The 7th Month

My dearest Meips,

Quietly, in the shadow of your brother turning 3, you turned 7 months old. Ok, that probably isn’t entirely accurate. There wasn’t anything quiet about you this month. Except maybe those moments when you’re sneakily trying to put something into your mouth. Then again you manage to yell quite a bit even with food in your mouth.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.

This past month has been a very busy month for you. Over the course of the month, you’ve become this MOBILE bundle of energy. I call it the transformer stage. On all fours, to crawling, to sitting, to standing, and then back again — you do it all. You were able to inch forward last month, but this month, you are definitely crawling. Sometimes on all fours, but you find it quicker to flop on your belly and drag-kick yourself wherever you want to go. When you get excited, you literally slap the floor in your excitement to propel yourself forward. It always makes me laugh to see you do that.

Midway through the month, you learnt to pull yourself into a standing position. And after that, there was no stopping you from pulling yourself up when you choose.

I think the skill you’re most pleased about though is having figured out how to put yourself into a sitting position. It has opened up the world for you. It’s so much easier to munch on stuff when you’re able to sit properly right?

And munch on stuff, you do. EVERYTHING goes in the mouth at this stage. I like to joke that you’ve started to show more of an interest in books — not for reading sadly, but for munching, like a tasty treat. Sadly as soon as we pull the book away and open it up to read, you’ll grumble and wriggle away. I’m positive that you know you’re not supposed to be putting them into your mouth because you always get get this guilty look on your face as you slowly bring the book (or any item for that matter) to your mouth while looking at me the whole time. You’re not quite the bookworm, unlike your Gor-Gor. We’re still cracking our heads over ways to interest you in the stories, not the books!

At least you are also eating your real food well. This month we plunged head-on into weaning, and can I say, it’s soooo satisfying having a child willingly eat her food without me having to resort to distraction! My heart sank a bit when, at the start, you spat out the banana and carrot which I tried to feed you. But I later realised that it wasn’t so much the food you were rejecting, but the “bits”. You, my princess, like your food pureed smooth. We whizzed up/strained all your food and voila! No problems at all. So far your favourites appear to be Pear, Sweet Potato and Avocado, and you’ve happily chowed down Broccoli, Peas, Carrots, Spinach, Potato, Apple, Rock Melon, and Prune. Now you get a fruit puree with baby rice in the morning, and a root veg-green veg blend for tea. I’m still trying to figure out how to move you to 3 solid meals a day. You would have thought this would be easier the 2nd time round huh, but I just can’t remember, plus there’s also your Gor-Gor’s schedule to think about.

At least I know that you’re getting the much needed nutrition from your milk. After all the issues we had with you Gor-Gor over his milk intake or lack thereof, you don’t know how happy I am to see you drink your milk with minimal fuss, and better yet, from the bottle. But the biggest irony about this, my bottle loving baby, is that you seem to have some degree of dairy intolerance. Which means that all my grand plans of transitioning you to formula have been flushed down the toilet.

I had noticed that you occasionally had little specks of blood in your poop when you 4-5 months old. Your Paed, Aunty CY, suggested that you could be reacting to the diary in MY diet, since you were fully breastfed. I cut out the diary in my diet and the issue resolved itself. The bad part was that it suggested that you probably could not take cow’s protein, and your best option, aside from breastmilk, was soy formula. I’ve tried you on HA formula for one feed every couple of days or so, and you are tolerating it, though you do develop some rashes around your neckline. I’ve been given the green light by you Paed to continue with this to see if you outgrow the sensitivity, but in the meantime, it’s Domperidone for me, as I try to meet your demand.

By the way, the one thing you don’t like to eat is medicine. We’ve had to dose you as you developed first mild bronchitis early in the month, then recently succumbed to the family sore throat that had me sick for more than a week. You hate the syringe and would clamp up as soon as you see it. You even learnt to cry with your mouth closed because of the couple of times I managed to sneak medicine down your throat when you opened your mouth. And you have an amazing ability to spit out everything I put in. It is terribly annoying. I’ve resorted to putting it in your milk just to get you to take it but it would really help if you would just swallow it neat. It’s sweet! I don’t see why you find it so terrible. Medicine is good for you sweetie, especially since it helps you to sleep better.

Speaking of sleep, man, it’s really gone down the tubes recently. Maybe it was the sickness, maybe it was all the new skills you have been mastering causing sleep regression. Whatever the case, you have been waking up A LOT. Where has my sleepy baby gone?? It’s become difficult to get you to sleep for long stretches, whether in the day or at night, and I’m super exhausted from the waking and repeatedly having to trudge to our room to carry/pat/change you diaper/feed you back to sleep.

(Even now I’m falling asleep in front of the laptop, trying to finish this post.)

I remember that it was around this time that your Gor-Gor pulled his nonsense and ended up in our bed because I was just too tired to get up and carry him. Well. This time, you’re staying put because there’s no way I’m having two wakeful babies in our bed! But please, please, just try to stay asleep for more than 3 hours each time!

Sleep issues aside, I have really enjoyed this month with you. You’ve been showing us more of your personality and you certainly are a feisty little one. You shriek loudly in excitement when you want something, and loudly in anger when we leave you behind somewhere you don’t want to be. Still, you are mostly a happy baby, smiling easily at everyone, making willing slaves of folks who happily carry you. You’ve started showing clear preferences for people you want, often kicking in excitement and launching into my arms when I come back. It make it so worthwhile to come home to you. Of course as soon as you’re in my arms you want out again because you’re always on the go these days.

Unfortunately, for you at least, you don’t get to go out that much. We call you our suaku baby because you get so excited when the door opens and you get to go out. It’s just easier for you to nap at home because you don’t nap too well these days in a stroller or anywhere outside. It doesn’t help that you have been restless at home on weekends and when we finally go out, you tend to fall asleep on-route to wherever we’re going. You’ll get to go out more as you get older, I promise.

Right now, your expressions are a mirror to your thoughts and it’s so funny to see you explore, learn and taste your way through the world.

But the funniest thing is still the way your face crumples slowly as you pull a mournful look right before you burst into tears. Everyone who sees that starts laughing first before responding to you. Poor baby. I’m sure that’s not the reaction you were looking for.

It’s been quite a month for you and us, my little thrill-seeker. We love you more than ever and we’re looking ahead to what the next month would bring.