UFO@8 months old

Sometime during this past month I suddenly felt UFO had grown up considerably. He seemed to have recognized a few more activities – besides just breastfeeding – that is central to his life at this moment. But it is his respective reaction to denial or approval of such activities that I feel he has become much more mature than before.

I have been carrying UFO in the baby carrier whenever we go out. Just a few weeks ago I noticed that as soon as I pick up the baby carrier, UFO would stop whatever he is doing and stare at me. And if I put the carrier on my body without putting him in the carrier, UFO would start crying immediately. He is probably crying because he thinks that I am going out without him. It is important to note that he only cries when I have attached the baby carrier to my body, not when the baby carrier is lying on the floor or on the sofa. Nor does he cry when I leave the room without the baby carrier on me. So he has somehow managed to associate “baby carrier” and “me” to “go out”.

He has begun to utter certain sounds such as “m m m…” or “da da da…” quite regularly. With “m m m…”, he has assigned meaning of “feed me” and/or “mom” to the sound. We know this because this is the sound he will say when he is hungry, and he won’t stop crying “m m m…” until he sees his mom who is obviously the one doing the breastfeeding. And recently we have also started him on solids, so he will also calm down as soon as he sees us bringing out his usual dish of food that we use to feed him. (On the other hand, we haven’t deciphered what he means by “da da da…”, although I want to think he is saying “daddy”.)

UFO@7 months old

UFO turns seven months old this week.

Two words sum up his past month: “stand up”. Whenever UFO is awake in his crib, he will pull himself up and then using the frame as support, walk laps around the inner perimeter of the crib. A few weeks ago he was still struggling with the routine of pulling himself up, but today he does it with ease and speed.

And he enjoys it. No longer is his view of the world from the crib confined to the ceiling. (The crib is also surrounded by a layer of cushion that blocks his view of the surroundings when he is in a lying position. The cushion is there so he won’t bump his head into the bars.) Now that he can stand on his bed, he can see over the bed frame and look around whenever he wants. His crib is still next to our bed, so in the middle of the night we sometimes wake up finding him staring back at us. And if he sees us ignoring him too long – usually we do just that around 3 in the morning – he will start complaining.

UFO’s crawling has become faster and more stable. No longer does he need to scrape the floor with his face every step forward. His mobility is not without a price, however: it is harder for us to change diapers on him because he doesn’t want to stay still. 99% of the time he will turn over and start to crawl before I can finish applying Desitin diaper cream and seal up the plastic diaper. My wife has found an expensive solution to this problem: plastic diapers that look like pants.

UFO@6 months old

UFO turned half year old last week.

Between UFO’s fifth and sixth month birthdays, a terrible catastrophe occurred in the Indian Ocean region. As parents we found it unbearable to watch on TV, time after time, parents recounting the loss of their young to the devastating waves. A few days later we spent New Year’s Eve quietly, thankful that we could be together as a family.

UFO@5 months old

Question: why is being a daddy dangerous?

Answer: because when daddy gets very tired (and he does very often these days), the tube of Desitin diaper rash cream looks like a tube of toothpaste on the bathroom counter.

A few weeks ago I inadvertently squeezed Desitin onto my toothbrush. It took just one stroke of brushing before I realized that it wasn’t exactly Colgate, yet the rich and thick diaper cream hung onto my gums faithfully like it does to a baby’s genital area. (Works as advertised, I must say.) The taste was bearable, but the thought of what I use Desitin for everyday did not make the cream terribly appetizing.

While his daddy is beating himself around with silly novice-parenting follies, UFO on the other hand has enjoyed a fulfilling month leading up to his fifth-month birthday. He started out the month being able to flip over – one way only – from a lying position to a crawling position, and ended the month with the ability to flip from both positions with ease. He has mastered the art of crawling like a worm: on a tummy position, push his butt up with his legs and then move the entire body forward by lowering the butt again. However inefficient and facially abrasive this crawling technique might be, UFO does manage to go places with it. Sometimes too far, however: last week he went off our bed and crashed to the floor, head down. He had waken from his sleep, crawled over the barriers (constructed of pillows) while we were entertaining guests in the living room. After the fall, there was a little black bump on his forehand but fortunately he turned out OK in his first accident and our first major parenting blunder.

As for food, all signs indicate that UFO is ready to try other sources of diet besides breast milk: he’s constantly drooling, and takes an active interest in what his parents are eating. So recently we let him try some fruit: he loves sucking the juice out of watermelon, and he loves mashed apple but the verdict is still out with papaya. He eats and swallows the mashed papaya but makes a very strange face doing so.

And UFO’s favorite activity to burn off those calories? Swimming. We have been taking him to the pool about twice a week. He doesn’t mind the water but we still haven’t found a way to stick his head underneath the surface. We’d appreciate any ideas.

UFO@4 months old

UFO turned four months old this week.

Since my last text update three months ago UFO has evolved into a suck-a-thon master. He initially started nibbling off a finger, then discovered that his pleasure could be doubled or tripled if he put two or three fingers into his little mouth at once. Recently he even managed to swing his legs 180 degrees to his face and then – you guessed it – enjoy the taste of his toes.

When he is not busy sucking, UFO likes to extend his tongue and lick everything in sight. Talking about sight, he is a curious baby and loves to travel and see new places, even if travel means walking around the bedroom. Now if we leave him too long on the bed he cries and begs to be carried. And one must not hold UFO without walking around, for his sophisticated motion sensors will inform you to do so through – of course – more nagging or crying. Motion breeds joy in his world.

The past two weeks UFO has also discovered a new way to avoid boredom when lying on the bed: flip around. He can do it quite well flipping over to his left by first swinging around his legs to the side, followed by his body and head. Almost always his arms will be stuck underneath his chest after the flip, but UFO has learned to – with a bit of effort – free his arms by pulling them out. He is more happy to be on his tummy, and even happier to be sitting on my shoulders or lying on his tummy on top of me. That is why my brother Jas (UFO’s uncle) thinks that UFO exhibits “alpha male” behaviour.

In the crawling dept., UFO’s top speed so far is about a couple inches per hour. Not much, but lately he has discovered a way to prop up his butt with his legs; if he figures out how to keep his chest and butt up at the same time, then we will have a little truck cruising and crashing about in the house. When that happens, God (or insert your favorite deity here) help us!

We are still alive

We survived the first month of parenting UFO.

The initial days back home from the hospital were the hardest. Wife was still grappling with the fine art of breastfeeding, as well as learning to bathe him, change his diapers and so on. And there is nothing new parents can do to avoid the “lack of sleep” issue. A newborn will wake up every two to three hours hungry, 24/7 for the first month. When UFO wakes up, so do we.

Which reminds me: someone gave UFO a little shirt which says “Party, my crib 3am”. What a true (yet slightly cruel) joke! Every day in the wee hours indeed it has been a breast-feeding party of one alert infant with two sleepy-eyed parents.

But as UFO’s first days turn into weeks, we began to settle into a groove together. Wife knows when to feed him even before he starts crying. (And he breastfeeds with a vengeance if classical music is being played in the background.) If UFO receives a good feeding and nap, he usually rewards us with yelps of joy and lots of smiles.

During UFO’s first month sometimes I find it difficult to believe he is actually here with us, and not in my wife’s belly anymore. Even after UFO came out I would put my hand over my wife’s belly still anticipating some fetus movement. But of course there is none; then it hits me that UFO is here to stay, and there is no going back.

And as time moves on there is no going back to the UFO a month ago either, who was 5cms shorter and 1kg lighter. That echoes what my cousin Frank said, “Try to spend as much as time as possible with them and enjoy it. They grow up in no time.” Deceptively simple-sounding advice but after a month with UFO I can honestly say the best advice I’ve heard so far for parenting. A smile here, a cry-baby face there, but what good if we are not there to witness it?

(Disclaimer: If UFO could speak, he would probably stress that it was him who survived our clumsy parenting.)