was just by our chair. I looked up to see what was on tv and she let go and seemed to walk towards the chair! But it happened so fast, I didn't see any of it. I just felt it. So I put her back up in front of the chair a few min later, and she walked towards it again! I jumped up and down and said YAYAYAYAYA and clapped my hands, LO sat down and started clapping HAHA. But now that I look back on it, I was standing above her and am really not sure if she took a full step or just stepped forward with one foot. So when hubby got home, I tried all night to get her to do it again, but she wouldn't LOL I'm pretty sure she did take her first step, but I will have to see her do it again to make sure. Isn't that terrible? What kind of a mom doesn't even know for sure if their baby took their first step?!?! I really think she did and I am just second guessing myself. I do that alot.....

Figuring out when to return to work

I'd like to never have to return, or to be able to just go part-time, but that is not an option. It looks like I am going back early Jan. I am not looking forward. It just seems weird to me that I have to put her in daycare at her age, to go somewhere I don't want to be. It would be a lot different if the workplace was different.... But I can tell I am going to have a really hard time with it. And so will she. We went to a friend's place today for a play date and I just stepped away to go to the bathroom and LO FREAKED. I've been hoping and praying since Dec of last year that something would come about (lottery, ANYTHING) that I wouldn't have to go back, but it doesn't look like that will happen. :( Reality is setting in, and I don't like it at all. But I know I am not the first mom to feel like this, and I won't be the last. It just sucks.