We have been back for almost a week and I think we have finally settled back into a routine. We had a nice relaxing trip to Florida. We went to Universal Studios as well as Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom. We spent the mornings at the park and then returned home after lunch to spend our afternoons hanging out at the pool. I stopped nursing just prior to vacation (actually our last "latch" was while on vacation) so I spent most of those afternoons with a frozen drink in my hands. Joey is a water baby...she loves it. We bought her a nice floater prior to vacation and she got to use it while we were down there, it was the perfect tool to help her learn to walk in the pool - I think that we have some video of this that I will be posting soon.
There were just so many exciting "firsts" while on this trip that I'm sure I'll never remember to recap them all here. Like I mentioned earlier, we did stop nursing on this trip. We made it 9 months and I really feel like I have given her a good start. We also tried to switch her over completely to eating whatever we are...it makes meal time so much easier! She learned to climb stairs while on vacation too. There was a little lip around the edge of the pool and she quickly learned how to climb up to get out...she is so smart it is amazing (even her pediatrician was amazed when we told him). We learned that she is not a big fan of the "characters" around the park when she screamed in horror at the sight of Mickey and Minnie, this is something that we hope she will grow out of!
We had our 9 month Dr. apt on Monday when we returned home. Everything looks great and she continues to be off the charts for length and high on the chart for weight...however she is perfectly proportioned and really starting the lean out. The nurse thought she was in for her 1 year checkup! The only milestone she has yet to reach at this time is holding her own bottle and that is because we have not really forced the issue. Needless to say we have been working all week on it. We have also started to introduce the idea of the sippy cup, I think this might take awhile, but I know that she will get it soon. She has been crawling like crazy and starting to cruise quite a bit more lately. She even took 1 step the other day while holding on to nothing trying to get between two toys. We think that we have about a month before she starts getting really brave, but we went ahead and put the gates up this week anyway! She has started sleeping a bit better now too. We can go several nights without her getting up in the middle of the night (early morning hours). However she does consistantly want to wake in the 5am hour so I have given in and am now started my day unusally early!
We went to see an ENT specialist on Tuesday to address the issue of constant ear infections. We battled a serious infection prior to vacation that was stubborn enough to resist two antibiotics before giving in to a 3-day series of injected antibodies (boy was that fun!). We have been recommended to get her tubes and have gone ahead and scheduled the procedure for next Thursday.I'm sure that there is a ton more to tell you, but my brain is fried from a very full week. I promise to write again soon.
