Well, we had a bit of drama today. I popped over to my parents house before going to the doctor today to see how my mom was doing. (She also had a doctor's appointment yesterday and today.) I hadn't been there more than a couple of minutes when my dad took a look at Z and started freaking out, saying she had measles. My parents are CP24 junkies and the recent measles outbreak was very much on their mind.
After he more or less kicked me out of the house we went to the doctor's office 3 hours early for the appointment. They weren't thrilled to see me, but I didn't know what else to do. I had already called one of my sisters and she talked me down from the panic that my father had instilled in me.
When the doctor finally saw me she did a couple checks and finally announced that she was pretty sure it wasn't measles but only roseola and sent us off home.
If she gets worse, I'm to return to the doctor immediately but the doctor doesn't think we have anything to worry about. It doesn't stop me from worrying just a little bit though.

Oh, and thank goodness the ear infection never came to pass.

The doctor says she's on the cusp of an ear infection. It could go either way, so we have another appointment for this afternoon to see if we need antibiotics or not.
Her fever seemed to break last night, but she still woke up every two to three hours SCREAMING.

I'm not sure, but I think the 9 month sleep regression has arrived. The last 3 nights she hasn't slept more than 2 or 3 hours in one stretch. And of course she has to be nursed back to sleep every time so I'm a bit punchy these days.
To complicate matters, she also has had a fever for the last day or so making her extra clingy and cranky. I'm actually getting a bit worried about the fever (and stuffy nose). The baby tempra drops work for a bit, but she seems so hot! There may be a doctor's visit in our immediate future.
In better news, it seems she really has that crawling thing down finally. Of course she just crawls so she can get to something to pull herself up to a standing position. She loves standing and will do it whenever she can. She's getting really good at it too. She gets faster at it every day.
In other things she does now that she didn't do 2 weeks ago - waving and high fives. Neither is really consistent yet, and she gets a look of 'you people are a bit crazy' when she does the high five, but she knows what to do when people hold up their hand or wave to her. She was even playing patty-cake with her dad yesterday! She was also grabbing his hands and making him clap.

Ok, we've got an 11:30 appointment with the doctor, so off we go. More later!

Yesterday afternoon Joe and I went to the movies. Without Z. This was by far the longest we had ever left her wth a babysitter. It was a really strange feeling to not have her with us, but it was good.
My sister says Z handled it as well as could be expected. She napped, she cried, but by the time I called to say we were on our way home, I could hear her playing with her toys in the background.
(btw, Iron Man is really good!)

What is it with people this week? Twice this week, I've had total random strangers come up to Zoë and start touching her up! She was in the carrier both times so they also had to invade my personal space to get to her. Once was on the subway with a seemingly normal young woman (whose boyfriend was very polite and did not touch my baby even though he was urged to by his girlfriend). The other time was in a MacDonalds with a borderline crazy person. (I know, what did I expect, going into the MacD's?) Both times I had to resist the incredibly strong urge to shield Z with my body and scream 'STOP TOUCHING MY BABY!' This was WAY worse than the people touching my stomach when I was pregnant. Those people were usually content with a quick rub and then they were gone. These people just want to hang around and talk to me for however long I'm trapped with them, all the while touching my baby!

Ok, sorry about that. Just had to get it off my chest.

As for the little one, her newest thing is clapping. A couple of Saturdays ago I took her for a sleepover at her aunt's house, and as Joe says, I took her away and she couldn't clap and brought her back and that was all she wanted to do! She does it fairly randomly - or at least Joe and I can't seem to figure out what makes her want to clap, but she will do it when we do in a sort of call and response thing. Unfortunately when other people start clapping and cheering around her, she gets really upset. It happened at a recent baby shower and again at a book launch, we had to remove her from the scene because she wouldn't stop crying when people cheered.
Something else that she does that took me a while to figure out. She shakes her head, also seemingly randomly. It was weird for me because I don't shake my head 'no' very often, so I didn't know where she could have picked it up from. In fact, she doesn't do it to indicate 'no'. I finally realized that the only time I shake my head even vaguely like that is when we dance!

On the crawling front, I think she's had a bit of a breakthrough in the last couple of days. She's started to really put the hand and leg movements together so she's actually getting real forward movement. She still hates being on her stomach though. She'd much rather be standing. If Joe or I are lying beside her, she will use us to pull herself up to a standing position. And Joe loves to hold her steady while she walks around the living room.
She's also doing really well with the swimming. She rarely complains when I dunk her head under. The other day, we got there a bit early so she was dressed and ready to go before the previous class was over. She started to fuss and I was worried that she was going to be a problem in the pool, but it turned out she was just impatient. As soon as we got into the pool, she was happy as a clam!

And one thing on the food front. I tried her on yogurt but I noticed she was spitting up a lot more for a couple hours after. Does anyone know if this just means she's not ready for milk products or if it's normal for yogurt or if it's something I should talk to the doctor about? It's the first adverse reaction to a food she's had (that I've noticed) so I'm not sure how concerned I should be.

Ok, some pics. Weeks 33 and 34 and her first trip down to Harbourfront