Saturday, June 23, 2012

First Major Fall

While William has fallen off the bed twice it wasn't a big deal, my bed is low and the floor is carpeted (though knowing a certain story about a baby falling back onto carpeted floor from standing, I still didn't act like it was absolutely nothing). But today he fell on the ground, from my arms.

I was at the lake with a friend and we were getting out of the car and grabbing our things. I got William from his car seat and was shifting him in my arms so I could grab his toy bucket. Well I don't know what happened but I felt his balance shift while I was trying to get him situated and out of my hold he went. Flipped over and fell the roughly three feet to the compacted gravel. He landed on his back, hitting it all at once. I nearly screamed and we both cried a lot. I was shaking so horribly.

I didn't want to rush him to the ER right away, I knew I could watch for signs so I just sat on the sand with him in my lap and texted my sister who is a pediatric nurse. I just had to watch for extreme tiredness, vomiting, unresponsive pupils, and just him not being himself. He was a bit weird at the lake but I think it was just because he'd never been before. He'd never been on sand, he refused to put his feet down when I lifted him up.

After the lake, my friend dropped me off at my mom's and we kept an eye on him there. He was completely normal. Crawling, getting into everything, laughing, squealing. So I'm thinking he's okay. He just has a few red spots on his head and a scratch or two there that I put some bacitracin on.

I'm still so shaken from it all, though. I just wanted to curl up and die when he fell. I really hope it never happens again.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Teething, Waving, and Standing

While I have a moment and am thinking about it:

William got his first two teeth back in February after he turned three months. They came in within two weeks without much fuss. He just had a harder time sleeping with the tiny bit of pain so I gave him tylenol for his nap and then for bed.

His third tooth came in last month without me really knowing it. I do recall the daycare mentioning to me he's probably teething. I thought he just had allergies because he just had snot everywhere! But two weeks after the runny nose I was letting him chew on my finger like he always does and I happened to feel the third tooth It'd already broken through. So that wasn't much of a bother.

But now! his teething is really getting to him. It's not so bad now because the big one came through on Monday, but he's still a lot more fussy than normal. When he started having the runny nose again I was thinking there may be a tooth on the way. Then I had him laughing and the angle I was holding him allowed me to see his gums and to my horror I saw three spots where teeth were pushing against the gum on top. Add that to the other spot on the bottom where a tooth is biding its time from when the third one came in.

It's no wonder he's been so fussy and clingy lately. I can barely set him down at all. But two of the five have broken through and the next one appears to be the tooth to the left of the top front left tooth (that one is coming down as well but the top front right one is what broke through Monday).

I'll be glad when this is done and I have my content baby back. Well, as content as he normally is. He's a cuddle bug.

***

The past few days William has been staring at his hand again as it moves. I guess he's going to be right-handed We thought he could be left-handed but he's grown out of doing everything with his left, but we'll see. Well two days he started doing what looked like waving. I mean, it was a pretty good wave, if that's what it was, I wasn't sure. I don't know what the average age for waving is with kids. But then yesterday he did it some more and we figured it definitely was his wave. He doesn't do the open and close hand wave, he does the shake from side to side and it's very deliberate.

It's so cute and I was pretty much feeling like it wasn't fair that I and my family are the only ones who get to see it because while William doesn't have that fear of strangers, he does take a minute or two to warm up because he has to take them in first, especially men since he really only sees two men. Of course right after I mention this to my sister before taking William into the grocery store, I'm busy looking at oatmeal on the breakfast cereal aisle when this guy, maybe in his late twenties with what looked like his little brother, comes walking down the aisle. William sees him and waves at him, holding that arm out as the man passes by. This got a smile from the guy and he waved back. Then William proceeded to wave at almost anyone we passed.

And today, when I got to the daycare, he was playing with -ok this is kind of confusing but bear with me- my mom's friend's step-son's son who was sitting in this thing on the floor and William fell backwards (from his knees). He's just lying there on his back and he sees me and smiles and then waves at me.

I'm hoping this is the beginning of him being able to do sign language because I would love for him to quit whining at me during feeding and also be able to ask me for food or milk. I need to find some other signs, too. All the ones I remember from elementary school are for junk food but that's just what we were taught, haha!

***

William can crawl on his hands and knees but he still topples forward from time to time and when that happens he moves to the army crawl. He's begun following me to the bathroom or into the kitchen, laughing the whole way. But before he really started going fast, he began wanting to stand up. I've been dealing with him trying to pull himself up using the couch cushions while I'm trying to pump. The couch I have is awful for allowing a baby to pull themselves up so he get pretty aggravated. But he can use his walker to pull himself up or do it while in the pack n play at nana's.

So I looked and looked and finally someone was selling an activity table! Only $10! I just got it last night and he LOVES it! Though he hasn't realized he can use it to stand up himself. The most he does there is get to his knees and play or be really lazy and just sit and reach up.

I'm wondering when he's going to walk. I was nine months and so far he's keeping up with all my milestones as a baby.