Verticality - Getting there

A lot of things, thoughts, have been running around in my head and yet I am unable to reign any one thought in enough to dwell over it and put it down into coherent words. In truth I am yet to break free  of the hibernation mode. Hence the long days of silence. Anyhow, I decided to try and resume writing by taking the easy way out - journalling Sid's latest developments.

Onto Two Little Feet: Its really amazing how we take for granted acts like standing, walking and running, considering how difficult it is to actually just get off our bums and onto two very unstable little feet. To get a hold someplace (mostly very wrong places like ends of a bed sheet) then attempt to pull oneself up, keep falling back onto your bum till finally you manage to get up; And all for what, just as things start looking interesting on the new surface and you excitedly extend your hands to grab something, you are back on your bum, and this time the fall is very hard too (from all that height). Wow! watching this cycle gives one a new appreciation of the things we do with ease, without thinking twice. More importantly it teaches us what determination is. Just to keep on and on at something that is so painful and difficult till one gets it so right one doesn't have to think twice about it. You gotta learn it from these little ones. Anyhow, Sid is currently (as of late November) at this painful stage.

 

What has now become a "can do with no effort" activity is sitting up and playing. all the see-sawing and falling off has finally, thankfully ended. (though of course, it was less painful to fall while sitting compared to while standing)

 



serious speech



 Talkie Talk: Communication has progressed to a lot of single syllable sounds like ta-ta, tha tha,  and so on. He looks at the respective thing when asked where the light is, fan is, where Danny is, or the Christmas star. He knows where to look for flowers ("poo" in Malayalam) in the garden and has learned to say poo as well. He has started saying "atha" and only calls for "amma" (mom) when he is crying or wants something. All the baby sounds he makes has finally made communication a 2-way process of speaking if not hearing and understanding.

Food, The New Struggle: I do realise that I have written an entire article about the difficulties of feeding but however much I write, it seems I haven't even begun to cover the difficulties. How I wish babies, who otherwise are really intelligent you know, had been born with the basic understanding that food can assuage hunger. its a really vicious circle. Hunger makes him cranky - cranky makes him difficult to sit at a place or open his mouth - thus becoming more hungry!

The Games We Play:

Break the Glass - Course, the ultimate favorite thing right now, as soon as he is left on the ground, is to hold on to the centre table, climb up and bang on the glass top as hard as possible. really scary game.



pushing the chair round



Mover Boy: Another latest fad is to sit at the leg of any furniture and try to drag it back and forth. The hospital provided plastic chair are real fun cos they actually move and make a lot of noise. However, Sid tries this on everything, from suitcases under the bed to the bed itself.

Pick and Drop: Nah! this isn't about techie travel tails. Sid's latest game is to throw everything onto the ground and then have them picked up by others, repeatedly. Also, as soon as he sees anything on the surface of the table it all goes down in a single swish. That's rather more convenient to bang the table top.

Tabla Boy: So right after he sees something new and before it goes into his mouth his latest interest is to hit it again and again with his hands to see if it makes any interesting noise, oh uh I mean sound. 

That and a million other wonderful instances as well as not so wonderful eating (read not eating) and sleeping (read sleepless) and falling (read head bumps) instances have made the last month fun for mama and Sid.



biting away at mama's hand



Meal Time!

Around 5 month's age we started Sid on some supplementary food (or at least we tried). These included mashed and sweetened ragi paste, dried, sweetened raw banana paste etc. all traditional malayali initiation food. I'm not very sure what is followed in other parts of the country and I decided to go the safest route as this is what the rest of everyone else I know has grown up on and has fed their next generation too.

One thing I can guarantee, trying to feed a baby anything other than milk is not for the faint hearted, the impatient or the short tempered. Or rather, I should say it is a good lesson for everyone of the kind I just described (ahem...like me).

In this context, my mom was talking about a senior paediatrician colleague of hers who has written books on infants and toddler care and her most important advice to all parents who complain about the difficulty of feeding their babies is to let them be, that kids don't stay hungry and they shall eat without much coaxing when they are sufficiently hungry. Until...she had her grandchild. After that, during a conversation, she happened to tell my mom how she thinks she might as well rewrite her book cos she has realised that however hungry, if babies don't like the business of opening their mouth and swallowing their food, THEY WILL NOT! Oh No they won't. And for all the coaxing, goading, distracting and everything one might invest in, one might as well learn, a NO means just that.

It is amazing how, before learning to chew and swallow, these tinies learn to spit and even more importantly to clamp their mouth shut with such force as soon as they spot a spoon in the horizon. How quickly they understand tricks and distractions and will not even open their mouths to giggle, instead settling for a tightly closed lip smile, even at their favourite tricks!

gooey redefined

So, as this struggle progresses, we have started Sid on almost everything a little by little except tough animal proteins and eggs. (All paediatricians strictly advice against feeding babies eggs before 10 months.) Over and above the aforementioned gooey stuff, he has a little rice, lentils some steamed fish, potato, apple juice, oranges and so on oh! and of course cerelac too. Only thing is by the time he has about 4 spoons of anything, my breakfast, lunch and dinner gets digested.

The irony is how they put anything and everything else into their mouths, especially dirt, shoes, floor mats and stuff that are normally kept out of reach with good reason, while they shut their mouth like a mouse trap the moment there is food in the vicinity.

WOW! to imagine what it will be like once he begins to run!



initial feeding days with grandma n grandpa



grandma grandpa gave after these first few attempts!



The Beginning of My Ri"c"e

The advice these days is to give the baby only breast milk for the first 6 months and to introduce supplements and/or normal diet elements only after the 6th month.

Among us malayalees the initiation to "grown-up" food is marked by a small function called the chor oonu (chor meaning rice (not surprisingly) and oonu meaning meal/to eat).

Sid had his chor oonu on 18th Sept, 2010 at the Pathmanabha Swami Temple in Trivandrum and the best part about the function was that his Dada could attend, purely unexpectedly.

For this function the priests bring some rice, salted pickled raw mango, one sabzi and some payasam (a malayali sweet preparation) on a banana leaf. The function is organised near the entrance to the main shrine next to the 'kodimaram' (the golden flag post) where the area to be seated at is earmarked by a different carved stone. Sid sat on his paternal grandpa's lap, facing the direction of the idol and his grandpa was asked to take a little of rice, mango and sabzi, paste them together and touch this paste to Sids tongue thrice. This was followed by giving him the payasam. The intention is to introduce him to all the tastes - salty, sour, bitter, hot and finally sweet.

Though normally kids are known to holler at this first taste of sour/bitter, Sid in his usual style, managed a pretty cool exterior during most of it. There was a little whimpering to the mango pickle which vanished when he got the payasam. I think of the two little teeth he got, atleast one is definitely sweet.

Then we had a long queue to wait in before we could get a darshan and finally home. Though this is normally a small close knit function only attended by the parents and grandparents, Dada's folks decided to throw a small family get-together and hence we all had lunch at P's place. It was, of course, more rice for us.

P.S Dada had also ordered a liter of "paal" (milk) payasam from the temple, and let me tell you, it is really one of the best payasams I have had. For someone who is not very fond of payasams, I had multiple helpings that day. So if you get a chance, do try to have some from there.