What a day

Yesterday was really a very trying day. Firstly and most importantly S was unwell. She had a runny nose from day before and it got much worse yesterday. Poor S, she didn't sleep well day before night, was having difficulty breathing due to a blocked nose, and the flem problem got worse because she threw up yesterday's breakfast (three times now in 2 days that she's thrown up an entire meal). I got paranoid and insisted on giving her breakfast again myself. Secondly i as down with a bad cold so have been taking medicines continously. Then office work has really got strenous and am not sure how I am going to meet the deadlines since i'm on leave next week. Related to the week there's tons of packing to be done. And lastly, the last straw on my back- both my maids decided to quit on me- the cook and the girl who helps around the house and plays with S. They are both friends and have been ganging up on the baby maid and firing her behind my back, When I got to know about this I told them that this is unacceptable behaviour and if they have any problems with her and the way she is handling the child it needs to be escalated to me and not for them to step in. They did not like it- thought i would take their side and conspired and yesterday told me they are leaving. I was pretty upset last night-so many maids have quit, i wonder whether i am too strict or what is wrong. Furtehr the hubby is on one of his foreign jaunts and unable to help. Overall was in pretty bad shape yesterday, hope all tursn out ok

Waiting for the hols!

Now that I have started working full time (have been into office everyday, full day since Dec 15th) I can’t wait for the holidays, so that I get to spend some time with S. Otherwise the days are chok-a block , get up at 7:30 am with S, give her morning milk, then play with her till about 8:45 am, then get all S stuff ready , prepare her breakfast, give it to the maid to give S, get ready and leave for office by 9:30 am- get back at 6 pm on a good day and 7:30 pm on a bad day. Take S to park if I get back by 6, then her bath, her evening snooze (during which time I get her dinner in shape) then her night meal, a hurried dinner and pplaying with her till 10:30 p.m., then her night milk and finally sleep time at 11 pm (the only time S actually goes off to sleep without us having to vigorously rock her to sleep). Then sundry activities like boiling water, sterilizing, catching up on the days news/ surfing tv if in a bad mood etc and off to sleep at around 12 p.m. Some nights S gets up 2-3 times at night, not for a feed but general fussiness, then I have to get up, part her back to sleep, and if I am too lazy put her between me and the hubby and she will snuggle up to us and sleep. My favorite part of the day is between 6 am and 7:30 am when she has been brought to our bed and is snuggled upto us and fast asleep. Of course now with working full time I get no naps during the day so have to make do with the sleep I get at night- which is anywhere between 61/2 to 71/2 – not bad do I hear you say- I agree, but if it is disturbed 2-3 times and I don’t get back to sleep that easily, then I feel sleepy right through the day.
Anyway am on leave next week- sis-in-law is getting married plus I want to go home for some pampering. I;m really looking forward to spending time with S (though most of the time that involves running after her when she goes exploring the house-really she has an attention span of 2 mins for all her toys/books/cuddles from me etc etc); getting some sleep in the afternoon and some exercise (I have really got to lose the pregnancy flab, no excuse after 101/2 months). I need to start potty training S as well, get her hair into some shape- it stands up now!!, start talking much more to her- all things I have been putting off saying no time. I wonder how moms who donlt have support of baby maids/their mums (my mum has been here since I started working full time) manage-hats off to them.

S has become very naughty now- she has learnt how to throw things from our balcony into the downstairs balcony. She has also starting screaming if she doesn't get what she wants that particular instance. My baby is growing up!

A working mom

It is with mixed feelings that I write this post. Over the last few days I have relinquished feeding S to the two maids and have just been hanging around the house to supervise them. Otherwise I try not to step in while they are feeding her, playing with her, putting her to sleep or consoling her when she’s cranky .Its really tough, especially when she’s cranky and crying – S gets bored pretty fast, her threshold for any toy including her favourite one is 2 mins and after that S wants to do something new. And the maids have a tough time keeping her entertained. Especially in the afternoon when she’s awake for about 3 hours at a stretch, and after about 1 hour of playing they have run out of new ideas, are tired (being used to a nap while she’s sleeping) and S is in no mood to go to sleep. Today for instance S got up from her morning nap only at 1:45 in the afternoon and I knew she would not go back to sleep before 4-4:30. The maids were ok with feeding and playing with her till about 3. After that she was continuously cranky, finally around 3:30 I stepped in, played with her for first time and put her to sleep.

Anyway I am meandering I am writing this post to get clear in my own mind the merits or working or being an at home mom and how best to handle the work situation.

I had been working for 8 years before S was born. I was quite career focused and was pretty confident that I would return to work post maternity leave of 6 months and S would be well looked after by a good maid. Well I turned out to be completely wrong!! Firstly after S was born I became very possessive of her and was (and still am) convinced that no one could look after her as well as I could. That took care of getting a maid to look after her situation. Also compounded by the fact that I could not find a good maid whom I could trust to look after her in my absence. This got me to thinking on what I should do, whether I should get back to work or not, when etc etc and these are the thoughts I had

Pros of working
Have been working now for 8 years and frankly not sure how I would pass my time at home if not working, I don’t have any hobbies, or a friends circle to meet up with during the weekdays and once S and her siblings (hopefully in the plural) become big and go to school full day what would I do?
We have got used to the financial freedom and privileges of a dual income. While we would have a pretty decent lifestyle on hubby’s salary alone, we would have to think twice about our foreign holidays, dinners out, splurge shopping and holidays home –something we have been used to for some time now. Luckily our home loan is more or less paid off, so I am not bound to work, but we want to secure our children’s future and make sure they are very comfortably off which would be easier if I continue to work for some more time as well (especially since I am currently in a high paying job)
Thirdly, and this is not the most important factor in my mind, but I have studied very hard (getting into one of the best management institutes) and also at my job to get to where I am. If I take off for some time am not sure I would get back to my current level, and would that be a waste of my education?

However in my mind the negatives far outweigh the positives, being ….

Looking after the baby: My in laws and my parents don’t stay in the same city as me, and neither are there any close relatives here. The option on expiry of maternity leave would be to leave S (at 6 months) either at a crèche, or with a trusted maid at home. I tried to find out about crèches but they are not so popular here since most working women have in laws or parents in the same city. I could find only one crèche which accepts 6 months + babies and was not very happy with it. They have a small dingy room for < 1 year babies which mattresses on the floor and a 2:1 maid to child ratio (not too bad). However the room is very small and outside there are older kids running around so don’t think the smaller babies would be let out to that area. To keep S confined in one room for 8-10 hours is pretty unfair, especially when I have tried to take her to the park for a stroll everyday since she was 2 months old!! Anyway I booked the crèche as a last option and decided to try out the maid situation. From month 4 itself I was looking for good maids – but I was just not getting anyone good- we must have gone through some 6-7 maids- some of them pretended to be ill and left the same day, one had a husband having a heart attack (who btw had left her years ago we were made to understand earlier) while another had a close relative passing away (a different topic is why can’t maids just say they don’t want to work with us , we are not going to force anyone to stay back, instead of lying about other people’s well being) while we ourselves were not happy with a couple of them. So literally just as I was settling with one maid some problem would come up and we would have to start the search for someone new. In summary unable to find a good maid to leave S with, and also me not having the trust in them to look after S well

Upbringing of the child :Here I differentiate between looking after the baby physically to bringing up a child, where you play with the child, engage with them to make them understand the world around them and keep them mentally stimulated. This I think a maid just cannot do -I have now left S with the maids (though I am at home) for about a week and the hubby and I have noticed that S is unhappy with them. They are able to feed her (thank God or that would be a major concern)- in fact faster than me (don’t know why she plays up so much with me); put her to sleep and play with her for some time, but she gets bored with them very fast and they are not able to think of new things to engage her. I don’t mind whatever language they speak to her in, but they should talk intelligent and interesting things which unfortunately they don’t. So what typically happens is after about 10 mins of playing with them S will come running to me or the hubby (he also takes a day off every week to stay with S so I can go into work) and will refuse to go back to them. I don’t blame the maids- if they are not able to engage the child, they are not, as parents we will always be best able to play and educate our child. I only worry what would happen if S is left the whole day with them- will she become depressed, will she be cranky and clingy when I get home (I know a girl who stopped working since the child would be crying as soon as she got home and would cling to her, but another girl who continued to work saying the child was otherwise happy but only clingy when she got back), or will it be worse and affect her overall upbringing. I also heard that the first 2 years are the most important in the brain development of the child- do you want to leave them with a maid at that time? I agree with this, I have seen that S has started talking/babbling more when she is with my mother or mother in law who talk to her and tell her stories- the only thing she has picked up is Ka a short form for kawua (crow)

Spending time with S – The time I spend at work would be time not spent with S. Why would I want to miss out on her first steps, her first Mama, her squeals of delight while playing and exploring new things, time at the park, cuddly time before sleeping- again a tough choice…is my temperament suited to staying at home and spending all my time with her, or would I be a better mother if I went to work and spent quality time with S

Anyway all these issues and thoughts and what are the options really to strike a balance between the pros and the negatives?

Options
Work from home – to my mind this is the ideal one. I don’t have a business generating/client facing role and having largely a desk job can work quite effectively from home. I would definetly need help to look after the baby as I’m supposed to be working, but I would be able to a) sneak in some time to take S to the park/play with her for sometime during the day which would not be possible if I was working from office full time and more importantly b)I could oversee the maids who look after S so that I know she is beign well looked after. The main problem with this is that my office does not have a work from home policy so my boss had to get a deviation approved from me. Also I had asked for 6 months work from home, but boss finally agreed to 3 months with rollover (if all ok ) for another 3 months. Anyway I am not at a stage to argue so will take what I get. The other problem linked to the office not having a work from home policy is that the system is not geared to handle it- people keep having conference calls at short notices, I get requests to come into office urgently (I can’t do that since I didn’t have the setup for maids to independtly look after S till very recently), people want to have long discussions which are best done face to face, my whole team is in office and everytime they meet to discuss they have to dial me in (I think they can adjust this much, but obviously others don’t always share my view) and of course the jibes from others- oh how long is your extended holiday, when do you actually plan to get back to work- I am quite insensitive to these now, if I have to get what I want (getting to stay at home with S and still have a career) I can put up with some stupid people’s comments.

Send S to parents – the other option is to send S to my parents place till she is big enough to come back here and go to a crèche- maybe till she is 1 year 2 months or so. One of my colleagues actually did this- either her mom was staying with her or she sent her daughter to her mom’s place till she was 1 year old. I am not so keen on this because a) it is too much responsibility on my parents and w0uld restrict their lifestyle- they keep traveling and if they had to look after S full time they would not be able to travel and b) I want to be part of S growing up through all the stages- I feel strongly and maybe many others don’t share this view, but you should be responsible for and an integral part of your child growing up- how can you miss out on the first steps, the first words , the first tantrums (yes that has started today, let me record the date December 12th) –soon they will grow up and be independent and then you will wonder where the time went.

Work from parents city- the other option which occurs to me from time to time is to take a temporary transfer at work to my mum’s city. Earlier our team was spread out over the country, and I think my boss would be ok for this on a temporary basis, but the main reason I am not keen on this is that I don’t want the hubby to miss out on S growing up. I was anyway at my mum’s place for 3 months from the time S was 11/2 months to 41/2 months, but now S is much bigger and she does new things everyday which I don’t want the hubby to miss out on, also she enjoys playing with him. Of course when I am in a bad mood, after fighting with the hubby I threaten to move to my mom’s place temporarily (quite childish of me)

Convince in laws to move to our city- to my mind this would be an ideal option. A lot of my friends are quite surprised at this- how will you get along with your in-laws, you are so fussy about S won’t you fight with them about how to bring her up. My main argument is, ultimately I will have to get back to work full time, and then the option is for S to go to a crèche or to be looked after at home by maids. I don’t have control over what the maids do behind my back, and definetly no control over what happens at the crèche. And I am sure my mom-in-law would do a far better job of bringing up S than any crèche /maids. So I am willing to let go control and bite my tongue and request them to move to our city so that S is well looked after. Also my in laws would stay in a different flat so we would not cramp each others style.

Anyway I was not lucky enough to be able to convince the in-laws to move here. And my boss ultimately did not agree to rollover my work from home-can’t blame him, the credit crisis has made our job quite stressful and he needs to have daily updates from the team which becomes slightly difficult to accommodate me on the phone every time. However he didn’t say you have to come to work everyday, he said try to come in as much as possible (I know that means everyday). So I am currently going into office whenever I can, have requested mom-in law and mom to come for 1 month each in Jan and Feb till S is 1 year 1 month and plan to put her in daycare for ½ day and maid looking after her ½ day post that. Keep fingers crossed!!

These are a few of my favourite things

These are a few of my favourite things

Chewing on anything except my teether- remote, mobile, knob on shoe cupboard, sandal (!!)
Opening all drawers
Pulling at wires
Climbing into or on top of my toy box
running to the door when the bell rings
running to the balcony window and banging on it especially if someone is outside
shooing away the birds (mummy’s favourite too)
yummy rasam rice
walking dragging inky and dinky alongwith me (my two twin teddy bears)
running after beach balls in the park
any small speck on the floor
paper, fun to tear and yummy to eat
in the car with mummy and daddy, love to pull on the handle and jump up and down
water in my sippy, gimme more…
sleeping in ac
running after the blue pail with the dirty water used for wiping the floor- mummy has a tough time running after me or moving it away
running to the door everytime it rings
posing for the camera- am I not pretty!!!
looking at my own pictures, again and again…who wants to see someone else’s photos? –also showing everyone my photo on the fridge door
kaua (crow) and kaboo (khabutar-pigeon) my special favourites, everything is ka
eda- that’s my short name for myself

These are not such favourites

Baby foods forced by mummy
Sleeping- I cry before sleeping every time, there are so many more interesting things to do other than sleeping
Sitting in the pram- hey its so much more fun to crawl or walk
don’t like some interaction with other kids where they pull my hair (ouch), or my eye (double ouch)- mummy why don’t you get me my own beach ball
plain vegetables- why don’t you have them yourself instead of giving them to me?

My first tooth and first step

Diwali week was a hectic week. Not only did S meet both her Ajjas and Ajjis, travel 3 times by plane, light her first sparkler, meet three bow wows and a whole host of sundry cousins and aunties/uncles- she also cut her first tooth and took her first independent steps.

We felt S has been teething for the last 3 months- she was drooling a lot and kept biting stuff. Her gums felt hard and we could see some white beneath. But the actual poking out of the tooth was quite sudden. It was preceded by a whole evening of crying. We were flying from my mom's place to my in-laws place. The last time at the airport (4 days prior) S was a gem- she sat in her pram and played on the flight and went off to sleep after playing and woke up fresh when the flight landed. This time was a nightmare. S started crying half an hour before the flight, refused to drink milk, kept crying on the flight, slept for 10 mins, then again cried after landing, cried all the way o my in-laws place and again till 2 in the night. Luckily next morning she was ok, but I was not sure why she was crying- we had been giving her a lot of adult food in my mom's place since she was refusing to eat her normal food (she also had a cold so my thought was something solid is better than nothing) so maybe she had a stomach ache, also the milk i tried to feed her at the airport was very hot so maybe she burnt her tongue (but this would not lead to her crying at 2 in the night) or maybe her cold was getting worse. Mostly looks like it was teething pains because next day she was fine and pop came out the pearly tooth. Her sweet toothless smile will get filled now so we are busy taking lots of snaps of the toothless smile while it is there!

At her Ajji's (my mom) place S took her first independent step without holding anything. We have a large living room cum dining room with a low centre table in the middle of the living room so S had a lot of space to crawl and explore. She loved going round and round the centre table and occasionally would meander off to a nearby sofa. I missed her first step :-( but it was on one of these movements from the centre table to the sofa that she let go of the centre table and walked towards the sofa. In her other Ajji's (hubby's mom) place S took her first two independent steps. The date was October 31st and the time was 10:30 p.m. (there recorded !!) and I was there to enjoy it. The hubby placed S in the middle of the room and called her towards him. S took two steps and reached him. We all applauded and Ajji made special sweet to celebrate the next day.
Now S is very good at walking , literally running holding onto the sofa/walls. I hold one of her hands and take her walking around the room. She is still hesitant to take steps on her own and prefers to crawl. But since she gets upto so much mischief (already broken two showpieces) with crawling that I am quite ok to wait for her to master walking.

New friends

Yesterday for the Diwali party we had invited (rather my parents had invited) two couples with small babies. There was N who was 2 years and 1 month and M who was 20 months. S was in a bad mood (her cold is getting worse due to the bad weather) and first she didn't interact at all with N and M and was clinging to her Pappa (yes she has started calling the hubby Pappa while Mom is still Caa like all other creatures). Then after some time she settled down and sat down between N and M. Now M is an aggressive girl and immediately ran over to S and pulled her eye. S was quite stumped (obviously she has not been beaten up before) and started howling immediately. After some time she settled down and started playing with N. N is much less aggressive (btw we have an interesting situation wherein the girl is aggressive and beats up the boy and the boy is quite peaceful and more interested in hugging and kissing) and they spent some time playing with the bells on the sofa. Rather N was standing on top of the sofa and S was wacthing in open mouthed wonder while playing with the bells on the sofa.
Then M came and hugged S as a form of apology. S was quite stumped with the hug but continued to ignore M (think she was quite upset with the eye pulling incident). After some time we went upstairs for dinner and the 3 kids sat and watched TV for about 5 mins then ignored the TV and played with the toys my mom had bought.
S had burnt some sparklers with the hubby in the morning and was not disturbed by all the noise
All in all a nice first Diwali for S

Happy Diwali

Its S first Diwali and we have come to my parents place to celebrate it. Having a Diwali party at home and have invited two couples with babies to celebrate alongwith S. These babies are a year older than S but we wanted to have some kids around. S really likes interacting with other children the first day we got here my cousin's son was at home, and even though he is 8 years older to S she was watching him continously and even crawling around/cruising around after him. Of course she managed to hit him on the eye with her fish toy but nevertheless both of them enjoyed playing with each other.
We have taken a week off and going to both parents house for 4 days each. And a well deserved holiday it is. Last month has been really stressful- first S was unwell for about a week, loss of appetite, high fever; then I got tonsilitis and was completely out of sorts for a week (first time I slept in a different room from S since i couldn;t take AC/getting up at night to feed her) and then S fell ill again this time with cough and cold. That coupled with high tension at work (the US recession is taking a toll at work and everyone is carrying out reviews etc across the board which adds up to a lot work) which means lots of conference calls throughout the day and no rest (i miss my afternoon nap) So finally getting a break at home. Today we left S for the first time with myparents and went for a movie. Surprisingly I called up only once to check on her. Then my parents got S along to my aunt;s place where we joined for lunch. More kids there and more for S to play with. The hubby also introduced S to the dog (i caught him trying to make S ride the dog and lost my cool then!!) . I think S is getting slightly possessive now- when we got to my aunt's place she started crying when she saw us and then went only to the hubby and didn;t come to me for at least 10 mins!
The break from work is good, only S has got a bad cold and her appetite is poor, am getting stressed about her not eating well, but she is playing a lot and crawling/cruising all over the place so I guess not to worry too much and try try try again.

Back to the Park

Today S was back at the park after a long break- first S was unwell then I was unwell. Its the first time we've been to the toddlers park after S has started crawling. Initially we sat on the mat and S was hesitatant to crawl out on the grass and even after much prodding, coaxing from me S decided to stay put on the mat and play with her toy. Then the brightly coloured ball of a neighbouring kid caught her eye and S ventured out on her own (without even a backwards glance at her mummy) literally bounding towards the ball. It would have been about 10 metres away. She reached the other kid and without further ado proceeded to pick up the ball and put it in her mouth. I rushed and stopped her before she could actually put it into her mouth and gave an embarassed smile to the other mother. While that mom was cool with S playing with her kids toys (i am also cool with that) and also S putting it into her mouth -I am not ok with this as you cannot spoil other people's things and the earlier you learn this the better). I dragged S back to our place but the attraction of the colourful toys was too much (anyone would think we have no toys at home) and she again crawled back there. This time the other kid was ready to defend his toys- he also crawled towards S. S swatted him on the head and crawled over him to reach th toys!!! I was quite shocked by this and also quite amused (is that bad?). i remembered my fear when a friend said she saw a kid hitting another kid with a frying pan in the daycare I am thinking of putting S into when she is a year old, but looking at this either S would be the one bonking the pother kid with the pan, or if she got bonked she would give it right back!!!

The daily battle with the solids

I started solids with S as soon as she turned 4 months. Couple of reasons why I started so early. Mainly I stopped exclusive nursing when she was 25 days old and I felt S was not getting as nutritious a meal from formula as she would have got from nursing so I wanted to supplement with healthy solids as soon as possible. Secondly S had developed this habit of vomiting quite often (at least once in 3-4 days) immediately after a bottle feed and each time I fed her I was gripped with this panic attack- is she going to vomit this time. And let me tell you, it is pretty scary to see a baby vomit with such force that milk comes out of her nose. Anyway I am digressing-the point here being since she won’t take in as much air during a solid feed, chances of her vomiting were lower.
And initially it was good going. S loved the porridge (millet + milk) which I used to give her once a day, and her meal used to vanish in minutes. Then came 5 months and I decided to increase meals to twice a day. The paediatrician also suggested increasing the number of feeds and there were suggestions of fruits, vegetables, rice and lentils etc etc. I quite excitedly bought a book of meals for babies age 5 months and above and started trying out the recipes.
But S never took to the feeding twice a day concept and starting going off her initial lunch time meal of millet nad milk as well. It started of with her clamping her mouth shut someeher halfway between the meal. Then we would need to entertain her for the second half and only the noisiest of toys (mokey banging drum, elephant banging drum) would elicit an opening of the mouth and the food would be thrust in. I had read somehwetre and some of my friends firmly believe not to force a baby to eat, and not to entertain them while eating as they will not get to realsie how much is their appetite and how much they want to eat - however I have always been paranoid about S weight gain (since she did not put on much weight initially) and try as hard as possible to get the last bite down, even if it takes upto 1 hour.
Then it started getting progressively worse with S crying from the moment she was put on the bouncer/high chair. With immense patience and entertainment about 1/3 of the feed would go in and there would be a very frustrated and upset mom at the enf of the feed (who would start worrying about weight gain, future eating habits etc) and a creying baby (whose mood would magically change once pulled out of the high chair/bouncer

I started getting advice from various family members and even maids about how to feed the child, the most popular being that they used to make their kid lie down on their legs and stuff the food into the baby’s mouth. I am uncomfortable with this for two reasons- first I want S to get used to sitting on a chair and eating food ( Nevermind that I have now shifted back from the high chair to the bouncer since S hates the high chair, but it is sitting nevertheless) as this lays down the foundation for future eating habits at the table. Secondly, S has a habit of crying very loudly if food is thrust on her and when she cries a lot she ends up vomiting her whole meal. So the whole exercise becomes pointless. I still stick to the bouncer and rely on a good mood (from S) and entertainment from whoever is around to get the solid meal down.

Entertainment is essential for any meal. It varies from popular songs on Dad’s mobile, to a showcase of toys (when my mom Ajji is around) to vigorously banging two toys (from my maid) and saying “Bird is coming” in a very loud voice. Some recent innovations are opening and closing my laptop (S loves to come and bang on my laptop when I am working next to her), bringing all the masks down from the wall towards S (we have a nice collection of masks, and S favourite one is the Sun mask from Phillipines which we call ‘Surya Mama mask’), putting on and off the multicoloured light and also looking towards S favourite painting hanging on the wall. However the entertainment only helps about 1/3 of the feed going in and if S is not in a mood to eat (meaning S clamps her mouth shut or starts standing up and down vigorously on the bouncer) then no amount of entertainment can change her mind.

I have also tried all sorts of foods in the hope that I can find the particular food that S likes. They range from all sorts of cereal- millet, rice, oatmeal, broken wheat, the popular “Cerelac” (I desisted as much as I could since the hubby says this is mainly wheat and not particularly healthy); to rice and lentils, all types of vegetables, fruits etc etc. All I can figure out is that S hates rice and lentils and anything else is acceptable if S is in a mood to eat. S however does like Gerber fruits quite a bit. I try to make fresh fruit as much as possible but I think Gerber fruits are slightly tangy and S likes that taste. Recently we had gone for this ‘babies’ party (covered further in post “A week of firsts”) and I enviously looked on as another mom fed her child a whole jar of Gerber vegetables. Somehow S does not like her vegetables too much – I gave her peas, spinach and beans (Gerber) and she absolutely disliked it. Of course most people I know would not particularly like the taste of this combination of garden vegetables so I don’t blame her. Recently S has been unwell and was off her solids quite a bit for about 2-3 days, so now I am not experimenting much and basically giving milk/cereal based stuff. Managed to get some very dilute vegetable soup in today and some fruit but not really experimenting with the other exotic stuff mentioned in my baby book. My cousin who was recently in town mentioned that I should start giving her some of our normal food so that she gets used to it because basically by 1 year they should be eating most of our food. I am slightly apprehensive about this because 1) she is not liking the baby food we give her 2) she has stopped opening her mouth for anything new (not even cheese which I think she would like) and 3) our cook makes extremely spicy food. Once a friend had come over for dinner with her son and I asked the cook to make food with no spice and my friend found even that too spicy. Anyway am off to my mom’s place for Diwali in another 3 weeks so will try some home made “normal” food there.

Anyway will battle with the daily solids feeds- have recently upped to three in the hope that even if S has half of each she will get something nutritious.
I was recently commenting to my mom- when will S become big enough to feed herself, Just then I bumped into a neighbour in the lift who mentioned she still fed her children breakfast else they would not eat anything nutritious (and they must be at least 15 years old!!!!). Hope this is not a sign of things to come.

A week of firsts

Last 7 days has been a week of firsts for S. On Saturday we went for a babies party – S was the youngest at 71/2 months, then there was another baby at 9 months, then two elder babies at 14 and 18 months and the eldest at 4 years. And it was an all girls (babies) party so we started the party toasting our daughters.
The hubby was a bit apprehensive about S behaviour and on the way there was mentioning that if S starts to cry we can leave early. I was slightly more chilled out because I am ok with babies crying and making a fuss and don’t expect children to be well behaved all the time. Initially S was a bit overawed by the new place (it was at a friends place) and the no of people there and when I plonked S down next to her 9 month “friend” S started crying. I held on my lap for about 10 mins to get S acclimatized to the place and then she was ready to go. She started crawling all over the place. There was a cycle which S was very enamored with and she kept crawling towards it and trying to climb on top of it. It was pretty light so once it fell on her and then my main job was to try and dissuade her from reaching towards it. The hubby placed her on it and S enjoyed herself for about 10 mins sitting on top of it. There are some really cute pictures of her on it. Other than crawling there wasn’t much opportunity for her to do her favourite of holding onto the sofa and trying to climb up since the adults were all comfortably placed on the sofas
The interaction with other babies was really quite limited. S was more interested in the toys and the furniture. I must admit I had gone with the notion that S was going to play with the other babies so I was a bit surprised but possibly at this age babies are not that social enough to play with other. However she took well to all the peoples there and didn’t cry when they lifted her. Her interaction with the other babies was limited to patting the 9 month on the head like another of her toys and pushing the 18 month old to get to the floor gym which was highly attractive with the colourful toys and music. S also got some pushes and pats on the head but took it all pretty much in stride.
I was also surprised to see the non-fuss created by other babies to eat their solids, but S didn’t look thin by comparison and is quite advanced in terms of crawling well, climbing by holding furniture etc so my worries on her not putting on enough weight were relieved for the time being.
Around 9:30 pm S started getting restless so after her night milk I put her to sleep. I initially put her on the bed surrounded by pillows but was gripped by paranoia that she would wake up and crawl over the pillows and fall off the bed. S is quite capable of this- in the morning she jumped from her cot onto the bed – S was holding the railing of the cot and bouncing up and down on the mattress of the cot (which is quite bouncy) and then lept from the cot onto the bed which is adjoining the cot. Anyway I finally put S to sleep in the other baby’s crib. This still did not stop me from going to check on her every 15 mins since it was quite hot in that room and S is used to sleeping the lap of luxury (she needs AC to sleep comfortably at night, much to my dismay since I can’t sleep in AC without getting the sniffles)
The party was also marked by a first in behaviour which uptill S was born (or from when I was expecting) consisting of getting totally smashed and making an ass of myself. This time I was confined to the social drink and my conversation mostly consisted of asking the mom of the 9 month old (who also happens to be my junior from grad school) of what she fed her baby, how many times a day, how did she find the work from home experience, how much does her baby sleep etc etc. We also swapped bitchy comments about our baby maids and their lack of imagination in keeping the child entertained.

The other first for S was her first haircut. Her hair has become very unruly. It is extremely curly and cute but gets totally tangled and S ends up getting her fingers stuck in her hair and also feels very hot due to the tangled mess. So I was going to get my haircut so thought let me take this opportunity and get S hair more manageable. Initially debated whether I should take S to a baby specialist hairdressing salon but decided I was more comfortable going to my own hairdresser whom I have been going for the last 4-5 years. And I think the decision was right. She was extremely gentle with S and while S was quite wriggly we managed to finish her first haircut in 15 minutes. Of course would not have managed without the support of her Ajji (my mom) who was entertaining S with her favourite giraffe thus helping me to keep her head steady and not suddenly jerk ( I was quite worried about S getting cut with the scissors since I had seen a boy rushing to the paediatrician during one of my visits to the doctor).S was comfortably seated on my lap and expect for the last 2 snips was quite well behaved. The hairdresser also did a decent job and finished off the whole process quickly and didn’t chop off too much hair; just the extra hair at the back while most of cute curly hair on top was retained. I must admit S looks even cuter with the boy-cut now – the hubby insists on retaining this in future as well, while I have these visions of S with long hair nicely embellished with clips and bands.

Of plug points and other attractions

S has become very active in the last 2 weeks. She started sitting up on her own about 2 weeks back - and I find her way of sitting up very entertaining. She will lie on her back, then flip over to her stomach, then lift her behind up and scoot backwards and sit backwards- like a car parking in reverse is what the hubby calls it. Now that's she's mastered sitting her next step is to lunge forward towards any object she finds interesting. And inevitably it would not be the musical flower pots which the hubby bought very enthusiastically envisaging S sitting up and hitting the flower faces on the head to hear musical notes/songs, but the plug point next to the bed or the bed drawer which S tries to pull. The main attraction is the plug point which is luckily disabled and S has already learned how to put on the switch. I try to cover it with a pillow but S has learnt to throw the pillow away or else bury her face in the pillow which sends me off on any tangent of worry.

After the plug point comes the bed drawer, S has learnt to lean on her knees and reach towards the drawer and pull it forward. This is itself is ok since the drawer doesn;t have any dangerous objects but in her enthusiasm to pull the drawer S sometimes loses her balance and hits her head against the side of the bed.

Then comes the objects lying on the inside of the bed (the bed has a shelf)- everything is picked up and put into the mouth including the video camera and camera. We have started to keep small items like nail cutters on top of the bed.

We've put the bed against the wall so she can't fall from one side of the bed but when she lunges from one side to the other she sometimes hits her head on the wall or on the side of the bed. We put a small carpet also on the other side of the bed (learning from our mistake last week when S fell headfirst from the sofa in the hall, luckily there was a rug spread so she didn't hit her head on the floor, but it was enough to give us some heartstopping moments). S has also started crawling on the bed since yesterday (September 15) and she scoots from one side to the other. Her cot is put against the bed so she'll scoot to that side, hold the side of the cot and then stand up. She is not as comfortable crawling on the floow (i think she is a creature of comfort and doesn;t like the feel of the hard floor on her knees). Love to see her sitting on the floor and moving cautiously towards any object put on the floor, always making sure that her kness are not exposed much to the floor- but put a rug on the floor and she'll again be scooting on the same.

About 3 weeks back S also started holding onto me/the hubby/the sofa and standing up. A coupel of time she started walking holding onto the sofa when we put her favorutie toy (the newspaper) on one side of the sofa but now she's stopped walking and started lunging towards the toy . The paediatrician said she's too young to be standing up, but I think if she's pulling herself up to standing by herself and is comfortable standing up (when she gets tired she just flops down) she should be alright. We don;t encourage her to stand by pulling her up or anything.

S's favourite play area is her cot. Her mattress is quite bouncy and she loves to bounce from one side of the cot to the other. The railings on one side have three balls on them and S tries to reach up and play with them. This railing side is quite high and every time she tries to reach for them she ends up falling back on the bed- but since the mattress is so bouncy she just finds hte whole thing very funny. S has also learnt to pull herself upto standing using the shorter rails on the other side nad somteimte she'll hold onto the shorter railings and reach for the higher one.

We also have these long cushions which was initially supposed to protect her from the sides of the cot and provide a cosy comforting closed feeling for her to sleep in. Now she just picks them up and plays with them. One of her other favourite acitivities (other than bouncing is playing box box with the cushions with the hubby). She also squeals with delight when boxing or bouncing.

will keep updated with other posts on mumm'y delight's activities

Sleeping like a baby

Wonder where this phrase comes from considering I've spent the last 7 months (ok not the first 3 months at least) trying to get S to sleep through the night.

I had heard a lot about getting up at night for feeds and given that my last 2 months of pregnancy consisted of many nightly trips to the loo i thought i was well prepared. Well S has not given any of the troubles of the "night" babies you hear about who sleep during the day and play during the night. My nephew was one such baby and my sis-in-law had a tough time managing him. S was already regulated into the morning night cycle. The first 10 days went off relatively smoothly. She would sleep around 11 then get up around 4 am for a feed and then again around 7 so not bad i thought. Then the doc visit happened where i found S was not putting on weight and more importantly was wetting herself only 4-5 times a day (for non-parents, a baby must wet herself at least 6 times a day to maintain weight and more than that to put on weight, any frequency less than this means she is not getting enough nutrition). I am one of those mothers who maintain charts on baby feeding times and promptly showed it to the doc who immediately said the time between night time feedings was too long and at least for the first 1-2 months babies should be fed every 2-3 hours max. So i promptly used to set the alarm clock for 21/2 hours after the previous feed and get up at least twice every night - around 1 am and then again around 4 am. Some of my friends' doctors had given contrary advice to let the baby sleep and feed when the baby gets up but given S not putting on weight i decided to follow my doc's advice.

The first 3-4 months passed with this schedule. I was at my mum's place from the 2nd to the 5th month so while i had these gruelling night schedules I would give S to my mom at 5:30 in the mornign and get some good sleep till 8:30 in the morning.

somewhere in between the 1 am feed stopped and it was 11:00- then 4-then 7 which is reasonably ok, but i was having problems getting back to sleep after the 4 am feed so usualli would be awake till about 5;30 and again have to get up at 7 am. Then S started sleeping at 9 pm every night around the 4th mopnth and i would have to wake her up for the 11 pm. feed, i used to do this, otherwise her stomach alarm clock would have her waking up at 2 am (and i did not want to wake up at this time!!!). Half the time she was too sleepy to finish the feed and i used to wonder whether it was really worth waking her up for it.

Anyway from the 6th month the evening solids started, and I also moved back to my own place. S started sleeping for 6-7 hours at a stretch- unfortunately this was from 8:30 om to 3:30 am so another round of changing of feed timings and now finally it is reasonable from 10:30 pm to 6:30 am. unfortunately S still wakes up 2-3 times at least every night and I have to rock her back to sleep/ give her some water. The hubby plays no part in this as he sleeps through the night (wondering whether the phrase should be renamed as "sleeping like a hubby") and doesn;t even know when S is crying. Couple of time i poked him in the night and asked to rock her to sleep and the answer was let S sleep in another room and then you'll get some sleep as well ( I think some parents are ok with letting their children cry it out and learn to fall asleep, and i used to think i would do this as well, but I just cannot bear to hear S crying so i pick her up and rock her back to sleep still some 3-4 times in the night). It's tough since i've started working as well so am waiting for the time S starts to sleep through the night. Wondering whether the frequent getting up is due to teething pain as S is drooling a lot as well, and loves to chomp on anything (except her solids) including her book which I am patiently trying to read to her and including her potty box (named so since it stores the cotton we use to wipe her potty)

Keeping fingers crossed!!

A delighted mom

I started this post in the 3rd month of my pregnancy. Somewhere in between my website disappeared and i had neither the technical skills or the time to find it. Today is my daughter's seventh month birthday and i felt it important to take the time to create a post for me to log all the delightful things my darling is upto both for me to read back to and for her to see when she grows up.
A couple of caveats - my writing skills are terrible, this is intended just to be a post for me to express my feelings and thoughts and it is highly likely that there won't be a smooth flow nor grammatical correctness
secondly this is mostly going to be about my family, so please don;t read on if you are expecting any thoughts about life and universe in general.

So how have the last seven months been. In summary a mixed bag
Firstly i was completely unprepared for what having a baby entails. I had read 3 books on pregnancy and none on what to do after the baby is born. In my defense i can argue that i was working till the day before S was born (she was 12 days early) and i had taken the rest of the time as leave from office in order to prepare for the baby. Fact of the matter is, my mom was around, my husband was going to take 2 weeks leave and given that my pregnancy was a risky one (with lots of bed rest) I thought my job would be largely done once i had given birth to the baby, and everything would be easily taken care off.
And in fact once S was born the first week flew past like anything and the missed sleep, troubles with feeding, recovery pain etc did not register in the awe and delight in having your child in your arms. Once i came back home the whole responsibily of it dawned on me. While i did not get post partum blues I moved very fast from being a delighted mom to being a paranoid mom. I hope, now with S at 7 months I can become less paranoid and spend more time being delighted. Have to rush now, but some things i am going to post on are:
1. trouble with feeding
2. missed sleep?
3. what to expect from father?
4. Getting back to work
5. the hired help
6. daily battle with solids
7. daily visits to the park