Dad here.
Today we had Zoe's teacher conference at her daycare. She is cared for by many different people during the day but the conferences are with her main teacher. Her main teacher is Ewa who is a Polish immigrant and a very nice woman who has a one year old daughter in the same room with Zoe.
The conference was just about what sort of development she sees and how that compares with what she typically sees from children that age. None of what she told us was a big surprise. Zoe is doing very well in terms of social development and lags a little bit on physical development. On the latter point I think she lags a bit because she's so tall and also because we don't have a lot of room for her to roll around.
We did find out today that she can stand on her own with support. They have a bar on the wall at daycare with a mirror in front of it and she held herself up on that just fine. So we tried again at home and she could prop herself up on the coffee table for a few minutes at a time. It's amazing to see her go from not standing at all to standing for long periods of time like that.
Zoe is also taking advantage of her new teeth. We give her Arrowroot cookies on bath nights (because they are very messy). Usually she just gnaws on them but the last few nights she's started biting small chunks off with her upper and lower teeth Gena and I were strangely proud over such a little achievement!
Zoe's pink eye went away pretty quickly after we started the eye drops. Her ear infections still seem to be bothering her a little bit though. The nurse said it was OK to wait that out until her nine month well check which comes up this week. If her ear infections don't look better at that point we might have to try a different antibiotic. Even with her ear infections she's still a very sweet and happy baby.
Dad here.
On Sunday we noticed that Zoe's eyes were pretty crusty. We called a nurse and she told us that it could just be a symptom of a cold and that we should just monitor her. She was well enough to go to Home Depot and Target with me and seemed to be in a good mood all day.
Monday when she got up her eyes looked fine so I took her to daycare and told them about what the nurse said. By the middle of the day she had crusty eyes again so Gena took her to the pediatrician. They said she had two ear infections and pink eye.
She got a prescription for eye drops and antibiotics. Daycare requires that she stay home for 24 hours after getting on the pink eye medication so Gena spent the afternoon at home with her.
Today I stayed home with her. She was great in the morning, I even managed to work from home for a few hours. Around lunch we went to the grocery store just so she could get out of the house for a while. We sent mom a camera phone picture to let her know that Zoe was doing well.
This is a picture I took of her before bed time today, you can see that she's feeling OK despite two ear infections, pink eye and a cold.
Mom here. Zoe has been gnawing on things a lot and we noticed this morning that she is getting another tooth - a top one. She had been pretty cranky earlier this week, so we're hoping she's feeling a bit better now as the tooth makes its way through.
Zoe has been a great eater from the start, but recently she learned a new trick: she can feed herself! Its still pretty uncontrolled, but she now manages to cram puffs (they're like little pieces of cereal for babies - they dissolve in their mouths) into her mouth. We've been working on it every day and yesterday she finally caught on and many puffs found their way from her hand to her mouth. It's amazing how quickly they learn things - and how all of a sudden one day they have a skill mastered...or at least close.
As you can see in the picture, she is getting ready to crawl any day now. She still seems to prefer sausage rolling around, but I think she will figure out the crawling thing soon enough...and then we'll really be busy!
Her daddy likes to fix her hair in a mohawk. I think he is jealous of how great she looks in it.
