Month 13 First steps

Lately you have been getting more courageous and trying to take some steps forward without any assistance at all. Tonight you took 3 steps by yourself! I took a video, ask me to show you one day. You were in the kitchen with dad and he was feeding you some bread. You usually like to play with the pots in the bottom drawer so you stepped towards him to get the bread. You are so amazing! We haven't tried to encourage you to walk at all because the common knowledge seems to be that the more mobile you are the more trouble you will be and we're already so exhausted. Dad goes to bed between 8.30pm to 9pm which is when you go to bed.

Today we had a fun day at my company's summer family day. We played some carnival games, you had mango sorbet for the first time (and loved it), I had corn dogs for the first time (and liked it more than I should) and we brought home some prizes: a cow plushie, some inflatables, and bubbles.

Playing some carnival games

Super cuddly at times. Perhaps you were tired.

You like the sorbet more than the cone

I'm sorry I have not written for so long. Many things have happened since my last post. We went to Hilton Head and Toronto for vacation where you got to visit your grandparents and cousins and aunts. Shortly after Grandma Margery came to visit for a bit and we went to Christina's week long Indian wedding. I have since gone back to work from my maternity leave. I gradually increased my work hours from 3 days to 5 days a week over the course of a month which was more for me than for you since you adjusted to daycare so easily. I on the other hand would start crying just thinking about being apart from you. I really enjoyed the few days we had to ourselves going to the park and the play gym at the mall. Now I only get weekends with you. Sigh.

Our coffee table is spending its time sideways since you managed to climb on top of it, perch one legged on the bookcase and get stuff on top of the kitchen counter. It was epic. Dangerous and you should not do that again, but epic.

You are super vocal now, sometimes just yelling DADADADA. It's fun at home but you did that at our friend's wedding during their vowel exchange and I'm pretty sure not everyone was thrilled. Your doctor says that you're supposed to say 20 words by the time you are 18 months old. You are currently 13 months and don't really say any words intentionally so they are a little concerned. It's funny how you used to say mamamama all the time but you hardly say that anymore and it's mostly babababa or dadadada.

You REALLY love dancing to music. I'm always surprised how intense your natural urge to move is whenever you hear a song. But whenever that little bum goes up and down I squeal with glee. For me, it's probably the cutest thing you do.

Currently you have a weird obsession with belly buttons. You like to uncover my shirt or your dads shirt and poke our belly buttons and will get very upset if we don't let you. It's quite painful and I'm better at swatting you away than your dad.

You still don't like wearing shoes. I'm wondering if I should just get skid free socks and call it a day. We got a tip from someone we met at the summer event that Joe Fresh might have some good ones. You certainly did not like the Old Navy ones I got you and no other store in Metrotown or Brentwood carries your size (3).

Month 10

We went to the library again and you were not shy about crawling over to the kids. You tried to eat one of their shoes.

The next day you were fussy in the morning and by the afternoon you had a fever of 38.2. I gave you some Tylenol and it subsided but only to come back even higher after it wore off with 39.2 degrees. I took you to the doctor twice because you developed a sudden rash all over your body but the doctor said this is just a viral rash. What a weird reaction for fighting a virus. The doctor said you must have caught the stomach flu.

Super cuddly when you are sick

Waiting in the walk in clinic. Rash all over.

Your fever broke after 4 days and you had constant diarrhea for 7 days. The diarrhea is probably the worst part. We pretty much stayed indoors for two weeks. You had no energy and didn't eat much. At least your first sickness was when you had a lot of reserve chubbiness.

Here's a picture of you finally not sick anymore!

You love watermelon which is my favourite fruit too! This was after 15mins of eating watermelon and you had no signs of stopping. 

MORE WATERMELOOOON!

Month 9

This month you started pulling yourself up on the furniture so there's a lot of "no you can't eat that" or "no you can't touch that". It's the first time I really had to discipline you and it makes me so sad. I mourn the loss of my perfectly behaved baby who never caused any trouble, just hard work. Now you have ideas of your own like you are your own person or something. I guess this will only get worse as you get older. Is this the end of easy Olly? :(

Climbing up has enabled you to discover a whole new world! You love to checkout the TV stand and eat any wires you find. You also love to suck on the end of the USB cable. Dad was curious about your fascination so he tried it too and felt a little bit of an electric shock on the cable end. That put an end to that!

I bought you an activity table and it is your favourite toy by far because opening and closing the "laptop" to trigger the electronic jingle is about the best thing ever! Do do do dooo. Dooo do do do. Do do do dooo. Dooo do do do.

We had our first visit to McGill library and you were very excited to crawl around the spacious kids area.

You love to pull everything off the shelves at home so I thought you would have a field day at the library but you only pulled one book off. It was as if you knew you should keep this place tidy.

Favourite food right now is peas. You like to grab the pea and tip it up into your mouth with your thumb like a little pez dispenser. It's so fascinating to watch! Oh and of course chicken too. You will literally pick out all the chicken first before the rest of your meal.

Spring Forward

This morning you just wanted to stand forever, must have been at least 5 minutes. We thought you were stuck because you didn't know how to sit back down but when dad offered you an arm for assistance you didn't seem to be interested. Your thighs were shaking a bit. You must have really liked standing!

You had 4 teeth coming out at the same time: three on the top and an outer one on the bottom.
Dad was playing peekaboo with you after you woke up from your nap in the car so I took some pics that shows off your glorious teeth.

We had a nice lunch visit with your friend Zeke. The last time we hung out with them was when he was a week old and you were one month old. That was almost 8 months ago! Driving to them with you in the car was the first solo trip I ever did, roughly 20 mins each way. This was back in the days of sleep deprivation, unbelievable summer heat and the urge to get out of the house and speak to an adult. I psyched myself up to visit Trilby and her new baby. It was so nerve racking. I wasn't sure if you were going to wake up in the car at any second and need to be breastfed or changed. I drove you to their place and miraculously you were asleep the whole way there and pretty much slept through the whole visit. Once you woke up, I fed you and we went back home. On the way home I was thinking "wow I think I can actually do this" until you started crying, after which I vowed never to leave the house again. 

No concept of sharing yet

Fear

Usually you get startled by loud noises but today you seemed actually afraid.
Dad was using the food processor and you jumped at the noise, looked at me and started to whimper.
I guess now you will no longer be fearless.

Month 7

Mom got a haircut and perm with Auntie Rina at Chura. I can't believe we were there for 3.5 hours! After about an hour I asked the hairstylist how much longer is it going to take and she said another two hours. Another two hours?? Why does it take so long to be beautiful! The whole time I was worried about you, that I wouldn't be able to make it back for your bedtime feed. We also had to go get Mexican food at your dad's request. I didn't make it back in time but we got Chipotle. Dad took good care of you and you were sound asleep. You had lots to drink at your midnight feed though.

The rest of the month we chilled with Rina. Your aunt is very laid back so she didn't mind that we stayed home quite often. She wanted to practice cooking so we would often go grocery shopping (at first almost daily) to get the recipe ingredients. Her food was very delicious though and it's such a treat to have dinner made for you. She also took care of you a lot and loved to put you down, dress you, and dance for you while you were on the potty (peepeepeepeeeee).

First time Rina dressed you. She was nervous.

We discovered your new favourite song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and she would randomly break out into this song. You laughed a lot and practised your push ups every day. It was about two weeks into her stay that you started crawling. Your crawling was almost like riding on a scooter because your left leg just stayed limp while your right leg propelled you forward. You are now better at it and it's more or less even.

Incentivizing crawling practice with an Ipad 

You suddenly started to say "mumumum". They were just random mutterings and I'm pretty sure you have no idea what it means but I'd like to believe you were calling for me. Actually "bababa" was your first babble but I started saying "mamama" to you and from then on I never heard you say "bababa" again. I'm pretty sure dad is jealous but I told him to just keep saying "baba" to you if he wants you to say it!

During the last week of Rina's stay we went out way more. She's going to Rotterdam, Netherlands on a 9 month internship so chances are there won't be good Asian food. We went to dimsum with your buddy Hezzie, discovered Asian shaved ice and almost lost the car. We had bubble tea at Chatime and went to Suika for izakaya. For the last lunch we went to Anton's pasta bar and had ample leftovers for seconds and thirds as usual.

The tripe and tendon was surprisingly ok

The green tea and strawberry mochi ice cream was great at Suika

Hiking at Cleveland Dam

Rina is in Rotterdam now.

She wrote "OMG I miss him so much, brings tears to my eyes, I feel like I'm a grandmother whose only joy in life is her grandchildren".

It made me laugh so hard. We video chatted and her eyes were literally brimming with tears when she saw you.

Awww she really misses you.

Now that she's not sleeping in the same room as you though you have stopped wanting a feed around midnight. This technically means I could sleep like a normal person again since you are down from 7:30pm to 6:30am-ish. First time for a year and a half! However I've gotten so used to waiting for you to wake up around 12:30 I still can't sleep until then. I don't think sleeping will be ever the same again once you are a mom.

Headphones

Today we put dad's headphones on you.
He changed it from his gaming podcast to what's popular on youtube.
You listened to Justin Bieber's Sorry... not a lot of reaction. In fact we had to check if the sound was on.
Then we put on Adele's Hello.
You smiled.
You were distracted by the phone and picked it up.
At some point we swore you yelled "hello".
We laughed and dad gave you kisses till you had a hard time breathing because you were laughing so hard.
Classic dad.
It fills my heart with so much joy when you share that moment with him.
I hope you feel so loved and happy! I know I do.

Month 6

This is Olly brand new on our kitchen scale vs 6 months. You can't even see the scale under his bum anymore. He has pretty much tripled his weight. 6.5 lbs vs 21 lbs. David also has not had a hair cut since his birth.

Solids

We started solids this month and have been experimenting with Baby Led Weaning where you don't give them pureed food but just soft food so they learn how to chew before they learn how to swallow. 

Olly loves banana, pear, apple, melon, peas, tofu and fish.

Olly hates broccoli.

Sleep

I thought the Christmas holidays would be a great time to start sleep training. David would be home so even if his sleep got disturbed he could nap the next day. The first night I tried to put Olly in the crib and he cried for 10 mins before I gave up. I was not ready for this yet and didn't want to sleep without him snuggled next to me so I put it on hold.

Once the new year started I thought I had some time to accept the impending separation so I started up again. From what I could gather from the internet you need to wean your baby from all sleep crutches first. Olly was still swaddled to sleep and nursed to sleep at night. My plan was to first break the swaddling association. I lay him on our bed as usual and didn't swaddle him. He would cry and I would reassure him with my voice and pats. If he got too upset I would pick him up and once he was pretty calm I would lay him down again. The first time I did this it took 2 hrs before I quit and nursed him to sleep because I didn't want his bedtime to be too late. The next day was a little better so I stuck with the plan until it was down to about 15 mins, which took 5 days. By then I was confident he didn't need to be swaddled.

During that week he was so determined to reach me during his crying that he learnt how to roll from his back to his front. This completed the second half of his turning skills and thus he started to roll to wherever he wanted. He became really good at rolling towards me on the bed. It was so cute but I had to stay strong and not pick him up unless he really needed it. Now that he knows how to roll he will only sleep on his tummy.

Tummy is best

Next up was putting him in the crib. That was the worst because now that he knows how to roll he would roll towards me and bang his head on the crib. There were tears for both of us. It broke my heart to hear him cry harder after hitting his head but he has to transition to the crib eventually and I really needed the sleep. I was starting to get really sleep deprived from waking every 2 hours. I kept reassuring him that learning to sleep on his own is good for both of us and I'm so proud of his progress so far. It took another 5 days before I was confident he can sleep in the crib without me beside him and I would just periodically check on him.

His bedtime was at 7pm and I would wait until he woke somewhere between 12 and 1am for his last feed before I went to bed. I would still wake up at 4am because I hear him wake up through the monitor but I just go back to sleep until 7am. So the whole ordeal took about 2 weeks and in the end I can get about 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I felt much more energetic in the morning and no longer woke up with a backache from contorting my body to weird positions to make space for the baby. He liked to sleep like a starfish. Totally worth it! If I were to do it again I would start earlier, maybe around 5 months so that it's before they can roll around. I'd imagine it would be easier if they can't move.

Here are my logs. The time in brackets indicate how long it took him to fall asleep after I put him down:

Random Moments

Chillin

Devouring cubebot 

I found the wires

Hmm

First successful transfer from car to crib

Rolling is tiring mom

Visit from aunt and grandpa

Food Adventures

We have been feeding him random soft things like sweet potatoe, yam, banana, honeydew, chickpeas and hummus. I've got some weird looks for some stuff like hummus and honeydew but he goes oh well and eats them anyway. Nestle sent me a packet of Gerber rice cereal so I fed that to him yesterday. He liked it a lot and probably had 4 tsp. He took a nap and when he woke up his face had red patches. This was about 1.5 hrs after he ate the cereal. 

First clue

His neck was also red and when I tore his clothes off I saw his entire torso was red with red spots. I called the BC nurses and they asked me if he has hives. I don't know what hives look like so they described it as red bumps. Since he was red and had small bumps I was like yes he has hives. They asked if he had a swollen tongue. I looked at his tongue and it looked bigger than before so I said yes. He didn't have any trouble breathing so the recommendation was to go see the doctor within the hour. I rushed him to the walk-in in the mall and they said the first opening they have I can go in. That still took forever. Meanwhile it seemed like everybody was coughing their dirty viruses at my baby. Ok they weren't really but it was a small space and they didn't cover their mouth! Savages! Finally the doctor looked at him. I described the situation. She took one look at him and said you can relax, it's not an allergic reaction. If it was hives he would have large raised areas not small bumps and if his tongue was swollen it would be red. Also if it was an allergic reaction he would be coughing or vomiting and have trouble breathing. What Olly has is an elevated eczema reaction. Certain foods can make his eczema worse and this is just a flare up. So continue with his eczema cream and put lotion on him. Wow I was so relieved and also incredulous that it was so widespread so fast. I then had some Japanese food in the food court as my lunch was left in the microwave at home and it was now 2.30pm. Some nice man helped me carry my food to a seat since I didn't have time to bring the carrier and just held him in my arms. What a day.