A month of firsts

January has been a busy month for Hazel. We began the New Year a bit under the weather- Hazel caught her first cold and was sniffly for a little over a week. This didn’t slow her down much, though. By January 10th she was crawling for the first time. She had been trying to move herself forward for some time, but finally figured out how to truly crawl on the 10th. Since then Jered and I have been kept on our toes. Hazel crawls all around the house, chasing the dog and cats, excitedly propelling herself across the room. When she sees something of interest, her face lights up, she lets out a laugh and goes for it. Watching her now is so satisfying because she is so much happier (read: less frustrated). We can tell how thrilled she is to be able to move around in this fascinating world of ours.

Ever since the crawling has started (hard to believe it’s been only 2 weeks now!) our days have been structured a bit differently. Hazel now needs clear boundaries- and by boundaries I mean physical barriers. We have an elaborate gate system set up in our living room so that she can roam around safely without us having to crawl behind her every second of the day. We wake up with her around 6 or 7 every morning, go downstairs after breakfast and let her crawl around. She has a box where we keep all of her toys and she loves to pull them out and bang them together. If she sees one of the cats or the dog, she’ll crawl over to greet them (much to their dismay). Her attention span is still very short, and she is easily distracted, something we are using to our advantage. When she has a toy or some object she is excited about she can get very very upset when it’s taken away from her: this is where distraction works wonders. I’m hoping this tactic will work for a while, but as with most things, we’ll probably need a new strategy before the month is up- things seem to change so quickly now!

Last weekend Hazel’s Grampy was visiting and while he was here she practiced standing up. Fast forward two days to January 20th and I find Hazel standing in her crib after her nap. I swear this is all going too fast! We’re actually pretty surprised Hazel has decided to try standing since she has a pretty bad ear infection (also a first) and that can mess with balance- she doesn’t seem phased, though. We were shocked to learn that she had a bad ear infection at her nurse’s visit last week- she seemed fine and we were just there to get a shot that wasn’t available to us at her 6 month appointment but walked out with a prescription for amoxicillin. The worst part of the medicine so far has been Hazel’s reaction to the taste. She gets 5 ml twice a day and it’s a liquid, pink bubblegum flavored medicine that she is not too fond of. Fortunately, we’ll be done with it on Monday morning. Hopefully her ear will be clear by then.

It’s been a busy month and we’ve had so much fun. Jered and I can hardly believe how much she grows and changes in the span of just a few weeks (sometimes days!). I haven’t been as good about posting lately, but I am going to make an effort to get back to blogging more regularly. Check back later this weekend for a picture update.

Filed under Hazel by esther | Comment (0)