One of the fun new things that my daughter started doing at 10 months old was swaying side-to-side whenever she heard music playing- either someone singing it to her or hearing it on the radio/tv. Sadly, she even did this to the theme music of the Wendy Williams Show. Haha. Since I love music so much, it’s great to see her react to it. I was playing Bulls on Parade by Rage Against The Machine in the the living room one day, and she actually surprised me when she started rocking back & forth to it. She’s also done this to Toxicity from System of a Down.

My daughter now knows the word “kiss” and whenever I say, “give kisses” she’ll give a kiss, which basically looks like she’s trying to eat your cheek. It’s adorable. She also can point and wave, and when she points at you she does this really serious look like you’re in trouble and she’s pointing at you to scold you.  I’m very happy to say that she’s finally starting to crawl, well kind of. She started “army crawling,” by crawling with her stomach on the ground. Hey, it gets her from point A to point B at least. I’m still blaming it on her huge size, being in the 95th percentile for height and weight. The girl has a belly dragging her down!

She had her first case of being sick–during the week of Christmas. (Or course, you know, when everyone is closed for the holidays.) She was running a fever, so I kept an eye on her, but she was eating and acting totally fine. But then in the early evening  her fever went up to 102.2 and she got really quiet (which is unlike her), so I gave her some Infant’s Tylenol and kept checking her temperature to make sure it went down, which it did. I was so scared though because I had no clue what “too high” is for a baby, plus her normal temperature is lower than the average, so 102.2 was probably more like a 102.9. She cried a lot and was really tired so we put her to bed early. The next day (Christmas Day), she had a low fever of 100.5, but I gave her some Tylenol again because we were going to my mom’s house, and I didn’t want the baby to feel too awful. Well, 3 hours later she was perfectly fine and her fever went away and she became perky and really playful. I was glad her mystery fever only lasted 2-3 days. The next day I noticed she had a rash all over her neck, back, and chest. It looked like small red circles everywhere and when you pressed her red skin it became white for a second. She was acting normal and the rash didn’t seem to itch or bother her, so I checked the internet to do a little searching first, instead of calling the doctor. After researching, I’m pretty sure she had Roseola, which is also known as Sixth Disease. Apparently you are just supposed to wait it out, so I’m happy she didn’t have to get any prescriptions. The rash lasted 3 days, and then it disappeared. I think once you get it you aren’t supposed to get it again, so that’s one illness out of the way!

At 6 months old, my daughter was starting to sleep pretty well at night, for about 5 hours straight (this was good to me). She was going strong with that pattern for about 2 weeks and then she went back to waking up 2 or 3 times at night. I didn’t know why this was happening, but I figured it was just her crazy ways.  Well, one night I distinctly remember her waking up EVERY 20 minutes all through the night. I’d go into her room, give her a pacifier, pat her belly, and she’d calm down and go to sleep. Twenty minutes later she’d be up and screaming again. I thought that maybe her teeth were finally ready to cut through, even though she’s been working on that since she was 3 months old (LOTS of drool; gumming everything). The next day I went out to buy some sort of pain reliever for her, and I had no idea which one to choose. Since I prefer natural things most of the time, I first tried the Humphrey’s Teething Tablets. I was a little confused on how to apply it because it says to dissolve the tablets in water and then apply it to the baby’s gums, but when I mixed it up it wasn’t thick enough to form any sort of paste (and I followed the directions) so it was more like trying to rub water on her gums, and it kept trickling down my hand. My daughter liked the taste, but it didn’t seem to help at all with her pain or crying.

I was really nervous about trying Orajel because I read somewhere about how the numbing sensation can close up a baby’s throat and make them stop breathing. I caved in and bought some Infant Tylenol, and the doctor assured me that I can use it. Well, the next night when she started screaming I gave her some and she instantly fell asleep. It was heaven! Normally I am not a medicine person. In fact I hate taking medicine and almost always refuse it. I barely took any pain meds in the hospital after my C-section and the nurses kept yelling at me to take it, but I didn’t want to because I really wasn’t in any pain, and even if I was, I prefer to work through the pain. BUT, in this case with my daughter, I was saying hallelujah to Tylenol and used it almost every night for a week.

After giving Tylenol to my daughter for a week straight, I felt uneasy about using it so often and took the risk and bought Orajel. To test it I gave her the tiniest little drop ever (to make sure her throat didn’t close up), and she was fine. Well, by week 2 of her crazy screaming teething nights, we were all fed up so she was getting Tylenol AND Orajel. It gave her the peace we all needed, so I was happy about that. Finally, a bottom center tooth popped through and one week later the other bottom center tooth came through. YAY!

Once that “first tooth” fiasco was done with, I really enjoyed my daughter at 6 months old. It was my favorite age so far because she was always laughing and a lot of fun to be around. This is the age when I finally was able to sit back and enjoy motherhood. I even talked with my husband about maybe having a second kid (gasp!). I totally understand now how easily you can forget about how hard it was that first month of having a baby, and how it’s a good thing you forget because some people wouldn’t ever have a second child if they remembered!