Well, this is just an update on CootieGirl things – I haven’t posted a real update in a long time. We mainly post pics, which are nice, but don’t really tell people how she’s doing.
In a lot of ways she’s doing great. She’s a smart kid – very curious and always has her eye on things around her. Her new “thing” is to keep her tongue out at all times and make noises at us to see our reactions. As soon as she sees us laughing, she giggles and sticks it out again. It’s a constant game with her, which is a lot of fun.
We haven’t been reading to her as much as I’d like – it’s tough to be at work for 12 hours (leave at 7 a.m., home at 7 p.m.) then come home and play with her for an hour and put her to bed. But I’m just so tired most nights that all I want to do is put her to bed and VEG OUT. I feel guilty about that, but it’s true. I don’t want to blame the pregnancy, but I do feel fatigued a LOT and about 9 pm most nights I’m ready to go to bed myself. I know it would be different if I wasn’t working, but that’s not going to happen in the near future, so that’s that.
As for her physical development, it’s obvious she WANTS to stand and crawl and walk and do stuff. When I stand her in the crib, she joyously tugs on the bar and grabs for stuff while holding on to the crib with the other hand. When she falls, she attempts to pull herself up but gives up easily and just cries in frustration. I show her how to do it, and she’s happy once she’s up, but can’t quite pull her weight up on her own yet.
Once she’s standing, however, she’s GREAT and can stand holding on to stuff for quite some time. Walking and holding on is another story – she hasn’t accomplished that yet (which on one hand is a GOOD thing). She still refuses to crawl, but is a master at spinning on her butt on the hardwood floors in the living room.
My one fear is with regard to daycare. Yesterday when I dropped her off before my doctor appointment, there was ONE worker in the infant room, with 8-9 kids there. 6-7 of them were in highchairs while only two were on the floor playing. My fear is that because there are so many infants she can’t get the individual attention she needs to encourage standing, walking, crawling, etc. They usually have two women in the infant area, but I only saw one at the time I was there yesterday. For that reason, I’m planning on calling a couple other daycare facilities in our area and investigating using them part-time when CootieDad has real estate appointments or needs to be at the RE office. It will probably cost significantly more, but isn’t my child’s welfare a bit more important? Another option is to ask a woman in my church if she’d like to do it – she has two young girls around CootieGirl’s age (one is older, the other is younger), and I know she was considering doing at-home care at some point.
Who knows. We’ll have to wait and see what CootieDad’ schedule would be like, and how much “drop-in” care would be at other facilities in our neighborhood. But I’d like CootieGirl to definitely get more personal attention to help foster her independence and desire to DCootieGirlstuff (like walk, climb, etc.).
So that’s the update (and a mild vent). She’s a great kid and I love her to death. About 100 times a day I say something to CootieDad like, “We have a cute kid – how’d we get so lucky?”
