Kiley is eight months old today. The update for this past month includes her getting sick for the first time and standing up while holding onto something. We drove back from Texas for Christmas and she did really well but had a few more crying episodes than when we drove down. Part of the reason for this was that we left earlier in the day so she was awake longer. Once home, we decided to try the crib again, now that we had her on stronger reflux medicine and better (the best) formula. It took three tough nights and three so-so nights, but now she sleeps in her crib all night. It’s tough to hear your baby screaming, but in the end, it’s for the best.
She is old enough now to lie in her crib and entertain herself and put herself back to sleep after waking up and playing with her toys for a while. She loves to suck on our hoodie strings and zippers. She also plays well in her exersaucer and is now tall enough to have her feet touch the bottom and stand in it. She can also twist the saucer at the waist to rotate around to see us and play with the different toys on it.
She gobbles down her baby food and loves it, but the peaches are still a little too strong for her and she gags on them. Maybe it’s all the new food, or the fact that she was going poo at night, but she developed an awful diaper rash. The only thing that would cure it was a mix of Aquifer and Mylanta from our KitchenAid mixer. We made a bunch of it and put it in a jar and keep it by the changing table. The rash was there for about two weeks and looked bad, but we got it taken care of.
Kiley also got a bad cold this winter. It lasted for at least two weeks and the poor thing had a snotty nose, didn’t want any food, just a bottle, and needed to be held and rocked a lot. This all went down just as I left for work (of course) so Laura was left to deal with the sick child alone. She did a lot of sleeping while sick, going to bed around 7 pm and getting up around 10 am with just one night feeding. She is still taking reflux medicine twice a day, so she still has some growing to do to get out of these baby sicknesses.
She is still quite the happy baby, getting lots of compliments out in public. That has been a nice change from the first five months of horror we dealt with. She isn’t as fast to flash that award winning smile at strangers and is becoming a little more leery of others. She will look at Laura when someone speaks to her, and if Laura smiles, she will smile back, like she then knows it’s okay. Finally, as a sign that she is getting older, she can stand up if she has a coffee table or exersaucer to hang on to. Next thing we know, she’ll be running through the house!